fate as to learn that he had been seen once in India; and that previously
he had been met in England by a relation, under the disguise of assumed
names: a proof that whatever his occupations, they could scarcely be very
respectable. But, of late, nothing whatsoever relating to the wanderer
had transpired. By some he was imagined dead; by most he was forgotten.
Those more immediately connected with him--his brother in especial,
cherished a secret belief, that wherever Geoffrey Lester should chance to
alight, the manner of alighting would (to use the significant and homely
metaphor) be always on his legs; and coupling the wonted luck of the
scapegrace with the fact of his having been seen in India, Rowland, in
his heart, not only hoped, but fully expected, that the lost one would,
some day or other, return home laden with the spoils of the East, and
eager to shower upon his relatives, in recompense of long desertion,

"With richest hand ... barbaric pearl and gold."

But we must return to the forsaken spouse.--Left in this abrupt
destitution and distress, Mrs. Lester had only the resource of applying
to her brother-in-law, whom indeed the fugitive had before seized many
opportunities of not leaving wholly unprepared for such an application.
Rowland promptly and generously obeyed the summons: he took the child and
the wife to his own home,--he freed the latter from the persecution of
all legal claimants,--and, after selling such effects as remained, he
devoted the whole proceeds to the forsaken family, without regarding his
own expenses on their behalf, ill as he was able to afford the luxury of
that self-neglect. The wife did not long need the asylum of his hearth,--
she, poor lady, died of a slow fever produced by irritation and
disappointment, a few months after Geoffrey's desertion. She had no need
to recommend her children to their kindhearted uncle's care. And now we
must glance over the elder brother's domestic fortunes.