replied Mr. Carlton. “I cannot give you an opinion yet, one way or the other.”
He shook hands with her and turned away. Mr. Carlton was affable with all classes of patients, cold and impassive though his usual maimers were. But had Mr. Carlton been standing with his face to the road, instead of his back, while he spoke to the woman, he would have seen a lady pass, no doubt to his astonishment, for it was his own wife.
Not more astonished, perhaps, than she was to see him. She was passing the cottage—she best knew for what purpose—and she turned her eyes stealthily towards its path. What she had hoped to see was the little boy; what she really did see was her husband, shaking hands with the boy’s mother. Laura Carlton, feeling like one guilty, just as some of us may have felt when unexpectedly detected in a mean action, made one bound forward, and crouched close to the hedge, which there took a bend inwards.
Had Mr. Carlton been on his way to any other patient up the lane—and many cottages were scattered at this end of it—he must have seen her; but he turned towards South Wennock, and marched away at a quick pace.
Lady Laura came out of hiding. Her cheeks were glowing, her pulses were beating. Not altogether with the detection she had escaped; there was another feeling. Conscience makes cowards of us, you know,—sad, weak, foolish cowards. It would have been so very easy for Laura, had her husband seen her, to be doing just what she was doing, and nothing else—taking a walk down Blister Lane. She had a right to do so as well as other people had. It was a cool, shady lane, very pleasant to walk in, except after rain, and then it was apt to be over the ankles in mud. And Laura Carlton, of all people, might be supposed to cling to it from past associations,—for was it not the trysting-place, that long-ago evening, when she had stolen out to meet and run away with him now her husband?
Mr. Carlton went safely beyond sight, and Laura began to retrace her steps. Standing on one leg on the bottom bar of the low wooden gate was the little child, his new toy in his left hand. He had come limping out to look after his benefactor, Mr. Carlton. The mother had gone indoors again. Laura halted. She gazed at him for a good two minutes, saying nothing; and the boy, who had little of that timid shyness which mostly attends sensitive children, looked up at her in return.
“What’s your name?” began Laura.
“Lewis.”
“What’s your other name? What’s your mother’s name?”
“Smith.”
“Is that your mother?—the—the—person who was out here a minute ago?”
“Yes,” replied the boy. Laura’s face darkened. “How many brothers and sisters have you?”
“None. There’s only me. I had a little baby brother; but mother says he died before I was born.”
There was a long pause. Laura devoured the child with her eyes. “Where’s your father?” she began again.
“He’s dead.”
“Oh!” retorted Laura, scornfully. “Dead, is he? I suppose that’s why your mother wears a widow’s cap!”
The boy made no reply. Possibly he did not understand. Laura put her hand down over the gate and touched his light hair, pushing it back from his forehead. He held up the toy to show her.
“Yes, very pretty,” said she, carelessly. But all in a moment it struck her that she had seen this toy, or one resembling it, in the toy-shop near their house. “Who gave you that?” she resumed.
“Mr. Carlton. He brought it to me just now.”
Lady Laura’s eyes flashed. The boy began making the soldier play the drum.
“He’s to play to the others at drill,” said he, looking up. “Mr. Carlton says so.”
“What others?”
“My soldiers. They are shut up in the box now in mother’s drawer.”
“And so Mr. Carlton gave you this, did he?” repeated Laura, strangely resentful. “He has just brought it you, has he?”
“Wasn’t it good of him!” returned the child, paying more attention to the plaything than to the question. “See how he drums! Mother says———"
“Lewis! Are you going to stop there all night? Come in directly and finish your supper!”
It was the interrupting voice of Mrs. Smith, calling from the cottage. Laura Carlton started as if she had been shot, and went away in the direction of South Wennock.
THE COUNTRY PARSONAGE
Of all the homes of England none is so characteristic or so full of peaceful memories as the country parsonage. As soon as you enter the village you know it at once. No one need look twice to pronounce which is the parsonage. There are the elms, and the yew trees, and the lilacs, you always see in vicarage gardens; and
