And this might not, could not be a deliberate act. It must have been committed under a sudden impulse, to be repented of for the rest of his days. Nay, in the strange way in which our sins and mistakes are made not only the whips to scourge us, but the sicknesses out of which we often come--suffering and weak indeed, but yet relieved, and fresh, and sound--who could tell but that this grave fault, this actual guilt, the climax of so many lesser errors, might not work out in the end Ascott's complete reformation? So in the strange way in which, after a great shock, we begin to revive a little, to hope against hope, to see a slender ray breaking through the darkness, Hilary composed herself, at least so far as to enable her to bid Elizabeth go down stairs, and she would be ready directly. "I think it is the best thing I can do--to go home at once," said she. "Certainly, my dear." replied Mr. Ascott, rather flattered by her involuntary appeal, and by an inward consciousness of his own exceeding generosity. "And pray don't disturb yourselves. Tell your sister from me--your sister Selina, I mean--that I overlook every thing, on condition that you keep him out of my sight, that young blackguard!" "Don't, don't!" cried Hilary, piteously. "Well, I won't, though it's his right name--a fellow who could-- Look you, Miss Hilary, when his father sent to me to beg ten pounds to bury his mother with. I did bury her, and him also, a month after, very respectably too, though he had no claim upon me, except that he came from Stowbury. And I stood godfather to the child, and I've done my duty by him. But mark my words, what's bred in the bone will come in the flesh. He was born in a prison, and he'll die in a prison." "God forbid!" said Hilary, solemnly. And again she felt the strong conviction, that whatever his father had been, or his mother, of whom they had heard nothing till she was dead, Ascott could not have lived all these years of his childhood and early boyhood with his three aunts at Stowbury without gaining at least some good, which might counteract the hereditary evil; as such evil can be counteracted, even as hereditary disease can be gradually removed by wholesome and careful rearing in a new generation. "Well, I'll not say any more," continued Peter Ascott: "only the sooner the young fellow takes himself off the better. He'll only plague you all. Now, can you send out for a cab for me?" Hilary mechanically rang the bell, and gave the order. "I'll take you to town with me if you like. It'll save you the expense of the omnibus. I suppose you always travel by omnibus?" Hilary answered something, she hardly knew what, except that it was a declining of all these benevolent attentions. At last she got Mr. Ascott outside the street door, and returning, put her hand to her head with a moan. "Oh, Miss Hilary, don't look like that." "Elizabeth, do you know what has happened?" "No."