bed?” cried Ursula petulantly, as she came in with the young man.

“They will be in bed in half an hour,” said the mother.

“There is no peace,” cried Ursula.

“The children must live, Ursula,” said her mother.

And Skrebensky was against Ursula in this. Why should she be so insistent?

But then, as Ursula knew, he did not have the perpetual tyranny of young children about him. He treated her mother with great courtliness, to which Mrs. Brangwen returned an easy, friendly hospitality. Something pleased the girl in her mother's calm assumption of state.

It seemed impossible to abate Mrs. Brangwen's position.