"What else could I mean?" Elinor said, and then she in her turn grew pale. "If you thought I could mean that I would go--back----" "Oh, my darling, my darling! God knows if we are right or wrong--I not to advise you so, or you not to take my advice. Elinor, it is my duty, and I will say it though it were to break my heart. There only could you avoid this strife of tongues. John spoke the truth. He said, as the boy grew up we should have--many troubles. I have known women endure everything that their children might grow up in a natural situation, in their proper sphere. Think of this--I am saying it against my own interest, against my own heart. But think of it, Elinor. Whatever you might have to bear, you would be in your natural place." Elinor received this agitated address standing up, holding her head high, her nostrils expanded, her lips apart. "Have you quite done, mother?" she said. Mrs. Dennistoun made an appealing movement with her hands, and sank, without any power to add a word, into a chair. "I am glad you said it against your heart. Now you must feel that your conscience is clear. Mother, if I had to wander the world from place to place, without even a spot of ground on which to rest my foot, I would never, never do what you say. What! take my child to grow up in that tainted air; give him up to be taught such things as they teach! Never, never, never! His natural place, did you say? I would rather the slums of London were his natural place. He would have some chance there! If I could bear it for myself, yet I could not for him--for him most of all. I will take him up in my arms. Thank God, I am strong now and can carry him--and go away--among strangers, I don't care where--where there can be no questions and no remarks." "But not without me, Elinor!" "Oh, mother, mother! What a child I am to you, to rend your heart as I have done, and now to tear you out of your house and home!" "My home is where my children are," Mrs. Dennistoun said: and then she made a little pause. "But we must think it over, Elinor. Such a step as this must not be taken rashly. We will ask John to come down and advise us. My dear----" "No, mother, not John or any one. I will go first if you like and find a place, and you will join me after. That woman" (it was poor Mary Dale, who was indeed full of information, but meant no harm) "is coming directly. I will not wait here to see her, or their faces after she has told them all the lies she will have heard. I am not going to take advice from any one. Let me alone, mother. I must, I must go away." "But not by yourself, Elinor," Mrs. Dennistoun said.