She attended still more to her children. They were always with her, and in their infantine prattle she often found pleasure; but even from that source she occasionally drank the bitter draught of shame. One day they had just returned from a walk in the square, where they had been playing with some young companions, when Edward said to her, “Mamma, why don’t they call me lord? That little boy in blue says, he is called lord, because he is the eldest. Now, I am the eldest, and yet Charles and Emily are called lord and lady, and I am not.” This was more than she could endure. She tried to murmur something, but her lips refused to move, her tongue to utter. She blushed, she quailed under the innocent enquiring eye of her child. She hid her face in his curly locks, she drew him closer to her, she smothered him with kisses, she wept over him, she sobbed, till the child, frightened at the violent emotions he had so unconsciously excited, felt there was a mystery, and ever after avoided the subject with that precocious tact which children so often evince. Another time he was reading a childish History of England, and when he came to a passage that treated of hereditary succession, he said, “Yes—the kingdom descends to the king’s eldest son, as papa’s land will descend to me;” anxious, as children always are, to illustrate by some familiar example. She thrilled through every nerve; but she thought it would be too cruel to bring him up in this error, from which he must one day be painfully undeceived. She summoned up all her courage, and without daring to reflect on what might be his next question, she forced herself to utter. “My dear! you will not inherit your father’s lands.” There was a constrained solemnity in the tone which awed the boy. He felt he was on forbidden ground, and he said no more. CHAPTER IV. For I have drunk the cup of bitterness, And having drunk therein of heavenly grace, I must not put away the cup of shame. SOUTHEY. Years rolled on. Lord Sotheron was more and more engrossed in public affairs, and the time at length arrived when Maria regretted those days when he was unknown, and unnoticed, but when she at least enjoyed the society of him for whom she had sacrificed every thing.