things very easily, and other mothers were apt to admire the composure of Mrs. Dennistoun, whose son might be being murdered by savages at any moment, for anything she knew--or minded, apparently. "Now it would have driven _me_ out of my senses!" the other ladies said. Mrs. Dennistoun perhaps did not feel the back so well fitted to the burden as appeared--but she kept her own sentiments on this subject entirely to herself. (I may say too--but this, the young reader may skip without disadvantage--by way of explanation of a peculiarity which has lately been much remarked as characteristic of those records of human history contemptuously called fiction, _i.e._, the unimportance, or ill-report, or unjust disapproval of the mother in records of this description--that it is almost impossible to maintain her due rank and character in a piece of history, which has to be kept within certain limits--and where her daughter the heroine must have the first place. To lessen _her_ pre-eminence by dwelling at length upon the mother, unless that mother is a fool, or a termagant, or something thoroughly contrasting with the beauty and virtues of the daughter--would in most cases be a mistake in art. For one thing the necessary incidents are wanting, for I strongly object, and so I think do most people, to mothers who fall in love, or think of marriage, or any such vanity in their own person, and unless she is to interfere mischievously with the young lady's prospects, or take more or less the part of the villain, how is she to be permitted any importance at all? For there cannot be two suns in one sphere, or two centres to one world. Thus the mother has to be sacrificed to the daughter: which is a parable; or else it is the other way, which is against all the principles and prepossessions of life.)