His widow raised a tremendous tablet to his memory, eulogising his scientific attainments and domestic worth; but, although she appeared inconsolable, she was secretly pleased to have the uncontrolled education of her infant son.  An elderly lady with a baby-boy is like a girl with a doll—­just as the little mother dresses and undresses its counterfeit presentment of a child in wax and rags, crooning over its tiny cradle, talking to it in baby-language, pretending to watch with anxious solicitude its every mood, so Mrs. Purling found in Harold a plaything of which she never tired.  She coddled and cosseted him to her heart’s content.  If he had cried for the moon some effort would have been made to obtain for him the loan of that pale planet, or the best substitute for it that could be got for cash.  If his finger ached, or he had a pain in his big toe, he was physicked with half the Pharmacopoeia; he underwent divers systems of regimen, was kept out of draughts, cautioned against chills, cased in red flannel; he might, to crown all, have been laid by in cotton-wool.  His mother’s over-much care ought to have killed him; but he had inherited from her a fine physique, and the lad was large-limbed, healthy, and well grown.

And this vigilant supervision was prolonged far beyond the time when youths are emancipated usually from their mother’s control.  Long after he had left college, and was launched out upon the world, she kept her hands upon the reins, ruling him with a sharp bit, and driving him the road she decided it was best for him to go.  Mrs. Purling had grown more and more imperious with advancing years, impatient of contradiction, self-satisfied, very positive that everything she did was right.  She could not brook opposition to her wishes.  Those who dared to thwart her must do it at their peril; no nature but one entirely subservient would be likely to continue permanently in accord with hers; and it was easy to predict troubles in the future between mother and son unless he yielded always a complete and docile submission to her will.

For a long time Harold wore his chains without a murmur.  Obedient deference had been a habit with him from childhood, and, however irksome and galling the slavery, it was not until he had made practical acquaintance with the actual value of the life she wished him to lead that there arose in him a disposition to rebel.  Mrs. Purling had all along been chafed with the notion that she did not enjoy that social distinction to which as a wealthy woman she considered herself entitled.  In her own estimation she ranked very high; but the best families of the neighbourhood did not accept her valuation.  Some went so far as to call her a vulgar old snob; and “snobbish,” as we understand the word, she certainly was.  She worshipped rank; and it was a very sore point with her that she was not freely admitted into the best society of the county in which she lived.  She looked to Harold to redress her wrongs.  Where she failed, a handsome young fellow, of engaging presence and heir to a fine estate, must assuredly succeed.  He might, if he chose, be acceptable anywhere.  There was no limit to her dreams.  He might mate with a duke’s daughter; and after such an alliance—­who would presume to question the social rights of the Purlings?