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A Houseful of Girls

by Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey · English · Gutenberg #21121 · 455,137 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: A Houseful of Girls

Author: Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

Illustrator: Victor Prout


        
Release date: April 17, 2007 [eBook #21121]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21121

Credits: Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HOUSEFUL OF GIRLS ***




Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England





A Houseful of Girls

By Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
________________________________________________________________________
Another book by Mrs de Horne Vaizey, also known as Jessie Mansergh,
about the lives of five girls in one family, and their friends, in
Edwardian times.  Of course every time there is a major event, such as
an engagement, or the cancellation of one, the different girls all have
different takes on the situation.  NH
________________________________________________________________________

A HOUSEFUL OF GIRLS

BY MRS GEORGE DE HORNE VAIZEY



CHAPTER ONE.

HALF A DOZEN DAUGHTERS.

There were six of them altogether--six great big girls,--and they lived
in a great big house, in the middle of a long high road, one end of
which loses itself in London town, while the other goes stretching away
over the county of Hertford.  Years ago, John Gilpin had ridden his
famous race down that very road, and Christabel loved to look out of her
bedroom window and imagine that she saw him flying along, with his poor
bald head bared to the _breeze_, and the bottles swinging on either
side.  She had cut a picture of him out of a book and tacked it on her
wall, for, as she explained to Agatha, her special sister, she felt it a
duty to support "local talent," and, so far as she could discover,
Gilpin was the only celebrity who had ever patronised the neighbourhood.

Christabel was the youngest of the family--a position which, as every
one knows, is only second in importance to that of the eldest, and, in
this instance, Maud was so sweet and unassuming that the haughty young
person of fourteen ruled her with a rod of iron.

Fair-haired Lilias was a full-fledged young lady, and Nan had had all
her dresses let down, and was supposed to have her hair up; but as a
matter of fact it was more often down than not, for it was heavy and
plentiful, and Nan's ten thumbs could by no chance fasten it securely.
Hair-pins littered the schoolroom floor, hair-pins stood out
aggressively against the white paint on the stairs, hair-pins nestled in
the little creases of velvet chairs: there were hair-pins, hair-pins
everywhere, except just where they should have been--on Nan's dressing-
table; and here there was such a dearth of these useful articles, that
on one memorable occasion she had been compelled to effect a coiffure
with the aid of a piece of string and a broken comb.  The effect was
striking for a good ten minutes, and then came the inevitable collapse;
but, "Dear me," as Nan observed, "accidents will happen, and what is the
use of making a fuss about a thing like that, when the world is full of
suffering!"

Elsie thanked her stars that she was only sixteen, and need not be
"grown-up" for two long years to come; but when her younger sisters grew
obtrusive, she suddenly remembered that she would be seventeen in three
months' time, and would have them know that she was to be treated with
respect; and, in spite of daily discussions, feuds, and battles, the
girls all loved each other dearly, and believed that such a charming and
highly endowed family had never before existed in the annals of
Christendom.

As a matter of fact, the Rendell girls had claim to one great
distinction--promiscuous accomplishments had been discarded in their
case, and each had been brought up to do some one thing well.  Maud was
musical, and practised scales two hours a day as a preliminary before
settling down for another two or three hours of sonatas and fugues.
Elsie locked herself in her bedroom for a like period, and the wails of
her violin came floating downstairs like the lament of a lost soul.  Nan
appropriated a chilly attic, carved wood and her fingers at the same
time, and clanged away at copper work, knocking her nails black and blue
with ill-directed strokes of the hammer, as she manufactured the panels
which were fitted into her oak carving with such artistic effect.
Lilias declared sweetly that she was too stupid to do anything, but
privately reflected that at least she had mastered the art of looking
charming; and what did it matter if she _were_ useless, since with her
beauty she would certainly marry a duke on the first opportunity, and be
spirited away to a life of luxury!  As for Agatha and Christabel, they
were supposed to devote themselves to the study of languages and the
domestic arts, but in private conclave they had already decided on their
future career.  They were to keep a select academy for young ladies, in
which they would correct all those glaring errors of governess and
mother under which they themselves had groaned.

"I can bear it better when I feel it is for a good end.  Our girls shall
never suffer as I am suffering!" said Chrissie, with an air of
martyrdom, when she was ordered to bed at nine o'clock, and
remorselessly roused from slumber at seven a.m.  "If grown-ups were
sensible, they would allow a child to follow its own instinct.  Nature
must surely know better than mothers; and my nature tells me to sit up
at nights and have breakfast in bed.  To be sent off as if one were a
child in arms is really too horribly trying!"

"And when Mr Barr was there too!  So degrading!  Last night he was
talking to me about books, and I'm sure he thought I was quite grown up.
The table was between us, you know, so he couldn't see my legs.  I was
enjoying myself so much, and saying that I thought Thackeray much over-
rated, when mother came up and said, `Time for bed, Chickie!  Run away!'
I assure you, I _blushed_ with mortification."

"Piteous!" said Christabel, bringing out her pet word with emphasis.
"They never think of our feelings.  I shall make it a rule to study the
characters of our young ladies, and avoid wounding their
susceptibilities.  I know how it feels!"

In spite of their many sufferings, however, the Rendells would one and
all have been ready to declare that there never had been, might, could,
would, or should be, such another father and mother as they possessed.
To have a son at college, and yourself carry off a prize at a tennis
tournament, was surely a feat to be proud of on the part of a father;
and what joy to have a tiny little scrap of a mother, who could be
petted like a child and lifted up in the arms of the youngest daughter--
a mother who had solved the problem of eternal youth, and looked so
pretty and so meek, that it was a constant marvel where on earth she
managed to stow that colossal will-power before which every member of
the household bowed and trembled.

The Rendells' house was at once the brightest, the airiest, and the
noisiest in the neighbourhood.  As there were only six daughters, it can
truthfully be asserted that there were never more than half a dozen
girls talking at the same moment.  Strangers passing beneath the
schoolroom window at a moment when the sisters were assembled together,
had indeed been known to estimate the numbers present as from a dozen to
twenty; but such a statement was obviously false, and tended to that
painful habit of exaggeration which it is the duty of all good folk to
deplore.  They were girls of strong individuality, and each felt it a
duty to state her own views on any given subject, which she proceeded to
do, undaunted by the fact that her companions were too much engrossed in
talking themselves to be able to listen to a word she said.  Maud
talked, pouring out tea and dropping sugar into the cups with tragic
emphasis; Lilias prattled sweetly, waving her white hands to enforce a
point which no one heard; Nan banged the table and upset her cup in
violence of denunciation; Elsie squeaked away in melancholy treble; and
Agatha's "Too bad!" and Christabel's "Horrid shame!" were heard
uninterruptedly in every pause.

When the door of the Grange opened to admit a stranger, the wail of a
violin, the jingle of the piano, and the clang of Nan's hammer greeted
him on the threshold, and from morn till night the echo of laughter and
of happy voices never died away.  There was only one occasion when the
Rendell girls subsided into silence, and that was when Jim--the brother,
the typical man of the race--came home on a visit and shed the lustre of
his presence on his native village.  Then the Miss Rendells sat in rows
at his feet, paying obeisance, and, meekly opening their mouths,
swallowed all he said, not even Nan herself daring to raise a question.



CHAPTER TWO.

A HAPPY THOUGHT.

Thurston House, the abode of the Rendell family, was one of those
curiously-constructed houses which are only to be met with in old-
fashioned neighbourhoods.  It stood directly on the high road, a big
grey building which could boast of no architectural beauty, and which
indeed presented a somewhat cheerless aspect, with its wire blinds and
tall, straight windows.  A gaunt, town-like house--such was the
impression made upon the casual passer--by; but appearances are apt to
be deceptive, and that same stranger would have speedily altered his
impression, if he had been taken round the garden to view the other side
of the house.  It was almost impossible to believe in such a different
aspect!  From one side a busy high road, strings of cyclists, _char a
bancs_ driving past, bearing parties of brawling trippers, clouds of
dust, the echo of the drivers' horns, and the continued whirl of wheels;
and on the other--deep bay windows looking on to a lawn of softest
green, winding paths shaded with grand old trees, and, beyond all, a
meadow stretching down to the riverside, where punt and canoe stood
waiting in happy proximity, and clumps of bamboos flourished in eastern
luxuriance.

"Our country house," the girls called the rooms facing south, "Our town
house," those at the front; but though they adored the garden, and spent
every available moment out of doors, the busy high road still held an
attraction of its own.  Mrs Rendell had her own entertaining rooms at
the back of the house, but the girls were faithful to the little porch
chamber which had been their property since childhood--a quaint little
den built over the doorway, with a window at each of the three sides,
through which an extended view was afforded of the comings and goings of
the neighbourhood.

"I love this dear little bower," sighed Lilias sentimentally.  "There's
something so quaint and old-world about it.  I feel like Elaine in her
turret-chamber, looking out upon the great wide world."

"And it's such sport watching the people pass, especially on rainy days
when the wind is high, and they are trying to hold up their dresses, and
carry an umbrella and half a dozen parcels at the same time!" cried Nan
with a relish.  "Last Saturday was the very worst day of the year, and
all the good housewives went past to shop.  Chrissie and Agatha and I
offered a prize to go to the one who guessed rightly who would have the
muddiest boots.  It was lovely watching them!  Old Mrs Rowe, clutching
her dress in front, and showing all her ankles, while at the back it was
trailing on the ground; Mrs Smith, stalking like a grenadier, with a
skimpy skirt and snow-shoes a yard long; dear, sweet little Mrs Bruce,
as neat as ever, with not a single splash; and Mrs Booth, splattered
right up to her waist, with boots as white as that rag.  I had her name
on my paper, so I got the prize, and spent it in caramels.  I'm getting
rather tired of caramels--I've had such a run on them lately.  I must
turn to something else for a change."

"You are getting too old to eat sweets, Nan," said Lilias severely.
"You ought to set the children a better example.  If all the money you
spend at the confectioner's was put together, you would be surprised to
find how much it was.  And it's bad for your teeth to eat so much sugar.
Why don't you save up, and put it to some really good use?"

"Such as frilling, and ribbons, and combs for the hair!" suggested Nan
slily, rolling her eyes at the younger girls, who chuckled in the
consciousness that Lilias had got her answer this time at least, since
every one knew well how her pocket-money went!  "What is your idea of
something useful, my dear?  We'd be pleased to take into consideration
any scheme which you may have to propose, but in its present form the
suggestion is somewhat vague."

"My dear child, you know as well as I do that there are a hundred
different ways.  The only difficulty is to choose."  Lilias stared out
of the window, trying hard to cudgel up one idea out of the specified
hundred, in case she should be pressed still further.  That was the
worst of Nan, she always persisted on pushing a subject to the end.
"You--er--you might help the poor of the parish!"

"Just what we do!  I heard the vicar say myself that Mrs Evans was a
striving little woman who ought to be supported.  If we took away our
custom--"

"I mean the really poor.  Mrs Evans would not shut up shop for the want
of your threepenny-pieces, but the Mission at Sale is always short of
funds.  If you had a collecting-box, you could send in a subscription at
Christmas."

"`The Misses Margaret, Elsa, Agatha, and Christabel Rendell--four and
sixpence halfpenny,'" quoted Chrissie derisively.  She marched across
the room and stationed herself with her back to the fire, her thin face
looking forth from a cloud of hair, an expression of dignified disdain
curling her lips.  "How important it sounds, to be sure!  It's all very
well talking about saving up, Lilias, but it's not so easy to do with
sixpence a week, and birthdays every month, and Christmas presents, and
pencils and indiarubbers, and always seeing fresh things in the shop-
windows that you want to buy.  It's not that I wouldn't like to help: if
I had a sovereign, I'd give it at once, but I won't be put down in the
list for eighteenpence, and that's all I could save, if I tried, from
now to Christmas.  I gave a threepenny-bit to old `Chairs to mend' only
last Saturday, and one the week before to a woman who was begging.  I am
most charitably disposed!"

"So am I," agreed Agatha--"especially when it's cold.  Rags wouldn't be
so bad in summer, but they must be awfully draughty in winter.  And I
spend less in sweets than any of the others, because my teeth ache.
I've often wished we could do something for the Mission; but I'm so
poor, and I sha'n't get any goose-money till autumn.  I wish we could
think of some plan by which we could make some more.  Chrissie and I are
always talking about it.  There seems so few ways in which girls of
fourteen can make money.  We thought of writing and asking the editor of
the employment column; but mother laughed at us, and said it was
nonsense.  It's not nonsense to us!"

"If we could only have a sale of work," said Lilias slowly.  She was
still staring dreamily out of the window, and hardly realised what she
was saying, but the other four girls turned sharply towards each other,
and a flash of delight passed from one pair of eyes to the other.

"Ah-ah!" sighed Elsie.

"Splendiferous!" cried Nan.

"How simp-lay love-lay!" drawled Christabel, with the languid elegance
of manner for which she was distinguished; and Agatha beamed broadly all
over her good-humoured face, oblivious of the sufferings of the poor in
the prospect of her own amusement.

"What fun we should have!  I'd bake the cakes and manage the refreshment
stall!  Tea and coffee, threepence a cup; lemonade, fourpence; fruit
salad, sixpence a plate!"

"I'd sell toffee in tins, and have a pin-cushion table, and make every
single soul I know give me a contribution."

"I'd give my new oak bracket.  No, it's too big.  I couldn't spare that;
but I'd carve something else; and make little brass trays and panels.
`High art stall: Miss Margaret Rendell.  Objects of bigotry and virtue
to be handed over to her,' and don't you forget it!"

"I'll take visitors out in the punt at threepence a head.  I'm so stupid
that I can't do any work, but the idea is mine, and that ought to count
for something," said Lilias; and a vision rose before her eyes of a slim
white figure gracefully handling the pole as the punt glided down the
stream.  Punting was a most becoming occupation; on the whole she could
not have hit on a pleasanter manner of helping the cause.  "I daresay I
shall make quite a lot of money!" she added cheerfully; and her sisters
laughed with the half-indulgent, half-derisive laughter with which they
were accustomed to greet Lilias's sayings.  She was so sweetly
unconscious of her own selfishness, and looked so pretty as she turned
her big bewildered eyes from one to the other, that they had not the
heart to disturb her equanimity.

"The punt is a good idea," admitted Nan, "for people are always pleased
to go on the river, and we must turn our advantages to account.  A
garden sale, that's what we must have!  Little tables dotted about the
lawn beneath Japanese umbrellas; tea in a tent, and seats under the
trees.  We can use all the properties that mother keeps for her garden
parties, and make it just as pretty and attractive as can be.  I
shouldn't wonder if we made a lot of money, for we shall be so original
and ingenious.  People are so stupid in this world.  I always feel I
could do things so much better myself.  Who wants to go to a stuffy old
bazaar in the Mission Room?  No one does!  They go from a sense of duty.
Mother groans and says, `Oh dear, if I could only give a subscription
and be done with it!  More cosies and chairbacks!  I've a drawerful
already!'  And bazaar things are hideous!  Father gave me ten shillings
to spend at the Christmas sale, and I wandered round and round like a
lost sheep, and couldn't see a single thing that I wanted.  In the end I
bought a cover for _Bradshaw_.  It wasn't a bit useful, for I never have
a _Bradshaw_; but it was the nicest thing I saw.  Now, let us solemnly
resolve not to have anything on our stalls that will not reflect credit
on our judgment.  Nothing ugly, nothing useless, nothing vulgar--"

"Impossible, my dear!  Can't be managed.  It's the law of Nature that
the kindest-hearted people have the least taste.  I don't know why it
should be so, but it is, and I'll prove it to you.  If we announced that
we were going to have a sale of work and asked for contributions, who
would be the first people to respond?"  Christabel thrust out her left
hand and began checking off the fingers with dramatic emphasis.  "Miss
Ross,--Mrs Hudson,--Mary Field,--old Jane Evans.  `So pleased to hear
that the dear children are interesting themselves in the welfare of
their poor brothers and sisters, and I've brought round a few wool mats
as a little expression of sympathy!'--that's Mrs Ross!  Then Mary Ann
would hobble up with a parcel wrapped up in a handkerchief, and kiss us
all twice over, and say, `I've brought round a piece of my own fancy
work, lovies, as a contribution for your sale.  My sight is not what it
used to be, and it's difficult to get the material one would like in
this little place; but shaded silks always look well, and I made the
fringe myself out of odd pieces of wool.'  And _that's_ not the worst!
Mrs Hudson would paint bulrushes on cream-pots, and forget-me-nots on
tambourines, and come round bristling with importance.  `I always find
fancy work is overdone at sales, so I thought a little of my hand-
painting would be acceptable!  No one needs more than a dozen cosies,
but every one is glad of an extra tambourine!' ...  It's easy to talk,
my dear, but what could you do when it came to the point?  There's
nothing for it but to smile, and look pleased."

"I should say politely, but firmly, that I could not find it in my heart
to deprive them of such treasures--that with so many deserving objects
craving support, it would be pure selfishness on our part to monopolise
all the good things!  Such munificence was far, far more than we
deserved, and would they kindly send a little cake instead?  They would
be delighted, for they are everlastingly giving to some mission or
other, and are always in a rush to get work finished.  But I don't
propose to let things reach such a climax.  I wouldn't hurt their dear
old feelings for the world.  So we will say at once that we want cake
and fruit, and we shall get the very best of its kind.  We must fix our
date for the strawberry season; for the human heart is desperately
wicked, and people will gladly pay sixpence to sit under trees and eat
strawberries and cream, when wild horses wouldn't drag twopence out of
them for a pen-wiper.  I expect we shall succeed best with punting and
refreshments."

"If it's fine!  But it won't be fine--it will pour!" said Elsie
gloomily, and wagged her head in the hopeless manner of one who has
tasted deeply of the world, and knew its hollowness by heart.  If there
was by chance a cheerful _and_ a melancholy view to be taken on any
subject, Elsie invariably chose the melancholy one, and gloated over it
with ghoulish enjoyment.  She was never so happy as when she was
miserable,--as an Irishman would have had it,--and hugged the conviction
that she was "unappreciated" by her family, and a victim of fate.  She
shed tears over _Misunderstood_ in the solitude of her chamber, and
cultivated an expression of patient martyrdom, as most fitted for her
condition.  Occasionally she forgot herself so far as to be cheery and
playful; but her feelings were so ultrasensitive that they were bound to
be wounded by some thoughtlessness on the part of her sisters before
many hours were over, when she would remember her own unhappiness, and
roam away by herself to the other end of the garden to apostrophise the
heavens and pity her hard lot.  "It will be sure to pour!  It always
does pour when we want to do anything!" she declared; upon which Nan
threw her book into the air and caught it again with a dexterous
movement.

"Fiddle-de-dee!  It's going to be a bright, glorious summer day, with
just enough sun to be warm and not enough to be hot, and just enough
wind to be cool and not enough to be cold.  And the grass is going to be
dry and the strawberries ripe; and all the pretty ladies and gentlemen
are going to drive over from miles and miles around, and spend so much
money that they will have none left to take them home.  What is the use
of croaking?  If things go wrong, it's bad enough to have to bear them
at the time; but until then imagination is our own, and we will make the
most of it.  It will not pour, my dear Raven; so don't let me hear you
say so again!  Make up your mind that this sale is going to be a
success, and try to bear it as well as you can."

Elsie looked up at the corner of the ceiling, and arched her eyebrows in
resigned and submissive fashion.  When the rain did come,--as of course
it would,--when all the fancy work was drenched and the pretty dresses
spoiled, the girls would remember her prophecy, and be compelled to
acknowledge its correctness; but till then she would suffer in silence,
and refuse to be drawn into vulgar argument.  So she determined, at
least; but a fiery temptation assailed her in the form of another
objection, so unanswerable that it was not in human nature to resist
hurling it at the heads of her companions.

"I hope you are right, I am sure; but, all the same, it is rather early
in the day to make arrangements.  You are counting without your host.
How can you tell that mother will consent to let you have the sale at
all?"

And at that the listeners hung their heads and were silent, for it was
indeed useless to build castles unless they were first assured of this
foundation.



CHAPTER THREE.

A NEW NEIGHBOUR.

After dinner that evening the six girls assembled in the drawing-room,
and little Mrs Rendell sat in their midst on a low chair drawn up in
the centre of the fireplace.  A grey silk dress fitted closely to the
lines of her tiny figure, two minute little slippers were placed upon
the fender, and the diamonds flashed on her fingers as she held up a fan
to protect her face from the blaze.  She looked ridiculously young and
pretty, to be the mother of those six big girls; and a stranger looking
in at the scene would have put her down as a helpless little creature,
too meek and gentle to cope with such heavy responsibilities.  But the
stranger would have been mistaken.

"Mother darling," said Christabel insinuatingly, "granting always that
you are the kindest and most amiable of mothers, do you happen to feel
in an extra specially angelic temper this evening?"

"An `oh-certainly-my-darlings-do-whatever-you-please' temper!" chimed in
Nan sweetly; "because if you do--"

"I hope I shall never be so forgetful of my duties as to say anything so
indiscreet," replied Mrs Rendell firmly.  "Margaret, your hair is
tumbling down again!  Kneel down, and let me fasten it for you at once!"

Nan knelt down meekly, her roguish face on a level with her mother's,
and the brown coils were twisted and hair-pinned together with swift,
decided fingers.

"You must do it like this--do you see!--tighter, closer, more firmly!"

"Yes, mother."

"It's disgraceful that a big girl like you--a girl nearly eighteen--
should not be able to do her own hair!"

"Yes, mother."

"You wouldn't like to be known as the girl with the untidy hair, I
suppose, or to have a collapse of this sort in church or in the street?"

"No, mother."

"Then pray, my dear, be more careful.  Don't let me have to speak
again."

"I'll try, mother.  A rough head, but a loving heart!  You might kiss me
now and say you're sorry, for you stuck two hair-pins right into my
scalp, and I never winced!"

Mrs Rendell smiled, and laid a gentle hand on the girl's cheek.  For
one moment her dignified airs seemed to vanish, and nothing but motherly
tenderness shone in her eyes, but the next she drew herself up again,
stiff as a little poker, and said lightly--

"Nonsense, nonsense!  Get up, child, and don't be ridiculous!  Sit on
that high chair, and don't stoop!  I can't endure to see a young girl
lounging on a couch.  What is this new scheme that you wish to ask me
about to-night?"

"Mother dear, you know you like us to be charitable!  You are always
preaching--er, I mean impressing upon us--that we ought to remember the
poah," said Christabel, standing up as stiff as a grenadier, and smiling
at her mother in her most ingratiating manner.  Mrs Rendell would have
died rather than acknowledge a special weakness towards any member of
her flock; but as a matter of fact her youngest-born possessed a power
of wheedling favours which none of her sisters could boast, and was
herself agreeably conscious of the fact, and fond of putting it to the
test.  "I am sure you will approve of our scheme, and feel pleased with
us for thinking of it.  It's for the Mission.  We thought of getting up
a little sale among ourselves, and giving the proceeds towards the
funds."

"It is so little that we can give; but if we devote our time and
strength"--murmured Lilias prettily.

"It all adds up when you put it together," said practical Agatha; "and
you can stick on such awful prices.  Chrissie and I thought we might
have the refreshments and a pin-cushion stall, and set out little tables
on the lawn."

"Such jolly fun!" gushed Nan.  "Every one would come; and we would have
games, and sports, and sails in the boats, and something to pay wherever
they went.  The young ones would stay, after the others had gone, to eat
up the strawberries, and we would have pounds and pounds to give to the
secretary."

"Of strawberries?" queried Mrs Rendell coldly.  "Your English, Nan, is
painful to hear.  I think I shall write down some of your sentences and
give them to you to parse.  Then perhaps you may realise how they sound!
A sale for the Mission!  That is an ambitious idea.  How do you propose
to get together enough work to fill a single stall, much less three or
four?"

"There are five months before July, and we would work like niggers all
the time.  Nan would carve, we would sew, all our friends would help,
and we would make money by tea and refreshments.  Really and truly, we
could do very well, if you would only say `Yes'."

"And we should so enjoy it!  It's horrid having nothing to look forward
to; and if there was this in prospect, we should be busy and occupied,
and the wet days wouldn't seem half so long!"

"Now, let us understand each other," said Mrs Rendell briskly.  "Is
this scheme proposed for your own amusement, or for the good of the
Mission?  One says one thing, one another, and I can't make up my mind
whether I am asked to consent to a charity or to a novel form of garden-
party.  I should like to have that point settled before we go any
further.  Are you thinking of yourselves or your neighbours?"

Silence.  The sisters looked at one another askance.  Elsie sighed and
shook her head, Agatha flushed to the roots of her hair, only Nan
retained her composure, and said daringly--

"Both, mother.  We began by saying that we should like to give a
contribution, but we had so little money that it seemed hardly worth
while sending it; and then the sale was suggested.  The first idea was
to help the Mission, but we did think that it would be good fun for
ourselves as well!  There is no harm in that, is there?  You have said
lots of times that you love cheerful givers, and it must be better to do
a thing willingly than grumbling all the time.  Do people who get up
bazaars never think of the fun, and the dresses, and the meeting with
their friends, but only just of the charity for which they are working?
Oh, mother, I don't believe they do!  I've heard you say yourself--"

"Nan, Nan, Nan!  I object to be quoted!  It is dreadful to have an
audience of six girls swallowing every word, and bringing them up in
judgment on the first convenient opportunity!"  Mrs Rendell showed her
pretty teeth in a smile of amusement, and returned to the subject in
hand with suspicious haste.  "Well, you are honest, at any rate, and so
long as you keep the idea of helping others to the fore, and don't allow
it to be crowded out by the thought of your own enjoyment, I don't see
anything to object to in your scheme.  No; I don't give my consent yet!
You must think it over quietly for a week, and be quite sure of your own
minds.  A sale would involve more work than you think; for you will have
to give up time and money and do the thing thoroughly, if you once take
it in hand.  I will promise nothing to-night; for I wonder how many
times you have come to me brimming over with enthusiasm about some new
plan, and how often it has collapsed like a bubble in a couple of days!
You are such changeable children!"

"Oh, Mummy, come!  Call things by their nice names," pleaded Nan.  "It's
not fickleness--it's fertility of imagination; it's not a collapse--it's
only a fresh beginning!  But we really mean it this time, and you mean
to say `Yes,' too.  I know you do; so nothing now remains but to talk it
over with Kitty in the morning."

"Ah, yes!  Until Kitty has been consulted nothing can be called
certain," said Mrs Rendell, smiling again; and as she spoke she lifted
her head in a listening gesture, and pushed her stool from the fire.
She had heard the opening of a door, and knew that her husband had
finished his after-dinner cigar and was on his way to the drawing-room;
and the next moment he appeared on the threshold, looked round the group
by the fire, and threw himself in a chair by Nan's side.

"Well, Mops!"  The big hand descended on the girl's head, and ruffled
the locks which had been so carefully put in order, while she turned up
her face with a beaming smile, for there was a special bond of union
between herself and her father, and they aided and abetted each other in
mischief like a couple of merry children.  "Well, Mops, how goes it?
What pranks have you been up to to-day?"

"Oh, father, none at all.  I've behaved beautifully--just like a real,
grown-up lady!  In the morning I pursued my avocations, and in the
afternoon I went out calling, with light kid gloves and a card-case.
Every one was out but old Mrs Reed, and you would have loved it if you
could have heard us talk!  We discussed the weather in all its branches.
Cold--dampy-cold--dry cold; warm--close-warm--breezy warm; hot,
thundery hot, scorching.  She told me which of each she liked best, and
which her poor dear mother had liked best; and I lingered on and on,
hoping they would bring in tea, until at last I yawned so much that I
was obliged to come away unfed.  Then I had cold tea and scraps in the
schoolroom, and we discussed charitable agencies."

"Oh, Nan, Nan, this will never do!  You are getting altogether too
civilised.  I shall have no playmate left at this rate," cried her
father, laughing.  "Can't you be satisfied with two grown-up daughters,
mother, and leave Mops to me for a few years longer?"

Mrs Rendell tried to look shocked, a task which she found somewhat
difficult when her husband was the offender; but if her eyes betrayed
her, the elevated brows and pursed-up lips made a valiant show of
disapproval.

"At eighteen?  She is past eighteen, remember.  You don't expect a girl
of eighteen to run about in short skirts, with her hair down her back?"

"She would look much nicer!" sighed Mr Rendell, looking regretfully
first at the long white skirt, and then at the coiled-up tresses.  "They
grow up so quickly, Edith; I live in terror of having no children left--
nothing but fashionable young ladies.  One must give in to custom to a
certain extent, I suppose, but I warn you frankly that Chrissie shall be
the exception.  It would break my heart to see Chrissie properly grown
up.  Chrissie shall always wear her hair down her back!"

Christabel screwed up her eyes at him across the fireplace with a smile
of indulgent affection.  He was so young, this dear old father! so
ridiculously young, that his vagaries could not be treated with the
severity they deserved.  It was truest wisdom to take no notice, and
lead the conversation to wiser topics.

"Any news in the great world to-day, father?" she inquired airily.  "Any
nice little bits of gossip to tell us?  We look forward to hearing your
news, you know, as part of the day's excitement."

"My news, indeed!  Gossip, she calls it.  If you had to provide for half
a dozen daughters, Miss Christabel, you wouldn't find much time to spend
in `gossip.'  I go to town to work, and leave it to you at home to run
round collecting the news of the neighbourhood.  I know nothing.  I hear
nothing.  Men don't trouble themselves with gossip."

Seven long-drawn gasps of incredulity greeted this utterance; seven
pairs of eyes rolled involuntarily to the ceiling; seven heads wagged in
accusation.

"Oh, oh, oh!  Who goes on 'Change and is told the latest jokes?  Who
goes to a _cafe_ after lunch and smokes with his cronies?  Who has
afternoon tea, and talks again?  Who travels every day with the same men
in the train, and hears everything, every--single--tiny--weeny snap of
news that has happened within ten miles around?"

"Don't know, I'm sure.  I don't!"

"Oh, oh!  Who told us about Evan Bruce, and about Mabel's engagement,
and the robbery at the Priory, and--and--"

"For pity's sake, stop talking all at once!  Take it in turns.  Speak in
pairs if you must, but not in a perfect orchestra.  I didn't know I had
been the first to hear any of those thrilling incidents, but it was
quite an exception if I did.  We generally read reviews, or talk
business.  I've no news for you to-night, at any rate."

"You always say so at first, dear.  You're so forgetful.  Think again.
Frank Brightwen, now--he told you something?"

"Gold Reef shares gone up two per cent.  Market closed firm, with a
tendency to rise."

"I shall buy some at once.  I like things that are going to rise.  Be
sensible now, for I shall have to go to bed in ten minutes, and I do so
want to be amused.  Had Mr Keeling nothing interesting to relate?"

"Bad cold, and feared influenza.  Details of his last attack.
Prescriptions from all the other fellows, with accounts of their own
experiences."

"Deah me, how appalling!  Worse than a tea-party!  I had no ideah men
could be so dull.  Nobody engaged?  Nobody married?  Nobody going to
give a dance?  No new people coming to live in the neighbourhood?"

"Ha!"  Mr Rendell struck an attitude of remembrance, at which the
watching faces brightened with smiles.  "Yes, now I come to think of it,
there was one little item of news.  I forgot all about it; but you will
be interested, no doubt.  The Grange is sold!"

The expression of curiosity on his daughters' faces was exchanged for
one of blank amazement.  Even his wife gave a start of surprise, and
turned towards him with eager inquiry.

"Let!  Really let, Alfred?  You don't mean it?"

"So I am told."

"We've been told so so often that one grows sceptical.  Is it really and
truly sold, and the deeds signed?  I sha'n't believe it unless they are,
for difficulties have cropped up so often at the last moment.  Are you
quite sure this time?"

"As sure as it is possible to be about anything in this wicked world.
Braithwaite tells me it's an accomplished fact.  The deeds are signed,
and the workmen are to begin putting the house in order next week.  You
may take it as settled this time, for the man really means to come.  He
is a certain Ernest Vanburgh by name, and has been living abroad for
some years."

"And is there a Mrs Vanburgh, and has he any children, and are they
young or grown up?"

"Is he a dull sort of man, or will he be hospitable, and give dinners
and parties and help to make the place lively?"

"Is he musical, father, because there's that lovely big room where we
could have such charming musical evenings?"

Mr Rendell shrugged his shoulders with an air of resignation.

"How like a woman, or rather, I should say, how like half a dozen women
put together!  My dears, I know absolutely nothing about the man, except
that he has bought the place.  He is in a hurry to get settled, so you
will probably find out all about him for yourselves before many weeks
are over.  It's no use asking questions.  He was willing to pay down the
money, and that was all that Braithwaite cared about.  He may be a
bachelor or a second Bluebeard, for all I know; but I suppose in either
case he will still be better than nobody."

"Of course he will.  Blank windows are so dull.  Curtains are much more
interesting.  There's so much character in curtains.  I can tell the
sort of woman who lives in a house merely by looking at her curtains.
It will be a new interest in life to have the Grange let again."

"And I have a Feeling that it will be an Epoch in our lives.  I have a
Feeling that our Fate and that of the new tenants will be inextricably
woven together.  It may be foolish, but these convictions are borne in
upon me; I cannot help them!" cried Elsie, clasping her hands and
opening her blue eyes to the fullest capacity, as she turned a gaze of
mysterious raptness upon the group by the fireplace.  "Perhaps in years
to come we may look back upon this evening as a milestone marking out
the past from the future, and realise--"

A burst of laughter put a stop to further sentimentalising, and Elsie
retired within her shell, aggrieved and dignified; but for once she was
right in her surmises, for her own fate and that of her sisters was
indeed destined to be permanently affected by the coming of the new
tenant of the Grange.



CHAPTER FOUR.

CASTLES IN THE AIR.

The news that the Grange was sold was truly of great interest to the
Rendell family, for the house faced their own on the opposite side of
the road, and its uninhabited condition had been a standing grievance.
That one of the handsomest houses of the neighbourhood should remain
empty was a serious matter in a small community, and the younger girls
listened with bated breath to the accounts of the gorgeous
entertainments which had been given by the last tenant, hoping against
hope that the time would soon come when the house would once more be
thrown open, and the great oak-panelled rooms re-echo to the sound of
music and laughter.  Like their own house, a portion of the Grange
abutted on to the high road, so that a row of windows lay immediately
open to inspection; but two great wings stretched back to right and
left, and the house was surrounded on three sides by beautiful and
extensive grounds.  The late owner had spent lavishly in beautifying the
place, and had asked in return a sum so exorbitant, that though many
would-be tenants had arrived to look over the house, one and all drew
back when the nature of his demands was made known, and the Rendell
girls were not the only people who had despaired of a settlement.  But
now at last a delightful certainty had been gained, the deeds were
signed, and the long waiting was at an end!

The morning after the news had been received, Agatha and Christabel
rushed to the porch-room directly after breakfast, and flattened their
noses against the pane to watch for the first sign of their chosen
companion, that same Kitty of whom mention has already been made, and
who came daily to join the schoolroom party, instead of indulging in the
luxury of a governess of her own.  She came at last, a tall lamp-post of
a girl, with blue serge skirt blowing back from long brown legs, a plaid
Tam O'Shanter perched on the top of chestnut locks, and a bundle of
books tucked beneath the arm of a corduroy jacket.  Christabel banged an
eager fist upon the window, and rushed downstairs in a whirl of
excitement to meet her friend, and carry her off to the schoolroom.

"My deah, such news!  You'll never guess!  It's perfectly charming!
You'll go wild when you hear it!"

Kitty sat down in a chair and gazed calmly around.  Whether she would
"go wild" or not when the news was unfolded remained to be seen; but in
the meantime her composure showed not the slightest sign of being
disturbed.

"Um!" she ejaculated, and began to divest herself of her outdoor
garments, as if nothing more important engrossed her attention.  She
tugged at the fingers of her deerskin gloves, and let them fall
indiscriminately at either side of her chair; she sent her cap flying
across the room, wriggled out of her jacket, kicked her overshoes
beneath the table, then folded her arms and seemed to feel that she had
no further responsibility in the matter.  The art of putting away
outdoor clothes was one, indeed, which Miss Kitty seemed powerless to
master.  In vain her mother exhausted herself in objurgation, and grew
alternately pitiful and angry; Kitty kissed her fervently and vowed
amendment, but the next day there was the jacket as usual, hanging over
a dining-room chair, and the other garments dropped in as many odd
places about the house.  This method of procedure was, no doubt, a
saving of trouble in the first instance, but retribution followed when
it came to starting out again after lunch, when Miss Kitty might have
been seen plunging wildly about the room in search of a missing glove or
tie, while groans of despair attended every movement.

"Where _can_ it be?  Wish my things could be left alone!  Always stuck
out of the way!  Shall be late again now, and get bad marks.  Not my
fault.  Horrid old servants!  Wish they'd do their own work, and leave
my things alone."  So on, and so on, until at last the missing article
was found, folded up in a magazine, or thrust beneath a fern-pot, when
Kitty would seize it resentfully, and stalk down the garden-path on her
long brown legs, puffing and fuming, and feeling herself the most ill-
used of mortals.  On the present occasion Elsie and Agatha entered the
room as she finished undressing, and the former immediately set to work
to gather together the scattered possessions and put them away, for she
was tidier-in-general to the household, and could never by any
possibility bring herself to sit down comfortably in a room where a
picture hung awry, or a tablecloth dipped unevenly at the corner.  The
while she moved about she cast a pensive glance at the newcomer, and
exclaimed regretfully--

"Kitty doesn't approve.  I saw it in her face the moment I came into the
room.  I knew she wouldn't, and I don't know that I do, either.  It's a
great risk!"

"I haven't heard anything to approve of yet.  Chrissie has been too
excited to descend to details.  You seem to have been very busy!  I
never heard of any news when I was here yesterday."

There was a tinge of displeasure in the voice in which the last sentence
was spoken, and Agatha, the tenderhearted, was quick to note it, and to
explain away the misconception.

"There was nothing to hear.  It happened later.  There are two things we
want to tell you about.  One is a piece of news from the outside, and
the other is our own special affair; but of course it's not really
settled, for, as mother said, until you had been consulted, nothing
definite could be decided."

"Think not, indeed!" said Kitty shortly.  She put her hand in her pocket
and drew forth a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles, which she placed, not
on the bridge, but on the extreme tip of her nose.  Her curly hair was
roughened over her shoulders, the brown ribbon bow stood up erect at the
top of her head; her arms were folded in deliberate inelegance, and she
gazed over the spectacles with an air of grandmotherly condescension,
comically at variance with her appearance.

"Let me hear about it at once, or Miss Phelps will arrive, and I shall
burst with curiosity in the middle of lessons.  What is it that you want
to do?"

Elsie, Agatha, and Christabel immediately proceeded to explain the
situation in characteristic Rendell fashion, all speaking together, and
continuing to speak, without being in the least disconcerted by the
babble evoked.  Elsie whined, Agatha gurgled, and Chrissie drawled,
while the listener rolled her eyes from one to another, catching a
phrase here, a phrase there, until at length some dawning of the
situation began to make itself known.

"A sale of work!  We are to slave away making pin-cushions from now
until July, and then sell them to some one else!  I understand that; but
what is the idea of doing it?  Who is going to get the money when it is
made?"

"The poor and needy!"

"Thank you so much!  Most considerate, I'm sure!"

"Kittay, be quiet!  The Mission, of course; the Mission at Sale.  We
thought we ought to help, as it is in debt, and we do no good with our
money as it is.  We could collect enough to buy materials if we give up
sweets for the next few months."

Kitty's face fell gloomily.  "I've only three and fourpence in the
world, and it's mother's birthday next month, and Aunt May's and
granny's the month after that, and Agatha's next week."

"Don't count me!  I'm as poor as Job myself, but my old yellow sash will
wash and make into sachets, and I'll cut the crushed parts out of hair
ribbons, and use the ends for needlebooks.  If they are a tiny bit
stained, I will embroider flowers over the spots.  We shall manage the
work somehow, never fear; and think of the tea and refreshments, and
sails in the punts!  We shall simply coin money over them.  Lilias is
going to do the punting."

"Naturally she is!"  Kitty's eyes twinkled with humorous enjoyment.
"Easy and profitable!  Just the sort of work Lilias likes.  Oh yes, I
agree.  I'd like to work and feel that I was reforming the world, and it
will be great jokes.  I know what I'll do.  I'll take snap-shots at the
company with my new Kodak, and take orders for copies.  There's an idea
for you!  People are so vain that they always think they would like a
photograph--until they see a proof!  If they refuse, I shall try another
plan.  I will snap them unawares, and say, `I have taken several
photographs of you this afternoon at moments which, perhaps, you would
prefer not to have immortalised.  The negative is yours for two and
six.'  How do you think that would work as a source of income?"

"Better not let mother hear you talk like that, my child, or the Kodak
will be forbidden once for all, and it is really a lovely idea!  You
could take the punt with the different people on board, and groups
eating refreshments, and talking to each other on the lawn.  My deah,
you will amass fortunes!  I'm jealous of you.  I believe you will make
far more than we shall with our tea."

"But of course if it's wet"--insinuated Elsie persistently, only to be
frowned down by her companions, who were eager to impart the second and
most exciting piece of intelligence.

"It won't be wet, Croaky!  Don't say that again.  That's one piece of
news, then; now for the other!  Three guesses, Kitty, for a really
convulsing piece of local gossip."

"Maud is engaged?"

"Not yet!  You can guess that again later on!  This special piece of
news is not about our family at all.  Some one else!  Guess again!"

"Some one I know well?"

"No!"

"Slightly?"

"No!"

"Not at all?"

"Yes!"

"Then how on earth can I possibly--"

"It isn't necessary to know the person.  No one knows him yet, but we
soon shall.  He is coming to--to--can't you guess?  Think of the empty
houses near here!"

"The Grange!" cried Kit, and clapped her hands with delight.  "Some one
has bought the Grange!  How sweet of him!  Now we shall have something
to look at.  He is coming soon, you say--oh, what fun!  We can watch the
furniture unload, and the family arrive.  Who are they, and how many may
they be?  Lots of girls, I hope--the right sort, with plenty of fun in
them, and pony-carriages of their own, in which they can drive us
about!"

"We don't know a single thing about them, and can't find out.  The man
is called Vanburgh, which is all right so far as it goes, but whether he
is married or a bachelor--"

"Of course he is married!  A bachelor would never dare to take a house
like the Grange.  It would be downright wicked!  He is a married man,
with a grey beard, and a fat wife, and four beauteous daughters.  I see
them now before me, as in a mirror!"  Kitty shut her eyes behind the
spectacles, and screwed up her face into a grimace which was meant to be
vague and visionary, but fell a long way short of success.  She was fond
of indulging in flights of fancy, and her friends waited for her
utterances with smiling delight.

"Yes, yes, I see them all!  Veronique, the eldest, is a stately beauty,
tall and slender, with lustrous Spanish eyes, and locks--"

"Black as the raven's wing."  Chrissie's murmur seemed a fitting climax
to the description, but the Visionary objected to be interrupted, and
turning scornful eyes upon her, said icily--

"Quite the contrary.  Bright as pure gold!  She knows not the meaning of
fear, and rides an Arab charger, who knows every movement of her
mistress's hand.  She is betrothed to the scion of a noble house, and
will shortly be led to the hymeneal altar, when we shall attend as maids
of honour, clad in the sheen of satin and glimmer of pearls.  Gabriella,
the second, is _mignonne_ in stature, with a wee, winsome face--"

But at this point in the description Agatha spluttered with laughter,
and Christabel rose from her seat, and began banging down books on the
table with disdainful emphasis.

"I refuse to listen any longer to such uttah rubbish."--"Wee, winsome
face," repeated Kitty loudly, determined to finish the sentence or
perish in the attempt.  "Eyes blue as the summer skies, and a skin of
snow and roses.  She has a timorous, shrinking nature, and prefers a
milk-white charger to her sister's untamed steed.  Evangeline, the
third, has tawny locks and a dimpling smile, and makes up by charm of
manner for what she lacks in regular beauty.  Valentine, the fourth--"

But the characteristics of Miss Vanburgh number four were fated to
remain in obscurity, for at that moment a step was heard approaching the
schoolroom door, and the historian made a dash forward to collect her
books, and place them on the table, before the entrance of Miss Roberts,
the governess.



CHAPTER FIVE.

AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR.

During the next few weeks the workmen took possession of the Grange, and
each morning as Kit made her appearance in the schoolroom Christabel had
some fresh item of intelligence to unfold.

"A blue paper is going up in the bedroom--pale, pale blue, with loops of
roses tied with lovers' knots--s-imply sweet! ...  Nothing but brown
paper in the little room over the door--nasty, common brown paper like
you use for parcels.  Hideous!  What can they be thinking of?"--and the
girls would stare together through the windows, watching every movement
of painters and paperers with breathless interest.

Later on a still more exciting period was reached, when vanloads of
furniture arrived, and their contents were spread about on the roadway.
Then the Rendell girls massed themselves in the porch-room, and while
they manufactured needle-books, and scattered bran over the floor in the
wholesale manufacture of pincushions, Lilias played the part of Sister
Anne, sitting with idle hands, reporting progress to the workers, and
sounding a bugle-note of warning when any object appeared which demanded
attention.  The numberless packing-cases were baffling to feminine
curiosity, but the furniture itself was so unique that the most prosaic
articles assumed a surprising interest.  There were no modern designs to
be seen here, no cream enamelled bedroom suites, no green wood chairs,
nor cosy corners.  Everything belonging to the house was of a sombre
grandeur which belonged to another country than our own.  Sideboards and
cabinets of carved Indian wood blocked up the roadway, and made black
patches against the oak-panelled walls; overmantels of the same dusky
hue stretched up to the ceilings, and Oriental rugs of priceless value,
but distressing shabbiness, were spread over the floors, while the lower
windows were covered with screens of carved wood, such as are to be seen
over the windows of Turkish harems.

Lilias, the worldly wise, was pleased to pronounce the equipments of the
house as in "a style of quiet magnificence," but her sisters were less
enthusiastic, and Nan screwed up her saucy nose in open disdain.

"Very grand and antique-y, and all that sort of thing, but my, how dull!
Fancy sitting in that oak-panelled room, with those black ghosts reared
up against the walls, and the light shut out by those carved screens.  I
should go stark, staring mad!  Give me something bright and cheerful,
and lots of sunshine.  What worries me is that there is so little that
is feminine and frivolous.  I haven't seen a single thing as yet that
looks suitable for a girl's room."

"But think of the cases!  All those dozens and dozens of cases.  You can
never tell what may be inside them.  They may be stored with--"

"Treasures of buhl and ormolu!" sighed Kit softly.  "That's what they
always say in books, though I haven't the slightest idea what it means.
Wouldn't it be a terrific blow if there were no girls after all?"

But such a possibility the Rendells absolutely refused to admit.  The
prospect of finding friends of their own age in the deserted Grange had
taken such firm hold of their imagination, that Veronique, Evangeline,
and Ermyntrude had already become living companions who played a part in
their lives, and whose tastes had to be seriously considered in
arranging the future.  They longed for the time to come when doubt would
be put at an end; but the Vanburghs seemed in no hurry to appear, and
meanwhile April was at hand, and, as was their custom, Mr and Mrs
Rendell prepared to leave home on a short holiday, leaving the girls
alone to battle with the terrors of spring-cleaning.

Mrs Rendell had strong ideas on the subject of domestic education, and
would allow no extra help to be engaged for this yearly upheaval.  It
was timed to take place in the Easter holidays, and each girl was
expected to take a special task in hand, and to bring it to a
satisfactory conclusion.  She herself frankly confessed that she had
come to a time of life when she was thankful to be spared fatigue and
discomfort; but her husband was not so willing to make the admission,
and talked about his proposed absence in an impersonal fashion, which
vastly amused his hearers.

"Mother has had to bear the burden of housekeeping for over twenty
years, and I think it quite time that some of you took it off her
shoulders.  It is good training for girls to learn everything that has
to be done in connection with a house, so for your sakes as well as hers
I feel it a duty to take her away."  So he spoke, and Nan rolled her
eyes at him in mischievous fashion, poking forward her head until her
face was but a few inches from his own.

"And--er, what about your own?  You do not love the smell of soft soap,
do you, dear?  I remember last year--"

Her father waved his arms helplessly.

"Everything tasted of it!  Soup, fish, puddings, everything one ate
seemed saturated with soft soap; and there is something peculiarly
depressing about a house with no carpets on the floors.  I feel as if I
were going to be sold up; and if there is one thing more aggravating
than another, it is to be obliged to sit in a fresh room every day, and
have all one's possessions stored carefully out of sight.  Now,
remember, whoever dusts the books in the library is only to take out a
few at a time, and put them back--ex-actly where she found them!"

"Yes, father!"

"No servant is to touch them!  I know what that means--every book piled
on the floor, and stuffed back into the shelves just as they come!  You
girls are responsible, and must dust them yourselves."

"Mine own fair hands shall do the deed--in gloves, however, for I know
those books of old, and shall smother myself in sheets before I begin.
I don't object to a few days' charing for a change," said Nan briskly.
"I love rushing about in an apron, using my muscles instead of my brain,
gathering all the ornaments together, and washing them in a nice soapy
bath--"

"And watching the water get dirty!  Isn't it lovely?" gushed Agatha
enthusiastically.  "It isn't a bit interesting when they are only a
little bit soiled.  I like figures and things with lots of creases where
the dust gets in, and you have to scrub away with a nail-brush, and the
water gets black--perfectly black!  It's lovely!"

Every one laughed, even Mrs Rendell, though she felt in duty bound to
protest at the idea of anything being "black" in her well-kept house;
and the girls proceeded to sing the joys of spring-cleaning with
youthful fervour.

"What I like best are the picnic meals," said Chrissie.  "We always have
the same things for lunch--a round of cold salt beef and beetroot, and
coffee, and bread and jam.  It is all put on the table at once, and we
all carve for ourselves, and march about the room with aprons on, and
behave as badly as we like.  Then we have tea about three, and cold meat
again for dinner, and fruit instead of pudding, and are all so stiff
that we can hardly move, and all fighting to have the first hot bath.
The water gets cold after the second, so it's a great thing to be first,
if you can."

"And there are such amusing _contretemps_!" said Maud, the good-natured.
"There seems to be a special imp of mischief abroad at these times, for
something is bound to go wrong.  You can't guard against it, for it is
always the last thing you could expect, and it happens at the worst
moment, and in some extraordinary manner stops all the wheels of the
machinery.  It is really excruciatingly funny--"

"You don't think so at the time!  When Agatha knocked a nail into the
gas-pipe on Thursday afternoon, when the shops were closed, and all the
men had gone off to a beanfeast, you didn't think it much of a joke
then!" said Elsie darkly.  "We tried leaving the nail in and smearing
the hole with soap, but the gas came out in gusts, and we had to turn it
off, and there were only two candles in the house. ...  We sat all
evening in the dark, and undressed together in one room, because we were
obliged to give the servants one of the candles.  It wasn't in the least
funny, and you didn't think so either."

"Oh, I don't know!  It gave us a rest, which we wanted badly, and it is
amusing to think of afterwards.  I've often thought of it, and laughed
to myself,"--and Maud laughed again, the happy, kindly laugh which was
the outward sign of a sweet-hearted nature.

Altogether it was a very cheerful little party of workers whom the
parents left behind when the hour for departure arrived.  It was a
bright, inspiriting spring morning, just one of the days when it is
delightful to start off on the first holiday of the year, and Mr and
Mrs Rendell looked fully appreciative of the fact.  He was attired in a
new suit, while his wife, not to be outdone, had provided herself with a
pretty blue coat and skirt, and a flowered toque which was perhaps a
trifle more summery than the season justified.  After twenty-five years
of married life, it was still a delight to this husband and wife to
steal off for a holiday by themselves, and Mrs Rendell took the same
delight in her husband's approval as when she had first become his wife.
Every detail of her attire was daintily correct, and so pretty did she
look, so trig and smart, that her six big daughters stared at her in
admiration.

"Perfectly s-weet!" was Chrissie's verdict; then her eyes passed on to
her handsome, stalwart father, and a twinkle of amusement showed in her
eyes.  "They both do!  And so spick and span--everything new from head
to foot.  They might be a newly-married couple--a trifle elderly, but
ve-ry well preserved!  I shouldn't wonder if people thought they were.
How would it be if we hid a little rice?--"

"Happy thought!  A most delicate attention.  Keep them talking for a few
minutes while I pay a visit to the kitchen," cried Nan, deftly nipping
up the roll of umbrellas, and disappearing from the hall, to return with
the meekest of meek faces, and bid a fond adieu to the parents for whose
confusion she had been planning.

When the carriage drove off, the conspiracy was divulged to the other
girls, who fully appreciated the humour of the position, but were
unanimously eager to disclaim responsibility.

"I'd give worlds to be there when they open the straps!" cried Agatha.
"It will be too killingly funny.  They will both jump and get red in the
face--father from laughter, and mother from rage.  Oh-oh, it's lovely;
but I didn't do it, remember!  I hadn't a suspicion of it until this
minute!"

"I couldn't have allowed it, if you had consulted me, but I'm glad you
didn't!"  Maud declared.  "It will be exciting hearing how it comes off.
They won't need rugs or umbrellas in the train, but crossing the
Channel mother is sure to feel chilly, as she will never sit in the
cabin.  Father will settle her comfortably in a chair on deck and
proceed to unfasten the rugs.  Every one will look on, for there is
nothing else to do on board ship but stare at your companions.  Then
patter, patter, patter, down the rice will fall, and roll along the
deck.  I can see it all!  And the more they blush, the younger they will
look; and the angrier and more confused they are, the more natural it
will seem.  Oh, I do hope and trust it comes off on the steamer!"

"It would be even better in the train!" said Lilias wisely.  "If they
once get settled in the train to Paris, they would be stuck with the
same people for five mortal hours, whether they liked it or not, and
they would stare, and stare, and stare.  Whatever father and mother
said, it would make no difference, for they would think they were only
pretending.  Oh, Nan, I wouldn't be you!  You will catch it!"

Nan shrugged her shoulders recklessly.  "Time works wonders.  If they
were coming home to-morrow I should tremble; but after ten days'
galumptious holiday it wouldn't be in human nature to come home and be
cross with a poor, hard-working Cinderella.  Besides, why should they be
vexed?  When I'm married you can use as much rice as you like.  I don't
mind if I scatter it broadcast wherever I go.  I shall just smile back
in the people's faces, and hang on to Adolphus for support.  If I can
afford a little amusement to my fellow-creatures, I shall not be so
selfish as to object; and I must say that for my own part I do adore
finding out a bride and bridegroom, and staring at them with all my
eyes."

"I shall never marry; but if I do I shall wear my oldest clothes on my
honeymoon, and snap at my husband every time he opens his mouth.  That's
the way to manage!" said Christabel with an air, and the two elder girls
exchanged smiles of amusement.  Neither of them volunteered any
information as to how she herself would behave in the circumstances, for
the nearer such a possibility becomes, the less easy it is to discuss it
in indifferent fashion.  Lilias dropped her lids in smiling modesty, and
Maud's eyes shone with a happy glow.  She was twenty-three now, and for
the last four years a secret hope had dwelt in her heart, and invested
the future with charm.  It had begun on a certain holiday time, when Jim
for the second or third time had brought home his friend Ned Talbot for
a visit, and Ned had caught his foot in a rabbit-hole, and sprained it
so severely that he was a prisoner at Thurston House for weeks, instead
of days.  Lilias and Nan were away at school at that time, but Maud had
finished her education, and shared with her mother the task of amusing
the invalid.  She read aloud to him; played on the piano; was demolished
at Halma; and, above all, talked to him on one topic after another,
growing ever more and more intimate, until at the end of the visit it
had seemed as if there was no secret which was held back from Ned
Talbot's knowledge.  He had not said so much in return, but there was no
sense of chill in his reserve.  He was naturally silent, and a word from
him meant more than many protestations from another.  Maud knew that he
enjoyed her society by a hundred indefinable signs; and when they bade
each other good-bye, the glance of the dark eyes seemed to speak of a
warmer interest than that of friendship.  Since then four years had
passed by, and twice a year at least Ned had contrived to pay a visit to
Waybourne.

Now that the other girls were at home there were no longer opportunities
for uninterrupted converse, for, as the eldest daughter of a large
household, Maud was often compelled to busy herself with household
duties, leaving the charge of entertainment to the younger girls; but
she felt sure that Ned understood, and no trace of dissatisfaction
clouded her gentle spirit.  She calculated happily that four months had
passed since his last appearance, and felt her cheeks flush as she
remembered Jim's accounts of a recent prosperous change in his friend's
business.  A great step upward had been taken during the last year, and
now, for the first time, Talbot was in a position to keep a wife!  This
being so, who could tell what might happen next?  The hour to which she
had looked forward to so long, when Ned would give her a right to love
him and to be his helpmeet in life, might be close at hand.  Oh, it was
a good world, a beautiful world!  Life was in its spring, and every
opening bud and flower in the green world without seemed to typify the
hope in her own heart!

The next few days witnessed a perfect rush of industry.  It was no light
task to complete the cleaning of so large a house in ten days' time, but
many hands make light work; and while the servants scrubbed and scoured,
the girls performed the lighter duties, washing ornaments, polishing
pictures, turning faded draperies, sewing on new lengths of fringe,
until old bottles were, if not exactly converted into new, at least
assured a fresh lease of juvenility.  There was always a rush to get the
work finished a day or two before the parents' return, for the time that
was over was legally the girls' own, to be employed in whatsoever manner
seemed most pleasing.  Christabel stayed in bed to breakfast; Agatha ate
apples and read novels all day long; Elsie made copious entries in her
diary, and wore her hair in the picturesque confusion which she
considered becoming, and felt it cruel of her mother to forbid; Nan
worked in her studio, and came down to dinner in a flannel shirt; Lilias
wore her best clothes, and went up to town to see and be seen; and Maud
dreamt dreams at her ease, without the disturbing consciousness of work
undone.

By the end of the week the carpets were cleaned and ready to put down,
and it was decided that the drawing-room felting should be laid first of
all, because in itself it was a more lengthy task than the mere laying
of squares, and also because the after work of arranging pictures and
china would be greater here than elsewhere.  The three maids shut
themselves in the room together for an hour or more, and at the end of
the time adjourned in a body to the library, where the young mistresses
were busy arranging books.  They looked flushed and discouraged, and
each of the three had her own comments to make upon the situation.  Cook
reported that "that there felting wouldn't come right nohow."  Mary put
her hand to her heart, and said her inside ached with dragging the
tiresome thing; and bright-eyed Jane smiled cheerfully, and vowed that
"she didn't believe it never would meet no more."  The girls adjourned
into the drawing-room to investigate the difficulty, and found the
felting neatly fastened at three sides, but steadily refusing to come
within inches of the fourth wall.

"Seems as if it's shrunk itself somehow in the cleaning," said cook
dolefully; but Maud only laughed, and went forward to the rescue in her
cheery, capable manner.

"Oh, nonsense, cook!  If the cleaning did anything, it would stretch it
and make it bigger.  It is purposely made rather a tight fit, or it
would go into wrinkles, which would never do.  It only wants a little
coaxing.  Nan and Agatha, you have the strongest arms, go over there and
pull as hard as you can, while Elsie and I push towards you."

No sooner said than done.  Maud and Elsie went down on their knees, and
travelled slowly across the floor, pushing infinitesimal creases before
them, while the others pulled and strained to make the most of the
advantage thus given.  It was a lengthy business, and the crawling
operation was repeated several times over before the first ring could be
induced to catch over its nail; but when this was done hope began to
revive, and the pushing and tugging was carried on with such vigour that
presently the last fastening was secured, and the workers rested from
their labours, weary, yet triumphant.

"My back!" groaned Elsie, straightening herself with a groan; "it's
broken in two.  I feel as if I could never stand erect again."

"My hands!" groaned Agatha, stretching out her arms, and slowly
uncurling ten cramped-up fingers.  "They ache.  Whew!  I never worked so
hard in my life.  I shall be more careful about spilling crumbs on this
carpet in the future, now that I know what it means to have it cleaned.
How you ever got it up I can't think.  It must have been even more
difficult than putting it down."

"Broke every nail I 'ave," said cook concisely.  "It's not woman's work,
and that's the truth.  We 'ad ought to 'ave 'ad a man to do it that 'ad
proper tools; but there, it's done, thank goodness, for another year,
and it's the worst in the house.  Them squares is no trouble."

"No; I think you can manage the squares yourselves; but first of all we
will have the furniture brought in here.  The house looks so forlorn
with the hall blocked up, and if we get one room tidy, we shall feel
that we are getting on," said Maud, who as yet had not risen from the
floor, but sat with feet stretched out, gathering resolution to begin
work afresh.  She stretched out her hands and drew herself slowly along
towards the farther side of the room; but scarcely had she moved a
couple of feet when she gave an exclamation of dismay, and, stopping
short, passed her hand over the surface of the felting.

"Whatever is this?  Something sticking up through the felting!  Sharp
little points, here and there.  Dozens of them all about!  What can they
be?"

The others hastened to the spot, and gazed with horror-stricken eyes at
a number of minute molehills showing distinctly in the felting, and each
one presenting a sharp point when investigated by the touch.

"It's nails!" croaked Elsie deeply; and at that cook gave a groan of
dismay.

"It is, for sure!  Them dratted tacks!  Your Mar said we was to put in a
tack here and there between the rings, and there was a saucerful just
there.  Somebody has knocked it over, I expect, and scattered them about
the floor."

Maud looked round with a despairing glance.  The accident had happened
in the worst possible position, as such accidents are invariably
supposed to do, the nails being spilt a couple of yards from the wall,
in such a position that two sides of the carpet must be unfastened
before they could be removed.  She stared at her sisters, and they
stared back in a long, sullen silence.

"We can't do it again, and we sha'n't!" said Nan recklessly.  "Send for
a man, and let him break his fingers for a change.  I need mine for
another purpose."

"Thursday afternoon, my dear.  The shops are shut, and not a man to be
had."

"Never saw anything like it.  It always is Thursday afternoon!  Put a
table over the place then, and leave the tacks where they are.  No one
will see them."

"Oh, Nan, as if a table could stay in the same place for a year.
Besides, the nails are bound to come out; if we don't take them away,
they'll work little holes for themselves, and then what would mother
say?  There's no use shirking it.  The carpet has to come up again, and
we shall have to do it."

"It's too disgusting!  All this time wasted, and now to find ourselves
farther back than when we started.  I could cry!" protested Elsie
dolefully; and Maud gave a little flop of impatience.

"Oh, so could I--howl, if that would do any good; but it won't, so we
might as well stop talking and set to work.  Begin at once, Jane,
please; we'll push, and make it as easy as possible."

The workers crawled wearily back to their posts, while the audience, in
the shape of Lilias and Christabel, stood in the doorway and cheered
them with derisive comments.

"Amusing _contretemps_, isn't it?  Reminds one of Maud's ecstasies the
other evening.  Quite pleased, aren't you, Maudie, to have another
illustration of the humours of house-cleaning?"

"Never mind, darlings, keep cool!  You'll think it very funny in six
months' time.  If you work hard you'll finish by to-morrow morning!"

The glances cast upon the miscreants in reply to their witticisms were
so threatening, that they ran back to the library to stifle their
laughter; but five minutes had not elapsed before they were back again,
gasping in consternation.

"A caller!  Some one at the door!  Can't see properly, but it's a man!
A young man in a frock coat and a tall hat.  What shall we do?"

"Send him away, of course.  Jane, quick! put on a clean apron, and tell
the gentleman that Mrs Rendell is away from home.  If he asks for us--
we are engaged.  Sorry you can't ask him in, as the house is upset.
He'll see that for himself," added Maud, in a resigned tone, as Jane
hurried from the room.  "The hall looks as if it were in the midst of a
removal, and if he had had any sense he would have known from the look
of the windows that we were not in a fit state to receive callers.
Anyhow, he will have to go away now."

The visitor, however, refused to go away, for, to the consternation of
the listeners, the parley at the front door was succeeded by the sound
of footsteps picking their way through the piled-up furniture, and
Jane's suggestion of "The library, sir," was apparently neglected, for
the tramp came nearer and nearer to the drawing-room door.  Six pairs of
hands were raised to smooth six ruffled heads, Maud twitched down her
sleeves, Lilias stood in an attitude of graceful attention, and the next
moment the door was thrown open, and Ned Talbot's deep voice called out
a greeting.

"May I come in?  I refused to be turned away at the door.  How does
everybody do?  You look very busy.  I am going to stay and help you."



CHAPTER SIX.

NAN PLAYS HELPER.

Alas for Maud!  Had it been for this that she had lived in dreams since
October last, planning afresh, and yet afresh, every detail of the next
meeting with Ned?  Had it been for this that she had mentally arranged
background, occasion, opportunity, sending abroad mother, and sisters
five, and seating herself in solitude to await Ned's arrival?  Had it
been for this that she had cherished her dainty new blouse, refusing to
crush it beneath cloak or shawl, and appearing over and over again in
the pink of a bygone age, so that it might appear in its first beauty
for Ned's inspection?  Oh, it was hard to have planned so well, and then
to be discovered with ruffled hair, flushed cheeks, and unbecoming
attire!  Lilias was only the more picturesque for her working attire,
and was even now shaking hands with the visitor, and welcoming him in
pretty, winsome fashion, as the other girls shook down skirts and
aprons, and took furtive peeps in the looking-glass.

"Mr Talbot.  You!  This is a surprise.  It is delightful to see you
again, but we are so upset!  We are in the throes of spring-cleaning, as
you perceive.  Have you come from town?  Agatha, Chrissie, bring in a
few chairs!  This is the only room that has a pretence of a carpet, but
at any rate we can give you a chair to sit upon."

"But I don't want one.  I have been sitting in the train, and would
rather stand for a change, or, still better, help with some work.
Please don't treat me as a visitor!  What were you about when I came in?
Laying a carpet?  Six of you!  It doesn't take six women to lay one
carpet, surely!"

Nan groaned dismally.

"It does indeed, and then they can't do it!  It's nasty, horrid, rough,
heavy work, only fit for men, and not for our poor little fingers.  We
had just succeeded, with immense labour, in fastening it all round when
we made the cheerful discovery that a boxful of nails are scattered over
the floor beneath.  You came in at the ghastly moment when it had dawned
upon us that it had all to come up again!"

Nan waved her hand with a tragic movement towards the little heap of
nails, then, making a sudden step forward, caught her foot in a loose
piece of braid at the bottom of her skirt, and went rushing forward at a
headlong run, to be caught in Ned Talbot's arms, and so rescued from
destruction against a corner of the wall.

"Nan, I told you that that braid was torn!  I told you to sew it up!  I
_told_ you you'd trip and hurt yourself," cried Maud reproachfully; but
the culprit only laid her hand over her heart, and gurgled in impenitent
amusement.

"But I didn't, you see!  I came off all right.  It's only a little end--
not worth talking about!"--and she took a couple of pins from the corner
of her apron and began fastening up the offending loop, while her sister
lifted her hands in disapproval.

"Pins?  They won't hold!  Better go upstairs and sew it at once.  If you
don't, I warn you, Nan,"--but Maud did not get any further in her
prophecy, for Ned Talbot came over to her side, and looked down at her
with kindly, anxious eyes.

"Maud, you look so tired!  Don't trouble any more about the carpet; I'll
manage it for you.  What's the good of a great lumbering six-footer if
he can't manage a little job like that!  I'll have it up and down again
before you can say `Jack Robinson,' and then we will have our talk in
comfort."

"It's more difficult than you think," said Maud dolefully; but Ned only
laughed, then proceeded to take off his coat and go down on his knees to
attack the obstinate rings.  The workers took advantage of the
opportunity to adjust hair-pins, and divest themselves of soiled aprons,
while Lilias, having no such defects to remedy, developed sudden
interest in the work on hand, and knelt down on the floor beside him,
holding out first one implement and then another for his use.  The
softly-tinted face and cloudy golden hair looked lovelier than ever
about the long white smock which she had adopted as her working costume,
and poor Maud stared at her own heated reflection with increased
disfavour, the while she whispered in Nan's ear--

"I suppose he expects to stay for the evening.  So awkward!  Can we ask
him, do you think, when mother's away?"

"Mother would be very much annoyed if we sent away an old friend, who
has stayed in the house dozens of times, without even offering him a
meal; especially when he has travelled twenty miles to see us!"

"But, my dear, what have we got?  I can't give him dinner.  There's
nothing in the house but cold meat."

"Cutlets and tinned fruit--the refuge of the destitute!  Send Mary
flying to the butcher's!"

"It's Thursday afternoon!"

Nan's groan of dismay brought Ned Talbot's head round in inquiry.  The
rings were giving way obediently in his strong grasp, and Lilias was
clapping her hands at each fresh success, and chatting away in animated
fashion.  The sisters waited until the work was resumed, and then
continued the whispered conference.

"It always _is_ Thursday when we want anything.  People should never be
allowed to shut their shops.  Cold meat it must be, then, and nothing
else, I'm afraid.  We might manage to manufacture a few made dishes from
the tinned things in the store-room, but _entrees_ and savouries seem
out of place in the middle of spring-cleaning, and the dining-room is
impassable--a perfect block."

"We might alter that if we put out the things that are needed for this
room.  We had better go and do it now, for we don't seem needed here any
longer,"--and Maud cast a wistful look towards the two kneeling figures
in the corner.  She envied Lilias her position; but it never entered
into her honest heart to mistrust her sister's loyalty, or to put a
cynical construction upon this sudden show of industry.  All the girls
were fond of Ned; it was only natural that Lilias should want to help
him.  She held out her poor, roughened hands, and looked appealingly at
Nan as they stood outside the drawing-room door.

"I might wash them, mightn't I, and put on a pair of cuffs, and a fresh
tie?  I won't change my blouse, of course; but he is a man, and wouldn't
notice what I'd done--only perhaps that I looked a little bit nicer!"

Nan nodded silently, a lump rising in her throat at the sight of the
wistful face.  She was the only one of the sisters who had been told the
secret of Maud's heart, and the bond between these two girls was very
strong and tender.  She watched Maud until she disappeared from sight,
with her lips screwed tightly together, and her eyebrows meeting in an
ominous frown across her forehead.  She felt very fierce and formidable
at that moment, and it was a positive relief to be able to vent some of
her pent-up irritation in work, so for the next ten minutes she dragged
and tugged at the piled-up furniture, making order out of confusion, and
carrying the lighter drawing-room articles into the hall, in readiness
to be put into their proper places.  Then Maud reappeared, smartened up
by those subtle touches which every woman knows how to bestow, and no
man is able to understand, though the result is patent to his eyes; and
after a second consultation on the subject of dinner, a return was made
to the drawing-room, to see how the carpet-laying was progressing.  Ned
Talbot was still on his knees, but now he was fastening instead of
unfastening the rings, while Lilias was exhibiting a cup full of sharp,
jagged little nails.  The dreaded task was almost accomplished, and that
in less time than would have been possible with the united efforts of
the feminine household.

"Done already?" cried the new-comers; and Agatha shook her mane with a
melancholy air.

"It's s-imply wondrous!  He just pulls, and the thing meets as easy as
winking.  It doesn't seem a bit difficult.  And to think how we almost
killed ourselves!  It's humiliating!"

"Don't feel it so at all.  If I am beaten at carpet-laying all my life,
I'll never repine.  It's a woman's duty to do nice things, and pleasant
things, and pretty things, and leave the men to do the hard bits," said
Elsie, standing on one leg to relieve the pain which had come from long
kneeling, and looking with melancholy significance at her thin little
arms.  "Look at those compared to his!  Nature never intended me--"

Ned fastened the last hook, and straightened his back with a sigh of
satisfaction.

"Done!  That's all right.  I'm glad I came in time, for it's stiffish
work.  I am staying in town for a few days, and thought I would chance
it this afternoon, and run down to see you for a few hours."

He looked at Maud as he spoke, and she hesitated uncertainly, thinking
once again of her mother's absence, the disordered rooms, the prescribed
contents of the larder.

"It was very good of you, and we are very pleased.  Will you--er--will
you be able to stop and dine?"

"Thank you very much.  Your sister has already asked me.  If it wouldn't
be giving you too much trouble."

"Oh, no trouble!  I mean, of course, we are very much upset, and I don't
quite know what we can give you, but if you will stay we will do our
best!"

"Now, Mr Talbot, listen to me!" interrupted Nan decisively.  "There are
two alternatives open to you, and you can take your choice.  Would you
rather sit here by yourself, looking at albums and illustrated books
while Mary changes her dress, and cook flies into a temper preparing a
proper dinner, and Jane helps to tidy the dining-room, and Maud ransacks
the store--room, and Elsie polishes up silver, and Chrissie cuts
flowers, and I--"

Ned Talbot threw up his hands in despair.

"Mercy!  What next?  Please stop, Nan.  You make me feel the most
shocking intruder.  If I am to cause such an upset, the sooner I rush
back to the station the better.  What is the alternative?  Tell it me at
once.  You said I had a choice!"

"The alternative," said Nan slowly, beaming upon him the while, in a
friendly, encouraging fashion, "the alternative is what would happen to
us if we were alone, and you had not arrived.  Dinner in the schoolroom,
with the library pictures ranged along the walls, and the books piled on
the floor.  No flowers--no fruit--no waiting--no evening dress.
Everything on the table at once, and very little of that.  Cold beef--
very good cold beef!  I'll answer for that, for we've had it two days
already--potatoes in their jackets, perhaps one other vegetable..."

"Nan!" cried Maud protestingly; but Talbot gazed at her with a smile,
shadowed only by a faint anxiety.

"Pickles?" he queried eagerly.  "Put my mind at rest on that point
before we go any further!  Surely there are pickles?"

"Pickles, cer-tainly!  As many as you like; but mostly onions, I am
afraid, for we like the cauliflowery bits best, and poke about with the
fork to get them out first.  But there are lots of onions.  Cold beef
and pickles, then, and something plain and wholesome in the shape of a
pudding, such as stewed prunes and rice; biscuits and cheese to follow;
and a really good cup of coffee made by our own fair hands."

"It's a feast for the gods!  Nothing I should like better.  Don't you
know, Nan, that nine out of ten Englishmen would rather be set down
opposite a joint of meat than half a dozen kickshaws!  It will be like
old times to have a meal in the schoolroom, and if you will really let
me stay, and treat me exactly like one of yourselves, I shall enjoy it
more than a dozen dinner parties.  You will promise faithfully to make
no alteration whatever in the _menu_?"

"Certainly, if you wish it."

"And--er--you will not feel it necessary to dress on my behalf!  I can
make no change myself, so please don't confound me by your
magnificence."

Lazy Nan consented readily enough, but once more the thought of the blue
silk blouse sent a pang of disappointment to Maud's heart.  She should
not be able to wear it after all, and the long hoarding up had been in
vain.  She reflected on the disappointing nature of earthly hopes, with
a melancholy which would have done credit to Elsie herself, as she took
her way downstairs to interview cook on the subject of dinner.  It is
one thing to give a promise to make no difference in a _menu_, and
another to keep that promise to the letter, as every housekeeper knows;
and even if circumstances did not allow of any substantial addition to
the meal, there were a dozen little contrivances by which it could be
given an air of elegance and distinction.  They took time to arrange,
however, as all such contriving do, and cook was cross at being asked to
undertake fresh duties, and wished to know what people wanted coming
worriting about a house when a child in arms could see he wasn't wanted!
Maud smiled at the reflection that, in this instance, the child would
be vastly mistaken in his views, but did her best to soothe the offended
dignitary; and finally matters were smoothed over by Mary being told off
to help in the kitchen, while Maud herself undertook the arrangement of
the table.

"Nan will help me," she told herself encouragingly, as she mounted the
staircase and saw through the window a procession of girlish figures
making their way down the garden path, escorting Ned to a survey of the
daffodils and spring bulbs, for which Mr Rendell was famous among
amateur gardeners.  Lilias walked first, a dainty figure against the
background of fresh green; slim little Elsie picked her way daintily
over the gravel; Agatha followed, large and beaming; and Christabel
majestically brought up the rear.  Maud pressed her face against the
window and watched with a spasm of envy.  Oh, to be out, enjoying
herself with the rest--to let everything take care of itself, and take
her place by Ned's side!  Too bad to be kept indoors when her
opportunity had come at last, and the sun was shining, and all Nature
seemed bright and gay!  No one seemed to have thought of her, or of
offering to help, except Nan--dear, good, thoughtless, and yet most
thoughtful of Nans; and here she came, flying three steps at a time,
upstairs to the rescue.

"Oh, you are here!  I've been searching downstairs.  Out you go!  If
there's anything to do indoors, I'll do it.  Your place is in the
garden."

"I've been in the kitchen, and cook was so cross that I told off Mary to
help her.  I promised to lay the table."

"I'll do it for you!"

Maud tried not to smile.  Well she knew what would happen if the work
were left in Nan's care.  Crooked cloth, forks and spoons looking as if
they had been tossed upon the table; as likely as not, no cruets nor
water-bottles; and a general air of slipshod carelessness, which would
more than defeat all her arrangements.

"I--er--think I ought to look after it myself," she said apologetically;
"but please help me, dear!  If we work together we'll get it done in no
time, and then I can go out and enjoy myself with an easy mind."

"I want you to go now.  If you think I can't manage alone, send in
Chrissie.  She's even more particular than you, and I'll do as she tells
me like a lamb!" said Nan, not one whit offended at the implied slight
on her own powers; but Maud shook her head.

"I couldn't!  I never ask help in an ordinary way, and I couldn't do it
to-day!"

"Too proud?"

"Much!"

"Good for you!  I'd feel the same.  Come on, then; let's set to work and
get it over.  He'll be wondering what you are doing.  Where are the
things?"

"Mary has taken up some already, and the rest are in the pantry.  I'll
tell you what I want, and you can carry up a trayful at a time while I
set the cloth.  I know exactly how I want everything laid, you see!"

"Don't apologise, my love.  I know I'm no good at finnicky work, but
I'll fetch and carry with the best.  Knives--yes!  Glass--yes!  Plates--
yes!  Leave the plates till the last, and bring up the rest first.
Yes'um!  I understand!  Knives and tumblers for seven.  They shall be
yours before you can say `Jack Robinson.'"

"Not too quick, now!" cried Maud warningly; but Nan was off, leaping
downstairs in a succession of daring bounds, swinging round corners at
break-neck speed, and singing at the pitch of her voice, after the usual
decorous and ladylike manner in which she was wont to descend to the
lower regions.

Left to herself, Maud took a couple of steps towards the window, turned
back resolutely, spread the cloth over the table, and went back at a run
to peer behind the curtains and see what was going on in the garden.
Chrissie and Agatha were strolling about arm in arm; Elsie walked apart,
bowed in thought; Lilias flitted among the flower--beds, gesticulating
with graceful _abandon_ as she called Ned's attention to the choicest
blooms.  Maud could hear her pretty ecstasies as plainly as though she
had been standing by her side.

"The little dears!  Aren't they just _too_ sweet?  Don't you love the
first spring flowers?  They seem so full of hope and promise!"

She had heard it all before, every time that a visitor was taken round
the garden; and just for a moment a wish passed through Maud's mind that
her beautiful sister were not quite so fond of acting a part for the
benefit of strangers!  As a matter of fact, Lilias took less interest in
the garden than any of the girls, yet she always gushed the most!  The
next moment she pulled herself up sharply, abashed to have cherished
such uncharitable sentiments, and went on resolutely with the laying of
the table.  Spoons and forks had been neatly laid in their places before
Nan's approaching footsteps could be heard ploughing upstairs to an
accompaniment of jingling glass and steel.  She had taken the warning to
heart, apparently, for there was a noticeable pause between each
footstep; but, alas! when the top of the stair was reached, there came a
sudden and violent change in her procedure.  Maud heard a gasp, and
then, even as she started forward to investigate the cause, in rushed
Nan, head foremost, the contents of the tray raining on the ground,
while she stumbled helplessly forward, and finally collapsed on the
floor in a nest of knives and broken glass, to lift up her voice in a
wail of anguish.

"Oh, oh, oh!  I caught my foot!  That horrid braid tripped me up at the
very last step, and sent me flying forward.  What shall I do?"

"I told you,"--began Maud, but stopped abruptly, knowing by experience
how trying it was to be reminded of past warnings.  "Oh dear, the fright
you gave me!  To fall down with such a dangerous load.  Nan, are you
hurt?"

"I'm killed!" cried Nan, with a sniff.  "Talk of your fright, indeed:
I'm shaking all over.  I'll run away and drown myself.  Always make a
mess of everything I do!  What will mother say?"

"Don't worry about that, dear.  You were trying to help, and being so
good and kind, and half a dozen tumblers are not a deadly thing.  That
won't ruin us.  It might have been far worse."

"It is!" sighed Nan.  "Two water-bottles--the best ones, too.  I thought
they'd look so nice.  Oh dear; oh dear; and just when I thought I was
getting on so well!  I came up so slowly, stopping at every step.  You
might have heard me--"

"I did; but you know, Nan, I said before--Never mind, it's done now, so
it's no use groaning.  You look so white, dear; I am afraid you have had
a shock.  Don't try to do anything more, but go to your room and take
some sal volatile, and lie down until dinner."

But at that Nan rose to her feet with a laugh of derision.

"I!  I act the fine lady, and go to bed for a fall?  Not likely.  I
shall have to work harder than ever to make up for this.  The knives
might as well go in their places first, and then I'll go down and get
something to brush up the glass.  Don't you come: it's dangerous walking
over here, and I can do it quite well."

"Nan, please leave it to me!  I am sure you are hurt, though you won't
acknowledge it.  Sit down and rest, if it's only for five minutes."

But Nan would not be persuaded.  She picked up the knives and hobbled
round the table, laying them in their places and tossing her head with
an air of triumph, oblivious of the fact that a drop of blood marked
each stage of her progress, leaving a vivid stain on the fresh white
cloth.  A groan of dismay from Maud's lips aroused her attention,
whereupon she flushed red with dismay, and stared down at her cut
fingers with an air of shocked surprise.

It was really too aggravating, and even placid Maud felt aroused to
irritation; but it is difficult to upbraid an offender who is herself
overcome with penitence, and who lavishes such violent reproaches upon
her own head, as Nan now proceeded to do.

"Oh, mussey me, I thought they felt queer!  They are cut all over.
Lockjaw, I suppose.  I shall never be able to speak distinctly any more,
but have to push all my food between my teeth, like poor Jane Smith.
Oh, Maud, Maud, I wanted to help, and I've only made things worse than
before!  I always do.  Do please scold and get cross.  Don't look so
wretched.  Abuse me as I deserve!"

"What's the good?" sighed Maud dismally.  "You didn't mean to do it, and
it's done, and can't be undone.  Come to my room and I'll bandage your
hands.  I'm not afraid of lockjaw, but you can't go about any longer
like that.  Then we must get a clean cloth, and begin again."

Poor Maud!  She set her lips and went through the new duties without
shirking or skimping, resolutely avoiding a look into the garden.  There
was no chance now of being able to join Ned before dinner, and as soon
as the meal was over he would be obliged to hurry off to catch the last
train.  After all the longing and expectation, it seemed as though she
were to meet with nothing but disappointment.



CHAPTER SEVEN.

DOUBT AND DREAD.

Maud had just time to change her working attire for a dress which was
suitable for the evening, though not sufficiently dressy to break the
compact which had been made with the visitor, before the gong sounded,
and she returned to the schoolroom to join the other members of the
party.  Ned was standing beside the fireplace, and greeted her with a
pleasant smile as she entered.

"You didn't come out and join us in the garden," he said; and when she
replied with a vague murmur, "Ah, well," he added lightly, "perhaps you
were just as wise.  There is a decided nip in the air still, and if you
get out of the sun, you are apt to feel chilled."

Maud's eyes opened with a quick glance of surprise, but she made no
remark.  The words had chilled her as no east wind could have done.  Did
Ned really believe that she would have stayed indoors and sacrificed an
hour of his society for fear of a slight discomfort?  If he thought
this, he was indeed unconscious of the true nature of her feelings
towards him; and though Maud was the last girl in the world to wear her
heart on her sleeve, she had been happy to believe that she and Ned
understood each other, and could count on a mutual affection.  She did
not know which hurt the more, the suggestion of her own indifference or
the unruffled serenity with which it was made.  As she sat opposite Ned
at dinner, she studied his face, to see if she could find there a
reflection of the depression which was stealing over her own heart, but
looked in vain.  Truth compelled her to admit that she had never seen
him brighter, more radiant, more full of life and animation.  She tried
her best to throw off the cloud on her own spirits and to enter into the
conversation, but the effort was not a success.  The hands of the clock
on the mantelpiece held her in fascinated attention.  Every stroke
seemed, to sound the knell of the bright hopes with which she had looked
forward to this meeting, every stroke brought the parting nearer.

If Maud did not speak, the other girls more than made up for her
silence, talking all together in true Rendell fashion, and telling the
news of the last few months in their usual breathlessly eager fashion.
Until now, conversation had had no chance of becoming general, and each
one had some personal items of information to offer which appeared to
her to be of absorbing interest.  Lilias had paid a visit to an old
school friend, where she had had many pleasing adventures, which she
related in characteristic manner.  Her sisters often discussed what it
was which gave to Lilias's stories such a suggestive and flattering
atmosphere.  It must have been something peculiar in the way in which
they were told; for though she never said such a thing in so many words,
the hearers were yet impressed by the fact that she had played a leading
part, had been surfeited with admiration, and positively oppressed by
the attentions which she had received!  This evening was no exception to
the rule; for as she spoke the listeners saw before them a picture of
her own lovely figure moving like a queen through the scenes which she
described, her humble vassals following in her wake.  Lilias must be
cleverer than most people supposed, Nan told herself sagely, as she
watched the face of the visitor, to see how he was impressed by the
recitals.  Impossible to say!  Ned stared fixedly at his plate, and made
no remark.  He very seldom looked at Lilias at all, Nan noticed.  If it
was not too absurd, she would have thought that he really avoided
looking in her direction, while at every point in the conversation his
eyes turned towards Maud, as if asking her sympathy in his enjoyment.
Nan's spirit rose with a bound, and she burst into the conversation once
more, talking every one down by her high, clear tones.

"Mr Talbot, do you realise that I've growed up since you saw me last?
I've said good-bye to childish things, and blossomed into a society
dame.  I'm a lady growed.  Didn't you notice it?"

Ned's eyes gleamed upon her with the deep, kindly glow which Maud knew
and loved to see.

"I didn't, Nan; I'm sorry.  I thought you looked exactly the same!"

"Never noticed my long skirts, or my done-up hair?"

"No!"  Ned looked surprised, and tilted slightly back in his chair to
obtain a better view of Nan's head.  It was really rather puzzling to
decide whether her curly mop was intended to be up or down; and the
burst of laughter which followed showed how perfectly his uncertainty
was appreciated.  Nan made a grimace intended to express reckless
indifference, and waved her bandaged hand in the air.

"Well, it _is_ up!  Don't pay any attention to those silly things.  I
ought to know best, for I've three separate hair-pins sticking into my
scalp at the present moment.  Jim took me to my first dance when he was
at home for Christmas.  It was s-imply lovely!  I was awfully nervous,
for I generally manage to make an idiot of myself if I get a chance; but
I got on finely.  I fell down full length as I was entering the room,
but that was only because the floor was so beautifully polished.  I
danced every single dance--all waltzes, and the most ex-quisite music.
I was introduced to an awfully nice man.  He had ears like windmills,
and the biggest mouth I ever saw; but he could dance!  We went on, and
on, and on, as long as the music lasted, and never stopped once; and
when it came to an end I was as red as a lobster.  It was simply
lovely!"

Elsie smiled in an elderly and forbearing manner.

"More than you were, I expect.  I can just imagine how you looked, with
your hair all wild, and a crimson face above your white dress.  You
never think about your appearance, Nan."

"Hope I never may.  I haven't one to think about, and that's a blessing!
It would be so boring to be pretty, and to have to worry about clothes
and complexion.  I'm thankful there's none of that nonsense about me,"
cried Nan, beaming; and every one of the listeners thought how pretty
she looked at that moment, as she tossed her saucy head and smiled her
dimpling smile; but they would not for the world have said so, and
spoilt the charm of her unaffected self-depreciation.  Christabel seized
the opportunity, and took up the thread of conversation before any one
else had time to come forward.

"Mr Talbot, I've been waiting to ask you a question.  Do you know
anybody called Vanburgh?  The Grange is let at last, and the gentleman's
name is Vanburgh.  We are simply aching to get to know something about
them.  The furniture has arrived, but nobody is in the house yet, except
the servants.  We made up our minds that there would be a family of
daughters, but we begin to have qualms."  Chrissie was obviously pleased
with the effect of that last expressive word, and repeated it once more
with artistic relish.  "Qualms, yes!  Decided qualms.  The furniture is
so massive.  We can't see anything at all that would suit a girl's
room."

"I can't give you any help on that point, Chrissie.  You can judge
better than I; but Vanburgh is an uncommon name, so we ought to be able
to find out something about them.  Do you happen to know where they have
been living till now?"

"Here, and there, and everywhere; wandering over the face of the globe!
A great deal of the furniture comes from India and Egypt; and one of the
workmen came over to ask cook for some hot water one day, and said he
believed the master had been travelling abroad.  I wanted cook to pump
him to find out more, but she said mother had forbidden her to gossip
about the neighbours.  Such a nuisance!  I love gossiping about my
neighbours.  I remember when I was a little girl, how I used to adore
being in the drawing-room when callers came and discussed the affairs of
the village.  I knew I should be sent away if I appeared to listen, so I
used to sit and pretend to play with a doll or a book, while my ears
were fairly sticking out of my head with curiosity."

"You little hypocrite!  I wouldn't have believed you could have been so
deceitful.  But do tell us if you know anything of the Vanburghs, Mr
Talbot.  Did you ever meet any one of the name?"

"I met a man once--a fellow about my own age.  He was at Oxford with me,
but not at the same college.  I saw very little of him."

"That could not be the father, of course.  He would have to be a son,
and we never arranged for boys.  What sort of man was he?"

"Humph!"

"I beg your pardon."

"Humph!"

"What does that mean?  What sort of man is supposed to be represented by
`Humph!' may we ask?"

Silence!  Ned Talbot screwed up his lips and shook his head with
determined obstinacy.  The girls stared at him in silence for a good two
minutes.  Then Maud spoke again.

"Do you decline to say anything but `Humph' on the subject, Ned?"

"Absolutely!"

"How very interesting!"  Nan clasped her hands in delight.  "How
mysterious!  How gloomy!  How frightfully suspicious!  I'm sure there's
something very dreadful about him, and in that case he will be even more
interesting than the girls."

"Nan!"

"I can't help it.  We know so many estimable people that it would be
delightful to meet somebody bloodthirsty, for a change.  Everything in
Waybourne is so painfully commonplace that we are simply spoiling for a
mystery, as the Americans would say.  Now, Mr Talbot won't commit
himself to a definite charge, but his silence is more impressive than
words.  I'm sure there's a mystery: something too gruesome and terrible
to be divulged."

"You leap to conclusions, Nan.  Perhaps I had better state at once that
there is nothing at all mysterious about the man I mentioned--nothing of
the kind, I assure you."

"Nor bloodthirsty?"

"Nor in the faintest shadow of a degree bloodthirsty."

"Nor thrilling, nor gloomy, nor terrible?"

"The farthest possible remove from such qualities."

Nan groaned with disappointment.

"What a blow!  Another nonentity!  I hope, then, that your Vanburgh has
nothing to do with ours, for he sounds terribly uninteresting.  Never
mind; when you come down to see us in the summer, we shall have solved
the mystery for ourselves; and you will be obliged to come down for our
sale, you know.  Have you heard anything about our sale?"

"I--er--yes; I heard something,"--began Ned hesitatingly.  He half
turned his head towards Lilias, and then once more stared down at his
plate, while she continued for him, in her sweet flute-like voice--

"Oh yes; I told him about it.  He has promised to come and help me when
I get tired.  I can't manage the punt all alone!"

Once again was noticed the subtle suggestiveness of Lilias's manner; but
this time it was her pleasure to pose as a martyr--a poor, fragile
martyr, to whom had been deputed a hard and ungrateful task, while her
companions played in the sunshine.  Nothing could be said against an
unspoken accusation, especially in the presence of a stranger; but the
sisters exchanged meaning glances across the table, and Nan stamped _so_
violently upon Elsie's foot that that melancholy young person writhed on
her seat.  The best safeguard to the feelings of the family was to
change the subject, which Chrissie at once proceeded to do.

"But sha'n't we see you again before midsummer?" she inquired eagerly.
"Is this really the only visit you are going to pay us this time?  Three
skimpy hours!  You generally come and stay over a Sunday at least.
Can't you come again before you go north?  Mother and father will be
home on Thursday."

Ned Talbot flushed suddenly, and bit his lips under his moustache.  He
was evidently struggling with a spasm of nervousness; and Maud noticed
as much, and wondered as to its meaning, even as she blessed Christabel
in her heart for her welcome suggestion.  Surely, surely Ned would not
refuse!

"You are very kind," he said slowly.  "I had thought of asking if I
might come.  I am anxious to talk to Mrs Rendell.  If it would not be
inconvenient to have me from Saturday till Monday so soon after her
return, I should very much like to come."  He looked inquiringly at Maud
as he spoke, and she smiled a happy assent.

"I am quite sure it will be convenient; but I'll tell-mother the moment
she returns, and she will write to you herself.  You will probably hear
on Friday."

"Thank you; I hope I may.  This afternoon has been all too short, and I
have not had time for anything.  Not even a glance of `Kittay.'  It's
absurd to pretend to have been to Waybourne when one has not seen
`Kittay'; isn't it, Christabel?"

Chrissie dropped her eyelids, and twisted her lip with an expression of
supreme disdain.

"I do not say `Kittay'; I say `Kittee.'  You are too sillay.  Whatevah I
say you mock me in this ridiculous mannah.  I sha'n't speak to you at
all next time."

Talbot made a gesture as of one heaping ashes on his head, and then,
glancing at the clock, rose hurriedly from the table.

"I must go!  Just time to catch the train.  I had no idea it was getting
so late.  That comes of enjoying myself so much.  I have had a jolly
afternoon.  Don't know when I have had such a good time."  He held out
his hand to Maud, and she took it, trying hard to smile as brightly as
himself, but it was a difficult task.  She would rather he had been less
bright, less complacent.  She could have been happier if he had gone
away with a shadow of her own depression upon his brow.  Poor Maud! she
turned back from the door with an aching heart.  The schoolroom seemed
on a sudden unbearably grey and gloomy.  Her former peace had given
place to an aching doubt.



CHAPTER EIGHT.

THE VANBURGHS ARRIVE.

The next day, when Kitty arrived at Thurston House, she was informed of
Ned Talbot's visit, and promptly remarked that it was a "mean shame"--
the shame consisting in the fact of the visit having been so timed that
she herself had been deprived of the pleasure of seeing one who was
honoured by her special approval.  All interest in Ned and his doings
was soon wiped away, however, by a piece of intelligence so exciting
that the listeners could only gasp, and hold on to their chairs for
support.

It was Maud who brought the news to the schoolroom.  She had been in the
kitchen interviewing the cook, and had received it straight from the
lips of that authority.

"Children, children!" she cried breathlessly, "the Vanburghs have
arrived!  They came late last night, cook says.  She saw the table laid
for breakfast this morning, and the postman said he had taken some
letters to the house."

"Arrived!"  The girls stared at one another in mingled excitement and
disgust.  "And we never saw them!  How simply disgusting, when we have
been sitting staring out of this window for the last three weeks!  Late
at night!  What sneaks!  Why couldn't they come in the daylight, in a
decent, honest fashion?  They might be ashamed of themselves!  How many
are there, and what are they like?"

But Maud knew nothing beyond the mere fact of the arrival, and the
schoolroom party were obliged to control their curiosity as best they
might until lessons were over, and they were free to station themselves
once more in their place of observation.  If the Vanburgh family had
ventured out of the house about noon, they would have been slightly
disconcerted to see the row of heads in the window opposite, all craning
forward to watch their slightest movement, and bobbing behind the
curtains when they imagined themselves observed.  But, alas! they did
not come out.  The nailed door remained closely shut, and the
disappointed watchers tried to console themselves by inventing
satisfactory reasons for their non-appearance.

"They are busy, you see.  There is so much to unpack.  Gabrielle is
hanging her ball-dresses in the wardrobe and covering them over with
muslin curtains."

"She wouldn't unpack for herself, silly!  They have a French maid who
does all that sort of thing for them!"

"I know they have; but Gabrielle is so particular!  She can't bear any
one to touch her dresses but herself; besides, Therese has enough to do
attending to the other young ladies.  Evangeline has a bad sick
headache.  She is lying down in that room where the curtains are drawn.
Travelling always does make her ill!"

"Ermyntrude is arranging her treasures.  Her bedroom looks out on the
garden, and she is nailing up pictures, and draping the mantelpiece.
She has piles and piles of photographs to arrange.  They will keep her
busy all day.  It's ridiculous to suppose that they would go out the
very first morning after their arrival.  You know how it is with us when
we come home after a few weeks' holiday!  There are a thousand things to
be done."

The girls unanimously agreed in this decision.  Nevertheless, the hope
that one of the four Miss Vanburghs might appear at the windows kept
them glued to their own posts until it was time to start for the daily
walk.

The conversation turned exclusively on the subject of the new
neighbours, as the little procession of girls and governess filed
dejectedly down the street, and great ingenuity was exhibited in
expressing disappointment in the language which was the order of the
day.

"C'est un horrible shame," sighed Kitty sadly.  "C'est tout bien pour
vous, parce que vous etes toujours ici; mais moi, je suis chez moi, et
si elles sortez quand je ne suis pas ici, je serais _mad_!"

"J'expect qu'elles sorteraient quand nous sommes tous loin.  C'est
toujours le fashion!" sighed Chrissie, acutely conscious that her French
was superior to that of her friend, but politely ignoring the fact.  "Je
demanderai a ma mere--er--er--(how do you say `pay calls'?)--a faire une
visite, aussitot que possible."

"Moi aussi," assented Kitty.  "Et puis vous savez, elle peut dit:
`J'espere, Madame Vanburgh, que vos mademoiselles seraient tres grand
amies avec mes filles.  Voulez vous permittez qu'elles venez a the
mercredi prochaine?'"

"Oui, et puis elles nous inviteraient en retourn."  Christabel tossed
her mane over her shoulders and smiled in anticipation.  She made up her
mind then and there to decorate her bedroom with her most treasured
nick-nacks on the afternoon of the Vanburghs' visit, and to keep her new
hair ribbon unused for the occasion.

But no Miss Vanburghs appeared!  The next day passed, and the next, and
still another, and still no sign of a feminine presence lightened the
dark windows of the Grange.  The solemn butler flitted to and fro; the
figure of a white-haired man could be dimly discerned, stretched upon a
sofa, in the oak-panelled apartment immediately facing the porch-room of
Thurston House; but that was all that the most unremitting scrutiny
could discover.  Nan shivered at an attic window for an hour on end,
with no more exciting result than a glimpse of a tablecloth and a row of
silver dishes; and the great nailed door remained persistently closed.

And then the blow fell!

There were no Miss Vanburghs!  There was not even a Mrs Vanburgh!
Could it be believed there was no woman in the family--no one but an old
invalid gentleman, who spent his days on a sofa, or in a wheeled chair
being slowly driven about the garden?  A solitary man as tenant of the
Grange!  The finest house in the neighbourhood monopolised by an
invalid!  The ball-room, the billiard-room, the music-room, given over
to the possession of one who would never use them; the stables unused;
the gardens deserted!  The Rendell girls could not believe it.  It was
too horrible to be true.  Ermyntrude, Evangeline, and Gabrielle had no
existence.  The happy dreams which had been woven about them could never
be fulfilled.  It was indeed a cruel and crushing disappointment.

"What can he want with a house like that, the selfish, horrid creature?"
demanded Agatha, nigh to tears.  "If he is an invalid, what is the use
of having a house big enough to hold a regiment of soldiers?  There are
hundreds of villas where he might have been as ill as he liked, without
monopolising our only Grange!  What is to become of us, if all the best
houses in the country are sold to hermits, and invalids, and white-
haired old patriarchs, with not a single child to boast of!  Selfish!
Inconsiderate!"

"I'm sorry his back is bad; but he had no business to come here," agreed
Chrissie firmly.  "We don't want invalids.  We want a nice, big, lively
family, with plenty of money and hospitable hearts.  Oh dear!  I'm
lonely without Gabrielle.  I'd taken such a fancy to her!  This is worse
than if the place had never been sold at all."

"But still, you know the old man may be nice!"  Kitty suggested
hopefully.  "Wouldn't it be lovely if he took a fancy to us, and made us
all his heirs?  A million each!  I'd buy a pony-cart and a phonograph--a
friend of father has a phonograph at his home, and it's such fun
listening to it.  The cornet-solo is fine, and there's a cylinder of a
baby crying which sounds just like a dog barking.  The poor little soul
was quite good, but its parents thought it would be nice to preserve its
howls; so they pinched it and made it cry.  Mean, I call it!  Imagine
her feelings when she is grown up, and this wretched thing is wound up
to amuse strangers.  So degrading!  Parents ought to consider their
children's feelings.  I read an awful story once of a girl who was
looking over old magazines with some friends, and she came upon a
photograph of herself as an advertisement of Infants' Food!  If that had
happened to me, I should disown my parents and leave the country.  Mr
Vanburgh hasn't any children of his own, but he may like us all the more
for that.  It would be an interest in life for him to make us happy, and
we should reward him by our devotion.  It sounds like a book, and
perhaps it may turn out for the best, after all.  I believe it will!"

"Don't be so horribly resigned!  I hate people who are resigned when I
am miserable!" said Chrissie sharply.  "I want some nice girls, and I
don't care a rap about phonographs--silly, squeaky things!  There was
one on the parade at the seaside last year, and it irritated me beyond
words!  Besides, I don't think it's at all nice to make up to a person
just because he is rich, and might leave you some money.  I wouldn't do
it.  It's toadying; and if there is one thing I detest above anothah, it
is--"

"I never said I would `make up' to him.  I never hinted at such a thing.
We were not supposed to dream that he would leave us anything until he
was dead, and then we would be overcome with surprise.  I should hope I
detest toadying as much as you!  Toady, indeed!" and Kitty tossed her
head and curled her lip in disdain.  Both girls were upset by the sudden
overthrow of their hopes, and therefore inclined to take offence more
readily than usual.  Christabel retired to the window in dignified
displeasure, while Kitty wriggled into the corduroy jacket, stuck the
Tam O'Shanter on her head at a rakish angle, and hitched her books under
her arm in preparation to depart.  Agatha's expressive frowns and smiles
were of no avail towards a reconciliation, and the parting took place in
forced and chilly manner.

"Good by-ee!"

"Good by-ee!"

Then the door banged, and Kitty went stalking home, to drown her woes in
afternoon tea, and to have her ruffled feathers smoothed down by her
mother's kindly sympathy.

Mrs Maitland regarded the disappointment from a personal standpoint,
for the discovery that there was no Mrs Vanburgh was almost as great a
blow to her as the absence of daughters had been to the schoolroom
party.  She agreed with Kitty that it was most officious of a solitary
male to monopolise the Grange, and bemoaned the loss to the
neighbourhood in a manner tragic enough to satisfy even her daughter's
requirements.

"Oh dear! oh dear! and I was looking to her for so many subscriptions!
I had put her down for two five-pound notes, and half a dozen guineas.
I meant her to take half my stall at the hospital bazaar, and to be the
secretary of the Mission.  How useful I had made that woman, to be sure!
and now she has vanished into thin air before my eyes.  I'm terribly
disappointed, Kit; but we must make the best of it.  Poor, lonely old
man!  He will be bored to death in that silent house.  Lies on his back,
you say, and is wheeled about in a chair?  That means paralysis, I
suppose, or very bad rheumatism.  It's sad to be old, and ill, and
lonely."  Mrs Maitland stared thoughtfully before her, cup in hand, and
her eyes grew suddenly moist.  She was thinking how blessedly well off
she was in her cheery, sunny little home, with husband and child to love
her, and good health to enable her to do her work, and to find pleasure
in the doing; and the picture of the strange old man lying on his couch
in the dim oak-panelled halls seemed by comparison gloomier than ever.

"We'll help him, Kit!" she said briskly.  "We'll help him, you and I!
We'll make his life brighter for him, and cheer him in every way we
know!"

But, as it turned out, Mr Vanburgh was not anxious to be cheered, and
Mrs Maitland found it more difficult than she expected to put her good
resolves into practice.



CHAPTER NINE.

NED'S MISSION.

On Thursday evening, Mr and Mrs Rendell returned home from their
Continental trip.  The house was spick and span, the girls were blooming
in pretty evening dresses, and the travellers themselves looked
immensely benefited by their holiday, so that the kissings and huggings
of welcome were exchanged under the happiest conditions.

Nan was thankful to feel that no shade of displeasure lurked behind the
tenderness of her mother's greeting, and before the evening was over
actually screwed up courage to put a question concerning the discovery
of the scattered rice.

The explanation was disappointingly simple.  Mr and Mrs Rendell
exchanged a smiling glance, and appeared much amused by the girls'
discomfiture.

"Well, my dear, we had the carriage to ourselves as far as Dover, and
your mother suggested in her thoughtful way that it would be wise to get
some wraps ready, as it was often very cold on the pier.  Obedient as
ever, I unstrapped the bundle, and discovered your nice little plot.  We
lifted the cushions, poured all the loose rice on the seats, shook the
cloaks out of the window, put down the cushions again, and had
everything clear and tidy in ten minutes' time!  It was a nice little
diversion, which came just as we had finished reading our papers.  Most
thoughtful of you to provide it for us!"

"And you had no stray pieces left?  None that caught in your clothes,
and shook out afterwards?"

"I had a cloth brush in my bag, and I used it well.  I am sorry to
distress you; but we were not once mistaken for Edwin and Angelina.  It
was a brilliant inspiration on your part, and I sympathise with your
disappointment.  I said at once, `This is Nan's doing!' and wished I was
near, to pay you out for your audacity.  I hope your other pranks
afforded you more satisfaction.  I expect you have been up to all manner
of mischief while we were away!"

"I've been most industrious, father, and good, and docile.  Ask Maud if
I haven't.  I had a few accidents: they _will_ occur, you know!  Trays,
for instance, jumping out of my hand, and smashing the glass.  It's a
mercy I was not killed."

"Glass?  What glass?" queried Mrs Rendell quickly; and Nan smiled back
at her with infantile candour.

"Better tell her the first evening, when she can't find it in her heart
to be cross," she had decided diplomatically; and there was certainly no
nervousness apparent in the manner in which she made her confession.

"Oh, only some tumblers.  Not so many.  Seven or eight, perhaps.  They
were not the best ones; none of the best set were broken except two
little water-bottles.  Such a mercy, wasn't it?"  She affected not to
hear Mrs Rendell's groan of dismay, and spread out her scarred hands
with an air of thanksgiving.  "As for me, I can't imagine how I escaped.
There were knives on the tray, and they fell in showers round me--
literal showers--and dug into my hands!  The blood--oh-oh!"  Nan rolled
her eyes to the ceiling, and shuddered dramatically.  "Ask Maud!  She
wanted me to go to bed, but I struggled on.  We were particularly busy
that night, and wanted to help the servants."

"Ned Talbot was here.  He appeared suddenly, when we were laying
carpets, and went down on his knees to help us.  He seemed to expect to
stay to dinner, so we gave him a scramble meal, and he left by the 8:30
train," explained Maud hurriedly.  She, like Nan, had decided to give
her own special piece of news on the evening of her parents' return; but
though she appeared to be looking in an opposite direction, she was
acutely conscious of her mother's searching glances.

"In-deed!"  Mrs Rendell said slowly.  "He is staying in town, then, I
suppose?  Is he to make a long visit?  Shall we see him again this
time?"

"He said of his own accord, mother, that he would like to come from
Saturday until Monday if it would not inconvenience you so soon after
your return.  I promised to give you the message, and said you would
probably write yourself."

"He said he wanted particularly to speak to you and father.  I wonder
what about!  He doesn't generally care to be with you as much as with
us; but he said it as if he meant it--he really did.  I can't imagine
what he wants!" said Agatha the tactless, blurting out her thoughts as
usual, and beaming round the company, unconscious of the consternation
which her words had caused.

Maud flushed crimson.  Elsie and Nan blushed in sympathy for her
confusion, and Chrissie from sheer rage and irritation, and longing to
take the big, blind blunderer by the shoulder and administer a good
shaking.  Only Lilias remained cool and self-possessed, and came to the
rescue with a change of subject, for which her sisters blessed her in
their hearts.

No further reference was made to Ned Talbot that evening, nor was any
letter forwarded to his London address; but next day, as Maud passed the
morning-room on some domestic errand, a voice called her by name, and
she entered, to find her mother seated before an open desk.

"I am writing to Ned Talbot," she said, "and I wanted to consult you
before finishing.  I think the time has come for plain speaking, Maud.
Am I to tell this young fellow that we shall be pleased to see him or
no?  It has been easy to see that he has had a special attraction in
this house for some years past; and now that his position is
established, he may have made up his mind to state his wishes.  I have
little doubt what they will be, nor, I think, have you, so it lies with
you to decide the question."

Maud laid down her bundle, and grasped the sides of the table to steady
her trembling hands.

"Mother, I don't know--I'm not certain!  I have only thought at times
that perhaps--perhaps he cared--"

"Of course, dear.  I understand that.  He could not show his feelings
too plainly while he was unprepared to speak.  That is all right, I'm
sure.  What you have to consider is your own attitude.  If you do not
care for him, or do not wish to be hurried into a decision, we will
postpone this visit until a future occasion.  He himself doubted whether
I could receive him so soon after our return, so that I can easily make
an excuse.  On the other hand, Maud, if you would like to see him--"

She paused significantly, and looked full into Maud's eyes.  For a long
silent minute that gaze continued, the mother sitting with raised head,
the girl standing before her, flushed and shy, yet showing no sign of
shrinking before her scrutiny.

"Yes, mother, I would.  I'd rather you let him come!"

A quiver passed over Mrs Rendell's face, and her eyes dropped.  No
mother in the world can hear that her daughter's heart has gone beyond
her keeping, without feeling a pang of pain mingling with the joy; and
this was a peculiarly tender mother, despite her little airs of
severity.  There were a few minutes when she dared not trust herself to
speak, then she held out her hand and drew the girl to her side.

"Bless you, my daughter!  My good girl--my dear, kind helper.  I'll miss
you sorely; but I am glad of anything that makes for your happiness, now
and always.  You know that, don't you, darling?"

Maud put down her head and shed a few tears of happiness and excitement,
which had in them no trace of bitterness.  When the time arrived for
leaving home, that would doubtless be a real trouble; but at present she
could not realise the wrench, while her mother's certainty concerning
Ned's love was the best medicine possible for the doubts which had been
so distressing since the occasion of his last visit.  In ten minutes'
time she returned to her work, with no stain of tear-marks to tell of
her recent emotion, but with a quiet illumination in her face which
satisfied the mother that this attachment to Ned Talbot was no mere
girlish fancy, but the deep faithful love which endures for a lifetime.

The important letter was posted, and the invitation which it contained
accepted by telegram within an hour of its arrival, and half Friday
night Maud lay with wide, bright eyes staring through the darkness, too
excited, too happy, to sleep.

Ned arrived on Saturday afternoon.  It was a glorious spring day, the
sun shining so powerfully that for the first time in the year afternoon
tea was carried out to the summer-house, while the family gathered
around on various garden stools and chairs.  They were hardly seated
when Ned came walking across the lawn, a tall, handsome figure, in a
spring-like suit, his dark face lit up with a smile of pleasure.  Maud
looked at him, aglow with love and pride; but as he drew nearer she
busied herself with the teacups, and had only a casual word of welcome
to offer.  It would not do to appear too glad, she told herself; and
when there were so many, an individual greeting was hardly noticed, nor
was there any opportunity for _tete-a-tete_ conversation.

When the tea-things had been carried away, however, and the girls began
to wander about the garden in twos and threes, Maud found Ned by her
side, waiting for her, and allowing the others to walk on ahead.  She
looked up with a questioning glance, and met a smile of frank affection.

"Well, have you finished your duties, and got five minutes' leisure for
once?  Come along, and have a walk with me.  I never met such a girl for
being busy all day long.  Don't think I have ever seen you sitting with
idle hands.  You remember Jim's old nickname, `Maud of all work'?  A
capital title!  But he would have missed it badly if he had not had you
to wait upon him.  I used to tell him I envied him such a sister!"

Maud smiled vaguely and turned her head aside.  It was all very kind,
very flattering, very friendly, yet somehow it failed to satisfy; and
even as she listened the old ache of uncertainty came back to her heart.
It was difficult to say why, unless perhaps it was that Ned's manner
was a little too friendly to be welcome.  In the old days he had not
been so much at his ease; they had talked merrily enough together while
the others were present, but so soon as they had been left alone a
constraint had been wont to fall upon them,--a silence, awkward,
embarrassing, yet in some inexplicable way more eloquent than words.
Maud thought of the past with a quick catching of breath, and through
the whole of that afternoon and evening the vague depression deepened,
and refused to be argued away.  Ned, it was true, took advantage of
every opportunity of being near her, yet the time had been when he had
seemed shy of approaching; and she preferred the shyness to this open
friendliness.  He talked to her more than to any one of her sisters,
yes! in frank, cheery words with unlowered voice, as a brother might
talk to a sister, or a son to his mother.  He looked at her with kindly
affection, and the look chilled her heart.  Once again Maud passed a
sleepless night, but the darkness was no longer illumined by rosy
dreams, but black with fear and dread.

Sunday was a glorious day, and Maud felt it another drop in her cup to
be obliged to wear winter clothes instead of blossoming out in the
pretty spring costume which she had hoped to possess.  The dressmaker
had proved faithless, like the rest of her kind, and, being unable to
finish two dresses by the promised time, had followed her usual custom
and sent home the one destined for the younger sister; for, in spite of
her gentle manners, Lilias had "a way with her" which carried infinitely
more weight than Maud's good-natured placidity.

The sisters were standing in the hall providing themselves with hymn-
books from the pile laid out on the top of the oak bench, when Lilias
came tripping downstairs in her pale grey draperies, a very incarnation
of the beautiful spring morning.  Maud looked at her with ungrudging
admiration, then turned instinctively to see how Ned in his turn was
affected by the charming vision.  She saw him flash one quick glance at
Lilias, and immediately turn on his heel and walk to the other end of
the hall, and throughout the walk to church she puzzled over the meaning
of such behaviour.  Why should the sight of Lilias in her fresh beauty
disturb Ned's equanimity?  Was it possible he had taken a dislike to
her, or felt a masculine disdain for her innocent vanity?  Maud honestly
hoped not; for, though she desired above all things to possess Ned's
love for herself, it would be still necessary for her happiness that he
should accept as his own her five beloved sisters.

The day passed without any important developments.  Maud went off to
teach her Sunday-school class in the afternoon, trying hard to conquer
the spasm of envy which overcame her at the sight of Lilias seated in
the garden hammock, swinging herself to and fro on the tips of her
little shoes, while Ned mounted guard by her side, and Agatha and
Chrissie paced lazily up and down.  Maud was devoted to her "boys," but
on this occasion there was no denying that it was an effort to tear
herself from home, and she would gladly have welcomed a holiday.  Her
path led through the garden, and as she approached the gate the hope
flitted through her mind that Ned might offer to accompany her on her
walk.  It would be an opportunity for a quiet _tete-a-tete_, which was
rarely to be gained in the midst of such a large family; and if Mrs
Rendell's surmises were correct, surely--surely!  But Ned did not even
rise from his seat beside the hammock: he only waved his hand and nodded
an unclouded farewell.  The twelve mischievous little boys behaved with
unprecedented decorum that afternoon; for, in spite of their elfish
ways, they were devoted to Maud, and the ringleader sent round an
imperative message to the effect that "Teacher was bad, and must not be
worried."

It was characteristic of Maud also that she did not allow the lesson to
suffer because of her own depression, but rather put into it more than
the usual earnestness.  She had always felt a heavy sense of
responsibility in taking this class, and every week, as she looked at
the eager young faces, she was thrilled with a fresh longing to help
them to grow up into strong, upright men, who would be a power for good
in the world,--"gentlemen of Christ," as the grand old phrase has it.
When they were indifferent or callous, after the manner of boys, she
strengthened herself against disappointment by remembering how words
committed to memory in her own careless youth remained indelibly printed
on the brain, to be a strength and solace in after years.  The hymns and
chapters were learnt as lessons now, but in time to come their true
meaning would be revealed; and she loved to combat the suspicion that
the Bible was a dull, uninteresting book, by relating the histories of
its heroes in a manner most calculated to arouse schoolboy enthusiasm.
Brave, lovable David, with his chosen friend Jonathan, the type of
princehood; the gloomy but majestic figure of Saul, trustful Abraham,
and fearless Daniel.  It was a joy to make them live in the boys'
imagination, and see the bright interest on the listening faces!

When Mrs Rendell said good-night to her daughter, she was especially
tender in her manner, for she vaguely felt that all was not going well,
and took herself to task for having forced a confidence.  Could it be be
that she had taken too much for granted? that her motherly pride had
given her an exaggerated idea of Ned Talbot's feelings?  He had shown no
anxiety to speak to her in private, and at one time it seemed as if he
would go back to town without touching on any but impersonal topics; but
on Monday morning, after wandering restlessly about the house for some
time after breakfast, Ned seemed suddenly to take his courage in both
hands, and, coming up to his hostess as she sat writing notes, begged
the favour of a few minutes' private conversation.

Mrs Rendell looked up sharply, met an embarrassed yet steadfast glance,
and felt a throb of relief.

"Certainly!" she said.  "In ten minutes from now I shall have finished
my household arrangements, and will meet you in the summer-house.  Go
into the garden and enjoy a smoke until I come."

Ned walked away obediently, and Mrs Rendell thrust the half-finished
note under her desk, too agitated to complete it.  She had shown no
signs of surprise to the young man himself, but her heart was beating
quickly, and she bundled away her writing materials in a haphazard
fashion very unlike her usual methodical ways.  Her first thought was
for Maud, and most of the ten minutes of Ned's waiting were taken up in
interviewing the girl, and deputing to her a dozen little shopping
commissions which would keep her occupied in the village for an hour to
come.

"I am going to have a talk with Ned in the summer-house.  You will find
us there when you return.  Come straight to me, and tell me how you have
succeeded."

These were her last instructions, and when she had given them she turned
sharply aside, lest her face should betray the meaning that lay behind
her words.

Ned was waiting for her with an evident nervousness mingling with his
usual kindly courtesy.  He made no attempt to open the conversation with
meaningless commonplaces, and, after they were both seated, several
moments passed in silence.  Then suddenly the two pairs of eyes met; the
young fellow flushed and paled, and laid a hand on his hostess's chair
with a boy-like pleading gesture.

"Oh, Mrs Rendell," he cried, "I have a great favour to ask you!"



CHAPTER TEN.

A TRAGIC SURPRISE.

Half an hour later, Nan Rendell let herself out of the front door, and
ran hurriedly down the steps.  Her sailor hat was perched uncertainly on
the top of her heavy braids, the buttons of her jacket were unfastened,
and she drew on her gloves as she walked, as if she had been in too much
haste to finish dressing before leaving the house.  Several
acquaintances saluted her as they passed, but she rushed along
unconscious of their greetings, and presently arrived at the point in
the high road where houses stopped and the little township began.  The
shops which Mrs Rendell patronised were indiscriminately situated on
either side of the road, which no doubt accounted for Nan's erratic
dives to and fro.  She peered her head round the corner of the draper's
door, dashed across the road and craned through the grocer's window,
stood on tip-toe to investigate the interior of the post office, then
ran back once more, to interview the fishmonger, and ask if Miss Rendell
had yet called to leave the morning order.  It was in the confectioner's
that Maud was run to earth at last.  She was coming out of the doorway
counting her change into her purse, when suddenly Nan's face confronted
her, and she started back in surprise.

"You?"

"Yes, it's me.  I've been looking for you everywhere."

"But I thought your were going to work?  I left you hard at it.  Got a
headache?"

"Fer-ightful!" said Nan; and her looks justified the word, for her
cheeks were pale, and her eyes looked worn and strained.  "I couldn't
work any longer.  I thought a little walk would do me good, so came out
to meet you."

"But--er,"--Maud hesitated uncertainly.  She did not wish to appear
inconsiderate towards her beloved Nan, but, remembering her mother's
instruction, she could not bring herself to stay away from home longer
than was necessary.  She looked at her sister appealingly, and slid a
hand through her arm.

"But--I've finished my shopping, dear, and mother said I was to go
straight back.  Wouldn't it do just as well to sit in the garden?  You
would get the air without fatigue, and I'd make you so cosy in the deck
chair.  You know, Nan, I--I want to go back!"

Nan turned her head aside, and spoke in a queer, muffled tone.

"Very well; but we'll go round the back way.  It's only five minutes
longer, and it's quiet.  I don't want to meet any one.  You'll do that
to oblige me, won't you, Maud, as you have finished your shopping?"

Of course she would.  Maud gave a little grip to her sister's arm, and
turned willingly enough up the side street which led off the high road.
As in all small towns, the change from town to country came surprisingly
quickly.  Three minutes' walk took the sisters into a pretty lane
running parallel with the High Street, and commanding a sweeping view
over the countryside.  Here were no houses, only an avenue of beeches,
with here and there a seat in a position of welcome shade.  Maud often
returned home by this quieter route, and seated herself on one of the
benches to make up her accounts and enjoy the view at one and the same
time.  It was a favourite spot; but after this morning she could never
pass it without a shrinking of the heart, a sickly remembrance of
misery.  At the first seat Nan slackened her pace insinuatingly, while
Maud marched ahead, intentionally obtuse; but at the second a hand was
laid on her arm, and such a trembling voice besought her to stop, that
she forgot herself in sympathetic alarm.

"Nan, you _do_ look ill!  As white as a sheet.  Lean forward and put
your head on your knee, as low as you can get it!  That is the best
thing to do if you feel faint.  Sit still for a minute, and then we will
make another dash for home.  You ought to lie down!"

But Nan sat bolt upright, clasping her fingers in nervous misery.

"I'm not faint.  I'm thinking of you, not myself!--Maud darling; it's
been a mistake--we were all mistaken; but you are so good, you will be
brave for our sakes, if not your own.  It would break our hearts to see
you suffer."

She stopped short with a little sob of agitation, and Maud stared at her
with wondering eyes.

"Suffer!  I?  Why should I suffer?"  Then the colour rushed in a sudden
wave to her cheeks, and her voice broke in the single, stifled inquiry,
"Ned?"

"Yes.  It is Lilias!  He has asked mother for Lilias.  She came upstairs
and sent me out to meet you, so that you might not hear it suddenly.
She thought you would rather have it so."

"How kind of her!  That was good of you both!" said Maud calmly.  Her
heart had stopped for a moment, and was now beating away at
extraordinary speed; a singing noise was in her ears: it was as if some
one had dealt her a violent blow, and she was as yet too stunned to
realise its nature.  She turned her head aside, and _gazed_ vaguely up
and down.  A nursemaid wheeled a perambulator on the opposite pavement,
while a little white-robed figure trotted at her side, tossing a ball in
the air.  Maud watched her movements with fascinated gaze.  It seemed as
though some tremendous issue depended on whether the ball was caught in
those tiny, uncertain fingers.

"Ned wants to marry Lilias, does he?"  Her voice sounded strange and far
away, and she noted as much, and pondered on the peculiarity.  "They
will make a handsome couple.  Lilias is so fair.  She will look well
beside him."

"Maud, don't!  For pity's sake don't take it like that!"

The tears were raining down Nan's cheeks, and she seized her sister's
hand in a passionate grasp.

"I know all about it.  I am almost as wretched as you are.  Don't
pretend to me.  Say what you feel to me, at least, and it will help you
to bear it."

"But I don't feel anything," said Maud dully.  "It seems like a dream.
Lilias!  He loves Lilias, and not me; he never loved me at all!  He has
been thinking of Lilias all this time.  It's--very--strange!  I think
what I feel most is shame for my own conceit.  I have been deceiving
myself all along, and that is a miserable thought!  You should not
sympathise with me, Nan: you should scold me, and tell me to be ashamed
of myself."

She spoke in the same dull, strangled note, and Nan continued to cry and
clasp her hand in distress.

"I could never do that, or be anything but proud of you, darling!  It
was no conceit at all on your part, for we all thought the same.  He
always seemed to prefer being with you, and to be so shy and constrained
with Lilias.  I suppose that was a sign, but we did not recognise it.
Even mother was sure it was you: every one was, except Lilias."

Maud gave a quick glance upward.

"Did Lilias guess?  Did she know that this was coming?"

"I have not seen her; but from what mother said, I imagine she did."

"And she will--she cares for him too?"

"Yes!"

It was a very low little yes, almost a whisper, but at the sound of it
Maud shrank as at a blow, and her face became drawn with pain.  For the
first time a realisation of what the news meant, broke upon her, and she
cried aloud in a voice sharp with misery--

"They will be engaged; they will be married; and I shall have to stay at
home and look on!  I shall have to take part, and pretend that I don't
care.  Oh, I can't--I can't do it!  If it had been some one at a
distance, some one I need never have seen, I could have borne it; but my
own sister, living in the same house together all day long--that is too
bitter!  I'd rather die than face it!"

"Then I'll die too!" cried Nan hotly.  "Whether Ned cares for you or
not, you are all the world to me.  You don't know how I love you, Maud!
It would have broken my heart if you had married and gone away, and I
never want to marry myself, if you and I can live together.  No man
could make up for you.  I hate them all!  Wretches!  Nothing but misery
wherever they come.  I'll never fall in love, and you'll get over this
in a few months, and we will look forward to having our own little
house, and growing old together,--won't we, darling?"

"Yes, we will," assented Maud meekly.  She looked at her sister and
tried hard to smile; but the prospect seemed so dull--oh, so heart-
breakingly dull!--after the rosy dreams of the past, that what was meant
as comfort proved, after all, the last strain which was to break down
her composure.

She threw up her hands to her face, and rocked to and fro in an
abandonment of distress.

"Oh--oh, the days, and weeks, and months!  They will be so long; I can't
realise it yet, but I know how I shall suffer.  Oh, Nan, isn't it hard,
after being so happy--after feeling so sure?  I never had a doubt all
these years except just this last week, and then I thought it was my own
foolish imagining;--and now to have it end like this!  I can't believe
it!  Are you sure, are you quite sure?  It seems like a hideous
mistake!"

Nan shook her head, and her face hardened.

"There's no mistake on my part, but there's one on his, and a big one
too.  He'll find it out, that's one comfort!  He'll suffer for it!  If
he thinks Lilias is going to be the sort of wife he needs, he'll find
out his mistake.  He thinks himself well off because he has a few
hundreds a year, and is as proud as a king because he has a house of his
own in a dull little country town.  Lilias's ideas of poverty and his of
wealth will come to much the same thing.  She hates the country, and
flies off to town at the least excuse.  Ned is quiet and book-wormy; and
she wants some one who is fond of life, and likes gadding about.  They
don't suit each other in any one way that I can see, and before a year
is over they will have found it out for themselves.  Then he will be
sorry!"

Maud cut her short with uplifted hand.

"Don't, Nan; you make it worse!  You mean to be kind, but it doesn't
comfort me to think that he will be disappointed.  I love him, you see;
and I can't change in a moment because I discover that he doesn't care
for me.  I want him to be happy.  It would make me more miserable than
ever if I thought it was a mistake.  You are too hard on Lilias.  She is
very sweet and amiable, and if she really loves him she will not mind
little things like that.  We never spoke about him together, she and I,
and she has only done what I did myself.  No one is to blame--no one!
It was my own foolish mistake, and I must bear the consequences."

"You are an angel, and too good to live!" cried Nan, with a gulp.  "I
blame everybody, and myself worst of all.  Prided myself on being sharp-
sighted, and couldn't save you from a blow like this! ...  Maud, you
don't want to go home?  You would rather not see him this morning?
Mother said she would give no definite answer before talking to father,
but would let him see Lilias for half an hour, and then pack him off by
the midday train.  She was going to tell him that under the
circumstances she would prefer that he did not stay to lunch, so there
would seem nothing strange about it if you and I were not back before he
left."

"No," agreed Maud softly.  She drew her watch from her belt and looked
at the hour.  "Perhaps you are right, Nan.  It would be better not to
try my strength too much this morning.  In a day or two I shall have
gained a little courage, but this morning I--I've had rather a shock,
and feel weak and nervous.  We will sit here and wait until he is gone."

"Wouldn't you rather come for a walk?  The time seems so long when you
are sitting still.  A nice brisk walk through the woods!" suggested Nan
insinuatingly; but Maud drew back with a quiver of pain.

"No, no!  Not this morning!  I should remember it always.  Every step of
the path would bring back this wretched day in the future, and I do so
love the woods.  Let me keep them free from association, at least.  It
will be bad enough to dread this road, as I always shall after this."

"Just as you like, dear, just as you like; but what will you do?  You
can't sit still and think all the time!"

"I'll make up my accounts," said Maud simply; and, despite her sister's
cry of protest, she insisted on doing as she said.  Pencil and note-book
came out of her pocket, and one item after another of the morning's
shopping was jotted down, and the result compared with the change in the
housekeeping purse.

How could she do it?  Nan tried to imagine how she herself would have
acted in similar circumstances, and felt her heart beat fast at the
possibility.  Rage, storm, despair; drown herself in the nearest stream;
lie down beneath the express train; bid farewell to the world, and
retire into a nunnery.  All these alternatives seemed natural and easy;
she could imagine taking refuge in any one of them.  But to go on with
ordinary, everyday work, to take up the "next duty" and perform it in
quiet, conscientious fashion--that was impossible!--the last thing in
the world that she could bring herself to do.

She did not realise that the bent of a lifetime is not reversed in a
moment, and that even the pangs of slighted love must be borne according
to the temperament of the sufferer.  Dear, placid, domesticated Maud
found her best medicine in the "trivial round, the common task."

Nan, looking over her shoulder, saw that the little rows of figures were
as neat and accurate as ever, and caught a sigh of satisfaction when
they were added together, and the change in the housekeeping purse was
proved correct.  Even in the midst of her distress, Maud was conscious
of a distinct sense of satisfaction in balancing her accounts to a
penny.



CHAPTER ELEVEN.

THE FIRST ENGAGEMENT.

The remaining hours of that day were the most painful which Maud had
ever known.  The sisters returned to find the household in a state of
wild excitement, for such secrets seemed to leak out in the air, so that
the very servants suspected the truth, and walked about the house with
curious smiles.  The housemaid confided to the cook that the missis had
come in from the garden all of a tremble; had replied, "Yes!  No!
Certainly!" when asked for instructions, and had then sent Miss Lilias
to see Mr Talbot in the drawing-room all by her very own self.  What
did that mean, she would like to know?  And cook shook her head, and
said it wasn't for nothing she had fallen up the cellar stairs the week
before; and a very good thing too, if one of them did go off!  When
there were six of them waiting for their turns, the elders ought to
hurry up and make room.  Mary, the waitress, shed tears over her silver
in the pantry, because there was a look about the back of Mr Talbot's
head that reminded her of her young man, who had gone abroad to prepare
a home; and all three flattened their noses against the window when Ned
departed, in the hope of witnessing a tender and affecting farewell.
They were disappointed, however, for Lilias did not leave the drawing-
room, and only Mrs Rendell accompanied the young man to the door.  She
had put on her bonnet, and followed him slowly down the road, for
ordinary duties must be attended to, even on the exciting occasion of
the first engagement in the family, and on this particular morning there
happened to be a committee meeting at the vicarage, which she felt bound
to attend.

When Maud returned, therefore, only her sisters were at home to receive
her, and she had barely entered the house before Agatha rushed forward,
flushed and beaming, and drew her forcibly into the drawing-room.

"Maud, Maud, such news!  Such excitement!  Have you heard?  Did Nan tell
you?  Isn't it lovely?  The first engagement!  Oh, how I have longed to
have a wedding in the family, and now it's really coming off!  It's too
good to be true!  Ned Talbot, too!  Such a scrumptious brother!  I
always hoped he'd ask one of us, but I thought it was you.  Funny,
wasn't it?  I said to Chrissie--"

"It was very bold and interfering of you to say anything of the sort,
then; what business have you meddling with other people's love affairs?"
interrupted Elsie sharply; and Maud glanced at her, and turned away
quickly to avoid a look of sympathetic understanding.  Elsie was old
beyond her years, and had been quick to understand the true position of
affairs; but Maud hardly knew which was more painful--Agatha's tactless
speeches, or the other's undisguised commiseration.  It was a relief to
turn to Lilias and meet her lovely eyes, guilelessly free from any
feeling but her own happiness.  Lilias had little natural insight, and
was, besides, so wrapped up in her own interests, that she was as blind
as a bat to what was passing around.  She came forward, smiling and
blushing, and Maud kissed her, as was expected, and murmured words of
congratulation, feeling meantime that this very unconsciousness would be
her greatest assistance in the difficult time to come.

"I've heard all about it, Lilias.  I hope you will be very happy.  It is
really all settled, and you are engaged?"

"Yes--no!  Not formally, I mean.  Mother won't consent to anything
definite until she has consulted with father; but, of course, we,"--
Lilias dimpled and smiled seraphically over the unaccustomed word--"we
feel that it is settled.  We are quite sure of ourselves, at least."

"Then I'd get married as soon as you could if I were you, in case you
changed," said Agatha darkly.  "You do change most awfully, Lilias, you
know.  When you bought your last hat you said it was a `simple love,'
and the next month you pulled it all to pieces.  And you used to adore
Fanny Newby, and now you go out of the side door when you see her
coming.  Get married in summer and have a rose wedding, and we'll all be
bridesmaids.  I pine to be a bridesmaid, with everything new from head
to foot, and no nasty old clothes to wear out.  That's the worst of
being number five!  I never have everything new at once.  There's always
a hat, or a jacket, or a blouse that has to be finished off.  Let's sit
down and talk about it now!  There's half an hour before lunch, and it's
impossible to do any work.  Maud, sit down and take off your hat, and
let's be comfy!"

"No, she can't.  I want her!  I don't care who is going to be married;
I'm ill, and I want Maud to nurse me.  My head is smashing.  I believe
it's sunstroke, for I sat out yesterday without a hat.  I shall go crazy
in a moment if somebody doesn't do something!" cried Nan loudly; and her
sisters stared in dismay at her flushed, heated face.  It was so evident
that she was in pain that even Agatha submitted to a postponement of the
longed-for "talk," and the conclave broke up for the time being, the
sisters separating, to go off in various directions: Lilias to be petted
and cross-questioned by the two schoolgirls; Elsie to indite a
melancholy entry in her diary, beginning, "Yet another example of the
strange intermingling of joy and pain": and Maud to lead Nan to her own
room, and devote herself to the work of nursing, at which she was so
clever.  Perhaps Nan's head was really aching, perhaps the morning's
excitement had brought on an attack of neuralgia, but whatever her
ailment, she certainly made the worst of it, groaning and rolling her
eyes to the ceiling as one in mortal agony; for she was wise enough to
realise that nothing would take Maud so much out of herself as the
necessity of waiting upon another.

When Mrs Rendell entered the room, and recognised the odours of eau-de-
Cologne, menthol, and sal volatile, her first thought was of poor
brokenhearted Maud; but, behold! it was Maud who was playing doctor, and
buxom Nan who lay prone upon the bed.

A few inquiries and expressions of sympathy were spoken, and then a
gesture bade Maud follow into another room.  She went, shrinking from
the ordeal, yet longing to have it over, and for a few minutes mother
and daughter gazed at one another in silence.  The girl's face was grave
and set, but self-composed in comparison with that of Mrs Rendell,
which was quivering with distress.

"My dear child!  What can I say to you?  I can never forgive myself for
my part in this disappointment.  I should not have spoken as I did the
other day, but I thought at the time that it was the right thing to do,
and I had no doubts on the subject.  What can I do to help you, dear,
through this difficult time?"

"Speak as little as possible about it, mother, please," said Maud
softly.  She pressed her lips together, wincing with pain, and Mrs
Rendell's eyes flashed a look of approval in reply.

Of Spartan bravery herself, it delighted her to see her daughter bracing
herself up to bear her trouble without useless outcry and repining.

"I quite agree, darling," she said warmly.  "After to-day we will never
mention the subject; but there are one or two things which must be said
first.  To begin with, Ned has no suspicion of our mistake.  I took care
of that; and it may help you to know that, after all, we were not so
very far from the truth.  He spoke quite openly, and it seems that for
the first two or three years you were the attraction!  He said he had
been sincerely attached to you, but that he saw you regarded him simply
as a friend.  Then Lilias came home, with her more demonstrative ways;
he turned to her for comfort, and now,"--She stopped with a little
eloquent gesture, while Maud gave a groan of pain.

"Oh, mother, that is hard--to think that it came so near, and that I
spoiled my life by my own mistake!  I suppose my very anxiety not to
show how much I cared made me seem stiff and constrained; but I never
meant him to take it in that way.  It makes it worse than ever, and yet
I'm glad too.  It's a comfort to feel it was not all imagination."

"I thought you would feel it so; that is why I told you.  But you must
not talk of your life being spoiled, dear.  These are early days, and I
hope there are many, many blessings which still remain open to you.  It
is a great mistake to think that marriage is the only gate to happiness.
A single woman may have a most full and useful life."

"Yes, mother!" assented Maud dutifully.  Poor Maud! her heart died down
within her as she spoke, and her thoughts flew away to old Mary Robins
in her lodging, and Miss Evans in her stuffy little cottage, and she
wondered if it were really, really possible that she--Maud Rendell--
could ever grow like them, and feel satisfied with the duties and
pleasures which constituted their lives!  "Full and useful!"  It sounded
estimable enough; but her young heart hungered for happiness also, and
at the moment that seemed lost for ever.  The downcast face was so
pitiful that the tears came into Mrs Rendell's eyes as she watched it.

"Don't think of the future, dear," she said fondly.  "Take each day as
it comes, and try to bear it bravely, and I'll help you in every way I
can.  Ned will come down pretty often, for I must consider Lilias as
well as you, and we cannot consent to have a formal engagement until
they know each other more intimately than at present; but it will not be
so hard as you expect.  You must be at home sometimes, for the last
thing we want to do is to arouse suspicion; but I will arrange that you
have as many changes as possible; and in any way that I can help I am at
your service, dear, if you will only let me know!"

"Thank you, mother," said Maud again, and made a little involuntary
movement towards the door, whereupon Mrs Rendell dismissed her, after a
lingering embrace.  She saw that it was misery to the girl to discuss
her disappointment, and realised that it would be the truest kindness to
allow the subject to drop.  It was only natural that Maud should find it
easier to talk to a friend of her own age, and Nan would be able to help
more than any one else in these first painful days.  Later on her own
turn would come; and all day long the mother's mind was busy weaving
plans by which Maud could be shielded from suffering, and her life made
bright and interesting during the months ahead.

Lessons came off badly that afternoon, for the girls were too much
absorbed in the excitement of the prospective wedding to be able to fix
their attention on the problems of arithmetic and geography.  When the
great problem of the hour was to decide the number of bridesmaids and
what kind of frocks they should wear, how could they be expected to feel
any interest in discovering how many yards of paper it would take to
cover the walls of a problematical chamber, or in describing the
eccentricities of the Gulf Stream?  Miss Roberts realised the
impossibility of the situation, and shortened the hours in considerate
fashion; and no sooner had she taken her departure than the three girls
rushed to the porch-room, surrounded Lilias in a whirlwind of
excitement, and dragged her to a chair in their midst.

"At last we can talk!  Such a pity Nan is ill, and won't let Maud leave
the room; but we can have it all over again with them to-morrow.  Talk!
I feel as if I could talk for ever!  Oh, Lilias, how do you feel?  If I
were engaged, I don't know what would happen to me!  I should go stark,
staring mad with excitement."

"How nice for him!  You would have another person to consider then,
remember," said Lilias prettily.  "I am not at all inclined to go mad,
though I am certainly very much excited.  It is difficult to describe my
feelings.  I can't realise it yet, and feel all--"

"Jumbled up!" suggested Agatha sympathetically.  "Of course you do.  I
should myself.  Oh, Lil, do have them in yellow!  I've been thinking
about it all the afternoon, and I think yellow would be sw-eet!  With
bouquets of daffodils!  Very few people have yellow, and it would be so
uncommon, and make us look much paler too.  I shall have a face like a
beetroot with excitement; I know I shall."

"I daresay!  And how should I look, I'd like to know?" queried
Christabel loftily.  "Sea green, my dear.  I'm sallow enough as it is,
but imagine my appearance in a yellow dress!  I should present a
shocking spectacle!  Nothing is so nice as pink: it suits every one, and
is so bright and pretty.  Pink silk dresses, with Leghorn hats."

Elsie grimaced in disapproving fashion.

"So commonplace!  Every one has pink.  We must have something altogether
unique and striking.  No use deciding now, for we will change our minds
a dozen times before the time arrives.  When are you to be married,
Lilias?  What is the date?"

"My dear, I've no notion!  I am not even properly engaged yet, so how
could we begin talking about marriage?  I believe we are to be put on
probation for some months, so it will certainly not be this year at any
rate."

"What a bore!  I'm longing to stay with you in your own house.  It's my
idea of happiness to go and stay with you girls when you are married.
You will ask us all in turns, won't you?  I'd like to come with
Chrissie; and then, if you and Ned get too affectionate, we can amuse
ourselves in another room.  It will be lovely having no grown-up person
in the house.  Oh, well, of course, you are grown-up, if it comes to
that, but only young grown-up, and that makes all the difference.  You
won't make us do things because they are `good for us'--send us a walk
when we don't feel inclined, for instance, or to bed early, or make us
eat `good plain food.'  When I come to stay with you, I should like
never to go out unless I have something special to do, and to have tea
for lunch, and nice rich cake, and laze about from morning till night,
just as I felt disposed."

"And you'll ask people to meet us, won't you, Lil, and take us about,
and give us all your old gloves and ribbons?  Marie Elder's sister is
engaged, and he won't let her wear any gloves that are the l-east little
bit soiled; so Marie gets them all.  I hope Ned will be fussy about your
things, too.  What shall you call your house?  I hope it's a nice one.
Florrie Elder is going to have a blue drawing-room, and Marie is working
her a cushion of the most ex-quisite ribbon-work you ever did see.
Florrie says she would quarrel with her nearest and dearest if he dared
to lean against it.  If you like, I'll ask her for the pattern, and do
one for you.  It wouldn't matter having them the same, when you live so
far apart."

"What will Jim say?  Ned and he vowed that they would be bachelors all
their lives, and live together when they were old.  Now he will be
obliged to marry himself, in revenge.  How I shall detest the girl!  She
won't be half nice enough for him, and he will like her better than us,
and that will be horribly exasperating.  I don't envy her when he brings
her to see us, that's all!  Six sisters all glaring at her in a row, and
saying to themselves, `I don't like her nose!'  `I don't like her eyes!'
`What a hat!'  `However could he fall in love with her!'  And mother
all icy kind, and father smirking behind his moustache.  That's what
will happen to you one of these days, Lilias, when you go north, `on
view,' to Ned's people."

Lilias rolled her eyes, and affected to tear her hair in despair.

"Oh, don't!  I pray you, don't!  I shall die with nervousness.  Poor
little me!  His parents are reserved and undemonstrative, like most
North-country people, he says, but are very tender-hearted at bottom.
That means, I suppose, that they would be stiff and polite all the time
I was there, and begin slowly to unbend just as I was coming away.
Frederica, the girl, goes in for higher education, and doesn't care a
bit about going about with other girls.  I know they will be
disappointed with me.  Ned is so silly, and he is sure to tell them."--
She stopped, sweetly simpering, and the hearers had little difficulty in
guessing what it was that Ned would tell his people.  He would say that
his _fiancee_ was the loveliest girl in the world; that she had hair
like spun gold, a complexion of milk and roses, and eyes soft and dewy
as a violet.  Then Lilias would arrive in person, and his people would
think that he had not said half enough.  Each of the three hearers had a
vision of Lilias advancing to meet the new relatives with lifted eyes,
and a smile that would melt a heart of stone; each one saw in
imagination the sudden thaw on the watching faces, and beheld Lilias
installed forthwith as the pride and darling of the household.  They
smiled at one another in furtive amusement, but discreetly avoided
putting their thoughts into words, for Lilias fished so transparently
for compliments, that it had become an unspoken law never on any
condition to encourage her by giving the desired assurance.

Agatha turned aside to hide her amusement, and, the next moment, gave a
jump of astonishment.

"Keep still!  Don't move!  For your lives don't look out of the window!
Sit where you are, and go on talking.  My dears, he is watching us!  The
Vanburgh!  I distinctly saw him lean forward and stare across.  He is in
the room directly opposite, and he dodged back the moment I looked.
Fancy his being as much interested in us as we are in him!  How
exciting!"

"We must look very ridiculous, sitting here in a row, chattering and
waving our hands as if we were mad.  I don't wonder he stared, but I do
want to stare back.  Let us take it in turns to peep beneath our
eyelashes, while the others go on talking," suggested Elsie; and the
proposal was carried out forthwith, each girl watching till the coveted
glimpse had been obtained, and informing her companions of her success
by groans and exclamations.

"I see him, I do!  He is staring across.  He looks very ill.  His hair
is quite white.  Poor old man, how dull he must be!"

When it came to Chrissie's turn she stared across with undisguised
curiosity, and refused to accept her sisters' reproaches when the white
head was hurriedly withdrawn from view.

"I was the last!  You had all had your turns, so I have not deprived you
of anything," she maintained.  "I only meant to smile at him in a kind,
neighbourly fashion.  He will look out again in a few minutes, never
fear!"

But Mr Vanburgh's face appeared no more at the window, and it seemed as
if the knowledge that he had been observed had been so unwelcome as to
put an end to his scrutiny.  The girls could only comfort themselves
with the remembrance that their mother had promised to call at the
Grange during the next few weeks, when, no doubt, first-hand information
would be forthcoming about its occupant.



CHAPTER TWELVE.

NOT AT HOME!

After due consultation, Mr and Mrs Rendell decided to sanction a
private engagement between Lilias and Ned Talbot for a year to come,
with the understanding that if the young people remained of the same
mind, no objection would then be put in the way of their speedy
marriage; and as they would be allowed to correspond, and to meet as
often as opportunity offered, the decision was received with
satisfaction by the lovers.  Lilias complacently settled to be married
in fifteen months' time, and was resigned to a probation sweetened by
the receipt of constant letters, presents, and adulation; while Ned,
with characteristic honesty, confessed in his own heart that he had no
very deep acquaintance with his beloved's character, and that he could
not be better employed than in the study of the same.  Lilias's
exquisite girlish beauty had so dazzled his senses, that he had been shy
and ill at ease in her presence, and their conversations together had
been of the lightest, most impersonal nature.  It would be an entrancing
occupation to discover all the hidden charms possessed by this sweetest
of created beings; for, like most young men, Ned was convinced that a
lovely body must needs be an index to a lovely mind, and that beauty of
face was but a reflection from the soul within.  Every month that passed
would draw Lilias and himself more closely together, as each came to
know and understand the depths of the other's nature.  So Ned told
himself happily, as he came down to Thurston House for his first visit
in the new character, a week after the all-important interview.

Lilias met him at the door, and led him into the drawing-room, all
fragrant with spring flowers and plants.  She looked like a flower
herself, with her soft pink and white colouring, and to the last day of
his life Ned Talbot could never inhale the fragrance of a narcissus or a
hyacinth without a spasm of painful remembrance.  It brought back so
vividly the intoxicating joy of that meeting.  They talked together in
lover-like fashion, Lilias alternately shy and reticent, and queening it
over him with absurd little airs of authority, at which he laughed with
a lover's delight, until presently a tap came to the door, and Agatha's
face peeped round the corner to announce that tea had been taken out to
the garden, and to ask if the lovers would rather come out, or, have it
sent to them indoors.

"Here, please," said Lilias.

"Oh, we'll come out certainly," cried Ned in the same moment, and then
turned to her with a smile of apology.

"If you don't mind, dear!  I want to see Maud.  She was out when I left
the other day, you remember, and I can't feel that I am really received
into the family until Maud has given me her blessing."

"Just as you wish, of course.  It does seem a pity to stay indoors when
the weather is so glorious!" assented Lilias readily.  Though inwardly
annoyed that she should have appeared more anxious than Ned for an
extension of their _tete-a-tete_, she was far too proud to show her
vexation.  Nothing could have appeared more ready or more natural than
the manner in which she rose from her seat and slipped her hand through
Agatha's arm; but even while she smiled and chatted she was registering
a vow to punish Mr Ned on the first opportunity.

Out in the garden Maud sat, busying herself with the teacups and nerving
herself to face the dreaded moment, as footsteps approached nearer and
nearer her seat.

"Maud!" cried Ned, and gripped her hand with affectionate fervour, "I
was longing to see you.  It seemed too bad going away without a word
from you the other day.  We have so much to say to one another!"

"Yes, indeed; but meantime I must pour out the tea!  Are you going to
make yourself useful and hand round the cups?" replied a laughing, self-
possessed voice, which Maud hardly recognised as her own.  It was easier
to play a part than she had expected: the looking forward had been worse
than the reality; and, as she met her mother's smile and Nan's approving
glance, she even began to feel a dreary pride in her own composure.
Lilias had seated herself between two of her sisters, an intentional
revenge for the slight which she considered herself to have received,
and Ned was therefore left free to devote himself to his old friend.

"Of course you saw--you knew what was coming," he whispered
confidentially, when the general conversation made it possible to
exchange a quiet remark.  "I realised that I gave myself away by my
awkwardness and stupidity whenever she was present, but I was powerless
to prevent it.  And you were so good to me, Maud, always doing your best
to help and make things easy.  I can never be grateful enough for your
friendship.  I am so thankful to feel that you are at home still.  It
seems an assurance of safety; for you'll look after her, and see that
she gets into no danger through all this long year of waiting."

He looked at her appealingly, and she gave a forced little laugh.

"Oh yes, I'll ward off the beasts of prey.  There are so many, you know,
roving about this sleepy place.  She will meet so many dangers!"

"Don't laugh at me!  I can't help being anxious.  She is so young and
child-like, and there are dangers everywhere.  Illness, accident,
infection.  I shall think of them when I am far away, and worry myself
to death.  But you are a bulwark of strength, Maud, and if you will take
her in charge--"

Maud laughed again.  It seemed so ridiculous to think of any of her
sisters promising to take Lilias in charge!  Lilias, the most cool-
headed, independent, and self-confident member of the family.  She was
infinitely more capable of taking care of the whole family than the
family was of influencing her movements; but Ned could not be expected
to realise as much, and he was obviously wounded by the absence of
expected sympathy.

An exclamation from Christabel, calling attention to Kitty Maitland's
figure crossing the lawn, came as a welcome interruption, and Ned took
the opportunity to cross to a seat on the other side of the group, while
Maud watched his departure with mingled relief and concern.

"He thinks I am hard and prosaic, and is disappointed in me.  Well,
better so!  He won't confide his rhapsodies in my ear any more, and that
would be really more than I could bear.  The old days are over, and he
must look elsewhere for sympathy."

Meantime Kitty had seated herself on the grass, and was proceeding to
account for her appearance.

"Please I hope you don't object to my coming back so soon!  Mummy has
gone with father to call on Mr Vanburgh, and I walked with them to the
Grange, and came in here to wait until she comes out.  She put on all
her new things, and looks a perfect duck.  I expect he will like her
awfully, and I told her to introduce my name into the conversation as
often as possible.  `My daughter likes this'; `My daughter likes that';
`As my little girl says to me';--that sort of thing, don't you know,
just to attract his attention.  Perhaps he will tell her to bring me
with her next time she calls, or even ask me to tea by myself.  He may
have nieces or grandchildren who will come to stay, and then it would be
useful to know a girl in the neighbourhood.  I think he is certain to
ask me--"

"Mother!" interrupted Chrissie shrilly; and her voice was so sharp with
distress that every one stopped talking, to listen to what she had to
say.  "Mother, Mrs Maitland has gone to see Mr Vanburgh before you!  I
asked you to go!  I had set my heart on your being the first caller; and
now it's too late, and you can only be second.  I told you so!  I _said_
how it would be!"

Mrs Rendell lifted her brows with the little surprised air of reproof
which Chrissie knew so well.

"I regret to have disappointed you, my dear," she replied, with
elaborate politeness; "but I fear I should hardly have been the first
caller, even if I had gone the day after my return, and I have been too
much occupied this week to pay outside visits.  I am sure you will be
delighted to hear Mrs Maitland's report, and will not grudge Kitty the
pleasure, if she makes Mr Vanburgh's acquaintance before yourself."

Chrissie collapsed into silence; but, veiled by her thickly-flowing
hair, she grimaced to herself and scowled at her friend, who was
regarding her with that air of enjoyment which it is impossible not to
feel when a companion receives a nice little snub for her pains!

Agatha and Elsie had already begun to invent forecasts of the news which
Mrs Maitland would have to tell, when, to the amazement of all, who
should appear round the corner of the house but that lady herself!  She
carried her card-case in her hand, and waved her hand in greeting; but,
for once in their lives, the girls were too much overcome with surprise
to respond.

Back already, when she had barely had time to go up to the door and
retrace her steps!  What did it mean?  Not at home?  But Mr Vanburgh
was always at home.  According to report, his farthest expedition was
into the garden, where surely he would be able to receive a visitor on a
bright spring afternoon.  Surprise held them dumb, until Mrs Maitland
had reached speaking distance, when, with one accord, they deafened her
with inquiries, to which she did her best to reply after the first
greetings were over.

"How do you do, Mrs Rendell?  Good afternoon, Mr Talbot.  I am one of
the privileged _few_ who have been told your secret, and I wish you
every happiness, and dear Lilias also.  I tell every engaged couple I
meet that I hope they may only be as happy as I am.  My dear children,
don't pull me to pieces; this is my very best dress!  I'll tell you all
about it in a minute.  I am so glad to have this opportunity of seeing
you all together, for I was longing to come over.  May I sit here?
Well, then, to begin at the beginning..."

She put her card-case on her lap, and clasped her hands together in
preparation, and the girls watched her with approving eyes, for Mrs
Maitland was a most satisfactory story-teller.  She began at the
beginning--the very smallest possible beginning--instead of halfway
through the narrative, as other grown-up people had a habit of doing,
and went straight through to the end, noticing every detail, and
describing it in racy, picturesque language.

"Well, we went up to the door and rang the bell.  It is not an ordinary
everyday bell, but a quaint, wrought-iron handle, hanging on a chain
from a sort of signpost arrangement, and I could hear it pealing away in
most melodious fashion inside the house.  The curtain inside the glass
panels of the door was caught slightly back, and I could get a peep into
the vestibule.  The oak has been left untouched, and there are palms on
either side sunk into great pots of copper with snakes and dragons and
all kinds of uncanny animals standing out in relief.  I was still
peering through when the inner door was thrown open, and the butler
appeared, upon which I straightened myself at once, and tried to look
stately and dignified.  I had just one minute to take in the inner hall,
so cannot tell you much about it, except that it is a perfect museum of
wonderful and beautiful things--pieces of tapestry hung on the walls,
carved oak cabinets full of curios, a figure of a knight in armour, and
curious Eastern-looking lamps burning dimly in the distance; but the
butler looked so very solemn and imposing that I dared not stare as much
as I should have liked.  `Is Mr Vanburgh at home?'  I asked; and he
inclined his head in a gracious bow.  `He is at home, madam, but is not
receiving visitors.'  I drew out my cards, and said, `I am sorry to miss
seeing him.  I hope he is not more unwell than usual to-day?'  He bowed
again, like a mechanical figure, and said, `Mr Vanburgh charges me to
say, madam, that as he is unable to return visits, he must deprive
himself of the pleasure of receiving them while in Waybourne.'  I never
felt so small in my life.  Dismissed on the doorstep, and sent away like
a child!  I don't know how I looked, or what I said.  My one idea was to
get out of the man's sight as quickly as possible; and the door had no
sooner closed on him than I began dreading Kit's disappointment.  It was
a most trying experience!  Father has gone for a walk, and I came in to
break the news to you!"

She looked appealingly at Kitty as she finished, and met a glance of
blackest gloom.  This was indeed a blow.  Not only were there no Miss
Vanburghs, but the only Vanburgh who was left refused to open his door
to visitors!

"Piteous!" cried Chrissie; and Agatha struck her hands together in
despair.

"There ought to be a law about it--a law to prevent hermits from buying
the best houses in a neighbourhood.  Does he mean to say that he will
see nobody?" she cried.  "Perhaps he didn't know who you were, Mrs
Maitland.  He takes an interest in us, we know, for we have _seen_ him
staring across.  Perhaps if he had known you belonged to Kitty, it might
have been different.  Mother, you will go all the same, won't you?  You
won't give up without trying?"

Mrs Rendell shrugged her shoulders.

"I am not particularly anxious to be turned away from the door, and I
see no reason why I should be treated better than Mrs Maitland.  The
servant is evidently entrusted with a general message.  I think the best
thing will be to send father across on Saturday afternoon, to see if the
rule applies to ladies only.  If Mr Vanburgh really wants to be quiet,
we can't force ourselves upon him.  I am sorry the Grange is not let to
more interesting people, but we must make the best of it.  It has
evidently been chosen as a museum in which to store a collection of art
treasures, and, after all, you must remember it is no more closed to us
now than it has been for years past."

"Dear me, no!  We can live without the Grange, I hope.  Let the poor old
dear shut himself up if he likes.  He will be the loser, not we!" cried
Mrs Maitland, laughing.  That was the worst of grown-up people!  They
were so aggravatingly reasonable and resigned!



CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

DIOGENES AT THE WINDOW.

After a storm comes a calm.  As in Nature, so in the affairs of human
life, and the Rendells found another example of the truth of the old
adage in the month following Lilias's engagement.  Nothing seemed to
happen; even the interest which had been taken in the new occupant of
the Grange died away after Mr Rendell's failure to gain admission, and
one day jog--trotted away after another in monotonous fashion.

They were dreary days to Maud, but at the end of even the longest and
dreariest she acknowledged to herself that the battle was not so
hopeless as she had expected.  The trouble was there, the difficult
moments arose, the quick stabs of pain following happy memories, but she
herself was strengthened to bear them in a manner which she could not
have believed possible.  Maud was one of the sweet, open characters who
are religious by nature; but though she had asked for God's help every
night of her life, she had never been conscious of its presence in such
abundance as in this hour of trial.  It almost awed her at times to
realise her own strength, and this testing of the power of faith was a
ray of light shining out of the darkness.  Passages from the Bible which
she had known all her life became suddenly instinct with new and
wonderful meaning; the words of Christ went straight home to her sore
heart and comforted it as no earthly power could do.  The new communion
had a joy and a sweetness which she had never known before, and her
character grew daily stronger and deeper under the influence of sorrow
nobly borne.  Her mother's tenderness, moreover, manifested itself in a
hundred little schemes for her distraction, and Nan's demonstrative
affection heartened her for the fight.  The world was not all lost
because Ned had chosen another; and, so far from neglecting her old
duties, Maud worked away more industriously than ever, finding her best
medicine in a busy, occupied life.

Ned Talbot had gone back to the North, whence he could not return for
two months to come, and Lilias settled down contentedly to play the
interesting part of the _fiancee_.  She did not fret for her lover, but
seemed abundantly content to receive his letters, and pen lengthy
answers; and though the date of her marriage was so far ahead, she began
at once to make preparations for her future home.  One rainy afternoon
she shut herself in her bedroom, and rearranged all her belongings,
leaving the lowest drawer in the wardrobe empty, and covered with fresh
white paper.  Then she wrote something at her desk, lingered outside the
door for a minute, and finally rejoined her sisters, with a mischievous
smile curving the corners of her pretty lips.

Presently Chrissie ran upstairs on some trifling errand, and came to a
stand-still on the landing, uttering sharp cries of surprise; then
Agatha followed to discover the cause of the excitement, and guffawed
with laughter, when Nan and Elsie jumped from their chairs and ran
helter-skelter in pursuit.  They found the two younger girls leaning up
against the wall, staring at the door of Lilias's room, on the centre of
which was tacked a square of paper, neatly lined and lettered:--

NOTICE!

TO ALL WHOM IT MAY CONCERN.

  Miss Lilias Rendell desires to inform her friends and the public
  generally that she has just opened a Bottom Drawer, and that every
  description of household goods, useful and ornamental, will be
  gratefully accepted towards the furnishing of her future home.

  _NB_--Carved oak articles especially welcome!

"That's one for me!" cried Nan, grimacing.  "What is your especial
fancy, my love--a side-board or a dining-room table?  Don't be bashful,
pray!  Aim at the sky, and you may succeed in hitting the tree.  I
shouldn't wonder if I rose to a milking-stool, if you asked me nicely."

"And I'll work you a kettle-holder, sweet one, as soon as the sale is
over, and Chrissie a--"

"Twine bag," said Chrissie, simpering; "but until July you might as well
give up the idea, Lilias.  Every moment we have, we must use for sale-
work, and every penny we can save in to the bargain.  We can't attend to
you just yet."

"I thought perhaps you might start me with a few contributions from the
things you have made," said modest Lilias.  "The drawer looks lonesome
with nothing in it, and I've made it so tidy!  It would be a comfortable
home for that little blue cushion, and the mats with the roses.  And you
would never miss them!"

"Wouldn't we just?  The very best things we have!  It is a pity your
modesty doesn't equal your taste.  I should miss the smallest thing we
have made; and whenever I get low-spirited, I turn them all out of the
box and gloat over the collection--eleven pin-cushions, three sets of
mats, a table centre, three work-bags, two handkerchief sachets, six
babies' shoes, and a nice wool shawl!  It's not bad for a start, and
there are lots of things on hand, besides Nan's carving and brass-work.
It would be like tearing my heart out of my body to give anything away,
and I don't think it would be at all a nice idea to start your
collection by stealing from the poor!"

Lilias looked appalled at the suggestion, but all the same she was not
too much shocked to seize on the chance of future spoils.

"Agatha, how can you?  I am the last person in the world to think of
such a thing.  I suggested the sale, remember; you would not have had it
at all but for me; but how could a little thing like a pin-cushion be
called a theft?  However, it's all right; don't give them me at present
if you would rather not.  After the sale there are sure to be some
things left, and then--You would not mind giving them to me then, I
suppose?"

"Certainly not.  At least I am quite willing if the others are," said
Agatha, looking round inquiringly; upon which Nan and Elsie nodded
assent, and Chrissie bargained, "Unless I am engaged myself by that
time, when, of course, they must be equally divided,"--a contingency so
remote that Lilias congratulated herself on a good morning's work, and
felt that so far as pin-cushions were concerned the future held no
further anxiety.

Work for the sale had, indeed, been carried forward with great zest; and
now that the days were lengthening, there was a good two hours after
tea, when Kitty could join the party in the porch-room, and stitch away
at some dainty task while carrying on that breathless stream of
conversation which never seemed to run short, despite the daily
meetings.  Nan brought down her carving, and worked at a little table of
her own; Elsie cut and planned with delicate, accurate fingers; and the
three younger girls sewed away in characteristic fashion: Agatha bending
double over the seam; Christabel, erect and stately, drawing her thread
to its full length with leisurely, dignified movements; and Kitty, with
her spectacles on the tip of her nose, peering over them from time to
time in grandmotherly concern at the frivolity of her companions.

Nothing more had been discovered about "Diogenes," as Mr Vanburgh had
been nicknamed since his refusal to receive visitors; but on fine days
his couch was wheeled close to the window, and as he lay looking out, it
was inevitable that the movements of the girls in the sunny porch-room
immediately opposite should attract his wandering attention.  When they
glanced across in their turn, he politely turned aside, and appeared
engrossed in his book; but no sooner were they at work again than the
tired eyes would be lifted once more, to dwell with wistful interest on
the bright young faces.  One afternoon in especial, as Nan sat bending
over her carving, the conviction strengthened that she was observed.
She peered under her eyelashes, smiled mischievously to herself, and
suddenly leapt from her seat in a manner most startling to the nerves of
her sisters.  She hopped on one foot and waved her arms in the air; she
swooped down on Chrissie's work and threw it wildly to the ceiling; she
thrust her face into Elsie's and went off into a peal of maniacal
laughter, which sent that nervous young person flying to the farthest
corner.  She seized a bundle of ribbons and danced an impromptu skirt
dance, flourishing them to and fro, while he onlookers scuttled together
like rabbits, and felt that their lives trembled in the balance.
Finally, after succeeding in turning the room topsy-turvy, and raising
the most powerful doubts as to her own sanity, Miss Nan tottered out on
to the landing and collapsed in a breathless heap on the lowest stair,
while her sisters looked on askance from a discreet distance.

"H-have some sal volatile!  I'll get it from my room.  Never mind, dear,
you'll be better soon!" stuttered Elsie fearfully; but at that the crazy
creature laughed afresh, though in a more restrained and natural
fashion.

"Oh no; I am not mad!  I did it for a purpose, my dear, as you shall
hear.  That poor old Diogenes was lying on his couch, looking across
with such a dull, pathetic face, and I felt so sorry that the poor dear
had nothing more exciting to amuse him.  He must be precious dull when
he takes so much interest in girls like us, and I felt grieved to think
how little fun we had given him, sitting sewing day after day like so
many machines.  I says to myself, says I, `It is in your power, Margaret
Rendell, to infuse some brightness into the lot of this poor lonely
sufferer, and you are going to do it!  He shall have some excitement
before the day is over, bless him!'  Therefore, as you perceived, I
executed a new and original war-dance for his benefit, and sent you all
attitudinising about the room.  That's the reason of this thusness, and
Diogenes is now, no doubt, full of agitation, believing that one so
young and fair has suddenly lost her wits, and imagining you all
occupied in binding me to the bedpost till help arrives!"

"I don't know how he feels, but I feel extremely ill!" grumbled Elsie,
her sympathy suddenly changed to resentment.  "Sticking your face into
mine and laughing in that crazy fashion.  Never do it again!  My heart
is right up in my throat, and thumping like a steam-engine.  I can't
work any more.  I am going to recover my equanimity in the garden!"

Poor Diogenes!  It was baffling to curiosity that all the actors should
have disappeared at the most exciting moment of the play; and the actors
themselves were fully aware of the fact, and with child-like enjoyment
determined to lengthen out the mystery.  The porch-room was abandoned
for the afternoon, and such sequestered nooks in the garden as were
invisible from the Grange were chosen as resting-places, while Kitty
willingly consented to walk an extra half-mile on her way home, so as to
avoid going out by the front gate.  Such a reversal of the usual comings
and goings would, it was hoped, give the final touch to Mr Vanburgh's
curiosity, and teach him a wholesome lesson on the folly of shutting
himself up and holding no communication with the world.  When Agatha
suggested that the poor old dear might lie awake all night from
agitation, Nan cold-bloodedly hoped that he would, since he, on his
part, had been so cruel as to shut the doors of the Grange against his
neighbours.

She would have been much surprised if she had known how, and for whom,
those doors would first be opened!



CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

A VISIT OF CEREMONY.

At the beginning of May the first returning ray of brightness came into
Maud's life.  A letter arrived from a friend of the family who had been
living abroad for her daughter's education, and had now reached Paris,
preparatory to returning to England in a month's time.  It had been all
work and no play for the girl during the winter, her mother wrote, and
it had been long promised that the month in Paris should be entirely
given over to pleasure-seeking.  Mabel had drawn out a programme so
lengthy and varied, that Mrs Nevins doubted whether she herself would
have strength to go through it.  One thing at least was certain, that
the girl's enjoyment would be doubled by the presence of a companion of
her own age, who would be able to share her ecstasies, as a tired-out,
middle-aged woman could never do.  Therefore, might Maud come?  Could
Maud be spared for a month to give Mabel the very great pleasure of her
society?  She should have every care, and be brought back to London
early in June.

Mrs Rendell carried the letter up to Maud as she practised in her room,
and handed it to her with a smile; and Maud flushed and paled, and laid
her hand affectionately on her little mother's shoulder.

"Mummy! how much from you, and how much from Mrs Nevins?  You have had
something to do with this, I'm sure you have.  The suggestion came from
you in the first instance!"

"Pooh!  What a child!  Such notions as she takes!" cried Mrs Rendell
laughingly.  "How it comes about is little mat

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