impressed by this incident in the life of Mrs Lawrence. "Family
pride" was her greatest weakness, and she dearly loved a title. She
thought Mrs Lawrence a typical "Baroness," and though she knew the
title had only been obtained through marriage, it still rendered its
possessor peculiarly interesting in her eyes.

In her prime, the Baroness had been equally successful in cajoling
women and men. Though her day for ruling men was now over, she still
possessed the power to fascinate women when she chose to exert
herself. She did exert herself with Mrs Stuart, and succeeded
admirably in her design.

And one day Mrs Stuart confided her secret anxiety to the ear of the
Baroness; and that secret caused the cheek of the listener to grow
pale and the look of an animal at bay to come into her eyes.

"There is just one thing that gives me a constant pain at my heart,"
Mrs Stuart had said. "You have never been a mother, yet I think your
sympathetic nature causes you to understand much which you have not
experienced, and knowing as you do the great pride I feel in my son's
career, and the ambition I have for him to rise to the very highest
pinnacle of success and usefulness, I am sure you will comprehend my
anxiety when I see him exhibiting an undue interest in a girl who is
in every way his inferior, and wholly unsuited to fill the position
his wife should occupy."

The Baroness listened with a cold, sinking sensation at her heart

"I am sure your son would never make a choice which was not agreeable
to you," she ventured.