her that, before you came here, I must have her clear
out of the house."

"Why?"

A silence ensued. Mrs. Verstage looked at her son--into his great,
brown eyes--and what she saw there alarmed her. Her lips moved to
speak, but she could utter no words. She had let out her motive
without consideration in the frankness that was natural to her.

"I ask, mother, why did you stop Matabel from writing, and take
up the correspondence yourself at last; and then, when you did
write to me at Guildford, you said not one word about Mehetabel
being promised to the Broom-Squire?"

"I could not put all the news of the parish into my letter. How
should I know that this concerned you?"

"We were together as children. If ever there were friends in the
world, it was we."

"I am a bad writer. It takes me five minutes over one word, just
about. I said what I had to say, and no more, and I were a couple
o' days over that."

"Why did you ask me to postpone my coming home?--why seek to keep
me away till after Mehetabel's marriage?"

"There was a lot to do in the house, preparation for the weddin'--her
gownds--I couldn't have you here whilst all the rout was on. I
wanted to have you come when all was quiet again, and I could
think of you. What wi' preparations and schemin' my head was full."

"Was that the only reason, mother?"

She did not answer. Her eyes fell.

Iver threw his hat on the table, and went to his room. He was
incensed against his mother. He guessed the reason why she had
urged on the marriage, why she had kept him in ignorance of the
engagement, why she had delayed his return to Thursley.

She had made her plans. She wished to marry him to Polly Colpus,
and she dreaded his association with Mehetabel as likely to be
prejudicial to the success of her cherished scheme, now that the
girl was in the ripeness of her beauty and to Iver invested with
the halo of young associations, of boy romance.

If his mother had told him! If she had not bidden him postpone his
coming home! Then all would have turned out well. Mehetabel would
not have been linked to an undesirable man, whom she could not
love; and he would have been free to make her his own.

His heart was bitter as wormwood.

Mrs. Verstage saw but too plainly that her son was estranged from
her; and she could form a rough estimate of the reason. He addressed
her indeed with a semblance of love and showed her filial attention,
but her maternal instinct assured he