e house where Robert
was playing with his cousins and called to him:

"Ho! master Robert, I have news for you," he called to the lad.

"William Stump, when did you come?" he asked.

"But this day," was the answer.

"Where are you from?"

"Jamestown, and, by the mass! my young gay cavalier, I have news for
you. Marry! have you not heard it already?"

"I have heard nothing."

"Your mother hath married," cried Stump with fiendish chuckle.

"It is false!" cried Robert.

"By the mass! it is true, my young cavalier," and Stump laughed at the
expression of misery which came over the young face. "It was a gay
notion to send you brats away until the ceremony was over. You might
make trouble, you know. Ha, ha, ha! You laid your stick about the
shoulders of Mr. Hugh Price, now he will return blow for blow," and,
with another chuckle, Stump sauntered away, his gun on his shoulder.

On going to the house Robert had the report confirmed. Some one from
Jamestown had brought news of the wedding, and his little sister, with
her great dark eyes filled with tears, took him aside and said:

"Brother, mother is married; what does it mean?"

She clung to him, placed her curly head on his bosom and wept. Robert
restrained his own tears and sought to soothe his sister.

"Will that man Hugh Price come to live at our house?" she asked.

"Yes."

"But I can never love him. I don't know what it is to love any but you
and mother. I don't remember my own father; but you do, Robert?"

"Yes."

"Was he like Mr. Price?"

"No. He was a grand, noble man, with a kind heart."

"Will he let us live at home, now that he has come?" she asked.

Robert, though his own heart was heavy, and he felt gloomy and sad,
strove to look on the bright side.

"Yes, he cannot drive us from home," he said.

"But mother will love us no longer."

"She will, sister. No man can rob us of mother's love."

Then they went apart to discuss their sorrow alone, and, as the shades
of evening gathered over the scene, their relatives began a search for
them. The children were found in the chimney corner clasped in each
other's arms sobbing.

Although kind friends and loving relatives did all in their power to
console them, they refused to be comforted. Robert remembered that noble
father who had so often held him on his knee, that poor father whose
mysterious fate was unknown, and he thought how wicked it was for his
mother to marry the fox-hunting, gin-tipp