as a deserted wife, that
nothing but Bella's health would have been a sufficient motive to
take her out of doors. And, as she had told Kester, the necessity of
giving the little girl a daily walk was very much lightened by the
great love and affection which Jeremiah Foster now bore to the
child. Ever since the day when the baby had come to his knee,
allured by the temptation of his watch, he had apparently considered
her as in some sort belonging to him; and now he had almost come to
think that he had a right to claim her as his companion in his walk
back from the Bank to his early dinner, where a high chair was
always placed ready for the chance of her coming to share his meal.
On these occasions he generally brought her back to the shop-door
when he returned to his afternoon's work at the Bank. Sometimes,
however, he would leave word that she was to be sent for from his
house in the New Town, as his business at the Bank for that day was
ended. Then Sylvia was compelled to put on her things, and fetch
back her darling; and excepting for this errand she seldom went out
at all on week-days.

About a fortnight after Kester's farewell call, this need for her
visit to Jeremiah Foster's arose; and it seemed to Sylvia that there
could not be a better opportunity of fulfilling her promise and
going to see the widow Dobson, whose cottage was on the other side
of the river, low down on the cliff-side, just at the bend and rush
of the full stream into the open sea. She set off pretty early in
order to go there first. She found the widow with her house-place
tidied up after the midday meal, and busy knitting at the open
door--not looking at her rapid-clicking needles, but gazing at the
rush and recession of the waves before her; yet not seeing them
either,--rather seeing days long past.

She started into active civility as soon as she recognized Sylvia,
who was to her as a great lady, never having known Sylvia Robson in
her wild childish days. Widow Dobson was always a little scandalized
at her brother Christopher's familiarity with Mrs. Hepburn.

She dusted a chair which needed no dusting, and placed it for
Sylvia, sitting down herself on a three-legged stool to mark her
sense of the difference in their conditions, for there was another
chair or two in the humble dwelling; and then the two fell into
talk--first about Kester, whom his sister would persist in calling
Christopher, as if his dignity as her elder brother was comp