ether her Christian name was known, the Colonel
again said, "I believe her name to be Maria Hatherton. Miss Williams has
recognised her as a servant who once lived in her family, and who came
from her father's parish at Beauchamp."

Alison on inquiry corroborated the statement, and the charge was made
against Maria Rawlins, alias Hatherton. The depositions were read over
to the children, and signed by them; with very trembling fingers by
poor little Lovedy, and Mr. Grey said he would send a policeman with the
summons early next day.

"But, Mr. Grey," burst out Mrs. Curtis, "you don't mean that you are not
going to do anything to that man! Why he has been worse than the woman!
It was he that entrapped the poor children, and my poor Rachel here,
with his stories of magazines and illustrations, and I don't know what
all!"

"Very true, Mrs. Curtis," said the magistrate, "but where's the charge
against him?"

It may be conceived how pleasant it was to the clever woman of the
family to hear her mother declaiming on the arts by which she had been
duped by this adventurer, appealing continually to Grace and Fanny,
and sometimes to herself, and all before Mr. Grey, on whose old-world
prejudices she had bestowed much more antagonism than he had thought
it worth while to bestow on her new lights. Yet, at the moment, this
operation of being written down an ass, was less acutely painful to
her than the perception that was simultaneously growing on her of the
miserable condition of poor little Lovedy, whose burning hand she held,
and whose gasping breath she heard, as the child rested feebly in the
chair in which she had been placed. Rachel had nothing vindictive or
selfish in her mood, and her longing was, above all, to get away, and
minister to the poor child's present sufferings; but she found herself
hemmed in, and pinned down by the investigation pushed on by her mother,
involving answers and explanations that she alone could make.

Mr. Grey rubbed his forehead, and looked freshly annoyed at each
revelation of the state of things. It had not been Mauleverer, but
Rachel, who had asked subscriptions for the education of the children,
he had but acted as her servant, the counterfeit of the woodcuts, which
Lady Temple suggested, could not be construed into an offence; and
it looked very much as if, thanks to his cleverness, and Rachel's
incaution, there was really no case to be made out against him, as if
the fox had carried o