er
towards poor dear little Leo.

He was to show that as an old friend and playmate he felt for her; and
he might, if he saw his way to it, intimate delicately that though he
might grieve on her account at her return to dwell among them, he could
not do so on his own.

"Well, I can say that, you know," Val brightened up. He did not much
like being on the respectful and sympathetic lay, he told himself; he
was pretty sure to make a mess of it there;--but if it came to saying he
was glad----

"You can't _say_ such a thing, my dear, you can only infer it. You can
look it; look kind and--and tender."

"And jolly well show old Maud she needn't book me too sure as her man,
eh?"

At last he seemed to have caught up what she was struggling against
heavy odds to inculcate. It was up-hill work teaching Val anything,
especially anything requiring _finesse_--but occasionally he would
startle his mentor. He would emit a flash of intelligence when such was
least expected, and there was now such a humorous light in his grey eyes
that the old lady laughed in her heart. Dear, dear--how naughty he was!
So he had the vanity to suppose that Maud Boldero reckoned him an
admirer?

Whereat Val complacently knew she did.

By degrees he was led to reveal all his artless thoughts upon the
subject, and somehow found it more engrossing than he had ever done
before.

In truth, his grandmother had never encouraged mention of it before. She
had ignored the Boldero girls when she could, and bracketed them
together in faint, damning praise when to ignore was impossible. She
knew exactly how to treat Val. An incipient flame could be warmed,
cooled, or blown out by her breath--and as hitherto she had had no
intention of receiving a daughter-in-law out of Boldero Abbey, she had
simply never permitted a spark to be lit.

Here, in justice to the old lady, a solitary fact must be stated. Her
grandson was not her heir, and the Claymount estate, of which she had a
life rent, was strictly entailed; wherefore Val must be provided for
otherwise.

A woman of another sort would have attained this end by saving out of
her income, or by insuring her life--but Mrs. Purcell argued that she
had so much to keep up, and Valentine's requirements were so manifold
and costly that she could neither put by anything worth having, nor
afford the heavy premiums an Insurance Office would demand at her age.
She had not taken the matter into consideration till too lat