The worn old face looked rebuked, perhaps a trifle disappointed. 'Lo! I have heard ever,' she said, with a regret in her voice also, 'that they are as angels, without jealousy; not as we----' Here the sight of the dark intelligent face above hers seemed to come upon her as if it had been her lover's and she a girl. She laid her head suddenly on his knee and laughed, a laugh that held a sob. 'Then I have thee to myself for now, heart's darling!' she murmured--'thou and thy house!' She looked around her, full of childish curiosity and amazement. 'Thou art _Ameer_, indeed!' she went on with awe, touching the tablecloth gingerly with her fingers, 'and all those dishes!' She shook her head dismally. 'Lo! Krishn! how shall I ever feed thee when thou comest to our poor house? Yet wilt thou not mind,' she added; 'thou wert never a greedy one!' Then the curiosity prevailed even over her thoughts of him, and clinging to his arm still, she raised herself to peer over the table at the drawing-room through which she had hurried. 'Thou dost eat here, and sleep there,' she suggested. 'Nay! Krishn, think not thy mother a fool; but she is so glad--so glad--and all is so new--it is a spectacle!' Her familiar face, so austere now in its lines, yet still so full of life, furrowed by late tears, yet smoothed by present smiles, seemed to him the most charming thing of his very own he had seen for years. He rose like the boy he was in reality, and raised her with him. 'Come, little mother,' he said in banter. 'Come, feminine one, and see it all; there will be no peace for talk till that is over.' It came naturally to him, that tone of superior affection which he had not dared to use for so long. So, hand in hand, he showed her things strange and new; and as he did so, saying that Viva had made this or arranged that, a certain content in the fact grew up in him. 'Doth she play this?' asked the widow in her shroud, as she touched the keys of the piano with an awed finger. 'Yea, and sings too,' he replied proudly. 'She shall sing for thee next time'--he had quite forgotten realities in this present--'and now,' he added, 'thou must see the rest, for we sleep not here. This is but for sitting.' He took one of the pink-shaded lamps and led the way. 'This is my room,' he said with (considering the circumstances) a perfectly childish pomp and delight in his task. His mother looked into the slip of a room with approval, until she came to the little camp-bed set in a corner. 'Are there no flowers?' she asked quickly: 'the wedding is not so old yet----' The pink-shaded lamp trembled suddenly in his hands. He had remembered realities. 'And this--this is--the other,' he continued, passing on.