med) a very miniature of George; repeated his shapeliness of
limb, his firm shoulders, his long lean thighs--the thighs of a born
horseman; learned to walk, and lo! within a week walked with his
father's gait; had smiles for the whole of his small world, and for
his mother a memory in each.

And yet--this was the strange part of it; a mystery she could not
explain because she dared not even acknowledge it--though she loved
him for being like his father, she regarded the likeness with a
growing dread; nay, caught herself correcting him stealthily when he
developed some trivial trait which she, and she alone, recognised as
part of his father's legacy. It was what in the old days she would
have called "contradictions," but there it was, and she could not
help it; the nearer George in her memory approached to faultlessness,
the more obstinately her instinct fought against her child's
imitation of him; and yet, because the child was obstinately
George's, she loved him with a double love.

There came a day when he told her a childish falsehood. She did not
whip him, but stood him in front of her and began to reason with him
and explain the wickedness of an untruth. By-and-by she broke off in
the midst of a sentence, appalled by the shrillness of her own voice.
From argument she had passed to furious scolding. And the little
fellow quailed before her, his contrition beaten down under the storm
of words that whistled about his ears without meaning, his small
faculties disabled before this spectacle of wrath. Her fingers were
closing and unclosing. They wanted a riding-switch; they wanted to
grip this small body they had served and fondled, and to cut out--
what? The lie? Honoria hated a lie. But while she paused and
shook, a light flashed, and her eyes were open and saw--that it was
not the lie.

She turned and ran, ran upstairs to her own room, flung herself on
her knees beside the bed, dragged a locket from her bosom and fell to
kissing George's portrait, passionately crying it for pardon.
She was wicked, base; while he lived she had misprised him; and this
was her abiding punishment, that not even repentance could purge her
heart of dishonouring thoughts, that her love for him now could never
be stainless though washed with daily tears. "'_He that is unjust,
let him be unjust still_.' _Must_ that be true, Father of all
mercies? I misjudged him, and it is too late for atonement. But I
repent and am afflicted.