ened to Queen's Crawley, the old family home, where Rebecca
had once been governess, to shed a last tear over the departed Baronet.
Rebecca was not bowed down with grief, we must confess, but keenly alive
to the benefits which might come to herself and Rawdon if she could
please Sir Pitt Crawley, the new Baronet, and Lady Jane his wife, a
simple-minded woman mostly absorbed in the affairs of her nursery. This
interest aroused Becky's private scorn, but the first thing that clever
little lady did was to attack Lady Jane at her vulnerable point. After
being conducted to the apartments prepared for her, and having taken off
her bonnet and cloak, Becky asked her sister-in-law in what more she
could be useful.

"What I should like best," she added, "would be to see your dear little
nursery," at which the two ladies looked very kindly at each other, and
went to the nursery hand in hand.

Becky admired little Matilda, who was not quite four years old, as the
most charming little love in the world; and the boy, Pitt Blinkie
Southdown, a little fellow of two years, pale, heavy-eyed, and
large-headed, she pronounced to be a perfect prodigy in size,
intelligence and beauty.

The funeral over, Rebecca and her husband remained for a visit at Queen's
Crawley, which assumed its wonted aspect. Rawdon senior received constant
bulletins respecting little Rawdon, who was left behind in London, and
sent messages of his own. "I am very well," he wrote. "I hope you are
very well. I hope mamma is very well. The pony is very well. Grey takes
me to ride in the Park. I can canter. I met the little boy who rode
before. He cried when he cantered. I do not cry."

Rawdon read these letters to his brother, and Lady Jane, who was
delighted with them, gave Rebecca a banknote, begging her to buy a
present with it for her little nephew.

Like all other good things, the visit came to an end, and one night the
London lamps flashed joyfully as the stage rolled into Piccadilly, and
Briggs had made a beautiful fire on the hearth in Curzon Street, and
little Rawdon was up to welcome back his papa and mamma.

At this time he was a fine open-faced boy, with blue eyes and waving
flaxen hair, sturdy in limb, but generous and soft in heart, fondly
attaching himself to all who were good to him: to the pony, to Lord
Southdown, who gave him the horse; to the groom who had charge of the
pony; to Molly the cook, who crammed him with ghost stories at night and
wit