Certainly, there existed a wide difference between the future of the two-year-old boy, sturdily stamping about the gravel-path underneath, the great St. Bernard's dog, "Brave," harnessed with tape before him; and that of the young infant lying in the cradle by the fireside. Many a mother, far more gentle and self-forgetting than was Charlotte St. John, might have felt a pang in contemplating the contrast. Benja had a title in prospective; he would be rich amidst the rich. George (by that name the infant was already registered) might count his future income by a few hundreds. The greater portion of the Alnwick estate (not a very large one) was strictly entailed; and the large fortune brought to Mr. St. John by his first wife, was now Benja's. Mr. St. John would probably have wished to do as well by one child as by the other, but he could not help himself; he could not alter the existing state of things. The settlement he had been enabled to make on Miss Norris was very, very small; but he intended to redeem this by putting by yearly some of his large income for her and her children. Still the contrast was great, and Mrs. Darling knew that Charlotte was dwelling upon it with bitterness, when she laid that emphasis just now on the "son _and heir_." That Mrs. St. John would inordinately love this child of hers, there was no doubt about--far more so than might be well for herself or for him. Mrs. Darling saw it as she lay there--lay looking with eager, watchful eyes at the little face in the cradle; and Mrs. Darling decided within herself--it may have been from experience--that such love does not bring peace in its wake. "I wish it had been a girl!" thought Mrs. Darling. Charlotte Norris had all her life been subject to taking likes and dislikes--occasionally violent ones; and she took a strong dislike to the nurse that was now in attendance upon her, barely suffering her in the room, and insisting on Prance's seeing to the baby instead, for Prance was at the Hall with her mistress. The result was, that when, at the end of a fortnight, Mrs. Darling quitted the Hall, Prance was transferred to Mrs. St. John's service, and remained as nurse to the infant. Some months went on, and spring came round. Mr. Carleton St. John, who was in parliament, had to be in London; but his wife remained at Alnwick with her baby, who seemed delicate. Not to have brought to herself all the good in the world, would she have stirred without him. The frail little infant of a few days had become to her the greatest treasure earth ever gave; her love for him was of that wild, impassioned, all-absorbing nature, known, it is hoped, but to few, for it never visits a well-regulated heart.