The sons, Sidney and Laurence, grew up together, passionate, devoted, and widely loved.  Sidney married and went away for a few years; but presently he came back to his mother and brother, bringing with him the motherless little Sidney who was Jean’s sunny big husband now.  This younger Sidney well remembered the day—­and had once told his wife of it—­when his father and his uncle fell to sudden quarrelling in their boat, during a morning’s fishing on the placid river.  He remembered, a small watcher on the bank, that the boat upset, and that, when his uncle reached the shore, it was to work unavailingly for hours over his father’s silent form, which never moved again.  The boy was sent away for a while, but came back to find his uncle a silent, morose shadow, pacing the lonely garden in unassailable solitude, or riding his horse for hours in the great woods.  Sometimes the little fellow would sit with his grandmother in the library window, where she watched and waited.  Always, as he went about the garden and yards, he would look for her there, and wave his cap to her.  He missed her, in his unexpressed little-boy fashion, when she sat there no longer, although she had always been silent and reserved with him.  Then came his years of school and travel, and in one of them he learned that the Hall was quite empty now.  Sidney meant to go back, just to turn over the old books, and open the old doors, and walk the garden paths again; but, somehow, he had never come until to-day.  And now that he had come, he, and Jean, and Peter, too, wanted to stay.

Jean sighed.

“You knew Madam Carolan, didn’t you, Mary?”

“No—­no, I didn’t,” said Mrs. Moore, coloring uneasily.  “I’ve seen her, though, as a small girl, at the window.  I used to visit Billy’s—­my husband’s—­people when we were both small, you know, and we often came to these woods.”

“I’ve been thinking of the house and its cheerful history,” said Jean, with a little shudder.  “Sweet heritage for Peterkin!”

“Heritage—­nonsense!” said the other woman, hardily.  “Every one tells me that your husband is the gentlest and finest of them all—­ and his father was before him.  I don’t believe such things come down, anyway.”

“Well,” smiled Sidney’s wife, a little proudly, “I’ve never seen the Carolan temper in the nine years we’ve been married!”

“Exactly.  Besides, it’s not a temper—­just strong will.”

“Sidney has will enough,” mused Jean.

“Oh, all men have,” said the doctor’s wife contentedly.  “Billy, now!  He won’t stand a locked door.  One night—­I never shall forget!—­the children locked themselves in the nursery, and Will simply burst the door in.  Nobody makes a fuss or worries over that!”

If the illustration was beside the point, neither woman perceived it.

“There, you see!” said Jean, glad to be quite sure of conviction.  “It never really worries me,” she added, after a moment, “for Peter adores his father, and is only too eager to obey him.  If Peter—­and it’s impossible!—­ever did really work himself up to disobedience, why, I suppose he’d get a thrashing,”—­she made a wry face,—­“and they’d love each other all the more for it.”