“No change. His strength seems to be going.”
“I wouldn’t pity him,” sighed Bessie Duncombe; “he has only seen the best end of life, and has laid it down for something worth! I’m sure he and your brother are the enviable ones.”
“Nay, Mrs. Duncombe, you have much to work for and love in this life.”
“And I must go away from everything just as I had learnt to value it. Bob has taken a house at Monaco, and writes to me to bring the children to join him there!”
“At Monaco?”
“At Monaco! Yes, and I know that it is all my own fault. I might have done anything with him if I had known how. But what could you expect? I never saw my mother; I never knew a home; I was bred up at a French school, where if one was not a Roman Catholic there was not a shred of religion going. I married after my first ball. Nobody taught me anything; but I could not help having brains, so I read and caught the tone of the day, and made my own line, while he went on his.”
“And now there is a greater work for you to do, since you have learnt to do it.”
“Ah! learnt too late. When habits are confirmed, and home station forfeited—What is there left for him or my poor boys to do?”
“A colony perhaps—”
“Damaged goods,” she said, smiling sadly.