Fortunately, as she stood at the window, gloomily looking into a future her own sick fancy conjured, she saw Harry coming slowly up the avenue. He had the air of a man in suspense or anxiety, and she whispered, "There! I know he has done something awful! He looks like it. It is a shame that a strange girl should come into my home and make so much trouble. It is, really!"
Her intense recognition of Harry caused him to look up, and she made a motion which he hastened to answer. For here it must be admitted that Harry had a certain fear of his mother--a fear all compact of love--a fear of wounding or offending her--a fear of seeing her weeping or troubled--a tender fear, which was partly the habit of years, and very much the result of a generous estimate of her many excellences, and of his own indebtedness to them. And from the beginning of time, men have desired to worship a woman; some men take naturally to the worship of the Blessed Virgin; others turn their religion of woman to motherhood, and find that among the millions of earth-mothers, there is no mother like the mother that bore them. Harry was one of these disciples.
He had been insensible so long to the charms of maidenhood, because he gave all the tenderness of his nature to his mother; and even his love for Rose was not so much on the ground that she was his sister as that she was his mother's daughter. And undoubtedly, this mother love had been hitherto the salt of his life. It had preserved him from all excesses that would grieve her, it had sanctified the idea of home in his heart; and if it had in a measure narrowed his nature, it had kept him from those gross vices men do not go from a mother's side to practice.
He came into the room with a conscious alertness, blaming himself for not taking more interest in the coming entertainment. Yet he had felt it hard to do so; in the first place, Yanna would not be present, her father having positive convictions about the folly--perhaps the sin--of dancing. In the second place, he had really written to Yanna; the letter in the possession of Mrs. Filmer being a mild draft of the one actually sent; so that the air of anxiety was a very natural one. He perceived at once that his mother was much annoyed, and his face was instantly sympathetic.