d the baby, with them. They knew Mr Hope
could not desert his posts: but they thought he would feel as Dr Levitt
did, far happier to know that his family were out of danger, than to
have them with him. Hester had firmly refused to go, from the first
mention of the plan; and now Margaret was equally decided in expressing
her determination to stay. Mr Grey urged the extreme danger: Fanny and
Mary hung about her, and implored her to go, and to carry the baby with
her. They should so like to have the baby with them for a great many
weeks! and they would take care of him, and play with him all day long.
Their father once more interposed for the child's sake. Hester might go
to Brighton, there wean her infant, and return to her husband; so that
the little helpless creature might at least be safe. Mr Grey would not
conceal that he considered this a positive duty--that the parents would
have much to answer for, if anything should happen to the boy at home.
The parents' hearts swelled. They looked at each other, and felt that
this was not a moment in which to perplex themselves with calculations
of incalculable things--with comparisons of the dangers which threatened
their infant abroad and at home. This was a decision for their hearts
to make. Their hearts decided that their child's right place was in his
parents' arms; and that their best hope now, as at all other times, was
to live and die together.

Hester had heard from her husband of the apparition of the preceding
evening, and she therefore knew that there was less of `enthusiasm,' as
Mr Grey called what some others would have named virtue, in Margaret's
determination to stay, than might appear. If Philip was here, how vain
must be all attempts to remove her! Mr Grey might as well set about
persuading the old church tower to go with him: and so he found.

"Oh, cousin Margaret," said Mary, in a whisper, with a face of much
sorrow, "mamma will not ask Miss Young to go with us! If she should be
ill while we are gone! If she should die!"

"Nonsense, Mary," cried Fanny, partly overhearing, and partly guessing
what her sister had said; "you know mamma says it is not convenient: and
Miss Young is not like my cousins, as mamma says, a member of a family,
with people depending upon her. It is quite a different case, Mary, as
you must know very well. Only think, cousin Margaret! what an odd thing
it will be, to be so many weeks without saying any lessons! How we
s