It did not take long to
disenchant me," he added with a harsh laugh.
"What was her Christian name?"
"Dolly. Dora, I believe, by register. My dear wife, I have told you all.
In compassion to me let us drop the subject, now and for ever."
Was Eliza Hamlyn--sitting there with pale, compressed lips, sullen eyes,
and hands interlocked in pain--already beginning to reap the fruit she
had sown as Eliza Monk by her rebellious marriage? Perhaps so. But not
as she would have to reap it later on.
Mr. and Mrs. Hamlyn spent nearly all that year in travelling. In
September they came to Peacock's Range, taking it furnished for a term
of old Mr. and Mrs. Peveril, who had not yet come back to it. It stood
midway, as may be remembered, between Church Leet and Church Dykely, so
that Eliza was close to her old home. Late in October a little boy was
born: it would be hard to say which was the prouder of him, Philip
Hamlyn or his wife.
"What would you like his name to be?" Philip asked her one day.
"I should like it to be Walter," said Mrs. Hamlyn.
"_Walter!_"
"Yes, I should. I like the name for itself, but I once had a dear little
brother named Walter, just a year younger than I.
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