"Hold your tongue, Milly! You always were a little fool! I tell you I will not call on my son's wife, and no more shall you. Let her come here."
My lady adhered to her resolution with iron force, and received her son, when the day after his return he rode over, with freezing formality. But with all that, she was none the less deeply displeased when he called and came to dinner and left his bride at home.
"My humble house is not worthy my lady's presence, I dare say," she remarked. "After the magnificence of barrack life and the splendor of Hunsden Hall, I scarcely wonder she can not stoop to your mother's jointure house. A lady in her position must draw the line somewhere."
"You are unjust, mother," her son said, striving to speak calmly. "You always were unjust to Harriet. If you will permit us, we will both do ourselves the pleasure of dining with you to-morrow."
"It shall be precisely as the Prince and Princess of Kingsland please.
My poor board will be only too much honored."
"It is natural, I suppose," he thought, riding homeward. "The contrast between Kingsland Court and The Grange is striking. She is jealous and angry and hurt—poor mother! Harrie must come with me to-morrow, and try to please her."
But when to-morrow came Harrie had a headache, and the baronet was obliged to go alone.
There was an ominous light in his mother's eyes, and a look of troubled inquiry in Mildred's face that told him a revelation was coming.
His mother's eyes transfixed him the instant he appeared.
"I thought your wife was coming?"