They were passing a lighted lamp at the time, and she noticed that the lad’s eyes were red, and his features bore traces of distress. “Are you ill?” she enquired quickly, “or in any trouble?” He halted for a minute in his stride. “No! no! not exactly,” he said in a low voice, and then, as if the words came from him against his will, he went on, “But O! I do wish someone would speak to Mamma about the way she treats me. It’s cruel--to strike me with her stick before all those people, as if I were a baby, and to call me such names! Even the servant William laughs at me! Do all mothers do the same, Miss Leyton? Ought a man to stand it quietly?” “Decidedly not!” cried Elinor, without hesitation. “O! Elinor! remember, she is his mother,” remonstrated Margaret, “don’t say anything to set him against her!” “But I was nineteen last birthday,” continued the lad, “and sometimes she treats me in such a manner, that I can’t bear it! The Baron dare not say a word to her! She swears at him so. Sometimes, I think I will run away and go to sea!” “No! no! you mustn’t do that!” called Miss Leyton after him, as he quickened his footsteps in the direction of the Lion d’Or. “What an awful woman!” sighed Mrs. Pullen. “Fancy! striking her own son in public, and with that thick stick too. I believe he had been crying!” “I am _sure_ he had,” replied her friend, “you can see the poor fellow is half-witted, and very weakly into the bargain. I suppose she has beaten his brains to a pap. What a terrible misfortune to have such a mother! You should hear some of the stories Madame Lamont has to tell of her!” “But how does she hear them?” “Through the Baron’s servant William, I suppose. He says the Baroness has often taken her stick to him and the other servants, and thinks no more of swearing at them than a trooper! They all hate her. One day, she took up a kitchen cleaver and advanced upon her coachman with it, but he seized her by both arms and sat her down upon the fire, whence she was only rescued after being somewhat severely burned!” “It served her right!” exclaimed Margaret, laughing at the ludicrous idea, “but what a picture she must have presented, seated on the kitchen range! Where can the woman have been raised? What sort of a person can she be?” “Not what she pretends, Margaret, you may be sure of that! All her fine talk of lords and ladies is so much bunkum. But I pity the poor little Baron, who is, at all events, inoffensive. How can he put up with such a wife! He must feel very much ashamed of her sometimes!” “And yet he seems devoted to her! He never leaves her side for a moment. He is her walking stick, her fetcher and carrier, and her scribe. I don’t believe she can write a letter!”