life. Nor could
Michael resent that news of death which could ennoble his mother with
this placidity of comprehension, this staid and haughty mien of sorrow.
And he was grateful, too, that death should upon his own brow dry the
fever dew of passion.

But when she had read that last letter, Mrs. Fane strangely resumed her
ordinary self. She was always so finely invested with dignity, so
exquisitely sheathed, in her repose, Michael scarcely realized that now,
after she had read the letter, the vision of her grief was once more
veiled against him by that faintly discouraging, tenderly deliberate
withdrawal of her personality, and that she was still as seclusive as
when from his childhood she had concealed the sight of her love, living
in her own rose-misted and impenetrable privacy.

It was Stella who by a sudden request first roused Michael to the
realization that his mother was herself again.

"Mother," she said, "what about my first concert? The season is getting
late."

"Dearest Stella," Mrs. Fane replied, "I think you can scarcely make your
appearance so soon after your father's death."

"But, mother, I'm sure he wouldn't have minded. And after all very few
people would know," Stella persisted.

"But I should prefer that you waited for a while," said Mrs. Fane,
gently reproachful. "You forget that we are in mourning."

For Michael somehow the conventional expression seemed to disturb the
divinity of his mother's carven woe. The world suddenly intervened.

"Well, I don't think I ought to wait for ever," said Stella.

"Darling child, I wonder why you should think it necessary to exaggerate
so foolishly," said Mrs. Fane.

"But I'm so longing to begin," Stella went on.

"I don't know that anybody has ever suggested you shouldn't begin," Mrs.
Fane observed. "But there is a difference between your recklessness and
my more carefully considered plans."

"Mother, will you agree to a definite date?" Stella demanded.

"By all means, dear child, if you will try to be a little less
boisterous and impetuous. For one thing, I never knew you were ready to
begin at once like this."

"Oh, mother, after all these years and years of practising!" Stella
protested.

"But are you ready?" Mrs. Fane enquired in soft surprize. "Really ready?
Then why not this autumn? Why not October?"

"Before I go up to Oxford," said Michael quickly.

Stella was immediately and vividly alert with plans for her concert.

"I don't think