of the park. The high-spirited horse he rode had thrown him, and
his neck was broken by the fall--and the horse not returning to the
stables, but making off to the high road, no alarm had been excited at
the absence of his rider.
"My mother was sincerely grieved for his death; he was a kind,
indulgent husband to her; and it was the first severe pang of sorrow
that my young heart had ever known.
"The day after his funeral, I was sitting crying beside the fire,
holding my untasted breakfast on my knee.
"'Don't take on so, child,' said my mother, wiping the tears from her
own eyes. 'All the tears in the world won't bring back the dead.'
"'And will dear daddy never come home again?' I sobbed. 'Ah, I have no
one to love me now, but the dear good lady up at the Hall!'
"'Don't I love you, Philip?'
"'No,' I replied scornfully, 'you don't love me, and you never did.'
"'How do you know that?'
"'Because you never kiss me, and take me up in your lap, as Lady
Moncton does, and look at me with kind eyes, and call me your dear boy.
No, no, when I come for you to love me, you push me away, and cry
angrily, 'Get away, you little pest! don't trouble me!' and grandmother
is always cursing me, and wishing me dead. Do you call _that_
love?'
"I never shall forget the ghastly smile that played about her beautiful
stern mouth, as she said unconsciously, aloud to herself: 'It is not
the child, but the voice of God that speaks through him. How can I
expect him to love me?'
"How I wondered what she meant. For years that mysterious sentence
haunted my dreams.
"I was soon called to endure a heavier grief. Lady Moncton's health
daily declined. She grew worse--was no longer able to go out in the
carriage, and the family physician went past our house many times
during the day on his way to the Hall.
"Old Dinah and my mother were constantly absent attending upon the sick
lady, and I was left in charge of a poor woman who came over to the
cottage to clean the house, and take care of little Alice, while my
mother was away.
"One day my mother came hastily in. She was flushed with walking fast,
and seemed much agitated. She seized upon me, washed my face and hands,
and began dressing me in my Sunday suit.
"'A strange whim this, in a dying woman,' said she, to the neighbour,
'to have such a craze for seeing other people's children. Giving all
this trouble for nothing.'
"After a good deal of pushing and shaking she dragged
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