The late Sir Timothy, like many middle-class people, had taken a compliment almost as a personal offence; and regarded the utterer, however gracious or sincere, with suspicion.  Neither had the squire himself erred on the side of flattering his fellow-creatures.

“Oh yes, I remember,” said Lady Mary; and she rose from the sofa.

“Why, what’s the matter?” asked Peter.  “I haven’t vexed you, have I?”

She turned impetuously and threw her arms round him as he stood by the hearth, gazing down upon her in bewilderment.

“Vexed with my boy, my darling, my only son, on the very day when God has given him back to me?” she cried passionately.  “My poor wounded boy, my hero!  Oh no, no!  But I want only love from you to-day, and no reproaches, Peter.”

“Why, I wasn’t dreaming of reproaching you, mother.”  He hesitated.  “Only you’re a bit different from what I expected—­that’s all.”

“Have I disappointed you?”

“No, no!  Only I—­well, I thought I might find you changed, but in a different way,” he said, half apologetically.  “Perhaps older, you know, or—­or sadder.”

Lady Mary’s white face flushed scarlet from brow to chin; but Peter, occupied with his monocle, observed nothing.

“I’d prepared myself for that,” he said, “and to find you all in black.  And—­”

“I threw off my mourning,” she murmured, “the very day I heard you were coming home.”  She paused, and added hurriedly, “It was very thoughtless.  I’m sorry; I ought to have thought of your feelings, my darling.”

“Aunt Isabella has never changed hers, has she?” said Peter.

“Aunt Isabella is a good deal more conventional than I am; and a great many years older,” said Lady Mary, tremulously.

“I don’t see what that has to do with it,” said Peter.

She turned away, and began to gather up her scattered roses.  A few moments since the roses had been less than nothing to her.  What were roses, what was anything, compared to Peter?  Now they crept back into their own little place in creation; their beauty and fragrance dumbly conveyed a subtle comfort to her soul, as she lovingly laid one against another, until a glowing bouquet of coppery golden hue was formed.  She lifted an ewer from the old dresser, and poured water into a great silver goblet, wherein she plunged the stalks of her roses.  Why should they be left to fade because Peter had come home?

“You remember these?” she said, “from the great climber round my bedroom window?  I leant out and cut them—­little thinking—­”

Peter signified a gloomy assent.  He stood before the chimneypiece watching his mother, but not offering to help her; rather as though undecided as to what his next words ought to be.

“Peter, darling, it’s so funny to see you standing there, so tall, and so changed—­” But though it was so funny the tears were dropping from her blue eyes, which filled and overflowed like a child’s, without painful effort or grimaces.  “You—­you remind me so of your father,” she said, almost involuntarily.