On the third, and last occasion, which presented itself, the face of affairs assumed a different aspect. Mr. Trevor, either because he grudged his wife as would not have been at all inconsistent with his character, the extreme pleasure she experienced in the former case, and the excessive fondness with which this child had naturally wound itself around its nursing mother's heart. Whether from these, or still more unworthy notices, this time Mr. Trevor, on some capricious arbitrary plea, objected to his wife indulging in the same natural enjoyment, himself selecting the individual, who was to supplant her in this office. The wife of a tenant on his estate, about to emigrate to Australia, but who preferred remaining behind for some years in service.
Mabel Marryott fulfilled her hired duties well by her patron's infant; so well, that according to her master's orders, she was afterwards retained, as general superintendant of the nursery establishment, though her influence did not long continue limited to that office; and it was Mabel Marryott, whose daily business it soon became, to attend upon the little Eugene in his morning visits to his father's study; where sometimes, for an hour together, upon table or floor, as accorded best with his age, or fancy, he sat and played the mimic miser, with his favourite toys--the shining heaps of glittering gold or silver, always produced on these occasions, to amuse and keep him quiet; whilst in that distant room above, where we have seen the unconscious Mary spend so happy an hour, sat the wife and mother, struggling with the inward anguish of an injured, wounded spirit, or straining the little Eustace to her heart, calling him, in deep, earnest accents of endearment, her darling--her own boy--her precious nursling; beseeching him never to forsake her, to stand by his own mother--to love, and to protect her, till the boy's dark, fervent eyes, would suffuse with tears, and he would promise, with the little full and throbbing heart beating against her breast, always to be "mamma's own boy," and never to leave her even when he was a man; and the heir--he, in the meantime, had probably made his escape to the stable-yard, to the grooms and stable-boys, for whose society he, from his earliest days, shewed much inclination, to the danger both of his neck and his morals, by the lessons in horse-riding or loose talking he there received--tastes and propensities with which his mother found herself powerless to interfere. Mrs. Marryott did not object. Master Trevor was neither a manageable or engaging child; these tastes and habits took him off her hands; Mr. Trevor saw only that they made the boy bold and healthy. They were propensities and amusements which cost him nothing; so he desired that he might not be pestered any more by the representations of his anxious mother; she might make one milksop if she wished, but leave the other alone; Marryott would see he came to no real harm.