the dear child should remain with
friends who had been so admirably kind to him;' and in his talk to
me afterwards, honestly praised and admired the weaver's conduct and
spirit; owned that the Frenchman was a right fellow, and he, the Lord
have mercy upon him, a sad villain.

"Your father," Mr. Holt went on to say, "was good-natured with his money
when he had it; and having that day received a supply from his uncle,
gave the weaver ten pieces with perfect freedom, and promised him
further remittances. He took down eagerly Pastoureau's name and place of
abode in his table-book, and when the other asked him for his own,
gave, with the utmost readiness, his name as Captain Thomas, New Lodge,
Penzance, Cornwall; he said he was in London for a few days only on
business connected with his wife's property; described her as a shrew,
though a woman of kind disposition; and depicted his father as a Cornish
squire, in an infirm state of health, at whose death he hoped for
something handsome, when he promised richly to reward the admirable
protector of his child, and to provide for the boy. 'And by Gad, sir,'
he said to me in his strange laughing way, 'I ordered a piece of brocade
of the very same pattern as that which the fellow was carrying, and
presented it to my wife for a morning wrapper, to receive company after
she lay in of our little boy.'

"Your little pension was paid regularly enough; and when your father
became Viscount Castlewood on his uncle's demise, I was employed to keep
a watch over you, and 'twas at my instance that you were brought home.
Your foster-mother was dead; her father made acquaintance with a woman
whom he married, who quarrelled with his son. The faithful creature came
back to Brussels to be near the woman he loved, and died, too, a few
months before her. Will you see her cross in the convent cemetery? The
Superior is an old penitent of mine, and remembers Soeur Marie Madeleine
fondly still."

Esmond came to this spot in one sunny evening of spring, and saw,
amidst a thousand black crosses, casting their shadows across the grassy
mounds, that particular one which marked his mother's resting-place.
Many more of those poor creatures that lay there had adopted that same
name, with which sorrow had rebaptized her, and which fondly seemed to
hint their individual story of love and grief. He fancied her in tears
and darkness, kneeling at the foot of her cross, under which her cares
were buried. Surely