PENSHURST CHURCH AND CASTLE.
That young sister whom she loved so passionately, about whom, in her gay thoughtless youth, she was so anxious, whom she was ever longing to see safe under the shelter of a good man's love—it was hard that her boy should hear such words from those pitiless lips—'lead her to ruin!'—when her one desire was to shield her from all contamination of the evil world, of which she had herself had such bitter experience.
Little Ambrose was tired, after a day of incessant running hither and thither, and lay quiet with his head on his mother's breast, in that blissful state of contentment to find himself there, which gives the thrill of deepest joy to a mother's heart.
Ambrose was six years old, and a fair and even beautiful child. The stiff, ugly dress of the time, could not quite hide the symmetry of his rounded limbs, and the large ruff, now much crumpled after the day's wear, set off to advantage the round chin which rested on it and the rosy lips, which had just parted with a smile, as Mary said,—
'Is my boy sleepy?'
'No, mother; don't put me a-bed yet'
Mary was not unwilling to comply with the request, and so they sat on, the boy's red-gold curls making a gleam of brightness on the sombre black garments of widowhood which Mary still wore.
Presently the boy said,—