he
wondered, he did not stay to ask why she did so. The door was on the
latch; she opened it, and only said, "Upstairs," in a hoarse whisper.
Up they went into her own room. She drew him in, and bolted the door;
and then, sitting down, she placed him (she had never let go of him)
before her, holding him with her hands on each of his shoulders, and
gazing into his face with a woeful look of the agony that could not
find vent in words. At last she tried to speak; she tried with strong
bodily effort, almost amounting to convulsion. But the words would
not come; it was not till she saw the absolute terror depicted on
his face that she found utterance; and then the sight of that terror
changed the words from what she meant them to have been. She drew him
to her, and laid her head upon his shoulder; hiding her face even
there.

"My poor, poor boy! my poor, poor darling! Oh! would that I had
died--I had died, in my innocent girlhood!"

"Mother! mother!" sobbed Leonard. "What is the matter? Why do you
look so wild and ill? Why do you call me your 'poor boy'? Are we not
going to Scaurside-hill? I don't much mind it, mother; only please
don't gasp and quiver so. Dearest mother, are you ill? Let me call
Aunt Faith!"

Ruth lifted herself up, and put away the hair that had fallen
over and was blinding her eyes. She looked at him with intense
wistfulness.

"Kiss me, Leonard!" said she--"kiss me, my darling, once more in the
old way!" Leonard threw himself into her arms and hugged her with all
his force, and their lips clung together as in the kiss given to the
dying.

"Leonard!" said she at length, holding him away from her, and nerving
herself up to tell him all by one spasmodic effort--"listen to me."
The boy stood breathless and still, gazing at her. On her impetuous
transit from Mr Bradshaw's to the Chapel-house, her wild, desperate
thought had been that she would call herself by every violent,
coarse name which the world might give her--that Leonard should hear
those words applied to his mother first from her own lips; but the
influence of his presence--for he was a holy and sacred creature in
her eyes, and this point remained steadfast, though all the rest were
upheaved--subdued her; and now it seemed as if she could not find
words fine enough, and pure enough, to convey the truth that he must
learn, and should learn from no tongue but hers.

"Leonard--when I was very young I did very wrong. I think God, who
knows al