Lawrence wished to stand well with his mother, and had, indeed, improved in his behavior toward her in proportion as he had grown more impatient with Mrs. Ferrier. He seemed now to regret having answered her unpleasantly. “If you knew, mother, all the little annoyances I have to bear from her, you wouldn’t blame me so much,” he said coaxingly. “With other frets, she has a habit of asking any of us who may be going out where we are going, and when we are coming back; and Annette has humored her in that till she thinks she has a right to know. Teddy always tells her, too; but then he tells lies. That makes no difference, though, to her. Well, I have broken her of asking me when I am alone; but if Annette is with me, she asks her. Can’t you imagine, mother, that it would get to be irritating after a while? It makes me so nervous sometimes that I have really skulked out of the house slyly, as if I had no right to go. And then, when I come in, she will say, ‘Why, where have you been, Lawrence? I didn’t hear you go out.’ If a door opens anywhere, she goes to see who is about. I believe if I should get up in the middle of the night, and try to creep out of the house without being heard, I should see her head poked out of the chamber‐door before I’d got half‐way down‐stairs. Then she peers and finds out everything. Annette and I had a bottle of champagne the other night in our room, and the next morning she spied out the bottle, and spoke of it. I suppose she heard the cork pop when I drew it. You never looked after me half so closely when I was a little boy, always in mischief, as she does now I am a man. She knows what my clothes cost, every rag of them, and how many clean collars and handkerchiefs I have in the week.” “I am sure she need not trouble herself about how much your clothes cost, since you pay for them yourself,” Mrs. Gerald said, her face very red. “And if she grudges you clean collars, send your linen home, and I will have it washed there.” “Oh! she has no such thought,” Lawrence made haste to say. “She doesn’t mean to be cross about any of these things, but only prying. She wants to overlook everybody and everything in the house, and it annoys me. I only tell you so that you may not wonder if I do speak out now and then about some small thing. Then what do you think she has proposed about my going into business?” “Well?” Mrs. Gerald said uneasily. “She has selected a partner for me.” His mother waited for an explanation. “And who should it be but John!” “John who?” asked Mrs. Gerald wonderingly, trying to recollect some notable person of that name among her youthful acquaintances. “Why, I do not know that he has any other name. The big English fellow who lets you in here, and waits at dinner, and opens and shuts the carriage‐ door.” “What! you do not mean the footman?” Mrs. Gerald cried.