"You are like your mother," she told Jack, whose face flushed with pleasure at her words. "You have her eyes, and her smile; but you,—" and she turned to Theodore, "you don't favour her in the least."
"She is not my mother," Theodore replied, growing very red. "My mother is dead. She was very good, and very beautiful, and she died when I was born. Jack and I are not brothers really."
"But I can see you are great friends," Mrs. Fry said, nodding her head in a knowing fashion and smiling. "You are very fond of each other, are you not?"
"Oh, yes!" they both answered.
"Ah, I thought as much! I can see Mrs. Barton is a kind lady," she proceeded, addressing Theodore. "I expect you love her as though she was your own mother, don't you?"
"No!"
The answer was fiercely spoken, accompanied by an indignant flash of the bright, grey eyes. Mrs. Fry wished she had not been quite so inquisitive, more especially as Mrs. Barton had evidently overheard her question and Theodore's angry response, for she now entered the room and quietly took her place at the tea-table.
Long after the boys had gone to bed that night Mrs. Barton thought of Theodore's fierce "No!" and recalled the passionate tone of his voice. She wondered how it was she was so incapable of winning his love. No one put him against her now, of that she was certain; and yet she could not uproot from his mind that feeling of distrust which he had formed for her before they met. Sometimes she thought he was learning to care for her; and then she would see the old dislike creeping over his tell-tale face, and her heart would ache at the thought that she might never win his affection.
This moorland holiday had been planned for Jack's sake; in fact, Mr. Barton had suggested leaving Theodore at home, to the tender mercies of his great-aunts, but his wife had negatived the idea at once. Theodore's health might not necessitate a change of air, but she had rightly guessed what his feelings would have been if he had had to remain at Afton Hall. Perhaps he would have been grateful to his stepmother if he had known it was entirely owing to her that he slept beneath the roof of Blackburn Farm that night; but he was in ignorance of that fact, and fell asleep with the determination not to allow her to interfere with his pleasure, as she was often obliged to do, for his own good.