alth, never strong, had suffered. Happily, the
little children who came to the Dame's school were ready and
suitable nurses for it. A child can amuse and distract a babe from
its woes in an exceptional manner, and all the little pupils were
eager to escape A B C by acting as nurses.

When the mother was better, the babe also recovered; but it was, at
best, a puny, frail creature.

Mehetabel was aware how feeble a life was that which depended on
her, but would not admit it to herself. She could not endure to
have the delicacy of the child animadverted upon. She found excuses
for its tears, explanations of its diminutive size, a reason for
every doubtful sign--only not the right one. She knew she was
deceiving herself, but clung to the one hope that filled her--that
she might live for her child, and her child might live for her.

The human heart must have hope. That is as necessary to its
thriving as sun is to the flowers. If it were not for the spring
before it, the flower-root would rot in the ground, the tree canker
at the core; the bird would speed south never to return; the insect
would not retreat under shelter in the rain; the dormouse would not
hibernate, the ant collect its stores, the bee its honey. There
could be no life without expectation; and a life without hope in
man or woman is that of a machine--not even that of an animal. Hope
is the mainspring of every activity; it is the spur to all
undertakings; it is the buttress to every building; it runs in all
youthful blood; it gives buoyancy to every young heart and vivacity
to every brain. Mehetabel had hope in her now. She had no thought
for herself save how it concerned her child. In that child her hope
was incorporate.

CHAPTER XLVI.

A TROUBLED HOPE.

On the following morning Mehetabel was conveyed to Godalming, and
was brought before the magistrates, assembled in Petty Sessions.

She was in no great anxiety. She knew that she was innocent, and
had a childlike, childish confidence that innocence must come out
clear of stain, and then only guilt suffered punishment.

Before the magistrates this confidence of hers was rudely shaken.
The evidence that would be produced against her at the Assizes was
gone through in rough, as is always done in these cases, and the
charge assumed a gravity of complexion that astonished and abashed
her. That she and her husband had not lived in harmony was shown;
also that he had asserted that she had attempte