all of
him here that there ever was. The difference is, that now there is
something more.'

'What?' she asked.

'A little more experience--a little more knowledge--let us hope, a
little more wisdom.'

'There is more than that,' said the mother, looking at him fondly.

'What?'

'It is the difference I might have looked for,' she said, 'only,
somehow, I had not looked for it.' And the swift passage of her hand
across her eyes gave again the same testimony of a few minutes before.
Her son rose hereupon and proposed to withdraw to his room; and as his
mother accompanied him, Miss Betty noticed how his arm was thrown round
her and he was bending to her and talking to her as they went. Miss
Betty stitched away busily, thoughts keeping time with her needle, for
some time thereafter. Yet she did not quite know what she was thinking
of. There was a little stir in her mind, which was so unaccustomed that
it was delightful; it was also vague, and its provoking elements were
not clearly discernible. The young lady was conscious of a certain
pleasant thrill in the view of the task to which she had been invited.
It promised her possible difficulty, for even in the few short minutes
just passed she had gained an inkling that Mrs. Dallas's words might be
true, and Pitt not precisely a man that you could turn over your
finger. It threatened her possible danger, which she did not admit;
nevertheless the stinging sense of it made itself felt and pricked the
pleasure into livelier existence. This was something out of the
ordinary. This was a man not just cut after the common work-a-day
pattern. Miss Betty recalled involuntarily one trait after another that
had fastened on her memory. Eyes of bright intelligence and hidden
power, a very frank smile, and especially with all that, the great
tenderness which had been shown in every word and look to his mother.
The good breeding and ease of manner Miss Betty had seen before; this
other trait was something new; and perhaps she was conscious of a
little pull it gave at her heartstrings. This was not the manner she
had seen at home, where her father had treated her mother as a sort of
queen-consort certainly,--co-regent of the house; but where they had
lived upon terms of mutual diplomatic respect; and her brothers, if
they cared much for anybody but Number One, gave small proof of the
fact. What a brother this man would be! what a--something else! Miss
Betty sheered off a little from just