Priscilla went upstairs to her room to change her travelling-dress, but Jack, with his arm about his mother, went into the dining-room, where some cold eatables had been laid out, with a refreshing “cup” in an old cut-glass jug. No candles had yet been lighted; there was no need for them; the glow of the sunset came through the windows and imparted the show of life to the portraits, each in its own panel along the wall on both sides of the fireplace. The man glanced round the room with a look of satisfaction on his face. “Ha, my old friends,” he cried; “how have you all been since I saw you last? Somehow you don’t seem quite so surly as you used to be when I first came among you. You’re not altogether so sneery as you were, my bold ancestors--what? Do you know, mother, I always had a hang-dog feeling from the first day I found myself among these impressive Johnnies--I had a feeling that they were jeering at me; and I was afraid to argue it out with them on the spot. But now I can face them without feeling that I’m like the dirt beneath their feet. I’ve done something--I’ve married the right wife for a chap like me--she has done it all, mother. I never should have had the cheek to try it off my own bat. She made me go in for it, and then she pulled it off for me. And all so quietly and tactfully; no one would fancy that she was doing it When Franklin Forrester was stating the case to me, she sat by and never uttered a single word, and so it was to the very end. I tell you she almost succeeded in inducing me to delude myself into the belief that I was doing the whole thing. Oh, she’s the wife for me!” “Indeed I feel that she is,” said his mother, still keeping her hand upon his arm. “I am so glad that I have lived to see your happiness, Jack. I am so glad that I loved her from the first.” “I knew that you would, dearest. That made you doubly my mother. I felt that I was giving you a daughter after your own heart.” She pressed his arm, and held up her face to him. He kissed her silently on each cheek, and then on the forehead. “Good-night, my boy,” she said. “I must leave you now. You will be together.” “Don’t think of going yet,” he cried. “I have not been quite so well to-day,” she said. “I just got up so as to be able to welcome you both, but it has been too much for me. You will say good-night to her for me.” “You do look very pale and frail, my dearest,” he said. “You should not have left your bed. We could easily have put off our return for another day.” “Oh, I’m not so ill as all that,” she said, with a laugh. “But you know how I need to be careful. If I have a good night I may be able to breakfast with you in the morning. Good night, my own boy. God bless you.” “God has blessed me,” he said. “I have the best mother in the world--the best wife in the world.”