in my youth the money which, frugally husbanded, might now have
supported us in comfort? Why did you do all this--you who were so
boastful of your worldly wisdom?" For a moment, so great was her mental
anguish, that she almost looked her age--not that the picture had any
terrors for herself, but upon her son's account alone. She may not have
been penitent, as good folks are, but her heart was full of another's
woe, and had no room left for one selfish regret. She had (in her
vision) ruined both; but it was only for dear Dick that her tears fell.
If the guardian angel, which is said to watch for a time by every one of
us, had not given up his disappointing vigil at poor Mrs. Yorke's elbow,
a tremor of delight then stirred him limb and wing. Nay, perhaps in the
Great Day, when all our plans shall be scrutinized, whether they have
been carried out or not, this poor, impotent, fallacious one, which
worldly Mrs. Yorke had formed for her son's future, will stand,
perchance, when others which recommend themselves better to human eyes
have toppled down, because built on the rotten foundations of self.
There will certainly be many worse ones. She did not propose to sell her
offspring, as match-making mothers do, to evil bidders. In her doting
thought her Dick would make any woman happy as his wife. At all events,
right or wrong, judicious or otherwise, her scheme must now be adhered
to: it was too late to take up with any other. The vision of its failure
had faded away, and she could think the matter out with her usual
calmness.

The gray dawn creeping through the shutter-chinks found her thinking
still; but ere the dull sounds of awakening life were heard above
stairs, and before the coming of the sleepy, slatternly maid to "do the
parlor," Mrs. York had arrived at her conclusion.

The early matin prime, she was wont to say, was always her brightest
hour, but it found her, on the present occasion, white and worn, not
with her long vigil, but because it was "borne in upon her," as poor
Joanna used to say, that her son and she must part for his own good: so
soon as the spring should come she would bid him go. London, where all
was prudence and constraint, was no place to win the bride she sought
for him. He should go forth into the country, where even heiresses were
still girls, and win her, as troubadour of old, but with sketch-book in
hand instead of harp. Not a promising scheme, one might say; but then,
what schemes for a yo