"You know, Val, for a portionless girl, as Maude is, it was a great blow to me when I found her fixing her heart upon a younger son. How cross and unjust it made me I couldn't conceal: mothers are mothers. I wanted her to take a fancy to Hartledon, dear fellow, and I suppose she could not, and it rendered me cross; and I know I worried her and worried my own temper, till at times I was not conscious of what I said. Poor Maude! she did not rebel openly, but I could see her struggles. Only a week ago, when Hartledon was talking about his marrying sometime, and hinting that she might care fox him if she tried, she scored her beautiful drawing all over with ugly marks; ran the pencil through it--" "But why do you tell me this now?" asked Val. "Hartledon--dear me! I wonder how long I shall be getting accustomed to your name?--there's only you and me and Maude left now of the family," cried the dowager; "and if I speak of such things, it is in fulness of heart. And now about these letters: do you care how they are worded?" "I don't seem to care about anything," listlessly answered the young man. "As to the letters, I think I'd rather write them myself, Lady Kirton." "Indeed you shall not have any trouble of that sort to-day. _I'll_ write the letters, and you may indulge yourself in doing nothing." He yielded in his unstable nature. She spoke of business letters, and it was better that he should write them; he wished to write them; but she carried her point, and his will yielded to hers. Would it be a type of the future?--would he yield to her in other things in defiance of his better judgment? Alas! alas! She picked up her skirts and left him, and went sailing upstairs to her daughter's room. Maude was sitting shivering in a shawl, though the day was hot. "I've paved the way," nodded the old woman, in meaning tones. "And there's one fortunate thing about Val: he is so truthful himself, one may take him in with his eyes open." Maude turned _her_ eyes upon her mother: very languid and unspeculative eyes just then. "I gave him a hint, Maude, that you had been unable to bring yourself to like Hartledon, but had fixed your mind on a younger son. Later, we'll let him suspect who the younger son was." The words aroused Maude; she started up and stood staring at her mother, her eyes dilating with a sort of horror; her pale cheeks slowly turning crimson. "I don't understand," she gasped; "I _hope_ I don't understand. You--you do not mean that I am to try to like Val Elster?" "Now, Maude, no heroics. I'll not see _you_ make a fool of yourself as your sisters have done. He's not Val Elster any longer; he is Lord Hartledon: better-looking than ever his brother was, and will make a better husband, for he'll be more easily led." "I would not marry Val for the whole world," she said, with strong emotion. "I dislike him; I hate him; I never could be a wife to Val Elster."