thought, as she watched him. " I hope he come
by it honest. I wonder where he's going to. He
did not tell the cabman, leastways so as I could
hear him. Ah! It ain't no business of mine;
I'll just turn the rooms out a bit, and put
up the bill."

So Mrs. Gunther (for that was the lady's
name) re-entered the shabby house, and a great
activity accompanied by perpetual scolding
pervaded it for some hours, during which the late
tenant was journeying down to Amherst.

George Dallas strictly observed the directions
contained in his mother's letter, and having
started by an early train, reached Amherst at
noon. Rightly supposing that at such an hour
it would be useless to look for his mother
in the little town, he crossed the railroad in a
direction leading away from Amherst, struck
into some fields, and wandered on by a rough
footpath which led through a copse of beech
trees to a round bare hill. He sat down when
he had reached this spot, from whence he could
see the road to and from Poynings. A turnpike
was at a little distance, and he saw a carriage
stopped beside the gate, and a footman at the
door receiving an order from a lady, whose
bonnet he could just discern in the distance.
He stood up and waited. The carriage
approached, and he saw that the liveries were
those of Mr. Carruthers. Then he struck away
down the side of the little declivity, and crossing
the railway at another point, attained the
main street of the little town. It was market
day. He avoided the inn, and took up a position
whence he could watch his mother's approach.
There were so many strangers and what Mr.
Deans would have called " loafers" about some
buying, some selling, and many honestly and
unfeignedly doing nothing, that an idler more or
less was certain to pass without any comment,
and it was not even necessary to keep very
wide of the inn. He stood with his hands
in his pockets, looking into the window of the
one shop in Amherst devoted to the interests
of literature, which was profusely decorated
with out-of-date valentines, much criticised by
flies, and with feebly embossed cards, setting
forth the merits of local governesses. At that
time prophetic representations of the
International Exhibition of '62 were beginning to
appeal to the patriotic soul in light blue drawings,
with flags innumerable displayed wheresoever
they could be put " handy." George
Dallas calmly and gravely surveyed the
stock-in-trade, rather distracted by the process of
watching the inn door, between which and his
position intervened a group of farmers, who
were to a man chewing bits of whipcord, and
examining samples of corn, which they extracted
in a stealthy manner from their breeches-pocket,
and displayed grudgingly on their broad palms.
On the steps of the inn door were one or two
busy groups, and not a man or woman of the
number took any notice of Mrs. Carruthers's
son. They took very considerable notice of
Mrs. Carruthers herself, however, when her
carriage stopped; and Mr. Page, the landlord,
actually came out, quite in the old-fashioned
style, to open the lady's carriage, and escort her
into the house. George watched his mother's
tall and elegant figure, as long as she was
in sight, with mingled feelings of pleasure,
affection, something like real gratitude, and
very real bitterness; then he turned, strolled
past the inn where the carriage was being
put up, and took his way down the main street,
to the principal draper's shop. He went in,
asked for some gloves, and turned over the
packets set before him with slowness and
indecision. Presently his mother entered, and
took the seat which the shopman, a mild person
in spectacles, handed her. She, too, asked for
gloves, and, as the shopman turned his back to
the counter, rapidly passed a slip of paper to
her son. She had written on it, in pencil:

"At Davis's the dentist's, opposite, in ten
minutes."

"These will do, thank you. I think you said
three and sixpence?" said George to the shopman,
who, having placed a number of gloves
before Mrs. Carruthers for her selection, had
now leisure to attend to his less important
customer.

"Yes, sir, three and sixpence, sir. One
pair, sir? You'll find them very good wear, sir."

"One pair will do, thank you," said George.
He looked steadily at his mother, as he passed
her on his way to the door, and once more
anger arose, fierce and keen, in his heart—
anger, not directed against her, but against his
step-father. " Curse him!" he muttered, as he
crossed the street, " what right has he to treat me
like a dog, and her like a slave? Nothing that I
have done justifies—no, by Heaven, and nothing
that I could do, would justify—such treatment."

Mr. Davis's house had the snug, cleanly,
inflexible look peculiarly noticeable even amid
the general snugness, cleanliness, and
inflexibility of a country town, as attributes of the
residences of surgeons and dentists, and gentlemen
who combine both those fine arts. The
clean servant who opened the door, looked
perfectly cheerful and content. It is rather
aggravating, when one is going to be tortured,
even for one's ultimate good, to be assured in a
tone almost of glee:

"No, sir, master's not in, sir; but he'll be
in directly, sir. In the waiting-room, sir."
George Dallas not having come to be tortured,
and not wishing to see Mr. Davis, bore the
announcement with good humour equal to
that of the servant, and sat down very
contentedly on a high, hard horsehair chair, to
await events. Fortune again favoured him;
the room had no other occupant; and in about
five minutes he again heard the cheerful voice
of the beaming girl at the door say,

"No, m'm, master's not in; but he'll be in
d'rectly, m'm. In the waiting-room, m'm.
There's one gentleman a-waitin', m'm, but
master will attend on you first, of course, m'm."

The next moment his mother was in the
room, her face shining on him, her arms round
him, and the kind words of the truest friend