“Poor old Rob, she’s got you catalogued,” he said, and the talk of adoption stopped. Neither of them had taken it seriously--Jennie, unmentioned, remained insurmountable. But Mathilda had entered her wedge, without an effort. Being intensely feminine, circumstances moved toward her, not she toward them, an achievement that resulted from indicating definitely first, then vaguely opposing, everything she wanted. Blaydon lifted his boy to his shoulder and walked through the house to the drawing room windows. He talked little more than monosyllabically to his children and had a great way of stilling their excited glee, when he wanted to, by the tone of his voice. As they stood at the window he wished that his gaze could go on over rolling hills to the horizon. He wanted these boys to grow up with horses and vigorous sports; to see them framed against green earth and wide skies. He wanted them to draw in their early appreciations from the bare soil of their own land. Somehow that now appeared to him a spiritual necessity of which he had had too little himself, and it was the leading ambition that possessed him after a life of sophisticated pleasure. A week later Mrs. Blaydon died. It was as though the new direction of their thoughts had penetrated to her intuitively and left her without strength to battle further. It was not long before Blaydon felt free to go ahead with his plans. But the speed with which Mathilda proceeded to execute hers surprised and even shocked him. She did not go directly to Ellen. Instead she consulted Dr. Schottman, and readily gained his partisanship. It was from Schottman that Ellen first heard of Aunt Mathilda’s intentions toward Moira.... For the life of her she could not tell at first whether she was happy or miserable at the suggestion. In one moment she rejoiced over the good fortune of her daughter; in the next she experienced a sense of terrible deprivation and loneliness. She was not so sentimental as to minimize the extent of her renunciation--to hope that some crumbs from the table of Moira’s affection would fall to her. It meant a thorough transfer of parenthood and a ruthless blotting out of the truth. One of Mrs. Seymour’s reasons for adopting the child at once, as she explained to Schottman, was that the boys were young enough to grow up none the wiser. Ellen did not deceive herself. Moira would never know her, never think of her except as a servant. She recalled sorrowfully the two happy prospects she had brought with her into that house, “Moira will love me when she is grown up, and we will do so many nice things together,” and “Who knows, some day Moira may have a father....” But Moira would never have a real father now through her, and Moira would never love her in the sense she had meant. A gleam of comfort crept in the chinks of her hopeless speculation.