ing herself
to the education of her boy, who had now reached an age at which he
required other than his mother's teaching. Leaving out of the question
her own unwillingness to part with him, in her solitary position, she
was especially anxious that he should not be thrown among strangers by
being sent to school. Her darling project was to bring him up privately
at home, and to keep him, as he advanced in years, from all contact with
the temptations and the dangers of the world.

With these objects in view, her longer sojourn in her own locality
(where the services of the resident clergyman, in the capacity of tutor,
were not obtainable) must come to an end. She had made inquiries, had
heard of a house that would suit her in Mr. Brock's neighborhood, and
had also been told that Mr. Brock himself had formerly been in the habit
of taking pupils. Possessed of this information, she had ventured to
present herself, with references that vouched for her respectability,
but without a formal introduction; and she had now to ask whether (in
the event of her residing in the neighborhood) any terms that could be
offered would induce Mr. Brock to open his doors once more to a pupil,
and to allow that pupil to be her son.

If Mrs. Armadale had been a woman of no personal attractions, or if
Mr. Brock had been provided with an intrenchment to fight behind in the
shape of a wife, it is probable that the widow's journey might have been
taken in vain. As things really were, the rector examined the references
which were offered to him, and asked time for consideration. When the
time had expired, he did what Mrs. Armadale wished him to do--he
offered his back to the burden, and let the mother load him with the
responsibility of the son.

This was the first event of the series; the date of it being the year
eighteen hundred and thirty-seven. Mr. Brock's memory, traveling forward
toward the present from that point, picked up the second event in its
turn, and stopped next at the year eighteen hundred and forty-five.

-------------

The fishing-village on the Somersetshire coast was still the scene, and
the characters were once again--Mrs. Armadale and her son.

Through the eight years that had passed, Mr. Brock's responsibility had
rested on him lightly enough. The boy had given his mother and his tutor
but little trouble. He was certainly slow over his books, but more from
a constitutional inability to fix his attention on his tasks than