"She has always been both dutiful and affectionate to me, Ned, and I have never known her to say a disrespectful word to or about your grandfather."
"Did you not notice the looks she gave him at the table, to-night? the tone in which she replied when he spoke to her?"
"I tried not to do so," she said with a smile. "I learned when my first children were young that it was the part of wisdom to be sometimes blind to venial faults. Not," she added more gravely, "that I would ever put disrespect to my father in that category, but we must not make too much of a little girlish petulance, especially when excited by a generous sympathy with the troubles of another."
The cloud lifted from his brow. "How kind in you to say it, mother dear! kind to her and to me. Yes, she is very fond of Max, quite as if he were a younger brother, and it is very natural that she should sympathize with him when in disgrace."
"And having been so petted and indulged by her father, allowed to have her own way in almost everything, and seldom, if ever, called to account for her doings, comings and goings, she can hardly fail to think my father's rule strict and severe."
"True," Edward responded with a sigh, "and grandpa is a strict disciplinarian, yet so kind and affectionate with it all that one cannot help loving him."
"So I think. And now, good-night, my dear son. I must go; and perhaps your little wife is looking and longing for your coming. She is very fond and proud of her young husband," and with a motherly kiss and smile she left him.
Edward paced the floor for several minutes with thoughtful air, then went up-stairs to Zoe's boudoir.
She was not there or in the dressing-room. He took up a lamp and went on into the adjoining bedroom. Shading the light with his hand, he drew near the bed with noiseless step.
She lay there sleeping, tears on her eyelashes and her pillow wet with them. His heart smote him at the sight. She looked such a mere child and so sweet and innocent that he could hardly refrain from imprinting a kiss upon the round rosy cheek and the full red lips.