, it appears to
me an opportunity that should not be missed."

"Shall I write to Mrs. Carlyle?" rejoined Mrs. Latimer.

Lady Isabel roused herself, and so far cleared her intellect as to
understand and answer the question. "Perhaps you would kindly give me
until to-morrow morning to consider on it? I had not intended to take a
situation in England."

A battle she had with herself that day. At one moment it seemed to her
that Providence must have placed this opportunity in her way that she
might see her children, in her desperate longing; at another, a voice
appeared to whisper that it was a wily, dangerous temptation flung
across her path, one which it was her duty to resist and flee from.
Then came another phase of the picture--how should she bear to see Mr.
Carlyle the husband of another--to live in the same house with them, to
witness his attentions, possibly his caresses? It might be difficult;
but she could force and school her heart to endurance. Had she not
resolved, in her first bitter repentance, _to take up her cross_ daily,
and bear it? No, her own feelings, let them be wrung as they would,
should not prove the obstacle.

Evening came, and she had not decided. She passed another night of
pain, of restlessness, of longing for her children; this intense longing
appeared to be overmastering all her powers of mind and body. The
temptation at length proved too strong; the project having been placed
before her covetous eyes could not be relinquished, and she finally
consented to go. "What is it that would keep me away?" she argued. "The
dread of discovery? Well if that comes it must; they could not hang me
or kill me. Deeper humiliation than ever would be my portion when they
drive me from East Lynne with abhorrence and ignominy, as a soldier is
drummed out of his regiment; but I could bear that as I must bear
the rest and I can shrink under the hedge and lay myself down to die.
Humiliation for me? No; I will not put that in comparison with seeing
and being with my children."

Mrs. Latimer wrote to Mrs. Carlyle. She had met with a governess; one
desirable in every way who could not fail to suit her views precisely.
She was a Madame Vine, English by birth, but the widow of a Frenchman; a
Protestant, a thorough gentlewoman, an efficient linguist and musician,
and competent to her duties in all ways. Mrs. Crosby, with whom she had
lived two years regarded her as a treasure, and would not have parted
with her but