But, notwithstanding that she was generally and justly supposed to be able to spar with the most robust emergencies, Mrs. Brereton did not particularly fancy the task she had set herself, or that, strictly speaking, had been set her; in fact, early this morning there had arrived for her a note from her hostess of last night, saying what sort of communication her dear Anthony had made her before he went to his bed. Under these circumstances it was only right that Maud's mother should be asked whether she sanctioned the step he proposed to take in presenting himself as a suitor for her daughter's hand. The phrasing of the note, as might be expected from so successful a lady as Mrs. Maxwell, was as unimpeachable as its contents, and both filled Mrs. Brereton with joy, for the two odious sons of her husband by his first marriage would inherit the bulk of her husband's fortune, and Maud would have almost nothing. Now, Mrs. Brereton had no desire whatever to see her an impecunious peeress, or, indeed, an impecunious anything, and she had come to the very wise conclusion that money certainly is money, and that where a chance of marrying a huge fortune was presented, it would be distinctly a failure of maternal duty not to put its advantages very distinctly and decidedly before her daughter. But she was never very much at ease with Maud, whom, if she had been another woman's child, she would have described as an uncomfortable kind of girl. But being her own, she spoke of her always as very original and with great opinions of her own. She did not particularly like girls, any more than she liked young men or new wines: they all needed maturing before they were fit for the palate. But she was just, and gave full allowance to the necessity for being young before you can become mellow, though she wished that Maud would be quick about it. Really, when a girl is nearly nineteen, nearly six feet high, with a superb figure, and a face at which men undisguisedly stare, and with reason, it is time for the possessor of such advantages to begin thinking about making her nest. Here was one ready, excellently well-feathered. She only hoped, strongly but somehow remotely, that Maud might see it in that light. But she considered her daughter to combine symptoms of hopeless simplicity with those of the most world-weary cynicism. It was impossible that both could be genuine, but it puzzled her mother to say which was. The sun was quite hot, and Mrs. Brereton at once put up her parasol, for a large glass screen sheltered them from the wind. "Delicious the sun is," she said, as she extinguished it. "And what a delightful drive we shall have, Maud! When one goes into the country like this, I can never understand why we ever live in town. So sensible of dear Nellie, is it not? She has bought a cottage in the country, with an orchard and a dairy and all that, and dreams of butter, she tells me. She probably wakes and finds that it is earwigs. That she doesn't tell me."