wander the world from place to
place, without even a spot of ground on which to rest my foot, I would
never, never do what you say. What! take my child to grow up in that
tainted air; give him up to be taught such things as they teach! Never,
never, never! His natural place, did you say? I would rather the slums
of London were his natural place. He would have some chance there! If I
could bear it for myself, yet I could not for him--for him most of all.
I will take him up in my arms. Thank God, I am strong now and can carry
him--and go away--among strangers, I don't care where--where there can
be no questions and no remarks."

"But not without me, Elinor!"

"Oh, mother, mother! What a child I am to you, to rend your heart as I
have done, and now to tear you out of your house and home!"

"My home is where my children are," Mrs. Dennistoun said: and then she
made a little pause. "But we must think it over, Elinor. Such a step as
this must not be taken rashly. We will ask John to come down and advise
us. My dear----"

"No, mother, not John or any one. I will go first if you like and find a
place, and you will join me after. That woman" (it was poor Mary Dale,
who was indeed full of information, but meant no harm) "is coming
directly. I will not wait here to see her, or their faces after she has
told them all the lies she will have heard. I am not going to take
advice from any one. Let me alone, mother. I must, I must go away."

"But not by yourself, Elinor," Mrs. Dennistoun said.

This was how it happened that John Tatham, who had meant to go down to
the Cottage the very next Saturday to see how things were going, was
driven into a kind of stupefaction one morning in May by a letter which
reached him from the North, a letter conveying news so unexpected and
sudden, so unlike anything that had seemed possible, that he laid it
down, when it was half read, with a gasp of astonishment, unable to
believe his eyes.

CHAPTER XXIX.

It was Mrs. Dennistoun whose letter brought John Tatham such dismay. It
was dated Lakeside, Waterdale, Penrith--an address with which he had no
associations whatever, and which he gazed at blankly for a moment before
he attempted to read the letter, not knowing how to connect it with the
well-known writing which was as familiar as the common day.

"You will wonder to see this address," she wrote. "You will wonder still
more, dear John, when I tell you we have come here for good. I