y dear, I wish you were going to nest, too," she said. "I wonder--do
you think I have been ill-natured and unkind to your Sylvia, and that
makes her not come to see me now? I do remember being vexed at her for
not wanting to marry you, and perhaps I talked unkindly about her. I am
sorry, for my being cross to her will do no good; it will only make
her more unwilling than ever to marry a man who has such an unpleasant
mamma. Will she come to see me again, do you think, if I ask her?"

These good hours were too rare in their appearances and swift in their
vanishings to warrant the certainty that she would feel the same this
afternoon, and Michael tried to turn the subject.

"Ah, we shall have to think about that, mother," he said. "Look, there
is a quarrel going on between those two sparrows. They both want the
same straw."

She followed his pointing finger, easily diverted.

"Oh, I wish they would not quarrel," she said. "It is so sad and stupid
to quarrel, instead of being agreeable and pleasant. I do not like them
to do that. There, one has flown away! And see, the crocuses are coming
up. Indeed it is spring. I should like to see the country to-day. If you
are not busy, Michael, would you take me out into the country? We might
go to Richmond Park perhaps, for that is in the opposite direction from
Ashbridge, and look at the deer and the budding trees. Oh, Michael,
might we take lunch with us, and eat it out of doors? I want to enjoy as
much as I can of this spring day."

She clung closer to Michael.

"Everything seems so fragile, dear," she whispered. "Everything may
break. . . . Sometimes I am frightened."

The little expedition was soon moving, after a slight altercation
between Lady Ashbridge and her nurse, whom she wished to leave behind
in order to enjoy Michael's undiluted society. But Miss Baker, who had
already spoken to Michael, telling him she was not quite happy in her
mind about her patient, was firm about accompanying them, though she
obligingly effaced herself as far as possible by taking the box-seat by
the chauffeur as they drove down, and when they arrived, and Michael
and his mother strolled about in the warm sunshine before lunch, keeping
carefully in the background, just ready to come if she was wanted. But
indeed it seemed as if no such precautions were necessary, for never had
Lady Ashbridge been more amenable, more blissfully content in her son's
companionship. The vernal hour, that first