'Such is Life.'

Chapter I Ancester

We remember the heavens of our childhood — places on earth, abiding wherein we seemed to taste bliss unalloyed, where it was always holiday, yet holidays never grew dull. There was no wrong in happiness, any more than in sunshine ; it is only in later years we find, or think we find, people who are too good to be happy. When the gate of our child's paradise shuts behind us, we say that it was never paradise. The gold is fairy gold, yet it was true gold then. Everyone's true gold is the fairy gold of another, or of his other self. Ida Everard's heaven was the old country town of Ancester, where she stayed with her cousins, the chil dren of Dr. Robert Everard. It never grew common place. Her visits were always in holiday time, when she and the boys had simply to enjoy themselves, a task which, being children of manifold resources, they never t! found difficult.

She was only nine years old when she went there first. It was wonderful and beautiful then to a musical and imaginative city-bred child ; but four years later it was far more wonderful and beautiful. To the end of her life she would remember that long summer holiday, when she had been ill with low fever, and went to Ancester to grow quite strong. She grew strong very soon, and the rest of her stay was pure joy. Aunt Emily was one of the sunny, loving women who make their children believe in good women all their lives. The two boys, Jim and Halbert, were different from other boys, so gentle and chivalrous as well as boisterous; so clever — she had not learned then to call them original. Halbert, at least, was clever ; of Jim's talents no one felt so confident, though they all loved him dearly.

But he was not quick at school learning, though every now and then he astonished his family by an unexpected acquaintance with Shakespeare, or with Mrs. Browning, or with sceptical literature belonging to his father, that he was not supposed to have laid hands upon. The joy of reading what, even without any definite embargo, one knows is contraband ! Halbert and Jim ate early of the forbidden tree, and came to the conclusion that they were Agnostics, a conclusion which they imparted in strict confidence to Ida, who became promptly as enthusiastic an unbeliever as themselves, her small mind being prepared for the climax by a deep hatred of long sermons and choirs ANCESTER 3 that sang out of tune. In Ancester, where she and the boys shrouded their convictions, and their indignation at prevailing opinions, in a veil of mystery and mutual understanding, she saw the bright side of scepticism ; in Hackney, where her father was a Dis senting minister, it was less cheering, since she had it all to herself.

But there were more unmingled advantages to lie gained from staying in Ancester. First, there was the grand piano. Over the small, ramshackle, hopeless instrument of 120 Bedford Street, Hackney, some of Ida's bitterest tears had been shed. It was so dreary to know that a piano out of tune injured one's ear, when one meant to be a professional musician, and yet to have to go on practising on it ; and to know that if it could be tuned four, or even three times a year, it would be better, and vet that the five shillings for tuning could so ill be spared. But at Ancester, what joy to practise on a piano that always was in tune, and to feel that there was no discount to be taken off one's progress ! She could not tell Aunt Emily about the old piano, because she fancied that somehow, if the Robert Everards knew how very bad it was, there would be another by-and-bye ; and she had been taught to shun the faintest suspicion of an appeal for help.

But the relief of the grand piano ! The boys were both fond of music, and had great respect for Ida's performances especially Jim, in whom this respect amounted to a reverence. It was to Ida that he confided his deep enthusiasm for the organist of the parish church, of which more afterwards. Again, there were story-books unlimited. Story books at the Everards' were not like the story-books which Ida met with elsewhere. There was a charm about them beyond the charm of the reward-books she had gained at Sunday school, and of the ' Juvenile Offering,' and of the ' Youth's Instructor.' They had prettier covers, with softer greens and blues, the paper was thicker and whiter, the print clearer, the reading much more enchanting. It was the difference between a rich house and a poor one, but it was more than tliis.

What was the 'Juvenile Offering'? what was even ' Sandford and Merton ' compared with ' Alice in Wonderland,' and the ' Arabian Nights,' and Hans Andersen, and ' Good Words for the Young,' containing • At the Back of the North Wind ' and ' The Boy in Grey,' with simply enthralling illustrations ? Here was the element of romance she had always longed for, so fatally absent from ' Sandford and Merton,' where Mr. Barlow never deviated into mysticism, and you alwavs knew what every word meant. Certainly, she did not know what 'The Boy in Grey' meant; but then she did not want to know. The pictures alone were an en chanted world, after seeing bad woodcuts all her life. The picture of the North Wind, with her fiowinohair there was something to dream and wonder over. In what ANCESTER 5 other picture had she ever seen wind ? ' Chatterbox had been good enough in quite another way ; but you could not dream over the pictures in 'Chatterbox,' though you could paint them with paints.

It would have been sacrilege to paint Prince Philarete in ' The Boy in Grey.' Moreover, there were no morals ; or, if there were, she passed over them in blissful ignorance. Later, truly, it is difficult to read Macdonald without drawing inferences, or, at least, feeling vaguelv that inferences ought to be drawn ; but children with un warped minds can do so with perfect ease. Jim also introduced Ida to Aunt Emily's queer. green-brown Tennyson — some pirated American edition — with engravings from Dore. And those engravings were wonderful things ! Jim and Ida could put in the colour for themselves. They certainly saw the green of the leaves in the picture of the knight on a noble charger riding through a deep wood, with elves poising on the branches — so beautiful, yet so inexpressibly sad.

And how they loved the picture, yet sadder and more beautiful, of the barge floating down to Camelot, bearing the dead girl with the lily in her hand ! Moreover, Dr. Everards favourite poem was the ' Vision of Sin ' ; and Jim, having a profound respect for his father's opinion, also admired the ' Vision of Sin,' and set to learning it by heart. Ida, not to be behindhand, found it a delightful poem too, though she did not understand a word of it — for that matter, neither did Jim — and they committed it to memory together, and recited it with the utmost fervour, revelling in all the most terrible verses, such as : 'And the glow-worm of the grave Glimmer in thy rheumy eyes.' Probably no two readers ever had so much sheer enjoyment, unmixed with depressing reflections, out of the ' Vision of Sin.' But there were other joys.

The garden looked out on the great brown river that ran through Ancester ; and at the end of the garden was a low wide wall, on which they sat and watched the ships and the sunsets. For Ancester, though not a seaport, was only five miles from the river's mouth, and ships were continually lying anchored to the wharf right opposite the Everards ; which ships were a great joy to Jim and Halbert, who became learned in all nautical mysteries, and covered their school-books with pictures of one, and two, and three, and even four masters, and made acquaintance with old sea-captains, and esteemed it a privilege to spend their spare pocket-money on purchasing them • Old Judge ' tobacco. Then, at turn of tide, they watched for the eger — the great wave that rolled up the river, with a steady, rushing sound, passing the tall grey church tower, the level country's landmark for many a mile round, and breaking with a thunderous plash at the sluice-gate beyond.

ANCESTER 7 There was a wonderful old church, the pride of the town, which they all loved dearly. Jim and Ida, leaning over the wall on summer evenings, used to listen often, with their eyes and ears strained towards the church, till maybe a certain mellow sound came floating down to them, and Jim would say, ' The organ ! ' Then the two would rush away, Jim foremost, Ida little behind him, hardly tarrying for hat and gloves, and speed across the bridge, and through the market-place and to the churchyard, and listen at the porch—some times to find, truth to tell, that their haste had been a delusion, and there was no organ sounding after all, or that — an anti-climax even more provoking — it was played by a pupil. Jim's reverence for Dr. Arne, the organist, was un bounded. Boyish enough he was in a general way, and much fonder, as a right-minded boy should be, of play than of work, but with another side to him, sensi tive and romantic, and with a huge capacity for hero worship.

This Ida could quite comprehend ; and there was soon a mutual understanding between them, into which Halbert, who was not addicted to grand passions, did not enter. He had known Jim stand outside the church an hour, one hard winter night, when the doors were locked, merely to hear the organist within playing the ' Hymn of Praise,' but had not gathered from this that Jim, besides loving music fervently, considered Dr. Arne another Seraphael. He was really a man of genius, and looked like one, being tall and handsome and sombre, with a noble head, and dark hair and beard, but rather haughty in manner, and, on the whole, unpopular, though the town was proud of his playing. There could have been no more fascinating personality to Jim, to whom the melancholy ofthe face made it doubly attractive.

Ida's awe and reverence were soon not far behind his own ; and many a time the two dogged the steps of the unconscious musician at a respectful distance, deriving infinite satisfaction from watching his swift, gliding walk, seeing him turn at times to spt;ak to some acquaint ance, and resorting to complex manœuvres to avoid detection — manœuvres quite unnecessary, since it would never have occurred to anyone that there was anything to be detected. As for the church, it became bound up in their minds with musical memories, but they also loved it for itself. That tall grey tower, at daybreak, looked half translucent, often, with a pure white lustre ; at sunset it was flushed with rose, but it was always beautiful, though wrapped in grey sea-mist like a huge ghost, or looming black against a stormy sky, or, as they saw it once in the dead of night, illumined again and again by long bright flashes of sheet lightning, pure rose colour.

They would never forget these things. One other member of the Everard family remains to ANCESTER 9 be mentioned : Elsie, the youngest child, who would be a cripple all her life. At present she was a small, unspoiled despot of six, whom her brothers called Princess, and whose quaint, precocious ways were a perpetual interest to them all. Ida, like the rest, was soon her faithful devotee. No wonder that to Ida Ancester was literally paradise : she desired nothing better. Books, music, friends, and someone more like a mother than even Aunt Theodora, who kept house for her father. It was a paradise that, as years passed, might fail to satisfy her, but that would never fade into the light of common day.

Chapter II Choirs And Convictions

It was a very different home to which Ida returned ; and though she loved her father and Aunt Theodora, it was hard to leave regions of music and enchantment, Dr. Arne's wonderful voluntaries, the sunsets and the river, and the innumerable charms of Ancester, and settle down to precisely the old routine. Hackney was not a romantic spot, there were no sunsets there, but only chimney-pots, or so Ida thought in her first grief. The house they lived in was old and sombre, of dingy red brick, and all its surroundings were cheerless ; their life was frugal even to asceticism, for they were poor. Moreover, the companionship of two grown-up people with very earnest views of life could hardly, however good they were, make up to a child for the want of friends of her own age. Both Mr. Everard and Aunt Theodora cared to see her happy ; but mingled with all their efforts for her pleasure was always an undercurrent of desire that she should find 'true happiness,' which lent them a tinge of melancholv, and made it rather difficult for her to be happy either in their way or her own.

She gained from her training, however, what is supposed to be a more important thing than happiness — a conscience, which, in later years, troubled her much as the importunate widow did the unjust judge. She complained, indeed, that it always presented itself on the scene after the wrong deed was done, like a policeman, with the air of having been there all the time. But this, perhaps, is the way of a good many consciences. Probably Ida's conscience was more active at home, where she was always doing wrong, than at Ancester, where she was always good ; and a dim fear of its tyranny was mingled with her sorrow at leaving Ancester. Yet she had a warm welcome. Her father was at the station to meet her, and Aunt Theodora was waiting at the window when they reached home, and a bright fire greeted the traveller.

All her experiences had to be told, all her treasures displayed. Still, when she went up to her own little room, she became a prey to grief. Aunt Emily had given her, at parting, her photo graph, and also a copy of ' The Swiss Family Robinson ' in green and gold, with lovely coloured engravings. It was the most beautiful book she had ever possessed. Halbert, who was enthusiastic about geology, had given her his best, his very best fossil ammonite, and insisted on her taking it; while Jim had expended his last half-crown on a volume of Chopin's Nocturnes, and Elsie's keepsake was a small green tin crocodile, a bjautiful reptile running on two wheels, and tied to a long string which coiled and uncoiled, giving it a graceful wavelike motion. When Ida went to bed she laid the volume of Chopin on a chair at her bedside, and arranged on it Aunt Emily, and the ammonite, and the green crocodile. ' The Swiss Family Robinson,' which was wrapped in tissue paper, she did not bedew with her tears, because she knew quite well that tears would soak through and spoil the cover ; but she put it under her pillow while she cried till she could cry no longer, and then took it out and went to sleep clasping it.

When she woke, and realised that she was no longer at Ancester, her first glance was at her treasures. There they7 were — Aunt Emily, the crocodile, and the ammonite, all on the top of Chopin. A mist came into her eyes, but she would cry no more. She only cried when she could not possibly help it ; and besides, she had already7 discovered that night is the safest time for tears. Then — unless, indeed, the case is desperate — their traces are obliterated by sleep, and do not show when one comes down to breakfast. Thus the old routine began again. The first Sunday, with bad music — how much worse now, after the organ and choir at Ancester — was trying. The leader at chapel was a dark, depressed young man, who looked as if he thought the world viewed him in a wrong light, but one that he did not quite know how to rectifv.

There was a constant mild challenge in his air, as of one who refused, but not too confidently, to allow him self to be at a disadvantage ; and he played the harmonium in the same way, which was a great grief to Ida. He played variations on classical music a good deal, as if he were nearly sure they were equal to the occasion, but never quite sure ; and he sang solos, in which he dropped the h's, with a touch of complacent defiance, behind which lurked a smothered suspicion that there might be something wrong, though he did not know it was the h's. Ida liked him, half com passionately, divining that he was really fond of music, in spite of the variations, but feeling that he was a young man with whom a very little admiration would go a long way. If the harmonium was bad, the singing was no better.

Neither the choir nor the congregation had the slightest idea of time ; and while the choir per sisted in leading the instrument, the congregation as invariably7 lagged behind. Thus the verses always came to several distinct stops at the end, in spite of the leader's violent efforts either to bring back the choir or to catch them, at the same time not wholly losinosight of the congregation. Sometimes in his agitation he started a short metre tune to a long metre hymn, or something similar; and in this case he al ways fought it through gallantly with his voice and the harmonium, trying to look as if there were nothing the matter, or at least no evidence that would go to a jury. Also the singing was flat in different degrees in different parts of the building, except that now and then, in festivals or in revivals, choir and congregation became inspired, and soared a semitone above the harmonium.

All this, which would have been amusing once in a while, was very trying twice every Sunday ; and besides, Ida had the hopeless feeling that, like the old piano at home, it was all helping to spoil her ear. Certainly, if she lost her ear for music, life would be worth living no longer. As for the rest ofthe service, the sermons varied, as sermons will. Ida was, thanks to her newly-won con victions, a prejudiced critic : it is useless to record the bitter stages through which she passed, in learning to trust the life against the spoken word, and to know that the unselfish are unselfish, the selfish selfish, under what ever banner they choose to rank themselves. Whether people call themselves believers or unbelievers, they cannot monopolise true religion ; and perhaps enough theological romances have been written on the subject of comparative inspiration.

John and Robert Everard had gone very different ways. It was hard to believe that two brothers equally earnest and upright should be so different ; but from their boyhood they had been under separate influences, and the mind of one was always more given to questioning. People called one a believer, the other an unbeliever : yet they were both deeply religious men, who lived sincere, noble, and unselfish lives. It was easier for them to understand each other's acts than to understand each other's thoughts. It was on minor points that they held most of their pitched battles, having gradually learned that conflict abont what John Everard called ' essentials ' was worse than idle. Whether, for instance, a lie was justifiable to save the life of an innocent person. Here John Everard introduced the supernatural as persistently as his brother excluded it, and the result, to a listener, was entertaining enough.

I remember hearing the two : ' The verbal lie,' said Dr. Robert, ' is a mere ex pression of " the lie in the soul." If I can extricate myself from a more vital falsehood by a verbal lie, I am right to do it.' ' If we lie in words,' said his brother, with the calm of a settled conviction, ' we are wrong all through ; the commandment is clear on that point.' 'What would you say to a murderer who asked a question of you, if silence were equivalent to betraying his victim ? ' inquired the Doctor. ' I should knock him down.' ' Suppose he were twice your size ? ' ' I should receive strength to deal with that man,' said John Everard, with some relish of the prospect. ' If he were armed ? ' 'I should tell him,' said John Everard, realising the situation, ' to stand aside. If, after that, he dared to step past me to that innocent person, I should receive grace to deal with that man in a manner he never bar gained for.

That I should. I should give him fair warning, but then he would have to look out.' This with great dignity. ' My dear John,' said his brother, ' consider what you are talking about. The man's armed : the man gets the better of you! ' That he doesn't ! ' interrupted the elder stubbornly. ' God defends the right.' ' Let us talk reasonably,' said Robert Everard. ' I am not supposing supernatural assistance.' ' Yes, but I am though,' was the prompt rejoinder. ' I am supposing that God will never place his servants in a position from which they have to extricate them selves, or anyone else, by falsehood. He will work a miracle sooner. I refuse to tell a lie. Do I jeopardise the life of the innocent person in question ? Not a bit of it. I grapple with that scoundrel, and I overcome him.' ' Suppose you killed him' said his brother, shifting his ground. ' There's a commandment against that too, isn't there ? ' ' I shouldn't kill him.

I should endeavour to secure him.' ' Suppose you couldn't secure him. Suppose you were on a bridge where either you had to throw him into the water, or he you.' ' I wouldn't let him throw me in,' said the elder tranquilly. ' Then you would be a murderer.' ' No. I should tell him to look out. It would be his own affair.' ' On the other hand, if you told a lie to get him into your power, you might convert him afterwards.' ' How could I preach the Gospel to a man,' asked John Everard indignantly, ' if I had just lied to him ? ' ' A great deal better than if you had just killed him,' replied the more logical. ' I shouldn't kill him," said the other, returning con fidently to his old position. ' He might get maimed.' His brother laughed, and the controversy ended. It was an example of what was always taking place between them when they met. c

Chapter III Saint Cecilia

It was not long after her return from Ancester that Ida first went to school, a select academy in Upper Clapton. Hitherto she had only been taught by Aunt Theodora, and school was a new world to her. At first, indeed, her dreams of Ancester pervaded every thing, and she only looked forward to the next holiday that should take her there. But by-and-bye, as will happen to a dreamy, romantic child of fourteen, a new interest began to absorb her. Miss Lilian Rivers, the teacher of music at Poplar House, who lived with her aunt and uncle in Highbury in the holidays, but stayed at the school during the term, was different from anyone else Ida had ever seen. She was fair to look upon, but not so beautiful as lovely, with dreamy dark eyes and a singularly sweet and musical voice, that nearly always had a ring of melancholy7.

She was the kind of person of whom one can imagine anything that is noble, even if there seems to be no especial reason why one should. It is certain that Ida fell in love with her ; it is also certain that she was very much in love. No one knew except Jim, and he did not know all — the marvel was that he knew anything ; still he deserved some return for his confidences about Dr. Arne ; and when Ida had once begun to write to him about her goddess, the charm of setting down her name on paper was too deep to be resisted. But neither Jim nor anyone else was ever suffered to read Ida's private diary, which would certainly have been to the uninitiated like the ravings of absolute madness. Well it is for us that our nearest friends may never p-uess either how mad or how sane we are. It was not a school where great passions were in vogue, or Ida might have found hers less enthralling.

She had it to herself, which made it doubly dangerous. All the girls did not care for Miss Rivers ; some of them disliked her. A few thought her, in spite of her wonderful eyes, unfeeling ; others — which was worst of all — said there was nothing much in her, though she played brilliantly. Only Ida knew that she was a great soul ; only Ida knew that her playing was more than brilliant — it was inspired ; only Ida knew the depths of feeling that lay beneath her serene and gracious exterior. To Jim Ida wrote, 'She is like music ; ' to herself she said, ' " She is music." ' So she wandered blissfully away after the ideal ; and Lilian, whatever else she was, was a good person to idealise. She never — or very seldom — did anything that rudely repelled her worshippers. She lent herself to dreams : c probably her worst fault was that there was little reality about her.

I am pretty sure that she was not a great soul ; Elsie Everard emphatically thought not, though Elsie, like the rest of them, was touched by her loveliness. ' It's a shame to want her to have a soul too,' she said once. ' People ought to have souls when they're not beautiful, but it doesn't matter for her.' That was long after. Ida had no doubt at school about the great soul, and composed fragments of music to it, which she played over shyly when no one was listening. Certainly it was a good thing for her from a musical point of view, since Lilian became her Saint Cecilia. She found out when her birthday was, and resolved to take her flowers. It was in the Easter holidays, and Lilian was at home. Somehow, Covent Garden seemed a much more romantic place than the small, dear shops in Hackney, and Ida went thither with eighteenpence and a covered basket, and a small phial of water with which to refresh the flowers on her way bac k. She had an impression that ai Covent Garden flowers were cheap, and the prices daunted her.

The stall-keepers answered her timid questions with such appalling promptitude and pre cision that she felt hopeless, and saw her poor little nosegay dwindle into a totally unworthy offering. She wanted lilies of the valley ; but the sharp ' Three pence a spray ' sounded like a threat, and she fled in alarm to the other end of the market, where at last she caught sight of a benevolent face among the stall keepers, and immediately addressed it : ' I want eighteenpence worth of flowers,' she said with deep earnestness. ' I don't want a great many, but I should like them particularly nice.' ' Well, the best are expensive, miss,' said the stall-keeper pleasantly. He was a benign-looking, elderly man, with a grey beard and kindly brown eyes ; and Ida immediately felt absolute confidence in him. 'Oh, I know,' she said; 'I only want very few.' And she watched him, feeling horribly exorbitant in spite of herself.

But the florist was giving her the best ; and yet he was liberal-handed. Presently she said timidly, with a sudden fear lest he should havo misunderstood her : ' I'm afraid you are giving me too many foi eighteenpence.' The florist did not answer, but he turned to the glass with the lilies of the valley, and took out one, two — he positively took out three sprays ! ' Oh, I ought not to have those,' said Ida, quite awestruck. • It's all right, miss,' said the florist ; and he added some maidenhair and a white hyacinth. Never bad such a bouquet been bought for eighteenpence. Then he squirted a shower of something over it out of a bottle, to keep the flowers fresh, and twisted blue paper round it and put it into Ida's basket. 'They are for someone who is very fond of flowers,' she said, when she had thanked him, by way of justi fying her radiant satisfaction, and she went away holding the basket in a reverential manner that made the florist smile.

She spent her last twopence on an omnibus so that the flowers might not have time to wither, and hurried back to Lilian's own home. She had made up her mind to ask to see her, but that intention vanished as she neared the house, and she would have left the flowers and rushed away without a word if Lilian her self had not met her at the door. Ida confessed her errand, and Lilian drew her in. ' Yes, I was going out,' she said, ' but there is no hurry. How sweet of you! I was just wishing for flowers to wear, and I knew I ought not to afford them. I am going to a dance to-night.' She took out the flowers, and Ida watched her. She was so lovely and so graceful as she exclaimed at their beauty, and never guessed in the least the feelings of the shy and silent mortal at her side. ' Lilies of the valley,' she said. ' How exquisite !