“Go away!” said Pamela, looking up with a face of despair--“away! Mamma, you don’t think of--of--_him_ as she does? _You_ know what he is. Go away! and perhaps never, never see him again. Oh, mamma!” “I did not mean that,” said Mrs. Preston; “but we can’t stop here, and live at his father’s very door, and have him coming under their eyes to vex them. No, my darling; that would be cruel, and it would not be wise.” “Do you think they will mind so very much?” said Pamela, looking wistfully in her mother’s face. “What should I do if they hated me? Miss Brownlow, you know--Sara--she always wanted me to call her Sara--she would never turn against me. I know her too well for that.” “She has not been here for a long time,” said Mrs. Preston; “you have not noticed it, but I have, Pamela. She has never come since that day her father spoke to you. There is a great difference, my darling, between the sister’s little friend and the brother’s betrothed.” “Mamma, you seem to know all about those wretched things,” cried Pamela, impulsively. “Why did you never tell me before? I never, never would have spoken to him--if I had known.” “How was _I_ to know, Pamela?” said Mrs. Preston. “It appears you did not know yourselves. And then, when you told me what Mr. Brownlow said, I thought I might find you a friend. I think yet, if I could but see him; but when I spoke last night of seeing Mr. Brownlow, _he_ would not hear of it. It is very hard to know what to do.” Then there ensued another pause--a long pause, during which the mother, engaged with many thoughts, did not look at her child. Pamela, too, was thinking; she had taken her mother’s long thin hand into her own, and was smoothing it softly with her soft fingers; her head was bent over it, her eyes cast down; now and then a sudden heaving, as of a sob about to come, moved her pretty shoulders. And her voice was very tuneless and rigid when she spoke. “Mamma,” she said, “speak to me honestly, once for all. Ought I to give it all up? I don’t mean to say it would be easy. I never knew a--a--any one before--never any body was like _that_ to me. You don’t know--oh, you don’t know how he can talk, mamma. And then it was not like any thing new--it felt natural, as if we had always belonged to each other. I know it’s no use talking. Tell me, mamma, once for all, would it really be better for him and--every body, if I were to give him quite up?” Pamela held herself upright and rigid as she asked the question. She held her mother’s hand fast, and kept stroking it in an intermittent way. When she had finished she gave her an appealing look--a look which did not ask advice. It was not advice she wanted, poor child: she wanted to be told to do what she longed to do--to be assured that that was the best; therefore she looked not like a creature wavering between two opinions, but like a culprit at the bar, awaiting her sentence. As for Mrs. Preston, she only shook her head.