"She bears her trouble beautifully, and is all goodness and devotion to me--for I have been weak and ailing ever since I came from London--but I know the trial is very hard for her. The house would be more cheerful if you were at home. You might ask one or two of your Oxford friends. No one goes into the billiard-room now. Mount Royal is as quiet as a prison. If you do not come soon, dear boy, I think we shall die of melancholy." Mr. Tregonell did not put himself out of the way to comply with his loving mother's request. By the time the widow's letter reached him he had made his plans for the winter, and was not disposed to set them aside in order to oblige a lady who was only a necessary detail in his life. A man must needs have a mother; and, as mothers go, Mrs. Tregonell had been harmless and inoffensive; but she was not the kind of person for whom Leonard would throw over elaborate sporting arrangements, hired guides, horses, carts, and all the paraphernalia needful for Red River explorations. As for Christabel, Mr. Tregonell had not forgiven her for having set another man in the place which he, her cousin and boyish lover in a rough tyrannical way, had long made up his mind to occupy. The fact that she had broken with the man was a redeeming feature in the case; but he was not going into raptures about it; nor was he disposed to return to Mount Royal while she was still moping and regretting the discarded lover. "Let her get over the doldrums, and then she and I may be friends again," said Leonard to his boon companion, Jack Vandeleur, not a friend of his University days, but an acquaintance picked up on board a Cunard steamer--son of a half-pay naval captain, a man who had begun life in a line regiment, fought in Afghanistan, sold out, and lived by his wits and upon his friends for the last five years. He had made himself so useful to Mr. Tregonell by his superior experience as a traveller, his pluck and knowledge of all kinds of sport, that he had been able to live at free quarters with that gentleman from an early stage of their acquaintance.