His mother scanned his face anxiously. "Have you told her of your love?"
"Not formally; but I feel she must know it."
"One word more, Gilbert, has she the real spring of all beauty and goodness within. Has she chosen the right path, following her Master?"
Gilbert was silent for a minute.
"It is not a religious household," he said. "They have no prayers, except on Sundays. It is a miserable church, with an old drone of a parson, who gallops through the service; but, I think, Joyce is ready to follow, if led in the right way."
"And you are strong enough to lead, Gilbert?"
"I hope so," he said earnestly; and then mother and son were silent for a few minutes. Afterwards they began to speak of Melville, and all the past, in which Gilbert had borne such a noble part.
"I have separated him from Maythorne, and at least that is a step in the right direction; but he is so weak. How he came to be her brother, I can't imagine; he is crazed on the subject of titles, and will roll off a list of intimate friends, when he thinks I am not listening, to whom he never spoke ten words in his life. I dined at the palace, and the bishop sent you his love, and so did his son, who lives with him—two courteous gentlemen, with well-turned compliments at their tongue's end. The bishop said I was like you, and that I had followed in the lines of one of the most beautiful women he ever met."
"What bare-faced flattery!" Mrs. Arundel said, laughing. "I never was a beauty. Your good looks come from the other side of the house."
"Who is flattering now?" Gilbert asked; "but seriously, mother, you shall accept an invitation to the Wells Palace, you must promise to do so. The bishop said something about November, if you did not mind the falling leaves."