character, and if ever man was thrust and jostled into temptation that man was me. "My temper has been so tried with this unhappy business, that I scarcely know what I am doing. Advise me how to answer Armitage, and send me Scarsdale if you can spare him. I want some assistance besides my own head and hands. "O. POUNCET." "Now, I say, mamma," cried Edmund, in a loud whisper, "don't give him time to make up a story--ask him what it means. Oh, Mr. Scarsdale, we're very surprised about that, we are. It's something about Roger--what is it?" Horace was taken by surprise. Looking up, he caught the child's sharp glance, and the imploring look of the mother, both fixed upon him; and he was disconcerted. Not for the last injunction of Edmund's father--not because that worldly man, without repenting of the wrong, would have suffered another death rather than allow this secret to be known to his child. Horace had given no promise, and thought no more of that last adjuration; but what was to become of the secret if he shared it with a woman and a child?--the woman Roger's mother, the child his earnest champion. And they already knew so much of it, without any aid of his. He faced round upon them, ready to defend this fancied talisman of his power. "What reason have you to suppose that I was in Mr. Stenhouse's secrets?" said Horace. "I had not been a fortnight in his employment. I had not known him above a month when he died. Was he likely to be confidential with me? Surely you know him better than to imagine anything so foolish." "Ah, Mr. Scarsdale," cried Mrs. Stenhouse, trembling all over, and with tears which almost choked her--tears of anxiety for her son, and distress for her husband, mingled yet antagonistic; "he sent for you on his deathbed; there was something--something--God forgive me if I disregard this last wish of his! but it is for my Roger's sake--there was something that you were not to tell the boy." "And is that the argument you use--you his widow!" cried Horace, with a sneer; "to induce me, a man of honour, just a week after, to _tell_ the boy? That may be a woman's argument, Mrs. Stenhouse, but--" "You hold your tongue, Scarsdale!" shouted little Edmund; "nobody shan't bully mamma. And I should like to know why I'm not to be told--me! I'm my father's heir, and I ought to know everything; and if you think me a child, it's because you don't know. Look here! I'm going to give half my money to Roger; but you shall marry Amelia, and have the half of my share, if you tell me honest what it is." Horace rose up with a laugh of ridicule at the child's folly, but before he could reach the door Mrs. Stenhouse came before him. "There's some sad mystery here," she said, wringing her hands; "Edmund was not to know I heard him say; and then about seething the kid in his mother's milk. It's something that will harm my Roger! What is it, Mr. Scarsdale? I charge you, as you had a mother yourself, to tell _me_!"