Page:Between Two Loves.djvu/122

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ELEANOR'S FLIGHT.
117

death of the babe three weeks afterwards, and by the immoderate grief of the mother, causing a somewhat dangerous relapse in her own condition. Anthony's sorrow and disappoinment was also great, but it was modified by some considerations which the bereaved mother could not take into account. The boy had been born on French soil, it was almost a calamity in Anthony's eyes for the heir of Aske to be anything but "born Yorkshire." Such a thing had never happened before in all the records of the house, and he could not help regarding the child as in some measure a foreigner. Of course, Eleanor could not be blamed consistently for such an untoward event, and yet he felt as if it was a part of the contradiction of her nature, and that in some way or other she was responsible for the thwarting of his hopes.

Nor was Aske's sentiment one peculiar to himself. The news of his grandson's birth gave Jonathan, at the moment of its intelligence, a thrill of the proudest gratification; but his very next feeling had been one of chagrin that the boy had not been born in the stately home of which he was the heir. Still, his elation was so manifest that Ben Holden did not scruple to