Without one word he went, for no words would come; but not without giving her some comfort. The agony of his last embrace eased her heart, which a light farewell would have well nigh broken. She dwelt upon it with a strange satisfaction as she recrossed the river; and as she closed her doors, and put out her light to weep in darkness till the morning; and when she related the story to her husband; and when, long after, they heard of the loss of Cuthbert Eldred among others of the crew of an American merchant vessel; and when, in subsequent years, Tim and she used to talk of the brother Cuddie who was the gentlest nurse and playfellow, the most generous brother, and the bravest youth that ever gave promise of being an honour to his class, and an assistance to his country in her times of need. CHAPTER VII. LOYALTY PREVENTIVES. Next day, there appeared a sufficient reason for Mrs. Eldred’s great desire that Tim should attend the opening of the Deep Cut. She was not found at her old place when Walter went to restore his charge. The cottage was shut up, and a friendly neighbour came out to deliver to Walter the message with which she had been entrusted for him. Mrs. Eldred had for some time found it difficult for her to live and maintain her blind son, and finding that she and all her family, except her daughter, had been impoverished by interference with their industry in one form or another, she had brought herself to do that which, if free, she would have despised. She had sued for a place in an almshouse, supported by the vaunted charity of a corporation which caused infinitely more want than it relieved. She had carefully kept this secret from Walter and his wife, knowing what efforts they would make to preserve a proud spirit like hers from the degradation of accepting charity. But she declared that she felt it, though a misery, no degradation. If the trade of the collieries was injured by a corporation in London, so as to deprive her of work, and if her eldest son was hindered by a corporation nearer home from carrying his labour to the best market, she felt that a maintenance was due from corporative funds, and she should receive it without any acknowledgment of obligation till the labour of the family was once more placed at the disposal of the family. The reproach of the pauper dress which she and Tim must henceforth wear must rest with those who had prevented her earning more honourable apparel; and she hoped her son and daughter would not take the matter too much to heart. It appeared that Mrs. Eldred had made these, her explanations, very fully and not very coolly to Mr. Milford, the surgeon, who had argued the matter with her; not attempting to deny that her connexions had been interfered with, but pleading that the interference had been more for good than for evil. But Mr. Milford liked corporations. An idle brother of his, who had been a great burden upon