"The shades of evening were beginning to fall before this last and sorrowful parting terminated. They never met again. Your mother, who was in the family way, although we knew not the fact for weeks afterwards, began to droop and pine--a sadness of heart seemed to consume her; in vain we strove to cheer her gloom; and her aunt made no inquiries after her. Once a-week I visited the banks of the Esk to inquire after my master; and occasionally got accounts of his welfare; but they were few and far between--only, indeed, when the letters could be forwarded by some one coming to Scotland. No letter had as yet come to me for his wife. How often have I left her, with a faint smile of hope dispelling the habitual sadness of her lovely countenance, and returned with an aching heart to witness her increased melancholy. Your father had left her all the gold he could, even more than he could spare; yet we would have given it all for a single letter from his hand; but none came. Meanwhile Captain Ogilvie, who continued long in a precarious state, ultimately recovered. "At length you were born; but your unfortunate mother did not survive many days; and scarcely was the sod green on her grave, when my master came back to Scotland. His grief, his agony, I shall not attempt to describe. In a few weeks after he returned to France, for his native country was hateful to him; and I would have accompanied him, but that Mary was in delicate health, and I could not leave her. As his father was displeased at him for relinquishing his study of the law, he gave him only a small sum to maintain him in France. You passed, meanwhile, as my own child, and went under my name.