“There is not a gray hair in your head!” Mrs. de Vere cried, indignantly, as she ran her fingers through the clustering dark curls. “But I dare say the child is not half the coquette they pretend,” she added, for her kind heart went out more and more to the absent, friendless girl. She paid no attention to Norman’s careless banter. He was too old and saddened and busy, and Thea West too young and giddy for the two to have anything in common with each other. “So you will go?” he asked. “Yes, to-morrow,” she replied, with eager interest. CHAPTER XXXIII. “After all, it is very lonely without my mother. I am glad she is coming home to-night,” Norman de Vere said to himself, when quite two weeks of time had elapsed since his mother’s departure for Virginia. He had not had the least idea that she would remain away more than a week, for he had great faith in her powers of persuasion. She, if any one, would be able to overcome Thea West’s sturdy notions of independence. She had succeeded, as he had thought she would. Thea capitulated to the sweet and gentle woman’s arguments and persuasions, although she would have stood firm as a rock against Norman de Vere’s commands. The first letter had told Norman she had succeeded. “She will come with me to Verelands, but we are going to Richmond first. I want to buy Thea some new things,” she wrote, indefinitely, so it was two weeks now, and to-day there was another letter saying that to-night they would be home. Mrs. de Vere wrote: “Thea remembers you, although she was so young when she saw you last. She is a sweet child.” “Rather a big child now,” Norman de Vere thought, with some amusement. “I wonder if she will take to me now as she did when she first saw me? But, no; I was a handsome young fellow then. I am old and altered now;” and he glanced disparagingly into a mirror that reflected a man whose claims to good looks far exceeded even those of thirteen years ago, while he certainly did not look more than thirty. Time had only touched him to improve, although he had added a touch of sad gravity to the beautiful beardless lips and a thoughtful light to the splendid dark eyes. “I hope the little coquette will not turn the house topsy-turvy with her whims. Why could she not have married Frank Hinton and settled herself for life?” he had thought many times since his mother had gone away, with an inward chafing against the change the girl’s coming would make at Verelands. Then he would take himself severely to task: “I am growing selfish, bearish. I ought to be glad for my mother’s sake.”