XIII. PEGASUS IN HARNESS…

XIII. PEGASUS IN HARNESS

'Fear not on that rugged high-way Life may want its lawful zest, Sunny glens are on the mountain, Where the weary heart may rest.' Charles Gavan Duffy.

There was much relief and comfort in that visit of Mr. Audley's. For one thing, Geraldine was able to pour out all her troubles, as she had been used to do ever since her father had left her in his charge--her repentance for the stirrings of her naturally fretful, plaintive temper, for her fits of impatience and her hard judgments, and, what surprised him chiefly, for jealousy.

'Yes,' she repeated, at his word of surprise, 'I am jealous!'

'Indeed!'

'I never knew it till the choral festival. I used to be very fond of her, but--I'm sure it is jealousy; I don't like to see her more eagerly attended to than myself. Not that there is anything to complain of. He never neglected me in his life.'

Mr. Audley smiled. 'People would tell you it is the natural lot of sisters.'

Then she saw that he knew all about it; for, in fact, Felix had, rather to the general surprise, observed that the Miss Pearsons would like to meet Mr. Audley, and the trio had spent a musical evening with the Underwood party.

'Oh,' she cried, 'is it all my own horridness? Or is it really--'

'My own horridness or my own discernment?' said he, taking the words out of her mouth. 'My dear, such an affair as this would be generally the family jest.'

'Oh!'

'It is just as well it should not be so here,' continued Mr. Audley, 'for nonsense is not always a cure, and the talk would be mischievous; besides, I think both are unconscious.'

'He is, I believe,' said Cherry.

'At any rate, he is more than ordinarily full of sense and self-control, and may safely be trusted to do nothing imprudent. She is pretty and attractive, and of course he likes to be with her; but I should think it very unlikely it would go farther. Has any one else observed it?'

'Not Wilmet, only Lance.'

'And has not made fun of it? That speaks well for Master Lance's discretion. Yet you all feel the weight of life too heavily. I had rather have found you amused by these little prepossessions, than weighing them seriously, and wearing yourself to fritters.'

'I will try not to mind, but I can't help being afraid for him! It must be very wrong to be almost turned against her because he likes her; and yet, what is all very well as my friend does not seem enough for Felix.'

'Nor will it be. My dear Cherry, such things come on and go off twenty times in a man's life. You will treat the symptoms more lightly before you have done with your seven brothers. Meantime, don't fret your conscience over fancies, unless you have spoken or acted unkindly or fretfully.'

'O Mr. Audley, what shall I do when you are quite gone? All this time I have felt as if I were without my pilot.'

Mr. Audley, too, had been thinking this over, and wished to put her more formally under the spiritual charge of Mr. Willoughby of St. Faith's, feeling that the morbid and sensitive nature needed external support, and that it was not right to deprive it of what the Church sanctions.

Her only doubt was Felix's approval. His nature did not readily accept progress beyond that to which he had been bred up; and in border lands like these, an unfavourable medium made much difference to the clearness of the sight. Clement's contempt for what had satisfied his father annoyed him; and his mind was self-reliant, his soul accustomed to find its requirements met by the system around him, and his character averse to intermeddling; so that it was against the grain with him that spiritual guidance should be sought outside the family, or, at any rate, outside the parish. He thought such direction weakened the nature; and Mr. Audley, after warning him against taking the disease for the effect of the remedy, had to laugh at him as a British householder. After all, he yielded, because he thought Mr. Audley had a certain right over Geraldine, and that it was proper to defer to his judgment; while his guardian trusted to a sight of St. Matthew's for the overthrowal of the prejudices that Clement had managed to excite.

Before leaving England, Mr. Audley was resolved that little Theodore should be shown to some London physician. The child was five years old, but looked no more than three. He could totter in an uncertain run, and understood a few simple sentences, but came no nearer to language than the appropriation of a musical sound to every one whom he knew. There was nothing unpleasant about him, except his constant purring and humming; he was perfectly docile, loved music, and could be amused by simple recurring games. His affections seemed to have gone out chiefly to Felix and to Sibby; and as to his twin-sister, he seemed lost without her, and she seemed to view him as the complement of herself--like a sort of left hand, giving him things to hold in his feeble grasp, saying her lessons to him, and talking as if to a doll. There was something sad in the very resemblance; for their eyes were of the same shade of deep blue, their long soft hair of the same flaxen tint, their faces equally fair; but while hers was all colour, light, and life, his was pale and vacant, and scarcely ever stirred into expression.

Mr. Audley thought it right to ascertain whether treatment could be of any use; and finding that his father's London house was only occupied by his brother the Captain, he arranged that Felix should come up to town with the child and Sibby, when the law business could be arranged, and there would be an opportunity of his seeing something of the world.

He had never had a holiday before, and Mr. Froggatt rivalled his guardian in his desire that it should not be too short. The first call was by appointment on the doctor. He was not used to have patients like Theodore brought by youths of Felix's age, and was touched by the care and tenderness of the young man, as he tried to overcome the alarm that was rendering the little one impracticable, when it was desirable to exhibit his slender store of accomplishments. His nearest approach to his natural state was when perched on his brother's knee, with his back to the strange faces, listening as Felix whistled the tunes he loved best.

After all, little was gained by the consultation, except the assurance that the poor little fellow was as well situated as was possible. A few directions for treatment and discipline were given, but very little hope was held out of any important change for the better.

The verdict disappointed Felix to an extent that surprised Mr. Audley, who had better understood the hopelessness of the case. Of all the family, Felix had the most of the parental instinct for the most helpless; and while he warmly thanked his friend, he looked so mournfully at the child who clung to him, that Mr. Audley said in a voice of sympathy, 'It is a burthen, but one that will never bring the sting of sin.'

'Not a burthen,' said Felix. 'No; as my father said when he gave him to me, he is the Gift of God, the son of my right hand. May it always be able to work for you!' he murmured, as he bent his head over the little one.

'And I think the gift will bring a blessing!' said Mr. Audley.

Theodore was sent home with Sibby, thus restoring Stella to herself, for she had been greatly lost without her speechless companion; but Felix remained in London for a week of business and pleasure. Captain Audley was very good-natured and friendly, and abetted his brother in all his arrangements for showing Felix as much of life as was possible in a week, assuring him that every new experience was a duty to the Pursuivant--a plea that Felix, with his lover-like devotion to every detail of his paper, admitted with a smile. Edgar was of almost all their expeditions, and dined with them nearly every day. That young gentleman's peculiar pleasantness had very nearly averted the remonstrances with which his brother and his guardian had come up armed. There he was, finding his work real, and not a royal road to immediate wealth, idling, lounging, and gratifying his taste for art and music; and when his employer stormed and threatened, listening with aggravating coolness, and even sweetness, merely hinting that his occupation was a mistake; and living all the time as a son of the house, with a handsome allowance, and free access to society and amusement. Thus, when Mr. Audley talked to him, he smiled with a certain resignation, and observed that he was concerned for poor old Tom, to have been unlucky enough to have drawn such a fellow as himself. Probably it was a judgment on him for not having come forward sooner, when he might have had Felix! And when Mr. Audley upheld Felix as an example of hearty sacrifice of taste and inclination, it was to obtain an enthusiastic response. Nobody breathed equal to dear old Fee, and it was the most ardent desire of Edgar's heart to take some of the burthen from his shoulders! When it was hinted that such an allowance as Tom Underwood gave afforded the opportunity, Edgar smiled between melancholy and scorn, saying, 'Times must have altered since your time, Mr. Audley.--No, I forgot. Expense is the rule in our line. Swells can do as they please.'

However, there things rested; Mr. Underwood treated him exactly like an idle son, storming at him sometimes, but really both fond and proud of him, and very gracious to Felix, whom he invited once to a very dull and dazzling dinner, and once sent to the opera with his ladies.

Felix's Sunday was chiefly spent at St. Matthew's, which he was very glad to see without Tina's spectacles. He was amazed to find so much more good sense and reality than the effect on Clement had led him to expect; and Mr. Fulmort, who struck him as one of the most practical-looking men he had ever seen, spoke in high terms of Clement's steadiness and wish to do right; but added, 'I am afraid we have rather spoilt him. He came up to us so unlike the kind of boy we generally get, that we may have made rather too much of him at first.'

Felix smiled. 'Perhaps we had knocked him about, and made too little of him at home,' he said.

'Besides, esprit de corps in so small a place as this is apt to become so concentrated as not to be many removes from egotism. I daresay we have been a terrible bore to you.'

Felix laughed. 'We have always been very grateful to you, Sir.'

'I understand. I am glad he is going farther a-field. He will be much improved by seeing other places, and having his exclusiveness and conceit shaken out of him; but we shall always regard him as the child of the house, and I only hope he may end by working among us.'

'Poor fellow! Conceit has been pretty well shaken out for the present,' said Felix.

'I hope it may last. He was rather hurt at my not making his misfortune of more importance: but it seems to have been accident, all except the priggish self-confidence that led to it.'

Felix increased much in cordiality towards Mr. Fulmort, and at the same time mounted many stages in Clement's estimation on the discovery that, however behindhand his ecclesiastical advantages might be, the Vicar was exceedingly impressed by his excellence.

A day or two after Felix's arrival, Ferdinand Travis was first encountered riding a spirited horse in the park, looking remarkably handsome, though still of the small-limbed slender make that recalled his Indian blood. His delight in the meeting was extreme, and he seemed to be as simple and good as ever. He was in deep mourning, having newly heard of his father having been killed in an American railway accident; and though his uncle seemed proud of him, and continued his liberal allowance, the loss and blank were greatly felt--all the more that he had not found it easy to make friends among his brother officers in the Life Guards. His foreign air was somehow uncongenial; he had no vivacity or cleverness, and being little inclined to some of the amusements of his contemporaries, and on his guard against others, he seemed to find his life rather dull and weary. He did not seem to have anything to love except his horses, especially the creature he was then riding, Brown Murad. He had obtained it after such competition, that he viewed the purchase as an achievement; while Felix heard the amount with an incredulous shudder, and marvelled at Mr. Audley's not regarding it as wildly preposterous. It was a dangerous position; and though Mr. Audley certified himself, through his soldier brother, that Travis was steadiness itself--neither betted, gamed, nor ran into debt--yet while he seemed personally acquainted with all the horses that ran, and apparently entered into no literature but the 'Racing Calendar,' it was impossible not to be anxious about him, even though he seemed perfectly happy to be allowed to be with his two godfathers, and followed them everywhere, from the Houses of Parliament to St. Matthew's.

This was not the last expedition Felix had to make to London that spring. After many appointments of the time, and as many delays, a telegram suddenly summoned him in the beginning of May to bring Fulbert up to London, when the business would be wound up, and Captain Audley would take his brother and the boy in his yacht to Alexandria, there to join the overland passengers.

So Fulbert's farewells were made in the utmost haste, and mixed up with Wilmet's solicitous directions for his proper use of all her preparations for his comfort on the voyage; and Lance could only be seen for the brief moments of halt at the Minsterham Station, during which neither spoke three words, but Lance hung on the step till the train was in motion, and then was snatched back, and well shaken and reprimanded, by a guard; while Fulbert leant out after him at even greater peril of his life, long after the last wave of the trencher cap had ceased to be visible.

Felix believed that this parting was more felt than that with all the other eleven; and while Fulbert subsided into his corner, the elder brother felt much oppressed by the sense that it was his duty to give some good advice, together with great perplexity what it should be, how it should be expressed, and whether it would be endured. He would have been thankful for some of Clement's propensity for preaching when he found himself tête-à-tête with Fulbert in a cab; but while he was still considering of the right end by which to take this difficult subject, he was startled by his beginning, 'Felix, I say, I'm glad you are going to get shut of me.'

'I believe it is for your good,' said Felix.

'You'll get on better without me,' repeated Fulbert; then, with an effort, 'Look here. It isn't that I don't know you're a brick and all that, but somehow nothing riles me like your meddling with me.'

'I know it,' answered Felix. 'I wish I could have helped it; but what could be done, when there was nobody else?'

'Ay,' responded Fulbert, 'I know I have been a sulky, nasty brute to you, and I should do it again; and yet I wish I hadn't.'

'I should be as bad myself if I were a junior,' was the moral reflection Felix produced for his brother's benefit. 'Only, Ful, if you try that on with Mr. Audley out there, you'll come to grief.'

'I don't mean to,' said Fulbert.

'And you'll keep in mind what my father meant us to be, Ful--that we have got to live so as to meet him again.'

Fulbert nodded his head emphatically.

'It is his name you have to keep unstained in the new country,' added Felix, the fresh thought rising to his lips; but it was met by a gush of feeling that quite astonished him.

'Ay, and yours, Felix! I do--I do want to be a help, and not a drag to you. I really don't think so much of any of them--not even Lance--as of you. I hope I shouldn't have been better to my father than I have been to you; and when--when I'm out there, I do hope to show--that I do care.'

The boy was fighting with very hard sobs, and for all the frightful faces he made the tears were running down his cheeks. Felix's eyes were overflowing too, but with much of sudden comfort and thankfulness.

'I always knew you were a good fellow, Ful,' he said, with his hand on his brother's knee; 'and I think you'll keep so, with Mr. Audley to keep you up to things, and show you how to be helped.'

All after this was bustle and hurry. Fulbert had to be sent alone to take leave of Alda, while his brother and Mr. Audley transacted their business. Edgar came back with him; and after some hurried rushings out in search of necessaries forgotten, the last farewells were spoken, and Fulbert, with the two Audley brothers, was out of sight; while Felix, after drawing a long, deep sigh, looked at his watch, and spoke of going to see Alda.

'Don't run your head into a hornet's nest,' said Edgar; 'it's all up with me there. Come this way, and I'll tell you all about it.'

'All up with you!'

'There are limits to human endurance, and Tom and I have over-passed each other's. I don't blame him, poor man; he wanted raw material to serve as an importer of hides and tallow, but you, the genuine article, were bespoken, and my father was not in a state for the pleading of personal predilections.'

'What is it now?'

'Only a set of etchings from Atalanta in Caledon. That was the straw that broke the camel's back,' said Edgar, so coolly as to make Felix exclaim--

'How much or how little do you mean?'

'Separated on account of irreconcilable incompatibility.'

'Impossible!'

'Possible, because true.'

'Why did you not tell before Mr. Audley was gone?'

'It would have been bad taste to obtrude one's own little affairs, and leave him with vexatious intelligence to ruminate on his voyage. Nay, who knows but that he might have thought it his duty to wait to compose matters, and so a bright light might have been lost to the Antipodes.'

'You actually mean me to understand that you have broken with Tom Underwood!'

'The etchings were the text of an awful row, in which the old gentleman exposed himself more than I am willing to repeat, and called on me to choose between his hides and tallow and what he was pleased to call my tomfoolery.'

Felix groaned.

'Exactly so. You are conscious that his demand was not only tyrannical but impracticable. One can't change the conditions of one's nature.'

'Are you absolutely dismissed?'

'Nothing can be more so.'

'And what do you mean to do?' demanded Felix, stung, though to a certain degree reassured, by his tranquillity.

'Study art.'

'And live--?'

'On my own two hundred. You will advance it? I only want sixteen months of years of discretion, and then I'll pay it back with more than interest.'

'I must know more first,' said Felix. 'I must understand what terms you are on with Tom Underwood, and whether you have any reasonable or definite plans.'

'Spoken like an acting partner! Well, come to Renville, he will satisfy you as to my plans. I am to be his pupil; he teaches at the South Kensington Museum, and is respectability itself. In fact, he requires my responsible brother to be presented to him. Come along.'

'Stay, Edgar. I do not think it right by Tom Underwood to see any one before him. I shall go to him before anything else is done.'

'Do not delude yourself with the hope of patching up matters like Audley last winter, losing me five months of time and old Tom of temper.'

'How long ago was this?'

'The crisis was yesterday. I was just packing to come home when Fulbert burst upon the scene.'

Nothing could be worse news, yet Edgar's perfect self-possession greatly disarmed Felix. Never having thought his brother and the work well suited, he was the less disposed to anger, especially as the yoke of patronage was trying to his character; but he persisted in seeing Thomas Underwood before taking any steps for Edgar's future career, feeling that this was only due to the cousin to whom his father had entrusted the lad. So Edgar, with a shrug, piloted him to the Metropolitan Railway, and then to the counting-house where, in the depths of the City, Kedge and Underwood dealt for the produce of the corrals of South America.

Edgar, as he entered the office full of clerks, nodded to their bald-headed middle-aged senior in a half-patronizing manner. 'Don't be afraid, Mr. Spooner; I'm not coming back on your hands, whatever this good brother of mine may intend. Is the Governor in?'

'Mr. Underwood is in his room, Mr. Edgar,' was the very severe answer; 'but after this most serious annoyance, I would not answer for the consequences.'

'Wouldn't you indeed?' said Edgar quietly, in a nonchalant tone that made the younger lads bend down to sniggle behind their desks, while he moved on to the staircase.

Mr. Spooner and he were visibly old foes; but the senior devoured his wrath so far as to come forward and offer a chair to Felix, repeating, however, 'Mr. Underwood is very seriously annoyed.'

Before Felix could attempt an answer, Edgar had re-descended, newspaper in hand. 'Go up, Felix,' he said, threw himself into the chair, and proceeded to read the paper; while Felix obeyed, and found the principal standing at his door, ready to meet him.

'What, Felix Underwood! Glad to see you. This intolerable affair can't have brought you up already, though?'

'No, Sir; I was telegraphed for late last night, to bring up my brother Fulbert to start with Mr. Audley.'

'Oh, ay. Well, I hope he'll have a better bargain of him than I've had in Edgar. You've heard his impudence?'

'I am exceedingly sorry--'

Then Mr. Underwood broke out with his account of Edgar's folly and ingratitude, after all the care and expense of his education. He had taken up with a set of geniuses for friends, was always rehearsing for amateur performances with them, keeping untimely hours; and coming late to the office, to cast up accounts, or copy invoices in his sleep, make caricatures on his blotting-paper, or still worse, become 'besotted' with some design for a drawing or series of drawings, and in the frenzy of execution know no more what was said to him than a post. Finally, 'the ladies' being as mad as himself, as Mr. Underwood said, had asked him to draw for a bazaar, and in his frenzy of genius over the etchings he had entirely forgotten an important message, and then said he could not help it. On being told that if so he was not fit for his profession, he merely replied, 'Exactly so, the experiment had been unsuccessful;' and when his meekness had brought down a furious tempest of wrath, and threats of dismissal, he had responded, 'with his intolerable cool insolence,' that 'this would be best for all parties.'

'This is the offence?' anxiously asked Felix.

'Offence? What greater offence would you have?'

'Certainly nothing can be much worse as to business,' said Felix. 'But when he told me what had happened, I was afraid that he might be running into temptation.'

'Oh! as to that, there's no harm in the lad--Spooner allows that-- nothing low about him.'

'And his friends?'

'How should I know? Raffs those fellows always are, sure to bring him to the dogs!'

'Did you ever hear of an artist named Renville?'

'Ay?' meditatively. 'He was the master the girls had at one time, wasn't he?'

'Then he is respectable? I ask because Edgar wants to study under him.'

'Eh! what?' demanded Mr. Underwood, in manifest astonishment. 'Is the lad gone crazy?'

'I thought you had dismissed him, Sir.'

'Well, well,' said Mr. Underwood, taken aback, 'I told him only what he deserved, and he chose to take it as final. I thought you were come to speak for him.'

'You are very kind, Sir, but I doubt whether he would resume his work here, or indeed if it would not be an abuse of your kindness to induce him.'

'Eh! what?' again exclaimed Thomas. 'You give in to his ungrateful folly! Felix Underwood, I thought you at least were reasonable!'

The imperious passionate manner, rather than the actual words, made Felix side the more with the wayward genius, and feel that having sacrificed himself for the good of the family, he might save his brother from the gloomy office and piles of ledgers and bills below-stairs. 'Sir,' he said, 'I am sorry Edgar has not been better fitted to return the timely help you have given us, but I am afraid that such unwilling work as his could never be of service to you.'

'Why on earth should it be unwilling? Better men than he have sat at a desk before now! I've no patience with young men's intolerable conceit. There have I done everything for this young fellow, and he is unwilling, unwilling indeed, to give his mind to the simplest business for six hours a day.'

'It is wrong,' said Felix, 'but his powers lie in such a different line.'

'Fiddling and daubing! Pah! If anything could be more incomprehensible than his not being able to cast up an account or take a message; it is your backing him up!'

'I am afraid he is too old for coercion.'

'No coercion like having not a penny in the world. Pray, how is he to live?'

'His own means will help him through his studies.'

'His own--£200! About as much as he has made ducks and drakes of in a year. Besides, he is not of age.'

'No; but I have something of my own to advance for him.'

Wherewith there began a fresh storm. Thomas Underwood was greatly mortified at the desertion of one brother, and still more at the acquiescence of the other. He would no doubt have been ready to retain the handsome engaging youth, grumbling and enduring, as a sort of expensive luxury; and in his wrath, disappointment, and sense of ingratitude at finding that his restive protégé was not to be driven back to him, he became so abusive, that Felix could hardly keep his tongue or temper in check; but when he declared that if any support were given to Edgar's lunatic project, the whole family except Alda should be left to their own resources for the rest of their lives, it was with quiet determination that the reply was made, with studied, though difficult, respectfulness:--

'Sir, we are much obliged for what you have done for us, but we hope to be able to work for ourselves and for one another without becoming dependent. You cannot suppose that such a consideration would affect my opinion respecting Edgar.' (N.B.--If Mr. Underwood had supposed it, he felt as if it were impossible, as all his cousin Edward's high spirit glowed in that young man's eyes, and strengthened the studiously calm voice.) 'I think,' continued Felix, 'that no one can be doing right whose work is not thorough. If Edgar cannot or will not apply himself in earnest to your business, he will be doing better by studying art with a will than in pretending to work here, and abusing your forbearance. That would be so improper towards you, and so wrong in him, that it would be simply unjustifiable in me to try to persuade you into allowing it.'

Somehow, Mr. Underwood had not at all expected such a reply; and as luckily want of breath had forced him to wait and really hear it, a sensation came over him of old times when Edward Underwood had argued with him; and it was with much less heat that he returned, with an effort at irony, 'And so you take the bread out of the mouths of the others to support my fine gentleman in his absurd nonsense?'

'No, Sir; what I advance is entirely my own.'

'Oh, ay; didn't I hear something about a legacy?'

'Yes, from Admiral Chester. A thousand pounds. It has only just been paid to me.'

'That you may throw it away on this young scamp's fancies?'

'No, Sir, I hope not. Half of it goes into the business at Bexley. We sign the deed of partnership next week. It will make a great difference to me. The rest is ready for emergencies.'

'Tomfooleries,' muttered Mr. Underwood. 'Pray, what are the plans for this making a new Michael Angelo? Am I expected to give him the run of my house? I shall do no such thing!'

'No, Sir, it would not be proper to ask it. This Renville takes pupils for the Royal Academy, and Edgar would board and lodge there; but I hope you will still be good enough to allow him to call on Alda, and not let him be entirely left to himself. He is much to blame, but it is not as if he had run into bad dissipation.'

'That's true,' said Mr. Underwood. 'A terrible disappointment that young dog has been to me, Felix Underwood; but as you put it, there's an honesty in the thing! Where is my fine gentleman?'

'Downstairs, Sir.'

Mr. Underwood breathed through a mysterious tube, and Edgar appeared, with his usual easy grace, and with a sharp glance at Felix as if to inquire whether there were to be any attack on his newly-found liberty.

'Look here, Edgar,' was the address. 'Your brother--a much better one than you deserve--'

'Thrue for you,' muttered Edgar between his teeth.

'--Says what has some sense in it, that "nothing is so ruinous as doing things by halves," and that you ought to be ashamed of hanging about here doing nothing--'

A quick glance passed between the brothers.

'--So he is for letting you have your way; and if he chooses to support you, and you choose to rob him--for I think it nothing less than robbery--why there--I can't help it. So I put it to you for the last time: will you buckle steadily to your work here like a rational being, or cast yourself loose to live as a beggarly artist on what your brother can give you by pinching the rest?'

'Thank you, Sir; I hope the sooner to help him to feed the rest, by taking the plunge you think so desperate,' said Edgar, with more gravity than usual.

'Oh, indeed!' sneered Mr. Underwood. 'Remember, not a farthing of mine goes to such folly! I don't understand it! I thought once you'd have been as good as a son to me,' he added in a very different tone, as he looked at the fine young man in whom he yearned to take pride.

'I wish I could, Sir,' said Edgar, with real feeling. 'I wish you had hit upon any one of us but my unlucky self. You've been very good to me, but what a man can't do, he can't; and if I gave in now, it would only be the same over again. But we don't part in anger, Uncle,' he continued, with a trembling of voice.

'Anger?! No, my boy. I'm only vexed at the whole thing; but I don't want to lose sight of you altogether. You'll stay with us till you've found decent lodgings, and you'll be welcome to look in on a Sunday.' Mr. Underwood spoke in a tone between asking and granting a favour.

'Thank you, Sir, with all my heart,' said Edgar.

'And you'll come to dine and sleep?' he added to Felix. 'You've not seen your sister.'

'No, thank you, Sir, I cannot to-day; I must be at home tonight.'

They shook hands cordially; but as Edgar crossed the counting-house, he paused to open his own desk and pocket some of the contents, saying lightly as he did so, 'There's promotion in store for some of you youngsters--I congratulate you, Mr. Spooner; you're free of a burthen to your spirit.'

'Indeed, Mr. Edgar, I'm very sorry if--'

'Don't throw away your sorrow, Mr. Spooner; I was foredoomed your soul to cross, and I bear no malice to you for having been crossed. Shake hands, and wish me success as a painter.'

'I wish you success, Mr. Edgar; but it will not be met with in any profession without application and regularity.'

Edgar forbore from any reply but a low and deferential bow, such as to provoke another smothered laugh from the other young clerks, to whom Felix suspected, as he looked round, the favoured kinsman was subject of jealousy, admiration, or imitation, according to character. However, Edgar shook hands with each, with some little word of infinite but gracious superiority, and on coming out exclaimed, 'Ban, ban, Caliban! You who are emancipated from a Redstone, congratulate me!'

Felix neither observed on the vast difference between the excellent confidential Spooner and pettily jealous Redstone, nor on the extremely dissimilar mode of emancipation. He was more occupied with the momentous responsibility of having assisted to cut his brother loose from the protection to which his father had confided him. Mr. Audley's warning that he was inclined to be weak where Edgar was concerned, came before him. Yet the life of luxury and unfulfilled duties was in his eyes such a wrongful course, that he felt justified in having put an end to it; and his heart warmed with hope and exultation as he recollected how Etty's success had been owing to his brother's aid, and felt himself putting Edgar's foot on the first round of the ladder, and freeing his ascent from all that had hitherto trammelled it. Such bright visions haunted him when talking was impossible on the omnibus, outside which Edgar had exalted him--he did not well know why till on descending at Charing Cross, he found he was to have an interview with Mr. Renville, who was copying a picture in the National Gallery, and whom he found, to his great relief, to be no wild Bohemian, but a simple painstaking business-like man, who had married a German hausfrau, and lodged a few art students with unexceptionable references. Knowing Edgar already, he had measured his powers, and assured Felix that his talent was undoubted, though whether that talent amounted to genius could only be decided when the preliminary studies were accomplished; but even if it were not of the very highest order, (a supposition that rather hurt Felix's feelings,) the less aspiring walks of the profession would afford sufficient security of maintenance to justify the expense of the study. He talked with sense and coolness; and his charges, though falling severely on such funds as were at the disposal of the young pillar of the house, were, Edgar declared, and Felix could well believe, very moderate. The time was to be further decided after reference to Mrs. Renville.

'Will you not come home first?' asked Felix, as they descended the steps.

'Not in the character of the discarded! Who knows the effect it might have on old Froggy? By-the-by, I hope this advance does not make any difference to the terms of your bondage.'

'Nothing important.'

'Draw bills to any amount on the R.A. of the future!'

The light hopeful tone contrasted with Clement's grave thankfulness, and sorrow at being an expense; but Felix really preferred it, as far less embarrassing.

'Could you come down in a month's time?' he continued. 'Lance is to be confirmed at the Cathedral, and it might be an opportunity for you.'

'I cannot lose this month's work at the Academy, it is the most important in the year.'

'It might be arranged for you to come down for the day. You could see any one you pleased here.'

'Has Tina excited you to consign me to the Whittingtonian Fathers?'

'No.' Felix had almost rested there, but presently added, gravely, 'I constantly feel the impossibility of getting through this world and keeping straight without help--the help that is provided for us,' he added, lamely enough.

'Dear old Blunderbore,' said Edgar, affectionately; 'what comes naturally to you, No. 1, letter A, in a flock of girls and boys, can't be the same when one has got out into this wicked world. Go on in your own groove, and leave me to my aberrations. Don't vex yourself, old fellow. A popular journalist must have got far enough to know that men don't concern themselves about these little affairs in one another.'

'Brothers do.'

'Not unless they partake of the sister. Come! You have had no sustenance since breakfast at six o'clock, have you? Come in here, and learn what soup means.'

'There's no time. The train is at five.'

'Time! You don't mean to walk?'

'I do; and get something to eat at the station.'

'I declare, Fee, your unsophistication would be refreshing if it were not a disgrace to your profession. Why are you not reporter to the "Teetotal Times?" No wonder if the Pursuivant has a flavour of weak tea!'

Felix smiled rather sadly, aware that this was meant to lead him away from the last subject. He perceived that the door between his favourite brother's soul and his own was closed, and that knocking would only cause it to be bolted and barred. It might be true, as Mr. Audley had told him, that Edgar's was not so much real scepticism as the talk of the day, and the regarding the doubts of deeper thinkers as a dispensation from all irksome claims; but this was poor solace, while his brother rattled on: 'My dear Blunderbore, the hasty-pudding on which you characteristically breakfast is a delusion as to economy. Renville's little Frau will keep us better and at less expense than ever Wilmet conceived. You wrap yourself in your virtue, and refuse to spend a couple of shillings, as deeming it robbery of the fry at home. You wear out at least a shilling's worth of boot leather, pay twopence for a roll and fourpence for a more villainous compound called coffee; come home in a state of inanition, cram down a quartern loaf and a quarter of a pound of rancid butter, washed down with weak tea; and if self-satisfaction and exhaustion combined are soporific, it is only to leave you a prey to night-mare. Then, to say nothing of poorness of blood producing paucity of ideas, it is fearful to think of the doctor's bill you are laying up!'

'Nonsense, Edgar; I am in perfect health.'

Edgar went off into a learned dissertation on the qualities of food and liquor, and the expedience of enriching the blood, and giving substance to the constitution. He was, in fact, much more robust and athletic, as well as much taller, than his brother, who looked like one who led an indoor life without cultivating his strength, but had no token of lack of health or activity. Always of small appetite, he did not care how long he fasted, and was so much used to be on his feet, that the long walk through the streets seemed to fatigue him less than Edgar, who nevertheless kept with him, as finding real pleasure in his company.

The only pauses were at the sight of an accordion in a shop window labelled at so low a price, that Felix ventured on it for Theodore; and again when Edgar insisted on stuffing his pockets with bon-bons for the babes, as antidotes, he said, to the Blunderbore diet.

'I beg to observe, it was not Blunderbore that lived on hasty-pudding. That was the Welsh giant,' said Felix.

'Ay! Blunderbore had three heads, and was buried up to the neck, completing the resemblance! Well, some day I'll give you all a hoist, old fellow, and then you'll be immortalized for having developed the President of the Royal Academy out of his slough of hides and tallow.'

Felix went home through the summer twilight, tired and heavy-hearted, to find Wilmet sitting up over a supper not much less rigorously frugal than Edgar had foretold. Telling Wilmet was perhaps the worst of it to Felix. True, she forbore to reprove or lament when she understood that the deed was actually accomplished, and saw that he was fatigued and out of spirits; but her 'Indeed! Oh! Felix!' and her involuntary gesture and attitude of dismay, went as far as a volume of reproach and evil augury. He was weary beyond vindicating himself or Edgar; but the next morning, when Wilmet and Angela had started for school, there was a sense that the cat was away, and Geraldine looking up under her long black eyelashes, whispered, 'Oh! it is so nice in you to have let him loose, dear Fee! It was such cruel waste to pin him down there!'

'It was mockery for him to pretend to work there against the grain, and live in all that ease and luxury,' said Felix, greatly appreciating her sympathy. 'That must be so clearly wrong, that the more I think it over, the more I trust I did right in not trying to make it up again, as Mr. Audley did.'

'It was only a pity he did!' said Cherry; 'but of course it was for your sake, that you might not have him thrown back on your hands.'

'And for Edgar's own protection too,' said Felix; 'but I cannot think lazy insufficient work, and constant amusement, otherwise than so unworthy, that I am sure Mr. Audley would think it more honest and right to put an end to them, even at some risk.'

'Risk!' said the little sister, ruffling up her feathers; 'he is sure to succeed, and you know it.'

'I did only mean risk in that sense,' said Felix, gravely; 'but I hope he is safely and satisfactorily placed. Renville seems an excellent person, and more trustworthy perhaps because he only commits himself to Edgar's capability.

'Capability!' contemptuously repeated Cherry. 'No one but you and I really understand what Edgar can do!'

'I could have shaken the fellow for his coldness,' said Felix, smiling; 'but no doubt it was right of him, and Edgar will soon show--'

'That he will! Only look at the beauty and freedom of this outline,' as she opened her portfolio.

'Don't beguile me, Cherry; I can't stay. I've all yesterday's work to make up.'

'Here are all the proofs, ready. Only just look at the sentence I marked for you. O Felix, how lucky Edgar has you for a brother, to save him from being blighted and crushed!'

'Is that head yours or his? Yours! I should say he was lucky to have such an unenvious sister. You would draw as well as he if you only had the teaching.'

'Oh no, don't say that! It spoils his! Though I do wish my drawing could be of some use.'

'Never mind about use. You are our pleasure,' as he saw her dissatisfied; 'besides, what would Pur (the household abbreviation of Pursuivant) do without the sub?'

This was much pleasanter! Cherry smiled at his kiss, and he ran downstairs, exulting--like herself--in their artist brother's future fame.

When he returned to the sitting-room in the evening twilight, the first voice he heard, through Theodore's humming, was Wilmet's, as in mitigation--'I daresay he is well educated, and not vulgar.'

'Oh! but the sound of it!' cried Alice Knevett's voice. 'A mere tradesman!'

'Who is the unfortunate?' asked Felix, coming forward.

'O Mr. Underwood, how you do steal upon one! Yes, I'm furious! Here's my old friend Florence Spelman--the dearest girl in the world, and so pretty--gone and engaged herself to young Schneider, of Schneider and Co., on the tailor's advertisements, you know! It is one of the first houses in London, and he's very rich and handsome and all that; but isn't it dreadful? All her friends will have to drop her! And I was so fond of her.'

'Is it trade itself, or the kind of trade, that outrages your feelings?' asked Felix, in a tone of raillery.

'Oh, a tailor is too horrible! As if all trade wasn't bad enough,' said Alice, laughing; then recollecting herself she turned, blushing and confused, to Cherry--'At least--I mean--your brother makes one forget. He isn't in the least like that!'

'I never wish to forget anything he is!' said Cherry, proudly looking up to him.

'Ah! you don't know what is in my pocket!' said Felix, leaning his back against the mantleshelf.

'Oh! what!' cried Alice and Geraldine both together; while Wilmet looked at him as if she wished to put him in mind of the presence of a stranger.

'Guess!' he said.

'Somebody has left you a fortune! Oh! delightful!' cried Alice, clasping her hands.

'Mr. Thomas Underwood will take Edgar's art study on himself,' exclaimed the more moderate Geraldine.

'You burn, Cherry. It comes from that quarter. Here's a letter by the evening's post to offer me, if I have not closed with Mr. Froggatt, to invest in Kedge and Underwood's concern, and begin with £300 a year as clerk.'

'It can't be possible,' said Wilmet, the only one to speak, as the other two girls looked rather blank.

'Just so far that the deed of partnership here is not signed.'

'What is the business?' asked Alice.

'He is a South American merchant, and deals with Rio for hides and tallow, if you prefer that to books and stationery,' said Felix, in a would-be light tone.

'Oh, but a South American merchant! That sounds quite delightful!' cried Alice. 'And you'll have to live in dear, dear London! How I envy you!'

'That must be the effect you had upon him, Felix!' said Cherry, proudly.

'Well, I thought I had been a specimen of the obstinate,' observed Felix. 'Here is his letter.'

He gave it as of right to Wilmet; but other eyes remarked the address to F. C. Underwood, Esquire, an unusual thing, since, as Mr. Froggatt had never aspired to the squirehood, Felix made all his brothers and sisters write only the Mister, and thus entirely deprived himself of the pleasure of Alda's correspondence.

'Where will you live? Oh! you'll let me come and stay with you sometimes!' cried Alice.

Felix smiled as he answered, 'I'm afraid our house is not built yet.'

'Miss Pearson's maid for Miss Alice,' said Martha, at the door.

'Oh dear, how tiresome! but you'll tell me all about it to-morrow. How horrid it will be here when you are all gone!'

'We are not gone yet,' said Wilmet, repressively. 'And if you please, Alice, do not talk of this.'

'No,' said Felix, 'it must be entirely a family matter. I know we can trust to you.'

'Thank you! I'm so glad I was there! It is so nice to have a secret of yours--and this is a beauty! Why, you'll be a great man with a house in London, just like Mr. Underwood of Centry.'

'Pleasing ambition,' Cherry could not help muttering, with an ironical smile, as Alice laughed and nodded herself away.

'Ready sympathy is a pleasant thing,' returned Felix.

'You don't mean that you think this feasible?' said Wilmet, with a negative inflection in her voice.

'I think it ought to be considered before it is absolutely too late.'

Both were surprised, having always thought that he considered his destiny as fixed; and as Geraldine looked on while the other two discussed pounds, shillings, and pence, it was plain to her that he had an inclination to the change. The probability of rising, the benefit of lodging Edgar, the nearness to Alda, the probable openings for the younger lads, were advantages; but against these Wilmet set the heavy London house-rent, rates and taxes--from which they were free--the expense of living, the loss of her present situation, the dangers of deterioration of health. As to Edgar, his habits must be formed, he was already in a respectable family, and Lance and Bernard ought not to be risked for his sake. In fact Wilmet looked on London with a sage country girl's prudent horror of the great and wicked capital; and when that experienced man of the world, Felix, tried to prove that she did it injustice, he was met with a volley of alarming anecdotes. He hinted that ladies' schools might need teachers there, but was met by the difficulty of forming a new connection; and when he suggested that Cherry's talent might be cultivated, Wilmet hotly exclaimed, 'She could never go about to classes and schools of art!'

'Not alone, certainly,' said Cherry, wistfully.

'Edgar is as good as nobody, and I should be of no use in places like that,' added Wilmet.

'I'm afraid you don't look very chaperonish,' said Felix, contemplating the fair exquisitely-moulded face, the more Grecian for the youthful severity that curved the lip and fixed the eye. 'If we could only turn her inside out, Cherry, she would be a dozen duennas in one!'

'And then the Pursuivant. You would not like to desert poor Pur,' added Cherry.

'I could do that better in town in some ways.'

'Mr. Underwood would think that as bad as Edgar's drawing,' said Wilmet. 'No, no, Felix, you have learnt one business thoroughly, and it would be foolish to begin a fresh one now. Besides, how about Mr. Froggatt?'

'Of course I should do nothing in such haste as to inconvenience Mr. Froggatt,' said Felix; 'and no one is more anxious for our real benefit, if this were possible.'

'But you see it won't do,' reiterated Wilmet.

'Perhaps not,' he answered, with more of a sigh than his sisters expected.

Rather nettled, Wilmet set to work with pencil and paper to calculate expenses; Geraldine looked up at Felix, who had taken up a book, and began to whistle, 'For a' that, an' a' that.'

Presently Wilmet, by way of making assurance sure, went off for her account-book; when he looked up and said,' How should you have liked this, Cherry?'

'I don't know. I've not thought. Did you?'

'I hadn't time before our Pallas Athene settled it; and I believe she is right, if she would not lay it in quite so hard. It only seemed a pity to lose our last chance of a lift in life without at least considering it.'

'I thought you did not care about lifts in life.'

'I ought not. But when it is brought home that we have slipped down two degrees in the social scale, it is tempting to step up one again! However, it plainly cannot be.'

Yet when Wilmet mustered her irrefragable figures to prove how much poorer they would be in London than on their present income at Bexley, he would not go into details, saying that he wanted to hear no more about it, in a tone that a little hurt her. He was so uniformly gentle and gracious, that what would have passed unnoticed in most brothers, was noticed anxiously in him; and as Wilmet darned his shirt sleeve, a glistening came between her eyes and her needle, as she felt the requital of her prudence rather hard. Must all men pant to be out in the world, and be angry with women for withholding them?

Nor was Geraldine devoid of the old prick, when she thought of the degrees in the social scale in connection with the words about tradesmen and merchants.

Wilmet was not quite happy without knowing that the letter of refusal was written, and was more vexed than she liked to show when Felix laughed at her for supposing he could have made time to write it on a busy Saturday, even if there had been any London post to send it by. Poor Alice Knevett got a considerable snubbing for bursting in to ask the decision, and lamenting over it when she had heard it; but she stood her ground with a certain pertinacity of her own: and so late in the evening, that Wilmet had gone up to put Stella to bed, Felix came up with the letter in his hand. It was so carefully expressed, that Cherry could not help saying saucily that it was worthy of the editor of the Pursuivant; while Alice, much impressed by the long words, enthusiastically broke out, 'It is a most beautiful letter, only it ought to have said just the other thing!'

'Why, what would you have done without Cherry?' said Felix.

'I'd have come to stay with her! And it is such a pity! A merchant is a gentleman, and I am sure you could get to be anything--a member of parliament, or a baronet, or--' as if her imagination could not go farther; but she looked up at him with a dew of eagerness glistening in her bright hazel eyes. 'I was telling Cherry it does seem such a dreadful horrible pity that you should be nailed down in this little hole of a place for life.'

Felix smiled--a man's superior, gratified, but half melancholy smile--as he answered, 'At any rate, you won't lose the pleasures of imagination or of pity.'

'But I want to see you have the spirit to try,' cried Alice, eagerly. 'I know you could.'

'It would not be right,' said Felix, sitting down by her, and in full earnest gentleness and gravity setting before her the reasons that Cherry had hardly thought it worth while really to explain--namely, the impossibility of their being able to pay their way and meet the needful expenses, and the evils of the young, inexperienced household residing in London, resigning security for dependence.

Alice, flattered by being treated as a sensible person, said, 'Yes,' and 'I see,' at all the proper places; then drew a sigh, saying, 'It is very good in you.'

'I knew you would see it in the right light,' replied Felix.

'Oh!' but the sigh recurred. 'I can't help being sorry, you know.'

'There is nothing to be sorry for,' he said gratefully. 'I was disappointed at first myself; but for sheer usefulness to one's neighbour, I believe that this present position, if I have sense to make use of it rightly, is as good as any; and the mere desire of station and promotion is--when one comes to look at it properly--nonsense after all.'

She opened her eyes in amazement, and made a little exclamation.

'They may be well when they come,' said Felix in answer; 'but I have thought it over well to-night, and I see that to do anything doubtfully right for their sake would be a risk for all that I have no right to run.'

Alice hung her head, overcome by the pure air of the region where he was lifting her; and in a sort of shyness at the serious tone in which he had spoken, he added, smiling,

'Then you'll forgive the "sound of it."'

'O Mr. Underwood,' she said, in the simplest and most earnest voice that Cherry had ever heard from her, 'I'm ashamed to recollect that nonsense!'

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XIV. WHAT IT MAY LEAD TO

'I never was so berhymed since I was an Irish rat, which I can scarcely remember.'--As You Like It.

'Dim memories haunt the child, Of lives in other beings led-- Other, and yet the same.'--Keble.

In the autumn Alda made a visit at home. She had, as usual, gone with Mr. and Mrs. Underwood to their German baths, and had there fallen in with a merry set of her intimates in London, who had persuaded her to join them in an expedition to the Tyrol, which lasted till the end of September. On her return, she was dropped at Bexley, where her sisters were greatly edified by her sketch-book, a perfect journal in clever scenes and groups, like the 'Voyage en zig-zag.' Two of the gentlemen seemed always in waiting on the graceful outline that did duty for Alda; and indeed, she gave Wilmet to understand that only the skill that played them off one against the other had averted an offer from each, hundreds of miles from home, when it would have been so very inconvenient! Every morning Wilmet considered how her dinner would appear if one or both should suddenly drop in to pursue his courtship.

Even Felix, though he had pooh-poohed the mysterious whisper from his sisters, was startled at the apparition of a picturesque figure; in Tyrolese hat, green knickerbockers, belt, knapsack, loose velvet coat, and fair moustache, marching full into the shop; and while the customers who were making it a rendezvous gazed in doubt between gamekeepers and stage banditti, holding out a hand too fair and dainty for either character, and exclaiming, 'How are you, Mr. Froggatt! Hollo, Felix!'

Mr. Froggatt was amazed beyond measure, and it was only on hearing the ring of the mirthful laugh that he exclaimed, 'Mr. Edgar! This is an alteration! You will find the young ladies up-stairs.'

Felix was disengaged at the moment, and could take him through the parlour, too glad to have him there at all to utter the faintest wish that he would have rung at the private door; and he ushered him into the drawing-room with the words, 'Here's the artist who has begun with himself;' and then retreated.

'Edgar! oh, you wonderful boy!' cried happy Geraldine, as he threw his arms round her; while Alda asked:

'Is that the thing now, Edgar?'

'Quite comifo,' he answered. 'Ha, little ones, have you forgotten me?'

'Stella says you're the clarionet in the brass band,' said Bernard. 'What have you got in that pack?'

'Munitions of war!' he answered, unstrapping his bag, and producing packets of French bon-bons, bought on his way home, from the sketching tour Mr. Renville always made with sundry of his pupils in early autumn. 'Gobble them up, little mice, before the cat comes home.'

Stella paused with a dutiful 'May I?' and Cherry had to interfere between the little maiden's scruples, Bernard's omnivorous inclination, and Theodore's terror at any new article of food; while Alda and Edgar exchanged eager question and answer:

'You've been at home. You've seen them all?'

'I dined there on Sunday--might do so any day; they can't do without me, that's a fact.'

'Nor me, I imagine,' said Alda. 'I suppose I am to go back with you?'

'So Madam proposed; but the fact is, that Molly has done uncommonly well without you this time.'

'What do you mean?' asked Alda, sharply.

'What think you of a friend of Cherry?'

'I haven't got any friends.'

'Think again! Not the great convert, the Cacique of all the Mexicos?'

'Ferdinand Travis! You don't mean it?'

'I don't; but the elders mean it, and the youngers will do it.'

'Do tell me! I can't understand,' cried Alda, much excited. 'We have never met him.'

'The uncle or father--which?'

'The uncle.'

'Well, the uncle has been in England, and fraternized with our governor at Peter Brown's; there was a banqueting all round, and his nephew was carried at his chariot wheels. If I am not much mistaken, gold and timber jingled to silver and bullock-hide, and concluded a prospective union in the persons of my nephew and my daughter. I'm sorry. I have long been persuaded that a very small effort on the part of our respected Blunderbore might have redeemed the family fortunes in the person of Polly.'

'How could you think of anything so absurd?' said Alda. 'As if my uncle would consent!'

'If Tom has any sentiment, it is for my father and the name of Underwood,' said Edgar. 'You remember he was sorely disappointed that Felix would not step into my shoes.'

'And very angry and hurt,' said Alda, 'as well he might be.'

'Yes; but that anger proved the vastness of his good intentions. Besides there's something about our old giant--steadiness and breeding, I believe--that uniformly makes Tom knock under to him; and there's a peculiar affinity of good sense between him and Marilda, that ought to have ripened under favourable circumstances.'

'And is he really cut out?' said Alda. 'I don't know how to believe this! How far has it gone?'

'Hanger on and oyster in love,' promptly answered Edgar. 'Honest Polly has the most comical look of anxious coyness on her jolly face, and holds her elbows squarer than ever; and a few paces off stands Montezuma, magnificent and melancholic;' and Edgar assumed the posture.

'Melancholy, no wonder,' said the conscious beauty; 'Edgar, he must be over head and ears in debt.'

'So it struck me; but he must have managed it uncommon quietly, for they call him the Mexican Muff; he's hand and glove with all their holinesses up at Clement's shop, and the wildest orgie he has been detected at was their magic-lantern.'

'Then it is real goodness that draws them together!' exclaimed Cherry, looking up from her presidency over the comfits.

'Goodness and a balance,' said Edgar.

'Did you know,' said Cherry, 'that as soon as he came of age, he paid the Insurance all the money for the Fortinbras Arms? The agents were quite overwhelmed, and wanted to put it in the Pursuivant.'

She was cut short by the return of Wilmet and Angela, accompanied by Miss Knevett. The effect of Edgar's appearance was startling. Alice gave a little scream of surprise, Angela crept behind her sisters, and Wilmet stood for a moment like a stag at gaze; then, as he said, 'Well, Mettie, are you going to send for the police?' exclaimed, 'You, Edgar! What a figure you have made of yourself!'

'See how our eldest crushes me!' said Edgar. 'Such a face as yours, Mettie, ought not to be wedded to the commonplace.'

'I suppose it is like German artists,' said Wilmet, trying to resign herself.

'It is such a beautiful becoming dress,' whispered Alice to Geraldine; while Edgar rattled on--'No wonder there is a deterioration in taste from living in the very tents of the Philistines. Why, Cherry, how do you bear existence surrounded by such colours as these?'

'The paper?' asked Wilmet, surprised. 'It is rather a large pattern, to be sure.'

'I call it cruelty to animals to shut Cherry up among the eternal abortive efforts of that gilded trellis to close upon those blue dahlias, crimson lilacs, and laburnums growing upwards, tied with huge ragged magenta ribbons. They would wear out my brain.'

'Well, I think when you remember our old paper, you might be thankful!' said Wilmet.

'Precisely what I do, and am not thankful. What our paper may have been in its earlier stages of existence, I am not prepared to say; but since I can remember, that hateful thing, the pattern, could only be traced by curious researches in dark corners, and the wall presented every nuance of purplish salmon or warm apricot.'

'Dear old paper!' cried Cherry. 'Yes; wasn't it soft, deepening off in clouds and bars, sunsets and storm-clouds, to make stories about?'

'Where it was most faded and grimy,' said Wilmet. 'It is all affectation not to be glad to have clean walls.'

'Clean!' cried Edgar, in horror. 'Defend me from the clean! Bare, bald, and frigid, with hard lines breaking up and frittering your background. If walls are ornamented at all, it should not be in a poor material like paper, but rich silk or woollen tapestry hangings.'

'We couldn't have tapestry now,' said Alice, in a puzzled voice.

'Then,

'"Comrades, take warning by my fall, And have it strong or not at all."'

'Not walls,' laughed Cherry.

'Let them be of natural, or, at any rate, uniform tint; and cover them with your own designs of some character and purpose, not patterns bought by the yard.'

'Oh! I see what you would be at,' said Wilmet quaintly. 'You are bewailing the loss of your great Man Friday.'

'Achilles, I beg your pardon.'

'He never would come out,' said Angela; 'he came through the whitewash after the measles.'

'I wonder what the present inhabitants think of him,' said Cherry. 'One comfort is, if he is a bogy now, they may show him some day as an early effort of Sir Edgar Underwood, President of the Royal Academy.'

'Oh dear! I must go!' cried Alice. 'I only came to fetch a pattern for Aunt Maria, and she is waiting for it; but you are all so delightful here.'

'What pretty little thing have you picked up there?' asked Edgar, as she went.

'Have we not told you of Miss Pearson's niece?'

'You should take her likeness, Cherry, as a relief from the classically severe.'

Cherry opened her portfolio, and showed two or three water-coloured drawings of the graceful little head and piquant features. Edgar criticised, and promised a lesson; and the sitter, nothing loth, though rather coy, was caught. She blushed and smiled, and took exception at little personalities, and laughed her forgiveness, going through a play of countenance very perplexing to the pupil, but much relished by the master, as he called up the pout and smile by turns, and played with her little airs.

He took Alda back on Monday, but promised to come home for Christmas, and kept his word. Perhaps the Renville wirthschaft afforded less contrast with home than did the Underwood ménage; and, in spite of the Philistine furniture, the rooms in the High Street agreed better with his tastes than the old house in St. Oswald's Buildings. He was above objecting to the shop; and whereas Clement carefully avoided the public precincts, he was often there, hunting up books, reading newspapers, gossiping with Mr. Froggatt or with Redstone, and always ensuring himself a welcome by the free bright sweetness of his manner and his amusing talk.

It was a prosperous winter; Felix, as partner and acknowledged editor, was in a more comfortable position both as to income and authority. Other matters were going well. Fulbert, to the general surprise, turned out a capital letter-writer, and sent home excellent accounts of himself, working heartily in a situation in the post-office, which Mr. Audley's Somerville interest had managed to secure for him. Moreover, all close scholarships had not been abolished, and Felix's opportunities in the newspaper line had enabled him to discover one at St. Cadoc's, a small college at Cambridge, to be competed for by the natives of the county where Clement had fortunately been born. A letter to the parish clerk of Vale Leston, to ask for the baptismal register of Edward Clement Underwood, produced a reply from a well-remembered old Abednego Tripp, who declared himself 'horned and rejoiced' at hearing from Master Felix, and at being able to do anything for one of the Reverend Mr. Edward's sons. The competition was not very severe; Clement obtained the scholarship, and therewith his maintenance for three years to come; and he was at the same time able to exercise a bit of patronage on his sisters' behalf, more gratifying to his own feelings than theirs. Mr. Fulmort's unmarried sisters had lived in the country with a former governess, until on the death of the elder, the survivor decided on employing her very considerable fortune in establishing a school where girls of small means might be prepared for becoming first-rate governesses, with special openings for the daughters of poor clergy and of missionaries.

One of the first families thought of was that of the favourite chorister; so Angela, now ten years old, was nominated at once, to the relief of Wilmet, who did not think her romping intimacies with the girls at Miss Pearson's very desirable. Moreover, after a correspondence between Miss Fulmort and Miss Lyveson, it was decided that Robina should be transferred to the new school at Brompton with her sister, partly by way of infusing a trustworthy element, and partly that her studies might be perfected by London masters. Robina, whose allegiance to Miss Lyveson was most devoted, was greatly grieved, but she was a reasonable, womanly little being, aware that governess-ship was her profession, and resolute to qualify herself; so though she came home with tell-tale spots under her eyes, she replied to all condolences with, 'I know it's right, what must be must;' and her spirits rose when Lance came home, bound only to return during the holidays on two or three special days when his voice was indispensable at the cathedral.

Edgar and he together kept the house in continual merriment, so that the sober pillars of the house found themselves carried along, they knew not whither.

'I have had a serious application,' said Felix one evening. 'A solemn knock came to the office door, and an anxious voice came in--"Please, brother, I want to speak to you." There stood the little Star! I thought at least she had broken the chandelier, but no such thing. It was, "Please, brother, mayn't I have a birth-day?"'

'Poor little darling!' cried some voices.

'What could have put it into her head?' said Wilmet.

'She said all little girls had birth-days, and Ellen Bruce had told Angel all about the dance in honour of hers.'

'Ah!' said Wilmet, 'we'll have Angel out of the way of that kind of chatter.'

'Poor little maid! of course I had to quench her,' said Felix, 'as far as her own day was concerned. I told her more about it than she had ever heard, but then she took me aback by saying Father was happy, and she thought he would like her to be happy.'

'You didn't consent!' exclaimed Wilmet.

'I represented that it was Theodore's birth-day as well, and that strangers would make him miserable. She was really very good, and I want you just to consider whether we could not do something--of course on a different day--but in the course of the holidays, by way of treat. Surely you could invite some of Miss Pearson's pupils.'

'I don't like to begin, Felix,' said Wilmet; 'there would be reciprocity, and no one knows where it might lead to.'

'A few white muslin frocks--eh, W. W.? I think we could stand them.'

'That is not all I mean,' said Wilmet; 'it is the sort of style of thing. It would be all very well to have a few little girls here, but they would all ask us again, and I could not answer for what might happen at their homes.'

'It is out!' said Edgar. 'Now we know the sort of style of thing it might lead to. Minerva under a mistletoe bough.'

'Hurrah!' burst out Lance, in convulsions of mirth, which infected Felix and Cherry; while Wilmet, as simple as she was discreet, blushed up to the tips of her ears, and tried to defend herself.

'They tell me of doings at their parties that are what I should not like for our little girls, and I don't think you would, Felix.'

'Forfeits, to wit?' asked Edgar. 'Or cards, or waltzing. You may as well be explicit, Mettie.'

'No, no,' said Felix, 'Mettie shall not be teased: she is right in the main.' But his tone was that he always used when her prudence was too much for him.

'And the family refinement is to be secured by sitting in ashes all Christmas,' said Edgar. 'Slightly unchristian, it strikes me.'

'But,' continued Felix, 'out of these domestic ashes, we must get up some sport for the children. I stand committed to Stella.'

'Shall I get Bill Harewood, and do Box and Cox?' suggested Lance.

'Might we not get up something they could take part in themselves?' said Cherry; 'Cinderella, or some such little play?--Edgar, you know how to manage such things.'

'Wilmet doesn't know where they would lead to,' gravely responded Edgar.

'To Lance's going off with a circus,' said Felix.

'I always had a great mind to do so,' responded Lance. 'To sing comic songs on one leg on a spotted horse's back, and go about day and night in a yellow van drawn by elephants--I call that life!'

'Secure a berth for me as scene-painter!' cried Edgar. 'See how I'd draw a house by the very outline of Mazeppa outside!'

'And Felix will print all our advertisements gratis!'

'Oh!' broke in Cherry; 'I have a notion. Couldn't we make a play of the conjuror in disguise? It is Dr. Knowall in German popular tales, Robin the Conjuror in English.'

'Nothing foolish, I hope?' seriously asked Wilmet.

'Oh no. Don't you recollect? The story is, that a set of thieves steal a jewel, a man comes shamming conjuror and offering to find it for the owner, intending to trust to chance, and feast at her expense as long as he is not found out.'

'I remember!' exclaimed Lance; 'you used to tell us the story. Somebody suspects him, and brings a creature shut up in a covered dish to ask him to tell what it was--and it happens to be a robin; so when he cries out, "Oh, poor Robin!" thinking himself done for, out hops the bird, and the enemy is sold.'

'Yes; and then he counts his dinners every day, and the thieves who have come to look on think he is counting them, and throw themselves on his mercy.'

'It has capabilities,' said Edgar.

'But the moral!' said Wilmet.

'What! Not the lesson against dealing with conjurors?' demanded Edgar. 'I'll undertake to arm your pupils against spirit-rapping for ever.'

'In that point of view--' said Wilmet doubtfully.

'In that point of view,' said Felix, laughing, 'it has my vote.'

'I don't like deception to succeed,' said Wilmet; 'but at least there's none of the worst sort of nonsense.'

Lance leapt up and performed a pas seul, insisting that Bill Harewood must come and be a robber; and Edgar and Cherry instantly had their heads together as playwrights and managers.

'Never mind, Wilmet,' said Felix at their bed-room doors that night. 'Remember, Father never was a man for all work and no play.'

'I don't mind play, but I don't know what this may lead to;' then, as Felix laughed merrily at the repetition, she followed him into his room, saying, 'I mean, I have no trust in Edgar's discretion, or Lance's either, and all sorts of things may be put into the children's heads.'

'You can't keep children's heads a blank,' said Felix; 'and Edgar's good taste ought to be trusted in his own home, for his own sisters. Even you might stretch a few points to keep him happy and occupied with Cherry. Besides, I believe we do live a duller life than can be really good for any one. It can't be right to shut up all these young things all their holidays without any pleasure.'

'I thought,' said Wilmet, her eyes growing moist, 'it was pleasure enough to be all at home together.'

'So it is, to staid old fogies like you and me,' said Felix, kissing her; 'but the young ones want a lark now and then, and I confess I should be immensely disappointed if this fun didn't come off. No, no, W. W., I can't have you an old cat; you are much too young and pretty.'

The levity of this conclusion shocked Wilmet beyond remonstrance. Was Felix falling from his height of superiority, or was her strictness wearisome?

Meantime, Geraldine's brain was ringing with doggrel rhymes, and whirling with stage contrivances, in the delight of doing something with Edgar, whether versifying or drawing; and as Felix said, to keep him happy at home for Christmas was no small gain, even though it brought a painful realisation that their feast was not his feast.

Geraldine suffered in silence, for a word from her was always put down by some tender jest, avowing as much inferiority in goodness as superiority in intellect. As to Clement, Edgar's sport was to startle him with jokes, dilemmas, and irreverences, and then to decline discussion on the ground that he never argued with sisters, and that Clement would understand when he went to Cambridge. Otherwise, the subject was avoided at home; but Edgar consorted a good deal with Mr. Ryder, calling him the only person in the town, except Cherry, who knew the use of a tongue; and one day, when Felix was assisting his old master in a search through old newspapers in the reading-room, Mr. Ryder said, 'By-the-by, your brother Edgar has a good deal more of the talk of the day than you can be prepared for.'

'I am afraid so, sir,' said Felix; 'but he does not put it forth much at home.'

'So I hoped. It would have startled your father a good deal; but I believe myself acting in the spirit of his wishes in letting him talk out his crudities.'

'Thank you, sir,' said Felix, not quite knowing how to take this.

'It is a phase to be passed through,' said Mr. Ryder. 'Indeed, a good deal of it is fashion and vanity.'

'Mr. Audley thinks so,' replied Felix. 'He said he thought poor Edgar did not think enough to have real doubt, but that he considered other people's a dispensation from attending to the subject at all.'

'Exactly,' said Mr. Ryder, 'except so far as repeating what he has caught up seems to him knowing, and according to the spirit of the time, fit to dazzle us down here. Whatever may deepen him will probably change all that--I do not say into what you or your father would wish; but what is jargon now will pass away into something more real, for better or--'

'For worse?' asked Felix anxiously, as he paused.

'I do not say so,' returned Mr. Ryder. 'Perhaps what I chiefly wished at this moment was to clear myself in your eyes of treachery to your father.'

'No, sir, that I never could suspect.'

But the conversation might well leave heaviness behind it. Was it come to Edgar's views being such as to startle Mr. Ryder! who, for that matter, had of late shown much less laxity of opinion than in his younger and more argumentative days; and there was little comfort in supposing that these were not real honest doubts at all, only apologies for general carelessness and irreligion.

Yet with even this trouble in the recess of the heart, this was the merriest winter the Underwood household had known since their father's time.

Edgar chose to frame the play upon the Italian form of the story, where the impostor is a starveling poet, nicknamed Signor Topo, or Master Ratton, because his poverty had brought him to live in a hay-loft. This character he assumed, and no doubt it fitted him better than either the English cobbler or the German doctor; besides, as he said, sham court costume is always the easiest to contrive: but Cherry was by no means prepared to find the Rat-like poet the secret admirer of a daughter of the Serene Highness who owned the jewel.

'Such a monstrous interpolation,' quoth Geraldine.

'Interpolations are the beauty of the thing. It would be as flat as a pancake without.'

'And Wilmet won't like it.'

'Wilmet must be brought to the level of ordinary human nature.'

'I don't feel as if this were using her well. You know she expressly consented to this "because there was no nonsense in it."'

'I.e. if it had been Cinderella, it would have been improper; if the Sleeping Beauty, highly scandalous. Eh, Chérie?'

'You know I think Mettie does carry her scruples pretty far,' said Geraldine, trying not to laugh, 'but I won't be a party to cheating her; and if this young princess is to come in, she must be told of it.'

'Or she will take out her Gorgon's head in the midst, and petrify her subjects! Maybe it will be safest to prepare her. You see, such discipline reigns here, that a poor Bohemian like me doesn't know where to be.'

Accordingly, Edgar said in his airy way, 'O Mettie, by-the-by, we have put in a part for little Miss Knevett.'

'Indeed! I thought it was to be all among ourselves. Have you spoken to her?'

'Of course; and she is in the ecstatic state of preparation of spangles and coronets.'

'I wish you had spoken before. It would be hard to disappoint her now. What is she to be?'

'Nothing less than heroine. There must be some sort of conventional catastrophe, or the whole concern falls flat.'

'I don't see why it should not fall flat,' said Wilmet, with a sober air that drove Cherry into an uncontrollable convulsion of laughter; 'it would amuse the children just as well.'

'The children of six, maybe,' said Edgar gravely, 'but hardly the children of sixteen. Have you no mercy on them, my venerable sister?'

Wilmet had arrived at such a pass of resignation as to perceive that 'a fuss' on her part might be more mischievous than any 'nonsense' in which Edgar was likely to indulge in public, especially with Geraldine as his coadjutor. She tried to obtain some reassurance that there was 'nothing more silly than needful in this play of yours.'

'No, indeed. There is just a little mock courtship; but as that is the case with nine-tenths of the stories in the world, I don't think you gain much by turning it out.'

'I did hope for once in a way we ourselves might be quit of it.'

'It is hard on you,' said Cherry, smiling; 'but it would make a great uproar to disturb all now.'

'At any rate, I have found the old receipt for tea-cakes,' responded Wilmet, whose mind was almost as much preoccupied with the entertainment of the body as her sister's with that of the mind.

She had relented so far as to invite two little girls and their widowed mother, from whom there was no danger of reciprocities; Lance had prevailed to have Will Harewood as one of the robbers; and the Miss Pearsons were coming to behold their niece; besides which, Stella having imparted the great secret to Mr. Froggatt, Felix found the good old gentleman and his wife burning to have an invitation. Thus the party would be the largest Wilmet had ever contemplated; and the mysteries of tea and supper were so congenial to her housewifely soul, that she did not distress herself about the frequent rehearsals in Miss Pearson's empty school-room, the transformations of garments under the needles of Cherry and Robina, nor even the wildness and ecstacy of all the children from Lance downwards, all bursting with secrets, and letting them out at every corner of their grinning mouths.

It must soon be over, and Felix seemed to be enjoying it thoroughly; and Wilmet could tolerate a great deal when either Felix or Alda enjoyed. He was much too busy with Christmas accounts to undertake any part that needed learning; but he was pressed into the service as a courtier, only with a dispensation from either speaking or rehearsing; while Wilmet utterly scouted any idea of taking any share in the drama, having enough to do in her own character.

And in that character she was left alone to entertain the guests, for even Cherry was in request as prompter and assistant dresser--nay, with the assistance of Theodore's accordion, formed the whole band of musicians at the ball which opened the performance, and which required the entire corps dramatique. Robina, as the Elderly Princess, demonstratively dropped her bracelet, with a ruby about as big as a pigeon's egg (being the stopper of a scent-bottle), and after the dancers had taken some trouble not to step on it, they retired, and it was stolen by the gang of robbers, cloaked up to their corked eyebrows and moustaches.

Then appeared in his loft--supplied with straw culled from packages at the printing-house--the poet, well got up in his knickerbockers and velvet smoking-cap, scarf and guitar, soliloquising in burlesque rhyme on his fallen state and hopeless admiration, and looking very handsome and disconsolate, until startled by the cry behind the scenes--

'O yes! O yes! O yes! By command of her Highness! Lost, stolen, or strayed, Gone to the dogs or mislaid, Her Highness's splendid ruby. Whoso finds it--wit or booby, Tinker, tailor, soldier, lord-- Let him ask what he will, he shall have his reward.'

Thereupon the poet, communicating his designs in a stage soliloquy, disguised himself in a tow wig and beard, and a railway rug turned up with yellow calico; and the scene shifting to the palace, he introduced himself to the Elderly Princess as the greatest of spiritualists--so great, that--

'Detective police are an ignorant fable; No detective can equal a walnut-wood table.'

But he required as a medium a maiden fair and lovely, but with a heart as yet untouched, otherwise the spirits might be offended. The only lady who was available was, of course, the youthful princess Fiordespina, whose alarm and reluctance had been contrived so as to be highly flattering to the disguised poet.

The dinner scenes, at which the robbers presented themselves in turn, and imagined that they heard themselves counted, went off in due order; also the test, when the courtiers tried to pose the spiritualist with making him divine what they brought him in a covered dish, and were disconcerted by his sighing out,

'Alas! alas! see envy batten On the unhappy Master Ratton!'

while the rat leaped out from beneath the lid!

Then came the avowal by the robber: but the conclusion was so far varied, that the jewel having been judiciously hidden, the poet made use of his voice and his guitar to throw the Lady Fiordespina into a mesmeric sleep before the court, and then to cause a table to rap out the letters, which she interpreted so as to lead to the spot.

It was the prettiest scene of all, his music and song were so graceful; and in spite of some suppressed giggling, the attitude and countenance of Fiordespina were so very pretty in her trance. Nothing more was left save the restoration of the ruby, the claiming of the reward, and the final tableau, in which Ratton and Fiordespina, in their native good mien, had their hands joined by the benignant Elderly Princess; while, to the equal amusement and confusion of all, good old Mrs. Froggatt fairly burst out crying with excitement and admiration!

Mrs. Vincent, the young widow, was likewise enchanted, and so was Miss Maria Pearson; but Wilmet could not quite fathom the tone of the elder and graver sister, or decide whether it were her own dissatisfaction that made her think Miss Pearson had not expected to see such a role bestowed upon her niece.

The doors between the drawing-room and the theatre were opened again; the boys handed round negus and lemonade; and Felix, standing over Cherry, said, 'Lance's circus speculation would not be a bad one. There's plenty of dramatic talent in the family.'

'Did you like it, Felix?'

'I could tell exactly which parts were yours and which Edgar's,' was the ambiguous answer, as he turned to secure the Princess Fiordespina for the dance that was to crown the performance.

'O Mr. Underwood! Oh yes, thank you! but--'

'Is it part of the programme that wizard and medium should dance together?'

'Oh no! Only it seems so funny to think of your dancing.'

'What, you thought a stationer must be stationary?'

'O Mr. Underwood, what a shocking pun!' and she was led off sparkling with pretty laughter; while the Conjuror, muttering,

'The gouty oak began to move And flounder into hornpipes,'

turned graciously on little Susie Vincent, and scared as much as he elevated her, by claiming her as his partner.

Will Harewood, dashing across the room, and looking earnestly with his bold and now flushed face up to Wilmet, blurted out, 'Miss Underwood, now please, let me dance with you.'

'Thank you,' she said graciously; 'but I believe I must play for them.'

'I'll do that,' said Clement, over her head.

'The Dead March in Saul?' murmured Edgar.

'Nonsense!' broke out Mrs. Vincent, starting up; 'what am I good for but to play?'

So Clement, who thought he had found an escape, was reduced to the necessity of asking the other little Vincent; and Wilmet's smile of consent so elated Bill Harewood, that he could not help flying across to that very happy and well-matched pair, the Elderly Princess and First Robber, to tell them, 'I've got her.'

'Who?'

'Why, your sister.'

'You've never been and made up to Wilmet!' said Lance, as if this instance of valour crowned his merits.

'Yes, I have; and she will. You see there ain't another gentleman out of the family except the old Froggy, and the little one has got him. Well, I always wished beyond anything to dance with Miss Underwood!'

'Did you?' said Robina. 'I never should have thought of that.'

'Most likely not,' said Bill; 'but she is the most beautiful woman I ever did or shall see in all my life;' and he flew back to her side.

'Is she?' said Robina, altogether amazed.

'Well, perhaps,' said Lance; 'you know one might go a long way without finding any one so handsome.'

'Then I wish people wouldn't say so. It seems making our Wilmet common, like any other girl, to care for her being pretty.'

'So Froggy's dancing with Stella,' observed Lance. 'I declare I'll try if Mrs. Frog won't stand up with me. Some one ought. You'll not mind waiting, Bobbie. It is not often one has the chance to dance with a cap like that.'

Bobbie resigned herself amicably; and Lance, with his bright arch face, made his bow and half polite, half saucy addresses to Mrs. Froggatt in her magnificent head-gear, making her laugh herself almost to tears again as she declined. He held the Miss Pearsons in greater awe, and ventured on neither; so that Robina had him for Sir Roger de Coverley, where the sole contretemps arose from Angel and Bear being in such boisterous spirits that Wilmet decreed that they must not be partners again. Of the rest, some had a good deal of dancing-master experience; Mrs. Harewood's impromptu merry-makings had afforded plenty of practice to the two choristers; even Clement had had a certain school-feast training; and Felix, with a good ear, ready eye, and natural ease of movement, acquitted himself to Miss Knevett's eagerly expressed admiration.

'Take care, Master Ratton will be jealous,' said Edgar, as he claimed her for the next dance, a quadrille.

'Jealous! oh no! Some people one never thinks of complimenting.'

Cherry caught the words, and wondered what they meant.

A few more dances, and then came Wilmet's anxiously contrived supper.

'I say,' observed Will Harewood to Lance, 'why can't we have things like this at home?'

''Tisn't their nature to,' judiciously responded Lance.

'This cream is quite up to the grub we get after a crack let-off in the Close,' added Will; for requisitions for their voices at private concerts had made the choir connoisseurs in the relics of feasts.

'Better, I should say,' returned Lance. 'Mettie doesn't make it of soap, or arsenic, or verdigris, like old Twopenny.'

'What! you don't mean that she made it herself?'

'Of course! who else should?'

'My eyes! And to see her looking like that!' Then, with a deep sigh, 'If I could only book her for my wife on the spot!'

Whence it may be inferred, that Stella's birth-day party was not only a brilliant success, but might, in Wilmet's phrase, 'lead to something.' All it seemed to have led to at present was a discovery on the part of the good Miss Pearsons, that the household they had been wont to pity as small orphan children, now contained three fine young men.

At least Geraldine connected this with the desire they expressed that Alice might enjoy the same opportunities as Robina of giving her acquirements a final polish, up to diploma pitch. A correspondence commenced, resulting in Miss Knevett being engaged as teacher, being remunerated by lessons in languages and accomplishments. The arrangement gave universal satisfaction; Cherry could not detect any regret on the part of Felix; Alice would still spend her holidays with her aunts; and the sense that her departure was near made the intercourse between the two houses more frequent and familiar than it had ever yet been.

One evening Cherry, while looking up a quotation for Felix in Southey's 'Doctor,' lit on his quaint theory of the human soul having previously migrated through successive stages of vegetable and animal life, and still retaining something characteristic from each transmigration. Her brothers were a good deal tickled with the idea; and Lance exclaimed, 'I know who must have been rhubarb, queen-wasp, and a hen-harrier.'

'Oh, that's too bad!' cried Robina.

'Why a hen-harrier?' asked Felix, recognising, like almost all the others.

'One of the birds of prey where the female is bigger than her mate,' drily observed Edgar.

'Besides,' said Cherry, 'recollect the hen-harrier's countenance in pictures, with beady eyes, and a puffed supercilious smile about the beak.'

'Why, that's Lady Price!' chimed in Alice, making the discovery at last.

Lengthily and gravely Edgar uttered the words, 'Puzzle-monkey, praying mantis, sacred stork, howler.'

Lance and Robin roared with merriment, and after one glance at Clement's half virtuous, half offended countenance, Felix and Cherry fell into like convulsions; while Alice exclaimed, 'But who is it?' and Angel shouted the sufficiently evident answer, 'Clement, oh! the howler, the black preaching monkey in a natural surplice!'

'I can't think how you do it!' exclaimed Alice.

'I object to the mantis,' Cherry struggled to say. 'Nasty hypocritical creature that eats things up.'

'Praying for its living, eh, Cherry?' said wicked Edgar. 'If you had ever seen the long thin animal, with head back, hands joined, and pious attitude, you couldn't doubt.'

And as he spoke he sketched his mischievous likeness, at which the mirth grew more furious; while Cherry, always the most easily excited, uttered in a strangled voice, 'A parsnip, a barn-door hen, a dilapidated Guernsey cow, an old mother whale.'

'O Cherry, Cherry, you've immortalized yourself!' shouted Lance. 'How did you hit off the parsnip? the very thing that had stumped me.'

'The colour, and the odd sort of sweetness,' said Cherry.

'Won't we have fun with it when I go back!' cried Lance.--'Not tell? Nonsense! Why, no one will enjoy it like Mother Harewood herself.'

'Only don't say I made it. There, Edgar has got one.'

'Touch-me-not balsam, blister-fly, bantam-cock (full strut), black terrier.'

He did not caricature this time except with the muscles of his face, and with these he contrived to put on four different aspects, each so exactly like Mr. Mowbray Smith that not even Alice required the proclamation of the name; and Wilmet gravely said, 'I do not think this is a proper sort of game. It must be ill-natured or irreverent.'

'That depends,' said Geraldine, now thoroughly in the swing.--'Here! Hawthornden apple-tree, stickleback, goldfinch, beaver.'

'The hardy Norseman's house of yore Was on the foaming wave,'

sang out Lance, recalling Theodore's substitute for Felix's name.

'Exactly like--figures, tastes, and all,' said Edgar, scanning Felix's clear, bright, fresh face, glossy hair, and rather short figure, at once trim and sturdy. 'The goldfinch hit him off exactly, but I don't see the force of the apple-tree.'

'You would,' said Cherry, 'if you were properly acquainted with our three trees and their individualities. The Hawthornden is a resolute looking fellow, but it indulges in the loveliest pink and white blossoms, and waxen, delicate, peachy fruit.'

'Uncommonly sour! Thank you, Cherry,' said Felix.

'Not in a pie,' suggested Alice.

'Properly treated and sweetened, eh?' asked he, smiling on her.

'But why is Felix like a stickleback?' said Angela.

'Don't you know?' said Cherry; 'a beautiful bright little fish, and the good male one swims up and down taking care of the nest.'

'I do like the beaver,' allowed Wilmet. 'It always was my favourite beast.'

'It hits off the respectable householder element,' added Edgar. 'Three flaps of his broad tail rule beaverdom like Jupiter's nod.'

'I have one,' interposed Robina.--'Bella-donna lily, working bee, menura--'

'Hold hard!' called Lance; 'is a menura fish, flesh, or fowl?'

'Fowl: the lyre-tailed pheasant, that makes a shelter for its nest with its own tail.'

'Decided liar tale,' muttered Edgar.

'Go on, Bobbie,' Felix encouraged her. 'The pheasant suits both the twins as well as the bella-donna. Any more?'

'Perhaps the leading stag of the herd.'

'Don't make us like that proud, cowardly, tyrannical beast,' exclaimed Wilmet.

'I have seen you look exactly like one,' said Geraldine. 'That and the pheasant both give the notion of your neck.'

'Such a set of trumpery gaudy things!' grumbled Wilmet. 'Nothing but the bee is tolerable.'

'I did think of a speckled Hamburg hen, and a nice quiet she-goat,' said Robina; 'but they are all dowdy, and would not suit Alda.'

'There's something in the theory,' said Edgar. 'That bella-donna approves itself perfectly--so delicate and stately, and yet so essentially unpoetical.'

'That Mettie takes as a compliment,' said Felix, 'only she would rather have been a potato, or a cabbage.'

'Now,' said Cherry, 'you will all know--bell-heather, the grasshopper, the lark, and the squirrel.'

'Is this the lark's crest, or the squirrel's tail?' said Felix, giving an elder brother's pull to the boy's highest wave of hair.

'Or the grasshopper's leap?' cried Lance, springing on him for a bout of buffeting and skirmishing; in the midst of which Alice was heard wondering how the riddles, as she thought them, were either made or guessed.

'They come,' said Geraldine. 'I am only afraid we shall fall into a trick of making them for everybody.'

'I wonder what you would make for me.'

Geraldine had it on her tongue's end that Alice would be difficult, for want of anything distinctive; but Felix and Edgar were both jotting something down, and Robina was beforehand with either--'Scarlet pimpernel, tortoiseshell butterfly, budgerigar, marmoset.'

No one answered, for Felix had pushed a slip of paper over to Alice, on which she read--'"Forget-me-not, ladybird, linnet, kitten." I don't think I ever saw a linnet. Isn't it a little brown bird?'

'With a rich glow of red, and a beautiful song,' said Felix, smiling; and the red glowed redder on her cheek, as she said, laughing, 'Kitten for mischief, eh? For shame, Mr. Underwood!--What, another! Dear me, I shall not know myself!'

This had been slipped into her hand; and Cherry suspected that her exclamation had been a mistake of which she was conscious, as the colour deepened on her already blushing cheeks, and her eyes were cast down, while a demure smile played on her lips. The incautious exclamation had betrayed her, and the young ones clamoured to hear Edgar's view of her transmigration; but there was a little coy struggle of 'Oh no, she wouldn't, and she couldn't.'

'She smiled and blushed, and oft did say Her pretty oath by yea or nay.'

And in the midst came the message that the maid was arrived to take her home; and this being a cross stiff personage, who might never be kept waiting, she had to hurry away; and had no sooner gone than Angela burst out with, 'Here it is! I've got it! Listen to it: "Say, Lady--"'

'Stay, Angela,' interrupted Felix. 'You have no business with that.'

'Not Edgar's fun!' she exclaimed. 'Why, where is he?'

'Surely he is not going home with her!' said Wilmet in some dismay.

'Oh, but it is such fun,' went on Angela, 'only I can't make it out. You read it, Lance.'

'Did she give it you?' said Felix.

'No, I whipped it up when she dropped it. There's something about Ratton in it.'

Felix quietly took the paper out of her hand, folded it, and put it into an envelope. 'You take it back to her the first thing to-morrow,' he said. 'Now go to bed.'

Angela durst not oppose that tone, so unusually serious and authoritative; but she contrived to prolong her good-nights, and the putting away of her goods, with a kind of half droll, half sullen resignation; and just as Wilmet was hurrying her off, Edgar returned. He always spoilt Angela a little, and she sprang to him with a kind of droll pout. 'You'll not be cross, Edgar. You'll let us hear Alice's transmigrations. Look! here's Felix bottled them up in an envelope, and won't let us peep at them! But you'll let me hear. You won't order me off to bed.'

Cherry fancied she saw a disconcerted look on his face when he saw the envelope held up to him; but if so, it instantly gave place to the mischievous entertainment of defeating a lesson on discretion.--'The heads of the family must assert themselves sometimes, my dear, even about nothing,' he said consolingly.

'Indeed,' said Wilmet, bristling in defence of Felix, 'of course we knew it was nothing. It was only very ill-mannered and wrong of Angela to go prying into what was not meant to be shown.'

'I'm sure,' said Edgar most ungratefully, 'it might be posted on the church door for what I care, except for its intrinsic vileness.'

'Oh, let's have it! let's have it!' burst out Lance and Robina, who had been burning with curiosity all the time.

'Don't let us have them murdered, whatever they are,' said Edgar, taking them into his own hand. 'Pity the sorrows of a poor wretch seduced into one of your horrid jeux d'esprit--a lady's excuse for fishing for compliments that sound more than they mean. Here goes, then:--

'Say, Lady, what existence past Thine essence hath enfolded; What humble antecedent cast Thy present self hath moulded.

'The hawthorn bush, with blossom white Veiling her branches pricking; The painted lady, fluttering light, The rash pursuer tricking.

'Grass paraquit, who loves to sit In clustering rows and chat on; Caressing, purring, traitor kit, Fatal to Master Ratton.

'There, ladies and gentlemen, I hope you are satisfied,' he concluded, letting his performance float into the fire; 'the metaphors, to say the least, are startling, but that is the fault of the game.'

'I don't enter into it all,' said Cherry.

'Not likely another of the grass paraquits would, my dear,' said Edgar.

'And it is exactly what Robin made her,' said Angela; 'both that and the butterfly; and Felix, the kitten. You didn't borrow of course. How funny!'

'But I didn't make her inconstant,' said Robin; 'that is not fair.'

'Not when you made her a butterfly, and the shepherd's weather-glass too!'

'I never thought of that, only their being both bright, dark, sparkling things; and Felix has the forget-me-not, by way of antidote.'

'I do not think such things are wise,' pronounced Wilmet. 'And, by-the-by, Edgar, it has always been the custom that nobody should walk home with Alice. Miss Pearson would not like it, and it would make a talk.'

Edgar laughed. 'Dear W. W., let it not trouble you! What it may lead to is a bugbear to you. You can't think how much younger and more agreeable you will be when you have learnt that there can be passages that lead to nothing.'

Geraldine went to bed uncomfortable and perplexed. Before she was dressed in the morning, Alice darted in. 'Cherry, I'm so vexed; I dropped that paper. Do you think it is here?'

'No; Angel picked it up, and Edgar read us the verses, and then threw them into the fire.'

'Burnt them!'

'Yes; he said the worst of such games was that they force one to pay compliments that may be taken to mean more than they do.'

Cherry spoke under a stern sense of virtue doing a service to Alice; and when the quick answer came, 'He didn't say that, I'm sure it was Wilmet,' she asseverated, 'Indeed he did. I don't confuse in that way. It is a very good warning not to dwell on what gentlemen may say in mere play.'

'Who told you I did?' said Alice sharply. 'You've no business to say such things!'

Happily there was an interruption. Cherry felt as if she had had a taste of the claws; but she feared she had been malicious, and she was penitent.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XV. WHAT IT LED TO

'Then out and spak the popinjay.' Old Ballad.

Geraldine was hard at work on a drawing. Edgar's teaching had improved her so much that, under a sore longing to obtain some good studies, she had ventured to place in the shop one of her best imaginary groups, and to her surprise and delight, it had brought her in fifteen shillings, and an order for a companion.

Vistas of hope began to rise before her, only obscured by her consciousness of the want of knowledge and skill. It took some resolution not to attend exclusively to her art, and she was forced to make it a rule never to touch a pencil till the lessons of Bernard and Stella were both over for the day.

They were finished, the children in the garden, and Cherry was in that world of joy and something like inspiration known to spirits imbued with any of the constructive poetry of art, always endeavouring to fulfil an ideal, never indeed satisfying themselves, but never so at rest as in the effort.

Presently she was startled by a step on the stairs. Nothing short of the Fall of Delhi had ever been known to bring Felix upstairs in business hours; and he was especially bound to his work at present, since Mr. Froggatt was detained at home by a serious attack of rheumatism. She looked up amazed at the eager question, 'Is there a letter from Alda?'

'I believe there is, waiting for Wilmet. What is the matter?'

'The most astonishing thing. Here is Ferdinand Travis writing to tell me of his engagement to Alda.'

'To Alda?'

'To Alda! I looked twice to be sure that there was no confusion between the names, but it is my sister Alda beyond a doubt. He would not ask my consent if it were Marilda. Here's the letter, as good and nice as possible, dear good fellow.'

'Then what Edgar told us must have been pure imagination.'

'Not the old folks' wishes, most likely. For the rest, Edgar can make a good story. One can't wonder at the preference, and there's no denying that it is a brilliant chance for Alda.'

'And what a blessing that he should be so good!'

'Infinite! No one could be so welcome! How pleased Mr. Audley will be! But I must go, and try not to look too much disposed to stand on the counter and crow.'

Whatever Felix did below, upstairs Cherry found drawing impossible. Ferdinand a brother! The pleasure was enhanced by the affectionate simplicity of his letter, the outcome of so good a heart, greatly in love, but very conscientious, and utterly unpresuming on his wealth, but showing all his old affection and reverence for Felix. What a delightful wonder that Alda should bring in a connection so faithful to Felix!

Yet, what would not Cherry have given to be as unsuspicious as Felix or Wilmet? Why would misgivings come into her head such as never troubled theirs? Why must she be haunted by Alda's intimations about her travelling companions, and her manner, half scornful, half nettled, when Edgar described the terms on which Mr. Travis stood?

She read Ferdinand's letter a second time, and was convinced that he looked at the whole with such artless seriousness as to preclude all notion of his having been consciously playing fast and loose; but she was ready to torture herself for the involuntary doubt whether her own sister were equally to be trusted.

However, when Wilmet came home, her genuine wholesome overflow of undoubting rapture could not but sweep Cherry along in the tide. Ferdinand combined the apparently impossible advantages of being thoroughly one of themselves, and yet of being able to give Alda the luxuries to which she had become accustomed; and Wilmet's joy was beyond expression. The contrast between the twins--one admired, praised, followed, esteemed, as one of the brightest ornaments of London society; the other toiling in an obscure poverty-stricken home, a teacher in a small third-class school, her beauty unheeded or viewed as a real disadvantage--all this never occurred for one moment to Wilmet, she only felt elevated in her sister.

Two days passed before more letters were received, and these came by the first instead of the second post, before breakfast was over. Four--besides one unheeded, being only in Robina's childish handwriting--Alda to Wilmet, Thomas Underwood and Ferdinand both to Felix, Edgar to Geraldine. There was a simultaneous opening of the letters, then a general starting and looking into one another's eyes, and Geraldine faintly murmured,

'Then it was really so!'

'So? what do you mean?' broke forth Wilmet. 'These selfish people are treating my poor Alda most cruelly among them; and Felix must go and fetch her home to be married from her own brother's house as she ought to be.'

'I shall have to fetch her home,' said Felix thoughtfully; 'but I wish I were quite clear that she has been dealing kindly by Marilda.'

'You are not believing that man Thomas rather than your own sister!' cried Wilmet. 'If Alda does happen to be prettier than his daughter, she can't help it. I'm sure I should be glad enough not to be pretty, but it is a trial, and one must do the best one can.'

'That is just what I fear Alda has been doing,' said Felix between his teeth, as he frowned over his letter.

'Read her letter, poor dear girl,' cried Wilmet, 'and see if you aren't ashamed of such a judgment! No. Some is only meant for me; but listen--"Your letter of sisterly joy has come on troubled waters. I always knew I was the poor relation upon sufferance, but I have been taught to feel it now." She does not know how she could bear it, but for the security of Ferdinand's strength; and they will not let her see him--say she must give him up or them--Mrs. Underwood's violence inconceivable, and all because of a chimerical fancy.'

'What does Ferdinand himself say?' asked Cherry, as Wilmet looked on for further selections.

'He says,' said Felix, reading, 'that our greeting was especially welcome, from the contrast to what he met with from Mr. Underwood. The angry opposition took him by surprise, having always thought they regarded Alda as a daughter; but of course nothing makes any difference to him, and he would much rather come to us for her than to a stranger. His uncle is at New Orleans, and he is writing to him; he is afraid they ought to wait for the answer, though there can be no doubt about it, and he owes him no obedience.--Now, Cherry, there is just time for Edgar's account before we go our several ways.'

'O Felix,' cried Wilmet, 'aren't you going to fetch her home, poor dear?'

'Not possible to-day, Mettie. I shall have much ado to get away to-morrow. Don't be so unhappy, you know she could come alone or with Edgar, if it were so very dreadful; or if you are so fierce, you had better go yourself and encounter "Man Thomas."'

Wilmet looked so much hurt, that Geraldine thought to defend Felix by reading aloud at once.

'Ma Chérie

'Such a bear-garden never was seen! Madame furious, Tom abusive, Alda injured innocence, Montezuma heroism, and poor Polly magnanimous--though the less said about her, the soonest mended. I saw when I went back that the crisis could not be far off. The fact is, that our dear sister cannot see any one else treated as "an object," and has so persuaded herself that she is the proverbial maltreated poor relation, as to think everything fair.'

'Geraldine!' exclaimed Wilmet, 'how can you read? Felix, how can you listen to such things about your own sister?'

'It is only what she said herself,' said Felix drily. 'Go on, Cherry.'

'It must be owned that it was hard, when for once Polly had fallen in with something alike palatable to self and parents, and able to swallow her broad visage! If Madame had had any wit, she would have kept Alda away till the fish was hooked, when, it is my belief, he would have had no eyes for aught beyond; but the good creature is too sure of the charms of her own goose, to dread the admission of any swan whatsoever to her pond. While the Cacique being yet uncommitted, small blame to him if he saw the differ, especially as he attaches to Alda all the sanctity of Bexley, which is to him at the least what St. Matthew's is to Clem. To have been reared on the other--or indeed any side of the Atlantic, our intended brother-in-law is curiously simple. He accepted the intimation that Alda's face is her fortune with superb indifference; whether it will be the same with his uncle, remains to be seen; and I am afraid he is a good deal dependent on him, his mother's Mexican property having been speculated away. I don't like the look of the business; but if any one can do any good it is Marilda herself. Tom is in a towering rage, and his wife worse--neither perceiving that the noise they make is small mercy to their daughter. She looks all manner of colours, but stands out gallantly that she is glad, and that all is as it should be; and I believe that, left to herself, she will set things straight. Felix had better keep out of the fray except upon compulsion.'

'Here is compulsion,' said Felix. 'Tom Underwood summons me; I can't say I like the errand.'

'You ought not to let yourself be led by Edgar's unkind joking way!'

'We ought to be off now, at any rate,' said Felix, glad to close the discussion. 'I'll write to get Fernan to meet me at the station to-morrow.'

Accordingly, when he arrived, there was Ferdinand Travis driving a magnificent horse, the whole turn-out very far from looking like a connection of Froggatt and Underwood. He had certainly developed into a splendidly handsome fellow, though still lithe and slight rather than robust, and his dignified bearing giving the idea of greater height than his inches testified to. His greeting was warmly affectionate, with all his old wishful reverence towards his young godfather, and even with a sort of doubt of his thinking him worthy of his sister. As to the disturbance created by the avowal of the object of his attentions, he seemed amazed at it, and entirely unconscious of any supposed change on his part.

'I knew my uncle wished me to be an intimate with the family,' he said, 'and I was rejoiced to fall in with any one who bore your name, and knew how to appreciate you; but I had reason to think that--that there were other views--for--' and here the olive cheeks grew crimson, and he stammered himself into a hopeless entanglement, whence Felix recalled him charitably to an account of the explosion as it had affected himself.

It appeared that his proposal had not been mentioned to the family till Felix's answer had been received, Ferdinand feeling that no one ought to hear of it before the eldest brother. The lovers had met that night at a ball, and their consultation over the letters had taken place in the conservatory, where they had been surprised, and partly overheard, by Mrs. Underwood. When Ferdinand arrived the next morning, he was received with denunciations of underhand ways, and his explanation only made matters worse. A thunderstorm about ingratitude and treachery was launched forth, and he was told that the connection was so contrary to any intentions of his uncle, that Mr. Underwood could not hear of it, and that Alda must renounce it entirely, on peril of being cast off by the family. That Ferdinand regarded her brother as the true head of her house, was only additionally provoking; and Mr. Underwood had given him warning, which he only hinted at to Felix, that the engagement could not be carried on with impunity.

Therewith they reached Kensington Palace Gardens, and being in a measure forbidden the house, Ferdinand drove about waiting for Felix, who on giving his name, found himself ushered into the room where the whole party were finishing breakfast.

Alda, looking meek and pensive, but very lovely, exquisitely dressed in white and blue ribbons, flew into his arms as if her protector were come; Mr. Underwood, without getting up, acknowledged him by a grunt, and hand held out; Marilda came round, and put a cold hand into his, clasping it tight; and her mother greeted him with, 'So, Felix Underwood, you are come up about this unlucky business?'

'There is no reason it should be anything but a very happy one,' said Marilda stoutly. 'Come, Mamma, we had better leave Papa and Felix;' and she set the example, but Mrs. Underwood did not stir.

'You hear the dear girl!' she said. 'It ought to go to Alda's heart!'

'It is of no use talking before the ladies,' said Mr. Underwood, getting up. 'That is, unless you have the good sense to join with me in telling Alda that she must give up this wild affair. The fellow has next to nothing of his own, and his uncle would see him at Jericho before he consented to a match like this!'

'I am hardly prepared to do that, Sir,' said Felix, as Alda clung to his arm, and looked appealingly in his face, 'unless the objection were more personal.'

'Objection!' burst forth the lady of the house, 'when he has been making his way underhand--deceiving us all along.'

'Alda, my dear,' said Felix in her ear, 'don't you think you had better go upstairs?'

But Alda seemed as little disposed as Mrs. Underwood to quit the scene of conflict. 'O Felix, I don't know what she means, nor what we have been doing, for them all to turn against me.'

'Don't tell me, Miss Innocence,' retorted Mrs. Underwood, the artificial polish giving way, and the native scolding Polly Kedge breaking out in a storm of words. 'Wasn't the young man doing just as his uncle meant him, and my poor dear girl fancying him as I never saw her do any one before, till you came home with your sly, artful ways--you that owed us the very clothes on your back?'

'Hush, Mary!' ejaculated her husband; but he might as well have tried to stop a torrent.

'Ay, I know. She comes round every man of you with her smooth tongue and pretty face, till you--you are ready to take her part against your own child, Underwood. When my poor girl's laid in her coffin, then you will know what a serpent you've been fostering.'

To Felix's surprise and annoyance, Alda must needs answer: 'I'm sure it's very hard! If people will look at me, I can't help it; and I've as much right to be spoken to as Marilda. She that has got everything, and poor me--'

Luckily her tears stopped her voice.

'Come along, Felix,' said the master of the house, opening the door; and he, perceiving that escape alone could put an end to this most humiliating scene, whispered again his recommendation to Alda to go to her room, and saw her hurrying up the stairs before his kinsman shut the door of his private room with a bounce, exclaiming, 'There! Now we are out of the way of the women's tongues, we can hear ourselves speak. I am afraid it is an awkward business, Felix Underwood.'

'I am afraid it is, Sir.'

'And the ladies make it worse by making such a din about it,' said Tom, who after all was an Underwood, and whose better breeding had come to the perception how these ravings compromised his daughter's dignity. 'How far any one is to blame, I can't tell. The truth is, that it would have been very satisfactory to Alfred Travis and to me both if the lad and my girl could have made it up together, and they seemed ready enough to like each other. My girl has got rather a turn for your new-fashioned sort of saints, and he seemed just her style. Everything does go contrary at times; and when your sister came home, with her pretty face and way, my wife declares now she saw a change from the first, but to tell the truth I never did, and I doubt her doing so; but you may guess how amazed we were when she came on them whispering together, and it came out that he had been writing to you to sanction his proposing for Alda, as if he were ashamed to come to me, who had always been a father to her.'

'He meant no slight to you, Sir,' said Felix, eagerly; 'but you know we were his first acquaintance, and he had a feeling that an elder brother came nearest. I am sure he felt no shame; he was conscious of no change of intention.'

'Well, well, he is a little bit of an ass. Between ourselves, Felix, I don't blame him half as much as Alda. The girl is sharp enough; she has swarms of lovers; men come about her like wasps to a lump of sugar; and there's £5,000 ready for her the day she marries; but when there was one my poor Mary liked for once, we liked for her, and was in the way of liking her--Mary, who has shared everything with her like a sister--she might have let him alone. Indeed, her aunt gave her a hint, but it only served to make her carry it on on the sly.'

Felix wished he had not known of Alda's hearing Edgar's report. He could only say sadly, 'If so, she is quite indefensible.'

What would Wilmet have thought of his fight with 'Man Thomas?'

'Of course,' proceeded that gentleman, 'we know the less we say of that part of the story the better. Some day, Mary will know she's well rid of a coxcombical foreign-looking fellow. She can afford to look farther; but for your sister, this is the maddest thing in the world. William Travis made a regular mull with his wife's fortune, and depend on it, the young man has next to nothing, and would come to beggary if he offended his uncle. There is nothing for it but for them to give one another up!'

'I do not think there is much chance of their doing so,' replied Felix.

'Not as they are now, in the height and fury of the thing; but you are a sensible lad, Felix; you will do your best to show them the utter folly of the thing.'

'We do not know whether Ferdinand can afford it yet,' said Felix.

'Don't delude yourself with fancying Alfred Travis will swallow this! Not he! Why, he's set on that young Spanish don making a great match--hardly thought my Mary's hundred thousand good enough.'

'Very likely he will refuse consent,' returned Felix; 'but, in the meantime, I see nothing to be done but for Alda to go home with me and wait.'

'To very little purpose,' ejaculated Mr. Underwood, 'except that maybe a taste of your way of life may bring her to her senses, and serve her right. I must say,' he added, 'it is hard that both this boy and girl should be thrown back on your hands for no fault of yours. I wish I could help it, but you see there wouldn't be a moment's peace if Alda stayed here without giving him up.'

'It is not fit that she should,' said Felix.

'I like the girl, too; indeed, she's almost like my own,' continued Mr. Underwood; 'the house will be dull without her, and I believe those pretty young women can't help flirting, and think one another's beaux fair game. Eh? Well, we'll send for her and put it to her--will she give up Travis and stay here, or hold him to it and go home with you?'

Felix could make no objection, though he had no question what the decision would be; so the bell was rung, Alda was summoned, and soon appeared with burning cheeks and moist eyes.

'Now, Alda,' said her adopted uncle, 'your brother and I have talked it over, and I am ready to overlook what has gone by--that is, if your aunt will--and to let all be as it was before, on this one condition, that you break off this foolish concern. Listen to me. You will find that he has little enough to call his own, and his uncle can cut off his allowance any day. It is mere insanity to think he will consent to such a match as you would be; and you would be doing the best thing for the young man and yourself to tell him it is all nonsense, and you've thought better of it.'

'O Uncle, I couldn't do that!'

'If not--you have the choice--I can't abet what Travis never intended, your aunt couldn't stand it either. There's nothing for it but that you should leave this house. Choose between us and him!'

'That can't help being done, Uncle,' said Alda, with streaming eyes and a choked voice. 'You have been very good to me, but he must come first;' and she moved towards Felix, who put his arm round her kindly, and kissed her, saying,

'Then, Alda, I will leave you to prepare; I must go and see the children and Edgar. I will come back for you in time for the half-past five train.'

Alda's tears flowed too fast again for words, and she turned to leave the room.

'I shall see you again,' said Mr. Underwood. 'Can I give you a lift anywhere, Felix?'

'No, thank you, Sir; Travis is waiting for me.'

'Ay, ay, very fine with his thorough-bred; but when his allowance is docked, how is he to live on his pay?'

The brougham had long been waiting for Tom Underwood, and he left them together. Alda hung on her brother. 'O Felix, is it not dreadful?'

'I thought him very kind and forgiving,' said Felix.

'Is that what you call forgiving? And oh! if you could hear Aunt Mary! You little think what I have gone through!'

'It will be over soon,' said Felix, kindly. 'You are going home, you know, and Wilmet is wild to have you.'

'But, Felix, you don't think they mean to do more than frighten me? Ferdinand must have a real right to his own father's money; and besides, he can't properly object to me; Uncle Tom promised me my £5,000 whatever happened!'

'I cannot stay to discuss that now, Alda,' said Felix. 'I have a great deal to do, and Fernan is waiting for me. I shall come back in time.'

'Oh, I wish I could come with you now! Dear Fernan! Tell him I have borne it all for his sake, but it is such an age since I saw him!'

'No doubt he will meet us at the station,' said Felix, escaping at last, and finding Ferdinand not many yards off in the road outside.

'Well, Fernan, to Brompton, if you please. Mr. Underwood is really much kinder than I expected; but as things stand, you can't carry it on in their house, so Alda comes home with me to-night.'

'Then the dear girl is really banished for my sake! I mean, no place is like Bexley to me. But it is very noble of her!' exclaimed Ferdinand, curiously divided between regard for Felix and sense of Alda's sacrifice.

'It is the proper place in which for her to wait for your uncle's answer,' said Felix; 'but indeed, Fernan, it is a question whether we ought to let you risk all your prospects.'

Ferdinand's vehement demand what Felix took him for, and equally eager protest that his uncle must know he had no right to withhold the means that were in all equity due to him, lasted through all the brief transit to the farther end of Brompton, where a great old house and grounds, once quite in the country, had been adapted and revivified by Miss Fulmort.

'Might I not come in and see the little girls?' asked Ferdinand, wistfully.

'I should rather suppose not,' said Felix, smiling. 'Life-Guardsmen are not exactly the visitors expected in establishments for young ladies. You had better not wait for me; I cannot give the children less than an hour.'

'I would wait if it were ten hours.'

'But how about your horse? He isn't in love!'

Ferdinand would not, however, be denied; and when at length a rendezvous was agreed on, Felix, free of the dashing equipage, of which he was, to tell the truth, slightly ashamed, rang at the gates, arrived at the house door, announced himself as Mr. Underwood, asked to see his sisters; and after a long labyrinth of matted passages, found himself in a pretty countrified room, where a wiry, elderly, sensible lady, with grey hair and a keen face, gave him a friendly reception, drew a favourable, but not enthusiastic, picture of Robina's steadiness and industry, and said that Angela was a more difficult character. By this time Robina came into the room with her hat on, eagerly, but with her face flushed and her eyes rather frightened, and as she received her brother's kiss, she said, 'The little ones are not come in yet.--May I take my brother into the garden, Miss Fennimore?'

Permission was given, and Robina held his hand with an unusually tight grasp as she led him to the wide, square, walled garden, with a broad gravel-walk around an old-fashioned bowling-green. He thought the round face looked anxious and perplexed, and was rather uneasy as he began by saying, 'I hope not to lose Angel. Do you always walk so early in the day?'

'On Herr Müller's days, because he only comes in the afternoon,' said Robina; 'but I am rather glad; I wanted to speak to you, Felix.'

'Is anything wrong?' said Felix, seeing that the child's face had become crimson, and hearing effort in her voice. 'You are happy here? Don't be afraid to tell me anything, my dear. Remember, there is no one so bound to watch over you.'

'I know,' said Robina, looking up into those kind eyes. 'I want to tell you--' but she panted, and he encouraged her by putting his other hand over hers caressingly. 'Edgar comes every Sunday,' came out at last.

'And what of that? Isn't it a pleasure?'

'It--it would be--but he and Alice ought not to send each other notes and messages.'

'What?' very low.

'Indeed they do; and I can't tell what to do.'

'What sort of notes and messages?' asked Felix, in a half reproving voice, as though he thought the solemnity of thirteen was taking alarm needlessly.

'O Felix, love notes,' half whispered the girl, hanging her burning head.

'Nonsense, child; you have misunderstood some joke.'

'No,' said Robina, looking full in his face with sturdy offended dignity. 'They both were in earnest when they told me about it.'

'About what?' said he, still severely, as he sat down on a bench, unheeding February damp.

'About--' she was not far from tears, as she faltered out, 'their engagement.'

'Theirs!' he wrung the hand that he still retained; 'Edgar and--'

'And Alice Knevett,' said Robin. 'I would not promise not to tell. I hope it is not treachery!'

'How long?' asked Felix, hoarsely.

'Ever since the holidays. They used to walk together when Miss Pearson thought she was with us, but none of us ever knew it then.'

'You are certain? Remember, this is a graver matter than perhaps you understand.'

'I think I do understand, and it is that which makes me so unhappy; but, indeed, it can't be fancy. I have seen her ring, emerald and amethyst, for Edgar and Alice, and the locket with their hairs twisted together. The very first Sunday we were here, he gave me a note for her, and when I told him it was not allowed, he tried quizzing me at first, and at last told me I was a silly child who did not know what was proper between engaged people. So I said,' continued Robina, with dignity, 'that I could allow much to be proper in that case, but I wanted to know whether this was only kept from me because I was a baby, and was known to you and the grown-up people.'

'Right, Robin,' muttered Felix, feeling that she needed encouragement.

'Then he laughed at me more than ever about expecting things to be proclaimed on the market-cross, and tried to puzzle me out of my senses, till I could only stick to one thing, that I couldn't take his notes unless somebody knew. And after all I found the thing in my jacket pocket. He must have put it in when I was not looking.'

'And what did you do with it?'

'Oh! the dreadful thing! I felt as if it would bite me all the week long, but I didn't think it would be honourable to tear it or burn it, and I kept it. Luckily Alice didn't ask if I had a note, only whether he had said anything; and when she found I knew, she told me all about it, and said all sorts of things about my being unkind and mean to stand out, but I never promised to keep the secret.'

'Are you still keeping this note?'

'No. I gave it back to Edgar on Sunday, and told him to play no such tricks. I thought he would have been in a rage, but he was--oh! so provoking! just as if he didn't care for a little spite in a naughty child.'

'Then is this intercourse checked?'

'No, that's the worst of it. When I would not, they took to Angel. You know she got very fond of Edgar in the winter, and was always running after him and waiting on him. So she did what he told her quite innocently at first, till I found out what was going on, and tried to stop her; but she doesn't care for me as she does for Edgar, and thinks it grand to be in all their secrets, when I am too cross. And then there's a class that goes to the South Kensington Museum, and Alice is one of them, and Edgar is about there. I'm sure Miss Fulmort ought not to be deceived as they are doing; it's all nonsense about schoolmistresses being designed by nature to be hoodwinked. It makes me so miserable, I don't know what to do; and when I heard you were come, it was as if you had been sent on purpose to help me.'

'Poor child!' said Felix, with a heavy sigh. 'You have kept this all to yourself.'

'I could not tell any one. I could have told Miss Lyveson, because she is one's friend; but it would only be being a tell-tale and informer here. And one's own brother, too! And I could not write, for they look over all the letters that are not to fathers and mothers.'

'They must make an exception for me!' said Felix, in an indignant tone.

'I knew you would say so. O Felix, tell them so! I do feel like having Papa now I have you.'

'If you only had!' sighed Felix. 'My poor Bob, it is a grievous business, but you have been very upright and considerate, as far as I can see.'

'I'm so glad you don't want me to have told!' she said, with a sigh of relief, as unlike his as that of one who throws off a burden is to that of him who takes it up.

'Not if it can be helped. It would be a mischievous and cruel exposure, and would be hard on one who has been led into it,' he said, with breaks and pauses, half for breath, half for considering. 'It is most reckless, most unjustifiable, in Edgar!' He knit his brows, so that she gazed at him in awe and wonder, as having something in his countenance that she did not comprehend. Then, after a silence, he said, 'Robin, I will speak to Edgar, and if you do not find that this is stopped after one communication, which of course there must be, write to me. These ladies must make an exception in favour of such as we are!'

'O Felix, it is so nice to hold you and feel you! Only I wish I had not had to grieve you so much!'

'Dishonourable conduct is not what I was prepared for!' he said, setting his teeth.

'And will you speak to Angel? I hear them coming in,' said Robina.

'Yes. Let me have her alone at first. Come back in ten minutes' time.'

He was still sitting on the bench, with his elbows on his knees, and his hands over his brow, when Angela came towards him. She was of the same long-limbed make as Clement, was nearly as tall as the square sturdy Robina nearly three years older, and had Clement's small, almost baby mould of features, relieved only by such arch deep blue eyes as shone in Edgar's face. She looked such a mere child, that when her step and exclamation caused Felix to raise his head, it seemed absurd to imagine her to be knowingly engaged as go-between in a clandestine correspondence; and with a sort of pity and compunction for the blame he had intended, he held out his arms to her.

'O Felix, how cold you are! Your face is like marble. Now if I was to sit there, in this weather, wouldn't they be at me like wild cats?'

Thus reminded, Felix rose, and certainly shivered after the exercise of his privilege. 'Are you happy here, Angel?' he asked in a constrained tone.

'Yes, it is jollier than Miss Pearson's. There are more girls, and we do have such fun!'

'I hope you are good and steady, and very careful of all the rules.'

Angela fidgeted, as if she didn't like the style of the conversation.

'You know,' he continued, 'there may be rules that you may not see the use of, but that must be obeyed for all that.'

'What a tiresome dry old Blunderbore you are!' broke out Angela, with ill-assured sauciness; 'this isn't the way Edgar goes on when he comes to see us.'

Felix could not check a sort of groan or grunt; and Angela, whose pertness was defensive, quailed a little. She had driven him out of the due sequence of his discourse, but he resumed it. 'Angel, I must tell you; if anybody asks you to break rules--by giving letters--you must not.'

Angela kicked pebbles about.

'Have you ever been asked to do so?'

She hung her head, and a pout came over her face.

'Angel,' he said, in a voice from the sadness of his heart, 'I will not ask any questions, in case you have made promises not to betray secrets; but you must never make such promises again. Tell me you will never do--this thing again.'

She was silent.

'Angela!' he said, reprovingly.

'I don't know why I should promise you more than Edgar,' broke out Angela, petulantly. 'He is my brother too, and he isn't cross; and I love him, and will keep his secret.'

Between this flat defiance of his authority, and his scruple about interfering with the child's sense of honour, Felix was in no slight perplexity even as to this interview with his little sister. His disclaimer came first. 'I ask about no one's secret,' he said; 'but, Angel, I must have you understand this. If you break the rules that forbid the giving of notes from any person outside the school, it will be doing more harm than you can understand. I shall put a stop to it at once, and most likely you will be sent away in disgrace.'

She was somewhat awed, but she did not speak.

'Whatever any one may say to you,' said Felix, 'recollect that it is dishonesty and treachery to do anything underhand, and the greatest possible mischief to those you wish to be kind to. Don't you see, it is no kindness to help any one to do wrong?'

She began to cry. 'They don't want to do wrong. It is very nasty and mean of Bobbie to have told.'

'You will know some day how good and trustworthy it is in Bobbie,' said her elder brother. 'You cannot understand the rights and wrongs in such a manner as this, at your age, Angel.' (To tell the child this was a mistake, if he had but known it.) 'You must be satisfied with knowing that whatever breaks rules and must be kept secret is necessarily disobedient and deceitful, and may have terrible consequences. Do you believe me? Then give me your word to have no more to do with it.'

She muttered something among her tears like 'I won't,' and Felix was satisfied, for the exaction of promises had necessarily been the chief mode of government with the two youthful pillars of the house, who spent so much time apart from their dominions; and it was almost unprecedented that such a promise was not observed.

Robina was lingering near, and as they joined her Felix found that his time was up. He was taken back to the drawing-room, where he found himself in presence of the lady he had seen, and of a much younger smaller person, with a slight cast in her eye, and a peculiar jerking manner such as he could well believe would frighten away a young girl's confidence. When he made his request for free correspondence from his little sisters, there was no demur; only Miss Fulmort said, half vexed, 'It ought to have been mentioned before; she did not know why the children had not told her.' And then she made a point of ascertaining Felix's individual address; for she said, 'A great deal of undesirable stuff may be scribbled to brothers and sisters.'

Felix possessed no card, unless such might be reckoned the announcement of photographs and stationery, &c., which was wont to be put up with parcels for strangers; and when he tried to write 'Mr. F. C. Underwood,' the shivering chill so affected his fingers that he could hardly guide the pencil. He took leave, and soon found the assiduous Ferdinand, who presently asked, shyly, 'What the little ones thought of it?'

Felix bethought himself. 'Really, Fernan, it was put out of my head; and, moreover, perhaps it had better not be known more widely than needful.'

'You do not doubt--'

All the ground that had been gone over before was argued out once again by the eager Mexican before they reached the National Gallery, the appointed place of meeting with Edgar. He was not within, but without, and, throwing away his cigar, hailed them as Fernan drew up his horse.

'At last! The storm must have been pitiless, to judge by the effects! You are blue with cold, Felix.'

'Ferdinand, thank you,' said Felix, getting out. 'I am sorry, but I must have Edgar alone a little while.'

'Look here, Travis,' said Edgar, seeing his blank look, 'we'll give you the honour of giving us a spread. You go on and order it at ----'s, and I'll walk this fellow there. Curry soup that will astonish him, and warm the cockles of his heart, mind.'

Ferdinand nodded, and drove off, perfectly satisfied with this compensation.

'Let's see if we can walk a little life into you,' said Edgar, taking his brother's arm. 'Bless thy five wits, Tom's a cold! Was it Madame! I always thought she could not be many generations from Billingsgate.'

'I have been to Brompton.'

'That tragical hoarseness would lead me to conclude something. Eh! has that Robin been chirping out her fancies? And do you mean to say that you are struck all of a heap by the awful discovery of a boarding-school mystery?'

'It is naturally distressing to find you acting such a part.'

'Then I am afraid you have a good deal to go through in the course of your life. If every little flirtation on the part of your "Geschwister" is to produce this effect, there won't be much left of you by the time it comes to Stella.'

'What meaning do you attach to the words "little flirtation?"'

'When the head of the family puts the question in that solemn tone, how is it to be answered? Bless me, Blunderbore, such a countenance can only proceed from being smitten yourself! To be sure, when there was only one girl you ever spoke to, it was no wonder. Poor old fellow! I'd never have poached on your manor, but how was I to imagine a pillar of the house giving way to such levities?'

'This is mere bravado, Edgar,' was the grave answer, in a tone not disconcerted, but full of repression, and with a pale but steady countenance. 'Gloss it over as you will, a correspondence such as you have begun is unjustifiable. It risks damaging for ever the prospects, at once not only of--of the object--but those of your little sisters.'

'O Felicissimo mio, how green a spot is Bexley! As though secrets and mysteries were not the elixir of life to the boarding-school.'

'Have you ever considered what a discovery must involve?'

'I need not, it seems, since you had not the sense to box that child's ears for a meddlesome tell-tale. Did the scene equal Madame's performance?'

'You do not imagine that I mentioned it.'

'Oh! The revered prop of the state soars so far above my head that I did not know what he might regard as his duty.'

'You shall know it now, Edgar. There are two choices. If you are really engaged to this young lady' (Edgar made a nod of impatient scornful acquiescence, but certainly of acquiescence), 'then ask her honourably from her friends, and let whatever you do be open! Otherwise, give it up as an impossible imprudence, but drop all attempt at what is clandestine. Unless you do one or other of these, I warn you that I shall speak to Miss Pearson.'

'If you were a reasonable and experienced paterfamilias, instead of only a poor conscientious over-harassed prig of a boy, with more brothers and sisters than he knows what to do with, I'll tell you, in candid unprejudice, what you would do. Just let it alone! There are as many of such little affairs going as there are midges in a sunbeam; and they never do any one any harm, unless the higher powers make an unadvised hubbub.'

'Am I to understand that as an avowal that you know yourself to be trifling?'

'I know nothing about it. I don't live in the heroics, like some of my friends. In the rural seclusion of Bexley I saw a pretty lively girl, who, not to put too fine a point upon it, made quite as much up to the romantic young artist as ever the young artist did to her. Of course, there was an exchange of prettinesses, and life on either side became a blank when she was immured at Brompton, and the only solace left was the notes that so outrage your and Bobbie's united sense of propriety.'

'And what is to follow?'

'Is it to lead to?' he corrected, with a mimicry of Wilmet's tone. 'That depends. If you make the explosion, I shall have to rise to the occasion--keep the slip-knot ready and patent, and as soon as I get my head above water, have a wife and family on my back to keep me down, and hinder me from coming to your rescue. If not--why, it will take its chance, and we shall have a reasonable chance of trying whether we get tired of one another--the best thing that could happen to us, by-the-by--though she is such a saucy little darling, that were that picture of mine painted, I should be fool enough to marry her to-morrow.'

'And why--may I ask--seeing these things so clearly, did you draw the poor child into an engagement?'

Edgar shrugged his shoulders. 'You had better ask why she drew me. If you didn't know it before, my dear Felix, "'Tis human natur to be fools."'

'Allowing it to be folly, you do not mean to persist?'

'As if a poor fellow must always have a meaning! Life is not worth having if one is to be always so awfully in earnest.'

'I have the misfortune to be in earnest,' said Felix, with the formality of one past patience, but resolved to keep his temper in hand, 'when I warn you, that if I find that this intercourse is continued, unless you choose to ask her properly of her father, it will be my duty to let Miss Pearson know.'

'So be it,' was the answer, in a tone of half mocking, half compassionate submission, that was more provoking than all, except for the sudden change to the gay kindliness that followed, as Edgar threw aside his own affairs, to laugh over Ferdinand Travis's honest simplicity of adoration of Alda and all her household, declaring that it had been as much for his delight, as to be rid of him, that he himself had devised that commission of the luncheon. 'What a spread it will be!' Edgar chuckled to himself; 'and how it will be thrown away on the present company! not that there ever was a man who wanted it more!' he added, as he saw how white his brother's face was. 'You've been and got a chill!'

Felix did not deny it; and if his unsophisticated palate did not appreciate all that Ferdinand had ordered on the principle that nothing could be too good for him either in his individual capacity or as Alda's brother, he at least submitted to what his two companions required of him in the way of hot soup, and even of one glass of wine, before he grew restive, and insisted on carrying the head that their solicitude had succeeded in rendering heated and flushed to burning pitch, to do the business in the City that always sprang up whenever any one had to go to town.

Edgar bade him adieu; and the faithful Ferdinand drove him wherever he had to go, and finally to Kensington Palace Gardens, where he was ushered into the drawing-room, to find Marilda, resolved upon unconsciousness, but only succeeding in a kind of obstreperous cordiality and good will, which, together with the hot room, made him quite dizzy; and his answers were so much at random, that he sent Fulbert to an examination at Cambridge, and Clement prospecting in Australia. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Underwood made their appearance; but when Felix spoke of getting a cab, Marilda said the carriage was ordered. Then Alda was explicit about the boxes that were to follow, but on the whole she was behaving very prettily and unobtrusively. Marilda kissed her warmly, and detained Felix a moment to say, 'This will blow over, and then she will come back, unless things have settled themselves better. If I can do any good, write to me.'

So Alda quitted her adopted home; but the change might be lightened to her by being handed out of the carriage at the station by a military-looking figure, who announced that he wanted to see a fellow at Aldershot, and meant to dine there. It was not his fault that he got out at Farnborough.

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XVI. THE WINTER OF DISCONTENT

'Peace, brother, be not exquisite, To cast the fashion of uncertain evils; For, grant they be so, while they rest unknown, What need a man forestall his date of grief?' Milton.

Wilmet was so devoted to Alda and her hopes and fears, that she let Felix escape with less reproof than usual, for the cold that sat heavily upon him after the last day's chill. He did not give way to it. There might have been some temptation to sit over the fire if Geraldine had been alone there; but Alda, when Wilmet was out of reach, engrossed Cherry's ears with descriptions of her feelings, and cravings for sympathy in her suspense, treating every other subject as futile, and the interruption of the children's lessons as an insult. No one might talk of anybody but Ferdinand; and Cherry did not wonder that Felix looked wearied and harassed, and always betrayed some anxiety to come first into possession of the morning post. One day, nearly a fortnight after his visit to London, he called Wilmet away from the breakfast table into the sitting-room: 'Wilmet,' he said, 'I must go and see Miss Pearson before school hours.'

'You! Is there anything the matter with Alice?' asked Wilmet, startled at his tone.

'Had they--had you--any notion of anything between her and Edgar?'

'No! Miss Pearson has taken to saying, "My dear, your brothers are quite grown into young men," and I thought she did not like the play.'

'Ah! that play! It threw them together!'

'Is it really so? I suppose nothing is too foolish and provoking for Edgar!'

'The fact of admiration is not wonderful,' said Felix, rather in a tone of defence; 'but the worst of it is, that he has been trying to communicate with her through those poor girls at school.'

Wilmet's horror was surpassing; and when she found that he had known it all this fortnight, she was so indignant, that to his reply that it was not fair to leave both parties the chance of acting honourably, she replied with scorn for his weakness in expecting anything from Edgar, and exposing the children to the chance of expulsion, which might be a lasting blight, such as merely in thought put her into a perfect agony. Nevertheless, angry and excited as she was, she flew at him when he gave her the letters, and was off to Miss Pearson's--'Go there without breakfast, in the sleet, sitting and still with that bad cold not half gone!' and she dragged him back reluctantly to the other room, where, ignominiously ordering off Bernard and Stella to finish their stir-about elsewhere, she insisted on his breakfasting while she told the story. She was far too loyal to blame him except tête-à-tête, but she burst on him now and then.

'You are not eating, Felix!'

'A cup of tea, then, please, Cherry. No one can swallow stir-about in hot haste but Wilmet herself.' He spoke good-humouredly, but with a force upon himself that Cherry detected; and she further saw that he took nothing but that one cup and a fragment of bread, and then hurried off, saying that he must catch Miss Pearson for the little girls' sake.

The letters he had left were Robina's and another enfolding it containing these words:

Dear Sir,

According to my promise, I have refrained from opening this letter, though I own that the discovery of the purpose for which free correspondence was asked, has been no small amazement to me. In the first shock, I will not trust myself to say more, until after consultation with my brother; but you shall hear from me again respecting your sisters.

I remain, your obedient servant, B. M. FULMORT.

The letter within was--

My Dear Felix,

It has all come out. There is a dreadful uproar, and nobody will believe me. If only Miss Lyveson was here! This was the way. Edgar came yesterday and took us for a long walk in Kensington Gardens, and afterwards I saw Angela going towards Alice Knevett's room; and as we are not allowed to run into other people's bedrooms, I stopped her and put her in mind of what you said; but she began to cry and struggle with me, and Alice came out, and made a fuss to get the note Angel had for her, till I got into a passion, and spoke so loud that Miss Fennimore came out upon us. Angel did not know what she was about by that time, and cried, saying that I was unkind, and was hurting her; and Alice took her part, accusing me of tyrannizing and being jealous, so that I faced round and told all on the spot. Miss Fennimore took us all straight down to Miss Fulmort, and it was a dreadful business. They are frightfully angry with us all, and me the most, for having told you instead of them. They cannot understand the difference between you and any common brother. They think I have not told the whole truth, and it is very hard. Nobody ever distrusted me before. We are just living on sufferance till Mr. Fulmort comes to see about it, and then I think we shall be sent away. I hope so, for I know my own dear Miss Lyveson will believe me and take me back to justice and confidence. Here the girls are as angry with me for telling as the ladies are for not telling; they have no idea of such loyalty and love as we had at Catsacre. There is a report that Miss Pearson has been sent for. If we are sent home with her, it will be a horrid shame and injustice; but I shall not be able to be sorry one bit, for I know you will stand by me.

Dear, dear brother Felix, Your affectionate Sister, BOBBIE.

When the three sisters had made out all that could be understood, Geraldine owned herself less amazed than Wilmet; and Alda laughed at both for not being aware that Edgar was a universal flirt. All that surprised her was his having let it proceed to such dangerous extremities; but of course that was the girl's own fault--he would give it up when it came to the point.

'Why should you expect Edgar to be more inconstant than Ferdinand?' asked Cherry.

Both twins turned on her, and told her she was a child and knew nothing about it--their favourite way of annihilating her; and then Alda, in her excitement, walked with Wilmet to the school, leaving Cherry, as usual, to wash up the breakfast things. She felt a conviction that all this accounted for the weary oppressed look, broken by occasional starts of vivacity, which ever since Felix's day in London had been laid to the score of the cold he had brought home.

She was glad she was still alone, when Felix looked in for a moment to say, 'Miss Maria goes up by the 11.30 train. I am going to send a letter by her, and I think she will save Robin. Angel is so mere a child, that it matters less.'

'How can they all be so unjust?'

'They have not had time to know the child.'

'I did not mean Robina, but you.'

'I don't mind that,' he said, with a smile, 'though I am glad there is one lady who does not scold me;' and he bent down to kiss her.

'Did the Miss Pearsons?'

'They allowed that I meant to act for the best, and you know what that means. However,' he added,' they are earnest to save the little girls, which is more to the purpose. Wilmet or I would have gone up, but Miss Maria thinks she can do better than either, and I believe they are more likely to trust an old schoolmistress, who is the injured party besides. I must write my letter. Shall I help you into the other room?'

'No, thank you; I have the lessons here, for they tease Alda. If you would only send Theodore to me as you go.'

'Does Alda never help you?'

'Only by criticising my French pronunciation. She is much too restless. O Felix, what a cough! You have made your throat worse.'

'It is only this black east wind.'

'You ought to stay upstairs and be taken care of. Can't you, and let Redstone call if you are wanted?'

'I am wanted. It is quite as warm in the office as here, when the door is shut. What I want is, only to be twenty years older. Good-bye.'

Cherry's ponderings were divided between that sigh and the possible sighs of the wind if that door were not shut, until her own door was opened by Felix's hand, to admit a little figure still in petticoats, with the loose flaxen curls, tottering feet, limp white fingers, and vacant blue eyes, whom she daily put through a few exercises to train his almost useless fingers and tongue. The sight of this, Alda declared, made her ill, though the little boy was as docile as he was helpless; but it was quite true that to nerves and ears not inured from the first, Theodore's humming and his concertina were a trial from their perpetuity.

Late that evening came a message to beg Mr. and Miss Underwood would step up; and they stepped, though the east wind was blacker than ever. They found that in great tribulation Miss Maria had brought Alice Knevett home, and sent her to bed all tears and exhaustion, but that Robina and Angela were forgiven--a word so offensive to Felix as relating to the former, that he sorely lamented that prudence forbade their removal, but was somewhat consoled by a letter that Miss Maria brought him from the Vicar of St. Matthew's, who had had a private investigation of the whole subject. He wrote to Felix that his sister was new to the management of the girls, and was a good deal annoyed at the secrecy observed towards herself, not making full allowance for Robina's exceptional circumstances; but that, for his own part, he was convinced of the girl's genuine uprightness and unselfish forbearance; and though he feared her position must be unpleasant just now, he thought it would be for the good of all if she had the patience to live it down, and earn the good opinion he was sure she deserved. Miss Maria reported that Miss Fennimore had been brought round by his opinion, though Miss Fulmort remained persuaded that Robina had 'come over him' in some way; and while yielding to his stringent desire that, as he said, 'one of the worthiest of her girls should not be unjustly expelled,' only let the child herself know that she was tolerated in consideration of her youth, her orphanhood, and her relationship to Clement. Poor Robin! No one could help grieving for the tempest that had fallen on her guiltless head, and hope that all would result in her final good; but the sorrows of an absent school-girl could hardly occupy even her dearest friends, in the full and present crisis of two love affairs.

For Edgar and Major Knevett both arrived, the lover as dispassionate as the father was the reverse. Edgar did, however, as he had undertaken, rise to the position. He joked at it a little in private, to the annoyance and perplexity of Cherry, and even of Felix; but he was perfectly steady in maintaining his perfect right to address Miss Knevett, in avowing his engagement, and in standing by it.

To Major Knevett, the affair appeared outrageous impudence on the part of a beggarly young painter out of a country bookseller's shop, encouraged by the egregious folly of the aunts. What was said of clergyman's sons and good old family went for absolutely nothing; and Edgar's quiet assurance of success in his profession was scoffed at with incredulity not altogether unpardonable. In the encounter that Felix had the misfortune to witness, since it took place in his own office-parlour, he could not help thinking that Edgar, with his perfect temper, unfailing courtesy, calm self-respect, and steady sense of honour towards the young lady, showed himself the true gentleman in contrast with the swaggering little Major, who seemed to expect that he could bluster the young man out of his presumption, and was quite unprepared for Edgar's cool analysis of his threats. But instead of, like Tom Underwood, cooling down into moderation and kindness so soon as his bolt was shot, the finding it fall short only chafed him the more, and rendered him the more inveterate against all conciliation.

There was an appeal all round to Felix, but he was not so practicable as the universal compliments to his good sense showed to be expected. He had expressed his opinion that it was a rash engagement, hitherto improperly carried on; but he could not be brought to advise his brother to break it off on his side while the lady held to it on hers. It might be best to give it up by mutual consent; but as long as one party was bound, so was the other; and he thoroughly sided with Edgar in not being threatened out of it whilst Alice persisted. Still more flatly did he refuse Miss Pearson's entreaty that he would see the wilful girl, and persuade her how hopeless was her resistance, and how little prospect of the attachment being prosperous. Nothing but despair and perplexity could have prompted the good aunts to try such a resource, but they were at their wits' end. They really loved their niece, and they dreaded the tender mercies of her father, who had indeed petted Alice as a young child, but had made her mother suffer greatly from his temper. If she would yield, they hoped to procure for her a home at York, with their brother's widow, and to save her from a residence in Jersey with the step-mother; but Alice, upheld by a secret commerce of notes ingeniously conveyed, felt herself a heroine of constancy, and kept up her spirits by little irritations to whoever tried to deal with her. She could deftly insinuate, on the one hand, that her aunts had always preached up the Underwood perfections; and on the other, hint to her father that if her home had still remained what it was, she should never have looked out of it; and whenever he flew into a rage, or used violent language, she would look up under her eye-lids and whisper something about 'real gentlemen.' Those thorns and claws that had figured in the scale of her transmigration were giving a good many little scratches, which did her feelings some good, but her cause none at all, by the vexation they produced. 'If she could only be made to understand,' said poor Miss Pearson, 'how little she gains by irritating her father, and that he is really a very dreadful person when he is thoroughly offended! Poor child! my heart aches for her.'

So Wilmet was turned in upon her, and before she could utter a word was hugged and kissed all over because she was the very image of darling Edgar, and his dear violet eyes were exactly the same colour.

Unsentimental Wilmet extricated herself, saying, 'Eyes can't be violet coloured. Don't let us go into that silly talk, Alice; things are too serious now.'

'You are come to help me and be a dear!' cried Alice, clasping her hands. 'How does he look? the dear boy!'

'The same as usual,' said Wilmet, coolly. 'But, Alice, if you think that I am come to--'

'Does he--really and truly? I saw him out of the little passage window, and I thought he looked quite thin! And Lizzie Bruce said Mrs. Hartley asked who that handsome young man was who looked so delicate.'

'He is particularly strong and healthy. Alice, I want to set it all before you as a reasonable being--'

'Only do tell me; has he got his appetite? For you know he is used to live where everything is recherché, and when one's out of spirits things do make a difference--'

Was that the claw in the velvet paw?

'He eats three times as much as Felix any day,' said Wilmet, with a certain remembrance of the startling nudity of the bone of yesterday's leg of mutton. 'He is doing very well. You need not be afraid for him; but it seems to me that you should consider whether it can be right--'

'Come, Wilmet, you were my first friend; you can't help being kind to me.'

'I want to show you true kindness.'

'True kindness means something horridly cross! Now don't, Wilmet. I get ever so much kindness as it is! I know what you are going to say. It is very naughty of people to like each other when neither of them has got a sixpence; but if they can't help it, what then? Must they leave off liking, eh?'

'They ought to try to prevent their liking from leading to disobedience and concealment.'

'Ah! but if they can't?'

'People always can.'

'Were you ever tried?' asked Alice, slyly, for all the simplicity.

'I hope never to be, if deceiving my friends and making others deceive is to be the consequence.'

'Well, luckily there isn't much chance,' crept out of the demure lips. It was intended as the thorn beneath the may-flower, but it was no such thing. Wilmet was quite ready to accept the improbability as very fortunate.

'That has nothing to do with it,' she said. 'The question is, what it is right to do now. It seems hard for me to say so, being your friend and his sister--'

'Oh, never mind that. People's sisters never do like the girls they are fond of.'

Decidedly Wilmet could not get on. Her mouth was stopped either by a little rapture about Edgar, or a little velvet-pawed scratch to herself, whenever she tried in earnest to set the matter before Alice; and when, being a determined person, she at last talked on through all that Alice tried to thrust in, and delivered her mind of the remonstrance she had carefully thought over, and balanced between kindness, prudence, and duty, and all the time with the conviction that not one word was heeded! If it was not English malice it was French malice that pointed the replies and sent Wilmet away as much provoked as pitying, and not at all inclined to be examined by Edgar on her interview, and let him gather that she had not had the best of it. Poor Alice! what were these little triumphs of a sharp tongue in comparison with the harm she did herself by exacerbating whoever tried to argue with her? There was one person she did profess to wish to see, namely, Geraldine; but the flying rheumatic pains, excited by the black east wind with sleet upon its blast, could not be trifled with; and Major Knevett's wrath put an effectual stop to Alice's entering the house during the Saturday and Sunday of his stay at Bexley. Perhaps Cherry was not sorry. She could not have pleaded against Edgar, in spite of her disapprobation of both; and moreover, the thought at the bottom of her heart was, 'How could any one who had been the object of such tones of the one brother's voice be won by the showy graces of the other? Edgar could easily have thrown off a disappointment; but Felix came first--and oh! can he shake it off in the same light way?'

She had not the comfort of talking it over. Felix made no sign, and Edgar's line was to treat the whole complication as a matter of pleasantry, pretending that he had only gone into it to please Felix! and yet, as came to their knowledge, privately exchanging billets and catch-words with Alice, while he openly declared his engagement and resolution to work his way up and lay his laurels at her feet.

He went away the very same morning as Major Knevett carried off his daughter to Jersey, audaciously following them to the station, where he exchanged a grasp of the hand with her in the very sight of the 'grey tyrant father,' who actually gnashed his teeth, in his inability either to knock him down or give him in charge.

There was no time to breathe between the departure of this pair of lovers and the arrival of Alda's splendid Life-Guardsman, who, horses and all, took up his abode at the Fortinbras Arms, and spent his days in felicity with Alda. A very demonstrative pair they were. To Geraldine, often unwillingly en tiers, they seemed to spend their time chiefly in sitting hand in hand, playing with one another's rings and dangles, of which each seemed to possess an inexhaustible variety. Ferdinand's dressing-case and its contents were exquisite in their way, and were something between an amusement and a horror to Wilmet, who could not understand Felix's regard for so extravagant and wasteful a person, who gave away sovereigns where half-crowns would have been more wholesome, half-crowns instead of shillings, shillings instead of pence, and who moreover was devoted to horse-flesh. His own favourite steed, Brown Murad, had been secured at a fabulous price; and the possession of him seemed to be the crowning triumph over a certain millionaire baronet in the same corps, evidently his rival. What was even more alarming was that every detail about races and horses in training was at his fingers' ends, so that he put Felix up to a good deal of knowledge useful to the racing articles in the Pursuivant; but he declared that he never betted. His was a perilous position, homeless and friendless as he stood; and this rendered him doubly grateful for the brotherly welcome he received. Yet the days would have been long to any but lovers, in spite of the rides and walks, one even to Minsterham to see Lance. Ferdinand liked to recur to the old remembrances of his convalescence; but in these Alda had no part, and they seemed to jar on her. She might sometimes seem half fretted by his impetuous southern love, but she could not bear a particle of his attention to be bestowed on aught save herself; and when Geraldine would have utilised his fine straight profile as an artistic study, the monopoly was so unpleasing that the portrait had to be dropped. The odd thing was that Alda should have a lover whose most congenial spirit was Clement. He was a great frequenter of St. Matthew's, and had no interest save in kindred subjects. Felix always found them alike difficult to converse with, from a want of any breadth of sympathy with subjects past or present, such as would have occupied him even without the exigencies of his profession. They seemed to talk, not church, but shop, as if they did not look beyond proximate ecclesiastical details, which they discussed in technical terms startling to the uninitiated; and yet Felix trusted that Clement's soul was a good deal deeper and wider than his tongue, and that Ferdinand's, if narrow, was thoroughly resolute, finding in his enthusiasm for these details a counterpoise for the temptations of his position.

His seemed to be a nature that would alternate between apathetic indolence and strong craving for excitement. He could go on for days with a patient, almost silent, round of mechanical occupations performed well, nigh in his sleep, and then, when once stirred up became possessed with a vehement restlessness, as if there were still a little about him of the panther of the wilderness.

At first he awaited his letter from his uncle much more philosophically than did Alda, but when it tarried still, he became so eager that he made two journeys to London to meet the mail, and pestered every one with calculations as to time and space.

The letter came, and was all that every one else had expected. Alfred Travis had always detested the family into which his nephew had been thrown by his accident, and the tidings that the heiress had been rejected for the sake of one of these designing girls could not be welcome. So he gave notice that nothing more could be expected from him if his nephew stooped thus low. This, however, did not much concern Ferdinand. He curled his black moustache, and quietly said his uncle would not find that game answer. The affairs of the brothers had always been mixed together, and Ferdinand had been content to leave the whole in his uncle's hands, only drawing for his own handsome allowance; but the foundation had been his mother's fortune, and he had only to claim his own share of the capital, and disentangle it from the rest, either to bring his uncle to terms at once, or to be able to dispense with his consent. The delay was vexatious, but it could be but brief; and in the meantime Bexley was felicity. Yes, in spite of the warning he received at the Rectory, which my Lady followed up by a remonstrance to Felix--over the counter, for in vain he tried to get her into the office. He could only tell her that he much regretted Edgar's conduct, but as to Alda, there was no disobedience, and the young man's character was high. He was just as impracticably courteous as his father, and Lady Price shrugged her shoulders and hoped. 'For, Felix Underwood,' she said, 'I am convinced that after all you are a very well-meaning young man.'

This was her farewell, for Mr. Bevan had been more ailing than usual, and had obtained permission to leave his parish for a year, to be spent partly in the south of France, partly at the German baths.

Well was it for those who could get away! Never had the spring been sourer; Easter came so early as itself to seem untimely, and the Wednesday of its week was bleakness itself, as Lance and Robina stood on the top of the viaduct over the railway, looking over the parapet at the long perspective of rails and electric wires, their faces screwed up, and reddened in unnatural places by the bitter blast. Felix had asked at breakfast if any one would be the bearer of a note to Marshlands; Lance had not very willingly volunteered, because no one else would; then Robina joined him, and they had proceeded through the town without a syllable from either of the usually lively tongues, till as they stood from force of habit watching for a train, the following colloquy took place, Robina being the first speaker.

'What is it?'

'What is what?'

'What is the matter?'

'What is the matter with what?'

'With it all?'

There came a laugh, but Robina returned to the charge. 'Well, but what is it? Is it east wind?'

'Something detestable--whatever it is,' grunted Lance.

'You've found it so too,' said Robina; for Lance had only come home after evening cathedral the day before.

'Haven't I, though!'

He said no more, being a boy of much reserve as to his private troubles; and Robina presently said,--

'I say, Lance, did Alda use to be nice, or is it love?'

'Never nice, like Wilmet or Cherry.'

'I am sure,' proceeded the girl, 'I thought love was the most beautiful and romantic thing--too nice to be talked about, for fear it should turn one's head; but here it seems to be really nothing but plague and bother and crossness.'

'Poor Bob!' said Lance, 'you got the worst of it up at Brompton.'

'I got it every way,' said Robina. 'There was Edgar treating me like a little contemptible baby, and Alice sometimes coaxing me and sometimes spiting me, and Angel poisoned against me; and when I thought I must be acting for the best in telling Felix, somehow that turned out altogether horrid.'

'I suppose a girl must be telling some one,' said Lance; 'and if it was to be done, Felix was the right one.'

'So I made sure,' said poor Robin; 'but Miss Fulmort and Miss Fennimore seemed to think it no better than if I had told you. They say I am forgiven, but I hate their forgiveness. I've done nothing wrong, and yet they don't like or trust me; and they seem to grudge me all my marks and prizes. "For proficiency, not for conduct," they say, in that hard cold voice. And then the girls nod and whisper. Angel and all, think me a nasty spiteful marplot. Alice set half of them against me before she went!'

'Poor Bob. And you can't have a good set to, and punch their heads all round! That's the way to have it out, and get comfortable and friendly.'

'For choir boys? O Lance!'

'Choir boys aint girls, I thank my stars.'

'Well,' continued Robina, glad to pour out her troubles, even for such counsel as this, 'when I came home last week, I did think it would be made up.'

'Well,' said Lance, as Robin grew rather choky, and drew the back of a woolly glove across her eyes, not much to their benefit.

'Clem looks black, because he says his sisters were meant to raise the tone of the school.'

'Confound the tone of the school! I know what that is! But who cares for Tina?'

'Then Wilmet says I ought to have asked leave to write to her, and she could have managed it quietly, and kept everybody out of a scrape.'

'Whew--w--w--' whistled Lance; but at the melancholy tone, he absolutely took his red hand out of its comfortable nest in his pocket, to draw his sister's arm into his. It was well, for her voice was far more trembling now. 'I could bear it all if it were not for Felix himself. I know he is angry with me, but he won't talk, nor tell me how; he only said, "We both meant to act for the best; but it is a painful affair, and we had better not discuss it," and then he began to whistle to Theodore. If any one did know how I hate being told I meant to act for the best!'

'Something is come over Felix,' said Lance. 'I never knew him give such a jaw as he has to me. To be sure, he was set on to it.'

'Set on?'

'Yes, by Wilmet for one! You should have seen the way she was in--as if I hadn't a right to do what I please with my own money.'

'What?'

'My violin! Ferdinand Travis tipped me when he rode over to the Cathedral, and by good luck it was the day before the auction at old Spicer's. Bill and I went in to see the fun; and by all that is lucky, there was a violin routed out of an old cupboard. Nobody bid against me but Godwin, the broker, and it was knocked down to me for twenty-two and six. Bill lent me the half-crown; and Poulter, our lay vicar, who is at a music-shop, says 'tis a real bargain, he's mad to have missed it himself; but he showed me how to put my fingers on it, and I can play Mendelssohn's "Hirtenlied." You shall hear by-and-by, Robin. Well; Wilmet comes on it when she was unpacking my shirts. I'm sure I wish she'd let me unpack them myself, instead of poking her nose there; and if she wasn't in a way! Wasting my money, when I ought to be saving it up to buy a watch; and wasting my time and all the rest of it--till one would think 'twas old Scratch himself I'd brought home!'

'Oh don't, Lance. And did she set on Felix?'

'Ay; and then, you know, our new Precentor, Beccles, isn't one quarter the man Nixon was; and he has been and written a letter to Fee that any schoolmaster in creation should be licked for writing, to go and pison a poor chap's home--all about those cards.'

'What cards?'

'The pack Jones found in the middle of the north transept ten days ago.'

'Of the Cathedral! How shocking! But why should he write to Felix?'

'Because the big-wigs make sure some one out of the Bailey must have dropped them, getting into the town through the Cathedral at night.'

'But they don't suspect you?'

'No; but Beccles got into an awful way, and swears--'

'You don't mean really swears!'

'No, no--stuff--vows--that unless he gets to the bottom of it, not one of us shall have the good-conduct prize. Now I did think I might have had that--though I'm not a church candle like Tina--for I never was had up for anything; and it is precious hard lines! Such a beauty, Robin, the Bishop gives it--all the Cathedral music, bound in red morocco; and this beggar hinders us all this very last chance! And then, he is dirty enough to write and tell Felix to get out of me who has been getting out through the Cathedral, and dropping the cards.'

'Do you know?'

'Hold your tongue; I thought you had a little sense! Felix had that; he saw I could not tell him, and said it must be as I pleased about that; but then he rowed me, as he never did before, for wasting time, and not mugging for the exhibition--as if that was any use.'

'Why shouldn't you get the exhibition?'

'Put that out of your head,' said Lance, angrily; 'Harewood is sure of that! A fellow that construes by nature--looks at a sentence, and spots the nominative in a moment--makes verses--rale, superior, iligant articles.'

'But I thought he wasn't always accurate. Can't you catch him out? O Lance, don't look so fierce! I only said so because he can't want the exhibition as much as you. He can go to some other school, or be paid for.'

'Not conveniently,' said Lance; 'they are not at all well off, and Jack helps them. Besides, I wouldn't get the thing in a sneaking way; and besides, Bill could no more make a mull in construing out of carelessness than I could a false note--it's against nature. I can't beat him, except in arithmetic. My birth-day comes at such an unlucky time. I should get another year if I'd only been born in July instead of June! I might be second, for Shapcote is only dogged by his father; but that's no good for the exhibition: and then there's an end of Cathedral and all!'

'What should you do then, Lance?'

'Whatever costs least! I'd as lief work my way out to Fulbert, if this is to go on.'

'Oh, don't! don't do that, whatever you do!' cried Robina, clinging to his arm.

'I don't see why not, if everybody is to be as savage as a bear when one comes home. One always trusted to Felix to see sense, if nobody else did; but what with his jawing one about the exhibition, and Wilmet about the tin and every spot on one's clothes, and Alda growling at whatever one does in the parlour, I'm sure I wish I'd stayed at Bexley.'

The boy and girl had never before been tried by want of sympathy, and what seemed to them injustice, when they had thus descended into the perturbed atmosphere of what they were used to regard as a happy home. There was a long mutual communication of grievances--irritable speeches--inattention from their elders--fancies and complaints of Alda's enforced peremptorily by Wilmet--appeals to Felix either quashed or unheeded; the strange thing was, in how short a time so much had managed to go wrong with them, except that they added the vexations of the last quarter to the present discomfort, real or fancied; and though they were both good children, each had the strong feeling that there was not as much encouragement as usual to goodness, and that it could not have been much worse if they had been seriously to blame. One had expected to be caressed for her endurance in a good cause; the other had not expected to be severely rebuked for what he scarcely viewed as faults. It was the first time this younger half of the family had ever suffered anything approaching to neglect or injustice from their seniors, and the moment was perilous. The discussion was forming their discontents into a dangerously avowed state, if it had the beneficial effect of raising their spirits by force of sympathy. At any rate, they were in no gloomy mood when they reached the tidy little villa, with its beds of open-hearted crocuses defying the cold wind, and admitting the sun to the utmost depths of their purple and golden bosoms, as they laughed their cheery greeting.

No less cheerful was the welcome from kind old Mrs. Froggatt, who met them at the door. 'Master Lancelot, Miss Robina, this is an unlooked-for pleasure, to be sure! My dear Miss Robina!' as the girl gave her hearty embrace.

They were the prime favourites next to Felix, and were the more gladly hailed that Mr. Froggatt was anxious about the business on which they came, and had been trying to get leave from his wife to peril his rheumatics by coming in to Bexley about it. They must stay to luncheon; and while Mr. Froggatt went off to answer his note, they were made much of over the fire, in the way that had of late become so abhorrent to Bernard, with difficulty avoiding a pre-luncheon or nooning of cake and wine within an hour of the meal of the day.

'And how is Mr. Underwood?' asked Mrs. Froggatt, when Robina had been divested of her wraps, placed close to the fire, screened and footstooled, and when Lance had transferred the big white cat from the arm-chair to his own knee.

'Oh, very well, thank you,' said Robina, rather surprised that the lengthy catechism on the family health did not as usual start from 'poor dear Miss Geraldine.'

'He was looking so thin, and had such a cough, I was quite concerned when he walked out here on Good Friday afternoon,' continued Mrs. Froggatt. 'I hope he is taking care.'

'Wilmet is always at him about it,' said Lance.

'That is right. And I hope he minds to keep the office-door shut. It is such a draughty place! Does he wear flannel, do you know, my dear?'

'I think so,' said Robina. 'Sister Constance told Wilmet he ought, when he had that long cough after the measles.'

'Ay. You know--you'll excuse me, my dears, a cough is not to be trifled with in your dear family.'

'You should write to the clerk of the weather-office, Mrs. Froggatt,' said Lance, rather gruffly.

And as Mrs. Froggatt was not good at understanding jokes, but was always ready to accept Mr. Lance's, she thought he meant Admiral Fitzroy; and much explanation and banter followed, which the children made the louder from dread of the subject. Mrs. Froggatt was by no means the cultivated person her husband was; but, being of a good old plain farmer stock, she was quite as unassuming, and her manners with the young Underwoods were a good deal like those of a superior old housekeeper, only perhaps less authoritative and familiar; but she was not to be kept away from the subject of her real anxiety. 'I wish I could see your sister, and speak to her; he ought to have some advice rather than let it run on in this way. I'm sure Mr. Froggatt would be willing to do anything. It has been a great concern to him to have to leave such a heavy charge to him this spring, and with all the family cares on his head too, at his age. Miss Alda's wedding put off too--is it? And is the young gentleman here still?'

'No; his leave was over last Monday,' said Robina, 'a week after I came home.'

'I should like to have seen him! Your brother says he is grown up such a fine-looking young man, and quite got over his lameness. A handsome couple they will be! I did see them ride through the place, but Miss Alda didn't see me.'

'You saw his horse?' broke in Lance, who considered Brown Murad as a superior specimen to either of the lovers; and Mrs. Froggatt, whose father had bred horses, and whose son was much more addicted to them than was for his good, was a much more intelligent auditor of the perfections now dilated on than could have been expected.

Yet nothing could keep off the dreaded subject, and even at table, Lance's disappointing deficiency in schoolboy voracity became the cause of a lamentation over his brother's small appetite, and an examination of Robina, resulting in her allowing that Felix seldom gave himself time to do more than snatch a crust of bread in the middle of the day, and did not always make up for it at tea-time. Mr. Froggatt shook his head and looked distressed, and his good lady went on discoursing about the basin of soup she always used to keep prepared for him, evidently longing, though not quite daring, to send a lecture to Wilmet on taking care of her brother. But what made more impression on both the children was, that after they had been into Mr. Froggatt's little conservatory with him, and had received into their charge a basket of camellias, violets, and calycanthus, with a pot of jonquils in the middle for Geraldine, the old gentleman said, as he bade them good-bye, 'Tell your sister, that if she thinks a day or two of laying by would be good for your brother, I should be ready and glad to change places with him. A little change might take away his cough; and I don't like his looks--no, I don't. He ought to be careful;' this to himself, with a long sigh.

Then the children got out into the garden, and with the natural impatience of the evil omen, exclaimed at the same moment--

'Croak, croak, croak, went the frogs,'

and

'Were there ever such a pair of good old coddles!'

But then they walked on for a full quarter of a mile before either said another word; and then it was, 'You don't think Felix looking ill, do you, Lance?'

'I never thought about his looks at all,' said Lance.

'No more did I,' said Robina; 'but he does cough; I hear him through the wall in the morning. Do you think there is anything in it, Lance?'

'How long has it been going on?'

'Ever since he came up to London. He got a chill in our garden when I was telling him about--' said Robina, stopping short of what she hated to mention.

'Then that's it!' said Lance, turning round with a face of one who had made a great discovery.

'It? What is the matter with him?'

'Yes,' said Lance. 'Hold your tongue, Robina; but Cherry and I thought long ago that he fancied that little Knevett himself. Then I made sure it was all a mistake; but now, depend upon it, that's what he is so cut up about!'

It carried conviction to the hearer, perhaps because it fitted in with a girl's love of romance. 'Then that's why he won't talk to me!'

'Of course!'

And then they began putting together all the tokens of inclination which their small experience and large imagination could suggest, till they had pretty well decided the point in their own belief, and had amused themselves considerably; but the anxiety came back again.

'Do people get over such things, Lance? There was Ophelia, and there was Wilfred in "Rokeby"--only she was a woman, and he was pipy. Did you ever know of anybody really and truly?'

Lance meditated, but his experience reached no farther than the surgeon's assistant at Minsterham, who was reported to be continually in love, but who did not look greatly the worse for it.

And then Robina suggested that she did not remember that either Wilfred or Ophelia had a cough.

'But my father had,' said Lance in the depths of his throat. 'Don't you know, Robin, it was hard work and trouble and poverty that--did it?'

'Was it?' awe-struck, for she had been so young as to have no clear ideas.

'I've heard it told often enough. My Lady cut off the third curate; and that--and all the rest of it--helped to bring on the decline.'

'But, Lance! At least, that wasn't--love.'

'Nonsense, Robin! Don't you see, whatever takes the heart and spirit out of a man, makes him ready for illness to get hold of?' Lance plucked desperately at the hazels in the hedge, and his eyes were full of tears.

'O Lance, Lance, what can we do?'

'I don't know! I'd let him pitch into me from morning till night if that would do him any good!'

'I'm sure I am very sorry I grumbled. We'll give Wilmet Mr. Froggatt's message, and see what she thinks.'

Poor children! their consternation was such, that they must judge by their own eyes of Felix without loss of time; so they both marched into the shop with Mr. Froggatt's note, and there felt half baffled to see Felix looking much as usual, very busy trying to content a lady with nursery literature, and casting a glance at Robin as if she had no business there.

Wilmet received Mr. Froggatt's message without excitement. She thought it would be a very good thing, but she did not believe Felix would consent; and Alda broke out, 'Then we should have Mr. Froggatt inflicted on us all the evening!'

Nor did Felix consent. He said it was very kind, but his cold was almost gone, and he did not need it. Moreover he had his private doubts whether Alda would be decently gracious to Mr. Froggatt; and Wilmet, whose one object in life was to keep her sister contented and happy at home, could press nothing so disagreeable to her. Altogether, the reception of their hints at home was so prosaically placid, that they were both rather ashamed of the alarm into which they had worked themselves up. Even when Robina privately asked Cherry whether she thought Felix looking well, the answer was eager.

'Oh, very--very well! He looked pulled down when his cold was bad, but he is quite well now.'

'Mrs. Froggatt thought--'

'Oh, you've been talking to Mrs. Froggatt! She thinks nothing so kind as to say one is looking poorly. I said, "How well you are looking, Mrs. Froggatt," one day, and I assure you she only swallowed it by an act of Christian forgiveness. She is fondest of Felix, so of course he looks the worst.'

Robina got no more out of Geraldine, whose fears at that moment were in the form of utterly denying themselves. Commonplace life greatly reassured the two young things, and of the alarm there chiefly remained a certain shame at their own former discontent, and doubly tender feeling towards their fatherly elder brother. Now that they guessed something to be amiss with him, they had no irritation for him--and indeed he gave them no cause for any; the discomfort was partly indeed occasioned by the lack of his usual quiet mirth, but far more by Alda's fastidiousness, and Wilmet's vigilance lest she should be annoyed. This caused restrictions that weighed more heavily on the younger ones than on Lance and Robina, and had the effect of making Angela and Bernard rebellious. They had neither the principle nor the consideration of their two seniors; to them every one seemed simply 'cross,' and against this crossness there was a constant struggle, either of disobedience or of grumble.

Both were at rather an insubordinate age. Angela, having begun school life with getting into a scrape greater than she understood, had acquired a naughty-girl reputation, of the kind that tempts the young mind to live up to it; and her high spirits, boisterous nature, and 'don't care' system made her irrepressible by any one but Wilmet, whose resolute hand might be murmured at, but was never relaxed. While Bernard, hitherto very fairly amenable to Cherry, and a capital little scholar, became infected with the spirit of riot and insubordination. Whatever fastidiousness the children took for fine-ladyism in Alda they treated unmercifully, and resented in their own fashion her complaints, and Wilmet's enforcement of regard to her tastes; nor was Lance always blameless in the tricks played upon her.

It was strange to see the difference made by one incongruous element. A few sneers at Cherry's pronunciation, an injudicious laugh when she was rebuking, and a general habit of making light of her, on Alda's part, upset all Bernard's habits of deference to the sister who had taught him all he knew. His lessons grew into daily battles--miseries to himself and far greater miseries to his teacher, and sufficient misery to the spectator to induce her to do that which the other sisters could scarcely have brought themselves to do on any provocation, namely to complain to Felix, and by-and-by make a representation, for the general good, she said, that it was a mere farce to leave the boy under Cherry's management.

Cherry, with bitter tears, was forced to own that she could no longer keep him in order nor make him learn, and there was no alternative but to send him to Mr. Ryder's. He had no voice nor ear, so that he could not follow in Lance's steps; and for the present, Bexley was the only resource.

Of course Cherry charged the whole of this upon her poor little self; and some amount of the trouble certainly was due to her incapacity not to show in voice and manner when she was under fret, anxiety, or depression; and now, poor child! all three at once had come upon her. Whether Alda's conversation or the children's naughtiness fretted her most, it would be hard to tell; she was in a continual state of unuttered, vague, and therefore most wearing anxiety on Felix's account, and the physical discomfort of the ungenial spring told on her whole frame and spirits. Alda's talk, when good-humoured, opened such vistas of brightness, amusement, conversation, and above all of beautiful scenes, that they awoke longings and cravings that Cherry had hardly known before. The weariness of the grinding monotony of home seemed to have infected her. She knew it for discontent, and was the more miserable over her want of power to control it, because of the terror that hung over her lest repinings might bring on them all the judicial punishment of a terrible break-up of the home she loved, even while the tedium of the daily round oppressed her. Alternate plaintiveness and weary sharpness of course aggravated both Alda and Bernard, and they knew nothing of the repentant wretchedness that rather weakened than strengthened her.

Little Stella's unfailing docility and sweetness were her great solace. Even Alda was exceedingly fond of Stella, and would have spoilt her if the child had not been singularly firm in her intense love and loyalty to the heads of the family. Angel and Bear were too rough for her, and alarmed her sense of duty; but Lance was her hero; and the happiest moments of those holidays were spent in a certain loft above a warehouse in the court of the printing-office, only attainable by a long ladder. Here, secure that none but favoured ears could hear, Lance practised on his beloved violin, at every hour he could steal, emulating too often Mother Hubbard's dog 'fiddling to mice,' but his audience often including his three younger sisters. He had had scarcely any hints, but his was the nature that could pick music out of anything; and Angela, much more than Robin, was ecstatic in all that concerned the sixth sense, and watched and criticised with rapture, wanted to learn, and pouted at being told that it was not fit for a woman. Among those stacks of paper in the dusty loft, with the stamp and thud of the press close at hand, it was possible to forget, in creating sounds and longing to fulfil the dream of the spirit, that Alda was exacting and trying, Wilmet blind to the annoyances she caused, Cherry striving hard, and not always successfully, with the fretfulness of anxiety, and Felix--they durst not think in what state. That loft and that violin made their fairy-land, and one that rendered it most unusually hard for Lance to learn his holiday task.

'I'll tell you what, Lance,' said Robina at last, when he had vainly been trying to repeat it to her, with his eye on a sheet of music all the time, 'you can't do two things at once. If I were you, I would lock up that violin till the summer examination is over.'

He turned on her quite angrily. 'Very fine talking! Lock up all the pleasure I have in life! Thank you!'

'I'm quite sure you'll never get the exhibition if you have your head in this.'

'I shan't get the exhibition any way.'

'But if you do your utmost for it?'

'I shall do my utmost!'

'You can't if you have these tunes always running in your head, and are always wild to be picking them out.'

'Well, Robin, I sometimes think I should do more good with music than anything else.'

'Maybe,' said Robina, a sensible little woman; 'but you'll do no good by half and half. If you don't do well in the examination, Felix will be horribly vexed, and you'll always hate the thought of it.'

'I tell you I shall be as dull as ditch-water, and as stupid as Shapcote, if I don't have any pleasure.'

'I only don't want you to be stupider.'

Lance chucked up a pen-wiper and caught it.

'The fact is,' said Robina, 'all we've got to do is our best. If we don't, it is wrong in us, and it makes us more a weight on Felix; and I think it is our real duty to keep everything out of the way that hinders us, if it is ever so nice.'

'Is that Cock Robin, or Parson Rook with his little book?' said Lance, throwing the pen-wiper in her face.

But the week after, when Robina was at school again, she was called to receive a letter which had something hard in it.

'Did you leave a key behind you?' she was asked a little suspiciously, for there was nothing about it in the brief note.

'No, Miss Fennimore; but my brother has sent it to me to keep for him. It is the key of his violin-case, and he is not going to touch it till he is past his examination.'

From that time Miss Fennimore entertained a better opinion of Robina Underwood; but little recked Robina. She only felt secure that after this act of heroism Lance could not but gain the exhibition.

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