htful, so soft in manner, and so dignified all the
while. I wish you could see him as he stood here. A thousand loves from
your own boy,

"DIGBY."

Madame Cleremont wrote by the same post. I did not see her letter; but
when mamma's answer came I knew it must have been a serious version of
my accident, and told how, besides a dislocated shoulder, I had got
a broken collar-bone, and two ribs fractured. With all this, however,
there was no danger to life; for the doctor said everything had gone
luckily, and no internal parts were wounded.

Poor mamma had added a postscript that puzzled Madame greatly, and she
came and showed it to me, and asked what I thought she could do about
it. It was an entreaty that she might be permitted to come and see me.
There was a touching humility in the request that almost choked me with
emotion as I read it. "I could come and go unknown and unnoticed," wrote
she. "None of Sir Roger's household have ever seen me, and my visit
might pass for the devotion of some old follower of the family, and
I will promise not to repeat it." She urged her plea in the most
beseeching terms, and said that she would submit to any conditions if
her prayer were only complied with.

"I really do not know what to do here," said Madame to me. "Without
your father's concurrence this cannot be done; and who is to ask him for
permission?"

"Shall I?"

"No, no, no," cried she, rapidly. "Such a step on your part would be
ruin; a certain refusal, and ruin to yourself."

"Could Mr. Eccles do it?"

"He has no influence whatever."

"Has Captain Hotham?"

"Less, if less be possible."

"Mr. Cleremont, then?"

"Ah, yes, he might, and with a better chance of success; but--" She
stopped, and though I waited patiently, she did not finish her sentence.

"But what?" asked I at last.

"Gaston hates doing a hazardous thing," said she; and I remarked that
her expression changed, and her face assumed a hard, stern look as she
spoke. "His theory is, do nothing without three to one in your favor. He
says you 'll always gets these odds, if you only wait."

"But you don't believe that," cried I, eagerly.

"Sometimes--very seldom, that is, I do not whenever I can help it."
There was a long pause now, in which neither of us spoke. At last she
said, "I can't aid your mother in this project. She must give it up.
There is no saying how your father would resent it."

"And how will you tell her that?" faltered I out.

"I c