The earl, left alone, rose and walked thoughtfully to the portrait of Mary Ball and looked at it for several minutes. His face, full of melancholy and weariness, grew more melancholy and weary. He shook his head once or twice, and made a motion with his hand as if putting something away from him, and then returned to his chair by the fire. He looked into the blaze and tapped his foot softly with his dress-sword. This beautiful, grave widow of forty, her heart wrapped up in her children, was not the girl of eighteen years before. There was no turning back of the leaves of the book of life for her. She had room now for but one thought in her mind, one feeling in her heart--her children.