Old lady Gordon was coming down the front walk of mossy, greening bricks, leading from the door to the gate; and she looked a handsome, stately figure in her flowing white dress, notwithstanding her age and her weight. But Sidney's gaze and Sidney's interest were not for old lady Gordon; they were for the tall young man on whose arm she leaned, as if she liked to lean on it, not as if she needed its support. It was the first time that Sidney had seen him nearer than across the meeting-house. When she now observed how like his grandmother he was, she suddenly stopped quite still and, laying her knitting on the gate-post, took off her bonnet and let her hair down and twisted it up again, very, very tight indeed. "Good morning, Sidney. You know my grandson," old lady Gordon said carelessly, going straight on to the carriage. She liked Sidney as she liked everybody who never bored her, but it did not occur to her to allow Sidney's--or anybody's--coming to interfere with her "making a broad" or doing anything that she wished to do. Accordingly she now ascended the folding steps of the coach, which were already unfolded for her convenience, and with her grandson's assistance deliberately settled herself in perfect comfort by unhasting degrees. Her bag, which a little negro boy presently came running to bring, was then hung inside the carriage close to her hand. "Now!" said old lady Gordon. "Jump in, Sidney, and I'll take you home. It will not be at all out of my way, and you can tell me the news as we go along." Sidney, surprised, stood hesitating. She had been looking on, taking notes for future conversational uses. It was not every day that she could gather such good materials; and she had not lost a detail of this starting of old lady Gordon to "make a broad." And, while busily laying these matters away in the rich storehouse of her memory, Sidney had, at the same time, been calculating with certainty upon the fine opportunity for making the young man's acquaintance which old lady Gordon's going would give her. It is the first instinct of a wise mother to learn all that she can,--advantageous or otherwise--of any man who may look toward her young daughter. It is the last instinct of the wise mother to learn anything to the disadvantage of any man at whom her daughter may look. Sidney, wise enough in her blunt, straightforward way, was far from being a designing woman; she was merely trying, in her blundering manner, to do what she believed to be her duty by Doris. Naturally, then, she hesitated, unwilling to lose this good chance of making Lynn Gordon's acquaintance, the best that she was ever likely to have.