Henry Little caught that glance, and stood at the gate black with rage. he stood there about a minute, and then walked slowly home again:  he felt he should quarrel with Grace if he went in, and, by a violent effort of self-restraint, he retraced his steps; but he went home sick at heart.

The mother’s eye read his worn face in a moment, and soon she had it all out of him.  It cost her a struggle not to vent her maternal spleen on Grace; but she knew that would only make her son more unhappy.  She advised him minutely what to say to the young lady about Mr. Coventry:  and, as to the other matters she said, “You have found Mr. Bolt not so bad to beat as he tells you:  for he is beaten, and there’s an end of him.  Now let me try.”

“Why, what on earth can you do in a case of this kind?”

“Have I ever failed when you have accepted my assistance?”

“No:  that’s true.  Well, I shall be glad of your assistance now, heaven knows; only I can’t imagine—­”

“Never mind:  will you take Grace Carden if I throw her into your arms?”

“Oh, mother, can you ask me?”

Mrs. Little rang the bell, and ordered a fly.  Henry offered to accompany her.  She declined.  “Go to bed early,” said she, “and trust to your mother.  We are harder to beat sometimes than a good many Mr. Bolts.”

She drove to Dr. Amboyne’s house, and sent in her name.  She was ushered into the doctor’s study, and found him shivering over an enormous fire.  “Influenza.”

“Oh dear,” said she, “I’m afraid you are very ill.”

“Never mind that.  Sit down.  You will not make me any worse, you may be sure of that.”  And he smiled affectionately on her.

“But I came to intrude my own troubles on you.”

“All the better.  That will help me forget mine.”

Mrs. Little seated herself, and, after a slight hesitation, opened her battery thus:—­“Well, my good friend, I am come to ask you a favor.  It is to try and reconcile my brother and me.  If any one can do it, you can.”

“Praise the method, not the man.  If one could only persuade you to put yourself in his place, and him to put himself in yours, you would be both reconciled in five minutes.”

“You forget we have been estranged this five-and-twenty years.”

“No I don’t.  The only question is, whether you can and will deviate from the practice of the world into an obese lunatic’s system, both of you.”

“Try me, to begin.”

The doctor’s eyes sparkled with satisfaction.  “Well, then,” said he, “first you must recollect all the differences you have seen between the male and female mind, and imagine yourself a man.”

“Oh, dear! that is so hard.  But I have studied Henry.  Well, there—­I have unsexed myself—­in imagination.”

“You are not only a man but a single-minded man, with a high and clear sense of obligation.  You are a trustee, bound by honor to protect the interests of a certain woman and a certain child.  The lady, under influence, wishes to borrow her son’s money, and risk it on rotten security.  You decline, and the lady’s husband affronts you.  In spite of that affront, being a high-minded man not to be warped by petty irritation, you hurry to your lawyers to get two thousand pounds of your own, for the man who had affronted you.”