"It's only from mother," was the careless rejoinder. "One of her lengthy epistles about nothing. Even the girl's scribblings have more interest." "Don't speak so," murmured Wallingford. "If you were motherless, as I am, you'd understand how such words hurt me." "Pshaw, Ned! you know I love my mother. She isn't exactly the character to inspire respect as you can well understand. Warm-hearted and affectionate, ready to work herself to death to please one of my foolish fancies; yet she is not all that one would want in a mother." Ned Wallingford paused his face flushed with more than the heat, and gazed reproachfully at his companion. "I would rather cut off my hand," he said at length, "than to speak so of a mother. Excuse me, Paul; but the only fault I could see in yours, was that she was too anxious to please you. She displayed devoted love." "The natural consequence of being the only son in a family of five," Dudley answered with a light laugh. "Worship comes natural to me. I shall exact a vast amount of homage from my wife." "Not more than you will yield to her charms, I hope." "It strikes me, we are starting a new subject," demurely answered Paul; "and as I felt a drop of rain on my nose, I propose we adjourn to number eighteen, North Hall, up one flight, before we proceed with the interesting discussion of my wife's claims on my affection." Three minutes of quick walking brought them inside the large hall just as the windows of heaven were opened and the rain descended in torrents. Wallingford having thrown off his wet, linen coat, seated himself at the window and watched for a time the occasional flashes of lightning illumining the dark clouds and followed by the rumbling of the distant thunder; but his thoughts were not on the scene before him, sublime as it was.