Dorothy was there three or four years.  I said I would be brief.  She and the clergyman’s son fell in love with each other.  The mother heard of it, and sent for her home.  She had other views for her.  Of course, in such eyes, a daughter’s fancy was, irrespective of its object altogether, a thing to be sneered at.  But she found, to her fierce disdain, that she had not been able to keep all her beloved obstinacy to herself:  she had transmitted a portion of it to her daughter.  But in her it was combined with noble qualities, and, ceasing to be the evil thing it was in her mother, became an honourable firmness, rendering her able to withstand her mother’s stormy importunities.  Thus Nature had begun to right herself—­the right in the daughter turning to meet and defy the wrong in the mother, and that in the same strength of character which the mother had misused for evil and selfish ends.  And thus the bad breed was broken.  She was and would be true to her lover.  The consequent scenes were dreadful.  The spirit but not the will of the girl was all but broken.  She felt that she could not sustain the strife long.  By some means, unknown to my informant, her lover contrived to communicate with her.  He had, through means of relations who had great influence with Government, procured a good appointment in India, whither he must sail within a month.  The end was that she left her mother’s house.  Mr Gladwyn was waiting for her near, and conducted her to his father’s, who had constantly refused to aid Mrs Oldcastle by interfering in the matter.  They were married next day by the clergyman of a neighbouring parish.  But almost immediately she was taken so ill, that it was impossible for her to accompany her husband, and she was compelled to remain behind at the rectory, hoping to join him the following year.

Before the time arrived, she gave birth to my little friend Judy; and her departure was again delayed by a return of her old complaint, probably the early stages of the disease of which she died.  Then, just as she was about to set sail for India, news arrived that Mr Gladwyn had had a sunstroke, and would have leave of absence and come home as soon as he was able to be moved; so that instead of going out to join him, she must wait for him where she was.  His mother had been dead for some time.  His father, an elderly man of indolent habits, was found dead in his chair one Sunday morning soon after the news had arrived of the illness of his son, to whom he was deeply attached.  And so the poor young creature was left alone with her child, without money, and in weak health.  The old man left nothing behind him but his furniture and books.  And nothing could be done in arranging his affairs till the arrival of his son, of whom the last accounts had been that he was slowly recovering.  In the meantime his wife was in want of money, without a friend to whom she could apply.  I presume that one of the few parishioners who visited at the rectory had written