XLV. THE MYRTLE SPRAY…

XLV. THE MYRTLE SPRAY

'He smiled, "Shall I complain if joy go by With summer days and winter follow it? If He who gave the gladness I have known, Shall take it from me, shall I make my moan? Nay, for it all is His, the joy, the pain, The weeping and the mirth, the buoyant breath Of happy toil; the mist on weary brain; The turmoil of our life, the hush of death: And neither life nor death--things near nor far, Shall sever us from Him whose own we are."' Autumn.

The Vale Leston waggonette was waiting at the Ewmouth Station to meet the express on an August afternoon, and in it sat Geraldine, her heart in her eager eyes.

Felix was coming out of the station with--oh! what a robust, brown, bronzed Ferdinand, and between them, a little fragile, shrinking figure, dragging his feet with a certain stiffness and effort. That was all she saw till he was lifted in Fernan's arms to her kiss, and passively endured it.

'Will you come by me, Travis?' asked Felix, ascending to the driving seat.

'Will you stay with your aunt, Gerald?'

'Oh, come! don't leave me!' in a plaintive voice, were the first words Cherry heard from her nephew.

'I believe I had better. He feels the jar less,' said Ferdinand, seating himself within, and lifting the child on his knee. 'Geraldine, I say,'--bending forward and indicating Felix--'is he all right?'

'O yes! quite! he only feels the strain a little now and then,' she asseverated.

'I did not know him till he spoke,' said Ferdinand. 'He is grown so much stouter and so pale.'

'We are all getting middle aged, you know,' faintly laughed Cherry.

'Not you, Geraldine, I never saw you looking so well.'

'That's the place. It has done us all good--only strains are endless worries, and he can't take as much exercise as usual. He has thought so much of your coming too--he will be much better now it is over. Little Gerald! little Gerald, our dear little boy!' said she, trying to take the small thin hand that lay on the little black knee, and to look beneath the broad grass hat.

'Take off your hat, my man,' said Ferdinand; 'let your aunt see your face.'

The child obeyed, and sat leaning against his friend, holding his hat in both hands, and gazing full at Geraldine, out of a pair of eyes, which, after what she had heard, rather disappointed her by not being of the family blue, but soft liquid brown; but the skin was delicately fair, and the features of the true Underwood cast, strangely startling her by recalling Theodore, not the mindless Tedo of daily life, but such as he had lain in the Oratory only with those great mournful eyes and a soul intensely looking out of them. The hair too was very light, of the same silkworm fineness as Theodore's, and falling in the selfsame masses of glossy waves. Ferdinand parted these aside caressingly, and showed a curved red scar that made her shudder and ask 'Is it well?'

'Quite. It did not go deep, and even the other is entirely healed now,' said Ferdinand, 'though its effects are more lasting. However, he found his legs on board ship.'

'Are you tired, my dear?' she asked, feeling as if another moment of the gaze of the big sad eyes would make her cry.

'I'm used up,' he said, piteously, but though the phrase was Yankee, the weary tone was English, and gentlemanlike.

'Poor dear little man! We shall be at home presently, and then you shall rest, and have tea.'

A smile broke out on the little face--a smile approving him truly as Edgar's son, as, glancing up through those long black eye-lashes, he asked, 'Are you Chérie?'--(not Cherry, but Edgar's own exclusive title for her).

'Chérie! To be sure I am, my own dear, dear little boy,' and the tears started while she smiled.

'Then will you tell me the rest of the stories?'

'What stories?'

'The story about the poor man that had the burthen and went the long journey, between the lions and up the hill Difficulty. When Daddy couldn't remember, he says you know it all.'

She withstood the impulse to call out to Felix, knowing that a turn to look back always hurt him, and only said, 'Yes, my dear, I'll tell you all my stories. What a traveller you are! how did you like the sea?'

'All but the womanfolk,' said the boy gravely.

'Oh! Gerald!'

'You're not womanfolk,' he answered.

'Eh! what then?' she asked, endeavouring to look into the brown eyes, but their black fringes were down now, and he nestled to his protector, into whose ear he whispered what was repeated to her in a sort of aside:

'She's just Daddy's Chérie, the darling.'

How well she knew them for Edgar's words! She longed to have him in her arms, but she saw by the manner in which Fernan held him that the strong support was needed to break the vibration of the carriage. 'Did you carry him so all across America?' she asked.

'Nearly. Even Pulleman's cars shook him, and he could bear it less then than now. The voyage did him a world of good, and every one was kind to him, but he's as bad a misogynist as ever Lance's Miles. There were but five women at Fiddler's Ranch, and only one white, and they called them all aunts. You'll have to drop that distinction! And may I keep him in my room till he has had time to get used to the strange house?'

'And the strange beings,' said Cherry. 'It will be a great blow to Sibby, who had begun to cheer up at thought of him; but as she never had Theodore at night, she may bear it better.'

'Ah! that loss must have been much felt, though no one could wish it otherwise.'

'No one has felt it so much as he,' said Cherry, glancing up to her brother. 'He had really the mother's love for the weakest. I wonder if he will see the likeness I do! I feel as if Tedo were come back, with what was lacking.'

'And Stella?'

'Oh! Stella--' she suppressed with difficulty, 'has another interest,' and changed to--'Stella has turned into a woman, and is the most helpful person about the house.'

'Whom shall I find at home?'

'The regular domestic establishment, including Bernard, but Lance comes on Saturday, and Robin--she has not been at home since September, but the De la Poers have all settled down at the baths at Töplitz, and his Lordship is coming back on business, and escorts her to London, where Lance meets her. You'll find Will Harewood too--good fellow, I know he thought Clement overtasked, so he has taken no pupils this year, except that he is coaching Bernard for Keble College, and says he is come to learn parish work, and you would never believe what an excellent clergyman old Bill makes.'

Here they reached that spot where ten years previously the charms of Vale Leston had first broken on Felix, and this time he could not help looking back to call out 'Look, Fernan! Hold Gerald up to see the place.'

Ferdinand lifted the boy to look over the empty side of the driving seat, exclaiming himself 'How lovely! There's nothing like an English village!'

'It's a ranch and not a city,' said the boy.

'It is home, Gerald, your home,' said Felix, trying to get a view of his face, which expressed more wonder than admiration.

He looked puzzled as they drove over the bridge, and when they came among the grass and trees of the park where John Harewood's fine short-horns were grazing, he asked 'Where's the store?'

'He has only heard of Bexley!' cried Cherry. 'Not here, my dear; uncle Lance takes care of that.'

'And the paper?' asked Gerald, much to her amusement, but just then they drew up at the door, where all the rest were assembled to meet them, including Wilmet and her boys, who were both dancing about, shouting at the top of their voices for a drive round to the stables. It was too much for the new-comer, he clung to Fernan with a scream, burying his face in his breast, and trembling all over, and Fernan, saying he was always frightened at any sudden outcry, asked leave to lay him at once on his bed, and let him sleep before there were any more introductions.

Felix showed the spare room, and after an interval Ferdinand rejoined them, saying the little fellow was asleep. Cherry asked if she should sit by him.

'No, thank you, he does not mind being alone, and as long as he sees my portmanteau he will know it is all right. It is numbers and noise that frighten him, I sometimes think he has never got the Indian war-whoop out of his ears. They talked of his bravery at the ranch, but that is all gone now.'

'From helplessness, very possibly,' said Felix.

'That is fast improving, but his nerves have had a shock that does not pass off. Besides, I find the poor little fellow somehow fancied he should meet his father here. I had no notion till now that he supposed he was going back to Fiddler's Ranch and the old life when he heard of home.'

'It must have been all like a long horrible dream,' said Cherry.

'I don't understand it,' said Ferdinand; 'he was scarcely sensible when I took him away, and he called me Daddy till his mind grew clearer. He seems always watching for some one. I did explain it all, and then I thought he understood, and he knows what death means, but somehow he does not realize it with regard to his father.'

'Very likely,' said Wilmet, 'his impression varies according to whether he is well, or tired and feverish.'

'I never thought of that!' said Fernan, 'I believe it is so--for when he is pretty well, he is the smartest little thing I ever saw, always asking questions, and reading! I believe he read every book on board! And he was very funny there, ready to talk to any one, provided it was not woman.'

'Has he any religious feeling?' asked Clement.

'Yes. He said his little prayers--poor Edgar had taught him that--and, and I thought you would like me to tell him what I could.'

'No one has so much right,' said Felix. 'Fernan, I have been remembering the time when I was angry with Mr. Audley for taking you into our house--as I thought to corrupt Lance.'

'Well, I did my best, or worst, to corrupt Fulbert,' he said smiling; 'and if you and Lance had not been what you were, you would have seen me in much truer colours. I had no training like what Edgar gave his boy. You will find him a wonderfully good little fellow, marvellously shielded from evil.'

'You think he may safely play with our boys?' asked Wilmet.

Fernan smiled sadly. 'Play, poor little fellow, he is a long way from their play as yet! But he is a far safer companion for them than I was for your brothers. He has hardly ever spoken to a child of his own age; I believe there was one black baby and one half-caste papoose in the Ranch, but childhood was not otherwise represented, and he was afraid of the few we had in the steamer.'

'He must have been a most incessant charge,' said Felix.

'But I don't think I ever enjoyed anything so much,' said Fernan. 'I wish you didn't want him!'

'You see how little Cherry could spare him,' said Felix. 'But you will make us a long visit, till he is quite at home.'

'I thank you; I couldn't go till he has grown happy with you--happier, I hope, than he has been with me, poor little man; but as soon as I can, I shall run up to London, and there's a matter I must go to Spain about before I return far West.'

'At any rate this is your home in England, Fernan. You know we can't thank you, but you are more than ever one of ourselves.' And Felix held out his hand for a tremulous grasp of Ferdinand's.

Gerald did seem in great need of his friend when he awoke. He recoiled in dismay at the stairs. 'Oh! those dreadful things are here too!'

For he had never seen a staircase till he was carried down that of the hotel at Sacramento, and his limbs had so far been affected by the spinal damage that he could only as yet move with difficulty on a level surface, and needed to be carried down with his eyes shut, that he might not see the giddy height. He consented to sit by Chérie at the evening meal, and was not ungracious to the other members of the family, comporting himself discreetly, gazing out of those enormous eyes at the novel scene, and fraternising with Scamp, who adopted him at once as an Underwood.

He had made up his mind as to his eldest uncle, and when they rose, crept up to him and, putting his frail little lizard's hand into his, said tentatively, 'Blunderbore!' and as Felix started, hardly knowing whether to laugh or cry, he added, 'I want to see the Pursuivant,' uttering all the syllables with great clearness and deliberation.

Much delighted, Felix took him into his study, when he examined the last roll of proof with profound sagacity, and said eagerly, 'I can fix off a sheet for you,' accepting his uncle much more as editor than as squire.

The introduction to Sibby was tolerably successful, he detected that she talked like 'Kerry Micksey,' his chief playmate at the Ranch, and she was the only person he accepted as an aunt. Felix was too glad to be dubbed Blunderbore again to object to the familiarity; they taught him to term Clement the Vicar, and the others went by their unadorned names. It was remarkable that Bernard, though growing up into a fine manly beauty much resembling Edgar's, did not seem to recall any association; but on the Saturday afternoon, when Cherry was sitting with him under the cedar-tree, a low sweet whistle made him start, scramble to his feet, and as Lance came forward, he threw himself upon him with an ecstatic shout of 'Daddy, daddy.' And as Lance stooped down and gathered him into his arms tenderly, saying 'Poor little chap,' no doubt the tone and gesture kept up the delusion, for he clung in a rapture that it seemed cruel to disturb. 'What shall I do, Cherry?' said Lance, much distressed. 'Oh! my poor little fellow, if I could but change myself!'

By that time doubt had wakened, the arms were unwound from his neck, and Gerald, after a moment's contemplation, gave a sad low cry, struggled down, and hid his face on Cherry's lap, then lay passively against her while she fondled him with her hand, taking no notice in word, except by distinctly letting him hear his uncle's name. 'Lance! how came you so early, and where's Robina? Felix is gone to Ewmouth, thinking to meet you by the express.'

'We got off from town earlier than we expected; and walked from Church Ewe, and meeting Bill in the village, of course I stepped out and left them to their bliss.'

Lance looked well, and spoke as if he had attained to steady if not high spirits. In fact, though asking anxiously after Felix, he was plainly gratified by the entire trust and satisfaction shown in himself as a substitute; some of his articles in the Pursuivant had been a success in the circle that cared for them, and one on an important subject had actually been copied into a London paper, a distinction that had not so often befallen even Felix as not to make it exhilarating. What made far more difference to him, Mr. Bevan had finally resigned, and the new rector had a bright young wife, who had been a school friend of Robina's, and both had accepted Lance on terms of equality, so that he had more access to society than had ever been his lot before, and found himself treated as an important ally in all matters for the benefit of the parish. His life was evidently far more cheerful than in the previous year, and he had done what he had declared he should do--'got over' his fit of depression, i.e. resigned himself, and therefore recovered a certain power of enjoyment as well as interest in his work. Cherry reproached him with never having come home since Whitsuntide.

'No possibility of getting away,' he said.

'Not with Mutton as a pièce de resistance.'

'Mutton's Madame requires recruiting at Dearport and the frequent solace of her cosset.'

'O Lance! what a boy you are for being put upon.'

'Don't row me, Cherry, I get enough of that from Mrs. Frog. By-the-by, she's going to let Marshlands for a year to the squire while he is enlarging his house, and we are to have Prothero's rooms. The dear old Croak says she'll not have me catching my death on that nasty velocipede another winter.'

'Ah! if you had but brought her back to our old quarters! You should never have allowed the Giant to let Madame in! But tell me, Lance,' she added in a different tone, 'has she shown any feeling?'

'Lamb was in a state of mind about telling her, and wanted me to do it, which I declined, so he fetched Miss Pearson, and came down quite proud to tell me she had had hysterics. What a sheep it is, to be sure! He adores whatever she does! And then her spirits and health required the parade at Dearport.'

'You don't believe in it?'

'I only know that whenever I had to go to Dearport I always saw her best bonnets bobbing about among the ladies, or met her on the parade with Gussy and Killy looking like princes. I called to see Sister Constance one day, I thought she would like to hear about you all. And, Cherry, did you know that Angel had sent back her medal as an associate, and without a word?'

'Just what I should have expected.'

'They did not like to write about it till they knew more. Now I believe the chaplain has.'

'She has said nothing about it. In fact, she is much more with the Hepburns than at home, and they have really done her some good. She was quite meek when we fell in with all the Walshes' guests the other day. I wonder whether she will thaw to Robina! Ah! here they come!'

William and Robina were walking arm-in-arm, deeply content to be together, but grave and subdued.

'How still it all sounds!' was Robina's exclamation, and though the others smiled, it was with a sigh at the thought of the low humming that they all missed.

The hush over the house struck her more than anything. When last she had been at home the whole place seemed vocal with unrestrained life and mirth, all the brothers and some of the sisters went about whistling or singing, every one was always shouting to every one, Stella's doves cooing, the clock chiming, Theodore a continual musical-box, but now, though chimes and doves had not ceased, the soft undercurrent was gone, and so was the gay ring of mirth.

'It is as if there were something quelled,' she said, pausing for the word, when she went out for a turn with Will in the light of the broad harvest moon, rising red over the woods.

'So we are,' said he. 'There is something about the place that reminds me of going into the garden when everything is lying broken and weighed down by a storm, the sunshine making diamonds of the drops, but rain-drops still.'

'Angel is so different,' said Robin, 'and Felix's looks appal me: and yet Cherry seems easy about him.'

'So would you be if you had seen him two months ago,' said Will. 'I don't think any one is really anxious about him but Clement.'

'Oh! if it is only Clement, I don't care.'

'Working under Clement gives a very different notion of him,' said Will; 'you can't think how much I find I have to learn now I come to the real practical thing, among simple folk. It humbles me as much as it refreshes me, after the forcing-house at Oxford. I say, Robin, how long is this to go on?

'How long?' echoed Robina sadly.

'Nay, listen: Clement is going to set up a curate in the new house, as is to be, and £200 a year. I am sure of pupils.'

'Please don't ask me, Will. It is so very hard, and my better sense won't let me.'

'Then put away that better sense, as you call it, I don't.'

'I can't put away the recollection of my father dying of toil and privation. I should feel it killing you to consent.'

He felt rather than saw she was crying as she leant against him, but he tried to laugh and say, 'I am a tougher subject, Bobbie; we've neither of us been tenderly reared. Besides, here it would be different.'

'Yes, because we should prey on our families. No, Willie, I made a solemn resolution never to drag you down, and I will keep it.'

'You're far too wise for me,' he began, displeased.

'Don't be foolish, and break my heart over it! Oh! Willie, if you get angry, I can't bear it now, it is all so sad.'

The mute caress answered, but each was a little relieved to say 'Hark,' as the silence was broken by the sharp wail of Edgar's violin, which Lance was handling to ascertain in what condition it had arrived.

'Is your voice all right, Lancey?' asked Felix, as he spoke of the choral meetings.

'Just what I want to know. I've not sung to any one I could trust to tell me the sound of it. Miss Grey likes it well enough, but then she never heard it before, and I don't know whether the best high notes have not thickened.'

'What will you try? said Clement 'I'm not sure that "Chloe's disdain" did not show you off as well as any.'

'Then Angel--where is she?'

'Angel anathematises light and profane songs on the eve of the honourable sabbath,' said Bernard; 'I wish she was here to have her ears pulled.'

'No, it is not so much that,' said Cherry, 'as that she cannot bear secular music since that unlucky song. But here's Stella, the universal stop-gap, to be Chloe.'

It was a fine old seventeenth-century dialogue song, a sort of heir-loom in the family--the lady's part full of the pert coy disdain that passed for maidenliness, the swain's of a pathetic steadfast constancy, and there was a variety in the expression that had always given scope for the peculiar beauties of Lance's voice. But as he sang it now, it was not only as a musical exercise or 'crack song,' the manly melancholy stirred the depths of a sad but resolute heart that could hardly have otherwise poured itself out. So two of the hearers understood it, and Cherry, clasping Felix's hand, found the pressure returned.

It was only Clement who, as the last sweet quiver died away, was disengaged enough to say, 'You seem to me to have gained instead of lost.'

He muttered something about a German air left upstairs, and ran away.

'I'm afraid it is Philomel against the thorn,' murmured Felix in his sister's ear.

And Clement, in an undertone, uttered the two words 'whosoever hath,' and Stella, of course mentally supplying the continuation, perceived that he was thinking how the voice treated as a means of praising divine glory had survived in its purity and freshness under the same danger that had been fatal to the gift that had been the temptation and ruin of its owner--a thought better suited to Clement's stern sad nature than to his little sister; and instead of answering, she began to play Mozart's requiem.

It was long before Lance returned. 'It was that poor little Gerald,' he said. 'I wish I had thought of it--when he heard the violin, he thought his Daddy was really come at last. I nearly tumbled over the little white bundle in the gallery. Poor morsel, I suppose he was almost asleep, for when I picked him up, feeling like just nothing at all without his clothes, he firmly believed I was Edgar masquerading; and the more I coaxed him in the dark, the more he implored me, "Oh! Daddy, don't go on, be Daddy, I know you, I do! 'Tisn't play," till he almost broke one's heart--I thought I should have to call Fernan.'

'And how did you manage him, poor darling?'

'It was curious. One of those shouts that they give in the harvest when they clear the last sheaf in a field came in, and made him shudder in horror. "The Indians," he said, and then, after I had told him what it was, I said, "Yes, you heard the Indians once, didn't you?" and he answered, "Oh! yes, Daddy told me, 'Never mind, my brave boy, it can't last long. Shut your eyes, and say your prayers!' and he held me tight, tight."'

'Then that is the last recollection he has of his father! A noble one!' said Felix, with a sound of thankfulness.

'So I told him,' pursued Lance, 'that Daddy was right, and it hadn't lasted long. I just told him the real story, and how his father gave him to Mr. Travis to bring to us. I told him how poor Edgar used to teach me to play on his fiddle, and I think he really was relieved to lose the confusion about identity, and he knew me at last for the Lance who used to sing "Jim Crow." I told him all I could, and looked at the marks on his poor little back and breast. How did he live, Fernan?'

'I can hardly tell; I suppose life is very strong in a healthy child, and that torpor of benumbed nerves saved him much pain.'

'I fancy poor Edgar had told him a good many stories about us, for he asked me all manner of odd questions about home, and I am to take him there when he is well. Meantime I had to sing him to sleep--"like that," he said, poor little fellow; and he started Sibby's old croon that used to be Baby's name for her.'

'The child has adopted you, Lance,' said Felix, when he saw Gerald riding down to breakfast in the new uncle's arms, with an arm round his neck and his head on his shoulder. 'Should you not like him to be your godfather, Gerald?'

'No, Gerald, that can only belong to Mr. Travis, and your uncle Felix.'

'Travis, of course,' said Felix; 'but for me, it would be too like a parent, and--' he paused, but went on: 'You ought to have that tie--you who brought out that final saying from his father. Never let him forget it. It is so perfectly the spirit in which to meet the unavoidable.'

He certainly had a power of transmuting into comfort all he heard of this beloved brother. It had been decided that the boy should be admitted into the church on this, his first Sunday. Ferdinand was anxious that it should be, like his own baptism, his first sight of the interior of a church, and had been preparing him for it all the way home, so that he knew a good deal more than had yet been made to adhere to his cousin Kester, and his replies had a flavour of St. Matthew's that delighted Clement. It did not seem right that the thing should be done in a corner, and in the first strangeness numbers would make less difference than after he had learnt to know the faces round him; so they resolved to face the full congregation at once, large as it was apt to be in the afternoon; for there had of late arisen among the young men of Ewmouth a fashion of walking out to church at Vale Leston, attracted partly by the choir and partly by the preaching.

It was too long for Gerald's feeble limbs to be kept standing, and though he was tall for his age, Ferdinand Travis took him in his arms where the questions and replies startled the unprepared. 'Who baptized this child?' when the answer, 'I did,' came from the jet-black beard of the great American merchant, more like a Spanish grandee than ever; and 'With what matter was this child baptized?' was responded to 'With water'--there was a thought of the blood that had oozed forth and mingled with the 'lucid flood,' and Clement's voice trembled with emotion as he certified that all was well done, and as he signed the cross, it was where, in anticipation, Ferdinand had marked the rood, and as Geraldine's eye traced the little coronal that the cruel knife had scored, her whole heart went into the thought.

'Thus outwardly and visibly We seal thee for His own; And may the brow that bears the cross Hereafter bear the crown.'

Strange was the entry in the parish register regarding the child whom his uncle treated as heir of his house and name, but at whom every one looked with compassionate misgiving, so weird were his great pensive dark eyes, so thin his cheeks, so feeble his movements, so complete the contrast to his sturdy cousin Christopher, the one all mind and the other all body.

Felix wished for London advice for him, and, as there was to be a clerical meeting on Tuesday at Richard May's, proposed to drive with Clement as far as Stoneborough to ask the two physicians what they would recommend. Lancelot only discovered this intention just as he was stepping into the boat in which Bernard was going to take him to Ewmouth to meet the train--probably he fancied his face quite impassive, but it was far too transparent for him, and there was a curious gust of expression passing over it when Felix asked whether he had any commands for Stoneborough. 'N-not--at least, my--my--remember me to them. That's all! good-bye.'

Then he expended his energies on the oars, and snubbed Bernard into silent smoking, meanwhile he was calculating the increase of means that had accrued to Felix, and would surely render marriage possible.

Felix found his call happily timed, for Dr. May received him with, 'That's right. Just as the last patient has made his exit. Nay--not the last. I fear your side does not seem to have mended.'

'Not much, thank you.'

'So I see, but wait a bit. You are Tom's concern, and I shall get into disgrace if I go into it without him. You can stay?'

'Yes, I ventured to think you would house me while Clement is sitting in council.'

'That is well. I need not go out till after dinner. Gertrude is at home, but Ethel is gone to Cocksmoor to see after feeding the divines. Don't you find that an uncommon excitement to the clergywomen? Well, have you got the poor little boy?'

'Yes, a sweet little fellow, but in an anxious state. The spine seems affected still, and I want to know to whom you would advise me to show him--I must get some one while Travis is with us to tell what the American surgeons said.'

'That's another matter for Tom. He knows the present leading men better than I do. I'll send up word to him to look in when he gets back from the hospital.'

'There is a third matter,' said Felix, with a blushing smile, when the message had been despatched, 'not so professional.'

'Eh?' said the doctor with arrested attention.

'It is this,' said Felix in the deliberate manner of one who had long conned his part. 'Should you regard it as intolerable presumption in my brother Lancelot to raise his eyes to your daughter Gertrude?'

'Your brother!!!'

'Yes, sir. Lancelot. I could release him from the retail business and make over the Pursuivant to him. He would have rather more than £500 a year, and if--'

'Lance!' again exclaimed the doctor. 'So it is Lance! I beg your pardon, I had been hoping it was yourself.'

'You will hardly hope that long, sir.'

'What do you mean? That hurt? What has been----'

'That will wait. Do not let me lose this opportunity,' said Felix, rather breathlessly. 'It is not only my health. For all essentials, whatever you are kind enough to think of me, Lance is that and a great deal more, and he is deeply smitten, poor fellow, and needs affection and happiness so much,' he continued, a little hurt at the smile that played on the doctor's features, and broadened into a laugh.

'Well, I've no right to complain after setting the lad on.'

'You, sir?'

'Ay. When he was brooding and moping in the winter, fancying no girl would look at him, I told him, by way of shaking him up, that I should be ashamed of one who stuck at his occupation. It is like giving a boy a gun, and wondering when he brings down your tame jackdaw. One ought to have experience by the time it comes to one's youngest, but I suppose I should never get it if I were the father of the fifty Danaides.'

'May I gather that you would not think the disadvantages insurmountable? I know it does not sound well, but Lance is in a better position than mine was. He is a good deal thought of in the town; is intimate at the Rectory; and if he lived in the country, and dropped the retail, I can answer for it that there would be plenty of society such as your daughter would care to have. If I foresaw mortification, it would not be right to expose her to it.'

'Somehow my girls care rather too little than too much about society,' said the doctor. 'I shall be the sufferer. How I shall catch it from Tom and the rest!'

'Thank you, sir.'

'Not so fast. Stay a bit. How far has it gone? The boy has not spoken to her?'

'Not in so many words. He does not dare, and I could not venture to encourage him till I knew what you thought. Indeed he has been chained to Bexley ever since I have been laid up.'

'He is a thoroughly nice fellow,' allowed the doctor; 'he let out a good deal of his inner self to me last winter. If worth were to have it----'

'He would stand first,' said Felix eagerly. 'To tell you what he has been to all of us these----'

'Hush, here comes our professor. He was fuming like quicklime at Daisy's escapade the morning after your accident. A wholesome preparation.'

About an hour later the dinner bell brought down Gertrude and her nephew Dickie. She started, and a thrill of colour passed over her face as she met Mr. Underwood at the table, and, laughing rather nervously, begged him to excuse deficiencies, as Ethel, the cook, the parlour-maid, and all the best knives and forks were gone to Cocksmoor.

It struck her that her father was grave and silent, but her heart was, as usual, full of Vale Leston and Cherry, and she catechised him next on all the ins and outs with which her visit had made her familiar, he replying in detail with his natural quiet humour, though whenever Lance's name came up, he could not help colouring a little. He delighted and excited Dickie with Bernard's cricketing feats, and the doctor waked into interest from his abstraction. He had to go out directly after, taking with him Dickie, who now held the holiday privilege of being his charioteer.

'You had better take a rest after your drive,' said the doctor to Felix. 'Nobody will disturb you in the drawing-room.'

Felix willingly reclined in the great easy chair, only begging Gertrude not to think it necessary to leave him, and as she wished nothing better than to stay, she took her work and sat down. At first all was still; he had put his head back, with closed eyes, in the relaxation of complete lassitude, but his countenance did not give the impression of sleep. It was weary and exhausted, though placid, and gradually an expression of reflection came over it, deepening into anxiety and perplexity, until after about twenty minutes he opened his eyes, and looked at her with a pleasant smile.

'I hope you are rested,' she said.

'A good deal, thank you;' then, after a pause, 'Did I tell you that Lance has quite recovered his voice?'

'I am glad; I have never heard him.'

'You must, then. Cherry shall manage it next time he comes home. He has been kept much too close this summer, but we must make a different arrangement.'

'Not your changing places!' cried Gertrude, 'you don't look fit!'

'I am afraid not,' he answered with weary acquiescence. 'Your father and brother have been overhauling me, and I believe my effective days are over for some time.'

'Oh!' she started, and said in an imploring tone, 'Cherry said the sprain was almost gone.'

'The sprain is,' said Felix, 'but there's something beyond. It may go on for some time, but the result is very doubtful.'

She rested her chin on her hand, her eyes dilated by the shock.

'So, you see,' he proceeded, 'I am anxious to lose no time in getting matters into order, both as regards Vale Leston and Bexley.'

'Oh!' she burst out with a cry; 'don't, don't, don't go on like that--just as if it were somebody else.'

The sound of misery convinced him that he was acting for the best in killing at once any embryo aspiration directed towards himself; more especially as he felt her more capable than any one he had met since Alice Knevett of stirring what he was resolved never to allow to be stirred. Never would he have risked this tête-à-tête but for his recent interview with the two physicians; and her sorrow touched and warmed the inmost recesses of his heart. He leant forward, saying, 'There is so little actual suffering that perhaps I feel as if it were somebody else. I have been expecting this, and there have been a weight and weariness about me which make the thought of rest not unwelcome.'

'Oh, no, no! You are quite young. Papa and Tom couldn't have said it was so bad. There can't be no hope.'

'No, there is just a chance of things taking a different turn.'

'Oh! they will! I know they will! Please don't give yourself up. That's the worst thing for any one.'

'I don't do that;' and as she came and stood by him he looked up in her face, saying, 'there is so much kindness in the world that one would gladly not leave it, if only not to grieve one's friends.'

'I wish,' with a half-angry sob, 'you wouldn't talk in that horrid resigned way.'

'This will not do, indeed, my dear.' Her weeping made the word slip out as in reasoning with one of his sisters, but it brought her colour, and the tint was reflected in his own as he said, 'I beg your pardon.'

'Oh! please, I do like it so.'

He found himself on perilous ground, for he was exceedingly drawn towards the girl, whose warmth gave him a greater sense of sweetness than ever had Alice's most gracious moments; and it was with strong effort that he preserved a sort of fatherly tone.

'Sit down again; there is a great deal I should like to tell you, if you have patience to listen.'

Patience! She would fain have listened for ever. He told her the more slowly, in order to give time to rally, the history of the family struggles, dwelling at each turn on Lance's manful part in them, and resolute sacrifice of taste and ambition, and coming down to his own inheritance at Vale Leston, with all that it had involved. The fact was that it was needful to let her perceive that he had never had it in his power to marry, and never intended it; that the only mode in which he could both do his duty by his brothers and sisters, and make restitution of the church property, was by continuing his business, being economical, and raising up no fresh claims on the estate.

Probably she did not at the moment take in the idea of this affecting any relations with her, for she exclaimed, with that hot petulance which in her was never unbecoming, 'I see, it's too late; you've spent everything on everybody else, and lived for everyone but yourself.'

'I wish I had.'

'I don't think it fair!' she passionately exclaimed. 'Why should everything come on you?'

'Perhaps, when one's forefathers have done a great wrong--ignorantly, may be--it must come on some one. I have been struck by seeing how seldom the lay rectory has gone in the direct line, and I am glad to prevent it from being bound about that poor child's unconscious neck.'

'I was wrong,' she whispered under her breath, in a sudden change of mood, as the simple-heartedness of his manner impressed her. 'You are as devoted as any of those old people.'

'Not I,' he answered. 'I have had a particularly prosaic, prosperous, comfortable life of it;' and then, thinking the scene had lasted long enough, he said, 'I should like to call on Mrs. Thomas May. Is it permissible to go through the garden?'

'How can you?' she exclaimed.

'Thank you, I am quite rested' (he might have said, as much as he ever was).

'I meant, how can you go and make trumpery trivial calls.'

'It did not answer in the year one thousand to sow no corn, in expectation of the end of the world,' he answered. 'Spiritually, as little as materially.'

He tried for his dry gentle manner, but was too much moved by her grief to make it natural.

'I'll come with you,' said Gertrude, leaping up.

He took his hat, and she a parasol, and they crossed the garden in silence till, almost at Tom's door, she exclaimed, with a choking gasp:

'Oh dear! oh dear! if there were anything I could do for you!'

'Thank you,' he answered affectionately, with a smiling trembling lip. 'One wish is very strong with me. Things may not be prepared for its fulfilment while I am here--but when it comes before you--you will remember what you say, and I think it will be granted.'

She turned, half petulantly, and plucked off the myrtle leaves.

'Are you going to give me a piece of that?' he said, smiling.

She broke off a spray in full flower.

'Thank you,' as he put it in his buttonhole. 'Perhaps some day you will see this again. Then remember.'

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

XLVI. SOUR GRAPES

'Hast thou forgot the day When my father found thee first in places far away? Many flocks were on the hills, but thou wast owned by none.' Wordsworth's 'Pet Lamb.'

The London surgeon met Tom May and Page, and gave every hope of little Gerald's ultimate recovery, though for the present there was not much to be done except watching him, and encouraging such exertion as did not excite or fatigue. Cherry was so anxious about the examination, its result and the directions she received, that she never perceived that the doctor spent a much longer time in the study with her brothers than was needed on the little boy's account.

This, her preoccupation and bliss of ignorance, was a relief to both Felix and Clement. They believed there would be ample preparation, and not only were willing to defer paining her, but would have missed her cheerfulness, and wished to spare her the protracted suspense that might undermine her health and power of meeting a crisis that might be deferred for weeks, months, nay years, or possibly might never come at all; for there was a chance that treatment might disperse the evil. The suffering did not increase, and was not constant, but only brought on by sudden movements or in certain attitudes, and any token of it was always laid to the credit of the strain. No one could fail to perceive that Felix was more inert, more grave, and, if possible, more gentle, but the acknowledged injury, as well as the loss of his two brothers, might account both for this and his disinclination to the ordinary summer gaieties. No one indeed, wished for them, now that Angela professed to have broken with the world, and Geraldine's whole mind was absorbed in the anxious tendance of the little nephew, who preferred her to all others, and was continually needing to be soothed or amused, with a precocious intellect stimulated by all he had undergone, and at the same time with spirits and nerves too much shattered to bear the least strain on mind or body. Edgar's child she must have loved, but this little tender, fitful, dependent creature, used to be the half-comprehending recipient of his sad memories and confidences, was inexpressibly dear to her.

There was hardly any visiting that summer, except the calls of a few friends, and in September Felix decided on asking the two Lambs to the Priory. He had business affairs to arrange with his partner, and thought it would be unforgiving to mortify the wife by excluding her from the invitation, so he braved Cherry's absolute indignation. Poor Cherry! had she known all, she would not have exploded as she had hardly done since her girlish contentions with Alda. 'It is really weak to give that woman her wish, and at such a time.'

'I am sorry for the infliction on you, Cherry.'

'You know very well that is not what I care for. It is the insult to dear Edgar's memory to have her here pranking herself off.'

'I cannot quite see it in that light.'

'No, you always had some infatuation about her: you sacrificed Lance to her when you let her into the house at Bexley, and now you are letting her fulfil her aim of coming gossiping here.'

'One can only try to do what one feels to be right, Cherry. I am very sorry, but I cannot be guilty of a marked slight.'

'The more marked the better, I should say.'

'Hush, Geraldine,' sternly interposed Clement; 'you forget yourself.'

She was greatly startled, for she had thought him entirely on her side.

'I understand her,' said Felix, as usual unable to bear reproof to his sister. 'No one can be more fully aware than myself of poor Mrs. Lamb's undeserts, but Cherry will one day perceive that this is the very reason I do not choose to treat her with mortifying neglect. If it be a foolish fancy of mine, my dear, please bear with it.'

She was entirely disarmed, burst into tears, undertook to do whatever he wished, and apologised for her crossness, but in private with Clement, she could not help expressing her wonder and annoyance.

'You had better say no more about it,' he answered, 'or you will be sorry.'

'I shall say no more, but it is impossible that you should not think this a great pity and mistake.'

'No, I don't.'

'I know I was wrong in flying out in my old way,' said Cherry, humbly. 'Perhaps there was more female spite in it than I know, and I am thankful to you for catching me up. Of course this is Felix's house; he invites whom he pleases, and I shall make them welcome; but still I think this is a very unnecessary attention, and if you had seen as much of her as we have, I think you would have enforced my opinion.'

He smiled a little sadly, and let it pass, and Cherry inferred that even a cassock could not guard the male sex from weak toleration of a pretty woman. Yet her loyalty was so strong that, when Wilmet's surprise and aversion were expressed with equal plainness, she maintained her brother's right to practise romantic generosity in his own house, especially since his prudence had abstained as long as any speculations could be thereby encouraged.

The visit was to last from Saturday to Monday, and in due time Mrs. Lamb made her appearance, pretty, youthful, and charmingly dressed, with her husband looking so proud of her as almost to overpower his bashfulness.

They were a great contrast, he so honestly simple and affectionate, adoring every word she uttered, however alien to his nature, and she with the claws full grown that poor Edgar had detected in the kitten. Indeed she was not unlike a handsome sleek cat or managing wife, an excellent and tender mother, dainty and demure, but not by any means indisposed to give a sharp scratch with her velvet paw.

When she exclaimed with playful surprise, 'Oh! what a queer old place. So different from what I expected!' or, 'Looking into the churchyard! It would give me the horrors in a week! Such a melancholy noise from the river!' Cherry might conclude that the grapes were sour, but the admirable Lamb was solaced by his wife's sweet preference for her humble home. Such scratches as would have been patent to that good man were reserved for his absence, as when she bewailed the low tastes of such a promising young man as Lance--Cherry made some effort to discover what she could possibly mean, and found that the low tastes signified his preference for Mrs. Froggatt's company, and his assiduity at the Shakespeare Club and Penny Readings.

Of course she commiserated Wilmet for her children's red hair--predicted that Gerald would be a cripple for life, and lamented Angela's being 'sadly gone off.' Angela did in fact avoid the lady as much as possible, and on the Sunday afternoon went off to what she had in her unconverted days been wont to term the Hepburn Methody Meeting, i.e., a Bible class with exposition and prayer held by the good ladies in their own dining-room, an institution dating from the darkest ages of the parish.

Their green-shuttered house looked out upon a space shaped like a triangle, grassy, and formed by the divergence of the Blackstone lane, the nearest approach to a village-green possessed by Vale Leston. Angela was lingering after the dismissal of the class, discussing Will Harewood's sermon, which by-the-by, the clever Miss Isabella much preferred to the Vicar's, probably because Will, a far larger-minded and more intellectual man, was a great deal the most metaphysical, and had more points of contact with her, when the sound of a bawling voice, interspersed with the singing of a hymn, became audible through the open window, and a procession consisting of a pale-faced young man, one old one, three able-bodied women, and four little girls came from the Ewmouth road, and having arrived at the triangle, the young man mounted a log of timber and began to preach. Sounds ensued which made the invalid Miss Hepburn exclaim: 'Oh! there are those people again! There will be an uproar! Oh! my dear, shut the window, and come into the other room!'

'What for?' demanded Angela, who was trying to hear.

'My dear, you can't think how dreadful it was. Such a noise, and that terrible Timins set his big dog at the preacher, and the poor old Squire said it served him right, and would not commit him.'

'Such a thing might be stopped in a moment,' cried Angela. 'Couldn't you, Miss Isabel?'

'My dear, I did not feel free when it was the message of the Gospel.'

'I didn't mean the preacher, but the persecutors. You could stop them directly.'

'Go out there! A lady, my dear Angela!' cried Miss Bridget

'One does not stick at trifles in such cases!' cried Angela.

'Trifles!' was echoed round her.

At that moment a coarse derisive laugh made Miss Hepburn scream and Miss Martha fly to shut the window, while Angela caught up her bonnet saying, 'I'll soon put an end to it.'

'My dearest Angela, you are not going out; your brother would not like it.'

'Lydia never asked what her brother liked by the river-side,' said Angela, hastily fastening her head gear.

'Oh! don't let her go. Isa--Bridget--they'll hurt her. My dear! Stop her,' entreated the sick sister.

'Miss Underwood going out to a Ranter!' cried Miss Bridget.

'Your brothers will never forgive us,' sobbed Miss Martha. And Miss Isabella laid hands on her. 'It is not proper, Angela, I cannot suffer it.'

'I cannot suffer violence to be done to one who is preaching that Name for petty scruples of worldly propriety.'

'They'll throw stones--She'll be hurt,' sobbed Miss Hepburn.

'You know better, dear Miss Hepburn,' said Angela, turning with a smile.

In another moment she was gone, out into the road.

There was a hush at once. The boys all turned round, and the nearest, a lively mischievous fellow, accosted her with a touch of his hat, and evident sense of high desert. 'Us aint a bin listening to that there chap, ma'am. Us be going to send he off faster than he came. Us don't want none of his sort.'

'How do you know that, George?' responded Angela, to his great amazement. 'How do you know he has not the very message you have been wanting so long.'

The boy opened the roundest eyes. If any opinion was strongly established, it was the ill savour of ranters in the nostrils of the gentry.

'Squire'd be against it, ma'am,' said an older man, 'and Mr. Eddard! Us knows our dooty better than to hearken to such like trash.'

'For shame, Brand,' returned the young lady. 'How dare you speak so of a man who comes in that Name. Now! Here I mean you to stand and listen. Who can tell what good he may do us?'

'Miss Angela' was the universal favorite with the village youth, having fascinated them from the first; and if they had of late remarked any change in her, it was set down to 'taking on' about her brothers, and her defence was undisputed quite as much from attachment as from sheer amazement. The preacher had, on the apparition of the tall lady in black with the lightly waving crape streamers and mantle, expected a rescue from insult and violence, but a warning to depart; and his amazement was great when she took a position in advance of the rabble rout, and signed to him to go on.

He was a man above the average of his class, and his discourse was considerably affecting Angela, when down the lane from Blackstone Gulley came Robina, Stella, Bernard, and Will Harewood, showing Mr. and Mrs. Lamb the beauties of the country.

'Holloa, what's the row? A fellow jawing away somewhere!' quoth Bernard.

'I thought you had no dissenters here, Robina,' said Mrs. Lamb.

'No more we have,' stoutly affirmed Robina, in spite of the strange voices on the blast.

'What's that?'

'An obliging mission from our neighbour.'

'Soon to be refuted by our boys,' added Bernard, 'most likely a cricket ball is flying at his bumptious head by this time! Hollo there!'

For he turned the corner and stood in blank amaze.

Alice tittered.

Robina and Stella were prepared for anything from Angela.

Even Will only perpetrated a long whistle, and the observation 'This is coming it strong.'

Bernard's measures were more decisive. After the first shock he marched forward with the peremptory admonition, 'Come, my man, be off with you, we allow none of this here.'

The young man stood his ground. 'By what authority Sir?'

'I'll soon show you--I say--You here, little Pryde, run down and tell the policeman to step up.'

'Stay Bernard,' exclaimed Will, 'this is nothing the police can interfere with.'

'Don't tell me that, canting and ranting here on our ground,' cried Bernard, with a fine development of the insolence of the lord of the soil. 'Pity you're a parson, Bill (and Lamb a sheep),' he added under his breath, 'or we'd have a jolly good shindy. All you're good for is to walk off the ladies. Here, Angel, you mad party, go with him, I say, the joke has lasted long enough.'

'I shall not move, Bernard, I am here to protect this good man from insult.'

'I tell you 'tis the very way to make me insult the impudent scoundrel to see you standing there among the rabble, making a spectacle of yourself.'

'Neither you nor any one else will touch him while I am here,' said Angela, heroically moving nearer the preacher, and further from her brother. 'He is giving us the message that is too much obscured, and I will not have him silenced. I only wish you would listen! Go on, if you please.'

But the unwonted style of this interruption had disconcerted the ardent missionary more than unlimited rotten eggs could have done. The young lady's presence, though embarrassing, had been stimulating; but when three gentlemen, including a clergyman, were added to the audience, all his confidence in his mission could not bring back his eloquence, and, addressing himself to Angela, his only attentive hearer, he said, 'The tenor of our discourse has been interrupted; thank you, Miss, we will resume on a more favourable occasion.'

'When I'll bring down the garden engine,' muttered Bernard, clutching in vain at his sister as she stepped forward to shake hands with the preacher and say, 'We are greatly obliged to you, and I am sorry you should have been so interfered with.'

William, premising that he was not the parish priest, turned to walk with the amateur in his own profession, as much because he was curious about this phase of life as to see him courteously off the ground--while Bernard was scolding and deriding Angela on what he deemed her most monstrous aberration of all, and Angela marching on, impervious alike to displeasure and ridicule. Mrs. Lamb was trying to condole with Robina, and Robina was coolly stating that Angela was quite justified in using her influence to prevent the man from being assaulted.

The fame of Mr. Froggatt's state-dinner party and of another on behalf of Mr. Bruce had reached Mrs. Lamb, and, on the strength of it, she had freshly trimmed her wedding dress, and was greatly aggrieved to find her labour lost; disregarding her husband's representations of the recent bereavements and Mr. Underwood's state of health, and insisting on attributing the slight by turns to Geraldine's spite, and to the meanness that hindered the family from enjoying their fortune when they had got it.

Though Geraldine had withheld this indulgence, aware that a long late dinner would be a great fatigue to Felix, she believed in dilution, and had arranged to gratify her guest so far as to take this opportunity of inviting one or two Ewmouth families who hardly ever had a day in the country except what they spent at Vale Leston, and whom it would have been almost unkind to deprive of their summer treat.

So on Monday afternoon there was a gathering on the lawn large enough to be a formidable spectacle to at least one pair of eyes in the Kittiwake's gig as she came up the river, and to evoke a strong expletive from a mouth whose fringes were grizzled enough for it to have learnt to be less impulsive.

'Can't be helped, skipper. Come on,' laughed the joyous youth at the prow in the ease of summer attire. 'What, hasn't your domestication proceeded further? One would think you were the one newly caught from the bush.'

'I shall set you ashore and come back at dark when the bear fight is over.'

'Not a bit of it! See here she comes, the little darling Star, bless her,' as over the wire netting, that guarded the croquet balls from the river, sprang the little figure attracted by the well-known boat.

'Oh! I'm so sorry,' was her apologetic cry to the captain, then stopping short, the bright colour flew to her cheeks.

'Well you may, to have such a mob to receive what I've brought you, my pretty. Yes, yes, no mistake about him,' as Charlie bounded to her side; 'but what's this? who's this big fellow in the yellow beard? Did you ever see anybody like him? He looks as much astounded as you.'

'You didn't say it was Stella!' ejaculated the tall, powerful personage designated. 'She was just toddling when I went out.'

'You're Fulbert then!' she said, looking up as she was folded in a big brotherly embrace.

'Yes, to be sure, you pretty little thing. I declare you are a beauty after all! And who's this?'

'I can't expect to be remembered,' said the white-whiskered sunburnt clergyman in a broad shady hat and green shade over his eyes.

'But I think I remember your voice,' said Stella, 'Oh how glad my brother will be!'

'And Lance, is he here?' cried Fulbert, eagerly.

'No, but every one else is at home.'

'At home! I believe so,' grumbled Captain Audley. 'I thought myself secure from launchings out this year.'

'It is only the Colmans and Strachans and Parkers, just to amuse Mrs. Lamb. I did not warn you, for I thought you were yachting to-day.'

'I was on board, going to sail this morning, when I got a telegram from Charlie, and just as I expected him to turn up, who should drop in but these two, fresh from Liverpool. Charles, this one, I mean, not ours, thought it best not to startle my mother, and came here first, so I brought them over as soon as they had eaten a mouthful, and now I'll take a cruise up the river till it is all quiet.'

'O no, please don't be so unkind,' pleaded Stella. 'I'll take you to my brother in his study without coming across anybody. He went in as soon as we began to play at croquet. Here, through the laburnum path.'

She led him by the hand in a passive condition, highly amusing to his son and brother, and Fulbert followed in a state of bewilderment.

'What an exquisite place!' exclaimed the elder Charles, catching sight of the cloister through the trees. 'What a treat to see old walls! It is like Oxford.'

'Pretty?' said Fulbert, 'I can't think how any one can stand being cramped up by all these walks and enclosures!' and indeed his great robust swinging step seemed to spurn them. 'All well?' he asked.

'Doesn't he know?' said Stella, pausing and touching her crape.

'Yes, yes, my dear,' said Captain Audley, 'they understand all that.'

'But Fulbert is more than half lost,' said the uncle, 'and for my own part I can't realise this as your home.'

'I shall be glad to get to Bexley,' sighed Fulbert. 'However the elder ones can't be so altered! I should know old Fee anywhere!'

They had reached the house, and Stella left them in the hall, saying she would find Felix. Fulbert would have followed her, but was detained by the captain, with the words, 'She knows best. I told you he had never been quite the thing since.'

Fulbert stood still gazing in amaze at the lofty dark oak hall and broad staircase so utterly unlike the narrow entry that had been home to him, but the study door opened and forth came a figure with outstretched hands, bright face, and glad welcome. 'Ful! Dear old boy, come at last!' and the boyish handclasp of departure was an eager kiss of greeting between the men. 'Mr. Audley! My great wish! Do the others know? Have you seen Cherry?'

'I'll send her in,' quoth the captain, and rushing off in his excitement and hatred of scenes, he marched into the thick of the fray, where Cherry, amid mammas and Hepburns under the cedar, was astonished by a voice in her ear, 'Your brother and mine are in the study, go to them. I'll take the teapot.'

'Your brother?'

'Charles. Eyes brought him home--Fulbert with him. Good morning; you'll excuse Miss Underwood: her brother from Australia.'

Cherry could only gasp something about pardon, relinquish her teapot to the valiant skipper, snatch up Lord Gerald and hurry off at her swiftest pace, finding, under the appropriate shade of the orange-tree at the conservatory door, Charlie and Stella. 'Oh! it was not you he meant,' was her inhospitable greeting.

'No, no. The Charles worth having is here, and Fulbert. We are gone to look up the rest.'

This did not look much like it, but Cherry stumped on, and came in sight of the three in the hall, still silent in the first wonder, Felix with one hand on the table, gazing at the new comers in silent extasy, while they looked as if scarcely able to speak under the shock of his appearance--those wasted enlarged features, that transparent pallor with the grey shades round mouth, eyes and temples, the figure that lost elastic slenderness without gaining strength, and the hair thinned though still shining. Cherry was used to it, but she saw how it had startled them, and that all three were like men in a dream, which she broke by her cry of--'Fulbert, Fulbert! Mr. Audley! Oh! Felix, is not this joy?'

Fulbert started round, relieved at his first real recognition, and his big arms were round her, his great beard sweeping her cheeks. 'Cherry! you at last! Little Cherry! But you've not got a proper crutch.'

'So much the better,' said Mr. Audley, amused at the complaint, 'she is a stronger little body than when you left her.'

'And where did you drop from?' Felix was the first to ask.

All was quickly explained, Fulbert keeping hold of his sister all the time. Mr. Audley's eyes had suddenly failed him, and the doctor had urged his going home at once if he hoped to save them. Fulbert, who had long been meditating a run home, resolved to see him safe through the voyage, and thus they had set forth suddenly, preceding their own letters. The inflammation of the eyes had subsided, and they were somewhat better. 'Though,' said the owner, 'I hope it is their fault that you look so altered, Felix.'

'He will soon get back his looks,' said Cherry. 'He is ever so much better. You heard.'

'Yes,' said Fulbert, 'Captain Audley told us. Poor little Theodore. The only wonder is that he lived so long--Who comes there?'

'You know me, Fulbert.'

'Wilmet? Yes, only grown grander than ever. But bless me! I thought they told me. No--Lance isn't here, and couldn't have got like that. Who is it, I say?'

'Have you forgotten little Bear?'

'Great Bear, rather,' said Mr. Audley. 'You've made good use of your time, Bernard!'

'Oh! here's the long lad,' said Felix. 'You'll not mistake him.'

'Aye! I should know Tina,' said Fulbert. 'He always did look the parson. Who's missing now--Robina?'

'Robin is here! Oh Ful, Ful, you're very big, but your face is just like the old times when you used to clamber up the timbers in the yard!'

'That's right, Bob! Now I begin to believe I'm come home. You're as jolly as ever.'

Just then a shout of 'Mother!' and a vigorous patter of boots ended in the bouncing in of two red curly mops of hair, whose owners were pursuing a squabble of 'I will' and 'I won't,' and pulling at the opposite ends of a string as they charged against Wilmet, in loud appeal and protest. 'Softly, softly, Kester, Eddy, look at your uncle!' was the motherly unperturbed rebuke, a hand on each shoulder, 'There's your uncle Fulbert. Oh Kester, right hands.'

'Never mind,' said Fulbert, not more eager for the greeting than the two nephews, who began again, 'Mother, make Eddy'--'Mother, Kester won't'--and reeled out of the room still twisted up in the string, Wilmet after them. 'Like a pair of puppies in leash,' said Felix.

'How many are there?'

'These two, and a little girl.'

Then came a sound, not without sweetness, though still a whine--'Chérie! I want Chérie, O Chérie, they've got my lasso,' and tottering and shuffling in came the little black figure with the white face and clung to her. Both travellers started. 'I thought they said Theodore--No, he'd be bigger,' exclaimed Fulbert.

'It is Gerald, poor Edgar's boy,' said Felix. 'Here, Gerald, here is another brother of your father--and here's a dear old friend.'

The delicate hand held out by Gerald was as unlike as possible to the brown puggy paws of his cousins, but he entreated still 'Don't let them have my lasso, Chérie. It's grass, and Fernan gave it me!'

'I'll come, Gerald dear, I'll get them some whipcord--I must go back to the people; I hope they'll soon be merciful and go--Oh! the heart's joy of having seen those two!--Yes, dear boy, I'm coming, I'll take care they don't take it away.'

'Cherry and her master!' said Bernard.

'Blissful bondage,' said Felix. 'Have you seen them all yet, Fulbert? No--where's Angel?'

'Little Pryde has chopped his finger with a reap-hook, and she's gone off with Miss Bridget to see about it,' returned Clement. 'Suppose we walk and meet them, Ful--Felix will have his talk with Mr. Audley.'

And Robina and Bernard departed to the game, while Felix led his friend into the study, saying in exultation, 'Our Cherry looks a heartier woman than ever we expected, does she not?'

'Wonderfully improved. I only wish I could say the same of you! Is this the effect of the accident?' as Felix, having placed an arm-chair for Mr. Audley, subsided into his manifestly invalid resting place.

'I believe so. But how about your eyes?'

'That is what I cannot tell. They have mended since I have given up reading or writing, but I durst not accept the Bishopric till I knew whether they would be serviceable.'

'Albertstown?'

'Yes, I've been offered it. Any way, I should have had to come home; and it was very good in Fulbert to come and take care of me.'

'An unspeakable delight and gift to have you both!' said Felix, 'Most thankworthy!' he added almost to himself, 'how good in you to have come to us!'

'More pleasure than goodness. My mother hates surprises and shocks, so I had the day to spare, and I longed to see your domains. What a delicious place! Not even Cherry's sketches made me understand the charm.'

'We have so much to show you! You will think me absurd about it, but I own I never see anything comparable to it.'

'I shan't think you absurd! Imagine what this room, with its air of age and quaintness of carving, is to a man who has seen nothing venerable these thirteen years.'

'And our church. But that you must not see without our Vicar.'

'I hope to give thanks for our return there. Robert said he would give us all the evening here. How much good you have done him. I think his adoration of little Stella is quite equal to Charlie's.'

Felix smiled faintly. 'Ah! you seem to have come to help us anent that affair! I am very glad to be able to put it into your hands.'

'I'm afraid they are not very influential.'

'At least they belong to a head that can be trusted,' said Felix, smiling. 'I'm not sure the poor lad ought to be here to-day.'

'I fancy he gathered hopes from Lady Liddesdale which he thinks justify him,' said the uncle. 'Should you consent if he got a secretaryship at the Embassy?'

'I should feel as if one of my greatest cares was relieved! I have tried to do right in the matter, but it is a hard one. I should be thankful indeed to see my little one cleared from this perplexity, and I begin to trust I shall. Everything seems to be so remarkably smoothing itself, as it were winding itself up.'

'Felix, I don't understand your tone. I can't see you distinctly, but I am sure more is amiss with you than Robert told me.'

'I was on the verge of bleeding to death after the accident,' said Felix, 'and I fancy the treatment I am going through keeps me low.'

'Treatment, what for?'

In a few technical words he repeated what he had told Gertrude.

'You speak with certainty!' exclaimed his friend.

'No, it is too much out of reach. They are trying to disperse it, and if that cannot be done, there would be a fight of strength of constitution. It seems to me hardly to get better or worse since the mere muscular strain passed off, only paining me on provocation, and telling chiefly in weakness and lassitude. It is curious how everything in my life seems drawing to a point, so that somehow I feel as if I were permitted to bind up my sheaves. Here is poor Edgar's fate certain so as to enable me to make arrangements about the property, and his child to be Cherry's object, making me far happier about her. And here you are; I have longed to pray for your being here to help us both when the crisis comes. You will?'

'I will! I will. So far as I dare to promise!'

'Remember. She knows nothing of this, only Clement. I could not get along without him. Poor Clem! Do you remember how we used to laugh at him? You will marvel at the strength and wisdom that have grown up in him. I rejoice to have come to such dependence on the brother I understood and perhaps liked least, and it is the same with Cherry. She has learnt to lean on him.'

'More than on Lance?'

'Lance, our lark and our sunshine! Dear Lance, I think he may have a home of his own, but his affairs are not yet susceptible of discussion,' said Felix, smiling. 'Altogether, I have been strangely blessed in these brothers and sisters of mine. The love and affection I have had from them, the willing loyalty that has been the spirit of them all, strike me as wonderful.'

'Wonderful, because those who do most are generally the worst requited.'

'And now, the dear little fellow is taken whom I could least have borne to leave,' added Felix. 'The missing him was very sore to me at first, but I am glad now. All were good to him, but it was effort to all but Stella and myself, and even with Stella it could not have gone on. There are only two for whom I have real anxieties, and there is good stuff in both.'

'Alda?'

'I was not thinking of her. She never seemed my charge like the rest. No, Angela and Bernard, but so much has righted itself that I have the more faith. I believe Bear may be all the better for losing his dependence on me. He wants to be forced into manhood.'

'Felix, I wonder whether you are right in thus giving yourself up. It makes me doubt if I ought to have left you alone to the charge. It must have gone very hard with you.'

'Not at all. I have had my full share of happiness. A most happy, peaceful family, and latterly in this delightful place! my first, dearest home, the spot I must always have loved best! and Cherry! Truly, too, both here and at Bexley, I have had that blessing of Joseph, whatever I have done, the Lord hath made it to prosper. You left me Mr. Froggatt's assistant, I think, and each step since has been no small enjoyment in itself.'

'Yet you are content that all this should end! Your father was, but his had been a sadder, more laborious, unsuccessful life, and I own I marvel at you, so fresh in this position, with life before you--You are--?'

'Thirty-four this last July.'

'That is early youth to most men.'

'No doubt something is due to the perpetual weariness and "do nothingness" that belong to the complaint, and make me feel getting done with it all. Soon I shall free myself of being rector here, the endowment of East Ewmouth is settled, the building begins in the spring. A long minority will right the estate, and work off its burthens, and I have had unexpected opportunities of putting things in train; but if I go on, the task of making both ends meet must continue hard. I suppose recovery would bring back zest and vigour, but as I am now, it is like a lame horse at grass, shrinking from a return to the load, the mire and the ruts, and the assurances of rest acquire a sweetness they never had before. If I had only done my part fully, and could say to my father, 'Behold me and the children thou hast given me!' but when I count my hundred thousand errors, and remember what makes up for them, it seems little if the last passage should be a hard one, as I suppose it will. Oh!' breaking off short, 'I should not have run on like this. It must be the worst thing for your eyes.'

'This is an odd way of helping you,' said Mr Audley, struggling for composure. 'I ought to be thankful to see you like this, but I am selfishly disappointed. I had reckoned on seeing you in the prime of your usefulness and honors, and happiness.'

'Here's plenty of happiness,' returned Felix, with his brightest smile; 'and I've not yet given up the uses nor the honors of Squire Underwood. In fact, I hear the carriages coming, and must go and see the people off. Will that serve for honors? it would have seemed like them twelve years ago.'

Uneasy about the eyes that had been swimming in perilous tears, he continued, changing his tone from the thoughtful to the lively: 'It is our only entertainment this year, of course, but I was forced to have Lamb here on business, and we thought it would please his wife.'

'Is she?'

'Yes, Alice Knevett. Prettier than ever,' he answered. 'Will you come out, or shall I leave you for these few minutes?'

The longing to watch him prompted Mr. Audley to follow him, though with little mind to face any one, and in a few moments it hardly seemed credible that the man who had been speaking of carrying the sentence of death within himself was the same who was so cheerfully and easily going through the friendly courtesies of a host--pausing with a face full of quiet humour to point out Captain Audley acting beneficent rover, though it was his first time of touching a mallet since he had been a guardsman, and croquet a novelty of high life.

Here too came the introduction to Major Harewood, never seen before, and the Reverend William, last seen as Lance's shock-headed friend, a terror to Wilmet and Cherry, and frightening the babies with his mesmerism.

It was still light enough for the grand tour, and Felix, though leaning and resting at every pause, would not be denied the going through the whole, showing it off with a kind of affectionate exultation rather increased than diminished since the day of taking possession. The character of the place had altered a good deal since that day when he had first seen it. It must be owned that some of the perfect trimness of turf and shrubbery had gone, and that some stable windows were broken, and their yard grass-grown, and the Vicarage Sunday school had an aspect which thirteen colonial years could not prevent the baronet's son from feeling at first sight a little disreputable. The half-finished Rectory of the future, where the Curate for whom Clement was advertising was to live, was on the glebe land on the other side of the church. Altogether, the house and grounds might be in less dainty order; but there was a look of life about every window, and the lawn was glowing with the bright tints of geraniums and verbenas, while dog, cat, kittens, and doves, to say nothing of the human creatures, imparted an air of gladness and animation, and the Virginian creeper on the cloister hung like a magnificent purple curtain over the scene. The dreary deserted aspect of church and churchyard which had at first so disheartened Clement was entirely gone, and the last September lights and shades showed themselves on tower and pinnacle, and gleamed on stained glass as somehow sunshine does seem to fall on what is loved and prized, as if inanimate things responded to affection.

In the part of the cloister wall that lay within the churchyard precincts were two or three memorials of Underwoods who did not lie buried there, and to these Felix had added a brass cross with an inscription bearing the names of Edward Underwood and Mary Wilmet his wife. Mr. Audley looked at these earnestly, marvelling all the more at his friend's resolute content in his exclusion from this lovely spot, and from thence he was led to the little grave, now marked with a white marble cross, bearing on the foot the word 'Ephphatha.' What better could have been wished for that little helpless being? Fulbert was of course more interested in the willow tree. He swung himself over the bank and calculated the height with wonder, demanding of Felix how the feat had been possible to him. 'I can't tell,' answered he, 'I have wondered since. It was very foolish of me not to have done like Charlie. He was the hero.'

'Ah! Charlie is a regular fish, at home in the water or out,' said his father, well pleased.

And they looked at the 'fish,' who was standing a little way off, with Stella beside him, with down-cast eyes. He had made two attempts already to pour out his plans on Felix, who had cruelly answered that he could listen to nothing till the examination was over, and consent gained, and ruthlessly cut him off from all private interviews, not choosing to give anything that could be construed into the most tacit encouragement--but not able to find it in his heart to interfere with the present enjoyment, though it was not in the bond.

As to the church, now brought to all the glory that reverent hands, careful taste, and well-judged expenditure could give it, the contrast was not small from the dreary bepewed building, and all its native beauties were unobscured or renovated. Very happy were Clement and Cherry in pointing them out one by one, and telling the story of the fragments whose forms had guided the restoration, and Felix sat by on a bench, enjoying the evening mystery of soft darkness as it fell on the archings and vaultings, and putting in his word now and then in the pleasant history of the four years' work.

'Yes, Felix, I do congratulate you! Nay, more! I shall give thanks for what I have seen to-day,' said Mr. Audley in a low voice, as they went to robe for even-song.

And Felix added, 'Thank you. But pray for me, too.'

It was well he had an appreciative admirer for his dear Vale Leston in Mr. Audley, for Fulbert, untrained in antiquities, and with colonial 'nil admirari' ways, did not enter into the charms of grey walls, nor understand ecstasies over the proportions of arches, while even in the house, he agreed with Mrs. Lamb that oak wainscot was dismally dark, and that the furniture was worn and old-fashioned. He could not feel at home. 'It was all very fine perhaps,' he said, 'but it didn't seem natural,' and he eagerly accepted the Lambs' invitation to return with them to Bexley. 'I can't help it,' he apologized, 'I'll soon come back, but I shall not know I'm at home till I've seen Lance and the old house. It's all different here, and you are all grown such swells, and the little ones are so big, and Blunderbore looks as if he had been lost for a month in the bush, and I sha'n't get my bearings till I've been down to the old place, and seen Lance and the fellows there.'

So almost as suddenly as they had come, the Australian visitors vanished, leaving behind them only the security that they were within reach. Captain Audley went with his son and brother, and quiet was left to prevail at Vale Leston. The first break was a message brought in the forenoon to the study, where Felix saw to letters and attended to business more slowly and with more pauses and effort, but not less effectively than heretofore. 'Miss Hepburn would be glad to speak to you, sir.'

'Which Miss Hepburn, Amelia?'

'Miss Isabella, sir.'

'She has found this out, and is going to exhort me as she tried to do to Lance,' thought Felix, as he desired that she should be admitted, and with some masculine perverseness, not only rose to greet her, but placed himself in a common upright chair to listen to her. He found himself mistaken, she had not come to speak to him on his own account.

'You are aware, Mr. Underwood, that from one cause and another, we have had some influence with dear Angela, more I fear than has been quite palatable.'

'In some ways you have done her a great deal of good,' said Felix, wondering what was coming.

'Nay, not pot-sherds like ourselves, but the way we have been privileged to point to her, dear child, but I am glad you think so. I fancied that you were all in opposition.'

'I think,' said Felix, 'that the poor child had got into a state of unreality and self-deceit, and that after the shock of last spring your kindness helped her to the true foundations which she had somehow missed.'

It must have been a temptation to Miss Isabella to enlarge on the danger of concealing that true Foundation, but she had a point and purpose, and besides, the Squire looked as little in need of being taught where to find that Verity as any one she had ever met in a biography, so she went on, 'It was, I am thankful to believe, true conversion, and the dear child is indeed a sincere Christian, but young people are so enthusiastic.'

'She is excitable, and sure to go to the utmost length in whatever she does,' said Felix, beginning to expect to hear of the ranting.

He was right. Miss Isabella wished him to be aware that she and her sisters had done their utmost to withhold Angela from rushing out. He replied that he was not afraid it would occur again. William Harewood had talked to the man, and thought him disconcerted, and likely to carry his ministrations where there was more neglect. However, Miss Hepburn explained that this was an offshoot of a great revival which the Plymouth brethren were organizing at Ewmouth. One of their great lights, a merchant captain who had given up everything for religion, was about to preach, and Angela had set her heart on hearing him. His tracts had been widely diffused among the Miss Hepburn's friends, and the warfare about disseminating them in the village was still recent. Angela, who had once made holocausts of as many as she could capture, was now their ardent admirer, and had insisted on making part of the audience of their author. Now the Miss Hepburns would as soon, no sooner, have gone to the opera as to a dissenting chapel, and there had been a vehement argument, resulting in their pupil declaring her intention of going with a farmer's widow who liberally hovered between Vale Leston Church one half of the day and Ewmouth chapel the other.

It was shocking to Clan Hepburn to think of forsaking the Establishment, and even more so to imagine an Underwood, a lady, a clergyman's daughter and sister, at a revivalist tea-meeting in a dissenting chapel, and in full council they had decided that it would be unjustifiable not to warn the head of the family, and absolutely conniving at the monstrous proceeding.

'Thank you sincerely,' said Felix: 'it shall be put a stop to.'

'I sincerely hope that may be possible,' said the lady, 'but where the dear child thinks her conscience is at stake, she is far too regardless of remonstrance.'

Felix smiled, having found this the case whether her conscience were at stake or not.

The encounter must be fought out, not on Miss Isabella's grounds but on his own. He knew it must have come some day. He had not spoken a serious word to her since she had rejected his consolation two days after the accident, and knowing that she was under other guidance, he had not interfered, feeling less equal than ever to a war of words with the perverse and perplexing girl.

How near the conflict was he did not know till at dinner, when on Bernard's asking her to pull up the river with him, Angela replied that she was going to drink tea with Mrs. Lake.

This was one of the gracious acts performed from time to time, but it sounded enough like a subterfuge to make Felix feel grieved and indignant, but he held his peace, and so did Clement, while Robina exclaimed, 'Almost my last evening, Angel!' And Cherry laughingly accused her of devotion to Mrs. Lake's elderberry-wine. Colouring deep crimson, Angela burst forth in a combative tone, 'Well, I suppose I may go where I like.'

'O, yes, my dear,' said Bernard, 'to meet that nice young man, who was holding forth on Sunday. Only, when it is a fixed affair let me know, and I'll have a suit of tar and feathers in readiness.'

Angela's neck was burning by this time, and she crumbled her bread savagely.

'Is the party in his house?' whispered Will to Robina.

But no one took up Bernard's remark, all feeling that the matter could not be made game of, and when they rose, Felix said, 'Angela, I want you in the study.' She could not choose but obey, and before she was fairly in the room, or the door closed, made another outburst, 'Brother, I have no intention of deceiving you; I only did not choose to have it out before Bernard and all in the middle of dinner.'

Felix, in his slow careful manner, deposited himself in the Squire's chair, and said, 'Sit down, Angela.'

'No, thank you, I have not time. I only came that you may see I am not deceiving you. I am going with Mrs. Lake to hear Captain Gudgeon,' she replied, with a glow in her cheeks and a gesture as of noble defiance, somewhat disturbed by his extreme gentleness.

'You had better sit down, my dear,' he said.

This actually put an end to her war-dance. She seated herself, but tried to resume her challenge by saying, 'I shall be at home long before ten.'

'Certainly,' said Felix, quietly, 'you will.'

'You understand that I really mean it?'

'No doubt you do at this moment, but I forbid you to do any such thing.'

'I acknowledge no commands superior to conscience,' she said. 'I have made my appointment.'

'That I will arrange for you.'

'You can't.'

'The pony-carriage is coming round at three, and I shall go and explain to Mrs. Lake that you remain at home by my desire.'

Mrs. Lake's farm was at the end of a lane all stones and ruts, and it was well known in the family that nothing hurt Felix so much as a jolt.

'No! no! You can't think of it,' cried Angela.

'I shall walk over the worst places,' he said.

'And that's the whole! Felix, pray don't!'

'I must, unless you will submit otherwise.'

'That's taking an unfair advantage,' she said, with tears of anger in her eyes. 'You know it is leaving me no choice.'

'Thank you. That is very kind. You had better take that pen and paper and write to Mrs. Lake.'

'You know your power,' she said, petulantly. 'If you were well, I would try it to the uttermost!'

With a fraction of a smile he said, 'We will talk it over when your note is written, but it is hard to let poor Mrs. Lake butter her muffins all the afternoon in vain.'

This view of preparations for a tea-party made Angela smile a little also, and that did her good. She sat down at the table, and hastily wrote--

DEAR MRS. LAKE,

I am sorry to say I am prevented from joining you to-night.

Yours, with great regret, A.M. UNDERWOOD.

She showed the billet to Felix, who made no objection, but rang, and gave orders for its despatch.

'Thank you, Angel,' he said. 'I do not scruple to avail myself of your consideration for my side, because, as long as my authority over you lasts, I am resolved to prevent you by any means in my power from doing wrong.'

'You know I have ceased to think with you on that point,' said Angela, not without hopes of extorting permission after all.

'I know you have, but you are young enough to be prevented from committing an open act of schism before you have grown wiser.'

'You speak as if I wanted to become an out-and-out dissenter, when I only wish to hear a man whose writings have done so much for my soul, which was starving--yes, starving before.'

'Perhaps sleeping would be the fitter word.'

'Sleeping or starving, it comes to the same. Forms, routine, and ordinances assumed to be everything, and did me no good--how could they? And in the awakening! Oh, brother, would that I could make you understand the joy--the ecstasy of looking straight up to my Saviour, and the incomparableness of what brightens and quickens that gaze. Then you could never try to keep me back for mere forms and distinctions!'

'Nay,' said Felix, gravely but fervently, 'it is because I do--I hope--love and look up to my most blessed Lord and Master, that I can permit nothing that rends and breaks the Unity of His Body, which He gave us to guard and cherish here.'

'Unity is not external--it is only in the spiritual Church of the faithful, in their hearts. It is I who want to keep it.'

'By going to those who have parted asunder from us?'

'I never said I was going over--only to hold out a hand of fellowship--to hear and learn.'

'I'm afraid your hand of fellowship is hardly strong enough to unite the two bodies, Angela. Don't you think it might end in your being led captive, like certain silly women we have heard of--ever learning and never coming to a knowledge of the truth. That is what I want to save my sister from.'

'Then it is Wilmet's old "what it may lead to!"'

'Exactly, her old wisdom. See, Angela, I cannot tell how long I may have any authority; at any rate you will be of age in a few weeks, and then I do not know what you may do, for there is something very dangerous in your passion for excitement. I have thought a great deal about you, my poor Angel, for yours is the disposition that has always made me the most anxious of all, especially since the shock that has cast you loose from your old bearings; but all I can do, while I am still responsible for you, is to restrain you as far as possible, both because I think going among schismatics wrong in itself, and because I hope the delay may give you time to be steadied, and to perceive that the Divine appointments of the Church are not darkenings, but lamps of faith.'

'I think you are in earnest, Felix,' said Angela. 'Miss Isa says you and Lance are true Christians in spite of it all! Tell me honestly now. Your objection is not because it is unladylike, not fit for Squire Underwood's sister.'

He laughed, 'Really that never occurred to me.'

'Then I don't mind. I say, did Miss Isa put you up to this? Yes? I can't understand. It was she who first opened my eyes to the light, and taught me what true Christianity is, showing me the hollowness of all I had lived in, and bringing me from darkness to light. It was she who gave me Captain Gudgeon's books. They are beautiful. Will you look at them?'

'Very well.'

'She does not think, like you, of what you call schism, only of its not being proper for ladies. She says we can read at home, as if that were like living words, and that we ought not to mix with "that kind of people," as she calls them. I can't understand such worldly nonsense in a person like her.'

'Many people let the world get a curious grip of their conscience,' said Felix. 'Perhaps we who have lived so long beneath the line don't estimate the strength of scruple, but in this case it may be well that even inferior motives should prevent the breaking their Communion with the Church.'

'You think that outward Communion preferable to an enlightened spirit. There we differ.'

'No, Angela. The soul must have life and enlightenment, or else it is like one asleep in the midst of a feast, under a lamp, but there is no sure way of keeping up that life and light except by the means and in the union our Blessed Lord appointed.'

'Then comes the question, how do you know that these means, precisely in your own way, are what He meant?'

'By unbroken historical evidence of the Church universal--by the Saints that have been formed through them. Nay, shall I say it, Angela, by personal experience ever since I can remember. I can no more doubt of the grace, comfort, and strength imparted through them than I do of the refreshment of food or of air.'

'Tell me, if you don't mind, a little more precisely what you mean.'

'I mean so far this, that a perplexing question, when taken there, is apt afterwards to clear itself. One sees the way to what seemed impossible, and I am also sure that one's first impulses in unexpected trials become much safer and more trustworthy under the influence one then imbibes. How should they not?'

'That's not the heart, it's all outward,' said Angela, impatiently.

'Nay, is not the outward action connected with the abundance of the heart? As to the rest, my dear Angel, I don't think anything that I can say will express the blessing except "O taste and see how gracious the Lord is!" What would life or death be worth without it?' And his face spoke more than his words.

'Well,' said Angela. 'No good came to me till I banished those things away, and knew my load of sin, and Who has taken it. I can't bear anything between Him and me.'

'Nor I,' said Felix. 'Angela, my dear, are you sure your discovery is not exactly what our old way was meant to teach you?'

She hung her head. He had enough experience of her to know that pressing her was useless, so he leant back giving way to his fatigue, and she sat on playing with a paper-knife, till at last she said, 'Brother, do you remember my scalding you?'

'Certainly.'

'When I would not let you pardon me, and you didn't want to.'

'Rather oddly put, but I remember.'

'Well!' coming and kneeling by him, 'I terribly crave for pardon now.'

'My poor Angel,' as he tenderly kissed her brow, and as she rested it on the arm of his chair, stroked her fair hair. Presently there came up a sort of choked whisper, 'for isn't it worse than we thought?'

'May be so, Angel, but you know that came of my own stupid choice of a landing-place, so that is my private affair.'

Her instinct had gathered more than she had been told, and her eager wilful chase of excitement and defiance of Clement had been the vain resource of a sadly foreboding, half-broken heart, dwelling vehemently on the whole mass of past sins, as if putting them in one vague heap dulled the unbearably acute sense of the one act of vain flightiness that had produced such consequences, and now, though she guessed enough to be unwilling to agitate him, the comfort of the avowal and of his caress was infinite.

He partly perceived how it was, and waited a little before saying, 'I look to you as my great help if this comes to anything. You are the family nurse.'

'Oh!' she came still closer, and presently said, 'please tell me just what it is; it can't be worse than guessing.'

He told her.

'I thought so,' she said, and still knelt with her head against his chair for a long, long time, till the door was opened and Clement came in, not seeing her, as she sat on the ground on the further side.

'The pony-carriage is come round; but here's a pretty business. It is all over the parish that Angela is going with Mrs. Lake to Gudgeon's conventicle. Halloa!'

'How can you come and upset Felix?' was Angela's cry as she sprang to her feet.

'Gently, Angel,' said Felix, laughing; 'don't be so like Tabby guarding her kitten from Scamp: Clem is tolerably aware by this time of what does me harm. She has been very good to me, Clem; she has given it up to please me.'

'Because I should have been a brute if I had not,' said Angela. 'Mind, Clement, I'm not convinced! I should like to have fought it out, but----' her dignity quite gave way, 'I don't care. I can't vex him, there--I nev-er, never will!' And she dashed away, struggling with sobs.

'A dangerous undertaking, if it were likely to last longer,' said Felix; 'but even while it does, the restraint may be wholesome.'

'Then you have stopped this?'

'Miss Isabella warned me. One good thing is that the good ladies' opposition was on motives that rather sap her faith in them.'

'Does she know about you?'

'She had nearly found out already. Nature designed her for a nursing sister. I rather hope she may yet turn that way, but the load of a sore heart is very heavy on her, poor child.'

'If she is getting into confidence with you, I have hope,' said Clement, sighing as if his heart were sore enough as he looked at his brother.

'If I can only be allowed to tide her through this searching time of trouble and put her into better hands,' said Felix, 'I should be glad indeed; otherwise I should fear her becoming one of the ladies who drift through every variety of exciting religion.'

From that time he submitted to be watched and waited on by Angela, with an exclusive vehemence that was almost fierce. She attended to his very eye, and for the present so entirely centered her fervent nature upon the 'not vexing him,' that he had to think twice before expressing the most casual and careless wish, lest she should turn everything upside down to gratify him.

To only one other person did Felix speak of his own state, namely, Bernard, who, as Will Harewood foretold, egregiously failed in obtaining admission to Keble College, and took his rejection with the utmost coolness, seeming to think he had made a great concession to family prejudice, and that now something must be found to enable him to pass through the university with the same gentleman-like ease as through Harrow.

Not in the least crestfallen, he stood warming his back at the study fire, and mentioning one or two colleges whose requirements he thought not unreasonable. That Felix should haggle about expense, and have delusions that the university was meant for work, he could endure as the innocuous thunder with which governors must be allowed to solace themselves, while youth listened good humouredly to the growl.

The thunder, however, took an unwonted form in the quiet reply. 'Either you must get a scholarship, or you cannot go to Oxford. You had better study harder than you have ever done, or else turn your mind to some other maintenance. Hitherto, you have depended on me, but Gerald's guardians will not have the same power.'

'Gerald's guardians!' he exclaimed, as the import flashed on him. 'You're all right, except the old sprain!'

'I am afraid not, Bear. There is serious damage, and though I do not wish to distress any one, especially Cherry, it is right you should be prepared to get on without me, as you know I have absolutely nothing to leave you.'

'I say, is this fancy, or have you had the doctor?'

'Four.'

'Four doctors! That's enough to account for anybody thinking anything the matter with him. Cheer up, Squire,' and he assumed a superior air of wisdom and encouragement that made Felix look amused enough to persuade the boy of the effect of his words--'don't be croaked out of spirits. Sprains are nasty things, and go on no one knows how long; but I'll bet anything you like that nothing else is the matter with you but the doctors, and poking over that desk. It's a splendid day, I thought of going up the river. Will you come?'

To which Felix consented, and Bernard, when repairing to Geraldine to propose her joining the party, said, 'It will be good for the Squire. I say, what makes him so down in the mouth?'

'Of course, he is disappointed about you.'

'Pish! I didn't mean that, but about himself and the sprain.'

'I don't wonder, dear Felix!' said Cherry. 'It is very wearing to feel it at every movement, and it is depressing to be so set aside from active life. I only wonder at his patience.'

So Bernard continued to repose in his consoling fiction of low spirits, but he was so far amenable as to think himself 'grinding frightfully hard' with a tutor at Ewmouth, and dislike of the said grist impelled him to propose going out to Carrigaboola; but after a day's shooting with him, Fulbert declined the proposal in no measured terms, when he had seen Master Bernard's daintiness of equipment, disgust at difficulties, dependence on luncheon, and distaste at loading himself with anything that could be carried by another.

And Cherry? How did the quickest witted of all avoid the shadow of the cloud visible to so many?

Partly there was the resistance of a sensitive mind, after hosts of imaginary panics, to a real fear--partly her brother was on his guard against distressing her, and often commanded his countenance, when if alone with Clement, it would have betrayed the pang, and besides, her charm of manner often beguiled his weariness; but above all, her want of perception was due to her absorption in little Gerald.

The child needed careful attention, varying from day to day under a succession of petty ailments, only to be dealt with by assiduous tenderness. To train his vivid intelligence, to amuse and occupy him, to guard him from the aggressions of his cousins, and to soothe him under pain or nervous restlessness was quite one person's work, and engrossed Cherry, whom the little fellow preferred with exclusiveness that increased to petulance whenever he was suffering. She was seldom to be seen without him, and was always occupied with him, and her unselfish brother was content that she should thus be weaned from him, and wind her affections round another object. Yes, even though she could no longer be entirely reckoned for Pursuivant work that must be done, and now more than ever no one could do like her; though Gerald's call would break off her writing for him, and either she came not, or he enjoyed only her divided attention in his walks and drives.

'It was better so,' he said, when Clement was vexed and indignant. And truly he was anxious enough about the frail little child to have none of the jealousy of invalid number one towards invalid number two.

Marilda's eager, almost peremptory claim had little chance. Cherry was almost furious at the tone in which the warm-hearted heiress wrote demanding the boy, as if his father had been her brother and not theirs, and nobody could care for him save herself. If Felix had not had more coolness, there might almost have been a breach. As it was, his grateful but decided reply that Edgar had entrusted his son to his brothers and sisters in a manner that would not justify them in resigning the charge, so offended her that a marked silence followed.

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XLVII. THE TASK OVER

'If you might, would you now Retrace your way, Wander through stormy wilds, Faint and astray? Night's gloomy watches fled, Morning all beaming red, Hopes smiles around us shed, Heavenward away!' Lady Nairne.

Felix, Cherry, and Gerald were taking one of their slow drives with Master Ratton, when a tall horse passed them, and with the shout 'As right as a trivet,' Charles Audley the younger waved his hat and rode on, leaving them to meditate on his announcement. 'A three legged article,' as Cherry said, 'hardly suited the felicity he seemed to intend.'

Charlie had not gone in for honors, but had obtained the flattering assurance that he would have had them if he had tried. The announcement, backed perhaps by some mediation of his uncle, had brought an offer of a private secretaryship from Lord Liddesdale, and therewith armed, he had made the awful plunge at the Hall--his father and uncle both waiting to defend his independence.

Behold! Sir Robert and Lady Margaret had comported themselves like lambs. Either the scheme for Charlie's union with his cousin had been a figment, or they were glad to get the sole hope of their house married at all, or they were gratified by Lord Liddesdale's estimate of him, and had learnt wisdom by the ill effects of former opposition. Anyway their consent had been startlingly facile. They heeded birth more than wealth: Stella, with her own legacy and Theodore's, was not unportioned, and an Underwood of Vale Leston had such undeniable county blood that they never connected the younger Charles's ravings with the alarms that had elicited their consent to the elder Charles's expatriation fourteen years ago. Moreover Lady Liddesdale, who had been the young man's confidante, had promised to be a mother to his bride. She had just married off her last daughter, and wanted a young companion, and she offered rooms at the Embassy, and whatever Charlie could wish for his wife in the way of help and kindness.

So here was the young gentleman in tempestuous ecstasy, announcing that there could be no delay, for he was wanted at the Embassy by the middle of February.

The elder brothers and sisters expected to see their nestling distracted by the summons to a distant home in a strange land, but her equanimity amazed them all. She was Charlie's property, and it was only natural to be claimed. 'Every one did,' she said, and she would have been quite as contented to go with him to a City lodging or to the Australian bush as to the splendours of the Embassy.

Wilmet thought her too young to realize what it all meant, and held that she ought to wait a year or two; but Felix would hear of this as little as the captain, having no doubt that the calm, self-contained, thoughtful nature would be equal to whatever it might be called on to meet; and though Charlie was the younger in character, he was a thoroughly good, trustworthy fellow, nor would they begin with an independent home. Besides, was not Lady Liddesdale own sister to 'Sister Constance'?

The announcement of this splendid engagement mollified Marilda, who wrote heartily, and offered services either of hospitality or of choice of wedding clothes. Stella could not bear to leave home, but she was overruled. It was due to the Ambassadress that her outfit should neither be countrified nor left to Marilda's taste; so Wilmet took her to London for a week, and by Felix's desire expended the child's own original inheritance from her father in garments that might not disgrace the suite; the chief difficulty being that Stella had made Charlie consent to her completing her year of mourning for her brothers--a terrible grievance to Mrs. Underwood. Wilmet was meantime the recipient of all Marilda's views as to the folly of Felix's rejection of her offer to Gerald, over whom she absolutely seemed to yearn--and she caught at the invitation to the wedding as at least affording her a chance of seeing him, if not of bringing his uncle to hear reason.

The marriage was to take place on New Year's Day, and as soon as the bustle was over, 'Sister Constance' was actually coming to Vale Leston to arrange for the branch of the St Faith's Sisterhood which was to be established in connection with the future Church of the Comforter at East Ewmouth. She was to choose among houses to let the temporary abode of the sisters, but in the first place was to have a few days for the young friends, who now ranked as old, and on Charles Audley the elder.

The oculist's verdict had not been hopeless, but it had obliged him to give up all prospect of a return to a climate so noxious to the eyes as that of Western Australia. His visit to his home had made it evident that his place was no longer there. His parents were old and self-occupied, and had little in common with him, chiefly depending on their daughter-in-law, a complete woman of the world, thoroughly alien to the clergyman who had spent his strength on wild 'black fellows' and rude convicts. He was more trouble than pleasure to any of the party, and deemed it inadvisable to endure the penance of idleness and uncongeniality in their stately halls, since they gave him no opening for being of use to them; and his brother, who would not leave him, was always miserable there. Once the pet at home, 'poor Charles' was mourned over for his peculiarities, and coughed down if he endeavoured to explain them.

So as Clement was in the usual case of country Vicars, curate-hunting in vain, Mr. Audley proffered himself as a 'demi-semi-assistant,' able to do a good deal without book, and thankful for a refuge from total inefficiency. Clement was rather shocked at finding himself in such relations towards his old Guardian, almost a Bishop elect, but rejoiced in the counsel and support of his experience even more than in the actual aid, which indeed he greatly needed. And to Felix, the intercourse with his first friend was the greatest delight, while there was a rally in his health in the autumn that made even those who knew the worst hope the evil was averted, and every one else viewed him as recovering.

Perhaps he ventured a little too much in the greater sense of strength, for Lady Hammond being unable to go out, and warmly anxious to see the young couple, he took the long drive thither with them, and a few days later went to a public meeting. There was an attack upon Church influence in the Ewmouth hospital, and he went late, expecting only to have to give his vote, but he found a storm raging such as he did not expect, and his side of the question so inefficiently defended by its few lay representatives, that he stood up and spoke for nearly an hour with all his remarkable force and facility.

'I don't agree with you, Underwood,' said Mr. Walsh, as Felix, flushed and panting, waited till the rush to the door was over to get to his carriage, 'but you ought to be in the House; and that's much for a man to say when you've just been the means of beating him. You are one of the few who can make any life or sense out of the old cause.'

Clement was far from knowing whether to be glad or sorry, as Felix made answer with very little more than a languid smile. The speech certainly had, as the saying is, 'taken a great deal out of him,' and was Cherry's 'cheval de bataille' whenever any of the wedding guests found fault with his appearance.

There was a grand family gathering, bringing together all the surviving brothers and sisters, for the unexceptionable baronet connection had even induced Sir Adrian Vanderkist to bring his wife and two eldest children, who were to act bridesmaids, together with Robina and Angela, Gertrude May and Miss Audley. Geraldine and Marilda had paired off on the score of age, and little Mary Harewood was to wear a modified edition of the bridesmaid's white cashmere and stars of Bethlehem, whose green leaves gave the only colour the little bride would permit. The calmly decided manner in which she obtained her own way against fashion and conventionality amused everybody. Felix had hoped to have brought Ferdinand Travis and Marilda together on this occasion, but as soon as he found that Alda was coming, he had thought it better to abstain, and was rather relieved when the clerk at Peter Brown's sent information that Mr. Travis had left Barcelona, it was not known for what place, and so that his letter could not yet be forwarded.

The Vanderkists arrived late on the Monday, and the next morning Bernard conducted Sir Adrian to the covers he had been nursing up for this great occasion, Fulbert stalking along with him, thinking how hardly pressed stay-at-home people must be for something to do, if this were a sort of duty.

That last day of the old year was that on which Felix attained his object of signing away the lay rectory. The action was so unprecedented, and involved so many complications, that his strenuous efforts had only succeeded in getting the needful documents brought down from London with the marriage-settlements.

'Let me witness that,' said Mr. Audley: 'I am glad to have eyes enough at least for such a sight.'

Felix's face was calmly happy as he wrote the 'Felix Chester Underwood,' laid his finger on the seal, and spoke the 'I deliver this as my act and deed,' by which the Rectory returned to be Church property.

'It is a great load off my mind,' he said, handing the pen to Mr. Audley and William Harewood, who said nothing to him, but merrily shook hands with the new Rector, joking him on the additional substance and consequence the title called for, jests the readier because they all knew them to be empty, since East Ewmouth carried off the surplus tithe, and he only obtained the title and the power over his Chancel. Then Felix required their witness and the lawyer's to the will which the numerous recent changes had necessitated, and they afterwards carried the lawyer off to see the buildings, while Felix might rest till the arrival of the other parties to the marriage-settlements.

However, they had not been gone long before a gentle knock came to the door. 'Alda, my dear, are you come to pay me a visit?' and Felix met her affectionately, and drew a chair for her close to his own.

'I thought I might come when your business was over,' she said. 'I have scarcely seen you.'

'Have you been over the house? You remembered it! You have seen your little girls in our own cribs at last.'

'Yes, I have so often wished to come, ever since you have been here. You quite understand that I should have been so glad, only journeys are so expensive, and we are so many.'

'I see.'

'That is one of the few ways in which I can save,' she said. 'It is such an anxiety to have so many daughters.'

'Seven now?'

'Seven! Adrian says it makes us ridiculous. Poor children! That's what I came to speak to you about, Felix. I want you to talk to Adrian.'

'About what?' asked Felix, not sanguine of either talking the daughters into sons, or their father into preference of the sex.

'About some provision for them,' said the mother; and there ensued an explanation that nothing was secured to the children but her own portion from uncle Tom, while as to the estate, so long as there was no male heir, Sir Adrian could do as he pleased with it, and at the rate of his present expenditure there would be little left for his successors; and Alda, with some vague idea of Felix's helpfulness, had come to beg him to persuade her husband to insure his life, contract his expenses, or do something that might secure her children from dire poverty. She began with a wife's natural reticence and a guarded voice, but gradually, as the home sense of being with the brotherly protector of earlier days wrought upon her, she dropped her caution, and disclosed the harass of her life. Her husband, it seemed, was more and more devoted to the turf, and the display he thought needful to his position, but while he grudged his wife every outlay needful to maintain that ostentation, he was still more unwilling to allow her the requisites for the health, comfort, and education of the children.

'He thinks anything will do for them,' said Alda, with a dismal sharpness in her voice; 'he can't bear spending on anything but himself.'

'No, no, Alda, it is hardly well to put such things into words.'

'I would not except to you, Felix; but indeed it does me good to have it out. I get so disheartened, I would let everything take its chance, but for my poor little girls. There is a wrangle over every cheque! If I try to save in the housekeeping, he is angry about the dinners, and I can't ask for money to pay bills without being blamed for extravagance. Indeed, whether I get it or not, he is always cross with me all the rest of the day. I'm ashamed to see all here in black, but he would not let me do more than just wear a little slight mourning myself, and that for a short time. He would not hear of it for the children. Felix, when I see your peaceful faces and unruffled ways, I feel as if this were a world of peace.'

'You must contribute gentleness yourself, my poor Alda.'

She had never answered him so humbly. 'Indeed I am obliged to try, but you know I never was the good-tempered one at home, and it is very, very hard when one is never very well, and always harassed and anxious. I don't think, in the worst of times, Wilmet had to spend more thought on pinching here and there to make both ends meet than I have, and at least she had the comfort of keeping out of debt, and was thanked and not despised! Will you speak to Adrian, Felix; of course not letting him guess I told you, but beginning as if of yourself about the children?'

'My dear, I can hardly promise, but whatever I can do for you I will. Your little maidens seem to be sweet little, well-trained children, and if they grow up united and affectionate they may be happier on small means than you suppose.'

'The dinner of herbs and stalled ox,' said Alda; 'I have thought of Mettie's rice stews many a time when I have sat quaking because there were no truffles in the soup. Dear children, I am so glad they seem nice to you. I do believe they have the good tempers of our family; there are never any quarrels, and their grandmamma is so fond of them. I do try to keep them good, and'--there were tears in her eyes--'it does make one think more about things to have those little ones round one.'

'That is the blessing little Gerald brought to poor Edgar,' said Felix, pressing the hand she had laid upon his knees. 'The greatest of all.'

'When I see you I know it is,' said poor Alda; 'but sometimes I think if I had not been brought up religiously I should be happier, I should not think things so bad; and then Adrian is never so cross as if he thinks me wanting to be serious, or to make the children so. It makes him dislike our being with his mother, though nothing is such a comfort to me.'

'My dear, comfort will grow if you go on striving to submit meekly; do your best with your children, and look beyond.'

He was really more hopeful about Alda than he had ever been. Just then she said: 'One thing more. Mary and Sophy are old enough to need a governess. I have managed so far with a bonne, but I have neither time, spirits, nor ability to teach, and Adrian would be furious if I asked him for a proper salary. Do you think Robina would come to us--to live of course as my sister, on an equality? The delight and comfort it would be----'

To poor Alda, thought Felix, but Robina ought not to be sacrificed. 'It would not be right to ask her, remembering her engagement.'

'What engagement?'

'To Will Harewood.'

'My dear Felix, you don't mean that you have consented to anything so foolish! How are they to live?'

'They have been for the last four years endeavouring to save. He makes a good deal by his pupils, and by his writings, besides his fellowship, and she adds something from her salary. They mean to get £5000 together between them--her salary, and his fellowship, pupils and books--and then take either a parish or a mastership at a school.'

'It seems to me sheer imprudence,' said the old Alda, half peevish at the opposition; 'I did think she might have been glad to leave strangers for the sake of her sister, and her natural position.'

'You forget the difference the salary makes to her prospects. She has £150 a year, and it would not be right to ask her to give it up, considering----'

'I can't see why my children should be sacrificed to William Harewood!'

'Perhaps not, but Robina might. No, Alda, it will not do. The De la Poers have made her so happy that she feels Repworth another home, and I should not like to ask her to leave it till she marries.'

'It is hard,' sighed Alda, in a tone not unlike those heard over the shop of Bexley; but then followed another question: 'I want to know what you think about Marilda?'

'About Marilda? You know she is coming this evening.'

'Yes, but about her intentions.'

'I did not know she had any intentions.'

'You see it is plain she will never marry now, and I used to be nearer to her than any one. Don't look so amazed, Felix! I know she is only of my age, and of course it is not so much with any immediate expectations as for the sake of the influence there might be on Adrian. We used to see a good deal of her at one time, but I believe he tried to borrow money of her, and she spoke out in her rough way, so that he grew angry, and made me hold aloof; but now I am sure he wants to make it up with her again, he was so much put out about that little boy.'

'Little Gerald? How or why?'

'For fear she should want to adopt him, or make him her heir. Oh! Felix, you will do nothing to promote that. Remember, my poor little girls are just as near to you.'

'There's no fear of my promoting anything of the kind,' said Felix, coldly; 'Gerald is provided for. No one here will scheme for him.'

'Don't be displeased with me, Felix,' she said, more meekly. 'Only if Marilda should say anything----'

'The child whom dear Edgar expressly left to us we should not give up to any one.'

'I thought not; only if anything should pass, do turn her mind to us. It is not, of course, for the sake of the property, but if she just showed that sort of interest, it would give her weight with Adrian, and then if she suggests anything about the children he would be sure to attend. I can't say it, but you might.'

The motive was, after all, not so blameworthy; but before any answer could be given to this strange mixture of tokens of the long-dormant good seed, and the choking weeds of worldly care, the door was softly opened, a pretty glowing face peeped in, and was retreating with 'Oh! I didn't know,' but the morrow's bride might interrupt anything, and she was called back. 'Stella, my sweet Fair-Star, come in! Why, what have you got there? How it sparkles! What is it?'

'Eh!' exclaimed Alda, 'I declare it is a bouquet of diamond flowers and emerald leaves! I never saw anything more splendid. Where did it come from?'

'Out of Aladdin's cave? or is it dewdrops fixed by star-light?' said Felix, as the sparkles flashed on him. 'Stella, how did you come by it? It is not Audley family jewels, eh?'

'The Audleys never had--' but Alda checked what would have been spite, though Stella would not have minded it.

'Oh no,' she said. 'Cherry said you would guess.'

'Ferdinand Travis?' said Felix. 'Did he send it?'

'Charlie rowed him up in the skiff an hour ago, and ever since he has been showing us how to put it together, for it was all in separate velvet cases. It is all brooches and bracelets and necklaces, and a thing for one's head--a complete set really, you see,' said Stella, 'but it is just like a puzzle putting it up like this, and it is much prettier so.'

'Are you going to carry it as your bouquet to-morrow?'

'Oh no, that would never do!' interposed Alda.

'Oh no, I should not like that,' said Stella. 'Charlie has got me my bouquet, and that's best.'

'Much better taste,' said Alda; 'but this is truly magnificent. You will be prepared for the occasion, little Stella, even if you end as an ambassadress. The cost must have been enormous.' And she sighed.

'I am afraid so,' said Stella, a little oppressed; 'but Charlie is so pleased.'

'Yes, and Fernan can not only afford it, but must have thoroughly enjoyed doing it, my Star; so you need not scruple; he has robbed nothing he ought to benefit, you may be sure; so you may take lawful pleasure in it, little one, and "rejoice in your jewels as a bride doth."'

She smiled, but gravely. 'It is too beautiful,' she said. 'Isn't it a pomp?' she whispered into her brother's ear, as he turned the glittering thing about, enjoying the magic flashes of many-coloured rays.

'It might be,' he said, 'but it is not yet. It is the gift of a true and grateful spirit, and for itself--I never knew how beauteous these things were. Nay, Stella,' speaking low, as he laid a hand on her arm, and looked up into the sweet, thoughtful face, 'recollect that such are in the walls of the City above, and yet they are but the same stuff as earthly clay after all, showing us how dust can be sublimated. Look, the mysterious glory of those diamond lights may help us to dwell on the glories that eye hath not seen nor ear heard, and you know the rainbow round about the Throne is in sight like unto an emerald.'

'You've consecrated them, brother,' she said, with a sweet smile on her pensive face. 'When I think of that, it will keep them from being a temptation.'

He played silently with the flashing gleams a little longer, as if continuing the strain of thought, then said, 'Did you say he was here?'

'Yes; he only came back from Spain yesterday, and came down to bring this, though he did not know it was to be so soon.'

'Take your fairy bouquet, Princess Fair-Star, I'll come to him in a minute.'

'O yes, brother! There's the carriage coming down the drive!' and the voice was rather awe-struck.

'We will come too and help you through the introduction, little one,' said Felix, 'though I think you have self-possession to meet it.'

The little bride sprang away, and while Felix was slowly lifting himself up, he heard Alda murmur, 'Ferdinand Travis gave that! I wonder how many hundreds it cost.'

Certainly it was a contrast to the pinching and anxiety she had described. If she had but known, as Mrs. Underwood had said! Felix paused in the doubt whether to take any notice of the predicament, and said, 'He had gone to Barcelona, and I did not expect him to have returned by this time.'

'He has purchased a welcome,' said Alda, but her face glowed, and at the same moment the carriage crashed up to the door, containing the Audley party, who had all arrived at the Captain's the day before, except old Lady Margaret, who never left home.

'Thank you, Felix,' said Lady Vanderkist, as they repaired to the drawing-room in readiness for the reception. 'You have done me good.'

He could not quite see how, but no doubt there had been much in his look and manner of listening.

Sir Robert Audley was a pompous, formal old gentleman, tremendously condescending and courtly, and his first bow, his first tone showed Geraldine what a trial he must be to his sons--indeed the elder looked more bored than she had ever seen him.

'And where is the sweet young lady I am so soon to hail as my granddaughter?'

'Here she is, sir,' said Charlie, about to pull her forward, but she, by some intuition, advanced with a beautiful courtesy, perfect in grace but full of modesty and respect. Sir Robert was delighted, met her with a gracious gesture and kiss, and presented her to his daughter-in-law, Mrs. Somerville Audley--a dame stiff and fashionable-looking, and to Miss Audley, small, dark, and reminding Cherry of the old word 'modish.'

Alda was a great help, and so were the wedding presents. Ferdinand Travis had fled to Major Harewood's, but his bouquet evoked raptures from the ladies, though Cherry doubted whether the baronet were equally delighted that the Audley jewels he had produced for the bride of the heir presumptive should be eclipsed, for he kept on impressing on the young couple that these last were family relics, and must not be exposed to any risk, until Stella was ready to suggest that it would be wiser not to take them abroad, and was only withheld by the fear of seeming to slight them. Her habitual silence and observation had fostered a remarkable amount of simple tact, and this, together with her unusual loveliness, rendered her a great success; but the ceremonious speeches and grand politeness rendered the visit very fatiguing, and when the settlements had been duly signed, and the other high contracting power had bowed himself off, Felix looked so worn out that every one acquiesced in his shutting himself into his study. No one saw him again till the late dinner with which Sir Adrian must be regaled.

It was strictly a family party, and only the Harewoods, Vanderkists, and Mr. Travis, besides the whole eleven who still bore the name of Underwood, were assembled in the drawing-room. Marilda was there, hearty and good-natured as ever, but better looking at two-and-thirty than at two-and-twenty, for she had somewhat fined down, and actual work in business and charity had given meaning to her countenance, and energy instead of temper to her manner. She was assiduously courting little Gerald, and he backing out of her way into the more congenial society of Mary and Sophy Vanderkist. Cherry could not help thinking it an odd turn of the wheel of fortune that Alda should have so much nicer and better-regulated children than Wilmet. To be sure, Christopher and Edward were perfectly satisfactory to their parents, and obeyed them at a word, but the licence they enjoyed was a continual contrast to the strict rule Wilmet had maintained over her former charge, and did not render them agreeable company to their uncles and aunts. Moreover, the ruddy locks and freckles of the Harewoods had mastered the Underwood blonde complexion, while the two Vanderkists reproduced the elder twins at the same age, and were exemplary little maids, taught meekness by difficulties and yielding by seniority, grateful for notice from their uncles, and enchanted to find a boy so unlike their notions of the species. On the other hand, Gerald watched them like fairies, laid himself at their feet with precocious devotion, and mourned that he could not marry them both on the spot.

The grown-up party looked each other over rather as they had done on meeting fifteen years before at their mother's funeral--the years that had made their baby the fair little bride who was nestling as close as she could to her eldest brother that she might feel his hand on her shoulder. Those years had brought the 'little ones' of those days to be 'the tall ones' of the present, Bernard exceeding all the rest in stature, even Fulbert and Clement, with regular features, brilliant complexion, and glossy light-brown hair and moustache, but without as yet any particular expression except good-humoured complacency in his own appearance and deportment, being persuaded that Charlie would have to-morrow a true best man, unrivalled in looks and equipments; and without a regret, save that Felix was courteously deaf to all Sir Adrian's strictures on the scandalous state of his covers. Whatever those years had done for Bernard's outer man, his mind, or perhaps more properly his will, had not grown much older.

This could not be said of Angela, who sat so still and meek that Alda was meditating on transferring the governess proposal to her, but with a latent energy in the corner of the down-cast eye and firmly closed mouth, and the most anxious watchfulness of Felix's slightest movement. The change was comparatively small in sober Robina, whose steady equable nature had been early moulded, and who sat at the window curtain, with Will hovering over her, both trying not to contrast other people's love affairs with their own. The three brothers whose bickerings had then been so troublesome were now the most inseparable. If their paths had severed them, they liked each other better now, as they stood all in a row, with their backs against the mantel-piece, the big, bearded, sunburnt Australian, the close-shaven, alert clergyman, and the little bright-eyed, thin-faced, moustached tradesman, all eagerly talking in under tones of old Bexley pranks and comrades, laughing as they never did but in such a trio, and yet each bearing tokens of toil with the full might of vigorous manhood, unlike as was their work.

Geraldine's little bending figure had chiefly altered for the better. The mixture of arch lively grace and pathetic depth which gave her peculiar charm had increased rather than lessened, and though she had gained in dignity and confidence, anxieties and perplexities made her cheeks glow and her eyes wander restlessly as she tried to make talk for Sir Adrian.

The twin sisters were together on the sofa, both in black velvet. Wilmet had a bad cold, and indeed had never looked her best since the shock at Whitsuntide, so that Alda had regained the palm of beauty; but it was matronly content that had plumped the chiselled contour of feature, and if the colouring showed less clear and flower-like, it was by contrast with Alda's defined, over-transparent white and carnation, and the wasted look that threw out the perfection of the delicate moulding. One gave the notion of comfortable, peaceful motherliness, the other of constant anxious wear and tear; and the blue eye, so much larger and more hollow than the soft, calm one, rather weighed down by the cold, no doubt were rendered additionally restless by the presence of the man she had not seen since she had cast him off like a worn-out glove.

It was she who had married, but upon which had the impression lasted most painfully? There was a nervous quiver of her nostril, and a sullen scowl in her husband's eye, when, after the casual greeting, Ferdinand sat down among the children, took Gerald on his knee, and made friends with the little girls. He was indisputably the wealthiest man present, and the handsomest, except perhaps Bernard, whose good looks were merely the fair, scarcely developed graces of early youth, while his was the matured nobleness of countenance stamped on naturally fine outlines by a life of brave, unselfish activity and dutifulness. It was a calm, serious, dignified face, less melancholy than in his younger days, for the liquid wistfulness of the dark eyes had given place to vigilance and authority, and though there was still a want of susceptibility and animation, the dark colouring and statuesque outline did not need them.

'And he the chieftain of them all,' as Cherry liked to call her Squire--he was leaning back in the easy-chair by the fire, with a weary, placid smile on his face, and his fingers clasped lightly into one another, as his elbows rested on the arms of his chair. There was a strange monumental fixity of repose about him as if he were only half attending to the talk that passed by him, and cared more to gaze than to speak. However, on the announcement of dinner, he roused himself, gave his arm to Lady Vanderkist, and talked cheerily to her through the soup and fish, but while carving the turkey, he paused, a flush and then a whiteness came over his face, and saying to Alda, 'I'm afraid I must go, this is too much for me,' he rose, while Clement pushed back his chair and hastily followed.

Startled looks went round, and--'A tiring day'--'He has not done so much for a long time'--'That stuck-up old bore might do for anybody'--but in a few moments Clement came back, and said, while taking the seat at the bottom of the table, 'He is better now,' then tried to divert Alda's anxious inquiries whether using the arm had renewed the strain. Geraldine put on a defiant brightness, appealing to John whether Sir Robert were not enough to account for any fatigue, and with questionable taste in her excitement, giving Sir Adrian a sarcastic account of his compliments. Luckily, Stella was out of hearing, but John detected the ring of anxiety in every ironical word.

Knowing that a crowd coming after him was always oppressive to Felix, no one followed Wilmet when on leaving the drawing-room she went at once to the study door. She found Felix on the Squire's chair in its most couch-like form, looking even in the firelight exceedingly pale, but greeting her with a smile of welcome.

'Yes, I am better,' he said, in answer to her enquiry. 'I'll come into the drawing-room presently.'

'You had better not, you are overtired.'

'I like to look at them all,' was the answer.

They both sat silent awhile; there was something in the stillness that forbade Wilmet even to feel in her pocket for her tatting; but at last Felix surprised her by saying:

'I have been thinking about Jacob.'

'Jacob Lightfoot?'

'No, Israel. I think I enter a little into his surprise and gratitude. I look back--don't you, Wilmet?--to a shivering sense of loneliness and responsibility when we first realized the task before us.'

'I don't think I ever did,' said Wilmet; 'I never thought of mamma's not getting well, till I had grown quite used to it. It never occurred to me that our position was unusual till I heard people talking of it.'

'So much the better; but I recollect one cold winter day, soon after my father's death, reading Jacob's vow at Bethel to devote his best, if God would only give him bread to eat and raiment to wear, and longing for some assurance that we should have it--I felt so helpless, and the future so vague--and when I see how richly blessings and prosperity have flowed in on us, and look at those fine, happy, strong creatures, it seems to me like his return across the Jordan, or as if I could say, as he did at last, "The God that led me all my life through, the Angel that redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads."' And as the firelight shone upon his face, Wilmet recollected another saying about Jacob, and how the 'Angels of God met him,' but her answer sounded flat. 'Yes, it is a great comfort to see so many launched and doing well.'

'And, Wilmet, how much was owing to you! If you had not been the girl you were, we must have broken up; it could not have been done at all. Do you remember our councils over that spotted account book on Saturday nights, and our misery when Fulbert spoilt a new pair of boots in the river?'

'And your new coats! They used to weigh on my mind for months. I used to look at your elbows every evening, and reckon whether they would hold out till I had saved enough for the next.'

'Ah!' added Felix, laughing a little, 'do you remember my worst offence of all? No? My having my hair cut at Slater's--instead of letting you do it. I believe you had designs on the shilling, and that you thought me corrupted by the vanities of this world!'

'Yes, I was very hard and narrow then. John has shown it to me.'

'It could not be otherwise--you had to live in a continual state of resistance.'

'But how many mistakes we made!'

'It is those very mistakes that make me so thankful; that they should have been so many, and yet for the most part remedied, and that those boys and girls should have come out so sound-hearted, right-minded, and affectionate as all of them are, is to me as wonderful as it is merciful.'

'They could not well help it. John says it shows the force of example--that not one for whom you were responsible has gone wrong.'

'Of prayer--of being the children of the righteous, more likely,' said Felix; 'and there is a coming home, you know; I see the dawnings in Alda, poor child, though there is much to smother it. I am happier about her than ever before.'

'Poor Alda,' said Wilmet, 'I hope she will be happy in her children, though I should not like mine to be so stiff and prim, poor little dears!'

One by one Felix dwelt lovingly on the good points of each of the brothers and sisters on whom he had been gazing--speaking with an enjoyment that made Wilmet loth to leave him even for the sake of making the most of her brief time with her twin sister. When at last he recollected Alda and bade Wilmet return, blaming himself for having detained her so long, he said as she rose, 'Give me one kiss first, my Wilmet, for the sake of the old times when we worked and struggled together, and I think we tasted of the special promise to the fatherless.'

Wilmet, somewhat surprised, bent over him and gave the kiss. He held her a moment, saying, 'May God bless you, and return it into your bosom in your children.' The solemnity startled her, but the blessing was a joy to her for the rest of her life.

The sound of music drew him back to the drawing-room ere long. Alda had never heard Lance since his chorister's alto had passed from him, and everyone, even Fulbert, called for some old echo of the old times over the cracked piano. Sir Adrian had musical taste enough to be tamed and kept amiable by the domestic concert; and even Angela did her part, controlled by the resolution not to vex Felix. He indeed could take no share, except that of evident delight, and now and then his low voice chimed into one or other of his best loved choruses, but he told Alda when she regretted the lack of his tones, 'Lance was better worth hearing.'

'Let us have "Lead, kindly Light" again to-night, Clem,' said Felix, as they moved towards the Oratory. 'Little Stella will not think it a sad farewell.'

'No, indeed,' she said, holding his hand. 'I am sure we want the kindly Light; going so far away, and so young!'

The hymn sounded even more sweetly than on the first arrival, so sweet that Sir Adrian said to his wife, 'If all family prayers were like that, they would not be such a bore.'

Wilmet went home by the bridge in the carriage, taking Marilda with her, but Will and Ferdinand returned by boat. It was a splendid frosty night, and Felix came out with them as far as the terrace. Lance, who had gone down to the river, on returning found him still gazing at the glories of the stars--Sirius flashing with most dazzling brightness, and the Pleiades twinkling with their silvery mystery, and Aldebaran gazing down like a great eye.

'Still out, Fee; don't get a chill.'

'Everything is so goodly--so good--without and within doors,' he answered, 'that one hardly knows how to leave it. I wonder whether we shall recognise what our foretastes have been!'

Lance recollected how strangely that word 'foretaste' had fallen on his ear by Tranquillity Bridge as he sat in the solitude of his heavy trance of disappointment; and as his brother's face came again into the lights of the hall, something in it struck him with a sense that even then he had been far from knowing what sorrow could be.

Of course the wedding morning was a scramble, though no one beyond the family was invited, except that Dr. May brought his daughter Gertrude to act as bridesmaid. Felix, who had since the hospital meeting ceased to leave his room before breakfast, sent word that he should keep quiet till Stella was dressed, and then that she would find him in the study.

How lovely the little white Star looked may be imagined. She was quite calm and self-possessed, softly tender and loving, but too gravely serious to be excited or agitated as she went, in deep, trustful love, to meet the great unknown life, carrying about with her a certain hush of sweet gentle awe.

So in her snowy robe and veil and wreathed brow, with her modest head still bearing the long shining curls, she floated down the dark oak stair, and crossed the hall, without casting a look on those who were watching her, and knocked at the study door.

'Come in.' Felix rose to greet her, taking both her hands and kissing her through her veil. 'My Star of the East, my happy gift!' he said. 'Stella, eighteen years ago father put you two freshly christened babies into my arms. I gave dear little Theodore in his innocence back to him last Whitsuntide. I am thankful to be allowed to give you in your bridal white to the home that is to cherish you for the better Home.'

She looked up in his face, which a flush of rosy colour was restoring to something of its old self. 'Oh! brother,' she said, 'I am so glad you spoke of dear Theodore. Charlie says we may take him my flowers as soon as it is over. I wonder if he knows.'

'It may be, better than if he were here,' said Felix. 'Then it would have been a sad day for him.'

'I could not have done it,' said Stella, and lowering her voice, 'I don't know how I can have done it now. Oh, brother, nothing ever can be like you!'

'It is one of my great comforts that you have done it, my Star, my own especial child. I am glad you are the one I give away. Are they all ready?'

'I think so.' And just then Geraldine knocked to intimate that the Audley party were known to be arrived at the church, and that the clergy and choir were ready. So Stella took the arm, not clinging, lest she should hurt him, but lightly resting her fingers on it, and they came forth, he with that youthful flush of colour on his cheek, with all his scrupulous grace of attire, and with a white camellia in his coat, but with that far-away look in his eyes; and she with bent head, and deep concentrated spirit, never lifting her eyes from the ground. The bridesmaids fell in behind, first the three small nieces, Mary Harewood trotting between the other two, then the two sisters--Robina in her sedate reserve, and Angela, flushing, quivering and trembling, and never taking her eyes from Felix; and next the ill-matched pair Gertrude May and Margaret Audley, the former thrilling at the smile and clasp of the hand she had exchanged with Felix, the latter's little black eyes taking note of everything not accordant with Audley conventionalities.

Then came the rest in due order, Geraldine upon Ferdinand's arm, glad it was so strong and friendly; for this, the first home wedding, made her shiver with nervous excitement.

The elder Charles Audley, who had assisted in the twins' baptism by their dying father, and had stood as their sponsor, was standing robed at the inner archway of the tower, with Clement and William on either side, while behind were the choir, Lance leading them.

Of course the whole parish was in the seats, Miss Isabella herself, unable to help feeling that the marriage was infinitely more solemn, and full of real praise and prayer, than those whose 'simplicity' she had been wont to uphold.

No one ever forgot the quietly loving gesture with which the fatherly brother put his fair young sister into the hands of the Church to be 'given to this man,' and the movement after the trothplight up to the festally decked chancel was an exceedingly beautiful sight in itself. Mr. Audley took the licence of giving a short but beautiful address of his own on the significance and glory of holy wedlock, and then the union was crowned and sealed by the hallowed Feast; for it had not been thought fit to hurry it over out of sight beforehand, out of deference to the two baronets, who, like the children and idler gazers, left the church, and loitered outside, observing that 'this was too strong.'

After this, the signatures were to be made in the north transept that served as vestry, and it was while the movement in consequence was going on that Bernard felt a convulsive grasp on his arm, and the whispered words, 'Help me home,' were so full of suffering that he was not surprised to see his eldest brother's face deadly pale, and contracted by pain.

Ere they had moved five steps, Fulbert too was supporting Felix, and not without need, and Dr. May and Wilmet were following.

Consternation communicated itself to those around the little table. 'Felix ill!' The last Underwood that Stella Eudora ever signed herself showed her start of dismay, and Clement, who was presiding over the register book, turned pale, and gave a groan.

'God in His mercy help us! It is come!'

'I knew! I knew,' cried Angela--darting away.

'You apprehended'--began the amazed bridegroom.

'He was in some pain in the early part of the night, but slept towards morning, and was resolved to go through with it. Stay--you must write here while we know what we are about; this can't be left half done.'

The blow was known to all that sad wedding party as, instead of making a joyous procession to the great door, they found their way through the cloister to the house. The crisis that Felix had been led to expect would steal on him by slow degrees, and with full warning, had come suddenly on, accompanied with acute inflammation, producing pain so terrible to witness that the great strong Fulbert came downstairs sobbing like a child at the sight, and Geraldine was taken by both hands by Bernard and dragged away to the painting-room, with almost angry orders not to come near that door. The poor boy held her tight by her wrists, as if he feared she would disobey, reiterating, 'He said--he said you mustn't come.' Fain would John Harewood have used equally decisive measures with his wife; but neither he nor Dr. May could prevail on her to relinquish her place as foremost in the attempts at alleviation.

No one could be allowed to come even to the door who had not nerve to endure the sight of severer anguish than most of them had ever deemed possible. Clement and Angela were doing their utmost under Dr. May's directions, but Mr. Audley found himself less needed there than by poor Cherry, whom he let loose from Bernard's grip, and after sending the boy for a cordial for her, gave them both a clearer explanation of the state of the case than they had yet understood. At first she felt it hard to have been in ignorance all this time, but when Mr. Audley had helped them both to pray, she fastened upon the hope that the very suddenness and violence of the attack proved that the evil would the sooner be over and leave no ill effect.

A report was circulated that Dr. May had given some such hope, and therewith that there was some respite in the paroxysms of suffering. There was a little movement among the crushed and dismayed party who had at first straggled up to the hall and drawing-room, and sat, or stood about, as if a thunderbolt had descended among them.

Alda was the first to make any sort of move, impelled by the fear of her husband's impatience, and recollecting the guests. Sir Robert and his daughter-in-law were stiff and uncomfortable, wondering that things should have been allowed to go so far, and wishing themselves away. Alda looked about for her sisters, but could only find Robina, who assisted in proposing that the strangers should come and eat. Sir Robert, on this, uttered polite condolences, begging that his carriage might be sent for, but consenting to come into the dining-room.

Where were the bridal pair? Poor young things, they were found in one of the hall window seats, where they could catch sounds from the sick room, all crushed up together, his arms round her, and her head, with wreath and veil pushed aside, on his shoulder, as if she were passively submitting to such support as he strove to afford.

'My dear children,' began Sir Robert, as they stood up startled, 'it is indeed a mournful turn that this festive occasion has taken, but I am relieved to hear that the patient is somewhat relieved, and you will, as Lady Vanderkist suggests, assume your places at the table. Or perhaps our bride will first change her dress, as it may be better to hasten your departure.'

'I can't go away.'

But Sir Robert with his conventionalities, Mrs. Audley with her proprieties, nay the Captain with his morbid horror of everything painful, all came round, declaring that Charlie was bound to take his bride away; they need not go far; they might wait where their rooms were engaged, but go they must; and appeals were made to both Vanderkists on the necessity.

There however quiet, gentle Stella became wild, nay almost frantic. She broke away from her husband, whose 'You shall do exactly as you please' was drowned in the authoritative commands of his grandfather. 'No! No!' she cried,' I will not go! No one can take me, while my brother is so ill,' and she burst into an irrepressible passion of weeping, leaning against the tall post of balusters, and pushing Charlie away when he would have taken her hand. 'No, no, don't, I don't want any one. I won't go away from my brother,' and she flung her arm round the post as if she fancied she would be forcibly dragged away, and not so much as hearing, 'This is very amiable feeling,' from Sir Robert, or if she did, it distracted her the more, while Charlie stood in utter perplexity, for it was of no use to protest that he did not mean to take her away, when it only on the one side made his grandfather order him the more decidedly, and Stella cling the more desperately whenever he tried to approach, scarcely restraining her screams as her agitation became uncontrollable. 'No, no, let me alone, trouble only comes with me--I want no one but my brother!'

A step on the stairs startled her into breathless silence. It was Clement. 'Hush, Stella,' he said, sternly and shortly. 'Felix wants you and Charlie.'

'He heard,' some one said reproachfully.

'Yes. Don't detain her,' he added, as Alda would have modified her dishevelment by removing the wreath and veil. 'I don't know how long this interval may last.'

Stella, instantly controlled by the home voice, and ashamed and grieved at having disturbed her brother, made no resistance to Charlie's taking her trembling hand as Clement preceded them to the room, all silent now save for the constrained breathing which showed the interval to be far from painless. The ashy face of suppressed suffering recalled to Stella her watch by that same spot during the suspense about Theodore, and she dropped on her knees, trying to hide her tears and stifle her sobs in the bed-clothes. Felix after laying his hand on the poor little head held it out to Charlie, and evidently commanding his voice with great difficulty said, 'I did not think this would have come till you had her safe away, Charlie.'

'I am very sorry,' was all the poor bridegroom could say.

'I am very sorry,' repeated Felix, his hand resting on her hair again, 'but as it can't be helped, I think it will come harder to her if she is taken away just now. This can't go on long as it is now. Ask Dr. May. And when you see--'

He paused from inability to achieve a steady tone, and Charlie answered, 'I never meant to go. I'll stay till you are better, as long as ever she likes, indeed I will, my sweet--' but again she seemed to shiver away from him with a sort of repugnance, which Felix perceived. More faintly he said, 'You'll be his happy gift, my child, I'm so glad to leave you to--Oh! go now!'

The fingers grew rigid and seemed to push her away. Wilmet half lifted, half thrust her into Charlie's arms. He almost carried her, pressing her face against him that she might not catch a glimpse of those spasms and uncontrollable writhings of anguish that were returning. The door was shut, and the young creatures cowered in the gallery in one another's arms, catching the sad sounds that neither patience nor resolute will could prevent. Stella slid down on her knees, and Charlie was fain to do the same, thankful that she let him hold her in his arm instead of repelling him.

'There! it is all quiet. He must be better again,' he whispered after a time, and this was confirmed by Angela coming to send out a prescription of the doctor's. The chill look of her white dress suggested to Charlie to say, 'You will be as cold as ice in that whiteness, my Star. Suppose you took it off, while I go and tell Sir Robert that nothing shall move us till he is all right again. You couldn't think me such a brute.'

Poor little Stella held up her tear-stained face for a kiss with a vague sense of having been naughty and wanting forgiveness.

'You'll come back to me when you have dressed! I'll come and wait up here again.'

'Do. I'll be quick. They can't send us away, can they?'

'I'll see them shot first,' then repenting the schoolboy defiance of the words: 'No, Stella, I'm your husband, you know, and can guard you. I had no intention of going, not a bit. Only they can't see when one is a man, and they frightened you with the noise, poor little thing! If I tell them he wishes it, no one can say a word. Don't be long.'

He nearly walked over a pair sitting on the stairs, too dejected to heed anything, namely, Lance and Gertrude, drawn together by the fellow feeling of being both too unhappy to speak or be spoken to, yet finding a sort of companionship in wretchedness as they listened and caught fragmentary tidings from above.

Charlie showed his manhood in quiet self-assertion. He told his grandfather that it would not be right to take his wife away, and that her brother wished them to stay; and though this was viewed as very ill-judged, there was no gainsaying it, especially as his uncle had come down decidedly of the same opinion.

Geraldine had likewise descended. The sanguine view she had contrived to take up had given her strength to take up her necessary part as mistress of the house making farewells and excuses. Marilda had, she found, swept off all the children to the Harewoods' house, including Gerald, who had allowed Ferdinand to carry him away, and in the present state of things she could only be thankful he was beyond hearing and questioning.

As the hours passed, and winter twilight gave way to early night, there was something of a lull. The alleviations had not been entirely without effect, and Dr. May felt obliged to go home, promising that he or his son, or both, would come early on the morrow. When Felix understood this, he asked whether Gertrude were still in the house, and hearing that she was, begged for her presence for a moment.

'Most certainly,' said her father. 'Where is she?'

'She has been sitting on the stairs all day with Lance,' Angela answered.

'With Lance?' Felix nearly smiled.

Dark as were the stairs, there they still were. Lance had executed numerous errands, and had made Gertrude swallow some tea, but they had not spoken ten words to one another. There Dr. May found his daughter, and, with a word or two of warning and preparation, led her in. She could not see much, for the light was shielded from the face, and only threw up the shadow of the cross and the angel's hovering wings on the ceiling above. The hand that lay on the sheet, curved, but not with repose, closed on hers with a 'krampfhaft' pressure. 'You have been comforting Lance,' said Felix. 'Thank you.'

'I couldn't,' she faltered, more overcome by voice than look, it was so thin and weak.

'You prayed! You will pray! "Each on his cross still let us hang awhile." Pray that I may not let go. "Suffer us not at our last hour,"' his lips moved on--'Pray that for me.'

'Indeed! indeed I will!'

'Thank you; it will be your greatest kindness. And one day remember that wish--that one wish. I wanted to wish you good-bye. God bless you. Kiss me once, my sister Gertrude.'

She could not have staid a moment longer than to give and receive that kiss. She almost fled into the room where her wraps were, and there cried as if her heart would break, feeling scarcely able to bear it when Robina came to see whether she had warm things enough.

But Gertrude had a twelve miles' drive with her father, and in it she experienced as never before, the depths of his tenderness and delicacy of his sympathy, and he found what were his once wilful petted child's yearnings towards that lofty noble character just out of reach, yearnings by his own forbearance just not stirred into active conscious love, such as would have left her heart entirely widowed. For in reply to the questions she scarce durst utter, the Doctor declared plainly that his own hope was small, though there still remained the possibility of a turn for the better, and Tom's more modern science might have further resources.

This was what he had left with the family, and most of them turned 'not hopeless' into hopeful, more especially as the most distressing form of suffering had not recurred, though even now Felix begged that Cherry might not see him, and feebly tried to send Wilmet home, but nothing would induce her to leave him. Her whole self seemed bound up in the single thought of ministering to him, and she was almost incapable of attending to remonstrance from husband or doctor on the special risks in her case, as if her strong will had mastered her very understanding, and they feared that to insist might do her more harm than to let her have her way. Clement kept equally close at hand, resolved that she should never be alone with the patient to bear the first brunt of those appalling attacks of suffering, and Angela was never further off than the next room, with the door open.

Those downstairs achieved a conventional cheerfulness. Stella was there in her ordinary black dress, and it was not easy to realize that she was Mrs. Audley, while Charley hung over her, petting her, though very anxious to be useful.

The chief use to which Geraldine wanted to put him or any one else, was to entertain Adrian, who looked as if he thought the illness of the master of the house a special injury and act of inhospitality to himself, and was, besides, much disposed to be rude to Ferdinand.

'Can't you take him into the long room and play billiards?' she asked Bernard.

'You'd hear the balls up in Felix's room. I never saw such a selfish brute.'

Bernard had found his Helot at last. 'Best way would be to get Fulbert to take him somewhere to smoke. I don't suppose he'll go for me.'

The somewhere was Sibby's sitting-room, and when Sir Adrian was carried off, Alda, Geraldine, Ferdinand, and Marilda had rather a comfortable talk over old St Oswald's Buildings days, in which Mr. Audley presently joined them.

The calm lasted, so that every one except the three actual nurses went to bed peacefully; but before the morning broke there was worse distress than ever. The worst attacks there had been at all set in, lasting longer, and with far less power of mitigation from the remedial measures, which seemed to be losing more effect every time, till the watchers scarcely durst wish to see the sufferer begin to revive only to undergo fresh torture.

That terrible morning broke Wilmet down. She had gone through all with unremitting energy and unflinching courage, but when Professor May had arrived, and brought some new anæsthetic, so that there was some relief and the strain slackened, she just crept into the next room with Angela and fainted away, only reviving to swoon again as soon as she tried to move.

The doctors were unanimous in sending her away, even while scarcely yet conscious, to her own house, and she was too faint to make any resistance or remonstrance. About an hour later, Ferdinand and Marilda, who were waiting in the billiard-room for the report of Professor May's opinion, were auditors of the following conversation, evidently the end of something that had been going on all the way from Major Harewood's house:

'Adrian! it is absolute cruelty! Why cannot you go alone, and send home the children?'

'Oh I daresay, and leave you to sentiment with that nigger fellow.'

'You need not have insulted me;' and her silk rustled upstairs, his steps following.

Marilda's eyes flashed and gave utterance to a fierce whisper. 'The cowardly ruffian! Can't you horsewhip him?' clenching her fist as she spoke.

But Ferdinand's dark face had indeed reddened, and his nostrils quivered, though not at the personal offence, as he muttered under his breath: 'To shoot him were the only cure for her! God forgive me for the thought, but to think of any woman in such hands, and to be the person most entirely unable to defend her!'

'I forgot! Of course you could only make it worse, but poor dear Alda!--It drives one out of one's senses;' and tears of anger were in her eyes.

'It stirs the devil within, and makes me wish I had never forgiven him,' said Ferdinand between his teeth.

'You need not forgive him this! I don't.'

After a few moments' pause Fernan said, 'The only service I can do her is to go away. Would that make him consent to her remaining?'

'Oh! we can't spare you. What shall I do with Gerald without you or Mary Vanderkist? He is always whining for Cherry!'

'Of course I can't bear to be away, but if I excite this idiotical jealousy, what can I do but take myself off? I'll go to London, and you can telegraph every hour. Go up and tell Alda--Lady Vanderkist, I mean. Casually ask what I can do for her.'

'That would stir him up again. And I don't think it would be of any use. He doesn't want to stay here, and means spite.'

'Then she could insist on staying.'

'She would be afraid. You see when people have used one another as they used you, it can't help rankling.'

'I ought not to have come here, but of course I thought the whole thing as utterly gone by with them as with myself.'

Marilda looked up with a curious expression of blushing gladness that made him exclaim,' How like you are to what you were when first I saw you!'

She blushed still more.

'That time!' he said, musing. 'Did you ever think I used you wrongly?' he suddenly added.

'I never did. I knew the difference between myself and Alda.'

'Nay, let me tell you, I never should have seen how beautiful she was, unless--I suppose it wasn't true, now--'

'What wasn't true?'

'That you and Felix--'

'Felix! No indeed! He is far too independent and disinterested. Who could have told you? You won't say? Not Edgar?'

'No. It was that poor lady herself.'

'Well,' said Marilda, infinitely shocked, 'I do call that wicked!' and as her mind glanced back to all the pain of those two years, she added, 'What did she say? Don't mind telling me. I'm old enough now.'

'Are you?' he said, with a quick glance of his dark eyes that made her glow again, and he continued: 'She gave me to understand that there was an old inclination between you and him, and that your father had such a regard for him as to be likely to yield if nothing more advantageous came in his way.'

'If you had only asked poor Edgar! Well! perhaps she flattered herself it was so! Yet, what could have put it into her head.'

'You know the rest, and how I was dazzled both by her beauty and the charm of her connection, but for years past the sense of my huge mistake has been upon me; yet till Felix came into possession here, I still thought it was his punctilious feeling alone that kept you apart.'

'As if he had ever cared for me except in a cousinly, brotherly sort of way! Did you think that was what made me hush up poor Edgar's affair, though indeed I never felt so thankful to any one as to you for having saved that secret.'

'Do you know what your generosity made me wish, though I never durst speak it before? That you would forget all these mistakes and forgive me, and come back to what things were before that misunderstanding.'

'Oh!' cried Marilda, with a long breath, 'you can't really mean it.'

'What else should I mean? If you will only forgive and overlook.'

'Don't talk in that way,' cried Marilda. 'Why I never cared for anyone else, and always have--but'--breaking off in the midst--'hark, there are wheels. That poor thing will be gone.'

'You had better go up and tell her.'

'Not this--I can't. It would only make him more savage; besides at such a time.'

'True. No--only let them know I'll go. I'm gone. No, I can't leave the place till I've heard his opinion--but I'll go over to Ewmouth. I'll see you again and settle--only don't let her be dragged away.'

Marilda was obliged to go up, with the vaguest ideas as to what to say, in a case that even she felt to be delicate, but on coming to the scene of action, she found that the words she had overheard amounted to no more than an ebullition of temper. Sir Adrian did not wish to leave behind him a character for brutality, and since he could plead an appointment and escape from the house of mourning, he could endure leaving his wife to it; and an excuse for yielding was afforded by the maid who, coming up with the two little girls, brought word that Mrs. Harewood was asking for my Lady.

So Mary and Sophy were sent back to Ironbeam, their father went to meet his pheasants, and their mother hurried back to her twin, all that old tenderness reviving instinctively so as to render the sisterly contact the greatest comfort then possible to either. Ferdinand had taken care to inform the departing Sir Adrian that he was about to leave Vale Leston, and was in fact only waiting for the opinion of the London doctor who had seen Felix before, and for whom, with Tom May's sanction, he had telegraphed.

Gratitude to him for having devised this, and trust to further advice buoyed Cherry up, as she watched in the painting-room, giving orders, answering inquiries, and never swerving from hope and that intense prayer for her brother's restoration, which no one could discourage, nor even qualify in vehemence. Why should not a life so valuable be given back to her entreaties and those of many another suppliant? Yet Mr. Audley, going backwards and forwards between her and the patient, could not but be struck by observing that Felix himself rather allowed than demanded the supplications for recovery, and though extremity of pain often wrung from him cries for relief and sobs for mercy, yet in the calmer periods these became sighs for the power of enduring his cross better, and of not loosening his hold on his Saviour, and sometimes even the moan had more of praise than of plaint. He was still quite sensible, but the intervals between the paroxysms were so far from painless that he never showed any wish to see or speak to any but those immediately about him, namely, Clement and Angela, with Lance and Robina as supplementary helpers, and Mr. Audley, when he could bear it.

Tom May waited all day, doing his best till his London friend came, and could do nothing but confirm his treatment, and agree that the shadow of hope was not yet absolutely impossible, though human means were unavailing. However, between exhaustion and a fresh form of anodyne, a sort of stupor was induced towards the evening, and this was again a relief, at least to those who durst call it sleep.

Ferdinand profited by it to tear himself away according to his promise, and Marilda betook herself and her much aggrieved maid to the Rood, carrying the children with her, to spend the day, though there was no room to lodge them at night; poor Gerald submitting passively, as the fresh misfortune of losing both Fernan and Mary Vanderkist fell on him. Marilda's quarters were left to Sister Constance, who arrived at the appointed time, to find herself less needed at the Priory than the cottage, where the greeting she received from the sorrowful and anxious Lady Vanderkist was no small contrast to the manner in which Alda Underwood had requited her services.

The beneficent torpor lasted far into the night, and in some way or other all, save Clement and Angela, consented to take a certain amount of rest. Even Angela, though refusing to lie down, must have dozed in her chair by the fire, for as her perception gradually returned to her, she heard broken tones from Felix, and saw Clement standing over him. The first words that fully met her ear were the conclusion of what had gone before. 'There! stained, weak, failing, erring, more than I can say--more than I can recollect--I can only trust all to the washing in my Saviour's precious blood. Let me hear His message.'

The deep, thankful intensity of the gaze, looking far beyond Clement standing over him and pronouncing the Absolution, impressed Angela with strange awe.

Full of the past, all shuddering twilight, Man waits his hour with upward eye, The golden keys in love are brought, That he may hold by them and die.

It was a face of love, eagerness, absorption, that no one could ever forget, as the voice of pardon was listened to with folded hands.

She dared not move till there was again need of her assistance. When she could utter a word to Clement, it was: 'Is not he better?' but Clement shook his head. Still the last doctor's advice had enabled the worst part of the suffering to be so far kept in abeyance, that before that morning's dawn the Feast could be held in the sick chamber, among those whom Clement ventured to call together for it. The greater calm much encouraged Cherry, and she went away cheered by the face that could still give her a smile, declaring that Felix did not look worse than when he was bloodless after the accident.

Both she and Bernard hugged their hope. Even when, before the day was out, all the family knew of Tom May's verdict that those symptoms had set in which extinguished all chance of recovery without a miracle; still those two upheld one another in shutting their eyes to the inference, and continued to rejoice in the comparative relief from the heartrending spasms of the previous days, while others knew but too well that this was only the token that the struggle of the constitution was over.

Other forms of suffering had set in, but attention was sometimes free. Ferdinand and Marilda, though ashamed of having fallen into their engagement at such a time, could not help believing that to him at least it would give pleasure, and it had been breathed into Mr. Audley's ear. In one of these pauses of tranquillity Felix was told of it, and said with a smile, 'That is well. God is giving me every wish of my heart--"Grant thee thy heart's desire--"'

For his words had a tendency to flow into psalms and prayers, which the others took up and finished; but he was generally quite sensible, though sometimes restless and sometimes torpid. He asked for Wilmet, and hearing she had gone home, and that Alda was with her, seemed satisfied. He murmured something about Sir Adrian, and on learning his departure, said, 'I meant to have spoken to him--I don't suppose I could--some one tell him--he must be kind to Alda and the little ones--poor Alda!'

The day passed in this manner, and when at its close the familiar sounds indicated shutting up for the night, he showed an expectation of good nights. Geraldine came, and was charmed with the calmed, soothed countenance; she kissed him and told him he was better, and would sleep. He answered, 'Thank God, yes; thank God for you, my Chérie.'

Clement was afraid to let her agitate herself or him, and led her away to her own door, appealing to him all the way whether the worst were not over. He trusted that it was.

To Stella Felix gave only a blessing and good-night, but he thanked Charlie again for letting her remain, and to Bernard he said what the lad at the moment thought wandering, 'You'll swim for yourself now your plank is gone.'

There were no such positive farewells to those immediately about him. He depended most for aid both bodily and spiritual on Clement, but he took the most notice of Angela, often thanking her, with some tender name, even while he seemed continually drifting further and further out of reach.

Life is strongly bound into a frame scarcely at the midway of age, and the change came so slowly that Cherry had begun to say that when the Epiphany was past, the day of his father's death, she was sure the corner would be turned. He was very weak, but he had been as weak before.

Weak? Yes. The mind was failing now, not the soul. The ears still opened to prayer, the lips joined in it, the speech was of another world. "The hours of the cross--when will it be over?" Or the wedding might guide the thought to "the Bride prepared." "The white array"--"the diamonds--the jewels He will make up--the emerald rainbow round about the Throne."

Falterings very feeble ensued, as if he were talking to his father: 'Indeed I tried. I think they are all coming. Father, may I come now? Isn't it done?'

That was the last word they caught distinctly, except fragments of prayer, before the long hour when he lay on Clement's breast, each long labouring breath heaving up as though the last. Lance had fetched Cherry, telling her Felix was going. He had had to change the word to dying, actually dying, before she could understand its force. Then she stood, gripping his arm, at the foot of the bed, while nothing was heard but those gasps, and the continued prayer of Mr. Audley, until the moment came when he bade the Christian soul depart into the hands of the Father of Spirits.

That was just as the winter night was darkening on the Saturday evening.

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