"No, father! no! my life and soul on her truth and love! Children are good judges of character, you know! And I was but eight years old on the occasion of which I speak! I was carrying a basket of tools for the 'professor,' whose assistant I was; and who would have carried them himself only that his back was bent beneath a load of kitchen utensils, for we had been plastering a cistern all day and in coming home took these things to mend in the evening. And as we passed down the road we saw this lovely lady leaning on the stile. And she called me to her and laid her hand on my head and looked in my face very tenderly, and turning to the professor, said: 'This child is too young for so heavy a burden.' And she took out her purse and would have given me an eagle, only that Aunt Hannah had taught me never to take money that I had not earned." "Grim Hannah! It is a marvel she had not starved you with her scruples, Ishmael! But what else passed between you and the countess?" "Not much! but if she was sorry for me, I was quite as sorry for her." "There was a bond of sympathy between you which you felt without understanding at the time!" "There was; though I mistook its precise character. Seeing that she wore black, I said: 'Have you also lost your mother, my lady, and are you in deep mourning for her?' And she answered, 'I am in deep mourning for my dead happiness, child!'" "For her dead honor, she might have said!" "Father! the absent are like the dead; they cannot defend themselves," said Ishmael. "That is true; and I stand rebuked! And henceforth, whatever I may think, I will never speak evil of the Countess of Hurstmonceux." "Go farther yet, dear sir! seek an explanation with her, and my word on it she will be able to confute the calumnies, or clear up the suspicious circumstances or whatever it may have been that has shaken your confidence in her, and kept you apart so long." "Ishmael it is a subject that I have never broached to the countess, and one that I could not endure to discuss with her!" "What, my father? Would you forever condemn her unheard? We do not treat our worst criminals so!" "Spare me, my son! for I have spared her!" "If by sparing her you mean that you have left her alone, you had better not spared her; you had better sought divorce; then one of two things would have happened--either she would have disproved the charges brought against her, or she would have been set free! either alternative much better than her present condition." "I could not drag my domestic troubles into a public courtroom, Ishmael!" "Not when justice required it, father?--But you are going down into the neighborhood of Brudenell Hall! You will hear of her from the people among whom she lived for so many years, and who cherish her memory as that of an angel of mercy, and--you will change your opinion of her." Herman Brudenell smiled incredulously, and then said: