On Guard a Novel

he was very curious -- curious as only a woman can be -- about this marriage her son had made, and its attendant circumstances. She longed to know how the other affair had been broken off, and how this one had come on. She also wanted to know the exact amount of Mrs. Claude's fortune, report having varied considerably on that last point. Curious as she was, however, she would not take the honest and straight road to arriving ata knowledge of what excited her curiosity, by asking him outright the how and why of it all. She was too proud to seek a confidence that was not given. He was her own son, and too proud to offer a confidence that was not sought. For the last six or seven years Mrs. Walsing- hara had nourished and cherished a scheme in her heart. It was a fair, bright scheme; and it was founded upon a fair, bright girl, whom she had designed, when opportunity offered, to marry to her eldest son. The girl was a Miss Harper, the well-portioned daughter of a neighbouring country gentleman.- She had won upon Mrs. Walmngham when a mere child, and her growth in grace and guilelessness had been watched with loving eyes-by the mother who meant her for her son. It was the thought of Grace Harper that pointed the pain Mrs. Walsingham felt in this marriage Claude had made. On one or two occasions, when Grace had been spending long, dull days with Mrs. Walsingham in the solitude of that old west country house, the hostess had striven to brighten the hours to... --This text refers to the Paperback edition.