consideration and tempered justice with mercy when any fault was pointed out at the office or among the men, far more than most masters do, and was slow to lose patience with any young culprit; but he looked severe, which is the same thing--nay, is better as a deterrent. The people under him were afraid of the stern look of his youthful unimpeachable virtue: whereas, if he had been as severe in fact as in looks, a natural antagonism, the protest of nature against harshness, would have speedily evolved itself. There are some things, however, which John has not been able to do, notwithstanding his great success. He has never been able to move his mother from the position in which she has so firmly placed herself. Mrs. Sandford spoke no more of her husband than was inevitable; she never recurred to the subject with John, never mentioned it to Susie except on that one morning when Mr. Cattley was first introduced to her: but she took upon herself all the arrangements that were made by Mr. Cattley for May’s comfort, not permitting either son or daughter to interfere. Susie was proud of this fact, while John with a grudge understood it at least--that the proud woman could speak more freely to a stranger than to her children, of the man who had been the ruin of her own life. She would not see her husband, however, and never spoke of him, nor gave the least indication of any knowledge on the subject. If she was aware of the time of his departure, she made no sign of knowing it. There was no relenting in her, no affection, only a horror beyond words. And she would not allow John, when he began to grow rich, to remove her from the laborious post which it seemed no longer right that the mother of a rising man, with plenty of money at his disposal, should continue to hold. She smiled at the suggestion, and dismissed it with a wave of her hand. To return to the little house at Edgeley among all the village people, which was what John in youthful ignorance, notwithstanding his precocious middle-age, would have liked her to do, was indeed impossible. What would she have done there? unless, indeed, the cholera had broken out, or some tremendous epidemic, when she could have organised hospitals. John, however, here let us allow, with a great want of perception, was annoyed that she should not have accepted this proposal of his, and retired and given herself repose after her hard-working life. But Mrs. Sandford was not one of the people who long for rest. ‘The wages of going on’ was what pleased her most, and work, and her own way. John was not pleased; it would have soothed him to think that his mother was resting and doing nothing in that little house, which he kept up always with an obstinate determination that it should be, if not a grateful retirement for anyone, at least the shrine of departed innocence and peace.