e
made me so good an offer I'd never have followed mother's counsel, but
have taken him that I liked twice as well as Harry; and, may be, it
would have been better for me if Harry had not been so soft and mother
so positive. This was what Harry Hogarth heard that angered him so
terribly, and he said I had cheated him. He sent me money, but he vowed
he would never look me in the face again. Well, when Frank was about
fourteen months old, Harry's other brother died. There was an awful
mortality in the family at that time--three within two years; and then
he came in for the property. Mother was in an awful passion at my
having had anything to say to Jamie, and losing hold on my rich husband
through my stupidity. But I was his wife, and must be provided for at
any rate. So he wanted to make terms with me, and proposed that I
should go out of the country altogether--to Sydney--where he would give
me a decent maintenance for myself and the child. Mother, at first,
would not listen to this, and neither would I; but wanted to go to law
for my rights. But when he said he would expose everything about the
marriage if we did, we gave in, and agreed to go to the ends of the
earth to please him. And, after we had made up our minds to it, we
rather liked the notion of getting out of Scotland. He would not trust
to us going unless he saw us off; so he appointed to meet in London,
where the ship was to sail from, and he would arrange all things for
our going off quiet and comfortable; and then we was to part for ever.
Mother, and me, and Frank, went to London, and took lodgings in a very
crowded lodging-house, full of people just ready to sail for America or
some other place--here to-day and away to-morrow--and there Frank fell
ill. He had looked a strong enough child; but I think the stuff mother
gave me had hurt him, for he had every now and then bad convulsion
fits. Being used to them, we did not take much notice of them; but now,
when it was of such moment to us that the child should be alive, and
that his father should see him, then by ill-luck, just an hour before
the time appointed for our meeting, Frank took a worse fit than ever,
and died in my arms. I was very vexed indeed, and sorry, for I liked
the child, and he was a very pretty little fellow, but mother was
furious.

"'It's a good hundred a year out of our pocket,' said she. 'If he had
only lived to get on board, we need never have told Cross Hall about
his dying afterwa