In past times, when the boy Horace had come to her from school, she had cherished a secret fancy (too absurd to be communicated to any living creature) that he ought to have been _her_ son, and might have been her son, if she had married his father! She smiled charmingly, old as she was--she yielded as his mother might have yielded--when the young man took her hand and entreated her to interest herself in his marriage.

"Must I really speak to Grace ?" she asked, with a gentleness of tone and manner far from characteristic, on ordinary occasions, of the lady of Mablethorpe House.
Horace saw that he had gained his point.

He sprang to his feet; his eyes turned eagerly in the direction of the conservatory; his handsome face was radiant with hope.

Lady Janet (with her mind full of his father) stole a last look at him, sighed as she thought of the vanished days, and recovered herself.
"Go to the smoking-room," she said, giving him a push toward the door.
"Away with you, and cultivate the favorite vice of the nineteenth century." Horace attempted to express his gratitude.

"Go and smoke!" was all she said, pushing him out.