It was as though she had felt a blow.
'Mother!' she cried, with a stifled accent of pain, and yet still trying to smile, 'do you want to send me away ?' 'No-no!' cried Mrs.Leyburn hastily.

'But if a nice man wants you to marry him, Catherine?
Your father would have liked him--oh! I know your father would have liked him.

And his manners to me are so pretty, I shouldn't mind being _his_ mother-in-law.

And the girls have no brother, you know, dear.

Your father was always so sorry about that.' She spoke with pleading agitation, her own tempting imaginations--the pallor, the latent storm of Catherine's look--exciting her more and more.
Catherine was silent a moment, then she caught her mother's hand again.
'Dear little mother--dear, kind little mother! You are an angel--you always are.