was weaned, and
was then dismissed very munificently rewarded. Year after year rolled
away without bringing Mr and Mrs Arbuthnot any additional little ones,
and no one, therefore, could feel surprised at the enthusiastic love
of the delighted mother for her handsome, nobly-promising boy. But
that which did astonish me, though no one else, for it seemed that I
alone noticed it, was a strange defect of character which began to
develop itself in Mr Arbuthnot. He was positively jealous of his
wife's affection for their own child! Many and many a time have I
remarked, when he thought himself unobserved, an expression of intense
pain flash from his fine, expressive eyes, at any more than usually
fervent manifestation of the young mother's gushing love for her first
and only born! It was altogether a mystery to me, and I as much as
possible forbore to dwell upon the subject.

Nine years passed away without bringing any material change to the
parties involved in this narrative, except those which time brings
ordinarily in his train. Young Robert Arbuthnot was a healthy, tall,
fine-looking lad of his age; and his great-grandpapa, the rector,
though not suffering under any actual physical or mental infirmity,
had reached a time of life when the announcement that the golden bowl
is broken, or the silver cord is loosed, may indeed be quick and
sudden, but scarcely unexpected. Things had gone well, too, with the
nurse, Mrs Danby, and her husband; well, at least, after a fashion.
The speculative miller must have made good use of the gift to his wife
for her care of little Arbuthnot, for he had built a genteel house
near the mill, always rode a valuable horse, kept, it was said, a
capital table; and all this, as it seemed, by his clever speculations
in corn and flour, for the ordinary business of the mill was almost
entirely neglected. He had no children of his own, but he had
apparently taken, with much cordiality, to his step-son, a fine lad,
now about eighteen years of age. This greatly grieved the boy's
mother, who dreaded above all things that her son should contract the
evil, dissolute habits of his father-in-law. Latterly, she had become
extremely solicitous to procure the lad a permanent situation abroad,
and this Mr Arbuthnot had promised should be effected at the earliest
opportunity.

Thus stood affairs on the 16th of October 1846. Mr Arbuthnot was
temporarily absent in Ireland, where he possessed large property, and
was