"Ah!" said he with quivering lips and turning away, "you despise your old father now!"
"Oh, papa! it is not that," Amelia cried out, falling on his neck and kissing him many times.
"You are always good and kind.
You did it for the best.
It is not for the money--it is--my God! my God! have mercy upon me, and give me strength to bear this trial"; and she kissed him again wildly and went away.
Still the father did not know what that explanation meant, and the burst of anguish with which the poor girl left him.
It was that she was conquered.
The sentence was passed. The child must go from her--to others--to forget her.
Her heart and her treasure--her joy, hope, love, worship--her God, almost!
She must give him up, and then--and then she would go to George, and they would watch over the child and wait for him until he came to them in Heaven.
She put on her bonnet, scarcely knowing what she did, and went out to walk in the lanes by which George used to come back from school, and where she was in the habit of going on his return to meet the boy.
It was May, a half-holiday.
The leaves were all coming out, the weather was brilliant; the boy came running to her flushed with health, singing, his bundle of school-books hanging by a thong.
There he was.
Both her arms were round him.
No, it was impossible.
They could not be going to part.
"What is the matter, Mother?" said he; "you look very pale."
"Nothing, my child," she said and stooped down and kissed him.
That night Amelia made the boy read the story of Samuel to her, and how Hannah, his mother, having weaned him, brought him to Eli the High Priest to minister before the Lord.
And he read the song of gratitude which Hannah sang, and which says, who it is who maketh poor and maketh rich, and bringeth low and exalteth--how the poor shall be raised up out of the dust, and how, in his own might, no man shall be strong.
Then he read how Samuel's mother made him a little coat and brought it to him from year to year when she came up to offer the yearly sacrifice.
And then, in her sweet simple way, George's mother made commentaries to the boy upon this affecting story.
How Hannah, though she loved her son so much, yet gave him up because of her vow.
And how she must always have thought of him as she sat at home, far away, making the little coat; and Samuel, she was sure, never forgot his mother; and how happy she must have been as the time came (and the years pass away very quick) when she should see her boy and how good and wise he had grown.
This little sermon she spoke with a gentle solemn voice, and dry eyes, until she came to the account of their meeting--then the discourse broke off suddenly, the tender heart overflowed, and taking the boy to her breast, she rocked him in her arms and wept silently over him in a sainted agony of tears.
Her mind being made up, the widow began to take such measures as seemed right to her for advancing the end which she proposed.
One day, Miss Osborne, in Russell Square (Amelia had not written the name or number of the house for ten years--her youth, her early story came back to her as she wrote the superscription) one day Miss Osborne got a letter from Amelia which made her blush very much and look towards her father, sitting glooming in his place at the other end of the table.
In simple terms, Amelia told her the reasons which had induced her to change her mind respecting her boy.
Her father had met with fresh misfortunes which had entirely ruined him.
Her own pittance was so small that it would barely enable her to support her parents and would not suffice to give George the advantages which were his due.
Great as her sufferings would be at parting with him she would, by God's help, endure them for the boy's sake.
She knew that those to whom he was going would do all in their power to make him happy.
She described his disposition, such as she fancied it--quick and impatient of control or harshness, easily to be moved by love and kindness.
In a postscript, she stipulated that she should have a written agreement, that she should see the child as often as she wished--she could not part with him under any other terms.
"What?
Mrs. Pride has come down, has she?" old Osborne said, when with a tremulous eager voice Miss Osborne read him the letter.
"Reg'lar starved out, hey?
Ha, ha!
I knew she would."
He tried to keep his dignity and to read his paper as usual--but he could not follow it.
He chuckled and swore to himself behind the sheet.
At last he flung it down and, scowling at his daughter, as his wont was, went out of the room into his study adjoining, from whence he presently returned with a key.
He flung it to Miss Osborne.
"Get the room over mine--his room that was--ready," he said.
"Yes, sir," his daughter replied in a tremble.
It was George's room.
It had not been opened for more than ten years.
Some of his clothes, papers, handkerchiefs, whips and caps, fishing-rods and sporting gear, were still there.
An Army list of 1814, with his name written on the cover; a little dictionary he was wont to use in writing; and the Bible his mother had given him, were on the mantelpiece, with a pair of spurs and a dried inkstand covered with the dust of ten years.