“Is it you, Mrs. George?” said Winifred faintly. The sudden apparition of the mother gave her a shock; and she began to perceive that the little scene was melodramatic, got up to excite her feelings. She drew back a little coldly; but the baby gazing at her between his bursts of crying, and pressing closer and closer to her shoulder, frightened by his mother’s onslaught, was no actor. She began to feel after a moment that the mother herself, crying volubly like a schoolgirl, and clutching her arm as if it were that of a giant, was, if an actor so very simple an actor, with devices so transparent and an object so little concealed, that moral indignation was completely misplaced against her artless wiles, and that nature was far stronger in her than guile. In the first revulsion she spoke coldly; but after a moment, with a truer insight, “Stand up,” she said. “Don’t cry so. Get a chair and come and sit by me. You must not go on your knees to me.” “Oh, but that I will,” cried Mrs. George, “as if you were the Queen, Miss Winnie; for you have got our lives in your hands. Look at that poor little fellow, who is your own flesh and blood. Oh, will you listen to what worldly folks say, and send him away to be brought up as if he was nobody, and him your own nephew and just heir?--oh, I don’t mean that! It appears he’s got no rights, though I always thought--the eldest son’s eldest son! But no; I don’t say that. George pleased himself marrying me, and if he lost his place for that, ain’t it more than ever my duty to do what I can for him? And I don’t make no claim. I don’t talk about rights. You’ve got the right, Miss Winnie, and there’s an end of it. Whoever opposes, it will never be George and me. But oh,” cried the young woman, rising from her knees, and addressing to Winifred all the simple eloquence of her soft face, her blue eyes blurred with tears, which flowed in half a dozen channels over the rosy undefined outline of her cheeks,--“oh, if you only knew what life was in foreign parts! It don’t suit George. He was brought up a gentleman, and he can’t abear common ways. And the children!--oh, Miss Winnie, the little boys! Would you stand by and see them brought up to hold horses and to run errands--them that are your own flesh and blood?” Little Georgie had ceased to whimper. The sight of his mother’s crying overawed the baby. He was too safe and secure in Winifred’s arms to move at once--but, reflecting in his infant soul, with his big eyes turned to his mother all the while she spoke, was at last touched beyond his childish capacity of endurance, forsook the haven in which he had found shelter, and, flinging his arms about her knees, cried out, “Mamma, don’t ky, mamma, me love you!” burying his face in the folds of her dress. Mrs. George stooped down and gathered him up in her arms with a sleight of hand natural to mothers, and then, child and all, precipitated herself once more on the carpet at the bedside.