"There was no help for leaving them off; we could not get any abroad. Prance contrived to manage them in some way as long as I wore them, but they were never tidy. Where's Honour?" she suddenly exclaimed, turning her eyes, ablaze with sudden angry fire, on Mrs. Darling. Mrs. Darling positively recoiled. And some feeling, which she did not stay to account for, and perhaps could not have accounted for, prompted her to withhold the fact that Honour had been taken in at Castle Wafer. "She procured some other situation, I believe, Charlotte, after quitting the Hall. I have never heard from her." "A situation! Where? Not at Alnwick?" "Oh dear no; not at Alnwick; in a different county; not very far, I think, from her native place." "Mamma, if ever you see her, ask her whether the boy's spirit comes and haunts her in the night? It may; for she murdered him. She ought to suffer on the scaffold for her work. I wish she could; I might be more at rest." "Oh, Charlotte! Charlotte!" soothingly spoke Mrs. Darling from the depths of her fearful heart,--fearful she knew not of what. "Come and look here!" interrupted Rose in a whisper. They both turned. The little lad had fallen into a light doze on her lap, his wan hand clasping Rose's blue ribbons, and the upright line on his pale forehead seeming to denote that he had gone to sleep in pain. "Charlotte," said Rose, earnestly, "I'm not used to children, and don't pretend to understand them as you must do; but my belief is, that this child wants rest--repose from travelling. It cannot be good for him to be hurried about incessantly. It is wearing him out." "You do _not_ understand them," returned Mrs. St. John. "It is for him that I move about. He grows so languid whenever we settle down. What should you know about children, Rose? Are you a nurse, or a doctor? You are not a mother. A chacun son métier." "Comme vous voulez," returned Rose, with her pretty shrug. "Charlotte, I am going to visit where I shall see something of a sort of cousin of yours--Mr. St. John." "Mr. St. John of Castle Wafer?" quickly asked Mrs. St. John, with more interest than she had yet displayed. "The heir to Castle Wafer, Frederick." "Oh--he," slightingly returned Mrs. St. John, and she relapsed into apathy. "How long shall you remain at Belport, Charlotte?" asked Rose, speaking softly, not to awaken the child. "I don't know yet; I shall see how the place suits George. Do you happen to know of a good sick-nurse here, Rose--English? I hear they abound." "I know of one," said Rose, rather eagerly. "And she is excellent in these cases of--of----" Rose caught back the ominous word she had so nearly uttered--consumption; substituting one for it, however, that proved little better--"of wasting away. It is her _spécialité_." "Who says he is wasting away? Who says it?"