believed the matter of choosing wife and husband was very much of a lottery where those most left alone had the best chance of prizes. So Ida and her possible lovers passed from her mind, and much the more quickly that she was on the eve of a serious decision. Ever since the receipt of the letter of which we have spoken, she had been carrying on in her own calm way, and to herself, a debate of pros and cons. Should she go to her husband, or ought she to stay where she was? As she sat talking in the sunshine, she had kept a corner of her mind for the question; and as she walked back to the house, she felt it was answered, saying to herself, "I suppose it is right and best, my poor wee boy." In fact she had come to the determination to leave her boy, and go at once to India. She had a home for him with her parents, at Hastings, and go she would by the next mail. She had so far not said anything to any one about it. She knew that she would act on her own judgment in the end, and shrank from being distracted by the counsels of kindly friends. Ida's talk about the miseries of having nothing to do, helped her to the thought that anxiety for her husband, with nothing to do, and the wide seas between them, was something she could not stand. But still she was a mother too, and instead of going to her boy as she would have naturally done, she went to her own room, and, now the debate was over, broke down sorely. She felt very miserable, saying to herself more than once, "That silly child will learn soon enough how real life is. Then she took out of her pocket her husband's letter, and grew gradually calm and strong again, helped by the thought of him. She sat a while and prayed for strength, and then went to her little man before he had finished his tea, and felt, as she kissed him, a mother's thankfulness that there was no fear of the pain of parting being in any way comprehensible to him. She resolved that nothing of it should be said in his hearing till quite the last. It was a great relief this thought that she only would have the pain; and she managed to play quite happily with him for half an hour, only telling the nurse that they would return to Hastings the next day. Before she dressed for dinner she wrote to her mother, saying that she would return, and why. "It will make it easier when I get there," she thought; and after dinner, in the drawing-room, she startled Mrs. Bygrave and Ida by announcing her decision. "We shall be sorry to lose you," said the former; "but I think you are right. But is it not a dreadful time of year to be going to India." "It would be,” she answered, “if it were not that I shall go straight to the hills on my arrival. The Red Sea will not kill me. I never felt heat yet; and there is no question of children." "But you can't leave Frankie behind," Ida exclaimed. "It would be dreadful! you can't possibly." "But I must," was all Mary was able to say; and though she kept her steady quiet tone, Ida felt that women's lives were more real than she had fancied. The next morning Mary Maxwell with her child left for Hastings, rather sad, but with the satisfaction that a reasonable resolution always brings. Her life meant two things,-Harry and the boy; but there was a sense in which her love was not divided. Her husband was all to her, interest, hope, affection, her boy was simply herself; and as she would never have hesitated at any personal sacrifice for Harry's" sake, so, naturally, when the choice came between father and son, she thought of the home that was open to their child, and feeling she was doing him no wrong, the point was decided. |