"I explained that I couldn't leave Mrs. Des Vœux just at present, but it was love which kept me, not servitude. I said I was happier in my working life, and did not feel now that I should care to give it up, but said I would come whenever Mrs. Des Vœux could spare me. I am going to them in the autumn for a while with Jacky, while Mary takes my place with Mrs. Des Vœux. I am very glad to be at peace with Jim's people. The difference between us has hurt me all those years." "They will be delighted with Jacky," I said. "Lady Hazeldine has seen him. She drove down to Parson's Green as soon as she heard where he was, making, I've no doubt, a fine sensation for Grove Avenue with her carriage and pair. She cried over Jacky, poor woman, and he, ungrateful monkey, just wriggled out of her embrace. 'You aren't my grandmother,' he said flatly. 'I've a mother and a Gran, (that's what he calls Mary when he doesn't call her by her Christian name) and lots of aunties, but I've no grandmother.' Poor Mary was horrified, and tried to persuade him of the relationship, but he stuck to his own opinion. 'If you were my grandmother," he said, 'you'd have taken me for a ride in that carriage long ago.' The poor woman felt it acutely. She wrote and told me about it. _Your boy was right, Freda_, she wrote, _that is the sting of it. But for Jim's sake you will teach him to love and forgive me._" "Oh, poor woman," said I, "I am sorry for her!" "So am I," said Freda, "but Jacky is terribly uncompromising. And how strange it is that the Hazeldines' good-will comes to me now that I am independent of it! Last year, or the year before, it would have meant deliverance." The next evening we went over to the Court to dine. It was a delightful house in the midst of rose gardens, and when we had gone into the shaded drawing-room, we found roses everywhere, in bowls and vases and baskets, so that the room was as sweet as the sunny garden. In the midst of all the sweetness sat the dear white-haired old lady, with her thin hands in the lap of her black silk gown, and her figure wearing the ineffable look of patience that comes to the blind. Freda introduced us, and then the dear old lady made me sit beside her, and held my hand and patted it. "I can't make out your face, my dear," she said, "but I always think I can imagine what people are like from touching them. Even your hands tell me you are fair and soft and sweet like your dear sister, who has done so much to brighten my life since she came." Then she held Lance's hand a minute and congratulated us so sweetly on our happiness, and read us a little homily on the married life, to which we both listened as reverently as if we were in church. Jacky, who had been specially invited, arrived just then looking very spruce. He came in with the most sedate little air imaginable, and getting round to Mrs. Des Vœux's side, bent down and kissed her hand.