There was nothing more said then on the subject between them.  Mary asked no further question, nor did the doctor volunteer further information.  She would have been most anxious to ask about her mother’s history had she dared to do so; but she did not dare to ask; she could not bear to be told that her mother had been, perhaps was, a worthless woman.  That she was truly a daughter of a brother of the doctor, that she did know.  Little as she had heard of her relatives in her early youth, few as had been the words which had fallen from her uncle in her hearing as to her parentage, she did know this, that she was the daughter of Henry Thorne, a brother of the doctor, and a son of the old prebendary.  Trifling little things that had occurred, accidents which could not be prevented, had told her this; but not a word had ever passed any one’s lips as to her mother.  The doctor, when speaking of his youth, had spoken of her father; but no one had spoken of her mother.  She had long known that she was the child of a Thorne; now she knew also that she was no cousin of the Thornes of Ullathorne; no cousin, at least, in the world’s ordinary language, no niece indeed of her uncle, unless by his special permission that she should be so.

When the interview was over, she went up alone to the drawing-room, and there she sat thinking.  She had not been there long before her uncle came up to her.  He did not sit down, or even take off the hat which he still wore; but coming close to her, and still standing, he spoke thus:—­

’Mary, after what has passed I should be very unjust and very cruel to you not to tell you one thing more than you have now learned.  Your mother was unfortunate in much, not in everything; but the world, which is very often stern in such matters, never judged her to have disgraced herself.  I tell you this, my child, in order that you may respect her memory;’ and so saying, he again left her without giving her time to speak a word.

What he then told her he had told in mercy.  He felt what must be her feelings when she reflected that she had to blush for her mother; that not only could she not speak of her mother, but that she might hardly think of her with innocence; and to mitigate such sorrow as this, and also to do justice to the woman whom his brother had so wronged, he had forced himself to reveal so much as is stated above.

And then he walked slowly by himself, backwards and forwards through the garden, thinking of what he had done with reference to this girl, and doubting whether he had done wisely and well.  He had resolved, when first the little infant was given over to his charge, that nothing should be known of her or by her as to her mother.  He was willing to devote himself to this orphan child of his brother, this last seedling of his father’s house; but he was not willing so to do this as to bring himself in any manner into familiar contact with the Scatcherds.  He