r mouth, and fanned her with
a large green fan lying on her little table.

'What has he done? What has Mr Chatterton done?'

'Tried to kill himself. Why, we might have had the house streaming with
blood, and the crowner's inquest held here.'

'He threatened to kill himself, in a letter which Mr Barrett put into my
hands,' Mr Lambert said, as he stood at the parlour door looking
anxiously at his mother. 'Come, come, mother, no harm is done. The boy
is mad, and a lot of people here have turned his head by flattering him
till he is puffed up, and, like the frog in the fable, is all but
bursting with conceit. I'll soon settle matters. He must take away what
belongs to him; there's not much, I'll warrant, except his manuscripts
in their outlandish trashy language. Now, keep her quiet, Miss Palmer,
and don't let her fume and fret.'

Madam Lambert took her son's advice, and Bryda, seeing her inclined to
take a nap, quietly left the room, and went downstairs to pursue her
usual domestic duties. Mrs Symes was gone to market, and the footboy had
been sent with her to carry the basket of purchases, so that Bryda was
alone in the kitchen regions.

Presently a quick step was heard coming down the stairs, and Chatterton
appeared.

'I am free,' he said, 'Miss Palmer, I am free, and Bristol chains will
hold me no longer. Do they think I am sorry? Not I! And yet'--the boy
paused--'there is my mother. Poor soul, it will vex her sorely--and poor
sister also. Well, I shall be off to London, and then--why, Miss Palmer,
_then_ you may live to hear of me as famous.'

Bryda raised her eyes to the boy's glowing face as he repeated the word
_famous_, and said gently,--

'You would not, sure, think of taking your own life? Oh, it is very
dreadful--it is a sin!'

'A sin!' he repeated. 'Well, I have not done it yet. I feel vastly full
of life to-day. Old Lambert's rating at me put some spirit into me, and
I shall not die yet.'

'Death is so solemn,' Bryda said, 'even when God calls us to die--the
leaving of the sun and all the beauty of the world for the dark grave. I
always shudder to see even a little bird dead, to think its songs are
silent for ever, and its happy flights into the blue sky, and its sleep
in its warm nest--'

'Ah!' Chatterton said, 'you have a breath of poetry in you. You can
understand!'

'But what will you do in London? It is such a big place. And how will
you live?'

'I shall _try_ to live, and if I can't--we