CHAPTER III.

MRS. HAUGHTON AT HOME TO GUY DARRELL.

Thanks to Lionel's activity, the hall was disencumbered--the plants
hastily stowed away-the parlour closed on the festive preparations--and
the footman in his livery waiting at the door--when Mr. Darrell arrived.
Lionel himself came out and welcomed his benefactor's footstep across the
threshold of the home which the generous man had provided for the widow.

If Lionel had some secret misgivings as to the result of this interview,
they were soon and most happily dispelled. For, at the sight of Guy
Darrell leaning so affectionately on her son's arm, Mrs. Haughton
mechanically gave herself up to the impulse of her own warm, grateful,
true woman's heart. And her bound forward, her seizure of Darrell's
hand--her first fervent blessing--her after words, simple but eloquent
with feeling--made that heart so transparent, that Darrell looked it
through with respectful eyes.

Mrs. Haughton was still a pretty woman, and with much of that delicacy of
form and outline which constitutes the gentility of person. She had a
sweet voice too, except when angry. Her defects of education, of temper,
or of conventional polish, were not discernible in the overflow of
natural emotion. Darrell had come resolved to be released if possible.
Pleased he was, much more than he had expected. He even inly accepted
for the deceased Captain excuses which he had never before admitted to
himself. The linen-draper's daughter was no coarse presuming dowdy, and