town, but not to the inn. Wait about until you
see my carriage. This is the 13th. I shall
expect you on the 17th, by which day I hope to
have the money ready for you.

"And now, my dear boy, how shall I end this
letter? What shall I say? What can I say
that I have not said again and again, and with
sadly little effect, as you will not deny? But I
forbear, and I hope. A feeling that I cannot
define, an instinct, tells me that a crisis in
my life is near. And what can such a crisis
in my life mean, except in reference to you,
my beloved and only child? In your hands
lies all the future, all the disposition of the
'few and evil' years which remain to me.
How are you going to deal with them ? Is the
love, which can never fail or falter, to be tried
and wounded to the end, George, or is it to
see any fruition in this world? Think over
this question, my son, and let me read in your
face, when I see you, that the answer is to be
one of hope. You are much changed, George,
the bitterness is succeeding the honey in your
mouth; you are 'giving your strength for that
which is not meat, and your labour for that
which satisfieth not,' and though all the
lookers-on at such a career as yours can see, and
always do see, its emptiness and insufficiency
plainly, what does their wisdom, their
experience, avail? But if wisdom and experience
come to yourself, that makes all the difference.
If you have learned, and I venture to hope you
have, that the delusive light is .but a 'Will of
the Wisp,' you will cease to pursue it. Come
to me, then, my boy. I have kept my word to
you, at such a cost as you can hardly estimate,
seeing that no heart can impart all its bitterness
to another; will you keep yours to me?

             "C. L. CARRUTHERS."

"What does she mean? What can she
mean?" George Dallas asked himself this
question again and again, as he stood looking at the
letter in his hand. "What has she done? A
mean and deliberate deceit—some dishonourable
transaction? My mother could not do anything
deserving to be so called. It is
impossible. Even if she could contemplate
such a thing, she would not know how to set
about it. God bless her!"

He sat down by the table, drew the dingy
Britannia metal teapot over beside his cup, and
sat with his hand resting idly upon the distorted
handle, still thinking less of the relief which the
letter had brought him, than of the mysterious
terms in which it was couched.

"She can't have got it out of Carruthers
without his knowing anything about it?" he
mused. "No; besides, getting it from him at
all, is precisely the thing she told me she could
not do. Well, I must wait to know; but how
good of her to get it! Who's the fellow who
says a man can have only one mother? By
Jove, how right he is!"

Then George ate his breakfast hastily, and,
putting the precious letter in his breast-pocket,
to Routh's lodgings.

"I dare say they're not up," he thought, as
he knocked at the door, and patiently awaited
the lingering approach of the slipshod servant.
"Routh was as late as I was last night, and I
know she always sits up for him."

He was right; they had not yet appeared
in the sitting-room, and he had time for a good
deal of walking up and down, and much
cogitation over his mother's letter, before Harriet
appeared. She was looking anxious, Dallas
thought, so he stepped forward even more
eagerly than usual, and told her in hurried
tones of gladness that the post had brought
him good news, and that his mother was going
to give him the money.

"I don't know how she has contrived to get
it, Mrs. Routh," he said.

"Does she not tell you, then?" asked Harriet,
as she eyed with some curiosity the letter
which Dallas had taken out of his pocket, and
which he turned about in his hand, as he stood
talking to her. As she spoke, he replaced the
letter in his pocket, and sat down.

"No," he answered, moodily, "she does not;
but she did not get it easily, I know—not
without a very painful self-sacrifice; but here's
Routh."

"Ha! Dallas, my boy," said Routh, after he
had directed one fleeting glance of inquiry
towards his wife, and almost before he had
fairly entered the room. "You're early—any
news?"

"Very good news," replied Dallas; and he
repeated the information he had already given
Harriet. Routh received it with a somewhat
feigned warmth, but Dallas was too much
excited by his own feelings to perceive the impression
which the news really produced on Routh.

"Is your letter from the great Mr. Carruthers
himself?" said Routh; "from the provincial
magnate who has the honour of being
step-father to you—your magnificent three-tailed
bashaw?"

"Oh dear no!" said the young man, grimly;
"not from him. My letter is from my mother."

"And what has she to say?" asked Harriet,
quickly.

"She tells me she will very shortly be able
to let me have the sum I require."

"The deuce she will!" said Routh. "Well,
I congratulate you, my boy! I may say I
congratulate all of us, for the matter of that; but
it's rather unexpected, isn't it? I thought Mrs.
Carruthers told you, when you saw her so lately,
that the chances of her bleeding that charming
person, her husband, were very remote."

"She did say so, and she was right; it's
from him she's going to get the money. Thank
Heaven for that!"

"Certainly, if you wish it, though I'm not
sure that we're right in being over-particular
whence the money comes, so that it does come
when one wants it. What is that example in
the Eton Latin Grammar—'I came to her in
season, which is the chief thing of all'? But
if not from Mr. Carruthers, where does she get
the money?"