What tender enquiries poor Miss Prior used to make after “the dear little lord,” as she called him.  My asseverations of his health and intelligence generally eliciting that it was current among Lady Hester’s friends that he could neither stand nor speak, and was so imbecile that it was a mercy that he could not live to be eight years old.

Of course that was what Hester was waiting for.  And no small pleasure was it when Alured would come pattering in with a shout of “Ursa, Ursa,” and as soon as he saw a lady, would stop, and pull off his hat from his chestnut curls like the little gentleman he always was.

Spinney Lawn was bought before Joel Lea came to England.  If he had seen where it was I doubt whether he would have consented to the purchase; but Perrault managed it all, and then, with what he had made out of the case, bought himself a share in Meakin’s office at Shinglebay, and constituted himself Lady Hester’s legal adviser.

Mr. Lea, after vainly trying to get his wife to return to Sault St. Pierre, thought it wrong to be apart from her and his son, and came to England.

Fulk went at once to call on him, expecting to be disgusted with Yankeeisms; but came home, saying he had found a more unlucky man than himself!

Fancy a great, big, plain, hard-working back-woodsman, bred only to the axe and rifle, with illimitable forests to range in, happy in toil and homely plenty, and a little king to himself, set down in an English villa, with a trim garden and paddock, and servants everywhere to deprive him of the very semblance to occupation!

Poor man! he had not even the alleviation of being proud of it, and trying to live up to it.  Puritan to the bone of his broad back, he thought everything as wicked as it was wearisome and foolish; and lived like Faithful in “Vanity Fair,” solely enduring it for the sake of his wife and son.  I suppose he could not have carried her off, or altered her course without the strong hand; for she was a determined woman, all the more resolute because she acted for her child.

He was a staunch Dissenter, and would not go to church with Lady Hester, who did so as a needful part of the belonging of her station, or, perhaps, to watch over us, but trudged two miles every Sunday to the meeting-house at Shinglebay, where he was a great light, and spent all that she allowed him on the minister and the Sunday school.

As to society, he abhorred it on principle, and kept out of the way when his wife gave her parties.  If she had an old affection for him in the depths of her heart, it was swallowed up in vexation and provocation; and no wonder, for the verdict of society, as Miss Prior reported it, was—­“How sad that such a woman as Lady Hester should have been thrown away on a mere common man—­not a bit better than a labourer.”

I detested him like all the rest; but Fulk declared he was sublime in passive endurance, and used to make opportunities of consulting him about cattle or farming, just to interest him.