One day the mother peeped in and saw them seated thus. Motherhood, strong in her, though poisoned by her strife with her husband, moved and woke at the sight of her natural place occupied by her daughter.

“Let me take him, poor fellow!” she said.

Barbara rose with him in her arms. The mother sat down and Barbara laid him in her lap. Grown through her recent illness both weaker and tenderer, she began silently weeping. He looked up and a tear dropped on his face.

“Don’t cry, mama. I will be good!” he said.

He was much too old for the baby speech that came from his mouth, but as he grew weaker, he had grown younger in his helplessness. She clasped him to her, and from that moment she and Barbara shared him between them.

When in London, Barbara went to all the parties to which she was expected to go, and enjoyed them—after her own fashion. She loved her kind, and liked their company up to a point. But often would the crowd and the glitter, the motion and iridescence, vanish from her, and she sit there a live soul dreaming within closed doors of the country and racing across some grassy field on the back of Miss Brown chasing the setting sun. Then with a sigh would she come to herself, the center of many regards.

Arthur Lestrange found himself no nearer to her than before—farther off in reality, for in London he was but one among many that sought her. But her behaviour to him was the same in a crowded room in London as in the garden at Mortgrange. She spoke to him kindly when he addressed her, and behaved so that the lying hint spread about by lady Ann, that they had been for some time engaged, was easily believed.

Her father had several times said to her that it was time she should marry, but had never gotten nearer anything definite. Her eyes would flash and her mouth close tight—reminding him that her mother had been more than enough for him, and he had better not throw his daughter into the opposition as well. He saw clearly enough that he would never be able to prevail against her liking. But it would be an infernal pity, he thought, if she would not have Lestrange, for the properties would marry splendidly, and then who could tell what better title might not be granted in time!

Lady Ann would not let her hope go. She grew daily more fearful of the cloud that hung in the future. Out of it might at any moment step the child of her enemy, the low-born woman who had dared to be lady Lestrange before her! For her son Arthur not to succeed him would be a morsel to sweeten her husband’s death, if only to spite her.

At one crisis in their history he had placed a will in her hands that left everything to her son, but he might have made ten wills after that! She knew she had done nothing to please him. She had, in fact, never spent a thought on making life good for the man she had married. She wished she might try to make herself agreeable to him.