After this there ensued a strange confused interval, during which the two executors were continually meeting to consult on what was to be done. They had no right to consult without including the third most important of all in their deliberations. But how were they to consult with Lady Frogmore, who ignored the very first particular of their trust. Nothing could be more strange than the position altogether. The vicar and his wife, who would not be shut out, and whose importance as her parents was so very much greater than any claimed by Mary, fought stoutly for what they considered their daughter’s “rights.” But Mary put in no claim of right, and was only anxious that John Parke and his wife should, as she thought, succeed to everything and take their right place. She did not ask either the custody or guardianship of the child. He had a disturbing influence upon her, confident though she was that he was none of hers, and after a while she showed a restlessness to get away, to which the doctor, who was still always in attendance, would not allow any opposition. He would not answer for the consequence, he said, if she were opposed. And thus it happened that to the extreme discomfiture and dismay of the vicar and his wife, and the despair of Agnes, the matter was settled at last. Mary left the Park, leaving behind almost with relief the forlorn little Lord Frogmore, who was her only child. She left him in the keeping of the woman who tried her best to extinguish his little life before it began, carrying away from him in her train the only creature in the world that had been to him as a mother. Alas for little Mar! But so it had to be. CHAPTER XXXI. Little Mar said nothing at any time about this shock to his being, which occurred when he was so very young that his after recollection of it was of the most imperfect kind--a confused memory of pain rather than any definite recollection of facts. But there was no doubt that it had a very serious effect upon him. Such a change, from the supremacy of an only child, monarch of all he surveyed, the idol of his father and of his aunt, to whom Mar was every thing, into a mere indefinite member of a large nursery party, nobody’s favorite, a little stranger whose tastes were not consulted, nor his fancies thought of--is more tremendous than anything that can happen to a man. How good for him, people said, instead of being petted and spoiled as an only child is so apt to be, to have the advantage of a wholesome nursery life with other children round him, and all the natural give and take of a large family. But such a revolution is a terrible experiment. I have known it drive a delicate child into a sort of temporary imbecility. This could not be said of Mar, for, amid all the criticisms to which he was subject, it was never alleged of him that he was without intelligence. But a great many other things were said which, whether they were true or not, had a great effect upon his after career.