he question with
herself, balancing all that she owed to her husband's memory against all
that she ought to attempt for her boy's welfare. It was a matter of no
easy solution; but an accident decided for her what all her reasoning
failed in; for, as she sat thinking, a hurried step was heard on the
gravel, and then the well-known sound of Tony's latch-key followed, and
he entered the room, flushed and heated. He was still in dinner-dress,
but his cravat was partly awry, and his look excited and angry.

"Why, my dear Tony," said she, rising, and parting his hair tenderly on
his forehead, "I did n't look for you here to-night; how came it that
you left the Abbey at this hour?"

"Wasn't it a very good hour to come home?" answered he, curtly. "We
dined at eight; I left at half-past eleven. Nothing very unusual in all
that."

"But you always slept there; you had that nice room you told me of."

"Well, I preferred coming home. I suppose that was reason enough."

"What has happened, Tony darling? Tell me frankly and fearlessly what
it is that has ruffled you. Who has such a right to know it, or, if need
be, to sympathize with you, as your own dear mother?"

"How you run on, mother, and all about nothing! I dine out, and I come
back a little earlier than my wont, and immediately you find out that
some one has outraged or insulted me."

"Oh, no, no. I never dreamed of that, my dear boy!" said she, coloring
deeply.

"Well, there's enough about it," said he, pacing the room with hasty
strides. "What is that you were saying the other day about a Mr.
Elphinstone,--that he was an old friend of my father's, and that they
had chummed together long ago?"

"All these scrawls that you see there," said she, pointing to the table,
"have been attempts to write to him, Tony. I was trying to ask him to
give you some sort of place somewhere."

"The very thing I want, mother," said he, with a half-bitter
laugh,--"some sort of place somewhere."

"And," continued she, "I was pondering whether it might not be as well
to see if Sir Arthur Lyle would n't write to some of his friends in
power--"

"Why should we ask him? What has he to do with it?" broke he in,
hastily. "I 'm not the son of an old steward or family coachman, that
I want to go about with a black pocket-book stuffed with recommendatory
letters. Write simply and fearlessly to this great man,--I don't know
his rank,--and say whose son I am. Leave me to tell him the rest."