sent to school, lest he should meet with mortification. He had had various tutors, trained to show, rather than to exact, respect; one succeeding another, at his own whim and caprice. His natural quickness, and a very strong, hard, inquisitive turn of mind, had enabled him, however, to pick up more knowledge, though of a desultory and miscellaneous nature, than boys of his age generally possess; and his roving, independent, out-of-door existence had served to ripen his understanding. He had certainly, in spite of every precaution, arrived at some, though not very distinct, notion of his peculiar position; but none of its inconveniences had visited him till that day. He began now to turn his eyes to the future; and vague and dark forebodings--a consciousness of the shelter, the protector, the station, he had lost in his father’s death--crept coldly, over him. While thus musing, a ring was heard at the bell; he lifted his head; it was the postman with a letter. Philip hastily rose, and, averting his face, on which the tears were not dried, took the letter; and then, snatching up his little basket of fruit, repaired to his mother’s room. The shutters were half closed on the bright day--oh, what a mockery is there in the smile of the happy sun when it shines on the wretched! Mrs. Morton sat, or rather crouched, in a distant corner; her streaming eyes fixed on vacancy; listless, drooping; a very image of desolate woe; and Sidney was weaving flower-chains at her feet. “Mamma!--mother!” whispered Philip, as he threw his arms round her neck; “look up! look up!--my heart breaks to see you. Do taste this fruit: you will die too, if you go on thus; and what will become of us--of Sidney?” Mrs. Morton did look up vaguely into his face, and strove to smile. “See, too, I have brought you a letter; perhaps good news; shall I break the seal?” Mrs. Morton shook her head gently, and took the letter--alas! how different from that one which Sidney had placed in her hands not two short weeks since--it was Mr. Robert Beaufort’s handwriting. She shuddered, and laid it down. And then there suddenly, and for the first time, flashed across her the sense of her strange position--the dread of the future. What were her sons to be henceforth? What herself? Whatever the sanctity of her marriage, the law might fail her. At the disposition of Mr. Robert Beaufort the fate of three lives might depend. She gasped for breath; again took up the letter; and hurried over the contents: they ran thus: