she came back, she ran straight upstairs, without going into the kitchen to look at Gregory or speak any word to her sister, and aunt Fanny heard her cry as if her heart was breaking; so she went up and scolded her right well through the bolted door, till at last she got her to open it.  And then she threw herself on my aunt’s neck, and told her that William Preston had asked her to marry him, and had promised to take good charge of her boy, and to let him want for nothing, neither in the way of keep nor of education, and that she had consented.  Aunt Fanny was a good deal shocked at this; for, as I have said, she had often thought that my mother had forgotten her first husband very quickly, and now here was proof positive of it, if she could so soon think of marrying again.  Besides as aunt Fanny used to say, she herself would have been a far more suitable match for a man of William Preston’s age than Helen, who, though she was a widow, had not seen her four-and-twentieth summer.  However, as aunt Fanny said, they had not asked her advice; and there was much to be said on the other side of the question.  Helen’s eyesight would never be good for much again, and as William Preston’s wife she would never need to do anything, if she chose to sit with her hands before her; and a boy was a great charge to a widowed mother; and now there would be a decent steady man to see after him.  So, by-and-by, aunt Fanny seemed to take a brighter view of the marriage than did my mother herself, who hardly ever looked up, and never smiled after the day when she promised William Preston to be his wife.  But much as she had loved Gregory before, she seemed to love him more now.  She was continually talking to him when they were alone, though he was far too young to understand her moaning words, or give her any comfort, except by his caresses.

At last William Preston and she were wed; and she went to be mistress of a well-stocked house, not above half-an-hour’s walk from where aunt Fanny lived.  I believe she did all that she could to please my father; and a more dutiful wife, I have heard him himself say, could never have been.  But she did not love him, and he soon found it out.  She loved Gregory, and she did not love him.  Perhaps, love would have come in time, if he had been patient enough to wait; but it just turned him sour to see how her eye brightened and her colour came at the sight of that little child, while for him who had given her so much, she had only gentle words as cold as ice.  He got to taunt her with the difference in her manner, as if that would bring love:  and he took a positive dislike to Gregory,—­he was so jealous of the ready love that always gushed out like a spring of fresh water when he came near.  He wanted her to love him more, and perhaps that was all well and good; but he wanted her to love her child less, and that was an evil wish.  One day, he gave way to his temper, and cursed and swore at Gregory, who had got into some mischief, as children