CHAPTER EIGHT. The Choice of the New Daughter

 Although my mother met me each morning with a happy smile, she walked with slower movement, and in studying her closely, after three months' absence, I perceived unwelcome change. She was not as alert mentally or physically as when I went away. A mysterious veil had fallen between her wistful spirit and the outer world. Her vision was dimmer and her spirit at times withdrawn, remote. She laughed in response to my jesting, but there was an absent-minded sweetness in her smile, a tremulous quality in her voice which disturbed me.

Her joy in my return, so accusing in its tenderness, led me to declare that I would never again leave her, not even for a month."You may count on me hereafter," I said to her."I'm going to quit traveling and settle down near you."

"I hope you mean it this time," she replied soberly, and her words stung for I recalled the many times I had disappointed her.

With a mass of work and correspondence waiting my hand I went from my breakfast to my study. My forenoons thereafter were spent at my desk, but with the understanding that if she got lonesome, mother was privileged to interrupt, and it often happened that along about eleven I would hear a softly-opened stair-door and then a call,--a timid call as if she feared to disturb me--"Haven't you done enough? Can't you come now?" There was no resisting this appeal. Dropping my pen, I went below and gave the rest of my day to her.

We possessed an ancient low-hung"Surrey," a vehicle admirably fitted for an invalid, and in this conveyance with a stout mare as motive power we often drove away into the country of a pleasant afternoon, sometimes int