“Stanley knows everything—­everything about me—­but he said I never was to speak to her again; and I am sure I never wished to; but how can I help it when she will come—­and she is my own mother?  But don’t tell anybody, for Stanley would be so vexed.  I don’t keep anything from him; don’t blame me with that, Mr. Brandon.”

“Your mother?” said Brandon.  “Oh, that alters the case.”

“I know that she is not good, and not respectable, and all that; but she went on so that I was terrified to refuse her leave to come here to do some sewing.  If Stanley had not thought she was in Adelaide, he would never have left me here.  Everything goes wrong when he leaves me.  There, when he went to America, we had the scarlet fever, and I lost my dear little Eva, and now there is all this trouble.  Oh!  I wish I had gone up to Wiriwilta—­I would have done just as well there.  But don’t tell Mr. Phillips about this; I would rather tell him myself.  He has been good to me—­so very good to me;—­you cannot think how good he has always been to me;—­I do not keep things from him—­indeed I don’t, Mr. Brandon.”

Brandon felt more liking to poor Mrs. Phillips in her distress and in her tears than he had ever felt before.  With such a mother, and such training as she had had in her early years, much could not be expected from her, and now her expressions of gratitude to her good husband touched him greatly.  He had always thought her too insensible of her extraordinary good fortune—­and in a general way, so she was; but during these last few days, seeing her mother, and shrinking from her, had made Mrs. Phillips have some idea of what her life might have been if Stanley had not been so fond of her, and so generous as to marry her, and take her away from what was likely to be her fate in such hands as those of her mother and Peck, and keep her so quiet and comfortable, and give her every luxury he could afford, and bear with her temper, her ignorance, and her stupidity; for in a vague way she knew that she had these faults.  Was there ever a wish of hers that he could grant that he had refused?  Even this unlucky stay in Melbourne had been at her own earnest request, and it had turned out so miserably, just because he was away.  Never had she loved her husband so much as at this time when she had been displeasing him so grievously; how she had longed for courage to drive away the invader!—­and now, though humbled before Mr. Brandon, she was grateful to him when she thought that he could stay with her till her husband came, and that, so protected, her mother could not again visit her.

“No doubt Phillips will forgive you readily when you tell him the truth; and I forgive you too, under the very distressing circumstances in which Mrs. Peck placed you, though I did feel very indignant at your allowing the girl whom I love, and whom I mean to marry, to go to Melbourne with such a person,” said Brandon.

“You mean to marry Alice?” said Mrs. Phillips.