John Dallington lost his father when he was between sixteen and seventeen years old. He had only just left school, and was beginning to learn the best way to farm land when his father died unexpectedly and suddenly. In his will he left everything to his wife, constituting her sole executrix, with power to make any arrangements or alterations she pleased until their child was of an age to assume the control of the estate. The lad loved his mother, and proudly endeavoured to take his place as her natural companion and protector. But when, less than a year after his father’s death, she married Mr. Daniel Hunter, everything became changed. John and his step-father disliked each other from the first, and the youth felt as an interloper in his home. There were a few stormy scenes between the two, the mother always taking sides with her husband; and then John made his mother so angry, by some hot words, which he uttered respecting a young lady in Darentdale whom she disliked, that she decided to send him away from home forthwith, and from that time until the previous evening the heir had not seen his home. But he never forgot what his future position was to be, and had spent considerable time in study, and in examination of agricultural plans as followed in the different countries which he visited. He was, therefore, not altogether unready for his new duties. But he had been in no hurry to return and take them upon himself. Even when his lawyer’s letter reminded him that he had attained his majority, and requested him to come home and claim his rights, he did not do so; and it was not until his mother wrote informing him that she was a second time a widow, and needed him, that he started on his journey. While waiting for his mother on this, his first Sunday in England, his thoughts were full of kindliness toward her—“Poor little mother, it must be hard for her to be twice a widow. I wonder if Hunter really made her happy, and if she cared very much for him. I shall never be able to understand how it was that she married him—a man not fit to hold a candle to my father, and with scarcely a particle of his high principle and goodness! How could she do it? But it is strange to me if she has not had to suffer for it, and she certainly looks ill and miserable. It cannot be because she loved him. I hope he was good to her. In any case I will be. No woman can help liking to have her son with her, and I will try to make up to her for the trouble she has had.” At that moment the sound of the bells came across the field, and John remembered that there was a mile to walk to church. “Mother, it is time to start. Are you ready?” he cried, and she came immediately—a small figure, short and slight, but very dignified, and covered from head to foot in crape. “What a shrouded up little mother it is!” he said tenderly, “and how uncomfortable you must be. Can you breathe at all under that thick thing?” “Oh, yes. It is not so thick as it looks.”