and sends to me—she always sends to me in her
troubles, as you've seen many a time and oft,
Master George—and tells me, she says, 'Take
this and go into the shrubbery, and tell George,'
she says, 'why I couldn't come, and that I sent
it him with my heart's love, and God bless him,'
she says."

As the old woman spoke, she produced from
her pocket a round flat parcel wrapped in writing-
paper, which she handed to Dallas. He
took it with a very weak attempt at unconcern
(he did not know with how much of their secret
his mother might have entrusted the old nurse),
and thrust it into his breast-pocket, saying at
the same time, "Thanks, nurse. That's all
right. Did she say anything else?"

"Nothing, I think. Oh yes—that of course
now you would not remain in the neighbourhood,
and that you were to be sure to write to her,
and send your address."

"She need not be afraid—I'm off at once!
Good-bye, nurse. Tell my mother I'll hold to
all I promised her. Thank her a thousand
times, bless her! Good-bye, dear old woman;
perhaps the next time we meet I shan't have to
skulk in a wood when I want to see my
mother!"

He pressed a hasty kiss on the old woman's
upturned face, and hurried away. The last
sound he had uttered seemed to have rekindled
the old vindictive feeling in his mind, for as he
strode away he muttered to himself: "Skulking
in a wood, hiding behind trees—a pretty way
for a son to seek his mother, and she never to
come after all! Prevented by her fear of that
pompous idiot, her husband. To think of her,
such as I recollect her, being afraid of an
empty-headed dotard. And yet he is kind
to her. She said so herself—that's nothing;
but Nurse Brookes said so too— that's something
—that's everything. If he were not—if he
treated her badly—he should rue it. But he is
fond of her, and proud of her, as well he may
be; and Clare, that charming girl, is his niece.
Charming, indeed! Ah, Capel Carruthers, you
have a wholesome horror of me, but you little
know that two guardian angels plead for you!"

The sight of the park paling over which he
had climbed into the shrubbery, and over which
lay his only way out of it, seemed to change
the tenor of his thoughts. He stopped at
once, and looking cautiously round, stepped in
among the trees, and drew from his breast the
packet which Nurse Brookes had given to him.
He tore off the outer covering of writing-paper,
and carefully placed it in his pocket, then he
came to a purple morocco case, which he
opened, and there before him, set off by the
velvet on which it lay, was the bracelet, a
band of dead gold, set with splendid wreaths
of forget-me-nots in diamonds and turquoises.
George Dallas took it up and examined it atten-
tively, weighed it in his hand, looked closely at
the stones in various lights, then replaced it in
its case, as a smile of satisfaction spread over
his face.

"No mistake about that!" said he. "Even
I, all unaccustomed to such luxuries, know that
this must be the right thing. She has sent it
as she received it, in the very box, with the
swell Bond-street jeweller's name and all!
Not a bad notion of a present, Mr. Carruthers,
by any means. You've money, sir; but, it
must be owned, you've taste also. It's only to
be hoped that you've not very sharp eyesight, or
that you'll ever be tempted to make a very
close inspection of the Palais Royal bijouterie
which is doing duty for this in the jewel-box!
These will set me clear with Routh, and
leave me with a few pounds in my pocket
besides, to begin life anew with. If it does that,
and I can stick to my employment on The Mercury,
and get a little more work somewhere else,
and give up that infernal card-playing—that's
the worst of it—I may yet make our friend
C. C. believe I am not such a miserable
scoundrel as he now imagines me!"

He replaced the case carefully in his breast-pocket,
climbed the palings, and was once more
on the high road, striding in the direction of
Amherst. Ah, the castle-building, only occasionally
interrupted by a return to the realities
of life in squeezing the packet in his breast-pocket,
which he indulged in during that walk!
Free, with the chance and the power of making
a name for himself in the world! free from all
the debasing associations, free from Routh, from
Harriet—from Harriet? Was that idea quite
so congenial to his feelings? to be separated
from Harriet, the only woman whom, in his
idle dissipated days, he had ever regarded with
anything like affection, the only woman who
——and then the bright laughing face and the
golden hair of Clare Carruthers rose before his
mind. How lovely she was, how graceful and
bred-looking, above all, how fresh and youthful,
how unsullied by any contact with the world,
with all the native instincts pure and original,
with no taught, captivations or society charms,
nothing but——

"Yoho! Yoho!"

George Dallas started from his reverie at the
repeated cry, and only just in time sprang from
the middle of the road along which, immersed
in thought, he had been plodding, as the mail-cart,
with its red-faced driver, a sprig of lilac in
his breast and a bunch of laburnum behind each
ear of his horse, came charging full upon him.
The driver was a man choleric by nature and
with a great sense of his position as an important
government officer, and he glared round at
George and asked him a few rapid questions, in
which the devil and his supposed residence were
referred to with great volubility. Under less
pleasant circumstances Dallas would probably
have returned his greeting with interest; as it
was, he merely laughed, and, waving his hand,
proceeded on his way to the inn, whence, having
paid his bill, he returned to London by the first
train.

During the whole of the journey up to town
the young man's thoughts were filled with his
intentions for the future, and no sooner had the
train stopped at London-bridge than he determined