Mrs. Priestly was a tall woman, graceful and, for one who lived in one of the smaller of the provincial towns, elegantly dressed. Her face and its expression were sad. The quietness of her manner and the gentle reserve of her voice added to that sadness. The patient gaze of her deep grey eyes suggested suffering. Undoubtedly she had suffered. To the sympathetic observer, this would have been obvious; but to the calculating mind of Mrs. Bishop it presented itself in the form of a social aloofness which she was morbidly quick to see in any one. Mrs. Priestly was dark. Little Maurice was fair--the Saxon stamped on his head, coloured in his blue eyes. He was six years old, abundant in extreme animal spirits, which his mother beheld with a love and pride in her eyes that was almost pathetic to see in one so possessed by the apathy of unhappiness, and which Mrs. Bishop observed with the silent resolve that Master Maurice was on no account to be allowed into her drawing-room. When it had come to the moment of leaving her son to the glowing promises of Mrs. Bishop's tenderness and affection, Mrs. Priestly broke down, winding her arms tight about his little neck and pressing him fiercely to her bosom. Mrs. Bishop stood by with an indulgent smile. Then Mrs. Priestly had looked up with tears heavy in her eyes. "I'll come and see you, Mrs. Bishop," she had said with control--"I'll come and see you when I've said good-bye, before I go." Mrs. Bishop had wisely taken the suggestion and departed to the end of the hall where her daughters were standing expectantly. "Of course the child is spoilt," she said, in an undertone. "Why?" they asked in chorus. "Well, she's saying good-bye to him--crying over him. I call it very nonsensical. I came away. That sort of thing annoys me." And in the drawing-room, mother and son were saying a long farewell that was to last them for a few weeks. It would be some time before she could come down from London, Mrs. Priestly had said. The tears were falling fast down their cheeks. "You won't love any one else but mummy, will you, Maurie?" "Shan't love her," he had said, with a thrusting of his head towards the door which Mrs. Bishop had just closed. "And you'll say prayers every night and every morning?" "Yes, mummy." "And you'll say, 'God help mummy'" "Will I pray for father?" She took a deep breath as she looked above his head. He was too young to feel the weight of the pause. It meant nothing to him. He thought she had not heard. "Will I pray for father?" he repeated. "Yes," she said slowly; "pray for father, pray for him first, and then mummy, just before you go to sleep. God bless you, my little darling--" and in the fierce blinding passion which a mother alone can understand, she caught him again in her arms and crushed his yielding little body to her heart. Such was the arrival of Master Maurice Priestly at No. 17, Wyatt Street.