Page:Once a Week Jun to Dec 1864.pdf/178

 30, 1864.] had lived, he would have been getting on for nine years old. This, you may see, isn't seven."

"I can't think who he's like," remarked Judith, again looking attentively at the child.

"He is the very model of somebody, some face that's familiar to me; but I can't call to mind whose."

"I know nobody he's like when he's asleep," said Mrs. Smith, also regarding the boy. "Asleep and awake, it is not the same face—not a bit; I have often noticed that; it must be the eyes and the expression that make the difference."

"Has he light eyes?" inquired Judith.

"No; dark. But now, do just tell me what you can, about that horrible death. Was it a mistake, or was it wilful?"

"That's what people are unable to decide," said Judith.

"That old nurse is not very explicit; she speaks of one doctor and speaks of another, mixing the two up together. I want to know who really was attending her."

"Mr. Stephen Grey had been attending her—he is Sir Stephen Grey now; and Mr. Carlton had seen her once or twice; the night of her death, and the night before it."

"Was she ill enough to have two doctors?"

"Not at all. Mr. Carlton was to have attended her, but when she was taken ill he was away from South Wennock, so the other came for him. Mr. Carlton was to have taken her the next day."

"Were they both married men?"

"Mr. Grey was; had been a long while; and Mr. Carlton married directly after. He married a peer's daughter. But I can't stay to talk now."

"Oh, do stay! I want you to tell me all that passed; you'll do it clearer than that woman. Step in, and take a cup of tea with us."

"You might as well ask me to stay for good," returned Judith. "My lady will wonder, as it is, what is keeping me. I'll get an hour's leave, and come up another time."

"Just one word before you go, then; I hear of Messrs. Grey and Lycett, and I hear of Mr. Carlton; which would be the most skilful to call in, in case my child gets worse? I am a stranger here, and don't know their characters. "

"I believe they are all clever; all skilful men. I like Mr. Grey best; I am most used to him."

"It doesn't matter much, then, as far as skill goes, which I call in?"

"As far as skill goes, no," replied Judith. And she said good afternoon, and left.

She went home, pondering on the likeness she had traced in the boy's face; she could not recollect who it was he resembled. Her suspicions had been aroused that it might be the same child, in spite of the apparent difference in the age; but, even allowing that Mrs. Smith had deceived her in saying it was not, and Judith did not see why she should, the fact would not have helped her, since it was certainly not the deceased lady's face that the child's struck her as being like.

But all in a moment, as Judith was turning in at the gate of Cedar Lodge, a face flashed on her mind's remembrance, and she saw whose it was that the boy's resembled. The fact seemed to stagger her; for she started aside amidst the trees as one who has received a blow. And when she at length went in-doors, it was with a perplexed gaze and knitted brow.

The Savoy Chapel.

a narrow street leading somewhat circuitously from the Strand to the river, just before you reach the approach to Waterloo Bridge going eastward, the ruins of a recent fire, walls left standing without a roof, are visible through the railings of a small, well-ordered churchyard, whose scattered headstones are shadowed by the foliage of a few trees. From the old-world aspect of the place, its odd, irregular outline, and its air of quaint seclusion, the passer-by would conjecture that the building thus destroyed, whatever it was,