Two hours after this deed had been perpetrated, some one came knocking gently at the door of Mr. Trevor's chamber, to which Mrs. Marryott had returned to inform her that a young woman had arrived, desiring to speak with her. Mrs. Marryott kept the person waiting some little time for she was giving Mr. Trevor his arrow-root; but at length went down to her sitting-room, where she found a woman of decent appearance though poorly attired, seated patiently awaiting her coming; a dark cloak wrapped around her, and a large bonnet and veil nearly concealing her face. On perceiving Marryott she rose, and to the inquiry: "What was her business?" the stranger put back her veil, and showing her pale and anxious countenance, in tremulous accents murmured: "Mother!" Surprise was at first strongly depicted on Marryott's countenance; but the next instant the hard impenetrable expression of her face returned, in a cold measured tone she demanded what it might be that brought her there? "Mother; have you no words of kindness to give your daughter?" faltered the poor woman. "Words of kindness--pshaw! is that all you have come this long way for," the other answered impatiently. "Alas! no mother," was the sorrowful reply, drooping her head despairingly; "but if you have not even those to give me, how can I ask for more." "More! ah, I thought so--I thought that pride would have a fall at last: that you would put your virtue into your pocket, and be coming one day crawling on your knees to beg a morsel of bread, or a hole in this house, from the mother who was not _good_ enough for you some years ago. So I suppose your lover won't have you now that you are old and ugly--bah! don't think that I will take you in here; if this house was not good enough for you _then_, it's none the better _now_. At any rate there's no place in it for you, so you must go back from whence you came." "Mother, mother--do not speak so cruelly--do not blame me, if knowing what was good and what was evil, I could not come to live here, hearing of you what I did. But alas! my spirit indeed waxeth faint, and my strength faileth me. I am worn out with useless labour, and I come to ask a little help from the mother who bore me, trusting that God will forgive both her and me, for we have all sinned--all stand in need of forgiveness. * * Yes, I come to ask for a little help to take me to America--to Henry Wilson, who still waits for and expects me." "Oh, that's it,"--with a scornful laugh--"it's money you want; those 'wages of iniquity,' which you scorned at so finely long ago." "Mother--those were strong words perhaps for a daughter so young to use towards a mother, but my heart was grieved for you; it was in sorrowful affection, not undutiful scorn, that I thus spoke."