THE SAINT PAULS MAGAZINE VOL. XI.-JULY TO DECEMBER, 1872 HENRY S. KING & Co., 12, PATERNOSTER ROW, AND 65, CORNHILL 1872 Barney Geoghegan, M.P., and Home Rule at St. Stephen's Cardinal's Lament, The. Rome, Easter Day, 1872 367 Dialogue from Plato, A Editors and Correspondents Fair Pilot of Loch Uribol, The. A Yachting Episode Faust for English Readers Filicaia Filippo, Painter Going to Bed, On Head-dresses "If I were Dictator" John Mardon, Mariner: his Strange Adventures in El Dorado Missing Comet, A, and a Coming Meteor Shower Notions of Right and Wrong 348 719 173 202 681 240 568 THE SAINT PAULS MAGAZINE. JULY, 1872. OFF THE SKELLIGS. BY JEAN INGELOW. CHAPTER XVII. "But to me a modest woman, dressed out in all her finery, is the most tremendous object of the whole creation.-Goldsmith." AFTER dinner I generally made a point of retiring to my cabin as to a drawing-room, while Uncle Rollin and Tom sat over their wine. That night they sent Mrs. Brand to fetch me back, saying that it was dull for me to sit alone. It had been raining, the deck was damp and cheerless, so they had settled themselves below for the evening, and I was glad to obey the summons and join them. They were deep in talk, Tom explaining, my uncle continually falling into mistakes. The subject of the discussion was Mr. Brandon and his family. "The old man," Tom said, " is Brandon's stepfather." 'Why, I thought you said he was the father of that widow lady whom Brandon spoke of." "So I did, sir, but not by the same mother." "Well, I cannot make it out. I hardly see how the second wife could have married three times in the course of so few years." "I'll just explain it to you as Brandon did to me. His mother, then quite a young woman, married a Mr. Brandon, who did not live till this son was born. Mr. Mortimer was her guardian, and is Brandon's trustee as well as his stepfather. Well, when she had been a widow two years, she married a Mr. Grant, a Scotch minister, and they had three daughters, one of whom is married and gone to India. This Mr. Grant died when his wife was about thirty, and Brandon was about seven years old." "Well, that was about twenty years ago." "Twenty-one years ago. Then in due time she married this fine old man. I suppose he was about sixty-nearly twice her age-and they had one son. So, you see, Brandon, the Grants, and young Mortimer are all related. What you were confused about was the VOL. XI. B |