an Irish shealing)--for this, day after day, she had whispered to
herself, "I shall get well, and I will beg my way to the cottage, and
find him there still, and put my little one into his arms, and all will
be bright again;"--for this, as soon as she could walk without aid, had
she set out on foot from the distant land; for this, almost with a dog's
instinct (for she knew not what way to turn--what county the cottage was
placed in; she only knew the name of the neighbouring town; and that,
populous as it was, sounded strange to the ears of those she asked; and
she had often and often been directed wrong),--for this, I say, almost
with a dog's faithful instinct, had she, in cold and heat, in hunger and
in thirst, tracked to her old master's home her desolate and lonely way!
And thrice had she over-fatigued herself--and thrice again been indebted
to humble pity for a bed whereon to lay a feverish and broken frame.
And once, too, her baby--her darling, her life of life, had been
ill--had been near unto death, and she could not stir till the infant
(it was a girl) was well again, and could smile in her face and crow.
And thus many, many months had elapsed, since the day she set out on her
pilgrimage, to that on which she found its goal. But never, save when
the child was ill, had she desponded or abated heart and hope. She
should see him again, and he would kiss her child. And now--no--I
cannot paint the might of that stunning blow! She knew not, she dreamed
not, of the kind precautions Maltravers had taken; and he had not
sufficiently calculated on her thorough ignorance of the world. How
could she divine that the magistrate, not a mile distant from her, could
have told her all she sought to know? Could she but have met the
gardener--or the old woman-servant--all would have been well! These
last, indeed, she had the forethought to ask for. But the woman was
dead, and the gardener had taken a strange service in some distant
county. And so died her last gleam of hope. If one person who
remembered the search of Maltravers had but met and recognised her! But