"My father was not three and twenty when he married--two years younger than I am at this present hour--and yet the idea of matrimony has never shaped itself in my mind. But you must not infer from anything I have said that my father's has been an unhappy marriage. On the contrary, he is devoted to my mother, and she to him. I cannot imagine a better assorted couple. Each supplies the qualities wanting in the other. She is all movement, impulse, and spontaneousness. He is calm and meditative, with depths of thought and feeling which no one has sounded. They are perfectly happy as husband and wife. But there is a shade of melancholy that steals over my father in quiet, unoccupied hours, which indicates a sorrow or a disappointment in the past. I have taken it to mean an unhappy love-affair. I may be utterly wrong, and the shadow may be cast by a disappointed ambition. It is not unlikely that a man of powerful intellect and lymphatic temperament should feel that he had wasted opportunities, and failed in life. It is quite easy to imagine ambition without the energy to achieve." She made no comment upon this, but Allan could see in her eager countenance that she was intensely interested. "Is your mother beautiful?" she asked timidly. It seemed a foolish and futile question; and it jarred upon that serious thought of his parents which had been inspired by her previous questioning. But, after all, it was a natural question for a woman to ask, and he smiled as he answered-- "No, my mother is not beautiful. I am not guilty of treason as a son if I confess that she is plain, since she herself would be the first to take offence at any sophistication of the truth. She has never set up for being other than she is. She has a fine countenance and a fine figure, straight as a dart, with a waist which a girl might acknowledge without a blush. She dresses with admirable taste, and always looks well, after her own fashion, exclusive of beautiful features or brilliant colouring. She is what women call stylish, and men distinguished. I am as proud as I am fond of her." "Will she come to see you in your new home?" "Most assuredly my mother will pay me a visit before the summer is over, and I shall be charmed to bring you and her together." "And your father? Will not he come?" "I don't know. He is very difficult to move. He is like the lichen on the old stone walls at home. He takes no particular interest in chairs and tables; he would care not a fig for my new surroundings. Besides, he saw Beechhurst years ago, when the Admiral was building and improving. He has no curiosity to bring him here; and as for his son, he knows he has only to want me for me to be at his side."