oes it vex you that he should be so good to me? This kind,
kind offer about Geoff,--is it too much? Yes, yes, I know it is too much;
but how can I refuse what he is so good, so charitable, as to offer,
when it is such a boon to us? Oh, if you would tell me! Is it
displeasing, is it distasteful to you?"

"I don't know how to answer you," Mrs. Warrender said.

"Ah! but that is an answer. Dear Mrs. Warrender, help me to refuse it
without wounding his feelings. I have always felt it was too much."

"Lady Markland, I cannot interfere. He is old enough to judge for
himself. He will not accept guidance from me,--ah, nor from you either,
except in the one way." She returned the pressure of her visitor's hand,
which had relaxed, with one that was as significant. "It is not so easy
to lay spirits when they are once raised," she said.

Lady Markland gave her a sudden, alarmed, inquiring look; but Theo came
forward at that moment with her cloak, and nothing could be said more.

He came back into the dining-room, expectant, defiant, fire in all his
veins, and in his heart a sea of agitated bliss that had to get an
outlet somewhere; not in a litany to her, for which there was no place,
but at least in defence of her and of himself. It was Minnie, as usual,
who stood ready to throw down the glove; Chatty being no more than a
deeply interested spectator, and the mother drawing aside with that
sense of impossibility which balks remonstrance, from the fray. Besides,
Mrs. Warrender did not know, in the responsive excitement in herself
which Theo's passion called forth, whether she wished to remonstrate or
to put any hindrance in his way.

"Well, upon my word!" said Minnie, "Mrs. Wilberforce may well say the
world is coming to a pretty pass. Only six months a widow, and not a bit
of crape upon her! I knew she wore no cap. Cap! why, she hasn't even a
bonnet, nor a veil, nor _anything!_ A little bit of a hat, with a black
ribbon,--too light for _me_ to wear; even Chatty would be ashamed to be
seen----"

"Oh no, Minnie; in the garden, you know, we have never worn anything
deeper."

"Do you call this the garden?" cried Minnie, her voice so deep with
alarm and presentiment that it sounded bass, in the silence of the
night. "Six miles off, and an open carriage, and coming among people who
are themselves in mourning! It ought to have given her a lesson to see
my mother in her cap."

"If you have nothing better to do than to find fault w