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Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles

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Title: Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles

Author: Mrs. Henry Wood


        
Release date: December 8, 2010 [eBook #34587]

Language: English

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                     MRS. HALLIBURTON'S TROUBLES

                         BY MRS. HENRY WOOD

     AUTHOR OF "EAST LYNNE," "THE CHANNINGS," "JOHNNY LUDLOW," ETC.


    _TWO HUNDRED AND TENTH THOUSAND_

    London
    MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
    NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
    1904

    LONDON:
    PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
    DUKE STREET, STAMFORD STREET, S.E., AND GREAT WINDMILL STREET. W.




MRS. HALLIBURTON'S TROUBLES.




CHAPTER I.

THE CLERGYMAN'S DAUGHTER.


In a very populous district of London, somewhat north of Temple Bar,
there stood, many years ago, a low, ancient church amidst other
churches--for you know that London abounds in them. The doors of this
church were partially open one dark evening in December, and a faint,
glimmering light might be observed inside by the passers-by.

It was known well enough what was going on within, and why the light was
there. The rector was giving away the weekly bread. Years ago a
benevolent person had left a certain sum to be spent in twenty weekly
loaves, to be given to twenty poor widows at the discretion of the
minister. Certain curious provisos were attached to the bequest. One was
that the bread should not be less than two days old, and should have
been deposited in the church at least twenty-four hours before
distribution. Another, that each recipient must attend in person.
Failing personal attendance, no matter how unavoidable her absence, she
lost the loaf: no friend might receive it for her, neither might it be
sent to her. In that case, the minister was enjoined to bestow it upon
"any stranger widow who might present herself, even as should seem
expedient to him:" the word "stranger" being, of course, used in
contra-distinction to the twenty poor widows who were on the books as
the charity's recipients. Four times a year, one shilling to each widow
was added to the loaf of bread.

A loaf of bread is not very much. To us, sheltered in our abundant
homes, it seems as nothing. But, to many a one, toiling and starving in
this same city of London, a loaf may be almost the turning-point between
death and life. The poor existed in those days as they exist in these:
as they always will exist: therefore it was no matter of surprise that a
crowd of widow women, most of them aged, all in poverty, should gather
round the church doors when the bread was being given out, each hoping
that, of the twenty poor widows, some one might fail to appear, and the
clerk would come to the door and call out her own particular name as the
fortunate substitute. On the days when the shilling was added to the
loaf, this waiting and hoping crowd would be increased four-fold.

Thursday was the afternoon for the distribution. And on the day we are
now writing about, the rector entered the church at the usual hour: four
o'clock. He had to make his way through an unusual number of outsiders;
for this was one of the shilling days. He knew them all personally; was
familiar with their names and homes; for the Rev. Francis Tait was a
hard-working clergyman. And hard-working clergymen were more rare in
those days than they are in these.

Of Scottish birth, but chiefly reared in England, he had taken orders at
the usual age, and become curate in a London parish, where the work was
heavy and the stipend small. Not that the duties attached to the church
itself were onerous; but it was a parish filled with poor. Those
familiar with such parishes know what this means, when the minister is
sympathising and conscientious. For twenty years he remained a curate,
toiling in patience, cheerfully hoping. Twenty years! It seems little to
write; but to live it is a great deal; and Francis Tait, in spite of his
hopefulness, sometimes found it so. Then promotion came. The living of
this little church that you now see open was bestowed upon him. A poor
living as compared with some others; and a poor parish, speaking of the
social condition of its inhabitants. But the living seemed wealth
compared with what he had earned as a curate; and as to his flock being
chiefly composed of the poor, he had not been accustomed to anything
else. Then the Rev. Francis Tait married; and another twenty years went
by.

He stood in the church this evening; the loaves resting on the shelf
overhead, against the door of the vestry, all near the entrance. A
flaring tallow candle stood on the small table between him and the
widows who clustered opposite. He was sixty-five years old now; a spare
man of middle height, with a clear, pale skin, an intelligent
countenance, and a thoughtful, fine grey eye. He had a pleasant word, a
kind inquiry for all, as he put the shilling into their hands; the lame
old clerk at the same time handing over the loaf of bread.

"Are you all here to-night?" he asked, as the distribution went on.

"No, sir," was the answer from several who spoke at once. "Betty King's
away."

"What is the matter with her?"

"The rheumaticks have laid hold on her, sir. She couldn't get here
nohow. She's in her bed."

"I must go and see her," said he. "What, are you here again, Martha?" he
continued, as a little deformed woman stepped from behind the rest,
where she had been hidden. "I am glad to see you."

"Six blessed weeks this day, and I've not been able to come!" exclaimed
the woman. "But I'm restored wonderful."

The distribution was approaching its close, when the rector spoke to his
clerk. "Call in Eliza Turner."

The clerk placed on the table the four or five remaining loaves, that
each woman might help herself during his absence, and went out to the
door.

"'Liza Turner, his reverence has called for you."

A sigh of delight from Eliza Turner, and a groan of disappointment from
those surrounding her, greeted the clerk in answer. He took no
notice--he often heard it--but turned and limped into the church again.
Eliza Turner followed; and another woman slipped in after Eliza Turner.

"Now, Widow Booth," cried the clerk, sharply, perceiving the intrusion,
"what business have you here? You know it's again the rules."

"I must see his reverence," murmured the woman, pressing on--a meek,
half-starved woman; and she pushed her way into the vestry, and told her
pitiful tale.

"I'm worse off than Widow Turner," she moaned piteously, not in tones of
complaint, but of entreaty. "She has a daughter in service as helps her;
but me, I've my poor unfortunate daughter lying in my place weak with
fever, sick with hunger! Oh, sir, couldn't you give the bounty this time
to me? I've not had a bit or drop in my mouth since morning; and then it
was but a taste o' bread and a drain o' tea, that a neighbour give me
out o' charity."

It was absolutely necessary to discountenance these personal
applications. The rector's rule was, never to give the spare bounty to
those who applied for it: otherwise the distribution might have become a
weekly scene of squabbling and confusion. He handed the shilling and
bread to Eliza Turner; and when she had followed the other women out, he
turned to the Widow Booth, who was sobbing against the wall; speaking
kindly to her.

"You should not have come in, Mrs. Booth. You know that I do not allow
it."

"But I'm starving, sir," was the answer. "I thought maybe as you'd
divide it between me and Widow Turner. Sixpence for her, sixpence for
me, and the loaf halved."

"I have no power to divide the gifts: to do so would be against the
terms of the bequest. How is it you are so badly off this week? Has your
work failed?"

"I couldn't do it, sir, with my sick one to attend to. And I've a
gathering come on my thimble finger, and that has hindered me. I took
ninepence the day before yesterday, sir, but last night it was every
farthing of it gone."

"I will come round and see you by-and-by," said the clergyman.

She lifted her eyes yearningly. "Oh, sir! if you could but give me
something for a morsel of bread now! I'd be grateful for a penny loaf."

"Mrs. Booth, you know that to give here would be altogether against my
rule," he replied with unmistakable firmness. "Neither am I pleased when
any of you attempt to ask it. Go home quietly: I have said that I will
come to you by-and-by."

The woman thanked him and went out. Had anything been needed to prove
the necessity of the rule, it would have been the eagerness with which
the crowd of women gathered round her. Not one of them had gone away.
"Had she got anything?" To reply that she _had_ something, would have
sent the whole crowd flocking in to beg in turn of the rector.

Widow Booth shook her head. "No, no. I knowed it before. He never will.
He says he'll come round."

They dispersed; some in one direction, some in another. The rector blew
out the candle, and he and the clerk came forth; and the church was
closed for the distribution of bread until that day week. Mr. Tait took
the keys himself to carry them home: they were kept at his house.
Formerly the clerk had carried them there; but since he had become old
and lame, Mr. Tait would not give him the trouble.

It was a fine night overhead, but the streets were sloppy; and the
clergyman put his foot unavoidably in many a puddle. The streets through
which his road lay were imperfectly lighted. The residence apportioned
to the rector of this parish was adjoining a well-known square,
fashionable in that day. It was a very good house, with a handsome
outward appearance. If you judged by it, you would have said the living
must be worth five hundred a year at least. It was not worth anything
like that; and the parish treated their pastor liberally in according
him so good a residence. A quarter of an hour's walk from the church
brought Mr. Tait to it.

Until recently, a gentleman had shared this house with Mr. Tait and his
family. The curate of a neighbouring parish, the Rev. John Acton, had
been glad to live with them as a friend, admitted to their society and
their table. It was a little help: and but for that, Mr. and Mrs. Tait
would scarcely have thought themselves justified in keeping two
servants, for the educational expenses of their children ran away with a
large portion of their income. But Mr. Acton had now been removed to a
distance, and they hoped to receive some one or other in his place.

On this evening, as Mr. Tait was picking his way through the puddles,
the usual sitting-room of his house presented a cheerful appearance,
ready to receive him. It was on the ground floor, looking upon the
street, large and lofty, and bright with firelight. Two candles, not yet
lighted, stood on the table behind the tea-tray, but the glow of the
fire was sufficient for all the work that was being done in the room.

It was no work at all: but play. A young lady was quietly whirling round
the room with a dancing step--quietly, because her feet and movements
were gentle; and the tune she was humming, and to which she kept time,
was carolled in an undertone. She was moving thus in the happy innocence
of heart and youth. A graceful girl of middle height; one whom it
gladdened the eye to look upon. Not for her beauty, for she had no very
great beauty to boast of; but it was one of those countenances that win
their own way to favour. A fair, gentle face, openly candid, with the
same earnest, honest grey eye that so pleased you in Francis Tait, and
brown hair. She was that gentleman's eldest child, and looked about
eighteen. In reality she was a year older, but her face and dress were
both youthful. She wore a violet silk frock, made with a low body and
short sleeves: girls did not keep their pretty necks and arms covered up
then. By daylight the dress would have appeared old, but it looked very
well by candle-light.

The sound of the latch-key in the front door brought her dancing to an
end. She knew who it was--no inmate of that house possessed a latch-key
except its master--and she turned to the fire to light the candles.

Mr. Tait came into the room, removing neither overcoat nor hat. "Have
you made tea, Jane?"

"No, papa; it has only just struck five."

"Then I think I'll go out again first. I have to call on one or two of
the women, and it will be all one wetting. My feet are soaked
already"--looking down at his buckled shoes and black gaiters. "You can
get my slippers warmed, Jane. But"--the thought apparently striking
him--"would your mamma care to wait?"

"Mamma had a cup of tea half an hour ago," replied Jane. "She said it
might do her good; if she could get some sleep after it, she might be
able to come down for a little before bedtime. The tea can be made
whenever you like, papa. There's only Francis at home, and he and I
could wait until ten, if you pleased."

"I'll go at once, then. Not until ten, Miss Jane, but until six, or
about that time. Betty King is ill, but does not live far off. And I
must step in to the Widow Booth's."

"Papa," cried Jane as he was turning away, "I forgot to tell you.
Francis says he thinks he knows of a gentleman who would like to come
here in Mr. Acton's place."

"Ah! who is it?" asked the rector.

"One of the masters at the school. Here's Francis coming down. He only
went up to wash his hands."

"It is our new mathematical master, sir," cried Francis Tait, a youth of
eighteen, who was being brought up to the Church. "I overheard him ask
Dr. Percy if he could recommend him to a comfortable house where he
might board, and make one of the family: so I told him perhaps you might
receive him here. He said he'd come down and see you."

Mr. Tait paused. "Would he be a desirable inmate, think you, Francis? Is
he a gentleman?"

"Quite a gentleman, I am sure," replied Francis. "And we all like what
little we have seen of him. His name's Halliburton."

"Is he in Orders?"

"No. He intends to be, I think."

"Well, of course I can say nothing about it, one way or the other,"
concluded Mr. Tait, as he went out.

Jane stood before the fire in thought, her fingers unconsciously
smoothing the parting of the glossy brown hair on her well-shaped head
as she looked at it in the pier-glass. To say that she never did such a
thing in vanity would be wrong; no pretty girl ever lived but was
conscious of her good looks. Jane, however, was neither thinking of
herself nor of vanity just then. She took a very practical part in home
duties: with her mother, a practical part amidst her father's poor: and
at this moment her thoughts were running on the additional work it might
bring her, should this gentleman come to reside with them.

"What did you say his name was, Francis?" she suddenly asked of her
brother.

"Whose?"

"That gentleman's. The new master at your school."

"Halliburton. I don't know his Christian name."

"I wonder," mused Jane aloud, "whether he will wear out his stockings as
Mr. Acton did? There was always a dreadful amount of darning to be done
to his. Is he an old guy, Francis?"

"Isn't he!" responded Francis Tait. "Don't faint when you see some one
come in old and fat, with green rims to his spectacles. I don't say he's
_quite_ old enough to be papa's father, but----"

"Why! he must be eighty then, at least!" uttered Jane, in dismay. "How
could you propose it to him? We should not care to have any one older
than Mr. Acton."

"Acton! that young chicken!" contemptuously rejoined Francis. "Put him
by the side of Mr. Halliburton! Acton was barely fifty."


"He was forty-eight, I think," said Jane. "Oh, dear! how I should like
to have gone with Margaret and Robert this evening!" she exclaimed,
forgetting the passing topic in another.

"They were not polite enough to invite me," said Francis. "I shall pay
the old lady out."

Jane laughed. "You are growing too old now, Francis, to be admitted to a
young ladies' breaking-up party. Mrs. Chilham said so to mamma----"

Jane's words were interrupted by a knock at the front door, apparently
that of a visitor. "Jane!" cried her brother, in some trepidation, "I
should not wonder if it's Mr. Halliburton! He did not say when he should
come!"

Another minute, and one of the servants ushered a gentleman into the
room. It was not an old guy, however, as Jane saw at a glance with a
distinct feeling of relief. A tall, gentlemanlike man of five or six and
twenty, with thin aquiline features, dark eyes, and a clear, fresh
complexion. A handsome man, very prepossessing.

"You see I have soon availed myself of your permission to call," said
he, in pleasant tones, as he took Francis Tait's hand, and glanced
towards Jane with a slight bow.

"My sister Jane, sir," said Francis. "Jane, this is Mr. Halliburton."

Jane for once lost her self-possession. So surprised was she--in fact
perplexed, for she did not know whether Francis was playing a trick upon
her now, or whether he had previously played it; in short, whether this
was, or was not, Mr. Halliburton--that she could only look from one to
the other. "Are you Mr. Halliburton?" she said, in her straightforward
simplicity.

"I am Mr. Halliburton," he answered, bending to her politely. "Can I
have the pleasure of seeing Mr. Tait?"

"Will you take a seat?" said Jane. "Papa is out, but I do not think he
will be very long."

"Where did he go to--do you know, Jane?" cried Francis, who was
smothering a laugh.

"To Betty King's; and to Widow Booth's. He may have been going elsewhere
also. I think he was."

"At any rate, I'll just run there and see. Jane, you can tell Mr.
Halliburton all about it whilst I am away. Explain to him exactly how he
will be here, and how we live. And then you can decide for yourself,
sir," concluded Francis.

To splash through the wet streets to Betty King's or elsewhere was an
expedition rather agreeable to Francis, in his eagerness; otherwise
there was no particular necessity for his going.

"I am sorry mamma is not up," said Jane. "She suffers from occasional
sick-headaches, and they generally keep her in bed for the day. I will
give you any information in my power."

"Your brother Francis thought--that it might not be disagreeable to Mr.
Tait to receive a stranger into his family," said Mr. Halliburton,
speaking with some hesitation. But the young lady before him looked so
lady-like, the house altogether seemed so well appointed, that he almost
doubted whether the proposal would not offend her.

"We wish to receive some one," said Jane. "The house is sufficiently
large to do so, and papa would like it for the sake of society: as well
as that it would help in our housekeeping," she added, in her candour.
"A friend of papa's was with us--I cannot remember precisely how many
years, but he came when I was a little girl. It was the Rev. Mr. Acton.
He left us last October."

"I feel sure that I should like it very much: and I should think myself
fortunate if Mr. Tait would admit me," spoke the visitor.

Jane remembered the suggestion of Francis, and deemed it her duty to
speak a little to Mr. Halliburton of "how he would be there," as it had
been expressed. She might have done so without the suggestion, for she
could not be otherwise than straightforward and open.

"We live very plainly," she observed. "A simple joint of meat one day;
cold, with a pudding, the next."

"I should consider myself fortunate to get the pudding," replied Mr.
Halliburton, smiling. "I have been tossed about a good deal of late
years, Miss Tait, and have not come in for too much comfort. Just now I
am in very uncomfortable lodgings."

"I dare say papa would like to have you," said Jane, frankly, with a
sort of relief. She had thought he looked one who might be fastidious.

"I have neither father nor mother, brother nor sister," he resumed. "In
fact, I may say that I am without relatives; for almost the only one I
have has discarded me. I often think how rich those people must be who
possess close connections and a happy home," he added, turning his
bright glance upon her.

Jane dropped her work, which she had taken up. "I don't know what I
should do without all my dear relatives," she exclaimed.

"Are you a large family?"

"We are six. Papa and mamma, and four children. I am the eldest, and
Margaret is the youngest; Francis and Robert are between us. It is
breaking-up night at Margaret's school, and she has gone to it with
Robert," continued Jane, never doubting but the stranger must take as
much interest in "breaking-up nights" as she did. "I was to have gone;
but mamma has been unusually ill to-day."

"Were you disappointed?"

Jane bent her head while she confessed the fact, as though feeling it a
confession to be ashamed of. "It would not have been kind to leave
mamma," she added, "and I dare say some other pleasure will arise soon.
Mamma is asleep now."

"What a charming girl!" thought Mr. Halliburton to himself. "How I wish
she was my sister!"

"Margaret is to be a governess," observed Jane, "and is being educated
for it. She has great talent for music, and also for drawing; it is not
often the two are united. Her tastes lie quite that way--anything
clever; and as papa has no money to give us, it was well to make her a
governess."

"And you?" said Mr. Halliburton. The question might have been thought an
impertinent one by many, but he spoke it only in his deep interest, and
Jane Tait was of too ingenuous a disposition not to answer it as openly.

"I am not to be a governess. I am to stay at home with mamma and help
her. There is plenty to do. Margaret cannot bear domestic duties, or
sewing either. Dancing excepted, I have not learnt a single
accomplishment--unless you call French an accomplishment."

"I am sure you have been well educated!" involuntarily spoke Mr.
Halliburton.

"Yes; in all things solid," replied Jane. "Papa has taken care of that.
He still directs my reading. I know a good bit--of--Latin"--she added,
bringing out the concluding words with hesitation, as one who repents
his sentence--"though I do not like to confess it to you."

"Why do you not?"

"Because I think girls who know Latin are laughed at. I did not
regularly learn it, but I used to be in the room when papa or Mr. Acton
was teaching Francis and Robert, and I picked it up unconsciously. Mr.
Acton often took Francis; he had more time on his hands than papa.
Francis is to be a clergyman."

"Miss Jane," said a servant, entering the room, "Mrs. Tait is awake, and
wishes to see you."

Jane left Mr. Halliburton with a word of apology, and almost immediately
after Mr. Tait came in. He was a little taken to when he saw the
stranger. His imagination had run, if not upon an "old guy" in
spectacles, certainly upon some steady, sober, middle-aged mathematical
master. Would it be well to admit this young, good-looking man to his
house.

If Jane Tait had been candid in her revelations to Mr. Halliburton, that
gentleman, in his turn, was not less candid to her father. He, Edgar
Halliburton, was the only child of a country clergyman, the Rev. William
Halliburton, who had died when Edgar was sixteen, leaving nothing behind
him. Edgar--he had previously lost his mother--found a home with his
late mother's brother, a gentleman named Cooper, who resided in
Birmingham. Mr. Cooper was a man in extensive wholesale business, and
wished Edgar to go into his counting-house. Edgar declined. His father
had lived long enough to form his tastes: his greatest wish had been to
see him enter the Church; and the wish had become Edgar's own. Mr.
Cooper thought there was nothing in the world like business: and looked
upon that most sacred of all callings, God's ministry, only in the light
of a profession. He had carved out his own career, step by step,
attaining wealth and importance, and wished his nephew to do the same.
"Which is best, lad?" he coarsely asked: "To rule as a merchant prince,
or starve and toil as a curate? I'm not quite a merchant prince yet, but
you may be." "It was my father's wish," pleaded Edgar in answer, "and it
is my own. I cannot give it up, sir." The dispute ran high--not in
words, but in obstinacy. Edgar would not yield, and at length Mr. Cooper
discarded him. He turned him out of doors: told him that, if he must
become a parson, he might get some one else to pay his expenses at
Oxford, for he never would. Edgar Halliburton proceeded to London, and
obtained employment as an usher in a school, teaching classics and
mathematics. From that he became a private teacher, and had so earned
his living up to the present time: but he had never succeeded in getting
to college. And Mr. Tait, before they had talked together five minutes,
was charmed with his visitor, and invited him to take tea with him,
which Jane came down to make.

"Has your uncle never softened towards you?" Mr. Tait inquired.

"Never. I have addressed several letters to him, but they have been
returned to me."

"He has no family, you say. You ought--in justice, you ought to inherit
some of his wealth. Has he other relatives?"

"He has one standing to him in the same relationship as I--my Cousin
Julia. It is not likely that I shall ever inherit a shilling of it, sir.
I do not expect it."

"Right," said Mr. Tait, nodding his head approvingly. "There's no work
so thriftless as that of waiting for legacies. Wearying, too. I was a
poor curate, Mr. Halliburton, for twenty years--indeed, so far as being
poor goes, I am not much else now--but let that pass. I had a relative
who possessed money, and who had neither kith nor kin nearer to her than
I was. For the best part of those twenty years I was giving covert
hopes to that money; and when she died, and NOTHING was left to me, I
found out how foolish and wasteful my hopes had been. I tell my children
to trust to their own honest exertions, but never to trust to other
people's money. Allow me to urge the same upon you."

Mr. Halliburton's lips and eyes alike smiled, as he looked gratefully at
the rector, a man so much older than himself. "I never think of it," he
earnestly said. "It appears, for me, to be as thoroughly lost as though
it did not exist. I should not have mentioned it, sir, but that I
consider it right you should know all particulars respecting me; if, as
I hope, you will admit me to your home."

"I think we should get on very well together," frankly acknowledged Mr.
Tait, forgetting the prudent ideas which had crossed his mind.

"I am sure we should, sir," warmly replied Edgar Halliburton. And the
bargain was made.




CHAPTER II.

THE SHADOW BECOMES SUBSTANCE.


And yet it had perhaps been well that those prudent ideas had been
allowed to obtain weight. Mr. Halliburton took up his abode with the
Taits; and, the more they saw of him, the more they liked him. In which
liking Jane must be included.

It was a possible shadow of the future, the effects the step would bring
forth, which had whispered determent to Mr. Tait: a very brief shadow,
which had crossed his mind imperfectly, and flitted away again. Where
two young and attractive beings are thrown into daily companionship, the
result too frequently is that a mutual regard arises, stronger than any
other regard can ever be in this world. This result arrived here.

A twelvemonth passed over from the time of Mr. Halliburton's
entrance--how swiftly for him and for Jane Tait they alone could tell.
Not a word had been spoken to her by Mr. Halliburton that he might not
have spoken to her mother or her sister Margaret; not a look on Jane's
part had been given by which he could infer that he was more to her than
the rest of the world. And yet both were inwardly conscious of the
feelings of the other; and when the twelvemonth had gone by it had
seemed to them but a span, for the love they bore each other.

One evening in December Jane stood in the dining-room waiting to make
tea just as she had so waited that former evening. For any outward
signs, you might have thought that not a single hour had elapsed since
their first introduction--that it was the same evening as of old. It was
sloppy outside, it was bright within. The candles stood on the table
unlighted, the fire blazed, the tea-tray was placed, and only Jane was
there. Mrs. Tait was upstairs with one of her frequent sick-headaches,
Margaret was with her, and the others had not come in.

Jane stood in a reverie--her elbow resting on the mantel-piece, and the
blaze from the fire flickering on her gentle face. She was fond of these
few minutes of idleness on a winter's evening, between the twilight hour
and lighting the candles.

The clock in the kitchen struck five. It did not arouse her: she heard
it in a mechanical sort of manner, without taking note of it. Scarcely
had the sound of the last stroke died away when there was a knock at the
front door.

That aroused her--for she knew it. She knew the footsteps that came in
when it was answered, and a rich damask arose to her cheeks, and the
pulses of her heart went on a little quicker than they had been going
before.

She took her elbow from the mantel-piece, and sat down quietly on a
chair. No need to look who entered. Some one, taller by far than any in
that house, came up to the fire, and bent to warm his hands over the
blaze.

"It is a cold night, Jane. We shall have a severe frost."

"Yes," she answered; "the water in the barrel is already freezing over."

"How is your mamma now?"

"Better, thank you. Margaret has gone up to help her to dress. She is
coming down to tea."

Mr. Halliburton remained silent a minute, and then turned to Jane, his
face glowing with satisfaction. "I have had a piece of preferment
offered me to-day."

"Have you?" she eagerly said. "What is it?"

"Dr. Percy proposes that, from January, I shall take the Greek classes
as well as the mathematics, and he doubles my salary. Of course I shall
have to give closer attendance, but I can readily do that. My time is
not fully employed."

"I am very glad," said Jane.

"So am I," he answered. "Taking all my sources of income together, I
shall now be earning two hundred and eighty-three pounds a year."

Jane laughed. "Have you been reckoning it up?"

"Ay; I had a motive in doing so."

His tone was peculiar, and it caused her to look at him, but her eyelids
drooped under his gaze. He drew nearer, and laid his hand gently on her
shoulder, bending down before her to speak.

"Jane, you have not mistaken me. I feel that you have read what has been
in my heart, what have been my intentions, as surely as though I had
spoken. It is not a great income, but it is sufficient, if you can
think it so. May I speak to Mr. Tait?"

What Jane would have contrived to answer she never knew, but at that
moment her mother's step was heard approaching. All she did was to
glance shyly up at Mr. Halliburton, and he bent his head lower and
kissed her. Then he walked rapidly to the door and opened it for Mrs.
Tait--a pale, refined, delicate-looking lady, wrapped in a shawl. These
violent headaches, from which she so frequently suffered, did not affect
her permanent health, but on the days she suffered she would be utterly
prostrated. Mr. Halliburton gave her his arm, and led her to a seat by
the fire, his voice low and tender, his manner sympathizing. "I am
already better," she said to him, "and shall be much better after tea.
Sometimes I am tempted to envy those who do not know what a
sick-headache is."

"They may know other maladies as painful, dear Mrs. Tait."

"Ay, indeed. None of us can expect to be free from pain of one sort or
another in this world."

"Shall I make the tea, mamma?" asked Jane.

"Yes, dear; I shall be glad of it, and your papa is sure to be in soon.
There he is!" she added, as the latch-key was heard in the door. "The
boys are late this evening."

The rector came in, and, ere the evening was over, the news was broken
to him by Mr. Halliburton. He wanted Jane.

It was the imperfect, uncertain shadow of twelve months ago become
substance. It had been a shadow of the future only, you understand--not
a shadow of evil. To Mr. Halliburton, personally, the rector had no
objection--he had learned to love, esteem, and respect him--but it is a
serious thing to give away a child.

"The income is very small to marry upon," he observed. "It is also
uncertain."

"Not uncertain, sir, so long as I am blessed with health and strength.
And I have no reason to fear that these will fail."

"I thought you were bent on taking Orders."

Mr. Halliburton's cheek slightly flushed. "It is a prospect I have
fondly cherished," he said; "but its difficulties alarm me. The cost of
the University is great; and were I to wait until I had saved sufficient
money to go to college, I should be obliged, in a great degree, to give
up my present means of living. Who would employ a tutor who must
frequently be away for weeks? I should lose my connection, and perhaps
never regain it. A good teaching connection is more easily lost than
won."

"True," observed Mr. Tait.

"Once in Orders, I might remain for years a poor curate. I should most
likely do so. I have neither interest nor influence. Sir, in that case
Jane and I might be obliged to wait for years: perhaps go down to our
graves waiting."

The Rev. Francis Tait threw back his thoughts. How _he_ had waited; how
he was not able to marry until years were advancing upon him; how in
four years now he should have attained threescore years and ten--the
term allotted to the life of man--whilst his children were still growing
up around him! No! never, never would he counsel another to wait as he
had been obliged to wait.

"I have not yet given up hope of eventually entering the Church,"
continued Mr. Halliburton; "though it must be accomplished, if at all,
slowly and patiently. I think I may be able to keep one term, or perhaps
two terms yearly, without damage to my teaching. I shall try to do so;
try to find the necessary means and time. My marriage will make no
difference to that, sir."

Many might have suggested to Edgar Halliburton that he might keep his
terms first and marry afterwards. Mr. Tait did not: possibly the idea
did not occur to him. If it occurred to Edgar Halliburton himself, he
drove it from him. It would have delayed his marriage to an indefinite
number of years; and he loved Jane too well to do that willingly. "I
shall still get much better preferment in teaching than that which I now
hold," he urged aloud to the rector. "It is not so very small to begin
upon, sir, and Jane is willing to risk it."

"I will not part you and Jane," said Mr. Tait, warmly. "If you have made
up your minds to share life and its cares together, you shall do so.
Still, I cannot say that I think your prospects golden."

"Prospects that appear to have no gold at all in them sometimes turn out
very brightly, sir."

"I can give Jane nothing, you know."

"I have never cast a thought to it, sir; have never imagined she would
have a shilling," replied Mr. Halliburton, his face flushing with
eagerness. "It is Jane herself I want; not money."

"Beyond a twenty-pound note which I may give her to put into her purse
on her wedding morning, that she may not leave my house absolutely
penniless, she will have nothing," cried the rector, in his
straightforward manner. "Far from saving, I and her mother have been
hardly able to make both ends meet at the end of the year. I might have
saved a few pounds yearly, had I chosen to do so; but you know what this
parish is; and the reflection has always been upon me: how would my
Master look upon my putting by small sums of money, when many of those
over whom I am placed were literally starving for bread? I have given
what I could; but I have not saved for my children."

"You have done well, sir."

Mr. Tait sought his daughter. "Jane," he began--"Nay, child, do not
tremble so! There is no need for trembling, or for tears, either: you
have done nothing to displease me. Jane, I like Edgar Halliburton; I
like him much. There is no one to whom I would rather give you. But I do
not like his prospects. Teaching is very precarious."

Jane raised her timid eyes. "Precarious for _him_, papa? For one learned
and clever as he!"

"It is badly paid. See how he toils--and he will have to toil more when
the new year comes in--and only to earn two or three hundred a year!--in
round numbers."

Tears gathered in Jane's eyes. Toil as he did, badly paid as he might
be, she would rather have him than any other in the world, though that
other might have revelled in thousands. The rector read somewhat of this
in her downcast face.

"My dear, the consideration lies with you. If you choose to venture upon
it, you shall have my consent, and I know you will have your mother's,
for she thinks Edgar Halliburton has not his equal in the world. But it
may bring you many troubles."

"Papa, I am not afraid. If troubles come, they--you--told us only last
night----"

"What, child?"

"That troubles, regarded rightly, only lead us nearer to God," whispered
Jane, simply and timidly.

"Right, child. And trouble must come before that great truth can be
realized. Consider the question well, Jane--whether it may not be better
to wait--and give your answer to-morrow. I shall tell Mr. Halliburton
not to ask for it to-night. As you decide, so shall it be."

Need you be told what Jane's decision was? Two hundred and eighty-three
pounds a year seems a large sum to an inexperienced girl; quite
sufficient to purchase everything that might be wanted for a fireside.

And so she became Jane Halliburton.




CHAPTER III.

THE REV. FRANCIS TAIT.


A hot afternoon in July. Jane Halliburton was in the drawing-room with
her mother, both sewing busily. It was a large room, with three windows,
more pleasant than the dining-room beneath, and they were fond of
sitting in it in summer. Jane had been married some three or four months
now, but looked the same young, simple, placid girl that she ever did;
and, but for the wedding-ring upon her finger, no stranger would have
supposed her to be a wife.

An excellent arrangement had been arrived at--that she and her husband
should remain inmates of Mr. Tait's house; at any rate, for the
present. When plans were being discussed, before making the necessary
arrangements for the marriage, and Mr. Halliburton was spending all his
superfluous minutes hunting for a suitable house near to the old home,
and not too dear, Francis Tait had given utterance to a remark--"I
wonder who we shall get here in Mr. Halliburton's place, if papa takes
any one else?" and Margaret, looking up from her drawing, had added,
"Why can't Mr. Halliburton and Jane stay on with us? It would be so much
pleasanter."

It was the first time the idea had been presented in any shape to the
rector, and it seemed to go straight to his wishes. He put down a book
he was reading, and spoke impulsively. "It would be the best thing; the
very best thing! Would you like it, Halliburton?"

"I should, sir; very much. But it is Jane who must be consulted, not
me."

Jane, her pretty cheeks covered with blushes, looked up and said she
should like it also; she _had_ thought of it, but had not liked to
mention it, either to her mother or to Mr. Halliburton. "I have been
quite troubled to think what mamma and the house will do without me,"
she added, ingenuously.

"Let Jane alone for thinking and planning, when difficulties are in the
way," laughed Margaret. "My opinion is that we shall never get another
pudding, or papa have his black silk Sunday hose darned, if Jane goes
from us."

Mrs. Tait burst into tears. Like Margaret she was a bad manager, and had
mourned over Jane's departure, secretly believing she should be half
worried to death. "Oh! Jane, dear, say you'll remain!" she cried. "It
will be such a relief to me! Margaret's of no earthly use, and
everything will fall on my shoulders. Edgar, I hope you will remain with
us! It will be pleasant for all. You know the house is sufficiently
large."

And remain they did. The wedding took place at Easter, and Mr.
Halliburton took Jane all the way to Dover to see the sea--a long way in
those days--and kept her there for a week. And then they came back
again, Jane to her old home duties, just as though she were Jane Tait
still, and Mr. Halliburton to his teaching.

It was July now and hot weather; and Mrs. Tait and Jane were sewing in
the drawing-room. They were working for Margaret. Mr. Halliburton,
through some of his teaching connections, had obtained an excellent
situation for Margaret in a first-rate school. Margaret was to enter as
resident pupil, and receive every advantage towards the completion of
her own education; in return for which she was to teach the younger
pupils music, and pay ten pounds a year. Such an arrangement was almost
unknown then, though it has been common enough since, and Mr. and Mrs.
Tait thought of it very highly. Margaret Tait was only sixteen; but, as
if in contrast to Jane, who looked younger than her actual years,
Margaret looked older. In appearance, in manners, and also in
advancement, Margaret might have been eighteen.

She was to enter the school, which was near Harrow, in another week, at
the termination of the holidays, and Mrs. Tait and Jane had their hands
full, getting her things ready.

"Was this slip measured, mamma?" Jane suddenly asked, after attentively
regarding the work she had on her knee.

"I think so," replied Mrs. Tait. "Why?"

"It looks too short for Margaret. At least it will be too short when I
have finished this fourth tuck. It must have been measured, though, for
here are the pins in it. Perhaps Margaret measured it herself."

"Then of course it must be measured again. There's no trusting to
anything Margaret does in the shape of work. And yet, how clever she is
at music and drawing--in fact at all her studies!" added Mrs. Tait. "It
is well, Jane, that we are not all gifted alike."

"I think it is," acquiesced Jane. "I will go up to Margaret's room for
one of her slips, and measure this."

"You need not do that," said Mrs. Tait. "There's an old slip of hers
amongst the work on the sofa."

Jane found the slip, and measured the one in her hand by it. "Yes,
mamma! It is just the length without the tuck. Then I must take out what
I have done of it. It is very little."

"Come hither, Jane. Your eyes are younger than mine. Is not that your
papa coming towards us from the far end of the square?"

Jane approached the window nearest to her, not the one at which Mrs.
Tait was sitting. "Oh, yes, that's papa. You might tell him by his
dress, if by nothing else, mamma."

"I could tell him by himself, if I could see," said Mrs. Tait, quaintly.
"I don't know how it is, Jane, but my sight grows very imperfect for a
distance."

"Never mind that, mamma, so that you can continue to see well to work
and read," said Jane cheerily. "How fast papa is walking!"

Very fast for the Rev. Francis Tait, who was not in general a quick
walker. He entered his house, and came up to the drawing-room. He had
not been well for the last few days, and threw himself into a chair,
wearily.

"Jane, is there any of that beef-tea left, that was made for me
yesterday?"

"Yes, papa," she said, springing up that she might get it for him. "I
will bring it to you immediately."

"Stay, stay, child, not so fast," he interrupted. "It is not for myself.
I can do without it. I have been pained by a sad sight," he added,
looking at his wife. "There's that daughter of the Widow Booth's come
home again. I called in upon them and there she was, lying on a
mattress, dying from famine, as I verily believe. She returned last
night in a dreadful state of exhaustion, the mother says, and has had
nothing within her lips since but cold water. They tried her with solid
food, but she could not swallow it. That beef-tea will just do for her.
Have it warmed, Jane."

"She is a sinful, ill-doing girl, Francis," remarked Mrs. Tait, "and
does not really deserve compassion."

"All the more reason, wife, that she should be rescued from death," said
the rector, almost sternly. "The good may dare to die: the evil may not.
Don't waste time, Jane. Put it into a bottle, warm, and I'll carry it
round."

"Is there nothing else we can send her, papa, that may do for her
equally well?" asked Jane. "A little wine, perhaps? There is very little
of the beef-tea left, and it ought to be kept for you."

"Never mind; I wish to take it to her," said the rector. "A little wine
afterwards may do her good."

Jane hastened to the kitchen, disturbing a servant who was doing
something over the fire. "Susan, papa wants the remainder of the
beef-tea warmed. Will you make haste and do it, whilst I search for a
bottle to put it into? It is to be taken round to Charity Booth."

"What! is _she_ back again?" exclaimed the servant, slightingly, which
betrayed that her estimation of Charity Booth was no higher than was
that of her mistress. "It's just like the master," she continued,
proceeding to do what was required of her. "It's not often that
anything's made for himself; but if it is, he never gets the benefit of
it; he's sure to drop across somebody that he fancies wants it worse
than he does. It's not right, Miss Jane."


Jane was searching a cupboard, and brought forth a clean green bottle,
which held about half-a-pint. "This will be quite large enough, I
think."

"I should think it would!" grumbled Susan, who could not be brought to
look upon the giving away of her master's own peculiar property as
anything but a personal grievance. "There's barely a gill of it left,
and he ought to have had it himself, Miss Jane."

"Susan," she said, turning her bright face laughingly towards the woman,
"it is a good thing that you went to church and saw me married, or I
might think you meant to reflect upon me. How can I be 'Miss Jane,'
with this ring on?"

"It's of no good my trying to remember it, ma'am. All the parish knows
you are Mrs. Halliburton, fast enough; but it don't come ready to me."

Jane laughed pleasantly. "Where is Mary?" she asked.

"In the back room, going on with some of Miss Margaret's things. It's
cooler, sitting there, than in this hot kitchen."

Jane carried the little bottle of beef-tea to her father, and gave it
into his hand. He looked very pale, and rose from his chair slowly.

"Oh, papa, you do not seem well!" she involuntarily exclaimed. "Let me
run and beat you up an egg. I will not be a minute."

"I can't wait, child. And I question if I could eat it, were it ready
before me. I do not feel well, as you say."

"You ought to have taken this beef-tea yourself, papa. It was made for
_you_."

Jane could not help laying a stress upon the word. Mr. Tait placed his
hand gently upon her smoothly parted hair. "Jane, child, had I thought
of myself before others throughout life, how should I have been
following my Master's precepts?"

She ran down the stairs before him, opening the front door for him to
pass through, that even that little exertion should be spared him. A
loving, dutiful daughter was Jane; and it is probable that the thought
of her worth especially crossed the mind of the rector at that moment.
"God bless you, my child!" he aspirated, as he passed her.

Jane watched him across the square. Their house, though not actually in
the square, commanded a view of it. Then she returned upstairs to her
mother. "Papa thinks he will not lose time," she observed. "He is
walking fast."

"I should call it running," responded Mrs. Tait, who had seen the speed
from the window. "But, my dear, he'll do no good with that badly
conducted Charity Booth."

About an hour passed away, and it was drawing towards dinner-time. Jane
and Mrs. Tait were busy as ever, when Mr. Halliburton's well-known knock
was heard.

"Edgar is home early this morning!" Jane exclaimed.

He came springing up the stairs, two at a time, in great haste, opened
the drawing-room door, and just put in his head. Mrs. Tait, sitting with
her back to the door and her face to the window, did not turn round, and
consequently did not see him. Jane did; and was startled. Every vestige
of colour had forsaken his face.

"Oh, Edgar! You are ill!"

"Ill! Not I," affecting to speak gaily. "I want you for a minute, Jane."

Mrs. Tait had looked round at Jane's exclamation, but Mr. Halliburton's
face was then withdrawn. He was standing outside the door when Jane
went out. He did not speak; but took her hand in silence and drew her
into the back room, which was their own bedroom, and closed the door.
Jane's face had grown as white as his.

"My darling, I did not mean to alarm you," he said, holding her to him.
"I thought you had a brave heart, Jane. I thought that if I had a little
unpleasant news to impart it would be best to tell _you_, that you may
help me break it to the rest."

Jane's heart was not feeling very brave. "What is it?" she asked,
scarcely able to speak the words from her ghastly lips.

"Jane," he said, tenderly and gravely, "before I say any more, you must
strive for calmness."

"It is not about yourself! You are not ill?"

The question seemed superfluous. Mr. Halliburton was evidently not ill;
but he was agitated. Jane was frightened and perplexed: not a glimpse of
the real truth crossed her. "Tell me what it is at once, Edgar," she
said, in a calmer tone. "I can bear certainty better than suspense."

"Why, yes, I think you are becoming brave already," he answered, looking
straight into her eyes and smiling--which was intended to reassure her.
"I must have my wife show herself a woman to-day; not a child. See what
a bungler I am! I thought to tell you all quietly and smoothly, without
alarming you; and see what I have done!--startled you to terror."

Jane smiled faintly. She knew all this was only the precursor of tidings
that must be very ill and grievous. By a great effort she schooled
herself to calmness. Mr. Halliburton continued:

"One, whom you and I love very much, has--has--met with an accident,
Jane."

Her fears went straight to the right quarter at once. With that one
exception by her side, there was no one she loved as she loved her
father.

"Papa?"

"Yes. We must break it to Mrs. Tait."

Her heart beat wildly against his hand, and the livid hue was once more
overspreading her face. But she strove urgently for calmness: he
whispered to her of its necessity for her own sake.

"Edgar! is it death?"

It was death; but he would not tell her so yet. He plunged into the
attendant details.

"He was hastening along with a small bottle in his hand, Jane. It
contained something good for one of the sick poor, I am sure, for he was
in their neighbourhood. Suddenly he was observed to fall; and the
spectators raised him and took him to a doctor's. That doctor,
unfortunately, was not at home, and they took him to another, so that
time was lost. He was quite unconscious."

"But you do not tell me!" she wailed. "Is he dead?"

Mr. Halliburton asked himself a question--What good would be done by
delaying the truth? He thought he had performed his task very badly.
"Jane, Jane!" he whispered, "I can only hope to help you to bear it
better than I have broken it to you."

She could not shed tears in that first awful moment: physically and
mentally she leaned on him for support. "_How_ can we tell my mother?"

It was necessary that Mrs. Tait should be told, and without delay. Even
then the body was being conveyed to the house. By a curious coincidence,
Mr. Halliburton had been passing the last doctor's surgery at the very
moment the crowd was round its doors. Unusual business had called him
there; or it was a street he did not enter once in a year. "The parson
has fallen down in a fit," said some of them, recognizing and arresting
him.

"The parson!" he repeated. "What! Mr. Tait?"

"Sure enough," said they. And Mr. Halliburton pressed into the surgeon's
house just as the examination was over.

"The heart, no doubt, sir," said the doctor to him.

"He surely is not dead?"

"Quite dead. He must have died instantaneously."

The news had been wafted to the mob outside, and they were already
taking a shutter from its hinges. "I will go on first and prepare the
family," said Mr. Halliburton to them. "Give me a quarter of an hour's
start, and then come on."

So that he had only a quarter of an hour for it all. His thoughts
naturally turned to his wife: not simply to spare her alarm and pain, so
far as he might, but he believed her, young as she was, to possess more
calmness and self-control than Mrs. Tait. As he sped to the house he
rehearsed his task; and might have accomplished it better but for his
tell-tale face. "Jane," he whispered, "let this be your consolation
ever: he was ready to go."

"Oh yes!" she answered, bursting into a storm of most distressing tears.
"If any one here was ever fit for heaven, it was my dear father."

"Hark!" exclaimed Mr. Halliburton.

Some noise had arisen downstairs--a sound of voices speaking in
undertones. There could be no doubt that people had come to the house
with the news, and were imparting it to the two trembling servants.

"There's not a moment to be lost, Jane."

How Jane dried her eyes and suppressed all temporary sign of grief and
emotion, she could not tell. A sense of duty was strong within her, and
she knew that the most imperative duty of the present moment was the
support and solace of her mother. She and her husband entered the
drawing-room together, and Mrs. Tait turned with a smile to Mr.
Halliburton.

"What secrets have you and Jane been talking together?" Then, catching
sight of Jane's white and quivering lips, she broke into a cry of agony.
"Jane! what has happened? What have you both come to tell me?"

The tears poured from Jane's fair young face as she clasped her mother
fondly to her, tenderly whispering: "Dearest mamma, you must lean upon
us now! We will all love you and take care of you as we have never yet
done."




CHAPTER IV.

NEW PLANS.


The post-mortem examination established beyond doubt the fact that the
Rev. Francis Tait's death was caused by heart disease. In the earlier
period of his life it had been suspected that he was subject to it, but
of late years unfavourable symptoms had not shown themselves.

With him died of course almost all his means; and his family, if not
left utterly destitute, had little to boast in the way of wealth. Mrs.
Tait enjoyed, and had for some time enjoyed, an annuity of fifty pounds
a year; but it would cease at her death, whenever that event should take
place. What was she to do with her children? Many a bereaved widow, far
worse off than Mrs. Tait, has to ask the same perplexing question every
day. Mrs. Tait's children were partially off her hands. Jane had her
husband; Francis was earning his own living as an under-master in a
school; with Margaret ten pounds a year must be paid; and there was
still Robert.

The death had occurred in July. By October they must be away from the
house. "You will be at no loss for a home, Mrs. Tait," Mr. Halliburton
took an opportunity of kindly saying to her. "You must allow me and Jane
to welcome you to ours."

"Yes, Edgar," was Mrs. Tait's unhesitating reply; "it will be the best
plan. The furniture in this house will do for yours, and you shall have
it, and you must take me and my small means into it--an incumbrance to
you. I have pondered it all over, and I do not see anything else that
can be done."

"I have no right whatever to your furniture," he replied, "and Jane has
no more right to it than have your other children. The furniture shall
be put into my house if you please; but you must either allow me to pay
you for it, or it shall remain your own, to be removed again at any time
you may please."

A house was looked for and taken. The furniture was valued, and Mr.
Halliburton bought it--a fourth part of the sum Mrs. Tait positively
refusing to take, for she declared that so much belonged to Jane. Then
they quitted the old house of many years, and moved into the new one:
Mr. and Mrs. Halliburton, Mrs. Tait, Robert, and the two servants.

"Will it be prudent for you, my dear, to retain both the servants?" Mrs.
Tait asked of her daughter.

Jane blushed vividly. "We could do with one at present, mamma; but the
time will be coming that I shall require two. And Susan and Mary are
both so good that I do not care to part with them. You are used to them,
too."

"Ah, child! I know that in all your plans and schemes you and Edgar
think first of my comfort. Do you know what I was thinking of last night
as I lay in bed?"

"What, mamma?"

"When Mr. Halliburton first spoke of wanting you, I and your poor papa
felt inclined to hesitate, thinking you might have made a better match.
But, my dear, I was wondering last night what we should have done in
this crisis but for him."

"Yes," said Jane, gently. "Things that appear untoward at the time
frequently turn out afterwards to have been the very best that could
have happened. God directs all things, you know, mamma."

A contention arose respecting Robert, some weeks after they had been in
their new house--or it may be better to call it a discussion. Robert had
never taken very kindly to what he called book-learning. Mr. Tait's wish
had been that both his sons should enter the Church. Robert had never
openly opposed this wish, and for the calling itself he had a liking;
but particularly disliked the study and application necessary to fit him
for it. Silent while his father lived, he was so no longer; but took
every opportunity of urging the point upon his mother. He was still
attending Dr. Percy's school daily.

"You know, mother," dropping down one day in a chair, close to his
mother and Jane, and catching up one leg to nurse--rather a favourite
action of his--"I shall never earn salt at it."

"Salt at what, Robert?" asked Mrs. Tait.

"Why, at these rubbishing classics. _I_ shall never make a tutor, as Mr.
Halliburton and Francis do; and what on earth's to become of me? As to
any chance of my being a parson, of course that's over: where's the
money to come from?"

"What _is_ to become of you, then?" cried Mrs. Tait. "I'm sure I don't
know."

"Besides," went on Robert, lowering his voice, and calling up the most
effectual argument he could think of, "I ought to be doing something
for myself. I am living here upon Mr. Halliburton."

"He is delighted to have you, Robert," interrupted Jane, quickly. "Mamma
pays----"

"Be quiet, Mrs. Jane! What sort of a wife do you call yourself, pray, to
go against your husband's interests in that manner? I heard you
preaching up to the charity children the other day about its being
sinful to waste time."

"Well?" said Jane.

"Well! what's waste of time for other people is not waste of time for
me, I suppose?" went on Robert.

"You are not wasting your time, Robert."

"I am. And if you had the sense people give you credit for, Madam Jane,
you'd see it. I shall never, I say, earn my salt at teaching; and--just
tell me yourself whether there seems any chance now that I shall enter
the Church."

"At present I do not see that there is," confessed Jane.

"There! Then is it waste of time, or not, my continuing to study for a
career which I can never enter upon?"

"But what else can you do, Robert?" interposed Mrs. Tait. "You cannot
idle your time away at home, or be running about the streets all day."

"No," said Robert, "better stop at school for ever than do that. I want
to see the world, mother."

"You--want--to--see--the--world!" echoed Mrs. Tait, bringing out the
words slowly in her astonishment, whilst Jane looked up from her work,
and fixed her eyes upon her brother.

"It's only natural that I should," said Robert, with equanimity. "I have
an invitation to go down into Yorkshire."

"What to do?" cried Mrs. Tait.

"Oh, lots of things. They keep hunters, and----"

"Why, you were never on horseback in your life, Robert," laughed Jane.
"You would come back with your neck broken."

"I do wish you'd be quiet, Jane!" returned Robert, reddening. "I am
talking to mamma, not to you. Winchcombe has invited me to spend the
Christmas holidays with him down at his father's place in Yorkshire.
And, mother, I want to go; and I want you to promise that I shall not
return to school when the holidays are over. I will do anything else
that you choose to put me to. I'll learn to be a man of business, or
I'll go into an office, or I'd be apprenticed to a doctor--anything you
like, rather than stop at these everlasting school-books. I am _sick_ of
them."

"Robert, you take my breath away!" uttered Mrs. Tait. "I have no
interest anywhere. I could not get you into any of these places."

"I dare say Mr. Halliburton could. He knows lots of people. Jane, you
talk to him: he'll do anything for you."

There ensued, I say, much discussion about

Robert. But it is not with Robert Tait that our story has to do; and
only a few words need be given to him here and there. It appeared to
them all that it would be inexpedient for him to continue at school;
both with regard to his own wishes and to his prospects. He was allowed
to pay the visit with his schoolfellow, and (as he came back with neck
unbroken) Mr. Halliburton succeeded in placing him in a large wholesale
warehouse. Robert appeared to like it very much at first, and always
came home to spend Sunday with them.

"He may rise in time to be one of the first mercantile men in London,"
observed Mr. Halliburton to his wife; "one of our merchant-princes, as
my uncle used to say by me, if only----"


"If what? Why do you hesitate?" she asked.

"If he will only persevere, I was going to say. But, Jane, I fear
perseverance is a quality that Robert does not possess."

Of course all that had to be proved. It lay in the future.




CHAPTER V.

MARGARET.


From two to three years passed away, and the Midsummer holidays were
approaching. Margaret was expected as usual for them, and Jane,
delighted to receive her, went about her glad preparations. Margaret
would not return to the school, in which she had been a paid teacher for
the last year; but was to enter a family as governess. For one
efficient, well-educated, accomplished governess to be met with in those
days, scores may be counted now--or who profess to be so; and Margaret
Tait, though barely nineteen, anticipated a salary of seventy or eighty
guineas a year.

A warm, bright day in June, that on which Mr. Halliburton went to
receive Margaret. The coach brought her to its resting-place, the "Bull
and Mouth," in St. Martin's-le-Grand, and Mr. Halliburton reached the
inn as St. Paul's clock was striking midday. One minute more, and the
coach drove in.

There she was, inside; a tall, fine girl, with a handsome face: a face
full of resolution and energy. Margaret Tait had her good qualities, and
she had also her faults: a great one, speaking of the latter, was
self-will. She opened the door herself and leaped out before any one
could help her, all joy and delight.

"And what about your boxes, Margaret?" questioned Mr. Halliburton, after
a few words of greeting. "Have they come this time or not?"

Margaret laughed. "Yes, they really have. I have not lost them on the
road, as I did at Christmas. You will never forget to tell me of that, I
am sure! But it was more the guard's fault than mine."

A few minutes, and Mr. Halliburton, Margaret, and the boxes were
lumbering along in one of the old glass coaches.

"And now tell me about every one," said Margaret. "How is dear mamma?"

"She is quite well. We are all well. Jane's famous."

"And my precious little Willy?"

"Oh," said Mr. Halliburton, quaintly, "he is a great deal too
troublesome for anything to be the matter with him. I tell Jane she will
have to begin the whipping system soon."

"And much Jane will attend to you! Is it a pretty baby?"

Mr. Halliburton raised his eyebrows. "Jane thinks so. I wonder she has
not had its likeness taken."

"Is it christened?" continued Margaret.

"It is baptized. Jane would not have the christening until you were at
home."

"And its name?"

"Jane."

"What a shame! Jane promised me it should be Margaret. Why did she
decide upon her own name?"

"I decided upon it," said Mr. Halliburton. "Yours can wait until the
next, Margaret."

Margaret laughed. "And how are you getting on?"

"Very well. I have every hour of the day occupied."

"I don't think you are looking well," rejoined Margaret. "You look thin
and fagged."

"I am always thin, and mine is a fagging profession. Sometimes I feel
terribly weary. But I am pretty well upon the whole, Margaret."

"Will Francis be at home these holidays?"

"No. He passes them at a gentleman's house in Norfolk--tutor to his
sons. Francis is thoroughly industrious and persevering."

"A contrast to poor Robert, I suppose?"

"Well--yes; in that sense."

"There has been some trouble about Robert, has there not?" asked
Margaret, her tone becoming grave. "Did he not get discharged?"

"He received notice of discharge. But I saw the principals and begged
him on again. I would not talk about it to him if I were you, Margaret.
He is sensitive upon the point. Robert's intentions are good, but his
disposition is fickle. He has grown tired of his work and idles his time
away; no house of business will put up with that."

The coach arrived at Mr. Halliburton's. Margaret rushed out of it,
giving no one time to assist her, as she had done out of the other coach
at the "Bull and Mouth." There was a great deal of impetuosity in
Margaret Tait's character. She was quite a contrast to Jane--as she had
just remarked there was a contrast between Francis and Robert upon
other points--to sensible, lady-like, self-possessed Jane, who came
forward so calmly to greet her, a glad depth of affection in her quiet
eyes.

A boisterous embrace to her mother, a boisterous embrace to Jane, all in
haste, and then Margaret caught up a little gentleman of some two years
old, or more, who was standing holding on to Jane's dress, his great
grey eyes, honest, loving, intelligent as were his mother's, cast up in
a broad stare at Margaret.

"You naughty Willy! Have you forgotten Aunt Margaret? Oh, you darling
child! Who's this?"

She carried the boy up to the end of the room, where stood their old
servant Mary, nursing an infant of two months old. The baby had great
grey eyes also, and they likewise were bent on noisy Margaret. "Oh,
Willy, she is prettier than you! I won't nurse you any more. Mary, I'll
shake hands with you presently. I must take that enchanting baby first."

Dropping discarded Willy upon the ground, snatching the baby from Mary's
arms, Margaret kissed its pretty face until she made it cry. Jane came
to the rescue.

"You don't understand babies, Margaret. Let Mary take her again. Come
upstairs to your room, and make yourself ready for dinner. I think you
must be hungry."

"So hungry that I shall frighten you. Of course, with the thought of
coming home, I could not touch breakfast. I hope you have something
especially nice!"

"Your favourite dinner," said Jane, smiling. "Loin of veal and
broccoli."

"How thoughtful you are, Jane!" Margaret could not help exclaiming.

"Margaret, my dear," called out her mother, as she was leaving the room
with Jane.

Margaret looked back. "What, mamma?"

"I hope you will not continue to go on with these children as you have
begun; otherwise we shall have a quiet house turned into a noisy one."

"Is it a quiet house?" said Margaret, laughing.

"As if any house would not be quiet, regulated by Jane!" replied Mrs.
Tait. And Margaret, laughing still, followed her sister.

It is curious to remark how differently things sometimes turn out from
what we intended. Had any one asked Mrs. Tait, the day that Margaret
came home, what Margaret's future career was to be, she had wondered at
the question. "A governess, certainly," would have been her answer; and
she would have thought that no power, humanly speaking, could prevent
it. And yet, Margaret Tait, as it proved, never did become a governess.

The holidays were drawing to an end, and a very desirable situation, as
was believed, had been found for Margaret by Mr. Halliburton, the
negotiations for which were nearly completed. Mr. Halliburton gave
private lessons in sundry well-connected families, and thus enabled to
hear where ladies were required as governesses, he had recommended
Margaret. The recommendation was favourably received, and a day was
appointed for Margaret to make a personal visit at the town house of the
people in question, when she would most probably be engaged.

On the previous evening at twilight Mr. Halliburton came home from one
of his numerous engagements. Jane was alone. Mrs. Tait, not very well,
had retired to rest early, and Margaret was out with Robert. In this, a
leisure season of the year, Robert had most of his evenings to himself,
after eight o'clock. He generally came home, and he and Margaret would
go out together. Mr. Halliburton sat down at one of the windows in
silence.

Jane went up to him, laying her hand affectionately on his shoulder.
"You are very tired, Edgar?"

He did not reply: only drew her hand between his, and kept it there.

"You shall have supper at once," said Jane, glancing at the tray which
stood ready on the table. "I am sure you must want it. And it is not
right to indulge Margaret every night by waiting for her."

"Scarcely, when she does not come in until ten or half-past," said Mr.
Halliburton. "Jane," he added confidentially, "do you think it well that
Margaret should be out so frequently in an evening?"

"She is with Robert."

"She may not always be with Robert alone."

Jane felt her face flush. She knew her husband; knew that he was not one
to speak unless he had some reason for doing so. "Edgar! why do you say
this? Do you know anything? Have you seen Margaret?"

"I saw her a quarter of an hour ago----"

"With Robert?" interrupted Jane, more impulsively than she was in the
habit of speaking.

"Robert was by her side. But she was walking arm in arm with Mr.
Murray."

Jane did not much like the information. This Mr. Murray was in the same
house as Robert, holding a better position. Robert had occasionally
brought him home, and he had taken tea with them. Mrs. Halliburton felt
surprised at Margaret: it appeared, to her well-regulated mind, very
like a clandestine proceeding. What would she have said, or thought, had
she known that Margaret and Mr. Murray were in the habit of thus walking
together constantly? Robert's being with them afforded no sufficient
excuse.

Later they saw Margaret coming home with Robert alone. He left her at
the door as usual, and then hastened away to his own home. Jane said
nothing then, but she went to Margaret's room that evening.

"Oh, Edgar has been bringing home tales, has he?" was Margaret's answer,
when the ice was broken; and her defiant tone brought Jane hardly knew
what of dismay to her ear. "I saw him staring at us."

"Margaret!" gasped Jane, "what can have come to you? You are completely
changed; you--you seem to speak no longer as a lady."

"Then why do you provoke me, Jane? Is it high treason to take a
gentleman's arm, my brother being with me?"

"It is not right to do it in secret, Margaret. If you go out ostensibly
to walk with Robert----"

"Jane, I will not listen," Margaret said, with flashing eyes. "Because
you are Mrs. Halliburton, you assume a right to lecture me. I have
committed no grievous wrong. When I do commit it, you may take your turn
then."

"Oh, Margaret! why will you misjudge me?" asked Jane, her voice full of
pain. "I speak to you in love, not in anger; I would not speak at all
but for your good. If the Chevasneys were to hear of this, they might
think you an unsuitable mistress for their children."

"Compose yourself," said Margaret, scoffingly. Never had she shown such
a temper, so undesirable a disposition, as on this night; and Jane might
well look at her in amazement, and hint that she was "changed." "I shall
be found sufficiently suitable by the Chevasney family--when I consent
to enter it."

Her tone was strangely significant, and Jane Halliburton's heart beat.
"What do you imply, Margaret?" she inquired. "You appear to have some
peculiar meaning."

Margaret, who had been standing before the glass all this time twisting
her hair round her fingers, turned and looked her sister full in the
face. "Jane, I'll tell you, if you will undertake to make things
straight for me with mamma. I am not going to the Chevasneys--or
anywhere else--as governess."

"Yes,"--said Jane faintly, for she had a presentiment of what was
coming.

"I am going to be married instead."

"Oh, Margaret!"

"There is nothing to groan about," retorted Margaret. "Mr. Murray is
coming to speak to mamma to-morrow, and if any of you have anything to
say against him, you can say it to his face. He is a very respectable
man, and has a good income; where's the objection to him?"

Jane could not say. Personally, she did not very much like Mr. Murray;
and certain fond visions had pictured a higher destiny for handsome,
accomplished Margaret. "I hope and trust you will be happy, if you do
marry him, Margaret!" was all she said.

"I hope I shall. I must take my chance of that, as others do. Jane, I
beg your pardon for my crossness, but you put me out of temper."

As others do. Ay! it was all a lottery. And Margaret Tait entered upon
her hastily-chosen married life, knowing that it was so.




CHAPTER VI.

IN SAVILE-ROW.


Several years went on; and years rarely go on without bringing changes
with them. Jane had now four children. William, the eldest, was close
upon thirteen; Edgar, the youngest, going on for nine; Jane and Frank
were between them. Mrs. Tait was dead: and Francis Tait was the Reverend
Francis Tait. By dint of hard work and perseverance, he had succeeded in
qualifying for Orders, and was half starving upon a London curacy, as
his father had done for so many years before him. In saying "half
starving," I don't mean that he had not bread and cheese to eat; but
when a clergyman's stipend is under a hundred a year, the expression
"half starving" is justifiable. He hungers after many things that he is
unable to obtain, and he cannot maintain his position as a gentleman.
Francis Tait hungered. Over one want, especially, he hungered with an
intensely ravenous hunger; and that was, the gratification of his taste
for literature. The books he coveted to read were expensive;
impossibilities to him; he could not purchase them, and libraries were
then scarce. Had Francis Tait not been gifted with very great
conscientiousness, he would have joined teaching with his ministry. But
the wants of his parish required all his time; and he had inherited that
large share of the monitor, conscience, from his father. "I suppose I
shall have a living some time," he would think to himself: "when I am
growing an old man, probably, as he was when he gained his."

So the Reverend Francis Tait plodded on at his curacy, and was content
to await that remote day when fortune should drop from the skies.

Where was Margaret? Margaret had bidden adieu to old England for ever.
Her husband, who had not been promoted in his house of business as
rapidly as he thought he ought to have been, had thrown up his
situation, home and home ties, and gone out to the woods of Canada to
become a settler. Did Margaret repent her hasty marriage then? Did she
find that her finished education, her peculiar tastes and habits, so
unfitted for domestic life, were all lost in those wild woods? Music,
drawing, languages, literature, of what use were _they_ to her now? She
might educate her own children, indeed, as they grew up: the only chance
of education it appeared likely they would have. That Margaret found
herself in a peculiarly uncongenial atmosphere, there could be no doubt;
but, like a brave woman as she proved herself, not a hint of it, in
writing home, ever escaped her, not a shadow of complaint could be
gathered there. It was not often that she wrote, and her letters grew
more rare as the years went on. Robert had accompanied them, and he
boasted that he liked the life much; a thousand times better than that
of the musty old warehouse.

Mr. Halliburton's teaching was excellent--his income good. He was now
one of the professors at King's College; but had not yet succeeded in
carrying out his dream--that of getting to Oxford or Cambridge. Edgar
Halliburton had begun at the wrong end of the ladder: he should have
gone to college first and married afterwards. He married first: and to
college he never went. A man of moderate means, with a home to keep, a
wife, children, servants, to provide for, has enough to do with his
money and time, without spending them at college. He had quite given up
the idea now; and perhaps had grown not to regret it very keenly: his
home was one of refinement, comfort, and thorough happiness.

But about this period, or indeed some time prior to it, Mr. Halliburton
had reason to believe that he was overtaxing his strength. For a long,
long while, almost ever since he had been in London, he was aware that
he had not felt thoroughly well. Hot weather affected him and rendered
him languid; the chills of winter gave him a cough; the keen winds of
spring attacked his chest. He would throw off his ailments bravely and
go on again, not heeding them or thinking that they might ever become
serious. Perhaps he never gave a thought to that until one evening when,
upon coming in after a hard day's toil, he sat down in his chair and
quietly fainted away.


Jane and one of the servants were standing over him when he
recovered--Jane's face very pale and anxious.

"Do not be alarmed," he said, smiling at her. "I suppose I dropped
asleep; or lost consciousness in some way."

"You fainted, Edgar."

"Fainted, did I? How silly I must have been! The room's warm, Jane: it
must have overpowered me."

Jane was not deceived. She saw that he was making light of it to quiet
her alarm, and brought him a glass of wine. He drank it, but could not
eat anything: frequently could not eat now.

"Edgar," she said, "you are doing too much. I have seen it for a long
time past."

"Seen what, Jane?"

"That your strength is not equal to your work. You must give up a
portion of your teaching."

"My dear, how can I do so? Does it not take all I earn to meet expenses?
When accounts are settled at the end of the year, have we a shilling to
spare?"

It was so, and Jane knew it; but her husband's health was above every
consideration in the world. "We must reduce our expenses," she said. "We
must cease to live as we are living now. We will move into a smaller
house, and keep one servant, and I will turn maid-of-all-work."

She laughed quite merrily; but Mr. Halliburton detected a serious
meaning in her tone. He shook his head.

"No, Jane; that time, I hope, will never come."

He lay awake all that night buried in reflection. Do you know what this
night-reflection is, when it comes to us in all its racking intensity?
Surging over his brain, like the wild waves that chase each other on the
ocean, came the thought, "What will become of my wife and children if I
die?" Thought after thought, they all resolved themselves into that one
focus:--"I have made no provision for my wife and children: what will
become of them if I am taken?"

Mr. Halliburton had one good habit--it was possible that he had learnt
it from his wife, for it was hers in no ordinary degree--the habit of
_looking steadfastly into the face of trouble_. Not to groan and grumble
at it--to sigh and lament that no one else's trouble ever was so great
before--but to see how it might best be met and contended with; how the
best could be made of it.

The only feasible way he could see, was that of insuring his life. He
possessed neither lands nor money. Did he attempt to put by a portion of
his income, it would take years and years to accumulate into a sum worth
mentioning. Why, how long would it take him to economise only a thousand
pounds? No. There was only one way--that of life insurance. It was an
idea that would have occurred to most of us. He did not know how much it
would take from his yearly income to effect it. A great deal, he was
afraid; for he was approaching what is called middle life.

He had no secrets from his wife. He consulted her upon every point; she
was his best friend, his confidante, his gentle counsellor, and he had
no intention of concealing the step he was about to take. Why should he?

"Jane," he began, when they were at breakfast the next morning, "do you
know what I have been thinking of all night?"

"Trouble, I am sure," she answered. "You have been very restless."

"Not exactly trouble"--for he did not choose to acknowledge, even to
himself, that a strange sense of trouble did seem to rest on his heart
and to weigh it down. "I have been thinking more of precaution than
trouble."

"Precaution?" echoed Jane, looking at him.

"Ay, love. And the astonishing part of the business, to myself, is that
I never thought of the necessity for this precaution before."

Jane divined now what he meant. Often and often had the idea occurred to
her--"Should my husband's health or life fail, we are destitute." Not
for herself did she so much care, but for her children.

"That sudden attack last night has brought me reflection," he resumed.
"Life is uncertain with the best of us. It may be no more uncertain with
me than with others; but I feel that I must act as though it were so.
Jane, were I taken, there would be no provision for you."

"No," she quietly said.

"And therefore I must set about making one without delay, as far as I
can. I shall insure my life."

Jane did not answer immediately. "It will take a great deal of money,
Edgar," she presently said.

"I fear it will: but it must be done. What's the matter, Jane? You don't
look hopeful over it."

"Because, were you to insure your life, to pay the yearly premium, and
our home expenses, would necessitate your working as hard as you do
now."

"Well?" said he. "Of course it would."


"In any case, our expenses shall be much reduced; of that I am
determined," she went on somewhat dreamily, more it seemed in soliloquy
than to her husband. "But, with this premium to pay in addition----"

"Jane," he interrupted, "there's not the least necessity for my relaxing
my labours. I shall not think of doing it. I may not be very strong, but
I am not ill. As to reducing our expenses, I see no help for that,
inasmuch as I must draw from them for the premium."

"If you only can keep your health, Edgar, it is certainly what ought to
be done--to insure your life. The thought has often crossed me."

"Why did you never suggest it?"

"I scarcely know. I believe I did not like to do so. And I really did
not see how the premium was to be paid. How much shall you insure it
for?"

"I thought of two thousand pounds. Could we afford more?"

"I think not. What would be the yearly premium for that sum?"

"I don't know. I will ascertain all particulars. What are you sighing
about, Jane?"

Jane was sighing heavily. A weight seemed to have fallen upon her. "To
talk of life-insurance puts me too much in mind of death," she murmured.

"Now, Jane, you are never going to turn goose!" he gaily said. "I have
heard of persons who will not make a will, because it brings them a
fancy they must be going to die. Insuring my life will not bring death
any the quicker to me: I hope I shall be here many a year yet. Why,
Jane, I may live to pay the insurance over and over again in annual
premiums! Better that I had put by the money in a bank, I shall think
then."

"The worst of putting by money in a bank, or in any other way, is, that
you are not _compelled_ to put it," observed Jane, looking up a little
from her depression. "What ought to be put by--what is intended to be
put by--too often goes in present wants, and putting by ends in name
only: whereas, in life-assurance, the premium _must_ be paid. Edgar,"
she added, passing to a different subject, "I wonder what we shall make
of our boys?"

Mr. Halliburton's cheek flushed. "_They_ shall go to college, please
God--though I have not been able to get there myself."

"Oh, I hope so! One or two of them, at any rate."

Little difficulty did there appear to be in the plan to Mr. Halliburton.

His boys should enter the University, although he had not done so: the
future of our children appears hopeful and easy to most of us. William
and Frank were in the school attached to King's College: of which you
hear Mr. Halliburton was now a professor. Edgar--never called anything
but "Gar"--went to a private school, but he would soon be entered at
King's College. Remarkably well-educated boys for their years, were the
young Halliburtons. Mr. Halliburton and Jane had taken care of that.
Home teaching was more efficient than school: both combined had rendered
them unusually intelligent and advanced. Naturally intellectual, gifted
with excellent qualities of mind and heart, Mrs. Halliburton had not
failed to do her duty by them. She spared no pains; she knew how
children ought to be brought up, and she did her duty well. Ah, my
friends! only lay a good foundation in their earlier years, and your
children will grow up to bless you.

"Jane, I wonder which office will be the best to insure in?"


Jane began to recall the names of some that were familiar to her.

"The Phoenix?" suggested she.

Mr. Halliburton laughed. "I think that's only for fire, Jane. I am not
sure, though." In truth, he knew little about insurance offices himself.

"There's the Sun; and the Atlas; and the Argus--oh, and ever so many
more," continued Jane.

"I'll inquire all about it to-day," said he.

"I wonder if the premium will take a hundred a year, Edgar?"

He could not tell. He feared it might. "I wish Jane," he observed, "that
I had insured my life when I first married. The premium would have been
small then, and we might have managed to spare it."

"Ay," she answered. "Sometimes I look back to things that I might have
done in the past years: and I did not do them. Now, the time has gone
by!"

"Well, it has not gone by for insuring," said Mr. Halliburton, rising
from the breakfast-table and speaking in gay tones. "Half-past eight!"
he cried, looking at his watch. "Good-bye, Jane," said he, bending to
kiss her. "Wish me luck."

"A weighty insurance and a small premium," she said, laughing. "But you
are not going about it now?"

"Of course not. The offices would not be open. I shall take an
opportunity of doing so in the course of the day."

Mr. Halliburton departed on his usual duties. It was a warm day in
April. His first attendance was King's College, and there he remained
for the morning. Then he proceeded to gain information about the various
offices and their respective merits: finally fixed upon the one he
should apply to, and bent his steps towards it.

It was situated in the heart of the City, in a very busy part of it. The
office also appeared to be busy, for several people were in it when Mr.
Halliburton entered. A young man came forward to know his business.

"I wish to insure my life," said Mr. Halliburton. "How must I proceed
about it?"

"Oh yes, sir. Mr. Procter, will you attend to this gentleman?"

Mr. Halliburton was marshalled to an inner room, where a gentlemanly man
received him. He explained his business in detail, stated his age, and
the sum he wished to insure for. Every information was politely afforded
him; and a paper, with certain printed questions, was given him to fill
up at his leisure, and then to be returned.

Mr. Halliburton glanced over it. "You require a certificate of my birth
from the parish register where I was baptized, I perceive," he remarked.
"Why so? In stating my age, I have stated it correctly."

The gentleman smiled. "Of that I make no doubt," he said, "for you look
younger than the age you have given me. Our office makes it a rule in
most cases to require the certificate from the register. All applicants
are not scrupulous about telling the truth, and we have been obliged to
adopt it in self-defence. We have had cases, we have indeed, sir, where
we have insured a life, and then found--though perhaps not until the
actual death has taken place--that the insurer was ten years older than
he asserted. Therefore we demand a certificate. It does occasionally
happen that applicants can bring well-known men to testify to their
age, and then we do not mind dispensing with it."

Mr. Halliburton sent his thoughts round in a circle. There was no one in
London who knew his age of their own positive knowledge; so it was
useless to think of that. "There will be no difficulty in the matter,"
he said aloud. "I can get the certificate up from Devonshire in the
course of two or three days by writing for it. My father was rector of
the church where I was christened. This will be all, then? To fill up
this paper and bring you the certificate."

"All; with the exception of being examined by our physician."

"What! is it necessary to be examined by a physician?" exclaimed Mr.
Halliburton. "The paper states that I must hand in a report from my
ordinary medical attendant. _He_ will not give you a bad report of me,"
he added, smiling, "for it is little enough I have troubled him. I
believe the worst thing he has attended me for has been a bad cold."

"So much the better," remarked the gentleman. "You do not look very
strong."

"Very strong I don't think I am. I am too hard worked; get too little
rest and recreation. It was suspecting that I am not so strong as I
might be that set me thinking it might be well to insure my life for the
sake of my wife and children," he ingenuously added, in his
straightforward manner. "If I could count upon living and working on
until I am an old man, I should not do so."

Again the gentleman smiled. "Looks are deceitful," he observed. "Nothing
more so. Sometimes those who look the most delicate live the longest."

"You cannot say I look delicate," returned Mr. Halliburton.

"I did not say it. I consider that you do not look robust; but that is
not saying that you look delicate. You may be a perfectly healthy man
for all I can say to the contrary."

He ran his eyes over Mr. Halliburton as he spoke; over his tall, fine
form, his dark hair, amidst which not a streak of grey mingled, his
clearly-cut features, and his complexion, bright as a woman's. Was there
suspicion in that complexion? "A handsome man, at any rate," thought the
gazer, "if not a robust one."

"It will be necessary, then, that I see your physician?" asked Mr.
Halliburton.

"Yes. It cannot be dispensed with. We would not insure without it. He
attends here twice a week. In the intervening days, he may be seen in
Savile-row, from three to five. It is Dr. Carrington. His days for
coming here are Mondays and Thursdays."

"And this is Friday," remarked Mr. Halliburton. "I shall probably go up
to him."

Mr. Halliburton said good morning, and came away with his paper. "It's
great nonsense, my seeing this doctor!" he said to himself as he
hastened home to dinner, which he knew he must have kept waiting. "But I
suppose it is necessary as a general rule; and of course they won't make
me an exception."

Hurrying over his dinner, in a manner that prevented its doing him any
good--as Jane assured him--he sat down to his desk when it was over and
wrote for the certificate of his birth. Folding and sealing the letter,
he put on his hat to go out again.

"Shall you go to Savile-row this afternoon?" Jane inquired.

"If I can by any possibility get my teaching over in time," he answered.
"Young Finchley's hour is four o'clock, but I can put him off until the
evening. I dare say I shall get up there."

By dint of hurrying, Mr. Halliburton contrived to reach Savile-row, and
arrived there in much heat at half-past four. There was no necessity for
hurrying there on this particular day, but he felt impatient to get the
business over; as if speed now could atone for past neglect. Dr.
Carrington was at home but engaged, and Mr. Halliburton was shown into a
room. Three or four others were waiting there; whether ordinary
patients, or whether mere applicants of form like himself, he could not
tell; and it was their turn to go in before it was his.

But his turn came at last, and he was ushered into the presence of the
doctor--a little man, fair and reserved, with powder on his head.

Reserved in ordinary intercourse, but certainly not reserved in asking
questions. Mr. Halliburton had never been so rigidly questioned before.
What disorders had he had, and what had he not had? What were his
habits, past and present? One question came at last: "Do you feel
thoroughly strong?--healthy, elastic?"

"I feel languid in hot weather," replied Mr. Halliburton.

"Um! Appetite sound and good?"

"Generally speaking. It has not been so good of late."

"Breathing all right?"

"Yes; it is a little tight sometimes."

"Um! Subject to a cough?"

"I have no settled cough. A sort of hacking cough comes on at night
occasionally. I attribute it to fatigue."

"Um! Will you open your shirt? Just unbutton it here"--touching the
front--"and your flannel waistcoat, if you wear one."

Mr. Halliburton bared his chest in obedience and the doctor sounded it,
and then put down his ear. Apparently his ear did not serve him
sufficiently, for he took a small instrument out of a drawer, placed it
on the chest, and then put his ear to that, changing the position of the
instrument three or four times.

"That will do," he said at length.

He turned to put up his stethoscope again, and Mr. Halliburton drew the
edges of his shirt together and buttoned them.

"Why don't you wear flannel waistcoats?" asked the doctor, with quite a
sharp accent, his head down in the drawer.

"I do wear them in winter; but in warm weather I leave them off. It was
only last week that I discarded them."

"Was ever such folly known!" ejaculated Dr. Carrington. "One would think
people were born without common sense. Half the patients who come to me
say they leave off their flannels in summer! Why, it is in summer they
are most needed! And this warm weather won't last either. Go home, sir,
and put one on at once."

"Certainly, if you think it right," said Mr. Halliburton with a smile.
"I thank you for telling me."

He took up his hat and waited. The doctor appeared to wait _for him to
go_. "I understood at the office that you would give me a paper
testifying that you had examined me," explained Mr. Halliburton.

"Ah--but I can't give it," said the doctor.

"Why not, sir?"

"Because I am not satisfied with you. I cannot recommend you as a
healthy life."

Mr. Halliburton's pulses quickened a little. "Sir!" he repeated. "Not a
healthy life?"

"Not sufficiently healthy for insurance."

"Why! what is the matter with me?" he rejoined.

Dr. Carrington looked him full in the face for the space of a minute
before replying. "I have had that question asked me before by parties
whom I have felt obliged to decline as I am now declining you," he said,
"and my answer has not always been palatable to them."

"It will be palatable to me, sir; in so far as that I desire to be made
acquainted with the truth. What do you find amiss with me?"

"The lungs are diseased."

A chill fell over Mr. Halliburton. "Not extensively, I trust? Not beyond
hope of recovery?"

"Were I to say not extensively, I should be deceiving you; and you tell
me that you wish for the truth. They are extensively diseased----"

A mortal pallor overspread Mr. Halliburton's face, and he sank into a
chair. "Not for myself," he gasped, as Dr. Carrington drew nearer to
him. "I have a wife and children. If I die, they will want bread to
eat."

"But you did not hear me out," returned the doctor, proceeding with
equanimity, as if he had not been interrupted. "They are extensively
diseased, but not beyond a hope of recovery. I do not say it is a strong
hope; but a hope there is, as I judge, provided you use the right means
and take care of yourself."

"What am I to do? What are the means?"

"You live, I presume, in this stifling, foggy, smoky London."

"Yes."

"Then got away from it. Go where you can have pure air and a clear
atmosphere. That's the first and chief thing; and that's most essential.
Not for a few weeks or months, you understand me--going out for a change
of air, as people call it--you must leave London entirely; go away
altogether."

"But it will be impossible," urged Mr. Halliburton. "My work lies in
London."

"Ah!" said the doctor; "too many have been with me with whom it was the
same case. But, I assure you that you must leave it; or it will be
London _versus_ life. You appear to me to be one who never ought to have
come to London----You were not born in it?" he abruptly added.

"I never saw it until I was eighteen. I was born and reared in
Devonshire."

"Just so. I knew it. Those born and reared in London become acclimatized
to it, generally speaking, and it does not hurt them. It does not hurt
numbers who are strangers: they find London as healthy a spot for them
as any on the face of the globe. But there are a few who cannot and
ought not to live in London; and I judge you to be one of them."

"Has this state of health been coming on long?"

"Yes, for some years. Had you remained in Devonshire, you might have
been a sound man all your life. My only advice to you is--get away from
London. You cannot live long if you remain in it."

Mr. Halliburton thanked Dr. Carrington and went out. How things had
changed for him! What had gone with the day's beauty?--with the blue
sky, the bright sun? The sky was blue still, and the sun shining; but
darkness seemed to intervene between his eyes and outward things. Dying?
A shiver went through him as he thought of Jane and the children, and a
sick feeling of despair settled on his spirit.




CHAPTER VII.

LATER IN THE DAY.


The man was utterly prostrated. He felt that the fiat of death had gone
forth, and there settled an undercurrent of conviction in his mind that
for him there would be no recovery, take what precaution he would. He
could not shake it off. There lay the fact and the fear, as a leaden
weight.

He bent his steps towards home, walking the whole way; he moved along
the streets mechanically. The crowds passed and repassed him, but _he_
seemed far away. Once or twice he lifted his head to them with a
yearning gesture. "Oh! that I were like you! bent on business, on
pleasure, on social intercourse!" passed through his mind. "I am not as
you; and for me you can do nothing. You cannot give me health; you
cannot give me life."

He entered his home, and was conscious of merry voices and flitting
footsteps. A little scene of gaiety was going on: he knew of this, but
had forgotten it until that instant. It was the birthday of his little
girl, and a few young friends had been invited to make merry. Jane,
looking almost as young, quite as pretty, as when she married him, sat
at the far end of their largest room before a well-spread tea-table. She
wore festival attire. A dress of pearl-grey silk, and a thin gold chain
round her neck. The little girls were chiefly in white, and the boys
were on their best behaviour. Jane was telling them that tea was ready,
and her two servants were helping to place the little people, and to
wait upon them.

"Oh, and here's papa, too! just in time," she cried, lifting her eyes
gladly at her husband. "That is delightful!"

Mr. Halliburton welcomed the children. He kissed some, he talked to
others, just as if he had not that terrible vulture, care, within him.
_They_ saw nothing amiss; neither did Jane. He took his seat, and drank
his tea; all, as it were, mechanically. It did not seem to be himself;
he thought it must be some one else. In the last hour, his whole
identity appeared to have changed. Bread and butter was handed to him.
He took a slice and left it. Jane put some cake on to his plate: he left
that also. Eat! with that awful fiat racking his senses! No, it was not
possible.

Ho looked round on his children. _His._ William, a gentle boy, with his
mother's calm, good face and her earnest eyes; Jane, a lovely child,
with fair curls flowing and a bright colour, consciously vain this
evening in her white birthday robes and her white ribbons; Frank, a
slim, dark-eyed boy, always in mischief, his features handsome and
clearly cut as were his father's; Gar, a delicate little chap, with fair
curls like his sister Jane's. Must he _leave_ those children?--abandon
them to the mercies of a cold and cruel world?--bequeath them no place
in it; no means of support? "Oh, God! Oh, God!" broke from his bitter
heart, "if it be Thy will to take me, mayst Thou shelter them!"

"Edgar!"

He started palpably; so far in thought was he away. Yet it was only his
wife who spoke to him.

"Edgar, have you been up to Dr. Carrington's?" she whispered, bending
towards him.

In his confusion he muttered some unintelligible words, which she
interpreted into a denial; there was a great deal of buzzing just then
from the young voices around. Two of the gentlemen, Frank being one,
were in hot contention touching a third gentleman's rabbits. Mrs.
Halliburton called Frank to order, and said no more to her husband for
the present.

"We are to dance after tea," said Jane. "I have been learning one
quadrille to play. It is very easy, and mamma says I play it very well."

"Oh, we don't want dancing," grumbled one of the boys. "We'd rather have
blindman's-buff."

Opinions were divided again. The girls wanted dancing, the boys
blindman's-buff. Mrs. Halliburton was appealed to.

"I think it must be dancing first and blindman's-buff afterwards," said
she.

Tea over, the furniture was pushed aside to clear a space for the
dancers. Mr. Halliburton, his back against the wall, stood looking at
them. Looking at them as was supposed; but had they been keen observers,
they would have known that his eyes in reality saw not: they, like his
thoughts, were far away.

His wife did presently notice that he seemed particularly abstracted.
She came up to him; he was standing with his arms folded, his head bent.
"Edgar, are you well?"

"Well? Oh yes, dear," he replied, making an effort to rouse himself.

"I hope you have no more teaching to-night?"

"I ought to go to young Finchley. I put him off until seven o'clock."

"Then"--was her quick rejoinder--"if you put off young Finchley, how was
it you could not get to Savile-row?"

"I have been occupied all the afternoon, Jane," he said. Wanting the
courage to say how the matter really stood, he evaded the question.

But, to go to young Finchley or to any other pupil that night, Mr.
Halliburton felt himself physically unequal. Teach! Explain abstruse
Greek and Latin rules, with his mind in its present state! It seemed to
him that it mattered little--if he was to be taken from them so
soon--whether he ever taught again. He was in the very depths of
depression.

Suddenly, as he stood looking on, a thought came flashing over him as a
ray of light. As a _ray_ of light? Nay, as a whole flood of it. What if
Dr. Carrington were wrong?--if it should prove that, in reality, nothing
was the matter with him? Doctors--and very clever ones--were, he knew,
sometimes mistaken. Perhaps Dr. Carrington had been so!

It was _scarcely_ likely, he went on to reason, that a mortal disease
should be upon him, and he have lived in ignorance of it! Why, he seemed
to have had very little the matter with him; nothing to talk of,
nothing to lie up for; comparatively speaking, he had been a healthy
man--was in health then. Yes, the belief did present itself that Dr.
Carrington was deceived. He, in the interests of the insurance office,
might be unnecessarily cautious.

Mr. Halliburton left the wall, and grew cheerful and gay, and talked
freely to the children. One little lady asked if he would dance with
her. He laughed, and felt half inclined to do so.

Which was the true mood--that sombre one, or this? Was there nothing
_false_ about this one--was there no secret consciousness that it did
not accord with his mind's actual belief; that he was only forcing it?
Be it as it would, it did not last; in the very middle of a laughing
sentence to his own little Janey, the old agony, the fear,
returned--returned with terrific violence, as a torrent that has burst
its bounds.

"I _cannot_ bear this uncertainty!" he murmured to himself. And he went
out of the room and took up his hat. Mrs. Halliburton, who at that
moment happened to be crossing from another room, saw him open the
hall-door.

"Are you going to young Finchley, Edgar?"

"No. I shall give him holiday for to-night. I shall be in soon, Jane."

He went straight to their own family doctor; a Mr. Allen, who lived
close by. They were personal friends.

To the inquiry as to whether Mr. Allen was at home, the servant was
about to usher him into the family sitting-room, but Mr. Halliburton
stepped into the dusky surgery. He was in no mood for ladies' company.
"I will wait here," he said. "Tell your master I wish to say a word to
him."

The surgeon came immediately, a lighted candle in his hand. He was a
dark man with a thin face. "Why won't you come in?" he asked. "There's
only Mrs. Allen and the girls there. Is anything the matter?"

"Yes, Allen, something is the matter," was

Mr. Halliburton's reply. "I want a friend to-night: one who will deal
with me candidly and openly: and I have come to you. Sit down."

They both sat down; and Mr. Halliburton gave him the history of the past
four and twenty hours: commencing with the fainting-fit, and ending with
his racking doubts as to whether Dr. Carrington's opinion was borne out
by facts, or whether he might have been deceived. "Allen," he concluded,
"you must see what you can make out of my state: and you must report to
me without disguise, as you would report to your own soul."

The surgeon looked grave. "Carrington is a clever man," he said. "One
whom it would be difficult to deceive."

"I know his reputation. But these clever men are not infallible. Put his
opinion out of your mind: examine me yourself, and tell me what you
think."

Mr. Allen proceeded to do so. He first of all asked Mr. Halliburton a
few general questions as to his present state of health, as he would
have done by any other patient, and then he sounded his lungs.

"Now then--the truth," said Mr. Halliburton.

"The truth is--so far as I can judge--that you are in no present danger
whatever."

"Neither did Dr. Carrington say I was--in present danger," hastily
replied Mr. Halliburton. "Are my lungs sound?"

"They are not sound: but neither do I think they are extensively
diseased. You may live for many years, with care."

"Would any insurance office take me?"

"No. I do not think it would."

"It is just my death-knell, Allen."

"If you look at it in that light I shall be very sorry to have given you
my opinion," observed the surgeon. "I repeat that, by taking care of
yourself, you may stave off disease and live many years. I would not say
this unless I thought it."

"And would your opinion be the same as the doctor's--that I must leave
London for the country?"

"I think you would have a far better chance of getting well in the
country than you have here. You have told me over and over again, you
know, that you were sure London air was bad for you."

"Ay, I have," replied Mr. Halliburton. "I never have felt quite well in
it, and that's the truth. Well, I must see what can be done. Good
evening."

If the edict did not appear to be so irrevocably dark as that of Dr.
Carrington, it was yet dark enough; and Mr. Halliburton, striving to
look it full in the face, as he was in the habit of doing by troubles
less grave, endeavoured to set himself to think "what could be done."
There was no possible chance of keeping it from his wife. If it was
really necessary that their place of residence should be changed, she
must be taken into counsel; and the sooner she was told the better. He
went home, resolved to tell her before he slept.

The little troop departed, the children in bed, they sat together over
the fire; though the weather had become warm, an evening fire was
pleasant still. He sat nervous and fidgety. Now the moment had arrived,
he shrunk from his task.

"Edgar, I am sure you are not well!" she exclaimed. "I have observed it
all the evening."

"Yes, Jane, I am well. Pretty well, that is. The truth is, my darling, I
have some bad news for you, and I don't like to tell it."

Her own family were safe and well under her roof, and her fears flew to
Francis, to Margaret, to Robert. Mr. Halliburton stopped her.

"It does not concern any of them, Jane. It is about myself."

"But what can it be, about yourself?"

"They--will--not----Will you listen to the news with a brave heart?" he
broke off, with a smile, and the most cheering look he could call up to
his face.

"Oh yes." She smiled too. She thought it could be nothing very bad.

"They will not insure my life, Jane."

Her heart stood still. "But why not?"

"They consider it too great a risk. They fancy I am not strong."

A sudden flush to her face; a moment's stillness; and then Jane
Halliburton clasped her hands with a faint cry of despair. She saw that
more remained behind.




CHAPTER VIII.

SUSPENSE.


Mrs. Halliburton sat in her chair, still enough except for the wailing
cry which had just escaped her lips. Her husband would not look at her
in that moment. His gaze was bent on the fire, and his cheek lay in his
hand. As she cried out, he stretched forth his other hand and let it
fall lightly upon hers.

"Jane, had I thought you would look at the dark side of the picture, I
should have hesitated to tell you. Why, my dear child, the very fact of
my telling you at all, should convince you that there's nothing very
serious the matter," he added, in cheering tones of reasoning. Now that
he had spoken, he deemed it well to make the very best he could of it.

"You say they will _not_ insure your life?"

"Well, Jane, perhaps that expression was not a correct one. They have
not declined as yet to do so; but Dr. Carrington says he cannot give the
necessary certificate as to my being a thoroughly sound and healthy
man."

"Then you did go up to Dr. Carrington?"

"I did. Forgive me, Jane: I could not enter upon it before all the
children."

She leaned over and laid her head upon his shoulder. "Tell me all about
it, Edgar," she whispered; "as much as you know yourself."

"I have told you nearly all, Jane. I saw Dr. Carrington, and he asked me
a great many questions, and examined me here"--touching his chest. "He
fancies the organs are not sound, and declined giving the certificate."

"That your chest is not sound?" asked Jane.

"He said the lungs."

"Ah!" she uttered. "What else did he say?"

"Well, he said nothing about heart, or liver, or any other vital part,
so I conclude they are all right, and that there was nothing to say,"
replied Mr. Halliburton, attempting to be cheerful. "I could have told
him my brain was strong enough had he asked about that, for I'm sure it
gets its full share of work. I need not have mentioned this to you at
all, Jane, but for a perplexing bit of advice the doctor gave me."

Jane sat straight in her chair again, and looked at Mr. Halliburton. The
colour was beginning to return to her face. He continued:

"Dr. Carrington earnestly recommends me to remove from London.
Indeed--he said--that it was necessary--if I would get well. No wonder
that you found my manner absent," he continued very rapidly after his
hesitation, "with that unpalatable counsel to digest."

"Did he think you very ill?" she breathed.

"He did not say I was 'very ill,' Jane. I am not very ill, as you may
see for yourself. My dear, what he said was that my lungs
were--were----"

"Diseased?" she put in.

"Diseased. Yes, that was it," he truthfully replied. "It is the term
that medical men apply when they wish to indicate delicacy. And he
strenuously recommended me to leave London."

"For how long? Did he say?"

"He said for good."

Jane felt startled. "How could it be done, Edgar?"

"In truth I do not know. If I leave London I leave my living behind me.
Now you see why I was so absorbed at tea-time. When you saw me go out, I
was going round to Allen's."

"And what does _he_ say?" she eagerly interrupted.

"Oh, he seems to think it a mere nothing, compared with Dr. Carrington.
He agreed with him on one point--that I ought to live out of London."

"Edgar, I will tell you what I think must be done," said Jane, after a
pause. "I have not had time to reflect much upon it: but it strikes me
that it would be advisable for you to see another doctor, and take his
opinion: some man who is clever in affections of the lungs. Go to him
to-morrow, without any delay. Should he say that you must leave London,
of course we must leave it, no matter what the sacrifice."

The advice corresponded with Mr. Halliburton's own opinion, and he
resolved to follow it. A conviction amounting to a certainty was upon
him, that, go to what doctor he might, the fiat would be the same as Dr.
Carrington's. He did not say so to Jane. On the contrary, he spoke of
these insurance-office doctors as being over-fastidious in the interests
of the office; and he tried to deceive his own heart with the sophistry.


"Shall you apply to another office to insure your life?" Jane asked.

"I would, if I thought it would not be useless."

"You think it would be useless?"

"The offices all keep their own doctors, and those doctors, it is my
belief, are unnecessarily particular. I should call them crotchety,
Jane."

"I think it must amount to this," said Jane; "that if there is anything
seriously the matter with you, no office will be found to do it; but if
the affection is only trifling or temporary you may be accepted."

"That is about it. Oh, Jane!" he added, with an irrepressible burst of
anguish, "what would I not give to have insured my life before this came
upon me! All those past years! They seem to have been allowed to run to
waste, when I might have been using them to lay up in store for the
children!"

How many are there of us who, looking back, can feel that our past
years, in some way or other, have _not_ been allowed to run to waste?

What a sleepless night that was for him! What a sleepless night for his
wife! Both rose in the morning equally unrefreshed.

"To what doctor will you go?" Jane inquired as she was dressing.

"I have been thinking of Dr. Arnold of Finsbury," he replied.

"Yes, you could not go to a better. Edgar, you will let me accompany
you?"

"No, no, Jane. Your accompanying me would do no good. You could not go
into the room with me."

She saw the force of the objection. "I shall be so very anxious," she
said, in a low tone.

He laughed at her; he was willing to make light of it if it might ease
her fears. "My dear, I will come home at once and report to you: I will
borrow Jack's seven-leagued boots, that I may come to you the quicker."

"You know that I _shall_ be anxious," she repeated, feeling vexed.

"Jane," he said, his tone changing: "I see that you are more anxious
already than is good for you. It is not well that you should be so."

"I wish I could be with you! I wish I could hear, as you will, Dr.
Arnold's opinion from his own lips!" was all she answered.

"I will faithfully repeat it to you," said Mr. Halliburton.

"Faithfully--word for word? On your honour?"

"Yes, Jane, I will. You have my promise. Good news I shall be only too
glad to tell you; and, should it be the worst, it will be necessary that
you should know it."

"You must be there before ten o'clock," she observed; "otherwise there
will be little chance of seeing him."

"I shall be there by nine, Jane. To spare time later would interfere too
much with my day's work."

A thought crossed Jane's mind--if the fiat were unfavourable what would
become of his day's work then--all his days? But she did not utter it.

"Oh, papa," cried Janey at breakfast, "was it not a beautiful party! Did
you _ever_ enjoy yourself so much before?"

"I don't suppose you ever did, Janey," he replied, in kindly tones.

"No, that I never did. Alice Harvey's birthday comes in summer, and she
says she knows her mamma will let her give just such another!
Mamma!"--turning to Mrs. Halliburton.

"Well, Jane?"

"Shall you let me have a new frock for it? You know I tore mine last
night."

"All in good time, Janey. We don't know where we may all be then."

No, they did not. A foreshadowing of it was already upon the spirit of
Mrs. Halliburton. Not upon the children: they were spared it as yet.

"Do not be surprised if you see me waiting for you when you come out of
Dr. Arnold's," said Jane to her husband, in low tones, as he was going
out.

"But, Jane, why? Indeed, I think it would be foolish of you to come. My
dear, I never knew you like this before."

Perhaps not. But when, before, had there been cause for this
apprehension?

Jane watched him depart. Calm as she contrived to remain outwardly, she
was in a terribly restless, nervous state; little accustomed as she was
so to give way. A sick feeling was within her, a miserable sensation of
suspense; and she could scarcely battle with it. You may have felt the
same, in the dread approach of some great calamity. The reading over,
Janey got her books about, as usual. Mrs. Halliburton took charge of her
education in every branch, excepting music: for that she had a master.
She would not send Jane to school. The child sat down to her books, and
was surprised at seeing her mother come into the room with her things
on.

"Mamma! Are you going out?"

"For a little time, Jane."

"Oh, let me go! Let me go too!"

"Not this morning, dear. You will have plenty of work--preparing the
lessons that you could not prepare last night."

"So I shall," said Janey. "I thought perhaps you meant to excuse them,
mamma."

It was almost _impossible_ for Jane to remain in the house, in her
present state of agitation. She knew that it did appear absurdly foolish
to go after her husband; but, walk somewhere she must: how could she
turn a different way from that which he had taken? It was some distance
to Finsbury; half an hour's walk at least. Should she go, or should she
not, she asked herself as she went out of the house. She began to think
that she might have remained at home had she exercised self-control. She
had a great mind to turn back, and was slackening her pace, when she
caught sight of Mr. Allen at his surgery window.

An impulse came over her that she would go in and ask his opinion of her
husband. She opened the door and entered. The surgeon was making up some
pills.

"You are out early, Mrs. Halliburton!"

"Yes," she replied. "Mr. Halliburton has gone to Finsbury Square to see
Dr. Arnold, and I----Do you think him very ill?" she abruptly broke off.

"I do not, myself. Carrington----Did you know he had been to Dr.
Carrington?" asked Mr. Allen, almost fearing he might be betraying
secrets.

"I know all about it. I know what the doctor said. Do you think Dr.
Carrington was mistaken?"

"In a measure. There's no doubt the lungs are affected, but I believe
not to the grave extent assumed by Dr. Carrington."

"He assumed, then, that they were affected to a grave extent?" she
hastily repeated, her heart beating faster.

"I thought you said you knew all about it, Mrs. Halliburton?"

"So I do. He may possibly not have told me the very worst said by Dr.
Carrington; but he told me quite sufficient. Mr. Allen, _you_ tell
me--do you think that there is a chance of his recovery?"

"Most certainly I do," warmly replied the surgeon. "Every chance, Mrs.
Halliburton. I see no reason whatever why he should not keep as well as
he is now, and live for years, provided he takes care of himself. It
appears that Dr. Carrington very strongly urged his removing into the
country; he went so far as to say that it was his only chance for
life--and in that I think he went too far again. But the country would
undoubtedly do for him what London will not."

"You think that he ought to remove to the country?" she inquired,
showing no sign of the terror those incautious words brought her--"his
only chance for life."

"I do. If it be possible for him to manage his affairs so as to get
away, I should say let him do so by all means."

"It _must_ be done, you know, Mr. Allen, if it is essential."

"In my judgment it should be done. Many and many a time I have said to
him myself, 'It's a pity but that you could be out of this heavy
London!' Fogs affect him, and smoke affects him--the air altogether
affects him: and I only wonder it has not told upon him before. As Dr.
Carrington observed to him, there are some constitutions which somehow
will not thrive here."

Mrs. Halliburton rose with a sigh. "I am glad you do not think so very
seriously of him," she breathed.

"I do not think _seriously_ of him at all," was the surgeon's answer. "I
confess that he is not strong, and that he must have care. The pure air
of the country, and relaxation from some of his most pressing work, may
do wonders for him. If I might advise, I should say, Let no pecuniary
considerations keep him here. And that is very disinterested advice,
Mrs. Halliburton," concluded the doctor, laughing, "for, in losing you,
I should lose both friends and patients."

Jane went out. Those ominous words were still ringing in her ears--"his
only chance for life."

Forcing herself to self-control, she did _not_ go to meet Mr.
Halliburton. She returned home and took off her things, and gave what
attention she could to Jane's lessons. But none can tell the suspense
that was agitating her: the ever-restless glances she cast to the
window, to see him pass. By-and-by she went and stood there.

At last she saw him coming along in the distance. She would have liked
to fly to meet him--to say, What is the news? but she did not. More
patience, and then, when he came in at the front door, she left the room
she was in, and went with him into the drawing-room, her face white as
death.

He saw how agitated she was, strive as she would for calmness. He stood
looking at her with a smile.

"Well, Jane, it is not so very formidable, after all."

Her face grew hot, and her heart bounded on. "What does Dr. Arnold say?
You know, Edgar, you promised me the truth without disguise."

"You shall have it, Jane. Dr. Arnold's opinion of me is not
unfavourable. That the lungs are to a certain extent affected, is
indisputable, and he thinks they have been so for some time. But he sees
nothing to indicate present danger to life. He believes that I may grow
into an old man yet."

Jane breathed freely. A word of earnest thanks went up from her heart.

"With proper diet--he has given me certain rules for living--and pure
air and sunshine, he considers that I have really little to fear. I told
you, Jane, those insurance doctors make the worst of things."

"Dr. Arnold, then, recommends the country?" observed Jane, paying no
attention to the last remark.

"Very strongly. Almost as strongly as Dr. Carrington."

Jane lifted her eyes to her husband's face. "Dr. Carrington said, you
know, that it was your only chance of life."

"Not quite as bad as that, Jane," he returned, never supposing but he
must himself have let the remark slip, and wondering how he came to do
so. "What Dr. Carrington said was, that it was London _versus_ life."

"It is the same thing, Edgar. And now, what is to be done? Of course we
have no alternative; into the country we must go. The question is,
where?"

"Ay, that is the question," he answered. "Not only where, but what to
do? I cannot drop down into a fresh place, and expect teaching to
surround me at once, as if it had been waiting for me. But I have not
time to talk now. Only fancy! it is half-past ten."

Mr. Halliburton went out and Jane remained, fastened as it were to her
chair. A hundred perplexing plans and schemes were already working in
her brain.




CHAPTER IX.

SEEKING A HOME.


Plans and schemes continued to work in Mrs. Halliburton's brain for days
and days to come. Many and many an anxious consultation did she and her
husband hold together--where should they go? What should they do? That
it was necessary to do something, and speedily, events proved,
independently of what had been said by the doctors. Before another month
had passed over his head, Mr. Halliburton had become so much worse that
he had to resign his post at King's College. But, to the hopeful minds
of himself and Jane, the country change was to bring its remedy for all
ills. They had grown to anticipate it with enthusiasm.

His thoughts naturally ran upon teaching, as his continued occupation.
He knew nothing of any other. All England was before him; and he
supposed he might obtain a living at it, wherever he might go. Such
testimonials as his were not met with every day. His cousin Julia had
married a man of some local influence (as Mr. Halliburton had
understood) in the city in which they resided, the chief town of one of
the midland counties: and a thought crossed his mind more than once,
whether it might not be well to choose that same town to settle in.

"They might be able to recommend me, you see, Jane," he observed to his
wife, one evening as they were sitting together, after the children were
in bed. "Not that I should much like to ask any favour of Julia."

"Why not?" said Jane.

"Because she is not a pleasant person to ask a favour of: it is many
years since I saw her, but I well remember that. Another reason why I
feel inclined to that place is that it is a cathedral town. Cathedral
towns have many of the higher order of the clergy in them; learning is
sure to be considered there, should it not be anywhere else.
Consequently there would be an opening for classical teaching."

Jane thought the argument had weight.


"And there's yet another thing," continued Mr. Halliburton. "You
remember Peach?"

"Peach?--Peach?" repeated Jane, as if unable to recall the name.

"The young fellow I had so much trouble with, a few years ago--drilling
him between his terms at Oxford. But for me, he never would have passed
either his great or his little go. He did get plucked the first time he
went up. You must remember him, Jane: he has often taken tea with us
here."

"Oh, yes--yes! I remember him now. Charley Peach."

"Well, he has recently been appointed to a minor canonry in that same
cathedral," resumed Mr. Halliburton. "Dr. Jacobs told me of it the other
day. Now I am quite sure that Peach would be delighted to say a word for
me, or to put anything in my way. That is another reason why I am
inclined to go there."

"I suppose the town is a healthy one?"

"Ay, that it is; and it is seated in one of the most charming of our
counties. There'll be no London fogs or smoke there."

"Then, Edgar, let us decide upon it."

"Yes, I think so--unless we should hear of an opening elsewhere that may
promise better. We must be away by Midsummer, if we can, or soon after.
It will be sharp work, though."

"What trouble it will be to pack the furniture!" she exclaimed.

"Pack what furniture, Jane? We must sell the furniture."

"Sell the furniture!" she uttered, aghast.

"My dear, it would never do to take the furniture down. It would cost
almost as much as it is worth. There's no knowing, either, how long it
might be upon the road, or what damage it might receive. I expect it
would have to go principally by water."

"By water!" cried Mrs. Halliburton.

"I fancy so--by barge, I mean. Waggons would not take it, except by
paying heavily. A great deal of the country traffic is done by water.
This furniture is old, Jane, most of it, and will not bear rough
travelling. Consider how many years your father and mother had it in
use."

"Then what should we do for furniture when we get there?" asked Jane.

"Buy new with the money we receive from the sale of this. I have been
reflecting upon it a good deal, Jane, and fancy it will be the better
plan. However, if you care for this old furniture, we must take it."

Jane looked round upon it. She did care for the time-used furniture; but
she knew how old it was, and was willing to do whatever might be best. A
vision came into her mind of fresh, bright furniture, and it looked
pleasant in imagination. "It would certainly be a great deal to pack and
carry," she acknowledged. "And some of it is not worth it."

"And it would be more than we should want," resumed Mr. Halliburton.
"Wherever we go we must be content with a small house; at any rate at
first. But it will be time enough to go into these details, Jane, when
we have finally decided upon our destination."

"Oh, Edgar! I shall be so sorry to take the boys from King's College."

"Jane," he said, a flash of pain crossing his face as he spoke, "there
are so many things connected with it altogether that cause me sorrow,
that my only resource is not to think upon them. I might be tempted to
repine to ask in a spirit of rebellion why this affliction should have
come upon us. It is God's decree, and it is my duty to submit as
patiently as I can."

It was her duty also: and she knew it as she laid her hand upon her
weary brow. A weary, weary brow from henceforth, that of Jane
Halliburton!




CHAPTER X.

A DYING BED.


In a handsome chamber of a handsome house in Birmingham, an old man lay
dying. For most of his life he had been engaged in a large wholesale
business--had achieved local position, had accumulated moderate wealth.
But neither wealth nor position can ensure peace to a death-bed; and the
old man lay on his, groaning over the past.


The season was that of mid-winter. Not the winter following the intended
removal of Mr. Halliburton from London, as spoken of in the last
chapter, but the winter preceding it--for it is necessary to go back a
little. A hard, sharp, white day in January: and the fire was piled high
in the sick room, and the large flakes of snow piled themselves outside
on the window frames and beat against the glass. The room was fitted up
with every comfort the most fastidious invalid could desire; and yet, I
say, nothing seemed to bring comfort to the invalid lying there. His
hands were clenched as in mortal agony; his eyes were apparently
watching the falling snow. The eyes saw it not: in reality they were
cast back to where his mind was--the past.

What could be troubling him? Was it that loss, only two years ago, by
which one-half of his savings had been engulfed? Scarcely. A man
dying--as he knew he was--would be unlikely to care about that now.
Ample competence had remained to him, and he had neither son nor
daughter to inherit. Hark! what is it that he is murmuring between his
parched lips, to the accompaniment of his clenched hands?

"I see it all now; I see it all! While we are buoyed up with health and
strength, we continue hard, selfish, obstinate in our wickedness. But
when death comes, we awake to our error; and death has come to me, and I
have awakened to mine. Why did I turn him out like a dog? He had neither
kith nor kin, and I sent him adrift on the world, to fight with it or to
starve! He was the only child of my sister, and she was gone. She and I
were of the same father and mother; we shared the same meals in
childhood, the same home, the same play, the same hopes. She wrote to me
when she was dying, as I am dying now: 'Richard, should my poor boy be
left fatherless--for my husband's health seems to be failing--be his
friend and protector for Helen's sake, and may Heaven bless you for it!'
And I scoffed at the injunction when the boy offended me, and turned him
out. _Shall I have to answer for it?_"

The last anxious doubt was uttered more audibly than the rest; it
escaped from his lips with a groan. A woman who was dozing over the fire
started up.

"Did you call, sir?"

"No. Go out and leave me."

"But----"

"Go out and leave me," he repeated, with anger little fitted to his
position. And the woman was speeding from the room, when he caught at
the curtain and recalled her.

"Are they not come?"

"Not yet, sir. But, with this heavy fall, it's not to be wondered at.
The highways must be almost impassable. With good roads they might have
been here hours ago."

She went out. He lay back on his pillow: his eyes wide open, but wearing
the same dreamy look. You may be wondering who he is; though you
probably guess, for you have heard of him once before as Mr. Cooper, the
uncle who discarded Edgar Halliburton.

I must give you a few words of retrospect. Richard Cooper was the eldest
of three children; the others were a brother and a sister: Richard,
Alfred, and Helen. Alfred and Helen both married; Richard never did
marry. It was somewhat singular that the brother and sister should both
die, each leaving an orphan; and that the orphans should find a home in
the house of their Uncle Richard. Julia Cooper, the brother's orphan,
was the first to come to it, a long time before Edgar Halliburton came.
Helen had married the Rev. William Halliburton, and she died at his
rectory in Devonshire--sending that earnest prayer to her brother
Richard which you have just heard him utter. A little while, and her
husband, the rector, also died; and then it was that Edgar went up to
his Uncle Richard's. Fortunate for these two orphan children, it
appeared to be, that their uncle had not married and could give them a
good home.

A good home he did give them. Julia left it first to become the wife of
Anthony Dare, a solicitor in large practice in a distant city. She
married him very soon after her cousin Edgar came to his uncle's. And it
was after the marriage of Julia that Edgar was discarded and turned
adrift. Years, many years, had gone by since then; and here lay Richard
Cooper, stricken for death and repenting of the harshness, which he had
not repented of or sought to atone for all through those long years. Ah,
my friends! whatsoever may lie upon our consciences, however we may have
contrived to ignore it during our busy lives, be assured that it will
find us out on our death-bed!

Richard Cooper lay back on his pillow, his eyes wide open with their
inward tribulation. "Who knows but there would be time yet?" he suddenly
murmured. And the thought appeared to rouse his mind and flush his
cheek, and he lifted his hand and grasped the bell-rope, ringing it so
loudly as to bring two servants to the room.


"Go up, one of you, to Lawyer Weston's," he uttered. "Bring him back
with you. Tell him I want to alter my will, and that there may yet be
time. Don't send--one of _you_ go," he repeated in tones of agonising
entreaty. "Bring him; bring him back with you!"

As the echo of his voice died away there came a loud summons at the
street door, as of a hasty arrival. "Sir," cried one of the maids,
"they're come at last! I thought I heard a carriage drawing up in the
snow."

"Who's come?" he asked in some confusion of mind. "Weston?"

"Not him, sir; Mr. and Mrs. Dare," replied the servant as she hurried
out.

A lady and gentleman were getting out of a coach at the door. A tall,
very tall man, with handsome features, but an unpleasantly free
expression. The lady was tall also, stout and fair, with an imperious
look in her little turned-up nose. "Are we in time?" the latter asked of
the servants.

"It's nearly as much as can be said, ma'am," was the answer. "But he has
roused up in the last hour, and is growing excited. The doctors thought
it might be so: that he'd not continue in the lethargy to the last."

They went on at once to the sick chamber. Every sense of the dying man
appeared to be on the alert. His hands were holding back the curtain,
his eyes were strained on the door. "Why have you been so long?" he
cried in a voice of strength they were surprised to hear.

"Dear uncle," said Mrs. Dare, bending over the bed and clasping the
feeble hands, "we started the very moment the letter came. But we could
not get along--the roads are dreadfully heavy."

"Sir," whispered a servant in the invalid's ear, "are we to go now for
Lawyer Weston?"

"No, there's no need," was the prompt answer. "Anthony Dare, you are a
lawyer," continued Mr. Cooper; "you'll do what I want done as well as
another. Will you do it?"

"Anything you please, sir," was Mr. Dare's reply.

"Sit down, then; Julia, sit down. You may be hungry and thirsty after
your journey; but you must wait. Life's not ebbing out of you, as it is
out of me. We'll get this matter over, that my mind may be so far at
rest; and then you can eat and drink of the best that my house affords.
I am in mortal pain, Anthony Dare."

Mrs. Dare was silently removing some of her outer wrappings, and
whispering with the servant at the extremity of the roomy chamber; but
Mr. Dare, who had taken off his great-coat and hat in the hall,
continued to stand by the sick bed.

"I am sorry to hear it, sir," he said, in reply to Mr. Cooper's
concluding sentence. "Can the medical men afford you no relief?"

"It is pain of mind, Anthony Dare, not pain of body. _That_ pain has
passed from me. I would have sent for you and Julia before, but I did
not think until yesterday that the end was so near. Never let a man be
guilty of injustice!" broke forth Mr. Cooper, vehemently. "Or let him
know that it will come home to him to trouble his dying bed."

"What can I do for you, sir?" questioned Mr. Dare.

"If you will open that bureau, you'll find pen, ink, and paper. Julia,
come here: and see that we are alone."

The servant left the room, and Mrs. Dare came forward, divested of her
cloaks. She wore a handsome dark-blue satin dress (much the fashion at
that time) with a good deal of rich white lace about it, a heavy gold
chain, and some very showy amethysts set in gold. The jewellery was
real, however, not sham; but altogether her attire looked somewhat out
of place for a death-chamber.

The afternoon was drawing to a close. What with that and the dense
atmosphere outside, the chamber had grown dim. Mr. Dare disposed the
writing materials on a small round table at the invalid's elbow, and
then looked towards the distant window.

"I fear I cannot see, sir, without a light."

"Call for it, Julia," said the invalid.

A lamp was brought in and placed on the table, so that its rays should
not affect those eyes so soon to close to all earthly light. And Mr.
Dare waited, pen in hand.

"I have been hard and wilful," began Mr. Cooper, putting up his
trembling hands. "I have been obdurate, and selfish, and unjust; and now
it is keeping peace from me----"

"But in what way, dear uncle?" softly put in Mrs. Dare; and it may as
well be remarked that whenever Mrs. Dare attempted to speak softly and
kindly it seemed to bear an unnatural sound to others' ears.

"In what way?--why, with regard to Edgar Halliburton," said Mr. Cooper,
the dew breaking out upon his brow. "In seeking to follow the calling
marked out for him by his father, he only did his duty; and I should
have seen it in that light but for my own obstinate pride and self-will.
I did wrong to discard him: I have done wrong ever since in keeping him
from me, in refusing to be reconciled. Are you listening, Anthony Dare?"

"Certainly, sir. I hear."

"Julia, I say that there was no reason for my turning him away. There
has been no reason for my keeping him away. I have refused to be
reconciled: I have sent back his letters unopened; I have held him at
contemptuous defiance. When I heard that he had married, I cast harsh
words to him because he had not asked my consent, though I was aware all
the time, that I had given him no opportunity to ask it--I had harshly
refused all overtures, all intercourse. I cast harsh words to his wife,
knowing her not. But I see my error now. Do you see it, Julia? Do you
see it, Anthony Dare?"

"Would you like to have him sent for, sir?" suggested Mr. Dare.

"It is too late. He could not be here in time. I don't know, either,
where he lives in London, or what his address may be. Do you?"--looking
at his niece.

"Oh dear, no," she replied, with a slightly contemptuous gesture of the
shoulders. As much as to imply that to know the address of her cousin
Edgar was quite beneath her.


"No, he could not get here," repeated the dying man, whilst Mrs. Dare
wiped the dews that had gathered on his pallid and wrinkled brow.
"Julia! Anthony! Anthony Dare!"

"Sir, what is it?"

"I wish you both to listen to me. I cannot die with this injustice
unrepaired. I have made my will in Julia's favour. It is all left to
her, except a few trifles to my servants. When the property comes to be
realised, there will be at least sixteen thousand pounds, and but for
that late mad speculation I entered into there would have been nearly
forty thousand."

He paused. But neither Mr. nor Mrs. Dare answered.

"You are a lawyer, Anthony, and could draw up a fresh will. But there's
no time, I say. What is darkening the room?" he abruptly broke off to
ask.

Mr. Dare looked hastily up. Nothing was darkening the room, except the
gradually increasing gloom of evening.

"My sight is growing dim, then," said the invalid. "Listen to me, both
of you. I charge you, Anthony and Julia Dare, that you divide this money
with Edgar Halliburton. Give him his full share; the half, even to a
farthing. Will you do so, Anthony Dare?"

"Yes, I will, sir."

"Be it so. I charge you both solemnly--do not fail. If you would lay up
peace for the time when you shall come to be where I am--do not fail.
There's no time legally to do what is right; I feel that there is not.
Ere the deed could be drawn up I should be gone, and could not sign it.
But I leave the charge upon you; the solemn charge. The half of my money
belongs of right to Edgar Halliburton: Julia has claim only to the other
half. Be careful how you divide it: you are sole executor, Anthony Dare.
Have you your paper ready?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then dot down a few words, as I dictate, and I will sign them. 'I,
Richard Cooper, do repent of my injustice to my dear nephew, Edgar
Halliburton. And I desire, by this my last act on my death-bed, to
bequeath to him the half of the money and property I shall die possessed
of; and I charge Anthony Dare, the executor of my will, to carry out
this act and wish as strictly as though it were a formal and legal one.
I desire that whatever I shall die possessed of, save the bequests to my
servants, may be equally divided between my nephew Edgar and my niece
Julia.'"

The dying man paused. "I think that's all that need be said," he
observed. "Have you finished writing it, Anthony Dare?"

Mr. Dare wrote fast and quickly, and was concluding the last words. "It
is written, sir."

"Read it."

Mr. Dare proceeded to do so. Short as the time was which it took to
accomplish this, the old man had fallen into a doze ere it was
concluded; a doze or a partial stupor. They could not tell which; but,
in leaning over him, he woke up with a start.

"I can't die with this injustice unrepaired!" he cried, his memory
evidently ignoring what had just been done. "Anthony Dare, your wife has
no right to all my money. I shall leave half of it to Edgar. I want you
to write it down."

"It is done, sir. This is the paper."


"Where? where? Why don't you get light into the room? It's dark--dark.
This? Is this it?"--as Mr. Dare put it into his hand. "Now, mind!" he
added, his tone changing to one of solemn enjoinder; "mind you act upon
it. Julia has no right to more than her half share; she must not take
more: money kept by wrong, acquired by injustice, never prospers. It
would not bring you good, it would not bring a blessing. Give Edgar his
legal half; and give him his old uncle's love and contrition. Tell him,
if the past could come over again there should be no estrangement
between us."

He lay panting for a few minutes, and then spoke again, the paper having
fallen unnoticed from his hand.

"Julia, when you see Edgar's wife--Did I sign that paper?" he broke off.

"No, sir," said Mr. Dare. "Will you sign it now?"

"Ay. But, signed or not signed, you'll equally act upon it. I don't put
it forth as a legal document; I suppose it would not, in this informal
state, stand good in law. It is only a reminder to you, Anthony Dare,
that you may not forget my wishes. Hold me up in bed, and have lights
brought in."

Anthony Dare drew the curtain back, and the rays of the lamp flashed
upon the dying man. Mr. Dare looked round for a book on which to place
the paper while it was signed.

"I want a light," came again from the bed, in a pleading tone. "Julia,
why don't you tell them to bring in the lamp?"

"The lamp is here, uncle. It is close to you."

"Then there's no oil in it," he cried. "Julia, I _will_ have lights
here. Tell them to bring up the dining-room lamps. Don't ring; go and
see that they are brought."

Unwilling to oppose him, and doubting lest his sight should really have
gone, Mrs. Dare went out, and returned with one of the servants and more
light. Mr. Cooper was then lying back on his pillow, dozing and
unconscious.

"Has he signed the paper?" Mrs. Dare whispered to her husband.

He shook his head negatively, and pointed to it. It was lying on the
bed, just as Mrs. Dare had left it. Mrs. Dare caught it up from any
prying eyes that might be about, folded it, and held it securely in her
hand.

"He will wake up again presently, and can sign it then," observed Mr.
Dare, just as a gentle ring was heard at the house door.

"It's the doctor," said the servant; "I know his ring."

But the old man never did sign the paper, and never woke up again. He
lay in a state of lethargy throughout the night. Mr. and Mrs. Dare
watched by his bedside; the servants watched; and the doctors came in at
intervals. But there was no change in his state; until the last great
change. It occurred at daybreak; and when the neighbours opened their
windows to the cold and the snow, the house of Richard Cooper remained
closed. Death was within it.





CHAPTER XI.

HELSTONLEIGH.


I believe that most of the readers of "The Channings" will not like this
story less because its scene is laid in the same place, Helstonleigh.

I narrate to you, as you may have already discovered, a great deal of
truth: of events that have actually happened, combined with fiction. I
can only do this from my own personal experience, by taking you to the
scenes and places where I have lived. Of this same town, Helstonleigh, I
could relate to you volumes. No place in the world holds so green a spot
in my memory. Do you remember Longfellow's poem--"My Lost Youth"?

    "Often I think of the beautiful town,
      That is seated by the sea;
    Often in thought go up and down
    The pleasant streets of that dear old town,
      And my youth comes back to me.
        And a verse of a Lapland song
        Is haunting my memory still:
        'A boy's will is the wind's will,
    And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'

    "I remember the gleams and glooms that dart
      Across the schoolboy's brain;
    The song and the silence in the heart,
    That in part are prophecies, and in part
      Are longings wild and vain.
        And the voice of that fitful song
        Sings on, and is never still:
        'A boy's will is the wind's will,
    And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'

    "There are things of which I may not speak;
      There are dreams that cannot die;
    There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak,
    And bring a pallor into the cheek,
      And a mist before the eye.
        And the words of that fatal song
        Come over me like a chill:
        'A boy's will is the wind's will,
    And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'

    "Strange to me now are the forms I meet
      When I visit the dear old town;
    But the native air is pure and sweet,
    And the trees that o'ershadow each well-known street,
      As they balance up and down,
        Are singing the beautiful song,
        Are sighing and whispering still:
        'A boy's will is the wind's will,
    And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'

    "And Deering's woods are fresh and fair,
      And with joy that is almost pain
    My heart goes back to wander there,
    And among the dreams of the days that were
      I find my lost youth again.
        And the music of that old song
        Throbs in my memory still:
        'A boy's will is the wind's will,
    And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'"

Those are some of its verses, and what "Deering" is to Longfellow,
"Helstonleigh" is to me.

The Birmingham stage-coach came into Helstonleigh one summer's night,
and stopped at its destination, the Star-and-Garter Hotel, bringing with
it some London passengers. The direct line of rail to Helstonleigh from
London was not then opened; and this may serve to tell you how long it
is ago. A lady and a little girl stepped from the inside of the coach,
and a gentleman and three boys got down from the outside. The latter
were soaking. Almost immediately after leaving Birmingham, to which
place the rail had conveyed them, the rain had commenced to pour in
torrents, and those outside received its full benefit. The coach was
crammed, inside and out, but with the other passengers we have nothing
to do. We have with these; they were the Halliburtons.

For the town which Mr. Halliburton had been desirous to remove to, the
one in which his cousin, Mrs. Dare, resided, was no other than
Helstonleigh.

Mrs. Halliburton drew a long face when she set eyes on her husband's
condition. "Edgar! you must be wet through and through!"

"Yes, I am. There was no help for it."

"You should have come inside when I wanted you to do so," she cried, in
a voice of distress. "You should indeed."

"And have suffered you to take my place outside? Nonsense, Jane!"

Jane looked at the hotel. "We had better remain here for the night. What
do you think?"

"Yes, I think so," he replied. "It is too wet to go about looking after
anything that might be less expensive. Inquire if we can have rooms,
Jane, whilst I see after the luggage."

Mrs. Halliburton went in, leading Janey, and was confronted by the
barmaid, a smart young woman in a smart cap. "Can we sleep here
to-night?" she inquired.

"Yes, certainly. How many beds?"

"I will go up with you and see," said Mrs. Halliburton. "Be so kind as
not to put us in your more expensive rooms," she added, in a lower tone.

The barmaid looked at her from top to toe, as it is much in the habit of
barmaids to do when such a request is preferred. She saw a lady in a
black silk dress, a cashmere shawl, and a plain straw bonnet, trimmed
with white. Simple as the attire was, quiet as was the demeanour, there
was that about Mrs. Halliburton, in her voice, her accent, her bearing
altogether, which proclaimed her the gentlewoman; and the barmaid
condescended to be civil.

"I have nothing to do with the rooms," she said; "I'll call the
chambermaid. My goodness! You had better get those wet things off, sir,
unless you want to be laid up with cold."

The words were uttered in surprise, as her eyes encountered Mr.
Halliburton. He looked taller, and thinner, and handsomer than ever; but
he had a hollow cough now, and his cheek was hectic, and he was
certainly wet through.

The chambermaid allotted them rooms. Mr. Halliburton, after rubbing
himself dry with towels, got into a warmed bed, and had warm drink
supplied to him. Jane, after unpacking what would be wanted for the
night, returned to the sitting-room, to which her children had been
shown. A good-natured maid, seeing the boys' clothes were damp, had
lighted a fire, and they were kneeling round it, having been provided
with bread and butter and milk. Intelligent, truthful, good-looking boys
they were, with clear skins and bright, honest eyes, and open
countenances. Janey had fallen asleep on a chair, her flaxen curls
making her a pillow on its elbow. The boys crowded to one side of the
fireplace when their mother came in, leaving the larger space for her;
and William rose and gave her a chair. Mrs. Halliburton sat down, having
laid on the table a Book of Common Prayer, which she had brought in her
hand.

"Mamma, I hope papa will not be ill!"

"Oh, William, I fear it. Such a terrible wetting! And to be so long in
it! How is it that he was so much worse than you are?"

"Because he sat at the end, and the gentleman next him did not hold the
umbrella over him at all. When it came on to rain, some of the
passengers had umbrellas and some had not, so they were divided for the
best. We three had one between us, and we were wedged in between two fat
old men, who helped to keep us dry. What a pity there was not a place
for papa inside!"

"Yes; or if he would only have taken mine!" cried Mrs. Halliburton. "A
wetting would not have hurt me, as it may hurt him. What place did they
call that, William, where I got out to ask him to change?"

"Bromsgrove Lickey. Mamma, you have had no tea!"

"I do not care for any," she sighed. Hers was a hopeful nature; but
something within her, this evening, seemed to whisper of trial for the
future. She turned to the table, where stood the remains of the
children's meal, cut a piece of bread from the loaf, and slowly spread
it with butter. Then she poured out a little milk.

"Dear mamma, do have some tea!" cried William; "that's nothing but our
milk and water."

She shook her head and took the milk. Tea would only be an additional
expense, and she was too completely dispirited to care what she drank.

"I will read now," she said, taking up the Prayer-book. "And afterwards,
I think, you had better say your prayers here, near the fire, as you
have been so wet."

She chose a short psalm, and read it aloud. Then the children knelt
down, each at a separate chair, to say their prayers in silence. Not as
children's prayers are sometimes hurried over, knelt they; but with
lowly reverence, their heads bowed, their young hearts lifted, never
doubting but they were heard by God. They had been trained in a good
school.

Did you ever have a sale of old things? Goods and chattels which may
have served your purpose and looked well in their places, seem so old
when they come to be exhibited that you feel half-ashamed of them? And
as to the sum they realise--you will not have much trouble in hoarding
it. Had Mr. Halliburton known the small sum that would be the result of
his sale; had Jane dreamt that they would go for an "old song," they had
never consented to part with them. Better have been at the cost of
carrying them to Helstonleigh. Their bedding, blankets, etc., they did
take: and it was well they did so.

I feel almost afraid to tell you how very little money they had in hand
when they arrived. All their worldly wealth was little more than a
hundred and twenty pounds. Debts had to be paid before leaving London;
and it cost money to give up their house without notice, for their
landlord was severe.

One hundred and twenty pounds! And with this they had to buy fresh
furniture, and to live until teaching came in. A forlorn prospect on
which to recommence the world! No wonder that Jane shunned even tea at
the inn, or any other expense that might lessen their funds! But hope is
buoyant in the human heart: and unless it were so, half the world might
lay themselves down to die.

Morning came: a bright, sunny, beautiful morning after the rain. Not,
apparently, had Mr. Halliburton suffered. His limbs felt a little stiff,
but that would go off before the day closed. Their plans were to take a
small house, as cheap a one as they could find, in accordance with--you
really must for once excuse the word--gentility. That--a tolerably fair
appearance--was necessary to Mr. Halliburton's success as a teacher.

"A dry, healthy spot, a little way out of the town," mused the landlord
of the "Star," to whom they communicated their desire. "The London Road
would be the place then. And you probably will find there such a house
as you require."

They found their way to the London Road--a healthy suburb of the town;
and there discovered a house they thought might suit them: a
semi-detached house of good appearance, inclosed by iron railings, and
standing a little back from the road. A sitting-room was on either side
the entrance, a kitchen at the back. Three bedrooms were above; and
above these again was a garret. A small garden was behind the house; and
beyond that was a field, which did not belong to them. The adjoining
house was similar to this one; but that possessed a large and productive
garden. An inmate of that house showed them over this one, dressed as a
Quakeress. Her features were plain, but her complexion was fair and
delicate, and she had calm blue eyes.

"The rent of the house is thirty-two pounds per annum," she said, in
reply to Mrs. Halliburton's question. "It belongs to Thomas Ashley; but
thee must not apply to him. I will furnish thee with the address of the
agent, who has the letting of Friend Ashley's houses. It is Anthony
Dare. You will find the house pleasant and healthy, if you decide upon
it," she added, speaking to both of them.

The latter name had struck upon Mr. Halliburton's ear. "Jane!" he
whispered to his wife, "that must be the Mr. Dare who married my cousin,
Julia Cooper. His name was Anthony Dare."

Mr. Halliburton proceeded alone to the office of Mr. Dare, the gentleman
you met at Mr. Cooper's; Mrs. Halliburton returning to her children at
the hotel. They had decided to take the house. Mr. Dare was not at home.
"In London, with his wife," the head clerk said. But the clerk had power
to let the house. Mr. Halliburton gave him some particulars with regard
to himself, and they were considered satisfactory; but he did not
mention that he was related to Mrs. Dare.

The next thing was about furniture. The clerk directed Mr. Halliburton
to a warehouse where both new and second-hand things might be obtained,
and he proceeded to it, calling in at the "Star" for his wife. She knew
a great deal more about furniture than he. They did the best they could,
spending about fifty pounds. A Kidderminster carpet was bought for the
best sitting-room. The other room, which was to be Mr. Halliburton's
study, and the bedrooms, went for the present without any. "We will buy
all those things when we have succeeded a bit," said Mr. Halliburton.




CHAPTER XII.

ANNA LYNN.


They slept that night again at the "Star," and the following morning
early, they and their furniture took possession together of the house. A
busy day they found it, arranging things. Jane--who had determined, as
the saying runs, "to put her shoulder to the wheel," not only on this
day, but on future days--did not intend to engage a regular servant.
That, like the carpets, might be indulged in as they succeeded; but in
the mean time she thought a young girl might be found who would come in
for a few hours daily, and do what they wanted done.

In the course of the morning, the fair, pleasant face of the Quakeress
was seen approaching the back door from the garden. She wore a lilac
print gown, a net kerchief crossed under it on her neck, and the
peculiar net cap, with its high caul and neat little border.

"I have stepped in to ask if I can help thee with thy work," she began.
"Thee hast plenty to do, setting things straight, and thy husband does
not look strong. I will aid if thee pleasest."

"You are very kind to be so thoughtful for a stranger," replied Jane,
charmed with the straightforward frankness of the Quakeress. "I hope you
will first tell me to whom I am indebted."

"Thee can call me Patience," was the ready reply. "I live next door,
with Samuel Lynn and his daughter Anna. His wife died soon after the
child was born. I was related to Anna Lynn; and when she was departing
she sent for me, and begged me not to leave her child, unless Samuel
should take unto himself another wife. But that appears to be far from
his thoughts. He loves the child much; she is as the apple of his eye."

"Is Mr. Lynn in business?" asked Jane.

"Not on his own account now. He was a glove manufacturer, as a young
man, but he had not a large capital; and when the British ports were
opened for the admission of gloves from the French, it ruined him--as it
did many others in the city. Only the rich masters could stand that.
Numbers went then."

"Went!" echoed Jane. "Went where?"

"To ruin. Ah! I remember it: though it is a long time ago now. It was, I
think, in the year 1825. I cannot describe to thee the distress and
destruction it brought upon this city, until then so flourishing. The
manufacturers had to close their works, and the men went about the
streets starving."

"Did the distress continue long?"

"For weeks, and months, and years. The town will never be again, in that
respect, what it has been. Samuel Lynn was a man of integrity, and he
gave up business while he could pay everyone, and accepted the post of
manager in the manufactory of Thomas Ashley. Thomas Ashley is one of the
first manufacturers in the city, as his father was before him. When thee
shall know the place and the people better, thee will find that there is
not a name more respected throughout Helstonleigh than that of Thomas
Ashley."

"I suppose he is a rich man?"


"Yes, he is rich," replied Patience, who was as busy with her hands as
she was in talking. "His household is expensive, and he keeps his open
and his close carriages; but for all that he must be putting by money.
It is not for his riches that Thomas Ashley is respected, but for his
high character. There is not a more just man living than Thomas Ashley;
there is not a manufacturer in the town who is so considerate and kind
to his workmen. His rate of wages is on the highest scale, and he is
incapable of oppression. He has a son and daughter. He, the boy, causes
him much uneasiness and cost."

"Is he--not steady?" hastily asked Jane.

"Bless thee, it is not that!" was the laughing answer of Patience. "He
is but a young boy yet. When he was fourteen months old, the nurse let
him fall from her arms, from the first landing to the hall below. At
first they thought he was not hurt: Margaret Ashley herself thought it;
the doctors thought it. But in a little time injury grew apparent. It
lay in one of the hips; he is often in great pain, and will be lame for
life. Abscess after abscess forms in the hip. They take him to the
sea-side; to doctors in London; but nothing cures him. A beautiful boy
as you ever saw; but his hurt renders him peevish. He is fond of books;
and David Byrne, who is a Latin and Greek scholar, goes daily to
instruct him; but the boy is thrown back by his fits of illness. It is a
great grief to Thomas and Margaret Ashley. They----Why, Anna, is it
thee? What dost thou do here?"

Mrs. Halliburton turned from the kitchen cupboard, where she and
Patience were arranging crockery, to behold a little girl who was no
doubt Anna Lynn. Dark blue eyes were deeply set beneath their long
lashes, which lay on a damask and dimpled cheek; her pretty teeth shone
like pearls between her smiling lips, and her chestnut hair fell in a
mass of careless curls upon her neck. Never, Mrs. Halliburton thought,
had she seen a face so lovely. Jane was a pretty child; but Jane faded
into nothing in comparison with the vision standing there.

"Thee has thy cap off again, Anna!" cried the Quakeress, with some
asperity of tone. "Art thee not ashamed to be so bold?--going about with
thy head uncovered!"

"The cap came off, Patience," gently responded Anna. She had a sweetly
timid manner; a modest expression.

"Thee need not tell me what is untrue. When the cap is tied on, it will
not come off, unless purposely removed. Go home and put it on. Thee may
come back again. Perhaps Friend Halliburton will permit thee to stay
awhile with her children, who are arranging their books in the study. Is
thy French lesson learnt?"

"Not quite," replied Anna, running away.

She returned with a pretty little white net cap on, the model of that
worn by Patience. Her luxuriant curls were pushed under it, and the
crimped border rested on the fair forehead.

"Nay, there is no call to put all thy hair out of sight, child," said
Patience. "Where are thy combs."

"In my hair, Patience."

Patience took off the cap, formed two flat curls, by means of the combs,
on either side the temples, put the cap on again, and tucked the rest of
the hair smoothly under it. Mrs. Halliburton then took Anna's hand, and
led her to her own children.

"What a pity it is to hide her hair!" she said afterwards to Patience.

"Dost thee think so? It is the custom with our people. Anna's hair is
fine, and of a curly nature. Brush it as I will, it curls; and she has
acquired a habit of taking her cap off when I am not watching. Her
father, I grieve to say, will let her sit by the hour together, her hair
down, as thee saw it now, and her cap anywhere. I believe he thinks
nothing she does is wrong. I talk to him much."

"I never saw a more beautiful child!" said Jane, warmly.

"I grant thee that she is fair; but she is eleven years old now, and her
vanity should be checked. She is sometimes invited to the Ashleys',
where she sees the mode in which Mary Ashley is dressed, according to
the fashion of the world, and it sets her longing. Samuel Lynn will not
listen to me. He is pleased that his child should be received there as
Mary Ashley's equal; he cannot forget the time when he was in a good
position himself."

"Who teaches Anna?"

"She attends a small school for Friends, kept by Ruth Darby. It is the
holidays now. Her father educates her well. She learns French and
drawing, and other branches of study suitable for girls. Take care! let
me help thee with that heavy table."

Presently they went to see how things were getting on in the study. Jane
could not keep her eyes from the face of that lovely child. It partly
hindered her work, which there was little need of on that busy day; a
day so busy that they were all glad when it was over, and they were at
liberty to retire to rest.

Rarely had Jane witnessed so beautiful a view as that which met her
sight the following morning, when she drew up her blind. The previous
day had been hazy--nothing was to be seen; now the atmosphere had
cleared. The great extent of scenery spread around, the green fields,
the growing corn, the sparkling rivulets, the woods with their darker
and their brighter trees, the undulating slopes--all were charming. But
beyond all, and far more charming, bounding the landscape in the distant
horizon, stretched the long chain of the far-famed Malvern Hills. As
the sun cast upon them its light and shade, their outline so clearly
depicted against the sky, and their white villas peeping out from the
trees at their base--Jane felt that she could have gazed for ever. A
wondrous picture is that of Malvern, as seen from Helstonleigh in the
freshness of the early morning.

"Edgar!" she impulsively exclaimed, turning to the bed--for Mr.
Halliburton had not risen--"you never saw anything more beautiful than
the view from this window. I am sure half the Londoners never dreamt of
anything like it."

There was no reply. "Perhaps he may be still asleep," she thought. But
upon approaching the bed, she saw that his eyes were open.

"Jane," he gasped, "I am ill."

"Ill!" she repeated, a spasm darting through her heart.

"Every limb is paining me. My head aches, and I am burning with fever. I
have felt it coming on all night."

She bent down; she felt his hands and his hot face--all burning, as he
said, with fever.

"We must call in a doctor," she quietly said, suppressing every sign of
dismay, that it might not agitate him. "I will ask Patience to recommend
one."

"Yes; better have a doctor at once. What will become of us? If I should
be going to have an illness----"

"Stay, Edgar; do not give way to sad anticipations," she gently said. "A
brave mind, you know, goes half way towards a cure. It is the effect of
that wetting; the cold must have been smouldering within you."

Smouldering only to burst out the fiercer for delay. Patience spoke in
favour of their own medical man, a Mr. Parry, who lived near them and
had a large practice. He came; and pronounced the malady to be rheumatic
fever.




CHAPTER XIII.

ILLNESS.


For nine weeks Mr. Halliburton never left his bed. His wife was worn to
a shadow; what with waiting upon him, and battling with her anxiety. Her
body was weary, her heart was sick. Do _you_ know the cost of illness?
Jane knew it then.

In two weeks more he could leave his easy-chair and crawl about the
room; and by that time he was all eagerness to commence his operations
for the future.

"I must have some cards printed, Jane," he cried, one morning. "'Mr.
Halliburton, Professor of Classics and Mathematics, late of King's
Col--'--or should it be simply 'Edgar Halliburton?'" he broke off, to
deliberate. "I wonder what the custom may be, down here?"

"I think you should wait until you are stronger, before you order your
cards," was Jane's reply.

"But I can be getting things in train, Jane. I have been--how many weeks
is it now?"

"Eleven."

"To be sure. It was June when we came; it is now September. I have been
obliged to neglect the boys' lessons, too!"

"They have been very good and quiet; have gone on with their lessons
themselves. If we have trouble in other ways, we have a blessing in our
children, Edgar. They are thoroughly loving and dutiful."

"I don't know the ordinary terms of the neighbourhood," he resumed,
after an interval of silence. "And--I wonder if people will want
references? Jane"--after another silence--"you must put your things on,
and go to Mrs. Dare's."

"To Mrs. Dare's!" she echoed. "Now? I don't know her."

"Never mind about not knowing her," he eagerly continued. "She is my
cousin. You must ask whether they will allow themselves to be referred
to. Peach will allow it also, I am quite certain. Do go, Jane."

Invalids in the weak state of Mr. Halliburton are apt to be restlessly
impatient when the mind is set upon any plan or project. Jane found that
it would vex him much if she declined to go to Mrs. Dare, and she
prepared for the visit. Patience directed her to their residence.

It was situated at the opposite end of Helstonleigh. A handsome house,
inclosed in a high wall, and bearing the imposing title of "Pomeranian
Knoll." Jane entered the iron gates, walked round the carriage drive
that inclosed the lawn, and rang the house bell. A showy footman in
light blue livery, with a bunch of cords on his shoulder, answered it.

"Can I see Mrs. Dare?"

"What name, ma'am?"

Jane gave in one of her visiting cards, wondering whether that was not
too grand a proceeding, considering the errand upon which she had come.
She was shown into an elegant room, to the presence of Mrs. Dare. That
lady was in a costly morning dress, with chains, rings, bracelets, and
other glittering jewellery about her: as she had worn the evening you
saw her beside Mr. Cooper's death-bed.

"Mrs. Halliburton?" she was repeating in doubt, when Jane entered, her
eyes strained on the card. "What Mrs. Halliburton?" she added, not very
civilly, turning her eyes upon Jane.

Jane explained. The wife of Edgar Halliburton, Mrs. Dare's cousin.

Mrs. Dare's presence of mind wholly forsook her. She grew deathly
white; she caught at a chair for support; she was utterly unable to
speak or to conceal her agitation. Jane could only look at her in
amazement, wondering whether she was seized with sudden illness.


A few moments and she recovered herself. She took a seat, motioned Jane
to another, and asked, as she might have asked of any stranger, what her
business might be. Jane explained it, somewhat at length.

Mrs. Dare's surprise was great. She could not or would not understand;
and her face flushed a deep red, and again grew deadly pale. "Edgar
Halliburton come to live in Helstonleigh!" she repeated. "And you say
you are his wife?"

"I am his wife," was the reply of Jane, spoken with quiet dignity.


"_What_ is it that you say he has in view, in coming here?"

"I beg your pardon; I thought I had explained." And Jane went over the
ground again--why he had been obliged to leave London, and his reasons
for settling in Helstonleigh.

"You could not have come to a worse place," said Mrs. Dare, who appeared
to be annoyed almost beyond repression. "Masters of all sorts are so
plentiful here that they tread on each other's heels."

Discouraging news! And Jane's heart beat fast on hearing it. "My husband
thought you and Mr. Dare would kindly interest yourselves for him. He
knows that Mr. Peach will----"

"No," interrupted Mrs. Dare, in decisive tones. "For Edgar Halliburton's
own sake I must decline to recommend him; or, indeed, to interfere at
all. It would only encourage fallacious hopes. Masters are here in
abundance--I speak of private masters; they don't find half enough to
do. Schools are also plentiful. The best thing will be to go to some
place where there is a better opening, and not to settle himself here at
all!"

"But we have already settled here," replied Jane.

A thought suddenly struck Mrs. Dare. "It can never be Edgar who has
taken Mr. Ashley's cottage in the London Road? I remember the name was
said to be Halliburton."


"The same. It was let to us by Mr. Dare's clerk."

Mrs. Dare sat biting her lips. That she was grievously annoyed was
evident, but in deference to good manners, which were partially
returning to her, she strove to repress its signs. "I presume your
husband is poor, Mrs. Halliburton?"

"We are very poor."

"It is generally the case with teachers, as I have observed. Well, I
can only give one answer to your application--that we must decline all
interference. I hope Edgar will not think of applying again to us upon
the subject."

Jane rose. Mrs. Dare remained seated. And yet she prided herself upon
her good breeding!

"I had forgotten a question which my husband particularly desired me to
ask," Jane said, turning back, as she was moving to the door. "Edgar saw
by the papers that his uncle, Mr. Cooper, died the beginning of the
year. Did he remember him on his death-bed, so far as to send a message
of reconciliation?"

Strange to say, the countenance of Mrs. Dare again changed; now to a
burning heat, now to a livid pallor. She hesitated in her answer.

"Yes," she said at length. "Mr. Cooper so far relented as to send him
his forgiveness. 'Tell my nephew Edgar, if you ever see him, that I am
sorry for my harshness; that I would treat him differently were the time
to come over again.' I do not remember the precise words; but they were
to that effect. There is no doubt that he would have wished to be
reconciled; but time did not allow it. I should have written to Edgar of
this, had I been acquainted with his address."

"A letter addressed to King's College would always have found him. But
he will be glad to hear this. He also bade me ask how Mr. Cooper's money
was left--if you would kindly give him the information."

Mrs. Dare bent her head. She was busy playing with her bracelet. "The
will was proved in Doctors' Commons. Edgar Halliburton may see it by
paying a shilling there."

It was not a gracious answer, and Jane paused. "He cannot go to Doctors'
Commons; he is not in London," she gently said.

Mrs. Dare raised her head. A look, speaking plainly of defiance, had
settled itself on her features. "It was left to me; the whole of it,
except a few trifling legacies to his servants. What could Edgar
Halliburton expect?"

"I am sure that he did not expect anything," observed Jane. "Though I
believe a hope has sometimes crossed his mind that Mr. Cooper might at
the last relent, and remember him."

"Nay," said Mrs. Dare, "he had behaved too disobediently for that.
First, in opposing his uncle's wishes that he should enter into
business; secondly, in his marriage."

"In his marriage!" echoed Jane, a flush rising to her own face.

"It was so. Mr. Cooper was exceedingly exasperated when he heard that
Edgar had married. He looked upon the marriage, I believe, as
undesirable for him in a pecuniary point of view. You must pardon my
speaking of this to you personally. You appear to wish for the truth."

The flush on Jane's face deepened to crimson.

"It is true that I had no money," she said. "But I am the daughter of a
clergyman, and was reared a gentlewoman!"

"I suppose my uncle thought Edgar Halliburton should have married a
fortune. However all that is past and gone, and it will do no good to
recall it. I am sorry that you should have been so ill-advised for your
own interests as to fix on this place to come to."

Mrs. Dare rose. She had sat all this time; Jane had stood. "Tell Edgar,
from me, that I am sorry to hear of his illness. Tell him there is no
possible chance of success for him in Helstonleigh; no opening whatever!
When I say that I hope he will speedily remove to some place less
overdone with masters, I speak only in his own interest!"

She rang the bell as she spoke, and gave Jane the tips of two of her
fingers. The footman held open the hall door, and bowed her out. Jane
went down the gravel sweep, determined never again to trouble Mrs. Dare.

"Joseph!" cried Mrs. Dare, sharply.

"Ma'am?"

"Should that lady ever call again, I am not at home, remember!"

"Very well, ma'am," was the man's reply.

Mrs. Dare did not stay to hear it. She had flown upstairs to her room in
trepidation. There she attired herself hastily and went out, bending her
steps towards Mr. Dare's office. It was situated at the end of the town;
and the door displayed a brass plate: "Mr. Dare, Solicitor."

Mrs. Dare entered the outer room. "Is Mr. Dare alone?" she asked of the
clerks.

"No, ma'am. Mr. Ashley is with him."

Chafing at the answer, for she was in a mood of great impatience, of
inward tremor, Mrs. Dare waited for a few minutes. Mr. Ashley came out.
A man of nearly forty years, rather above the middle height, with a
fresh complexion, dark eyes, and well-formed features. A
benevolent-looking, good man. His wife was a cousin of Mr. Dare's.

Mr. Dare was seated at his table in his own room when his wife came in.
She had turned again of an ashy paleness, and she dropped into a chair
near to him.

"What is the matter?" he asked in astonishment. "Are you ill?"

"I think I shall die," she gasped. "I have had a mortal fright,
Anthony."

Mr. Dare rose. He was about to get her some water, or to call for it,
but she caught his arm. "Stay, and hear me! Stay! Anthony, those
Halliburtons have come to Helstonleigh. Come to live here!"

Mr. Dare's mouth opened. "What Halliburtons?" he presently asked.

"_They._ He has come here to settle. He wants to teach; and his wife has
been with me, asking us to be referees. Of course I put the stopper upon
that. The idea of _our_ having poor relations in the town who get their
living by teaching!"

A very disagreeable idea indeed; for those who were playing first
fiddle in the place, and expected to play it still. But not for that did
the man and wife stand gazing at each other; and the naturally bold look
on Mr. Dare's face had faded considerably just then.

"She asked about the will," said Mrs. Dare, dropping her voice to a
whisper, and looking round with a shiver. "I thought I should have died
with fear."

Mr. Dare rallied his courage. Any little reminiscence that may have
momentarily disturbed his equanimity he shook off, and was his own bold
self again.

"Nonsense, Julia! What is there to fear? The will is proved and acted
upon. Whatever the old man may have uttered to us in his death ramblings
was heard by ourselves alone. If any one _had_ heard it, I should not
much care. A will's a will all the world over; and to act against it
would be illegal."

Mrs. Dare sat wiping her brow and gathering up _her_ courage. It came
back by slow degrees.

"Anthony, we must get them out of Helstonleigh. For more reasons than
one we must get them out. They are in that house of Mr. Ashley's."

He looked surprised. "They! Ay, to be sure: the name in the books is
Halliburton. It never occurred to me that it could be they. I wonder if
they are poor?"

"Very poor, the wife said."

"Just so," said Mr. Dare, with a pleasant smile. "I'll not ask for the
rent this quarter, but let it go on a bit. We may get them out, Mrs.
Dare."

You need not be told that Anthony Dare and his wife had omitted to act
upon Mr. Cooper's dying injunction. At the time they did really intend
to fulfil it; they were not thieves or forgers. But Edgar Halliburton
was not present to remind them of his claims: and, when the money came
to be realised, to be in their own hands, there it was suffered to
remain. Waiting for him, of course; they did not know precisely where to
find him, and did not take any trouble to inquire. Very tempting and
useful they found the money. A large portion of their own share went in
paying back debts, for they lived at an extravagant rate; and--and in
short they had intrenched upon that other share, and could not now have
paid it over had they been ever so willing to do so. No wonder that Mrs.
Dare had felt as one in mortal fear when she met Jane Halliburton face
to face!




CHAPTER XIV.

A CHRISTMAS DREAM.


Winter had come to Helstonleigh: frost hovered in the air and rested on
the ground. How was Mr. Halliburton? He had never once been out since
his illness, and he sat by the fire when he did not lie in bed, and his
cough was racking him. He might, and probably would, have recovered
health under more favourable auspices, but anxiety of mind was killing
him. Their money was dwindling to a close, and delicacies they dared not
get for him. Mr. Halliburton would say he did not require them; could
not eat them if they were procured. Poor man! he craved for them in his
inmost heart. Strange to say, he did not see his own danger. Or, rather,
it would have been strange but that similar cases are met with every
day. "When this cold weather has passed, and spring is in, then I shall
get up my strength," was his constant cry. "Then I shall set about my
work in earnest, and make my arrival and my plans known to Peach. It has
been of no use troubling him beforehand." False, false hopes! fond,
delusive hopes!

Dr. Carrington had said that if he _took care_ of himself, he might live
and be well. The other doctors had said the same. And there was no
reason to doubt their judgment. But they had not bargained for an attack
of rheumatic fever, or for the increased injury to the lungs which the
same cause, that past soaking, had induced.

On Christmas Eve, he and Jane were sitting over the fire in the
twilight. He could come downstairs now; indeed, he did not appear to be
so ill as he really was. The surgeon who attended him in the fever had
been discharged long ago. "There's nothing the matter with me now but
debility; and, only time will bring me out of that," Mr. Halliburton
said, when he dismissed him. Jane was hopeful; more hopeful by fits and
starts than continuously so; but she did really believe he might get
well when winter had passed. They were sitting beside the fire, when a
great bustle interrupted them. All the children trooped in at once, with
the noise it is the delight of children not to stir without. Frank, who
had been out, had entered the house with his arms full of holly and ivy,
his bright face glowing with excitement. The others were attending him
to show off the prize.

"Look at all this Christmas, mamma!" cried he. "I have bought it."

"Bought it?" repeated Jane. "My dear Frank, did I not tell you we must
do without Christmas this year?"

"But it cost nothing, mamma. Only a penny!"

Jane sighed. She did not say to the children that even a penny was no
longer "nothing."

"You know that penny I have kept in my pocket a long while," went on
Frank in excitement, addressing the assemblage. "Well, I thought if
mamma would not buy some Christmas, I would."

"But you did not buy all that for a penny, Frank? We should pay sixpence
for it in London."

"I did, though, mamma. I had it of that old man who lives in the cottage
higher up the road, with the big garden to it. He was going to cut me
more, but I told him this was plenty. You should have seen the heaps he
gave a woman for twopence: she wanted a wheelbarrow to carry it away."

Janey clapped her hands, and began to dance. "I shall help you to dress
the rooms! We must have a merry Christmas!"

Mr. Halliburton drew her to him. "Yes, we must have a merry Christmas,
must we not, Janey? Jane"--turning to his wife--"can you manage to have
a nice dinner for us? Christmas only comes once a year."

He looked up with his haggard face: very much as though he were longing
for a nice dinner then.

"I will see what I can do," said Jane in reply, smothering down another
sigh. "I am going out presently to the butcher's. A joint of beef will
be best; and though the pudding's a plain one, I hope it will be good.
Yes, we must keep Christmas."

Christmas-day dawned, and in due time they assembled as usual. Jane
intended to go to church that day. During her husband's illness she had
been obliged to send the children alone. They had been trained to know
what church meant, and did not require some one with them to keep them
in order there. A good thing if the same could be said of all children!

It was a clear, bright morning, cold and frosty. Mr. Halliburton came
down just as they were starting.

"I feel so much better to-day!" he exclaimed. "I could almost go with
you myself. Jane"--smiling at her look of consternation--"you need not
be startled: I do not intend to attempt it. William, you are not ready."

"Mamma said I was to stay with you, papa."

"Stay with me! There's not the least necessity for that. I tell you all
I am feeling better to-day--quite well. You can go with the rest,
William."

William looked at his mother, and for a moment Jane hesitated. Only for
a moment. "I would rather he remained, Edgar," she said. "Betsy will be
gone by twelve o'clock. Indeed, I should not feel comfortable at the
thought of your being alone."

"Oh, very well," replied Mr. Halliburton, quite gaily. "I suppose you
must remain, William, or we shall have mamma leaving when the service is
only half over to see whether I have not fallen into the fire."

Jane had all the household care upon her shoulders now, and a great
portion of the household work. Though an active domestic manager, she
had known nothing practically of the more menial work of a house; she
knew it only too well now. The old saying is a very true one: "Necessity
makes us acquainted with strange bedfellows." This young girl, Betsy,
who came in part of each day to assist, was almost as much trouble as
profit. She had said to Jane on Christmas Eve: "If you please, mother
says I am to be at home to-morrow, if it's convenient." I am! However,
Jane and the young lady came to a compromise. She was to go home at
twelve and come back later to wash up the dishes. Of course it entailed
upon Jane all the trouble of preparing dinner.

Have you ever known one of these cases yourself? Where a lady--a lady,
mind you, as Jane was--has had to put aside her habits of refinement,
pin up her gown, and turn to and cook; roast the meat and boil potatoes,
and all the ether essential items? Many a one is doing it now in real
life. Jane Halliburton was not a solitary example. The pudding had been
made the day before and partly boiled: it was now on the fire, boiling
again, and the rest of the dinner she would do on her return from
church.

It was something wonderful, the improvement in Mr. Halliburton's health
that day. He took his part with William in reading the psalms and
lessons while the rest were at church: it was what he had been unable to
do for a long time in consequence of his cough and laboured breathing.
The duty over, he lay back in his chair; in thought apparently, not
exhaustion.

"Peace on earth, and good will towards men!" he repeated presently, in a
fervent, but somewhat absent tone. "William, my boy, I think peace must
be coming to me at last. I do feel so well."

"What peace, papa?" asked William, puzzled.

"The peace of renewed health, of hope; freedom from worry. The Christmas
season and the bright day have taken away all my despondency. Let me go
on like this, and in another month I shall be out and at work."

William's eyes sparkled. He fully believed it all. Boys are sanguine.

They were to dine at three o'clock, and Jane did her best to prepare it.
During the process, Patience appeared at the back door with a plate of
oranges. "Will thee accept of these for thy children?" asked she.

"How kind you are!" exclaimed Jane, in a grateful impulse, as she
thought of her children. Of such little treats they had latterly enjoyed
a scanty share. "Patience, I hope you did not buy them purposely?"

"Had I had to buy them, thee would not have seen them," returned the
candid Quakeress. "A friend of Samuel Lynn's, who lives at Bristol,
sends us a small case every winter. When I was unpacking it this morning
I said to him, 'The young ones at the next door would be pleased with a
few of these'; but he did not answer. Thee must not think him selfish;
he is not a selfish man; but he cannot bear to see anything go beside
the child. Anna looked at him eagerly; she would have been pleased to
send half the box: and he saw it. 'Take in a few, Patience,' he cried."

"I am much obliged to him, and to you also," repeated Jane. "Patience,
Mr. Halliburton is so much better to-day! Go in, and see him."

Patience went into the parlour, carrying the oranges with her. When she
came out again there was a grave expression on her serene face.

"Thee will do well not to count upon this apparent improvement in thy
husband."

Jane's heart went down considerably. "I do not exactly count upon it,
Patience," she confessed; "but he does seem to have changed so much for
the better that I feel in greater spirits than I have felt this many a
day. His cough seems almost well."

"I do not wish to throw a damp upon thee; still, were I thee, I would
not reckon upon it. These sudden improvements sometimes turn out to have
been deceitful. Fare thee well!"

Jane went into the parlour. The children were gathered round the plate
of oranges. "Mamma, do look!" cried Janey. "Are they not good? There
are six: one apiece for us all. I wonder if papa could eat one? Gar, you
are not to touch. Papa, could you eat an orange?"

Unseen by the children, Mr. Halliburton had been straining his eager
gaze upon the oranges. His mouth parched with inward fever, his throat
dry, they appeared, coming thus unexpectedly before him, what the
long-wished-for spring of water is to the fainting traveller in the
desert. Jane caught the look, and handed the plate to him. "You would
like one, Edgar?"

"I am thirsty," he said, in tones savouring of apology, for the oranges
seemed to belong to the children rather than to him. "I think I must eat
mine before dinner. Cut it into four, will you?"

He took up one of the quarters. "It is delicious!" he exclaimed. "It is
so refreshing!"

The children stood around and watched him. They enjoyed oranges, but
scarcely with a zest so intense as that.

When Jane returned to the kitchen, she found a helpmate. The maid from
next door, Grace, a young Quakeress, fair and demure, was standing
there. She had been sent by Patience to do what she could for half an
hour. "How considerate she is!" thought grateful Jane.

They dined in comfort, Grace waiting on them. Afterwards the oranges
were placed upon the table. Master Gar caught up the plate, and
presented it to his mother. "Papa has had his," quoth he.

"Not for me, Gar," said Jane. "I do not eat oranges. I will give mine to
papa."

The three younger children speedily attacked theirs. William did not. He
left his by the side of the one rejected by his mother, and set the
plate by Mr. Halliburton.

"Do you intend these for me, William?"

"Yes, papa."

Frank looked surprised. "William, you don't mean to say you are not
going to eat your orange? Why, you were as glad as any of us when they
came."

"I eat oranges when I want them," observed William, with an affectation
of carelessness, which betrayed a delicacy of feeling that might have
done honour to one older than he. "I have had too good a dinner to care
about oranges."

Mr. Halliburton drew William towards him, and looked steadfastly into
his face with a meaning smile. "Thank you, my darling," he whispered:
and William coloured excessively as he sat down.

Mr. Halliburton ate the oranges, and appeared as if he could have eaten
as many more. Then he leaned his head back on the pillow which was
placed over his chair, and presently fell asleep.

"Be very still, dear children," whispered Jane.

They looked round, saw why they were to be still, and hushed their busy
voices. William pulled a stool to his mother's feet, and took his seat
on it, holding her hand between his.

"Papa will soon be well again now," he softly said. "Don't you think so,
mamma?"

"Indeed I hope he will," she answered.

"But don't you _think_ it?" he persisted; and Jane detected an anxiety
in his tone. Could there have been a shadow of fear upon the boy's own
heart? "He said mamma, whilst you were at church, that in another month
he should be strong again."

"Not quite so soon as that, I fear, William. He has been so much
reduced, you know. Later: if he goes on as well as he appears to be
going on now."

Jane set the children to that renowned game. "Cross questions and
crooked answers." You may have had the pleasure of playing it: if so,
you will remember that it consists chiefly of whispering. It is
difficult to keep children quiet long together.

"Where am I?" cried a sudden voice, startling the children in the midst
of their silent whispers.

It came from Mr. Halliburton. He had slept about half an hour, and was
now looking round in bewilderment, his head starting away from the
pillow. "Where am I?" he repeated.

"You have been asleep, papa," cried Frank.

"Asleep! Oh, yes! I remember. You are all here, and it is Christmas
Day. I have been dreaming."

"What about, papa?"

Mr. Halliburton let his head fall back on the pillow again. He fixed his
eyes on vacancy, and there ensued a silence. The children looked at him.

"Singular things are dreams," he presently exclaimed. "I thought I was
on a broad, wide road--an immense road, and it was crowded with people.
We were all going one way, stumbling and tripping along----"

"What made you stumble, papa?" interrupted Janey, whose busy tongue was
ever ready to talk.

"The road was full of impediments," continued Mr. Halliburton, in a
dreamy tone, as if his mental vision were buried in the scene and he was
relating what had actually occurred. "Stones, and hillocks, and
brambles, and pools of shallow water, and long grass that got entangled
round our feet: nothing but difficulties and hindrances. At the end, in
the horizon, as far as the eye could reach--very, very far away
indeed--a hundred times as far away as the Malvern Hills appear to be
from us--there shone a brilliant light. So brilliant! You have never
seen anything like it in life, for the naked eye could not bear such
light. And yet we seemed to look at it, and our sight was not dazzled!"

"Perhaps it was fireworks?" interrupted Gar. Mr. Halliburton went on
without heeding him.

"We were all pressing on to get to the light, though the distant journey
seemed as if it could never end. So long as we kept our eyes fixed on
the light, we could see how we walked, and we passed over the rough
places without fear. Not without difficulty. But still we did pass them,
and advanced. But the moment we took our eyes from the light, then we
were stopped; some fell; some wandered aside, and would not try to go
forward; some were torn by the brambles; some fell into the water; some
stuck in the mud; in short, they could not get on any way. And yet they
knew--at least, it seemed that they knew--that if they would only lift
their eyes to the light, and keep them steadfastly on it, they were
certain to be helped, and to make progress. The few who did keep their
eyes on it--very few they were!--steadily bore onwards. The same
hindrances, the same difficulties were in their path, so that at times
they also felt tempted to despair--to fear they could not get on. But
their fears were groundless. So long as they did not take their eyes
from the light, it guided them in certainty and safety over the rough
places. It was a helper that could not fail; and it was ready to guide
every one--all those millions and millions of travellers. To guide them
throughout the whole of the way until they had gained it."

The children had become interested and were listening with hushed lips.
"Why did they not all let it guide them?" breathlessly asked William.
"Nothing can be more easy than to keep our eyes on a light that does
not dazzle. What did you do, papa?"

"It seemed that the light would only shine on one step at a time,"
continued Mr. Halliburton, not in answer to William, but evidently
absorbed in his own thoughts. "We could not see further than the one
step, but that was sufficient; for the moment we had taken it, then the
light shone upon another. And so we passed on, progressing to the end,
the light seeming brighter and brighter as we drew near to it."

"Did you get to it, papa?"

"I am trying to recollect, William. I seemed to be quite close to it. I
suppose I awoke then."

Mr. Halliburton paused, still in thought: but he said no more. Presently
he turned to his wife. "Is it nearly tea-time, Jane? I cannot think what
makes me so thirsty."

"We can have tea now, if you like," she replied. "I will go and see
about it."

She left the room, and Janey ran after her. In the kitchen, making a
great show and parade of being at work amidst plates and dishes, was a
damsel of fifteen, her hair curiously twisted about her head, and her
round, green eyes wide open. It was Betsy.

"That was good pudding," cried she, turning her face to Mrs.
Halliburton. "Better than mother's."

She alluded to a slice which had been given her. Jane smiled. "We want
tea, Betsy."

"Have it in directly, mum," was Miss Betsy's acquiescent response.

Scarcely were the words spoken, when a commotion was heard in the
sitting-room. The door was flung open, and the boys called out, the tone
of their voices one of utter alarm. Jane, the child, and the maid, made
but one step to the room. All Jane's fears had flown to "fire."

Fire had been almost less startling. Mr. Halliburton was lying back on
the pillow with a ghastly face, his mouth, and shirt-front stained with
blood. He could not speak, but he asked assistance with his imploring
eyes. In coughing he had broken a blood-vessel.

Jane did not faint; did not scream. Her whole heart turned sick, and she
felt that the end had come. Janey sank down on the floor with a faint
cry, and hid her face on the sofa. One glimpse was sufficient for Betsy.
The moment she had taken it, she subsided into a succession of shrieks;
flew out of the house and burst into that of Mr. Lynn. There she
terrified the sober family by announcing that Mr. Halliburton was lying
with his throat cut.

Mr. Lynn and Patience hurried in, ordering Anna to remain where she was.
They saw what was the matter, and placed him in a better position:
Patience helping Mrs. Halliburton to sponge his face.

"Shall I get the doctor

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