he waters of a second baptism.
See Savage and Johnson at night in Fleet Street,--and who shall doubt
the truth of Saint Patrick's Purgatory!" Therewith my father sighed;
closed his Lucian, which had lain open on the table, and would read none
but "good books" for the rest of the evening.

CHAPTER II.

On their escape from the prison to which Mr. Avenel had condemned them,
Leonard and his mother found their way to a small public-house that lay
at a little distance from the town, and on the outskirts of the high
road. With his arm round his mother's waist, Leonard supported her
steps, and soothed her excitement. In fact, the poor woman's nerves
were greatly shaken, and she felt an uneasy remorse at the injury her
intrusion had inflicted on the young man's worldly prospects. As the
shrewd reader has guessed already, that infamous tinker was the prime
agent of evil in this critical turn in the affairs of his quondam
customer; for, on his return to his haunts around Hazeldean and the
Casino, the tinker had hastened to apprise Mrs. Fairfield of his
interview with Leonard, and, on finding that she was not aware that the
boy was under the roof of his uncle, the pestilent vagabond (perhaps
from spite against Mr. Avenel, or perhaps from that pure love of
mischief by which metaphysical critics explain the character of Iago,
and which certainly formed a main element in the idiosyncrasy of Mr.
Sprott) had so impressed on the widow's mind the haughty demeanour of
the uncle, and the refined costume of the nephew, that Mrs. Fairfield
had been seized with a bitter and insupportable jealousy. There was an
intention to rob her of her boy!--he was to be made too fine for her.
His silence was now accounted for. This sort of jealousy, always more or
less a feminine quality, is often very strong amongst the poor; and it
was the more strong in Mrs. Fairfield, because, lone woman that she was,
the boy was all in all to her. And though she was reconciled to the loss
of his presence, nothing could reconcile her to the thought that his
affections should be weaned from her. Moreover, there were in her mind
certain impressions, of the justice of which the reader may better
judge hereafter, as to the gratitude--more than ordinarily filial--which
Leonard owed to her. In short, she did not like, as she phrased it, "to
be shaken off;" and after a sleepless night she resolved to judge for
herself, much moved thereto by the malicious suggestions to