late of this ill-starred marriage, of which
Bluebell was the fruit; for soon after her birth young Leigh was killed
by being upset out of a dog-cart.

Driving home with unsteady hands from mess one night, he collided with
a street car, which inevitably turned over the two-wheeled vehicle.
Theodore was pitched out, his head striking on the iron rails, and never
breathed again.

Whatever grief Sir Timothy may have felt at his son being snatched from
him, unreconciled and unforgiven, did not show itself in mercy to the
widow.

Mr. Vellum was again in requisition, and proposed, on behalf of Sir
Timothy, to make Mrs. Leigh a suitable allowance on condition that she
remained in Canada, and delivered over the child to her grandfather, to
be brought up and educated as his heiress. In case these terms were
refused, she would continue to receive annually two hundred a-year; but
no farther assistance would be granted.

Lesbia, in her loneliness and bereavement, was heart-broken at this
unfeeling proposition, and Bluebell being too young for a choice, she
consulted the voice of Nature alone, and refused to part with her child.

The maiden aunt, Miss Opie, willingly received them. She had a mere
pittance, and lived in a boarding house; but, by joining their slender
purses, they took the cottage in which we find them.

Thus in extreme poverty was Bluebell reared until her seventeenth year,
though by personal privation Mrs. Leigh sent her to _the_ school _par
excellence_; attended by most of the girls in the city, whether their
parents were "in" or "out" of society. Bluebell having the _prestige_ of
an English father, own son of a baronet, and military into the bargain,
was considered in the former class, and included at an early age in the
gaieties of the winter.

A new friend, who had been particularly kind to her, was Mrs. Rolleston,
wife of the Colonel of a regiment quartered there, and to her Bluebell
repaired to make sorrowful excuses for the projected picnic, and also to
confide the scheme that possessed her mind of earning money as a musical
teacher or nursery governess.

Mrs. Rolleston felt half inclined to laugh at the unformed impulsive
child, who was such a pet in their household, but seemed far too babyish
and unmethodical to be recommended for any situation; yet remembering her
mother's straitened circumstances, and that the girl probably wanted some
pocket-money, she listened sympathetically, and promised to tu