“It was Mr. Vellum’s painful duty to inform him that Sir Timothy would decline to receive him on his return to England; that two hundred a year would be placed annually to his credit at Cox’s; but the estates not being entailed, that was the utmost farthing he need ever expect from him.”

Such was the gist of the communication, and Theodore, hardened by his father’s severity, and unable to bear the privations of a narrow income, absented himself more and more from their wretched lodgings, and tried to drown his cares by drinking himself into a state of semi-idiocy.

There is little more to relate of this ill-starred marriage, of which Bluebell was the fruit; for soon after her birth young Leigh was killed by being upset out of a dog-cart.

Driving home with unsteady hands from mess one night, he collided with a street car, which inevitably turned over the two-wheeled vehicle.  Theodore was pitched out, his head striking on the iron rails, and never breathed again.

Whatever grief Sir Timothy may have felt at his son being snatched from him, unreconciled and unforgiven, did not show itself in mercy to the widow.

Mr. Vellum was again in requisition, and proposed, on behalf of Sir Timothy, to make Mrs. Leigh a suitable allowance on condition that she remained in Canada, and delivered over the child to her grandfather, to be brought up and educated as his heiress.  In case these terms were refused, she would continue to receive annually two hundred a-year; but no farther assistance would be granted.

Lesbia, in her loneliness and bereavement, was heart-broken at this unfeeling proposition, and Bluebell being too young for a choice, she consulted the voice of Nature alone, and refused to part with her child.

The maiden aunt, Miss Opie, willingly received them.  She had a mere pittance, and lived in a boarding house; but, by joining their slender purses, they took the cottage in which we find them.

Thus in extreme poverty was Bluebell reared until her seventeenth year, though by personal privation Mrs. Leigh sent her to the school par excellence; attended by most of the girls in the city, whether their parents were “in” or “out” of society.  Bluebell having the prestige of an English father, own son of a baronet, and military into the bargain, was considered in the former class, and included at an early age in the gaieties of the winter.

A new friend, who had been particularly kind to her, was Mrs. Rolleston, wife of the Colonel of a regiment quartered there, and to her Bluebell repaired to make sorrowful excuses for the projected picnic, and also to confide the scheme that possessed her mind of earning money as a musical teacher or nursery governess.

Mrs. Rolleston felt half inclined to laugh at the unformed impulsive child, who was such a pet in their household, but seemed far too babyish and unmethodical to be recommended for any situation; yet remembering her mother’s straitened circumstances, and that the girl probably wanted some pocket-money, she listened sympathetically, and promised to turn it over in her mind.