It was painful to him to realise that he was returning to wealth and
luxury, indeed, monopolising it,-—he the helpless, undeserving,
indolent son, while all the others, and especially his mother, were
left to poverty.
Elfie wanted Mother Carey and all to make their home at Belforest,
and still be one family as of old. Indeed, she hung on Mother Carey
even more than upon Allen, after her long famine from the motherly
tenderness that she had once so little appreciated.
Of such an amalgamation, however, Mrs. Brownlow would not hear, nor
would she listen to a proposal of settling on her a yearly income,
such as would dispense with economy, and with the manufacture of
"pot-boilers."
No, she said, she was a perverse woman, and she had never been so
happy as when living on her husband's earnings. The period of
education being over, she had a full sufficiency, and should only
meddle with clay again for her own pleasure. She was beginning
already a set of dining-table ornaments for a wedding-present,
representing the early part of the story of Undine. Babie knew why,
if nobody else did. Perhaps she should one of these days mould a
similar set for Sydney of the crusaders of Jotapata! Then Allen
bethought him of putting into Elvira's head to beg, at least, to
undertake Armine's expenses at the theological college for a year,
and to this she consented thankfully.
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