"Indeed!" replied his mother, a new anxiety animating her breast. "And who may this peerless one be who has captivated the timid and peaceful heart of my renegade son?"
"Still so unkind and scornful! Dearest mother——"
"Who is she?" she repeated angrily.
"One whom you have never seen, mother,"
"Her name!" she demanded imperiously.
Florence paused; to tell his mother all would be perhaps to kill her on the spot, or to draw her bitterest malediction on his head.
"Her name, I say!" she reiterated fiercely, while a flush came over her wrinkled face; "say no ignoble name to me, Florence; but remember, degenerate as ye are, that your blood is the reddest in Scotland. Still pausing—still quailing before me, eh! 'Tis a woman you are ashamed of, and as a proof thereof, you dare not utter her name to your own mother."
Florence felt that a crisis in his fate was coming fast; and that an end should be put to a conversation so unseemly, so bitter and humiliating; so he replied,—
"Her name is Madeline Home."
His mother glared at him with a startled expression, as if she deemed him an enemy.