"You can save again. You are still a young woman."
"I am forty-five," replied Lydia Purcell. "At forty-five you don't feel as you do at twenty-five. Yes, I can save; but somehow there's no spirit in it."
"I am sorry for you," replied the lawyer. Then he added, "And the children—the children can remain here as long as you stay."
But at the mention of the children, the momentary expression of softness, which had made Lydia's face almost pleasing, vanished.
"Mr. Preston," she said, rising, "I will keep those children, who are no relations to me, until I get a letter from France. If a check comes with the letter, well and good; if not, out they go—out they go that minute, sure as my name is Lydia Purcell. What call has a Frenchman's children on me?"
"Where are they to go?" asked Mr. Preston.
"To the workhouse, of course. What is the workhouse for but to receive such beggar brats?"
"Well, I am sorry for them," said the lawyer, now also rising and buttoning on his coat. "They don't look fit for such a life; they look above so dismal a fate. Poor little ones! That boy is very handsome, and the girl, her eyes makes you think of a startled fawn. Well, good-day, Mrs. Purcell. I trust there will be good news from France."
Just on the boundary of the farm Mr. Preston met Maurice. Some impulse, for he was not a softhearted man himself, made him stop, call the pretty boy to his side, and give him half a sovereign.
"Ask your sister to take care of it for you, and keep it, both of you, my poor babes, for a rainy day."