Then Janet came in to take leave. Mr. Hermann described what the excellent and gracious lady had granted to him, and he made it sound so well, and his wife seemed so confident and triumphant, that her mother feared she had allowed more to be inferred than she intended, and tried to explain that all depended on the fulfilment of the conditions of which Janet at least was perfectly aware. She was overwhelmed, however, with his gratitude and Janet’s assurances, and they went away, leaving her with a hand much kissed by him, and the fondest, most lingering embrace she had ever had from Janet. Then she was free to lie still, abandoned to fears for her daughter’s future and repentance for her own careless past, and, above all crushed by the ache that would let her really feel little but pain and oppression. CHAPTER XXVIII. -- THE TURN OF THE WHEEL. Is there, for honest poverty, That hangs his head and a’ that, The coward slave, we pass him by, A man’s a man for a’ that. Burns. Thinking and acting were alike impossible to Caroline for the remainder of the day when her daughter left her, but night brought power of reflection, as she began to look forward to the new day, and its burthen. Her headache was better, but she let Barbara again go down to breakfast without her, feeling that she could not face her sons at once, and that she needed another study of the document before she could trust herself with the communication. She felt herself too in need of time to pray for right judgment and steadfast purpose, and that the change might so work with her sons that it might be a blessing, not a curse. Could it be for nothing that the finding of Magnum Bonum had wrought the undoing of this wrong? That thought, and the impulse of self-bracing, made her breakfast well on the dainty little meal sent up to her by the Infanta, and look so much refreshed, that the damsel exclaimed-- “You are much better, mother! You will be able to see Jock before he goes--” “Fetch them all, Babie; I have something to tell you--” “Writs issued for a domestic parliament,” said Allen, presently entering. “To vote for the grant to the Princess Royal on her marriage? Do it handsomely, I say, the Athenian is better than might be expected, and will become prosperity better than adversity.” “Being capable of taking others in besides Janet,” said the opposition in the person of Bobus. “He seemed so well satisfied with the Gracious Lady house-mother that I am afraid she has been making him too many promises.” “That was impossible. It was not about Janet that I sent for you, boys. It was to think what we are to do ourselves. You know I always thought there must be another will. Look there!” She laid it on the table, and the young men stood gazing as if it were a venomous reptile which each hesitated to touch. “Is it legal, Bobus?” she presently asked. “It looks--rather so--” he said in an odd, stunned voice.