XXXV. THE PHANTOM BLACKCOCK OF KILNAUGHT…

XXXV. THE PHANTOM BLACKCOCK OF KILNAUGHT

And we alike must shun regard From painter, player, sportsman, bard, Wasp, blue-bottle, or butterfly, Insects that swim in fashion’s sky. Scott.

“At home? Then take these. There’s a lot more. I’ll run up,” said Cecil Evelyn one October evening nearly two years later, as he thrust into the arms of the parlour-maid a whole bouquet of game, while his servant extracted a hamper from his cab, and he himself dashed up stairs with a great basket of hot-house flowers.

But in the drawing-room he stood aghast, glancing round in the firelit dusk to ascertain that he had not mistaken the number, for though the maid at the door had a well-known face, and though tables, chairs, and pictures were familiar, the two occupants of the room were utter strangers, and at least as much startled as himself.

A little pale child was hurriedly put down from the lap of a tall maiden who rose from a low chair by the fire, and stood uncertain.

“I beg your pardon,” he said; “I came to see Mrs. Brownlow.”

“My aunt. She will be here in a moment. Will you run and call her, Lina?”

“You may tell her Cecil Evelyn is here,” said he; “but there is no hurry,” he added, seeing that the child clung to her protector, too shy even to move. “You are John Brownlow’s little sister, eh?” he added, bending towards her; but as she crept round in terror, still clinging, he addressed the elder one: “I am so glad; I thought I had rushed into a strange house, and should have to beat a retreat.”

The young lady gave a little shy laugh which made her sweet oval glowing face and soft brown eyes light up charmingly, and there was a fresh graceful roundness of outline about her tall slender figure, as she stood holding the shy child, which made her a wondrously pleasant sight. “Are you staying here?” he asked.

“Yes; we came for advice for my little sister, who is not strong.”

“I’m so glad. I mean I hope there is only enough amiss to make you stay a long time. Were you ever in town before?”

“Only for a few hours on our way to school.”

Here a voice reached them--

“Fee, fa, fum, I smell the breath of geranium.”

And through the back drawing-room door came Babie, in walking attire, declaiming--

“‘Tis Cecil, by the jingling steel, ‘Tis Cecil, by the pawing bay, ‘Tis Cecil, by the tall two-wheel, ‘Tis Cecil, by the fragrant spray.”

“O Cecil, how lovely! Oh, the maiden-hair. You’ve been making acquaintance with Essie and Lina?”

“I did not know you were out, Babie,” said Essie. “Was my aunt with you?”

“Yes. We just ran over to see Mrs. Lucas, and as we were coming home, a poor woman besought us to buy two toasting-forks and a mousetrap, by way of ornament to brandish in the streets. She looked so frightfully wretched, that mother let her follow, and is having it out with her at the door. So you are from Fordham, Cecil; I see and I smell. How are they?”

“Duke is rather brisk. I actually got him out shooting yesterday, but he didn’t half like it, and was thankful when I let him go home again. See, Sydney said I was to tell you that passion-flower came from the plant she brought from Algiers.”

“The beauty! It must go into Mrs. Evelyn’s Venice glass,” said Babie, bustling about to collect her vases.

Lina, with a cry of delight, clutched at a spray of butterfly-like mauve and white orchids, in spite of her sister’s gentle “No, no, Lina, you must not touch.”

Babie offered some China asters in its stead, Cecil muttered “Let her have it;” but Esther was firm in making her relinquish it, and when she began to cry, led her away with pretty tender gestures of mingled comfort and reproof.

“Poor little thing,” said Babie, “she is sadly fretful. Nobody but Essie can manage her.”

“I should think not!” said Cecil, looking after the vision, as if he did not know what he was saying. “You never told me you had any one like that in the family?”

“O yes; there are two of them, as much alike as two peas.”

“What! the Monk’s sisters?”

“To be sure. They are a comely family; all but poor little Lina.”

“Will they be long here?”

“That depends. That poor little mite is the youngest but one, and the nurse likes boys best. So she peaked and pined, and was bullied by Edmund above and Harry below, and was always in trouble. Nobody but Johnny and Essie ever had a good word for her. This autumn it came to a crisis. You know we had a great meeting of the two families at Walmer, and there, the shock of bathing nearly took out of her all the little life there was. I believe she would have gone into fits if mother had not heard her screams, and dashed on the nurse like a vindictive mermaid, and then made uncle Robert believe her. My aunt trusts the nurse, you must know, and lets her ride rough-shod over every one in the nursery. The poor little thing was always whining and fretting whenever she was not in Essie’s arms or the Monk’s, till the Monk declared she had a spine, and he and mother gave uncle and aunt no peace till they brought her here for advice, and sure enough her poor little spine is all wrong, and will never be good for anything without a regular course of watching and treatment. So we have her here with Essie to look after her for as long as Sir Edward Fane wants to keep her under him, and you can’t think what a nice little mortal she turns out to be now she is rescued from nurse and those little ruffians of brothers.”

“That’s first-rate,” remarked Cecil.

“The eucharis and maiden-hair, is it not? I must keep some sprays for our hairs to-night.”

“Is any one coming to-night?”

“The promiscuous herd. Oh, didn’t you know? Our Johns told mother it would be no end of kindness to let them bring in a sprinkling of their fellow-students--poor lads that live poked up in lodgings, and never see a lady or any civilisation all through the term. So she took to having them on Thursday once a fortnight, and Dr. Medlicott was perfectly delighted, and said she could not do a better work; and it is such fun! We don’t have them unmitigated, we get other people to enliven them. The Actons are coming, and I hope Mr. Esdale is coming to-night to show us his photographs of the lost cities in Central America. You’ll stay, won’t you?”

“If Mrs. Brownlow will let me. I hope your toasting-fork woman has not spirited her away?”

“Under the eyes of your horse and man.”

“Are you all at home? And has Allen finished his novel?”

Babie laughed, and said--

“Poor Ali! You see there comes a fresh blight whenever it begins to bud.”

“What has that wretched girl been doing now?”

“Oh, don’t you know? The yacht had to be overhauled, so they went to Florence instead, and have been wandering about in all the resorts of rather shady people, where Lisette can cut a figure. Mr. Wakefield is terribly afraid that even poor Mr. Gould himself is taking to gambling for want of something to do. There are always reports coming of Elfie taking up with some count or baron. It was a Russian prince last time, and then Ali goes down into the very lowest depths, and can’t do anything but smoke. You know that’s good for blighted beings. I cure my plants by putting them into his room surreptitiously.”

“You are a hard-hearted little mortal, Babie. Ah, there’s the bell!”

Mrs. Brownlow came in with the two Johns, who had joined her just as she had finished talking to the poor woman; Jock carried off his friend to dress, and Babie, after finishing her arrangements and making the most of every fragment of flower or leaf, repaired with a selection of delicate sprays, to the room where Esther, having put her little sister to bed, was dressing for dinner. She was eager to tell of her alarm at the invasion, and of Captain Evelyn’s good nature when she had expected him to be proud and disagreeable.

“He wanted to be,” said Babie, “but honest nature was too strong for him.”

“Johnny was so angry at the way he treated Jock.”

“O, we quite forget all that. Poor fellow! it was a mistaken reading of noblesse oblige, and he is very much ashamed of it. There, let me put this fern and fuchsia into your hair. I’ll try to do it as well as Ellie would.”

She did so, and better, being more dainty-fingered, and having more taste. It really was an artistic pleasure to deal with such beautiful hair, and such a lovely lay figure as Esther’s. With all her queenly beauty and grace, the girl had that simplicity and sedateness which often goes with regularity of feature, and was hardly conscious of the admiration she excited. Her good looks were those of the family, and Kenminster was used to them. This was her first evening of company, for on the only previous occasion her little sister had been unwell, sleepless and miserable in the strange house, and she had begged off. She was very shy now, and could not go down without Barbara’s protection, so, at the last moment before dinner, the little brown fairy led in the tall, stately maiden, all in white, with the bright fuchsias and delicate fern in her dark hair, and a creamy rose, set off by a few more in her bosom.

Babie exulted in her work, and as her mother beheld Cecil’s raptured glance and the incarnadine glow it called up, she guessed all that would follow in one rapid prevision, accompanied by a sharp pang for her son in Japan. It was not in her maternal heart not to hope almost against her will that some fibre had been touched by Bobus that would be irresponsive to others, but duty and loyalty alike forbade the slightest attempt to revive the thought of the poor absentee, and she must steel herself to see things take their course, and own it for the best.

Esther was a silent damsel. The clash of keen wits and exchange of family repartee were quite beyond her. She had often wondered whether her cousins were quarrelling, and had been only reassured by seeing them so merry and friendly, and her own brother bearing his part as naturally as the rest. She was more scandalised than ever to-day, for it absolutely seemed to her that they were all treating Captain Evelyn, long moustache and all, like a mere family butt, certainly worse than they would have treated one of her own brothers, for Rob would have sulked, and Joe, or any of the younger ones, might have been dangerous, whereas this distinguished-looking personage bore all as angelically as befitted one called by such a charming appellation as the Honourable Cecil Evelyn.

“How about the shooting, Cecil? Sydney said you had not very good sport.”

“Why--no, not till I joined Rainsforth’s party.”

“Where was your moor?”

“In Lanarkshire,” rather unwillingly.

“Eh,” said Allen, in a peculiar soft languid tone, that meant diversion. “Near L---?”

“Yes.”

Then Jock burst out into laughter inexplicable at first, but Allen made his voice gentler and graver, as he said, “You don’t mean Kilnaught?” and then he too joined Jock in laughter, as the latter cried--

“Another victim to McNab of Kilnaught! He certainly is the canniest of Scots.”

“He revenges the wrongs of Scotland on innocent young Guardsmen.”

“Well, I’m sure there could not be a more promising advertisement.”

“That’s just it!” said Jock. “Moor and moss. How many acres of heather?”

“How was I to expect a man of family to be a regular swindler?”

“Hush! hush, my dear fellow! Roderick Dhu was a man of family. It is the modern form.”

“But I saw his keeper.”

“Oh!” cried Allen. “I know! Old Rory! Tells you a long story in broad Scotch, of which you understand one word here and there about his Grace the Deuke, and how many miles--miles Scots--he walked.”

“I can see Evelyn listening, and saying ‘yes,’ at polite intervals!”

“How many birds did you actually see?”

“Well, I killed two brace and a half the first day.”

“Hatched under a hen, and let out for a foretaste.”

“And there was one old blackcock.”

“That blackcock! There are serious doubts whether it is a phantom bird, or whether Rory keeps it tame as a decoy. You didn’t kill it?”

“No.”

“If you had, you might have boasted of an achievement,” said Allen.

“The spell would have been destroyed,” added Jock. “But you did not let him finish. Did you say you saw the blackcock?”

“I am not sure; I think I heard it rise once, but the keeper was always seeing it.”

Everybody but Essie was in fits of laughing at Cecil’s frank air of good-humoured, self-defensive simplicity, and Armine observed--

“There’s a fine subject for a ballad for the ‘Traveller’s Joy,’ Babie. ‘The Phantom Blackcock of Kilnaught!’”

Babie extemporised at once, amid great applause--

“The hills are high, the laird’s purse dry, Come out in the morning early; McNabs are keen, the Guards are green, The blackcock’s tail is curly.

“The Southron’s spoil ‘tis worthy toil, Come out in the morning early; Come take my house and kill my grouse, The blackcock’s tail is curly.

“Come out, come out, quoth Rory stout, Come out in the morning early, Sir Captain mark, he rises! hark, The blackcock’s tail is curly.”

“Repetition, Babie,” said her mother; “too like the Montjoie S. Denis poem.”

“It saves so much trouble, mother.”

“And a recall to the freshness and innocence of childhood is so pleasing,” added Jock.

“How much did the man of family let his moor for?” asked Allen.

There Cecil saw the pitiful and indignant face opposite to him, would have sulked, and began looking at her for sympathy, exclaiming at last--

“Haven’t you a word to say for me, Miss Brownlow?”

“I don’t like it at all. I don’t think it is fair,” broke from Essie, as she coloured crimson at the laugh.

“He likes it, my dear,” said Babie.

“It is a gentle titillation,” said Allen.

“He can’t get on without it,” said the Friar.

“And comes for it like the cattle to the scrubbing-stones,” said the Skipjack.

“Yes,” said Armine; “but he tries to get pitied, like Chico walking on three legs when some one is looking at him.”

“You deal in most elegant comparisons,” said the mother.

“Only to get him a little more pitied,” said Jock. “He is as grateful as possible for being made so interesting.”

“Hark, there’s a knock!” cried Allen. “Can’t you instruct your cubs not to punish the door so severely, Jock? I believe they think that the more row they make, the more they proclaim their nobility!”

“The obvious derivation of the word stunning,” said Mother Carey, as she rose to meet her guests in the drawing-room, and Cecil to hold the door for her.

“Stay, Evelyn,” said Allen. “This is the night when unlicked cubs do disport themselves in our precincts. A mistaken sense of philanthropy has led my mother to make this house the fortnightly salon bleu of St. Thomas’s. But there’s a pipe at your service in my room.”

“Dr. Medlicott is coming,” said Babie, who had tarried behind the Johns, “and perhaps Mr. Grinstead, and we are sure to have Mr. Esdale’s photographs. It is never all students, medical or otherwise. Much better than Allen’s smoke, Cecil.”

“I am coming of course,” he said. “I was only waiting for the Infanta.”

It may be doubted whether the photographs, Dr. Medlicott, or even Jock were the attraction. He was much more fond of using his privilege of dropping in when the family were alone, than of finding himself in the midst of what an American guest had called Mrs. Brownlow’s surprise parties. They were on regular evenings, but no one knew who was coming, from scientific peers to daily governesses, from royal academicians to medical students, from a philanthropic countess to a city missionary. To listen to an exposition of the microphone, to share in a Shakespeare reading, or worse still, in a paper game, was, in the Captain’s eyes, such a bore that he generally had only haunted Collingwood Street on home days and on Sundays, when, for his mother’s sake and his own, an exception was made in his favour.

He followed Babie with unusual alacrity, and found Mrs. Brownlow shaking hands with a youth whom Jock upheld as a genius, but who laboured under the double misfortune of always coming too soon, and never knowing what to do with his arms and legs. He at once perceived Captain Evelyn to be an “awful swell,” and became trebly wretched--in contrast to Jock’s open-hearted, genial young dalesman, who stood towering over every one with his broad shoulders and hearty face, perfectly at his ease (as he would have been in Buckingham Palace), and only wondering a little that Brownlow could stand an empty-headed military fop like that; while Cecil himself, after gazing about vaguely, muttered to Babie something about her cousin.

“She is gone to see whether Lina is asleep, and will be too shy to come down again if I don’t drag her.”

So away flew Babie, and more eyes than Cecil Evelyn’s were struck when in ten minutes’ time she again led in her cousin.

Mr. Acton, who was talking to Mrs. Brownlow, said in an undertone--

“Your model? Another niece?”

“Yes; you remember Jessie?”

“This is a more ideal face.”

It was true. Esther had lived much less than her elder sister in the Coffinkey atmosphere, and there was nothing to mar the peculiar dignified innocence and perfect unconsciousness of her sweet maidenly bloom. She never guessed that every man, and every woman too, was admiring her, except the strong-minded one who saw in her the true inane Raffaelesque Madonna on whom George Eliot is so severe.

Nor did the lady alter her opinion when, at the end of a very curious speculation about primeval American civilisation, Captain Evelyn and Miss Brownlow were discovered studying family photographs in a corner, apparently much more interested whether a hideous half-faded brown shadow had resembled John at fourteen, than to what century and what nation those odd curly-whirleys on stone belonged, and what they were meant to express.

Babie was scandalised.

“You didn’t listen! It was most wonderful! Why Armie went down and fetched up Allen to hear about those wonderful walled towns!”

“I don’t go in for improving my mind,” said Cecil.

“Then you should not hinder Essie from improving hers! Think of letting her go home having seen nothing but all the repeated photographs of her brothers and sisters!”

“Well, what should she like to see?” cried Cecil. “I’m good for anything you want to go to before the others are free.”

“The Ethiopian serenaders, or, may be, Punch,” said Jock. “Madame Tussaud would be too intellectual.”

“When Lina is strong enough she is to see Madame Tussaud,” said Essie gravely. “Georgie once went, and she has wished for it ever since.”

“Oh, we’ll get up Madame Tussaud for her at home, free gratis, for nothing at all!” cried Armine, whose hard work inspirited him to fun and frolic.

So in the twilight hour two days later there was a grand exhibition of human waxworks, in which Babie explained tableaux represented by the two Johns, Armine, and Cecil, supposed to be adapted to Lina’s capacity. With the timid child it was not a success, the disguises frightened her, and gave her an uncanny feeling that her friends were transformed; she sat most of the time on her aunt’s lap, with her face hidden, and barely hindered from crying by the false assurance that it was all for her pleasure.

But there was no doubt that Esther was a pleased spectator of the show, and her gratitude far more than sufficient to cover the little one’s ingratitude.

Those two drifted together. In every gathering, when strangers had departed they were found tete-a-tete. Cecil’s horses knew the way to Collingwood Street better than anywhere else, and he took to appearing there at times when he was fully aware Jock would be at the night-school or Mutual Improvement Society.

Though strongly wishing, on poor Bobus’s account, that it should not go much farther under her own auspices; day after day it was more borne in upon Mrs. Brownlow that her house held an irresistible attraction to the young officer, and she wondered over her duty to the parents who had trusted her. Acting on impulse at last, she took council with John, securing him as her companion in the gaslit walk from a concert.

“Do you see what is going on there?” she asked, indicating the pair before them.

“What do you mean? Oh, I never thought of that!”

“I don’t think! I have seen. Ever since the night of the Phantom Blackcock of Kilnaught. He did his work on Essie.”

“Essie rather thinks he is after the Infanta.”

“It looks like it! What could have put it into her head? It did not originate there!”

“Something my mother said about Babie being a viscountess.”

“You know better, Friar!”

“I thought so; but I only told her it was no such thing, and I believe the child thought I meant to rebuke her for mentioning such frivolities, for she turned scarlet and held her peace.”

“Perhaps the delusion has kept her unconscious, and made her the sweeter. But the question is, whether this ought to go on without letting your people know?”

“I suppose they would have no objection?” said John. “There’s no harm in Evelyn, and he shows his sense by running after Jock. He hasn’t got the family health either. I’d rather have him than an old stick like Jessie’s General.”

“Yes, if all were settled, I believe your mother would be very well pleased. The question is, whether it is using her fairly not to let her know in the meantime?”

“Well, what is the code among you parents and guardians?”

“I don’t know that there is any, but I think that though the crisis might be pleasing enough, yet if your mother found out what was going on, she might be vexed at not having been informed.”

John considered a moment, and then proposed that if things looked “like it” at the end of the week, he should go down on Saturday and give a hint of preparation to his father, letting him understand the merits of the case. However, in the existing state of affairs, a week was a long time, and that very Sunday brought the crisis.

The recollection of former London Sundays, of Mary Ogilvie’s quiet protests, and of the effect on her two eldest children, had strengthened Mrs. Brownlow’s resolution to make it impossible to fill the afternoon with aimless visiting and gossiping; and plenty of other occupations had sprung up.

Thus on this particular afternoon she and Barbara were with their Girls’ Friendly Society Classes, of which Babie took the clever one, and she the stupid. Armine was reading with Percy Stagg, and a party of School Board pupil-teachers, whom that youth had brought him, as very anxious for the religious instruction they knew not how to obtain. Jock had taken the Friar’s Bible Class of young men, and Allen had, as a great favour, undertaken to sit with Dr. and Mrs. Lucas till he could look in on them. So that Esther and Lina were the sole occupants of the drawing-room when Captain Evelyn rang at the door, knowing very well that he was only permitted up stairs an hour later in time for a cup of tea before evensong. He did look into Allen’s sitting-room as a matter of form, but finding it empty, and hearing a buzz of voices elsewhere, he took licence to go upstairs, and there he found Esther telling her little sister such histories of Arundel Society engravings as she could comprehend.

Lina sprang to him at once; Esther coloured, and began to account for the rest of the family. “I hear,” said Cecil, as low tones came through the closed doors of the back drawing-room, “they work as hard here as my sister does!”

“I think my aunt has almost done,” said Essie, with a shy doubt whether she ought to stay. “Come, Lina, I must get you ready for tea.”

“No, no,” said Cecil, “don’t go! You need not be as much afraid of me as that first time I walked in, and thought I had got into a strange house.”

Essie laughed a little, and said, “A month ago! Sometimes it seems a very long time, and sometimes a very short one.”

“I hope it seems a very long time that you have known me.”

“Well, Johnny and all the rest had known you ever so long,” answered she, with a confusion of manner that expressed a good deal more than the words. “I really must go--”

“Not till you have told me more than that,” cried Cecil, seizing his opportunity with a sudden rush of audacity. “If you know me, can you--can you like me? Can’t you? Oh, Essie, stay! Could you ever love me, you peerless, sweetest, loveliest--”

By this time Mrs. Brownlow, who had heard Cecil’s boots on the stairs, and particularly wished to stave matters off till after the Friar’s mission, had made a hasty conclusion of her lesson, and letting her girls depart, opened the door. She saw at once that she was too late; but there was no retreat, for Esther flew past her in shy terror, and Cecil advanced with the earnest, innocent entreaty, “Oh, Mrs. Brownlow, make her hear me! I must have it out, or I can’t bear it.”

“Oh,” said she, “it has come to this, has it?” speaking half-quaintly, half-sadly, and holding Lina kindly back.

“I could not help it!” he went on. “She did look so lovely, and she is so dear! Do get her down, that I may see her again. I shall not have a happy moment till she answers me.”

“Are you sure you will have a happy moment then?”

“I don’t know. That’s the thing! Won’t you help a fellow a bit, Mrs. Brownlow? I’m quite done for. There never was any one so nice, or so sweet, or so lovely, or so unlike all the horrid girls in society! Oh, make her say a kind word to me!”

“I’ll make her,” said little Lina, looking up from her aunt’s side. “I like you very much, Captain Evelyn, and I’ll run and make Essie tell you she does.”

“Not quite so fast, my dear,” said her aunt, as both laughed, and Cecil, solacing himself with a caress, and holding the little one very close to him on his knee, where her intentions were deferred by his watch and appendages.

“I suppose you don’t know what your mother would say?” began Mrs. Brownlow.

“I have not told her, but you know yourself she would be all right. Now, aren’t you sure, Mrs. Brownlow? She isn’t up to any nonsense?”

“No, Cecil, I don’t think she would oppose it. Indeed, my dear boy, I wish you happiness, but Esther is a shy, startled little being, and away from her mother; and perhaps you will have to be patient.”

“But will you fetch her--or at least speak to her?” said he, in a tone not very like patience; and she had to yield, and be the messenger.

She found Esther fluttering up and down her room like a newly-caught bird. “Oh, Aunt Carey, I must go home! Please let me!” she said.

“Nay, my dear, can’t I help you for once?” and Esther sprang into her arms for comfort; but even then it was plain to a motherly eye that this was not the distress that poor Bobus had caused, but rather the agitation of a newly-awakened heart, terrified at its own sensations. “He wants you to come and hear him out,” she said, when she had kissed and petted the girl into more composure.

“Oh, must I? I don’t want. Oh, if I could go home! They were so angry before. And I only said ‘if,’ and never meant--”

“That was the very thing, my dear,” said her aunt with a great throb of pain. “You were quite right not to encourage my poor Bobus; but this is a very different case, and I am sure they would wish you to act according as you feel.”

Esther drew a great gasp; “You are sure they would not think me wrong?”

“Quite sure,” was the reply, in full security that her mother would be rapturous at the nearly certain prospect of a coronet. “Indeed, my dear, no one can find any fault with you. You need not be afraid. He is good and worthy, and they will be glad if you wish it.”

Wish was far too strong a word for poor frightened Esther; she could only cling and quiver.

“Shall I tell him to go and see them at Kencroft?”

“Oh, do, do, dear Aunt Carey! Please tell him to go to papa, and not want to see me till--”

“Very well, my dear child; that will be the best way. Now I will send you up some tea, and then you shall put Lina to bed; and you and I will slip off quietly together, and go to St. Andrew’s in peace, quite in a different direction from the others, before they set out.”

Meantime Cecil had been found by Babie tumbling about the music and newspapers on the ottoman, and on her observation--

“Too soon, sir! And pray what mischief still have your idle hands found to do?”

“Don’t!” he burst out; “I’m on the verge of distraction already! I can’t bear it!”

“Is there anything the matter? You’re not in a scrape? You don’t want Jock?” she said.

“No, no--only I’ve done it. Babie, I shall go mad, if I don’t get an answer soon.”

Babie was much too sharp not to see what he meant. She knew in a kind of intuitive, undeveloped way how things stood with Bobus, and this gave a certain seriousness to her manner of saying--

“Essie?”

“Of course, the darling! If your mother would only come and tell me,--but she was frightened, and won’t say anything. If she won’t, I’m the most miserable fellow in the world.”

“How stupid you must have been!” said Babie. “That comes of you, neither of you, ever reading. You couldn’t have done it right, Cecil.”

“Do you really think so?” he asked, in such piteous, earnest tones that he touched her heart.

“Dear Cecil,” she said, “it will be all right. I know Essie likes you better than any one else.”

She had almost added “though she is an ungrateful little puss for doing so,” but before the words had time to come out of her mouth, Cecil had flown at her in a transport, thrown his arms round her and kissed her, just as her mother opened the door, and uttered an odd incoherent cry of amazement.

“Oh, Mother Carey,” cried Cecil, colouring all over, “I didn’t know what I was doing! She gave me hope!”

“I give you hope too,” said Caroline, “though I don’t know how it might have been if she had come down just now!”

“Don’t!” entreated Cecil. “Babie is as good as my sister. Why, where is she?”

“Fled, and no wonder!”

“And won’t she, Esther, come?”

“She is far too much frightened and overcome. She says you may go to her father, and I think that is all you can expect her to say.”

“Is it? Won’t she see me? I don’t want it to be obedience.”

“I don’t think you need have any fears on that score.”

“You don’t? Really now? You think she likes me just a little? How soon can I get down? Have you a train-bill?”

Then during the quest into trains came a fit of humility. “Do you think they will listen to me? You are not the sort who would think me a catch, and I know I am a very poor stick compared with any of you, and should have gone to the dogs long ago but for Jock, ungrateful ass as I was to him last year. But if I had such a creature as that to take care of, why it would be like having an angel about one. I would--indeed I would--reverence, yes, and worship her all my life long.”

“I am sure you would. I think it would be a very happy and blessed thing for you both, and I have no doubt that her father will think so too. Now, here are the others coming home, and you must behave like a rational being, even though you don’t see Essie at tea.”

Mother Carey managed to catch Jock, give a hint of the situation, and bid him take care of his friend. He looked grave. “I thought it was coming,” he said. “I wish they would have done it out of our way.”

“So do I, but I didn’t take measures in time.”

“Well, it is all right as regards them both, but poor Bobus will hardly get over it.”

“We must do our best to soften the shock, and, as it can’t be helped, we must put our feelings in our pocket.”

“As one has to do most times,” said Jock. “Well, I suppose it is better for one in the end than having it all one’s own way. And Evelyn is a generous fellow, who deserves anything!”

“So, Jock, as we can do Bobus no good, and know besides that nothing could make it right for his hopes to be fulfilled, we must throw ourselves into this present affair as Cecil and Essie deserve.”

“All right, mother,” he said. “There’s not stuff in her to be of much use to Bobus if he had her, besides the other objection. It is the hope that he will sorely miss, poor old fellow!”

“Ah! if he had a better hope lighted as his guiding star! But we must not stand talking now, Jock; I must take her to Church quietly with me.”

To Cecil’s consternation, his military duties would detain him all the forenoon of the next day; and before he could have started, the train that brought John back also brought his father and mother, the latter far more eager and effusive than her sister-in-law had ever seen her. “My dear Caroline, I thought you’d excuse my coming, I was so anxious to see about my little girl, and we’ll go to an hotel.”

“I’ll leave you with her,” said Caroline, rushing off in haste, to let Esther utter her own story as best she might, poor child! Allen was fortunately in his room, and his mother sprang down to him to warn him to telegraph to Cecil that Colonel Brownlow was in Collingwood Street; the fates being evidently determined to spare her nothing.

Allen’s feelings were far less keen as to Bobus than were Jock’s, and he liked the connection; so he let himself be infected with the excitement, and roused himself not only to telegraph, but go himself to Cecil’s quarters to make sure of him. It was well that he did so, for just as he got into Oxford Street, he beheld the well-known bay fortunately caught in a block of omnibuses and carts round a tumble-down cab-horse, and some gas-fitting. Such was the impatience of the driver of the hansom, that Allen absolutely had to rush desperately across the noses of half-a-dozen horses, making wild gestures, before he was seen and taken up by Cecil’s side.

“The most wonderful thing of all,” said Cecil afterwards, “was to see Allen going on like that!”

In consequence of his speed, Colonel and Mrs. Brownlow had hardly arrived at Esther’s faltered story, and come to a perception which way her heart lay, when she started and cried, “Oh, that’s his hansom!” for she perfectly well knew the wheels.

So did her aunt and Babie, who had taken refuge in the studio, but came out at Allen’s call to hear his adventures, and thenceforth had to remain easily accessible, Babie to take charge of Lina, who was much aggrieved at her banishment, and Mother Carey to be the recipient of all kinds of effusions from the different persons concerned. There was the mother: “Such a nice young man! So superior! Everything we could have wished! And so much attached! Speaks so nicely! You are sure there will be no trouble with his mother?”

“I see no danger of it. I am sure she must love dear little Esther, and that she would like to see Cecil married.”

“Well, you know her! but you know she might look much higher for him, though the Brownlows are a good old family. Oh, my dear Caroline, I shall never forget what you have done for us all.”

Her Serenity in a flutter was an amusing sight. She was so full of exultation, and yet had too much propriety to utter the main point of her hopes, fears, doubts, and gratitude; and she durst not so much as hazard an inquiry after poor Lord Fordham, lest she should be suspected of the thought that came uppermost.

However, the Colonel, with whom that possibility was a very secondary matter, could speak out: “I like the lad; he is a good, simple, honest fellow, well-principled, and all one could wish. I don’t mind trusting little Essie with him, and he says his brother is sure to give him quite enough to marry upon, so they’ll do very well, even, if--How about that affair which was hinted of at Belforest, Caroline? Will it ever come off?”

“Probably not. Poor Lord Fordham’s health does not improve, and so I am very thankful that he does not fulfil Babie’s ideal.”

“Poor young man!” said Ellen, with sincere compassion but great relief.

“That’s the worst of it,” said the father, gravely. “I am afraid it is a consumptive family, though this young fellow looks hearty and strong.”

“He has always been so,” said Caroline. “He and his sister are quite different in looks and constitution from poor Fordham, and I believe from the elder ones. They are shorter and sturdier, and take after their mother’s family.”

“I told you so, papa,” said Ellen. “I was sure nothing could be amiss with him. You can’t expect everybody to look like our boys. Well, Caroline, you have always been a good sister; and to think of your having done this for little Essie! Tell me how it was? Had you suspected it?”

It was all very commonplace and happy. Colonel and Mrs. Brownlow were squeezed into the house to await Mrs. Evelyn’s reply, and Cecil and Esther sat hand-in-hand all the evening, looking, as Allen and Babie agreed, like such a couple of idiots, that the intimate connection between selig and silly was explained.

Mrs. Robert Brownlow whiled away the next day by a grand shopping expedition, followed by the lovers, who seemed to find pillars of floor-cloth and tracery of iron-work as blissful as ever could be pleached alley. Nay, one shopman flattered Cecil and shocked Esther by directing his exhibition of wares to them, and the former was thus excited to think how soon they might be actually shopping on their own account, and to fix his affections on an utterly impracticable fender as his domestic hearth. Meanwhile Caroline had only just come in from amusing Mrs. Lucas with the story, when a cab drove up, and Mrs. Evelyn was with her, with an eager, “Where are they?”

“Somewhere in the depths of the city, with her mother, shopping. Ought I to have told you?”

“Of course I trust you. She must be nice--your Friar’s sister; but I could not stay at home, and Duke wished me to come--”

“How is he?”

“So very happy about this--the connection especially. I don’t think he could have borne it if it had been the Infanta. How is that dear Babie?”

“Quite well. I left her walking with Lina in the Square gardens.”

“As simple and untouched as ever?”

“As much as ever a light-hearted baby.”

“Ah! well, so much the better. And let me say, once for all, that you need not fear any closer intercourse with us. My poor Duke has made up his mind that such things are not for him, and wishes all to be arranged for Cecil as his heir. Not that he is any worse. With care he may survive us all, the doctors say; but he has made up his mind, and will never ask Babie again. He says it would be cruel; but he does long for a sight of her bright face!”

“Well, we shall be brought into meeting in a simple natural way.”

“And Babie? How does she look? I am ashamed of it; but I can’t help thinking more about seeing her than this new cousin. I can fancy her--handsome, composed, and serene.”

“That may be so ten or twenty years hence! but now she is the tenderest little clinging thing you ever saw.”

“And my ideal would have been that Cecil should have chosen some one superior; but after all, I believe he is really more likely to be raised by being looked up to. He has been our boy too long.”

“Quite true; I have watched him content with the level my impertinent children assign him here, but now trying to be manly for Essie’s sake. You have not told me of Sydney.”

“So angry at the folly of passing over Babie, that I was forced to give her a hint to be silent before Duke. She collapsed, much impressed. Forgive me, if it was a betrayal; but she is two years older now, and would not have been a safe companion unless warned. Hark! Is that the door-bell?”

Therewith the private interview period set in, and Babie made such use of her share of it, that when Lina was produced in the drawing-room before dinner she sat on Cecil’s knee, and gravely observed that she had a verse to repeat to him--

“The phantom blackcock of Kilnaught Is a marvellous bird yet uncaught; Go out in all weather, You see not a feather, Yet a marvellous work it has wrought, That phantom blackcock of Kilnaught.”

“What is that verse you are saying, Lina?” said her mother.

Lina trotted across and repeated it, while Cecil shook his head at wicked Babie.

“I hope you don’t learn nursery rhymes, about phantoms and ghosts, Lina?” said Mrs. Robert Brownlow.

“This is an original poem, Aunt Ellen,” replied Babie, gravely.

“More original than practical,” said John. “You haven’t accounted for the pronoun?”

“Oh, never mind that. Great poets are above rules. I want Essie to promise us bridesmaids blackcock tails in our hats.”

“My dear!” said her aunt, in serious reproof, shocked at the rapidity of the young lady’s ideas.

“Or, at least,” added Babie, “if she won’t, you’ll give us blackcock lockets, Cecil. They would be lovely--you know--enamelled!”

“That I will!” he cried. “And, Mother Carey, will you model me a group of the birds? That would be a jolly present!”

“Better than Esther’s head, eh? I have done that three times, and you shall choose one, Cecil.”

Nothing would serve Cecil but an immediate expedition to the studio, to choose as well as they could by lamp-light.

And during the examination, Mrs. Evelyn managed to say to Caroline, “I’m quite satisfied. She is as bright and childish as you told me.”

“Essie?”

“No, the Infanta.”

“If she is not a little too much so.”

“Oh no, don’t wish any difference in those high spirits!”

“She makes it a cheerful house, dear child; and even Allen has brightened lately.”

“And, Jock? He looks hard-worked, but brisk as ever.”

“He does work very hard in all ways; but he thoroughly enjoys his work, and is as much my sunshine as Babie. There are golden opinions of him in the Medical School; indeed there are of both my Johns.”

“They are quite the foremost of the young men of their year, and carry off most of the distinctions, besides being leaders in influence. So Dr. Medlicott told us,” said Mrs. Evelyn; “and yet he said it was delightful to see how they avoided direct rivalry, or else were perfectly friendly over it.”

“Yes, they avoid, when it is possible, going in for the same things, and indeed I think Jock has more turn for the scientific side of the study, and the Friar for the practical. There is room for them both!”

“And what a contrast they are! What a very handsome fellow John has grown! So tall, and broad, and strong, with that fine colour, and dark eyes as beautiful as his sister’s!”

“More beautiful, I should say,” returned Caroline; “there is so much more intellect in them--raising them out of the regular Kencroft comeliness. True, the great charm of the stalwart Friar, as we call him, is--what his father has in some degree--that quiet composed way that gives one a sense of protection. I think his patients will feel entire trust in his hands. They say at the hospital the poor people always are happy when they see one of the Mr. Brownlows coming, whether it be the big or the little one.”

“Not so very little, except by comparison; and I am glad Jock keeps his soldierly bearing.”

“He is a Volunteer, you know, and very valuable there.”

“But he has not an ounce of superfluous flesh. He puts me in mind of a perfectly polished, finished instrument!”

“That is just what used to be said of his father. Colonel Brownlow says he is the most like my poor young father of all the children.”

“He is the most like you.”

“But he puts me most of all in mind of my husband, in all his ways, and manner; and our old friends tell me that he sets about things exactly like his father, as if it were by imitation. I like to know it is so.”

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XXXVI. OF NO CONSEQUENCE

Fell not, but dangled in mid air, For from a fissure in the stone Which lined its sides, a bush had grown, To this he clung with all his might. Archbishop Trench.

Lord Fordham made it his most especial and urgent desire that his brother’s wedding, which was to take place before Lent, should be at his home instead of at the lady’s. Otherwise he could not be present, for Kenminster had a character for bleakness, and he was never allowed to travel in an English winter. Besides, he had set his heart on giving one grand festal day to his tenantry, who had never had a day of rejoicing since his great-uncle came of age, forty years ago.

Mrs. Robert Brownlow did not like it at all, either as an anomaly or as a disappointment to the Kenminster world, but her husband was won over, and she was obliged to consent. Mother Carey, with her brood, were of course to be guests, but her difficulty was the leaving Dr. and Mrs. Lucas. The good old physician was failing fast, and they had no kindred near at hand, or capable of being of much comfort to them, and she was considering how to steer between the two calls, when Jock settled it for her, by saying that he did not mean to go to Fordham, and if Mrs. Lucas liked, would sleep in the house. There was much amazement and vexation. He had of course been the first best man thought of, but he fought off, declaring that he could not afford to miss a single lecture or demonstration. Friar John’s University studies had given him such a start that he had to work less hard than his cousin, and could afford himself the week for which he was invited; but Jock declared that he could not even lose the thirty-six hours that Armine was to take for the journey to Fordham and back. Every one declared this nonsense, and even Mrs. Lucas could not bear that he should remain, as she thought, on her account; but his mother did not join in the public outcry, and therefore was admitted to fuller insight, as he was walking back with her, after listening to the old lady’s persuasions.

“I think she would really be better pleased to spare you for that one day,” said Caroline.

“May be, good old soul,” said Jock; “but as you know, mother, that’s not all.”

“I guessed not. It may be wiser.”

“Well! There’s no use in stirring it all up again, after having settled down after a fashion,” said Jock. “I see clearer than ever how hopeless it is to have anything fit to offer a girl in her position for the next ten years, and I must not get myself betrayed into drawing her in to wait for me. I am such an impulsive fool, I don’t know what I might be saying to her, and it would not be a right return for all they have been to me.”

“You will have to meet her in town?”

“Perhaps; but not as if I were in the house and at the wedding. It would just bring back the time when she bade me never give up my sword.”

“Perhaps she is wiser now.”

“That would make it even more likely that I should say what would be better left alone. No, mother! Ten years hence, if--”

She thought of Magnum Bonum, and said, “Sooner, perhaps!”

“No,” he said, laughing. “It is only in the ‘Traveller’s Joy’ that all the bigwigs are out of sight, and the apothecary’s boy saved the Lord Mayor’s life.”

With that laugh, rather a sad one, he inserted the latch-key and ended the discussion.

Whether Barbara were really unwilling to go was not clear, for she had no such excuse as her brother; but she grumbled almost as much as her aunt at the solecism of a wedding in the gentleman’s home; and for the only time in her life showed ill-humour. She was vexed with Esther for her taste in bridesmaid’s attire (hers was given by her uncle); sarcastic to Cecil for his choice of gifts; cross to her mother about every little arrangement as to dress; satirical on Allen’s revival of spirits in prospect of a visit to a great house; annoyed at whatever was done or not done; and so much less tolerant of having little Lina left on her hands, that Aunt Carey became the child’s best reliance.

Some of this temper might be put to the score of that pity for Bobus, which Babie in her caprice had begun to dwell on, most inconsistently with her former gaiety; but her mother attributed it to an unconfessed reluctance to meet Lord Fordham again, and a sense that the light thoughtlessness to which she had clung so long might perforce be at an end.

So sharp-edged was her tongue, even to the moment of embarkation in the train, that her mother began to fear how she might behave, and dreaded lest she should wound Fordham; but she grew more silent all the way down, and when the carriage came to the station, and they drove past banks starred by primroses, and with the blue eyes of periwinkles looking out among the evergreen trailers, she spoke no word. Even Allen brightened to enjoy that lamb-like March day; and John, with his little sister on his knee, was most joyously felicitous. Indeed, the tall, athletic, handsome fellow looked as if it were indeed spring with him, all the more from the contrast with Allen’s languid, sallow looks, savouring of the fumes in which he lived.

Out on the steps were Fordham, wrapped up to the ears; Sydney ready to devour Babie, who passively submitted; and Mrs. Evelyn, as usual, giving her friend a sense of rest and reliance.

The last visit, though only five years previous to this one, had seemed in past ages, till the familiar polished oak floor was under foot, and the low tea-table in the wainscoted hall, before the great wood fire, looked so homelike and natural, that the newcomers felt as if they had only left it yesterday. Fordham, having thrown off his wraps, waited on his guests, looking exceedingly happy in his quiet way, but more fragile than ever. He had a good deal of fair beard, but it could not conceal the hollowness of his cheeks, and there were great caves round his eyes, which were very bright and blue. Yet he was called well, waited assiduously on little Lina, and talked with animation.

“We have nailed the weathercock,” he said, “and telegraphed to the clerk of the weather-office not to let the wind change for a week.”

“Meantime we have three delicious days to ourselves,” said Sydney, “before any of the nonsense and preparation begins.”

“Indeed! As if Sydney were not continually drilling her unfortunate children!”

“If you call the Psalms and hymns nonsense, Duke--”

“No! no! But isn’t there a course of instruction going on, how to strew the flowers gracefully before the bride?”

“Well, I don’t want them thrown at her head, as the children did at the last wedding, when a great cowslip ball hit the bride in the eye. So I told the mistress to show them how, and the other day we found them in two lines, singing--

‘This is the way the flowers we strew!’”

“I suppose Cecil is keeping his residence?”

“No. Did you not know that this little Church of ours is not licensed for weddings? The parish Church is three miles off and a temple of the winds. This is only a chapelry, there is a special licence, and Cecil is hunting with the Hamptons, and comes with them on Monday.”

“Special licence! Happy Mrs. Coffinkey!” ejaculated Babie.

“Everybody comes then,” said Sydney; “not that it is a very large everybody after all, and we have not asked more neighbours than we can help, because it is to be a feast for all the chief tenants--here in this hall--then the poor people dine in the great barn, and the children drink tea later in the school. Come, little Caroline, you’ve done tea, and I have my old baby-house to show you. Come, Babie! Oh! isn’t it delicious to have you?”

When Sydney had carried off Babie, and the two mothers stood over the fire in the bedroom, Mrs. Evelyn said--

“So Lucas stays with his good old godfather. I honour him more than I can show.”

“We did not like to leave the old people alone. They were my kindest friends in my day of trouble.”

“You will not let me press him to run down for the one day, if he cannot leave them for more? Would he, do you think?”

“I believe he would, if you did it,” said Caroline, slowly; “but I ought not let you do so, without knowing his full reason for staying away.”

They both coloured as if they had been their own daughters, and Mrs. Evelyn smiled as she said--

“We have outgrown some of our folly about choice of profession.”

“But does that make it safer? My poor boy has talked it over with me. He says he is afraid of his own impulses, leading him to say what would not be an honourable requital for all your kindness to him.”

“He is very good. I think he is right--quite right,” said Mrs. Evelyn. “I am afraid I must say so. For anything to begin afresh between them might lead to suspense that my child’s constitution might not stand, and I am very grateful to him for sparing her.”

“Afresh? Do you think there ever was anything?”

“Never anything avowed, but a good deal of sympathy. Indeed, so far as I can guess, my foolish girl was first much offended and disquieted with Jock for not listening to her persuasions, and then equally so with herself for having made them, and now I confess I think shame and confusion are predominant with her when she hears of him.”

“So that she is relieved at his absence.”

“Just so, and it is better so to leave it; I should be only too happy to keep her with me waiting for him, only I had rather she did not know it.”

“My dear friend!” And again Caroline thought of Magnum Bonum. All the evening she said to herself that Sydney showed no objection to medical students, when she was looking over the Engelberg photographs with John, who had been far more her companion in the mountain rambles they recalled than had Jock in his half-recovered state.

The mother could not help feeling a little pang of jealousy as she owned to herself that the Friar was a very fine-looking youth, with the air of a university man, and of one used to good society, and that he did look most perilously happy. He was the next thing to her own son, but not quite the same, and she half repented of her candour to Mrs. Evelyn, and wished that the keen, sensitive face and soldierly figure could be there to reassert their influence.

There ensued a cheerful, pleasant Saturday, which did much to restore the ordinary tone between the old friends and to take off the sense of strangeness. It was evident that Lord Fordham had insensibly become much more the real head and master of the house than at the time when the Brownlow party had last been there, and that he had taken on him much more of the duties of his position than he had then seemed capable of fulfilling. It might cost much effort, but he had ceased to be the mere invalid, and had come to take his part thoroughly and effectively, and to win trust and confidence. It was strange to think how Babie could ever have called him a muff merely to be pitied.

The Sundays at Fordham were always delightful. The little Church was as near perfection as might be. It was satisfactory to see that Fordham’s gentleness and courtesy had dispelled all the clouds, and Barbara had returned to her ordinary manner; perhaps a little more sedate and gentle than usual, and towards him she was curiously submissive, as if she had a certain awe of the tenderness she had rejected.

After the short afternoon service, Sydney waited to exercise her choir once more in their musical duties; but Babie, hearing there was to be no rehearsal of the flower-strewing, declared she had enough of classes at home, and should take Lina for a stroll on the sunny terrace among the crocuses, where Fordham joined them till warned that the sun was getting low.

One there was who would have been glad of an invitation to join in the practice, but who did not receive one. John lingered with Allen about the gardens till the latter disposed of himself on a seat with a cigar beyond the public gaze. Then saying something about seeing whether the stream promised well for fishing, John betook himself to the bank of the river, one of the many Avons, probably with a notion that by the merest accident he might be within distance at the break-up of the choir practice.

He was sauntering with would-be indifference towards the foot-bridge that shortened the walk to the Church, but he was still more than one hundred yards from it, when on the opposite side he beheld Sydney herself. She was on the very verge of the stream, below the steep, slippery clay bank, clinging hard with one hand to the bared root of a willow stump, and with the other striving to uphold the head and shoulder of a child, the rest of whose person was in the water.

One cry, one shout passed, then John had torn off coat, boots, and waistcoat, and plunged in to swim across, perceiving to his horror that not only was there imminent danger of the boy’s weight overpowering her, but that the bank, undermined by recent floods, was crumbling under her feet, and the willow-stump fast yielding to the strain on its roots. And while each moment was life or death to her, he found the current unexpectedly strong, and he had to use his utmost efforts to avoid being carried down far below where she stood watching with cramped, strained failing limbs, and eyes of appealing, agonising hope.

One shout of encouragement as he was carried past her, but stemming the current all the time, and at last he paddled back towards her, and came close enough to lay hold of the boy.

“Let go,” he said, “I have him.”

But just as Sydney relaxed her hold on the boy the willow stump gave way and toppled over with an avalanche of clay and stones. Happily Sydney had already unfastened her grasp, and so fell, or threw herself backwards on the bank, scratched, battered, bruised, and feeling half buried for an instant, but struggling up immediately, and shrieking with horror as she missed John and the boy, who had both been swept in by the tree. The next moment she heard a call, and scrambling up the bank, saw John among the reedy pools a little way down, dragging the boy after him.

She dashed and splashed to the spot and helped to drag the child to a drier place, where they all three sank on the grass, the boy, a sturdy fellow of seven years old, lying unconscious, and the other two sitting not a little exhausted, Sydney scarcely less drenched than the child. She was the first to gasp--

“The boy?”

“He’ll soon be all right,” said John, bending over him. “How came--”

“I came suddenly on them--him and his brother--birds’-nesting. In his fright he slipped in. I just caught him, but the other ran away, and I could not pull him up. Oh! if you had not come.”

John hid his face in his hands with a murmur of intense thanksgiving.

“You should get home,” he said. “Can you? I’ll see to the boy.”

At this moment the keeper came up full of wrath and consternation, as soon as he understood what had happened. He was barely withheld from shaking the truant violently back to life, and averred that he would teach him to come birds’-nesting in the park on Sunday.

And when, after he had fetched John’s coat and boots, Sydney bade him take the child, now crying and shivering, back to his mother, and tell her to put him to bed and give him something hot he replied--

“Ay, ma’am, I warrant a good warming would do him no harm. Come on, then, you young rascal; you won’t always find a young lady to pull you out, nor a gentleman to swim across that there Avon. Upon my honour, sir, there ain’t many could have done that when it is in flood.”

He would gladly have escorted them home, but as the boy could not yet stand, he was forced to carry him.

“You should walk fast,” said John, as he and Sydney addressed themselves to the ascent of the steep sloping ground above the river.

She assented, but she was a good deal strained, bruised, and spent, and her heavy winter dress, muddied and soaked, clung to her and held her back, and both laboured breathlessly without making much speed.

“I never guessed that a river was so strong,” she said. “It was like a live thing fighting to tear him away.”

“How long had you stood there?”

“I can’t guess. It felt endless! The boy could not help himself, and I was getting so cramped that I must have let go if your call had not given me just strength enough! And the tree would have come down upon us!”

“I believe it would,” muttered John.

“Mamma must thank you,” whispered Sydney, holding out her hand.

He clasped it, saying almost inwardly--

“God and His Angels were with you.”

“I hope so,” said Sydney softly.

They still held one another’s hands, seeming to need the support in the steep, grassy ascent, and there came a catch in John’s breath that made Sydney cry,

“You are not hurt?”

“That snag gave me a dig in the side, but it is nothing.”

As they gained the level ground, Sydney said--

“We will go in by the servants’ entrance, it will make less fuss.”

“Thank you;” and with a final pressure she loosed his hand, and led the way through the long, flagged, bell-hung passage, and pointed to a stair.

“That leads to the end of the gallery; you will see a red baize door, and then you know your way.”

Sydney knew that at this hour on Sunday, servants were not plentiful, but she looked into the housekeeper’s room where the select grandees were at tea, and was received with an astounded “Miss Evelyn!” from the housekeeper.

“Yes, Saunders; I should have been drowned, and little Peter Hollis too, if it hadn’t been for Mr. Friar Brownlow. He swam across Avon, and has been knocked by a tree; and Reeves, would you be so very kind as to go and see about him?”

Reeves, who had approved of Mr. Friar Brownlow ever since his race at Schwarenbach, did not need twice bidding, but snatched up the kettle and one of Mrs. Saunders’s flasks, while that good lady administered the like potion to Sydney and carried her off to be undressed. Mrs. Evelyn was met upon the way, and while she was hearing her daughter’s story, in the midst of the difficulties of unfastening soaked garments, there was a knock at the door. Mrs. Saunders went to it, and a young housemaid said--

“Oh, if you please, ma’am, Mr. Friar Brownlow says its of no consequence, but he has broken two of his ribs, and Mr. Reeves thinks Mrs. Evelyn ought to be informed.”

She spoke so exactly as if he had broken a window, that at first the sense hardly reached the two ladies.

“Broken what?”

“His ribs, ma’am.”

“Oh! I was sure he was hurt!” cried Sydney. “Oh, mamma! go and see.”

Mrs. Evelyn went, but finding that Reeves and Fordham were with John, and that the village doctor, who lived close by the park gates, had been sent for, she went no farther than the door of the patient’s room, and there exchanged a few words with her son. Sydney thought her very hard-hearted, and having been deposited in bed, lay there starting, trembling, and listening, till her brother, according to promise, came down.

“Well, Sydney, what a brave little woman you have shown yourself! John has no words to tell how well you behaved.”

“Oh, never mind that! Tell me about him? Is he not dreadfully hurt?”

“He declares these particular ribs are nothing,” said Fordham, indicating their situation on himself, “and says they laugh at them at the hospital. He wanted Reeves to have sent for Oswald privately, and then meant to have come down to dinner as if nothing had happened.”

“Mr. Oswald does not mean to allow that,” said Miss Evelyn.

“Certainly not; I told him that if he did anything so foolish I should certainly never call him in. Now let me hear about it, Sydney, for he was in rather too much pain to be questioned, and I only heard that you had shown courage and presence of mind.”

The mother and brother might well shudder as they heard how nearly their joy had been turned into mourning. The river was a dangerous one, and to stem the current in full flood had been no slight exploit; still more the recovery of the boy after receiving such a blow from the tree.

“Very nobly done by both,” said Fordham, bending to kiss his sister as she finished.

“Most thankworthy,” said Mrs. Evelyn.

There was a brief space spent silently by both Mrs. Evelyn and her son on their knees, and then the former went up to the little bachelor-room where in the throng of guests John had been bestowed, and where she found him lying, rather pale, but very content, and her eyes filled with tears as she took his hand, saying--

“You know what I have come for?”

“How is she?” he said, looking eagerly in her face.

“Well, I think, but rather strained and very much tired, so I shall keep her in her room for precaution’s sake, as to-morrow will be a bustling day. I trust you will be equally wise.”

“I have submitted, but I did not think it requisite. Pray don’t trouble about me.”

“What, when I think how it would have been without you? No, I will not tease you by talking about it, but you know how we shall always feel for you. Are you in much pain now?”

“Nothing to signify, now it has been bandaged, thank you. I shall soon be all right. Did she make you understand her wonderful courage and resolution in holding up that heavy boy all that time?”

Mrs. Evelyn let John expatiate on her daughter’s heroism till steps were heard approaching, and his aunt knocked at the door. Perhaps she was the person most tried when she looked into his bright, dark eyes, and understood the thrill in his voice as he told of Sydney’s bravery and resolution. She guessed what emotion gave sweetness to his thankfulness, and feared if he did not yet understand it he soon would, and then what pain would be in store for one or other of the cousins. When Mrs. Evelyn asked him if he had really sent the message that his fractured ribs were of no consequence, his aunt’s foreboding spirit feared they might prove of only too much consequence; but at least, if he were a supplanter, it would be quite unconsciously.

As Barbara said, when she came up from the diminished dinner-party to spend the evening with her friend--

“Those delightful things always do happen to other people!”

“It wasn’t very delightful!” said Sydney.

“Not at the time, but you dear old thing, you have really saved a life! That was always our dream!”

“The boy is not at all like our dream!” said Sydney. “He is a horrid little fellow.”

“Oh, he will come right now!”

“If you knew the family, you would very much doubt it.”

“Sydney, why will you go on disenchanting me? I thought the real thing had happened to you at last as a reward for having been truer to our old woman than I.”

“I don’t think you would have thought hanging on that bank much reward,” said Sydney.

“Adventures aren’t nice when they are going on. It is only ‘meminisse juvat’, you know. You must have felt like the man in Ruckert’s Apologue, with the dragon below, and the mice gnawing the root above.”

“My dear, that story kept running in my head, and whenever I looked at the river it seemed to be carrying me away, bank, and stump, and all. I’m afraid it will do so all night. It did, when some hot wine and water they made me have with my dinner sent me to sleep. Then I thought of--

“Time, with its ever rolling stream, Is bearing them away.”

and I didn’t know which was Time and which was Avon.”

“In your sleep, or by the river?”

“Both, I think! I seem to have thought of thousands of things, and yet my whole soul was one scream of despairing prayer, though I don’t believe I said anything except to bid the boy hold still, till I heard that welcome shout.”

“Ah, the excellent Monk! He is the family hero. I wonder if he enjoys it more than you? Did he really never let you guess how much he was hurt?”

“I asked him once; but he said it was only a dig in the side, and would go off.”

“Ah, well! Allen says it is accident that makes the hero. Now the Monk has been as good as the hyena knight of the Jotapata, who was a mixture of Tyr, with his hand in the wolf’s mouth, and of Kunimund, when he persuaded Amala that his blood running into the river was only the sunset.”

“Don’t,” said Sydney. “I won’t have it made nonsense of!”

“Indeed,” said Babie, almost piteously, “I meant it for the most glorious possible praise; but somehow people always seem to take me for a little hard bit of spar, a barbarian, or a baby; I wish I had a more sensible name!”

“Infanta, his princess, is what Duke always calls you,” said Sydney, drawing her fondly to nestle close to her on the bed in her fire-lit room. “Do you know one of the thoughts I had time for in that dreadful eternity by the river, was how I wished it were you that were going to be a daughter to poor mamma.”

“Esther will make a very kind, gentle, tender one.”

“Oh, yes; but she won’t be quite what you are. We have all been children together, and you have fitted in with us ever since that journey when we talked incessantly about Jotapata.” Then, as Babie made no answer, Sydney gave her a squeeze, and whispered, “I know!”

“Who told you?” asked Babie, with eyes on the fire.

“Mamma, when I was crazy with Cecil for caring for a pretty face instead of real stuff. She thought it would hurt Duke if I went on.”

“Does he care still?” said Babie, in a low voice.

“Oh, Babie, don’t you feel how much?”

“Do you know, Sydney, sometimes I can’t believe it. I’m sure I have no right to complain of being thought a childish, unfeeling little wretch, when I recollect how hard, and cold, and impertinent I was to him three years ago.”

“It was three years ago, and we were very foolish then,” consolingly murmured the wisdom of twenty, not without recollections of her own.

“I hope it was only foolishness,” said Barbara; “but I have only now begun to understand the rights of it, only I could not bear the thoughts of seeing him again. And now he is so kind!”

“Do you wish you had?”

“Not that. I don’t think anything but fuss and worry would have come of it then. I was only fifteen, and my mother could never have let it go on, and even if--; but what I am so grieved and ashamed at is my fancying him not enough of a man for such a self-sufficient ape as I was. And now I have seen more of the world, and know what men are, I see his generosity, and that his patient fight with ill-health to do his best and his duty, is really very great and good.”

“I wish you could tell him so. No, I know you can’t; but you might let him feel it, for you need not be afraid of his ever asking you again. They have had a great examination of his lungs, and there’s only part of one in any sort of order. They say he may go on with great care unless he catches cold, or sets the disease off again, and upon that he made up his mind that it was a very good thing he had not disturbed your peace.”

“As if I should not be just as sorry!” said Babie. “Oh, Sydney, what a sad world it is! And there is he going about as manful, and pleased, and merry about this wedding as if it were his own. And the worst of it is, though I do admire him so, it can’t be real, proper, lover’s love, for I felt quite glad when you said he would never ask me, so it is all wasted.”

The mothers would hardly have liked the subject of the maidens’ talk in their bower, and Barbara bade good-night, feeling as if she should never look at Fordham with the same eyes again; but the light of day restored commonplace thoughts of the busy Monday.

Reeves, having been sent up by his lord with inquiries, found the patient’s toilet so far advanced, that under protest he could only assist in the remainder. So the hero and heroine met on the stairs, and clasped hands in haste to the sound of the bell for morning prayers in the household chapel, to which they carried their thankful hearts.

The Fordham household was not on such a scale that the heads of the family could sit still in dignified ease on the eve of such a spectacle. Every one was busy adorning the hall or the tables, and John would not be denied his share, though as he could neither stoop, lift, nor use his right arm, he was reduced to making up wreaths and bouquets, with Lina to supply him with flowers, since he was the one person with whom she never failed to be happy or good. Fordham was entreated to sit still and share the employment, but his long, thin hands proved utterly wanting in the dexterity that the Monk displayed. He was, moreover, the man in authority constantly called to give orders, and in his leisure moments much more inclined to haunt his Infanta’s winged steps, and erect his tall person where she could not reach. Artistic taste rendered her, her mother, and Allen most valuable decorators, and it might be doubted whether Allen had ever toiled so hard in his life. In pity to the busy servants, luncheon was served up cold on a side table, when Barbara, who had rallied her spirits to nonsense pitch, declared that metaphorically, Fordham and the agent carved the meal with gloves of steel, and that the workers drank the red wine through the helmet barred. In the midst, however, in marched Reeves, with a tray and a napkin, and a regular basin of invalid soup, which he set down before John in his easy chair. There was something so exceedingly ludicrous in the poor Friar’s endeavour to be gratified, and his look of dismay and disgust, that the public fairly shrieked with laughter, in which he would fain have joined, but had to beg pardon for only looking solemn; laughter was a painful matter.

However, later in the afternoon, when he was looking white and tired, his host came and said--

“Your object is to be about, and not make a sensation when people arrive. Come and rest then;” then landed him on his own sofa in his sitting-room, which was kept sacred from all confusion.

About half an hour later Mrs. Evelyn said--

“Sydney, my dear, Willis is come for the tickets. Are they ready?”

“Oh, mother, I meant to have done them yesterday evening!”

“You had better take them to Duke’s room, it is the only quiet place. He is not there, I wish he were. Willis can wait while you fill them up,” said Mrs. Evelyn, not at all sorry to pin her daughter down for an hour’s quiet, and unaware that the room was occupied.

So Sydney, with a list of names and packet of cards, betook herself to her brother’s writing-table, never perceiving that there was anybody under the Algerine rug, till there was a movement, suddenly checked, and a voice said--

“Can I help?”

“Oh! don’t move. I’m so sorry, I hope--”

“Oh, no! I beg your pardon,” he said, with equal incoherency, and raising himself more deliberately. “Your brother put me here to rest, and I fell asleep, and did not hear you come in.”

“Oh, don’t! Pray, don’t! I am so sorry I disturbed you. I did not know any one was here--”

“Pray, don’t go! Can’t I help you?”

Sydney recollected that in the general disorganisation pen, ink, and table were not easy to secure, and replied--

“It is the people in the village who are to dine here to-morrow. They must have tickets, or we shall have all manner of strangers. The stupid printer only sent the tickets yesterday, and the keeper is waiting for them. It would save time if you would read out the names while I mark the cards; but, please, lie still, or I shall go.” And she came and arranged the cushions, which his movements had displaced, till he pronounced himself quite comfortable.

Hardly a word passed but “Smith James, two; Sennet Widow, one; Hacklebury Nicholas, three;” with a “yes” after each, till they came to “Hollis Richard.”

“That’s the boy’s father,” then said Sydney.

“Have you heard anything of him?” asked John.

“Oh, yes! his mother dragged him up to beg pardon, and return thanks, but mamma thought you would rather be spared the infliction.”

“Besides that, they were not my due,” said John.

“I never thought of the boy.”

“If you did not, you saved him--twice!”

“A Newfoundland-dog instinct. But I am glad the little scamp is not the worse. I suppose he is to appear to-morrow?”

“Oh, yes! and the vicar begs no notice may be taken of him. He is really a very naughty little fellow, and if he is made a hero for getting himself and us so nearly drowned by birds’-nesting on a Sunday in the park, it will be perfectly demoralising!”

“You are as bad as your keeper!”

“I am only repeating the general voice,” said Sydney, with a gleam upon her face, half-droll, half-tender. “Poor little man! I got him alone this morning, while his mother was pouring forth to mine, and I think he has a little more notion where thanks are due.”

“I should like to see him,” said John. “I’ll try not to demoralise him; but he has given me some happy moments.”

The voice was low, and Sydney blushed as she laughed and said--

“That’s like Babie, saying it was delightful.”

“She is quite right as far as I am concerned.”

The hue on Sydney’s cheek deepened excessively, as she said--

“Is George Hollis next?”

They went on steadily after that, and Willis was not kept long waiting. Then came the whirl of arrivals, Cecil with his Hampton cousins, Sir James Evelyn and Armine, Jessie and her General, and the Kenminster party. Caroline found herself in great request as general confidante, adviser, and medium as being familiar with all parties, and it was evidently a great comfort to her sister-in-law to find some one there to answer questions and give her the carte-du-pays. Outwardly, she was all the Serene Highness, a majestic matron, overshadowing everybody, not talkative, but doing her part with dignity, in great part the outcome of shyness, but rather formidable to simple-minded Mrs. Evelyn.

She heard of John’s accident with equanimity amazing to her hostess, but befitting the parent of six sons who were always knocking themselves about. Indeed, John was too well launched ever to occupy much of her thoughts. Her pride was in her big Robert, and her joy in her little Harry, and her care for whichever intermediate one needed it most. This one at the moment was of course pretty, frightened, blushing Esther, who was moving about in one maze and dazzle of shyness and strangeness, hardly daring to raise her eyes, but fortunately graceful enough to look her part well in the midst of her terrors. Such continual mistakes between her and Eleanor were made, that Cecil was advised to take care that he had the right bride; but Ellie, though so like her sister outwardly, was of a very different nature, neither shy nor timid, but of the sturdy Friar texture.

She was very unhappy at the loss of her sister, and had an odd little conversation with Babie, who showed her to her room, while the rest of the world made much of the bride.

“Ellie, the finery and flummery is to be done in Aunt Ellen’s dressing-room,” explained Babie; “but Essie is to sleep here with you to-night.”

Poor Ellie! her lip quivered at the thought that it was for the last time, and she said, bluntly--

“I didn’t want to have come! I hate it all!”

“It can’t be helped,” said Barbara.

“I can’t think how you and Aunt Carey could give in to it!”

“It was the real article, and no mistake,” said Babie.

“Yes; she is as silly about him as possible. A mere fine gentleman! Poor Bobus has more stuff in him than a dozen of him!”

“He is a real, honest, good fellow,” said Babie. “I’m sorry for Bobus, but I’ve known Cecil almost all my life, and I can’t have him abused. I do really believe that Essie will be happier with a simple-hearted fellow like him, than with a clever man like Bobus, who has places in his mind she could never reach up to, and lucky for her too,” half whispered Babie at the end.

“I thought you would have cared more for your own brother.”

“Remember, they all said it would have been wrong. Besides, Cecil has been always like my brother. You will like him when you know him.”

“I can’t bear fine folks.”

“They are anything but fine!” cried Babie indignantly.

“They can’t help it. That way of Lord Fordham’s, high-breeding I suppose you call it, just makes me wild. I hate it!”

“Poor Ellie. You’ll have to get over it, for Essie’s sake.”

“No, I shan’t. It is really losing her, as much as Jessie--”

“Jessie looks worn.”

“No wonder. Jessie was a goose. Mamma told her to marry that old man, and she just did it because she was told, and now he is always ordering her about, and worries and fidgets about everything in the house. I wish one’s sisters would have more sense and not marry.”

Which sentiment poor Ellie uttered just as Sydney was entering by an unexpected open door into the next room, and she observed, “Exactly! It is the only consolation for not having a sister that she can’t go and marry! O Ellie, I am so sorry for you.”

This somewhat softened Ellie, and she was restored to a pitch of endurance by the time Essie was escorted into the room by both the mothers.

That polished courtesy of Fordham’s which Ellie so much disliked had quite won the heart of her mother, who, having viewed him from a distance as an obstacle in Esther’s way, now underwent a revulsion of feeling, and when he treated her with marked distinction, and her daughter with brotherly kindness, was filled with mingled gratitude, admiration and compunction.

When, after dinner, Fordham had succeeded in rousing his uncle and the other two old soldiers out of a discussion on promotion in the army, and getting them into the drawing-room, the Colonel came and sat down by his “good little sister” to confide to her, under cover of Sydney’s music, that he was very glad his pretty Essie had chosen a younger man than her elder sister’s husband.

“Very opinionated is Hood!” he said, shaking his head. “Stuck out against Sir James and me in a perfectly preposterous way.”

Caroline was not prepossessed in favour of General Hood, either by his conversation with herself at dinner, or by the startled way in which Jessie sat upright and put on her gloves as soon as he came in; but she did not wish to discuss him with the Colonel, and asked whether John had gone to bed.

“Is he not here? I thought he had come in with the young ones? No? then he must have gone to bed. Could Armine or any of them show me the way to his room?--for I should like to know how the boy really is.”

“I doubt if Armine knows which is his room. I had better show you, for he is not unlikely to be lying down in Fordham’s sitting-room. Otherwise you must prepare for many stairs. I suppose you know how gallantly he behaved,” she added, as they left the room.

“Yes, Mrs. Evelyn told me. I am glad he has not lost his athletics in his London life. I always tell his mother that John is the flower of the flock.”

“A dear good brave fellow he is.”

“Yes, you have been the making of him, Caroline. If we don’t say much about it, we are none the less sensible of all you have been to our children. Most generous and disinterested!”

This was a speech to make Caroline tingle all over, and be glad both that she was a little in advance, and at the door of Fordham’s room, where John was not. Indeed, he proved to be lying on his bed, waiting for some one to help him off with his coat, and he was gratified and surprised to the utmost by his father’s visit, for in truth John was the one of all the sons who most loved and honoured his father.

If that evening were a whirl, what was the ensuing day, when all who stood in the position of hosts or their assistants were constantly on the stretch, receiving, entertaining, arranging, presiding over toilettes, getting people into their right places, saving one another trouble. If Mrs. Joseph Brownlow was an invaluable aid to Mrs. Evelyn, Allen was an admirable one to Lord Fordham, for his real talent was for society, and he had shaken himself up enough to exert it. There might have been an element of tuft-hunting in it, but there was no doubt that he was doing a useful part. For Robert was of no use at all, Armine was too much of a mere boy to take the same part, and John was feeling his injury a good deal more, could only manage to do his part as bridegroom’s man, and then had to go away and lie down, while the wedding-breakfast went on. In consequence he was spared the many repetitions of hearing how he had saved Miss Evelyn from a watery grave, and Allen made a much longer speech than he would have done for himself when undertaking, on Rob’s strenuous refusal, to return thanks for the bridesmaids.

That which made this unlike other such banquets, was that no one could help perceiving how much less the bridegroom was the hero of the day to the tenants than was the hectic young man who presided over the feast, and how all the speeches, however they began in honour of Captain Evelyn, always turned into wistful good auguries for the elder brother.

There was no worship of the rising sun there, for when Lord Fordham, in proposing the health of the bride and bridegroom, spoke of them as future possessors, in the tone of a father speaking of his heir apparent, there was a sub-audible “No, no,” and poor Cecil fairly and flagrantly broke down in returning thanks.

Fordham’s own health had been coupled with his mother’s, and committed to a gentleman who knew it was to be treated briefly; but this did not satisfy the farmers, and the chief tenant rose, saying he knew it was out of course to second a toast, but he must take the opportunity on this occasion. And there followed some of that genuine native heartfelt eloquence that goes so deep, as the praise of the young landlord was spoken, the strong attachment to him found expression, and there were most earnest wishes for his long life, and happiness like his brother’s.

Poor Fordham, it was very trying for him, and he could only command himself with difficulty and speak briefly. He thanked his friends with all his heart for their kindness and good wishes. Whatever might be the will of God concerning himself, they had given him one of the most precious recollections of his life, and he trusted that when sooner or later he should leave them, they would convey the same warm and friendly feelings to his successor.

There were so many tears by that time, and Mrs. Evelyn felt so much shaken, that she made the signal for breaking up. No one was more relieved than Barbara. She must go to her room to compose herself before she could bear a word from any one, and as soon as she could gain the back stair, she gathered up her heavy white silk and dashed up, rushing along the gallery so blinded by tears under her veil that she would have had a collision if a hand had not been put out as some one drew aside to let her fly past if she wished; but as the mechanical “beg pardon” was exchanged, she knew Fordham’s voice and paused. “I was going to look after the wounded Friar,” he said, and then he saw her tearful eyes, and she exclaimed, “I could not help it! I could not stay. You would say such things. O, Duke! Duke!”

It was the first time she had used the familiar old name, but she did not know what she said. He put her into a great carved chair, and knelt on one knee by her, saying, “Poor Rogers, I wish he had let it alone. It was hard for my mother and Cecil.”

“Then how could you go on and break all our hearts!” sobbed Babie.

“It will make a better beginning for Cecil. I want them to learn to look to him. I thought every one knew that each month I am here is like an extra time granted after notice, and that it was no shock to any one to look forward to that fine young couple.”

“Oh, don’t! I can’t bear it,” she exclaimed, weeping bitterly.

“Don’t grieve, dearest. I have tried hard, but I find I cannot do my work as it ought to be done. People are very kind, but I am content, when the time comes, to leave it to one to whom it will not be such effort and weariness. This is really one of the most gladsome days of my life. Won’t you believe it?”

“I know unselfish people are happy.”

“And do you know that you are giving me the sweetest drop of all, today?” said Fordham, giving one shy, fervent kiss to the hand that clasped the arm of the chair just as sounds of ascending steps caused them to start asunder and go their separate ways.

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XXXVII. THE TRAVELLER’S JOY

‘Tis true bright hours together told, And blissful dreams in secret shared, Serene or solemn, gay or bold, Still last in fancy unimpaired. Keble.

To his mother’s surprise, Lucas did not betray any discomfiture at Sydney’s adventure, nor even at John’s having, of necessity, been left behind for a week at Fordham after all the other guests were gone. All he said was that the Friar was in luck.

He himself was much annoyed at the despatch he had received from Japan. Of course there had been much anxiety as to the way in which Bobus would receive the tidings of Esther’s engagement; and his mother had written it to him with much tenderness and sympathy. But instead of replying to her letter, he had written only to Lucas, so entirely ignoring the whole matter that except for some casual allusion to some other subject, it would have been supposed that he had not received it. He desired his brother to send him out the rest of his books and other possessions which he had left provisionally in England; and he likewise sent a manuscript with orders to him to get it published and revise the proofs. It proved to be a dissertation on Buddhism, containing such a bitter attack upon Christianity that Jock was strongly tempted to put it in the fire at once, and had written to Bobus to refuse all assistance in its publication, and to entreat him to reconsider it. He would not telegraph, in order that there might be more time to cool down, for he felt convinced that this demonstration was a species of revenge, at least so far that there was a certain satisfaction in showing what lengths the baffled lover might go to, when no longer withheld by the hope of Esther or by consideration for his mother.

Jock would have kept back the knowledge from her, but she was too uneasy about Bobus for him not to tell her. She saw it in the same light, feared that her son would never entirely forgive her, but went on writing affectionate letters to him all the same, whether he answered them or not. Oh, what a pang it was that she had never tried to make the boy religious in his childhood.

Then she looked at Jock, and wondered whether he would harbour any such resentment against her when he came to perceive what she had seen beginning at Fordham.

John came back most ominously radiant. It had been very bad weather, and he and Sydney seemed to have been doing a great quantity of fretwork together, and to have had much music, only chaperoned by old Sir James, for Fordham had been paying for his exertions at the wedding by being confined to his room.

He had sent Babie a book, namely, Vaughan’s beautiful “Silex Scintillans,” full of marked passages, which went to her heart. She asked leave to write and thank him, and in return his mother wrote to hers, “Duke is much gratified by the dear Infanta’s note. He would like to write to her unless he knows you would not object.”

To which Caroline replied, “Let him write whatever he pleases to Barbara. I am sure it will only be what is good for her.” Indeed Babie had been by many degrees quieter since her return.

So a correspondence began, and was carried on till after Easter, when the whole party came to London for the season. Mrs. Evelyn wished Fordham to be under Dr. Medlicott’s eye; also to give Sydney another sight of the world, and to superintend Mrs. Cecil Evelyn’s very inexperienced debut.

The young people had made a most exquisitely felicitous tour in the South of France and North of Spain, and had come back to a pleasant little house, which had been taken for them near the Park. There Cecil was bent on giving a great house-warming, a full family party. He would have everybody, for he had prevailed to have Fordham sleeping there while his room in his own house received its final arrangements; and Caroline had added to Ellen’s load of obligation by asking her and the Colonel to come for a couple of nights to behold their daughter dressed for the Drawing-room.

That would no doubt be a pretty sight, but to others her young matronly dignity was a prettier sight still, as she stood in her soft dainty white, receiving her guests, the rosy colour a little deepened, though she knew and loved them all, and Cecil by her side, already having made a step out of his boyhood by force of adoration and protection.

But their lot was fixed, and they could not be half so interesting to Caroline as the far less beautiful young sister, who could only lay claim to an honest, pleasant, fresh-coloured intelligent face, only prevented by an air of high-breeding from being milkmaid-like. It was one of those parties when the ingenuity of piercing a puzzle is required to hinder more brothers and sisters from sitting together than could be helped.

So fate or contrivance placed Sydney between the two Johns at the dinner-table, and Mother Carey, on the other side, felt that some indication must surely follow. Yet Sydney was apparently quite unconscious, and she was like the description in “Rokeby:”--

“Two lovers by the maiden sate Without a glance of jealous hate; The maid her lovers sat between With open brow and equal mien; It is a sight but rarely spied, Thanks to man’s wrath and woman’s pride.”

Were these to awaken? They seemed to be all three talking together in the most eager and amiable manner, quite like old times, and Jock’s bright face was full of animation. She had plenty of time for observation, for the Colonel liked a good London dinner, and knew he need not disturb his enjoyment to make talk for “his good little sister.” Presently, however, he began to tell her that the Goulds and Elvira had really set out for America, and when her attention was free again, she found that Jock had been called in by Fordham to explain to Essie whether she had, or had not, seen Roncesvalles, while Sydney and John were as much engrossed as ever.

So it continued all the rest of the dinner-time. Jock was talked to by Fordham, but John never once turned to his other neighbour. In the evening, the party divided, for it was very warm, and rather than inconvenience the lovers of fresh air, Fordham retreated into the inner drawing-room, where there was a fire. He had asked Babie to bring the old numbers of the “Traveller’s Joy,” as he had a fancy for making a selection of the more memorable portions, and having them privately printed as a memorial of those bright days. Babie and Armine were there looking them over with him, and the former would fain have referred to Sydney, but on looking for her, saw she was out among the flowers in the glass-covered balcony, too much absorbed even to notice her summons. Only Jock came back with her, and sat turning over the numbers in rather a dreamy way.

The ladies and the Colonel were sent home in Mrs. Evelyn’s carriage, where Ellen purred about Esther’s happiness and good fortune all the way back. Caroline lingered, somewhat purposely, writing a note that she might see the young men when they came back.

They wished her good-night in their several fashions.

“Good-night, mother. Well, some people are born with silver spoons!”

“Good-night, mother dear. Don’t you think Fordham looks dreadful?”

“Oh, no, Armie; much better than when I came up to town.”

“Good-night, Mother Carey. If those young folks make all their parties so jolly, it will be the pleasantest house in London! Good-night!”

“Mother,” said Jock, as the cousin, softly humming a tune, sprang up the stairs, “does the wind sit in that quarter?”

“I am grievously afraid that it does,” she said.

“It is no wonder,” he said, doctoring the wick of his candle with her knitting-needle. “Did you know it before?”

“I began to suspect it after the accident, but I was not sure; nor am I now.”

“I am,” said Jock, quietly.

“She is a stupid girl!” burst out his mother.

“No! there’s no blame to either of them. That’s one comfort. She gave me full warning, and he knew nothing about it, nor ever shall.”

“He is just as much a medical student as you! That vexes me.”

“Yes, but he did not give up the service for it, when she implored him.”

“A silly girl! O Jock, if you had but come down to Fordham.”

“It might have made no odds. Friar was so aggressively jolly after his Christmas visit, that I fancy it was done then. Besides, just look at us together!”

“He will never get your air of the Guards.”

“Which is preposterously ridiculous in the hospital,” said Jock, endeavouring to smile. “Never mind, mother. It was all up with me two years ago, as I very well knew. Good-night. You’ve only got me the more whole and undivided, for the extinction of my will-of-the-wisp.”

She saw he had rather say no more, and only returned his fervent embrace with interest; but Babie knew she was restless and unhappy all night, and would not ask why, being afraid to hear that it was about Fordham, who coughed more, and looked frailer.

He never went out in the evening now, and only twice to the House, when his vote was more than usually important; but Mrs. Evelyn was taking Sydney into society, and the shrinking Esther needed a chaperon much more, being so little aware of her own beauty, that she was wont to think something amiss with her hair or her dress when she saw people looking at her.

Sydney had no love for the gaieties, and especially tried to avoid their own county member, who showed signs of pursuing her. Her real delight and enthusiasm were for the surprise parties, to which she always inveigled her mother when it was possible. Mrs. Evelyn was not by any means unwilling, but Cecil and Esther loved them not, and much preferred seeing the Collingwood Street cousins without the throng of clever people, who were formidable to Esther, and wearisome to Cecil.

Jock seldom appeared on these evenings. He was working harder than ever. He was studying a new branch of his profession, which he had meant to delay for another year, and had an appointment at the hospital which occupied him a great deal. He had offered himself for another night-school class, and spent his remaining leisure on Dr. and Mrs. Lucas, who needed his attention greatly, though Mrs. Lucas had her scruples, feared that he was overdoing himself, and begged his mother to prohibit some of his exertions. Dr. Medlicott himself said something of the same kind to Mrs. Brownlow. “Young men will get into a rush, and suffer for it afterwards,” he said, “and Jock is looking ill and overstrained. I want him to remember that such an illness as he had in Switzerland does not leave a man’s heart quite as sound as before, and he must not overwork himself.”

“And yet I don’t know how to interfere,” said his mother. “There are hearts and hearts, you know,” she added.

“Ah! Work may sometimes be the least of two evils,” and the doctor said no more.

“So Jock will not come,” said Mrs. Evelyn, opening a note declining a dinner in Cavendish Square.

“His time is very much taken up,” said his mother. “It is one of his class-nights.”

“So he says. It is a strange question to ask, but I cannot help it. Do you think he fully enters into the situation?”

“I say in return, Do you remember my telling you that the two cousins always avoided rivalry?”

“Then he acts deliberately. Forgive me; I felt that unless I was certain of this virtual resignation of the unspoken hope, I was not acting fairly in allowing--I cannot say encouraging--what I cannot help seeing.”

“Dear Mrs. Evelyn! you understand that it is no slight to Sydney, but you know why he held back; and now he sees that his absence has made room for John, he felt that there was no chance for him, and that the more he can keep out of the way the better it is for all parties. Honest John has never had the least notion that he has come between Jock and his hopes, and it is our great desire that he should not guess it.”

“Well! what can I say? You are generous people, you and your son; but young folks’ hearts will go their own way. I had made up my mind to a struggle with the prejudices of all the family, and I had rather it had been for Jock; but it can’t be helped, and there is not a shadow of objection to the other John.”

“No, indeed! He is only not Jock--”

“And I do not think my Sydney was knowingly fickle, but she thought she had utterly disgusted and offended Jock by her folly about the selling out, and that it was a failure of influence. Poor child! it was all a cloud of shame and grief to her. I think he would have dispelled it if he had come to the wedding, but as he did not--”

“The Adriatic was free,” said Caroline, trying to smile. “I see it all, dear Mrs. Evelyn. I neither blame you nor Sydney; and I trust all will turn out right for my poor boy.”

“He deserves it!” said Mrs. Evelyn with a sigh.

There was a good deal more intercourse between Cavendish Square and Collingwood Street than Mother Carey had expected. Mrs. Evelyn and her son and daughter fell into the habit of coming, when they went out for a drive, to see whether Mrs. Brownlow or Barbara would come with them; and as it was almost avowed that Babie was the object, she almost always went, and kept Fordham company in the carriage, whilst his mother and sister were shopping or making calls. He had certainly lost much ground in these few weeks; he had ceased to ride, and never went out in the evening; but the doctors still said he might live for months or years if he avoided another English winter. His mother was taking Sydney into society, and Esther was always happier when under their wing, being rather frightened by the admiration of which Cecil was so proud. When they went out much before Fordham’s bed time, he was thankful for the companionship of Allen or Armine, generally the former, for Armine was reading hard, and working after lectures for a tutor; while Allen, unfortunately, had nothing to prevent him from looking in whenever Mrs. Evelyn was out, to play chess, read aloud, or assist in that re-editing of the cream of the “Traveller’s Joy,” which seemed the invalid’s great amusement. Fordham had a few scruples at first, and when Allen had undertaken to come to him for the whole afternoon of a garden-party, he consulted Barbara whether it was not permitting too great a sacrifice of valuable time.

“You don’t mean that for irony?” said Babie. “It is only so much time subtracted from tobacco.”

“Will you let me say something to you, Infanta?” returned Fordham, with all his gentleness. “It seems to me that you are not always quite kind in your way of speaking of Allen.”

“If you knew how provoking he is!”

“I have a great fellow-feeling for him, having grown up the same sort of helpless being as he has been. I should be much worse in his place.”

“Never!” cried Babie. “You would never hang about the house, worrying mother about eating and fiddle-faddles, instead of doing any one useful thing!”

“But if one can’t?”

“I don’t believe in can’t.”

“Happy person!”

“Oh, Duke, you know I never meant health; you know I did not,” and then a pang shot across her as she remembered her past contempt of him whom she now reverenced.

“There are other incapacities,” he said.

“But,” said Babie, half-pleading, half-meditating, “Allen is not stupid. He used to be considered just as clever as Bobus; and he is so now to talk to. Can there be any reason but laziness, and want of application, that makes him never succeed in anything, except in answering riddles and acrostics in the papers? He generally just begins things, and makes mother or Armie finish them for him. He really did set to work and finish up an article on Count Ugolino since we came home from Fordham, and he has tried all the periodicals round, and they won’t have it, not even the editors that know mother!”

“Poor fellow! And you have no pity!”

“Don’t you think it is his own fault?”

“It is quite possible that he would have done much better if he had always had to work for his livelihood. I grant you that even as a rich man he ought to have avoided the desultory ways, which, as you say, are more likely to have caused his failures than want of native ability. But I don’t like to see you hard upon him. You hardly realise how cruelly he has been treated in return for a very deep and generous attachment, or how such a grief must make it more difficult for him to exert his powers.”

“I don’t like you to think me hard and unkind,” said Babie, sadly.

“Only a little over just,” said Fordham. “I am sure you could do a great deal to help and brighten Allen; and,” he added, smiling, “in the name of spoilt and shiftless heirs, I hope you will try.”

“Indeed I will,” said Babie earnestly, as the footman at the shop door signalled to the coachman that his ladies were ready.

She found it the less difficult to remember what he had said, because Allen himself was much less provoking to her. Something was due to the influence and example of the strenuous endeavour that Fordham made to keep up to such duties as he had undertaken, not indeed onerous in themselves, but a severe labour to a man in his state. It had been intimated to him also that his saturation with tobacco was distressing to his friend, and he was fond enough of him to abstain from his solace, except when walking home at night.

Perhaps this had cleared his senses to perceive habits of consideration for the family, which he had never thought incumbent on himself, whatever they might be in his brothers; and his eyes were open, as they had never yet been, to his mother’s straits. It was chiefly indeed through his fastidiousness. His mother and Babie had existed most of this time upon their Belforest wardrobe; indeed, the former, always wearing black, was still fairly provided; but Babie, who had not in those days been out, was less extensively or permanently provided; and Allen objected to the style in which she appeared in the enamelled carriage, “like a nursery governess out for an airing.”

“Or not so smart,” said Babie, merrily putting on her little black hat with the heron’s plume, and running down stairs.

“She does not care,” said Allen; “but mother, how can you let her?”

“I can’t help it, Allen. We turned out all the old feathers and flowers, to see if I could find anything more respectable; but things don’t last in Bloomsbury, and they only looked fit to point a moral, and not at all to adorn a tail or a head.”

“I should think not. But can’t the poor child have something fresh, and like other people?”

No; her uncle had given her bridesmaid’s dress, but there had been expenses enough connected with the journey to Fordham to drain the dress purse, and the sealskin cap that had been then available could not be worn in the sun of June. There had been sundry incidental calls for money. Mother Carey had been disappointed in the sale of a somewhat ambitious set of groups from Fouque’s “Seasons,” which were declared abstruse and uninteresting to the public. She had accepted an order for some very humble work, not much better than chimney ornaments, for which she rose early, and toiled while Babie was out driving with her friends. When she had the money for this she would be more at ease, and if it came to a little more than she durst reckon upon, she could venture on some extras.

“Babie might earn it for herself; she is full of inventions.”

“There is nothing more strongly impressed on me than that those children are not to begin being made literary hacks before they are come to maturity. One Christmas tale a year is the utmost I ought to allow.”

“I wish I could be a literary hack, or anything else,” sighed poor Allen.

It was the first time he really let himself understand what a burden he was, and as Fordham was one of those people who involuntarily almost draw out confidence, he talked it over with him. Allen himself was convinced, by having really tried, that he was not as availably clever as others of his family. Whether nature or dawdling was to blame, he had neither originality nor fire. He could not get his plots or his characters to work, even when his mother or Babie jogged them on by remarks: his essays were heavy and unreadable, his jokes hung fire, and he had so exhausted every one’s patience, that the translations and small reviewing work which he could have done were now unattainable. He was now ready to do anything, and he actually meant it, but there seemed nothing for him to do. Mrs. Evelyn succeeded in getting him two pupils, little pickles whom their sister’s governess could not manage, and whom he was to teach for two hours every morning in preparation for their going to school.

He attended faithfully, but he was not the man to deal with pickles. The mutual aversion with which the connection began, increased upon further acquaintance. The boys found out his weak points, and played tricks, learnt nothing, and made his life a burden to him; and though the lady mother liked him extremely, and could not think why her sons were so naughty with him, it would not be easy to say which of the parties concerned looked with the strongest sense of relief to the close of the engagement.

The time spent with Fordham was, however, the compensation. There was sincere liking on both sides, and such helpfulness that Fordham more than once wished he had some excuse for making Allen his secretary; and perhaps would have done so if he had really believed such a post would be permanent.

Armine’s term likewise ended, and his examination being over with much credit, he wished for nothing better than to resume the pursuits he had long shared with Fordham. He had not Jock’s facility in forming intimacies with youths of his own age. His development was too exclusively on the spiritual and intellectual side to attract ordinary lads, and his home gave him sufficient interests outside his studies; and thus Fordham was still his sole, as well as his earliest, friend outside the family. Their intercourse had never received the check that circumstances had interposed between others of the two families, Armine had spent part of almost all his vacations with the Evelyns, the correspondence had been a great solace to the invalid, and the friendship grew yearly more equal.

Armine was to join the Evelyn party when they went to the seaside, as they intended to do on leaving London. It was the fashion to say he looked pale and overworked, but he had really attained to very fair health, and was venturing at last to look forward in earnest to a clerical life; a thought that began to colour and deepen all his more intimate conversations with his friend, who could share with him many of the reflections matured in the seclusion of ill-health. For they were truly congenial spirits, and poor Fordham was more experienced in the lore of suffering and resignation than his twenty-seven years seemed to imply.

Meantime, the work of editing the “Traveller’s Joy” was carried on. Some five-and-twenty copies were printed, containing all the favourite papers--a specimen from each contributor, from a shocking bad riddle of Cecil’s to Dr. Medlicott’s commentary upon the myths of the nursery; from Armine’s original acrostic on the “Rhine and Rhone,” down to the “Phantom Blackcock of Kilnaught;” the best illustrations from Mrs. Brownlow’s sketches, and Dr. Medlicott’s clever pen-and-ink outlines were reproduced; and, with much pains and expense, Fordham had procured photographs of all the marked spots, from Schwarenbach even to Fordham Church, so that Cecil and Esther considered it a graceful memorial of their courtship.

“So very kind of Duke,” they said.

Esther had quite forgotten all her dread of him, and never was happier than when he was listening to all that had amused her in the gaieties which she liked much better in the past than in the present.

The whole was finished at last, after many a pleasant discussion and reunion scene, and the books were sent to the binder. Fordham was eager for them to come home, and rather annoyed at some delays which made it doubtful whether they would be received before he, with his mother and sister, were to leave town. It was late, and June had come in, and the weight of London air was oppressing him and making him weaker, and his mother, anxious to get him into sea air, had made no fresh engagements. It was a surprise to meet him at All Saints on St. Peter’s day.

“Come with us, Infanta,” he said, pausing at the door of the carriage. “I am to have my drive early to-day, as the ladies are going to this great garden-party.”

Sydney said she would walk home with Mrs. Brownlow, and be taken up when Babie was set down.

Fordham gave the word to go to the binder’s.

“I should have thought you had better have gone into some clearer air,” said his mother, for he looked very languid.

“There will be time for a turn in the park afterwards,” he said; “and the books were to be ready yesterday, if there is any faith in binders.”

The books were ready, and Fordham insisted on having them deposited on the seat beside him, in spite of all offers of sending them; and a smiling--

“Oh, Duke, your name should have been Babie,” from his mother.

They then drove to Cecil’s house, where Mrs. Evelyn went in to let Esther know her hour of starting; but where Cecil came running down, and putting his head into the carriage, said--

“Come in, mamma; here’s the housemaid been bullying Essie, and she wants you to help her. These two can go round the park by themselves, can’t they?”

“Those are the most comical pair of children,” said Fordham, laughing, as the carriage moved on. “Will Esther ever make a serene highness?”

“It is not in her,” said Babie. “It might have been in Jessie, if her General was not such a horrid old martinet as to hinder the development; but Essie is much nicer as she is.”

Meantime, Fordham’s fingers were on the knot of the string of his parcel.

“Oh, you are going to peep in? I am so glad.”

“Since mamma is not here to laugh at me.”

“You’ll tell her you did it to please the Babie!”

“There, it is you that are doing it now,” as her vigorous little fingers plucked far more effectively at the cord than his thin weak ones.

Out came at last one of the choice dark green books, with a clematis wreath stamped on the cover, and it was put into Barbara’s lap.

“How pretty! This is mother’s own design for the title-page! And oh--how capital! Dr. Medlicott’s sketch of the mud baths, with Jock shrinking into a corner out of the way of the fat Grafin! You have everything. Here is Armine’s Easter hymn!”

“I wished to commemorate the whole range of feeling,” said Fordham.

“I see; you have even picked out the least ridiculous chapter of Jotapata. I wish some one had sketched you patiently listening to the nineteen copy-books. It would have been a monument of good nature. And here is actually Sydney’s poem about wishing to have been born in the twelfth century:--”

“Would that I lived in time of faith, When parable was life, When the red cross in Holy Land Led on the glorious strife. Oh! for the days of golden spurs, Of tournament and tilt, Of pilgrim vow, and prowess high, When minsters fair were built; When holy priest the tonsure wore, The friar had his cord, And honour, truth, and loyalty Edged each bold warrior’s sword.”

“The solitary poetical composition of our family,” said Fordham, “chiefly memorable, I fear, for the continuation it elicited.”

“Would that I lived in days of yore, When outlaws bold were rife, The days of dagger and of bowl, Of dungeon and of strife. Oh! for the days when forks were not, On skewers came the meat; When from one trencher ate three foes: Oh! but those times were sweet! When hooded hawks sat overhead, And underfoot was straw Where hounds and beggars fought for bones Alternately to gnaw.”

“That was Jock’s, I believe. How furious it did make us. Good old Sydney, she has lived in her romance ever since.”

“Wisely or unwisely.”

“Can it be unwisely, when it is so pure and bright as hers, and gives such a zest to common things?”

“Glamour sometimes is perplexing.”

“Do you know, Duke, I would sometimes give worlds to think of things as I used in those old times.”

“You a world-wearied veteran!”

“Don’t laugh at me. It was when Bobus was at home. His common sense made all we used to care for seem so silly, that I have never been able to get back my old way of looking at things.”

“I am afraid glamour once dispelled does not return. Yet, after all, truth is the greater. And I am sure that poor Bobus never loosened my Infanta’s hold on the real truth.”

“I don’t know,” she said, looking down; “he or his books made me afraid to think about it, and like to laugh at some things--no, I never did before you. You hushed me on the very borders of that kind of flippancy, and so you don’t guess how horrid I am, or have been, for you have made things true and real to me again.”

“‘Fancy may die, but Faith is there,’” said Fordham. “I think you will never shut your eyes to those realities again,” he added, gently. “It is there that we shall still meet. And my Infanta will make me one promise.”

“I would promise you any thing.”

“Never knowingly to read those sneering books,” he said, laying his hand on hers. “Current literature is so full of poisoned shafts that it may not be possible entirely to avoid them; and there may sometimes be need to face out a serious argument, but you will promise me never to take up that scoffing style of literature for mere amusement?”

“Never, Duke, I promise,” she said. “I shall always see your face, and feel your hand forbidding me.”

Then as he leant back, half in thankfulness, half in weariness, she went on looking over the book, and read a preface, new to her.

“I have put these selections together, thinking that to the original ‘Travellers’ it may be a joy to have a memorial of happy days full of much innocent pleasure and wholesome intercourse. Let me here express my warm gratitude for all the refreshments afforded by the friendships it commemorates, and which makes the name most truly appropriate. As a stranger and pilgrim whose journey may be near its close, let me be allowed thus to weave a parting garland of some of the brightest flowers that have bloomed on the wayside, and in dedicating the collection to my dear companions and fellow-wanderers in the scenes it records, let me wish that on the highway of life that stretches before them, they may meet with many a ‘Traveller’s Joy,’ as true as they have been to the Editor.

“F----”

Babie, with eyes full of tears, was looking up to speak, when the carriage, having completed the round, again stopped, and Mrs. Evelyn came down, escorted by Cecil, with hearty thanks.

“Essie’s nice clean, fresh, country notions were scouted by the London housemaid,” she said. “I am happy to say the child held her own, though the woman presumed outrageously on her gentleness, and neither of the two had any notion how to get rid of her.”

“Arcadia had no housemaids,” said Fordham, rallying.

“If not, it must have been nearly as bad as Jock’s twelfth century,” said Babie, in the same tone.

“Ah! I see!” said Mrs. Evelyn, laughing.

And there was a little playful banter as to which had been the impatient one to open the parcel, each pretending to persuade her that it had been a mere yielding to the other. Thus they came to Collingwood Street, where Babie would have taken out her book.

“No, no, wait,” said Fordham. “I want to write your name in it first. I’ll send it this evening. Ali and Armie are coming to me while these good people are at their Duchess’s.”

“Our last gaiety, I am thankful to say,” returned his mother, as Barbara felt a fervent squeeze of the hand, which she knew was meant to remind her of the deeper tone of their conversation.

It was a very hot day, and in the cool of the evening the two Johns beguiled Mrs. Brownlow and Babie into a walk. They had only just come home when there was a hurried peal at the bell, and Armine, quite pale, dashed up stairs after them.

“Mother, come directly! I’ve got a hansom.”

“Fordham?” asked John.

Armine sighed an affirmative.

“Allen sent me for mother. He said one of you had better come. It’s a blood-vessel. We have sent for Medlicott, and telegraphed for the others. But oh! they are so far off!”

Mrs. Brownlow gave Barbara one kiss, and put her into Jock’s arms, then sprang into the cab, followed by John, and was driven off. The other three walked in the same direction, almost unconsciously, as Armine explained more fully.

Fordham had seemed tired at first, but as it became cooler, had roused himself, seated himself at his writing-table, and made one by one the inscriptions in the volumes, including all their party of travellers, even Janet and Bobus; Reeves, who had been their binder, Mrs. Evelyn’s maid, and one or two intimate friends--such as Mr. Ogilvie and his sister--and almost all had some kind little motto or special allusion written below the name, and the date. It had thus taken a long time, and Fordham leant back so weary that Allen wanted him to leave the addressing of the books, when wrapped up, to him and Armine; but he said there were some he wished to direct himself, and he was in the act of asking Bobus’ right address, when a cough seized him, and Allen instantly saw cause to ring for Reeves. The last thing that Armine had seen was a wave of the hand to hasten his own departure, as Allen despatched him for his mother, and gave orders for the summoning of others more needed, but who might not be fetched so promptly.

Then Jock had time to question whether Barbara ought to go on with him and Armine to the door, but there was a sound in her “Let me! I must!” that they could not withstand; and they walked on in absolute silence, except that Jock said Reeves knew exactly what to do.

Dr. Medlicott’s carriage was at the door, and on their ringing, they were silently beckoned into the dining-room, where their mother came to them. She could not speak at first, but the way in which she kissed Barbara told them how it was. All had been over before she reached the house. Dr. Medlicott had come, but could do nothing more than direct Allen how to support the sufferer as he sank, with but little struggle, while a sudden beam of joy and gladness lit up his face at the last. There had been no word from the first. By the time the flow of blood ceased, the power of speech was gone, and there was thus less reason to regret the absence of the nearest and dearest.

Mrs. Brownlow said she must await their return with Allen, who was terribly shocked and overcome by this his first and sudden contact with death. John, too, had better remain for his sister’s sake, but the others had better go home.

“Yes, my child, you must go,” she said, laying her hand on the cold ones of Barbara, who stood white, silent, and stunned by the shock.

“Oh, don’t make me,” said a dull, dreamy, piteous voice.

“Indeed you must, my dear. It would only add to the pain and confusion to have you here now. They may like to have you to-morrow. Remember, he is not here. Take her, Jock. Take care of her.”

The coming of Sir James Evelyn at that moment gave Babie the impulse of movement, and Dr. Medlicott hurrying out to offer the use of his carriage, made her cling to Jock, and then to sign rather than speak her desire to walk with her brothers.

Swiftly and silently they went along the streets on that June night in the throng of carriages carrying people to places of amusement, the wheels surging in their ears with the tramp and scuffle of feet on the pavement like echoes from some far-off world. Now and then there was a muffled sound from Armine, but no word was spoken till they were within their own door.

Then Jock saw for one moment Armine’s face perfectly writhen with suppressed grief; but the boy gave no time for a word, hurrying up the stairs as rapidly as possible to his own room.

“Will not you go to bed? Mother will come to you there,” said Jock to his sister, who was still quite white and tearless.

“Please not,” was her entreaty. “Suppose they sent for me!”

He did not think they would, but he let her sit in the dark by the open window, listening; and he put his arm round her, and said, gently--

“You are much honoured, Babie. It is a great thing to have held so pure and true a heart, not for time, but eternity.”

“Don’t, Jock. Not yet! I can’t bear it,” she moaned; but she laid her head on his shoulder, and so rested till he said--

“If you can spare me, Babie, I think I must see to Armie. He seemed to me terribly overcome.”

“Armine has lost his very best and dearest friend,” she said, pressing her hands together. “Oh yes, go to him! Armie can feel, and I can’t! I can only choke!”

Jock apprehended a hysterical struggle, but there only came one long sob like strangulation, and he thought the pent up feeling might better find its course if she were left alone, and he was really anxious about Armine, remembering what the loss was to him, that it was his first real grief, and that he had had a considerable share of the first shock of the alarm.

His soft knock was unheard, and as he gently pushed open the door, he saw Armine kneeling in the dark with his head bowed over his prayer-desk, and would have retreated, but he had been heard, and Armine rose and came forward.

The light on the stairs showed a pale, tear-stained face, but calm and composed; and it was in a steady, though hushed, voice that he said--

“Can I be of any use?”

“I am sorry to have disturbed you. I only came to see after you. This is a sore stroke on you, Armie.”

“I can stand it better, now. I have given him up to God as he bade me,” said Armine. “It had been a weary, disappointed, struggling life, and he never wished it to last.” The tears were choking him, but they were gentle ones. “He thought it might be like this--and soon--only he hoped to get home first. And I can give thanks for him, what he has been to me, and what he will be to me all my life.”

“That is right, Armie. John did great things for us all when he caught the carriage.”

“And how is Babie?”

“Poor child, she seems as if she could neither speak nor cry. It is half hysterical, and I was going to get something for her to take. Perhaps seeing you may be good for her.”

“Poor little thing, she is almost his widow, though she scarcely knows it,” said Armine, coming down with his brother.

They found Babie still in the same intent, transfixed, watching state; but she let Armine draw her close to him, and listened as he told her, in a low tender voice of the talks he had had with Fordham, who had expressed to his young friend, as to no one else, his own feelings as to his state, and said much that he had spared others, who could not listen with that unrealising calmness that comes when sorrow, never yet experienced, is almost like a mere vision. And as Babie listened, the large soft tears began to fall, drop by drop, and the elder brother’s anxiety was lessened. He made them eat and drink for one another’s sake, and watched over them with a care that was almost parental, till at nearly half-past twelve o’clock the other three came home.

They said Mrs. Evelyn had come fully prepared by the telegram, and under an inexplicable certitude which made it needless to speak the word to her. She was thankful that Marmaduke had been spared the protracted weeks of struggle in which his elder brothers’ lives had closed, and she said--

“We knew each other too well to need last words.”

Indeed she was in the exalted state that often makes the earlier hours and days of bereavement the least distressing, and Sydney was absorbed in the care of her. Neither had been nearly so much overcome as Cecil and Esther, who had been hunted up with difficulty. He seemed to be as much shocked and horrified as if his brother had been in the strongest possible health; and poor Esther felt it wicked and unfeeling to have been dancing, and cried so bitterly that the united efforts of her aunt and brother could not persuade her that what was done in simple duty and obedience need give no pang, and that Mrs. Evelyn never thought of the incongruity.

It was only her husband’s prostration with grief and desolation that drew her off, to do her best with her pretty childish caresses and soothings; and when the two had been sent to their own home, Mrs. Evelyn was so calm that her friend felt she might be left with her daughter for the night, and returned, bringing her tender love to “Our Babie,” as she called the girl.

She clung very much to Barbara in the ensuing days. The presence of every one seemed to oppress her except that of her own children, and the two youngest Brownlows, for had not Armine been the depository of all Fordham’s last messages? What she really seemed to return to as a refreshment after each needful consultation with Sir James on the dreary tasks of the mourners, was to finish the packing of those “Traveller’s Joys” which lay strewn about Fordham’s sitting-room, open at the fly leaves, that the ink might dry.

Esther was very gentle and sweet, taking it quite naturally that Babie should be a greater comfort to her mother-in-law than herself; and content to be a very valuable assistant herself, for the stimulus made her far more capable than she had been thought to be. She managed almost all the feminine details, while Sir James attended to the rest. She answered all the notes, and wrote all the letters that did not necessarily fall on her husband and his mother; and her unobtrusive helpfulness made her a daughter indeed.

All the young men went to the funeral; but Mrs. Brownlow felt that it was a time for friends to hold back till they were needed, when relations had retreated; so she only sent Babie, whom Mrs. Evelyn and Sydney could not spare, and she followed after three weeks, when Allen was released from his unwelcome work.

She found Mrs. Evelyn feeling it much more difficult to keep up than it had been at first, now that she sorely missed the occupation of her life. For full twenty years she had had an invalid on her mind, and Cecil’s marriage had made further changes in her life. It was not the fault of the young couple. They did not love their new honours at all. Apart from their affection, Cecil hated trouble and responsibility, and could not bear to shake himself out of his groove, and Esther was frightened at the charge of a large household. Their little home was still a small paradise to them, and they implored their mother to allow things to go on as they were, and Cecil continue in the Guards, while she reigned as before at Fordham; letting the Cavendish Square house, which Essie viewed with a certain nervous horror.

Mrs. Evelyn had so far consented that the change need not be made for at least a year. Her dower house was let, and she would remain as mistress of Fordham till the term was over, by which time the young Lady Fordham might have risen to her position, and her Lord be less unwilling to face his new cares.

“And they will be always wanting me to take the chair,” said he, in a deplorable voice that made the others laugh in spite of themselves; and he was so grateful to his mother for staying in his house, and letting him remain in his regiment, that he seemed to have quite forgotten that the power was in his own hands.

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XXXVIII. THE TRUST FULFILLED

You know, my father left me some prescriptions Of rare and prov’d effects, such as his reading, And manifest experience, had collected For general sovereignty; and that he will’d me In heedfullest reservation to bestow them, As notes, whose faculties inclusive were, More than they were in note. All’s Well that Ends Well.

Another year had come and gone, with its various changes, and the mother of the Collingwood Street household felt each day that the short life of Marmaduke Viscount Fordham had not been an unimportant one to her children.

It had of course told the most on Barbara. Her first great grief seemed to have smoothed out the harsher lines of her character, and made her gentle and tolerant as she had never been; or more truly, she had learnt charity at a deeper source. That last summer had lifted her into a different atmosphere. What she had shared with Fordham she loved. She had felt the reality of the invisible world to him, and knew he trusted to her meeting his spirit there even in this life, and the strong faith of his mother had strengthened the impression.

Heavenly things had seemed more true, And came down closer to her view,

now that his presence was among them. She had by no means lost her vivacity. There would always be a certain crispness, drollery, and keenness about her, and she had too much of her mother’s elasticity to be long depressed; but instead of looking on with impatient criticism at good works, she had learnt to be ardent in the cause, and she was a most effective helper. To Armine, it was as if Fordham had given him back the sister of his childhood to be as thoroughly one in aims and sympathies as ever, but with a certain clearness of eye, brisk alacrity of execution, and quickness of judgment that made her a valuable assistant, the complement, as it were, of his more contemplative nature.

He had just finished his course at King’s College, and taken a fair degree, and he was examining advertisements, with a view to obtaining some employment in teaching that would put a sufficient sum in his hands to enable him to spend a year at one of the theological colleges, in preparation for Ordination. His mother was not happy about it, she never would be quite easy as to Armine’s roughing it at any chance school, and she had much rather he had spent the intervening year in working as a lay assistant to Mr. Ogilvie, who had promised to give him a title for Orders, and would direct his reading.

Armine, however, said he could neither make himself Mr. Ogilvie’s guest for a year, nor let his mother pay his expenses; also that he wished to do something for himself, and that he felt the need of definite training. All he would do, was to promise that if he should find himself likely to break down in his intended employment of tuition, he would give up in time and submit to her plan of boarding him at St. Cradocke’s.

“But,” as he said to Babie, “I don’t think it is self-will to feel bound to try to exert myself for the one great purpose of my life. I am too old to live upon mother any longer.”

“How I do wish I could do anything to help you to the year at C----. Mother has always said that she will let me try to publish ‘Hart’s-tongue Well’ when I am twenty-one!”

“Living on you instead of mother?”

“Oh no, Armie, you know we are one. Though perhaps a mere story like that is not worthy to do such work. Yet I think there must be something in it, as Duke cared for it.”

“That would be proof positive but for the author,” said Armine, smiling; “but poor Allen’s attempts have rather daunted my literary hopes.”

“I really believe Allen would write better sense now, if he tried,” said Babie. “I believe Lady Grose is making something of him!”

“Without intending it,” said Armine, laughing.

“No; but you see snubbing is wholesome diet, if it is taken with a few grains of resolution, and he has come to that now!”

For Allen had continued not only to profess to be, but to be willing to do anything to relieve his mother, and Dr. Medlicott had, with much hesitation and doubt, recommended him for what was called a secretaryship to a paralytic old gentleman, who had been, in his own estimation, eminent both in the scientific and charitable worlds, and still carried on his old habits, though quite incapable. It really was, as the Doctor honestly told Allen, very little better than being a male humble companion, for though old Sir Samuel Grose was fussy and exacting from infirmity, he was a gentleman; but he had married late in life a vulgar, overbearing woman, who was sure to show insolent want of consideration to anyone she considered her inferior. To his surprise, Allen accepted the situation, and to his still greater surprise, endured it, walking to Kensington every day by eleven o’clock, and coming home whenever he was released, at an hour varying from three to eleven, according to my Lady’s will. He became attached to the old man, pitied him, and did his best to satisfy his many caprices and to deal with his infirmities of brain and memory; but my Lady certainly was his bete noire, though she behaved a good deal better to him after she had seen him picked up in the park by Lady Fordham’s carriage. However, he made light of all he underwent from her, and did not break down even when it was known that though poor George Gould had died at New York, his widow showed no intention of coming home, and wrote confidently to her step-daughters of Elvira marrying her brother Gilbert. She was of age now, there was nothing to prevent her, and they seemed to be only waiting for a decent interval after her uncle’s death. Allen, a couple of years ago, would have made his mother and all the family as wretched as he could, and would have dropped all semblance of occupation but smoking. Now Lady Grose would not let him smoke, and Sir Samuel required him to be entertaining; but the continual worry he was bearing was making him look so ill that his mother was very anxious about him. She had other troubles. It was eighteen months since Janet Hermann had drawn her allowance. Her husband once had written in her name, saying that she was ill, but Mr. Wakefield had sent an order payable only on her signature, and it had never been acknowledged or presented! Could Janet be living? Or could she be in some such fitful state of prosperity as to be able to disregard £25?

Her mother spent many anxious thoughts and prayers on her, though the younger ones seemed to have almost forgotten her, so long it was since she had been a part of their family life. Nor did Bobus answer his mother’s letters, though he continued to write fully and warmly to Jock. As to the MS., he said he had improved upon it, and had sent a fresh one to a friend who would have none of the scruples of which physical science ought to have cured Jock. It came out in a review, but without his name, and though it was painful enough to all who cared for him, it had been shorn of several of the worst and most virulent passages; so that Jock’s remonstrance had done some good.

Jock himself had come into possession of £200, and the like sum had been left to his mother by their good old friends the Lucases, who had died, as it is given to some happy old couples to leave this world, within three days of one another.

The other John, in the last autumn, had taken both his degrees at Oxford and in London with high credit, and had immediately after obtained one of those annual appointments in his hospital which are bestowed upon the most distinguished of the students, to enable them to gain more experience; but as it did not involve residence, he continued to be one of the family in Collingwood Street. However, in the early spring, a slight hurt to his hand festered so as to make the doctors uneasy, and his sister set her heart on taking him to Fordham for Easter, for a more thorough rest than could be had at Kencroft, while the younger ones were having measles.

John, however, had by this time learnt enough of his own feelings to delay consent till he had written to ask Mrs. Evelyn whether she absolutely objected to his entertaining any future hopes of Sydney, when he should have worked his way upward, as his recent success gave him hopes of doing in time.

Sydney’s fortune was not overpowering. £10,000 was settled on each of the younger children, and it had only been Fordham’s liberality in treating Cecil as his eldest son, that had brought about his early marriage. Thus she was no such heiress that her husband would be obliged to feel as if he were living on her means, or that exertion could be dispensed with, and thus, though he must make his way before he could marry, there was no utter inequality for one who brought a high amount of trained ability and industry.

Mrs. Evelyn could only answer as she would once have answered Jock, and on these terms he went. In the meantime Sydney had rejected the honourable young rector of the next parish, and was in the course of administering rebuffs to the county member, who was so persuaded that he and Miss Evelyn were the only fit match for one another, that no implied negative was accepted by him. Her brother, whom he was coaching in his county duties, was far too much inclined to bring him home to luncheon; and in the clash and crisis, without any one’s quite knowing how it happened, it turned out that Mrs. Evelyn had been so imprudent as to sanction an attachment between her daughter and that great lout of a young doctor, Lady Fordham’s brother! Not only the M.P., but all the family shook the head and bemoaned the connection, for though it was to be a long engagement and a great secret, everybody found it out. Lucas had long made up his mind that so it would end, and told his mother that it was a relief the crisis had come. He put a good face on it, wrung his cousin’s hand with the grasp of a Hercules, observed “Well done, old Monk,” and then made the work for his final examination a plea for being so incessantly occupied as to avoid all private outpourings. And if he had very little flesh on his bones, it was hard work and anxiety about his examination.

That final ordeal was gone through at last; John Lucas Brownlow was, like his cousin, possessor of a certificate of honour and a medal, and had won both his degrees most brilliantly. He had worked the hardest and had the most talent, and his achievement was perhaps the most esteemed because of his lack of the previous training that Friar had brought from Oxford. Professors and physicians wrote his mother notes to express their satisfaction at the career of their old friend’s son, and Dr. Medlicott came to bring her a whole bouquet of gratifying praise and admiration from all concerned with him, ranging from the ability of his prize essay to the firm delicacy of his hand; and backed up by the doctor’s own opinion of the blameless conduct and excellent influence of both the cousins. And now Dr. Medlicott declared he must have a good rest and holiday, after the long strain of hard toil and study.

It came like a dream to Caroline that the conditions imposed by her husband fifteen years before, when Lucas was a mischievous imp of a Skipjack, had been thus completely worked out, not only the intellectual, but the moral and religious terms being thus fulfilled.

The two cousins had come home to dinner in high spirits at the various kind things that had been said to, and of, Jock, and discussing the various suggestions for the future that had been made to them. They thought Mother Carey strangely silent, but when they rose she called her son into the consulting room, as she still termed it.

“My dear,” she said, “this slate will tell you why this is the moment I have looked forward to from the time your dear father was taken from us with his work half done. He had been working out a discovery. He was sure of it himself, but none of the faculty would believe in it or take it up. Even Dr. Lucas thought it was a craze, and I believe it can only be tested by risky experiments. All that he had made out is in this book. You know he could not speak for that dreadful throat. This is what he wrote. I copied it again, putting in my answers lest it should fade, but these are his very words, and that is my pledge. Magnum Bonum was our playful pet name for it between ourselves.

“‘I promise to keep the Magnum Bonum a secret, till the boys are grown up, and then only to confide it to the one that seems fittest, when he has taken his degree, and is a good, religious, wise, able man, with brains and balance, fit to be trusted to work out and apply such an invention, and not make it serve his own advancement, but be a real good and blessing to all.’ And oh, Jock,” she added, “am I not thankful that after all it should have come about that you should fulfil those conditions.”

“Did you not once mean it for John?” said Jock, hastily looking up.

“Yes, when I thought that hateful money had turned you all aside.”

“Then I think he ought to share this knowledge.”

“I thought you would say so, but it is your first right.”

“Perhaps,” said Jock. “But he is superior in his own line to me. He gave himself up to this line of his own free will, not like me, as a resource. And moreover, if it should bring any personal benefit, as an accident, it would be more important to him than to me. And these other conditions he fulfils to the letter. Mother, let me fetch him.”

She kissed his brow by way of answer, and a call brought John into the room. The explanation was made, and John said, “If you think it right, Aunt Caroline. No one can quite fulfil the conditions, but two may be better than one.”

“Then I will leave you to read it together,” she said, after pointing them to the solemn words in the first page. “Oh, you cannot think how glad I am to give up my trust.”

She went upstairs to the drawing-room, and about half an hour had passed in this way, when Jock came to the door, and said, “Mother, would you please to come down.”

It was a strange, grave voice in which he spoke, and when she reached the room, they set Allen’s most luxurious chair for her, but she stood trembling, reading in their faces that there was something they hesitated to tell her. They looked at one another as if to ask which should do it, and a certain indignation and alarm seized on her. “You believe in it!” she cried, as if she suspected them of disloyalty.

“Most entirely!” they both exclaimed.

“It is a great discovery,” added Jock, “but--”

“But,” said John, as he hesitated, “it has been worked out within the last two years.”

“Not Dr. Hermann!” she cried.

“No, indeed!” said Jock. “Why?”

“Because poor Janet overheard our conversation, and obtained a sight of the book. It was her ambition. I believe it was fatal to her. She may have caught up enough of the outline to betray it. Jock, you remember that scene at Belforest?”

“I do,” said Jock; “but this is not that scoundrel. It is Ruthven, who has worked it out in a full and regular way. It is making a considerable sensation though it has scarcely yet come into use as a mode of treatment. Mother, do not be disappointed. It will be the blessing that my father intended, all the sooner for not being in the hands of two lads like us, whom all the bigwigs would scout!”

“And what I never thought of before,” said John. “You know we are so often asked whether we belong to Joseph Brownlow, that one forgets to mention it every time; but that day, when Dr. Medlicott took me to the Westminster hospital, we fell in with Dr. Ruthven, and after the usual disappointment on finding I was only the nephew and not the son, he said, ‘Joseph Brownlow would have been a great man if he had lived. I owe a great deal to a hint he once gave me?’”

“He ought to see these notes,” said Jock. “It strikes me that there is a clue here to that difficulty he mentions in that published paper of his.”

“You ought to show it to him,” said John.

“You ought,” said Jock.

“Do you know much about him?” asked Mother Carey. “I don’t think I ever saw him, though I know his name. A fashionable physician, is he not?”

“A very good man,” said John. “A great West-end swell just come to be the acknowledged head in his own line. I suppose it is just what my uncle would have been ten years ago, if he had been spared.”

“May we show it to him, mother?” said Jock. “I should think he was quite to be trusted with it. I see! I was reading an account of this method of his to Dr. Lucas one day, and he was much interested and tried to tell me something about my father; but it was after his speech grew so imperfect, and he was so much excited and distressed that I had to lead him away from the subject.”

“Yes, Dr. Lucas’s incredulity made all the difference. How old is Dr. Ruthven, John?”

“A little over forty, I should say. He may have been a pupil of my uncle’s.”

After a little more consultation, it was decided that John should write to Dr. Ruthven that his cousin had some papers of his father’s which he thought the Doctor might like to see, and that they would bring them if he would make an appointment.

And so the Magnum Bonum was no longer a secret, a burden, and a charge!

It was not easy to tell whether she who had so long been its depositary felt the more lightened or disappointed. She had reckoned more than she knew upon the honour of the discovery being connected with the name of Brownlow, and she could not quite surmount the feeling that Dr. Ruthven had somehow robbed her husband, though her better sense accepted and admired the young men’s argument that such discoveries were common property, and that the benefit to the world was the same.

Allen was a good deal struck when he understood the matter. He said it explained a good deal to him which the others had been too young to observe or remember both in the old home and afterwards.

“One wonderful part of it is how you kept the secret, and Janet too!” he said. “And you must often have been sorely tempted. I remember being amused at your disappointment and her indignation when I said I didn’t see why a man was bound to be a doctor because his father was before him; and I suppose if Bobus or I had taken to it, this Ruthven need not have been beforehand with us!”

“It would have been transgressing the conditions to hold it out to you.”

“I don’t imagine I could have done it any way,” said Allen, sighing. “I never can enter into the taste the others have for that style of thing; but Bobus might have succeeded. You must have expected it of him, at the time when he and I used to laugh at what we thought was a monomania on your part for our taking up medical science as a tribute to our father, when we did not need it as a provision.”

“You see, if any of you had taken up the study from pure philanthropy, as some people do--well, at any rate in George Macdonald’s novels--it would have been the very qualification. But I had little hope from the time that the fortune came. I dreamt the first night that Midas had turned the whole of you to gold statues, and that I was wandering about like the Princess Paribanou to find the Magnum Bonum to disenchant you.”

“It has come pretty true,” said Allen thoughtfully, “that inheritance did us all a great deal of mischief.”

“And it took a greater magnum bonum, a maximum bonum, to disenchant us,” said Armine.

“Which I fear did not come from me,” said his mother, “and I am most grateful to the dear people who applied it to you. I wish I saw my way to the disenchantment of the other two!”

“I suppose you quite despaired till John took his turn in that direction,” said Allen. “Bobus could really have done better than any of us, I fancy, but he would not have fulfilled the religious condition, as sine qua non.”

“Bobus is not really cleverer than Jock,” said Armine.

“Yet the Skipjack seemed the most improbable one of all,” said his mother. “I wish he were not deprived of it, after all!”

“Perhaps he is not,” said Armine. “He told me he had been comparing the MS. notes with Dr. Ruthven’s published paper, and he thought my father saw farther into the capabilities.”

“Well, he will do right with it. I am thankful to leave it in such hands as his and the Monk’s.”

“Then it was this,” continued Allen, “that was the key to poor Janet’s history. I suppose she hoped to qualify herself when she was madly set on going to Zurich.”

“Though I told her I could never commit it to her; but she knew just enough to make that wretched man fancy it a sort of quack secret, and he managed to persuade her that he had real ability to pursue the discovery for her. Poor Janet! it has been no magnum bonum to her, I fear. If I could only know where she is.”

A civil, but not a very eager note came in reply to John from Dr. Ruthven, making the appointment, but so dispassionately that he might fairly be supposed to expect little from the interview.

However, they came home more than satisfied. Perhaps in the interim Dr. Ruthven had learnt what manner of young men they were, and the honours they had won, for he had received them very kindly, and had told them how a conversation with Joseph Brownlow had put him on the scent of what he had since gradually and experimentally worked out, and so fully proved to himself, that he had begun treatment on that basis, and with success, though he had only as yet brought a portion of his fellow physicians to accept his system.

Lucas had then explained as much as was needful, and shown him the notes. He read with increasing eagerness, and presently they saw his face light up, and with his finger on the passage they had expected, he said, “This is just what I wanted. Why did I not think of it before?” and asked permission to copy the passage.

Then he urged the publication of the notes in some medical journal, showing true and generous anxiety that honour should be given where honour was due, and that his system should have the support of a name not yet forgotten. Further, he told his visitors that they would hear from him soon, and altogether they came home so much gratified that the mother began to lose her sense of being forestalled. She was hard at work in her own way on a set of models for dinner-table ornaments which had been ordered. “Pot-boilers” had unfortunately much more success than the imaginary groups she enjoyed.

Therefore she stayed at home and only sent her young people on a commission to bring her as many varieties of foliage and seed-vessels as they could, when Jock and Armine spent this first holiday of waiting in setting forth with Babie to get a regular good country walk, grumbling horribly that she would not accompany them.

She was deep in the moulding of a branch of chestnut, which carried her back to the first time she saw those prickly clusters, on that day of opening Paradise at Richmond, with Joe by her side, then still Mr. Brownlow to her, Joe, who had seemed so much closer to her side in these last few days. The Colonel might call Armine the most like Joe, and say that Jock almost absurdly recalled her own soldier-father, Captain Allen, but to her, Jock always the most brought back her husband’s words and ways, in a hundred little gestures and predilections, and she had still to struggle with her sense of injury that he should not be the foremost.

The maid came up with two cards: Dr. and Mrs. Ruthven. This was speedy, and Caroline had to take off her brown holland apron, and wash her hands, while Emma composed her cap, in haste and not very good will, for she could not but think them her natural enemies, though she was ready to beat herself for being so small and nasty “when they could not help it, poor things.”

However, Mrs. Ruthven turned out to be a pleasant lively table d’hote acquaintance of six or seven years ago in her maiden days, and her doctor an agreeable Scotsman, who told Mrs. Brownlow that he had been here on several evenings in former days, and did not seem at all hurt that she did not remember him. He seemed disappointed that neither of the young men was at home, and inquired whether they had anything in view. “Not definitely,” she said, and she spoke of some of the various counsels Dr. Medlicott and others had given them.

In the midst she heard that peculiar dash with which the Fordham carriage always announced itself. Little Esther might be ever so much a Viscountess, but could she ever cease to be shy? In spite of her increasing beauty and grace, she was not a success in society, for the ladies said she was slow; she had no conversation, and no dash or rattle to make up for it, and nothing would ever teach her to like strangers. They were only so many disturbances in the way of her enjoyment of her husband and her baby; and when she could not have the former to go out driving with her, she always came and besought for the company of Aunt Caroline and Babie; above all, when she had any shopping to do. She knew it was very foolish, but she could never be happy in encountering shop people, and she wanted strong support and protection to prevent herself from being made a lay figure by urgent dressmakers. Her home only gave her help and company on great occasions, for Eleanor persisted in objecting to fine people, was determined against attracting another guardsman, and privately desired her sister to abstain from inviting her. Essie was aware that this was all for the sake of a certain curate at St. Kenelm’s, and left Ellie to carry out her plan of passive resistance, becoming thus the more dependent on her aunt’s family.

In she came, too graceful and courteous for strangers to detect the shock their presence gave her, but much relieved to see them depart. Her husband was on guard, and she had a whole list of commissions for mamma, which would be much better executed without him. Moreover, baby must have a new pelisse and hat for the country, and might not she have little stockings and shoes, in case she should want to walk before the return to London?

As little Alice was but four months old, and her father’s leave was only for three months, this did not seem a very probable contingency, but Mother Carey was always ready for shopping. She had never quite outgrown the delight of the change from being a penniless school girl, casting wistful fleeting glances at the windows where happier maidens might enter and purchase.

Then there was to be a great review in two days’ time, Cecil would be with his regiment, and Esther wanted the whole family to go with her, lunch with the officers, and have a thorough holiday. Cecil had sent a message that Jock must come to have the cobwebs swept out of his brain, and see his old friends before he got into harness again. It was a well-earned holiday, as Mother Carey felt, accepting it with eager pleasure, for all who could come, though John’s power of so doing must be doubtful, and there was little chance of a day being granted to Allen.

In going out with her niece, Caroline’s eye had fallen on an envelope among the cards on the hall table, ambiguously addressed to “J. Brownlow, Esq., M.B.,” and on her return home she was met at the door by Jock with a letter in his hand.

“So Dr. Ruthven has been here,” he said, drawing her into the consulting-room.

“Yes. I like him rather. He seems to wish to make any amends in his power.”

“Amends! you dear old ridiculous mother! Do you call this amends?” holding up the letter. “He says now this discovery is getting known and he has a name for the sort of case, his practice is outgrowing him, and he wants some one to work with him who may be up to this particular matter, and all he has heard of us convinces him that he cannot do better than propose it to whichever of us has no other designs.”

“Very right and proper of him. It is the only thing he can do. I suppose it would be the making of one of you. Ah!” as she glanced over the letter. “He gives the preference to you.”

“He was bound to do that, but I think he would prefer the Monk. I wonder whether you care very much about my accepting the offer.”

“Would this house be too far off?”

“I don’t know his plans enough to tell. That was not what I was thinking of, but of what it would save her. Essie said she was not looking well; and no doubt waiting is telling on her, just as her mother always feared it would.”

“John has just not had the forbearance you have shown!”

“That is all circumstance. There was the saving her life, and afterwards the being on the spot when she was tormented about the other affair. He has no notion of having cut me out, and I trust he never will.”

“No, I do him that justice.”

“Then he has the advantage of me every way, out and out in looks and University training; and it was to him that Ruthven first took a fancy.”

“You surpassed him in your essay, and in--.

“Oh, yes, yes,” interrupted Jock hastily, “but you see work was my refuge. I had nothing to call me off. Besides, I have my share of your brains, instead of her Serenity’s; but that’s all the more reason, if you would listen to me. Depend upon it, Ruthven, if he knew all, would much prefer the connection John would have, and she would bring means to set up directly.”

“I suppose you will have it so,” replied she, looking up to him affectionately.

“I should like it,” he said. “It is the one thing for them, and waiting might do her infinite harm; the dear old Monk deserves it every way. Remember how it all turned on his desperate race. If your comfort depended on my taking it, that would come first.”

“Oh, no.”

“But there is sure to turn up plenty of other work without leaving you,” he continued. “I don’t fancy getting involved in West-end practice among swells, and not being independent. I had rather see whether I can’t work out this principle further, devoting myself to reading up for it, and getting more hospital experience to go upon.”

“I dare say that is quite right. I know it is like your father, and indeed I shall be quite content however you decide. Only might it not be well to see how it strikes John, before you absolutely make it over to him?”

“You are trying to be prudent against the grain, Mother Carey.”

“Trying to see it like your uncle. Yes, exactly as if I were trying to forestall his calling me his good little sister.”

“I don’t know what he would call me,” said Jock, “for at the bottom is a feeling that, after reading my father’s words, I had rather not, if I can help it, begin immediately to make all that material advantage out of ‘Magnum Bonum’ as you call it.”

“Well, my dear, do as you think right; I trust it all to you. It is sure to turn out the right sort of ‘Magnum Bonum’ to you--”

The Monk’s characteristic ring at the bell was heard, and the letter was, without loss of time, committed to him, while both mother and son watched him as he gathered up the sense.

“Well, this is jolly!” was his first observation. “Downright handsome of Ruthven!” and then as the colour rose a little in his face, “Just the thing for you, Jock, home work, which is exactly what you, want.”

“I’m not sure about that,” said Jock; “I don’t want to get into that kind of practice just yet. It is fitter for a family man.”

“And who is a family man if you are not?” said John. “Wasn’t it the very cause of your taking this line?”

“There’s a popular prejudice in favour of wives, rather than mothers,” said Jock. “I should have said you were more likely to fulfil the conditions.”

“Oh!” and there was a sound in that exclamation that belied the sequel, “that’s just nonsense! The offer is to you primarily, and it is your duty to take it.”

“I had much rather you did, and so had Dr. Ruthven. I want more time for study and experience, and have set my heart on some scientific appointment--”

“Come now, my good fellow--why, what are you laughing at?”

“Because you are such a good imitation of your father, my dear Johnny,” said his aunt.

“It is just what my father would say,” returned John, taking this as a high compliment; “it would be very foolish of Lucas to give up a certainty for this just because of his Skipjack element, which doesn’t want to get into routine harness. Now, don’t you think so, Mother Carey?”

“If I thought it was the Skipjack element,” she said, smiling.

“If it is not,” he said, the colour now spreading all over his face, “I am all the more bound not to let him give up all his prospects in life.”

“All my prospects! My dear Monk, do you think they don’t go beyond a brougham, and unlimited staircases?”

“I only know,” cried John, nettled into being a little off his guard, “that what you despise would be all the world to me!”

The admission was hailed triumphantly, but the Kencroft nature was too resolute, and the individual conscience too generous, to be brought round to accept the sacrifice, which John estimated at the value of the importance it was to himself, viewing what was real in Lucas’s distaste, as mere erratic folly, which ought to be argued down. Finally, when the argument had gone round into at least its fiftieth circle, Mother Carey declared that she would have no more of it. Lucas should write a note to Dr. Ruthven, accepting his proposal for one or other of them, and promising that he should know which, in the course of a few days; so that John, if he chose, could write to his father or anyone else. Meantime there was to be no allusion to “the raid of Ruthven” till the day of the review was over. It was to be put entirely off the tongue, if not out of the head!

And the two young doctors were weary enough of the subject to rejoice in obedience to her.

The day was perfect except that poor Allen was pinned fast by his tyrant, all the others gave themselves up to the enjoyment of the moment. They understood the sham fight, and recognised all the corps, with Jock as their cicerone, they had a good place at the marching past, and Esther had the crowning delight of an excellent view of Captain Viscount Fordham with his company, and at the luncheon. Jock received an absolutely affectionate welcome from his old friends, who made as much of his mother and sister for his sake, as they did of the lovely Lady Fordham for her husband’s, finding them, moreover, much more easy to get on with.

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XXXIX. THE TRUANT

The bird was sitting in his cage And heard what he did say; He jumped upon the window sill, “‘Tis time I was away.” Ballad.

“There is a young lady in the drawing-room, ma’am,” said the maid, looking rather puzzled and uncertain, on the return of the party from the review.

“A stranger? How could you let her in?” said John.

At that moment a face appeared at the top of the stairs, a face set in the rich golden auburn that all knew so well, and half way up, Mrs. Brownlow was clasped by a pair of arms, and there was a cry, “Mother Carey, Mother Carey, I’m come home!”

“Elvira! my dear child! When--how did you come?”

“From the station, in a cab. I made her let me in, but I thought you were never coming back. Where’s Allen?”

“Allen will come in by-and-by,” said the astonished Mother Carey, who had been dragged into the drawing-room, where Elvira embraced Babie, and grasped the hands of the others.

“Oh, it is so nice,” she cried, then nestling back to Mother Carey.

“But where did you come from? Are you alone?”

“Yes, quite alone, Janet would not come with me after all.”

“Janet, my dear! Where is she?”

“Oh, not here--at Saratoga, or at New York. I thought she was coming with me, but when the steamer sailed she was not there, only there was a note pinned to my berth. I meant to have brought it, but it got lost somehow.”

“Where did you see her?”

“At the photographer’s at Saratoga. I should never have come if she had not helped me, but she said she knew you would take me home, and she wrote and took my passage and all. She said if I did not find you, Mr. Wakefield would know where you were, but I did so want to get home to you! Please, may I take off my things; I don’t want to be such a fright when Allen comes in.”

It was all very mysterious, but Elvira must be much altered indeed if her narrative did not come out in an utterly complicated and detached manner. She was altered certainly, for she clung most affectionately to Mother Carey and Barbara, when they took her upstairs. She had a little travelling-bag with her; the rest of her luggage would be sent from the station, she supposed, for she had taken no heed to it. She did so want to get home.

“I did feel so hungry for you, Mother Carey. Mother, Janet said you would forgive me, and I thought if you were ever so angry, it would be true, and that would be nicer than Lisette, and, indeed, it was not so much my doing as Lisette’s.”

Whatever “it” was, Mother Carey had no hesitation in replying that she had no doubt it was Lisette’s fault.

“You see,” continued Elvira, “I never meant anything but to plague Allen a little at first. You know he had always been so tiresome and jealous, and always teased me when I wanted any fun--at least I thought so, and I did want to have my swing before he called me engaged to him again. I told Jock so, but then Lisette and Lady Flora, and old Lady Clanmacnalty went on telling me that you knew the money was mine all the time, and that it was only an accident that it came out before I was married.”

“Oh, Elvira, you could not have thought anything so wicked,” cried Babie.

“They all went on so, and made so sure,” said Elvira, hanging her head, “and I never did know the real way the will was found till Janet told me. Babie, if you had heard Lady Clanmacnalty clear her throat when people talked about the will being found, you would have believed she knew better than anyone.”

So it was. The girl, weak in character, and far from sensible, full of self-importance, and puffed up with her inheritance, had been easily blinded and involved in the web that the artful Lisette had managed to draw round her. She had been totally alienated from her old friends, and by force of reiteration had been brought to think them guilty of defrauding her. In truth, she was kept in a whirl of gaiety and amusement, with little power of realizing her situation, till the breach had grown too wide for the feeble will of a helpless being like her to cross it. Though she had flirted extensively, she had never felt capable of accepting any one of her suitors, and in these refusals she had been assisted by Lisette, who wanted to secure her for her brother, but thanks to warnings from Mr. Wakefield, and her husband’s sense of duty, durst not do so before she was of age.

Elvira’s one wish had been to visit San Ildefonso again. She had a strong yearning towards the lovely island home which she gilded in recollection with all the trails of glory that shine round the objects of our childish affections. Lisette always promised to take her, but found excuses for delay in the refitting of the yacht, while she kept the party wandering over Europe in the resorts of second-rate English residents. No doubt she wished to make the most of the enjoyments she could obtain, as Elvira’s chaperon and guardian, before resigning her even to her brother. At last the gambling habits into which her husband fell, for lack, poor man, of any other employment, had alarmed her, and she permitted her party to embark in the yacht where Gilbert Gould acted as captain.

They reached the island. It had become a coaling station. The bay where she remembered exquisite groves coming down to the white beach, was a wharf, ringing with the discordant shouts of negroes and cries of sailors. The old nurse was dead, and fictitious foster brothers and sisters were constantly turning up with extravagant claims.

“Oh, I longed never to have come,” said Elvira; “and then I began to get homesick, but they would not let me come!”

No doubt Lisette had feared the revival of the Brownlow influence if her charge were once in England, for she had raised every obstacle to a return. Poor Gould and his niece had both looked forward to Elvira’s coming of age as necessarily bringing them to England, but her uncle’s health had suffered from the dissipation he had found his only resource. Liquor had become his consolation in the life to which he was condemned, and in the hotel life of America was only too easily attainable.

His death deprived Elvira of the last barrier to the attempts of an unscrupulous woman, who was determined not to let her escape. Elvira’s longing to return home made her spread her toils closer. She kept her moving from one fashionable resort to another, still attended by Gilbert, who was beginning to grow impatient to secure his prize.

“How I hated it,” said Elvira. “I knew she was false and cruel by that time, but it was just like being in a trap between them. I loathed them more and more, but I couldn’t get away.”

Nurtured as she had been, she was helpless and ignorant about the commonest affairs of life, and the sight of American independence never inspired her with the idea of breaking the bondage in which she was spellbound. Still, she shrank back with instinctive horror from every advance of Gilbert’s, and at last, to pique her, Lisette brought forward the intelligence that Allen Brownlow was married.

The effect must have surprised them, for Elvira turned on her aunt in one of those fits of passion which sometimes seized her, accused her vehemently of having poisoned the happiness of her life, and taken her from the only man she could ever love. She said and threatened all sorts of desperate things; and then the poor child, exhausted by her own violence, collapsed, and let herself be cowed and terrified in her turn by her aunt’s vulgar sneers and cold determination.

Yet still she held out against the marriage. “I told them it would be wicked,” she said. “And when I went to Church, all the Psalms and everything said it would be wicked. Then Lisette said it was wicked to love a married man, and I said I didn’t know, I couldn’t help it, but it would be more wicked to vow I would love a man whom I hated, and should hate more every day of my life. Then they said I might have a civil marriage, and not vow anything at all, and I told them that would seem to me no better than not being married at all. Oh! I was very very miserable!”

“Had you no one to consult or help you, my poor child?”

“They watched me so, and whenever I was making friends with any nice American girl, they always rattled me off somewhere else. I never did understand before what people meant when they talked about God being their only Friend, but I knew it then, for I had none at all, none else. And I did not think He would help me, for now I knew I had been hard, and horrid and nasty, and cruel to you and Allen, the only people who ever cared for me for myself, and not for my horrid, horrid money, though I was the nastiest little wretch. Oh! Mother Carey, I did know it then, and I got quite sick with longing for one honest kiss--or even one honest scolding of yours. I used to cry all Church-time, and they used to try not to let me go--and I felt just like the children of Israel in Egypt, as if I had got into heavy bondage, and the land of captivity. O do speak, and let me hear your voice once more! Your arm is so comfortable.”

Still it seemed that Elvira had resisted till another attempt was made. While she was at a boarding-house on the Hudson a large picnic party was arranged, in which, after American fashion, gentlemen took ladies “to ride” in their traps to and from the place of rendezvous. In returning, of course it had been as easy as possible for her chaperon to contrive that she should be left alone with no cavalier but Gilbert Gould, and he of course pretended to lose his way, drove on till night-fall, and then judgmatically met with an accident, which hurt nobody; but which he declared made the carriage incapable of proceeding.

After walking what Elvira fancied half the night, shelter was found in a hospitable farmhouse, where the people were wakened with difficulty. They took care of the benighted wanderers, and the farmer drove them back to the hotel the next morning in his own waggon. They were received by Mrs. Gould with great demonstrations both of affection, pity and dismay, and she declared that the affair had been so shocking and compromising that it was impossible to stay where they were. She made Elvira take her meals in her room rather than face the boarding-house company, paid the bills (all of course with Elvira’s money) and carried her off to the Saratoga Springs, having taken good care not to allow her a minute’s conversation with anyone who would have told her that the freedom of American manners would make an adventure like hers be thought of no consequence at all.

The poor girl herself was assured by Mrs. Gould that this “unhappy escapade” left her no alternative but a marriage with Gilbert. She would otherwise never be able to show her face again, for even if the affair were hushed up, reports would fly, and Mrs. Lisette took care they should fly, by ominous shakes of the head, and whispered confidences such as made the steadier portion of the Saratoga community avoid her, and brought her insolent attention from fast young men. It was this, and a cold “What can you expect?’” from Lisette that finally broke down her defences, and made her permit the Goulds to make known that she was engaged to Gilbert.

Had they seized their prey at that moment of shame and despair, they would have secured it, but their vanity or their self-esteem made them wish to wash off the mire they had cast, or to conceal it by such magnificence at the wedding as should outdo Fifth Avenue. The English heiress must have a wedding-dress that would figure in the papers, and, even in the States, be fabulously splendid. It must come from Paris, and it must be waited for. All the bridesmaids were to have splendid pearl lockets containing coloured miniature photograph portraits of the beautiful bride, who for her part was utterly broken-hearted. “I thought God had forgotten me, because I deserved it; and I only hoped I might die, for I knew what the sailors said of Gilbert.”

Listless and indifferent, she let her tyrants do what they would with her, and it was in Gilbert’s company that she first saw Janet at the photographer’s. Fortunately he had never seen Miss Brownlow, and Elvira had grown much too cautious to betray recognition; but the vigilance had been relaxed since the avowal of the engagement, and the colouring of the photographs from the life, was a process so wearisome, that no one cared to attend the sitter, and Elvira could go and come, alone and unquestioned.

So it was that she threw herself upon Janet. Whatever had been their relations in their girlhood, each was to the other the remnant of the old home and of better days, and in their stolen interviews they met like sisters. Janet knew as little as Elvira did of her own family, rather less indeed, but she declared Mrs. Gould’s horror about the expedition with Gilbert to have been pure dissimulation, and soon enabled Elvira to prove to herself that it had been a concerted trick. In America it would go for nothing. Even in England, so mere an accident (even if it had really been an accident) would not tell against her. But then, Elvira hopelessly said Allen was married!

Again Janet was incredulous, and when she found that Elvira had never seen the letter in which Kate Gould was supposed to have sent the information, and knew it only upon Lisette’s assertion, she declared it to be probably a fabrication. Why not telegraph? So in Elvira’s name and at her expense, but with the address given to Janet’s abode, the telegram was sent to Mr. Wakefield’s office, and in a few hours the reply had come back: “Allen Brownlow not married, nor likely to be.”

There was no doubt now of the web of falsehood that had entangled the poor girl; but she would probably have been too inert and helpless to break through it, save for her energetic cousin, who nerved her to escape from the life of utter misery that lay before her. What was to hinder her from setting off by the train, and going at once home to England by the steamer? There was no doubt that Mrs. Brownlow would forgive and welcome her, or even if that hope failed her, Mr. Wakefield was bound to take care of her. She had a house of her own standing empty for her, and the owner of £40,000 a year need never be at a loss.

Had she enough money accessible to pay for a first-class passage? Yes, amply even for two. She had always been so passive and incapable of all matters of arrangement, that Mrs. Gould had never thought it worth while to keep watch over her possession of “the nerves and sinews of war,” being indeed unwilling to rouse her attention to the fact that she was paying the by no means moderate expenses of both her tyrants.

Janet found out all about the hours, secured--as Elvira thought--two first-class berths, met her when she crept like a guilty thing out of the hotel at New York, took her to the station, went with her to an outfitter to be supplied with necessaries for the voyage, for she had been obliged to abandon everything but a few valuables in her handbag, and saw her safely on board, introduced her to some kind friendly English people, then on some excuse of seeing the steward, left her, as Elvira found, to make the voyage alone!

It turned out that Janet had spoken to the gentleman of this party, and explained that her young cousin was going home alone, asking him to protect her on landing; and that she had come to London with them and been there put into a cab, giving the old address to Collingwood Street, where with much difficulty she had prevailed on the maid to let her in to await the return of the family.

Nothing so connected as this history came to the ears of Mrs. Brownlow or her children. That evening they only heard fragments, much more that was utterly irrelevant, and much that was inexplicable, all interspersed with inquiries and caresses and intent listening for Allen. Elvira might not have acquired brains, but she had gained in sweetness and affection. The face had lost its soulless, painted-doll expression, and she was evidently happy beyond all measure to be among those she could love and trust, sitting on a footstool by Mrs. Brownlow’s knee, leaning against her, and now and then murmuring: “O Mother Carey, how I have longed for you!”

She was not free from the fear that Lisette and Gilbert could still “do something to her,” but the Johns made large assurances of defence, and Mr. Wakefield was to be called in the next day. It must be confessed that everybody rather enjoyed the notion of the pair left at Saratoga with all their hotel bills to pay, and the wedding-dress on their hands, but Elvira knew they had enough to clear them for the week, and only hoped it was not enough to enable them to follow her.

Fragments of all this came out in the course of the evening. Allen did not come home to dinner, and the other young men left the coast clear for confidences, which were uttered in the intervals of listening, till after all her excitement, her landing and her journey, Elvira was so tired out that she had actually dropped asleep, with her head on Mother Carey’s knee, when his soft weary step came up the stairs, and perceiving, as he entered, that there was a hush over the room, he did not speak. Babie looked up from her work with an amused smile of infinite congratulation. There was a glance from his mother. Then, as Babie put it, the Prince saw the Sleeping Beauty, and, with a strange long half-strangled gasp and clasped hands, went down on one knee. At that very moment Elvira stirred, opened her eyes, put her hand over them, bewildered, as if thinking herself dreaming, then with a sort of shriek of joy, flung herself towards him, as he held out his arms with “My darling.”

“O Allen, can you forgive me? And oh! do marry me before they can come after me!”

So much Mother Carey and Babie heard before they could remove themselves from the scene, which they felt ought to be a tete-a-tete. They shut the lovers in. Babie said, “Undine has found a heart, at least,” and then they began to piece out the story by conjecture, and they then discovered how little they had really learnt about Janet. They supposed that the Hermanns must be living and practising at Saratoga, and in that case it was no wonder she could not come home, the only strange thing was Elvira’s expecting it. Besides, why had not Mrs. Gould taken alarm at the name, and why was her husband never mentioned? Was there no message from her? Most likely there was, in the note that was lost, and moreover, Elvira might be improved, but she was Elvira still, and had room for very little besides herself in her mind’s eye.

They must wait to examine her till these first raptures had subsided, and in the mean time Caroline wrote a telegram to go as early as possible to Mr. Wakefield. It showed a guilty conscience that Mrs. Gould should not have telegraphed to him Elvira’s flight.

When at last Mrs. Brownlow held that the interview must come to an end, and with preliminary warning opened the door, there they were, with clasped hands, such as Elvira had never endured since she was a mere child! Allen looking almost too blissful for this world, and Elvira with eyes glistening with tears as she cried, “O Mother Carey, you never told me how altered he was, I never knew how horrible I had been till I saw how ill he looks! What can we do for him?”

“You are doing everything, my darling,” said Allen.

“He of course thinks her as irresponsible as if she had been hanging up by the hair all this time in a giant’s larder,” whispered Babie to Armine.

But Elvira was really unhappy about the worn, faded air that made Allen look much older than his twenty-nine years warranted. The poor girl’s nerves proved to have been much disturbed; she besought Barbara to sleep with her, and was haunted by fears of pursuit and capture, and Gilbert claiming her after all. She kept on starting, clutching at Babie, and requiring to be soothed till far on into the night, and then she slept so soundly that no one had the heart to wake her. Indeed it was her first real peaceful repose since her flight had been planned, nor did she come down till half-past ten, just when Mr. Wakefield drove up to the door, and Jock had taken pity on Allen, and set forth to undertake Sir Samuel for the day. Mr. Wakefield was the less surprised at the sight of the young lady, having been somewhat prepared by her telegraphic inquiry about Allen, which he had not communicated to the Brownlows for fear of raising false expectations.

There was a great consultation. Elvira was not in the least shy, and only wanted to be safely Mrs. Allen Brownlow before the Goulds should arrive, as she expected, in the next steamer to pursue her vi et armis. If it had depended on her, she would have sent Allen for a special licence, and been married in her travelling dress that very day. Mr. Wakefield, solicitor as he was, was quite ready for speed. He had always viewed the marriage with Allen Brownlow as a simple act of restitution, and the trust made settlements needless. Still he did not apprehend any danger from the Goulds, when he found that Elvira had never written a note to Gilbert in her life. Nay, he thought that if they even threatened any annoyance, they had given cause enough to have a prosecution for conspiracy held over them in wholesome terror.

And considering all the circumstances, Mrs. Brownlow and Allen were alike determined against undignified haste. Miss Menella ought to be married from among her own kindred, and from her own house; but this was not easy to manage; for poor Mary Whiteside and her husband, though very worthy, were not exactly the people to enact parents in such a house as Belforest; and Mrs. Brownlow could see why she herself should not, though Elvira could not think why she objected. At last the idea was started that the fittest persons were Mr. and Mrs. Wakefield. The latter was a thorough lady, pleasant and sensible. The only doubt was whether so very quiet a person could be asked to undertake such an affair, and her husband took leave, that he might consult her and see whether she could bring herself to be mother for the nonce to the wild heiress, of whom his family were wont to talk with horrified compassion.

When he was gone, it was possible to come to the examination upon Janet for which Mother Carey had been so anxious. How was she looking?

“Oh! so old, and worn and thin. I never should have guessed it was Janet, if I had not caught her eye, and then I knew her eyebrows and nose, because they are just like Allen’s,--and her voice sounded so like home that I was ready to cry, only I did not dare, as Gilbert was there.”

“I wonder they did not take alarm at her name.”

“I don’t imagine they ever heard it.”

“Not when she was living there? Was not her husband practising?”

“Her husband! Oh no, I never heard any thing about him. I thought you knew I found her at the photographer’s?”

“Met her as a sitter?”

“Oh dear, no! I thought you understood. It was she that was doing my picture. She finishes up all his miniature photographs.”

“My dear Elvira, do you really mean that my poor Janet is supporting herself in that way?”

“Yes, indeed I do; that was why I made sure she would have come home with me. I was so dreadfully disappointed when I found only her note.”

“And are you sure you have quite lost it?”

“Yes, I turned out every corner of my bag this morning to look for it. I am so sorry, but I was so ill and so wretched, that I could not take care of anything. I just wonder how I lived through the voyage, all alone.”

“Was there no message? Nothing for me.”

“Yes, I have recollected it now, or some of it. She said she durst not go home, or ask anything of you, after the way she had offended. Oh! I wonder how she could send me, for I know I was worse.”

“But what did she say?” said Caroline, too anxious to listen to Elvira’s own confessions. “Was there nothing for me?”

“Yes.” She said, “Tell her that I have learnt by the bitterest of all experience the pain I have given her, and the wrong I have done!” Then there was something about being so utterly past forgiveness that she could not come to ask it. “Oh, don’t cry so, Mother Carey, we can write and get her back, and I will send her the passage money.”

“Ah! yes, write!” cried out the mother, starting up. “‘When he was yet a great way off.’ Ah! why could she not remember that?” But as she sat down to her table, “You know her address?”

“Yes, certainly, I went to her lodgings once or twice; such a little bit of a room up so many stairs.”

“And you did not hear how that man, her husband, died?”

“I don’t know whether he is dead,” said this most unsatisfactory informant. “She does not wear black, nor a cap, and I am almost sure that he has run away from her, and that is the reason she cannot use her own name.”

“Elfie!”

“O, I thought you knew! She calls herself Mrs. Harte. She took my passage in that name, and that must be why my things have never come. Yes, I asked her why she did not set up for a lady doctor, and she said it was impossible that she could venture on showing her certificates or using her name--either his or hers.”

That was in the main all that could be extracted from Elvira, though it was brought out again and again in all sorts of forms. It was plain that Janet had been very reticent in all that regarded herself, and Elvira had only had stolen interviews, very full of her own affairs, and, besides, had supposed Janet to intend to return with her. Both wrote; Elfie, to announce her safety, and Caroline, an incoherent, imploring, forgiving letter, such as only a mother could write, before they went out to supply Elvira’s lack of garments, and to procure the order for the sum needed for her passage. Caroline was glad they had gone independently, for, on their return, Babie reported to her that her little Ladyship was so wroth with Elfie as to wonder at them for receiving her so affectionately. It was very forgiving of them, but she should never forget the way in which poor Allen had been treated.

“I told her,” said Babie, “that was the way she talked about Cecil, and you should have seen her face. She wonders that Allen has not more spirit, and indeed, mother, I do rather wish Elfie could have come back with nothing but her little bag, so that he could have shown it would have been all the same.”

“A comfortable life they would have had, poor things, in that case,” laughed her mother, “though I agree that it would have been prettier. But I don’t trouble myself about that, my dear. You know, in all equity, Allen ought to have a share in that property. It was only the old man’s caprice that made it all or none; and Elvira is only doing what is right and just.”

“And Allen’s love was a real thing, when he was the rich one. So I told Essie; and besides, Allen would never make any hand of poverty, poor fellow.”

“I think and hope he will make a much better hand of riches than he would have done without all he has gone through,” said her mother.

Allen showed the same feeling when he could talk his prospects over quietly with his mother. These four years had altered him at least as much for the better as Elfie. He would not now begin in thoughtless self-indulgence, refined indeed and never vicious, but selfish, extravagant, and heedless of all but ease, pleasure, and culture. Some of the enervation of his youth had really worn off, though it had so long made him morbid, and he had learnt humility by his failures. Above all, however, his intercourse with Fordham had opened his eyes to a sense of the duties of wealth and position, such as he had never before acquired, and the religious habits that had insensibly grown upon him were tincturing his views of life and responsibility.

It was painful to him to realise that he was returning to wealth and luxury, indeed, monopolising it,--he the helpless, undeserving, indolent son, while all the others, and especially his mother, were left to poverty.

Elfie wanted Mother Carey and all to make their home at Belforest, and still be one family as of old. Indeed, she hung on Mother Carey even more than upon Allen, after her long famine from the motherly tenderness that she had once so little appreciated.

Of such an amalgamation, however, Mrs. Brownlow would not hear, nor would she listen to a proposal of settling on her a yearly income, such as would dispense with economy, and with the manufacture of “pot-boilers.”

No, she said, she was a perverse woman, and she had never been so happy as when living on her husband’s earnings. The period of education being over, she had a full sufficiency, and should only meddle with clay again for her own pleasure. She was beginning already a set of dining-table ornaments for a wedding-present, representing the early part of the story of Undine. Babie knew why, if nobody else did. Perhaps she should one of these days mould a similar set for Sydney of the crusaders of Jotapata! Then Allen bethought him of putting into Elvira’s head to beg, at least, to undertake Armine’s expenses at the theological college for a year, and to this she consented thankfully. Armine had been thinking of offering himself as Allen’s successor for a year with Sir Samuel; but two days’ experience as substitute convinced him that Allen was right in declaring that my Lady would be the death of him. Lucas could manage her, and kept her well-behaved and even polite, but Armine was so young and so deferential that she treated him even worse than she did her first victim! She had begun by insisting on a quarter’s notice or the forfeiture of the salary, as long as she thought £25 was of vital importance to Allen, but as soon as she discovered that the young lady was a great heiress, she became most unedifyingly civil, called in great state in Collingwood Street, and went about boasting of having patronised a sort of prince in disguise.

Meantime Dr. Ruthven’s offer seemed left in abeyance. Colonel Brownlow had all his son’s scruples, and more than his indignation at Lucas’s folly in hesitating; and John was so sure that he ought not to accept the proposal, that he would not stir in the matter, nor mention it to Sydney. At last Lucas acted on his own responsibility, and had an interview with Dr. Ruthven, in which he declined the offer for himself, but made it known that his cousin was not only brother to the beautiful Lady Fordham who had been met in Collingwood Street, but was engaged to Lord Fordham’s sister. At which connection the fashionable physician rubbed his hands with so much glee, that Jock was the more glad not to have to hunt in couples with him.

The magnificent wedding-dress had been stopped by telegram, just as it was packed for New York, and was despatched to Belforest. Mrs. Wakefield undertook the task imposed upon her, and the wedding was to be grand enough to challenge attention, and not be liable to the accusation of being done in a corner. It might be called hasty, for only a month would have passed since Elvira’s arrival, before her wedding-day; but this was by her own earnest wish. She made it no secret that she should never cease to be nervous till she was Allen Brownlow’s wife, even though a letter to her cousins at River Hollow had removed all fear of pursuit by Mrs. Gould; she seemed bent on remaining at New York, and complained loudly of “the ungrateful girl,” whose personal belongings she retained by way of compensation.

It would have been too much to expect that Elvira should be a wise and clever woman, but she had really learnt to be an affectionate one, and in the school of adversity had parted with much of her selfish petulance and arrogance. Allen, whose love had always been blindly tender, more like a woman’s or a parent’s love than that of an ordinary lover, was rapturous at the response he at last received. At the same time, he knew her too well to expect from her intellectual companionship, and would be quite content with what she could give.

They were both of them chastened and elevated in tone by their five years’ discipline.

The night before the party went down to Belforest, where they were to meet the Evelyns, Allen lingered with his mother after all the rest had gone upstairs.

“Mother,” he said, “I have thought a great deal of that dream of yours. I hope that the touch of Midas may not be baneful this time.”

“I trust not, my dear; you have had a taste of the stern, rugged nurse.”

“And, mother, I know I failed egregiously where the others rose.”

“But you were rising.”

“Then you will let me do nothing for you, and I feel myself sneaking into your inheritance, to the exclusion of all the rest, in a backdoor sort of way.”

“My dear Allen, it can’t be helped, you have honestly loved your Elf from her infancy, when she had nothing, and she really loved you at the very worst. Love is so much more than gold, that it really signifies very little which of you has the money. You and she have both gone through a good deal, and it depends upon you now whether the possession becomes a blessing to yourselves and others. Don’t vex about our not having a share, you know yourself how much happier we all are without the load, and there will never be any anxiety now. I shall always fall back on you, if I want anything.”

“That is right,” said Allen, clearing up a good deal as she looked up brightly in his face. “You promise me.”

“Of course I do,” she said smiling. “I’m not proud.”

“And you did make Armine consent to our paying those expenses of his. That was good of you, but the boy only does it out of obedience.”

“Yes, he would like a little bit of self-willed penance, but it is much better for him to submit, bodily and mentally.”

“Elvira has asked me whether we can’t, after all, build the Church and all the rest which he wanted so much, and give it to him.”

Caroline smiled, she would not vex Allen by saying how this was merely in the spirit of the story book, endowing everybody with what they wanted, but she said, “Build by all means, and endow, when you have had time to see what is needed, and what is good for the people, but not for Armine’s sake, you know. He had much better serve his apprenticeship and learn his work somewhere else. He would tell you so himself.”

“I daresay. He would talk of the touch of Midas again. Elvira will be sadly disappointed. She had some fancy of presenting him to it as soon as he was ordained!”

“Getting the fairies meantime to build the whole concern in secret? Dear Elfie, her plans are generous and kind. Tell her, with my love, that her Church must not be a shrine for Armine, but that perhaps he and it will be fit for each other in some five years’ time. Meantime, if she wants to make somebody happy, there’s that excellent hardworking curate of Eleanor’s, who has done more good in Kenminster than I ever saw done there before.”

“I don’t see why Kencroft should get all the advantages!”

“Ah! You ungrateful boy! Now if Rob had carried off Elfie, you might complain!”

At which Allen could not but laugh.

“And now, good night, Mr. Bridegroom; you want your beauty sleep, though I must say you look considerably younger than you did two months ago.”

The wedding was a bright one, involving no partings, only joy and gladness, and the sole drawback to the general rejoicings seemed to be that it was not Mrs. Brownlow herself who was returning to take possession.

But on that very afternoon came a chill on her heart. Her own letter and Elvira’s to Janet were returned from America! It was quite probable that the right address might have been in Elvira’s lost note, and that Janet might be easily found through the photographer. “But,” said her mother, “I do not believe she will ever come home unless I go to fetch her.”

“The very thing I was thinking of doing,” said Jock. “Letters will hardly find her now, and I have not settled to anything. The dear old Doctor’s legacy will find the means.”

“And I am sure you want the rest of the voyage. I don’t like the looks of you, my Jockey.”

“I shall be all right when this is over,” said Jock, with an endeavour at laughing; “but I find I am a greater fool than I thought I was, and I had much better be out of the way of it all till it is a fait accompli.”

“It” was of course John’s marriage. This was the first time Jock had seen the lovers together. In spite of vehement talking and laughing, warm greetings to everyone, and playing at every interval with the little cousins, Jock could not hide from either of the mothers that the sight cost him a good deal, all the more because the showing the Belforest haunts to Sydney had always been a favourite scheme, hitherto unfulfilled; nor was there any avoiding family consultations, which resulted in the fixing of the wedding for the middle of September, so that there might be time for a short tour before they settled down to John’s work in London.

Mrs. Evelyn begged that Barbara would come to her whilst her mother and brother were away, Armine would be at his theological college, and there was nothing to detain Mrs. Brownlow and her son from the journey, to which both looked forward with absolute pleasure, not only in the hope of the meeting, but in the being together, and throwing off for a time the cares of home and gratifying the spirit of enterprise.

Jock had one secret. He had reason to think that Bobus would have a kind of vacation at the time, and he telegraphed to Japan what their intended voyage was to be, with a hope he durst not tell, that his favourite brother would not throw away the opportunity of meeting them in America.

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