e well," quickly answered poor Philip Hamlyn, smiling a warm
smile, that he meant to look like a gay one. "Nothing ever ails me."

No, nothing might ail him bodily; but mentally--ah, how much! That awful
terror lay upon him thick and threefold; it had not yet come to any
solution, one way or the other. Major Pratt had taken up the very worst
view of it; and spent his days pitching hard names at misbehaving
syrens, gifted with "the deuce's own cunning" and with mermaids' shining
hair.

"And how have things been going, Penelope?" asked Mrs. Hamlyn of the
nurse, as she sat in the nursery with her boy upon her knee. "All
right?"

"Quite so, ma'am. Master Walter has been just as good as gold."

"Mamma's darling!" murmured the doting mother, burying her face in his.
"I have been thinking, Penelope, that your master does not look well,"
she added after a minute.

"No, ma'am? I've not noticed it. We have not seen much of him up here;
he has been at his club a good deal--and dined three or four times with
old Major Pratt."

"As if she would notice it!--servants never notice anything!" thought
Eliza Hamlyn in her imperious way of judging the world. "By the way,
Penelope," she said aloud in light and careless tones, "has that woman
with the yellow hair been seen about much?--has she presumed again to
accost my little son?"

"The woman with the yellow hair?" repeated Penelope, looking at her
mistress, for the girl had quite forgotten the episode. "Oh, I
remember--she that stood outside there and came to us in the
square-garden. No, ma'am, I've seen nothing at all of her since that
day."

"For there are wicked people who prowl about to kidnap children,"
continued Mrs. Hamlyn, as if she would condescend to explain her
inquiry, "and that woman looked like one. Never suffer her to approach
my darling again. Mind that, Penelope."

The jealous heart is not easily reassured. And Mrs. Hamlyn, restless and
suspicious, put the same question to her husband. It was whilst they
were waiting in the drawing-room for dinner to be announced, and she had
come down from changing her apparel after her journey. How handsome she
looked! a right regal woman! as she stood there arrayed in dark blue
velvet, the fire-light playing upon her proud face, and upon the diamond
earrings and brooch she wore.

"Philip, has that woman been prowling about here again?"

Just for an imperceptible second, for thought is quick, it occurred to
Philip Hamlyn