t, he repeated the too familiar name, and
baptized the child, bending his head over it afterwards in deep
compassion and mental entreaty both for its welfare, and his own guidance
in the tissue of wrongdoing thus disclosed. A hasty, stealthy glance at
the hands covering the mother's face, showed him the ring on her fourth
finger, and as they rose from their knees, he said, 'I am to register
this child as Owen Charteris Sandbrook.'

With a look of deadly terror, she faintly exclaimed, 'I have done it!
You know him, sir; you will not betray him!'

'I know you, too,' said Robert, sternly. 'You were the schoolmistress at
Wrapworth!'

'I was, sir. It was all my fault. Oh! promise me, sir, never to betray
him; it would be the ruin of his prospects for ever!' And she came
towards him, her hands clasped in entreaty, her large eyes shining with
feverish lustre, her face wasted but still lovely, a piteous contrast to
the queenly being of a year ago in her pretty schoolroom.

'Compose yourself,' said Robert, gravely; 'I hope never to betray any
one. I confess that I am shocked, but I will endeavour to act rightly.'

'I am sure, sir,' broke in Mrs. Murrell, with double volume, after her
interval of quiescence, 'it is not to be expected but what a gentleman's
friends would be offended. It was none of my wish, sir, being that I
never knew a word of it till she was married, and it was too late, or I
would have warned her against broken cisterns. But as for her, sir, she
is as innocent as a miserable sinner can be in a fallen world. It was
the young gentleman as sought her out. I always misdoubted the ladies
noticing her, and making her take part with men-singers and
women-singers, and such vanities as is pleasing to the unregenerate
heart. Ah! sir, without grace, where are we? Not that he was ever other
than most honourable with her, or she would never have listened to him
not for a moment, but she was over-persuaded, sir, and folks said what
they hadn't no right to say, and the minister, he was 'ard on her, and
so, you see, sir, she took fright and married him out of 'and, trusting
to a harm of flesh, and went to Hireland with him. She just writ me a
note, which filled my 'art with fear and trembling, a 'nonymous note,
with only Hedna signed to it; and I waited, with failing eyes and sorrow
of heart, till one day in autumn he brings her back to me, and here she
has been ever since, dwining away in a nervous fever, as