Chapter XVII…

Chapter XVII

Though she's as like to this one as a crab is like to an apple, I can tell what I can tell.--King Lear

Often a first grief, where sorrow was hitherto been a stranger, is but the foretaste to many another, like the first hailstorm, after long sunshine, preluding a succession of showers, the clouds returning after the rain, and obscuring the sky of life for many a day.

Those who daily saw Mrs. Fulmort scarcely knew whether to attribute her increasing invalidism to debility or want of spirits; and hopes were built on summer heat, till, when it came, it prostrated her strength, and at last, when some casual ailment had confined her to bed, there was no rally. All took alarm; a physician was called in, and the truth was disclosed. There was no formed disease; but her husband's death, though apparently hardly comprehended, had taken away the spring of life, and she was withering like a branch severed from the stem. Remedies did but disturb her torpor by feverish symptoms that hastened her decline, and Dr. Martyn privately told Miss Charlecote that the absent sons and daughters ought to be warned that the end must be very near.

Honor, as lovingly and gently as possible, spoke to Phoebe. The girl's eyes filled with tears, but it was in an almost well-pleased tone that she said, 'Dear mamma, I always knew she felt it.'

'Ah! little did we think how deeply went the stroke that showed no wound!'

'Yes! She felt that she was going to him. We could never have made her happy here.'

'You are content, my unselfish one?'

'Don't talk to me about myself, please!' implored Phoebe. 'I have too much to do for that. What did he say? That the others should be written to? I will take my case and write in mamma's room.'

Immediate duty was her refuge from anticipation, gentle tendance from the sense of misery, and, though her mother's restless feebleness needed constant waiting on, her four notes were completed before post-time. Augusta was eating red mullet in Guernsey, Juliana was on a round of visits in Scotland, Mervyn was supposed to be in Paris, Robert alone was near at hand.

At night Phoebe sent Boodle to bed; but Miss Fennimore insisted on sharing her pupil's watch. At first there was nothing to do; the patient had fallen into a heavy slumber, and the daughter sat by the bed, the governess at the window, unoccupied save by their books. Phoebe was reading Miss Maurice's invaluable counsels to the nurses of the dying. Miss Fennimore had the Bible. It was not from a sense of appropriateness, as in pursuance of her system of re-examination. Always admiring the Scripture in a patronizing temper, she had gloried in critical inquiry, and regarded plenary inspiration as a superstition, covering weak points by pretensions to infallibility. But since her discussions with Robert, and her readings of Butler with Bertha, she had begun to weigh for herself the internal, intrinsic evidence of Divine origin, above all, in the Gospels, which, to her surprise, enchained her attention and investigation, as she would have thought beyond the power of such simple words.

Pilate's question, 'What is truth?' was before her. To her it was a link of evidence. Without even granting that the writer was the fisherman he professed to be, what, short of Shakesperian intuition, could thus have depicted the Roman of the early Empire in equal dread of Caesar and of the populace, at once unscrupulous and timid, contemning Jewish prejudice, yet, with lingering mythological superstition, trembling at the hint of a present Deity in human form; and, lost in the bewilderment of the later Greek philosophy, greeting the word truth with the startled inquiry, what it might be. What is truth? It had been the question of Miss Fennimore's life, and she felt a blank and a disappointment as it stood unanswered. A movement made her look up. Phoebe was raising her mother, and Miss Fennimore was needed to support the pillows.

'Phoebe, my dear, are you here?'

'Yes, dear mamma, I always am.'

'Phoebe, my dear, I think I am soon going. You have been a good child, my dear; I wish I had done more for you all.'

'Dear mamma, you have always been so kind.'

'They didn't teach me like Honora Charlecote,' she faltered on; 'but I always did as your poor papa told me. Nobody ever told me how to be religious, and your poor papa would not have liked it. Phoebe, you know more than I do. You don't think God will be hard with me, do you? I am such a poor creature; but there is the Blood that takes away sin.'

'Dear mother, that is the blessed trust.'

'The Truth,' flashed upon Miss Fennimore, as she watched their faces.

'Will He give me His own goodness?' said Mrs. Fulmort, wistfully. 'I never did know how to think about Him--I wish I had cared more. What do you think, Phoebe?'

'I cannot tell how to answer fully, dear mamma,' said Phoebe; 'but indeed it is safe to think of His great loving-kindness and mercy. Robert will be here to-morrow. He will tell you better.'

'He will give me the Holy Sacrament,' said Mrs. Fulmort, 'and then I shall go--'

Presently she moved uneasily. 'Oh, Phoebe, I am so tired. Nothing rests me.'

'There remaineth a rest,' gently whispered Phoebe--and Miss Fennimore thought the young face had something of the angel in it--'no more weariness there.'

'They won't think what a poor dull thing I am there,' added her mother. 'I wish I could take poor Maria with me. They don't like her here, and she will be teased and put about.'

'No, mother, never while I can take care of her!'

'I know you will, Phoebe, if you say so. Phoebe, love, when I see God, I shall thank Him for having made you so good and dear, and letting me have some comfort in one of my children.'

Phoebe tried to make her think of Robert, but she was exhausted, dozed, and was never able to speak so much again.

Miss Fennimore thought instead of reading. Was it the mere effect on her sympathies that bore in on her mind that Truth existed, and was grasped by the mother and daughter? What was there in those faltering accents that impressed her with reality? Why, of all her many instructors, had none touched her like poor, ignorant, feeble-minded Mrs. Fulmort?

Robert arrived the next day. His mother knew him and was roused sufficiently to accept his offices as a clergyman. Then, as if she thought it was expected of her, she asked for her younger daughters, but when they came, she looked distressed and perplexed.

'Bless them, mother,' said Robert, bending over her, and she evidently accepted this as what she wanted; but 'How--what?' she added; and taking the uncertain hand, he guided it to the head of each of his three sisters, and prompted the words of blessing from the failing tongue. Then as Bertha rose, he sank on his knees in her place, 'Bless me, bless me, too, mother; bless me, and pardon my many acts of self-will.'

'You are good--you--you are a clergyman,' she hesitated, bewildered.

'The more reason, mamma; it will comfort him.' And it was Phoebe who won for her brother the blessing needed as balm to a bleeding heart.

'The others are away,' said the dying woman; 'maybe, if I had made them good when they were little, they would not have left me now.'

While striving to join in prayer for them, she slumbered, and in the course of the night she slept herself tranquilly away from the world where even prosperity had been but a troubled maze to her.

Augusta arrived, weeping profusely, but with all her wits about her, so as to assume the command, and to provide for her own, and her Admiral's comfort. Phoebe was left to the mournful repose of having no one to whom to attend, since Miss Fennimore provided for the younger ones; and in the lassitude of bodily fatigue and sorrow, she shrank from Maria's babyish questions and Bertha's levity and curiosity, spending her time chiefly alone. Even Robert could not often be with her, since Mervyn's absence and silence threw much on him and Mr. Crabbe, the executor and guardian; and the Bannermans were both exacting and self-important. The Actons, having been pursued by their letters from place to place in the Highlands, at length arrived, and Mervyn last of all, only just in time for the funeral.

Phoebe did not see him till the evening after it, when, having spent the day nearly alone, she descended to the late dinner, and after the quietness in which she had lately lived, and with all the tenderness from fresh suffering, it seemed to her that she was entering on a distracting turmoil of voices. Mervyn, however, came forward at once to meet her, threw his arm round her, and kissed her rather demonstratively, saying, 'My little Phoebe, I wondered where you were;' then putting her into a chair, and bending over her, 'We are in for the funeral games. Stand up for yourself!'

She did not know in the least what he could mean, but she was too sick at heart to ask; she only thought he looked unwell, jaded, and fagged, and with a heated complexion.

He handed Lady Acton into the dining-room; Augusta, following with Sir Bevil, was going to the head of the table, when he called out, 'That's Phoebe's place!'

'Not before my elders,' Phoebe answered, trying to seat herself at the side.

'The sister at home is mistress of the house,' he sternly answered. 'Take your proper place, Phoebe.'

In much discomfort she obeyed, and tried to attend civilly to Sir Nicholas's observations on the viands, hoping to intercept a few, as she perceived how they chafed her eldest brother.

At last, on Mervyn himself roundly abusing the flavour of the ice-pudding, Augusta not only defended it, but confessed to having herself directed Mrs. Brisbane to the concoction that morning.

'Mrs. Brisbane shall take orders from no lady but Miss Fulmort, while she is in my house,' thundered Mervyn.

Phoebe, in agony, began to say she knew not what to Sir Bevil, and he seconded her with equal vehemence and incoherency, till by the time they knew what they were talking of, they were with much interest discussing his little daughter, scarcely turning their heads from one another, till, in the midst of dessert, the voice of Juliana was heard,--'Sir Bevil, Sir Bevil, if you can spare me any attention--What was the name of that person at Hampstead that your sister told me of?'

'That person! What, where poor Anne Acton was boarded? Dr. Graham, he called himself, but I don't believe he was a physician. Horrid vulgar fellow!'

'Excellent for the purpose, though,' continued Lady Acton, addressing herself as before to Mr. Crabbe; 'advertises for nervous or deficient ladies, and boards them on very fair terms: would take her quite off our hands.'

Phoebe turned a wild look of imploring interrogation on Sir Bevil, but a certain family telegraph had electrified him, and his eyes were on the grapes that he was eating with nervous haste. Her blood boiling at what she apprehended, Phoebe could endure her present post no longer, and starting up, made the signal for leaving the dinner-table so suddenly that Augusta choked upon her glass of wine, and carried off her last macaroon in her hand. Before she had recovered breath to rebuke her sister's precipitation, Phoebe, with boldness and spirit quite new to the sisters, was confronting Juliana, and demanding what she had been saying about Hampstead.

'Only,' said Juliana, coolly, 'that I have found a capital place there for Maria--a Dr. Graham, who boards and lodges such unfortunates. Sir Bevil had an idiot cousin there who died. I shall write to-morrow.'

'I promised that Maria should not be separated from me,' said Phoebe.

'Nonsense, my dear,' said Augusta; 'we could not receive her; she can never be made presentable.'

'You?' said Phoebe.

'Yes, my dear; did you not know? You go home with us the day after to-morrow; and next spring I mean to bring you out, and take you everywhere. The Admiral is so generous!'

'But the others?' said Phoebe.

'I don't mind undertaking Bertha,' said Lady Acton. 'I know of a good school for her, and I shall deposit Maria at Dr. Graham's as soon as I can get an answer.'

'Really,' continued Augusta, 'Phoebe will look very creditable by and by, when she has more colour and not all this crape. Perhaps I shall get her married by the end of the season; only you must learn better manners first, Phoebe--not to rush out of the dining-room in this way. I don't know what I shall do without my other glass of wine--when I am so low, too!'

'A fine mistress of the house, indeed,' said Lady Acton. 'It is well Mervyn's absurd notion is impossible.'

'What was that? To keep us all?' asked Phoebe, catching at the hope.

'Not Maria nor the governess. You need not flatter yourself,' said Juliana; 'he said he wouldn't have them at any price; and as to keeping house alone with a man of his character, even you may have sense to see it couldn't be for a moment.'

'Did Robert consent to Maria's going to Hampstead?' asked Phoebe.

'Robert--what has he to do with it? He has no voice.'

'He said something about getting the three boarded with some clergyman's widow,' said Augusta; 'buried in some hole, I suppose, to make them like himself--go to church every day, and eat cold dinners on Sunday.'

'I should like to see Bertha doing that,' said Juliana, laughing.

But the agony of helplessness that had oppressed Phoebe was relieved. She saw an outlet, and could form a resolution. Home might have to be given up, but there was a means of fulfilling her mother's charge, and saving Maria from the private idiot asylum; and for that object Phoebe was ready to embrace perpetual seclusion with the dullest of widows. She found her sisters discussing their favourite subject--Mervyn's misconduct and extravagance--and she was able to sit apart, working, and thinking of her line of action. Only two days! She must be prompt, and not wait for privacy or for counsel. So when the gentlemen came in, and Mr. Crabbe came towards her, she took him into the window, and asked him if any choice were permitted her as to her residence.

'Certainly; so nearly of age as you are. But I naturally considered that you would wish to be with Lady Bannerman, with all the advantages of London society.'

'But she will not receive Maria. I promised that Maria should be my charge. You have not consented to this Hampstead scheme?'

'Her ladyship is precipitate,' half whispered the lawyer. 'I certainly would not, till I had seen the establishment, and judged for myself.'

'No, nor then,' said Phoebe. 'Come to-morrow, and see her. She is no subject for an establishment. And I beg you will let me be with her; I would much prefer being with any lady who would receive us both.'

'Very amiable,' said Mr. Crabbe.

'Ha!' interrupted Mervyn, 'you are not afraid I shall let Augusta carry you off, Phoebe. She would give the world to get you, but I don't mean to part with you.'

'It is of no use to talk to her, Mervyn,' cried Augusta's loud voice from the other end of the room. 'She knows that she cannot remain with you. Robert himself would tell her so.'

'Robert knows better than to interfere,' said Mervyn, with one of his scowls. 'Now then, Phoebe, settle it for yourself. Will you stay and keep house for me at home, or be Augusta's companion? There! the choice of Hercules. Virtue or vice?' he added, trying to laugh.

'Neither,' said Phoebe, readily. 'My home is fixed by Maria's.'

'Phoebe, are you crazy?' broke out the three voices; while Sir Nicholas slowly and sententiously explained that he regretted the unfortunate circumstance, but Maria's peculiarities made it impossible to produce her in society; and that when her welfare and happiness had been consulted by retirement, Phoebe would find a home in his house, and be treated as Lady Bannerman's sister, and a young lady of her expectations, deserved.

'Thank you,' said Phoebe; then turning to her brother, 'Mervyn, do you, too, cast off poor Maria?'

'I told you what I thought of that long ago,' said Mervyn, carelessly.

'Very well, then,' said Phoebe, sadly; 'perhaps you will let us stay till some lady can be found of whom Mr. Crabbe may approve, with whom Maria and I can live.'

'Lady Acton!' Sir Bevil's voice was low and entreating, but all heard it.

'I am not going to encumber myself,' she answered. 'I always disliked girls, and I shall certainly not make Acton Manor an idiot asylum.'

'And mind,' added Augusta, 'you won't cone to me for the season! I have no notion of your leaving me all the dull part of the year for some gay widow at a watering-place, and then expecting me to go out with you in London.'

'By Heaven!' broke out Mervyn, 'they shall stay here, if only to balk your spite. My sisters shall not be driven from pillar to post the very day their mother is put under ground.'

'Some respectable lady,' began Robert.

'Some horrid old harridan of a boarding-house keeper,' shouted Mervyn, the louder for his interference. 'Ay, you would like it, and spend all their fortunes on parsons in long coats! I know better! Come here, Phoebe, and listen. You shall live here as you have always done, Maria and all, and keep the Fennimore woman to mind the children. Answer me, will that content you? Don't go looking at Robert, but say yes or no.'

Mervyn's innuendo had deprived his offer of its grace, but in spite of the pang of indignation, in spite of Robert's eye of disapproval, poor desolate Phoebe must needs cling to her home, and to the one who alone would take her and her poor companion. 'Mervyn, thank you; it is right!'

'Right! What does that mean? If any one has a word to say against my sisters being under my roof, let me hear it openly, not behind my back. Eh, Juliana, what's that?'

'Only that I wonder how long it will last,' sneered Lady Acton.

'And,' added Robert, 'there should be some guarantee that they should not be introduced to unsuitable acquaintance.'

'You think me not to be trusted with them.'

'I do not.'

Mervyn ground his teeth, answering, 'Very well, sir, I stand indebted to you. I should have imagined, whatever your opinion of me, you would have considered your favourite sky-blue governess an immaculate guardian, or can you be contented with nothing short of a sisterhood?'

'Robert,' said Phoebe, fearing lest worse should follow, 'Mervyn has always been good to us; I trust to him.' And her clear eyes were turned on the eldest brother with a grateful confidence that made him catch her hand with something between thanks and triumph, as he said--

'Well said, little one! There, sir, are you satisfied?'

'I must be,' replied Robert.

Sir Bevil, able to endure no longer, broke in with some intelligence from the newspaper, which he had been perusing ever since his unlucky appeal to his lady. Every one thankfully accepted this means of ending the discussion.

'Well, Miss,' was Juliana's good night, 'you have attained your object. I hope you may find it answer.'

'Yes,' added Augusta, 'when Mervyn brings home that Frenchwoman, you will wish you had been less tenacious.'

'That's all an idea of yours,' said Juliana. 'She'll have punishment enough in Master Mervyn's own temper. I wouldn't keep house for him, no, not for a week.'

'Stay till you are asked,' said Augusta.

Phoebe could bear no more, but slipped through the swing-door, reached her room, and sinking into a chair, passively let Lieschen undress her, not attempting to raise her drooping head, nor check the tears that trickled, conscious only of her broken, wounded, oppressed state of dejection, into the details of which she durst not look. How could she, when her misery had been inflicted by such hands? The mere fact of the unseemly broil between the brothers and sisters on such an evening was shame and pain enough, and she felt like one bruised and crushed all over, both in herself and Maria, while the one drop of comfort in Mervyn's kindness was poisoned by the strife between him and Robert, and the doubt whether Robert thought she ought to have accepted it.

When her maid left her, she only moved to extinguish her light, and then cowered down again as if to hide in the darkness; but the soft summer twilight gloom seemed to soothe and restore her, and with a longing for air to refresh her throbbing brow, she leant out into the cool, still night, looking into the northern sky, still pearly with the last reminiscence of the late sunset, and with the pale large stars beaming calmly down.

'Oh mother, mother! Well might you long to take your poor Maria with you--there where the weary are at rest--where there is mercy for the weak and slow! Home! home! we have none but with you!'

Nay, had she not a home with Him whose love was more than mother's love; whose soft stars were smiling on her now; whose gentle breezes fanned her burning cheeks, even as a still softer breath of comfort was stilling her troubled spirit! She leant out till she could compose herself to kneel in prayer, and from prayer rose up quietly, weary, and able to rest beneath the Fatherly Wings spread over the orphan.

She was early astir, though with heavy, swollen eyelids; and anxious to avoid Bertha's inquiries till all should be more fully settled, she betook herself to the garden, to cool her brow and eyes. She was bathing them in the dewy fragrant heart of a full-blown rose, that had seemed to look at her with a tearful smile of sympathy, when a step approached, and an arm was thrown round her, and Robert stood beside her.

'My Phoebe,' he said tenderly, 'how are you? It was a frightful evening!'

'Oh! Robert, were you displeased with me?'

'No, indeed. You put us all to shame. I grieved that you had no more preparation, but some of the guests stayed late, afterwards I was hindered by business, and then Bevil laid hands on me to advise me privately against this establishment for poor Maria.'

'I thought it was Juliana who pressed it!'

'Have you not learnt that whatever he dislikes she forwards?'

'Oh! Robert, you can hinder that scheme from ever being thought of again!'

'Yes,' said Robert; 'there she should never have been, even had you not made resistance.'

'And, Robert, may we stay here?' asked Phoebe, trembling.

'Crabbe sees no objection,' he answered.

'Do you, Robert? If you think we ought not, I will try to change; but Mervyn is kind, and it is home! I saw you thought me wrong, but I could not help being glad he relented to Maria.'

'You were right. Your eldest brother is the right person to give you a home. I cannot. It would have shown an evil, suspicious temper if you had refused him.'

'Yet you do not like it.'

'Perhaps I am unjust. I own that I had imagined you all happier and better in such a home as Mrs. Parsons or Miss Charlecote could find for you; and though Mervyn would scarcely wilfully take advantage of your innocence, I do not trust to his always knowing what would be hurtful to you or Bertha. It is a charge that I grudge to him, for I do not think he perceives what it is.'

'I could make you think better of him. I wonder whether I may.'

'Anything--anything to make me think better of him,' cried Robert eagerly.

'I do not know it from him alone, so it cannot be a breach of confidence,' said Phoebe. 'He has been deeply attached, not to a pretty person, nor a rich nor grand one, but she was very good and religious--so much so that she would not accept him.'

'How recently?'

'The attachment has been long; the rejection this spring.'

'My poor Phoebe, I could not tell you how his time has been passed since early spring.'

'I know in part,' she said, looking down; 'but, Robin, that arose from despair. Oh, how I longed for him to come and let me try to comfort him!'

'And how is this to change my opinion,' asked Robert, 'except by showing me that no right-minded woman could trust herself with him?'

'Oh, Robert, no! Sisters need not change, though others ought, perhaps. I meant you to see that he does love and honour goodness for itself, and so that he will guard his sisters.'

'I will think so, Phoebe. You deserve to be believed, for you draw out his best points. For my own part, the miserable habits of our boyhood have left a habit of acrimony, of which, repent as I will, I cannot free myself. I gave way to it last night. I can be cool, but I cannot help being contemptuous. I make him worse, and I aggravated your difficulties by insulting him.'

'He insulted you,' said Phoebe. 'When I think of those words I don't know how I can stay with him.'

'They fell short! They were nothing,' said Robert. 'But it was the more unbefitting in me to frame my warning as I did. Oh, Phoebe, your prayers and influence have done much for me. Help me now to treat my brother so as not to disgrace my calling.'

'You--when you freely forgive all the injuries he has done you!'

'If I freely forgave, I suppose I should love;' and he murmured sadly, 'He that hateth his brother is a murderer.'

Phoebe shrank, but could not help thinking that if the spirit of Cain existed among them, it was not with the younger brother.

When she next spoke, it was to express her fear lest Miss Fennimore should refuse to remain, since the position would be uncomfortable. Her talent was thrown away on poor Maria, and Bertha had been very vexing and provoking of late. Phoebe greatly dreaded a change, both from her love for her governess, and alarm lest a new duenna might be yet more unwelcome to Mervyn, and she was disappointed to see that Robert caught at the hope that the whole scheme might be baffled on this score.

Phoebe thought a repetition of the dinner-table offence would be best obviated by taking her place as tea-maker at once. Mervyn first came down, and greeted her like something especially his own. He detected the red blistered spot on her cheek, and exclaimed, 'Eh! did they make you cry? Never mind; the house will soon be clear of them, and you my little queen. You have nothing to say against it. Has any one been putting things in your head?' and he looked fiercely at his brother.

'No, Mervyn; Robert and I both think you very kind, and that it is the right thing.'

'Yes,' said Robert, 'no arrangement could be more proper. I am sorry, Mervyn, if my manner was offensive last night.'

'I never take offence, it is not my way,' said Mervyn, indifferently, almost annoyed that his brother had not spirit to persevere in the quarrel.

After the breakfast, where the elder sisters were cold and distant, and Sir Bevil as friendly as he durst, Mervyn's first move was to go, in conjunction with Mr. Crabbe, to explain the arrangement to Miss Fennimore, and request her to continue her services. They came away surprised and angry: Miss Fennimore would 'consider of it.' Even when Mervyn, to spare himself from 'some stranger who might prove a greater nuisance,' had offered a hundred in addition to her present exorbitant salary, she courteously declined, and repeated that her reply should be given in the evening.

Mervyn's wrath would have been doubled had he known the cause of her delay. She sent Maria to beg Robert to spare her half an hour, and on his entrance, dismissing her pupils, she said, 'Mr. Fulmort, I should be glad if you would candidly tell me your opinion of the proposed arrangement. I mean,' seeing his hesitation, 'of that part which relates to myself.'

'I do not quite understand you,' he said.

'I mean, whether, as the person whose decision has the most worth in this family, you are satisfied to leave your sisters under my charge? If not, whatever it may cost me to part with that sweet and admirable Phoebe,' and her voice showed unwonted emotion, 'I would not think of remaining with them.'

'You put me in a very strange position, Miss Fennimore; I have no authority to decide. They could have no friend more sincerely anxious for their welfare or so welcome to Phoebe's present wishes.'

'Perhaps not; but the question is not of my feelings nor theirs, but whether you consider my influence pernicious to their religious principles. If so, I decline their guardian's terms at once.' After a pause, she added, pleased at his deliberation, 'It may assist you if I lay before you the state of my own mind.'

She proceeded to explain that her parents had been professed Unitarians, her mother, loving and devout to the hereditary faith, beyond which she had never looked--'Mr. Fulmort,' she said, 'nothing will approve itself to me that condemns my mother!'

He began to say that often where there was no wilful rejection of truth, saving grace and faith might be vouchsafed.

'You are charitable,' she answered, in a tone like sarcasm, and went on. Her father, a literary man of high ability, set aside from work by ill-health, thought himself above creeds. He had given his daughter a man's education, had read many argumentative books with her, and died, leaving her liberally and devoutly inclined in the spirit of Pope's universal prayer--'Jehovah, Jove, or Lord.' It was all aspiration to the Lord of nature, the forms, adaptations to humanity, kaleidoscope shapes of half-comprehended fragments, each with its own beauty, and only becoming worthy of reprobation where they permitted moral vices, among which she counted intolerance.

What she thought reasonable--Christianity, modified by the world's progress--was her tenet, and she had no scruple in partaking in any act of worship; while naturally conscientious, and loving all the virtues, she viewed the terrors of religion as the scourge of the grovelling and superstitious; or if suffering existed at all, it could be only as expiation, conducting to a condition of high intellect and perfect morality. No other view, least of all that of a vicarious atonement, seemed to her worthy of the beneficence of the God whom she had set up for herself.

Thus had she rested for twenty years; but of late she had been dissatisfied. Living with Phoebe, 'though the child was not naturally intellectual,' there was no avoiding the impression that what she acted and rested on was substantial truth. 'The same with others,' said Miss Fennimore, meaning her auditor himself. 'And, again, I cannot but feel that devotion to any system of faith is the restraint that Bertha is deficient in, and that this is probably owing to my own tone. These examples have led me to go over the former ground in the course of the present spring; and it has struck me that, if the Divine Being be not the mere abstraction I once supposed, it is consistent to believe that He has a character and will--individuality, in short--so that there might be one single revelation of absolute truth. I have not thoroughly gone through the subject, but I hope to do so; and when I mark what I can only call a supernatural influence on an individual character, I view it as an evidence in favour of the system that produced it. My exposition of my opinions shocks you; I knew it would. But knowing this, and thinking it possible that an undoubting believer might have influenced Bertha, are you willing to trust your sisters to me?'

'Let me ask one question--why was this explanation never offered before to those who had more right to decide?'

'My tenets have seldom been the subject of inquiry. When they have, I have concealed nothing; and twice have thus missed a situation. But these things are usually taken for granted; and I never imagined it my duty to volunteer my religious sentiments, since I never obtruded them. I gave no scandal by objecting to any form of worship, and concerned myself with the moral and intellectual, not the religious being.'

'Could you reach the moral without the religious?'

'I should tell you that I have seldom reared a pupil from childhood. Mine have been chiefly from fifteen to eighteen, whose parents required their instruction, not education, from me; and till I came here, I never fully beheld the growth and development of character. I found that whereas all I could do for Phoebe was to give her method and information, leaving alone the higher graces elsewhere derived, with Bertha, my efforts were inadequate to supply any motive for overcoming her natural defects; and I believe that association with a person of my sceptical habit has tended to prevent Phoebe's religion from influencing her sister.'

'This is the reason you tell me?'

'Partly; and likewise because I esteem you very differently from my former employers, and know that your views for your sisters are not like those of the persons with whom I have been accustomed to deal.'

'You know that I have no power. It rests entirely with my brother and Mr. Crabbe.'

'I am perfectly aware of it; but I could not allow myself to be forced on your sisters by any family arrangement contrary to the wishes of that member of it who is most qualified to judge for them.'

'Thank you, Miss Fennimore; I will treat you as openly as you have treated me. I have often felt indignant that my sisters should be exposed to any risk of having their faith shaken; and this morning I almost hoped to hear that you did not consent to Mervyn's scheme. But what you have said convinces me that, whatever you may have been previously, you are more likely to strengthen and confirm them in all that is good than half the people they would meet. I know that it would be a heavy affliction to Phoebe to lose so kind a friend; it might drive her from the home to which she clings, and separate Bertha, at least, from her; and under the circumstances, I cannot wish you to leave the poor girls at present.' He spoke rather confusedly, but there was more consent in manner than words.

'Thank you,' she replied, fervently. 'I cannot tell you what it would cost me to part with Phoebe, my living lesson.'

'Only let the lesson be still unconscious.'

'I would not have it otherwise for worlds. The calm reliance that makes her a ministering spirit is far too lovely to be ruffled by a hint of the controversies that weary my brain. If it be effect of credulity, the effects are more beauteous than those of clear eyesight.'

'You will not always think it credulity.'

'There would be great rest in being able to accept all that you and she do,' Miss Fennimore answered with a sigh; 'in finding an unchanging answer to "What is truth?" Yet even your Gospel leaves that question unanswered.'

'Unanswered to Pilate; but those who are true find the truth; I verily trust that your eyes will become cleared to find it. Miss Fennimore, you know that I am unready and weak in argument, and you have often left me no refuge but my positive conviction; but I can refer you to those who are strong. If I can help you by carrying your difficulties to others, or by pointing out books, I should rejoice--'

'You cannot argue--you can only act,' said Miss Fennimore, smiling, as a message called him away.

The schoolroom had been left undisturbed, for the sisters were otherwise occupied. By Mr. Fulmort's will, the jewels, excepting certain Mervyn heirlooms, were to be divided between the daughters, and their two ladyships thought this the best time for their choice, though as yet they could not take possession. Phoebe would have given the world that the sets had been appropriated, so that Mervyn and Mr. Crabbe should not have had to make her miserable by fighting her battles, insisting on her choosing, and then overruling her choice as not of sufficiently valuable articles, while Bertha profited by the lesson in harpy-hood, and regarded all claimed by the others as so much taken from herself; and poor Maria clasped on every bracelet one by one, threaded every ring on her fingers, and caught the same lustre on every diamond, delighting in the grand exhibition, and in her own share, which by general consent included all that was clumsy and ill-set. No one had the heart to disturb her, but Phoebe felt that the poor thing was an eyesore to them all, and was hardly able to endure Augusta's compliment, 'After all, Phoebe, she is not so bad; you may make her tolerably presentable for the country.'

Lady Acton patronized Bertha, in opposition to Phoebe; and Sir Bevil was glad to have one sister to whom he could be good-natured without molestation. The young lady, heartily weary of the monotony of home, was much disappointed at the present arrangement; Phoebe had become the envied elder sister instead of the companion in misfortune, and Juliana was looked on as the sympathizing friend who would fain have opened the prison doors that Phoebe closed against her by making all that disturbance about Maria.

'It is all humbug about Maria,' said Juliana. 'Much Phoebe will let her stand in her way when she wants to come to London for the season--but I'll not take her out, I promise her.'

'But you will take me,' cried Bertha. 'You'll not leave me in this dismal hole always.'

'Never fear, Bertha. This plan won't last six months. Mervyn and Phoebe will get sick of one another, and Augusta will be ready to take her in--she is pining for an errand girl.'

'I'll not go there to read cookery books and meet old fogies. You will have me, Juliana, and we will have such fun together.'

'When you are come out, perhaps--and you must cure that stammer.'

'I shall die of dulness before then! If I could only go to school!'

'I wouldn't be you with Maria for your most lively companion.'

'It is much worse than when we used to go down into the drawing-room. Now we never see any one but Miss Charlecote, and Phoebe is getting exactly like her!'

'What, all her sanctimonious ways? I thought so.'

'And to make it more aggravating, Miss Fennimore is going to get religious too. She made me read all Butler's Analogy, and wants to put me into Paley, and she is always running after Robert.'

'Middle-aged governesses always do run after young clergymen--especially the most outre's.'

'And now she snaps me up if I say anything the least comprehensive or speculative, or if I laugh at the conventionalities Phoebe learns at the Holt. Yesterday I said that the progress of common sense would soon make people cease to connect dulness with mortality, or to think a serious mistiness the sole evidence of respect, and I was caught up as if it were high treason.'

'You must not get out of bounds in your talk, Bertha, or sound unfeeling.'

'I can't help being original,' said Bertha. 'I must evolve my ideas out of my individual consciousness, and assert my independence of thought.'

Juliana laughed, not quite following her sister's metaphysical tone, but satisfied that it was anti-Phoebe, she answered by observing, 'An intolerable fuss they do make about that girl!'

'And she is not a bit clever,' continued Bertha. 'I can do a translation in half the time she takes, and have got far beyond her in all kinds of natural philosophy!'

'She flatters Mervyn, that's the thing; but she will soon have enough of that. I hope he won't get her into some dreadful scrape, that's all!'

'What sort of scrape?' asked Bertha, gathering from the smack of the hope that it was something exciting.

'Oh, you are too much of a chit to know--but I say, Bertha, write to me, and let me know whom Mervyn brings to the house.'

With somewhat the like injunction, only directed to a different quarter, Robert likewise left Beauchamp.

As he well knew would be the case, nothing in his own circumstances was changed by his mother's death, save that he no longer could call her inheritance his home. She had made no will, and her entire estate passed to her eldest son, from whom Robert parted on terms of defiance, rather understood than expressed. He took leave of his birthplace as one never expecting to return thither, and going for his last hour at Hiltonbury to Miss Charlecote, poured out to her as many of his troubles as he could bear to utter. 'And,' said he, 'I have given my approval to the two schemes that I most disapproved beforehand--to Mervyn's giving my sisters a home, and to Miss Fennimore's continuing their governess! What will come of it?'

'Do not repent, Robert,' was the answer. 'Depend upon it, the great danger is in rashly meddling with existing arrangements, especially by a strain of influence. It is what the young are slow to learn, but experience brings it home.'

'With you to watch them, I will fear the less.'

Miss Charlecote wondered whether any disappointment of his own added to his depression, and if he thought of Lucilla.

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Chapter XVIII

My sister is not so defenceless left As you imagine. She has a hidden strength Which you remember not.--Comus

Phoebe was left to the vacancy of the orphaned house, to a blank where her presence had been gladness, and to relief more sad than pain, in parting with her favourite brother, and seeing him out of danger of provoking or being provoked.

To have been the cause of strife and object of envy weighed like guilt on her heart, and the tempest that had tossed her when most needing peace and soothing, left her sore and suffering. She did not nurse her grief, and was content that her mother should be freed from the burthen of existence that had of late been so heavy; but the missing the cherished recipient of her care was inevitable, and she was not of a nature to shake off dejection readily, nor to throw sorrow aside in excitement.

Mervyn felt as though he had caught a lark, and found it droop instead of singing. He was very kind, almost oppressively so; he rode or drove with her to every ruin or view esteemed worth seeing, ordered books for her, and consulted her on improvements that pained her by the very fact of change. She gave her attention sweetly and gratefully, was always at his call, and amused his evenings with cards or music, but she felt herself dull and sad, and saw him disappointed in her.

Then she tried bringing in Bertha as entertainment for both, but it was a downright failure. Bertha was far too sharp and pert for an elder brother devoid both of wit and temper, and the only consequence was that she fathomed his shallow acquirements in literature and the natural sciences, and he pronounced her to be eaten up with conceit, and the most intolerable child he ever saw--an irremediable insult to a young woman of fifteen; nor could Bertha be brought forward without disappointing Maria, whose presence Mervyn would not endure, and thus Phoebe was forced to yield the point, and keep in the background the appendages only tolerated for her sake.

Greatly commiserating Bertha's weariness of the schoolroom, she tried to gratify the governess and please her sisters by resuming her studies; but the motive of duty and obedience being gone, these were irksome to a mind naturally meditative and practical, and she found herself triumphed over by Bertha for forgetting whether Lucca were Guelf or Ghibelline, putting oolite below red sandstone, or confusing the definition of ozone. She liked Bertha to surpass her; but inattention she regarded as wrong in itself, as well as a bad example, and her apologies were so hearty as quite to affect Miss Fennimore.

Mervyn's attentions wore off with the days of seclusion. By the third week he was dining out, by the fourth he was starting for Goodwood, half inviting Phoebe to come with him, and assuring her that it was just what she wanted to put her into spirits again. Poor Phoebe--when Mr. Henderson talking to Miss Fennimore, and Bertha at the same time insisting on Decandolle's system to Miss Charlecote, had seemed to create a distressing whirl and confusion!

Miss Fennimore smiled, both with pleasure and amusement, as Phoebe asked her permission to walk to the Holt, and be fetched home by the carriage at night.

'Don't laugh at me,' said Phoebe. 'I am so glad to have some one's leave to ask.'

'I will not laugh, my dear, but I will not help you to reverse our positions. It is better we should both be accustomed to them.'

'It seems selfish to take the carriage for myself,' said Phoebe; 'but I think I have rather neglected Miss Charlecote for Mervyn, and I believe she would like to have me alone.'

The solitude of the walk was a great boon, and there was healing in the power of silence--the repose of not being forced to be lively. Summer flowers had passed, but bryony mantled the bushes in luxuriant beauty, and kingly teazles raised their diademed heads, and exultingly stretched forth their sceptred arms. Purple heather mixed with fragrant thyme, blue harebells and pale bents of quiver-grass edged the path, and thistledown, drifting from the chalk uplands, lay like snow in the hollows, or danced like living things on the path before her. A brood of goldfinches, with merry twitter and flashing wings, flitted round a tall milk thistle with variegated leaves and a little farther on, just at the opening of a glade from the path, she beheld a huge dragon-fly, banded with green, black, and gold, poised on wings invisible in their rapid motion, and hawking for insects. She stood to watch, collecting materials to please Miss Charlecote, and make a story for Maria.

'Stand still. He is upon you.'

She saw Miss Charlecote a few yards off, nearly on all-fours in the thymy grass.

'Only a grasshopper. I've only once seen such a fellow. He makes portentous leaps. There! on your flounce!'

'I have him! No! He went right over you!'

'I've got him under my handkerchief. Put your hand in my pocket--take out a little wide-mouthed bottle. That's it. Get in, sir, it is of no use to bite. There's an air-hole in the cork. Isn't he a beauty?'

'O, the lovely green! What saws he wears on his thighs! See the delicate pink lining! What horns! and a quaint face, like a horse's.'

'"The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses." Not that this is a locust, only a gryllus, happily for us.'

'What is the difference?'

'Long or short horns, since Bertha is not here to make me call them antennae. I must take him home to draw, as soon as I have gathered some willow for my puss. You are coming home with me?'

'I meant to drink tea with you, and be sent for in the evening.'

'Good child. I was almost coming to you, but I was afraid of Mervyn. How has it been, my dear?'

Phoebe's 'he is very kind' was allowed to stand for the present, and Honora led the way by a favourite path, which was new to Phoebe, making the circuit of the Holt; sometimes dipping into a hollow, over which the lesser scabious cast a tint like the gray of a cloud; sometimes rising on a knoll so as to look down on the rounded tops of the trees, following the undulations of the grounds; and beyond them the green valley, winding stream, and harvest fields, melting into the chalk downs on the horizon. To Phoebe, all had the freshness of novelty, with the charm of familiarity, and without the fatigue of admiration required by the show-places to which Mervyn had taken her. Presently Miss Charlecote opened the wicket leading to an oak coppice. There was hardly any brushwood. The ground was covered with soft grass and round elastic cushions of gray lichen. There were a few brackens, and here and there the crimson midsummer men, but the copsewood consisted of the redundant shoots of the old, gnarled, knotted stumps, covered with handsome foliage of the pale sea-green of later summer, and the leaves far exceeding in size those either of the sapling or the full-sized tree--vigorous playfulness of the poor old wounded stocks.

'Ah!' said Honor, pausing, 'here I found my purple emperor, sunning himself, his glorious wings wide open, looking black at first, but turning out to be of purple-velvet, of the opaque mysterious beauty which seems nobler than mere lustre.'

'Did you keep him? I thought that was against your principles.'

'I only mocked him by trying to paint him. He was mine because he came to delight me with the pleasure of having seen him, and the remembrance of him that pervades the path. It was just where Humfrey always told me the creatures might be found.'

'Was Mr. Charlecote fond of natural history?' asked Phoebe, shyly.

'Not as natural history, but he knew bird, beast, insect, and tree, with a friendly hearty intimacy, such as Cockney writers ascribe to peasants, but which they never have. While he used the homeliest names, a dish-washer for a wagtail, cuckoo's bread-and-cheese for wood-sorrel (partly I believe to tease me), he knew them thoroughly, nests, haunts, and all.'

Phoebe could not help quoting the old lines, 'He prayeth well that loveth well both man and bird and beast.'

'Yes, and some persons have a curious affinity with the gentle and good in creation--who can watch and even handle a bird's nest without making it be deserted, whom bees do not sting, and horses, dogs, and cats love so as to reveal their best instincts in a way that seems fabulous. In spite of the Lyra Innocentium, I think this is less often the case with children than with such grown people as--like your guardian, Phoebe--have kept something of the majesty and calmness of innocence.'

Phoebe was all in a glow with the pleasure of hearing him so called, but bashful under that very delight, she said, 'Perhaps part of Solomon's wisdom was in loving these things, since he knew the plants from the cedar to the hyssop.'

'And spoke of Nature so beautifully in his Song, but I am afraid as he grew old he must have lost his healthful pleasure in them when he was lifted up.'

'Or did he only make them learning and ornament, instead of a joy and devotion?' said Phoebe, thinking of the difference between Bertha's love and Miss Charlecote's.

'Nor does he say that he found vanity in them, though he did in his own gardens and pools of water. No, the longer I live, the more sure I am that these things are meant for our solace and minor help through the trials of life. I assure you, Phoebe, that the crimson leaf of a Herb-Robert in the hedge has broken a strain of fretful repining, and it is one great blessing in these pleasures that one never can exhaust them.'

Phoebe saw that Miss Charlecote was right in her own case, when on coming in, the grasshopper's name and history were sought, and there followed an exhibition of the 'puss' for whom the willow had been gathered, namely a grass-green caterpillar, with a kitten's face, a curious upright head and shoulders, and two purple tails, whence on irritation two pink filaments protruded,--lashes for the ichneumons, as Honora explained. The lonely woman's interest in her quaint pet showed how thickly are strewn round us many a calm and innocent mode of solace and cheerfulness if we knew but how to avail ourselves of it.

Honora had allowed the conversation to be thus desultory and indifferent, thinking that it gave greater rest to Phoebe, and it was not till the evening was advancing, that she began to discharge herself of an urgent commission from Robert, by saying, 'Phoebe, I want you to do something for me. There is that little dame's school in your hamlet. It is too far off for me to look after, I wish you would.'

'Robin has been writing to me about parish work,' said Phoebe, sadly. 'Perhaps I ought, but I don't know how, and I can't bear that any change in our ways should be observed;' and the tears came more speedily than Honor had expected.

'Dear child,' she said, 'there is no need for that feeling. Parish work, at least in a lay family, must depend on the amount of home duty. In the last years of my dear mother's life I had to let everything go, and I know it is not easy to resume, still less to begin, but you will be glad to have done so, and will find it a great comfort.'

'If it be my duty, I must try,' said Phoebe, dejectedly, 'and I suppose it is. Will you come and show me what to do? I never went into a cottage in my life.'

I have spoken too soon! thought Honor; yet Robert urged me, and besides the evil of neglecting the poor, the work will do her good; but it breaks one's heart to see this meek, mournful obedience.

'While we are alone,' continued Phoebe, 'I can fix times, and do as I please, but I cannot tell what Mervyn may want me to do when he is at home.'

'Do you expect that he will wish you to go out with him?' asked Honora.

'Not this autumn,' she answered; 'but he finds it so dull at home, that I fully expect he will have his friends to stay with him.'

'Phoebe, let me strongly advise you to keep aloof from your brother's friends. When they are in the house, live entirely in the schoolroom. If you begin at once as a matter of course, he will see the propriety, and acquiesce. You are not vexed?'

'Thank you, I believe it is all right. Robert will be the more at ease about us. I only do not like to act as if I distrusted Mervyn.'

'It would not be discreet for any girl so young as you are to be entertaining her brother's sporting friends. You could hardly do so without acquiring the same kind of reputation as my poor Lucy's Rashe, which he would not wish.'

'Thank you,' said Phoebe more heartily. 'You have shown me the way out of a difficulty. I need not go into company at all this winter, and after that, only with our old country neighbours.'

Honora was infinitely relieved at having bestowed this piece of advice, on which she had agreed with Robert as the only means of insuring Phoebe's being sheltered from society that Mervyn might not esteem so bad for his sister as they did.

The quietness of Mervyn's absence did much for the restoration of Phoebe's spirits. The dame's school was not delightful to her; she had not begun early enough in life for ease, but she did her tasks there as a duty, and was amply rewarded by the new enjoyment thus afforded to Maria. The importance of being surrounded by a ring of infants, teaching the alphabet, guiding them round the gooseberry bush, or leading their songs and hymns, was felicity indescribable to Maria. She learnt each name, and, with the reiteration that no one could endure save Phoebe and faithful Lieschen, rehearsed the individual alphabetical acquirements of every one; she painted pictures for them, hemmed pinafores, and was happier than she had ever been in her life, as well as less fretful and more manageable, and she even began to develop more sense and intelligence in this direction than she had seemed capable of under the dreary round of lessons past her comprehension.

It was a great stimulus to Phoebe, and spurred her to personal parish work, going beyond the soup and subscriptions that might have bounded her charities for want of knowing better. Of course the worst and most plausible people took her in, and Miss Charlecote sometimes scolded, sometimes laughed at her, but the beginning was made, and Robert was pleased.

Mervyn did bring home some shooting friends, but he made no difficulties as to the seclusion that Miss Charlecote had recommended for his sister; accepting it so easily that Phoebe thought he must have intended it from the first. From that time he was seldom at home without one or more guests--an arrangement that kept the young ladies chiefly to the west wing, and always, when in the garden, forced them to be on their guard against stumbling upon smoking gentlemen. It was a late-houred, noisy company, and the sounds that reached the sisters made the younger girls curious, and the governess anxious. Perhaps it was impossible that girls of seventeen and fifteen should not be excited by the vicinity of moustaches and beards whom they were bidden to avoid; and even the alternate French and German which Miss Fennimore enforced on Bertha more strongly than ever, merely produced the variety of her descanting on their knebelbarten, or on l'heure a guelle les voix de ces messieurs-la entonnaient sur le grand escalier, till Miss Fennimore declared that she would have Latin and Greek talked if there were no word for a gentleman in either! There were always stories to be told of Bertha's narrow escapes of being overtaken by them in garden or corridor, till Maria, infected by the panic, used to flounder away as if from a beast of prey, and being as tall as, and considerably stouter than, Phoebe, with the shuffling gait of the imbecile, would produce a volume of sound that her sister always feared might attract notice, and irritate Mervyn.

Honora Charlecote tried to give pleasure to the sisters by having them at the Holt, and would fain have treated Bertha as one of the inherited godchildren. But Bertha proved by reference to the brass tablet that she could not be godchild to a man who died three years before her birth, and it was then perceived that his sponsorship had been to an elder Bertha, who had died in infancy, of water on the head, and whom her parents, in their impatience of sorrow, had absolutely caused to be forgotten. Such a delusion in the exact Phoebe could only be accounted for by her tenderness to Mr. Charlecote, and it gave Bertha a subject of triumph of which she availed herself to the utmost. She had imbibed a sovereign contempt for Miss Charlecote's capacity, and considered her as embodying the passive individual who is to be instructed or confuted in a scientific dialogue. So she lost no occasion of triumphantly denouncing all 'cataclysms' of the globe, past or future, of resolving all nature into gases, or arguing upon duality--a subject that fortunately usually brought on her hesitation of speech, a misfortune of which Miss Fennimore and Phoebe would unscrupulously avail themselves to change the conversation. The bad taste and impertinence were quite as apparent to the governess as to the sister, and though Bertha never admitted a doubt of having carried the day against the old world prejudices, yet Miss Fennimore perceived, not only that Miss Charlecote's notions were not of the contracted and unreasonable order that had been ascribed to her, but that liberality in her pupil was more uncandid, narrow, and self-sufficient than was 'credulity' in Miss Charlecote. Honor was more amused than annoyed at these discussions; she was sorry for the silly, conceited girl, though not in the least offended nor disturbed, but Phoebe and Miss Fennimore considered them such an exposure that they were by no means willing to give Bertha the opportunity of launching herself at her senior.

The state of the household likewise perplexed Phoebe. She had been bred up to the sight of waste, ostentation, and extravagance, and they did not distress her; but her partial authority revealed to her glimpses of dishonesty; detected falsehoods destroyed her confidence in the housekeeper; her attempts at charities to the poor were intercepted; her visits to the hamlet disclosed to her some of the effects on the villagers of a vicious, disorderly establishment; and she understood why a careful mother would as soon have sent her daughter to service at the lowest public-house as at Beauchamp.

Mervyn had detected one of the footmen in a flagrant act of peculation, and had dismissed him, but Phoebe believed the evil to have extended far more widely than he supposed, and made up her mind to entreat him to investigate matters. In vain, however, she sought for a favourable moment, for he was never alone. The intervals between other visitors were filled up by a Mr. Hastings, who seemed to have erected himself into so much of the domesticated friend that he had established a bowing and speaking acquaintance with Phoebe; Bertha no longer narrated her escapes of encounters with him; and, being the only one of the gentlemen who ever went to church, he often joined the young ladies as they walked back from thence. Phoebe heartily wished him gone, for he made her brother inaccessible; she only saw Mervyn when he wanted her to find something for him or to give her a message, and if she ventured to say that she wanted to speak to him, he promised--'Some time or other'--which always proved sine die. He was looking very ill, his complexion very much flushed, and his hand heated and unsteady, and she heard through Lieschen of his having severe morning headaches, and fits of giddiness and depression, but these seemed to make him more unable to spare Mr. Hastings, as if life would not be endurable without the billiards that she sometimes heard knocking about half the night.

However, the anniversary of Mr. Fulmort's death would bring his executor to clear off one branch of his business, and Mervyn's friends fled before the coming of the grave old lawyer, all fixing the period of their departure before Christmas. Nor could Mervyn go with them; he must meet Mr. Crabbe, and Phoebe's heart quite bounded at the hope of being able to walk about the house in comfort, and say part of what was on her mind to her brother.

'Whose writing is this?' said Phoebe to herself, as the letters were given to her, two days before the clearance of the house. 'I ought to know it--It is! No! Yes, indeed it is--poor Lucy. Where can she be? What can she have to say?'

The letter was dateless, and Phoebe's amaze grew as she read.

'DEAR PHOEBE,

'You know it is my nature to do odd things, so never mind that, but attend to me, as one who knows too well what it is to be motherless and undirected. Gossip is long-tongued enough to reach me here, in full venom as I know and trust, but it makes my blood boil, till I can't help writing a warning that may at least save you pain. I know you are the snowdrop poor Owen used to call you, and I know you have Honor Charlecote for philosopher, and friend, but she is nearly as unsophisticated as yourself, and if report say true, your brother is getting you into a scrape. If it is a fact that he has Jack Hastings dangling about Beauchamp, he deserves the lot of my unlucky Charteris cousins! Mind what you are about, Phoebe, if the man is there. He is plausible, clever, has no end of amusing resources, and keeps his head above water; but I know that in no place where there are womankind has he been received without there having been cause to repent it! I hope you may be able to laugh--if not, it may be a wholesome cure to hear that his friends believe him to have secured one of the heiresses at Beauchamp. There, Phoebe, I have said my say, and I fear it is cutting and wounding, but it came out of the love of a heart that has not got rid of some of its old feelings, and that could not bear to think of sorrow or evil tongues busy about you. That I write for your sake, not for my own, you may see by my making it impossible to answer.

'LUCILLA SANDBROOK.

'If you hold council with Honor over this--as, if you are wise, you will--you may tell her that I am learning gratitude to her. I would ask her pardon if I could without servility.'

'Secured one of the heiresses!' said Phoebe to herself. 'I should like to be able to tell Lucy how I can laugh! Poor Lucy, how very kind in her to write. I wonder whether Mervyn knows how bad the man is! Shall I go to Miss Charlecote? Oh, no; she is spending two days at Moorcroft! Shall I tell Miss Fennimore? No, I think not, it will be wiser to talk to Miss Charlecote; I don't like to tell Miss Fennimore of Lucy. Poor Lucy--she is always generous! He will soon be gone, and then I can speak to Mervyn.'

This secret was not a serious burthen to Phoebe, though she could not help smiling to herself at the comical notion of having been secured by a man to whom she had not spoken a dozen times, and then with the utmost coldness and formality.

The next day she approached the letter-bag with some curiosity. It contained one for her from her sister Juliana, a very unusual correspondent, and Phoebe's mind misgave her lest it should have any connection with the hints in Lucilla's note. But she was little prepared for what she read.

'Acton Manor, Dec. 24th.

'MY DEAR PHOEBE,

'Although, after what passed in July, I cannot suppose that the opinion of your elders can have any effect on your proceedings, yet for the sake of our relationship, as well as of regard to appearances, I cannot forbear endeavouring to rescue you from the consequences of your own folly and obstinacy. Nothing better was to be expected from Mervyn; but at your age, with your pretences to religion, you cannot plead simplicity, nor ignorance of the usages of the world. Neither Sir Bevil nor myself can express our amazement at your recklessness, thus forfeiting the esteem of society, and outraging the opinion of our old friends. To put an end to the impropriety, we will at once receive you here, overlooking any inconvenience, and we shall expect you all three on Tuesday, under charge of Miss Fennimore, who seems to have been about as fit as Maria to think for you. It is too late to write to Mervyn to-night, but he shall hear from us to-morrow, as well as from your guardian, to whom Sir Bevil has written, You had better bring my jewels; and the buhl clock from my mother's mantelshelf, which I was to have. Mrs. Brisbane will pack them. Tell Bertha, with my love, that she might have been more explicit in her correspondence.

'Your affectionate sister, 'JULIANA ACTON.'

When Miss Fennimore entered the room, she found Phoebe sitting like one petrified, only just able to hold out the letter, and murmur--'What does it mean?' Imagining that it could only contain something fatal about Robert, Miss Fennimore sprang at the paper, and glanced through it, while Phoebe again faintly asked, 'What have I done?'

'Lady Acton is pleased to be mysterious!' said the governess. 'The kind sister she always was!'

'Don't say that,' exclaimed Phoebe, rallying. 'It must be something shocking, for Sir Bevil thinks so too,' and the tears sprang forth.

'He will never think anything unkind of you, my dear,' said Miss Fennimore, with emphasis.

'It must be about Mr. Hastings!' said Phoebe, gathering recollection and confidence. 'I did not like to tell you yesterday, but I had a letter from poor Lucy Sandbrook. Some friends of that man, Mr. Hastings, have set it about that he is going to be married to me!' and Phoebe laughed outright. 'If Juliana has heard it, I don't wonder that she is shocked, because you know Miss Charlecote said it would never do for me to associate with those gentlemen, and besides, Lucy says that he is a very bad man. I shall write to Juliana, and say that I have never had anything to do with him, and he is going away to-morrow, and Mervyn must be told not to have him back again. That will set it all straight at Acton Manor.'

Phoebe was quite herself again. She was too well accustomed to gratuitous unkindness and reproaches from Juliana to be much hurt by them, and perceiving, as she thought, where the misconception lay, had no fears that it would not be cleared up. So when she had carefully written her letter to her sister, she dismissed the subject until she should be able to lay it before Miss Charlecote, dwelling more on Honor's pleasure on hearing of Lucy than on the more personal matter.

Miss Fennimore, looking over the letter, had deeper misgivings. It seemed to her rather to be a rebuke for the whole habit of life than a warning against an individual, and she began to doubt whether even the seclusion of the west wing had been a sufficient protection in the eyes of the family from the contamination of such society as Mervyn received. Or was it a plot of Lady Acton's malevolence for hunting Phoebe away from her home? Miss Fennimore fell asleep, uneasy and perplexed, and in her dreams beheld Phoebe as the Lady in Comus, fixed in her chair and resolute against a cup effervescing with carbonic acid gas, proffered by Jack Hastings, who thereupon gave it to Bertha, as she lay back in the dentist's chair, and both becoming transformed into pterodactyles, flew away while Miss Fennimore was vainly trying to summon the brothers by electric telegraph.

There was a whole bevy of letters for Phoebe the following morning, and first a kind sensible one from her guardian, much regretting to learn that Mr. Fulmort's guests were undesirable inmates for a house where young ladies resided, so that, though he had full confidence in Miss Fulmort's discretion, and understood that she had never associated with the persons in question, he thought her residence at home ought to be reconsidered, and should be happy to discuss the point on coming to Beauchamp, so soon as he should have recovered from an unfortunate fit of the gout, which at present detained him in town. Miss Fulmort might, however, be assured that her wishes should be his chief consideration, and that he would take care not to separate her from Miss Maria.

That promise, and the absence of all mention of Lucilla's object of dread, gave Phoebe courage to open the missive from her eldest sister.

'MY DEAR PHOEBE,

'I always told you it would never answer, and you see I was right. If Mervyn will invite that horrid man, whatever you may do, no one will believe that you do not associate with him, and you may never get over it. I am telling everybody what children you are, quite in the schoolroom, but nothing will be of any use but your coming away at once, and appearing in society with me, so you had better send the children to Acton Manor, and come to me next week. If there are any teal in the decoy bring some, and ask Mervyn where he got that Barton's dry champagne.

'Your affectionate sister, 'AUGUSTA BANNERMAN.'

She had kept Robert's letter to the last, as refreshment after the rest.

'St. Matthew's, Dec. 18th.

'DEAR PHOEBE,

'I am afraid this may not be your first intimation of what may vex and grieve you greatly, and what calls for much cool and anxious judgment. In you we have implicit confidence, and your adherence to Miss Charlecote's kind advice has spared you all imputation, though not, I fear, all pain. You may, perhaps, not know how disgraceful are the characters of some of the persons whom Mervyn has collected about him. I do him the justice to believe that he would shelter you from all intercourse with them as carefully as I should; but I cannot forgive his having brought them beneath the same roof with you. I fear the fact has done harm in our own neighbourhood. People imagine you to be associating with Mervyn's crew, and a monstrous report is abroad which has caused Bevil Acton to write to me and to Crabbe. We all agree that this is a betrayal of the confidence that you expressed in Mervyn, and that while he chooses to make his house a scene of dissipation, no seclusion can render it a fit residence for women or girls. I fear you will suffer much in learning this decision, for Mervyn's sake as well as your own. Poor fellow! if he will bring evil spirits about him, good angels must depart. I would come myself, but that my presence would embitter Mervyn, and I could not meet him properly. I am writing to Miss Charlecote. If she should propose to receive you all at the Holt immediately, until Crabbe's most inopportune gout is over, you had better go thither at once. It would be the most complete vindication of your conduct that could be offered to the county, and would give time for considering of establishing you elsewhere, and still under Miss Fennimore's care. For Bertha's sake as well as your own, you must be prepared to leave home and resign yourself to be passive in the decision of those bound to think for you, by which means you may avoid being included in Mervyn's anger. Do not distress yourself by the fear that any blame can attach to you or to Miss Fennimore; I copy Bevil's expressions--"Assure Phoebe that though her generous confidence may have caused her difficulties, no one can entertain a doubt of her guileless intention and maidenly discretion. If it would not make further mischief, I would hasten to fetch her, but if she will do me the honour to accept her sister's invitation, I hope to do all in my power to make her happy and mark my esteem for her." These are his words; but I suppose you will hardly prefer Acton Manor, though, should the Holt fail us, you might send the other two to the Manor, and come to Albury-street as Augusta wishes, when we could consult together on some means of keeping you united, and retaining Miss Fennimore, who must not be thrown over, as it would be an injury to her prospects. Tell her from me that I look to her for getting you through this unpleasant business.

'Your ever affectionate 'R. M. FULMORT.'

Phoebe never spoke, but handed each sheet as she finished it to her governess.

'Promise me, Phoebe,' said Miss Fennimore, as she came to Robert's last sentence, 'that none of these considerations shall bias you. Make no struggle for me, but use me as I may be most serviceable to you.'

Phoebe, instead of answering, kissed and clung to her.

'What do you think of doing?' asked the governess.

'Nothing,' said Phoebe.

'You looked as if a thought had occurred to you.'

'I only recollected the words, "your strength is to sit still," said Phoebe, 'and thought how well they agreed with Robert's advice to be passive. Mr. Crabbe has promised not to separate us, and I will trust to that. Mervyn was very kind in letting us stay here, but he does not want us, and will not miss us,'--and with those words, quiet as they were, came a gush of irrepressible tears, just as a step resounded outside, the door was burst open, and Mervyn hurried in, purple with passion, and holding a bundle of letters crushed together in his hand.

'I say,' he hoarsely cried, 'what's all this? Who has been telling infamous tales of my house?'

'We cannot tell--' began Phoebe.

'Do you know anything of this?' he interrupted, fiercely turning on Miss Fennimore.

'Nothing, sir. The letters which your sister has received have equally surprised and distressed me.'

'Then they have set on you, Phoebe! The whole pack in full cry, as if it mattered to them whether I chose to have the Old Gentleman in the house, so long as he did not meddle with you!'

'I beg your pardon, Mr. Fulmort,' interposed the governess, 'the remonstrance is quite just. Had I been aware of the character of some of your late guests, I could not have wished your sisters to remain in the house with them.'

'Are these your sentiments, Phoebe?' he asked, sternly.

'I am afraid they ought to be,' she sadly answered.

'Silly child; so this pack of censorious women and parsons have frightened you into giving me up.'

'Sisters do not give up brothers, Mervyn. You know how I thank you for having me here, but I could not amuse you, or make it pleasant to you, so there must be an end of it.'

'So they hunt you out to be bullied by Juliana, or slaved to death by Augusta, which is it to be? Or maybe Robert has got his sisterhood cut and dried for you; only mind, he shan't make away with your 30,000 pounds while I live to expose those popish tricks.'

'For shame, Mervyn,' cried Phoebe, all in a glow; 'I will not hear Robert so spoken of: he is always kind and good, and has taught me every right thing I know!'

'Oh, very well; and pray when does he summon you from among the ungodly? Will the next train be soon enough?'

'Don't, Mervyn! Your friends go to-day, don't they? Mr. Crabbe does not desire any change to be made before he comes to see about it. May we not stay till that time, and spend our Christmas together?'

'You must ask Robert and Juliana, since you prefer them.'

'No,' said Phoebe, with spirit; 'it is right to attend to my elder sisters, and Robert has always helped and taught me, and I must trust his guidance, as I always have done. And I trust you too, Mervyn. You never thought you were doing us any harm. I may trust you still,' she added, with so sweet and imploring a look that Mervyn gave an odd laugh, with some feeling in it.

'Harm? Great harm I have done this creature, eh?' he said, with his hand on her shoulder.

'Few could do her harm, Mr. Fulmort,' said the governess, 'but report may have done some mischief.

'Who cares for report! I say, Phoebe, we will laugh at them all. You pluck up a spirit, stay with me, and we'll entertain all the county, and then get some great swell to bring you out in town, and see what Juliana will say!'

'I will stay with you while you are alone, and Mr. Crabbe lets me,' said Phoebe.

'Old fool of a fellow! Why couldn't my father have made me your guardian, and then there would have been none of this row! One would think I had had her down to act barmaid to the fellows. And you never spoke to one, did you, Phoebe?'

'Only now and then to Mr. Hastings. I could not help it after the day he came into the study when I was copying for you.'

'Ah, well! that is nothing--nobody minds old Jack. I shall let them all know you were as safe as a Turk's wife in a harem, and maybe old Crabbe will hear reason if we get him down here alone, without a viper at each ear, as he had last time.'

With which words Mervyn departed, and Miss Fennimore exclaimed in some displeasure, 'You can never think of remaining, Phoebe.'

'I am afraid not,' said Phoebe; 'Mervyn does not seem to know what is proper for us, and I am too young to judge, so I suppose we must go. I wish I could make him happy with music, or books, or anything a woman could do! If you please, I think I must go over to the Holt. I cannot settle to anything just yet, and I shall answer my letters better when I have seen Miss Charlecote.'

In fact Phoebe felt herself going to her other guardian; but as she left the room, Bertha came hurriedly in from the garden, with a plaid thrown round her. 'What--what--what's the matter?' she hastily asked, following Phoebe to her room. 'Is there an end of all these mysteries?'

'Yes,' said Phoebe, 'Miss Fennimore is ready for you.'

'As if that were all I wanted to know. Do you think I did not hear Mervyn storming like a lion?'

'I am sorry you did hear,' said Phoebe, 'for it was not pleasant. It seems that it is not thought proper for us to live here while Mervyn has so many gentleman-guests, so,' with a sigh, 'you will have your wish, Bertha. They mean us to go away!'

'It is not my wish now,' said Bertha, pulling pins in and out of Phoebe's pincushion. 'I am not the child I was in the summer. Don't go, Phoebe; I know you can get your way, if you try for it.'

'I must try to be put in the right way, Bertha, that is all I want.'

'And you are going to the Holt for the most precise, narrow-minded way you can get. I wish I were in your place, Phoebe.'

Scarcely had Phoebe driven from the door, before she saw Miss Charlecote crossing the grass on foot, and after the interchange of a few words, it was agreed to talk while driving on towards Elverslope. Each was laden with the same subject, for not only had Honor heard from Robert, but during her visit to Moorcroft she had become enlightened on the gossip that seldom reached the Holt, and had learnt that the whole neighbourhood was scandalized at the Beauchamp doings, and was therefore shy of taking notice of the young people there. She had been incredulous at first, then extremely shocked and distressed, and though in part convinced that more than she guessed had passed beyond the west wing, she had come primed with a representation which she cautiously administered to Phoebe. The girl was more indignant on her brother's account than alarmed on her own.

'If that is the way the Raymonds talk of Mervyn,' cried she, 'no wonder they made their niece cast him off, and drive him to despair.'

'It was no unkindness of the Raymonds, my dear. They were only sorry for you.'

'I do not want them to be sorry for me; they ought to be sorry for Mervyn,' said Phoebe, almost petulantly.

'Perhaps they are,' said Honor. 'It was only in kindness that they spoke, and they had almost anticipated my explanation that you were kept entirely apart. Every gentleman hereabouts who has been at Beauchamp has declared such to be the case.'

'I should think so!' said Phoebe; 'Mervyn knows how to take care of us better than that!'

'But all ladies do not seem willing to believe as much, shame on them,' said Honor; 'and, tell me, Phoebe, have people called on you?'

'Not many, but I have not called on them since they left their cards of inquiry. I had been thinking whether I ought.'

'We will consider. Perhaps I had better take you round some day, but I have been a very remiss protector, my poor child, if all be true that I am told of some of Mervyn's friends. It was an insult to have them under the same roof with you.'

'Will you look at this letter?' said Phoebe. 'It is very kind--it is from Lucy.'

These plain words alone occurred to Phoebe as a preparation for a letter that was sure to move Miss Charlecote greatly, if only by the slight of not having written to her, the most obvious person. But the flighty generosity, and deep though inconsistent feeling were precious, and the proud relenting of the message at the end touched Honor with hope. They laughed at the report that had elicited Lucilla's letter, but the reserve of the warning about Mr. Hastings, coming from the once unscrupulous girl, startled Honor even more than what she had heard at Moorcroft. Was the letter to be answered? Yes, by all means, cried Honor, catching at any link of communication. She could discover Lucilla's address, and was sure that even brief thanks and explanations from Phoebe would be good for Lucy.

Like Miss Fennimore, Honor was surprised by Phoebe's composure under her share of the evil report. The strictures which would have been dreadful to an older person seemed to fly over her innocent head, their force either uncomprehended or unfelt. She yielded implicitly to the propriety of the change, but her grief was at the family quarrel, the leaving home, and the unmerited degree of blame cast on Mervyn, not the aspersions on herself; although, as Honor became vexed at her calmness, she withheld none of them in the desire to convince her of the expediency of leaving Beauchamp at once for the Holt. No, even though this was Robert's wish, Phoebe could still not see the necessity, as long as Mervyn should be alone. If he should bring any of his discreditable friends, she promised at once to come to Miss Charlecote, but otherwise she could perceive no reason for grieving him, and astonishing the world, by implying that his sisters could not stay in his house. She thought him unwell, too, and wished to watch him, and, on the whole, did not regret her guardian's gout, which would give her a little more time at home, and put off the discussion till there should be less anger.

Is this weak? is it childish indifference? thought Honor, or is it a spirit superior to the selfish personal dread that would proclaim its own injured innocence by a vehement commotion.

Phoebe rejoiced that she had secured her interview with her friend, for when the guests were gone, Mervyn claimed her whole attention, and was vexed if she were not continually at his back. After their tete-a-tete dinner, he kept her sitting over the dessert while he drank his wine. She tried this opportunity of calling his attention to the frauds of the servants, but he merely laughed his mocking laugh at her simplicity in supposing that everybody's servants did not cheat.

'Miss Charlecote's don't.'

'Don't they? Ha--ha! Why, she's the very mark for imposition, and hypocrisy into the bargain.'

Phoebe did not believe it, but would not argue the point, returning to that nearer home. 'Nonsense, Phoebe,' he said; 'it's only a choice who shall prey upon one, and if I have a set that will do it with a civil countenance, and let me live out of the spoil, I'll not be bothered.'

'I cannot think it need go on so.'

'Well, it won't; I shall break up the concern, and let the house, or something.'

'Let the house? Oh, Mervyn! I thought you meant to be a county man.'

'Let those look to that who have hindered me,' said Mervyn, fiercely swallowing one glassful, and pouring out another.

'Should you live in London?'

'At Jericho, for aught I care, or any one else.'

Her attempt to controvert this remark brought on a tirade against the whole family, which she would not keep up by reply, and which ended in moody silence. Again she tried to rise, but he asked why she could not stay with him five minutes, and went on absently pouring out wine and drinking it, till, as the clock struck nine, the bottom of the decanter was reached, when he let her lead the way to the drawing-room, and there taking up the paper, soon fell asleep, then awoke at ten at the sound of her moving to go to bed, and kept her playing piquet for an hour and a half.

An evening or two of this kind convinced Phoebe that even with Mervyn alone it was not a desirable life. She was less shocked than a girl used to a higher standard at home might have been, but that daily bottle and perpetual cards weighed on her imagination, and she felt that her younger sisters ought not to grow up to such a spectacle. Still her loving heart yearned over Mervyn, who was very fond of her, and consulted her pleasure continually in his own peculiar and selfish way, although often exceedingly cross to her as well as to every one else; but this ill-temper was so visibly the effect of low spirits that she easily endured and forgave it. She saw that he was both unwell and unhappy. She could not think what would become of him when the present arrangement should be broken up; but could only cling to him, as long as she could pity him. It was no wonder that on the Sunday, Honora seeing her enter the church, could only help being reminded of the expression of that child-saint of Raffaelle, wandering alone through the dragon-haunted wood, wistful and distressed, yet so confident in the Unseen Guide and Guardian that she treads down evils and perils in innocence, unconscious of her full danger and of their full blackness.

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Chapter XIX

Close within us we will carry, strong, collected, calm, and brave, The true panoply of quiet which the bad world never gave; Very serpents in discretion, yet as guileless as the dove, Lo! obedience is the watchword, and the countersign is love.

W. G. TUPPER

On the next hunting day, Mervyn took Phoebe with him to the meet, upon a favourite common towards Elverslope, where on a fine morning ladies were as apt to be found as hounds and huntsmen, so that she would be at no loss for companions when he left her.

Phoebe rode, as she did everything else, well, quietly and firmly, and she looked very young and fresh, with her rounded rosy cheeks and chin. Her fair hair was parted back under a round hat, her slenderly plump figure appeared to advantage mounted on her bright bay, and altogether she presented a striking contrast to her brother. She had not seen him in hunting costume for nearly a year, and she observed with pain how much he had lost his good looks; his well-made youthful air was passing away, and his features were becoming redder and coarser; but he was in his best humour, good-natured, and as nearly gay as he ever was; and Phoebe enjoyed her four-miles' ride in the beauty of a warm December's day, the sun shining on dewy hedges, and robins and thrushes trying to treat the weather like spring, as they sang amid the rich stores of coral fruit that hung as yet untouched on every hawthorn or eglantine.

The ladies mustered strong on the smooth turf of the chalk down bordering the copse which was being drawn. Phoebe looked out for acquaintance, but a few gentlemen coming up to greet her, she did not notice, as Mervyn did, that the girls with whom he had wished to leave her had become intent on some doings in the copse, and had trotted off with their father. He made his way to the barouche where sat the grande dame of the county, exchanged civilities, and asked leave to introduce his sister. Phoebe, who had never seen the lady before, thought nothing of the cold distant bow; it was for Mervyn, who knew what her greetings could be, to fume and rage inwardly. Other acknowledgments passed, but no party had approached or admitted Phoebe, and when the hounds went away, she was still riding alone with her brother and a young officer. She bade them not to mind her, she would ride home with the servant, and as all were in motion, she had enough to do to hold in her horse, while Mervyn and his friend dashed forward, and soon she found herself alone, except for the groom; the field were well away over the down, the carriages driving off, the mounted maidens following the chase as far as the way was fair and lady-like.

Phoebe had no mind to do so. Her isolation made her feel forlorn, and brought home Miss Charlecote's words as to the opinion entertained of her by the world. Poor child, something like a tear came into her eye and a blush to her cheek, but, 'never mind,' she thought, 'they will believe Miss Charlecote, and she will take care of me. If only Mervyn will not get angry, and make an uproar! I shall soon be gone away! When shall I come back?'

She rode up to the highest part of the down for a take-leave gaze. There lay Elverslope in its basin-like valley scooped out in the hills, with the purple bloom of autumnal haze veiling its red brick and slate; there, on the other side, the copses and arable fields dipped and rose, and rose and dipped again, till the undulations culminated in the tall fir-trees in the Holt garden, the landmark of the country; and on the bare slope to the west, Beauchamp's pillars and pediment made a stately speck in the landscape. 'Home no longer!' thought Phoebe; 'there will be strangers there--and we shall be on the world! Oh! why cannot Mervyn be like Robert? How happy we could be!'

Beauchamp had not been a perfect Eden in itself, but still it had all the associations of the paradise of her guileless childhood; and to her the halo around it would always have the radiance of the loving spirit through which she viewed it. The undefined future was hard to bear, but she thought of Robert, and of the promise that neither her sisters nor Miss Fennimore should be parted from her, and tried to rest thankful on that comfort.

She had left the down for the turnpike road, the sounds of the hunt often reaching her, with glimpses of men and dogs in the distance taking a direction parallel with her own. Presently a red coat glanced through the hedge of one of the cross lanes, as if coming towards the road, and as she reached the opening at the end, a signal was made to her to stop. Foreboding some accident, she hastily turned up the narrow white muddy lane, and was met by an elderly gentleman.

'Don't be alarmed,' he said kindly; 'only your brother seems rather unwell, and I thought I had best see him under your charge.'

Mervyn was by this time in sight, advancing slowly, and Phoebe with rapid thanks rode on to meet him. She knew that dull, confused, dazzled eye belonged to his giddy fits, and did not wonder at the half-uttered murmur, rather in the imprecation line, with which he spoke; but the reel in his saddle terrified her greatly, and she was dismayed to see that the gentleman had proceeded into the high road instead of offering further assistance. She presently perceived that the danger of falling was less real than apparent, and that her brother could still keep his seat, and govern his horse, though nearly unable to look or speak. She kept close to him, and was much relieved to find that the stranger had not returned to the sport, but was leisurely following at some distance behind the groom. Never had two miles seemed so long as under her frequent alarms lest Mervyn should become unable to keep the saddle; but at each moment of terror, she heard the pace of the hunter behind quickened to come to her help, and if she looked round she met an encouraging sign.

When the lodge was reached, and Mervyn, somewhat revived, had ridden through the gates, she turned back to give her warm thanks. A kind, fatherly, friendly face looked at her with a sort of compassion, as putting aside her thanks, the gentleman said, quickly, yet half-reluctantly, 'Have you ever seen him like this before?'

'Yes; the giddiness often comes on in the morning, but never so badly as this. I think it was from the rapid motion.'

'Has he had advice?'

'I cannot persuade him to see any one. Do you think he ought? I would send at once, at the risk of his being angry.'

'Does Dr. Martyn attend you? Shall I leave a message as I go home?'

'I should be most thankful!'

'It may be nothing, but you will be happier that it should be ascertained;' and with another kindly nod, he rode off.

Mervyn had gone to his room, and answered her inquiries at the door with a brief, blunt 'better,' to be interpreted that he did not wish to be disturbed. She did not see him till dinnertime, when he had a sullen headache, and was gruff and gloomy. She tried to learn who the friend in need had been, but he had been incapable of distinguishing anybody or anything at the moment of the attack, and was annoyed at having been followed. 'What a pottering ass to come away from a run on a fool's errand!' he said. 'Some Elverslope spy, who will set it about the country that I had been drinking, and cast that up to you!' and then he began to rail against the ladies, singly and collectively, inconsistently declaring it was Phoebe's own fault for not having called on them, and that he would have Augusta to Beauchamp, give a ball and supper, and show whether Miss Fulmort were a person to be cut.

This mode of vindication not being to Miss Fulmort's taste, she tried to avert it by doubts whether Augusta could be had; and was told that, show Lady Bannerman a bottle of Barton's dry champagne, and she would come to the world's end. Meantime, Phoebe must come out to-morrow for a round of visits, whereat her heart failed her, as a thrusting of herself where she was not welcome; but he spoke so fiercely and dictatorially, that she reserved her pleading for the morning, when he would probably be too inert not to be glad of the escape.

At last, Dr. Martyn's presence in the drawing-room was announced to her. She began her explanation with desperate bravery; and though the first words were met with a scoffing grunt, she found Mervyn less displeased than she had feared--nay, almost glad that the step had been taken, though he would not say so, and made a great favour of letting her send the physician to him in the dining-room.

After a time, Dr. Martyn came to tell her that he had found her brother's head and pulse in such a state as to need instant relief by cupping; and that the young Union doctor had been sent for from the village for the purpose. A constitutional fulness of blood in the head had been aggravated by his mode of life, and immediate discipline, severe regimen, and abstinence from business or excitement, were the only means of averting dangerous illness; in fact, his condition might at any time become exceedingly critical, though perseverance in care might possibly prevent all absolute peril. He himself was thoroughly frightened. His own sensations and forebodings seconded the sentence too completely for resistance; it was almost a relief to give way; and his own method of driving away discomfort had so signally failed, that he was willing to resign himself to others.

Phoebe assisted at the cupping valorously and handily. She had a civil speech from young Mr. Jackson, and Mervyn, as she bade him good night, said, 'I can't spare you now, Phoebe.'

'Not till you are better,' she answered.

And so she told Miss Charlecote, and wrote to Robert; but neither was satisfied. Honora said it was unlucky. It might certainly be a duty to nurse Mervyn if he were really ill, and if he made himself fit company for her, but it would not set her straight with the neighbourhood; and Robert wrote in visible displeasure at this complication of the difficulty. 'If Mervyn's habits had disordered his health, it did not render his pursuits more desirable for his sisters. If he wanted Phoebe's attendance, let him come to town with her to the Bannermans; but his ailments must not be made an excuse for detaining her in so unsuitable a position as that into which he had brought her.'

It was not so kind a letter as Phoebe would have claimed from Robert, and it was the more trying as Mervyn, deprived of the factitious exhilaration that had kept him up, and lowered by treatment, was dispirited, depressed, incapable of being entertained, cross at her failures, yet exacting of her attendance. He had business at his office in the City that needed his presence, so he insisted till the last morning upon going, and then owned himself in no state to go farther than the study, where he tried to write, but found his brain so weak and confused that he could hardly complete a letter, and was obliged to push over even the simplest calculation to Phoebe. In vain she tried to divert his mind from this perilous exertion; he had not taste nor cultivation enough to be interested in anything she could devise, and harping upon some one of the unpleasant topics that occupied his thoughts was his only entertainment when he grew tired of cards or backgammon.

Phoebe sat up late writing to Robert a more minute account of Mervyn's illness, which she thought must plead for him; and rather sad at heart, she had gone to bed and fallen asleep, when far on in the night a noise startled her. She did not suspect her own imagination of being to blame, except so far as the associations with illness in the house might have recalled the sounds that once had been wont to summon her to her mother's room. The fear that her brother might be worse made her listen, till the sounds became matters of certainty. Springing to the window, her eyes seemed to stiffen with amaze as she beheld in the clear, full moonlight, on the frosty sward, the distinctly-traced shadow of a horse and cart. The objects themselves were concealed by a clump of young trees, but their forms were distinctly pictured on the turf, and the conviction flashed over her that a robbery must be going forward.

'Perils and dangers of this night, indeed!' One prayer, one thought. She remembered the great house-bell, above the attic stairs in the opposite wing, at the other end of the gallery, which led from the top of the grand staircase, where the chief bedroom doors opened, and a jet of gas burnt all night on the balustrade. Throwing on her dressing-gown, she sped along the passage, and pushing open the swing-door, beheld Mervyn at the door of his own room, and at the head of the stairs a man, in whom she recognized the discarded footman, raising a pistol. One swift bound--her hand was on the gas-pipe. All was darkness, save a dim stripe from within the open door of her mother's former dressing-room, close to where she stood. She seized the lock, drew it close, and had turned the key before the hand within had time to wrench round the inner handle. That same instant, the flash and report of a pistol made her cry out her brother's name.

'Hollo! what did you put out the light for?' he angrily answered; and as she could just distinguish his white shirt sleeves, she sprang to him. Steps went hurriedly down the stairs. 'Gone!' they both cried at once; Mervyn, with an imprecation on the darkness, adding, 'Go and ring the bell. I'll watch here.'

She obeyed, but the alarm had been given, and the house was astir. Candle-light gleamed above--cries, steps, and exclamations were heard, and she was obliged to hurry down, to save herself from being run over. Two figures had joined Mervyn, the voice of one proclaiming her as Bertha, quivering with excitement. 'In there? My emeralds are in there! Open the door, or he will make off with my--my emeralds!'

'Safe, my child? Don't stand before that door,' cried Miss Fennimore, pulling Phoebe back with a fond, eager grasp.

'Here, some of you,' shouted Mervyn to the men, whose heads appeared behind the herd of maids, 'come and lay hold of the fellow when I unlock the door.'

The women fell back with suppressed screams, and readily made way for the men, but they shuffled, backed, and talked of pistols, and the butler suggested the policeman.

'The policeman--he lives two miles off,' cried Bertha. 'He'll go out of window with my emeralds! Unlock the door, Mervyn.'

'Unlock it yourself,' said Mervyn, with an impatient stamp of his foot. 'Pshaw! but thank you,' as Miss Fennimore put into his hand his double-barrelled gun, the first weapon she had found--unloaded, indeed, but even as a club formidable enough to give him confidence to unlock the door, and call to the man to give himself up. The servants huddled together like sheep, but there was no answer. He called for a light. It was put into his hand by Phoebe, and as he opened the door, was blown out by a stream of cold air from the open window.

The thief was gone. Everybody was ready to press in and look for him in every impossible place, but he had evidently escaped by the leads of the portico beneath; not, however, with 'my emeralds'--he had only attempted the lock of the jewel cabinet.

Phoebe hurried to see whether Maria had been frightened, and finding her happily asleep, followed the rest of the world down-stairs, where the servants seemed to be vying with each other in the magnitude of the losses they announced, while Mervyn was shouting himself hoarse with passionate orders that everything should be left alone--doors, windows, plate-chests, and all--for the inspection of the police; and human nature could not resist lifting up and displaying signs of the robbery every moment, in the midst of the storm of vituperation thus excited.

Mervyn could hardly attend to Phoebe's mention of the cart, but as soon as it reached his senses, he redoubled his hot commands to keepers and stablemen to set off in pursuit, and called for his horse to ride to Elverslope, to give information at the police station and telegraph office. Phoebe implored him to rest and send a messenger, but he roughly bade her not to be so absurd, commanded again that nothing should be disturbed, or, if she would be busy, that she should make out a list of all that was missing.

'Grateful!' indignantly thought Miss Fennimore, as Phoebe was left leaning on a pillar in the portico, watching him ride away, the pale light of the yellow setting moon giving an almost ghostly appearance to her white drapery and wistful attitude. Putting an arm round her, the governess found her shivering from head to foot, and pale and cold as marble; her knees knocked together when she walked, and her teeth chattered as she strove to smile, but her quietness still showed itself in all her movements, as she returned into the hall, and reached the welcome support of a chair beside the rekindled fire.

Miss Fennimore chafed her hands, and she looked up, smiled, and said, 'Thank you.'

'Then you were frightened, after all, Phoebe,' cried Bertha, triumphantly.

'Was I?--I don't know,' said Phoebe, as in a dream.

'What, when you don't know what you are talking of, and are still trembling all over?'

'I can't tell. I think what came on me then was thankfulness.'

'I am sure we may be thankful that our jewels are the only things safe!'

'Oh! Bertha, you don't know, then, that the man was taking aim at Mervyn!' and the shudder returned.

'There, Phoebe, for the sake of candour and psychology, confess your terror.'

'Indeed, Bertha,' said Phoebe, with a smile on her tremulous lip, 'it is very odd, but I don't think I was afraid; there was a feeling of shadowing Wings that left no room for terror.'

'That enabled you to think and act?' asked Miss Fennimore.

'I didn't think; it came to me,' said Phoebe. 'Pray, let me go; Bertha dear, you had better go to bed. Pray lie down, Miss Fennimore.'

She moved slowly away, her steps still unsteady and her cheeks colourless, but the sweet light of thankfulness on her face; while Bertha said, in her moralizing tone, 'It is a curious study to see Phoebe taking her own steady nerves and power of resource for something external to herself, and being pious about it.'

Miss Fennimore was not gratified by her apt pupil's remark. 'If Phoebe's conduct do not fill you with reverence, both for her and that which actuates her, I can only stand astonished,' she said.

Bertha turned away, and erected her eyebrows.

No one could go to bed, and before five o'clock Phoebe came down, dressed for the day, and set to work with the butler and the inventory of the plate to draw up an account of the losses. Not merely the plate in common use was gone, but the costly services and ornaments that had been the glory of old Mr. Fulmort's heart; and the locks had not been broken but opened with a key; the drawing-rooms had been rifled of their expensive bijouterie, and the foray would have been completely successful had it included the jewels. There were no marks of a violent entrance; windows and doors were all fastened as usual, with the single exception of the back door, which was found ajar, but with no traces of having been opened in an unusual manner, though the heavy bolts and bars would have precluded an entrance from the outside even with a false key.

Early in the day, Mervyn returned with the superintendent of police. He was still too much excited to rest, and his heavy tread re-echoed from floor to floor, as he showed the superintendent round the house, calling his sister or the servants to corroborate his statements, or help out his account of what he had hardly seen or comprehended. Thus he came to Phoebe for her version of the affair in the gallery, of which he only knew his own share--the noise that had roused him, the sight of the burglar, the sudden darkness, the report of the pistol; and the witness of his danger--the bullet--was in the wall nearly where his head had been. When Phoebe had answered his questions, he gazed at her, and exclaimed--'Hallo! why, Phoebe, it seems that but for you, Parson Robert would be in possession here!' and burst into a strange nervous laugh, ending by coming to her and giving a hearty kiss to her forehead, ere hurrying away to report her evidence to the policeman.

When all measures had been taken, intelligence sent back to the station, and a search instituted in every direction, Mervyn consented to sit down to breakfast, but talked instead of eating, telling Phoebe that even without her recognition of James Smithson, the former footman, the superintendent would have attributed the burglary to a person familiar with the house, provided with facsimiles of all the keys, except those of the jewels, as well as sufficiently aware of the habits of the family to make the attempt just before the jewels were to be removed, and when the master was likely to be absent. The appearance of the back door had led to the conclusion that the thieves had been admitted from within; a London detective had therefore been sent for, who was to come in the guise of a clerk from the distillery, bringing down the books to Mr. Fulmort, and Phoebe was forbidden to reveal his true character to any one but Miss Fennimore. So virulently did Mervyn talk of Smithson, that Phoebe was sorry she had recognized him, and became first compassionate, then disconcerted and shocked. She rose to leave the room as the only means of silencing him; he got up to come after her, abusing the law because house-breaking was not a hanging matter, his face growing more purple with passion every moment; but his steps suddenly failed, his exclamation transferred his fury to his own giddiness, and Phoebe, flying to his side, was only just in time to support him to a couch. It was the worst attack he had yet had, and his doctors coming in the midst of it, used prompt measures to relieve him, and impressed on both him and his sister that everything would depend on perfect quiet and absence from all disturbance; and he was so much exhausted by the reaction of his excitement, loss of blood, and confusion of head, that he attempted little but long fretful sighs when at length he was left to her. After much weariness and discomfort he fell asleep, and Phoebe ventured to creep quietly out of the library to see Miss Charlecote, who was hearing the night's adventures in the schoolroom. Scarcely, however, had Honor had time to embrace the little heroine, whose conduct had lost nothing in Miss Fennimore's narration, when a message came from Elverslope. It was the day of the petty sessions, and a notable bad character having been taken up with some suspicious articles upon him, the magistrates were waiting for Mr. Fulmort to make out the committal on his evidence.

'I must go instead,' said Phoebe, after considering for a moment.

'My dear,' exclaimed Honor, 'you do not know how unpleasant it will be!'

'Mervyn must sleep,' said Phoebe; 'and if this be an innocent man, he ought to be cleared at once. If it be not improper, I think I ought to go. May I?' looking at the governess, who suggested her speaking to the superintendent, and learning whether her brother had been absolutely summoned.

It proved to be only a verbal message, and the superintendent urged her going, telling her that her evidence would suffice for the present, and that she would be the most important witness at the assizes--which he evidently considered as a great compliment.

Miss Charlecote undertook to go and take care of her young friend, and they set off in silence, Phoebe leaning back with her veil down, and Honor, perceiving that she needed this interval of quiet repose, watching her with wonder. Had it been Honor's own case, she would have hung back out of dislike to pursuing an enemy, and from dread of publicity, but these objections had apparently not occurred to the more simple mind, only devising how to spare her brother; and while Honor would have been wretched from distrust of her own accuracy, and her habits of imperfect observation would have made her doubt her own senses and memory, she honoured Phoebe's careful training in seeing what she saw, and hearing what she heard, without cross lights or counter sounds from imagination. Once Phoebe inquired in a low, awe-struck voice, 'Shall I be put on oath?'

'Most likely, my dear.'

Phoebe's hands were pressed together as though in preparation for a religious rite. She was not dismayed, but from her strict truth at all times, she was the more sensible of the sacredness and solemnity of the great appeal.

An offence on so large a scale had brought a throng of loiterers to the door of the town-hall, and Honor felt nervous and out of place as way was made for the two ladies to mount the stairs to the justice-room; but there she was welcomed by several of the magistrates, and could watch Phoebe's demeanour, and the impression it made on persons accustomed to connect many strange stories with the name of Miss Fulmort. That air of maidenly innocence, the girlish form in deep mourning, the gentle seriousness and grave composure of the young face, the simple, self-possessed manner, and the steady, distinct tones of the clear, soft voice were, as Honor felt, producing an effect that was shown in the mood of addressing her, always considerate and courteous, but increasing in respect and confidence.

And as Phoebe raised her eyes, the chairman's face--the first to meet her glance--was the kind ruddy one, set in iron gray hair, that she remembered as belonging to the hunter who had sacrificed the run to see Mervyn safely home. The mutual recognition, and the tone of concern for his illness, made her feel in the presence of a friend, and she was the more at ease in performing her part.

To her great relief, the man in custody was unknown to her. James Smithson, she said, was taller, and had a longer face, and she had not seen him whom she had locked into the dressing-room. However, she identified a gold and turquoise letter-weight; and the setting of a seal, whence the stone with the crest had been extracted, both of which had been found in the man's pocket, together with some pawnbroker's tickets, which represented a buhl-clock and other articles from Beauchamp. She was made to give an account of the robbery. Honor had never felt prouder of any of her favourites than of her, while listening to the modest, simple, but clear and circumstantial recital, and watching how much struck the country gentlemen were by the girl who had been of late everywhere pitied or censured.

The statement over, she was desired to answer a few questions from Captain Morden, the chief of the constabulary force, who had come from the county town to investigate the affair. Taking her aside, he minutely examined her on the appearance of some of the articles mentioned in the inventory, on the form of the shadow of the horse and cart, on the thieves themselves, and chiefly on Smithson, and how she could be so secure of the identity of the robber in the pea-jacket with the footman in powder and livery.

'I can hardly tell,' said Phoebe; 'but I have no doubt in my own mind.'

'Was he like this?' asked Captain Morden, showing her a photograph.

'Certainly not.'

'Nor this?'

'No.'

'Nor this?'

'Yes, that is Smithson in plain clothes.'

'Right, Miss Fulmort. You have an eye for a likeness. These fellows have such a turn for having their portraits done, that in these affairs we always try if the shilling photographers have duplicates. This will be sent to town by the next train.'

'I am not sure that I should have known it if I had not seen it before.'

'Indeed! Should you object to tell me under what circumstances?'

'At the photographer's, at the time he was at Hiltonbury,' said Phoebe. 'I went to him with one of my sisters, and we were amused by finding many of the likenesses of our servants. Smithson and another came in to be taken while we were there, and we afterwards saw this portrait when calling for my sister's.'

'Another--another servant?' said the keen captain.

'Yes, one of the maids.'

'Her name, if you please.'

'Indeed,' said Phoebe, distressed, as she saw this jotted down. 'I cannot bring suspicion and trouble on any one.'

'You will do no such thing, Miss Fulmort. We will only keep our eye on her. Neither she, nor any one else, shall have any ground for supposing her under suspicion, but it is our duty to miss no possible indication. Will you oblige me with her name?'

'She is called Jane, but I do not know her real name,' said Phoebe, with much reluctance, and in little need of the injunction to secrecy on this head. The general eagerness to hunt down the criminals saddened her, and she was glad to be released, with thanks for her distinct evidence. The kind old chairman then met her, quite with an air of fatherly protection, such as elderly men often wear towards orphaned maidens, and inquired more particularly for her brother's health. She was glad to thank him again for having sent the physician, when his aid was so needful, and she was in so much difficulty. 'A bold stroke,' he, said, smiling; 'I thought you might throw all the blame on me if it were needless.'

'Needless--oh! it may have saved him. Is that the carriage? I must get home as soon as I can.'

'Yes, I am sure you must be anxious, but I hope to see more of you another time. Lady Raymond must come and see if you cannot find a day to spend with my girls.'

Lady Raymond! So this was Sir John! Mervyn's foe and maligner! Was he repenting at the sight of what he had done? Yet he really looked like a very good, kind old man, and seemed satisfied with the very shabby answer he obtained to a speech that filled Honor with a sense of her young friend's victory. There was Phoebe, re-established in the good graces of the neighbourhood, favoured by the very elite of the county for goodness, sought by those who had never visited at Beauchamp in the days of its gaiety and ostentation! Ungrateful child, not to be better pleased--only saying that she supposed she should go away when her brother should be well again, and not seeing her way to any day for Moorcroft! Was she still unforgiving for Mervyn's rejection, or had she a feeling against visiting those who had not taken notice of her family before?

Mervyn met Phoebe in the hall, still looking very ill, with his purple paleness, his heavy eyes, and uncertain steps, and though he called himself all right, since his sleep, it was with a weary gasp that he sank into his chair, and called on her for an account of what she had done. His excitement seemed to have burnt itself out, for he listened languidly, and asked questions by jerks, dozing half-way through the answer, and wakening to some fresh inquiry; once it was--'And did the old sinner take any notice of you?'

'The prisoner?'

'Nonsense. Old Raymond. Of course he was in the chair.'

'He was very kind. It was he who came home from the hunt with us the other day.'

'Ha! I said it was some old woman of a spy, wanting to get up a story against me!'

'Nay, I think he felt kindly, for he talked of Lady Raymond calling, and my spending a day at Moorcroft.'

'Oh! so the godly mean to rescue you, do they?'

'I did not accept. Perhaps they will never think of it again.'

'No; his ladies will not let him!' sneered Mervyn.

Nevertheless, his last words that night were, 'So the Raymonds have asked you!'

He was in a more satisfactory state the next day; feeble, but tamed into endurance of medical treatment, and almost indifferent about the robbery; as though his passion were spent, and he were tired of the subject. However, the police were alert. The man whom they had taken up was a squatter in the forest, notorious as a poacher and thief, and his horse and cart answered to Phoebe's description of the shadow. He had been arrested when returning with them from the small seaport on the other side of the forest in the next county, and on communicating with the authorities there, search at a dealer's in marine stores had revealed hampers filled with the Beauchamp plate, as yet unmelted. The spoils of lesser bulk had disappeared with Smithson and the other criminal.

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Chapter XX

Mascarille.--Oh! oh! je ne prenois pas garde; Tandis que sans songer a mal, je vous regarde Votre oeil en tapinois me derobe mon coeur, Au voleur! au voleur! au voleur! au voleur!

Cathos.--Ah! voila qui est pousse dans le dernier galant!

Les Precieuses Ridicules

The detective arrived, looking so entirely the office clerk as to take in Mervyn himself at first sight; and the rest of the world understood that he was to stay till their master could go over the accounts with him. As housekeeper's room company, his attentions were doubly relished by the housemaids, and jealousy was not long in prompting the revelation that Jane Hart had been Smithson's sweetheart, and was supposed to have met him since his dismissal. Following up this trail, the detective proved to his own satisfaction that she had been at a ball at a public-house in the next village the night before the hunt, and had there met both Smithson and the poacher. This, however, he reserved for Mervyn's private ear, still watching his victim, in the hope that she might unconsciously give some clue to the whereabouts of her lover. The espionage diverted Mervyn, and gave him the occupation for his thoughts that he sorely needed; but it oppressed Phoebe, and she shrank from the sight of the housemaid, as though she herself were dealing treacherously by her.

'Phoebe,' said Mervyn, mysteriously, coming into the library, where his tardy breakfast was spread, 'that villain Smithson has been taken up at Liverpool; and here's a letter for you to look at. Fenton has captured a letter to that woman Hart, who, he found, was always wanting to go to the post--but he can't make it out; and I thought it was German, so I brought it to you. It looks as if old Lieschen--

'No! no! it can't be,' cried Phoebe. 'I'll clear it up in a moment.'

But as she glanced at the letter the colour fled from her cheek.

'Well, what is it?' said Mervyn, impatiently.

'Oh, Mervyn!' and she put her hands before her face.

'Come, the fewer words the better. Out with it at once!'

'Mervyn! It is to Bertha!' She stood transfixed.

'What?' cried Mervyn.

'To Bertha,' repeated Phoebe, looking as if she could never shut her eyes.

'Bertha? What, a billet-doux; the little precocious pussycat!' and he laughed, to Phoebe's increased horror.

'If it could only be a mistake!' said she; 'but here is her name! It is not German, only English in German writing. Oh, Bertha! Bertha!'

'Well, but who is the fellow? Let me look,' said Mervyn.

'It is too foolish,' said Phoebe, guarding it, in the midst of her cold chills of dismay. 'There is no surname--only John. Ah! here's J. H. Oh! Mervyn, could it be Mr. Hastings?'

'No such thing! John! Why, my name's John--everybody's name is John! That's nothing.'

'But, Mervyn, I was warned,' said Phoebe, her eyes again dilating with dismay, 'that Mr. Hastings never was received into a house with women without there being cause to repent it.'

'Experience might have taught you how much slanderous gossip to believe by this time! I believe it is some trumpery curate she has been meeting at Miss Charlecote's school feasts.'

'For shame, Mervyn,' cried Phoebe, in real anger.

'Curates like thirty thousand as much as other men,' said Mervyn, sulkily.

'After all,' said Phoebe, controlling herself, 'what signifies most is, that poor Bertha should have been led to do such a dreadful thing.'

'If ever I take charge of a pack of women again! But let's hear what the rascal says to her.'

'I do not think it is fair to read it all,' said Phoebe, glancing over the tender passages. 'Poor child, how ashamed she will be! But listen--' and she read a portion, as if meant to restrain the girl's impatience, promising to offer a visit to Beauchamp, or, if that were refused till the captives were carried off, assuring her there would be ways and means at Acton Manor, where a little coldness from the baronet always secured the lady's good graces.

Acton Manor was in Mr. Hastings' neighbourhood, and Mervyn struck his own knee several times.

'Hum! ha! Was not some chaff going on one day about the heiresses boxed up in the west wing? Some one set you all down at a monstrous figure--a hundred thousand apiece. I wonder if he were green enough to believe it! Hastings! No, it can't be! Here, we'll have the impudent child down, and frighten it out of her. But first, how are we to put off that fellow Fenton? Make up something to tell him.'

'Making up would be of no use,' said Phoebe; 'he is too clever. Tell him it is a family matter.'

Mervyn left the room, and Phoebe hid her face in her hands, thunderstruck, and endeavouring to disentangle her thoughts, perturbed between shame, indignation, and the longing to shield and protect her sister. She had not fully realized her sister's offence, so new to her imagination, when she was roused by Mervyn's return, saying that he had sent for Bertha to have it over.

Starting up, she begged to go and prepare her sister, but he peremptorily detained her, and, 'Oh, be kind to her,' was all that she could say, before in tripped Bertha, looking restless and amazed, but her retrousse nose, round features, and wavy hair so childish that the accusation seemed absurd.

So Mervyn felt it, and in vain drew in his feet, made himself upright, and tried to look magisterial. 'Bertha,' he began, 'Bertha, I have sent for you, Bertha--it is not possible--What's that?' pointing to the letter, as though it had been a stain of ink which she had just perpetrated.

Alarmed perhaps, but certainly not confounded, Bertha put her hands before her, and demurely said--'What do you mean?'

'What do you mean, Bertha, by such a correspondence as this?'

'If you know that letter is for me, why did you meddle with it?' she coolly answered.

'Upon my word, this is assurance,' cried Mervyn.

'Give me my letter,' repeated Bertha, reaching out for it. 'No one else has a right to touch it.'

'If there be nothing amiss,' said Phoebe, coming to the relief of her brother, who was almost speechless at this audacity, 'why receive it under cover to a servant?'

'Because prejudice surrounds me,' stoutly replied Bertha, with barely a hitch in her speech, as if making a grand stroke; but seeing her brother smile, she added in an annihilating tone, 'practical tyranny is exercised in every family until education and intellect effect a moral emancipation.'

'What?' said Mervyn, 'education teaching you to write letters in German hand! Fine results! I tell you, if you were older, the disgrace of this would stick to you for life, but if you will tell the whole truth about this scoundrel, and put an end to it, we will do the best we can for you.'

She made up a disdainful mouth, and said, 'Thank you.'

'After all,' said Mervyn, turning to Phoebe, 'it is a joke! Look at her! She is a baby! You need not have made such a rout. This is only a toy-letter to a little girl; very good practice in German writing.'

'I am engaged to John Hastings heart and hand,' said Bertha in high dignity, little knowing that she thus first disclosed the name.

'Yes, people talk of children being their little wives,' said Mervyn, 'but you are getting too old for such nonsense, though he does not think you so.'

'It is the joint purpose of our lives,' said Bertha.

Mervyn gave his scoffing laugh, and again addressing Phoebe, said, 'If it were you, now, or any one with whom he was not in sport, it would be a serious matter. The fellow got himself expelled from Harrow, then was the proverb of even a German university, ran through his means before he was five-and-twenty, is as much at home in the Queen's Bench as I am in this study, has been outlawed, lived on rouge et noir at Baden till he got whitewashed when his mother died, and since that has lived on betting, or making himself agreeable to whoever would ask him.'

'Many thanks on the part of your intimate friend,' said Bertha, with suppressed passion.

Mervyn stamped his foot, and Phoebe defended him with, 'Men may associate with those who are no companions for their sisters, Bertha.'

'Contracted minds always accept malignant reports,' was the reply.

'Report,' said Mervyn; 'I know it as well as I know myself!' then recollecting himself, 'but she does not understand, it is of no use to talk to children. Take her away, Phoebe, and keep her in the nursery till Mr. Crabbe comes to settle what is to be done with her.'

'I insist on having my letter,' said Bertha, with womanly grandeur.

'Let her have it. It is not worth bothering about a mere joke,' said Mervyn, leaning back, wearied of the struggle, in which, provoking as he was, he had received some home thrusts.

Phoebe felt bewildered, and as if she had a perfect stranger on her hands, though Bertha's high tone was, after all, chiefly from her extremity, and by way of reply to her brother's scornful incredulity of her exalted position. She was the first to speak on leaving the library. 'Pray, Phoebe, how came you to tamper with people's letters?'

Phoebe explained.

'From Mervyn and his spy one could expect no delicacy,' said Bertha, 'but in you it was treachery.'

'No, Bertha,' said Phoebe, 'I was grieved to expose you, but it was my duty to clear the innocent by examining the letter, and Mervyn had a right to know what concerned you when you were under his charge. It is our business to save you, and a letter sent in this way does not stand on the same ground as one coming openly under your own name. But I did not read it to him, Bertha--not all.'

'If you had,' said Bertha, more piqued than obliged by this reserve, 'he would have known it was in earnest and not childish nonsense. You saw that it was earnest, Phoebe?' and her defiant voice betrayed a semi-distrust.

'I am afraid it looked very much so,' said Phoebe; 'but, Bertha, that would be saddest of all. I am afraid he might be wicked enough to be trying to get your fortune, for indeed--don't be very much vexed, dearest, I am only saying it for your good--you are not old enough, nor formed, nor pretty enough, really to please a man that has seen so much of the world.'

'He never met so fresh, or original, or so highly cultivated a mind,' said Bertha; 'besides, as to features, there may be different opinions!'

'But, Bertha, how could you ever see him or speak to him?'

'Hearts can find more ways than you dream of,' said Bertha, with a touch of sentiment; 'we had only to meet for the magnetism of mind to be felt!'

Argument was heartless work. Flattery and the glory of her conquest had entirely filled the child's mind, and she despised Mervyn and Phoebe far too much for the representations of the one or the persuasions of the other to have the smallest weight with her. Evidently, weariness of her studies, and impatience of discipline had led her to lend a willing ear to any distraction, and to give in to the intercourse that both gratified and amused herself and outwitted her governess, and thence the belief in the power of her own charms, and preference for their admirer, were steps easier than appeared credible to Phoebe. From listening in helpless amaze to a miserable round of pertness and philosophy, Phoebe was called down-stairs to hear that Mervyn had been examining Jane Hart, and had elicited from her that after having once surprised Mr. Hastings and Miss Bertha in conversation, she had several times conveyed notes between them, and since he had left Beauchamp, she had posted two letters to him from the young lady, but this was the first answer received, directed to herself, to be left at the post-office to be called for.

'Earnest enough on his part,' said Mervyn; 'a regular speculation to patch up his fortunes. Well, I knew enough of him, as I told you, but I was fool enough to pity him!'

He became silent, and so did Phoebe. She had been too much overset to look the subject fairly in the face, and his very calmness of voice and the absence of abusive epithets were a token that he was perfectly appalled at what he had brought on his sisters. They both sat still some minutes, when she saw him lean back with his hand to his head, and his eyes closed. 'There's a steeple chase!' he said, as Phoebe laid her cool hand on his burning brow, and felt the throbbing of the swollen veins of his temples. Both knew that this meant cupping, and they sent in haste for the Hiltonbury doctor, but he was out for the day, and would not return till evening. Phoebe felt dull and stunned, as if her decision had caused all the mischief, and more and more were following on, and her spirit almost died within her at Mervyn's interjection of rage and suffering.

'Though they curse, yet bless thou,' had of necessity been her rule while clinging to this brother; a mental ejaculation had become habitual, and this time it brought reaction from her forlorn despondency. She could do something. Twice she had assisted in cupping, and she believed she could perform the operation. No failure could be as hurtful as delay, and she offered to make the attempt. Mervyn growled at her folly, yawned, groaned, looked at his watch, counted the heavy hours, and supposed she must do as she chose.

Her heart rivalled his temples in palpitation, but happily without affecting eye, voice, or hand, and with Lieschen's help the deed was successfully done, almost with equal benefit to the operator and the patient.

Success had put new life into her; the troubles had been forgotten for the moment, and recurred not as a shameful burthen, caused by her own imprudence, but as a possible turning-point, a subject for action, not for despair, and Phoebe was herself again.

'What's that you are writing?' asked Mervyn, starting from a doze on the sofa.

'A letter to Robert,' she answered reluctantly.

'I suppose you will put it in the Times. No woman can keep a thing to herself.'

'I would tell no one else, but I wanted his advice.'

'Oh, I dare say.'

Phoebe saw that to persist in her letter would utterly destroy the repose that was essential in Mervyn's state, and she laid aside her pen.

'Going to do it out of sight?' he petulantly said.

'No; but at any rate I will wait till Miss Fennimore has talked to Bertha. She will be more willing to listen to her.'

'Because this is the result of her emancipating education. Ha!'

'No; but Bertha will attend to her, and cannot say her notions are servile and contracted.'

'If you say any more, I shall get up and flog them both.'

'Miss Fennimore is very wise,' said Phoebe.

'Why, what has she taught you but the ologies and the Rights of Women?'

'The chief thing she teaches,' said Phoebe, 'is to attend to what we are doing.'

Mervyn laughed, but did not perceive how those words were the key of Phoebe's character.

'Sir John and Lady Raymond and Miss Raymond in the drawing-room.'

Unappreciating the benefit of changing the current of thought, Phoebe lamented their admission, and moved reluctantly to the great rooms, where the guests looked as if they belonged to a more easy and friendly region than to that world of mirrors, damask, and gilding.

Sir John shook hands like an old friend, but his wife was one of those homely ladies who never appear to advantage in strange houses, and Phoebe had not learnt the art of 'lady of the house' talk, besides feeling a certain chilliness towards Mervyn's detractors, which rendered her stiff and formal. To her amaze, however, the languishing talk was interrupted by his entrance; he who regarded Sir John as the cause of his disappointment; he who had last met Susan Raymond at the time of his rejection; he whom she had left prostrate among the sofa cushions; he had absolutely exerted himself to brush his hair and put on coat and boots, yet how horribly ill and nervous he looked, totally devoid of his usual cool assurance, uncertain whether to shake hands with the two ladies, and showing a strange restless eagerness as though entirely shaken off his balance.

Matters were mended by his entrance. Phoebe liked Lady Raymond from the moment she detected a sign to the vehement Sir John not to keep his host standing during the discussion of the robbery, and she ventured on expressing her gratitude for his escort on the day of the hunt. Then arose an entreaty to view the scene of the midnight adventure, and the guests were conducted to the gallery, shown where each party had stood, the gas-pipe, the mark of the pistol-shot, and the door was opened to display the cabinet, and the window of the escape. To the intense surprise of her brother and sister, Bertha was examining her emeralds.

She came forward quite at her ease, and if she had been ten years a woman could not more naturally have assumed the entertainment of Lady Raymond, talking so readily that Phoebe would have believed the morning's transactions a delusion, but for Mervyn's telegraph of astonishment.

The visitors had been at the Holt, and obtained a promise from Miss Charlecote to spend the ensuing Saturday week at Moorcroft. They begged the sisters to accompany her. Phoebe drew back, though Mervyn hurried out declarations of his not wanting her, and the others never going out, till she hardly knew how it had been decided; but as the guests departed she heard Mervyn severely observing to Bertha--'no, certainly I should not send you to keep company with any well-behaved young ladies.'

'Thank you, I have no desire to associate with commonplace girls,' said Bertha, marching off to the west wing.

'You will go, Phoebe,' said Mervyn.

'Indeed, if I did it would be partly for the sake of giving change to Bertha, and letting her see what nice people really are.'

'Are you crazy, Phoebe? I would not have Bertha with her impudence and her pedantry go among the Raymonds--no, not for the Bank of England.'

Those words darted into Phoebe's mind the perception why Mervyn was, in his strange way, promoting her intercourse with Moorcroft, not only as stamping her conduct with approval of people of their worth and weight, but as affording him some slight glimmering of hope. She could not but recollect that the extra recklessness of language which had pained her, ever since his rejection had diminished ever since her report of Sir John's notice of her at the justice room. Sister-like, she pitied and hoped; but the more immediate care extinguished all the rest, and she was longing for Miss Fennimore's sympathy, though grieving at the pain the disclosure must inflict. It could not be made till the girls were gone to bed, and at half-past nine, Phoebe sought the schoolroom, and told her tale. There was no answer, but an almost convulsive shudder; her hand was seized, and her finger guided to the line which Miss Fennimore had been reading in the Greek Testament--'By their fruits ye shall know them.'

Rallying before Phoebe could trace what was passing in her mind, she shut the book, turned her chair to the fire, invited Phoebe to another, and was at once the clear-headed, metaphysical governess, ready to discuss this grievous marvel. She was too generous by nature not to have treated her pupils with implicit trust, and this trust had been abused. Looking back, she and Phoebe could recollect moments when Bertha had been unaccounted for, and must have held interviews with Mr. Hastings. She had professed a turn for twilight walks in the garden, and remained out of doors when the autumn evenings had sent the others in, and on the Sunday afternoons, when Phoebe and Maria had been at church, Miss Fennimore reproached herself exceedingly with having been too much absorbed in her own readings to concern herself about the proceedings of a pupil, whose time on that day was at her own disposal. She also thought that there had been communications by look and sign across the pew at church; and she had remarked, though Phoebe had been too much occupied with her brother to perceive the restlessness that had settled on Bertha from the time of the departure of Mervyn's guests, and had once reproved her for lingering, as she thought, to gossip with Jane Hart in her bedroom. 'And now,' said Miss Fennimore, 'she should have a thorough change. Send her to school, calling it punishment, if you please, but chiefly for the sake of placing her among laughing girlish girls of the same age, and, above all, under a thoroughly religious mistress of wide intelligence, and who has never doubted.'

'But we were all to keep together, dear Miss Fennimore--you--'

'One whose mind has always been balancing between aspects of truth may instruct, but cannot educate. Few minds can embrace the moral virtues unless they are based on an undoubted foundation, connected with present devotional warmth, and future hopes and fears. I see this now; I once thought excellence would approve itself, for its own sake, to others, as it did to myself. I regarded Bertha as a fair subject for a full experiment of my system, with good disposition, good abilities, and few counter influences. I meant to cultivate self-relying, unprejudiced, effective good sense, and see--with prejudices have been rooted up restraints!'

'Education seems to me to have little to do with what people turn out,' said Phoebe. 'Look at poor Miss Charlecote and the Sandbrooks.'

'Depend upon it, Phoebe, that whatever harm may have ensued from her errors in detail, those young people will yet bless her for the principle she worked on. You can none of you bless me, for having guided the hands of the watch, and having left the mainspring untouched.'

Miss Fennimore had been, like Helvetius and the better class of encyclopaedists, enamoured of the moral virtues, but unable to perceive that they could not be separated from the Christian faith, and she learnt like them that, when doctrine ceased to be prominent, practice went after it. Bertha was her Jacobin--and seemed doubly so the next morning, when an interview took place, in which the young lady gave her to understand that she, like Phoebe, was devoid of the experience that would enable them to comprehend the sacred mutual duty of souls that once had spoken. Woman was no longer the captive of the seraglio, nor the chronicler of small beer. Intellectual training conferred rights of choice superior to conventional ties; and, as to the infallible discernment of that fifteen year old judgment, had not she the sole premises to go upon, she who alone had been admitted to the innermost of that manly existence?

'I always knew Jack to be a clever dog,' said Mervyn, when this was reported to him, 'but his soft sawder to a priggish metaphysical baby must have been the best fun in the world?'

Mervyn's great desire was to keep Bertha's folly as great a secret as possible; and, by his decision, she was told that grace should be granted her till Mr. Crabbe's arrival, when, unless she had renounced what he called her silly child's fancy, stringent measures would be taken, and she would be exposed to the family censure.

'So,' said Bertha, 'you expect to destroy the attraction of souls by physical force!'

And Phoebe wrote to Robert a sorrowful letter, chiefly consisting of the utmost pleadings for Mervyn and Bertha that her loving heart could frame. She was happier when she had poured out her troubles, but grieved when no answer came by the next post. Robert's displeasure must be great--and indeed but too justly so--since all this mischief was the consequence of the disregard of his wishes. Yet justice was hard between brothers and sisters, especially when Mervyn was in such a suffering state, threatened constantly by attacks of his complaint, which were only warded off by severe and weakening treatment. Phoebe was so necessary to his comfort in waiting on him, and trying to while away his tedious hours of inaction and oppression, that she had little time to bestow upon Bertha, nor, indeed, was talking of any use, as it only gave the young lady an occasion for pouring forth magniloquent sentiments, utterly heedless of the answers. Sad, lonely, and helpless were Phoebe's feelings, but she was patient, and still went on step by step through the strange tangle, attending to Mervyn hour by hour, always with a gentle cheerful word and smile, and never trusting herself, even when alone, to think of the turmoil and break up that must ensue on her guardian's arrival.

All was darkness and perplexity before her, but submission and trust were her refuge, and each day of waiting before the crisis was to her feelings a gain.

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Chapter XXI

O fy gar ride and fy gar rin And haste ye to find these traitors agen, For shees be burnt and hees been slein, The wearifu gaberlunzie man. Some rade upon horse, some ran afit, The wife was wud and out of her wit, She couldna gang, nor yet could she sit, But aye did curse and ban.--KING JAMES V

Mervyn and Phoebe were playing at billiards, as a means of inducing him to take exercise enough to make him sleep. The governess and the two girls were gone to the dentist's at Elverslope. The winter's day was closing in, when there was a knock at the door, and they beheld Miss Fennimore, deadly white, and Maria, who flew up to Phoebe, crying--'Bertha's gone, Phoebe!'

'The next up-train stops at Elverslope at 8.30,' said the governess, staring in Mervyn's face, as though repeating a lesson. 'A carriage will be here by seven. I will bring her home, or never return.'

'Gone!'

'It was inexcusable in me, sir,' said Miss Fennimore, resting a hand on the table to support herself. 'I thought it needlessly galling to let her feel herself watched; and at her request, let her remain in the waiting-room while her sister was in the dentist's hands. When, after an hour, Maria was released, she was gone.'

'Alone?' cried Phoebe.

'Alone, I hope. I went to the station; the train had been ten minutes gone; but a young lady, alone, in mourning, and with no luggage but a little bag, had got in there for London. Happily, they did not know her; and it was the parliamentary train, which is five hours on the road. I telegraphed at once to your brother to meet her at the terminus.'

'I have no hope,' said Mervyn, doggedly, seating himself on the table, his feet dangling. 'He will be in the lowest gutter of Whittingtonia, where no one can find him. The fellow will meet that miserable child, go off to Ostend this very night, marry her before to-morrow morning. There's an end of it!'

'Where does Mr. Hastings lodge, sir?'

'Nowhere that I know of. There will be no end of time lost in tracing him! No train before 8.30! I'll go in at once, and have a special.'

'They cannot put on one before nine, because of the excursion trains for the cattle-show. I should not have been in time had I driven to catch the express at W.,' said Miss Fennimore, in her clear voice of desperation. 'The 8.30 reaches town at 11.23. Will you give me the addresses where I may inquire, sir?'

'You! I am going myself. You would be of no use,' said Mervyn, in a stunned, mechanical way; and looking at his watch, he went to give orders.

'He should not go, Phoebe. In his state the mere journey is a fearful risk.'

'It can't be helped,' said Phoebe. 'I shall go with him. You stay to take care of Maria. There will be Robert to help us;' and as the governess would have spoken farther, she held up her hands in entreaty--'O pray don't say anything! I can't go on if I do anything but act.'

Yet in the endeavour to keep her brother quiet, and to husband his powers, Phoebe's movements and words had rather an additional gentleness and deliberation; and so free from bustle was her whole demeanour, that he never comprehended her intention of accompanying him till she stepped into the carriage beside him.

'What's this? You coming?'

'I will give you no trouble.'

'Well, you may help to manage the girl;' and he lay back, relieved to be off, but already spent by the hurry of the last two hours. Phoebe could sit and--no--not think, except that Robert was at the other end of the line.

The drive seemed to have lasted half the night ere the lamps of Elverslope made constellations in the valley, and the green and red lights of the station loomed out on the hill. They drove into the circle of gaslights, among the vaporous steeds of omnibuses and flies, and entered the station, Phoebe's veil down, and Mervyn shading his dazzled eyes from the glare. They were half an hour too soon; and while waiting, it occurred to Phoebe to inquire whether a telegram for Beauchamp had been received. Even so, and they must have crossed the express; but a duplicate was brought to them.

'Safe. We shall be at Elverslope at 10.20, P.M.'

Assuredly Phoebe did not faint, for she stood on her feet; and Mervyn never perceived the suspension of senses, which lasted till she found him for the second time asking whether she would go home or await the travellers at Elverslope.

'Home,' she said, instinctively, in her relief forgetting all the distress of what had taken place, so that her sensations were little short of felicity; and as she heard the 8.30 train roaring up, she shed tears of joy at having no concern therewith. The darkness and Mervyn's silence were comfortable, for she could wipe unseen her showers of tears at each gust of thankfulness that passed over her; and it was long before she could command her voice even to ask her companion whether he were tired. 'No,' he said; but the tone was more than half-sullen; and at the thought of the meeting between the brothers, poor Phoebe's heart seemed to die within her. Against their dark looks and curt sayings to one another she had no courage.

When they reached home, she begged him to go at once to bed, hoping thus to defer the meeting; but he would not hear of doing so; and her only good augury was that his looks were pale, languid, and subdued, rather than flushed and excited. Miss Fennimore was in the hall, and he went towards her, saying, in a friendly tone, 'So, Miss Fennimore, you have heard that this unlucky child has given us a fright for nothing.'

The voice in which she assented was hoarse and scarcely audible, and she looked as if twenty years had passed over her head.

'It was all owing to your promptitude,' said Mervyn; 'a capital thought that telegram.'

'I am glad,' said Miss Fennimore; 'but I do not lose sight of my own negligence. It convinces me that I am utterly unfit for the charge I assumed. I shall leave your sisters as soon as new plans can be formed.'

'Why, I'll be bound none of your pupils ever played you such a trick before!'

Miss Fennimore only looked as if this convinced her the more; but it was no time for the argument, and Phoebe caressingly persuaded her to come into the library and drink coffee with them, judging rightly that she had tasted nothing since morning.

Afterwards Phoebe induced Mervyn to lie on the sofa, and having made every preparation for the travellers, she sat down to wait. She could not read, she could not work; she felt that tranquillity was needful for her brother, and had learnt already the soothing effect of absolute repose. Indeed, one of the first tokens by which Miss Fennimore had perceived character in Phoebe was her faculty of being still. Only that which has substance can be motionless. There she sat in the lamplight, her head drooping, her hands clasped on her knee, her eyes bent down, not drowsy, not abstracted, not rigid, but peaceful. Her brother lay in the shade, watching her with a half-fascinated gaze, as though a magnetic spell repressed all inclination to work himself into agitation.

The stillness became an effort at last, but it was resolutely preserved till the frost-bound gravel resounded with wheels. Phoebe rose, Mervyn started up, caught her hand and squeezed it hard. 'Do not let him be hard on me, Phoebe,' he said. 'I could not bear it.'

She had little expected this. Her answer was a mute caress, and she hurried out, but in a tumult of feeling, retreated behind the shelter of a pillar, and silently put her hand on Robert's arm as he stepped out of the carriage.

'Wait,' he whispered, holding her back. 'Hush! I have promised that she shall see no one.'

Bertha descended, unassisted, her veil down, and neither turning to the right nor the left, crossed the hall and went upstairs. Robert took off his overcoat and hat, took a light and followed her, signing that Phoebe should remain behind. She found Mervyn at the library door, like herself rather appalled at the apparition that had swept past them. She put her hand into his, with a kind of common feeling that they were awaiting a strict judge.

Robert soon reappeared, and in a preoccupied way, kissed the one and shook hands with the other, saying, 'She has locked her door, and says she wants nothing. I will try again presently--not you, Phoebe; I could only get her home on condition she should see no one without her own consent. So you had my telegram?'

'We met it at the station. How did you find her?'

'Had the man been written to?' asked Robert.

'No,' said Mervyn; 'we thought it best to treat it as childish nonsense, not worth serious notice, or in fact--I was not equal to writing.'

The weary, dejected tone made Robert look up, contrary to the brothers' usual habit of avoiding one another's eye, and he exclaimed, 'I did not know! You were not going to London to-night?'

'Worse staying at home,' murmured Mervyn, as, leaning on a corner of the mantelshelf, he rested his head on his hand.

'I was coming with him,' said Phoebe; 'I thought if he gave directions, you could act.'

Robert continued to cast at him glances of dismay and compunction while pursuing the narrative. 'Hastings must have learnt by some means that the speculation was not what he had imagined; for though he met her at Paddington--'

'He did?'

'She had telegraphed to him while waiting at Swindon. He found her out before I did, but he felt himself in a predicament, and I believe I was a welcome sight to him. He begged me to do him the justice to acquit him of all participation in this rash step, and said he had only met Bertha with a view to replacing her in the hands of her family. How it would have been without me, I cannot tell, but I am inclined to believe that he did not know how to dispose of her. She clung to him and turned away from me so decidedly that I was almost grateful for the line he took; and he was obliged to tell her, with many fine speeches, that he could not expose her to share his poverty; and when the poor silly child declared she had enough for both, he told her plainly that it would not be available for six years, and he could not let her--tenderly nurtured, etc., etc. Then supposing me uninformed, he disclaimed all betrayal of your confidence, and represented all that had passed as sport with a child, which to his surprise she had taken as earnest.'

'Poor Bertha!' exclaimed Phoebe.

'Pray where did this scene take place?' asked Mervyn.

'On the platform; but it was far too quiet to attract notice.'

'What! you had no fits nor struggles?'

'I should think not,' smiled Phoebe.

'She stood like a statue, when she understood him; and when he would audaciously have shaken hands with her, she made a distant courtesy, quite dignified. I took her to the waiting-room, and put back her veil. She was crimson, and nearly choking, but she repelled me, and never gave way. I asked if she would sleep at an inn and go home to-morrow; she said "No." I told her I could not take her to my place because of the curates. "I'll go to a sisterhood," she said; and when I told her she was in no mood to be received there, she answered, "I don't care." Then I proposed taking her to Augusta, but that was worse; and at last I got her to come home in the dark, on my promise that she should see no one till she chose. Not a word has she since uttered.'

'Could he really have meant it all in play?' said Phoebe; 'yet there was his letter.'

'I see it all,' said Mervyn. 'I was an ass to suppose such needy rogues could come near girls of fortune without running up the scent. As I told Phoebe, I know they had some monstrous ideas of the amount, which I never thought it worth my while to contradict. I imagine old Jack only intended a promising little flirtation, capable of being brought to bear if occasion served, but otherwise to be cast aside as child's play. Nobody could suspect such an inflammable nature with that baby face; but it seems she was ready to eat her fingers with dulness in the school-room, and had prodigious notions of the rights of woman; so she took all he said most seriously, and met him more than half-way. Then he goes to London, gets better information, looks at the will in Doctors' Commons, maybe, finds it a slowish speculation, and wants to let her down easy; whereof she has no notion, writes two letters to his one, as we know, gets desperate, and makes this excursion.'

Robert thoughtfully said 'Yes;' and Phoebe, though she did not like to betray it, mentally owned that the intercepted letter confirmed Mervyn's opinion, being evidently meant to pacify what was inconveniently ardent and impassioned, without making tangible promises or professions.

The silence was broken by Mervyn. 'There! I shall go to bed. Phoebe, when you see that poor child, tell her not to be afraid of me, for the scrape was of my making, so don't be sharp with her.'

'I hope not,' said Robert gravely; 'I am beginning to learn that severity is injustice, not justice. Good night, Mervyn; I hope this has not done you harm.'

'I am glad not to be at Paddington this minute,' said Mervyn. 'You will stay and help us through this business. It is past us.'

'I will stay as long as I can, if you wish it.'

Phoebe's fervent 'Thank you!' was for both. She had never heard such friendly tones between those two, though Mervyn's were still half sullen, and chiefly softened by dejection and weariness.

'Why, Phoebe,' cried Robert, as the door closed, 'how could you not tell me this?'

'I thought I had told you that he was very unwell.'

'Unwell! I never saw any one so much altered.'

'He is at his best when he is pale. The attacks are only kept off by reducing him, and he must be materially better to have no threatening after such a day as this.'

'Well, I am glad you have not had the letter that I posted only to-day!'

'I knew you were displeased,' said Phoebe, 'and you see you were quite right in not wishing us to stay here; but you forgive us now--Mervyn and me, I mean.'

'Don't couple yourself with him, Phoebe!'

'Yes, I must; for we both equally misjudged, and he blames himself more than any one.'

'His looks plead for him as effectually as you can do, Phoebe, and rebuke me for having fancied you weak and perverse in remaining after the remonstrance.'

'I do not wonder at it,' said Phoebe; 'but it is over now, and don't let us talk about it. I want nothing to spoil the comfort of knowing that I have you here.'

'I have a multitude of things to say, but you look sleepy.'

'Yes, I am afraid I am. I should like to sit up all night to make the most of you, but I could not keep awake.'

Childlike, she no sooner had some one on whom to repose her care than slumber claimed its due, and she went away to her thankful rest, treasuring the thought of Robert's presence, and resting in the ineffable blessing of being able to overlook the thorns in gratitude for the roses.

Bertha did not appear in the morning. Robert went to her door, and was told that she would see no one; and Phoebe's entreaties for admission were met with silence, till he forbade their repetition. 'It only hardens her,' he said; 'we must leave her to herself.'

'She will not eat, she will be ill!'

'If she do not yield at dinner-time, Lieschen shall carry food to her, but she shall not have the pleasure of disappointing you. Sullenness must be left to weary itself out.'

'Is not this more shame than sullenness?'

'True shame hides its face and confesses--sullen shame hides like Adam. If hers had not been stubborn, it would have melted at your voice. She must wait to hear it again, till she have learnt to crave for it.'

He looked so resolute that Phoebe durst plead no longer, but her heart sank at the thought of the obstinate force of poor Bertha's nature. Persistence was innate in the Fulmorts, and it was likely to be a severe and lasting trial whether Robert or Bertha would hold out the longest. Since he had captured her, however, all were relieved tacitly to give her up to his management; and at dinner-time, on his stern assurance that unless she would accept food, the door would be forced, she admitted some sandwiches and tea, and desired to have her firing replenished, but would allow no one to enter.

Robert, at Mervyn's earnest entreaty, arranged to remain over the Sunday. The two brothers met shyly at first, using Phoebe as a medium of communication; but they drew nearer after a time, in the discussion of the robbery, and Robert presently found means of helping Mervyn, by letter-writing, and taking business off his hands to which Phoebe was unequal. Both concurred in insisting that Phoebe should keep her engagement to the Raymonds for the morrow, as the only means of preventing Bertha's escapade from making a sensation; and by night she became satisfied that not only would the brothers keep the peace in her absence, but that a day's tete-a-tete might rather promote their good understanding.

Still, she was in no mood to enjoy, when she had to leave Bertha's door still unopened, and the only comfort she could look to was in the conversation with Miss Charlecote on the way. From her, there was no concealing what had happened, and, to Phoebe's surprise, she was encouraging. From an external point of view, she could judge better than those more nearly concerned, and her elder years made her more conscious what time could do. She would not let the adventure be regarded as a lasting blight on Bertha's life. Had the girl been a few years older, she could never have held up her head again; but as it was, Honor foretold that, by the time she was twenty, the adventure would appear incredible. It was not to be lightly passed over, but she must not be allowed to lose her self-respect, nor despair of regaining a place in the family esteem.

Phoebe could not imagine her ever recovering the being thus cast off by her first love.

'My dear, believe me, it was not love at all, only mystery and the rights of woman. Her very demonstrativeness shows that it was not the heart, but the vanity.'

Phoebe tried to believe, and at least was refreshed by the sympathy, so as to be able, to her own surprise, to be pleased and happy at Moorcroft, where Sir John and his wife were full of kindness, and the bright household mirth of the sons and daughters showed Phoebe some of the benefit Miss Fennimore expected for Bertha from girl friends. One of the younger ones showed her a present in preparation for 'cousin Cecily,' and embarked in a list of the names of the cousinhood at Sutton; and though an elder sister decidedly closed young Harriet's mouth, yet afterwards Phoebe was favoured with a sight of a photograph of the dear cousin, and inferred from it that the young lady's looks were quite severe enough to account for her cruelty.

The having been plunged into a new atmosphere was good for Phoebe, and she brought home so cheerful a face, that even the news of Bertha's continued obstinacy could not long sadden it, in the enjoyment of the sight of Robert making himself necessary to Mervyn, and Mervyn accepting his services as if there had never been anything but brotherly love between them. She could have blessed Bertha for having thus brought them together, and felt as if it were a dream too happy to last.

'What an accountant Robert is!' said Mervyn. 'It is a real sacrifice not to have him in the business! What a thing we should have made of it, and he would have taken all the bother!'

'We have done very well to-day,' was Robert's account; 'I don't know what can have been the matter before, except my propensity for making myself disagreeable.'

Phoebe went to bed revolving plans for softening Bertha, and was fast asleep when the lock of her door was turned. As she awoke, the terrors of the robbery were upon her far more strongly than at the actual moment of its occurrence; but the voice was familiar, though thin, weak, and gasping. 'O Phoebe, I've done it! I've starved myself. I am dying;' and the sound became a shrill cry. 'The dark! O save me!' There was a heavy fall, and Phoebe, springing to the spot where the white vision had sunk down, strove to lift a weight, cold as marble, without pulse or motion. She contrived to raise it, and drag it with her into her own bed, though in deadly terror at the icy touch and prone helplessness, and she was feeling in desperation for the bell-rope, when to her great relief, light and steps approached, and Robert spoke. Alas! his candle only served to show the ghastly, senseless face.

'She has starved herself!' said Phoebe, with affright.

'A swoon, don't be afraid,' said Robert, who was dressed, and had evidently been watching. 'Try to warm her; I will fetch something for her; we shall soon bring her round.'

'A swoon, only a swoon,' Phoebe was forced to reiterate to herself to keep her senses and check the sobbing screams that swelled in her throat during the hour-like moments of his absence. She rose, and partly dressed herself in haste, then strove to chafe the limbs; but her efforts only struck the deathly chill more deeply into her own heart.

He brought some brandy, with which they moistened her lips, but still in vain, and Phoebe's dismay was redoubled as she saw his terror. 'It must be fainting,' he repeated, 'but I had better send for Jackson. May God have mercy on us all--this is my fault!'

'Her lips move,' gasped Phoebe, as she rubbed the temples with the stimulant.

'Thank God!' and again they put the spoon to her lips, as the nostrils expanded, the eyes opened, and she seemed to crave for the cordial. But vainly Robert raised her in his arms, and Phoebe steadied her own trembling hand to administer it, there were only choking, sobbing efforts for words, resulting in hoarse shrieks of anguish.

Mervyn and Miss Fennimore, entering nearly at the same moment, found Phoebe pale as death, urging composure with a voice of despair; and Robert with looks of horror that he could no longer control, holding up the sinking child, her face livid, her eyes strained. 'I can't, I can't,' she cried, with frightful catches of her breath; 'I shall die--' and the screams recurred.

Mervyn could not bear the spectacle for an instant, and fled only to return to listen outside. Miss Fennimore brought authority and presence of mind. 'Hysterical,' she said. 'There, lay her down; don't try again yet.'

'It is hunger,' whispered the trembling Phoebe; but Miss Fennimore only signed to be obeyed, and decidedly saying, 'Be quiet, Bertha, don't speak,' the habit of submission silenced all but the choking sobs. She sent Robert to warm a shawl, ordered away the frightened maids, and enforced stillness, which lasted till Bertha had recovered breath, when she sobbed out again, 'Robert! Where is he! I shall die! He must pray! I can't die!'

Miss Fennimore bade Robert compose his voice to pray aloud, and what he read tranquillized all except Mervyn, who understood this to mean the worst, and burst away to sit cowering in suspense over his fire. Miss Fennimore then offered Bertha a morsel of roll dipped in port wine, but fasting and agitation had really produced a contraction of the muscles of the throat, and the attempt failed. Bertha was dreadfully terrified, and Phoebe could hardly control herself, but she was the only person unbanished by Miss Fennimore. Even Robert's distress became too visible for the absolute calm by which the governess hoped to exhaust the hysteria while keeping up vitality by outward applications of warmth and stimulants, and from time to time renewing the endeavour to administer nourishment.

It was not till two terrible hours had passed that Phoebe came to the school-room, and announced to her brothers that after ten minutes' doze, Bertha had waked, and swallowed a spoonful of arrowroot and wine without choking. She could not restrain her sobs, and wept uncontrollably as Mervyn put his arm round her. He was the most composed of the three, for her powers had been sorely strained, and Robert had suffered most of all.

He had on this day suspected that Bertha was burning the provisions forced on her, but he had kept silence, believing that she would thus reduce herself to a more amenable state than if she were angered by compulsion, and long before serious harm could ensue. Used to the sight of famine, he thought inanition would break the spirit without injuring the health. Many a time had he beheld those who professed to have tasted nothing for two days, trudge off tottering but cheerful, with a soup-ticket, and he had not calculated on the difference between the children of want and the delicately nurtured girl, full of overwrought feeling. Though he had been watching in loving intercession for the unhappy child, and had resolved on forcing his way to her in the morning, he felt as if he had played the part of the Archbishop of Pisa, and that, had she perished in her fearful determination, her blood would have been on himself. He was quite overcome, and forced to hurry to his own room to compose himself, ere he could return to inquire further; but there was little more to hear. Miss Fennimore desired to be alone with the patient; Phoebe allowed herself to be laid on the sofa and covered with shawls; Mervyn returned to his bed, and Robert still watched.

There was a great calm after the storm, and Phoebe did not wake till the dim wintry dawn was struggling with the yellow candlelight, and a consultation was going on in low tones between Robert and the governess, both wan and haggard in the uncomfortable light, and their words not more cheering than their looks. Bertha had become feverish, passing from restless, talking sleep to startled, painful wakening, and Miss Fennimore wished Dr. Martyn to be sent for. Phoebe shivered with a cold chill of disappointment as she gathered their meaning, and coming forward, entreated the watchers to lie down to rest, while she relieved guard; but nothing would persuade Miss Fennimore to relinquish her post; and soon Phoebe had enough to do elsewhere; for her own peculiar patient, Mervyn, was so ill throughout the morning, that she was constantly employed in his room, and Robert looking on and trying to aid her, hated himself doubly for his hasty judgments.

Maria alone could go to church on that Sunday morning, and her version of the state of affairs brought Miss Charlecote to Beauchamp to offer her assistance. She saw Dr. Martyn, and undertook the painful preliminary explanation, and she saw him again after his inspection of Bertha.

'That's a first-rate governess! Exactly so! An educational hot-bed. Why can't people let girls dress dolls and trundle hoops, as they used to do?'

'I have never thought Bertha oppressed by her lessons.'

'So much the worse! Those who can't learn, or won't learn, take care of themselves. Those who have a brain and use it are those that suffer! To hear that poor child blundering algebra in her sleep might be a caution to mothers!'

'Did you ever see her before, so as to observe the little hesitation in her speech?'

'No, they should have mentioned that.'

'It is generally very slight; but one of them--I think, Maria--told me that she always stammered more after lessons--'

'The blindness of people! As if that had not been a sufficient thermometer to show when they were overworking her brain! Why, not one of these Fulmorts has a head that will bear liberties being taken with it!'

'Can you let us hope that this whole affair came from an affection of the brain?'

'The elopement! No; I can't flatter you that health or sanity were in fault there. Nor is it delirium now; the rambling is only in sleep. But the three days' fast--'

'Two days, was it not?'

'Three. She took nothing since breakfast on Thursday.'

'Have you made out how she passed the last two days?'

'I wrung out some account. I believe this would never have occurred to her if her brother had given her a sandwich at Paddington; but she came home exhausted into a distaste for food, which other feelings exaggerated into a fancy to die rather than face the family. She burnt the provisions in a rage at their being forced on her, and she slept most of the time--torpor without acute suffering. Last night in sleep she lost her hold of her resolution, and woke to the sense of self-preservation.'

'An infinite mercy!'

'Not that the spirit is broken; all her strength goes to sullenness, and I never saw a case needing greater judgment. Now that she is reduced, the previous overwork tells on her, and it will be a critical matter to bring her round. Who can be of use here? Not the married sisters, I suppose? Miss Fulmort is all that a girl can be at nineteen or twenty, but she wants age.'

'You think it will be a bad illness?'

'It may not assume an acute form, but it may last a good while; and if they wish her to have any health again, they must mind what they are about.'

Honora felt a task set to her. She must be Phoebe's experience as far as her fifty years could teach her to deal with a little precocious rationalist in a wild travestie of Thekla. Ich habe geliebt und gelebet was the farewell laid on Bertha's table. What a Thekla and what a Max! O profanation! But Honor felt Bertha a charge of her own, and her aid was the more thankfully accepted that the patient was quite beyond Phoebe. She had too long rebelled against her sister to find rest in her guardianship. Phoebe's voice disposed her to resistance, her advice to wrangling, and Miss Fennimore alone had power to enforce what was needful; and so devoted was she, that Honor could scarcely persuade her to lie down to rest for a few hours.

Honor was dismayed at the change from the childish espiegle roundness of feature to a withered, scathed countenance, singularly old, and mournfully contrasting with the mischievous-looking waves and rings of curly hair upon the brow. Premature playing at passion had been sport with edged tools. Sleeping, the talk was less, however, of the supposed love, than of science and metaphysics; waking, there was silence between weakness and sullenness.

Thus passed day after day, always in the same feverish lethargic oppression which baffled medical skill, and kept the sick mind beyond the reach of human aid; and so uniform were the days, that her illness seemed to last for months instead of weeks.

Miss Fennimore insisted on the night-watching for her share. Phoebe divided with her and Lieschen the morning cares; and Miss Charlecote came in the forenoon and stayed till night, but slept at home, whither Maria was kindly invited; but Phoebe did not like to send her away without herself or Lieschen, and Robert undertook for her being inoffensive to Mervyn. In fact, she was obliging and unobtrusive, only speaking when addressed, and a willing messenger. Mervyn first forgot her presence, then tolerated her saucer eyes, then found her capable of running his errands, and lastly began to care to please her. Honora had devised employment for her, by putting a drawer of patchwork at her disposal, and suggesting that she should make a workbag for each of Robert's 139 school girls; and the occupation this afforded her was such a public benefit, that Robert was content to pay the tax of telling her the destination of each individual bag, and being always corrected if he twice mentioned the same name. When Mervyn dozed in his chair, she would require from Robert 'stories' of his scholars; and it even came to pass that Mervyn would recur to what had then passed, as though he had not been wholly asleep.

Mervyn was chiefly dependent on his brother for conversation, entertainment, and assistance in his affairs; and though not a word passed upon their differences and no professions were made, the common anxiety, and Mervyn's great need of help, had swept away all traces of unfriendliness. Not even when children in the nursery had they been so free from variance or bitterness as while waiting the issue of their sister's illness; both humbled, both feeling themselves in part the cause, each anxious to cheer and console the other--one, weak, subdued, dependent--the other, considerate, helpful, and eager to atone for past harshness. Strange for brothers to wait till the ages of twenty-nine and twenty-seven to find out that they really did prefer each other to every one else, in spite of the immense differences between their characters and habits!

'I say,' asked Mervyn, one day, when resting after having brought on giddiness and confusion by directing Robert how to answer a letter from the office, 'what would you do with this bore of a business, if it came to you?'

'Get rid of it,' said Robert, surveying him with startled eyes.

'Aye--sell it, and get the devilry, as you call it, multiplied to all infinity.'

'Close it.'

'Boil soup in the coppers; bake loaves in the furnaces? It makes you look at me perilously--and a perilous game you would find it, most likely to swallow this place and all the rest. Why, you, who had the making of a man of business in you, might reflect that you can't annihilate property without damage to other folks.'

'I did not reflect,' said Robert, gravely; 'the matter never occurred to me.'

'What is the result of your reflection now?'

'Nothing at all,' was the somewhat impatient reply. 'I trust never to have to consider. Get it out of my hands at any sacrifice, so as it may do the least harm to others. Had I no other objection to that business, I should have no choice.'

'Your cloth? Well, that's a pity, for I see how it could be mitigated, so as to satisfy your scruples;' and Mervyn, whose head could work when it was not necessary, detailed a scheme for gradually contracting the most objectionable traffic, and adopting another branch of the trade.

'Excellent,' said Robert, assenting with delight at each pause. 'You will carry it out.'

'I? I'm only a reprobate distiller.'

There it ended, and Robert must have patience.

The guardian, Mr. Crabbe, came as soon as his gout would permit, and hemmed and grunted in reply to the strange narrative into which he had come to inquire. Acting was as yet impossible; Mervyn was forbidden to transact business, and Bertha was far too ill for the removal of the young ladies to be attempted. Miss Fennimore did indeed formally give in her resignation of her situation, but she was too necessary as a nurse for the time of her departure to be fixed, and Mr. Crabbe was unable to settle anything definitively. He found Robert--who previously had spurred him to strong measures--bent on persuading him to lenity, and especially on keeping Phoebe with Mervyn; and after a day and night of perplexity, the old gentleman took his leave, promising to come again on Bertha's recovery, and to pacify the two elder sisters by representing the condition of Beauchamp, and that for the present the Incumbent of St. Matthew's and Miss Charlecote might be considered as sufficient guardians for the inmates. 'Or if their Ladyships thought otherwise,' he said, with a twinkle in his eye, 'why did they not come down themselves?'

Mervyn made a gesture of horror, but all knew that there was little danger. Augusta was always 'so low' at the sight of illness, and unless Phoebe had been the patient out of sight, Juliana would not have brought her husband; obvious as would have been the coming of an elder sister when the sickness of the younger dragged on so slowly and wearily.

No one went through so much as Miss Fennimore. Each hour of her attendance on Bertha stamped the sense of her own failure, and of the fallacies to which her life had been dedicated. The sincerity, honour, and modesty that she had inculcated, had been founded on self-esteem alone; and when they had proved inadequate to prevent their breach, their outraged relics had prompted the victim to despair and die. Intellectual development and reasoning powers had not availed one moment against inclination and self-will, and only survived in the involuntary murmurs of a disordered nervous system. All this had utterly overthrown that satisfaction in herself and her own moral qualities in which Miss Fennimore had always lived; she had become sensible of the deep flaws in all that she had admired in her own conduct; and her reason being already prepared by her long and earnest study to accept the faith in its fulness, she had begun to crave after the Atoning Mercy of which she sorely felt the need. But if it be hard for one who has never questioned to take home individually the efficacy of the great Sacrifice, how much harder for one taught to deny the Godhead which rendered the Victim worthy to satisfy Eternal Justice? She accepted the truth, but the gracious words would not reach her spirit; they were to her as a feast in a hungry man's dream. Robert alone was aware of the struggles through which she was passing, and he could do little in direct aid of her; the books--even the passages of Scripture that he found for her--seemed to fall short; it was as though the sufferer in the wilderness lay in sight of the brazen serpent, but his eyes were holden that he could not see it.

Only the governess's strong and untaxed health could have carried her through her distress and fatigue, for she continued to engross the most trying share of the nursing, anxious to shield Phoebe from even the knowledge of all the miseries of Bertha's nights, when the poor child would start on her pillow with a shriek, gaze wildly round, trembling in every limb, the dew starting on her brow, face well-nigh convulsed, teeth chattering, and strange, incoherent words--

'A dream, only a dream!' she murmured, recovering consciousness.

'What was only a dream?' asked Miss Fennimore, one night.

'Oh, nothing!' but she still shivered; then striving to catch hold of the broken threads of her philosophy, 'How one's imagination is a prey to--to--what is it? To--to old impressions--when one is weak.'

'What kind of impressions?' asked Miss Fennimore, resolved to probe the matter.

Bertha, whose defect of speech was greatly increased by weakness, was long in making her answer comprehensible; but Miss Fennimore gathered it at last, and it made her spirit quake, for it referred to the terrors beyond the grave. Yet she firmly answered--

'Such impressions may not always result from weakness.'

'I thought,' cried Bertha, rising on her elbow, 'I thought that an advanced state of civilization dispenses with sectarian--I mean superstitious--literal threats.'

'No civilization can change those decrees, nor make them unmerited,' said Miss Fennimore, sadly.

'How?' repeated Bertha, frowning. 'You, too? You don't mean that? You are not one of the narrow minds that want to doom their fellow-creatures for ever.' Her eyes had grown large, round, and bright, and she clutched Miss Fennimore's hand, gasping, 'Say, not for ever!'

'My poor child! did I ever teach you it was not?'

'You thought so!' cried Bertha; 'enlightened people think so. O say--only say it does not last!'

'Bertha, I cannot. God forgive me for the falsehoods to which I led you, the realities I put aside from you.'

Bertha gave a cry of anguish, and sank back exhausted, damps of terror on her brow; but she presently cried out, 'If it would not last! I can't bear the thought! I can't bear to live, but I can't die! Oh! who will save me?'

To Miss Fennimore's lips rose the words of St. Paul to the jailer.

'Believe! believe!' cried Bertha, petulantly, 'believe what?'

'Believe that He gave His Life to purchase your safety and mine through that Eternity.'

And Miss Fennimore sank on her knees, weeping and hiding her face. The words which she had gazed at, and listened to, in vain longing, had--even as she imparted them--touched herself in their fulness. She had seen the face of Truth, when, at Mrs. Fulmort's death-bed, she had heard Phoebe speak of the Blood that cleanseth from all sin. Then it had been a moment's glimpse. She had sought it earnestly ever since, and at length it had come to nestle within her own bosom. It was not sight, it was touch--it was embracing and holding fast.

Alas! the sight was hidden from Bertha. She moodily turned aside in vexation, as though her last trust had failed her. In vain did Miss Fennimore, feeling that she had led her to the brink of an abyss of depth unknown, till she was tottering on the verge, lavish on her the most tender cares. They were requited with resentful gloom, that the governess felt to be so just towards herself that she would hardly have been able to lift up her head but for the new reliance that gave peace to deepening contrition.

That was a bad night, and the day was worse. Bertha had more strength, but more fever; and the much-enduring Phoebe could hardly be persuaded to leave her to Miss Charlecote at dusk, and air herself with her brothers in the garden. The weather was close and misty, and Honora set open the door to admit the air from the open passage window. A low, soft, lulling sound came in, so much softened by distance that the tune alone showed that it was an infant school ditty sung by Maria, while rocking herself in her low chair over the school-room fire. Turning to discover whether the invalid were annoyed by it, Honor beheld the hard, keen little eyes intently fixed, until presently they filled with tears; and with a heavy sigh, the words broke forth, 'Oh! to be as silly as she is!'

'As selig, you mean,' said Honor, kindly.

'It is the same thing,' she said, with a bitter ring in her poor worn voice.

'No, it is not weakness that makes your sister happy. She was far less happy before she learnt to use her powers lovingly.'

With such earnestness that her stuttering was very painful to hear, she exclaimed, 'Miss Charlecote, I can't recollect things--I get puzzled--I don't say what I want to say. Tell me, is not my brain softening or weakening? You know Maria had water on the head once!' and her accents were pitiably full of hope.

'Indeed, my dear, you are not becoming like Maria.'

'If I were,' said Bertha, certainly showing no such resemblance, 'I suppose I should not know it. I wonder whether Maria be ever conscious of her Ich,' said she, with a weary sigh, as if this were a companion whence she could not escape.

'Dear child, your Ich would be set aside by living to others, who only seek to make you happier.'

'I wish they would let me alone. If they had, there would have been an end of it.'

'An end--no indeed, my poor child!'

'There!' cried Bertha; 'that's what it is to live! To be shuddered at!'

'No, Bertha, I did not shudder at the wild delusion and indiscretion, which may be lived down and redeemed, but at the fearful act that would have cut you off from all hope, and chained you to yourself, and such a self, for ever, never to part from the shame whence you sought to escape. Yes, surely there must have been pleading in Heaven to win for you that instant's relenting. Rescued twice over, there must be some work for you to do, something to cast into shade all that has passed.'

'It will not destroy memory!' she said, with hopeless indifference.

'No; but you may be so occupied with it as to rise above your present pain and humiliation, and remember them only to gather new force from your thankfulness.'

'What, that I was made a fool of?' cried Bertha, with sharpness in her thin voice.

'That you were brought back to the new life that is before you.'

Though Bertha made no answer, Honor trusted that a beginning had been made, but only to be disappointed, for the fever was higher the next day, and Bertha was too much oppressed for speech. The only good sign was that in the dusk she desired that the door should be left open, in case Maria should be singing. It was the first preference she had evinced. The brothers were ready to crown Maria, and she sang with such good-will that Phoebe was forced to take precautions, fearing lest the harmony should lose 'the modest charm of not too much.'

There ensued a decided liking for Maria's company, partly no doubt from her envied deficiency, and her ignorance of the extent of Bertha's misdemeanour, partly because there was less effort of mind in intercourse with her. Her pleasure in waiting on her sister was likewise so warm and grateful, that Bertha felt herself conferring a favour, and took everything from her in a spirit very different from the dull submission towards Miss Fennimore or the peevish tyranny over Phoebe. Towards no one else save Miss Charlecote did she show any favour, for though their conversation was never even alluded to, it had probably left a pleasant impression, and possibly she was entertained by Honor's systematic habit of talking of the world beyond to the other nurses in her presence.

But these likings were far more scantily shown than her dislikes, and it was hard for her attendants to acquiesce in the physician's exhortations to be patient till her spirits and nerves should have recovered the shock. Even the entrance of a new housemaid threw her into a trepidation which she was long in recovering, and any proposal of seeing any person beyond the few who had been with her from the first, occasioned trembling, entreaties, and tears.

Phoebe, after her brief heroineship, had lapsed into quite a secondary position. In the reaction of the brothers' feeling towards each other, they almost left her out. Both were too sure of her to be eager for her; and besides, as Bertha slowly improved, Mervyn's prime attention was lavished on the endeavour to find what would give her pleasure. And in the sick room, Miss Fennimore and Miss Charlecote could better rule; while Maria was preferred as a companion. Honor often admired to see how content Phoebe was to forego the privilege of waiting on her sister, preparing pleasures and comforts for her in the background, and committing them to the hands whence they would be most welcome, without a moment's grudge at her own distastefulness to the patient. She seemed to think it the natural consequence of the superiority of all the rest, and fully acquiesced. Sometimes a tear would rise for a moment at Bertha's rude petulance, but it was dashed off for a resolute smile, as if with the feeling of a child against tears, and she as plainly felt the background her natural position, as if she had never been prominent from circumstances. Whatever was to be done, she did it, and she was far more grateful to Mervyn for loving Robert and enduring Maria, than for any preference to herself. Always finding cause for thanks, she rejoiced even in the delay caused by Bertha's illness, and in Robert's stay in his brother's home, where she had scarcely dared to hope ever to have seen him again. Week after week he remained, constantly pressed by Mervyn to delay his departure, and not unwillingly yielding, since he felt that there was a long arrear of fraternal kindness to be made up, and that while St. Matthew's was in safe hands, he might justly consider that his paramount duty was to his brother and sisters in their present need. At length, however, the Lent services claimed him in London, and affairs at Beauchamp were so much mended, that Phoebe owned that they ought no longer to detain him from his parish, although Bertha was only able to be lifted to a couch, took little notice of any endeavour to interest her, and when he bade her farewell, hardly raised eye or hand in return.

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