“But why?” said Felix.

“Oh! but don’t you see?  It’s so nice; nobody can tell.  And it doesn’t give any trouble.”

“And when you go to bed?”

“Oh!  I just pop my clothes into this and open that.  And there I am.  It’s simply splendid.”

“I see,” said Felix.  “Do you think I might sit down, or shall I go through?”

Frances Freeland loved him with her eyes, and said: 

“Naughty boy!”

And Felix sat down on what appeared to be a window-seat.

“Well,” he said, with slight uneasiness, for she was hovering, “I think you’re wonderful.”

Frances Freeland put away an impeachment that she evidently felt to be too soft.

“Oh! but it’s all so simple, darling.”  And Felix saw that she had something in her hand, and mind.

“This is my little electric brush.  It’ll do wonders with your hair.  While you sit there, I’ll just try it.”

A clicking and a whirring had begun to occur close to his ear, and something darted like a gadfly at his scalp.

“I came to tell you something serious, Mother.”

“Yes, darling; it’ll be simply lovely to hear it; and you mustn’t mind this, because it really is a first-rate thing—­quite new.”

Now, how is it, thought Felix, that any one who loves the new as she does, when it’s made of matter, will not even look at it when it’s made of mind?  And, while the little machine buzzed about his head, he proceeded to detail to her the facts of the state of things that existed at Joyfields.

When he had finished, she said: 

“Now, darling, bend down a little.”

Felix bent down.  And the little machine began severely tweaking the hairs on the nape of his neck.  He sat up again rather suddenly.

Frances Freeland was contemplating the little machine.

“How very provoking!  It’s never done that before!”

“Quite so!” Felix murmured.  “But about Joyfields?”

“Oh, my dear, it is such a pity they don’t get on with those Mallorings!  I do think it sad they weren’t brought up to go to church.”

Felix stared, not knowing whether to be glad or sorry that his recital had not roused within her the faintest suspicion of disaster.  How he envied her that single-minded power of not seeing further than was absolutely needful!  And suddenly he thought:  ’She really is wonderful!  With her love of church, how it must hurt her that we none of us go, not even John!  And yet she never says a word.  There really is width about her; a power of accepting the inevitable.  Never was woman more determined to make the best of a bad job.  It’s a great quality!’ And he heard her say: 

“Now, darling, if I give you this, you must promise me to use it every morning.  You’ll find you’ll soon have a splendid crop of little young hairs.”

“I know,” he said gloomily; “but they won’t come to anything.  Age has got my head, Mother, just as it’s got ‘the Land’s.’”