and Laura."

Her son sat down. He began poking about an invisible stone, lying in among the grass, with his stick.

"You cared for Laura's mother as if she had been your sister--didn't you, mother? And yet I can't imagine you with a great woman friend, I mean, of course, a friend of your own age."

She turned and looked at him. "Ah, my dear,--those are the friends that count!" and she nearly added, "Don't _you_ find it so?" But, instead, she went on quickly, "Yes, I loved Laura's mother dearly, dearly--and it was for her sake that I asked you to be good to her son, to Gillie."

"Laura's extraordinarily fond of Gillie----" There always came a curious change over Oliver Tropenell's voice when he uttered the name "Laura." It became as it were softer, infused with feeling--or so his mother thought.

She waited a moment; then answered slowly, "Women generally are fond of their only brothers."

"Oh, but it's more than that!"

As she remained silent, he went on musingly: "And Gillie, in his queer way, is very fond of Laura--though I don't believe he writes to her once in three months!"

"I suppose Gillie still hates Godfrey?" she said hesitatingly. "Godfrey behaved so--so--well, not so much badly perhaps, as meanly and even stupidly--about that unfortunate affair." It was almost as if Mrs. Tropenell were speaking to herself. Her son turned and looked at her squarely.

"Yes! Gillie still hates Pavely. And yet, mother, since I came home this time I've wondered sometimes if Pavely was so very unreasonable about it after all. You see, Gillie must have been about the most troublesome and--well, the most dangerous brother-in-law an unlucky country banker could well have had!"

"And but for you he'd be so still," she said quietly. "From something Godfrey said the other day I gather that he's really grateful to you, Oliver?"

Oliver Tropenell got up. "Yes," he said shortly, "he's certainly grateful. In fact, he seems to think I've limitless power of getting people out of scrapes----" there was an undercurrent of triumph in his deep, even tones.

"I suppose the real reason he came to-day was that he's afraid to let a stranger be Laura's trustee?" There was only the slightest touch of interrogation in Mrs. Tropenell's 

 Prev. P 7/232 next