Mrs. Walter cried a little too. She had struggled for so many years to have her child with her, and it had seemed to her, with the struggle over, and peace and security settling down upon them both in this little green-shaded nest of home, that she had at last gained something that would fill the rest of her days with contentment. 'Some day' Mollie would marry; but she had never looked so far forward. It had been enough for her to take the rest and the love and companionship with gratitude and an always increasing sense of safety and contentment in it. But it had already become a little sapped. She was glad enough that her child should have found friends outside, as long as she remained unchanged at home, but the friction about it had disturbed her in her dreams of peace, and she wanted to be first with her daughter as long as she should keep her with her. Mollie felt something of all of this on her behalf, and it brought a sense of compunction to her generous young heart. She loved her mother. It was not a case between them of satisfying the exigencies of a parent out of a sense of duty. It touched her deeply that her mother should show her she wanted her, and she responded instantly to the longing. "If you don't want me to go to Grays any more I won't," she said, and had no feeling that she was making any renunciation as she said it. "Well dear," said Mrs. Walter. "I do think it would be better if you didn't go quite so often. Every time you do go there is always that feeling that perhaps it would be better not--after what the Vicar said. I was annoyed about it then, but perhaps after all he saw more clearly than I did. He shouldn't have supposed, of course, that _you_ were in any way to blame, and, if he thought that I was, he ought to have said so quietly to me alone. But perhaps it is true that by being at the beck and call of people, as you must rather seem to be to outsiders, considering the difference there is between the Pembertons and ourselves---- Don't you see what I mean, dear?" "Yes, Mother," said Mollie submissively. She had a sense of forlornness as she said it, but put it away from her, sitting by her mother's side on the bed, with her arm around her shoulders. "I won't go there so much. I'll never go unless you tell me that you'd like me to. I'm afraid I've been gadding about rather too much, and neglecting you, darling. But you know I love to be with you best of all. We're very happy living here together, aren't we?" Her tears flowed again, and once more when she left her mother to rest a little longer. But she busied herself resolutely about the house, and when a gleam of sun shone through the scudding clouds thought how happy she was living there with her mother. But she did not feel quite so happy as she ought to have done. It was as if she had closed for herself a window in the little cottage, which opened into a still brighter world. CHAPTER XX A MEET AT WILBOROUGH