e did not realise--she was to go and live
with her mother. Clare was an imaginative child, and the topic of all
her dreams was this mysterious mother whom she had never seen. Many a
time, when Barbara only saw that she was quietly dressing or hushing her
doll, Clare's mind was at work, puzzling over the incomprehensible
reason of Barbara's evident dislike to her absent mother. What shocking
thing could she have done, thought Clare, to make Bab angry with her?
Had she poisoned her sister, or drowned the cat, or stolen the big crown
off the Queen's head? For the romance of a little child is always
incongruous and sensational.

In truth, there was nothing sensational, and little that was not
commonplace, about the character and history of little Clare's mother,
whose maiden name was Orige Williams. She had been the spoilt child of
a wealthy old Cornish gentleman,--the pretty pet on whom he lavished all
his love and bounty, never crossing her will from the cradle. And she
repaid him, as children thus trained often do, by crossing his will in
the only matter concerning which he much cared. He had set his heart on
her marrying a rich knight whose estate lay contiguous to his own: while
she, entirely self-centred, chose to make a runaway match with young
Lieutenant Avery, whose whole year's income was about equal to one week
of her father's rent-roll. Bitterly disappointed, Mr Williams declared
that "As she had made her bed, so she should lie on it;" for not one
penny would he ever bestow on her while he lived, and he would bequeath
the bulk of his property to his nephew. In consequence of this threat,
which reached, her ears, Orige, romantic and high-flown, fancied herself
at once a heroine and a martyr, when there was not in her the capacity
for either. In the sort of language in which she delighted, she spoke
of herself as a friendless orphan, a sacrifice to love, truth, and
honour. It never seemed to occur to her that in deceiving her father--
for she had led him to believe until the last moment that she intended
to conform to his wishes--she had acted both untruthfully and
dishonourably; while as to love, she was callous to every shape of it
except love of self.

For about eighteen months Walter and Orige Avery lived at Bradmond,
during which time Clare was born. She was only a few weeks old when the
summons came for her father to rejoin his ship. He had been gone two
months, when news reached Bradmond of a