After the wedding guests had departed Warrender ordered his horse to be brought round, as usual. He had, of course, been occupied all the morning with his own family, and with the marriage and the entertainment afterwards. Geoff had got a holiday, which he prized very much. (Lady Markland and the boy had been asked, of course, to the wedding, but it was perhaps a relief to all that they declined to come.) And if there ever was a moment in which Mrs. Warrender wanted her son it was that day. She was tired out, and in the nervous state to which the best of us are liable at agitating moments. Minnie was not, perhaps, in absolute sympathy with her mother, but Mrs. Warrender had a great deal of imagination, and partly by those recollections of the past that are called up by every great family event, and partly by inevitable anticipations of the future, she was in special need of kindness and filial care. Her heart swelled within her when she saw the black horse brought round. She went to the door in the gray gown which she had got for Minnie's marriage, and met her son as he came into the hall. "Oh, Theo, are you going to leave us to-day? I thought you would have stayed with us to-day," she said, with what an unfavourable judge would have called a querulous tone in her voice. It was in reality fatigue and weariness, and a great desire for her boy's affection and comforting care; but the other explanation was not without reason. "Why should I stay to-day, more than any other day?" he said. "You don't require me to tell you, Theo. It is getting late; you can't be wanted _there_, surely, to-day." Now this was injudicious on Mrs. Warrender's part: but a woman cannot always be judicious, however it may hurt her. He looked at her with quick offence. "Suppose I think differently?" he said; "or suppose that it is for my own pleasure I am going, as you say, _there_?" "I meant no harm," said Mrs. Warrender. "I have not opposed you. Often I have longed to have you a little more at home: but I never said anything, Theo,--you know I have never said anything." "I can't imagine, mother, what there was to say." She checked herself with difficulty, but still she did check herself. "There are some things," she said, "that I wish you would attend to,--I cannot help feeling that there are several things; but to-day, dear Theo, both Chatty and I are feeling low. Stay with us this afternoon. It will do us so much good." She thought that he wavered for an instant, but if so it was only for an instant. "I don't believe that," he said. "We should only quarrel; and what is the use of a thing that is forced? And besides, of all days, this is the one above all others that I want to go. It is my best chance"--and then he stopped and looked at her, the colour rising to his face. "I thought Geoff was to go somewhere, for a holiday."