"You funny little mother! What do cushions matter? Geoffrey will never notice them, and Madame"--she hesitated, unwilling to hurt her mother's feelings by hinting at Madame's opinion of the satin splendours so carefully preserved from sight--"Madame won't care! ... She is not coming to admire fancy-work!" Mrs Ramsden lifted a flushed, tear-stained face to look at her daughter standing before her, lovely and slender in the blue muslin gown which had been Cornelia's gift. The daintiness of the dress, its unaccustomed smartness and air of fashion, seemed at the moment a presage of the threatened separation. At the sight, and the sound of the softened voice, the tears streamed afresh, and she cried brokenly-- "Elma! Elma! My child! I beg you at the eleventh hour--think! consider! remember all that I have striven to teach you! ... You have prayed to resist temptation--what is the use of your prayers if they don't avail you in your hour of need? Elma, I know it will be hard! Don't think I shall not suffer with you--but if it is right. ... There is no happiness, my child, if we depart from the right course!" "I know it, mother," said Elma, calmly. "If you or Madame can convince me that I should be doing wrong in marrying Geoffrey I will give him up! I promise you that, and you must promise me in return that you will try to see things from our point of view as well as your own. Remember, it's my life that is at stake, and I'm so young! I may have such a long time to live. Some girls have a dozen fancies before they are twenty- three, but I have never thought of anyone else. ... From the first time that I met Geoffrey I knew that he was the one man for me. You have been happily married yourself, mother! Could you bear to spoil our happiness?" Mrs Ramsden winced at the sound of that significant little pronoun, which now, for the first time in twenty-three years, failed to include herself. Now she was an outsider, for her child's heart and life alike had passed from her keeping: It is a bitter moment for all mothers; doubly bitter when, as to Mrs Ramsden, the supplanter seems unworthy of his trust. "Happiness is not everything, Elma! I hope,--I hope I am strong enough to endure even to see you suffer for your ultimate good."