It was evident that Mrs. Burton was thinking far more of Georgie than of her friend’s trouble; but the few words she had spoken on the subject had settled the matter and changed the whole current of Edna Browning’s life, and when, at last, she took her leave, and went out to her carriage, Mrs. Churchill had resolved _to do her duty_, and set her son’s sins before him in their proper light. But she did not tell Roy so. She would rather he should not know all she had been saying to Mrs. Burton. So to his suggestion that she should write to Charlie that day, she answered that she would, but added: “I can’t write a lie, and tell him he will be welcome here at once. I must wait awhile before doing that.” To this Roy did not object. A little discipline would do Charlie good, he believed; and so he signed a check for five hundred dollars, and then tried to sleep, while his mother wrote to Charlie. It was a severe letter, aimed more at Edna than her boy, and told of her astonishment and indignation that her son should have been led into so imprudent an act. Then she descanted upon runaway matches, and unequal matches; and said he must expect it would be a long time before she could forgive him, or receive “Miss Browning” as her daughter. Then she quoted Mrs. Burton, and Georgie, and Roy, whose feelings were _so outraged_, and advised Charlie to tell Miss Browning at once that every dollar he had came from his brother; “for,” she added in conclusion, “I cannot help feeling that if she had known this fact, your unfortunate entanglement would have been prevented. “Your aggrieved and offended mother, “ANNA CHURCHILL.” She did not show what she had written to Roy, but she inclosed the check, and directed the letter to “Charles Augustus Churchill. Care of John Dana, Chicago, Ill.” With no apparent reason, Mrs. Churchill lingered long over that letter, studying the name “Charles Augustus,” and repeating it softly to herself, as we repeat the names of the dead. And when, at last, she gave it to Russell to post, she did it unwillingly, half wishing, when it was gone past recall, that she had not written quite so harshly to her boy, whose face haunted her that day wherever she went, and whose voice she seemed to hear everywhere calling to her.