Lady Ann had not once been to see her since first calling when she arrived. Naturally, she did not take to her. In the eyes of lady Ann, Mrs. Wylder was a vulgar, arrogant, proud, fierce woman. She felt in every way her superior. Mrs. Wylder was not particularly annoyed that lady Ann did not call a second time. She did not care enough to mind. Neither she nor her daughter felt the least deference to lady Ann’s exalted position.

But now that danger, not to say ruin, appeared to loom on the horizon, lady Ann must, for the sake of her son, wronged by his father’s indiscretion, leave nothing to chance! Arthur had come to Wylder Hall repeatedly in the last month, but Barbara had not seen him. Therefore, she would go herself and pay some court to the young heiress. She was anxious to learn whether the girl’s absence from Mortgrange was merely because of her mother’s condition, or because she was angry with Arthur.

Barbara received her heartily and they talked a little, lady Ann imagining herself very pleasing. She rarely condescended to make herself agreeable, and thus measured her success by her exertion. She found Barbara in such good spirits that she pronounced her heartless not to have visited them for so long. She begged her to leave her mother for an hour or two now and then and ride over to Mortgrange. Incessant care for the ill would injure her own health, lady Ann said, and health was essential to beauty. Barbara protested mildly, saying that she was the only person fit to nurse her mother. When her ladyship, for once oblivious of her manners, grew importunate, Barbara flatly refused.

“You must pardon me, lady Ann,” she said. “I cannot and will not leave my mother.”

Then lady Ann thought that it might be wise in the future to make a little more of the mother to whom the girl seemed so devoted. But meeting Mr. Wylder in the avenue as she left, and stopping her carriage to speak to him, she changed her mind and resolved to curry favour with the husband instead of the wife. Up to now she had scarcely seen Mr. Wylder, and knew about him only by unfavourable hearsay. But she was charmed with him now, and drew from him a promise to go and dine at Mortgrange.

Bab went singing back to her mother, never passing a servant, male or female, without a kind word. If asked what made her so happy, she would have answered that she had nothing to make her unhappy, and there was more philosophy in the answer than may at first appear. For certainly the normal condition of humanity is happiness. Simply the absence of anything to make us unhappy should be enough to make us happy.