Poor Edmund had now been some days an inmate of Lodore House, but, as yet, no one had been able to discover who or what he was: while from himself no replies could be obtained, but sobs and terrified looks. One morning Frances sent for him to the breakfast-room, and, after giving him many good things, began a kind of questioning, which she hoped might draw some information from the child, without alarming him: such as, Where was his home? Where was the place where he used always to be? He replied, "No where." Was there any one that used to love him? "Yes," he said. She now thought she had found a clue to some useful discovery, and asked him, who it was that loved him? "You do," he replied. Frances took him on her knee, and put her questions in low whispers; upon which, when she asked him particularly about the large bruise on the side of his leg, he stole his little arms round her neck, and breathed softly in her ear, "She wanted to break it off." "Who, my dear, wanted to break it off?" "My mother." Then, alarmed at the great effort he had made, he became more silent than ever, and looked so much distressed, that at last, for his own relief, he was dismissed in charge of good Mrs. Smyth. While Frances, inspired by the same sentiment which had guided the righteous judgment of Solomon, felt convinced that the woman, whoever she might be, who could treat a child so barbarously, was not its real mother. Mrs. Montgomery was herself disposed to entertain the same opinion; she, however, laughed at the romantic deduction attempted to be made by Frances, that Edmund therefore must be the child of parents in an exalted rank in life. While the ladies were discussing this point, Mr. Lauson, an attorney resident at Keswick, came in to pay his respects: for he was agent to the Cumberland and Westmoreland estates, as well as general man of business to the family. Lauson had passed Mrs. Smyth and Edmund in the hall, and had looked rather hard at the child. As soon as the morning salutations were ended, and he had taken his seat, he pointed with his thumb over his shoulder towards the door, which was behind him, saying, "What child's that?" And, without waiting for a reply, he added, "I'd be sworn but it's the boy that was begging about at the regatta with one leg." "With one leg!" interrupted Frances. "Ay, ay," said Lauson; "but I saw him myself find the other, so there is nothing so surprising in his having the two now." The ladies requested an explanation, and Mr. Lauson gave the best he could, by recounting as much as he had witnessed of the scene which opens our history. CHAPTER VI. "Of snowy white the dress, the buskin white, And purest white, the graceful waving plume."