this is a point of very little consequence; she is undoubtedly one of the conspirators, and must be brought to justice if she can be found. And now, my dear, will you tell me how you managed to get here, into a lunatic asylum, of all places?" "You have heard that one of the patients escaped yesterday ?" "Yes; but what has that to do with you?". "Everything. I should not be" She was going to say alive, but she checked herself; "I should not be here now if that poor creature had not wandered in the direction of Tyne Hall, and helped me to escape; she gave me help when it was needed most; I owe more to her than I could possibly tell you, for I wish to screen such sins as were only committed against myself, to say just as much as justice to Mr. Meadows requires me to say, and no more. She supplied me with the clothes I am now wearing; but immediate inquiries were made for her; everything that she took away with her was described; these garments were recognised, and I was brought to the asylum in mistake, and then detained here because I would not account for the possession of these things.' "Ah, I see now. We must give an account to the asylum people of what you know about their patient, and of when and where you saw her last, and we must send for some of your own wearing apparel, and give them back what is not yours, and then they will let you go." "But I cannot do this, for if I told them all the truth, as far as it is connected with the lady, they would know where to find her, and she would be brought back, through my agency, to the asylum. Now, she does not complain of having been in any way ill treated here, but yet she has the greatest horror of the asylum, which has been a prison to her, though not probably an uncomfortable one, and I feel that I really could not use the liberty which I owe to her, in shutting her up again in the place she dreads and detests. You think me very foolish, I am sure." "I don't, my dear; I respect your scruples, and understand them very well. But the point is, that if this unfortunate lady be really insane, which you don't appear to doubt, she could not be set at liberty with safety to herself and to society. If you know where she is to be found, you can do nothing better for her than to restore her to the asylum." "Yes, I can. I can live with her myself in some quiet place, and watch over her, and take care of her; she is quite sane except on one point, which I can easily avoid. I owe her more than you can imagine, and I should be glad, so very glad, to give her all my care and all my time. for." It would be a new interest in life-something really to live "My dear child, I see every imaginable difficulty in the way of your plan; believe me, it is not a practicable one. And if it were, think for a moment of yourself, your hopes, your prospects! Why, how old are you ?” "Not very old," she answered, with rather a sad smile. "Grace Meadows would have been of age in the spring, if she had lived, and I am two years older, but I have really no hopes, no prospects. I was to have been married, as you perhaps heard, but Mr. Brooks believed me to be dead, never thought of doubting it, I suppose, and it is some time now since he entered into a new engagement." We are most of us particularly ready to believe in the truth of anything that we would especially wish not to be true, and it had never occurred to Grace to think that Susan had invented this story about William Brooks, to make her more willing to assist her in carrying out her plans. There was some mixture of superstition, too, in her belief in the loss of her earthly happiness through the error into which she had allowed herself to fall; while Mr. Renshaw, for his part, took it for granted that the fact of William Brooks' new engagement was known to Grace, as she spoke of it so positively, and he thought of Robert's crime, and of its consequences, with additional anger and resentment. He tried to think of something kind and cheering to say to Grace. "You see, my dear, he fully believed that you were dead, and we are so constituted that we cannot continue to give all our thoughts and all our time to the memory of those who have been taken from us, however dearly we love them, nor would it, perhaps, be desirable if we could do I am sure, from what I saw myself, and from what I have heard of Mr. Brooks, that he felt your supposed death very bitterly indeed, and— look here--he's not married you say, only engaged? That's well; now cheer up; you'll be all right yet, according to the law of Prior Claims." Grace looked at him without the least idea of his meaning. So. "You don't understand? Well, then, I'll make it plain. We'll suppose that you have a piece of land to sell, and have found a purchaser, when all at once it is discovered that your title to the land is invalid, and that you had therefore no right to sell. The law is, that your bargain with the intending purchaser falls to the ground, because you had, in fact, no right to make it. You can understand that, I'm sure. Well, Mr. Brooks thought that he had a right to dispose of his hand, by reason of your decease, but it turns out that he could not do so, because you are in existence, with your prior claim; the intending purchaser-I mean the lady, you know-will have to give him up to you, seeing that he was not really justified in making the contract with her at all, but only thought that he was so justified. There now, what do you say to that ?" But Grace said nothing; she only covered up her face with her hands, and felt as if she would like to die, there and then, sooner than be placed, even in imagination, in the position which was thus assigned to her. When she did speak, she said, very quietly: "You mean to be kind, I know; but you do not understand how a woman feels when such a matter is discussed in such a way. I am more resolved than ever now to continue dead to him; the facts of the case will reach him through the newspapers, but I must go away as quickly as possible to some place where I shall be as entirely lost to him as ever. There is nothing whatever to blame him for, as you truly say; but still the new engagement was contracted very quickly after my supposed death (such a dreadful death, too!), and the idea of overshadowing his present happiness is more painful to me than anything I have suffered yet. I must go away, as I said, and if any arrangement could be made with the friends of this unfortunate lady, by which I could have the care of her for the future-subject, of course, to their supervision-it would be new life for me to have some one to love and to care for. Do you think that such a thing could be possible ?" On this point Mr. Renshaw could give no opinion till he had consulted Dr. Litchfield, who was waiting with much uneasiness for the end of this long conference, and for possible explanations that might result from it. He anxiously asked Mr. Renshaw, as soon as his interview with Grace was over, whether the young lady had given him any clue that might lead to the discovery of his patient; and in reply, Mr. Renshaw expressed his conviction that she could do so if she pleased, and that she would do so as soon as she saw clearly that it would be a matter of duty to speak plainly. Dr. Litchfield appeared to be a little surprised that any doubt on this subject could be entertained by a sane person; and Mr. Renshaw told him briefly the leading particulars of Grace's strange history, that would now be so soon made public. He told him that he did not know the circumstances under which she had made her escape the night before, but that he guessed at them, and felt tolerably sure that Dr. Litchfield's missing patient had interposed in some way to avert from her some great and dreadful danger. He dwelt upon the gratitude that she naturally felt, and her reluctance to use her newly acquired liberty in returning her preserver to the place that she disliked and feared, as these poor creatures do, I suppose," he added, apologetically. So far, he had spoken without let or hindrance; but he felt uneasy at having to propose to Dr. Litchfield Grace's extraordinary plan of constituting herself the keeper of the patient, and of living with her, and devoting herself to her, if her friends could be induced to consent to such an arrangement. Mr. Renshaw felt as if a proposal to deprive Dr. Litchfield of a patient could not be at all acceptable to him, and he was greatly relieved when that gentleman replied at once: 66 "She is quite fit to leave the asylum, if a proper home, and continual care and watchfulness, could be ensured for her; she has long ceased to be subject to fits of violence, and her case is now one of simple monomania, on which a complete change in her mode of life might act beneficially, but she will require unremitting attention, and watchful, self-denying care." "And she will have it," Mr. Renshaw answered, warmly; "I will answer for that. But will not her friends make difficulties, Miss Ashton being a complete stranger to them?" "I have been thinking over all that you have told me," Dr. Litchfield answered, “and I believe that Miss Ashton herself is her nearest friend, and has the most right to decide this question." Mr. Renshaw could not understand him in the least. "You must really excuse me," he said, deprecatingly, "but my head has got into a muddle, somehow; it seems as if every one I meet had something strange and contradictory to say to me. If this is any new complication, please tell it to me plainly." "I will tell you plainly who my patient is; she is Mrs. Arthur Ashton, a lady who fell into ill health, and subsequently became insane, through a bad habit that she had acquired the habit of opium-eating. She has, or had, two living children, twins, a son and a daughter; but she has no other relatives that I know of, certainly none that take an interest in her. The annual sum secured to her, under the will of her late husband, is paid to me regularly by trustees, who have only undertaken the duty of making these payments and of taking receipts for them." "Then you don' treally mean to say"Mr. Renshaw protested. "That she is Miss Ashton's mother? I believe, from what you have told me, that this must be the case; the young lady, however, has never inquired after her, or called to see her, or shown any interest in her, that I know of." Mr. Renshaw did not say another word, but walked back to the room in which he had left Grace. "Do I look like any one that's wide awake, my dear?" he asked. "You haven't got a pin about you that you could conveniently stick into have you? Never mind, don't trouble yourself to get one. me, I'll tell you the last muddle that's going, as soon as I can think of it myself. Dr. Litchfield says that the patient who escaped yesterday is Mrs. Arthur Ashton, your mamma!” "There must be some mistake," Grace answered, after a pause surprise at the idea, "because my mamma is dead." of mute "I don't know that her being dead makes it much more odd than it was before; upon my soul I don't! There, talk to Dr. Litchfield about it yourself, and make it out if you can." Dr. Litchfield's account of his patient at once established the fact that she was the mother of Grace and Robert Ashton, on whom her one vice, long and secretly indulged, had acted so fatally; producing in Grace a too sensitive nervous organisation, and a corresponding delicacy of constitution, and destroying in great measure the moral and intellectual perceptions of her son. Grace's evidence of her mother's death was worth nothing at all, amounting simply to this, that her grandmother had told her how, long ago, her mamma had been attacked by brain disease, and had died at a distance from her home. The lie might have been prompted by a wish to conceal the fact that so near a relative was confined in a lunatic asylum, and it is probable that even Mr. Ashton had silently acquiesced in it, fearing to excite the sensitive imagination of Grace, by allowing her to know the sad and revolting truth. It was certain now that no one would possess any legal right to interfere between Grace and her mother, and it was with some new strange flutterings at her heart that she named the place at which she had left her-the thatcher's cottage at Wallingford End. ABOUT GIVING SORROW WORDS. A CUE FROM SHAKSPEARE. BY FRANCIS JACOX. Give sorrow words, is Malcolm's bidding to Macduff, when the paralysing news is broken to that valiant thane of the slaughter of his household-wife, children, servants, all that could be found-all his " pretty chickens, and their dam, at one fell swoop." Killed in his absence: his castle surprised, and all its inmates (" all my pretty ones? did you say all?") savagely slaughtered. Presently he will, at Malcolm's further bidding, dispute it as a man; but Macduff must also feel it as a man. And for the moment at least he is stricken dumb by the ghastly intelligence, and hides his face from the light and from his friends. It is on seeing him thus shattered, thus speechless, that the prince seeks to make despair outspoken rather than dumb: What, man! ne'er pull your hat upon your brows; Such a grief Queen Margaret cherishes, an exile in France, when, to King Lewis's inquiry, "whence springs this deep despair?" she replies, From such a cause as fills mine eyes with tears, And stops my tongue, while heart is drown'd in cares.† Her grief is fated to find deeper scope and larger utterance, later in the play, where, before her eyes, her gallant boy, Prince Edward of Lancaster, is stabbed to the heart by the brothers of York, Gloster and Clarence: Are they men,-thus to spend their fury on a child? A day comes when the haggard Margaret has her glut of revenge in watching the anguish of her successor, Elizabeth,-in her turn rendered childless by Richard of Gloster. The two queens rail at each other in maddened hate. And when the old Duchess of York exclaims, " Why should calamity be full of words?" the answer Elizabeth makes is with a flux of them: Windy attorneys to their client woes, Airy succeeders of intestate joys, Poor breathing orators of miseries! Let them have scope: tho' what they do impart * Macbeth, Act IV. Sc. 3. †Third Part of King Henry VI., Act III. Sc. 3. Act V. Sc. 5. § King Richard III., Act IV. Sc. 4. |