through an advertisement,) and sent him a handsome present of pocket
money, with the information that they were going to the South of France
for the winter. Joe bore the news of their departure very coolly, and
carelessly pocketed the money, knowing as he did that he had a handsome
property in his uncle's hands, and no one would have supposed from any
exhibition of feeling that he manifested, that he had any feeling or any
care about the matter. Once, indeed, when a fly came to the door to
convey Harcourt to the railway, and he saw from the window of his room
the happy school-boy jumping with glee into the vehicle, and heard him
say to Mr. Barton, "Oh yes, Sir, I shall be met!" he turned to Fred who
sate by him and said, "No one is expecting _me_, no one in the whole
world is thinking of me now, Parker."

Fred told his mother of this speech, a speech so full of bitter truth
that it made Mrs. Parker, kind creature as she was, shed tears, and she
asked her husband if young White could not be removed to pass the
Christmas holidays with them. The distance was not great, and they could
borrow Mr. Darford's carriage, and perhaps it might do him good. Mr.
Parker agreed, and the removal was effected.

For some days it seemed doubtful whether the change would be either for
poor White's mental happiness or bodily improvement. The exertion, and
the motion and excitement together, wrought powerfully on his nervous
frame, and he was more distressed, and irritable than ever. He could not
sleep, he ate scarcely any thing, he rarely spoke, and more than once
Mrs. Parker regretted that the proposal had been made. In vain Edith
brought him plants from the little greenhouse, fine camellias, pots of
snow-drops, and lovely anemones. They seemed rather to awaken painful
than pleasing remembrances and associations, and once even when he had
lain long looking at a white camellia he burst into tears. It is a great