lead to a renewal of the old tenderness.  She went up to Nora, having collected the other girls, and said that the carriage was then waiting for them.  Mr Glascock immediately offered Lady Rowley his arm, and took her down to the hall.  Could it be that she was leaning upon a future son-in-law?  There was something in the thought which made her lay her weight upon him with a freedom which she would not otherwise have used.  Oh! that her Nora should live to be Lady Peterborough!  We are apt to abuse mothers for wanting high husbands for their daughters but can there be any point in which the true maternal instinct can shew itself with more affectionate enthusiasm?  This poor mother wanted nothing for herself from Mr Glascock.  She knew very well that it was her fate to go back to the Mandarins, and probably to die there.  She knew also that such men as Mr Glascock, when they marry beneath themselves in rank and fortune, will not ordinarily trouble themselves much with their mothers-in-law.  There was nothing desired for herself.  Were such a match accomplished, she might, perhaps, indulge herself in talking among the planters’ wives of her daughter’s coronet; but at the present moment there was no idea even of this in her mind.  It was of Nora herself, and of Nora’s sisters, that she was thinking, for them that she was plotting that the one might be rich and splendid, and the others have some path opened for them to riches and splendour.  Husband-hunting mothers may be injudicious; but surely they are maternal and unselfish.  Mr Glascock put her into the carriage, and squeezed her hand and then he squeezed Nora’s hand.  She saw it, and was sure of it.  ’I am so glad you are going to be happy,’ Nora had said to him before this.  ’As far as I have seen her, I like her so much.’  ’If you do not come and visit her in her own house, I shall think you have no spirit of friendship,’ he said.  ’I will,’ Nora had replied ‘I will.’  This had been said just as Lady Rowley was coming to them, and on this understanding, on this footing, Mr Glascock had pressed her hand.

As she went home, Lady Rowley’s mind was full of doubt as to the course which it was best that she should follow with her daughter.  She was not unaware how great was the difficulty before her.  Hugh Stanbury’s name had not been mentioned since they left London, but at that time Nora was obstinately bent on throwing herself away upon the ‘penny-a-liner.’  She had never been brought to acknowledge that such a marriage would be even inappropriate, and had withstood gallantly the expression of her father’s displeasure.  But with such a spirit as Nora’s, it might be easier to prevail by silence than by many words.  Lady Rowley was quite sure of this:  that it would be far better to say nothing further of Hugh Stanbury.  Let the cure come, if it might be possible, from absence and from her daughter’s good sense.  The only question was whether it would be wise to say any word about Mr Glascock.  In the carriage she