“And now, my beloved, I have not a moment more to stay, for I must catch the train. Good-bye! good-bye! I leave you in the keeping of Him who ever watches over the innocent,” said Malcolm, pressing her to his bosom in a parting embrace. Then he put her gently back into her chair, and hurried from the room.
On the stairs he met the boy bringing up the box, and in the passage below he saw the landlady.
“I have taken leave of my cousin, Mrs. Corder; but I must commit her to your best care. She has lost both her parents, and is in deep sorrow, as well as in reduced circumstances; she never lived in lodgings before, and is very inexperienced. Therefore, I must beg that you will be a kind of mother to her,” said Mr. Montrose, slipping another five-pound note into the hand of the woman as he took leave of her.
“Thank’ee, sir; lawks, sir, I’m a poor widder, with a large family, but I don’t require no bribery to do my duty by my lodgers, nor likewise to be good to a poor, dear, fatherless, motherless young creature like her,” said the landlady, pocketing the money.
CHAPTER VIII.
ANNELLA.
“She is our perplexity,
A creature light and wild;
Though on the verge of beggary,
As careless as a child.”
When the door had closed behind Malcolm Montrose, and Eudora was left alone in her strange lodgings for the first time in her life, then all the extreme miseries of her position rushed back upon her memory, and despair overwhelmed her soul.