"I shall go into this," said Honour. "I should think _you_ needn't be afraid of what you'd see inside," she added to Prance in tones, it must be confessed, of aggravation. "There's no dancing here." Prance's only answer was to draw down the corners of her thin lips and walk off with George to a leviathan booth whose company were executing a complicated quadrille before it. Honour paid her threepence, disputed with the money-taker about admitting Benja for three-halfpence, that functionary protesting that there was no half-price for gentlemen's children, and went into the show. Like many other shows, its interior did not realize the outward promise. There was a crocodile in stone, and a few more dead wonders, which Honour turned up her nose at, saying something about demanding back her money: but Benja's attention had become riveted by the pretty model of a church rising from the midst of green moss. It was white, and its coloured windows were ingeniously shown up by means of a light placed within it. It really was a pretty and conspicuous article in the dark booth, and Benja could not be moved from it. How little did Honour think that that sight was to exercise so terrible an influence on the unconscious child! "Come along," she said, rather impatiently. "I could make you as good a one any day, Benja." "How could you make it?" promptly asked Benja. "With white paper and thin strips of wood for the frame. Master Benja, then! we shall have Prance going home and telling your mamma that we lost her on purpose. She's as deceitful as yonder crocodile." "Couldn't you buy it for me, Honour?" returned Benja, not stirring a peg. "Of course I couldn't," answered Honour. "What a little simpleton you must be, to ask it! The things here are not for sale; the folks get their living by showing them. And a fine set of worthless rubbish it is! Once for all, are you coming, Master St. John?" "Will you promise to make me one?" persisted Benja. "Yes, I will. There!" "When?" "As soon as I can get the things together. Now come." Benja reluctantly moved away; but his head and eyes were turned for the last glance, up to the moment when Honour pulled him through the low green-baize opening. Meanwhile Mrs. Carleton St. John was sitting alone. She was of remarkably quiet habits by inclination, a great stay-at-home, rarely seeking society or amusement abroad; and the still recent death of her husband tended to keep the Hall pretty free from idle visitors. One sole passion seemed to absorb her whole life, to the exclusion of every other; it filled every crevice of her heart, it regulated her movements, it buried even her natural grief for her husband--and this was love for her child. The word love most inadequately expresses the feeling: it was a passion, threatening to consume every healthy impulse. She was quite aware of it: indeed, her conscience did not allow her to be otherwise.