Part 28 (1/2)

Elizabeth did, and would have delivered them accurately, it Mr.

Ascott had not been present, and addressed her in that authoritative manner. Now, she resolutely held her tongue.

Mr. Ascott might in his time have been accustomed to cringing, frightened, or impertinent servants, but this was a phase of the species with which he was totally unfamiliar. The girl was neither sullen nor rude, yet evidently quite independent; afraid neither of her mistress, nor of himself. He was sharp enough to see that whatever he wanted to get out of Elizabeth must be got in another way.

”Come, my wench, you'd better tell; it'll be none the worse for you, and it shan't harm the young fellow, though I dare say he has paid you well for holding your tongue.”

”About what, sir?”

”Oh! you know what happened when you told him I had called, eh?

Servants get to know all about their master's affairs.”

”Mr. Leaf isn't my master, and his affairs are nothing to me; I don't pry into 'em,” replied Elizabeth. ”If you want to know any thing, Sir, hadn't you better ask himself! He's at home to-night. I left him and my missus going to their tea.”

”Left them at home, and at tea?”

”Yes, Miss Hilary.”

It was an inexpressible relief. For the discovery must have come.

Ascott must have known or guessed that Mr. Ascott had found him out; he must have confessed all to his Aunt, or Johanna would never have done two things which her sister knew she strongly disliked--sending Elizabeth wandering through London at night, and fetching Hilary home before the time. Yet they had been left sitting quietly at their tea!

Perhaps, after all, the blow had not been so dreadful. Johanna saw comfort through it all. Vague hopes arose in Hilary also; visions of the poor sinner sitting ”clothed and in his right mind,” contrite and humbled; comforted by them all, with the inexpressible tenderness with which we yearn over one who ”was dead and is alive again, was lost, and is found;” helped by them all in the way that women--some women especially, and these were of them--seem formed to help the erring and unfortunate; for, erring as he was, he had also been unfortunate.

Many an excuse for him suggested itself. How foolish of them, ignorant women that they were, to suppose that seventeen years of the most careful bringing up could, with his temperament, stand against the countless dangers of London life; of any life where a young man is left to himself in a great town, with his temptations so many, and his power of resistance so small.

And this might not, could not be a deliberate act. It must have been committed under a sudden impulse, to be repented of for the rest of his days. Nay, in the strange way in which our sins and mistakes are made not only the whips to scourge us, but the sicknesses out of which we often come--suffering and weak indeed, but yet relieved, and fresh, and sound--who could tell but that this grave fault, this actual guilt, the climax of so many lesser errors, might not work out in the end Ascott's complete reformation?

So in the strange way in which, after a great shock, we begin to revive a little, to hope against hope, to see a slender ray breaking through the darkness, Hilary composed herself, at least so far as to enable her to bid Elizabeth go down stairs, and she would be ready directly.

”I think it is the best thing I can do--to go home at once,” said she.

”Certainly, my dear.” replied Mr. Ascott, rather flattered by her involuntary appeal, and by an inward consciousness of his own exceeding generosity. ”And pray don't disturb yourselves. Tell your sister from me--your sister Selina, I mean--that I overlook every thing, on condition that you keep him out of my sight, that young blackguard!”

”Don't, don't!” cried Hilary, piteously.

”Well, I won't, though it's his right name--a fellow who could-- Look you, Miss Hilary, when his father sent to me to beg ten pounds to bury his mother with. I did bury her, and him also, a month after, very respectably too, though he had no claim upon me, except that he came from s...o...b..ry. And I stood G.o.dfather to the child, and I've done my duty by him. But mark my words, what's bred in the bone will come in the flesh. He was born in a prison, and he'll die in a prison.”

”G.o.d forbid!” said Hilary, solemnly. And again she felt the strong conviction, that whatever his father had been, or his mother, of whom they had heard nothing till she was dead, Ascott could not have lived all these years of his childhood and early boyhood with his three aunts at s...o...b..ry without gaining at least some good, which might counteract the hereditary evil; as such evil can be counteracted, even as hereditary disease can be gradually removed by wholesome and careful rearing in a new generation.

”Well, I'll not say any more,” continued Peter Ascott: ”only the sooner the young fellow takes himself off the better. He'll only plague you all. Now, can you send out for a cab for me?”

Hilary mechanically rang the bell, and gave the order.

”I'll take you to town with me if you like. It'll save you the expense of the omnibus. I suppose you always travel by omnibus?”

Hilary answered something, she hardly knew what, except that it was a declining of all these benevolent attentions. At last she got Mr.

Ascott outside the street door, and returning, put her hand to her head with a moan.

”Oh, Miss Hilary, don't look like that.”