On this boy Mrs. Ponsonby had founded all her hopes of a renewal of happiness for her cousin; but when she had left England there had been little amalgamation between the volatile animated boy, and his grave unbending father.  She could not conjure up any more comfortable picture of them than the child uneasily perched on his papa’s knee, looking wistfully for a way of escape, and his father with an air of having lifted him up as a duty, without knowing what to do with him or to say to him.

At her earnest advice, the little fellow had been placed as a boarder with his great aunt, Mrs. Frost, when his grandmother’s death had deprived him of all that was homelike at Ormersfield, He had been with her till he was old enough for a public school, and she spoke of him as if he were no less dear to her than her own grandchildren; but she was one who saw no fault in those whom she loved, and Mrs. Ponsonby had been rendered a little anxious by a certain tone of dissatisfaction in Lord Ormersfield’s curt mention of his son, and above all by his cold manner of announcing that this was the day when he would return from Oxford for the Easter vacation.

Could it be that the son was unworthy, or had the father’s feelings been too much chilled ever to warm again, and all home affections lost in the strife of politics?  These had ever since engaged him, whether in or out of office, leaving little time for society or for any domestic pursuit.

Her reflections were interrupted by a call of ‘Mamma!’ and her daughter came running up the steps.  Mary Ponsonby had too wide a face for beauty, and not slightness enough for symmetry, but nothing could be more pleasing and trustworthy than the open countenance, the steady, clear, greenish-brown eyes, the kind, sensible mouth, the firm chin, broad though rather short forehead, and healthy though not highly-coloured cheek; and the voice—­full, soft, and cheerful—­well agreed with the expression, and always brought gladness and promise of sympathy.

‘See, mamma, what we have found for you.’

’Violets!  The very purple ones that used to grow on the orchard bank!’

‘So they did.  Mary knew exactly where to look for them,’ said Mrs. Frost, who had followed her up the steps.

‘And there is Gervas,’ continued Mary; ’so charmed to hear of you, that we had almost brought him to see you.’

Mrs. Ponsonby declared herself so much invigorated by Ormersfield air, that she would go to see her old friend the gardener.  Mary hurried to fetch her bonnet, and returned while a panegyric was going on upon her abilities as maid-of-all-work, in her mother’s difficulties with male housemaids—­black and brown—­and washerwomen who rode on horseback in white satin shoes.  She looked as if it were hardly natural that any one but herself should support her mother, when Mrs. Frost tenderly drew Mrs. Ponsonby’s arm into her own; and it was indeed strange to see