White clouds were blowing brightly across a clear, blue sky.
Lady Mary stretched out her hand and pulled a cord, which drew a rosy curtain half across the window, and shaded the corner where she was sitting.

She looked anxiously and tenderly into Peter's face; her quick instinct gathered that something had shaken him from his ordinary mood of criticism or indifference.
"Are you come to have a little talk with me, my darling ?" she said.
She was afraid to offer the caress she longed to bestow.

She moved from her stiff elbow-chair to the soft cushions in her favourite corner of the window-seat, and held out a timid hand.

Peter clasped it in his own, threw himself on a stool at her feet, and rested his forehead against her knee.
"I have something to tell you, mother, and I am afraid that, when I have told you, you will be disappointed in me; that you will think me inconsistent." Her heart beat faster.

"Which of us is consistent in this world, my darling?
We all change with circumstances.