any human being can be to another, poured
into his ear.

"You are looking much better, George," she
said, holding him back from her, and gazing
fondly into his face. "You are looking brighter,
my darling, and softer, and as if you were trying
to keep your word to me."

"Pretty well, mother, and I am very thankful
to you. But your letter puzzled me. What
does it mean? Have you really got the money,
and how did you manage to get it?"

"I have not got it, dear," she said, quickly,
and holding up her hand to keep him silent,
"but it is only a short delay, not a disappoint-
ment. 'I shall have it in two or three days."

George's countenance had fallen at her first
words, but the remainder of the sentence
reassured him, and he listened eagerly as she
continued:

"I am quite sure of getting it, George. If
it does but set you free, I shall not regret the
price I have paid for it."

"Tell me what it is, mother," George asked,
eagerly. "Stay, you must not sit so close to me."

"I'm not sure that your voice ought to be
heard either, speaking so familiarly, tete-a-
tete with the important Mrs. Carruthers of
Poynings—a personage whose sayings and doings
are things of note at Amherst," said Mrs.
Carruthers, with a smile, as she took a seat at a
little distance, and placed one of the samples of
periodical literature strewn about the table,
after the fashion of dentists' and surgeons'
waiting-rooms, ready to her hand, in case of
interruption. Then she laid her clasped hands on
the table, and leaned against them, with her clear
dark eyes fixed upon her son's face, and her
steady voice, still sweet and pure in its tones as
in her youth, as she told him what she had done.

"Do you remember, George, that on that
wretched night you spoke of my diamonds, and
seemed to reproach me that I should wear
jewels, while you wanted so urgently but a small
portion of their price?"

"I remember, mother," returned George,
frowning, " and a beast I was to hint such a
thing to you, who gave me all that ever was your
own! I hoped you had forgiven and forgotten
it. Can it be possible that you have sold—-
But no; you said they were family jewels!"

"I will tell you. When you had gone away
that night, and I was in the ball-room, and later,
when I was in my dressing-room alone, and could
think of it all again, the remembrance of what
you had said tormented me. The jewels you
had seen me wearing were, indeed, as I had
told you, not my own; nevertheless, the
remembrance of all I had ever read about converting
jewels into money occupied my mind that night,
and occupied it after that night for days and
days. One day, Mr. Tatham came to Poynings,
and in the evening, being, as he always is, very
entertaining, he related an extraordinary story
of a client of his. The tale, as he told it, had
many, particulars, but one caught my attention.
The client was a woman of large fortune, who
married for love a man much younger than
herself, a dissipated fellow who broke her fortune,
and might have broken her heart, but for his
getting killed in riding a steeple-chase. After
his timely death, it was discovered, among a
variety of dishonourable transactions, that he had
stolen his wife's diamonds, with the connivance
of her maid; had had them imitated in mock
stones by a famous French dealer in false
jewellery; and had substituted the false for the
real. No suspicion of the fact had ever crossed
his wife's mind. The discovery was made by the
jeweller's bill for the imitation being found among
his papers. This led to inquiry of the dealer, who
gave the required information. The moment I
heard the story, I conceived the idea of getting
you the money you wanted by a similar
expedient."

"Oh, mother!"

She lifted one hand with a gesture of caution,
and continued, in a voice still lower than before:

"My jewels—at least those I have sold
were my own, George. Those I wore that
night, were, as I told you, family diamonds;
but Mr. Carruthers gave me, when we were
married, a diamond bracelet, and I understood
then that it was very valuable. I shrank from,
such a deception. But it was for you, and I
caught at it."

George Dallas sat with his hands over his face,
and no more interrupted her by a single word.

"By one or two questions I stimulated Mr.
Carruthers' s curiosity in the strange story, so
that he asked Mr. Tatham several questions, as
to where the mock jewels were made, whether
they cost much, and, in fact, procured for me
all the information I required. That bracelet
was the only thing I had of sufficient value for
the purpose, because it is expensive to get an
imitation of any ornament made of very fine
stones, as my bracelet is, and richly set. If
the act were still to do, I should do it, George
—for you—and still I should feel, as I do most
bitterly feel, that in doing it I shamefully
deceive my husband!"

Still George Dallas did not speak. He felt
keenly the degradation to which he had reduced
his mother; but so great and pervading was his
bitterness of feeling towards his mother's
husband, that when the wrong to him presented
itself to his consideration, he would not entertain
it. He turned away, rose, and paced the
room. His mother sighed heavily as she went on.

"George, you know this is not the first time
I have suffered through and for you, and that
this is the first time I have ever done an act
which I dare not avow. I will say no more."

He was passing behind her chair as she spoke,
and he paused in his restless walk to kneel
down by her, clasp her in his arms, and kiss
her. As he rose from his knees, she looked at
him with a face made radiant with hope, and
with a mother's love.

"This is how it was done, George," she
continued. " I wrote to an old friend of mine in
Paris, a French lady, once my schoolfellow. I
told her I wanted my bracelet matched, in the
best manner of imitation jewellery, as our