her! yet my own existence--what is it?"

He rose, and moved towards the window, from which a rustic stair
descended to a green lawn, studded with larger trees than are often
found in the grounds of a suburban residence. There were calm and
coolness in the sight, and one could scarcely have supposed that London
lay so near.

The door opened softly, and a lady past middle age entered, and
approaching Harley, as he still stood musing by the window, laid her
hand on his shoulder. What character there is in a hand! Hers was a hand
that Titian would have painted with elaborate care! Thin, white, and
delicate, with the blue veins raised from the surface. Yet there was
something more than mere patrician elegance in the form and texture.
A true physiologist would have said at once, "There are intellect and
pride in that hand, which seems to fix a hold where it rests; and lying
so lightly, yet will not be as lightly shaken off."

"Harley," said the lady--and Harley turned--"you do not deceive me by
that smile," she continued sadly; "you were not smiling when I entered."

"It is rarely that we smile to ourselves, my dear mother; and I have
done nothing lately so foolish as to cause me to smile at myself."

"My son," said Lady Lansmere, somewhat abruptly, but with great
earnestness, "you come from a line of illustrious ancestors; and
methinks they ask from their tombs why the last of their race has no aim
and no object, no interest, no home, in the land which they served, and
which rewarded them with its honours."

"Mother," said the soldier, simply, "when the land was in danger I
served it as my forefathers served,--and my answer would be the scars on
my breast."

"Is it only in danger that a country is served, only in war that duty
is fulfilled? Do you think that your father, in his plain, manly life
of country gentleman, does not fulfil, though perhaps too obscurely, the
objects for which aristocracy is created, and wealth is bestowed?"

"Doubtless he does, ma'am,--and better than his vagrant son ever can."

"Yet his vagrant son has received such gifts from nature, his youth was
so rich in promise, his boyhood so glowed at the dream of glory!"

"Ay," said Harley, very softly, "it is possible,--and all to be buried
in a single grave!"

The countess started, and withdrew her hand from Harley's shoulder.

Lady Lansmere's countenance was not one that much varied in expression.
She had in this, as in her cast of feature,