hild, excitedly.

"And leave mamma?"

"Oh, she'll come, too," says Bertie, confidently. "She'll come where I
go." Where he would go--the child! But would she go where the father
went? Baltimore's brow darkens.

"I am afraid it is out of the question," he says, putting Bertie back
again upon the carpet where the fox terrier is barking furiously and
jumping up and down in a frenzied fashion as if desirous of devouring
the child's legs. "The bears might eat you. When you are big and
strong----"

"You will come back for me?" cries Bertie, eagerly.

"Perhaps."

"He will not," breaks in Lady Baltimore violently. "He will come back no
more. When he goes you will never see him again. He has said so. He is
going forever!" These last two terrible words seem to have sunk into
her soul. She cannot cease from repeating them.

"Let the boy alone," says Baltimore angrily.

The child is looking from one parent to the other. He seems puzzled,
expectant, but scarcely unhappy. Childhood can grasp a great deal, but
not all. The more unhappy the childhood, the more it can understand of
the sudden and larger ways of life. But children delicately brought up
and clothed in love from their cradle find it hard to realize that an
end to their happiness can ever come.

"Tell me, papa!" says he at last in a vague, sweet little way.

"What is there to tell?" replies his father with a most meagre laugh,
"except that I saw Beecher bringing in some fresh oranges half an hour
ago. Perhaps he hasn't eaten them all yet. If you were to ask him for
one----"

"I'll find him," cries Bertie brightly, forgetting everything but the
present moment. "Come, Trixy, come," to his dog, "you shall have some,
too."

"You see there' won't be much trouble with him," says Baltimore, when
the boy has run out of the room in pursuit of oranges. "It will take him
a day, perhaps, and after that he will be quite your own. If you won't
sign these papers to-day you will perhaps to-morrow. I had better go and
tell Hansard that you would like to have a little time to look them
over."

He walks quickly down the room, opens the door, and closes it after him.

CHAPTER LVII.

"This is that happy morn--
That day, long-wished day
Of all my life so dark
(If cruel stars have not my ruin sworn
And fates my hopes betray)
Which, purely white, deserves
An everlasting diamond should it mark."

He has not, however, gone three yards