He looked exceedingly surprised. "I—you cannot mean it? After Lord Luxmore has done you all this evil?"
"Is that any reason why I should not do good to his son—that is, if I could? Can I?"
The lad lifted up those soft grey eyes, and then I remembered what his sister had said of Lord Ravenel's enthusiastic admiration of Mr. Halifax. "Oh, you could—you could."
"But I and mine are heretics, you know!"
"I will pray for you. Only let me come and see you—you and your children."
"Come, and welcome."
"Heartily welcome, Lord—"
"No—not that name, Mrs. Halifax. Call me as they used to call me at St. Omer—Brother Anselmo."
The mother was half inclined to smile; but John never smiled at any one's religious beliefs, howsoever foolish. He held in universal sacredness that one rare thing—sincerity.
So henceforward "Brother Anselmo" was almost domesticated at Rose Cottage. What would the earl have said, had a little bird flown over to London and told him that his only son, the heir-apparent to his title and political opinions, was in constant and open association—for clandestine acquaintance was against all our laws and rules—with John Halifax the mill-owner, John Halifax the radical, as he was still called sometimes; imbibing principles, modes of life and of thought, which, to say the least, were decidedly different from those of the house of Luxmore!