of blame for Mo, for she knew that her
disposition to shield this man was idiosyncrasy--could not in the nature
of things be shared, even by old and tried friends.

There was a fine chivalric element about this defensive silence of hers.
The man was now nothing to her--dust and ashes, dead and done with! This
last phrase was the one her heart used about him--not borrowed from
Browning any more than its other speech from Shakespeare. "I've done
with _him_ for good and all," said she to herself. "But the Law shall
not catch him along o' me." He was vile--vile to her and to all
women--but she could bear her own wrong, and she was not bound to fight
the battles of others. He was a miscreant and a felon, the mere blood on
those hands was not his worst moral stain. He was foul from the terms of
his heritage of life, with the superadded foulness of the galleys. But
she _had_ loved him once, and he was her husband.

Micky kept his word, going over to his great-aunt the following Sunday;
to oblige, as he said. Mrs. Treadwell had a cold, and was confined to
the house; but the boy was a welcome visitor. "There now, Michael," said
she, "I was only just this minute thinking to myself, if Micky was here
he could go on reading me the Psalms, where I am, instead of me putting
my eyes out. For the sight is that sore and inflamed, and my glasses
getting that wore out from being seen through so much, that I can't
hardly make out a word."

Micky's only misgivings on his visits to Aunt Elizabeth Jane were
connected with a Family Bible to which his old relative was devoted, and
with her disposition to make him read the Psalms aloud. Neither of them
attached any particular meaning to the text; she being contented with
its religious _aura_ and fitness for Sunday, and he absorbed in the
detection of correct pronunciation by spelling, a syllable at a time. So
early an allusion to this affliction disheartened Micky on this
occasion, and made him feel that his long walk from Sapps Court had been
wasted, so far as his own enjoyment of it was concerned.

"Oh, 'ookey, Arntey," said he dejectedly, "I say now--look here! Shan't
I make it Baron Munch Hawson, only just this once?" For his aunt
possessed, as well as the Holy Scriptures, a copy of Baron Munchausen's
Travels and a Pilgrim's Progress. Conjointly, they were an Institution,
and were known as Her Books.

But she resisted the secular spirit. "On Sunday morning, my dear!" she
exclaimed, sho