XXXII. THE NID D'AVIS…

XXXII. THE NID D'AVIS

'It is called--I forget--à la something which sounded Like alicampane, but in truth I'm confounded, What with fillets of roses and fillets of veal, Things garni with lace and things garni with eel, One's hair and one's cutlets both en papillote, And a thousand more things I shall ne'er have by rote. I can scarce tell the diff'rence, at least as to phrase, Between beef à la Psyche and curls à la braise; But in short, dear, I'm tricked out quite à la Française.' Moore.

One forenoon, soon after the end of the Christmas vacation, Robina Underwood was seated at her desk, working deeply at the solution of a quadratic equation; when from the far-off end of the schoolroom arose that peculiar hushed choked giggle, that no one ever ascribed to any cause but some prank of Angela's, more especially on the mornings devoted to her natural enemy, 'the professor of the exact sciences,' as he called himself; who was in fact a stop-gap in the absence of the University man usually employed.

Robina knew that the more concerned she showed herself the more madcap tricks were played, and she disturbed herself little about the commotion, aware that she should only too soon learn the cause, if it were anything out of the common way. So she did. In the quarter of an hour of clearance and recreation before dinner, plenty of information reached her, couched in boarding-school lingua franca.

'Ah! Rouge Gorge, vous ne savez pas ce qu'elle a fait.' 'Une fille delicieuse.' 'Une Alouette superbe, tout a fait Angélique!' 'Et M. le professeur! Comme il etait dans un cire!' (These phrases being chiefly the original coinage of Angela herself.)

'Mais qu'est ce que c'est qu'elle a fait?' demanded the elder sister, with small sympathy with these ecstasies.

''Le plus exquis!' and with volubility far outrunning composition, and resulting in a wonderful compromise of languages, that a new book had been produced out of which the class had been required to work what was described as 'un somme dans le règle detrois tout à tort et à travers; detestable, horrible, vilain,' to which a chorus chimed in, 'vilain, vilain vilainissimo.' The question was, If twelve reapers cut a field in thirty hours, how long would it take sixteen? As a matter of course, all but a few mathematical geniuses at the head of the class had multiplied by 16 and divided by 12, and made the result 40; but Angela, having wit enough to see that this 'n'avait pas le sens commun,' instead of trying to make out the difficulty, had written at the bottom of her slate, what was hastily transcribed for Robina's edification--

Forty, by the best time-keepers. Reapers? I should call them sleepers, Lazy heapers, idle creepers, And their peepers should be weepers!

All who obtained a sight of this stanza became forthwith weepers with suppressed giggle, and there was a stern, 'Your slate, if you please, Miss Angela Underwood.'

The effects were expressed with all the force the language could convey. 'Il etait comme un lion enragé--il écumait à la bouche--il disait qu'il appellerait Mlle. Fennimore'--a far greater climax, but after all he only sentenced her to read the rule aloud to the class. No sooner had she touched the book than she dashed it from her, 'Comme la poison'--'comme un couleuvre,' declaring it to be a shocking one, unfit to touch, so that of course the sums came wrong. Most of her audience, all girls under thirteen, for she was the arithmetical lag of the school, had no notion why the title 'Colenso's Arithmetic' so excited her--the master had none at all; and while Angela, who was not for nothing sister to a church candle or to a gentleman of the press, declaimed about heresy and false doctrine, he thought it all idleness and wilfulness, and fulfilled the threat of a summons to the authorities. By them the matter was a little better understood; but the disobedience was unpardonable, even if the testification against the author were not merely a veil for dislike to the problem, and the sentence had been solitary confinement until submission. From this Angela was so far distant, that as the young ladies marched in to dinner her voice might be heard singing the Ten Little Niggers.

It was an unlucky time, for the next day was Marilda's twenty-fifth birthday, and she was going to keep it in a way of her own, namely, by taking the whole family of children of a struggling young doctor, over the Zoological Gardens. It was not a very good time of year, and Marilda's first proposition had been the pantomime, but the mamma had religious scruples about theatres, and it turned out that the Zoo was the subject of their aspirations; so Marilda, securing her two young cousins to help her in the care and entertainment of her party, hoped for fine weather.

From this party of pleasure Angela must of course be debarred, unless she yielded; and her sister was sent to reason with her, but this had no better effect than usual. Robina was a thoroughly good industrious girl, who neither read the papers nor listened to controversy; she cared most for heresies as possible subjects for her examinations in Church history, and had worked problems innumerable out of Colenso. So all she gained was a scolding for consenting to the latitudinarianism that caused correctly-done sums to make sixteen reapers tardier than twelve; and the assurance that no allurement, no imprisonment, should make the young martyr consent to truckle to a heretic. Angela looked exactly like Clement as she spoke, except for an odd twinkle in her eye, as if she were quizzing herself.

Robina knew herself to be too much wanted to give up the expedition, and was sent for by Marilda in time to assist in giving the five children the good dinner that was an essential part of the programme, and which reminded Robin of Mr. Audley's picnic. One little boy, however, seemed bewildered and frightened by the good things, and more inclined to cry than to eat; but he would not hear of being left behind, though, when arrived at the Gardens, he could give but feeble interest even to the bears, and soon fretted and flagged so much that Marilda thankfully accepted Robin's offer of taking him home in a cab, and waiting for her till her rounds with the other children should be finished.

It turned out that he had had a headache and a 'bone in his throat' all the morning, but had kept them a secret of misplaced fortitude; and when Robina had taken him home, wrapped up in her cloak, trembling, shivering, and moaning, she found the mother with the yearling child much in the same condition on her lap; and she was rendering kindly help in putting them to bed (for of course the nurse had a holiday), when the father came home, driven in by a sore throat and headache of his own, and forced to pronounce, as best he could, that they were in for an attack of scarlatina.

Here was a predicament! Robina had never had the fever, nor had any of her home brothers and sisters in any unimpeachable manner. She could not stay where she was, and what would either the school or Mrs. Underwood do with her? After such consideration as the little boy allowed her to give, she wrote a note of warning to Marilda, to be handed to her at the door, and another to be sent on to Miss Fennimore. The note was handed to the frightened hurried maid, and duly given. There was a moment's pause, and then the children were left in the carriage, and Marilda walked into the house. Then there took place what could only be described as a scrimmage. Marilda was determined on carrying all the four home with her, out of the way of the infection, but the mother was persuaded that they must have it already, and would not part with them. If they were ill in another house she would not be able to go to them, and the thought distracted her. The father was appealed to, and between the same dread of separation and scruples about carrying infection farther, he gave sentence the same way, and Marilda was most unwillingly defeated.

She could only take away Robina; and Robina submitted pretty quietly to her decision that her quarantine must be spent at Kensington Palace Gardens. In the first place, Marilda protested that she had had 'it;' and though 'it' turned out only to have been a rash, and it was nearly certain that Mrs. Underwood would be in despair, yet Robin really knew not where else to go, and Marilda was quite as old as the constituted authorities at home. All Robin could insist on was on remaining in the carriage till Mrs. Underwood had heard the state of the case; but considering the rule that Marilda exercised, this precaution was of little use. In five minutes she was called upstairs, a note was sent to Brompton, and she had to make up her mind to a full fortnight of quarantine--and what was worse, of lack of appliances for preparing for the Cambridge examination, her great subject of ambition.

Neither Mrs. Underwood nor Marilda could suppose that it was not a treat and consolation to a schoolgirl to get a holiday; they were as kind as possible, but oh! the dullness of the place! It was much more dull than in Cherry's visits, for she had her own study and her own purpose, and Alda and Edgar enlivened the house; but now Marilda had no pursuits save business and charity, and was out many hours of the day, there was hardly a book to be found, and Mrs. Underwood expected her to sit in the drawing-room and do fancy-work. Meantime she was losing precious time, her chances of marks and prizes at Brompton were vanishing, to say nothing of her preparation for the Cambridge examination, on which her whole start in life might depend.

The doctor's family were all very ill; but she could not think nearly so much about them as of the music she tried to practise, and the equations she set herself, while she reckoned the extra work by which she could make up for lost time. Alas! on the very last day of this weary fortnight, conscience constrained her to mention an ominous harshness of throat; and by the evening she was wishing for nothing but that Wilmet were not in Egypt.

However, Marilda proved herself far superior as a nurse to what she was as a companion. She would not be kept out of her cousin's room, and with Cherry's old friend, Mrs. Stokes, took such good and enlightened care, that the infection did not spread, and Robina, though ill enough to be tolerably franked for life, was in due time recovering so favourably as to be very miserable and wretched about everything, from the Cambridge examination to her own ingratitude. She never had felt so like Cherry in her life.

It was hard to say which was worst, her banishment from school or from home, or the doleful idea presented to her by that kind promise of carrying her to be aired at Brighton for six weeks! It was the loss of the whole term, and all the prizes she had set her heart upon, nor was there any one to sympathise with her, as she turned her head away and hoped no one would find out the tears in her eyes.

It was just as it had been with Lance, she thought; prevented from sharing in the competition that might have won him success in life. And how sweetly and brightly Lance had borne it; but then he had never reckoned on the success she had hoped for, and besides, her nature had not the surface insouciance that had helped him. She had more industry, more ambition, more fixity of purpose, and the disappointment was proportionably severer.

Poor child! she lay on the sofa, as Mrs. Underwood supposed, fast asleep, but really trying to work out in her brain puzzling questions, why it was good to be disappointed when one does one's best, why the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, trying to accept her failure as wholesome mortification to ambition, recalling 'Under Wode under Rode;' but rebelliously feeling that this did not comfort her greatly in the very unnecessary picture her fancy proceeded to draw of herself, with attainments fit for nothing but a nursery governess or school drudge, or a companion to some one duller still than Mrs. Underwood, magnanimously releasing William Harewood from all ties to so inferior a being, and proceeding to die of a broken heart, and to shed a few tears over her own grave; or maybe the still more melancholy conviction, that there were no ties at all that he would or ought to remember.

A postman's knock made her start, and Mrs. Underwood lament that she had been awakened. Presently she was sitting up, receiving a long, narrow, green, thin letter, at which she looked with exultation and delight all over the visage lately so doleful. 'O Mrs. Underwood, it is from John himself---dear John!' was the cry, as her eyes lighted on the address; and her pleasure amounted to rapture as she read the closely-written sheets, in that clear strong neat handwriting that had hitherto always been Wilmet's monopoly.

Alexandria, March 20th.

MY DEAR ROBINA,

I hope this may find you as it leaves me at present, a thankful convalescent, and able to think of undertaking a journey with more motive force in your own person than I can yet boast. My good little French doctor has unlimited faith in the healing virtues of the Pyrenean baths, he being Gascon born, and has even volunteered to help us on our way thither when going home for his holiday--a chance too good to be lost. Malta must be our first stage; and if, as I am told to hope, I can get my sick leave extended, after being sat upon by the doctors there, we shall go on to Bagnères, where we hope to arrive about the last week in April. We think you had better meet us there. Miss Underwood will see about arranging an escort for you; Wilmet is writing to her about it. She also desires that you will rig yourself out afresh, bringing nothing you have used while laid up; and you had better likewise provide the stock of books the Cambridge dons advise, as we shall be very quiet and stationary for some time, and I will gladly do my best to help you, unless modern lights have gone quite beyond the capacities of the R.E.

You see by my date that we have made our first move. Chenu was anxious to get us away from Rameses before the Egyptian plagues should have become rampant, and after Wilmet had found a scorpion curled amiably up on my pillow, she was ready for an immediate start. So, amid the shrieks of the Arabs and tears of the entire establishment, I was carried by Travis and Krishnu to the station, and deposited in a horse-box, that I fancy occasionally transports a harem, our host weeping and kissing Wilmet's hands to the last moment. Poor people! they treated us with uniform kindness. If you can make inquiries about the price of a dinner-service, write me the result; it is a sort of testimonial that might be convenient as well as appropriate.

Here, in this great hotel, we are no longer No. 1, but simple units, and find it so much less enlivening, and more common-place, that we even regret the nightly laughter of the hyenas. I want Wilmet to join a party who are going to pay their respects to the Sphinx; but she will not hear of it, even under the care of Fernan Travis, who has grown quite familiar with that venerable animal. He is an admirable squire for her (Mrs. H----, I mean, not Mrs. S----,) at the table d'hôte and is altogether as excellent a fellow as ever lived. I am much struck with the ripening he has undergone since we were together at Bexley, and his deeply conscientious views of his very trying and difficult position. He means to see us off for Malta, and then to make his way to Jerusalem for Easter, for the chance that the throng may attract poor Edgar. Never was search more indefatigable. Wilmet sends her love, but does not write, as she has letters in hand to Felix and to Miss Underwood.

Hoping to see your face as round as ever before a month is over,

Your affectionate brother, J.O. HAREWOOD.

Write to us at Malta whether you can come, and we will either write or telegraph to you when to start.

On a separate page were directions for the journey; and a cheque was enclosed, the first Robina had ever received, providing amply for journey, outfit, and books.

An hour before, the journey to Brighton had seemed a terrific fatigue. Now a journey to the Pyrenees was only delicious! Her happiness and gratitude were unspeakable. This was not banishment--this was not loss of time--this was perfection!

Wilmet's letter to Marilda, which came at the same time, was a far more anxious one. She described her husband as certainly better, but still with three unconquerable wounds, on shoulder, hip, and knee, that kept him helpless and prevented him from regaining strength. He was always a bad sailor, and she extremely dreaded the voyage; yet it was impossible to remain in the Egyptian climate, for already the heat was fearfully exhausting, and this long, cheerful, well-written letter must not deceive those at home, for it had been written in the cool of the evening, when he always revived, but for the greater part of the day he could scarcely speak or look; and she cautioned Robina against reckoning too much on the Pyrenean journey, since if the military authorities would not give John his leave without his presenting himself in England, they must try some sea-side place there. John's hopeful plans always ran on so fast whenever he was feeling a little better. However, Wilmet herself was very eager to have Robina, who she thought would be a great amusement and occupation to him, and was only puzzled about the escort, since Felix could hardly spare the time, and Clement was in the final agony of preparing for his degree.

This however was settled by Marilda's offering her own maid, who was a practised traveller; and not long after arrived the final intimation. All had been made right at Malta; and Robina, who had by this time had leisure to change her skin, and gather her strength, was to start at once for Bagnères.

She was not allowed any parting with Angela, or any of those at home. It was safer otherwise, and not worth the risk, she was told, and there was nothing to do but submit; and very much alone in the world did she feel when she stood on the deck of the Folkestone boat, with the black-silk maid as her only protector. It was a great plunge into the vast unknown for one solitary little schoolgirl!

Behold! A hand was held out to her, a merry pair of yellowish green eyes twinkled, a wide mouth smiled, a greeting was in her ears: 'That's right, Bobbie! I thought you'd be for this boat.'

'Willie! O Willie! You are crossing? How nice! But you shouldn't touch me.'

'Bosh! I had it long ago! Are you well and jolly?'

'Quite well, thank you. You are really coming?'

'Ay, I thought I'd run over to see Jack, and how Wilmet figures as a bride; and it is a good speculation to get you to do all the French.'

'If I can; but here's Marilda's maid, a perfect traveller's book of dialogues. Mrs. Purle--here is Major Harewood's brother, who is going the same way.'

A gentleman was not an unwelcome sight to Mrs. Purle, who was used to depend on couriers, and who entreated him at once to enforce attention to certain luggage about which she was distressed.

And to Robina, he was simply the most delightful sight in the world. After six weeks of the flatness and tedium of those good ladies in Kensington Palace Gardens, a little youthful brightness, fresh too from home, would have been like the pure sea wind after dull London air, even if it had not been, of all people, Willie, Willie Harewood himself, timing his journey on purpose to escort her!

True, there were always two sets of feelings going on within her; one when she was actually concerned with or about him, when the common-place aspect overcame the remembrance of that evening by the river-side, and left only a pleasant companionship of long standing, with the freedom of family connection and acknowledged preference; the other, when he was out of sight and hearing, and was the standing romance of her life.

It was not a wholly untroubled romance, for she was not certain of her duty. Their promise had been exchanged when they were such children, that it would be ridiculous to mention it, and it might be equally absurd to dwell on it; yet her mind could not help attaching weight to it, and questioning whether her secresy might not be a fault. Yet it would be unfair, as well as absurd, to avow seriously nonsense three years old, and without any further advance on his part. Without any? That was the question that recurred over and over again to the poor little heart, whenever romance got the upper hand, the heart that would one moment yearn, at another fail, at another bound! It was avowed that Willie was very fond of her, and his sisters made that fondness one of their standing jokes; but when Robin remembered the enforced reticence with regard to Wilmet, that was no good sign, and she could never discover whether he remembered the sixpence they had not broken. It was no desirable state of suspense, this consequence of having innocently listened to premature playing at lovers' vows; and though good sense and modesty might mitigate the evil, that very conscientiousness gave her the more to endure.

However, the pain was all in private, and private moments were few, and encroached on by sleepiness and struggles to write letters. They went on too fast for more than fleeting views from the train, only at Paris, after the table d'hôte Willie was urgent for a stroll in the gas-lit streets, and on Robina's demur, appealed to Mrs. Purle's good-nature, and brought her out, tired as she was, but enjoying the delight of the two happy young things.

It was too late for sight-seeing, but little recked they; the wonder of the city, then so great and gay, was quite enough for them; the long illuminated arcades of the streets, the masses of trees in their young foliage in the Tuileries gardens, the unaccustomed sounds--thundering omnibus, rushing cabriolet, neighing, shrieking horses, and high-pitched clamour of tongues, filled them with exhilarating amusement. Then the people! Maid-servants in quaint white caps, stately sergents-de-ville, soldiers marching to change guard, with clanging bands, knots of talkers gesticulating, parties sitting out on the pavement at the cafés--all was so new and queer, and it was so wonderful to be there with only Will, that Robina could hardly believe she was herself!

Above all, the shop windows! How they lingered and admired, like the frank-hearted children they were! Everything looked so enchanting on those slopes--photograph, confectionery, porcelain, millinery, or jewellery. Oh! the raree-show those trinket-shops in the Rue Rivoli were to them, as they gazed at the wonderful devices--those earrings and brooches, as flies, as beetles, as fishes, shrimps, and acrobats. At last they came on a set where the earrings represented a little silver bird hovering, and the brooch a gold wicker nest with three pearl eggs, and the same birds standing over it, and Robina's cry of admiration was instantly replied to with--

'You must have those, I vow!'

'Nonsense! they must be frightfully dear.'

'I don't care; you are the bird that must have that nest.'

'But it is earrings!'

'Well!'

'I don't wear earrings.'

'That's no reason you never should.'

'No, no; Wilmet would not like it, and Mamma never did. It is making holes in oneself to wear useless ornaments in,' said Robin, hurrying out her remonstrance without choice of words.

'And the other thing, with the two birds--is that for your nose?'

'No, a brooch.'

'You wear brooches. You have on a thing like a calf's eye.'

'My poor onyx--for shame!' said Robina, not confessing that it was her sole possession in that line.

'Then you shall have those two cockyolly birds.'

'No, indeed. It is a set, and they won't break it.'

'Then Grace shall have one bird, and Lucy the other.'

'Each one earring--you ridiculous boy!'

'And wear them by turns! Come in, and ask the price prettily.'

'No, I sha'n't.'

'I thought you were to speak French for me?'

'Only when I approve.'

'Then here goes!'

And Robin, who was afraid to stand in the street without him, heard him asking, 'Quoi est le prix de ce nid d'avis?'

Fortunately, or unfortunately, it was a bi-lingual shop, and the purchase was conducted in English; the brooch was separated from the earrings, the change made right, and the little box containing the treasure thrust upon Robina, who could only twit the donor with his nid d'avis.

'Avis not the French for a bird? If it is not, it ought to be. I thought one only had to speak Latin through one's nose and bite off the end.'

'General rules are dangerous of application in particular instances. There's the first hatch for you out of your nest of advice.'

'If you hatch advice for me, I'll take it.'

'That's a pretty considerable engagement!' said Robina, lightly.

'Your eggs of advice ain't rotten like some folk's.'

'They won't be pearls like these!'

'How do you know? My eyes, Bob, there goes a regular old Dominican, looking just as if he was got up for a charade. What a place this is, to be sure! and how hard to fancy that it is but a few hours from home after all!'

The gift and the few words after it had brought Robina's outer and inner worlds unusually near together; and when she opened her little box in her room, she caught herself kissing the silver birds in a strange thrill of pleasure and yet of doubt whether Wilmet would think she ought to have accepted it.

The long, long journey ended in mazy sleep through the diligence part of the transit, all in the dark, but with a dim consciousness of wheels, voices, and bumps. It seemed quite the middle of the night, and far too troublesome to move, when at length she was extracted by William rather than by her own volition, and something in a white turban appeared before her dazzled eyes in the lamp-light, as stumbling with weariness, she was supported and guided by her companion's arm, and reviving in the cool night air, heard that 'it was but a few steps, and the Mem Sahib was waiting.'

Then a great door opened, and showed a flood of light intercepted by a tall figure, and then Robina found a pair of soft arms round her, and nestling close to a well-known bosom, felt the infinite relief of being off her own mind and with her who had ever been the very core of home!

'My Robin, my Robin! Is she quite well? Oh, this is nice! And Willie--' giving her sisterly kiss. 'Yes, we had your letter, we were so glad. Mrs. Purle, how are you? thank you for bringing her! There's some tea ready--Krishnu will show you.'

And then they were in the sitting-room, with its bright lamp and blazing wood fire, and thorough English tea, and Wilmet in muslin and blue ribbons, as they had never seen her but on rare gala days.

'How's John?' began William, rather blank at missing him.

'Much better--so much better, but I told him not to think of seeing you to-night. He has been in bed more than two hours. And oh, my Bobbie, you ought to be there too!'

'Yes, she's tired to death,' said Will; 'we have been going since eight last night.'

She really was too much tired to speak or eat, and passively submitted, scarcely conscious where she was--nay, at some moments thinking herself in the old nursery in St Oswald's Buildings, in the comfort of being undressed, cossetted, and put to bed by the hands most natural to her since infancy. After a time of weariness too great for right sleep, and of a strange confusion about confessions to Wilmet, she at length lost the feverish element of over-fatigue, and slept soundly till she opened her eyes to realise a little festooned bed in an alcove, white curtains over the windows, strange new street-cries outside, and within, her own box, a sofa, a table, a chair, and a fine clock, which could not be going, for it pointed to half-past ten!

As she was sitting up and looking in vain for some means of washing, the door gently opened, and that dear motherly face looked in. 'Awake at last, my poor little tired bird?'

'O Wilmet, is it really so late?'

'Of course! never mind. Willie is just as bad; there are his boots outside his door still. There, drink this coffee before you dress. Yes, you want it; you could take nothing last night. Let me look at you; are you quite rested, and fit to get up?'

'Oh yes!' energetically; 'if only I saw how to wash!'

Wilmet laughed, and opened a cupboard-door, displaying the requisites, even including a tub, which she had found and purchased individually. After the ablutions she could judge of her little sister better, and thought the cheeks not greatly wanting in their roundness, or healthful freshness; but all the brown hair had been cropped, and the short wavy curls added to the childish contour. It was a prim little schoolgirl figure that stood there in a grey carmelite dress, and black silk apron.

'My dear, have not you a bow or bit of ribbon? John likes colour.'

'Only a blue ribbon for Sunday.'

In a moment Wilmet had hurried to her own room, a rose-coloured snood was round the brown hair, and a little Maltese cross hung by another pair of rosy streamers round her neck.

'And a brooch, my dear. Haven't you one--what's in this box?'

'O Wilmet, I wanted to ask you about it. Willie would buy it for me at Paris!'

'How pretty! There, that will do nicely. Are you ready? John is quite eager for you, now he is at his best.'

So Robin, who meant to have put her question in a very different form, was hurried away, nid d'avis and all, and the next moment found herself in the sitting-room, where on a couch near the fire, but commanding a view from the window, lay, half sitting, her new brother, holding out both hands to draw her to receive his kiss of welcome. 'Well, Robin, quite recruited after the scarlet enemy? So you were dead beat yesterday!'

'O John, I did not mean to be so late!'

'You are beforehand with that lazy brother of mine, who tacked himself to your skirts. Just in time for déjeûner, a thing always going on here. Is the young Sahib awake, Zadok?' as the white figure with a brown face entered to lay the cloth, but it was at once followed by the young gentleman, exclaiming, 'Good morning, Wilmet; I beg your pardon--I'd no notion of the time.' Then coming to a sudden stand-still, 'Holloa, Jack!'

'Holloa, Bill,' replied John, imitating the tone, with a smile. 'How's my father?'

'As--as usual! But, Jack, old fellow, how--how small you look?' said Will, shocked and overcome into small choice of words, as he stood with a frown of dismay on his face.

'Boiled to rags, like the policeman in the Area Belle,' said John, trying to laugh him into reassurance. 'Did you expect the process to have the same effect as on a pudding?'

'But my father said he was not altered!' said William, turning to his sister-in-law.

'He has gone through a good deal since then,' said Wilmet, wistfully. 'And the sun-burning has had time to fade. If you had seen him before we came into this mountain air, you would only wonder at him now.'

'Besides,' added John, 'you are grateful to a man for looking anyhow at all when he lies like a mummy. And now he is dressed like his fellow-creatures, you compare him with them.'

'And that is only since we have been here,' said Wilmet, proudly.

'And how are they all at home, Bill? How's the mother?'

'Oh, all right; and she kindly insisted on my taking out some Liebnitz to you in case you couldn't get anything in these French places. She fairly took me in this time, and I suggested it was rather tough for you under present circumstances, but she said that couldn't be, for she got it warranted in tins at the competitive.'

'Dear mother!' said John, as they all shrieked with amusement; 'I don't think Wilmet will be at all ungrateful to her. I am afraid the commissariat is a weight on her mind. Now, what do you think of her looks?' demanded John, rather anxiously.

'Well, she is always--just Wilmet--but she is thinner, and not so pink as she used to be,' said the uncomplimentary Will.

'Of course,' said Wilmet, as John's eyes turned on her the more solicitously, 'after the heat of those last weeks in Egypt; and Malta was almost worse, except that there was not the constant warfare with the flies that just kept one alive.'

'It is very warm here,' said Robina, who had left London in an east wind.

'We find it cold up here in the mountains,' said Wilmet, who wore a velvet jacket and thick glossy striped blue and brown silk. 'Dr. Chenu warned us to prepare.'

'Yes,' said John, 'so I sent her out at Marseilles to fit herself out, and what does she come home with but one lugubrious black silk, which she tried to persuade me was the correct thing!'

'And then,' said Wilmet, 'the next thing I found was his bed spread all over with patterns, and it was all I could do not to have enough to clothe all Bexley. I was obliged to get a new box as it is, and luggage is frightfully expensive on these French lines.'

Willie and Robin, though both in some awe of Wilmet, could not help smiling at a speech so exactly like herself, as to remind them of Lance's mischievous averment that she must have married John because it was so much cheaper than sending any one out.

Those four happy tongues, how much they had to tell and to ask, about the two journeys and the two homes, all mixed up together, Bill's tidings being the most recent, and all that was known by letter becoming much more real and interesting by word of mouth.

Cherry? Yes, Cherry was very well, and had no end of a picture for the exhibition, of the maiden spinning for her lover's ransom--she had studied the maiden from one of Ernest Lamb's sisters, but she had put in exactly her own eyes, poor Cherry! There was a picture of Stella and Theodore upstairs for Wilmet Lance had played his violin to keep Theodore happy while sitting. Oh, and had they heard that Lance had really been asked to take the organist's place? The former one had sent in his resignation, and after the half-year that Lance and the choir had worked together, there was a general desire that he should take the post. Mr. Bevan had even written to request it, at £50 a year instead of £70.

'What a shame!' broke out Wilmet 'I hope Felix did not consent! I had much rather he was not paid at all.'

'That was what Lance wanted, of course,' said Robina; 'he wished to give his music freely, as he does not give up the business.'

'But Felix said he had no desire to give either £20 or £70 a year to my Lady, and that he did not accept her as the Church,' said Will; 'and Miles--old Miles was more rabid than ever he was at the Zoraya; and Lance was in a state bordering on distraction for fear it should go off altogether, and he should undergo torture from a fifty-pounder every Sunday of his life, but my Lady gave in; and Lance reconciles his conscience to the lucre of gain by getting a lesson from Miles once a week, and raising the pay on the biggest of those interminable little Lightfoots.'

'George, the intelligent one, that Cherry used to have up to teach,' interposed Robin, 'so that there's another in the shop to make up for any time Lance spends away from it. And when Fernan's new organ comes, whenever it is finished, it will be such a delight.'

'I hate to see him all the same,' muttered Will, with a frown; but the observation was unheeded, as Robina eagerly told how Theodore had one day gone in with his brothers to the choir practice, where he had been in such a state of bliss, and kept his lieder ohne wörter so true that they had taken him regularly first thither and then to church, where he accompanied like a little musical instrument, and at last Mr. Flowerdew could not resist enrolling him in the choir, where, seated in front of Felix, and with 'one of the interminable Lightfoots' as guardian by his side, he was safe from molestation from any teasing freak of the other boys, and however much he might comprehend, there was no doubt that his felicity was perfect.

'It has really altered him,' said Will. 'I did not know him when I saw him in his surplice; and indeed he seems to have got a stimulus altogether, between that and Scamp.'

'Scamp!'

'What, they've not ventured to tell you that they've set up a dog!' and Bill and Bobbie both fell into convulsions, in which the Major joined more moderately, at his lady's demure face of astonishment.

'I suppose it was forgotten, when all the wedding letters were being written,' said Robina, rather guiltily.

'And when the mice no longer expected the cat,' said John.

'No, indeed it wasn't that!' pleaded Robina. 'Lance couldn't help it.'

'It was a votive offering,' said Will 'Lance has never ceased to be little Dick Graeme's demi-god ever since he licked him within an inch of his life for bolting Shapcote's plums. You know those dogs of Mr. Graeme's, Jack--beautiful black retrievers with tan legs and muzzles. One belonged to Dick, and no sooner has she a litter of puppies than he must bring up one for Lance, without a hint to him or any one else, till one day he coolly marched in with his dog at his heels.'

'His father was driving in,' said Robin, 'and had no notion the boy had not settled it all. We were just sitting down to dinner when the bell rang, and there was a wonderful floundering on the stairs, and in tumbled Master Dick with this great black beast padding and sprawling after him. Then, while Cherry stood clutching Lord Gerald in one hand and the back of her chair in the other, much as if it had been a wolf, we heard the pleasing intelligence; "He is for you, Underwood; he is Sal's finest pup, and I brought him up on purpose for you."'

'But Lance was not forced to keep him.'

'We could not turn him out neck and crop; and you can imagine the rapture of Angel and Bear, and Lance wished it so much! Even Cherry did not like to vex the boy, and when she began to talk of Felix and the yard, I thought how it would end. But when she said it would frighten Theodore into fits, the next thing we saw was the two rolling on the floor together, Tedo's arms round the dog, and Scamp licking his face all over, and all that satiny puppy hair on the long ears mixed up with Baby's flax. Cherry made a sketch on the spot, and there was no notion of sending him away after that. I don't know whether Tedo cannot do without Stella better than without Scamp, for they seem to understand one another better, and he is not afraid to go into the garden alone with Scamp, though he never would with Stella. It is quite new life to him.'

'As good a thing as could have been devised for him,' said John.

'Poor dear Tedo! yes, I am glad for his sake,' said Wilmet; 'only I hope they don't have him in the house.'

'Don't they,' said Willie, mischievously; 'didn't I nearly break my neck over the black back of him last Monday!'

'But Lance always combs him,' eagerly interposed Robina.

'Yes, Lance is as dainty about brushing and curry-combing him as he is over his own lark's crest when the ladies are coming for their magazines. Oh, Scamp is a great institution; he walks Cherry out every day, and even Felix can't resist if he makes a set at him.'

'Capital! What, not reconciled yet, Wilmet?'

'Not to having him in the house. I am thinking of Mrs. Froggatt's carpet.'

'Ours, you mean,' said Robin; 'besides, it is drugget.'

'And past praying for,' wickedly added Bill, 'since Bernard and I made a general average of the inkstand and Cherry's painting things at one swoop.'

'Abdicated sovereigns should close their ears,' said John. 'No doubt Constantius' doings much disturbed Diocletian over his cabbages.'

'I hope I was not such a tyrant,' said Wilmet; who, though used to raillery from her brothers, had yet to learn to take it from her husband.

'At least I hope you have retired on a cabbage, mon chou,' he said.

She smiled, but turned the subject by explaining that their excellent doctor had not only secured these comfortable rooms on the ground floor till the season should be advanced enough to remove to Barèges, but had recommended them to a confrère, and had found, what John added was more difficult to get than the savant, a pony and a wheeled chair, in which he was going out at two o'clock. 'And it is past twelve now,' said Wilmet; 'and you ought to be resting.'

'I'll go and look about, and come back in time to put you in your chair, Jack,' said William. 'Come along, Robin.'

'If you are not tired, Robin,' said Wilmet, 'you had better go out. We can only keep along the road; and John ought to get some sleep before he goes out.'

'The cabbage is well drilled, you see,' said John; but he really did look weary, and Robina was glad enough of the positive command.

Her sister had clearly no notion but of turning the children out to play whenever they were in the way; and for the present that was quite enough to send her down, forgetting everything but the charm of the walk and the companionship.

The fresh sunny spring-tide and mountain air would have been exhilaration and ecstasy in themselves, such as she had never known, even if there had been nothing to see, and no one she cared for at her side. And now the ravine, the pine-clad slopes, the scattered cottages, the rocks, the foliage, the blossoming trees, the picturesque figures, above all, the veritable mountain summits, still glorified by their winter snows, cutting the clear blue sky, filled her with a sense of beauty and wonder, enlarging her whole spirit with a new incomprehensible sensation; and William was altogether lifted out of the hair-brained rattle-pate. His frank-hearted nature had no corner for the affectation of sneering at his own loftiest emotions. It was his first mountain, and he was perfectly overcome by it; he raised his hat with an instinct of reverence, and the tears stood in his eyes as he kept silence at first, and then murmured, 'One seems nearer the Great White Throne!'

'I never guessed it was--oh--that there was such a soul in it!' responded Robina, in low awe-struck accents, as if in a church.

'No words ever gave one a moment's sense of it,' he answered; and then they began revelling in individual admiration, climbing and wandering in oblivion of all but the light and shade, the shimmering torrent and sheer rock, the cloud-like hills and deep clefts, till far on the road below they spied a queer high-wheeled pony-chair, a lady in a broad-leafed flat-crowned hat walking beside it, and the Hindoo's unmistakable scarlet and white in attendance.

'Bless me!' cried Will, leaping up, 'didn't I mean to have carried poor Jack to his chair! Time is nothing in these places!'

'Can we get down to them?'

'Of course! Charge, Chester, charge! Give me your hand, and I'll get you down. I say, Robina,' in a lower, graver tone, 'I'm glad we've had this sight together! We'll never forget it!'

Whatever sentiment might be conveyed in these words ended in as English a view-halloo as ever startled the Pyrenees, causing the party below to look up and wave gestures deprecatory of the headlong descent, which, nevertheless, was effected without the fracture of limbs, though Robin arrived breathless, and panting enough by no means to disdain a seat by John's side. He was looking as happy as a king, in the enjoyment of the mountain air and scenery after his long confinement on the parching Egyptian sands; but it was silent delight, and when Robina had recovered the physical agitation of her descent, she had time to feel the heart-swelling at those words, and the afterthought whether it was a stolen pleasure unless Wilmet fully knew how sweet it was to be sent out with Will.

But speaking to Wilmet was no easy matter. She was engrossed with her husband, and never willingly quitted him for a moment, thinking of nothing but as it regarded him, and viewing his brother and her sister more as means for his entertainment than in their substantial aspect. She did indeed follow Robin to her room that evening, to satisfy herself about the child's health; but just as the desperate struggle to begin on this most awkward of subjects was being made, she fancied she heard John's call, and was gone.

Next morning, not only were the two sent out together while the doctor made his call, but William communicated to her the verses that he had sat up late and risen early to relieve his mind of, beginning with--

'Can we ever forget this day?'

To be sure it was all mountain, and would have suited Lance equally well with herself. It was shown to John as a 'March Hare' contribution, and was destined to the Pursuivant; but did it not begin with we, and had she not had the first-fruits? The consciousness grew more precious, the conscientiousness more distressed, till it drove her, in her truth and honesty, to the desperate measure of so decidedly begging for a private interview, that Wilmet came at once, supposing her unwell.

'Oh no, no, but--but I wanted to make sure of its being right. All this about Willie.'

'About Willie? He is in no scrape, I hope?'

'Oh no; only I could not be comfortable without your knowing. Those verses, and--'

'You little goose! How red you have turned! I didn't think you could be so silly.'

'It is not silliness,' exclaimed Robina, hotly; 'he said it.'

'My dear! he must know better. What and when?'

'Long ago. That evening at Bexley, just before Lance went to Vale Leston.'

Wilmet fairly burst out laughing. 'My dear child, how can you bring me here to listen to such nonsense? That sort of children's foolishness is silly enough at the time, but to dwell on it nearly four years after is too absurd.'

'I thought it might be play then,' said Robin, 'and everybody would have laughed if I had told; but it never will quite go out of my head, and now and then he says or does something that makes me think he has not forgotten either, and I thought I ought to tell you.' She spoke low and fast, with averted crimson face.

'You are a good little girl, Bobbie,' said her sister kindly, from an immense matronly elevation; 'but it is a pity anything so foolish and mischievous was ever said to you, and you ought never to have thought of it again. You should have left the boy if he would talk such nonsense.'

'I couldn't. Lance said we must not leave you alone,' murmured Robin.

Wilmet gave her little clear laugh. 'I'm very much obliged to Lance,' she said; 'but I am sorry Willie was inspired with a spirit of imitation.' Then, as the mirror betrayed an unconvinced look, 'Has he said anything to you since?'

'I--I can't tell--you might not call it anything. Only that brooch! O Wilmet, you aren't going to be angry with him--he never said anything direct.'

'I shall say nothing to him without far more reason; I never saw any. At home he talks to Cherry.'

'Yes, but--' she was ashamed to say 'he likes me best,' and it turned into 'Everybody does.'

Which Wilmet could not gainsay; and she went on: 'As to the verses, you have sense to see they mean nothing. Willie likes you, of course, and we are all brothers and sisters now; but as for any more, it is the merest absurdity to think of it, and though you mean to be good, my dear little sister, this is just working up a mountain out of nothing. There can't be a more unlucky propensity than fancying everybody is paying you attention, especially if you are not particularly pretty, and have to be a governess, and take care of yourself!'

'I know I'm not pretty,' said Robin, rather proudly; 'and I never shall expect any one to pay attention to me;' and as Wilmet's smile denoted incredulity after this specimen, 'this is quite different from anyone else.'

'I should hope so,' said the elder sister. 'There now, Robin, you have done quite right to tell me; and now we'll think no more about it, but go on as usual.'

With this Robina had to be content; and if the incredulity was mortifying, at any rate liberty was sweet, and there was a precious underlying conviction that there was something that, if Wilmet would not see, it was not her fault. Conscience was free to enjoy the most brilliant spring her life had known. Throughout the fortnight of William's stay they were out together nearly all day, sometimes climbing near home, sometimes joining expeditions of English visitors, always sympathising in seriousness or sportiveness, and ever ready to fulfil the sisterly part of beast of burden towards his belongings when he wanted to climb any specially inaccessible place, or smoke with the friends he picked up. She always viewed that fortnight as the most exquisite of her whole life!

There was no sentiment in their last walk; for a brother and sister, who were always in the habit of fastening themselves on every one who was seen going out, stuck to them to their own door; but when Will took possession of two water-colour sketches he had begged from Robina, and announced his intention of framing and hanging them in his rooms, to call up before him what without them would never be forgotten, they won for their artist a thrill of delight such as none of Geraldine's far superior performances had ever obtained for her.

Robin had no one talent in any remarkable degree; her drawing was exact and tasteful, but without genius; none of the Underwood sisters, except Angela, had much voice, and her musical powers were only cultivated at the expense of much diligence; but her general ability, clear-headedness, and intelligence were excellent; and John surprised his wife by observing that he thought she resembled Felix the most of them all, both in countenance and character. Robin's--the round ruddy face of the family--like Felix's defined delicately moulded features and fair colouring! John smiled; he never took the trouble to defend an opinion that Wilmet thought unreasonable, but he contented himself with saying, 'There was a good deal of stuff in the Robin.'

She did not flag when her holiday was over; indeed, there was a quiet purpose in her soul that made her dutiful industry doubly hopeful and pleasant. She had a good master. John's nature was hard-working, and the invigoration of cooler air made want of employment irksome enough to give him great satisfaction in the acquisition of a well-grounded intelligent girl pupil to whom his aid was of real value. Their lessons and their subjects multiplied as his strength increased, and though they had plenty of fun and nonsense over them, Robina soon felt herself making such progress as far more than compensated for the two months she had so much regretted. Wilmet, telling them that some day Robin would know how pleasant it was to have nothing to do with teaching, sat by, stitching at a set of shirts for Clement. It was her ambition, as a parting gift, to provide each brother with a stock; she had made those for Felix and Theodore by John's bedside at Rameses, and to be busy with the 'white seam,' and watch John eager and interested, and daily looking less languid and pinched, was entire happiness to her. The walks and drives became longer, and the neighbour brother and sister complained that Miss Underwood could never be had, and was always absorbed by her hard task-master, whom on her side she thought a far more entertaining companion than they would ever be.

The move to the mountain nest at Barèges was made, but the scheme made in the warmth of their hearts in the spring, of William's spending the long vacation there, was not fulfilled. Two objections stood in the way; first his reading for honours, secondly the cost. He could not afford another trip out of the proceeds of his scholarship, and the Major's means were not so large as not to be seriously affected by such an illness; while as Her Majesty's service had not required his proximity to the engine, he could not obtain compensation for his accident. When Wilmet had come to the understanding of the finances she was to administer, she was startled at the free and open hand which might suit a well-endowed bachelor officer on Indian pay, but would soon drain the resources of a man--very possibly invalided for life, and with a penniless wife. Robin would hardly have had that wonderful cheque, if in Malta her sister had been altogether informed of the balance at John's bankers; and when she was consulted on the possibility of giving Bill a run, her reply was the more conclusive, because, little importance as she attached to Robina's confession, she preferred keeping the youth at a safe distance. Neither examination would fare the better for mutual distractions on Pyrenean crags, and both together they would be far less companionable to John than either separately.

Beginning wedded life in prostrate helplessness, John had been as entirely thought for, managed for, and 'done for,' as Theodore himself, during these earlier months; and when he had a will of his own, it was treated with indulgence as a sick man's fancy, and yielded to or not according to his wife's judgment; but as time went on, there was sometimes a twinkle of amusement on his eye-lashes when he submitted, or withdrew an opinion rather than exert himself for controversy.

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XXXIII. A BOOTLESS BENE

'"What is good for a bootless bene?" She answered, "Endless sorrow."' Wordsworth.

Geraldine was yet to discover how peaceful and happy was her life. For a year and a half, the words at the head of our chapter--whatever they may mean--had been running in her head. That 'bootless bene' was a thing of sudden stabs and longing heartaches; but Edgar had not been a sufficiently permanent inhabitant to be daily missed, as Wilmet was. He had been a crowning ornament of the fabric of the house, not a stone whose loss made a gap, but rather an ever bright, enlivening, exciting possibility in her life, whose criticism and approval had led her on to art, and trained her talent and taste. She never worked at a drawing without an inward moan, and would almost have lost heart, save that he and the clearance of his name were still her object; but for reliance, support, and fellow-feeling, she had more in the remaining brothers than he could ever have given her. Felix and Lance were precious companions, and Wilmet's departure had left her no time for drooping. Housekeeping began by being a grievous responsibility. Cherry could not bargain like Wilmet, nor go down into the kitchen and toss up something dainty out of mere scraps for her brothers' supper; and when she heard that Zadok Krishnu excelled in curry and coffee, she could only lift up her hands and sigh on the waste of good gifts of cookery upon one Major! Martha was a good faithful servant, but odds and ends did not go so far as they used to do; and Cherry never could, and never did, reduce her bills to the original standard, though she brought them on Saturday nights with such misery and humiliation that Felix was forced to laugh at her, and represent that their pinch of poverty was over, and excessive frugality no longer necessary. His position was now what Mr. Froggatt's had been, and his means, with Lance's payment for board, were quite sufficient to bear the difference, even without Cherry's own, which fully covered the diminution through her want of time and of notability. Waste there was not, profusion there was not; but a certain ease there was, so soon as Cherry had learnt, as Lance said, not to believe they should be in the County Court because they had spent a shilling instead of elevenpence-three-farthings. She felt too that home was comfortable to the others. The anxious stinting, though at times needful, had, as Felix hinted to her, been good for no one. Though praiseworthy and self-denying when it was needful, the habit had become cramping to Wilmet herself, and to all the brothers it had been an irritation, endured by some with forbearance, but certainly prejudicial to others.

Nobody was afraid of Cherry; but since all had outgrown the bear-garden age, a sympathetic government was best. Berserkarwuth might require King Stork's 'Now, boys;' but when the ruler was a lady, and a lame lady, chivalry might be trusted even in unruly Bernard, who had come to an age when freedom was better for him than strictness.

So had the world gone till the autumn, when Major and Mrs. Harewood had to retreat from their mountain abode, but did not venture on wintering in England. They had made up their minds to winter at Biarritz. John would have preferred Pau, but Wilmet set her face against it, dwelling upon the benefits of sea air; and he yielded, but he would not be baulked of a day's halt there. It was a place he had always wished to see; and he would not defraud Robin of the castle of the Foix, and of the tortoise-shell cradle of le Grand Monarque.

He could walk now, but only with a stick, and stooping and halting a good deal. His obstinate hip was still troublesome, and his recovery had been retarded by painful methods of preventing contraction. Nor was it yet certain whether he would ever be fit to return to his corps; and though he moved about the house, and discarded invalid habits, he was still so anxious a charge, that Wilmet was quite justified in her vexation at the charms of the old castle at Pau, where he would walk and stand about, admiring and discussing history and architecture with Robina and a clever French priest, lionising like themselves. She did catch her sister, and severely forbid her to make a remark that could protract the survey; but the wicked priest was infinitely worse, and beguiled them into places where the ordinary guide would never have thought of taking them; nor was she certain that her provoking John did not perceive and rather enjoy her agony.

At last she got him safe to the hotel, and into the tiny bedroom opening out of their sitting-room.

'It is much quieter there,' she said, returning. 'I have given him the Times, and I hope he will have a couple of hours' rest before the table d'hôte.'

'Then, Wilmet, would you come with me? I made out the street, and it is very near,' said Robin.

'What street?'

'Alice Knevett's--Madame Tanneguy. O Wilmet,' as she saw her countenance, 'you know Cherry promised the aunts that we would see about her if we went to Pau.'

'Cherry had no right to make such a promise, and I do not mean to be bound by it. Madame Tanneguy does not deserve notice, especially from us! I should have thought you had had enough of her.'

'But should not I be unforgiving to remember that?'

'It is not a matter of forgiveness, my dear. Her marriage was the best thing that could have happened to us. I am absolutely obliged to her for it; but that does not make her behaviour any better.'

'No; but suppose she was in distress?'

'No reason to suppose any such thing! The man was well to do; and of course she is leading that gay life the bourgeoisie do here--at the theatre or out on the place all the evening--nothing fit for us to associate with.'

'I don't want to associate, and I only think it right to find out.'

'What does Robin want to find out?' said John, helping himself forward with the table; 'some defender for Jeanne d'Albrêt, whom we have heard so run down to-day?'

'O John! why aren't you lying down?'

'Because I have no taste for being condemned to solitary confinement as a punishment for being beguiled by that Jesuit--not even in disguise. I'm going to write to my father. Aren't you going out again?'

'No,' said Wilmet.

'I thought I heard Robin wanting to find out some one for Cherry. These doors aren't adapted for secrets. What was it, Bobbie?'

'I did not mean to trouble you about it, John,' said Wilmet. 'Do you remember about that unfortunate affair of Alice Knevett?'

'Was it to her that your brother Edgar was attached?'

'Yes. Remember, it was a clandestine affair; and these children were made to serve as tools--that is, Angela was; and though Robina refused, she was involved in the scrape, and suffered so much for it that I should not have thought she would have wished to run after her again.'

'Then she married a Frenchman, did she not?' interposed John.

'Yes. After refusing to give Edgar up, and giving us all an infinity of trouble and annoyance, she suddenly threw him over without a word, and ran away with this Frenchman from Jersey. Yet here are the Miss Pearsons expecting us to call on her, Cherry undertaking that we shall, and this child expecting me to go and do so!'

'Do you know anything about the Frenchman?'

'A sort of commercial traveller, I believe.'

'Agent for a wine merchant,' said Robina. 'Major Knevett said there was nothing against his character. Miss Pearson sent the address; it is in the street at right angles with this, about eight doors off.'

'Well,' said John, 'I do not see how you can refuse to satisfy the Miss Pearsons about her.'

'If she were in a right frame of mind she would write to them. While she treats them with such neglect, I do not see why I should encourage her.'

'Cherry said they thought she was ashamed to begin,' said Robina. 'Miss Pearson wrote severely at first, and now wants very much to make a beginning, and to be sure that Alice is not in distress.'

'I think it ought to be done,' said John; 'it is so near, that you can walk there at once with Robina, and at least inquire at the door. I do not see how you can refuse Miss Pearson.'

Nobody had spoken to Wilmet with authority since her fifteenth year, and she did not recognise the sound.

'I do not choose to notice a person who has behaved like that,' she said; 'Miss Pearson has no right to ask it. Take off your things, Robina; I am going to pack for to-morrow.'

There was no temper in her tone, only the calm reasonable determination that had governed her household and ruled her scholars; and she walked into the other room and shut the door, as on a concluded affair.

John looked round. Robina was standing by the table, wiping away a few tears.

'I do not know what to do, John,' she said 'I wrote to Cherry that we were coming here, and would do this. May I have Zadok to walk with me?'

'Your sister is quite right,' said John. 'I am the fit person to go. How far did you say it was?'

'Eight doors, I counted.'

'Then we need not get a cabriolet,' said John, reaching for his hat and stick.

'But you are so tired!'

'Not at all. If we go early to-morrow, this is the only time for doing it.'

Whether she experienced a spark of triumph, or whether she was merely frightened and uneasy, as her brother-in-law came limping downstairs after her, Robina knew not. She had never seen any one but Fulbert fly in Wilmet's face. Felix might sometimes differ and get his way, but that was by persuasion; and the pillars of the house had always preserved the dignity of concord towards the younglings. It was astounding, even considering that he was her husband. So quietly and easily he did it, too, as if he had no notion what an awful and unprecedented action he was committing. Force of habit made Robin feel as naughty as when Fulbert had led her and Lance to see-saw on the timbers in the carpenter's yard; and she could not divest herself of fears of some such reception as had awaited them on that occasion.

Wilmet packed without misgiving. She had foreseen this perplexity when she endeavoured to avoid Pau, and her mind was too fully made up to be overruled by Miss Pearson's ill-judged yearnings, Geraldine's imprudent promise, Robina's foolish impulse, or John's good-nature. It was not resentment, but disapproval. If Alice had jilted young Bruce she should have held the same course. She would not argue before her little sister; but in private John should be brought to a proper understanding of Alice's enormities, and learn thankfulness to his domestic check on Harewood easiness and masculine tolerance.

Then it struck her that those two were unusually quiet in the next room. Some sounds she had lost in opening drawers and moving boxes; but now all was still, John no doubt writing, and Robin--could she have gone to her own room to cry? The elder sister began to relent, and think the moment come for drawing from her a confession of her wilfulness. She opened the door to seek her. Behold, John was not there. No, nor his hat and gloves! Robina was not in her bedroom! Had they absolutely sallied forth in opposition?

Wilmet had never been so defied by anything too big to kick and scream! She stood aghast. Naughty obstinate Robina had wrought upon John! He ought to have known better! He would knock himself up--inflammation would come on--the wounds would break out again, all because of this complication of foolish pity for that horrid little flirt!

Wilmet's tears gushed, her chest heaved with sobs. Why could he not have attended to her? Withal his words came back to her.

He had distinctly bidden her to go; and had she done so, he would have been safe on that sofa. Bidden? yes, it had been a clear desire, courteously and calmly uttered, but decisive; and only at this moment did it strike her that his orders were more binding on her than those of Felix. He had commanded. She had disobeyed, and he had done the thing himself, to his own inconvenience, not to say peril.

Then came vexation. It was not fair! She would have gone anywhere had she known the alternative. Was it kind or grateful, after her long nursing, to risk himself without warning! Nay, could a man use plainer words than 'You ought'--'You cannot refuse?' Yet was she, as a wife, to obey blindly at the first word, against her judgment? Perhaps Wilmet had never known so hard a moment as this first galling of the yoke of subjection--the sense of being under the will of another. How could he run after that heartless Alice, who had been Edgar's bane and Felix's grief? Who could tell what company she kept, or if she were fit company for Robina? And the creature was so disgustingly pretty that she could deceive any man, even Felix. True; but a little moderation on her own part, and she herself--the prudent matron--might have gone forth with her husband, protecting and protected, instead of exposing Robina's inexperienced girlhood and his manly good-nature to any possible contaminations or deceptions. Oh! would they but come!

There was time for many such cycles of vexation, relenting, self-reproach, and anxiety--ever growing severer towards herself, bitterer towards Alice and Robina, tenderer towards John. It was nearly seven o'clock before the slow thud of the stick, and the steps with one foot foremost, proclaimed the return. Zadok was in the ante-room and let them in. She saw John heated and panting; and reproachful solicitude predominated in her voice as she exclaimed, 'You must stay here. You are not fit for the table d'hôte.'

'None of us are,' he answered, in a low, grave tone that startled her; and she then saw that Robina was looking dreadfully white and overcome, and trembling violently.

As the girl met her eye, all was forgotten but the old motherly relation; and there was a rush to hide her face on her, and a convulsive sobbing of, 'O Wilmet! Wilmet!'

'Lay her down! I will fetch something,' said John, moving towards the other room. 'She has held up with all her might.'

'But oh, what is it? That wretched Alice! Bobbie, my dear child, lie down! Don't try to keep it in; cry--no, you can't speak. O John! What is it?--Yes, that's right,' as he brought what was needed from the medical resources always at hand for himself; 'only tell me the worst.'

With his eyes on the measure-glass, and his steady hand dropping the stimulant, he said, in an under-tone, 'A duel! The husband was killed; but it was hardly Edgar's fault.'

Wilmet, with Robina almost fainting on the sofa, was wholly occupied in administering the drops, and bathing the flushed face; and the success of her efforts was shown by another cry of 'O Wilmet!' and then a passion of weeping that shook her whole frame violently.

'That is best,' said John. 'She kept it in bravely.' And as the great table d'hôte bell clanged, he went to the door and spoke to Zadok.

As he returned, Robina bounded up, nervously exclaiming, 'O John, lie down, do; you are done up!'

But when strength was needed, he found it. 'Not now, thank you, my dear. I have told Zadok to bring us some dinner. That will make less disturbance. We will get ready, and after that we shall be better able to talk.'

Overwhelmed and crushed, the sisters did just as they were told; but Wilmet turned once, and said as if out of a dream, 'Is there anything to be done? Is he here?'

'Oh no! It was months ago--before I saw him. It was forced on him. You shall hear all presently, dearest.'

The gentle kindness restored her, or rather drove everything out of her thoughts but his flushed, weary, affectionate face, and heavy painful tread; and when he grasped her arm to be helped into the sitting-room, and sank with a sigh into his chair, half the world might have killed the other half, so long as he was neither ill nor angry with her.

'Will you see for that poor child?' he said, as Zadok came up with the three couverts; 'she needs restoration as much as any one.'

Robina had washed her tear-stained face, but was only brought to the table as an act of obedience; and all through the meal John was coercing her into swallowing soup and wine, and Wilmet was watching that he did not neglect his own injunctions. Then disposing of Zadok with some orders about coffee, he lay down on the sofa, but by a sort of tacit motion invited Wilmet to give him one hand to play with, and stroke his hair with the other--his old solace at Rameses--and oh! how much it made up for to her! Robina was now quite restored, and longing to relieve her soul, and the narration chiefly fell to her.

'We soon found the house--one of those immense tall old ones--and we rang, and asked whether Madame Tanneguy lived there. "O oui," said they, "au quatrième." We thought that rather odd; and John asked again if she were English, and the concierge said, "Yes, assuredly;" and as someone else came just then, we asked no more questions, only climbed up, up those dreadful stairs, so dirty and so steep. I wanted John to sit down and wait for me, but he would not hear of it.'

Wilmet looked at him with moist eyes, and pressed his hand. 'I was accountable for the child,' he said, smiling. 'Besides, there was nothing to sit upon.'

'At last,' continued Robin, 'we did get to the quatrième, and rang; and we heard a little trot-trotting, and the door was opened by a queer little French child, that turned and ran away, calling out, "Maman, Maman!" and as we went in--O Wilmet! there rose up, with a little baby in her arms, poor Alice, all in black, with a great flowing white veil, like the widow at Bagnères. She knew me directly, and I believe we both gave a little scream.'

'That you did,' murmured Major Harewood.

'And she said, "You--you! what do you come here for?" I did not know what to say, but I got out something about the aunts; and she answered, "Then you do not know, or you could never have broken in on me and my poor orphans!" Really I thought she was mad with grief, and said the aunts would have sent all the more; but she burst out, "No! no! not his sister--his--the murderer of my husband!" and she began to cry. I only thought still she was mad, but--O John, what was it? Didn't you think so?'

'No, I saw that was not the case; but I thought she took you for someone else, and began to explain; and I think the curiosity of making out who I was, and how we came there, did more to bring her round than anything else.'

'But how could this dreadful thing have been?' asked Wilmet. 'You said it once: but it cannot really be true!'

'Too true, my dear,' said John, 'but with much extenuation. It was last September. He really was with those National Minstrels.'

'Ah!'

'But not by name in the programme,' said Robina. 'She went to the theatre with her husband, and there were Hungarian and German songs; but then when the English ballad began--the Red Cross Knight--the first notes overcame her; she had a saisissement, screamed, and almost fainted.'

'Just like her!' exclaimed Wilmet 'Then it was all owing to that?'

'I fear so. Edgar looked up, and when he saw her, he broke down. He began again, and got through the rest of his part; but in the meantime M. Tanneguy had been discovering that he was not Alice's first love.'

'Not by ever so many,' muttered Wilmet. 'And of course she shuffled and shifted off the blame to Edgar.'

'If so, she has suffered for it,' said John, with gentle repressiveness.

'And,' continued Robina, 'whatever she could say only enraged him more; he took her home, then waited for Edgar at the door of the theatre, demanded an explanation, and challenged him. They fought outside the town, and M. Tanneguy was wounded; but they did not think it so bad; and, like a brave Frenchman, he kept up to his own door, so that Edgar might get safe away. On the third day he grew worse, and died! O Wilmet! who could have thought it? How will Felix bear it?'

'Remember,' said John, 'that this was fastened on your brother. I don't, of course, look on it as anything but a crime, but it should not be exaggerated. To be insulted and called to account by a fiery Gascon, when you believe yourself the injured party, cannot be easily bearable; besides, Edgar had had a foreign training, not so alien to duelling as ours, and his associates would expect it of him. For the rest, I think he must have won his enemy's heart, for the poor lady said much of her husband's acknowledgment of his generosity, and desire for his escape. I am sure he might well, if he did half as much for him as he did for me.'

'And he had done this when he touched you,' said Wilmet, shuddering.

'Or I should not be here,' said John. 'My dear,' and he held both her hands, 'I wish I could make you look on it in a different light It was not an assassination. To have refused the challenge would have required a sort of resolution that few men are capable of; above all, when all his surroundings would have expected it of him.'

'What surroundings?' replied Wilmet 'No wonder he could not bear to face your father and me! Poor Edgar! wandering about like Cain! And he was such a dear little boy! Papa used to call him his little King Oberon! Oh! I am glad Papa and Mamma don't know it.' She slipped down on her knees by John's side, hid her face in his pillow, and cried, but softly and gently now.

'I don't think it can be less bad to Felix and Cherry,' said Robina, sadly. 'How can we write to them?'

'We had better not do so till I have learnt more,' said John; 'I shall go to the bureau de police to-morrow, and make inquiries, and try to see poor Tanneguy's employer, M. Aimery, who seems to have been the only friend that poor young thing has had.'

'Why did she not write?' asked Wilmet.

'M. Aimery did write to her father,' said Robina, 'but he has left Jersey, and the letter was returned; and as to the aunts, you know Miss Pearson did write sharply once, and Alice always took her strictness for unkindness, and never knew how fond of her the aunts were. Indeed, I fancy she has been too ill and inert to do more than go on from day to day.'

'Has she anything to live on, poor child?'

'Her husband had a small interest in the business, and M. Aimery pays her the proceeds every month--a hundred francs.'

'A hundred francs! four pounds three and fourpence for herself and two children!'

'She had to move up from the nice apartments below to this dismal quatrième, only one room, and very little in it; and then she was ill for a long time, and the baby was born; and that took up all the ready money there was left. She has been thinking whether she could get any daily-governess work to do among the English; but then, how can she leave the children?'

'Poor thing!' said Wilmet, 'I must go and see her to-morrow.'

'Do,' said her husband affectionately. 'Considering all things, we had better remain here a few days, had we not?'

'Certainly. I will speak about the rooms. Of course we must do our best for her and those poor children. I hope they are girls.'

'No,' said Robin,' boys--Gustave and Achille. Gustave looks preternaturally wise and solemn, with his black eyes and bullet head; but when his mother cried, he went into such an agony, that John had to show him his watch, and give him his stick to ride on, before we could hear ourselves speak. O John, what work you have done to-day!'

'And you too, Bobbie,' said Wilmet kindly, 'you had better go to bed as soon as you have had your coffee.'

Her head was aching enough to make her glad to take the advice; and when she was gone, John lay still, too weary, and yet too comfortable, for the exertion of going to bed; and he was not far from sleep when Wilmet came back from giving her sister the tender care that the shock demanded.

Bitterness and resistance had long been swept away by those terrible tidings; but Wilmet could not forget that she had offended, and gathering herself into a great effort, she stood by the sofa, dignified, but rather constrained, and said, 'I am very sorry about this afternoon, John.'

'You were quite right,' said John, sleepily; 'it was not a business for women alone.'

'That was not what I meant,' she answered. 'I ought not to have made that flat refusal. I did not recollect.'

John roused himself a little, to say, 'I suppose when two people come together who have grown up separately, their judgments must sometimes differ, and there is not always time to adjust them.' These last words were very sleepy again.

'No, I see I ought to have submitted; but I had no notion you would go; I behaved very ill to you, and you did it to punish me.'

'Not exactly,' he said, stirred up at those words. 'It would have been kinder to have told, but you had spoken plainly, and there seemed no time--nor occasion--for--further--Jeanne d'Albrêt--'

Which last words were sufficient testimony of the power of Morpheus. After all, he was inflicting, though he did not know it, a severe punishment. Wilmet was not a self-tormentor like Cherry; but she did not like to have her little mutiny passed over without a reconciliation, and to see him so perfectly unruffled by what had made all the depths of her heart turbid. And when he had 'fallen asleep in her very face,' she had the strongest possible temptation, if not to pursue the argument, at least to demand if he meant to sleep there all night, and rout him into going at once to undress; and when her real goodness and affection would not permit this, to beguile the time with the piece of intricate Pyrenean knitting, which had been the solace of his active nature, when he was good for nothing else. Though she had taught him to knit, those essential differences in the strength and manipulation of male and female fingers, made him particularly dislike to have rows interpolated by either of the ladies, and this she always so far resented, that it would have been uncommonly agreeable in her present mood to have gone on with the work. To abstain was all the harder to a person of her instincts, because no other occupation could be attained without opening a door, and breaking his slumbers; and though Wilmet had plenty to think of, the deprivation of mechanical employment for her fingers was trying enough to take away serenity or connection from her thoughts. Instead of any sort of meditation on the terrible tidings of the day, her mind would vibrate between desire to take up the knitting and resolution to let him sleep till eleven.

Perhaps in truth, nothing in her whole life was so difficult to Wilmet Harewood, or of so much service to her, than using such abstinence.

The shock and horror of the tidings when they reached Bexley may well be believed. John, after full enquiry, had written both to Felix and to the Miss Pearsons. Geraldine had perhaps never before believed that Edgar was lost to her, and the blow of regarding him as a murderer had such an effect upon her, that an illness was the consequence, in which Felix had to call in Sister Constance's aid to supplement little Stella's, and conquer the almost exaggerated feeling that for a time threatened nervous fever.

Sometimes, however, a lesser worry becomes a remedy for the effects of a greater, and Cherry's recovery was certainly not retarded by a certain dismay at learning that the forgiving aunts had offered a home to their errant niece and her little ones. No one could grudge them the asylum, but it roused Cherry from bewailing the crime of the one brother to a far more common-place anxiety about the other--a counter-irritant that so restored her health and spirits, that Sister Constance left her to such peace as it allowed her to enjoy. Felix had settled down so quietly--he seemed so entirely to have got over it, that it was hard to have all stirred up and the lady brought back again, freed in so dreadful a manner. No woman can ever estimate beforehand the effect that one of her own sex will produce on a man, however sensible. Her opinion is no gauge for his; and she labours under the further disadvantage that her better judgment is sure to be pitied, if not as feminine spite, at least as feminine incapability of candour; and Sister Constance advised Cherry to abstain from expressing the faintest regret. The good old aunts religiously preserved the secret of the mode of Tanneguy's death; but no one who knew the niece could doubt that the whole story would be at the mercy of whoever chose to cultivate her confidence.

Her arrival was notified by the sending in of a parcel from the travellers, containing Wilmet's sets of shirts for Lance and Bernard and two beautiful shawls in Pyrenean knitting, one for Cherry and one for Mr. Harewood. Felix said very little, but his complexion was still as tell-tale as a girl's. He was restless till Geraldine had called, though he feared to ask her to do so. She was not indeed uneasy about his actions; but only lest his affections should be so far out of his power as to render him unhappy and open the old wound.

Her visit went off better than she expected. She was greatly touched by Alice's delicate appearance and altered looks, and was favourably impressed by her subdued affectionate manner, and her fervent gratitude to the Harewoods, little guessing that it was to Robina that she owed it all. There was so much to hear about the Major's degree of recovery, his kindness, Wilmet's splendid beauty, and the sensation it excited, and all their arrangements for the winter, that Cherry went home in a far more ordinary mood than she could have thought possible.

For some time there was no meeting with Felix. Cherry even began to wish it was over, and off his mind as well as her own.

It came about at last suddenly. Felix opened the house door exactly as Alice was passing; they greeted one another, and shook hands. She had her eldest boy with her; he was leading Theodore, and Scamp, who was at their heels, instantly thrust his tan nose into little Gustave's face, so terrifying the child, that Felix was lifting him in his arms out of the dog's way, when he was startled by a yell from Theodore. The boy had an animal's instinctive jealousy. He had never seen any child but himself and Stella caressed by his brother; and the sight brought on one of the accesses of passion which had begun to seize him since his will and his strength had become somewhat more developed. Felix had no choice but peremptorily to snatch him indoors, leaving Madame Tanneguy and her child, who were both very much frightened, to Lance.

No more effective separation could have been devised, for Alice could not but retain a great horror of that 'dreadful boy,' who, though much smaller than Stella, and with little force in his soft aimless fingers, was still nearly eleven years old, and twice as big as her tiny brown elf. If they had been shut up together, Gustave would have mastered him in a minute; but she of course viewed him as a formidable being; and on the other hand, his face changed at the word 'little boy,' and his blue eyes grew fixed and round, and his soft murmuring to an angry inarticulate jabber, if he did but catch a sight of the little French boy from the window. Geraldine was just beginning to feel that the preventive had come in a curious form, between the two unconscious creatures, when Madame Tanneguy received a remittance from M. Aimery, and could not understand how to get it cashed. So just at the old twilight hour of her former visits she was shown into the drawing-room, and a message was presently sent to beg Mr. Underwood to come up when he was at leisure.

When he came, Geraldine was struck with the peculiar gentleness of his manner. It was gentle to all women and children, but to Madame Tanneguy it had a sort of tender reverence that gave its exceeding kindness a marked character, and was so unlike the good-natured elder-brotherly raillery that used to veil his youthful adoration, that Alice scandalised Cherry by exclaiming, 'How altered Mr. Underwood is! Grown so grave, I should not have known him!' As if anyone would not be grave when approaching the widow made by his brother.

He had minutely fulfilled the little service for her, and no doubt the reverential tone gratified her, for thenceforth she was always coming for the help and counsel that she never failed to find. 'Nobody could advise like Mr. Underwood,' she said; and it was amazing how much she found to consult him about--not only her French investments, but her arrangements with her aunts, her correspondence, and at last whether she ought to bring up Gustave and Achille as Roman Catholics. It so much annoyed him to detect any pleasantry on his submission to her behests, that Cherry and Lance scarce durst glance their half-amused annoyance to one another; and Angel and Bear never fell into a worse scrape in their lives than when they concocted a forgery with the tidings that Madame Tanneguy presented her compliments to Mr. Underwood, and was grieved to inform him that Gustave had scratched Achille's nose. Would he give her his much esteemed advice whether to apply court-plaster or gold-beater's skin?

Felix severely told Angela that to make a jest of Madame Tanneguy's forlorn condition betokened heartlessness, and added to Bernard that all the assistance that he or any of the brothers could afford was no more than her due, and could never atone for the past. Bernard was really awed, and after sulking for the rest of the day, suddenly veered into a certain private adoration of the lady, who by this time, with returning health, was resuming her vivacity. She had discarded her floating crape, and her pretty little head shone in its native glossy jet, while she smiled, chattered, and except that she was a devoted mother, and did her duty conscientiously as an assistant in the school, was the old Alice to all intents and purposes. Nor was it her fault if the original Felix did not likewise revive; she tried many a little art to beguile him into the playful terms of their former intercourse, but he never relaxed that reserved, compassionate gentleness, nor allowed himself to forget that his brother had first loved and then made her a widow. Cherry could have jumped for joy that first time she detected, and saw that Lance did, a shadow of a shade of impatience at those exactions; and finally she settled into the trust that propinquity was the best disenchantment, and that though there was still some romance, it was about the Alice of old visions, not the live Madame Tanneguy, whose obedient slave he would indeed always be, but merely as Edgar's brother, and who was fast, by force of boring and of levity, dispersing all the remaining glamour.

Cherry had her own anxiety, for an inspection by Wilmet was approaching, and very suddenly. At the end of the winter, at Biarritz, the travellers' plans had been deranged by an offer of an appointment at Woolwich, which hurried them home in the end of February instead of the beginning of May, as they had intended, and allowed them only to give one clear day to each of their families. To that day Cherry looked forward with some dread. Certainly the household was not precisely the Babel that Wilmet had found on her former return, but a formidable consciousness of shortcomings that would not bear inquisition beset her, and she had such a frantic bout of tidying, that Lance found her hopping about half dead with fatigue, and Stella nearly smothered with dust; and begging an afternoon's remission from business, he became the merriest and most helpful of housemaids till the operation was accomplished.

After all, the anxiety proved to have been a little superfluous. Winds howled all night, and Major Harewood's well-known discomfort at sea made the arrival dubious till about three o'clock, when, in pouring rain, a fly deposited the voyagers, shaken, battered, jaded, with a prolonged and wretched passage, and each too anxious that the other should rest, to be good for anything but wan smiles and affectionate greetings. They had eaten or tried to eat at Southampton, and nothing could be done with them but to shut them into Mr. Froggatt's state bed-chamber and leave them, promising to be better company in the evening.

Then there was time for Robina, who meanwhile had done little but run about in their service, select and open the boxes and bags containing what was wanted, and introduce the Hindoo, who was put under charge of a young Lightfoot.

Then Lance and Robin had time to stand up in the drawing-room gazing at one another after this thirteen months' interval. Lance held up his hands and pretended to fall back in dismay: 'Robin-a-Bobbin grown into a young lady! Ah!'

'And what's this?' as she flew at him to pinch the thick brown down upon his lip. 'What kind of crop is this?' And they took one of their old tumbling waltzes round the room together, as if to shake themselves into one, while, with the hand that each kept loose, Robin continued to snatch at the new decoration, and Lance to defend and smoothe it down.

'Ay,' said Felix (who tolerated it by a certain effort of philosophy, and the humbling consciousness of being an old Philistine), 'he is cherishing it for the Handel festival. He wants to be taken for a German.'

'O Lance, are you to go to the Handel festival?'

'Yes, Miles has got me a place in the chorus--jolly, isn't it, of the old fellow? I say, Robin, we must get you up there.'

'I--oh! I shall be at Woolwich then, I suppose. Do you know, Cherry, I must only stay till Monday? Those two aren't in the least fit to get into their house at Woolwich without help, and John has begged me--'

'I suppose you must,' said Cherry. 'After all these good accounts, this is disappointing; but how could you all cross on such a night?'

'Why, Wilmet never minded the sea before, and John had made up his mind soldier-fashion, and thought nothing was to be gained by waiting. And when Wilmet had to succumb she would not believe it, and was so disgusted at herself, and so miserable about him, that it did her all the more harm.'

'And you!'

'Oh, I was quite well; but it was horrid enough any way--and poor John had gone from the first to lie quite flat in the gentlemen's cabin, where I could not get at him.'

'Before I go, what do you think of him?' asked Felix. 'One can't judge of his looks to-day.'

'Oh! he calls himself sound--the wounds are all healed at last, but he gets a great deal of bad pain still, either rheumatic or neuralgic; he says it comes from the strain on his constitution, and will take no advice about it till he can see Dr. Manby. Then he's so cripply that he could not have gone on in the service if he were not a field-officer. He says he is quite up to it, but we think it a great experiment. Oh! Felix--Lance--don't go--there can't be anybody this wet afternoon!'

'Yes,' said Felix, 'this is just the time that all the old gentlemen who get tired of their own fire-sides, and all the professionals that can't take their walk, feel inclined to come and prose at "Froggatt's."--But they won't want you, Lance; I'll send if there's anything for you to do.--Good-bye, Robin Redbreast, you do look uncommonly nice!' and he took her round cheeks between his hands, and held up her face to kiss each of them, with mouth and brow, individually and gravely.

'She's the Robin still,' said Cherry, 'only just a little polished up.'

'Developing,' said Lance, stalking round her, and speaking his words deliberately; 'developing--into--the--bloom--of--sweet--seventeen--and of--'

'Not beauty!' broke in Robina. 'I would not be as pretty as Wilmet for two-pence.'

'Not for a major?' suggested Lance.

'He didn't marry her for her beauty,' vehemently responded Robina, 'but for her--her niceness. Her beauty has been always in her way, and a nuisance to her, and--'

'Sour grapes!' quoth Lance.

'Not a bit. It would be a worse hindrance in my branch of the profession.'

Lance did not answer in jest this time; he looked at the bright pleasant-faced girl in her maidenly bloom and fresh stylish dress, and said, 'What a horrid pity it is! she looks ten times more of a lady than ninety-nine out of a hundred of 'em--and there she's to go and grind and be ground just for a governess.'

'Not a bit more of a pity than that--I'll not say that you should be a printer, Lance, but than that anybody should be anything. I learnt my Catechism, you see, to learn and labour to get my own living.'

'So you sent Madame Tanneguy home to prevent you from getting into Wilmet's shoes at Miss Pearson's?'

'I should hope I was fit for something more than that!'

'Well done, Bob!'

'I didn't mean--' said Robina, rather distressed, 'but you see I have had a much better education than ever Wilmet could get, and have gone on longer with it; and I can go in for things that girls here would not care to learn; so, as I am not wanted to keep house with Wilmet, it would be just waste for me to come and do like her--poked up in this corner.'

'Ah! you've had a taste of the world,' said Lance, speaking in jest; but Robina, recollecting how he had crushed any ambition of his own, and who did veritably feel that though home was home, Bexley was dull and narrow, turned round with moist eyes.

'O Lance, I hope it is not that! You know I have been brought up to go out, and it seems my work and duty; but I think it is a great deal more honourable to stay here because one is wanted.'

'Because one can't help it,' said Lance, pulling her hair and smiling. 'Have you learnt to make speeches in France, Bob?'

'No. But indeed, Lance, I do want to know if you do never get tired of things now?'

'Oh! I've no right; I'm not one of the highly educated ones!' said Lance, in a spirit of teasing.

'Now, Lance, don't punish me, when I really want to know.'

'Taking into consideration the awful slowness and stodginess of the place, and the contempt of one's highly educated brothers and sisters,' said Lance, slowly, but with a twinkle in his eye that somehow made up for the words, 'one does drag on life pretty well, by the help of Pur and the organ. The new one is coming by next summer, if there's any faith or conscience in the builder, which I believe there is not.'

'And,' she added, coming near and speaking low, 'did I not hear that there had been a letter from Ferdinand?'

Cherry looked for it. 'Felix took it down to answer,' she said, 'but it was from Sydney. He had seen Mr. Allen.'

'Oh!'

'Yes. He tracked those National Minstrels all over India, Bombay, Calcutta, all manners of places--good faithful fellow--and at last he found they had gone to Sydney, and there, actually, was Mr. Allen, settled down as a music-master, making--I don't know what in a week.'

'But--'

'But there had been a great quarrel, and the concern had broken up; and he did not in the least know where poor Edgar was gone,' sighed Cherry. 'Robin, did you hear what name he sung under at Alexandria?'

'No, Ferdinand only told Wilmet that his name was not in the programme.'

'That good Cacique!' broke out Lance; 'he is about the slowest-witted fellow that walks the earth. I believe he would never believe it was he if he saw anything less than Thomas Edgar Underwood in extra type. If he only would have sent me, I'll be bound I'd have run Edgar down in no time, instead of being always three months behind him, and now off the scent.'

'No, but is he?'

'No, he has not given it up,' said Cherry. 'Mr. Allen did not know whether they were gone to Melbourne or Adelaide, and he meant to try both; and to go and see Fulbert and Mr. Audley.'

'One of them will stumble on him while Fernan is staring about with his nose in the air,' said Lance.

'I am afraid he will only avoid them,' said Cherry sadly.

'And another certainty is that he will have taken some fresh alias,' said Lance, 'while the Cacique is still hunting for Tom Wood. I bet on Fulbert's finding him!'

'Has he parted from those Hungarians too?'

'Ay, there's the question! Should you like a prima-donna sister-in-law, Robbie?'

'No, no, no--don't, Lance,' cried Cherry; 'Mr. Allen said Mademoiselle Zoraya had--the horrid woman--thought much more of Edgar since--' she could only pause, 'but he was far too sharp to be drawn in.'

'That I believe,' said Lance. 'Never fear, Cherry, we shall have him some of these days, with a long beard, a longer fortune, and the longest story--ah!' with a long sigh, 'if I wasn't an organist, wouldn't I like to be a scamp!' The offensiveness of which word was concealed by a sudden embrace of the Scamp dog, who was made to stand on his hind legs, with his feet in Robina's hands, to display his beautiful topaz eyes; and in the midst of the exhibition the door opened, and John came slowly in, leaning on his stout stick.

'O John, I am glad! are you rested? Haven't you been asleep?'

'No; I think Wilmet will sleep if she is alone, so I am going to waste no more time. Thank you,' as Robina put the cushion as he liked it, and looked into his face with inquiry as she detected the well-known lines that showed it was pain that made sleep hopeless. He smiled and gave a little nod, by which she understood that she was to keep her discovery to herself, and that it was not so severe but that he hoped to amuse it away; and he began at once laughing with Geraldine.

'Well, Cherry, you see I've a rival to Lord Gerald.'

'I began to think I ought to offer him to you, though it would go to my heart.'

'As if I would be put off with a slender little wand like that,' said John. 'That's what I call a stick.'

'That's what I call a club,' retorted Cherry. 'I should want somebody else to carry me if I took such a monster;' and they proceeded to a sort of tilt between their two supporters.

'I won't have disrespect to my steadfast friend! She's made of olive tree; her name is Olivia; and I believe Wilmet is jealous of her.'

'Indeed she is,' said Robin. 'When you go out all by yourself, and come in hardly able to speak. That's what he went and did at Paris.'

'When one has got a wife and a sister, one breaks loose sometimes. Here, you little Star, come and speak to me! Why, you were a blackberry-gathering baby when I saw you last! Let me look at you now. How old are you?'

'Eleven and a quarter,' breathed a little voice, as he gathered two tiny hands into his, and a pair of porcelain blue eyes glanced up for a moment out of the most dainty little oval chiselled face and pink-and-white complexion, set in soft brown hair.

'And can eleven and a quarter hatch an egg from the Palais Royal? Not from Bill's nid d'avis, but of a bird of larger growth,' as Stella, with a half-breathed 'thank you' rosiness spreading over her face, and lips raised for a kiss, beheld a beautiful blue egg, containing implements of needlework.

John tried to talk to her over it, but could get nothing but monosyllables, and blushes, and smiles, till he released her, and she flew off, 'To show her egg to Theodore,' said Cherry. 'There's some baking going on; and he never stirs from the kitchen while he can handle the dough.'

'What a lovely little fairy it is!' said John; 'but is it wound up to say nothing but yes or no?'

'She is awfully shy,' said Lance. 'Bill can't get as much out of her as you have done.'

'She has not spoken a word since I have been in the room,' added Robin.

'She is a strangely silent child,' said Cherry. 'Sometimes I think living so much with Theodore helps to make her so. She is quick at her lessons, and is a perfect little book of reference; and will talk to me gravely when we are alone; but it never seems to come into her head to chatter. I'm sure Lance and Robin have talked more nonsense in this hour than she has in six months.'

'I've a longing to hear Stella perpetrate a little nonsense,' said Lance. 'When Angel and Bear are at home, and there is a good gabble, there sits the child, her bright eyes smiling and gleaming, without a word.'

A knock at the door. 'Mr. Lancelot, there's the Centry carriage in the High Street.'

'There, you see what it is to be the lady's man!' said Lance, laughing and running down.

'The Centry carriage means your cousin no more,' said John.

'No; she has let Centry to an old general with a large family. She said she knew nothing about country poor, and hated county people; and her mother likes nothing really but Brighton. I think she is quite right,' said Cherry.

'What sort of people are they?'

'Oh! they do very well for the parish; but of course are nothing to us. The General proses over the papers to Felix sometimes, and the daughters have the loveliest eyes in the world.'

'That's Lance,' said Robina, laughing. 'Is he as tender-hearted as ever?'

'Oh yes; or more so; but as long as the ladies all have the most beautiful faces that ever were seen, and his attentions are confined to putting attractive advertisements into their parcels, I don't mind.'

'Lance is the most altered of you all,' said John.

'Dear Lance,' said Cherry, 'he has got back a great deal of his sunshine--quite enough to be very delightful to us, though I doubt whether he is always as bright to himself. There is a certain sehnsucht in the pieces of music he goes on improvising, that sometimes makes me anxious.'

'You mean whether he has got into the right line,' said John.

'It's no use thinking about that; Felix could not do without him; and he is fit for nothing else now,' said Cherry. 'I fancy when the new organ comes, he will have a love in that and be happy.'

John was thoroughly one of themselves, more eager about Bexley affairs than his wife, though she was thoroughly her affectionate self when she joined them in the evening. She was too much tired, and too glad to see their faces, to do more than repose in the sight; and it was kinder to sing than to talk to either traveller. Even the next day, when the ravages of the storm had been repaired, she had too much on her own hands to have leisure to set Cherry to-rights; and if she perceived any disuse of her pet economies, she acquiesced as if it were to be quite expected, and no more worth a protest than matters at the Bailey, whither she was going the next day. To be sure, there was a kind of implied expectation that she would some day arrive for a general rectification of what could just be tolerated under present circumstances; but this was not a very pressing alarm.

The visit was over, the new home at Woolwich begun; and before many weeks were over, it welcomed what father and aunt united in calling a magnificent boy. Felix went with Mr. Harewood to the christening, and found his sister a different creature, lovelier than he ever remembered her. It seemed as if her happiness would have been almost too great for this earth if John had only been as strong and well as he tried to appear. But, after all, Felix really believed Wilmet would have been lost without some one to nurse besides Christopher Underwood, dutifully named after his two grandfathers.

Alda had actually come down for the day. It was the first time the sisters had met since the funeral at Centry Park, and it had cost her an effort, for her third daughter was but ten days older than Wilmet's baby; and she could not withhold a slight plaint at the inequalities of fate, in bestowing only girls where they were less welcome, while the sex of Wilmet's magnificent boy could be of no possible consequence--a remark which so exasperated not only the mother, but the father, as greatly to amuse Felix.

Lady Vanderkist looked very thin and worn, as if much less recovered than Wilmet, who had a beautiful fresh bloom, and was vigorous while Alda was languid; but the brother and sister gathered that her difficulties in coming down were far less caused by health than by disregard to her private wishes and plans. Wilmet regretted that she had not brought her little Mary; and she said she had hoped to do so, but had found she could not have the horses, and did not like to take her in a cab. She warmly invited Wilmet to town, but to Marilda's house, not her own, except for mornings; and she apologized with real vexation for not being able to offer Felix a bed, Adrian expected someone that evening.

She was, of course, beautifully dressed; but Wilmet, in a delicate pale-grey silk and Parisian rose-bud bonnet, was not the foil she used to be; and the two sisters were still a very striking pair, though no one would have guessed them to be twins, so worn did Alda look. She was much kinder to Robina, too, and absolutely eager to hear of every one at home.

But what struck Felix most was this. He had business in London, and went back with her late in the afternoon. At the last moment, Wilmet, wanting to cloak her sister, transferred her baby to his father, who, as he held him, smiled to him with one of those little gestures of tenderness, that express so very much because they are involuntary and unconscious; and after the brother and sister were seated in the fly, when they looked back with a last wave of the hand, Robina alone answered it; the papa and mamma were wholly occupied in handing back their treasure with a kiss on either side. Alda went on looking out, and presently Felix saw her handkerchief stealing up to her eyes. Perhaps she thought herself composed, for she turned round and said, with an effort at a smile, 'That's what it is to have a boy! If Adrian had ever looked like that!'

Felix charitably refrained from expressing his accordance with her former sentiment, that it would have been all the same with a girl; and indeed Alda had miscalculated her fortitude, for speaking brought a flood of tears. Felix durst not look at her, and doubted whether to let himself be conscious, but said at last, 'Caresses are no test. Many men do not care for very young children.'

She shook her head; but as they arrived at the station she forced back her tears, bit her lip, and drew forward her spangled veil; Felix brought her a glass of water, and she walked along the platform with him, holding his arm with a clasp that reminded him of the day he had taken her home from Thomas Underwood's, but not a word did she say in the train.

There was no carriage to meet her, and Felix could not resolve not to see her home.

'Oh! thank you,' she said, more warmly than perhaps she had ever thanked him before. 'I've always said one must come to you for chivalry. But it is terribly out of the way; you will be late for the dinner in Palace Gardens.'

'They must forgive me,' he said; 'and I should like to see the last of you.' And as he sat by her in the hansom, he tried to give her a smile, all affection and no pity.

'I wish there was time for you to go in. I want you to see little Mary;' then presently, after an effort, 'You'll not speak of this, Felix. I'm not strong yet; and I suppose daughters always are a disappointment where there is a title.'

Felix supposed it too, and very kindly.

'Is there any chance of your coming to town again, soon?' she asked, 'I am always at home and alone before three.'

'I do not think I shall--no--Lance is going up to the Handel festival, and we cannot be away together.'

'Little Lance! I've not seen him since he used to have his head-aches. But it is no use to think of it, we shall not be in town by that time, the house is so dreadfully expensive. We shall not have one another year. One gets sick of so much going out, and with all these little girls it is time to begin to be prudent.'

Felix had seen enough of Sir Adrian Vanderkist's name on the turf to think the sentence ominous; not that he was afraid of any great crash, but expensive tastes did not accord with estates entailed and the annual birth of a daughter; and he was greatly touched by Alda's collapse of self-importance.

He was late, and Marilda forgave him easily, but Mrs. Underwood was cross. No doubt she had fumed about poor relations having no right to keep her waiting; and though there was something indefinable about Felix that hindered her from manifesting this cause of displeasure, his having been engaged in Alda's service did not pacify her. She considered Lady Vanderkist as extremely ungrateful for not having transported Marilda into those upper circles to which marriage had introduced her, without taking into account that the obstacle lay, not with Sir Adrian, who was ready enough to pay court to riches, but with Marilda herself. That young lady was forming her own way in the world. She had had enough of the Golden Venus line while, for her father's sake, she submitted to it; and she did not choose to force herself into fashionable circles. Country poor and the Lady Bountiful life, that her mother would have accepted as 'comifo,' were distasteful to her; but she had thrown her business abilities into the service of London charities, and was there becoming every year a more considerable power. Her business premises were in St. Matthew's district; and this made her regard herself as a parishioner, and undertake no small amount of service, of descriptions better known to the clergy-house than to her mother, who set down to the accounts of the office many an hour spent in Whittingtonian schools and alleys. At any rate, Marilda had become a much more agreeable person, with more aplomb, more ease, and decidedly less touch of vulgarity, since she had made her standfast, ceased to be dragged at the wheels of the car of fashion, and become the managing spirit of Kedge and Underwood, besides all that St Matthew's knew of.

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

XXXIV. THE VICAR OF VALE LESTON

'Cushions and cloth an' books, takin' the old church right roun', Surplice, shovel, and broom, they would na ha' fetch'd half-a-crown, Commandments to boot. They was the only good lookin' things Wi' yellow cherubs between 'em, and nout but heads and wings. Parson Myles was a hunter, and could gallop through a prayer, Right straight ahead over anything, an' stop him who dare.' Rev. W. Heygate.

There was to be a meeting about the paving of the town: Mr. Underwood, though only twenty-eight, was a town-councillor, and decidedly an influence in himself, as well as through the Pursuivant. He had so worked his way up, that his fellow-citizens accepted him as one of themselves; and his birth and breeding gave him a power which they felt without in the least acknowledging. Besides, his conscientious journalising made him always thoroughly get up his subjects; and he threw himself into the merits and history of asphalt and flag-stones with that 'all his might' with which he did whatsoever his hand found to do.

He was busy on an article to prepare the way for the meeting, when Lance, who had been making selections from London papers, laid the last sheet of the 'Times' on his desk, and silently pointed to the obituary:--

'On the 4th, at Torquay, aged 37, the Reverend Fulbert Bowles Underwood, Vicar of Vale Leston Abbas, only son of Fulbert Underwood, Esquire, of Vale Leston Priory.'

'I see,' quoth Felix.

Five minutes' waiting while he wrote.

'I say, does it go into Pur?'

'Certainly not. What matters it to any one here?'

That was all Lance could get out of Felix; and after a time came the second delivery of the post. All the letters lay in a heap on the office table, just when, as Lance mentally termed him, the longest-windedest, button-holderest of all the municipality walked in to bestow his opinion on the paving question upon Mr. Underwood; and Lance not only had to retreat from the important conclave, but was occupied himself by a succession of customers for a quarter of an hour after its conclusion. When he made another rush into the office, he found Felix still writing away at the paving stones, but with a good deal of red in his cheeks, and a letter lying by his side.

'Read that, Lance,' he said, 'but don't speak till this is done.'

Lance read:--

Vale Leston Priory, May 7th.

MY DEAR MR. FELIX UNDERWOOD,

I write by desire of my poor friend Mr. Underwood, to acquaint you with the death of his son, your cousin, the Vicar, at Torquay, on the 4th of this month. The melancholy event had long been anticipated, as there had been a complete break-up of constitution; and I for one never expected to see him return home alive when he went to Torquay with his wife last winter. Mr. Underwood has felt the loss deeply, though not with the same acuteness as if he had not had such long preparation, and it had not taken place at a distance. He has become much more feeble since you saw him five years ago, when certainly you left a lasting impression. He wishes you to be present at the funeral, with any of your brothers to whom it may be convenient. The time is fixed for next Friday, the 10th, at eleven o'clock. Your rooms will be ready for you on Monday; and if you will mention your train, you shall be met at Church Ewe or Ewmouth. It seems premature to mention it, but Mr. Underwood is so anxious that no time should be lost, that he desires me to intimate to you, that if you can procure immediate Ordination, he will present you to the Vicarage. I do not take this to be as simple a matter as he does, but under the circumstances, and with your studious turn, I should think it quite possible for you to be ready before the Vicarage lapses, and the poor old Squire has evidently set his heart on it, and planned it ever since he gave up hope of his son's life. Congratulations would be out of place at this moment, but I trust that the succession is now secure.

Remember me to my friend Mr. Lancelot--I trust that headaches are with him a thing of the past--and believe me,

Yours very truly, H. STAPLES.

Lance made all manner of contortions with his visage, read and re-read, indulged in a suppressed war-dance, and finally merged all other sensations in an agony of impatience, as still Felix's eyes and pen continued to travel over his sheet; and not a muscle of his face moved until the last was handed to little Lightfoot, and sent off to the press.

'That's done,' then he said.

'You may well be on the board of paving-stones!' cried Lance. 'Nothing but one of them could have gone on so.'

'It had to be done.'

'I could as soon have done it as flown.'

'Not if you never let your mind loose from it. Now for the letter. Stay, we'll take it up to Cherry. I'll just say a word to Lamb.'

Felix's courtesy to his subordinates always went a great way. The noontide lull of business was beginning to set in, but Cherry and Stella looked up from their lessons in amaze as both brothers came in; and Cherry mutely clasped her hands, and with the word Edgar fluttering on her lips, but as both faces plainly indicated no, she rallied instantly, saying, 'What wonder of wonders is it?'

'Nothing very surprising,' said Felix gravely. 'It is that poor old Fulbert, at Vale Leston, has lost his son, and wants me to go to the funeral.'

'That's not all,' added Lance. 'What do you think of his wanting this here Giant to get himself ordained, and take the Vicarage on the spot?'

'Felix, you could not--not in time.'

'Nor at all. That is not to be thought of; but I shall go through London, take Clement down with me, and see if I cannot get the living for him; but let me read you the letter--I could barely glance at it.'

He read; and Cherry broke out, 'The succession secure! Does that mean to you?'

'I am heir-at-law,' said Felix quietly; 'and it was entailed on me in case his son had no children.'

'He takes it coolly, doesn't he?' said the far more elated Lance, 'but then he's had plenty of preparation.'

'You don't mean that you've known about this?'

'I knew the estate had been entailed on me to prevent this poor man from alienating it.'

'You knew, and you never told anyone, and went on as usual!'

'How would you have had me go on?' he asked, with a certain provoking meekness, that sent her into a laugh, while Lance, catching Stella's wondering eyes, practically answered the question by locking her fingers in his, and whirling her round in a sort of impromptu choric dance, chanting:--

'Wrong shall be right, And right shall be might, When--'

('bless me, what a plague three syllables are!')

'When Felix' right and Felix' might Shall meet upon Vale Leston height!'

'It is not a height,' interposed Felix.

'The King shall have his own again then,' amended Lance. 'No, I have it. The enchantment is over, and the Frog-prince is about to resume his proper shape!'

'Lance, considering--'

'Blunderbore, considering the extraordinary relief and disburthening of my mind, after labouring under this secret five years come August, if it were not profane, I should compare myself to Christian when the pack dropped off his back!'

'But why was it a secret?'

'For two reasons, Whiteheart,' said Felix. 'First because there was nothing to tell; and secondly, because that "nothing" might have turned several heads. Still, I believe you would have known it long ago, if I had not been ashamed after binding over Lance.'

'Please, may I understand?' entreated Stella, in rather a melancholy voice, as she found her usual mode of observation quite inadequate.

'Understand, my Star! Yes,' said Lance; 'understand that we were all of us kicked out--all of us that were there to kick, that is to say--from the jolliest place in all the world; and now things are coming right, and Felix is going to be a fine old English gentleman who had a great estate! I declare it makes me so poetical I can't get on!'

'You'd better come to me, Stella,' interposed Felix. 'Nothing is going to happen now, my dear. It is only this. The old house where we elder ones were born was meant to belong to my mother, but there was a flaw in the will that left it her, and so it went to the more direct heir; and my father would not go to law because he did not think it right when he could not afford it, and especially as he was a clergyman.'

'O Felix!' cried Cherry eagerly.

'Yes; I have a copy of the letter. And now, the poor old gentleman who had it has lost his son, and has sent me a kind message, as if he wished me to go back there; but that will not be in his life-time, so we need not talk about it. There is nothing to make any change now.'

'No?' asked Cherry, disappointed.

'Of course not. Expectations are not good sustenance. The reversion is possibly very distant, and there may be some mistake about it, after all.'

'Well! one ought to be prepared,' said Cherry; 'but oh! to see you at home--home--yes, Vale Leston is home! O Felix, what it will be!'

'Don't set yourself on wishing it,' said Felix anxiously. 'Remember Pur and the business are our dependence or independence, and most likely are far better and safer for us.'

'Pshoo!' shouted Lance; 'I won't have you talk book!'

'May I tell Wilmet?' entreated Cherry.

'No harm in that; meantime I must get things in train, and then walk over to explain matters to Mr. Froggatt; and as soon as I can get away to-morrow I shall go up to town, and make Clement come on with me.'

'O Fee, one moment! Are we to go into mourning?' Then, as he held up his hand, 'It means more than you think. It shows how much we hold by the connection; and if I understand you, you wish nothing so little as to have it trumpeted about that Mr. Underwood has great expectations.'

'As prudently stated as W.W. could have done it! It must turn on the degree of connection.'

'Is he as near as Tom Underwood was?'

'The same on my mother's side. Yes, put on black ribbons; but, as you say, don't trumpet the thing. Don't begin about it, but if any one asks, explain how it stands.'

The heir-expectant was gone; and Lance, after waiting to indulge in another pantomime of exultation, ran after him, humming:--

'Oh, to see him back again!'

By the middle of the next day Felix was able to leave home, after having seen the Froggatts, whom he treated with as much deference and attention as if he were still accountable to them. The reception of his communication made him glad that he had been silent when the chances were more remote, for though Mrs. Froggatt was ready to cry for gladness at the notion of his taking his own proper place as a gentleman, and had a farmer's daughter's respect for the squirearchy, her husband feared that empty anticipation would spoil Felix for a tradesman, and be injurious to the business, which he viewed with tender pride and solicitude. So he lectured on the uncertainty of prospective fortunes, and the folly of reckoning on them, till it was evident that his confidence would have been sorely shattered had the bare notion been whispered five years earlier. Indeed, his comfort seemed compromised by finding that Felix would not be the permanent property of the business, and he was almost displeased, as if he thought he had allowed it to pass into his hands on false pretences. It was vexatious and disappointing; but he had to be left to recover the first shock, which, after all, proved his love and value for the young man.

Felix did not reach Whittingtonia till late; and on inquiry at the clergy-house, heard that Mr. Underwood was not at home, but the Vicar was. To him therefore Felix went in his study, not sorry to ask his advice. Clement, who would not receive priest's orders for some weeks, was over young for the charge of an utterly neglected parish; but it was dangerous to let the presentation pass by, since only a brother could satisfactorily co-operate in dealing with the old ancestral sacrileges, in case he should ever come in for the property himself.

Mr. Fulmort never spoke while Felix told his story; and the bell for Evensong had begun by the time it closed. Then he said, 'I am very glad, heartily glad. I have been watching Clement, and I see he is not tough enough yet for our work. When a young fellow, of such a length too, can't eat after any hard day's work, instead of being ravenous, he is sure to break down the first time he takes cold or catches an illness, and then he is done for. I should have had to drive him away elsewhere, at least for some years, poor fellow, though none has ever been more like a son to me. Yes, of course he is too young, but he is not the sort of stuff that falls into slackness, and that is more fatal than any amount of blunders and foolishness.'

The last words startled Felix. He had been so anxious to place Clement at Vale Leston, that he had thought of no drawbacks till he was roused to a foreboding of that dour uncompromising rigidity, left to itself, sowing dissensions, becoming a hard master to them all--nay, not improbably alienating the old Squire, and overthrowing all their prospects! Such a future passed before Felix in his transit across the quadrangle, and was met, but not disposed of, by the sense that it was right and just that Clement should be put forward, 'Fais ce que dois, advienne que pourra.' He had put Clement into his own place to console his father for his own secession to secular work; and if devotion, blamelessness, and earnestness were recommendations, they were not lacking. 'And if he do give offence, and all be left to Marilda,' thought Felix, 'let it go. It would only be for conscience sake. Poverty is better than riches! and I may have to show that I believe so. I only hope that the boy will not do the thing in some pig-headed way, in which it would be hard to back him up.'

Misgivings vanished for the time when his brother was in sight. It was not easy to make him out in the deep perspective of the choir. Felix only knew that a fair-haired head above the average line must be his; but when he came forward to the Eagle, whence he was to read the Second Lesson, and afterwards give his lecture, he was in full view. In his lankiest hobbedy-hoy days, Clement had always looked his best surpliced; and now, with the cassock beneath, the stole over one shoulder, and his black-and-white hood, his figure had a certain dignity, and his voice gave Felix a thrill. The mixture of hereditary tone and unconscious imitation were such that when he shut his eyes he could believe himself a boy at St Oswald's, listening to his father; and even when he looked up the illusion was hardly dispelled, for the half-light brought out the similar moulding of the features, and a hectic tinting. He gave a careful little discourse, evidently one of a series, and the allegory of the Wilderness life with much more depth and poetry than the elder brother had expected.

He had taken care to place himself out of direct view of the young preacher, and his appearance in the quadrangle was an immense surprise to Clement. 'Felix! you here! nothing the matter? What's that? Not poor Edgar?' as his eye fell on Felix's new hat and hat-band.

'No, no--this is for the younger Fulbert of Vale Leston. I have more to say to you.'

'Come in to supper, then. Have you seen the Vicar? Do you stay the night? That's jolly! Here, Fred, you've not seen my brother!'

Fred Somers was known to be Clement's friend. With one of the natures that prefers external to home friendship, Clement had at first bestowed his affection on poor Harry Lamb, and since upon this companion, who had been his predecessor by half a year in everything, and in whom Felix was diverted to see his complete contrast. Mr. Somers was at least five inches below Clement's six feet one and a half, and was a dark, plump, merry little man, who looked as if the Vicar never need scruple about getting any amount of work out of him; and Clement, with a hand on his shoulder, looked perfectly happy, and as if working at St Matthew's side by side with him were all he desired. And very overgrown and boyish Clement looked too at that supper, a very merry one. There were the six clergy, fourteen choir boys, and sundry chance-helpers, mostly talking eagerly, with a good deal of laughter at old and new jokes. Felix, seated by the Vicar, thought Clement far more at his ease, more playful and familiar, than ever he had seen him at home, and infinitely less on his dignity than he ever allowed himself to be with Lance and Bernard.

After supper, the two brothers repaired to Clement's tiny private room, uncarpeted, with a table, two Windsor chairs, and a book-case; and then, when the elder had explained, the younger flatly refused to have anything to do with Vale Leston Abbas.

'I!' he said, 'go to a fat easy-going country living when the need is so urgent here? I to stand alone when I want years of training? It would be enough to ruin me!'

'But the place, Clement. This parish will never be ill-supplied while Mr. Fulmort lives; but people have souls down in the country.'

Clement had not much feeling for souls whose bodies he had never realised; but he answered, 'Very bad for the souls to have an inexperienced priest.'

'Quite true; but observe, it is not the choice between you and such a clergyman as you would select, but between you and no one knows who--certainly a person who could not help in the complication of family and Church property, as only a brother could do.'

'That is all in the clouds,' said Clement. 'I have made up my mind to ten years' service here, and I intend to keep to it.'

'The Vicar says you have not strength for it.'

'Then I shall go on without it.'

'Till you kill yourself.'

'The best end one could come to.'

'No, not if there be a leading of Providence elsewhere.'

'I observe that Providence is generally said to lead in the direction of ease and £ s.d. No, Felix, I am much obliged, but even if this old man would appoint a vicar of decided opinions like mine, I cannot allow myself to be led aside into a path of wealth and luxury contrary to all I had marked out for myself.'

'Are people always meant to do all they have marked out for themselves?' said Felix, as he heard the frequent first person singular.

'When it is the line of self-abnegation.'

Felix could not help smiling, and muttering between his teeth, 'Is it?' Then he added, 'At any rate you will come down to the funeral and see the old place?'

'No! I will not raise false expectations to be disappointed.'

The idea of baffled expectations excited by that long white-faced lad! Even Felix was beginning to console himself, and think Clement might be doing the best for them all, when they were summoned to the Oratory by the evening prayer-bell. As good-nights were spoken at the foot of the stairs, the Vicar asked Felix, 'Have you prevailed?'

'No, sir. Perhaps you will talk to him?'

Mr. Fulmort nodded, and Felix went to his own room. In the morning the Vicar told him that he had not made much impression, but that he had actually made it matter of obedience that Clement should go to Vale Leston with his brother, and not consider his decision as made till he had thoroughly seen the place.

And thus it was that Felix, in different company and different mood from when he had last seen his birthplace, found himself stopping at a little station called Church Ewe, about three miles short of Ewmouth; and there a smart servant came up with his finger to his cockaded hat, and took possession of the two little black bags.

'The beginning of greatness!' observed Clement, who was very benignant towards Felix's prospects, though he would accept none for himself, as they ensconced themselves in the great barouche with the pair of horses.

Felix shook his head. He wanted to hold himself as loose as possible from gazing on the place as an inheritance, at the same time as he greatly desired to see Clement smitten with it, almost as much from jealousy for the old home as with a view to the future.

Their way brought them in on the opposite side from the Ewmouth road; so that the first view was from high ground, whence the lovely encircling valley, the slopes of wood inclosing it, the purple moorland above them, the grey sheen of the river, the high-arched bridge, the noble church, and grand old ancestral-looking priory, partly veiled by fine trees, in the delicate glory of early summer, lay outstretched before them, the shimmer of the sea, and a few white sails far in the distance.

That sense of the eye satisfying the heart, and being as it were at rest and at home, which he had felt at the sight five years before, and never at any other, came over Felix; and exulting in the loveliness, he looked eagerly to see the effect on Clement, but the smooth young face was carefully guarded against relaxing, the light blue eye was steadily set as unmarking anything. Felix was provoked, and then wondered whether the Deacon were like the Moslem who refused to dwell at Damascus, lest he should have his Paradise only on earth. A little local information elicited nothing but civil indifferent answers, that inspired a desire to shake that inanimate figure.

Driving up through the park, beauteous with chestnut blossom, they were shown into the library; and there Mr. Staples came to them, cordially shaking hands, but, as Felix fancied, somewhat critically scanning that long straight coat with the little cross at the button-hole.

'The Squire is tolerable,' he answered to Felix's inquiry. 'I think it is coming out in gout. He will dine with you. It does him good to see people.'

'And Mrs. Underwood?'

'Came yesterday. Mother and brother here too. Ladies dine together upstairs.'

'Are you staying here?'

'No; but I am over as much as I can. The old Squire wants someone, and I don't fancy leaving him too much to Smiles--he's the curate, and has been trying to worm himself in. Will you come to your rooms? Dinner at seven.'

To Felix it was like meeting an old friend to tread the black stair, and the long panelled corridors, all windows on one side, the other hung with portraits, the Underwood red cheeks and blue eyes staring round, and coarse like Marilda. Mr. Staples popped Clement into one wainscotted room, and left him there, but shut himself in with Felix.

'So that's your clerical brother?'

'An excellent hard-working devoted fellow.'

'But very--?'

'Well, rather!'

'And it is quite out of the question for yourself?'

'Entirely so. Even if I thought it right, it could not be done.'

'I thought so, and told the Squire. Unlucky, for things are a good deal involved; and you would find the vicarage income handy, while as for this--why he is a mere boy!'

'So he feels himself. He is conscious of his want of experience, and it would be an infinite relief to him to see it in good hands.'

'Mrs. Fulbert and her mother declare that the Squire promised poor Fulbert to give it to her brother, Harry Shaw, whom you'll see here to-night; but he swears he did no such thing; and on the whole, I think Smiles would have a better chance--he's an obsequious chap, who has been very attentive to the old man all the winter, half their spy, half his toady. However, the Squire would never let either of them have it while there's a parson left with Underwood blood in his veins!'

All the quaint old bedrooms in this passage opened one into the other, and Felix unlocked the door between himself and Clement to communicate the information received, but it apparently took no effect.

The dinner-party was dismal and incongruous enough. Obsequious was a word that exactly depicted little, sleek, low-voiced Mr. Smiles, who though presiding at one end of the table, seemed ready to emulate Baillie M'Wheeble's posture; and the rival candidate, Mr. Henry Shaw, was a red-faced, punchy man, hardly distinguishable in appearance or manner from his farmer kindred, and, as soon became apparent, with such principles as he had, diametrically opposed to those of Clement, who, with his refined countenance and form, looked as if he belonged to some other world.

Mr. Underwood was wheeled in in his chair. He was not a man to give way, but rather to try to talk sorrow down; and the curate and Mr. Staples, knowing his humour, set county politics going, and all joined with a fervour, not to say violence, that struck the brothers as unsuitable. It was more than the Squire, between deafness and the burthen of grief, could follow; he grew abstracted, and presently rousing himself, turned to Clement to ask what had just passed at the other end of the table.

'That the bribery petition will fail, sir,' repeated Clement, bending with the naturally kind and courteous manner due to age, infirmity, and sorrow, and speaking in a clear sweet modulated tone, that evidently struck the old man more than the words.

'You have the family voice,' he said, looking up at him. 'Why, you are a mere lad! You don't tell me you are in Orders?'

'I was ordained Deacon last summer, sir,' said Clement colouring deeply at having to say it loud enough to attract everyone's attention.

'Ah! eh! And your age?'

'Four-and-twenty last March.'

'You don't look eighteen,' said the Squire, with that still infantine face close to him, reddening most youthfully. 'Where's your curacy?'

'At St Matthew's, Whittingtonia,' said Clement impressively, and casting his eyes round, as if, thought Felix, he were making a confession of faith and looking for persecution; but, half to the elder brother's relief, half to his diversion, they had got into a world where there was no thermometer of London churches, and no one knew what the avowal implied. Mr. Smiles asked if it were a Bethnal Green district; and Mr. Shaw observed, loud enough for the Squire to hear, that London parishes were not the places for plain straightforward men, no one was looked at who wasn't got up like a swell to please the ladies; and then they both united in rallying the youthful curate about tea-parties and pretty young ladies; but Clement was as impervious to ridicule on that score as if his head had been cowled and tonsured, and he bore it well, simply and gravely replying that he was too much occupied to go into society. He volunteered no dangerous topic, but showed much more good sense and forbearance than Felix had ventured to give him credit for in the curt answers he was compelled to make; but the old gentleman did not hear these, and began again.

'You've a sister married--eh?'

'Two,' said Clement, for Felix was too far off to be audible and as further information was looked for, 'one to Major Harewood, and the other to Sir Adrian Vanderkist.'

If Felix did for a moment feel that it sounded better than if they had married the butcher and the baker, Mr. Shaw took care to qualify the announcement with, 'Sporting baronet, ain't he? Got three horses at Epsom, I think!'

'What's that?' demanded Mr. Underwood. 'Your sister's husband on the turf?'

'I am sorry to say he is,' said Clement gravely.

'Not getting into scrapes? Any danger of his going on too fast?'

'I think not, Sir.' Felix felt he must shout, knowing well that Clement's regret was directed rather to racing in the abstract, than to any pecuniary peril, and for the first time feeling bound to defend Sir Adrian as a brother-in-law. 'He is a prudent man, and not likely to go beyond his means.'

Which was true. He was not exceeding present means. The evil was the future of the little girls, now four in number; but Clement looked reproachful at the answer he had to repeat to his neighbour, who relapsed into silence for a little while, then asked again, 'Who said one of them had married into a marching regiment?'

Mr. Staples laughed, and came to the rescue this time. 'Regiments never march but when young ladies marry into them; but it is not true in this case, Sir. Major Harewood is in the Royal Engineers, and has an appointment at Woolwich.--Didn't you tell me so?' turning to Felix. 'Have you heard anything from him of this new gun?'--which gun was safely wielded through the remainder of the meal.

After dinner, the Squire went back to his room, desiring Felix to come with him.

He looked much older than before, and made no more effort at cheeriness; as he sighed, settled himself, and signed Felix to a chair near him and his great fire.

'So!' he said. 'So things come round! Why did you not bring the nice little lad that was here before?'

'He and I cannot both leave home together, Sir. He is my right hand in the business.'

'You've not brought him up to your business?'

'I could not help it. That sun-stroke put him back in his studies, and he could not bear to be idle.'

'You must find some gentlemanly line for him; not too old, eh? You give it up, of course, you've thought better of my proposal--eh?'

'Quite impossible, Sir, thank you,' said Felix. 'You are very kind, but I am totally unfit. My education was stopped at sixteen.'

'Don't tell me you can't get through what Harry Shaw there did! Besides, what do we want of a scholar? I'd rather have a man of sense!'

'No Bishop would or could ordain me within the time.'

'Staples did say the Bishops had got more crotchetty now-a-days. How long would they insist on for preparation? I'd get little Smiles to hold it for the time.'

'It is impossible, Sir, thank you, in every way--even if I could think it right.'

'Right? It is not right the things should be separated. I've been crippled by it all my life, and cursed my folly in setting my face against the Church; and you'll hardly get the property in so good a condition as I did. Why, you're bookish already, and look like one of the cloth. Fit! you're fitter by a long chalk than Harry there! Come! think better of it. I'd not mind the cost if they insist on a turn at the University.'

'Thank you, Sir,' said Felix; 'but I cannot do it. It is against my conscience.' And as he saw that this was incomprehensible, he thought he had better bring forward a palpable testimony to the impracticability. 'Besides, I must go on with my work. There are too many of us for me to give over.'

'Many! The lad hasn't been fool enough to marry?'

'No, no, Sir; but there are two, a little brother and sister, at home, and two more at school, besides Geraldine and Lancelot.'

'All depending on you?'

'The four youngest entirely so; Geraldine earns a good deal with her painting, and Lance quite makes his own maintenance; but I could not leave them, nor break up the home.'

Six brothers and sisters were more than any one could adopt on the spot, and Mr. Underwood felt the cogency of the argument. 'Then you absolutely must keep up this confounded trade of yours till the breath is out of my body!'

'I hope to keep it up a long time yet, Sir,' said Felix; 'I have been very happy in it.'

'And--and--there's no other way?'

'Certainly not, Sir, thank you. All I have is embarked in it; and while things stand as they do, I should not be justified in making any change.'

Whatever Felix's kindred might think of his occupation, they were always forced to feel the dignity of his industry and independence. Here was this young man, under thirty, and looking younger than he was, talking of half-a-dozen of young brothers and sisters as a reason, not for accepting help, but for being let alone to maintain them; and actually showing a brother, a clergyman, scholar, and gentleman, visibly superior to what his kinsman had brought there to meet him. This was not a young heir to adopt, foster, and command, but a man to address upon equal terms, and Mr. Underwood put his next suggestion with less of authority. 'If it were not just absolute trade--retail, ain't it? It will be against you when you come here, you see. Could not you get out of it into Kedge and Underwood's firm? That would sound better.'

'Yes, Sir, but I could not throw over my business without a great loss; and it would be undertaking what I don't understand, instead of what I do.'

'Besides,' added the Squire, going on with his talk, 'with your expectations, family, place, and all, that girl of Tom's would jump at you!'

Felix shook his head decidedly, though unable to help a little inward laugh at this revival of Alda's old manoeuvre.

'By-the-by,' continued the old gentleman, 'what's become of your brother that Tom bred up?'

'We knew of him last in Australia, Sir.'

'Next to you, is he or this tall lad you have here?'

'He is older than Clement'

'Poor Tom made too much of him--eh? Well, young men will be young men,' said Mr. Underwood, too full of his own sorrows to think about Edgar; 'but they come round at last:' and therewith he fell into a talk about his own son, whose illness and death he proceeded to dwell upon, as he found he had a kind and attentive auditor; and this lasted till the butler came to wheel him off to his bed.

Felix and Clement paid an early visit to the church next morning, and found it in a course of being muffled in black. 'Seventy-five yards there allys was for every Underwood on 'em,' said Abednego Tripp, who had become much more shaky and feeble, had resigned his market-boat to Kerenhappuch's husband, and was hobbling about the church in a mixed, but on the whole a pleasant and exulting, frame of mind, by no means partaking of the intense disgust with which Clement beheld the sanctuary invaded by the paraphernalia of human woe.

Dr. May, unasked, brought Bernard over to the funeral, which was at twelve o'clock. Neither the father nor the widow attended it; but the incongruity of Edward Underwood's sons acting as chief mourners was prevented by the nearer claims of the Shaw brothers-in-law. The farmer tenants came; but the lack of neighbouring clergy and even gentry struck the brothers in contrast with the overflowing numbers who had flocked to their father's grave, so far from his ancestral home, showing how much more the man can be than the position.

Bernard was staring about him with little endeavour for appearances; and at the first moment that speech was possible, even while the hat-bands were coming off, he looked up in the face of Clement with open eyes, and said, 'My eyes! this is no end of a place! Is it what is to come to us?' Clement hushed him seriously and vigorously, but without much effect. 'Did you know 'twas like this?' he persisted, gazing round.

'I never thought about it. Hush!'

'Why, 'tis twice as jolly a house as Abbotstoke! And the woods! And the river! One might shoot every day, and fish the rest, and be always boating besides!' exclaimed Bernard, enthusiastically, but happily under his breath. 'And ain't there a hunter worth £120 here? Where is he, Clem?'

'How should I know?'

'You've been here all night and this morning, haven't you?' said Bernard, as if he had not thought even Tina capable of such indifference. 'I'll get down to the stables, and find out.'

While Clement was trying to stop him, the summons to a lugubrious luncheon did so more effectually. There Bernard had the opportunity of fraternizing with a Shaw nephew of his own age, and none of the malice of his seniors, who imparted the melancholy fact that the hunter-colt was sold, but undertook to show off the stables; but fate was too strong for Bear, he was captured by his eldest brother, and told that while Dr. May's horse was coming round, Mr. Underwood would like to see him.

The wish was far from mutual, and Bernard was as sulky as his namesake; but sulkiness might pass on such an occasion for decorous solemnity; and Bernard was always one of the show specimens--a big, well-grown, straight-limbed boy, with a handsome Underwood face, not of the girlishly rosy tinting of his brother's, but glowing with a hardy healthy sunburnt hue, and he could not but answer with a sort of glum awe-struck civility the few questions asked him, as to his age, and where he was at school, and then whether he had ever been rabbitting.

'Only once;' and Bernard's face lost its sulkiness. 'Marilda's gone and let her shooting!'

'And you like it?'

Bernard's lips only said 'yes,' but his blue eyes danced.

'Well, some of these days, you must come over and have a day with the keeper, when your brother is settled here.'

The eager face of anticipation fell, and out came at unawares, 'But that won't be till you are dead;' and then the boy began colouring to the ears.

'No, no, I don't mean this brother; but what's his name--the young parson? When he is here, you must come over. And here--' As the Doctor came in to take leave, Bernard found in his hand 'tip' that exceeded even the great days of Ferdinand's munificence!

He sprang out to Clement, who was standing in the porch. 'Oh! I say, Clem, what a splendiferous go this is!'

Again, all he got was a scandalized hush.

'I don't mean that. He told me himself! I'm to come over to shoot rabbits, and all that is delicious, when you are a clergyman here! Hurrah!'

'Hold your tongue, Bernard,' said Clement, with a voice of subdued impatience, 'and don't talk nonsense.'

'But you are going to be a clergyman here,' persisted Bernard. 'He said so.'

'That does not make it the fact.'

'O Clem, you'd never be so viciously spiteful as not to come! Think of the rabbits and the salmon, and a licence by-and-by!'

'Come, Bernard,' said Dr. May's cheery voice behind; then, as he shook hands with Clement, 'You must find your way over to Stoneborough when you are settled here. Our church is a sort of rival to yours.'

'Not mine,' protested Clement; but the Doctor was in a hurry, and was off. Business was to be done with the family lawyer, and Felix got a hint that he might be wanted after a time, so he betook himself to a nook in the cloister, redolent with old memories, and began a letter to Mr. Audley. Clement, as he really believed with malice prepense, put himself entirely out of reach by starting off for a walk with Mr. Smiles, who, detecting that the London clergyman's mind was far from made up to bury himself in a dull, secluded, straggling country parish, had kindly volunteered to show him the beauties of the scenery.

Nearly two hours had passed, when a tall shadow came across the arch, and Clement's low eager voice asked, 'Have you any money about you?'

'Just about enough to get home with. Why?'

'How near is Ewmouth?'

'Nearly four miles. What are you after?'

'I can do it before dinner;' and the long legs seemed about to move off.

'Stay, Clement! What?'

'I must raise enough to get a bottle of port. There's a child sinking in typhus. Don't detain me, Felix. I find there's no help for it. I must have this place,' he added, as if throwing a tub to the whale to effect his escape.

'Stop, ask for some here.'

'No use. Squire forbids all giving in that quarter.'

'What do you mean to do?'

'I must dispose of--of--of--Well, it must be this,' touching his little cross, Ferdinand's gift, and nearly his favourite possession.

'Come! It won't do to make your début at Ewmouth by disposing of your jewelry. I left myself a margin of half-a-crown, and if we walk from the station, that will save two shillings more.'

'That will do,' said Clement. 'Thank you, Fee, you shall have it again. I had given all I had about me in the other hovel. The woman is waiting in the churchyard. I'll send her off, and then tell you.'

Felix accompanied him through the beautiful summer garden to the rough rugged churchyard, where a lean woman in tattered drab-coloured garments by no means accorded with the paradisaical notion of Vale Leston. Her distress was so genuine that she scarcely thanked Clement; but assuring him she could now get what she wanted, she walked off.

Clement sighed, and looked up at the great massive church, not with Felix's pitying love, but like a mighty burthen.

'Well, Clem!'

'Well! I see it must be done.'

'I am very glad.'

'I am sure I am very sorry,' said Clement, with a simplicity new in him.

Before any more could pass, a servant came in search of them to summon them to Mr. Underwood's room. He looked worn and sorrowful, but there was a certain look of pleasure at the entrance of the two young men; and he made a sort of introduction of them to the lawyer, Mr. Wilder, a London solicitor, then turning to Felix, he once more asked if he still declined all idea of eventually taking the living.

'Certainly I do, thank you, Sir.'

'So,' said Mr. Underwood, 'as is only just, the offer is passed on to your brother.'

Clement bowed his head, colouring crimson, and the tears coming into his eyes, as with a trembling lip he answered, 'Thank you, Sir; I will do my best, God helping me.'

It was curious how this weight of responsibility was extinguishing self-consciousness, and making a man of him. The tone of his reply seemed to surprise both Squire and lawyer; and the former said, in an old man's tone of encouragement, 'That is well. No one can say more. Now give us your full name, that we may get on with the formalities.'

'Edward Clement Underwood, B.A., St. Cadoc's.'

'Edward?'

'It is my first name, but I have never been so called.'

'Edward! Strange it should so come about! Well, you may do pretty well here. Small tithes commuted for £420--(Rather a contrast, thought Felix, to the recent difficulty of raising a few shillings!)--a fair provision for a young man; if you are content not to launch out, nor be in a hurry to marry.'

'Certainly not,' said Clement, with an emphasis that made everybody look up to see whether he showed any tokens of having met with a disappointment in love; but if his cheeks were redder than usual, lip and eye were steady and resolute enough.

'I hope not,' proceeded his patron: 'it is the worst thing a young man can do to get his neck into the noose before he has had time to look about him. And there's the Vicarage--been used to enlarge our stable room--will have to be rebuilt altogether; so you had best let your horse keep your residence for the present, and come and look after the old man. I would not be much of a burden to you; but this is a big house, and it is getting lonesome.'

'I will do whatever I can to be a comfort to you, Sir,' said Clement earnestly. 'It is very kind in you, and I will certainly come first to you. Only, Sir, I ought to warn you that I have been bred up in a very stringent school of principles, and that if I come here, I shall feel it my duty to do my best to carry them out.'

Mr. Underwood smiled at the lawyer. 'How exactly boys get the trick of their father. I could think this twenty years back! Well, changes for the worse there can't be! Ungrateful set of drunken poaching rascals as ever lived! And as to the church, what notions you may bring there won't do me much harm, so long as you don't bring it about your ears. Only, look you, Edward, a word in your ear. Don't let Jane--Mrs. Fulbert, I mean--cajole you into doing up the Vicarage for her.'

'Very well, Sir,' said Clement dreamily.

'You had better stay on a few days and look about you; I'd send you over to see the Bishop.'

'No, Sir, thank you, I must get back to-morrow. I have little enough time to prepare for my Ordination, but I will come down as soon after as Mr. Fulmort can make it convenient to spare me.'

'Ay, and little Smiles will see to the duty meantime; but I say, Edward, you are inexperienced, and he is a dirty little dog. Don't let him expect anything from you till you've read in. He's got his quarter, and 'tis the churchwarden's business to provide.'

Felix hoped other people did not find Clement's face so intelligible as he did when this turned out to be the warning to inexperience. There was little more to be done, and the conference broke up to give the Squire time to rest before dinner.

'And now, my dear Vicar,' said Felix, linking his arm into his brother's, and leading him to a walk beneath a wisteria-covered wall, 'let me hear what brought you to this laudable resolution.'

'I wish it may be laudable,' said poor Clement, brushing away a couple of great tear-drops; 'I only know I have taken leave of all comfort or ease of mind for life, and I suppose that may be right!'

'I thought,' said Felix, a little hurt, 'that my father's objection to this place was its perfect ease.'

'A good deal has gone to the bad since his time,' said Clement, 'and well it may! I could think of nothing but the traffic in Babylon the Great of "the souls of men," and wonder whether I was sharing in it! Not a word as to my fitness or unfitness, not an attempt at inquiry! I might be the veriest disgrace to my Orders for what they cared, so long as my name is Underwood!'

'And, Edward!' said Felix, 'I can't but be touched to see how the poor old man feels it an act of restitution. It is the best he knows, Clem, his first step, and I am glad you have not baulked him of it.'

'It is a vicious and rotten system altogether,' said Clement, 'and I am not sure how far one is justified in submitting to it.'

'And now, without going into the question of lay-patronage, what brought you to submit to it?'

'I'll tell you, Felix. I set out to walk with Smiles, to see the place, and set Shaw so far on his way home. We went on beyond the village street, where all looks smooth and fair--all roses and gable-ends--like the model place you fancy it, and maybe it was in Father's time. On by the little river--'

'The Leston. Isn't it beautiful?'

'It is like places I saw in Wales. Well, there is another little ravine running down to meet that--very wild--a show place.'

'Blackstone Gulley. Isn't there a quarry?'

'Indeed there is; and such a set of hovels round it, run up in a hollow without a notion of health or comfort! It seems the demand for the stone is uncertain; so these wretched quarrymen are half their time poaching and pilfering, a villainous ferocious lot, that do all the harm in the neighbourhood--in fact, the Squire flew into a rage at the very name. He had forbidden anything from his house to be given to them; and even the Miss Hepburns were afraid to go among them. What are you laughing at, Felix?'

'Because I see why Mr. Smiles took you that way. Go on.'

'He took us to the best point of view, but told us we had better not go down, as typhus was raging there. I offered to wait if he had any one to visit; and behold! it was against the principles of both to go unless they were sent for. Mr. Shaw said it was making oneself too common, and Mr. Smiles had to consider Mrs. Smiles and the children. By that time we had been seen, and a woman sallied out to speak to him; and would you believe it, he tried to warn her off with "You see I have gentlemen with me! I always tell you to go to Mr. Tripp!" Then it struck me that I need not stand on the etiquette our Vicar is always so particular about, since it is nobody's parish just now, and I had the offer; so I offered to go and see what she wanted. Smiles said a good deal about the deceitfulness of the women, and the danger of venturing when the men were at home, as if one had never been down a court in Whittingtonia.'

'And was it very bad?'

'Bad, yes. Except that there's clear air and water outside, it is as miserable as anything I ever saw in town, and more squalid and savage. Four huts with cases of typhus! Though after all, it is not worse than our district is in the winter; and it is by tens, while that is by hundreds. Moreover, Ewmouth is getting into this parish, building fast on this side. When I saw and heard those two men, and knew the place would be turned over to one or other of them, I could not leave it to such a fate!'

'Quite right; and not at all what the curate expected.'

'I had thought,' continued Clement, 'that such clergy had become extinct; but I suppose nothing of a better stamp would have put up with the poor man we buried to-day. I had imagined the choice only lay between me and some one who, if without my advantages, would be superior in experience and weight; but now I see the alternative: it is plain that it is a call, though why--why it should have come to me, I cannot think.'

'Perhaps,' said Felix, 'because we are especially bound to fight against the evil our family has allowed to accumulate.'

'At my age, and all alone! I say, Felix,' after a pause, 'can one get the key of the church?'

'The door into the cloister used not to be kept locked,' said Felix, turning in that direction; and then, struck by the loveliness of the lights and shadows, and the banksias trailing over the cloister tracery, he could not help exclaiming, 'There's no place like it! You will grow very fond of it, Clem!'

'I dare say I shall,' said Clement, to whose eyes the beauty seemed to go for nothing, and who was quite past his usual heed to keeping up his dignity with his brothers; 'I dare say I shall when I have worked here a little while; but I had rather have had the dingiest cell in the clergy-house and Fred Somers. Just as I had got back, when we thought we should have such a time of it--working together there, for life perhaps!'

'You might have him for a curate.'

'Fred! He'd never come to "easy duty in a romantic country and eligible neighbourhood,"' indignantly quoted Clement; 'and for my part, with only a population of eight hundred, if I were to set up a curate, I should just give myself over to be a fat, double-chinned, easy-going incumbent!'

'You're a good way from that,' said Felix, looking at the tall slight being by his side; 'but I think you are right. I am as sorry for you as can be, Clem, when I think of your pleasant evenings at the clergy-house, and what it will be with that poor old man; but you see he ought to be cared for as well as the parish, and there is no one but you who can do it.'

'I must try!' said Clement, with something of a gasp.

'Well,' said Felix, who had by this time reached the door, 'I do feel obliged to you, Clement. This helps me immensely.'

It was a great consolation to Clement that one person at least did not congratulate him on the preferment that weighed on him so sorely; but after he had spent some time alone in the church, he had mastered himself, and was quite satisfactory all the evening. Their dinner companions were the widow and her mother. The former did not look very much crushed, though she carried a large pocket-handkerchief; and her mother declared that nothing could have brought her down but her desire to be acquainted with her cousins. Felix could not help thinking of the pic-nic; and before long he perceived the drama that was being enacted. Her great object was evidently to stay on, and continue the ruler of the Priory; and Mr. Underwood was equally desirous to get her, not only out of the house, but out of the village; but he could not quite tell her so on the day of the funeral, and hints neither of them would take. Then she fastened upon Clement, and discoursed to him about her charities, and her regrets that during her dear Fulbert's long decline she could do so little; only she knew things were in such excellent hands with the Miss Hepburns, good old ladies, perfectly devoted, treasures for any parish; but for herself--she was only too much at liberty now, she should be delighted to go the round of the parish with him, and introduce him to her own peculiar pets!

Clement could not snub direct; but he only bowed, he did not commit himself; only in all simplicity he did ask about these charities, and only succeeded in raising a mist of words, in which the desirableness of not destroying self-dependence, and the pauperizing tendency of liberality, were the prominent ideas.

Clement ventured a question about Blackstone Gulley; but Mrs. Underwood hurriedly cautioned him under her breath not to say a word about it before the Squire, it excited him so fearfully--the people were such desperate poachers and thieves, and did such wanton mischief! They were evidently viewed as quite out of the pale of humanity.

Little did the lady imagine that they were the chief attraction to the Vicar-elect!

The brothers had to be off so early the next morning, that they made their farewells that night. Mrs. Underwood hospitably told Clement they would be better acquainted; but when he took leave with the old Squire, his hand was held fast, while the broken eager voice entreated, 'You'll soon be back--you'll come soon? You shall have the study, and any rooms in the house you like.--Been down to the stables? Just say which saddle-horse you like best; I'll have him kept for you.'

'Thank you, Sir, but I am a very good walker.' (Felix was glad he did not say he could not ride--a degeneracy in an Underwood that plainly had not occurred to the Squire.)

'Nonsense! Can't get about in this country without a horse. Mind, I didn't mean that you should keep it for yourself. Take a look, if you have not yet, and say which of the two.'

'The quietest!' exclaimed Clement, in a tone nearly of entreaty, diverting to his elder brother, who had had enough pony-back before his eighth year, with a little subsequent refreshment on Mr. Audley's horse, to give him a pitying disdain for anxieties on that score.

'Eh? You are a steady-going parson--don't want a showy beast? That's as young parsons are now-a-days. Well, you shall have the chestnut, very good to ride or drive. Write, I say, as soon as you can fix your day. You might see the Bishop in town. Only don't,' lowering his voice, 'leave me long alone with Jane.'

Just after the hot water had been brought to the brothers' rooms the next morning, there was a simultaneous knocking at the door of communication, and then an equally simultaneous turning of the handles, which was of course ineffectual, till Felix let go, and Clement got it open; and they stood laughing at each other, each holding an envelope, one addressed to F. Underwood, Esquire, the other to the Reverend Edward Underwood, each containing a cheque for £10, and scrawled on the flap of each--'To cover expenses of journey. F.U.'

'Expenses of journey--poor old man!' said Felix. 'It would go some way to a special train!'

'I suppose this is myself,' said Clement.

'Ah, you'll have to resign yourself to be Edward for the rest of your days.'

'Do you mean to take it?'

'Impossible not to let him have the pleasure of it. Poor man, depend upon it he is wishing it had been my father all the time. And it might have been--' Felix's face quivered and contracted. 'No, it won't do to think of that. But, Clem, look here--we won't exactly walk from Paddington; but deducting the one pound five that this really has cost me, you shall take the rest of mine for Blackstone Gulley.'

'It must have cost you more.'

'No, for I was coming to town any way. Did I not tell you that I am to meet poor Edgar's creditors on Cherry's behalf, and settle with them?'

'Poor Cherry! It has been a noble thing for her to have carried out, but one cannot but feel it wasted.'

'No,' said Felix, 'she will never feel it so. Whatever she may do for the future, she will be able to feel that she has been just before she was generous. Remember, she will have sent our name home again cleared of debt. I am proud to owe that to her! Now, whichever of us is ready first must write the old man a grateful note, and we will both sign it.'

'Stay, Felix! I can't have you giving this to my people. I shall have plenty.'

'In time, but I don't expect you will have much in hand for some time; and if the Squire is so furious against these people, you won't like to ask him. Besides, they are my people, in a way, as well as yours; and if this is really the earnest of my inheritance, I should like it to go to them.'

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