"She'll have me fast enough, I daresay," he said, with his easy, confident air--that calm masculine consciousness of superiority, as of one who talks of an altogether inferior creature; "all the faster, perhaps, on account of having made a _fiasco_ of her first engagement. A girl doesn't like to be pointed at as jilt or jilted. But I shall always feel uncomfortable about this fellow, Hamleigh. I shall never be able quite to believe in my wife." "Leonard, how can you talk like that, you who know Christabel's high principles." "Yes, but I wanted to be sure that she had never cared for any one but me; and you have spoiled my chances of that." He stayed little more than a month in London, going back to Mount Royal soon after Ascot, and while the June roses were still in their glory. Brief as his absence had been, even his careless eye could see that his mother had changed for the worse since their parting. The hollow cheek had grown hollower, the languid eye more languid, the hand that clung so fondly to his broad, brown palm, was thinner, and more waxen of hue. His mother welcomed him with warmest love. "My dearest one," she said, tenderly, "this is an unexpected delight. It is so good of you to come back to me so soon. I want to have you with me, dear, as much as possible--now." "Why, mother?" he asked, kindly, for a dull pain in his breast seemed to answer to these words of hers. "Because I do not think it will be for long. I am very weak, dear. Life seems to be slipping away from me; but there is no pain, no terror. I feel as if I were being gently carried along a slow gliding stream to some sheltered haven, which I can picture to myself, although I have never seen it. I have only one care, Leonard, one anxiety, and that is for your future happiness. I want your life to be full of joy, dearest, and I want it to be a good life, like your father's." "Yes, he was a good old buffer, wasn't he?" said Leonard. "Everybody about here speaks well of him; but then, I daresay that's because he had plenty of money, and wasn't afraid to spend it, and was an easy master, and all that sort of thing, don't you know. That's a kind of goodness which isn't very difficult for a man to practise." "Your father was a Christian, Leonard--a sound, practical, Christian, and he did his duty in every phase of life," answered the widow, half proudly, half reproachfully. "No doubt. All I say is, that it's uncommonly easy to be a Christian under such circumstances." "Your circumstances will be as easy, I trust, Leonard, and your surroundings no less happy, if you win your cousin for your wife. And I feel sure you will win her. Ask her soon, dear--ask her very soon--that I may see you married to her before I die." "You think she'll say yes, if I do? I don't want to precipitate matters, and get snubbed for my pains." "I think she will say yes. She must know how my heart is set upon this marriage. It has been the dream of my life."