This  name  had  been  given  him  by  his  dying  mother
when,  at  her  request,  the  child  was  baptized  in  her
chamber,  lest  he  should  not  survive  for  public  baptism  ;
and  her  husband  had  never  thought  of  it  as  a  name  of
any  significance  till,  about  this  time,  he  learnt  by  accident

N  I77


A  GROUP  OF  NOBLE  DAMES

that  it  was  the  name  of  the  young  Marquis  of  Christ-
minster,  son  of  the  Duke  of  Southwesterland,  for  whom
Annetta  had  cherished  warm  feelings  before  her  marriage.
Recollecting  some  wandering  phrases  in  his  wife's  last
words,  which  he  had  not  understood  at  the  time,  he
perceived  at  last  that  this  was  the  person  to  whom  she
had  alluded  when  affording  him  a  clue  to  little  Rupert's
history.
He  would  sit  in  silence  for  hours  with  the  child,
being  no  great  speaker  at  the  best  of  times;  but  the
boy,  on  his  part,  was  too  ready  with  his  tongue  for  any
break  in  discourse  to  arise  because  Timothy  Petrick  had
nothing  to  say.  After  idling  away  his  mornings  in  this
manner,  Petrick  would  go  to  his  own  room  and  swear  in
long  loud  whispers,  and  walk  up  and  down,  calling  him-
self the  most  ridiculous  dolt  that  ever  lived,  and  declaring
that  he  would  never  go  near  the  little  fellow  again ;  to
which  resolve  he  would  adhere  for  the  space  perhaps  of
a  day.  Such  cases  are  happily  not  new  to  human  nature,
but  there  never  was  a  case  in  which  a  man  more  com-
pletely befocled  his  former  self  than  in  this.
