so little to me personally, so entirely to his dead father. He is
so much educated and I so little that I do not feel dignified enough to
be his mother . . . Well, he would have to be told.'

'Yes. Unquestionably.' Sam saw her thought and her fear. 'Still, you
can do as you like, Sophy--Mrs. Twycott,' he added. 'It is not you who
are the child, but he.'

'Ah, you don't know! Sam, if I could, I would marry you, some day. But
you must wait a while, and let me think.'

It was enough for him, and he was blithe at their parting. Not so she.
To tell Randolph seemed impossible. She could wait till he had gone up
to Oxford, when what she did would affect his life but little. But would
he ever tolerate the idea? And if not, could she defy him?

She had not told him a word when the yearly cricket-match came on at
Lord's between the public schools, though Sam had already gone back to
Aldbrickham. Mrs. Twycott felt stronger than usual: she went to the
match with Randolph, and was able to leave her chair and walk about
occasionally. The bright idea occurred to her that she could casually
broach the subject while moving round among the spectators, when the
boy's spirits were high with interest in the game, and he would weigh
domestic matters as feathers in the scale beside the day's victory. They
promenaded under the lurid July sun, this pair, so wide apart, yet so
near, and Sophy saw the large proportion of boys like her own, in their
broad white collars and dwarf hats, and all around the rows of great
coaches under which was jumbled the _debris_ of luxurious luncheons;
bones, pie-crusts, champagne-bottles, glasses, plates, napkins, and the
family silver; while on the coaches sat the proud fathers and mothers;
but never a poor mother like her. If Randolph had not appertained to
these, had not centred all his interests in them, had not cared
exclusively for the class they belonged to, how happy would things have
been! A great huzza at some small performance with the bat burst from
the multitude of relatives, and Randolph jumped wildly into the air to
see what had happened. Sophy fetched up the sentence that had been
already shaped; but she could not get it out. The occasion was, perhaps,
an inopportune one. The contrast between her story and the display of
fashion to which Randolph had grown to regard himself as akin would be
fatal. She awaited a better time.

It was on an evening when they were alone in thei