Midge. (Third thousand.)

Chapter I

"Hills, vales, woods netted in a silver mist, Ferns, granges doubled up amongst the hills, And cattle grazing in the watered vales, And cottage chimneys smoking from the woods, And cottage gardens smelling everywhere, Confused with smell of orchards." — Aurora Leigh. AS Marjorie stood in the summer twilight, leaning her arms on the garden-wall, she enjoyed the pungent fragrance of mignonette from the border in which her two little heels were leaving their marks in the mould. An elder-tree spread its white blossom-flakes overhead. " This is nice. Teybridge looks just the same every summer when we come back," she said to herself. Behind her was the cottage with its naturally brown walls peeping here and there through blinding whitewash, wherever Jerusha had fore borne to use the latter for the sake of her creepers.

MIDGE. 2 Originally Daisybank was only a two-storeyed workman's dwelling ; but when Jerusha's husband died, she, being a woman of energy, " whitened the sepulchre," as she called the late house of death, and let her front rooms. That was the year when Mr. Honey first chanced to come to Teybridge with his daughter and his portable easel. He and Marjorie became Jerusha Truman's first lodgers ; and every succeed ing summer they had come back and stayed late till a white sketching umbrella looked as miserable in autumn rains as a butterfly in a winter fog, as Mrs. Truman observed on speeding her parting guests. The garden was only a strip running down to the road, but it was gaudy with old-fashioned flowers, while apple-trees peeped down into the cottage chimneys, the orchard rose so steeply behind.

Larkspurs stood sleepily upright ; tobacco-flowers this evening unfolded fragrant white blossoms that had looked like jaded night-revellers all day ; sweet-williams made patches of red and rose in the shadows, and the selfsame snapdragon found a crumbling roothold on the wall. " You dear ! " whispered Midge, by which pet name Marjorie was known to her more intimate friends, and she touched it softly with her finger- MIDGE. 3 tips. " It is like meeting an old friend to come back and find you here still." Not being a fine woman as to height, Miss Honey could lean her dimpled elbows comfortably on the wall. On the other side of it was the road) deserted at this late hour. Beyond slid the Tey, with a murmurous sound, its brown current almost hidden by bushes. Upon its further bank rose a high limestone cliff, covered with wood, that was outlined in a sombre leafy crown against the grey luminous sky.

Venus was shining sweetly up there, as if Teybridge woods and tors, stream and green valleys, were under her especial protection. Some grass had been freshly cut in the orchard above. How sweet it smelt ! Midge sniffed its scent with upraised nose. There was a twittering of belated birds in the bushes fringing the side of the garden. What a pleasant thing it is to hear birds again, after being cooped in town ! How, delightfully still, peaceful, solitary " What is that ? " The exclamation escaped aloud from Marjorie's astonished lips. Something silvery had gleamed through the air close by her head, and now fell in the grass quivering. It was a fish — a small river-trout ! A few others lay there already. And even as Midge stared around, half a dozen more descended in a shower, and, MIDGE. 4 revived by the dewy grass, began wriggling and even trying to leap.

Not a living soul was to be seen, not a human sound to be heard, "ferusha I feruslia ! " Miss Honey had a clear voice of her own that could be heard in the kitchen. " Come out, quick ! I want you." And hurrying to meet the hard-featured, energetic woman, who appeared at the cry, she dragged her down the garden to stare at the phenomenon. " There, look ! look ! I tell you I saw them falling through the air. I did ! And there is nobody about, either." " Aw ! Did ever a body see ? My, O ! I've heard of it's raining cats and dogs, but never fish." "I've read in a newspaper of a waterspout sucking up fish from the sea and dropping them inland," cried her lodger, recalling a September big gooseberry paragraph. " There's another ! " as a fresh trout described an aerial curve and dropped at her feet.

Jerusha began spying up into the elder-tree, where, despite of thick branches and the darkness fast setting in, something like a straw hat was discernible to her keen eyes. " Now, Master Oliver, you may come down : I'm up to your tricks. You don't deceive your old nurse. You're a play-boy ! you are." MidgE, 5 A tall, heavily-framed young man, at her chal lenge, clambered out of the elder-tree on to the wall which it overhung, and dropped into the garden. He was laughing so much at Midge's innocent remark on the fish-shower that he stood still to roar. But she in her wrath set her teeth. "A-h-h-h! You villain ! I should like to shake you, if you were not so big." " Shake hands," returned Oliver Baldock, aggra vatingly, giving her a brotherly hand-clasp. He was a fine-looking fellow ; though Marjorie had so long considered him a dear awkward boy, she was rather disposed still thus to think of him, especially as he was younger than herself.

His face was pleasant, though its expression was often as solemn as an owl, so that the occasional paroxysms of mirth which convulsed him (as at present) were the more surprising. "Who would have thought you could be such a silly old sobersides ? You are as big a baby as ever," jeered Midge. " Bigger," assented Oliver, his rather droopingly set eyes alights with fun. " A stone more of me, worse luck. . . Jerusha ! Look at that duck I " One of Mrs. Truman's ducks, which were slug hunting for supper, had waddled by a small trout and was busily engaged in struggling to bolt it MIDGE, whole. Jerusha rushed to gather up the remaining fish, while Oliver stood hoping to see his enemy choke. But though once the duck almost dis gorged its prize, yet after great efforts the tip of the trout's tail disappeared; while Midge, convulsed with laughter, in her turn, watched Oliver's wrath.

" Cormorant ! I'll pay that duck out," he declared, with gloomy resolve. " Well, Mistress Marjorie, and how are you ? You look just the same as ever."

Chapter II

" Good Luck is the gayest of all gay girls, Long in one place she will not stay, Back from your brow she strokes the curls, Kisses you quick and flies away. " But Madam Bad Luck soberly comes And stays — no fancy has she for flitting — Snatches of true love-songs she hums, And sits by your bed, and brings her knitting." From the German of Heine, Colonel F. Hay. "Yes," replied Marjorie. "Here we are back like the swallows to our old mud nest. But — don't you see any change in me, Oliver ? Come, look ! " " No, I don't. What is it ? " Young Baldock surveyed the trim little figure in the twilight, from her head with its soft curling fringe of darkish hair, dancing eyes, and impudent nose, down to her neatly shod feet, on which she stood drawn up to full five feet one for inspection, and shook his head.

" Why, I've changed my style of hair-dressing. It's all piled on the top now, and everybody else says I look quite different," returned Midge, in dis appointed tones. " How unobserving you are ! MIDGE. You must be in love, my dear boy. Have you not got over your flame of last year yet ? " "Who was that?" Baldock wrinkled his forehead in honest perplexity; then, remembering, said simply, " O, you mean my swan-neck beauty. But she was so stupid ! She annoyed me very much by saying one day that she did not know who wrote the ' Rape of the Lock.' That's all over long ago. I have had two desperate attachments since." And leaning his large self comfortably against an apple-tree, he gravely grinned. " You must tell me all about them," murmured his companion, in a mock sympathetic whisper, trying to perch herself on a branch that swayed under her.

" Not I ! " Midge smiled to herself, hoping the gathering shadows hid her saucy expression. "We'll see," she thought, but regretted she had not beaten about the bush better, for now her comrade from youth up certainly would not make any confidences till he had forgotten his late declaration. " And how is your father's eyesight ? Has he recovered that long tramp of his over the moun tains in Switzerland last March, when you wrote to me he had got inflammation of the eves and was MIDGE, 9 laid up from cold and fatigue miles from any doctor ? " went on Baldock. " Poor dear father! You must come in and see him." There was genuine pity in Marjorie's voice now. " One eye has been left very weak since. Is it any wonder, when he lost his way, was tired to death, and was caught in a sleet-shower and a bitter wind ?

And we are now both afraid he must have worked the good eye too much, for lately it has been failing in its duties too. So we have made a solemn compact together that he is to rest both eyes entirely for a time, and he is such a good old dear he really has not broken his word yet. He said he would like a doze after supper, but he will want to wake up and see you. Come indoors. They went in to the parlour together, where a small middle-aged man was sitting in an armchair. A bland smile was on his face, his legs were trimly crossed, and his hands lay in his lap, as if idleness was thoroughly enjoyable to him. " Now, father, wake up," cried his daughter, taking Oliver by the sleeve and pulling him close up to the light of the lamp. " Who is this ? Here is a visitor come the very evening we arrive.

You can see who he is, can't you ? " " Dear me, who is this, indeed ? who is this ? " MIDGE. 10 repeated Mr. Honey, rising with a most cordial smile and extended palm of welcome. Then, as Oliver took it, the artist kept tight hold of his visitor's hand with a gentle air of effusive pleasure. " Now, this is good and kind," still shaking away. " It is really friendly to greet us like this. And how are you ? " Oliver, who had given over his fist resignedly to the hand-shaking process and was, as he would have said, working away at the pump-handle on his own account, did not reply. He was staring full in his old friend's eyes quite rudely, as Marjorie noticed. He was really bearish at times in his manner — not that he ever meant it, dear good fellow. " Eh ! How have you been lately ? " persisted Honey ; then getting no answer, as in reality Baldock did not notice what the other was saying, he added, letting go his clasp at last, " But won't you sit down, my dear Woolmer ?"

" Why, father!" exclaimed his daughter, and there was a sharp sound of dismay in her voice — just as if some one had told her some bad news that she disbelieved, and against which she was crying out. " Don't you know Oliver ? " " Of course ! to be sure — to be sure, my dear ! Only a lapse of tongue. Did I say Woolmer ? How MIDGE, 11 silly ! It is a habit that is growing upon me, my dear fellow, to mix up names and words lately in the most absurd manner," apologised the artist. "And then, my dear, your lamp is flaming in such a confusing way. See ! there are rings of light round it, like a sun-halo. It is positively dangerous." " But why did you — call him by a surname — at all ? " faltered the girl. Her breath came in short fluttering gasps, as the two men could distinctly hear. She had given one quick glance at the lamp that was burning just as it ought to do.

George Honey, though one of the most innocent men alive, coloured like a culprit all over whatever of his rosy countenance was not hidden by a half grown beard. " You see, my pet, I — well, I thought our friend Oliver was growing a little old to be called always by his Christian name. That was it, my dear boy." " I shall be very sorry if you ever stand on cere mony with an old friend like me, Mr. Honey," said Oliver, in a tone so singularly gentle, especially as coming from him, that Midge stared at him in vague surprise, though her mTnd was busily occupied with other and painful thoughts. "Well, shall we all sit down and have a chat ? " went on Honey, cheerily. " Come now, this will be cosy. Midge will let us have a smoke. You must MIDGE, excuse my travelling garments, Oliver : you are always such a neat fellow yourself, just turned out of a bandbox, it puts a slummicking old artist like me to shame.

And how is your aunt, Miss Tryphena ? I suppose you have just come down after dinner, eh ? " Marjorie and Oliver both turned and looked hard in each other's faces. Oliver was in rough fishing attire, with a pocket book stuffed with flies sticking out of his breast pocket. Plainly, to every one who could see, he had been out fishing all the afternoon by the river, and was now homeward bound. " Well, I don't trouble much about dinner these fine evenings," he answered, with some constraint. A whispered cry at his side, no louder than that of some small bird in anguish, but distinctly one of pain, startled him. Mr. Honey had been back ing softly, while speaking with a disengaged air. Next he lowered his hand as if carelessly feeling the arm of his easy-chair. Then he turned — it was at that moment Marjorie exclaimed — for he was moving towards the outside of the armchair.

For a moment, although mechanically uttering that warning cry, Midge felt too paralysed to move. Even had she sprung forward, however, it would have been too late. Her father, evidently MIDGE. 13 deceiving himself with the fond idea that he was innocently deceiving his child as to his failing eye sight, imagined he was about to sit down in the seat and let himself go. He fell heavily on the ground, striking his head against the side of the mantelpiece, and lay for a few moments stunned. Marjorie flung herself down beside him, and took his poor head in her lap in a frenzy of fright and grief. " Let me lift him. He'll be all right in a minute or two. Just let me get him up," Oliver soothingly persuaded her. " Yes, Miss Honey. Just let us get him on his bed," entreated Jerusha, who had rushed in at the noise of the fall ; and who seemed to take in the situation with surprising quickness, from Oliver's few and hasty words of explanation.

Perhaps she had guessed already something of the truth, not seeing Mr. Honey every day like his unhappy self accusing daughter. Half an hour later the latter and Oliver were standing together in the sitting-room. They had just left the patient comfortably installed in bed, with his head bandaged. He was smiling feebly and cutting little jokes at his own expense, yet owning that his head ached, so that on the whole he would prefer to be left in quiet. Otherwise he MIDGE was all right ; and he patted his daughter's hand fondly after repulsing almost peevishly her entreaties to be allowed to sit up with him. In his quiet way George Honey was very obstinate for so gentle a man. So now downstairs Oliver Baldock and Midge just looked at each other. The young man was so appalled, he did not know what to say.

Midge first found voice. " Oh, Oliver, Oliver," she almost whispered, though her father upstairs could not hear them, he is going blind." Sitting down in a chair, she rocked herself to and fro as if in bodily pain herself. " What shall we do ? Oh, what shall we do ? " she moaned. Then pressing her lips hard together, her face all screwed up with anguish out of likeness to itself (though even then Oliver thought pityingly what a soft, owlish little face it was : almost comical with those big tragic eyes and impudent nose that never could look other than funny), she clenched her hands together, forcing her nails into her soft white skin. " Isn't it dreadful ? How could I have been so blind as not to see it coming on ? Isn't it awful for him — poor dear father ? " " It is," assented Oliver, with a sigh like a groan wtting heavily down too.

He did not know how MIDGE, 15 on earth to console her, but he had not the heart to go away. Then both of them began to suggest to each other that it might not be so bad, after all ; but neither believed the other. Presently Midge roused herself and stood up, trying to force a little laugh. " Now, I am going to send you away, you poor dear boy. What an evening for you, after thinking you would just look in for a friendly word or two! And you must be simply starving." " Not I. I couldn't touch any food if it was before me," declared Baldock, gruffly. He had been as hungry as a hunter, however, when he came to the cottage a while ago. "Good-bye. I'm so glad you were here," said his little hostess, looking at him gratefully and trying to wink back her tears. " I'm glad, if I was of any use," said Oliver, staring right away over her head, after one hasty glance.

Then he went off in the darkness and felt horribly uncomfortable. Indeed, he heard the clock strike most of the small hours that night, though he turned and turned restlessly, trying to doze and to put the thought of father and daughter down at the cottage out of his mind. If even Oliver Baldock passed such a bad night, what of Marjorie ? Perhaps the less said the MIDGE, better. Poor Midge ! her pillow was so wet with weeping she had twice to turn it in the night. She lit her candle at last and sat up, hugging her knees and trying to think. But her head swam, and the light hurt her eyes that were scalded from crying. She put out the candle. " I shall have to work for him now, so I must be careful," she sensibly thought.

Chapter III

Sumtyme I drawe into memoyre, How sorow may not ever laste, And so cometh hope in at laste, Whan I none other foode knowe ; And that endureth but a throvve, Ryght as it were a chery-fcste." — Gower. MARJORIE woke to find that the morning sunshine streaming in at her open window, the scents of bergamot, pinks, and lad's-love bushes from the garden plot, and the sound of Jerusha's voice calling the chickens to be fed, were refreshing after the night's darkness and solitude. She dressed herself slowly, yet with reviving spirits. " I am glad it came upon me here," she thought, trying to make the best of things. " The pave ments and houses in town don't seem to feel for one as trees and flowers do ; and the people in the country are not in too great a hurry and bustle to show sympathy for other human beings Poor dear father !

I wonder when he first guessed the awful truth? But it must have dawned slowly on him, and that some time ago. That was why he grew his beard, pretending it was out of laziness, C MIDGE. and that was why " A great many such little memories recurred to her. Midge had not finished her breakfast, when she had an instance of the friendly sympathy she looked forward to in the country. A rather ample female form blocked the cottage window, and silently went through a series of nods and beckon ings. Rising with sudden annoyance, Marjorie went to the door. " Good morning, Miss Baldock. Won't you come in?" she said, feeling conscious of her pale cheeks and swollen eyelids. "But your father, my dear?" whispered the visitor, clasping Marjorie in a large hug that so astonished the latter, she could not respond to it.

" He is still in bed this morning, so you need not be afraid of disturbing him." " Is he ? But — excuse me, my poor dear — do you think it wise to let him give in like that to his affliction ? " Marjorie stared. " He has got rather a headache still, so I hope it will go after he has had his break fast, quietly resting. I have not finished my own yet, you see. May I give you a cup of tea ? " " No, thank you. I had my breakfast over by eight o'clock and have done my housekeeping, and come out now about my parish-work," said Miss MIDGE, 19 Baldock. " I always find myself, dear, that early rising and keeping up all one's duties just the same, whatever trouble may overtake us, is the best mind-tonic. I was so shocked when Oliver came home last night and told me the sad news. Poor dear man ! .... he is such a dear father, is not he?"

" Yes," curtly answered the girl. She tried hard to control her lips from quivering, and pushed away her unfinished breakfast. Then after some moments of silence, during which Tryphena Baldock felt her soul brimming with sympathy for this young creature, the latter startled her by asking with an effort at sprightliness — " You don't surely get your nephew down before eight, do you, Miss Tryphena? Is he not a worse sluggard than I am ? " " Well, Oliver is rather lazy. He won't breakfast till nine or thereabouts. But then we must remember he works hard in London most of the week at his business, so when he comes down for what he calls his week-ends, his brain needs relaxation," indulgently explained Oliver's whilom guardian and present housekeeper. Miss Baldock was really vexed that her young friend would not " open her heart " to her.

She had come down with a vague idea that they two women would fall MIDGE. upon each other's necks and weep sore, and then that the afflicted father and daughter would feel comforted and bless Tryphena. Now, however, she had an uneasy consciousness that only for her advent Marjorie, poor soul, would have finished that piece of Jerusha's hot cake which still lay on her plate, crowned with Jerusha's most golden honey. For Mrs. Truman's efforts at consolation to her lodgers had taken the practical form of grilling Oliver's trout to perfection, and getting up earlier than usual to bake fresh scones and to gather flowers for the breakfast-table. Every one after their fashion ; but Miss Baldock felt chag rined, for she had meant so well. Now, looking at her young hostess's small pale face and her trim waist, where a leather belt braced in a coquettish pink shirt, the duty of speaking out smote her conscience, and she never shirked that!

" Excuse my personal remarks, Marjorie.but you are looking pale and really more out of sorts than a healthy girl should do at your age. Now, my dear" bending forward and making her voice quite wee, " are you sure you don't lighten ? I assure you, there is nothing worse. I never have tight ened all my life, and I never have a day's illness in consequence." "Neither have I!" nodded Marjorie, brightly, MIDGE, 21 surveying Miss Baldock's really fine large person with regret. She longed to say, ■ You would have a very good figure if your dresses were not so loose." But she did not dare. Tryphena Baldock could not be called severe or alarming. She was quite a comely spinster, well favoured and in good liking. Her fresh face was very open ; but O ! how unblinking was the steady stare of her large china-blue eyes !

Her fair hair, be sprinkled with grey, was still glossy and thick, but it was brushed with awful unvarying regularity on either side of her face and coiled behind in a knob of large plaits. Midge believed Tryphena's hair never fell out and grew again ; never was damp after rain, or curled after a breeze, like her own ill-regulated locks. Year after year this most excellent woman seemed to wear exactly the same kind of black serge gown and neatly starched cuffs and collars on week-days, with a black satin dress for evenings and holidays, in which Oliver privately declared she looked like a pillar of the church boot polished. Therefore as Miss Baldock sat now and stared with kindly but expressionless eyes, the subject of her mesmerising gaze felt much as if aliving English Sphinx was sitting in the little parlour.

First the unhappy hostess fidgeted and asked all manner of MIDGE. questions as to the well-being of every one in the village since last summer; and were there many visitors this year ; for this was a health resort in its own small way. Then as Tryphena answered precisely and gravely, but said never a word more than was necessary, waiting till this poor giddy girl had exhausted her topics of gossip, when the visitor might put in a few words of serious advice and condolence, Marjorie felt the strain on her nerves growing so great that it seemed as if she must scream ! Would Tryphena never go ? or would she never utter another sentence except a reply ? " I am afraid," hazarded our heroine, timidly, with a desperate glance at the clock, "that I ought just to see if my father wants anything, if you don't mind my leaving you for a little while."

" Yes, yes ; see after him. Never neglect him, my dear ! I do trust you will always make him your principal object in life," assented Miss Baldock, with solemn eagerness, rising. " I must go, indeed. There are three or four families I have to visit also this morning, that are in affliction like yourself. Try to think this trial a blessing in disguise, my love." Midge bit her lip and shook her head. • " I could not, Miss Baldock ; I call it a great sorrow." MIDGE. 23 " It may be sent to enable you to take a more solemn view of life," suggested Tryphena, in a cold blooded, matter-of-fact way. Midge recoiled with a defiant shudder. " Yes, but it might not. If I like to look on the bright side of things, it is because Nature made me so, and she does not turn us all out alike, you know ; besides, my father enjoys cheeriness so much.

That reminds me I must go to him." " Do go, my dear. O — I forgot to say Oliver had to go to London to-day, but will be back for dinner, and he hopes particularly you and your father will both come and dine. He made me promise not to take any refusal," called Miss Baldock up the stairs. "What is that, Midge? Certainly, my dear child. Yes ; by all means," chirped Mr. Honey, quite gaily from his bed, as his daughter entered to consult him. " Give my morning good wishes to our dear Miss Tryphena. How do you do? Can you hear me ? " In that doll's house, unless doors were closed, it would have been difficult not to hear ; yet affecting deafness, though really thrilled to a jelly-like condition, the good lady silently walked out. Next came the rector who was also squire of MIDGE, 24 the parish. He was a portly, big-headed person with a rubicund face and a bald head.

Midge gave a heavy sigh as she saw him squeeze through the garden gate. " Mr. Woolmer has got on his visiting-the-parish face, too," she announced to Mr. Honey, who had just come downstairs after she had tied his tie neatly, and seen, as he blithely remarked, to his top dressing. (How much more frequently than of old she had lately scolded him for being slovenly ! Alas !) "If only people would be content to be good instead of all this doing good ! I hate being done good to," came in quick impatience from her lips, for while one's wound is still raw and sore it is hard 10 have it examined and discussed by all the neighbours. " Now, my pet, they mean it so kindly, and they are such dear excellent creatures. I am very glad to see them, very," gently interposed her father, as Mr. Woolmer entered.