s eyes before,
as softly and as steadily, they passed to Sir Hugh who was again
standing before the fire behind his wife. "How do you do," she then said
with a little nod.

"How d'ye do," Sir Hugh replied. His voice was neither soft nor steady;
the sharpness, the irritation was in it. "I didn't know you were down
here," he said.

Over Amabel's shoulder, while she still held Amabel's hands, Lady
Elliston looked at him, all sweetness. "Yes: I arrived this morning. I
am staying with the Greys."

"The Greys? How in the dickens did you run across them?" Sir Hugh asked
with a slight laugh.

"I met them at Jack's cousin's--the nice old bishop, you know. They are
tiresome people; but kind. And there is a Grey _fils_--the oldest--whom
Peggy took rather a fancy to last winter,--they were hunting together in
Yorkshire;--and I wanted to look at him--and at the place!--"--Lady
Elliston's smile was all candour. "They are very solid; it's not a bad
place. If the young people are really serious Jack and I might consider
it; with three girls still to marry, one must be very wise and
reasonable. But, of course, I came really to see you, Amabel."

She had released Amabel's hands at last with a final soft pressure, and,
as Amabel took her accustomed chair near the table, she sat down near
her and loosened her cloak and unwound her scarf, and threw back her
laces.

"And I've been making friends with your boy," she went on, looking up at
Augustine:--"he's been walking me about the garden, saying that you
mustn't be disturbed. Why haven't I been able to make friends before?
Why hasn't he been to see me in London?"

"I'll bring him someday," said Sir Hugh. "He is only just grown up, you
see."

"I see: do bring him soon. He is charming," said Lady Elliston, smiling
at Augustine.

Amabel remembered her pretty, assured manner of saying any
pleasantness--or unpleasantness for that matter--that she chose to say;
but it struck her, from this remark, that the gift had grown a little
mechanical. Augustine received it without embarrassment. Augustine
already seemed to know that this smiling guest was in the habit of
saying that young men were charming before their faces when she wanted
to be pleasant to them. Amabel seemed to see her son from across the
wide chasm that had opened between them; but, looking at his figure,
suddenly grown strange, she felt that Augustine's manners were 'nice.'
The fact of their niceness, of his competence--re