At that same moment Dick was on his way to the back door which communicated with the boat-building yard--but was met, to his wonder and dismay, by his mother, flying from the house with a face blanched to deadly paleness, and a precipitate haste about her, which nothing but fear could have produced. She seized him by the arm without a word--indeed she was too breathless and panting to speak--and dragged him with her, too much amazed to resist. “For God’s sake, what is the matter, mother?” he said, when surprise would let him speak. She made no answer, but holding fast by him, took refuge in a boat-house built against the side wall of the little backyard through which she had flown. Dick, who was a patient fellow, not easily excited, stood by her wondering, but refraining to question when he saw the state of painful excitement in which she was. “Listen!” she said, under her breath; and presently he heard Val’s voice in the yard calling her. “Mrs Brown!” cried Val; though it was the first time after her disavowal of it that he had used that name, which was now adopted by everybody else, as of course the name of Dick Brown’s mother. “I can’t think where she can have gone to,” he added, with some vexation; “and I wanted you to see her specially--almost more than Brown himself.” “Well, my dear, it cannot be helped,” said the voice of Lady Eskside, much more composed than Val’s--for I cannot say that she was deeply disappointed. “No doubt the honest woman has run out about some needful business--leaving her peas, too. Come, Val, since you can’t find her; your grandpapa will be waiting for us, my dear.” “I can’t see Brown, either,” he said, with still greater annoyance, coming back after an expedition into the yard. “The men say he went home. I can’t tell you how annoyed I am.” “Well, well, I can see them another time, my dear,” said my lady, smiling within herself at the boy’s disappointment--“and we must be going to meet your grandfather. I wonder where she got that cover on her table. I had a shawl just like it once; but come, dear, come; think of my old lord waiting. We must not lose any more time, Val.” Dick put his arm round his mother; he thought she was going to faint, so deadly white was her face--white as the kerchief on her head. She laid her head on his shoulder, and moaned faintly. Her closed eyes, her blanched cheeks, her lips falling helplessly apart, gave Dick an impression of almost death. “Mother, tell me, for God’s sake, who is this, and what is the matter with you?” he cried. CHAPTER XXIII. “You must hold yourself ready to be called back at a moment’s notice, Val,” said the old lord. “It must be some time next year, and it may be any day. That is to say, we can scarcely have it, I suppose, before Parliament meets, except in some unforeseen case. Therefore see all you can as soon as you can, and after February hold yourself in readiness to be recalled any day.”