ian, motherly woman,--she was well aware that there was something,
in truth, much more important even than that. Though she thought much of
the earl-ship, and the countess-ship, and the great revenue, and the big
house at Carstairs, and the fine park with its magnificent avenues, and
the carriage in which her daughter would be rolled about to London
parties, and the diamonds which she would wear when she should be
presented to the Queen as the bride of the young Lord Carstairs, yet she
knew very well that she ought not in such an emergency as the present to
think of these things as being of primary importance. What would tend
most to her girl's happiness,--and welfare in this world and the next? It
was of that she ought to think,--of that only. If some answer were now
returned to Lord Bracy, giving his lordship to understand that they, the
Wortles, were anxious to encourage the idea, then in fact her girl would
be tied to an engagement whether the young lord should hold himself to be
so tied or no! And how would it be with her girl if the engagement should
be allowed to run on in a doubtful way for years, and then be dropped by
reason of the young man's indifference? How would it be with her if,
after perhaps three or four years, a letter should come saying that the
young lord had changed his mind, and had engaged himself to some nobler
bride? Was it not her duty, as a mother, to save her child from the too
probable occurrence of some crushing grief such as this? All of it was
clear to her mind;--but then it was clear also that, if this opportunity
of greatness were thrown away, no such chance in all probability would
ever come again. Thus she was so tossed to and fro between a prospect of
glorious prosperity for her child on one side, and the fear of terrible
misfortune for her child on the other, that she was altogether unable to
give any salutary advice. She, at any rate, ought to have known that her
advice would at last be of no importance. Her experience ought to have
told her that the Doctor would certainly settle the matter himself. Had
it been her own happiness that was in question, her own conduct, her own
greatness, she would not have dreamed of having an opinion of her own.
She would have consulted the Doctor, and simply have done as he directed.
But all this was for her child, and in a vague, vacillating way she felt
that for her child she ought to be ready with counsel of her own.

"Mamma," said M