a
word of encouragement to his aspirations after manly accomplishments.
But when anything very extraordinary was said or done by the infant
profligate, I noticed, at times, a peculiar expression in his face that I
could neither interpret nor define: a slight twitching about the muscles
of the mouth; a sudden flash in the eye, as he darted a sudden glance at
the child and then at me: and then I could fancy there arose a gleam of
hard, keen, sombre satisfaction in his countenance at the look of
impotent wrath and anguish he was too certain to behold in mine. But on
one occasion, when Arthur had been behaving particularly ill, and Mr.
Huntingdon and his guests had been particularly provoking and insulting
to me in their encouragement of him, and I particularly anxious to get
him out of the room, and on the very point of demeaning myself by a burst
of uncontrollable passion--Mr. Hargrave suddenly rose from his seat with
an aspect of stern determination, lifted the child from his father's
knee, where he was sitting half-tipsy, cocking his head and laughing at
me, and execrating me with words he little knew the meaning of, handed
him out of the room, and, setting him down in the hall, held the door
open for me, gravely bowed as I withdrew, and closed it after me. I
heard high words exchanged between him and his already half-inebriated
host as I departed, leading away my bewildered and disconcerted boy.

But this should not continue: my child must not be abandoned to this
corruption: better far that he should live in poverty and obscurity, with
a fugitive mother, than in luxury and affluence with such a father.
These guests might not be with us long, but they would return again: and
he, the most injurious of the whole, his child's worst enemy, would still
remain. I could endure it for myself, but for my son it must be borne no
longer: the world's opinion and the feelings of my friends must be alike
unheeded here, at least--alike unable to deter me from my duty. But
where should I find an asylum, and how obtain subsistence for us both?
Oh, I would take my precious charge at early dawn, take the coach to M--,
flee to the port of --, cross the Atlantic, and seek a quiet, humble home
in New England, where I would support myself and him by the labour of my
hands. The palette and the easel, my darling playmates once, must be my
sober toil-fellows now. But was I sufficiently skilful as an artist to
obtain my livelihood in a str