‘I have been doing my best,’ he said, standing up beside her against the waning light in the window. And then it was for the first time that it occurred to Lady William---- Well, she was no more a matchmaking mother than you or I; but to see two young people together--one of them your own child, and the other a very good match--very well off, and kind, and true, and good, _par-dessus le marché_--this is a thing which will make the most unworldly woman think. To be sure, Leo was twice or nearly twice the age of Mab--but at their respective ages that was of no consequence. It was true also that Leo gave unmistakable signs at this present moment of much preferring Emily, the mother, to any seventeen-year-old; but that Lady William in her wisdom thought less important still. That would blow over quickly enough; it was scarcely even worth a thought; but they were smiling at each other in a very happy, pleasant way, she appealing, he answering the appeal. It was nothing, but yet it was a suggestion--and how many pleasant things it would involve! It was far too distant, too misty and vague to suggest to the mother how she should feel in her cottage if her Mab was spirited away. But it was a suggestion--and gave a new and agreeable direction to her thoughts. Leo remained until the lamp was brought in by little Patty, whose eyes shone at the sight of him, partly because it pleased her to see ‘a gentleman’ again in the house (for Patty was a matchmaker, if you please, and never looked upon a ‘gentleman’ without an immediate calculation whether or not he would ‘do’ for Miss Mab), and partly because she felt that she must now be wholly forgiven for any wrong thing she had done in respect to him, seeing he was allowed to come back. Patty had never been sure what it was that she had done which was wrong; but none the less was it evident to her that she herself must have shared the pardon of the worst offender. And in the meantime there had been a pleasant little hour over the tea-table; as if to encourage her mother’s imagination, Mab had for once been seized with an impulse to talk, which was a thing that happened to her now and then. And it was beyond doubt that Leo was amused by her chatter, and responded gaily. They discussed Lord and Lady Portcullis with great mutual satisfaction, and the Ladies Pakenham, whom Leo had met in Paris; and he gave Mab a great deal of information as to her family, which the girl received with a mixture of amusement and offence, proving to her mother that there had been more things even in little Mab’s thoughts than were dreamt of in her philosophy. And then the young man went away, and they were left alone to resume the controversy or not, as fate might decide. Lady William, who had been brought into very close observation of her daughter, left the subject in Mab’s hands--but Mab did not enter into it again. She changed the subject to the FitzStephens’ dance, which was now