Outside there was the sound of carriage wheels stopping before the door—a pull at the bell, a hurried conversation in the hall below, Miss Keith’s voice sounding flurried and confused, the other voice self-assured, surprised, and commanding; and then footsteps came up the stairs, and Archie’s mother, Mrs. Browning, was standing on the threshold, red, tired, panting, and taking in rapidly every portion of the room, from the cheap hearthrug and carpet to the tall man by the bedside, and the pallid face on the pillows. At sight of that her countenance changed sensibly, and she exclaimed: “I did not suppose it so bad as this.” Then Tom, who had arisen from his seat, spoke a little sternly, for he was angry at the intrusion: “Madam, don’t you know Miss Burton is very sick and cannot see strangers?” “Yes, I know;” and Archie’s mother pressed close to the girl on the pillow, trailing her India shawl on the floor directly across Tom’s feet. “She was engaged to read to me every day for two hours, and I waited for her to come or send some message, till at last I concluded to drive round and see what had become of her. You are her cousin, I believe? I am Mrs. Browning.” She said the last name as if between Mrs. Browning and the cousin there was a vast difference, but if Tom recognized it, he did not seem to notice it; he merely said: “Yes, I am her cousin, and you were to have been her mother-in-law?” “Yes, Archie was my son. If he had lived he would have been heir of Briarton Lodge; both the young lords are dead.” “Oh, yes, and my cousin would have been Lady Cleaver of Briarton Lodge,” Tom answered, and it seemed to me that he thought just as I did, namely, that the sick girl was of more importance to Mrs. Browning because of what she _might have been_. The shadow of the honor she had missed reached even to this humble room, and made Mrs. Browning more gracious, more pitiful, more anxious than she might otherwise have been. And yet it was wholly the fault of her birth and education that she cared so much for these things. At heart she was a thoroughly good woman, and there was genuine kindness in her inquiries of Tom as to what was needed most, and in her deportment toward the sick girl, whom she tried to rouse, calling her by name, and saying to her: “I am Archie’s mother; you remember Archie, who died?” There was a little sob in the mother’s voice, but the girl gave no sign; only Tom looked gloomy, and black, and intensely relieved when the India shawl was trailed down the stairs, and the Browning carriage drove away. Next day it stopped again before the house, and this time it held an added weight of dignity in the person of Lady Darinda Fairfax, whose heavy silk rustled up the stairs, and whose large white hands were constantly rubbing each other as she talked to Tom, in whom she had recognized the Mr. Gordon seen once at Miss Elliston’s, where she was calling at the same time with himself.