That day she had him carefully dressed, and led him with her to Mary to make one last attempt. She had taught him with the tenderest exactitude what he was to say. It was not very much, only “Mamma, speak to Mar; dear mamma, speak to father’s little boy.” Mar said it very prettily after Agnes. His great eyes, which were so large and so sad; looked wistfully into the very heart of the woman who loved him. “Speak to father’s little boy.” She cried herself when she heard him, and did not think that any heart could resist it. She led him into Mary’s room, holding his little hand very fast to give him courage, and brought him to the side of the bed where Lady Frogmore was lying very patient and quiet, with tears in her eyes, but a faint smile upon her patient mouth. “Mary,” said Agnes, “I have brought your little Mar to see you. Your own little boy. You have never given him a kiss, not since he was a baby in the cradle.” She led him to his mother’s side, and pulled his arm to remind him of what he had to say. But Mar had forgot, or else he was too much overawed by the sight of this strange lady who was his mother. He gazed at her with his big melancholy eyes, but he could not find a word to say. Mary did not turn her head away. She looked at him not without a little emotion. “Is this the little boy,” she said, “that my dear old lord was fond of? That should always give him a claim upon me.” “Oh, he has a claim. He has a first claim,” cried Agnes, “on his own account.” Mary did not risk any reply, but she put her hand upon his head and smoothed his hair, and said, “Poor little boy.” And Mar did not say a word. Not though Agnes pulled his sleeve, and touched his elbow, and did everything that was possible to jog his memory. “Mar!” she said in an emphatic and significant whisper. But not a syllable did Mar say, not even “mamma,” which would have been so natural. He only stood and gazed with those large eyes that looked doubly large in his small pale face--till there remained nothing for Agnes to do but to take him away again, and to acknowledge to herself that she had failed. “Oh Mar, Mar!” she cried, when she had taken him back to his nursery; “why didn’t you speak? Why didn’t you say what I told you?” But even then Mar had not found his tongue, and he made her no reply.