t Peacock's Range; or else she joined him
in London. Their town residence was in Bryanstone Square; a very pretty
house, but not a large one.

It had been an unfavourable autumn; cold and wet. Snow had fallen in
November, and the weather continued persistently dull and dreary. One
gloomy afternoon towards the close of the year, Mrs. Hamlyn, shivering
over her drawing-room fire, rang impatiently for more coal to be piled
upon it.

"Has Master Walter come in yet?" she asked of the footman.

"No, ma'am. I saw him just now playing in front there."

She went to the window. Yes, running about the paths of the Square
garden was the child, attended by his nurse. He was a sturdy little
fellow. His mother, wishing to make him hardy, sent him out in all
weathers, and the boy throve upon it. He was three years old now, but
looked older; and he was as clever and precocious as some children are
at five or six. Her heart thrilled with a strange joy only at the sight
of him: he was her chief happiness in life, her idol. Whether he would
succeed to Leet Hall she knew not; since the one time he mentioned it,
Captain Monk had said no more upon the subject, for or against it.

Why need she have longed for it so fervently? to the setting at naught
the expressed wishes of her deceased uncle and to the detriment of Harry
Carradyne? It was just covetousness. As his father's eldest son (there
were no younger ones yet) the boy would inherit a fine property, a large
income; but his doting mother must give him Leet Hall as well.

Her whole heart went out to the child as she watched him playing there.
A few snowflakes were beginning to fall, and dusk would soon be drawing
on, but she would not call him in. Standing thus at the window, it
gradually grew upon her to notice that something was standing back
against the opposite rails, looking fixedly at the houses. A young, fair
woman apparently, with a profusion of light hair; she was draped in a
close dark cloak which served to conceal her figure, just as the thick
veil she wore concealed her face.

"I believe it is _this_ house she is gazing at so attentively--and at
_me_," thought Mrs. Hamlyn. "What can she possibly want?"

The woman did not move away and Mrs. Hamlyn did not move; they remained
staring at one another. Presently Walter burst into the room, laughing
in glee at having distanced his nurse. His mother turned, caught him in
her arms and kissed him passionately. Wilful though he w