was of Leo. Don't speak of gratitude, Sir Stephen, and tell your mother to be assured that my dear brother blessed her many and many a time for leaving him such a comfort. Two old people, alone in the world, our lives would have been very dull without Leo." Sir Stephen took the old lady's hand. "Your unselfish goodness," he said, "puts my thanks to silence; but you must now tell me your wishes, so that I may see if I cannot serve your adopted son in some way." Aunt Lydia sat for a few moments without speaking, but with an expression in her sweet old face which kept Sir Stephen from disturbing her; then looking at him she said, "From the time he was a little fellow so high, he delighted in nothing else. He and his dear uncle would play by the hour together at fighting battles and dril. ling armies. Antony wished him to go into the church, feeling that it was more than probable that you would, in due time, have allowed Leo to take his place as rector here, and there would have been a comfortable provision for him for life; whereas, where he is, the poor boy has a hard task to pay his way; and to put by to purchase his next step, is next to impossibility, Sir Stephen. If he had a friend in power, or any one to lend him a helping hand, he thinks something might be managed. And now, Sir Stephen, I am coming to my request a very bold one I fear you will think it.” "No, I shall not; only tell me exactly what he wants. This, you know, is strictly between ourselves." "How wonderful are the ways of Him, who worketh all things together for our good! Until two days ago, I never wished that the silence which my brother kept up between Leo and his father's "Yes, I am sure of that, and I feel as family should be broken; but a circum- if I could really open my mind to you, stance has occurred which has made me hesitate, and think, would it not be best that you should know, as perhaps you could be of great assistance to Leo. I cannot tell you, Sir Stephen, how this thought has worried me not having any person to speak to on the matter." "Mr. Leo Despard is not aware, then, of the connection between us?" Sir Stephen, which is such a comfort to one pent up as I have been, through having no one to whom I could speak openly. Well, I dare say you don't know, though perhaps you may have guessed, that there is a great attachment between Leo and Hero Carthew." Sir Stephen nodded his head, to signify that he was already in possession of that fact. "Ah, I thought whether you hadn't noticed it. Then I dare say you have also noticed that there's a little misunderstanding between them just at present.” "No. I saw them together on WedInesday." "Oh dear no! nothing could be further from his thoughts. He knows that the details of his birth are somewhat painful; for before he went into the world, my dear Antony thought it only right to tell him so much, but no more; therefore I could not speak to him. could but seek guidance, and now you come to me, and ask a question which gives the answer to my petition. Mrs. Prescott, you say, has only told you now? Sir Stephen, wishing that Aunt Lydia should suppose his mother's communication a voluntary one, answered,— "Yes; she saw that we were likely to be thrown more together, and she thought it best. You know I am going to sell my larger estate, and settle at Mallett altogether." "Dear me that seems a pity. I remember Antony telling me what a beautiful place it was." "Yes; most people admire it, and that gives me hope that I shall have no difficulty in selling it. I presume," he said, reverting to the subject uppermost in his mind, "that it was Mr. Leo Despard's wish to be a soldier." "Ah, yes; but it has been since then. They had a fall out that evening. You see, Sir Stephen, that though they have been engaged, it has not been anything formal and I suppose Hero (and very naturally) now wants it to be known, and she told Leo as much, and he took it into his head it would not be honourable to bind her, and so objected; and then, as is always the case, one word led to another, until the poor boy in his warmth, let out what we had none of us suspected, that he has been miserable for ever so long, because he can't see his way to getting his promotion, for perhaps ten years to come, and until he gets that they must not think of marrying, you know, Sir Stephen; and he said at length that, rather than tie Hero down by a long engagement, he would set her free, and she- rather ungenerously, I must say that of her took him at his word. As a "I suppose you never saw the mother?" said Sir Stephen. 66 No, never.' "I thought she might have made some attempt to see the boy." he said to me last night, why can't they | erous; pray don't speak in that way to go on as they've been going on? But me, for I could not think of allowing you she won't have that. She says things to deprive yourself of such a sum; we are altered now, and she wishes people to shall only look upon it as a loan from you know that she is engaged, and from what which is to be repaid, and I know that I can gather she was a little high and Leo will leave no stone unturned to repay mighty with him, and Leo isn't one to it, for he is a good boy, Sir Stephen stand that; and so when she said then dear good boy, a son whom any man they would in future only be friends, he might have been proud to own; but there, took her at her word, and the conse- I have no right to speak; it is not for us quence is, they are both of them heart- to judge." broken, and one won't give way and the other won't give way, so that there is no knowing how long they may go on making each other miserable. However, I shouldn't mind that so much. - for young people are pretty sure to get right in the endif it was not that it has opened my eyes to the dear boy's anxieties about his promotion, which I never knew before, and I am afraid it will affect his health, and he talks of volunteering for some of those dreadful places where a strong young man is taken off like the snuff of a candle in a few hours". and here poor Aunt Lydia shuddered at the melancholy prospect. "A wife, you see, is such a safeguard to a man in the army, because he knows if he goes throwing away his life, how straitened he must leave his poor widow so that I shouldn't be a bit afraid if Leo was married-only how is he to marry until he gets his promotion, and how is he to get his promotion without a friend to give him a helping hand?" And stopping, she looked wistfully at Sir Stephen, who sat listening to her words with a grave face. He had not interrupted her while she was speaking, for every sentence she uttered seemed to send his thoughts travelling off in a fresh direction. Viewed in the light which Aunt Lydia threw upon it, Leo's denial assumed a different aspect and Sir Stephen could readily credit the young fellow was striving to do what he believed to be honourable and right. Until now he hardly knew how strongly hope had sprung up within him; but if this was the explanation of Leo's coldness, he must give up all thought of things being different, and until he had done what was plainly his duty, forget his personal interest in the matter. So, with an effort, which he strove to hide from Miss Despard, he said, "She never knew where he had been placed, and his dread of her discovering it kept Sir Bernard from coming to the house. It was not until he ascertained that she was dead that he wrote to Antony, saying he should now see the child; and we always thought he meant to acknowledge him. But there, it was not to be. Sudden death is very awful, Sir Stephen, and I shall never forget the shock your poor uncle's death gave Antony. You see they were much attached to each other-like brothers, you may say." "Mr. Despard had seen the mother?" "Yes, he had; poor Antony quite grieved, thinking what a thousand pities for Sir Bernard to have made such a mistake, for you know he quite thought Sir Bernard had married her; indeed, to his dying day it was a mystery to my dear brother. Ah, we're all sound till we're sifted, Sir Stephen, and the man who trusts to his own strength is lost." While Aunt Lydia was saying this the expression of Sir Stephen's face had gradually become more pained and anxious. "I shall come again soon, and have another chat with you, Miss Despard," he said, rising from his chair with a heavy feeling of oppression. "In the meantime, how about your nephew? Do you propose to inform him now of our relationship?" "Oh, that I shall leave to you, Sir Stephen." "You see that, though I have a largesounding income, I am from circumstances so straitened for ready money that I could not conveniently spare this sum until I have made some arrangement dependent on my estate of Pamphillon, which is at present for sale. Now, suppose we said nothing about this matter until the money is forthcoming, and then "Oh, Sir Stephen, you are too gen-' we told Mr. Despard?" "If the sum for purchasing a further step will secure their happiness, you need say no more, Miss Despard, as I consider you have every right to claim that from me." "That is quite as I think, Sir Stephen." | about this young Despard," the Captain "I hope to be able to do this in the course of a few weeks; so they will not have a very long term of probation." Aunt Lydia took his outstretched hand, and while tears of joy filled her eyes, she said, "If you have nothing better to do, will you stroll round, and smoke a cigar with me this evening?” "Thanks, I will," said Leo, well pleased at the change; and the Captain and Sir Stephen walked on together. "That seems a nice young fellow," Sir Stephen said, debating within himself whether or not he should speak openly to Captain Carthew. "You knew Mr. Despard, the rector, intimately, I suppose?" What, old Antony? Ah, yes; he and I were great chums," said the Captain, regretfully. 66 "Did he ever speak to you as to the antecedents of this adopted son of his?" The Captain gave a quick look at Sir Stephen. "I am not asking from idle curiosity, as you will presently see. I really want to unburden myself a little to you on a subject which has just caused me great annoyance. I know I may speak openly to you." The Captain, on whom the troubled tone of Sir Stephen's voice was not lost, put his arm through his companion's. "Let us turn down here," he said. "We are not so likely to be interrupted." And they walked on a little distance without either of them speaking. Now, 66 began. "All I know of him from his uncle is this as to anything others may say, well, I put it in the same list with what he says of himself - he was the son of a great friend of the old man's, who had got himself. into a precious mess through some woman he took up with. He was a queer kind of fish, and Antony thought he had married her, and when he took charge of Leo, then a little chap in petticoats, he still believed that she was his wife, though by this time she had bolted from him, and he was furious against her, so much so, that until she died, which she did a few years after, he wouldn't even look at the child, who was the image of the mother. After her death he softened down a little, and came to see the boy, and talked about taking him home, for he'd come into some property, I fancy when, poor fellow, he died quite suddenly of some complaint which, it seems, he kept to himself for years, and everything was found to be at sixes and sevens. The next of kin wrote to old Antony, and, as nothing was found of a marriage certificate, or any papers to clear up the matter, the poor little beggar had no claim upon anybody. Old Antony offered to adopt him, and they were only too willing to be ridden of the burden. Mind you," added the Captain, finding Sir Stephen still silent, "if ever any one was certain of a berth aloft, that man was old Antony Despard. He loved his neighbour, he feared God, and honoured the king; and if there's anything else that ought to be done to make things square, why, sir, he did it." And the Captain, in his excitement, pushed his hat farther back, and shook his head defiantly at Sir Stephen. "You but confirm what Miss Despard told me this morning, and my mother told me last night, when I was first informed that the friend for whom Mr. Despard did all this was my uncle, the late Sir Bernard Prescott, and that this young Despard is therefore my cousin." "The devil he is!" exclaimed the Captain, stopping, and turning short round in blank amazement. "God bless my soul! why, I thought you were asking on Hero's account! Lord! I never had the wind so knocked out of me before. Leo Despard your uncle's son ! Well, then, for once I should have cut up rough with old Antony, for "and he grasped Sir Stephen's hand "by Jingo, if the mother had been married, Mallett might have thrown out signals of distress for a - month of Sundays, before Master Leo plain with you. I wish to give him the would have come to the rescue." Sir Stephen smiled. sum for the purchase of his next step. I Sir Stephen hesitated. "You don't mean Hero?" "You have rather set me thinking," he said. "I suppose old Mr. Despard felt quite satisfied that every justice had been done to this boy. That is the worst of being kept in ignorance. Women do what is right; but they don't always see the necessity of proving that they have done so. My poor mother, for instance, is plagued with such a tender conscience, that she would overstrain and torment his head. herself in any doubtful matter; but 66 very likely she would never think to say this to any one, fancying that they would be sure to judge her as justly as she would judge them. 66 And so she was judged," said the Captain; "for I, not knowing who the parties were, have often asked Antony if he was satisfied that it had all been plain sailing." "And he was ?" "Perfectly. He said his knowledge of the person who wrote to him thoroughly satisfied him; and now I know that he meant your mother, I can understand the high opinion he had of her." Sir Stephen's silence implied that he did mean Hero, and the Captain shook Why, it was only last night that she told me that they'd parted company." "Yes, Miss Despard hinted at some misunderstanding, in consequence of Mr. Despard feeling that it would be wrong to bind your daughter to one who could not marry for an indefinite time; but that is over now they can marry as soon as they please." And a something in the tone of these words made the Captain avoid looking at once at the speaker. "Well, he may get his promotion," he said, "and very glad I shall be to see a pair of epaulettes upon his shoulders ;but if he gets my girl, why, I'll eat my head, hat and all. No, no, not a bit of "I am very glad of that," said Sir Ste-it." phen, with a sigh of relief; "but the good old man must have thought very meanly of me." "Not a bit of it. He never thought meanly of any one, and, least of all, of any member of your family. On the contrary, you may depend he was very much obliged to you for not interfering; indeed, I've heard him say as much." "It was very strange that he should not have told the young fellow himself?" "Well, I don't know that. He'd a good deal more sense than he ever got credit for, and I expect he saw that Master Leo was one rather given to lay hold of fanciful notions. He's a queer mixture is Leo, and I can make more allowance for his twists and cranks now. I am glad your mother told you of the circumstance. These things are better made a clean breast of." "You won't give your consent?" "Give my consent ! Yes, I'll give my consent if he ever gets hers. But, whereas, a little time ago she'd nailed her colors to Leo, and would have stuck to him through thick and thin, like a true woman-God bless 'em every one! now, whether he sinks or swims, the same boat will never hold them, and the longer they live the wider they'll drift apart." "But how what has caused this sudden change?" said Sir Stephen. "Nothing, I believe; only old Time has made a woman of the child, and she cares for something beyond a good figurehead. I always knew that if they were thrown much together her love for Leo would be gone; they're as opposite to one another as the poles. I wish Leo well, and, for my old friend's sake, besides having a liking for the boy himself, "Her silence has been a terrible annoy- I'd do him a service with all my heart; ance to me," Sir Stephen said. "At but, for all that, I say, thank the Lord least," he added, wishing to screen her that he'll never be anything more to my forced avowal, "she ought to have told girl, and last night when she told me I me before we came down here. Directly took an extra glass of grog on the strength she did do so I went to Miss Despard, of it. Ah! by the bye, that brings me to and I have had a long talk with her this a promise I gave to our friend Joe Bunce. morning." Do you really think you shall take up your quarters here I mean, so that you'll keep on your boat, and need Joe as a regular hand?” "Does she wish Leo to be told of it?" Yes, we shall tell him, but not for a little time to come. I may as well be "Certainly I mean to engage his services to be a handy man about the place, and to make the boat his especial care." "Well, then, will you tell him so?" "Of course I will. I was on my way to the village when we met. If you are going there, we'll walk on together." "What you have told me," said the Captain, as they turned into the road, "is as safe as if it was unsaid. Until you give the word I shall never speak of it to a living soul." "I shall be entirely guided by his own wishes," said Sir Stephen. He may desire that things be left as they are." "Most probably he will," said the Captain. "You see, it's an awkward thing to be chopping and changing, and I know when Leo has a story to tell he isn't particular to a shade or two." Then, seeing that they were approaching a more frequented part, he added, "but we'll talk this over again. There are two or three things I want to say; but we'll leave them for the present, and finish our business with Mr. Joe, who I can see round the corner keeping a sharp lookout. Come, Joe, here's Sir Stephen now speak up!" for the expression on Joe's face had suddenly assumed a bashfulness rather at variance with its bronze color and hairy surroundings. 66 Well, Joe!" said Sir Stephen, "are you ready to settle down as a landsman? Is it agreed that you undertake the charge of my boat?" Joe turned the hat which he held by the brim slowly round, staring hard into the crown, with the hope of gaining an inspiration by which he might duly return his thanks; but these means not succeeding, he got redder than before with the effort to say, "Thank'ee sir. I ain't much of a hand at speechifying, through allays havin' bin in the carpenter's crew; but my feelin's is the same, and I am uncommon obliged to you, sir, for givin' me this chance, and so the Cap'en can tell, as has often spoke up for me before, when the wind's bin pretty stiff up above," and he rather lowered his voice as he indicated above to mean Sharrows. "Ah!" said the Captain, "that's when you've been splicing the main brace, Joe; but we mustn't have any more of that now. You must conduct yourself as becomes a steady-going man, or you'll lose your rating with Betsey." 66 Betsey! repeated Sir Stephen. "Of course, I had forgotten all about that. Why, you want to get married, Joe?" "Thinking about it," laughed the Captain. Why, you've been thinking about it these last twenty years." 66 Yes, sir, but the difficulty is to get a female twice in the same mind. They don't answer to no helm, they don't - not as I could ever make out. Praps you gintlemen knows how to strike the right nail on the head; but I've never bin able to hit it. If so be now," and Joe gave a sly look towards Sir Stephen, "I'd a got anybody to give me a hoist up with a wedge o' their own drivin', she'd take me straight off the reel." "Well, we must see what can be done," laughed Sir Stephen. "I shall tell Betsey that now you have entered into my service, Joe, I must see you respectably married, and I'll ask her advice about a cottage which I think might suit you." Joe stood speechless, then suddenly turning to Sir Stephen he said— "You couldn't find me somethin' to do now, sir, could ye ?" No, I am going on some other business." "Have you got a job of any kind, Cap'en ?" The Captain shook his head. "Well, then! exclaimed Joe decisively, "I'll run up and ask Miss Hero to keep a eye on me; for if I stay within hail of the Admiral Nelson, I shan't be able to keep from drinkin' o' somebody's health, and once inside there, 'tain't so easy to get out again." CHAPTER XXVII. MRS. PRESCOTT'S REFLECTIONS. UNTIL dinner-time, Mrs. Prescott saw nothing of her son, and then Katherine's presence prevented their touching upon any but general topics. This was only in accordance with her desire that, until she had hedged herself in with clever evasions and discreet denials, there should be no raking up of by-gone memories between them. Her day, which, under the plea of indisposition, she had spent almost alone, had been one of alternating hope and fear - hope, that, now so much was known, the great dread would remain more completely shrouded than before; and fear, lest Sir Stephen should persist in telling Leo the existing relationship between them. By way of consolation |