 you run away again?’

‘It entirely depends upon your own conduct.’

‘Oh, I’ll be very good.’

‘But if I find it necessary to leave you, Arthur, I shall not “run away”: you know I have your own promise that I may go whenever I please, and take my son with me.’

‘Oh, but you shall have no cause.’  And then followed a variety of professions, which I rather coldly checked.

‘Will you not forgive me, then?’ said he.

‘Yes,—I have forgiven you: but I know you cannot love me as you once did—and I should be very sorry if you were to, for I could not pretend to return it: so let us drop the subject, and never recur to it again.  By what I have done for you, you may judge of what I will do—if it be not incompatible with the higher duty I owe to my son (higher, because he never forfeited his claims, and because I hope to do more good to him than I can ever do to you); and if you wish me to feel kindly towards you, it is deeds not words which must purchase my affection and esteem.’

His sole reply to this was a slight grimace, and a scarcely perceptible shrug.  Alas, unhappy man! words, with him, are so much cheaper than deeds; it was as if I had said, ‘Pounds, not pence, must buy the article you want.’  And then he sighed a querulous, self-commiserating sigh, as if in pure regret that he, the loved and courted of so many worshippers, should be now abandoned to the mercy of a harsh, exacting, cold-hearted woman like that, and even glad of what kindness she chose to bestow.

‘It’s a pity, isn’t it?’ said I; and whether I rightly divined his musings or not, the observation chimed in with his thoughts, for he answered—‘It can’t be helped,’ with a rueful smile at my penetration.

* * * * *

I have seen Esther Hargrave twice.  She is a charming creature, but her blithe spirit is almost broken, and her sweet temper almost spoiled, by the still unremitting persecutions of her mother in behalf of her rejected suitor—not violent, but wearisome and unremitting like a continual dropping.  The unnatural parent seems determined to make her daughter’s life a burden, if she will not yield to her desires.

‘Mamma does all she can,’ said she, ‘to make me feel myself a burden and incumbrance to the family, and the most ungrateful
