uncertain when i shall bo able to make tho journey from where i shall bo staying that will depend on several things wait for me � the bring with you the diamond ring that sir gave you i shall like to see it again your unknown mother da n a this letter witli its gave no to what was in for him but ho could not do otherwise than accept sir s wliich seemed to imply some pledge not to anticipate the mother s and uie that his life long conjectures had been mistaken checked further could not hinder his imagination from taking a quick flight over what seemed possibilities but he refused to contemplate any one of them as more likely than another lest ho should be nursing it into a dominant desire or instead of simply preparing himself with resolve to meet the fact bravely whatever it might turn out to be in this state of mind he could not have communicated to any one the reason for the absence which in some quarters ho was obliged to mention beforehand least of all to whom it would affect as powerfully as it did himself only in rather a different way if he were to say i am going to learn the truth about my birth s hope would gather what might prove a painful dangerous excitement to he spoke of his journey as being undertaken by sir s wish and threw as much indifference as he could into his manner of announcing it saying he was uncertain of its duration but it would perhaps be very short i will ask to have the child jacob to stay with me said comforting himself in this way after the first mournful glances i will drive round and ask mrs to let him come said the grandmother will deny you nothing said fm glad you were a little wrong as well as i he added smiling at you thought that old mrs would not bear to see i her heart said she is capable of rejoicing that s plant though her own be withered oh they arc dear good people i feel as if we all belonged to each other said with a tinge of merriment in her what should you have felt if that had been your brother r said � a little provoked that m book � ths v s liad taken kindly at once to people who bad him ao annoyance on her account looked at him with a slight surprise for a moment and then said he is not a bad man � i think ho would never any one but when she bad uttered the words she blushed deeply and glancing timidly at turned away to some occupation father was in her mind and this was a subject on which she and her brother had a painful mutual consciousness if ho should come and find us was a thought which to sometimes made the street daylight as shadowy as a haunted forest where each turn for her an imaginary apparition felt what was ber voluntary allusion and understood the blush could he be slow to understand feelings which now seemed nearer than ever to his own for the words of his mother letter implied that his filial relation was not to be freed from painful conditions indeed singularly enough that letter which had brought his mother nearer as a living reality had thrown her into more for his affections the tender yearning after a being life might have been the worse for not having his care and love the image of a mother who had not had all her of reverence or compassion had long been secretly present with him in his observation of all tho women he had come near but it seemed now that this of his mother might fit the facts no better than his about sir lie wondered to find that when this mother s very handwriting had come to him with words her actual feeling his affections had suddenly shrunk into a state of comparative toward her a veiled figure with speech had thrust away that image which in spite of uncertainty his clinging thought had gradually and made the possessor of his tenderness and longing when he set off to the interest really uppermost in his mind had hardly so much relation to his mother as to and god bless you dan i sir had said when they shook hands whatever else changes for you it can t change my being the oldest friend you have known and the one who has all along felt the most for you i couldn t have loved you bet s n a if you d been my own � only i should been better pleased with thinking of you always as the future master of the abbey instead of my fine nephew and then you would have seen it necessary for you to a political line however things must be as they may it was a measure of the s to mingle remarks with the expression of serious feeling when arrived at the in no princess was there but on the second day there was a letter for him saying that her arrival might happen within a week or might be deferred a fortnight and more she was under circumstances which made it impossible for her to x her journey more precisely and she entreated him to wait as patiently as he could with this indefinite prospect of suspense on matters of supreme moment to him set about the difficult task of seeking amusement on philosophic grounds as a means of excited feeling and giving patience a lift over a weary road his former to the superb city had been only and left him much to beyond the prescribed round of by spending the cooler hours in observant wandering about the streets the and the and ho often took a boat that he 