pacification
of her housemaids. There she sat plunged in sullen dudgeon, the
gloomiest speculations on the depths of man's ingratitude absorbing her
thoughts. He drew near and bent over her; she was obliged to look up,
if it were only to bid him "avaunt." There was beauty still in his pale,
wasted features; there was earnestness and a sort of sweetness--for he
was smiling--in his hollow eyes.

"Good-bye!" he said, and as he spoke the smile glittered and melted. He
had no iron mastery of his sensations now; a trifling emotion made
itself apparent in his present weak state.

"And what are you going to leave us for?" she asked. "We will keep you,
and do anything in the world for you, if you will only stay till you are
stronger."

"Good-bye!" he again said; and added, "You have been a mother to me;
give your wilful son one embrace."

Like a foreigner, as he was, he offered her first one cheek, then the
other. She kissed him.

"What a trouble--what a burden I have been to you!" he muttered.

"You are the worst trouble now, headstrong youth!" was the answer. "I
wonder who is to nurse you at Hollow's Cottage? Your sister Hortense
knows no more about such matters than a child."

"Thank God! for I have had nursing enough to last me my life."

Here the little girls came in--Jessie crying, Rose quiet but grave.
Moore took them out into the hall to soothe, pet, and kiss them. He knew
it was not in their mother's nature to bear to see any living thing
caressed but herself. She would have felt annoyed had he fondled a
kitten in her presence.

The boys were standing about the chaise as Moore entered it; but for
them he had no farewell. To Mr. Yorke he only said, "You have a good
riddance of me. That was an unlucky shot for you, Yorke; it turned
Briarmains into an hospital. Come and see me at the cottage soon."

He drew up the glass; the chaise rolled away. In half an hour he
alighted at his own garden wicket. Having paid the driver and dismissed
the vehicle, he leaned on that wicket an instant, at once to rest and to
muse.

"Six months ago I passed out at this gate," said he, "a proud, angry,
disappointed man. I come back sadder and wiser; weakly enough, but not
worried. A cold, gray, yet quiet world lies round--a world where, if I
hope little, I fear nothing. All slavish terrors of embarrassment have
left me. Let the worst come, I can work, as Joe Scott does, for an
honourable living; in such doom I yet see some hardshi