else. But she had softened to us
all, and accepted us as her belongings, in a matter-of-course kind of
way. Only when he was gone did she one day say in a heavy dreary tone,
that she must soon be leaving us.

But I told her, as we had agreed, that she was very far from well
enough to go away alone; for indeed, it was true that disease of the
lungs had set in, and to send her away to languish and die alone was
not to be thought of.

My answer made her look up to me, and say, "I don't see why you should
all be so good to me! Do you know how I have hated you?"

I could not help smiling a little at that, it had so little to do with
the matter; but I bent down and kissed her, the first time I had ever
done so.

"I don't understand it," she said, and then pushing me away suddenly.
"No! you cannot know, that I--I--I was the first to devise mischief
against that boy. Perrault would never have thought of it, but for me!
Now, you see whom you are harbouring! Perhaps, you thought it all
Perrault's doing."

"No, we did not," I said.

"And you still cherish me! I--who drove you from your home and rank,
and came from wishing the death of your darling, to contriving it!"

I told her we knew it. And at last, after a long, long silence, she
looked up from her joined hands, and said, "If I may only see my child
again, even from the other side of the great gulf, I would be ready for
any torment! It would be no torment to me, so I saw him! Do you think
I shall be allowed, Ursula?"

How I longed for more power, more words to tell her how infinitely more
mercy there was than she thought of! I don't think she took it in
then, but the beginning was made, and she turned away no more from what
she looked on at first as a means of bringing her to her boy, but
by-and-by became even more to her.

Gradually she told how the whole history had come about. She had
thought nothing of the discovery of her birth till her boy was born,
but from that time the one thought of seeing him in the rank she
thought his due had eaten into her heart. She had loved her husband
before, but his resistance had chafed her, and gradually she felt it an
injustice and cruelty, and her love and respect withered away, till she
regarded him as an obstacle. And when she had spent her labour on the
voyage, and obtained recognition from her father--behold! Alured's
existence deprived her of the prize almost within her grasp.

A settled desire for the poo