her's
letters of late, as though she had felt herself neglected by him.

"Mothers are mothers: you need not be afraid," Nan had said, with
simple wholesome faith in the instincts of motherhood; and the words
had come home to him with the strongest power.

His poor harassed mother,--what a hard life hers had been! Archie
began to feel his heart quite tender towards her; perhaps she was a
little severe and exacting with the girls, but they none of them
understood her in the least, "for her bark was always worse than her
bite," thought Archie; and girls, at least the generality of them, are
sometimes aggravating.

He thought of the weary times she must have had with his father,--for
Mr. Drummond could make himself disagreeable to his wife when things
went wrong with him, and the sullen fortitude with which he bore his
reversal of fortune gave small opening to her tenderness; the very
way in which he shirked all domestic responsibilities, leaving on her
shoulders the whole weight of the domestic machinery and all the
home-management, had hardened and embittered her.

A large family and small means, little support from her husband,--who
interfered less and less with domestic matters,--all this had no doubt
fostered the arbitrary will that governed the Drummond household. If
her husband had only kept her in check,--if he had supported her
authority, and not left her to stand alone,--she would have been, not
a better woman, for Archie knew his mother was good, but she would
have been softer and more lovable, and her children would have seen
deeper into her heart.

Some such thoughts as these passed through Archie's mind as he walked
beside Nan; but he worked them out more carefully when he was alone
that night. Just before they reached the Friary, he had started
another subject; for, turning to Phillis and Dulce, whom he had
hitherto ignored, he asked them whether he might enroll one or all of
them among his Sunday-school teachers.

Phillis's eyes sparkled at this.

"Oh, Nan, how delightful! it will remind us of Oldfield."

"Yes, indeed:" chimed in Dulce, who had left her infant-class with
regret; but, to their surprise, Nan demurred.

"At Oldfield things were very different," she said, decidedly: "we
played all the week, and it was no hardship to teach the dear children
on Sunday; but now we shall have to work so hard that we shall be glad
of one day's rest."

"But surely you might spare us one hour or two in the