sorrow came upon the house of the Starkeys. The Squire sickened of a
putrid fever; and Madam caught it in nursing him, and died. You may
be sure, Bridget let no other woman tend her but herself; and in the
very arms that had received her at her birth, that sweet young woman
laid her head down, and gave up her breath. The Squire recovered, in
a fashion. He was never strong--he had never the heart to smile
again. He fasted and prayed more than ever; and people did say that
he tried to cut off the entail, and leave all the property away to
found a monastery abroad, of which he prayed that some day little
Squire Patrick might be the reverend father. But he could not do
this, for the strictness of the entail and the laws against the
Papists. So he could only appoint gentlemen of his own faith as
guardians to his son, with many charges about the lad's soul, and a
few about the land, and the way it was to be held while he was a
minor. Of course, Bridget was not forgotten. He sent for her as he
lay on his death-bed, and asked her if she would rather have a sum
down, or have a small annuity settled upon her. She said at once she
would have a sum down; for she thought of her daughter, and how she
could bequeath the money to her, whereas an annuity would have died
with her. So the Squire left her her cottage for life, and a fair
sum of money. And then he died, with as ready and willing a heart
as, I suppose, ever any gentleman took out of this world with him.
The young Squire was carried off by his guardians, and Bridget was
left alone.

I have said that she had not heard from Mary for some time. In her
last letter, she had told of travelling about with her mistress, who
was the English wife of some great foreign officer, and had spoken of
her chances of making a good marriage, without naming the gentleman's
name, keeping it rather back as a pleasant surprise to her mother;