of asking Arabella Trefoil to come to him at Bragton, the cup of her wrath was overflowing, and she withdrew from the house altogether.  It might be that he was dying.  She did in truth believe that he was dying.  But there were things more serious to her than life or death.  Should she allow him to trample upon all her feelings because he was on his death-bed,—­when perhaps in very truth he might not be on his death-bed at all?  She, at any rate, was near her death,—­and she would do her duty.  So she packed up her things—­to the last black skirt of an old gown, so that every one at Bragton might know that it was her purpose to come back no more.  And she went away.

Then Lady Ushant came to take her place, and with Lady Ushant came Reginald Morton.  The one lived in the house and the other visited it daily.  And, as the reader knows, Lady Augustus came with her daughter.  Mrs. Morton, though she had gone,—­for ever,—­took care to know of the comings and goings at Bragton.  Mrs. Hopkins was enjoined to write to her and tell her everything; and though Mrs. Hopkins with all her heart took the side of Lady Ushant and Reginald, she had never been well inclined to Miss Trefoil.  Presents too were given and promises were made; and Mrs. Hopkins, not without some little treachery, did from time to time send to the old lady a record of what took place at Bragton.  Arabella came and went, and Mrs. Hopkins thought that her coming had not led to much.  Lady Ushant was always with Mr. John,—­such was the account given by Mrs. Hopkins;—­and the general opinion was that the squire’s days were numbered.

Then the old woman’s jealousy was aroused, and, perhaps, her heart was softened.  It was still hard black winter, and she was living alone in lodgings in London.  The noble cousin, a man nearly as old as herself whose children she was desirous to enrich, took but little notice of her, nor would she have been Nappy had she lived with him.  Her life had been usually solitary,—­with little breaks to its loneliness occasioned by the visits to England of him whom she had called her child.  That this child should die before her, should die in his youth, did not shock her much.  Her husband had done so, and her own son, and sundry of her noble brothers and sisters.  She was hardened against death.  Life to her had never been joyous, though the trappings of life were so great in her eyes.  But it broke her heart that her child should die in the arms of another old woman who had always been to her as an enemy.  Lady Ushant, in days now long gone by but still remembered as though they were yesterday, had counselled the reception of the Canadian female.  And Lady Ushant, when the Canadian female and her husband were dead, had been a mother to the boy whom she, Mrs. Morton, would so fain have repudiated altogether.  Lady Ushant had always been “on the other side;” and now Lady Ushant was paramount at Bragton.