even forced to allow to Letitia, who surprised her in tears after she had taken farewell of the boy. “Yes, he is very delicate,” said Letitia with a grave face. “I take a hundred precautions with him which I should laugh at for my own children. But if anything were to happen to Mar in my house I should die.” “Oh, God forbid that anything should happen!” cried poor Agnes. “I am sure I hope so sincerely,” cried Letitia, but still shaking her head. And the same impression was universal. The old women in the village whom Agnes went to see on her visit, old pensioners, shook their heads, too, and said, “Ma’am, you’ll never rare him.” And the tutor who was leaving seized upon the owner of the sympathetic face and discoursed to her largely of the false system on which Mar was being trained. “He’s like a flower growing in a prison--that flower, you know, that some man wrote a book about, all running to seed, and not a bit of color for want of air and sun.” “Oh, if it was only air and sun that were wanted,” cried Agnes. “It is, it is!” said the young man. “I hear his mother’s living; why don’t she send and take him away? To be with you now, who would pet him and study him, would make all the difference in the world.” “Oh, don’t say so,” said Agnes with tears, “for it cannot be, I fear it cannot be.” “Well,” said the young man, “I would not leave the boy here if I had anything to do with him: but then perhaps I’m prejudiced, for I hate--Mrs. Parke.” He was going to say “the woman here,” but paused in time. “You must not speak so,” said Agnes.