it
over as soon as you can." What she did say was only, "Bring her up to me
now. The young lady you have just been dancing with, I suppose!"

"What!" cried Sir John, and burst out laughing. "Good Heavens, mother!
that was Miss Smiles, the daughter of the parson of Lutterton. You don't
mean to say you thought a little ugly chit like _that_ was my Vera!"

His mother suddenly laid her hand upon his arm.

"Who is that lovely woman who has just come in with Maurice?" she
exclaimed.

Her son followed the direction of her eyes, and beheld Vera standing in
the doorway that led from the conservatory by his brother's side.

Without a word he passed his mother's hand through his arm and led her
across the room.

"Vera, this is my mother," he said. And Lady Kynaston owned afterwards
that she never felt so taken aback and so utterly struck dumb with
astonishment in her life.

Her two sons looked at her with amusement and some triumph. The little
surprise had been so thoroughly carried out; the contrast of the truth to
what they knew she had expected was too good a joke not to be enjoyed.

"Not much what you expected, little mother, is it?" said Maurice,
laughingly. But to Vera, who knew nothing, it was no laughing matter.

She put both her hands out tremblingly and hesitatingly--with a pretty
pleading look of deprecating deference in her eyes--and the little old
lady, who valued beauty and grace and talent so much that she could
barely tolerate goodness itself without them, was melted at once.

"My dear," she said, "you are beautiful, and I am going to love you; but
these naughty boys made me think you were something like little Miss
Smiles."

"Nay, mother, it was your own diseased imagination," laughed Maurice;
"but come, Vera, I am not going to be cheated of this waltz--if John does
not want you to dance with him, that is to say."

John nodded pleasantly to them, and the two whirled away together into
the midst of the throng of dancers.

"Well, mother?"

"My dear, she is a very beautiful creature, and I have been a silly,
prejudiced old woman."

"And you forgive her for being poor, and for living in a vicarage instead
of a castle?"

"She would be a queen if she were a beggar and lived in a mud hovel!"
answered his mother, heartily, and Sir John was satisfied.

Lady Kynaston's eyes were following the couple as they danced: for all
her admiration and her enthusiasm, there was a little anxiety in their
gaze. Sh