The all-important business of the stable concluded, he went back to Suffolk to spend Easter in the bosom of his family, and to tell his father what he had done. There was perfect harmony of feeling, and frankest confidence between father and son, and the son's regard for the father was all the stronger because, under that quiet and somewhat languid bearing of the Squire of Fendyke, Allan suspected hidden depths. Of the history of his father's youth, or the history of his father's heart, the son knew nothing; yet, fondly as he loved his mother, the excellent and popular Lady Emily, he had a shrewd suspicion that she was not the kind of woman to have won his father's heart in the days when love means romance rather than reason. That she possessed her husband's warm affection now, he, the son, was fully assured; but he was equally assured that the alliance had been passionless, a union of two honourable minds, rather than of two loving hearts. There was that in his father's manner of life which to Allan's mind told of a youth overshadowed by some unhappy experience; and a word dropped now and then, in the father's talk of his son's prospects and hopes, a hint, a sigh, had suggested an unfortunate love-affair. His mother was more communicative, and had told her son frankly that she was not his father's first love. "You remember your grandmother, Allan?" she said. Yes, Allan remembered her distinctly--an elderly woman dressed in some rich silken fabric, always black, with a silver chatelaine at her side, on which there hung a curious old enamelled watch that he loved to look at. A tall slender figure, a thin aquiline countenance, with silvery hair arrayed in feathery curls under a honiton cap. She had been always kind to him; but no kindness could dispel the awe which she inspired. "I used to dream of her," he said. "Had she a frightening voice, do you think? She was mixed up in most of my childish nightmares." "Poor Allan!" laughed his mother. "She was an excellent woman, but she loved to command; and one can't command affection, not even the affection of a child. It was she who made your father marry me. He liked me, and I liked him, and we had been playfellows; but we should never have thought of marrying if your grandmother had not, in a manner, insisted upon it. She told George that I was deeply in love with him; and she told me that George was devoted to me; and so we could not help ourselves. And, after all," she went on, with a comfortable sigh, "it has answered very well. I don't think we could possibly be fonder of our home, or of each other, than we are. And your father has his books, and his shooting and fishing, and I have my farm and my schools--and," with a sudden gush of tenderness, "we both have you. You ought to be fond of us, Allan. You are the link that makes us one in heart and mind."