n the mildest, softest voice.

"I suppose we must make room for that black sheep of a brother of
yours, Dolly,--or else you won't be contented."

"Dear, dear, dearest aunt!" said Dorothy, falling down on her knees
at her aunt's feet.

CHAPTER LXXXIV.

SELF-SACRIFICE.

[Illustration]

Trevelyan, when his wife had left him, sat for hours in silence
pondering over his own position and hers. He had taken his child to
an upper room, in which was his own bed and the boy's cot, and before
he seated himself, he spread out various toys which he had been at
pains to purchase for the unhappy little fellow,--a regiment of
Garibaldian soldiers, all with red shirts, and a drum to give the
regiment martial spirit, and a soft fluffy Italian ball, and a
battledore and a shuttlecock,--instruments enough for juvenile joy,
if only there had been a companion with whom the child could use
them. But the toys remained where the father had placed them, almost
unheeded, and the child sat looking out of the window, melancholy,
silent, and repressed. Even the drum did not tempt him to be noisy.
Doubtless he did not know why he was wretched, but he was fully
conscious of his wretchedness. In the meantime the father sat
motionless, in an old worn-out but once handsome leathern arm-chair,
with his eyes fixed against the opposite wall, thinking of the wreck
of his life.

Thought deep, correct, continued, and energetic is quite compatible
with madness. At this time Trevelyan's mind was so far unhinged, his
ordinary faculties were so greatly impaired, that they who declared
him to be mad were justified in their declaration. His condition was
such that the happiness and welfare of no human being,--not even his
own,--could safely be entrusted to his keeping. He considered himself
to have been so injured by the world, to have been the victim of so
cruel a conspiracy among those who ought to have been his friends,
that there remained nothing for him but to flee away from them and
remain in solitude. But yet, through it all, there was something
approaching to a conviction that he had brought his misery upon
himself by being unlike to other men; and he declared to himself
over and over again that it was better that he should suffer than
that others should be punished. When he was alone his reflections
respecting his wife were much juster than were his words when he
spoke either with her, or to others, of her conduct. He would declare
to