Time went on and on till I wanted but a few months of twelve, and my lessons were all but dropped, as my mother's mornings were passed either in letter-writing or in interviews with her lawyer. It was on the conclusion of one of these councils that Mr. McBride led me into the garden, and, seating me beside him on a bench, said, “I have something to say to you, Digby; and I don't know that I 'd venture to say it, if I had not seen that you are a thoughtful boy, and an affectionate son of the best mother that ever lived. You are old enough, besides, to have a right to know something about yourself and your future prospects, and it is for that I have come out to-day.” And with this brief preface he told me the whole story of my father's and mother's marriage and separation; and how it came to pass that I had been taken from one to live with the other; and how the time was now drawing nigh--it wanted but two months and ten days--when I should be once more under my father's guidance, and totally removed from the influence of that mother who loved me so dearly. “We might fight the matter in the courts, it is true,” said he. “There are circumstances which might weigh with a judge whether he 'd remove you from a position of safety and advantage to one of danger and difficulty; but it would be the fight of a weak purse against a strong one, not to say that it would also be the struggle of a poor mother's heart against the law of the land; and I have at last persuaded her it would be wiser and safer not to embitter the relations with your father,--to submit to the inevitable; and not improbably you may be permitted to see her from time to time, and, at all events, to write to her.” It took a long time for him to go through what I have so briefly set down here; for there were many pros and cons, and he omitted none of them; and while he studiously abstained from applying to my father any expression of censure or reprobation, he could not conceal from me that he regarded him as a very cold-hearted, unfeeling man, from whom little kindness could be expected, and to whom entreaty or petition would be lost time. I will not dwell on the impression this revelation produced on me, nor will I linger on the time that followed on it,--the very saddest of my life. Our lessons were stopped,--all the occupations that once filled the day ceased,--a mournful silence fell upon us, as though there was a death in the house; and there was, indeed, the death of that peaceful existence in which we had glided along for years, and we sat grieving over a time that was to return no more. My mother tried to employ herself in setting my clothes in order, getting my books decently bound, and enabling me in every way to make a respectable appearance in that new life I was about to enter on; but her grief usually overcame her in these attempts, and she would hang in tears over the little trunk that recalled every memory she was so soon to regard as the last traces of her child.