"Oh, my dear master! my dear master!" she would cry, wringing her hands; "I know he's going, and then we shall all have to go, and leave the old place; whereas, if any of you had married, and had a boy, or Miss Minnie either, we might have remained; but her boy went along with her, and I often see a beautiful baby in my sleep, all covered with long hair, like Miss Minnie, sitting on a rock, wringing out the sea-water." Her description of Minnie was not very correct, but she didn't exactly and literally mean what she said. Poor Gillett certainly looked older by many years; and in proof of how much her memory was affected, she had been seen more than once sitting on the stile in the holly field, without her pattens. The manor-house was desolate--only servants inhabited it; Farmer Weld plodded over his fields in gloom, for now he lost all hope of ever seeing good Madam Tremenhere's son back again. Skaife had been so solemnly bound down not to betray Minnie's actual existence, that he durst not do so; besides he felt assured that an eventual day of brightness would shine over all, by Tremenhere's and Minnie's reconciliation. He wisely felt that this was too serious an act, after the fatal suspicions on his part, to be risked in its full and perfect self-accomplishment by any interference of friends; when both hearts should be firmly convinced of each other's worth, then they might be safely brought together. But when he told Minnie all the bitter grief her beloved aunt Dorcas felt, her gentle heart consented to a hope which might be held out to alleviate her pain; and this was in the accomplishment of a desire, she had so often expressed, that Minnie's boy even, had been saved. "Oh!" she often said to Skaife, "I could with time have become reconciled to all. If only I had held her child in my arms, it would have recalled her to me in all her childish love and kindness, but even this is denied me!" Skaife accordingly wrote to her, requesting that secresy which he knew would be faithfully kept; and stating that through Mary Burns he had strong hope of one day placing her Minnie's boy in her arms, as he had reason to believe he had been saved from the wreck! Minnie would indeed have rejoiced had she seen her aunt's joy; next to seeing herself once more, this was the dearest blessing she could have received. "Minnie's boy!" and as she sat, and hoped and prayed for his coming, the step grew lighter, the eye less dim--even Sylvia's bolts fell more harmlessly around her; and at last this amiable one had the cruelty to accuse her of want of feeling, and "unnatural mirth," because she once saw the ghost of a smile pass over her lip; but not all her indignation could make poor Dorcas hopeless; she felt Skaife would not lightly buoy her up with hopes, to destroy them.