My lady was too acute not to read his thoughts; too wise to expect her son to yield without a flutter. She moved with stately sweep to where he sat, and, pressing his face with her two hands, whispered fondly as she knelt down beside him. 'My darling, do you not know that I would cut my heart out for you, that I would walk to the stake to save you one needless pang? Men can never realise the fulness of a mother's love--the sublimity of its unselfishness--the majesty of its devotion. It is the one ray of the Divine which has been allowed to glimmer forth on our dull earth. Do you suppose I would counsel you to aught that could bring you injury? that I have not anxiously weighed each side of the question before deciding what is best? You know that I love you much better than myself. You know that Heaven has denied you cleverness. You are not clever, my poor child; but we can't help that, can we? And you are not good, I am sorely afraid. Yet as your mother I love you no whit the less. Try to comprehend what a mother's love is like--how large--how grandly blind in that it might see but will not!' As she spoke, the poor lady who had been so buffeted by worldly troubles was transfigured by the strength of her affection for this one being. The fact of her loving nothing else served but to increase her love. As one, some of whose senses have decayed whilst others are proportionately sensitised, she felt with intensity all which affected her firstborn. It was strange that she could not remember that Terence also was her son--that he had pined for such a display as this all his life in vain--that even now (yawning in the Four-courts) he would have upset the presiding judge and sent all the attorneys to a man into the Liffey, and galloped at breakneck speed to Strogue if his mother would only have given him one of the looks which she was lavishing on Shane--one of those hand-touches that are in nowise akin to 'paddling,' but which send stronger thrills through us than the most languishing of eyes. 'Ireland is being involved in complicated difficulties,' she pursued. 'You must be obedient, and allow me to lead you through them safely. It will only be for a month or two. Then all will be over, and we can come back here again. Say you will do as I wish?'