It is not necessary to go into details, and tell how Mrs. Meredith forgave her son and received her new daughter. In any case, I don’t believe she would have been capable of ‘hurting Agnes’s feelings’ by a cold reception; but as it was, she was as tender to her as if she been her own daughter, and Oswald was the stranger husband who had to be forgiven. A great deal of this was that superlative politeness which was part of her nature, and part of it was the result of Edward’s communication. The cloud which had spoilt everything was definitely lifted from her life, and to be good to the trembling, timid bride, which was the first kind action within her reach, was Mrs. Meredith’s way of thanksgiving for her happiness. It must be allowed it is not a bad way, as good as giving public thanks in church, or perhaps better, though that is good too. When Agnes began a faltering confession of wrong doing, Mrs. Meredith kissed her and stopped her. ‘My dear, we will think nothing more of that,’ she said; ‘we might have wished it otherwise; but no one is beyond the reach of accident, and this will end most happily, please God, for all of us.’ The result of the interview was that Agnes fell in love with her mother-in-law--not a very usual thing, if one puts one’s faith in books, yet not unparalleled. They understood each other, or rather the elder woman understood the younger, and with her warm natural charity was able to comprehend and excuse everything. She looked with a little wonder and amusement at the awe with which Agnes still regarded her bridegroom. That there should be someone in the world who did not simply make allowance for Oswald, and love him in spite of his faults, but to whom his faults were as yet invisible, and himself worthy of deepest respect and admiration, was a thing which was very amusing to his mother. She could scarcely keep from smiling when she saw the serious looks of veneration which his wife gave him. ‘Hush, hush,’ she said, when Edward, grown saucy, ventured to smile at his brother, and when she even herself felt tempted to say, ‘How like Oswald!’ Oswald was like everything that was fine and noble and generous to his bride. ‘And if he did not think of himself quite so much, how good my poor boy is,’ the mother said, with tears in her eyes; and in future, perhaps, he would not think so much of himself.