He went up and kissed her. He loved her much. She loved him, too, better than she loved anything in life; and she drew a chair close to her, and he sat down, bending towards her. There was not much likeness between them, the mother and the son; both were very good-looking, but not alike. "You see, mother mine, I am not late, as you prophesied I should be," said he, with one of his sweetest smiles. "You would have been, Lionel, but for my warning. I'm sure I wish--I _wish_ she was not coming! She must remember the old days in India, and will perceive the difference." "She will scarcely remember India, when you were there. She is only a child yet, isn't she?" "You know nothing about it, Lionel," was the querulous answer. "Whether she remembers or not, will she expect to see _me_ in such a house, in such a position as this? It is at these seasons, when people are coming here, who know what I have been and ought to be, that I feel all the humiliation of my poverty. Lucy Tempest is nineteen." Lionel Verner knew that it was of no use to argue with his mother, when she began upon that most unsatisfactory topic, her position; which included what she called her "poverty" and her "wrongs." Though, in truth, not a day passed but she broke out upon it. "Lionel," she suddenly said. He had been glancing over the pages of the book--a new work on India. He laid it down as he had found it, and turned to her. "What shall you allow me when you come into Verner's Pride?" "Whatever you shall wish, mother. You shall name the sum, not I. And if you name too modest a one," he added laughingly, "I shall double it. But Verner's Pride must be your home then, as well as mine." "Never!" was the emphatic answer. "What! to be turned out of it again by the advent of a young wife? No, never, Lionel." Lionel laughed--constrainedly this time. "I may not be bringing home a young wife for this many and many a year to come." "If you never brought one, I would not make my home at Verner's Pride," she resumed, in the same impulsive voice. "Live in the house by favour, that ought to have been mine by right? You would not be my true son to ask me, Lionel. Catherine, is that you?" she called out, as the movements of some one were heard in the ante-room. A woman-servant put in her head. "My lady?" "Tell Miss Verner that Mr. Lionel is here?" "Miss Verner knows it, my lady," was the woman's reply. "She bade me ask you, sir," addressing Lionel, "if you'd please to step out to her." "Is she getting ready, Catherine?" asked Lady Verner. "I think not, my lady." "Go to her, Lionel, and ask her if she knows the time. A pretty thing if you arrive at the station after the train is in!" Lionel quitted the room. Outside in the hall stood Catherine, waiting for him. "Miss Verner has met with a little accident and hurt her foot, sir," she whispered. "She can't walk." "Not walk!" exclaimed Lionel. "Where is she?" "She is in the store-room, sir; where it happened."