"That comes of your having lived so little out of England. The English pay no attention to the saints' days. I have been abroad a good deal with my children, and know them all. St. Martin's is a great day in some parts of France. Please let it be so worded, Mr. St. John." He took a pen and wrote it as she desired, laughing much. "I should like to see Dr. Graves's eyes when he reads this," quoth he, as he put it into the envelope. "A rubbishing old Low Churchman!" slightingly spoke Mrs. Darling. "He's nobody." So the notice was sent off; and in due time returned to the house in the newspapers. Mrs. Darling carried one upstairs proudly to her daughter. "See, Charlotte! How well it looks!" Mrs. St. John took the paper in her delicate hand and read it in silence; read it twice. "How came George to put it in like that--'St. Martin's Eve?'" "Because I requested it. You are quite well now, darling, as may be said: but I would not have the announcement made to the world in the same words as the last." "It never could have been so made, mamma." "Yes it could. Were not the two children born on the same day of the year?" "Oh, that," coldly returned Mrs. St. John, as if the fact were not worth a thought. "The other had an addition which this must lack. It ran in this way: 'the wife of George Carleton St. John, of a son _and heir_.'" Mrs. Darling made no rejoinder. But she cast a keen, stealthy glance at Charlotte from time to time, as she busied herself with some trifle at a distance. Things had gone on very smoothly at the Hall during the past few months. Mrs. St. John had been at least kind to Benja, sufficiently loving in manner; and Honour liked her new mistress tolerably well. The girl's feeling towards her may best be described as a negative one; neither like nor dislike. She did not dislike her as she had formerly believed she should do; and she did not very much like her. Perhaps if there had been a characteristic more prominent than another in the disposition of Charlotte Morris, it was jealousy. Mrs. Darling had been obliged to see this--and to see it exercised, too--during the course of her daughter's past life; and one of her objections to the master of Alnwick Hall, as a husband for Charlotte, was the fact that he had been once married and his heir was already born. That Charlotte would be desperately jealous of the little Benja, should she bear a son of her own, jealous perhaps to hatred, Mrs. Darling felt sure of: she devoutly hoped there would be no children; and an uncomfortable feeling had been upon her from the hour she learnt of the anticipated arrival. So long as Charlotte was without a son, there could be no very formidable jealousy of Benja. But there might be afterwards.