can't but hope for that child.'

'You might hope better things for him than expectations.'

'He shall never have any! But it might come without. Why, Lucy, a few
years in that country, and I shall be able to give him the best of
educations and release you from drudgery; and when independent, we could
go back to the Holt on terms to suit even your proud stomach, and might
make the dear old thing happy in her old age.'

'If that Holt were but out of your head.'

'If I knew it willed to the County Hospital, shouldn't I wish as much to
be with her as before? I mean to bring up my son as a gentleman, with no
one's help! But you see, Lucy, it is impossible not to wish for one's
child what one has failed in oneself--to wish him to be a better
edition.'

'I suppose not.'

'For these first few years the old woman will do well enough for him,
poor child. Robert has promised to look in on him.'

'And Mrs. Murrell is to write to me once a month. I shall make a point
of seeing him at least twice a year.'

'Thank you; and by the time he is of any size I shall have a salary. I
may come back, and we would keep house together, or you might bring him
out to me.'

'That will be the hope of my life.'

'I'll not be deluded into reckoning on young ladies. You will be
disposed of long before!'

'Don't, Owen! No, never.'

'Never?'

'Never.'

'I always wanted to know,' continued Owen, 'what became of Calthorp.'

'I left him behind at Spitzwasserfitzung, with a message that ends it for
ever.'

'I am afraid that defection is to be laid to my door, like all the rest.'

'If so, I am heartily obliged to you for it! The shock was welcome that
brought me home. A governess? Oh! I had rather be a scullery-maid, than
go on as I was doing there!'

'Then you did not care for him?'

'Never! But he pestered me, Rashe pestered me; nobody cared for
me--I--I--' and she sobbed a long, tearless sob.

'Ha!' said Owen, gravely and kindly, 'then there was something in the
Fulmort affair after all. Lucy, I am going away; let me hear it for
once. If I ever come back, I will not be so heedless of you as I have
been. If he have been using you ill!'

'I used him ill,' said Lucy, in an inward voice.

'Nothing more likely!' muttered Owen, in soliloquy. 'But how is it,
Cilla: can't you make him forgive?'

'He does, but as Honor forgives you. You know it was no engagement. I
worked him up to desperation last year. Through Ph