be made into an
appendage to Lady Markland, and have no place of his own. Instead of
giving her assistance to tame Theo, she felt herself take fire in his
defence.

"You are very right, no doubt, to consider Lady Markland in the first
place," she said, "but I don't think we can argue the question further,
for to me my son must be the first."

"It is the right way," said the lawyer, "but when a young man lifts his
eyes----"

"We will say no more on the subject," she said quickly. And Mr.
Longstaffe was too judicious to do anything else than resume the
question about the garden palings, and then to bow himself out. He
turned, indeed, at the door to express his regrets that he had not
brought her to his way of thinking, that he lost her valuable help, upon
which he had calculated: but this did not conciliate Mrs. Warrender. She
had no carriage at her orders, or she would have gone to the Warren at
once, with the impulsiveness of her nature, to see what Theo was doing,
what he was thinking of. But Theo was at Markland, alternating between
the Paradiso and the Inferno, between the sweetness of his betrothed's
company and all the hard conditions of his happiness, and the Warren was
in the hands of a set of leisurely country tradespeople, who if Theo had
meant to carry his bride there must have postponed that happiness for a
year or two--not much wonder, perhaps, since they were left by the young
master to dawdle on their own way.

Mrs. Warrender, however, had another and a surprising visitor on this
same day. The ladies were sitting together in their usual way, in the
heat of the afternoon, waiting until it should be cool enough for their
walk, when the parlour maid, not used, perhaps, to such visitors, opened
the door with a little excitement, and announced, "Lord Markland." Mrs.
Warrender rose quickly to her feet, with a low cry, and a sudden wild
imagination such as will dart across a troubled mind. Lord Markland! had
he never died then, was it all a dream, had he come back to stop it in
time? A small voice interrupted this flash of thought, and brought her
back to herself with a giddy sense of the ridiculous and a sensation of
shame quite out of proportion to the momentary illusion. "It is only me,
Geoff: but I thought when she asked me my name, I was obliged to give my
right name." He seemed smaller than ever, as he came across the room
twitching his face as his habit was, and paler, or rather grayer, with
scanty lo