ue and honest
wife.'

'Men!' she murmured. 'That men may know!' But she did not again tell him
that she would not obey his command.

She sat all the remainder of the day alone in her room, hardly touching
the work which she had beside her, not opening the book which lay by her
hand on the table. She was thinking of the letter which she knew that
she must write, but she did not rise to get pen and ink, nor did she
even propose to herself that the letter should be written then. Not a
word was said about it all the evening. On the next morning the banker
pronounced his intention of going into town, but before he started he
referred to the order he had given. 'Have you written to Hester?' he
asked. She merely shook her head. 'Then write to-day.' So saying, he
tottered down the steps with his stick and got into the fly.

About noon she did get her paper and ink, and very slowly wrote her
letter. Though her heart was, in truth, yearning towards her
daughter,--though at that moment she could have made any possible
sacrifice for her child had her child been apart from the man she
hated,--she could not in her sullenness force her words into a form of
affection.

'DEAR HESTER,' she said. 'Of course I shall be glad to see you and
your boy. On what day would it suit you to come, and how long would
you like to stay? I fear you will find me and your father but dull
companions after the life you are now used to. If Mr. Caldigate
would like to come with you, your father bids me say that he will
be glad to see him.--Your loving mother,

'MARY BOLTON.'

She endeavoured, in writing her letter, to obey the commands that had
been left with her, but she could not go nearer to it than this. She
could not so far belie her heart as to tell her daughter that she
herself would be glad to see the man. Then it took her long to write the
address. She did write it at last;

Mrs. JOHN CALDIGATE,
FOLKING.

But as she wrote it she told herself that she believed it to be a lie.

When the letter reached Hester there was a consultation over it, to
which old Mr. Caldigate was admitted. It was acknowledged on all sides
that anything would be better than a family quarrel. The spirit in which
the invitation had been written was to be found in every word of it.
There was not a word to show that Mrs. Bolton had herself accepted the
decision to which everyone else had come in the matter;--everything,
rather, to