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Heriot's Choice: A Tale

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Title: Heriot's Choice: A Tale

Author: Rosa Nouchette Carey


        
Release date: April 18, 2011 [eBook #35901]
                Most recently updated: January 7, 2021

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HERIOT'S CHOICE: A TALE ***




Produced by Chris Curnow, Lindy Walsh, Mary Meehan and the
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                            HERIOT'S CHOICE

                                A Tale

                        BY ROSA NOUCHETTE CAREY

AUTHOR OF 'NELLIE'S MEMORIES,' 'NOT LIKE OTHER GIRLS,' 'SIR GODFREY'S
GRANDDAUGHTERS,' ETC.


    London
    MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
    NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
    1902

    _All rights reserved_

    _First Edition, 3 Vols. Crown 8vo, 31s. 6d., 1879_
    _Second Edition, 1 Vol. Crown 8vo, 6s., 1890_
    _Reprinted 1891, 1895,(3s. 6d.) 1898_
    _Transferred to Macmillan & Co., Ltd., August 1898, 1902_

                 TO
    The Rev. Canon Simpson, LL.D.
             THIS STORY
    IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED BY
             THE AUTHOR




CONTENTS


CHAPTER I. 'SAY YES, MILLY'

CHAPTER II. 'IF YOU PLEASE, MAY I BRING RAG AND TATTERS?'

CHAPTER III. VIA TEBAY

CHAPTER IV. MILDRED'S NEW HOME

CHAPTER V. OLIVE

CHAPTER VI. CAIN AND ABEL

CHAPTER VII. A MOTHER IN ISRAEL

CHAPTER VIII. 'ETHEL THE MAGNIFICENT'

CHAPTER IX. KIRKLEATHAM

CHAPTER X. THE RUSH-BEARING

CHAPTER XI. AN AFTERNOON IN CASTLESTEADS

CHAPTER XII. THE WELL-MEANING MISCHIEF-MAKER

CHAPTER XIII. A YOUTHFUL DRACO AND SOLON

CHAPTER XIV. RICHARD COEUR-DE-LION

CHAPTER XV. THE GATE AJAR

CHAPTER XVI. COMING BACK

CHAPTER XVII. THREE YEARS AFTERWARDS--A RETROSPECT

CHAPTER XVIII. OLIVE'S WORK

CHAPTER XIX. THE HEART OF COEUR-DE-LION

CHAPTER XX. WHARTON HALL FARM

CHAPTER XXI. UNDER STENKRITH BRIDGE

CHAPTER XXII. DR. HERIOT'S WARD

CHAPTER XXIII. 'AND MAIDENS CALL IT LOVE-IN-IDLENESS'

CHAPTER XXIV. THE DESERTED COTTON-MILL IN HILBECK GLEN

CHAPTER XXV. ROYAL

CHAPTER XXVI. 'IS THAT LETTER FOR ME, AUNT MILLY?'

CHAPTER XXVII. COOP KERNAN HOLE

CHAPTER XXVIII. DR. HERIOT'S MISTAKE

CHAPTER XXIX. THE COTTAGE AT FROGNAL

CHAPTER XXX. 'I CANNOT SING THE OLD SONGS'

CHAPTER XXXI. 'WHICH SHALL IT BE?'

CHAPTER XXXII. A TALK IN FAIRLIGHT GLEN

CHAPTER XXXIII. 'YES'

CHAPTER XXXIV. JOHN HERIOT'S WIFE

CHAPTER XXXV. OLIVE'S DECISION

CHAPTER XXXVI. BERENGARIA




HERIOT'S CHOICE




CHAPTER I

'SAY YES, MILLY'

    'Man's importunity is God's opportunity.'

    'O fair, O fine, O lot to be desired!
    Early and late my heart appeals to me,
    And says, "O work, O will--Thou man, be fired,
    To earn this lot--" she says--"I would not be
    A worker for mine own bread, or one hired
    For mine own profit. O, I would be free
    To work for others; love so earned of them
    Should be my wages and my diadem."'--Jean Ingelow.


'Say yes, Milly.'

Three short words, and yet they went straight to Milly's heart. It was
only the postscript of a long, sorrowful letter--the finale brief but
eloquent--of a quiet, dispassionate appeal; but it sounded to Mildred
Lambert much as the Macedonian cry must have sounded of old: 'Come over
and help us.'

Mildred's soft, womanly nature was capable of only one response to such
a demand. Assent was more than probable, and bordered on certainty, even
before the letter was laid aside, and while her cheek was yet paling at
the thought of new responsibilities and the vast unknown, wherein duty
must tread on the heel of inclination, and life must press out thought
and the worn-out furrows of intro- and retrospection.

And so it was that the page of a negative existence was turned; and
Mildred agreed to become the inmate of her brother's home.

'Aunt Milly!' How pleasant it would be to hear that again, and to be in
the centre of warm young life and breathless activity, after the torpor
of long waiting and watching, and the hush and the blank and the
drawn-out pain, intense yet scarcely felt, of the last seven years.

To begin life in its fulness at eight-and-twenty; to taste of its real
sweets and bitters, after it had offered to her nothing but the pale
brackish flavour of regret for a passing youth and wasted powers,
responsive rather than suggestive (if there be such monstrous anomaly on
the whole face of God's creation), nothing being wasted, and all
pronounced good, that comes direct from the Divine Hand. To follow fresh
tracks when the record of the years had left nothing but the traces of
the chariot-wheels of daily monotonous duties that dragged heavily, when
summer and winter and seed-time and harvest found Mildred still through
those seven revolving courses of seasons within the walls of that quiet
sickroom.

It is given to some women to look back on these long level blanks of
life; on mysteries of waiting, that intervene between youth and work,
when the world's noise comes dimly to them, like the tumult of city's
streets through closed shutters; when pain and hardship seem preferable
to their death-in-life, and they long to prove the armour that has grown
rusted with disuse.

How many a volume could be written, and with profit, on the watchers as
well as the workers of life, on the bystanders as well as the sufferers.
'Patient hearts their pain to see.' Well has this thought been embodied
in the words of a nineteenth-century Christian poet; while to many a
pallid malcontent, wearied with inaction and panting for strife, might
the Divine words still be applied: 'Could ye not have watched with Me
one hour?'

Mildred Lambert's life for eight-and-twenty years might be summed up in
a few sentences. A happy youth, scarcely clouded by the remembrance of a
dead father and the graves of the sisters that came between her infancy
and the maturer age of her only brother; and then the blurred brightness
when Arnold, who had married before he had taken orders, became the
hard-working vicar of a remote Westmorland parish--and he and his wife
and children passed out of Milly's daily life.

Milly was barely nineteen when this happened; but even then her
mother--who had always been ailing--was threatened with a chronic
complaint involving no ordinary suffering; and now began the long seven
years' watching which faded Milly's youth and roses together.

Milly had never known how galling had been the strain to the nerves--how
intense her own tenacity of will and purpose, till she had folded her
mother's pale hands together; and with a lassitude too great for tears,
felt as she crept away that her work was finished none too soon, and
that even her firm young strength was deserting her.

Trouble had not come singly to Mildred. News of her sister-in-law's
unexpected death had reached her, just before her mother's last brief
attack, and her brother had been too much stunned by his own loss to
come to her in her loneliness.

Not that Milly wondered at this. She loved Arnold dearly; but he was so
much older, and they had grown necessarily so apart. He and his wife had
been all in all to each other; and the family in the vicarage had seemed
so perfected and completed that the little petted Milly of old days
might well plead that she was all but forgotten.

But Betha's death had altered this; and Arnold's letter, written as good
men will write when their heart is well-nigh broken, came to Mildred as
she sat alone in her black dress in her desolate home.

New work--unknown work--and that when youth's elasticity seemed gone,
and spirits broken or at least dangerously quieted by the morbid
atmosphere of sickness and hypochondria. They say the prisoner of twenty
years will weep at leaving his cell. The tears that Mildred shed that
night were more for the mother she had lost and the old safe life of the
past, than pity for the widowed brother and motherless children.

Do we ever outlive our selfishness? Do we ever cease to be fearful for
ourselves?

And yet Mildred was weary of solitude. Arnold was her own, her only
brother; and Aunt Milly--well, perhaps it might be pleasant.

'Say yes, Milly--for Betha's sake--for my darling's sake (she was so
fond of you), if not for mine. Think how her children miss her! Matters
are going wrong already. It is not their fault, poor things; but I am so
helpless to decide. I used to leave everything to her, and we are all so
utterly lost.

'I could not have asked you if our mother had lingered; but your
faithful charge, my poor Milly, is over--your martyrdom, as Betha called
it. She was so bright, and loved to have things so bright round her,
that your imprisonment in the sickroom quite oppressed her. It was "poor
Milly," "our dear good Milly," to the last. I wish her girls were more
like her; but she only laughed at their odd ways, and told me I should
live to be proud of them.

'Olive is as left-handed as ever, and Chrissy little better. Richard is
mannish, but impracticable, and a little difficult to understand. We
should none of us get on at all but for Roy: he has his mother's
heart-sunshine and loving smile; but even Roy has his failures.

'We want a woman among us, Milly--a woman with head and hands, and a
tolerable stock of patience. Even Heriot is in difficulties, but that
will keep till you come--for you will come, will you not, my dear?'

'Come! how could you doubt me, Arnold?' replied Mildred, as she laid
down the letter; but 'God help me and them' followed close on the sigh.

'After all, it is a clear call to duty,' she soliloquised. 'It is not my
business to decide on my fitness or unfitness, or to measure myself to
my niche. We are not promised strength before the time, and no one can
tell before he tries whether he be likely to fail. Richard's
mannishness, and Olive's left-handed ways, and Chrissy's poorer
imitation, shall not daunt me. Arnold wants me. I shall be of use to
some one again, and I will go.'

But Mildred, for all her bravery, grew a little pale over her brother's
second letter:--'You must come at once, and not wait to summer and
winter it, or, as some of our old women say, "to bide the bitterment
on't." Shall I send Richard to help you about your house business, and
to settle your goods and chattels? Let the old furniture go, Milly; it
has stood a fair amount of wear and tear, and you are young yet, my
dear. Shall I send Dick? He was his mother's right hand. The lad's
mannish for his nineteen years.' Mannish again! This Richard began to be
formidable. He was a bright well-looking lad of thirteen when Mildred
had seen him last. But she remembered his mother's fond descriptions of
Cardie's cleverness and goodness. One sentence had particularly struck
her at the time. Betha had been comparing her boys, and dwelling on
their good points with a mother's partiality. 'As to Roy, he needs no
praise of mine; he stands so well in every one's estimation--and in his
own, too--that a little fault-finding would do him good. Cardie is
different: his diffidence takes the form of pride; no one understands
him but I--not even his father. The one speaks out too much, and the
other too little; but one of these days he will find out his son's good
heart.'

'I wonder if Arnold will recognise me,' thought Mildred, sorrowfully,
that night, as she sat by her window, looking out on her little strip of
garden, shimmering in the moonlight. 'I feel so old and changed, and
have grown into such quiet ways. Are there some women who are never
young, I wonder? Am I one of them? Is it not strange,' she continued,
musingly, 'that such beautiful lives as Betha's are struck so suddenly
out of the records of years, while I am left to take up the incompleted
work she discharged so lovingly? Dear Betha! what a noble heart it was!
Arnold reverenced as much as he loved her. How vain to think of
replacing, even in the faintest degree; one of the sweetest women this
earth ever saw: sweet, because her whole life was in exact harmony with
her surroundings.' And there rose before Mildred's eyes a faint image
that often haunted her--of a face with smiling eyes, and brown hair just
touched with gold--and the small firm hand that, laid on unruly lips,
could hush coming wrath, and smooth the angry knitting of baby brows.

It was strange, she thought, that neither Olive nor Chrissy were like
their mother. Roy's fairness and steady blue eyes were her sole
relics--Roy, who was such a pretty little fellow when Mildred had seen
him last.

Mildred tried to trace out a puzzled thought in her head before she
slept that night. A postscript in Arnold's letter, vaguely worded, but
most decidedly mysterious, gave rise to a host of conjectures.

'I have just found out that Heriot's business must be settled long
before the end of next month--when you come to us. You know him by name
and repute, though not personally. I have given him your address. I
think it will be better for you both to talk the matter over, and to
give it your full consideration, before you start for the north. Make
any arrangements you like about the child. Heriot's a good fellow, and
deserves to be helped; he has been everything to us through our
trouble.'

What could Arnold mean? Betha's chatty letters--thoroughly womanly in
their gossip--had often spoken of Arnold's friend, Dr. Heriot, and of
his kindness to their boys. She had described him as a man of great
talents, and an undoubted acquisition to their small society. 'Arnold
(who was her universal referee) wondered that a man like Dr. Heriot
should bury himself in a Westmorland valley. Some one had told them that
he had given up a large West End practice. There was some mystery about
him; his wife made him miserable. No one knew the rights or the wrongs
of it; but they would rather believe any thing than that he was to
blame.'

And in another letter she wrote: 'A pleasant evening has just been sadly
interrupted. The Bishop was here and one or two others, Dr. Heriot among
them; but a telegram summoning him to his wife's deathbed had just
reached him.

'Arnold, who stood by him, says he turned as pale as death as he read
it; but he only put it into his hand without a word, and left the room.
I could not help following him with a word of comfort, remembering how
good he was to us when we had nearly lost Chrissy last year; but he
looked at me so strangely that the words died on my lips. "When death
only relieves us of a burden, Mrs. Lambert, we touch on a sorrow too
great for any ordinary comfort. You are sorry for me, but pray for her."
And wringing my hand, he turned away. She must have been a bad wife to
him. He is a good man; I am sure of it.'

How strange that Dr. Heriot should be coming to see her, and on private
business, too! It seemed so odd of Arnold to send him; and yet it was
pleasant to feel that she was to be consulted and her opinion respected.
'Mildred, who loves to help everybody, must find some way of helping
poor Heriot,' had been her brother's concluding words.

Mildred Lambert's house was one of those modest suburban residences
lying far back on a broad sunny road bordering on Clapham Common; but on
a May afternoon even Laurel Cottage, unpretentious as it was, was not
devoid of attractions, with its trimly cut lawn and clump of
sweet-scented lilac and yellow drooping laburnum, stretching out long
fingers of gold in the sunshine.

Mildred was sitting alone in her little drawing-room, ostensibly sorting
her papers, but in reality falling into an occasional reverie, lulled by
the sunshine and the silence, when a brisk footstep on the gravel
outside the window made her start. Visitors were rare in her secluded
life, and, with the exception of the doctor and the clergyman, and
perhaps a sympathising neighbour, few ever invaded the privacy of Laurel
Cottage; the light, well-assured footstep sounded strange in Mildred's
ears, and she listened with inward perturbation to Susan's brief
colloquy with the stranger.

'Yes, her mistress was disengaged; would he send in his name and
business, or would he walk in?' And the door was flung open a little
testily by Susan, who objected to this innovation on their usual
afternoon quiet.

'Forgive me, if I am intruding, Miss Lambert, but your brother told me I
might call.'

'Dr. Heriot?'

'Yes; he has kept his promise then, and has written to inform you of my
intended visit? We have heard so much of each other that I am sure we
ought to need no special introduction.' But though Dr. Heriot, as he
said this, held out his hand with a frank smile, a grave, penetrating
look accompanied his words; he was a man rarely at fault, but for the
moment he seemed a little perplexed.

'Yes, I expected you; will you sit down?' replied Mildred, simply. She
was not a demonstrative woman, and of late had grown into quiet ways
with strangers. Dr. Heriot's tone had slightly discomposed her;
instinctively she felt that he failed to recognise in her some given
description, and that a brief embarrassment was the result.

Mildred was right. Dr. Heriot was trying to puzzle out some connection
between the worn, soft-eyed woman before him, and the fresh girlish face
that had so often smiled down on him from the vicarage wall, with shy,
demure eyes, and the roses in her belt not brighter than the pure
colouring of her bloom. The laughing face had grown sad and
quiet--painfully so, Dr. Heriot thought--and faint lines round mouth and
brow bore witness to the strain of a wearing anxiety and habitual
repression of feeling; the skin of the forehead was too tightly
stretched, and the eyes shone too dimly for health; while the thin,
colourless cheek, seen in juxtaposition to the black dress, told their
own story of youthful vitality sacrificed to the inexorable demand of
hypochondria.

But it was a refined, womanly face, and one that could not fail to
interest; a kind patient soul looked through the quiet eyes; youth and
its attractions had faded, but a noble unconsciousness had replaced it;
in talking to her you felt instinctively that the last person of whom
Mildred thought was herself. But if Dr. Heriot were disappointed in the
estimate he had formed of his friend's sister, Mildred on her side was
not the less surprised at his appearance.

She had imagined him a man of imposing aspect--a man of height and
inches, with iron-gray hair. The real Dr. Heriot was dark and slight,
rather undersized than otherwise, with a dark moustache, and black,
closely-cropped hair, which made him look younger than he really was. It
was not a handsome face; at first sight there was something stern and
forbidding about it, but the lines round the mouth relaxed pleasantly
when he smiled, and the eyes had a clear, straightforward look; while
about the whole man there was a certain indefinable air of
good-breeding, as of one long accustomed to hold his own amongst men who
were socially his superiors.

Mildred had taken her measurement of Dr. Heriot in her own quiet way
long before she had exhausted her feminine budget of conversation: the
fineness of the weather, the long dusty journey, his need of
refreshment, and inquiries after her brother's health and spirits.

'He is not a man to be embarrassed, but his business baffles him,' she
thought to herself; 'he is ill at ease, and unhappy. I must try and meet
him half-way.' And accordingly Mildred began in her straightforward
manner.

'It is a long way to come up on business, Dr. Heriot. Arnold told me you
had difficulties, though he did not explain their nature. Strange to
say, he spoke as though I could be of some assistance to you!'

'I have no right to burden you,' he returned, somewhat incoherently;
'you look little fit now to cope with such responsibilities as must fall
to your share. Would not rest and change be beneficial before entering
on new work?'

'I am not talking of myself,' returned Mildred, with a faint smile,
though her colour rose at the unmistakable tone of sympathy in Dr.
Heriot's voice. 'My time for rest will come presently. Is it true, Dr.
Heriot, that I can be of any service to you?'

'You shall judge,' was the answer. 'I will meet your kindness with
perfect frankness. My business in London at the present moment concerns
a little girl--a distant relative of my poor wife's--who has lost her
only remaining parent. Her father and I were friends in our student
days; and in a weak moment I accepted a presumptive guardianship over
the child. I thought Philip Ellison was as likely as not to outlive me,
and as he had some money left him there seemed very little risk about
the whole business.'

Mildred gave him a glance full of intelligence. It was clear to her now
wherein Dr. Heriot's difficulty lay. He was still too young a man to
have the sole guardianship of a motherless orphan.

'Philip was but a few years older than myself, and, as he explained to
me, it was only a purely business arrangement, and that in case of his
death he wished to have a disinterested person to look after his
daughter's interest. Things were different with me then, and I had no
scruples in acceding to his wish. But Philip Ellison was a bad manager,
and on an evil day was persuaded to invest his money in some rotten
company--heaven knows what!--and as a natural consequence lost every
penny. Since then I have heard little about him. He was an artist, but
not a rising one; he travelled a great deal in France and Germany, and
now and then he would send over pictures to be sold, but I am afraid he
made out only a scanty subsistence for himself and his little daughter.
A month ago I received news of his death, and as she has not a near
relation living, except some cousins in Australia, I find I have the
sole charge of a girl of fourteen; and I think you will confess, Miss
Lambert, that the position has its difficulties. What in the
world'--here Dr. Heriot's face grew a little comical--'am I to do with a
raw school-girl of fourteen?'

'What does Arnold suggest?' asked Mildred, quietly. In her own mind she
was perfectly aware what would be her brother's first generous thought.

'It was my intention to put the child at some good English school, and
have her trained as a governess; but it is a dreary prospect for her,
poor little soul, and somehow I feel as though I ought to do better for
Philip Ellison's daughter. He was one of the proudest men that ever
lived, and was so wrapped up in his child.'

'But my brother has negatived that, and proposed another plan,'
interrupted Mildred, softly. She knew her brother well.

'He was generous enough to propose that she should go at once to the
vicarage until some better arrangement could be made. He assured me that
there was ample room for her, and that she could share Olive's and
Chrissy's lessons; but he begged me to refer it to you, as he felt he
had no right to make such an addition to the family circle without your
full consent.'

'Arnold is very good, but he must have known that I could have no
objection to offer to any plan of which he approves. He is so
kind-hearted, that one could not bear to damp his enthusiasm.'

'Yes, but think a moment before you decide,' returned Dr Heriot,
earnestly. 'It is quite true that I was bound to your brother and his
wife by no ordinary ties of friendship, and that they would have done
anything for me, but this ought not to be allowed to influence you. If I
accept Mr. Lambert's offer, at least for the present, I shall be adding
to your work, increasing your responsibilities. Olive and Chrissy will
tax your forbearance sufficiently without my bringing this poor little
waif of humanity upon your kindness; and you look so far from strong,'
he continued, with a quick change of tone.

'I am quite ready for my work,' returned Mildred, firmly; 'looks do not
always speak the truth, Dr. Heriot. Please let me have the charge of
your little ward; she will not be a greater stranger to me than Olive
and Chrissy are. Why, Chrissy was only nine when I saw her last. Ah,'
continued Mildred, folding her hands, and speaking almost to herself,
'if you knew what it will be to me to see myself surrounded by young
faces, to be allowed to love them, and to try to win their love in
return--to feel I am doing real work in God's world, with a real trust
and talent given to me--ah! you must let me help you in this, Dr.
Heriot; you were so good to Betha, and it will make Arnold happy.' And
Mildred stretched out her hand to him with a new impulse, so unlike the
composed manner in which she had hitherto spoken, that Dr. Heriot,
surprised and touched, could find no response but 'God bless you for
this, Miss Lambert!'

Mildred's gentle primness was thawing visibly under Dr. Heriot's
pleasant manners. By and by, as she presided at the sunny little
tea-table, and pressed welcome refreshment on her weary guest, she heard
more about this strange early friendship of his, and shared his surmises
as to the probable education and character of his ward.

'She must be a regular Bohemian by this time,' he observed. 'From what I
can hear they were never long in one place. It must be a strange
training for a girl, living in artists' studios, and being the sole
companion of a silent, taciturn man such as Philip was.'

'She will hardly have the characteristics of other girls,' observed
Mildred.

'She cannot possibly be more out of the common than Olive. Olive has all
sorts of absurd notions in her head. It is odd Mrs. Lambert's training
should have failed so signally in her girls. I am afraid your
preciseness will be sometimes offended,' he continued, looking round the
room, which, with all its homeliness, had the little finishes that a
woman's hand always gives. 'Olive might have arranged those flowers, but
she would have forgotten to water them, or to exclude their presence
when dead.'

'You are a nice observer,' returned Mildred, smiling. 'Do not make me
afraid of my duties beforehand, as though I do not exactly know how all
the rooms look! Betha's pretty drawing-room trampled by dirty boots,
Arnold's study a hopeless litter of books, not a corner of the
writing-table clear. Chrissy used them as bricks,' she continued,
laughing. 'Roy and she had a mighty Tower of Babel one day. You should
have seen Arnold's look when he found out that _The Seven Lamps of
Architecture_ laid the foundation; but Betha only laughed, and told him
it served him right.'

'But she kept them in order, though. In her quiet way she was an
excellent disciplinarian. Well, Miss Lambert, I am trespassing overmuch
on your goodness. To-morrow I am to make my ward's acquaintance--one of
the clique has brought her over from Dieppe--and I am to receive her
from his hands. Would it be troubling you too much if I ask you to
accompany me?--the poor child will feel so forlorn with only men round
her.'

'I will go with you and bring her home. No, please, do not thank me, Dr.
Heriot. If you knew how lonely I am here----' and for the first time
Mildred's eyes filled with tears.




CHAPTER II

'IF YOU PLEASE, MAY I BRING RAG AND TATTERS?'

                    'O, my Father's hand,
    Stroke heavily, heavily the poor hair down,
    Draw, press the child's head closer to thy knee--
    I'm still too young, too young, to sit alone.'--Aurora Leigh.


So this was Polly.

It was only a shabby studio, where poverty and art fought a hand-to-hand
struggle for the bare maintenance, but among the after scenes of her
busy life Mildred never forgot the place where she first saw Dr.
Heriot's ward; it lingered in her memory, a fair, haunting picture as of
something indescribably sweet and sad.

Its few accessories were so suggestive of a truer taste made impossible
by paucity of success; an unfinished painting all dim grays and pallid,
watery blues; a Cain fleeing out of a blurred outline of clouds;
fragmentary snatches of colour warming up pitiless details; rickety
chairs and a broken-down table; a breadth of faded tapestry; a jar of
jonquils, the form pure Tuscan, the material rough earthenware, a
plaster Venus, mutilated but grand, shining out from the dull red
background of a torn curtain. A great unfurnished room, full of yellow
light and warm sunshine, and, standing motionless in a ladder of motes
and beams, with brown eyes drinking in the twinkling glory like a young
eagle, was a girl in a shabby black dress, with thin girlish arms
clasped across her breast. For a moment Dr. Heriot paused, and he and
Mildred exchanged glances; the young figure in its forlornness came to
them like a mournful revelation; the immobility was superb, the youthful
languor pitiful. As Dr. Heriot touched her, she turned on them eyes full
of some lost dream, and a large tear that had been gathering
unconsciously brimmed over and splashed down on his hand.

'My child, have we startled you? Mr. Fabian told us to come up.' For a
moment she looked bewildered. Her thoughts had evidently travelled a
long way, but with consciousness came a look of relief and pleasure.

'Oh, I knew you would come--papa told me so. Oh, why have you been so
long?--it is three months almost since papa died. Oh, poor papa! poor
papa!' and the flush of joy died out of her face as, clasping her small
nervous hands round Dr. Heriot's arm, she laid her face down on them and
burst into a passion of tears.

'I sent for you directly I heard; they kept me in ignorance--have they
not told you so? Poor child, how unkind you must have thought me!' and a
grieved look came over Dr. Heriot's face as he gently stroked the
closely-cropped head, that felt like the dark, soft plumage of some
bird.

'No, I never thought you that,' she sobbed. 'I was only so lonely and
tired of waiting; and then I got ill, and Mr. Fabian was good to me, and
so were the others. But papa had left me to you, and I wanted you to
fetch me. You have come to take me home, have you not?'

She looked up in his face pleadingly as she said this; she spoke in a
voice sweet, but slightly foreign, but with a certain high-bred accent,
and there was something unique in her whole appearance that struck her
guardian with surprise. The figure was slight and undeveloped, with the
irregularity of fourteen; but the ordinary awkwardness of girlhood was
replaced by dignity, almost grace, of movement. She was
dark-complexioned, but her face was a perfect oval, and the slight down
on the upper lip gave a characteristic but not unpleasing expression to
the mouth, which was firm but flexible; the hair had evidently been cut
off in recent illness, for it was tucked smoothly behind the ears, and
was perfectly short behind, which would have given her a boyish look but
for the extreme delicacy of the whole contour.

'You have come to take me home, have you not?' she repeated anxiously.

'This lady has,' he replied, with a look at Mildred, who had stood
modestly in the background. 'I wish I had a home to offer you, my dear;
but my wife is dead, and----'

'Then you will want me all the more,' she returned eagerly. 'Papa and I
have so often talked about you; he told me how good you were, and how
unhappy.'

'Hush, Mary,' laying his hand lightly over her lips; but Mildred could
see his colour changed painfully. But she interrupted him a little
petulantly--

'Nobody calls me Mary, and it sounds so cold and strange.'

'What then, my dear?'

'Why, Polly, of course!' opening her brown eyes widely; 'I have always
been Polly--always.'

'It shall be as you will, my child.'

'How gently you speak! Are you ever irritable, like papa, I wonder?--he
used to be so ill and silent, and then, when we tried to rouse him, he
could not bear it. Who is this lady, and why do you say you have no home
for me?'

'She means to be our good friend, Polly--there, will that do? But you
are such a dignified young lady, I should never have ventured to call
you that unasked.'

'Why not?' she repeated, darting at him a clear, straightforward glance.
Evidently his reticence ruffled her; but Dr. Heriot skilfully evaded the
brief awkwardness.

'This lady is Miss Lambert, and she is the sister of one of my best
friends; she is going to take charge of his girls and boys, who have
lost their mother, and she has kindly offered to take charge of you
too.'

'She is very good,' returned Polly, coldly; 'very, very good, I mean,'
as though she had repented of a slight hauteur. 'But I have never had
anything to do with children. Papa and I were always alone, and I would
much rather live with you; you have no idea what a housekeeper I shall
make you. I can dress salad and cook _omelettes_, and Nanette taught me
how to make _potage_. I used to take a large basket myself to the market
when we lived at Dresden, when Nanette was so bad with rheumatism.'

'What an astonishing Polly!'

'Ah! you are laughing at me,' drawing herself up proudly, and turning
away so that he should not see the tears in her eyes.

'My dear Polly, is that a "crime"?'

'It is when people are in earnest I have said nothing that deserves
laughing at--have I, Miss Lambert?' with a sweet, candid glance that won
Mildred's heart.

'No, indeed; I was wishing that my nieces were like you.'

'I did not mean that--I was not asking for praise,' stammered Polly,
turning a vivid scarlet. 'I only wanted my guardian to know that I
should not be useless to him. I can do much more than that I can mend
and darn better than Annette, who was three years older. You are smiling
still.'

'If I smile, it is only with pleasure to know my poor friend had such a
good daughter. Listen to me, Polly--how old are you?'

'Fourteen last February.'

'What a youthful Polly!--too young, I fear, to comprehend the position.
And then with such Bohemian surroundings--that half-crazed painter,
Fabian,' he muttered, 'and a purblind fiddler and his wife. My poor
child,' he continued, laying his hand on her head lightly, and speaking
as though moved in spite of himself, 'as long as you want a friend, you
will never find a truer one than John Heriot. I will be your guardian,
adopted father, what you will; but,' with a firmness of voice that
struck the girl in spite of herself, 'I cannot have you to live with me,
Polly.'

'Why not?' she asked, pleadingly.

'Because it would be placing us both in a false position; because I
could not incur such a responsibility; because no one is so fit to take
charge of a young girl as a good motherly woman, such as you will find,
in Miss Lambert.' And as the girl looked at him bewildered and
disappointed, he continued kindly, 'You must forget this pleasant dream,
Polly; perhaps some day, when your guardian is gray-haired, it may come
to pass; but I shall often think how good my adopted daughter meant to
be to me.'

'Shall I never see you then?' asked Polly mournfully.

If these were English ways, the girl thought, what a cold, heartless
place it must be! Had not Mr. Fabian promised to adopt her if the
English guardian should not be forthcoming? Even Herr Schreiber had
offered to keep her out of his poor salary, when her father's death had
left her dependent on the little community of struggling artists and
musicians. Polly was having her first lesson in the troublesome
_convenances_ of life, and to the affectionate, ardent girl it was
singularly unpalatable.

'I am afraid you will see me every day,' replied her guardian, with much
gravity. 'I shall not be many yards off--just round the corner, and
across the market-place. No, no, Miss Polly; you will not get rid of me
so easily. I mean to direct your studies, haunt your play-time, and be
the cross old Mentor, as Olive calls me.'

'Oh, I am so glad!' returned the girl earnestly, and with a sparkle of
pleasure in her eyes. 'I like you so much already that I could not bear
you to do wrong.'

It was Heriot's turn to look puzzled.

'Would it not be wrong,' she returned, answering the look, 'when papa
trusted me to you, and told me on his deathbed that you would be my
second father, if you were to send me right away from you, and take no
notice of me at all!'

'I should hardly do that in any case,' returned her guardian, seriously.
'What a downright, unconventional little soul you are, Polly! You may
set your mind at rest; your father's trust shall be redeemed, his child
shall never be neglected by me. But come--you have not made Miss
Lambert's acquaintance. I hope you mean to tell her next you like her.'

'She looks good, but sad--are you sad?' touching Mildred's sleeve
timidly.

'A little. I have been in trouble, like you, and have lost my mother,'
replied Milly, simply; but she was not prepared for the suddenness with
which the girl threw her arms round her neck and kissed her.

'I might have thought--your black dress and pale face,' she murmured
remorsefully. 'Every one is sad, every one is in trouble--myself, my
guardian, and you.'

'But you are the youngest--it falls heaviest on you.'

'What am I to call you? I don't like Miss Lambert, it sounds stiff,'
with a little shrug and movement of the hands, rather graceful than
otherwise.

'I shall be Aunt Milly to the others, why not to you?' returned Mildred,
smiling.

'Ah, that sounds nice. Papa had a sister, only she died; I used to call
her Aunt Amy. Aunt Milly! ah, I can say that easily; it makes me feel at
home, somehow. Am I to come home with you to-day, Aunt Milly?'

'Yes, my dear.' Milly absolutely blushed with pleasure at hearing
herself so addressed. 'I am not going to my new home for three weeks,
but I shall be glad of your company, if you will come and help me.'

'Poor Mr. Fabian will be sorry, but he is expecting to lose me. There is
one thing more I must ask, Aunt Milly.'

'A dozen if you will, dear.'

'Oh, but this is a great thing. Oh, please, dear Aunt Milly, may I bring
Rag and Tatters?' And as Mildred looked too astonished for reply, she
continued, hurriedly: 'Tatters never left papa for an instant, he was
licking his hand when he died; and Rag is such a dear old thing. I could
not be happy anywhere without my pets.' And without waiting for an
answer she left the room; and the next instant the light, springy tread
was heard in company with a joyous scuffling and barking; then a large
shaggy terrier burst into the room, and Polly followed with a great
tortoise-shell cat in her arms.

'Isn't Rag handsome, except for this?' touching the animal where a scrap
of fur had been rudely mauled off, and presented a bald appearance; 'he
has lost the sight of one eye too. Veteran Rag, we used to call him. He
is so fond of me, and follows me like a dog; he used to go out with me
in Dresden, only the dogs hunted him.'

'You may bring your pets, Polly,' was Mildred's indulgent answer; 'I
think I can answer for my brother's goodwill.'

Dr. Heriot shook his head at her laughingly.

'I am afraid you are no rigid disciplinarian, Miss Lambert; but it is
"Love me, love my dog" with Polly, I expect. Now, my child, you must get
ready for the flitting, while I go in search of Mr. Fabian. From the
cloud of tobacco-smoke that met us on entering, I fancy he is on the
next story.'

'He is with the Rogers, I expect. His model disappointed him, and he is
not working to-day. If you will wait a moment, I will fetch him.'

'What an original character!' observed Dr. Heriot as the door closed.

'A loveable one,' was Mildred's rejoinder. She was interested and roused
by the new phase of life presented to her to-day. She looked on amused,
yet touched, when Polly returned, leading by the hand her
pseudo-guardian--a tall old man, with fiery eyes and scanty gray hair
falling down his neck, in a patched dressing-gown that had once been a
gorgeous Turkey-red. It was the first time that the simple woman had
gazed on genius down-at-heel, and faring on the dry crust of unrequited
self-respect.

'There is my Cain, sir; a new conception--unfinished, if you will--but
you may trace the idea I am feebly striving to carry out. Sometimes I
fancy it will be my last bit of work. Look at that dimly-traced figure
beside the murderer--that is his good angel, who is to accompany the
branded one in his life-long exile. I always believed in Cain's
repentance--see the remorse in his eyes. I caught that expression on a
Spanish sailor's face when he had stabbed his mate in a drunken brawl. I
saw my Cain then.'

Needy genius could be garrulous, as Mildred found. The old man warmed at
Polly's open-eyed admiration and Mildred's softly-uttered praise;
appreciation was to him what meat and drink would be to more material
natures. He looked almost majestic as he stood before them, in his
ragged dressing-gown, descanting on the merits of his Tobit, that had
sold for an old song. 'A Neapolitan fisher-boy had sat for my angel;
every one paints angels with yellow hair and womanish faces, but I am
not one of those that must follow the beaten track--I formed my angel on
the loftiest ideal of Italian beauty, and got sneered at for my pains.
One ought to coin a new proverb nowadays, Dr. Heriot--Originality moves
contempt. People said the subject was not a taking one; Tobit was too
much like an old clothes man, or a veritable descendant of Moses and
Sons. There was no end to the quips and jeers; even our set had a notion
it would not do, and I sold it to a dealer at a sum that would hardly
cover a month's rent,' finished the old man, with a mixture of pathos
and dignity.

'After all, public taste is a sort of lottery,' observed Dr. Heriot;
'true genius is not always requited in this world, if it offends the
tender prejudices of preconceived ideas.'

'The worship of the golden image fills up too large a space in the
market-place,' replied Mr. Fabian, solemnly, 'while the blare of
instruments covers the fetish-adoration of its votaries. The world is an
eating and drinking and money-getting world, and art, cramped and
stifled, goes to the wall.'

'Nay, nay; I have not so bad an opinion of my generation as all that,'
interposed Dr. Heriot, smiling. 'I have great faith in the underlying
goodness of mankind. One has to break through a very stiff outer-crust,
I grant you; but there are soft places to be found in most natures.'
And, as the other shook his head--'Want of success has made you a little
down-hearted on the subject of our human charities, Mr. Fabian; but
there is plenty of reverence and art-worship in the world still. I
predict a turn of the wheel in your case yet. Cain may still glower down
on us from the walls of the Royal Academy.'

'I hope so, before the hand has lost its cunning. But I am too
egotistical. And so you are going to take Polly from me--from Dad
Fabian, ay?'--looking at the young girl fondly.

'Indeed, Mr. Fabian, I must thank you for your goodness to my ward. Poor
child! she would have fared badly without it. Polly, you must ask Miss
Lambert to bring you to see this kind friend again.'

'Nay, nay; this is a poor place for ladies to visit,' replied the other,
hastily, as he brushed away the fragment of a piece of snuff with a
trembling hand; but he looked gratified, notwithstanding. 'Polly has
been a good girl--a very good girl--and weathered gallantly through a
very ticklish illness, though some of us thought she would never reach
England alive.'

'Were you so ill, Polly?' inquired her guardian anxiously.

'Dad Fabian says so; and he ought to know, for he and Mrs. Rogers nursed
me. Oh, he was so good to me,' continued Polly, clinging to him. 'He
used to sit up with me part of the night and tell me stories when I got
better, and go without his dinner sometimes to buy me fruit. Mrs. Rogers
was good-natured, too; but she was noisy. I like Dad Fabian's nursing
best.'

'You see she fretted for her father,' interposed the artist. 'Polly's
one of the right sort--never gives way while there is work to be done;
and so the strain broke her down. She has lost most of her pretty hair.
Ellison used to be so proud of her curls; but it suits her, somehow. But
you must not keep your new friends waiting, my child. There, God bless
you! We shall be seeing you back again here one of these days, I dare
say.'

Mildred felt as though her new life had begun from the moment the young
stranger crossed her threshold. Polly bade her guardian good-bye the
next day with unfeigned regret. 'I shall always feel I belong to him,
though he cannot have me to live with him,' she said, as she followed
Mildred into the house. 'Papa told me to love him, and I will. He is
different, somehow, from what I expected,' she continued. 'I thought he
would be gray-haired, like papa. He looks younger, and is not tall. Papa
was such a grand-looking man, and so handsome; but he has kind eyes--has
he not, Aunt Milly?--and speaks so gently.'

Mildred was quite ready to pronounce an eulogium on Dr. Heriot. She had
already formed a high estimate of her brother's friend; his ready
courtesy and highly-bred manners had given her a pleasing impression,
while his gentleness to his ward, and a certain lofty tone of mind in
his conversation, proved him a man of good heart and of undoubted
ability. There was a latent humour at times discernible, and a certain
caustic wit, which, tinged as it was with melancholy, was highly
attractive. She felt that a man who had contrived to satisfy Betha's
somewhat fastidious taste could not fail to be above the ordinary
standard, and, though she did not quite echo Polly's enthusiasm, she was
able to respond sympathetically to the girl's louder praise.

Before many days were over Polly had transferred a large portion of
loving allegiance to Mildred herself. Women--that is, ladies--had not
been very plentiful in her small circle. One or two of the artists'
wives had been kind to her; but Polly, who was an aristocrat by nature,
had rather rebelled against their want of refinement, and discovered
flaws which showed that, young as she was, she had plenty of
discernment.

'Mrs. Rogers was noisy, and showed all her teeth when she laughed, and
tramped as she walked--in this way;' and Polly brought a very slender
foot to prove the argument. And Mrs. Hornby? Oh, she did not care for
Mrs. Hornby much--'she thought of nothing but smart dresses, and dining
at the restaurant, and she used such funny words--that men use, you
know. Papa never cared for me to be with her much; but he liked Mrs.
Rogers, though she fidgeted him dreadfully.'

Mildred listened, amused and interested, to the girl's prattle. The
young creature on the stool at her feet was conversant with a life of
which she knew nothing, except from books. Polly would chatter for hours
together of picture-galleries and museums, and little feasts set out in
illuminated gardens, and of great lonely churches with swinging lamps,
and little tawdry shrines. Monks and nuns came familiarly into her
reminiscences. She had had _gateau_ and cherries in a convent-garden
once, and had swung among apple-blossoms in an orchard belonging to one.

'I used to think I should like to be a nun once,' prattled Polly, 'and
wear a great white flapping cap, as they did in Belgium. Soeur Marie
used to be so kind. I shall never forget that long, straight lime-walk,
where the girls used to take their recreation, or sit under the
cherry-trees with their lace-work, while Soeur Marie read the lives of
the saints. Do you like reading the lives of the saints, Aunt Milly? I
don't. They are glorious, of course; but it pains me to know how
uncomfortable they made themselves.'

'I do not think I have ever read any, Polly.'

'Have you not?'--with a surprised arching of the brows. 'Soeur Marie
thought them the finest books in the world. She used to tell me stories
of many of them; and her face would flush and her eyes grow so bright, I
used to think she was a saint herself.'

Mildred rarely interrupted the girl's narratives; but little bits
haunted her now and then, and lingered in her memory with tender
persistence. What sober prose her life seemed in contrast to that of
this fourteen-years' old girl! How bare and empty seemed her niche
compared to Polly's series of pictures! How clearly Mildred could see it
all! The wandering artist-life, in search of the beautiful, poverty
oppressing the mind less sadly when refreshed by novel scenes of
interest; the grave, taciturn Philip Ellison, banishing himself and his
pride in a self-chosen exile, and training his motherless child to the
same exclusiveness.

The few humble friends, grouped under the same roof, and sharing the
same obscurity; stretching out the right hand of fellowship, which was
grasped, not cordially, but with a certain protest, the little room
which Polly described so graphically being a less favourite resort than
the one where Dad Fabian was painting his Tobit.

'It was only after papa got so ill that Mrs. Rogers would bring up her
work and sit with us. Papa did not like it much; but he was so heavy
that I could not lift him alone, and, noisy as she was, she knew how to
cheer him up. Dad suited papa best: they used to talk so beautifully
together. You have no idea how Dad can talk, and how clever he is. Papa
used to say he was one of nature's gentlemen. His father was only a
working man, you know;' and Polly drew herself up with a gesture Mildred
had noticed before, and which was to draw upon her later the
_soubriquet_ of 'the princess.'

'I think none the less of him for that,' returned Mildred, with gentle
reproof.

'You are not like papa then,' observed Polly, with one of her pretty
gestures of dissent. 'It fretted him so being with people not nice in
their ways. The others would call him milord, and laugh at his grand
manners; but all the same they were afraid of him; every one feared him
but I; and I only loved him,' finished Polly, with one of her girlish
outbursts of emotion, which could only be soothed by extra petting on
Mildred's part.

Mildred's soft heart was full of compassion for the lonely girl. Polly,
who cried herself to sleep every night for the longing for her lost
father, often woke to find Mildred sitting beside her bed watching her.

'You were sleeping so restlessly, I thought I would look in on you,' was
all she said; but her motherly kiss spoke volumes.

'How good you are to me, Aunt Milly,' Polly would say to her sometimes.
'I am getting to love you more every day; and then your voice is so
soft, and you have such nice ways. I think I shall be happy living with
you, and seeing my guardian every day; but we don't want Olive and
Chrissy, do we?'--for Mildred had described the vicarage and its
inhabitants--'It will feel as though we were in a beehive after this
quiet little nest,' as she observed once. Mildred smiled, as she always
did over Polly's quaint speeches, which were ripe at times with an
old-fashioned wisdom, gathered from the stored garner of age. She would
ponder over them sometimes in her slow way, when the girl was sleeping
her wet-eyed sleep.

Would it come to her to regret the quietness of life which she was
laying by for ever as a garment that had galled and fretted her?--that
life she had inwardly compared to a dead mill-stream, flecked only by
the shadow and sunlight of perpetually recurring days? Would there come
a time when the burden and heat of the day would oppress her?--when the
load of existence would be too heavy to bear, and even this retrospect
of faint gray distances would seem fair by contrast?

Women who lead contemplative and sedentary lives are overmuch given to
this sort of morbid self-questioning. They are for ever examining the
spiritual mechanism of their own natures, with the same result as though
one took up a feeble and growing plant by the root to judge of its
progress. They spend labour for that which is not bread. By and by, out
of the vigour of her busy life, Mildred learnt the wholesome sweetness
of a motto she ever afterwards cherished as her favourite: _Laborare est
orare_. Polly's questions, direct or indirect, sometimes ruffled the
elder woman's tranquillity, however gently she might put them by. 'Were
you ever a girl, Aunt Milly?--a girl like me, I mean?' And as Mildred
bit her lip and coloured slightly at a question that would have galled
any woman of eight-and-twenty, she continued, caressingly, 'You are so
nice; only just a trifle too solemn. I think, after all, I would rather
be Polly than you. You seem to have had no pictures in your life.'

'My dear child, what do you mean?' returned Mildred; but she spoke with
a little effort.

'I mean, you don't seem to have lived out pretty little bits, as I have.
You have walked every day over that common and down those long white
sunny roads, where there is nothing to imagine, unless one stares up at
the clouds--just clouds and dust and wheel-ruts. You have never gone
through a forest by moonlight, as I have, and stopped at a little
rickety inn, with a dozen _Jaeger_ drinking _lager-bier_ under the
linden-trees, and the peasants dancing in their _sabots_ on a strip of
lawn. You have never----' continued Polly breathlessly; but Mildred
interrupted her.

'Stop, Polly; I love your reminiscences; but I want to ask you a
question. Is that all you saw in our walk to-day--clouds and dust and
wheel-ruts?'

'I saw a hand-organ and a lazy monkey, and a brass band, driving me
frantic. It made me feel--oh, I can't tell you how I felt,' returned
Polly, with a grimace, and putting up her hands to her delicate little
ears.

'The music was bad, certainly; but I found plenty to admire in our
walk.'

Polly opened her eyes. 'You are not serious, Aunt Milly.'

'Let me see: we went across the common, and then on. My pictures are
very humble ones, Polly; but I framed at least half-a-dozen for my
evening's refreshment.'

Polly drew herself up a little scornfully. 'I don't admire monkeys, Aunt
Milly.'

'What sort of eyes have you, child?' replied Mildred, who had recovered
her cheerfulness. 'Do you mean that you did not see that old blind man
with the white beard, and, evidently, his little grand-daughter, at his
knees, just before we crossed the common?'

'Yes; I noticed she was a pretty child,' returned Polly, with reluctant
candour.

'She and her blue hood and tippet, and the great yellow mongrel dog at
her feet, made a pretty little sketch, all by themselves; and then, when
we went on a little farther, there was the old gipsy-woman, with a
handsome young ne'er-do-weel of a boy. Let me tell you, Polly, Mr.
Fabian would have made something of his brown skin and rags. Oh, what
rags!'

'She was a horrid old woman,' put in Polly, rather crossly.

'Granted; but, with a clump of fir-trees behind her, and a bit of
sunset-clouds, she made up a striking picture. After that we came on a
flock of sheep. One of them had got caught in a furze-bush, and was
bleating terribly. We stood looking at it for full a minute before the
navvy kindly rescued it.'

'I was sorry for the poor animal, of course. But, Aunt Milly, I don't
call that much of a picture.'

'Nevertheless, it reminded me of the one that hangs in my room. To my
thinking it was highly suggestive; all the more, that it was an old
sheep, and had such a foolish, confiding face. We are never too old to
go astray,' continued Mildred, dreamily.

'Three pictures, at least we have finished now,' asked Polly,
impatiently.

'Finished! I could multiply that number threefold! Why, there was the
hay-stack, with the young heifers round it; and that red-tiled cottage,
with the pigeons tumbling and wheeling round the roof, and the
flower-girl asleep on my own doorstep, with the laburnum shedding its
yellow petals on her lap, to the great delight of the poor sickly baby.
Come, Polly; who made the most of their eyes this evening? Only clouds,
dust, and wheel-ruts, eh?'

'You are too wise for me, Aunt Milly. Who would have thought you could
have seen all that? Dad Fabian ought to have heard you talk! We must go
out to-morrow evening, and you shall show me some more pictures. But
doesn't it strike you, Aunt Milly'--leaning her dimpled chin on her
hand--'that you have made the most of very poor material? After
all'--triumphantly--'there is not much in your pictures!'




CHAPTER III

VIA TEBAY

                    'All the land in flowing squares.
    Beneath a broad and equal blowing wind,
    Smelt of the coming summer, as one large cloud
    Drew downward; but all else of heaven was pure
    Up to the sun, and May from verge to verge,
    And May with me from head to heel.

           *       *       *       *       *

                    To left and right
    The cuckoo told his name to all the hills,
    The mellow ouzel fluted in the elm,
    The redcap whistled, and the nightingale
    Sung loud, as though he were the bird of day.'--Tennyson.


'Aunt Milly, I can breathe now. Oh, how beautiful!' and Polly clapped
her hands with girlish glee, as the train slowly steamed into Tebay
Junction, the gray old station lying snugly among the green Westmorland
hills.

'Oh, my dear, hush! who is that tall youth taking off his hat to us? not
Roy, surely, it must be Richard. Think of not knowing my own nephews!'
and Mildred looked distressed and puzzled.

'Now, Aunt Milly, don't put yourself out; if this stupid door would only
open, I would get out and ask him myself. Oh, thank you,' as the youth
in question hurried forward to perform that necessary service, looking
at her, at the same time, rather curiously. 'If you please, Aunt Milly
wants to know if you are Roy or Richard.'

'Roy,' was the prompt answer. 'What, are you Polly, and is that Aunt
Milly behind you? For shame, Aunt Milly, not to know me when I took my
hat off to you at least three minutes ago;' but Roy had the grace to
blush a little over this audacious statement as he helped Mildred out,
and returned her warm grasp of the hand.

'My dear boy, how could you have known us, and Polly, a perfect
stranger, too?'

Roy burst into a ringing laugh.

'Why you see, Aunt Milly, one never loses by a little extra attention;
it always pays in the long run. I just took off my hat at random as the
train came in sight, and there, as it happened, was Polly's face glued
against the window. So I was right, and you were gratified!'

'Now I am sure it is Roy.'

'Roy, Rex, or Sauce Royal, as they called me at Sedbergh. Well, Miss
Polly,' with another curious look, 'we are _bona fide_ adopted cousins,
as Dr. John says, so we may as well shake hands.'

'Humph,' was Polly's sole answer, as she gave her hand with the air of a
small duchess, over which Roy grimaced slightly; and then with a cordial
inflection of voice, as he turned to Mildred--

'Welcome to Westmorland, Aunt Milly--both of you, I mean; and I hope you
will like us, as much as we shall like you.'

'Thank you, my boy; and to think I mistook you for Richard! How tall you
have grown, Royal.'

'Ah, I was a bit of a lad when you were down here last. I am afraid I
should not have recognised you, Aunt Milly, but for Polly. Well, what is
it? you look disturbed; there is a vision of lost boxes in your eyes;
there, I knew I was right; don't be afraid, we are known here, and
Barton will look after all your belongings.'

'But how long are we to remain? Polly is tired, poor child, and so am
I.'

'You should have come by York, as Richard told you; always follow
Richard's advice, and you will never do wrong, so he thinks; now you
have two hours to wait, and yourself to thank, and only my pleasing
conversation to while away the time.'

'You hard-hearted boy; can't you see Aunt Milly is ready to drop?' broke
in Polly, indignantly; 'how were we to know you lived so near the North
Pole? My guardian ought to have met us,' continued the little lady, with
dignity; 'he would have known what to have done for Aunt Milly.'

Roy stared, and then burst into his ready, good-humoured laugh.

'Whew! what a little termagant! Of course you are tired--women always
are; take my arm, Aunt Milly; lean on me; now we will go and have some
tea; let us know when the train starts, Barton, and look us out a
comfortable compartment;' and, so saying, Roy hurried his charges away;
Mildred's tired eyes resting admiringly on the long range of low, gray
buildings, picturesque, and strangely quiet, backed by the vivid green
of the great circling hills, which, to the eyes of southerners, invested
Tebay Junction with unusual interest.

The refreshment-room was empty; there was a pleasant jingling of cups
and spoons behind the bar; in a twinkling the spotless white table-cloth
was covered with home-made bread, butter, and ham, and even Polly's brow
cleared like magic as she sipped her hot tea, and brought her healthy
girlish appetite to bear on the tempting Westmorland cakes.

'There, Dr. John or Dick himself couldn't be a better squire of dames,'
observed Roy, complacently. 'Aunt Milly, when you have left off admiring
me, just close your eyes to your surroundings a little while--it will do
you no end of good.'

Roy was rattling on almost boisterously, Mildred thought; but she was
right in attributing much of it to nervousness. Roy's light-heartedness
was assumed for the time; in reality, his sensitive nature was deeply
touched by this meeting with his aunt; his four-months'-old trouble was
still too recent to bear the least allusion. Betha's children were not
likely to forget her, and Roy, warmly as he welcomed his father's
sister, could not fail to remember whose place it was she would try so
inadequately to fill. Jokes never came amiss to Roy, and he had the
usual boyish dislike to show his feelings; but he was none the less sore
at heart, and the quick impatient sigh that was now and then jerked out
in the brief pauses of conversation spoke volumes to Mildred.

'You are so like your mother,' she said, softly; but the boy's lip
quivered, and he turned so pale, that Mildred did not venture to say
more; she only looked at him with the sort of yearning pride that women
feel in those who are their own flesh and blood.

'He is not a bit like Arnold, he is Betha's boy,' she thought to
herself; 'her "long laddie," as she used to call him. I dare say he is
weak and impulsive. Those sort of faces generally tell their own story
pretty correctly;' and the thought crossed her, that perhaps one of Dad
Fabian's womanish angels might have had the fair hair, long pale face,
and sleepy blue eyes, which were Roy's chief characteristics, and which
were striking enough in their way.

Polly, who had soon got over her brief animosity, was now chattering to
him freely enough.

'I think you will do, for a country boy,' she observed, patronisingly;
'people who live among the mountains are generally free and easy, and
not as polished as those who live in cities,' continued Polly, uttering
this sententious plagiarism as innocently as though it were the product
of her own wisdom.

'Such kind of borrowing as this, if it be not bettered by the borrower,
among good authors, is accounted plagiary; see Milton,' said the boy,
fresh from Sedbergh, with a portentous frown, assumed for the occasion.
'Name your reference. I repel such vile insinuations, Miss Polly, as I
am a Westmorland boy.'

'I learnt that in my dictation,' returned Polly, vexed, but too candid
for reticence; 'but Dad Fabian used to say the same thing; please don't
stroke Veteran Rag the wrong way, he does not like it.'

'Poor old Veteran, he has won some scars, I see. I am afraid you are a
character, Polly. Rag and Tatters, and copybook wisdom, well-thumbed and
learnt, and then retailed as the original article. I wish Dr. John could
hear you; he would put you through your paces.'

'Who is Dr. John?' asked Polly, coming down a little from her stilts,
and evidently relenting in favour of Roy's handsome face.

'Oh, Dr. John is Dr. John, unless you choose to do as the world does,
and call him Dr. Heriot; he is Dr. John to us; after all, what's in a
name?'

'I like my guardian to be called Dr. Heriot best; the other sounds
disrespectful and silly.'

'We did not know your opinion before, you see,' returned Roy, with a
slight drawl, and almost closing his eyes; 'if you could have
telegraphed your wish to us three or four years ago it might have been
different; but with the strict conservative feeling prevalent at the
vicarage, I am afraid Dr. John it will remain, unless,' meditating
deeply; 'but no, he might not like it.'

'What?'

'Well, we might make it Dr. Jack, you know.'

'After all, boys are nothing but plagues,' returned Polly, scornfully.

'"Playa, plagua, plague, _et cetera, et cetera_, that which smites or
wounds; any afflictive evil or calamity; a great trial or vexation; also
an acute malignant febrile disease, that often prevails in Egypt, Syria,
and Turkey, and that has at times prevailed in the large cities of
Europe, with frightful mortality; hence any pestilence." Have you
swallowed Webster's _Dictionary_, Polly?'

'My dears, I hope you do not mean to quarrel already?'

'We are only sounding the depths of each other's wisdom. Polly is
awfully shallow, Aunt Milly; the sort of person, you know, who utilises
all the scraps. Wait till she sits at the feet of Gamaliel--Dr. John, I
mean; he is the one for finding out "all is not gold that glitters."'

Mildred smiled. 'Let them fight it out,' she thought; 'no one can resist
long the charm of Polly's perfect honesty, and her pride is a little too
thin-skinned for daily comfort; good-natured raillery will be a
wholesome tonic. What a clever boy he is! only seventeen, too,' and she
shook her head indulgently at Roy.

'Kirkby Stephen train starts, sir; all the luggage in; this way for the
ladies.'

'Quick-march; down with you, Tatters; lie there, good dog. Don't let the
grass grow under your feet, Aunt Milly; there's a providential escape
for two tired and dusty Londoners. Next compartment, Andrews,' as the
red-coated guard bore down on their carriage. 'There, Aunt Milly,' with
an exquisite consideration that would have become Dr. John himself, 'I
have deferred an introduction to the squire himself.'

'My dear Roy, how thoughtful of you. I am in no mood for introductions,
certainly,' returned Mildred, gratefully.

'Women never are unless they have on their best bonnets; and, to tell
you the truth,' continued the incorrigible Roy, 'Mr. Trelawny is the
sort of man for whom one always furbishes up one's company manners. As
Dr. John says, there is nothing slip-shod, or in _deshabille_, in him.
Everything about him is so terribly perfect.'

'Roy, Roy, what a quiz you are!'

'Hush, there they come; the Lady of the Towers herself, Ethel the
Magnificent; the weaver of yards of flimsy verse, patched with rags and
shreds of wisdom, after Polly's fashion. Did you catch a glimpse of our
notabilities, Aunt Milly?'

Mildred answered yes; she had caught a glimpse over Roy's shoulder of a
tall, thin, aristocratic-looking man; but the long sweep of silk drapery
and the outline of a pale face were all that she could see of the lady
with him.

She began to wish that Roy would be a little less garrulous as the train
moved out of Tebay station, and bore them swiftly to their destination;
she was nerving herself for the meeting with her brother, and the sight
of the vicarage without the presence of its dearly-loved mistress, while
the view began to open so enchantingly before them on either side, that
she would willingly have enjoyed it in silence. But Polly was less
reticent, and her enthusiasm pleased Roy.

'You see we are in the valley of the Lune,' he explained, his
grandiloquence giving place to boyish earnestness. 'Ours is one of the
loveliest spots in the whole district. Now we are at the bottom of
Ravenstone-dale, out of which it used to be said that the people would
never allow a good cow to go, or a rich heiress to be taken; and then we
shall come to Smardale Gill. Is it not pretty, with its clear little
stream running at the bottom, and its sides covered with brushwood? Now
we are in my father's parish,' exclaimed Roy, eagerly, as the train
swept over the viaduct. 'And now look out for Smardale Hall on the
right; once the residents were grand enough to have a portion of the
church to themselves, and it is still called Smardale Chapel; the whole
is now occupied by a farmhouse. Ah, now we are near the station. Do you
see that castellated building? that is Kirkleatham House, the Trelawnys'
place. Now look out for Dick, Aunt Milly. There he is! I thought so, he
has spotted the Lady of the Towers.'

'My dear, is that Richard?' as a short and rather square-shouldered
young man, but decidedly good-looking, doffed his straw hat in answer to
some unseen greeting, and then peered inquiringly into their
compartment.

'Ah, there you are, Rex. Have you brought them? How do you do, Aunt
Milly? Is that young lady with you Miss Ellison?' and he shook hands
rather formally, and without looking at Polly. 'I hope you did not find
your long stay at Tebay very wearisome. Did you give them some tea, Rex?
That's right. Please come with me, Aunt Milly; our waggonette is waiting
at the top of the steps.'

'Oh, Richard, I wish you were not all such strangers to me!' Mildred
could not have helped that involuntary exclamation which came out of the
fulness of her heart. Her elder nephew was walking gravely by her side,
with slow even strides; he looked up a little surprised.

'I suppose we must be that. After seven years' absence you will find us
all greatly changed of course. I remember you perfectly, but then I was
fourteen when you paid your last visit.'

'You remember me? I hardly expected to hear you say that,' and Mildred
felt a glow of pleasure which all Roy's friendliness had not called
forth.

'You are looking older--and as Dr. Heriot told us, somewhat ill; but it
is the same face of course. My father will be glad to welcome you, Aunt
Milly.'

'And you?'

His dark face flushed, and he looked a little discomfited. Mildred felt
sorry she had asked the question, it would offend his reticence.

'It is early days for any of us to be glad about anything,' he returned
with effort. 'I think for my father's and the girls' sake, your coming
could not be too soon; you will not complain of our lack of welcome I
hope, though some of us may be a little backward in acting up to it.'

'He is speaking of himself,' thought Mildred, and she answered the
unspoken thought very tenderly. 'You need not fear my misunderstanding
you, Richard; if you will let me be your friend as well as the others',
I shall be glad: but no one can fill her place.'

He started, and drew his straw hat nervously over his brow. 'Thank you,
Aunt Milly,' was all he said, as he placed her in the waggonette, and
took the driver's seat on the box.

'There are changes even here, Aunt Milly,' observed Roy, who had seated
himself opposite to her for the purpose of making pertinent observations
on the various landmarks they passed, and he pointed to the long row of
modern stuccoed and decidedly third-class villas springing tip near the
station. 'The new line brings this. We are in the suburbs of Kirkby
Stephen, and I dare say you hardly know where you are;' a fact which
Mildred could not deny, though recognition dawned on her senses, as the
low stone houses and whitewashed cottages came in sight; and then the
wide street paved with small blue cobbles out of the river, and small
old-fashioned shops, and a few gray bay-windowed houses bearing the
stamp of age, and well-worn respectability. Ah, there was the
market-place, with the children playing as usual round the old pump, and
the group of loiterers sunning themselves outside the Red Lion. Through
the grating and low archway of the empty butter-market Mildred could see
the grass-grown paths and gleaming tombstones and the gray tower of the
grand old church itself. The approach to the vicarage was singularly
ill-adapted to any but pedestrians. It required a steady hand and eye to
guide a pair of spirited horses round the sharp angles of the narrow
winding alley, but the little country-bred browns knew their work. The
vicarage gates were wide open, and two black figures were shading their
eyes in the porch. But Richard, instead of driving in at the gate,
reined in his horses so suddenly that he nearly brought them on their
haunches, and leaning backward over the box, pointed with his whip
across the road.

'There is my father taking his usual evening stroll--never mind the
girls, Aunt Milly. I dare say you would rather meet him alone.'

Mildred stood up and steadied herself by laying a hand on Richard's
shoulder. The sun was setting, and the gray old church stood out in fine
relief in the warm evening light, blue breadths of sky behind it, and
shifting golden lines of sunny clouds in the distance; while down the
quiet paths, bareheaded and with hands folded behind his back, was a
tall stooping figure, with scanty gray hair falling low on his neck,
walking to and fro, with measured, uneven tread.

The hand on Richard's shoulder shook visibly; Mildred was trembling all
over.

'Arnold! Oh, how old he looks! How thin and bowed! Oh, my poor brother.'

'You must make allowance for the shock he has had--that we have all
had,' returned Richard in a soothing tone. 'He always walks like this,
and at the same time. Go to him, Aunt Milly, it does him good to be
roused.'

Mildred obeyed, though her limbs moved stiffly; the little gate swung
behind her; a tame goat browsing among the tombs bleated and strained at
its tether as she passed; but the figure she followed still continued
its slow, monotonous walk.

Mildred shrunk back for a moment into the deep church porch to pause and
recover herself. At the end of the path there were steps and an unused
gate leading to the market; he must turn then.

How quiet and peaceful it all looked! The dark range of school buildings
buried in shadow, the sombre line of houses closing in two sides of the
churchyard. Behind the vicarage the purple-rimmed hills just fading into
indistinctness. Up and down the stone alley some children were playing,
one wee toddling mite was peeping through the railings at Mildred. The
goat still bleated in the distance; a large blue-black terrier swept in
hot pursuit of his master.

'Ah, Pupsie, have you found me? The evenings are chilly still; so, so,
old dog, we will go in.'

Mildred waited for a moment and then glided out from the porch--he
turned, saw her, and held out his arms without a word.

Mr. Lambert was the first to recover himself; for Mildred's tears,
always long in coming, were now falling like rain.

'A sad welcome, my dear; but there, she would not have us grieving like
this.'

'Oh, Arnold, how you have suffered! I never realised how much, till
Richard stopped the horses, and then I saw you walking alone in the
churchyard. The dews are falling, and you are bareheaded. You should
take better care of yourself, for the children's sake.'

'Ay, ay; just what she said; but it has grown into a sort of habit with
me. Cardie comes and fetches me in, night after night; the lad is a good
lad; his mother was right after all.'

'Dear Betha; but you have not laid her here, Arnold?'

He shook his head.

'I could not, Mildred, though she wished it as much as I did. She often
said she would like to lie within sight of the home where she had been
so happy, and under the shadow of the church porch. She liked the
thought of her children's feet passing so near her on their way to
church, but I had no power to carry out her wish.'

'You mean the churchyard is closed?'

'Yes, owing to the increase of population, the influx of railway
labourers, and the union workhouse, deaths in the parish became so
numerous that there was danger of overcrowding. She lies in the
cemetery.'

'Ah! I remember.'

'I do not think her funeral will ever be forgotten; people came for
miles round to pay their last homage to my darling. One old woman over
eighty came all the way from Castlesteads to see her last of "the
gradely leddy," as she called her. You should have seen it, to know how
she was loved.'

'She made you very happy while she lived, Arnold!'

'Too happy!--look at me now. I have the children, of course, poor
things; but in losing her, I feel I have lost the best of everything,
and must walk for ever in the shadow.'

He spoke in the vague musing tone that had grown on him of late, and
which was new to Mildred--the worn, set features and gray hair
contrasted strangely with the vivid brightness of his eyes, at once keen
and youthful; he had been a man in the prime of life, vigorous and
strong, when Mildred had seen him last; but a long illness and deadly
sorrow had wasted his energy, and bowed his upright figure, as though
the weight were physical as well as mental.

'But this is a poor welcome, Milly; and you must be tired and starved
after your day's journey. You are not looking robust either, my
dear--not a trace of the old blooming Milly' (touching her thin cheek
sorrowfully). 'Well, well, the children must take care of you, and we'll
get Dr. Heriot to prescribe. Has the child come with you after all?'

Mildred signified assent.

'I am glad of it. Thank you heartily for your ready help, Milly; we
would do anything for Heriot; the boys treat him as a sort of elder
brother, and the girls are fond of him, though they lead him a life
sometimes. He is very grateful to you, and says you have lifted a
mountain off him. Is the girl a nice girl, eh?'

'I must leave you to judge of that. She has interested me, at any rate;
she is thoroughly loveable.'

'She will shake down among the others, and become one of us, I hope. Ah!
well, that will be your department, Mildred.

I am not much to be depended on for anything but parish matters. When a
man loses hope and energy it is all up with him.'

The little gate swung after them as he spoke; the flower-bordered
courtyard before the vicarage seemed half full of moving figures as they
crossed the road; and in another moment Mildred was greeting her nieces,
and introducing Polly to her brother.

'I cannot be expected to remember you both,' she said, as Olive timidly,
and Christine rather coldly, returned her kiss. 'You were such little
girls when I last saw you.'

But with Mildred's tone of benevolence there mingled a little dismay.
Betha's girls were decidedly odd.

Olive, who was a year older than Polly, and who was quite a head taller,
had just gained the thin ungainly age, when to the eyes of anxious
guardians the extremities appear in the light of afflictive
dispensations; and premature old age is symbolised by the rounded and
stooping shoulders, and sunken chest; the age of trodden-down heels and
ragged finger-ends, when the glory of the woman, as St. Paul calls it,
instead of being coiled into smooth knots, or swept round in faultless
plaits, of coroneted beauty, presents a vista of frayed ends and
multitudinous hair-pins. Olive's loosely-dropping hair and dark cloudy
face gave Mildred a shock; the girl was plain too, though the irregular
features beamed at times with a look of intelligence. Christine, who was
two years younger, and much better-looking, in spite of a rough,
yellowish mane, had an odd, original face, a pert nose, argumentative
chin, and restless dark eyes, which already looked critically at persons
and things. 'Contradiction Chriss,' as the boys called her, was
certainly a character in her way.

'Are you tired, aunt? Will you come in?' asked Olive, in a low voice,
turning a dull sort of red as she spoke. 'Cardie thinks you are, and
supper is ready, and----'

'I am very tired, dear, and so is Polly,' answered Mildred, cheerfully,
as she followed Olive across the dimly-lighted hall, with its
old-fashioned fireplace and settles; its tables piled up with coats and
hats, which had found their way to the harmonium too.

They went up the low, broad staircase Mildred remembered so well, with
its carved balustrades and pretty red and white drugget, and the great
blue China jars in the window recesses.

The study door stood open, and Mildred had a glimpse of the high-backed
chair, and table littered over with papers, before she began ascending
again, and came out into the low-ceiled passage, with deep-set lattice
windows looking on the court and churchyard.

'Chrissy and I sleep here,' explained Olive, panting slightly from
nervousness, as Mildred looked inquiringly at her. 'We thought--at least
Cardie thought--this little room next to us would do for Miss Ellison.'

Polly peeped in delightedly. It was small, but cosy, with a
curiously-shaped bedstead--the head having a resemblance to a Latin
cross, with three pegs covered with white dimity. The room was neatly
arranged--a decided contrast to the one they had just passed; and there
was even an effort at decoration, for the black bars of the grate were
entwined with sprays of honesty--the shining, pearly leaves grouped also
in a tall red jar, on the mantelpiece.

'That is a pretty idea. Was it yours, Olive?'

Olive nodded. 'Father thought you would like your old room, aunt--the
one he and mother always called yours.'

The tears came again in Mildred's eyes. Somehow it seemed but yesterday
since Betha welcomed her so warmly, and showed her the room she was
always to call hers. There was the tiny dressing-room, with its distant
view, and the quaint old-fashioned room, with an oaken beam running
across the low ceiling, and its wide bay-window.

There was the same heartsease paper that Mildred remembered seven years
ago, the same flowery chintz, the curious old quilt, a hundred years
old, covered with twining carnations. The very fringe that edged the
beam spoke to her of a brother's thoughtfulness, while the same hand had
designed the motto which from henceforth was to be Mildred's
own--'_Laborare est orare_.'

'The lines are fallen to me in pleasant places,' whispered Mildred as
she drew near the window, and stood there spell-bound by the scene,
which, though well-remembered, seemed to come before her with new
beauty.

Underneath her lay the vicarage garden, with its terrace walk and small,
trim lawn; and down below, half hidden by a steep wooded bank, flowed
the Eden, its pebbly beach lying dry under the low garden wall, but
farther on plashing with silvery gleams through the thick foliage.

To the right was the footbridge leading to the meadows, and beyond that
the water-mill and the weir; and as far as eye could reach, green
uplands and sweeps of pasturage, belted here and there with trees, and
closing in the distance soft ranges of fells, ridge beyond ridge, fading
now into gray indistinctness, but glorious to look upon when the sun
shone down upon their 'paradise of purple and the golden slopes atween
them,' or the storm clouds, lowering over them, tinged them with darker
violet.

'A place to live in and die in,' thought Mildred, solemnly, as the last
thing that night she stood looking out into the moonlight.

The hills were invisible now, but gleams of watery brightness shone
between the trees, and the garden lay flooded in the silver light. A
light wind stirred the foliage with a soft soughing movement, and some
animal straying to the river to drink trod crisply on the dry pebbles.

'A place where one should think good thoughts and live out one's best
life,' continued Mildred, dreamily. A sigh, almost a groan, from beneath
her open window seemed to answer her unspoken thought; and then a dark
figure moved quietly away. It was Richard!




CHAPTER IV

MILDRED'S NEW HOME

    'Half drowned in sleepy peace it lay,
    As satiate with the boundless play
    Of sunshine on its green array.
    And clear-cut hills of gloomy blue,
    To keep it safe, rose up behind,
    As with a charmed ring to bind
    The grassy sea, where clouds might find
    A place to bring their shadows to.'--Jean Ingelow.


'Aunt Milly, I have wakened to find myself in Paradise,' were the first
words that greeted Mildred's drowsy senses the next morning; and she
opened her eyes to find the sun streaming in through the great
uncurtained window, and Polly in her white dressing-gown, curled up on
the low chair, gazing out in rapturous contemplation.

'It must be very early,' observed Mildred, wearily. She was fatigued
with her journey and the long vigil she had kept the preceding night,
and felt a little discontented with the girl's birdlike activity.

'One ought not to be tired in Paradise,' returned Polly, reprovingly.
'Do people have aches and pains and sore hearts here, I wonder--in the
valley of the Eden, as he called it--and yet Mr. Lambert looks sad
enough, and so does Richard. Do you like Richard, Aunt Milly?'

'Very much,' returned Mildred, with signs of returning animation in her
voice.

'Well, he is not bad--for an icicle,' was Polly's quaint retort; 'but I
like Roy best; he is tiresome, of course--all boys are--but oh, those
girls, Aunt Milly!'

'Well, what of them?' asked Mildred, in an amused voice. 'I am sure you
could not judge of them last night, poor things; they were too shy.'

'They were dreadful. Oh, Aunt Milly, don't let us talk of them!'

'I am sure Olive is clever, Polly; her face is full of intelligence.
Christine is a mere child.'

Polly shrugged her shoulders. She did not care to argue on such an
uninteresting question. The little lady's dainty taste was offended by
the somewhat uncouth appearance of the sisters. She changed the subject
deftly.

'How the birds are singing! I think the starlings are building their
nests under the roof, they are flying in and out and chirping so busily.
How still it is on the fells! There is an old gray horse feeding by the
bridge, and some red and white cattle coming over the side of the hill.
This is better than your old Clapham pictures, Aunt Milly.'

Mildred smiled; she thought so too.

'Roy says the river is a good way below, and that it is rather a
dangerous place to climb. He thinks nothing of it--but then he is a boy!
How blue the hills are this morning! They look quite near. But Roy says
they are miles away. That long violet one is called the Nine Standards,
and over there are Hartley Fells. We were out on the terrace last night,
and he told me their names. Roy is very fond of talk, I think; but
Richard stood near us all the time, and never said a word, except to
scold Roy for chattering so much.'

'Richard was afraid the sound of your voices would disturb my brother.'

'That is the worst of it, as Roy says, Richard is always in the right. I
don't think Roy is unfeeling, but he forgets sometimes; he told me so
himself. We had quite a long talk when the others went in.'

'You and he seem already very good friends.'

'Yes, he is a tolerably nice boy,' returned Polly, condescendingly; 'and
we shall get on very well together, I dare say. Now I will leave you in
peace, Aunt Milly, to finish dressing; for I mean to make acquaintance
with that big green hill before breakfast.'

Mildred was not sorry to be left in peace. It was still early. So, while
Polly wetted her feet in the grass, Mildred went softly downstairs to
refresh her eyes and memory with a quiet look at the old rooms in their
morning freshness.

The door of her brother's study stood open, and she ventured in, almost
holding her breath, lest her step should reach his ear in the adjoining
room.

There was the chair where he always sat, with his gray head against the
light, the one narrow old-fashioned window framing only a small portion
of the magnificent prospect. There were the overflowing waste-paper
baskets, as usual, brimming over their contents on the carpet--the table
a hopeless chaos of documents, pamphlets, and books of reference.

There were some attempts at arrangement in the well-filled bookcases
that occupied two sides of the small room, but the old corner behind the
mother's chair and work-table still held the debris of the renowned
Tower of Babel, and a family tendency to draw out the lower books
without removing the upper ones had resulted in numerous overthrows, so
that even Mr. Lambert objected to add to the dusty confusion.

Books and papers were everywhere; they littered even the couch--that
couch where Betha had lain for so many months, only tired, before they
discovered what ailed her--the couch where her husband had laid the
little light figure morning after morning, till she had grown too ill to
be moved even that short distance.

Looking round, Mildred could understand the growing helplessness of the
man who had lost his right band and helpmeet; the answer and ready
sympathy that never failed him were wanting now; the comely, bright
presence had gone from his sight; the tones that had always vibrated so
sweetly in his ear were silent for ever. With his lonely broodings there
must ever mix a bitter regret, and the dull, perpetual anguish of a
yearning never to be satisfied. Earth is full of these desolations,
which come alike on the evil and the good--mysteries of suffering never
to be understood here, but which, to such natures as Arnold Lambert's,
are but as the Refiner's furnace, purging the dross of earthly passion
and centring them on things above.

Instinctively Mildred comprehended this, as her eye fell on the open
pages of the Bible--the Bible that had been her husband's wedding gift
to Betha, and in which she had striven to read with failing eyes the
very day before her death.

Mildred touched it reverently and turned away.

She lingered for a moment in the dining-room, where a buxom North
countrywoman was laying the table for breakfast. Everything here was
unchanged.

It was still the same homely, green, wainscotted room, with high, narrow
windows looking on to the terrace. There was the same low, old-fashioned
sideboard and silk-lined chiffonnier; the same leathern couch and
cumbrous easy-chair; the same picture of 'Virtue and Vice,' smiling and
glaring over the high wooden mantelpiece. Yes, the dear old room, as
Mildred had fondly termed it in her happy three months' visit, was
exactly the same; but Betha's drawing-room was metamorphosed into
fairyland.

All Arnold's descriptions had not prepared her for the pleasant
surprise. Behind the double folding-doors lay a perfect picture-room,
its wide bay looking over the sunny hills, and a glass door opening on
the beck gravel of the courtyard.

Outside, the long levels of green, with Cuyp-like touches of brown and
red cattle, grouped together on the shady bank, tender hints of water
gleaming through the trees, and the soft billowy ridges beyond; within,
the faint purple and golden tints of the antique jars and vases, and
shelves of rare porcelain, the rich hues of the china harmonising with
the high-backed ebony chairs and cabinet, and the high,
elaborately-finished mantelpiece, curiously inlaid with glass, and
fitted up with tiny articles of _vertu_; the soft, blue hangings and
Sevres table and other dainty finishes giving a rich tone of colour to
the whole. Mr. Lambert was somewhat of a _dilettante_, and his accurate
taste had effected many improvements in the vicarage, as well as having
largely aided in the work nearest his heart--the restoration of his
church.

The real frontage of the vicarage looked towards the garden terrace and
Hillsbottom, the broad meadow that stretched out towards Hartley Fells,
with Hartley Fold Farm and Hartley Castle in the distance; from its
upper window the Nine Standards and Mallerstang, and to the south
Wild-boar Fells, were plainly visible. But the usual mode of entrance
was at the back. The gravelled sweep of courtyard, with its narrow grass
bordering and flower-bed, communicated with the outhouses and
stable-yard by means of a green door in the wall. The part of the
vicarage appropriated to the servants' use was very old, dating, it is
said, from the days of Henry VIII, and some of the old windows were
still remaining. Mildred remembered the great stone kitchen and rambling
cellarage and the cosy housekeeper's room, where Betha had distilled her
fragrant waters and tied up her preserves. As she passed down the long
passage leading to the garden-door she could see old Nan, bare-armed and
bustling, clattering across the stones in her country clogs, the sunny
backyard distinctly visible. Some hens were clucking round a yellow pan;
the goat bleated from the distance; the white tombstones gleamed in the
morning sun; a scythe cut crisply through the wet grass; a fleet step on
the gravel behind the little summer-house lingered and then turned.

'You are early, Aunt Milly--at least, for a Londoner, though we are
early people here, as you will find. I hope you have slept well.'

'Not very well; my thoughts were too busy. Is it too early to go over to
the church yet, Richard?'

'The bells will not ring for another half-hour, if that is what you
mean; but the key hangs in my father's study. I can take you over if you
wish.'

'No, do not let me hinder you,' glancing at the Greek lexicon he held in
his hand.

'Oh, my time is not so valuable as that,' he returned, good-humouredly.
'Of course you must see the restoration; it is my father's great work,
and he is justly proud of it. If you go over, Aunt Milly, I will be with
you in a minute.'

Mildred obeyed, and waited in the grand old porch till Richard made his
appearance, panting, and slightly disturbed.

'It was mislaid, as usual. When you get used to us a little more, Aunt
Milly, you will find that no one puts anything in its proper place. It
used not to be so' he continued, in a suppressed voice; 'but we have got
into sad ways lately; and Olive is a wretched manager.'

'She is so young, Richard. What can you expect from a girl of fifteen?'

'I have seen little women and little mothers at that age,' he returned,
with brusque quaintness. 'Some girls, placed as she is, would be quite
different; but Livy cares for nothing but books.'

'She is clever then?'

'I suppose so,' indifferently. 'My father says so, and so did----(he
paused, as though the word were difficult to utter)--'but--but she was
always trying to make her more womanly. Don't you think clever women are
intolerable, Aunt Milly?'

'Not if they have wise heads and good hearts; but they need peculiar
training. Oh, how solemn and beautiful!' as Richard at last unlocked the
door; and they entered the vast empty church, with the morning sun
shining on its long aisles and glorious arcades.

Richard's querulous voice was hushed in tender reverence now, as he
called Mildred to admire the highly-decorated roof and massive pillars,
and pointed out to her the different parts that had been restored.

'The nave is Early English, and was built in 1220; the north aisle is of
the original width, and was restored in Perpendicular style; the window
at the eastern end is Early English too. The south aisle was widened
about 1500, and has been restored in the Perpendicular; and the
transepts are Early English, in which style the chancel also has been
rebuilt. Nothing of the original remains except the Sedilia, probably
late Early English, or perhaps the period sometimes called Wavy, or
Decorated.'

'You know it all by heart, Richard. How grand those arches are; the
church itself is almost cathedral-like in its vast size.'

'We are very fond of it,' he returned, gravely. 'Do you recollect this
chapel? It is called the Musgrave Chapel. One of these tombs belonged to
Sir Thomas Musgrave, who is said to have killed the last wild boar seen
in these parts, about the time of Edward III.'

'Ah! I remember hearing that. You are a capital guide, Richard.'

'Since my father has been ill, I have always taken strangers over the
church, and so one must be acquainted with the details. This is the
Wharton Chapel, Aunt Milly; and here is the tomb of Lord Thomas Wharton
and his two wives; it was built as a mortuary chapel, in the reign of
Elizabeth, so my father says. Ah! there is the bell, and I must go into
the vestry and see if my father be ready.'

'You have not got a surpliced choir yet, Richard?'

He shook his head.

'We have to deal with northern prejudices; you have no idea how narrow
and bigoted some minds can be. I could tell you of a parish, not thirty
miles from here, where a sprig of holly in the church at Christmas would
breed a riot.'

'Impossible, Richard!'

'You should hear some of the Squire's stories about twenty years ago;
these are enlightened times compared to them. We are getting on
tolerably well, and can afford to wait; our daily services are badly
attended. There is the vicarage pew, Aunt Milly; I must go now.'

Only nineteen--Richard's mannishness was absolutely striking; how wise
and sensible he seemed, and yet what underlying bitterness there was in
his words as he spoke of Olive. 'His heart is sore, poor lad, with
missing his mother,' thought Mildred, as she watched the athletic
figure, rather strong than graceful, cross the broad chancel; and then,
as she sat admiring the noble pulpit of Shap granite and Syenetic
marble, the vicarage pew began slowly to fill, and two or three people
took their places.

Mildred stole a glance at her nieces: Olive looked heavy-eyed and
absent; and Chriss more untidy than she had been the previous night.
When service had begun she nudged her aunt twice, once to say Dr. Heriot
was not there, and next that Roy and Polly had come in late, and were
hiding behind the last pillar. She would have said more, but Richard
frowned her into silence. It was rather a dreary service; there was no
music, and the responses, with the exception of Richard's, were
inaudible in the vast building; but Mildred thought it restful, though
she grieved to see that her brother's worn face looked thinner and
sadder in the morning light, and his tall figure more bowed and feeble.

He waited for her in the porch, where she lingered behind the others,
and greeted her with his old smile; and then he took Richard's arm.

'We have a poor congregation you see, Mildred; even Heriot was not
there.'

'Is he usually?' she asked, somewhat quickly.

'I have never known him miss, unless some bad case has kept him up at
night. He joined us reluctantly at first, and more to please us than
himself; but he has grown into believing there is no fitter manner of
beginning the day; his example has infected two or three others, but I
am afraid we rarely number over a dozen. We do a little better at six
o'clock.'

'It must be very disheartening to you, Arnold.'

'I do not permit myself to feel so; if the people will not come, at
least they do not lack invitation--twice a day the bells ring out their
reproachful call. I wish Christians were half as devout as Mahometans.'

'Mrs. Sadler calls it new-fangled nonsense, and says she has not time to
be always in church,' interrupted Chrissy, in her self-sufficient
treble.

'My little Chriss, it is not good to repeat people's words. Mrs. Sadler
has small means and a large family, and the way she brings them up is
highly creditable.' But his gentle reproof fell unheeded.

'But she need not have told Miss Martingale that she knew you were a
Ritualist at heart, and that the daily services were unnecessary
innovations,' returned Chrissy, stammering slightly over the long words.

'Now, Contradiction, no one asked for this valuable piece of
information,' exclaimed Roy, with a warning pull at the rough tawny
mane; 'little girls like you ought not to meddle in parish matters. You
see Gregory has been steadily at work this morning, father,' pointing to
the long swathes of cut grass under the trees; 'the churchyard will be a
credit to us yet.'

But Roy's good-natured artifice to turn his father's thoughts into a
pleasanter channel failed to lift the cloud that Chrissy's unfortunate
speech had raised.

'Innovations! new-fangled ideas!' he muttered, in a grieved voice,
'simple obedience--that I dare not, on the peril of a bad conscience,
withhold, to the rules of the Church, to the loving precept that bids me
gather her children into morning and evening prayer.'

'Contradiction, you deserve half-a-dozen pinches for this,' whispered
Roy; 'you have set him off on an old grievance.'

'Never sacrifice principles, Cardie, when you are in my position,'
continued Mr. Lambert. 'If I had listened to opposing voices, our bells
would have kept silence from one Sunday to another. Ah, Milly! I often
ask myself, "Can these dry bones live?" The husks and tares that choke
the good seed in these narrow minds that listen to me Sunday after
Sunday would test the patience of any faithful preacher.'

'Aunt Milly looks tired, and would be glad of her breakfast,' interposed
Richard.

Mildred thanked him silently with her eyes; she knew her brother
sufficiently of old to dread the long vague self-argument that would
have detained them for another half-hour in the porch had not Richard's
dexterous hint proved effectual. Mildred learnt a great deal of the
habits of the family during the hour that followed; the quiet watchful
eyes made their own observation--and though she said little, nothing
escaped her tender scrutiny. She saw her brother would have eaten
nothing but for the half-laughing, half-coaxing attentions of Roy, who
sat next him. Roy prepared his egg, and buttered his toast, and placed
the cresses daintily on his plate, unperceived by Mr. Lambert, who was
opening his letters and glancing over his papers.

When he had finished--and his appetite was very small--he pushed away
his plate, and sat looking over the fells, evidently lost in thought.
But his children, as though accustomed to his silence, took no further
notice of him, but carried on the conversation among themselves, only
dropping their voices when a heavier sigh than usual broke upon their
ears. The table was spread with a superabundance of viands that
surprised Mildred; but the cloth was not over clean, and was stained
with coffee in several places. Mildred fancied that it was to obviate
such a catastrophe for the future that Richard sat near the urn. A
German grammar lay behind the cups and saucers, and Olive munched her
bread and butter very ungracefully over it, only raising her head when
querulous or reproachful demands for coffee roused her reluctant
attention, and it evidently needed Richard's watchfulness that the cups
were not returned unsweetened to their owner.

'There, you have done it again,' Mildred heard him say in a low voice.
'The second clean cloth this week disfigured with these unsightly brown
patches.'

'Something must be the matter with the urn,' exclaimed Olive, looking
helplessly with regretful eyes at the mischief.

'Nonsense, the only fault is that you will do two things at a time. You
have eaten no breakfast, at least next to none, and made us all
uncomfortable. And pray how much German have you done?'

'I can't help it, Cardie; I have so much to do, and there seems no time
for things.'

'I should say not, to judge by this,' interposed Roy, wickedly,
executing a pirouette round his sister's chair, to bring a large hole in
his sock to view. 'Positively the only pair in my drawers. It is too
hard, isn't it, Dick?'

But Richard's disgust was evidently too great for words, and the
unbecoming flush deepened on Olive's sallow cheeks.

'I was working up to twelve o'clock at night,' she said, looking ready
to cry, and appealing to her silent accuser. 'Don't laugh, Chriss, you
were asleep; how could you know?'

'Were you mending this?' asked her brother gravely, holding up a breadth
of torn crape for her inspection, fastened by pins, and already woefully
frayed out.

'I had no time,' still defending herself heavily, but without temper.
'Please leave it alone, Cardie, you are making it worse. I had Chriss's
frock to do; and I was hunting for your things, but I could not find
them.'

'I dare say not. I dare not trust myself to your tender mercies. I took
a carpet bagful down to old Margaret. If Rex took my advice, he would do
the same.'

'No, no, I will do his to-day. I will indeed, Rex. I am so sorry about
it. Chriss ought to help me, but she never does, and she tears her
things so dreadfully,' finished Olive, reproachfully.

'What can you expect from a contradicting baby,' returned Roy, with
another pull at the ill-kempt locks as he passed. Chriss gave him a
vixenish look, but her aunt's presence proved a restraining influence.
Evidently Chriss was not a favourite with her brothers, for Roy teased,
and Richard snubbed her pertness severely. Roy, however, seemed to
possess a fund of sweet temper for family use, which was a marked
contrast to Richard's dictatorial and somewhat stern manner, and he
hastened now to cover poor Olive's discomfiture.

'Never mind, Lily, a little extra ventilation is not unhealthy, and is a
somewhat wholesome discipline; you may cobble me up a pair for to-morrow
if you like.'

'You are very good, Roy, but I am sorry all the same, only Cardie will
not believe it,' returned Olive. There were tears in the poor girl's
voice, and she evidently felt her brother's reproof keenly.

'Actions are better than words,' was the curt reply. 'But this is not
very amusing for Aunt Milly. What are you and Miss Ellison going to do
with yourselves this morning?'

'Bother Miss Ellison; why don't you call her Polly?' burst in Roy,
irreverently.

'I have not given him leave,' returned the little lady haughtily. 'You
were rude, and took the permission without asking.'

'Nonsense, don't be dignified, Polly; it does' not suit you. We are
cousins, aren't we? brothers and sisters once removed?'

'I am Aunt Milly's niece; but I am not to call him Uncle Arnold, am I?'
was Polly's unexpected retort. But the shout it raised roused even Mr.
Lambert.

'Call me what you like, my dear; never mind my boy's mischief,' laying
his hand on Roy's shoulder caressingly. 'He is as skittish and full of
humour as a colt; but a good lad in the main.'

Polly contemplated them gravely, and pondered the question; then she
reached out a little hand and touched Mr. Lambert timidly.

'No! I will not call you Uncle Arnold; it does not seem natural. I like
Mr. Lambert best. But Roy is nice, and may call me what he likes; and
Richard, too, if he will not be so cross.'

'Thanks, my princess,' answered Roy, with mocking reverence. 'So you
don't approve of Dick's temper, eh?'

'I think Olive stupid to bear it; but he means well,' returned Polly
composedly. And as Richard drew himself up affronted at the young
stranger's plain speaking, she looked in his face, in her frank childish
way, 'Cardie is prettier than Richard, and I will call you that if you
like, but you must not frown at me and tell me to do things as you tell
Olive. I am not accustomed to be treated like a little sheep,' finished
Polly, naively; and Richard, despite his vexed dignity, was compelled to
join in the laugh that greeted this speech.

'Polly and I ought to unpack,' suggested Mildred, in her wise
matter-of-fact way, hoping to restore the harmony that every moment
seemed to disturb.

'No one will invade your privacy to-day, Aunt Milly; it would be a
violation of county etiquette to call upon strangers till they had been
seen at church. You and Miss----' Richard paused awkwardly, and hurried
on--'You will have plenty of time to settle yourself and get rested.'

'Fie, Dick--what a blank. You are to be nameless now, Polly,'

'Don't be so insufferably tiresome, Rex; one can never begin a sensible
conversation in this house, what with Chriss's contradictions on one
side and your jokes on the other.'

'Poor old Issachar between two burdens,' returned Roy, patting him
lightly. 'Cheer up; don't lose heart; try again, my lad. Aunt Milly,
when you have finished with Polly, I want to show her Podgill, our
favourite wood; and Olive and Chriss shall go too.'

'Wait till the afternoon, Roy, and then we can manage it,' broke in
Chriss, breathlessly.

'You can go, Christine, but I have no time,' returned Olive wearily; but
as Richard seemed on the point of making some comment, she gathered up
her books, and, stumbling heavily over her torn dress in her haste,
hurried from the room.

Mildred and Polly shut themselves in their rooms, and were busy till
dinner-time. Once or twice when Mildred had occasion to go downstairs
she came upon Olive; once she was standing by the hall table jingling a
basket of keys, and evidently in weary argument on domestic matters with
Nan--Nan's broad Westmorland dialect striking sharply against Olive's
feeble refined key.

'Titter its dune an better, Miss Olive--t' butcher will send fleshmeat
sure enough, but I maun gang and order it mysel'.'

'Very well, Nan, but it must not be that joint; Mr. Richard does not
like it, and----'

'Eh! I cares lile for Master Richard,' grumbled Nan, crossly. 'T'auld
maister is starved amyast--a few broth will suit him best.'

'But we can have the broth as well,' returned Olive, with patient
persistence. 'Mamma always studied what Richard liked, and he must not
feel the difference now.'

'Nay, then I maun just gang butcher's mysel', and see after it.'

But Mildred heard no more. By and by, as she was sorting some books on
the window seat, she saw Chrissy scudding across the courtyard, and
Olive following her with a heavy load of books in her arms; the elder
girl was plodding on with downcast head and stooping shoulders, the
unfortunate black dress trailing unheeded over the rough beck gravel,
and the German grammar still open in her hand.




CHAPTER V

OLIVE

     'The yearnings of her solitary spirit, the out-gushings of her
     shrinking sensibility, the cravings of her alienated heart, are
     indulged only in the quiet holiness of her solitude. The world
     sees not, guesses not the conflict, and in the ignorance of
     others lies her strength.'--Bethmont.


Dinner was hardly a sociable meal at the vicarage. Olive was in her
place looking hot and dusty when Mildred came downstairs, and Chriss
tore in and took her seat in breathless haste, but the boys did not make
their appearance till it was half over. Richard immediately seated
himself by his aunt, and explained the reason of their delay in a low
tone, though he interrupted himself once by a few reproachful words to
Olive on the comfortless appearance of the room.

'It is Chriss's fault,' returned Olive. 'I have asked her so often not
to bring all that litter in at dinner-time; and, Chriss, you have pulled
down the blind too.'

Richard darted an angry look at the offender, which was met defiantly,
and then he resumed the subject, though with a perturbed brow. Roy and
he had been over to Musgrave to read classics with the vicar. Roy had
left Sedbergh, and since their trouble their father had been obliged to
resign this duty to another. 'He was bent on preparing me for Oxford
himself, but since his illness he has occupied himself solely with
parish matters. So Mr. Wigram offered to read with us for a few months,
and as the offer was too good a one to be refused, Roy and I walk over
three or four times a week.'

'Have you settled to take Holy Orders then, Richard?' asked Mildred, a
little surprised.

'It has been settled for me, I believe,' he returned, a slight hardness
perceptible in his voice; 'at least it is my father's great wish, and I
have not yet made up my mind to disappoint him, though I own there is a
probability of my doing so.'

'And Roy?'

Richard smiled grimly. 'You had better ask him; he is looked upon in the
light of a sucking barrister, but he is nothing but a dabbler in art at
present; he has been under a hedge most of the morning, taking the
portrait of a tramp that he chose to consider picturesque. Where is your
Zingara, Roy?' But Roy chose to be deaf, and went on eagerly with his
plans for the afternoon's excursion to Podgill.

Mildred watched the party set out, Polly and Chriss in their
broad-brimmed hats, and Roy with a sketch-book under his arm. Richard
was going over to Nateby with his father. Olive looked after them
longingly.

'My dear, are you not going too? it will do you good; and I am sure you
have a headache.'

'Oh, it is nothing,' returned Olive, putting her hair back with her
hands; 'it is so warm this afternoon, and----'

'And you were up late last night,' continued Mildred in a sympathising
voice.

'Not later than usual. I often work when the others go to bed; it does
not hurt me,' she finished hastily, as a dissenting glance from Mildred
met her. 'Indeed, I am quite strong, and able to bear much more.'

'We must not work the willing horse, then. Come, my dear, put on your
hat; or let me fetch it for you, and we will overtake the Podgill
party.'

'Oh no,' returned Olive, shrinking back, and colouring nervously. 'You
may go, aunt; but Rex does not want me, or Chriss either; nobody wants
me--and I have so much work to do.'

'What sort of work, mending?'

'Yes, all the socks and things. I try to keep them under, but there is a
basketful still. Roy and Chriss are so careless, and wear out their
things; and then you heard Richard say he could not trust me with his.'

'Richard is particular; many young men are. You must not be so
sensitive, Olive. Well, my dear, I shall be very glad of your help, of
course; but these things will be my business now.'

Olive contracted her brow in a puzzled way. 'I do not understand.'

'Not that I have come to be your father's housekeeper, and to save your
young shoulders from being quite weighed down with burdens too heavy for
them? There, come into my room, and let us talk this matter over at our
leisure. Our fingers can be busy at the same time;' and drawing the girl
gently to a low seat by the open window, Mildred placed herself beside
her, and was soon absorbed in the difficulties of a formidable rent.

'You must be tired too, aunt,' observed Olive presently, with an
admiring glance at the erect figure and nimble fingers.

'Not too tired to listen if you have anything to tell me,' returned
Mildred with a winning smile. 'I want to hear where all those books were
going this morning, and why Chriss was running on empty-handed.'

'Chriss does not like carrying things, and I don't mind,' replied Olive.
'We go every morning, and in the afternoon too when we are able, to
study with Mrs. Cranford; she is so nice and clever. She is a
Frenchwoman, and has lived in Germany half her life; only she married an
Englishman.'

'And you study with her?'

'Yes, Dr. Heriot recommended her; she was a great friend of his, and
after her husband's death--he was a lawyer here--she was obliged to do
something to maintain herself and her three little girls, so Dr. Heriot
proposed her opening a sort of school; not a regular one, you know, but
just morning and afternoon classes for a few girls.'

'Have you many companions?'

'No; only Gertrude Sadler and the two Misses Northcote. Polly is to join
us, I believe.'

'So her guardian says. I hope, you like our young _protegee_ Olive.'

'I shall not dislike her, at least, for one reason,' and as Mildred
looked up in surprise, she added more graciously, 'I mean we are all so
fond of Dr. Heriot that we will try to like her for his sake.'

'Polly deserves to be loved for her own sake,' replied Mildred, somewhat
piqued at Olive's coldness. 'I was wrong to ask you such a question. Of
course you cannot judge of any one in so short a time.'

'Oh, it is not that,' returned Olive, eager, and yet stammering. 'I am
afraid I am slow to like people always, and Polly seems so bright and
clever, that I am sure never to get on with her.'

'My dear Olive, you must not allow yourself to form such morbid ideas.
Polly is very original, and will charm you into liking her, before many
days are over; even our fastidious Richard shows signs of relenting.'

'Oh, but he will never care for her as Roy seems to do already. Cardie
cares for so few people; you don't half know how particular he is, and
how soon he is offended; nothing but perfection will ever please him,'
she finished with a sigh.

'We must not be too hard in our estimate of other people. I am half
inclined to find fault with Richard myself in this respect; he does not
make sufficient allowance for a very young housekeeper,' laying her hand
softly on Olive's dark hair; and as the girl looked up at her quickly,
surprised by the caressing action, Mildred noticed, for the first time,
the bright intelligence of the brown eyes.

'Oh, you must not say that,' she returned, colouring painfully. 'Cardie
is very good, and helps me as much as he can; but you see he was so used
to seeing mamma do everything so beautifully.'

'It is not worse for Richard than for the others.'

'Oh yes, it is; she made so much of him, and they were always together.
Roy feels it dreadfully; but he is light-hearted, and forgets it at
times. I don't think Cardie ever does.'

'How do you know; does he tell you so?' asked Mildred, with kindly
scrutiny.

Olive shook her head mournfully. 'No, he never talks to me, at least in
that way; but I know it all the same; one can tell it by his silence and
pained look. It makes him irritable too. Roy has terrible breaks-down
sometimes, and so has Chriss; but no one knows what Cardie suffers.'

Mildred dropped her work, and regarded the young speaker attentively.
There was womanly thoughtfulness, and an underlying tenderness in the
words of this girl of fifteen; under the timid reserve there evidently
beat a warm, affectionate heart. For a moment Mildred scanned the
awkward hunching of the shoulders, the slovenly dress and hair, and the
plain, cloudy face, so slow to beam into anything like a smile; Olive's
normal expression seemed a heavy, anxious look, that furrowed her brow
with unnatural lines, and made her appear years older than her actual
age; the want of elasticity and the somewhat slouching gait confirming
this impression.

'If she were not so plain; if she would only dress and hold herself like
other people, and be a little less awkward,' sighed Mildred. 'No wonder
Richard's fastidiousness is so often offended; but his continual
fault-finding makes her worse. She is too humble-minded to defend
herself, and too generous to resent his interference. If I do not
mistake, this girl has a fine nature, though it is one that is difficult
to understand; but to think of this being Betha's daughter!' and a
vision rose before Mildred of the slight, graceful figure and active
movements of the bright young house-mother, so strangely contrasted with
Olive's clumsy gestures.

The silence was unbroken for a little time, and then Olive raised her
head. 'I think I must go down now, the others will be coming in. It has
been a nice quiet time, and has done my head good; but,' a little
plaintively, 'I am afraid I have not done much work.'

Mildred laughed. 'Why not? you have not looked out of the window half so
often as I have. I suppose you are too used to all that purple
loveliness; your eyes have not played truant once.'

'Yes, it is very beautiful; but one seems to have no time now to enjoy,'
sighed the poor drudge. 'You work so fast, aunt; your fingers fly. I
shall always be awkward at my needle; mamma said so.'

'It is a pity, of course; but perhaps your talents lie in another
direction,' returned her aunt, gravely. 'You must not lose heart, Olive.
It is possible to acquire ordinary skill by persevering effort.'

'If one had leisure to learn--I mean to take pains. But look, how little
I have done all this afternoon.' Olive looked so earnest and lugubrious
that Mildred bit her lip to keep in the amused smile.

'My dear,' she returned quaintly, 'there is a sin not mentioned in the
Decalogue, but which is a very common one among women, nevertheless,
"the lust of finishing." We ought to love work for the work's sake, and
leave results more than we do. Over-hurry and too great anxiety for
completion has a great deal to do with the overwrought nerves of which
people complain nowadays. "In quietness and in confidence shall be your
strength."'

Olive looked up with something like tears in her eyes. 'Oh, aunt, how
beautiful. I never thought of that.'

'Did you not? I will illuminate the text for you and hang it in your
room. So much depends on the quietness we bring to our work; without
being exactly miserly with our eyes and hands, as you have been this
afternoon, one can do so much with a little wise planning of our time,
always taking care not to resent interference by others. You will think
I deal in proverbial philosophy, if I give you another maxim, "Man's
importunity is God's opportunity."'

'I will always try to remember that when Chriss interrupts me, as she
does continually,' answered Olive, thoughtfully. 'People say there are
no such things as conflicting duties, but I have often such hard work to
decide--which is the right thing to be done.'

'I will give you an infallible guide then: choose that which seems
hardest, or most disagreeable; consciences are slippery things; they
always give us such good reasons for pleasing ourselves.'

'I don't think that would answer with me,' returned Olive doubtfully.
'There are so many things I do not like, the disagreeable duties quite
fill one's day. I like hearing you talk very much, aunt. But there is
Cardie's voice, and he will be disappointed not to find the tea ready
when he comes in from church.'

'Then I will not detain you another moment; but you must promise me one
thing.'

'What is that?'

'There must be no German book behind the urn to-night. Better ill-learnt
verbs than jarring harmony, and a trifle that vexes the soul of another
ceases to be a trifle. There, run along, my child.'

Mildred had seen very little of her brother that day, and after tea she
accompanied him for a quiet stroll in the churchyard. There was much
that she had to hear and tell. Arnold would fain know the particulars of
his mother's last hours from her lips, while she on her side yearned for
a fuller participation in her brother's sorrow, and to gather up the
treasured recollections of the sister she had loved so well.

The quiet evening hour--the scene--the place--fitted well with such
converse. Arnold was less reticent to-night, and though his smothered
tones of pain at times bore overwhelming testimony to the agony that had
shattered his very soul, his expressions of resignation, and the absence
of anything like bitterness in the complaint that he had lost his youth,
the best and brightest part of himself, drew his sister's heart to him
in endearing reverence.

'I was dumb, and opened not my mouth, because Thou didst it,' seemed to
be the unspoken language of his thoughts, and every word breathed the
same mournful submission to what was felt to be the chastisement of
love.

'Dear, beautiful Betha; but she was ready to go, Arnold?'

'None so ready as she--God forbid it were otherwise--but I do not know.
I sometimes think the darling would have been glad to stay a little
longer with me. Hers was the nature that saw the sunny side of life.
Heriot could never make her share in his dark views of earthly troubles.
If the cloud came she was always looking for the silver lining.'

'It is sad to think how rare these natures are,' replied Mildred. 'What
a contrast to our mother's sickbed!'

'Ah, then we had to battle with the morbidity of hypochondria, the
sickness of the body aggravated by the diseased action of the mind, the
thickening of shadows that never existed except in one weary brain. My
darling never lost her happy smile except when she saw my grief. I think
that troubled the still waters of her soul. In thinking of their end,
Mildred, one is reminded of Bunyan's glorious allegory--glorious,
inspired, I should rather say. That part where the pilgrims make ready
for their passage across the river. My darling Betha entered the river
with the sweet bravery of Christiana, while, according to your account,
my poor mother's sufferings only ceased with her breath.'

'Yet she was praying for the end to come, Arnold.'

'Yes, but the grasshopper was ever a burden to her. Do you remember what
stout old Bunyan says? "The last words of Mr. Despondency were: Farewell
night! Welcome day! His daughter (Much-afraid) went through the river
singing, but no one could understand what she said."'

'As no one could tell the meaning of the sweet solemn smile that crossed
our mother's face at the last; she had no fears then, Arnold.'

'Just so. If she could have spoken she would have doubtless told you
that such was the case, or used such words as Mr. Despondency leaves as
his dying legacy. Do you remember them, Mildred? They are so true of
many sick souls,' and he quoted in a low sweet voice, '"My will and my
daughter's is (that tender, loving Much-afraid, Milly), that our
desponds and slavish fears be by no man ever received from the day of
our departure for ever, for I know after my death they will offer
themselves to others. For, to be plain with you, they are ghosts which
we entertained when we first began to be pilgrims, and could never throw
them off after; and they will walk about and seek entertainment of the
pilgrims; but, for our sakes, shut the doors upon them."'

'It is a large subject, Arnold, and a very painful one.'

'It is one on which you should talk to Heriot; he has a fine
benevolence, and is very tender in his dealings with these
self-tormentors. He is always fighting the shadows, as he calls them.'

'I have often wondered why women are so much more morbid than men.'

'Their lives are more to blame than they; want of vigour and action, a
much-to-be-deplored habit of incessant introspection and a too nice
balancing of conscientious scruples, a lack of large-mindedness, and
freedom of principle. All these things lie at the root of the mischief.
As John Heriot has it, "The thinking machine is too finely polished."'

'I fancy Olive is slightly bitten with the complaint,' observed Mildred,
wishing to turn her brother's thought to more practical matters.

'Indeed! her mother never told me so. She once said Olive was a noble
creature in a chrysalis state, and that she had a mind beyond the
generality of girls, but she generally only laughed at her for a
bookworm, and blamed her for want of order. I don't profess to
understand my children,' he continued mournfully; 'their mother was
everything to them. Richard often puzzles me, and Olive still more. Roy
is the most transparent, and Christine is a mere child. It has often
struck me lately that the girls are in sad need of training. Betha was
over-lenient with them, and Richard is too hard at times.'

'They are at an angular age,' returned his sister, smiling. 'Olive seems
docile, and much may be made of her. I suppose you wish me to enter on
my new duties at once, Arnold?'

'The sooner the better, but I hope you do not expect me to define them?'

'Can a mother's duties be defined?' she asked, very gravely.

'Sweetly said, Milly. I shall not fear to trust my girls to you after
that. Ah, there comes Master Richard to tell us the dews are falling.'

Richard gave Mildred a reproachful look as he hastened to his father's
side.

'You have let him talk too much; he will have no sleep to-night, Aunt
Milly. You have been out here more than two hours, and supper is
waiting.'

'So late, Cardie? Well, well; it is something to find time can pass
otherwise than slowly now. You must not find fault with your aunt; she
is a good creature, and her talk has refreshed me. I hope, Milly, you
and my boy mean to be great friends.'

'Do you doubt it, sir?' asked Richard gravely.

'I don't doubt your good heart, Cardie, though your aunt may not always
understand your manner,' answered his father gently. 'Youth is sometimes
narrow-minded and intolerant, Milly. One graduates in the school of
charity later in life.'

'I understand your reproof, sir. I am aware you consider me often
overbearing and dogmatical, but in my opinion petty worries would try
the temper of a saint.'

'Pin-pricks often repeated would be as bad as a dagger-thrust, and not
nearly so dignified. Never mind, Cardie, many people find toleration a
very difficult duty.'

'I could never tolerate evils of our own making, and what is more, I
should never consider it my duty to do so. I do not know that you would
have to complain of my endurance in greater matters.'

'Possibly not, Cardie. This boy of mine, Milly,' pressing the strong
young arm on which he leant, 'is always leading some crusade or other.
He ought to have lived centuries ago, and belted on his sword as a Red
Cross Knight. He would have brought us home one of the dragon's heads at
last.'

'You are jesting,' returned Richard, with a forced smile.

'A poor jest, Cardie, then; only clothing the truth in allegory. After
all, you are right, my boy, and I am somewhat weary; help me to my
study. I will not join the others to-night.'

Richard's face so plainly expressed 'I told you so,' that Mildred felt a
warm flush come to her face, as though she had been discovered in a
fault. It added to her annoyance also to find on inquiry that Olive had
been shut up in her room all the evening, 'over Roy's socks,' as Chrissy
explained, while the others had been wandering over the fells at their
own sweet will.

'This will never do; you will be quite ill, Olive,' exclaimed Mildred,
impatiently; but as Richard entered that moment, to fetch some wine for
his father, she forbore to say any more, only entering a mental resolve
to kidnap the offending basket and lock it up safely from Olive's
scrupulous fingers.

'I am coming into your room to have a talk,' whispered Polly when supper
was over; 'I have hardly seen you all day. How I do miss not having my
dear Aunt Milly to myself.'

'I don't believe you have missed me at all, Polly,' returned Mildred,
stroking the short hair, and looking with a sort of relief into the
bright piquant face, for her heart was heavy with many sad thoughts.

'Roy and I have been talking about you, though; he has found out you
have a pretty hand, and so you have.'

'Silly children.'

'He says you are awfully jolly. That is the schoolboy jargon he talks;
but he means it too; and even Chriss says you are not so bad, though she
owned she dreaded your coming.'

Mildred winced at this piece of unpalatable intelligence, but she only
replied quietly, 'Chrissy was afraid I should prove strict, I suppose.'

'Oh, don't let us talk of Chriss,' interrupted Polly, eagerly; 'she is
intolerable. I want to tell you about Roy. Do you know, Aunt Milly, he
wants to be an artist.'

'Richard hinted as much at dinner time.'

'Oh, Richard only laughs at him, and thinks it is all nonsense; but I
have lived among artists all my life,' continued Polly, drawing herself
up, 'and I am quite sure Roy is in earnest. We were talking about it all
the afternoon, while Chrissy was hunting for bird-nests. He told me all
his plans, and I have promised to help him.'

'It appears his father intends him to be a barrister.'

'Yes; some old uncle left him a few hundred pounds, and Mr. Lambert
wished him to go to the University, and, as he had no vocation for the
Church, to study for the bar. Roy told me all about it; he cannot bear
disappointing his father, but he is quite sure that he will make nothing
but an artist.'

'Many boys have these fancies. You ought not to encourage him in it
against his father's wish.'

'Roy is seventeen, Aunt Milly; as he says, he is no child, and he draws
such beautiful pictures. I have told him all about Dad Fabian, and he
wants to have him here, and ask his advice about things. Dad could look
after Roy when he goes to London. Roy and I have arranged everything.'

'My dear Polly,' began Mildred, in a reproving tone; but her
remonstrance was cut short, for at that instant loud sobs were
distinctly audible from the farthest room, where the girls slept.

Mildred rose at once, and softly opened the door; at the same moment
there was a quick step on the stairs, and Richard's low, admonishing
voice reached her ear; but as the loud sobbing sounds still continued,
Mildred followed him in unperceived.

'Hush, Chrissy. What is all this about? You are disturbing my father;
but, as usual, you only think of yourself.'

'Please don't speak to her like that, Cardie,' pleaded Olive. 'She is
not naughty; she has only woke up in a fright; she has been dreaming, I
think.'

'Dreaming!--I should think so, with that light full in her eyes, those
sickening German books as usual,' with a glance of disgust at the little
round table, strewn with books and work, from which Olive had evidently
that moment risen. 'There, hush, Chrissy, like a good girl, and don't
let us have any more of this noise.'

'No, I can't. Oh, Cardie, I want mamma--I want mamma!' cried poor
Chrissy, rolling on her pillow in childish abandonment of sorrow, but
making heroic efforts to stifle her sobs. 'Oh, mamma--mamma--mamma!'

'Hush!--lie silent. Do you think you are the only one who wants her?'
returned Richard, sternly; but the hand that held the bedpost shook
visibly, and he turned very pale as he spoke. 'We must bear what we have
to bear, Chrissy.'

'But I won't bear it,' returned the spoilt child. 'I can't bear it,
Cardie; you are all so unkind to me. I want to kiss her, and put my arms
round her, as I dreamt I was doing. I don't love God for taking her
away, when she didn't want to go; I know she didn't.'

'Oh, hush, Chriss--don't be wicked!' gasped out Olive, with the tears in
her eyes; but, as though the child's words had stung him beyond
endurance, Richard turned on her angrily.

'What is the good of reasoning with a child in this state? can't you
find something better to say? You are of no use at all, Olive. I don't
believe you feel the trouble as much as we do.'

'Yes, she does. You must not speak so to your sister, Richard. Hush, my
dear--hush;' and Mildred stooped with sorrowful motherly face over the
pillow, where Chrissy, now really hysterical, was stuffing a portion of
the sheet in her mouth to resist an almost frantic desire to scream. 'Go
to my room, Olive, and you will find a little bottle of sal-volatile on
my table. The child has been over-tired. I noticed she looked pale at
supper.' And as Olive brought it to her with shaking hand and pallid
face, Mildred quietly measured the drops, and, beckoning to Richard to
assist her, administered the stimulating draught to the exhausted child.
Chrissy tried to push it away, but Mildred's firm, 'You must drink it,
my dear,' overcame her resistance, though her painful choking made
swallowing difficult.

'Now we will try some nice fresh water to this hot face and these
feverish hands,' continued Mildred, in a brisk, cheerful tone; and
Chrissy ceased her miserable sobbing in astonishment at the novel
treatment. Every one but Dr. Heriot had scolded her for these fits, and
in consequence she had used an unwholesome degree of restraint for a
child: an unusually severe breakdown had been the result.

'Give me a brush, Olive, to get rid of some of this tangle. I think we
look a little more comfortable now, Richard. Let me turn your pillow,
dear--there, now;' and Mildred tenderly rested the child's heavy head
against her shoulder, stroking the rough yellowish mane very softly.
Chrissy's sobs were perceptibly lessening now, though she still gasped
out 'mamma' at intervals.

'She is better now,' whispered Mildred, who saw Richard still near them.
'Had you not better go downstairs, or your father will wonder?'

'Yes, I will go,' he returned; yet he still lingered, as though some
visitings of compunction for his hardness troubled him. 'Good-night,
Chrissy;' but Chrissy, whose cheek rested comfortably against her aunt's
shoulder, took no notice. Possibly want of sympathy had estranged the
little sore heart.

'Kiss your brother, my dear, and bid him good-night. All this has given
him pain.' And as Chrissy still hesitated, Richard, with more feeling
than he had hitherto shown, bent over them, and kissed them both, and
then paused by the little round table.

'I am very sorry I said that, Livy.'

'There was no harm in saying it, if you thought it, Cardie. I am only
grieved at that.'

'I ought not to have said it, all the same; but it is enough to drive
one frantic to see how different everything is.' Then, in a whisper, and
looking at Mildred, 'Aunt Milly has given us all a lesson; me, as well
as you. You must try to be like her, Livy.'

'I will try;' but the tone was hopeless.

'You must begin by plucking up a little spirit, then. Well, good-night.'

'Good-night, Cardie,' was the listless answer, as she suffered him to
kiss her cheek. 'It was only Olive's ordinary want of demonstration,'
Richard thought, as he turned away, a little relieved by his voluntary
confession; 'only one of her cold, tiresome ways.'

Only one of her ways!

Long after Chrissy had fallen into a refreshing sleep, and Mildred had
crept softly away to sleepy, wondering Polly, Olive sat at the little
round table with her face buried in her arms, both hid in the
loosely-dropping hair.

'I could have borne him to have said anything else but this,' she
moaned. 'Not feel as they do, not miss her as much, my dear, beautiful
mother, who never scolded me, who believed in me always, even when I
disappointed her most;--oh, Cardie, Cardie, how could you have found it
in your heart to say that!'




CHAPTER VI

CAIN AND ABEL

    'There was a little stubborn dame
    Whom no authority could tame;
    Restive by long indulgence grown,
    No will she minded but her own.'--Wilkie.


Chrissy was sufficiently unwell the next day to make her aunt's petting
a wholesome remedy. In moments of languor and depression even a
whimsical and erratic nature will submit to a winning power of
gentleness, and Chriss's flighty little soul was no exception to the
rule: the petting, being a novelty, pleased and amused her, while it
evidently astonished the others. Olive was too timid and awkward, and
Richard too quietly matter-of-fact, to deal largely in caresses, while
Roy's demonstrations somehow never included Contradiction Chriss.

Chriss unfortunately belonged to the awkward squad, whose manoeuvres
were generally held to interfere with every one else. People gave her a
wide berth; she trod on their moral corns and offended their tenderest
prejudices; she was growing up thin-lipped and sharp-tongued, and there
was a spice of venom in her words that was not altogether childlike.

'My poor little girl,' thought Mildred, as she sat beside her working;
'it is very evident that the weeds are growing up fast for lack of
attention. Some flowers will only grow in the sunshine; no child's
nature, however sweet, will thrive in an atmosphere of misunderstanding
and constant fault-finding.'

Chrissy liked lying in that cool room, arranging Aunt Milly's work-box,
or watching her long white fingers as they moved so swiftly. Without
wearying the overtasked child, Mildred kept up a strain of pleasant
conversation that stimulated curiosity and raised interest. She had even
leisure and self-denial enough to lay aside a half-crossed darn to read
a story when Chriss's nerves seemed jarring into fretfulness again, and
was rather pleased than otherwise when, at a critical moment, long-drawn
breaths warned her that she had fallen into a sound sleep.

Mildred sat and pondered over a hundred new plans, while tired Chriss
lay with the sweet air blowing on her and the bees humming underneath
the window. Now and then she stole a glance at the little figure,
recumbent under the heartsease quilt. 'She would be almost pretty if
those sharp lines were softened and that tawny tangle of hair arranged
properly; she has nice long eyelashes and a tolerably fair skin, though
it would be the better for soap and water,' thought motherly Mildred,
with the laudable anxiety of one determined to make the best of
everything, though a secret feeling still troubled her that Chrissy
would be the least attractive to her of the four.

Chrissy's sleep lengthened into hours; that kindly foster-nurse Nature
often taking restorative remedies of forcible narcotics into her own
hands. She woke hungry and talkative, and after partaking of the
tempting meal her aunt had provided, submitted with tolerable docility
when Mildred announced her intention of making war with the tangles.

'It hurts dreadfully. I often wish I were bald--don't you, Aunt Milly?'
asked Chrissy, wincing in spite of her bravery.

'In that case you will not mind if I thin some of this shagginess,'
laughed Mildred, at the same time arming herself with a formidable pair
of shears. 'I wonder you are not afraid of Absalom's fate when you go
bird-nesting.'

'I wish you would cut it all off, like Polly's,' pleaded Chriss, her
eyes sparkling at the notion. 'It makes my head so hot, and it is such a
trouble. It would be worth anything to see Cardie's face when I go
downstairs, looking like a clipped sheep; he would not speak to me for a
week. Do please, Aunt Milly.'

'My dear, do you think that such a desirable result?'

'What, making Cardie angry? I like to do it of all things. He never gets
into a rage like Roy--when you have worked him up properly--but his
mouth closes as though his lips were iron, as though it would never open
again; and when he does speak, which is not for a very long time, his
words seem to clip as sharp as your scissors--"Christine, I am ashamed
of you!"'

'Those were the very words I wanted to use myself.'

'What?' and Chrissy screwed herself round in astonishment to look in her
aunt's grave face. 'I am quite serious, I assure you, Aunt Milly. I
sha'n't mind if I look like a singed pony, or a convict; Rex is sure to
call me both. Shall I fetch a pudding-basin and have it done--as Mrs.
Stokes always does little Jem's?'

'Hush, Chrissy; this is pure childish nonsense. There! I've trimmed the
refractory locks: you look a tidy little girl now. You have really very
pretty hair, if you would only keep it in order,' continued Mildred,
trying artfully to rouse a spark of womanly vanity; but Chriss only
pouted.

'I would rather be like the singed pony.'

'Silly child!'

'Rex was in quite a temper when Polly said she hoped hers would never
grow again. You have spoiled such a capital piece of revenge, Aunt
Milly; I have almost a mind to do it myself.' But Chriss's
mischief-loving nature--always a dangerous one--was quelled for the
moment by the look of quiet contempt with which Mildred took the
scissors from her hand.

'I did not expect to find you such a baby at thirteen, Chriss.'

Chriss blazed up in a moment, with a great deal of spluttering and
incoherence. 'Baby! I a baby! No one shall call me that again!' tossing
her head and elevating her chin in childlike disdain.

'Quite right; I am glad you have formed such a wise determination, it
would have been babyish, Chriss,' wilfully misunderstanding her. 'None
but very wicked and spiteful babies would ever scheme to put another in
a rage. Do you know,' continued Mildred cheerfully, as she took up her
work, apparently regardless that Chrissy was eyeing her with the same
withering wrath, 'I always had a notion that Cain must have tried to put
Abel in a passion, and failed, before he killed him!'

Chrissy recoiled a little.

'Perhaps he wanted him to fight, as men and boys do now, you know, only
Abel's exceeding gentleness could not degenerate into such strife. To me
there is something diabolical in the idea of trying to make any one
angry. Certainly the weapons with which we do it are forged for us,
red-hot, and put into our hands by the evil one himself.'

'Aunt Milly!' Chrissy's head was quiescent now, and her chin in its
normal position: the transition from anger to solemnity bewildered her.
Mildred went on in the same quiet tone.

'You cannot love Cardie very much, when you are trying to make him
angry, can you, Chrissy?'

'No--o--at least, I suppose not,' stammered Chriss, who had no want of
truth among her other faults.

'Well, what is the opposite of loving?'

'Hating. Oh, Aunt Milly, you can't think so badly of me as that! I don't
hate Cardie.'

'God forbid, my child! You know what the Bible says--'He who hateth his
brother is a murderer.' But, Chrissy, does it ever strike you that Cain
could not always have been quite bad? He had a childhood too.'

'I never thought of him but as quite grown up,' returned Chriss, with a
touch of stubbornness, arising from an uneasy and awakened conscience.
'How fond you are of Cain, Aunt Milly.'

'He is my example, my warning beacon, you see. He was the first-begotten
of Envy, that eldest-born of Hell--a terrible incarnation of unresisted
human passion. Had he first learned to restrain the beginnings of evil,
it would not have overwhelmed him so completely. Possibly in their
young, hard-working life he would have loved to be able to make Abel
angry.'

'Aunt Milly!' Chrissy was shedding a few indignant tears now.

'Well, my dear?'

'It is too bad. You have no right to compare me with Cain,' sobbing
vengefully.

'Did I do so? Nay, Chriss, I think you are mistaken.'

'First to be called a baby, and then a murderer!'

'Hush! hush!'

'I know I am wicked to try and make them angry, but they tease me so;
they call me Contradiction, and the Barker, and Pugilist Pug, and lots
of horrid names, and it was only like playing at war to get one's
revenge.'

'Choose some fairer play, my little Chriss.'

'It is such miserable work trying to be proper and good; I don't think
I've got the face for it either,' went on Chriss, a subtle spirit of fun
drying up her tears again, as she examined her features curiously in
Mildred's glass. 'I don't look as though I could be made good, do I,
Aunt Milly'--frowning fiercely at herself--'not like a young Christian?'

'More like a long-haired kitten,' returned Mildred, quaintly.

The epithet charmed Chriss into instant good-humour; for a moment she
looked half inclined to hug Mildred, but the effort was too great for
her shyness, so she contented herself with a look of appreciation. 'You
can say funny things then--how nice! I thought you were so dreadfully
solemn--worse than Cardie. Cardie could not say a funny thing to save
his life, except when he is angry, and then, oh! he is droll,' finished
incorrigible Chriss, as she followed her aunt downstairs, skipping three
steps at a time.

Richard met them in the hall, and eyed the pseudo-invalid a little
dubiously.

'So you are better, eh, Chriss? That's right. I thought there was not
much that ailed you after all,' in a tone rather amiable than unfeeling.

'Not much to you, you mean. Perhaps you don't mind having a log in your
head,' began Chrissy, indignantly, but seeing visionary Cains in her
aunt's glance, she checked herself. 'If I am better it is all thanks to
Aunt Milly's nursing, but she spoilt everything at the last.'

'Why?' asked Richard, curiously, detecting a lurking smile at the corner
of Mildred's mouth.

'Why, I had concocted a nice little plan for riling you--putting you in
a towering passion, you know--by coming down looking like a singed pony,
or like Polly, in fact; but she would not let me, took the scissors
away, like the good aunt in a story-book.'

'What nonsense is she talking, Aunt Milly? She looks very nice, though
quite different to Chrissy somehow.'

'We have only shorn a little of the superabundant fleece,' returned
Mildred, wondering why she felt so anxious for Richard's approval, and
laughing at herself for being so.

'But I wanted it to be clipped just so, half an inch long, like

Jemmy Stokes, and offered to fetch Nan's best pudding-basin for the
purpose; but Aunt Milly would not hear of it. She said such dreadful
things, Cardie!' And as Richard looked at her, with puzzled benevolence
in his eyes, she raised herself on tiptoe and whispered into his ear,
'She said--at least she almost implied, but it is all the same,
Cardie--that if I did I should go on from bad to worse, and should
probably end by murdering you, as Cain did Abel.'

The following day was Sunday, and Mildred, who for her own reasons had
not yet actively assumed the reins of government, had full leisure and
opportunity for studying the family ways at the vicarage. In one sense
it was certainly not a day of rest, for, with the exception of Roy and
Chrissy, the young people seemed more fully engrossed than on any other
day.

Richard and Olive were both at the early service, and Mildred, who, as
usual, waited for her brother in the porch, was distressed to find Olive
still with her hat on, snatching a few mouthfuls of food at the
breakfast-table while she sorted a packet of reward cards.

'My dear Olive, this is very wrong; you must sit down and make a proper
meal before going to the Sunday School.'

'Indeed I have not a moment,' returned Olive, hurriedly, without looking
up. 'My class will be waiting for me. I have to go down to old Mrs.
Stevens about her grandchildren. I had no time last night. Richard
always makes the breakfast on Sunday morning.'

'Yes,' returned Richard, in his most repressive tone, as he poured out a
cup of coffee and carried it round to Olive, and then cut her another
piece of bread and butter. 'I believe Livy would like to dispense with
her meals altogether or take them standing. I tell her she is
comfortless by nature. She would go without breakfast often if I did not
make a fuss about it. There you must stay till you have eaten that.' But
Mildred noticed, though his voice was decidedly cross, he had cut the
bread _a la tartine_ for his sister's greater convenience.

Morning service was followed by the early dinner. Mr. Lambert, who was
without a curate, the last having left him from ill-health, was obliged
to accept such temporary assistance as he could procure from the
neighbouring parishes. To-day Mr. Heath, of Brough, had volunteered his
services, and accompanied the party back to the vicarage. Mildred, who
had hoped to hear her brother preach, was somewhat disappointed. She
thought Mr. Heath and his sermon very commonplace and uninteresting.
Ideas seemed wanting in both. The conversation during dinner turned
wholly on parish matters, and the heinous misdemeanours of two or three
ratepayers who had made a commotion at the last vestry meeting. The only
sentence that seemed worthy of attention was at the close of the meal,
just as the bell was ringing for the public catechising.

'Where is Heriot? I have not set eyes on him yet!'

Richard, who was just following Olive out of the room, paused with his
hand on the door to answer.

'He has come back from Penrith. I met him by the Brewery after Church,
coming over from Hartly. He promised if he had time to look in after
service as usual.'

Polly's eyes sparkled, and she almost danced up to Richard, 'Heriot! Is
that my Dr. Heriot?' with a decided stress on the possessive pronoun.

'Oh, that's Heriot's ward, is it, Lambert? Humph, rather a queer affair,
isn't it, leaving that child to him? Heriot's a comparatively young man,
hardly five-and-thirty I should say,' and Mr. Heath's rosy face grew
preternaturally solemn.

'Polly is our charge now,' returned Mr. Lambert, with one of his kind,
sad smiles, stretching out a hand to the girl. 'Mildred has promised to
look after her; and she will be Olive's and Chrissy's companion. You are
one of my little girls now, are you not, Polly?' Polly shook her head,
her face had lengthened a little over Mr. Lambert's words.

'I like you, of course, and I like to be here. Aunt Milly is so nice,
and so is Roy; but I can only belong to my guardian.'

'Hoity-toity, there will be some trouble here, Lambert. You must put
Heriot on his guard,' and Mr. Heath burst out laughing; Polly regarding
him the while with an air of offended dignity.

'Did I say anything to make him laugh? there is nothing laughable in
speaking the truth. Papa gave me to my guardian, and of course that
means I belong to him.'

'Never mind, Polly, let Mr. Heath laugh if he likes. We know how to
value such a faithful little friend--do we not, Mildred?'--and patting
her head gently, he bade her fetch him a book he had left on his study
table, and to Mildred's relief the conversation dropped, and Mr. Heath
shortly afterwards took his departure.

Later on in the afternoon Mildred set out for a quiet walk to the
cemetery. Polly and Chriss were sunning themselves on the terrace, while
Roy was stretched in sleepy enjoyment on the grass at their feet, with
his straw hat pulled over his face. Richard had walked up to Kirkleatham
on business for his father. No one knew exactly what had become of
Olive.

'She will turn up at tea-time, she always does,' suggested Roy, in a
tone of dreamy indifference. 'Go on, Polly, you have a sweet little
voice for reading as well as singing. We are reading Milton, Aunt Milly,
only Polly sometimes stops to spell the long words, which somehow breaks
the Miltonic wave of harmony. Can't you fancy I am Adam, and you are
Eve, Polly, and this is a little bit of Paradise--just that delicious
dip of green, with the trees and the water; and the milky mother of the
herd coming down to the river to drink; and the rich golden streak of
light behind Mallerstang? If it were not Sunday now,' and Roy's fingers
grasped an imaginary brush.

'Roy and Polly seem to live in a Paradise of their own,' thought
Mildred, as she passed through the quiet streets. 'They have only known
each other for two days, and yet they are always together and share a
community of interest--they are both such bright, clever, affectionate
creatures. I wonder where Olive is, and whether she even knows what a
real idle hour of _dolce far niente_ means. That girl must be taught
positively how to enjoy;' and Mildred pushed the heavy swinging cemetery
gates with a sigh, as she thought how joyless and weary seemed Olive's
life compared to that of the bright happy creature they had laid there.
Betha's nature was of the heartsease type; it seemed strange that the
mother had transmitted none of her sweet sunshiny happiness to her young
daughter; but here Mildred paused in her wonderings with a sudden start.
She was not alone as she supposed. She had reached a shady corner behind
the chapel, where there was a little plot of grass and an acacia tree;
and against the marble cross under which Betha Lambert's name was
written there sat, or rather leant--for the attitude was forlorn even in
its restfulness--a drooping, black figure easily recognised as Olive.

'This is where she comes on Sunday afternoons; she keeps it a secret
from the others; none of them have discovered it,' thought Mildred,
grieved at having disturbed the girl's sacred privacy, and she was
quietly retracing her steps, when Olive suddenly raised her head from
the book she was reading. As their eyes met, there was a start and a
sudden rush of sensitive colour to the girl's face.

'I did not know; I am so sorry to disturb you, my love,' began Mildred,
apologetically.

'It does not disturb me--at least, not much,' was the truthful answer.
'I don't like the others to know I come here--because--oh, I have
reasons--but this is your first visit, Aunt Milly,' divining Mildred's
sympathy by some unerring instinct.

'Yes--may I stay for a moment? thank you, my dear,' as Olive willingly
made room for her. 'How beautiful and simple; just the words she loved,'
and Mildred read the inscription and chosen text--'His banner over me is
love.'

'Do you like it? Mamma chose it herself; she said it was so true of her
life.'

'Happy Betha!' and in a lower voice, 'Happy Olive!'

'Why, Aunt Milly?'

'To have had such a mother, though it be only to lose her. Think of the
dear bright smiles with which she will welcome you all home.'

Olive's eyes glistened, but she made no answer. Mildred was struck with
the quiet repose of her manner; the anxious careworn look had
disappeared for the time, and the soft intelligence of her face bore the
stamp of some lofty thought.

'Do you always come here, Olive? At this time I mean.'

'Yes, always--I have never missed once; it seems to rest me for the
week. Just at first, perhaps, it made me sad, but now it is different.'

'How do you mean, my dear?'

'I don't know that I can put it exactly in words,' she returned,
troubled by a want of definite expression. 'At first it used to make me
cry, and wish I were dead, but now I never feel so like living as when I
am here.'

'Try to make me understand. I don't think you will find me
unsympathising,' in Mildred's tenderest tones.

'You are never that, Aunt Milly. I find myself telling you things
already. Don't you see, I can come and pour out all my trouble to her,
just as I used to? and sometimes I fancy she answers me, not in
speaking, you know, but in the thoughts that come as I sit here.'

'That is a beautiful fancy, Olive.'

'Others might laugh at it--Cardie would, I know, but it is impossible to
believe mamma can help loving us wherever she is; and she always liked
us to come and tell her everything, when we were naughty, or if we had
anything nice happening to us.'

'Yes, dear, I quite understand. But you were reading.'

'That was mamma's favourite book. I generally read a few pages before I
go. One seems to understand it all so much better in this quiet place,
with the sun shining, and all those graves round. One's little troubles
seem so small and paltry by comparison.'

Mildred did not answer. She took the book out of Olive's hand--it was
_Thomas a Kempis_--and a red pencil line had marked the following
passage:--

    'Thou shalt not long toil here, nor always be oppressed with griefs.
    'Wait a little while, and thou shalt see a speedy end of thy evils.
    'There will come a time when all labour and trouble shall cease,
    'Poor and brief is all that passeth away with time.
    'Do [in earnest] what thou doest; labour faithfully in My vineyard:
       I will be thy recompense.
    'Write, read, chant, mourn, keep silence, pray, endure crosses
       manfully; life everlasting is worth all these conflicts, and
       greater than these.
    'Peace shall come in one day, which is known unto the Lord; and it
       shall not be day nor night (that is at this present time), but
       unceasing light, infinite brightness, stedfast peace, and secure
       rest.'

'Don't you like it?' whispered Olive, timidly; but Mildred still made no
answer. How she had wronged this girl! Under the ungainly form lay this
beautiful soul-coinage, fresh from God's mint, with His stamp of
innocence and divinity fresh on it, to be marred by a world's use or
abuse.

Mildred's clear instinct had already detected unusual intelligence under
the clumsiness and awkward ways that were provocative of perpetual
censure in the family circle. The timidity that seemed to others a cloak
for mere coldness had not deceived her. But she was not prepared for
this faith that defied dead matter, and clung about the spirit footsteps
of the mother, bearing in the silence--that baffling silence to smaller
natures--the faint perceptive whispers of deathless love.

'Olive, you have made me ashamed of my own doubts,' she said at last,
taking the girl's hand and looking on the unlovely face with feelings
akin to reverence. 'I see now, as I never have done before, how a
thorough understanding robs even death of its terror--how "perfect love
casteth out fear."'

'If one could always feel as one does now,' sighed Olive, raising her
dark eyes with a new yearning in them. 'But the rest and the strength
seem to last for such a little time. Last Sunday,' she continued, sadly,
'I felt almost happy sitting here. Life seemed somehow sweet, after all,
but before evening I was utterly wretched.'

'By your own fault, or by that of others?'

'My own, of course. If I were not so provoking in my ways--Cardie, I
mean--the others would not be so hard on me. Thinking makes one absent,
and then mistakes happen.'

'Yes, I see.' Mildred did not say more. She felt the time was not come
for dealing with the strange idiosyncrasies of a peculiar and difficult
character. She was ignorant as yet what special gifts or graces of
imagination lay under the comprehensive term of 'bookishness,' which had
led her to fear in Olive the typical bluestocking. But she was not wrong
in the supposition that Olive's very goodness bordered on faultiness;
over-conscientiousness, and morbid scrupulosity, producing a sort of
mental fatigue in the onlooker--restfulness being always more highly
prized by us poor mortals than any amount of struggling and perceptible
virtue.

Mildred was a true diplomatist by nature--most womanly women are. It was
from no want of sympathy, but an exercise of real judgment, that she now
quietly concluded the conversation by the suggestion that they should go
home.

Mildred had the satisfaction of hearing her brother preach that evening,
and, though some of the old fire and vigour were wanting, and there were
at times the languid utterances of failing strength, still it was
evident that, for the moment, sorrow was forgotten in the deep
earnestness of one who feels the immensity of the task before him--the
awful responsibility of the cure of souls.

The text was, 'Why halt ye between two opinions?' and afforded a rich
scope for persuasive argument; and Mildred's attention never wavered but
once, when her eyes rested for a moment accidentally on Richard. He and
Roy, with some other younger members of the congregation, occupied the
choir-stalls, or rather the seats appropriated for the purpose, the real
choir-stalls being occupied by some of the neighbouring farmers and
their families--an abuse that Mr. Lambert had not yet been able to
rectify.

Roy's sleepy blue eyes were half closed; but Richard's forehead was
deeply furrowed with the lines of intense thought, a heavy frown settled
over the brows, and the mouth was rigid; the immobility of feature and
fixed contraction of the pupils bespeaking some violent struggle within.

The sunset clouds were just waning into pallor and blue-gray
indistinctness, with a lightning-like breadth of gold on the outermost
edges, when Mildred stepped out from the dark porch, with Polly hanging
on her arm.

'Is that Jupiter or Venus, Aunt Milly?' she asked, pointing to the sky
above them. 'It looks large and grand enough for Jupiter; and oh, how
sweet the wet grass smells!'

'You are right, my little astronomer,' said a voice close behind them.
'There is the king of planets in all his majesty. Miss Lambert, I hope
you recognise an old acquaintance as well as a new friend. Ah, Polly!
Faithful, though a woman! I see you have not forgotten me.' And Dr.
Heriot laughed a low amused laugh at feeling his disengaged hand grasped
by Polly's soft little fingers.

The laugh nettled her.

'No, I have not forgotten, though other people have, it seems,' she
returned, with a little dignity, and dropping his hand. 'Three whole
days, and you have never been to see us or bid us welcome! Do you wonder
Aunt Milly and I are offended?'

Mildred coloured, but she had too much good sense to disclaim a share in
Polly's childish reproaches.

'I will make my apology to Miss Lambert when she feels it is needed; at
present she might rather look upon it in the light of a liberty,'
observed Dr. Heriot, coolly. 'Country practitioners are not very
punctual in paying mere visits of ceremony. I hope you have recovered
from the fatigues of settling down in a new place, Miss Lambert?'

Mildred smiled. 'It is a very bearable sort of fatigue. Polly and I
begin to look upon ourselves as old inhabitants. Novelty and strangeness
soon wear off.'

'And you are happy, Polly?'--repossessing himself of the little hand,
and speaking in a changed voice, at once grave and gentle.

'Very--at least, when I am not thinking of papa' (the last very softly).
'I like the vicarage, and I like Roy--oh, so much!--almost as much as
Aunt Milly.'

'That is well'--with a benign look, that somehow included Mildred--'but
how about Mr. Lambert and Richard and Olive? I hope my ward does not
mean to be exclusive in her likings.'

'Mr Lambert is good, but sad--so sad!' returned Polly, with a solemn
shake of her head. 'I try not to look at him; he makes me ache all over.
And Olive is dreadful; she has not a bit of life in her; and she has got
a stoop like the old woman before us in church.'

'Some one would be the better for some of Olive's charity, I think,'
observed her guardian, laughing. 'You must take care of this little
piece of originality, Miss Lambert; it has a trifle too much keenness.
"The pungent grains of titillating dust," as Pope has it, perceptible in
your discourse, Polly, have a certain sharpness of flavour. So handsome
Dick is under the lash, eh?'

Polly held her peace.

'Come, I am curious to hear your opinion of Mentor the younger, as Rex
calls him.'

'"Sternly he pronounced the rigid interdiction" _vide_ Milton. Don't go
away, Dick; it will be wholesome discipline on the score of listeners
hearing no good of themselves.'

'What, are you behind us, lads? Polly's discernment was not at fault,
then.'

'It was not that,' she returned, indifferently. 'Richard knows I think
him cross and disagreeable. He and Chrissy put me in mind sometimes of
the Pharisees and Sadducees.'

The rest laughed; but her guardian ejaculated, half-seriously, 'Defend
me from such a Polly!'

'Well, am I not right?' she continued, pouting. 'Chrissy never believes
anything, and Richard is always measuring out rules for himself and
other people. You know you are tiresome sometimes,' she continued,
facing round on Richard, to the great amusement of the others; but the
rigid face hardly relaxed into a smile. He was in no mood for amusement
to-night.

'Come, I won't have fault found with our young Mentor. I am afraid my
ward is a little contumacious, Miss Lambert,' turning to her, as she
stood with the little group outside the vicarage.

'I don't understand your long words; but I see you are all laughing at
me,' returned Polly, in a tone of such pique that Dr. Heriot very wisely
changed the conversation.




CHAPTER VII

A MOTHER IN ISRAEL

     'Of marvellous gentleness she was unto all folk, but specially
     unto her own, whom she trusted and loved right tenderly. Unkind
     she would not be unto no creature, nor forgetful of any
     kindness or service done to her before, which is no little part
     of nobleness.... Merciful also and piteous she was unto such as
     was grieved and troubled, and to them that were in poverty or
     sickness, or any other trouble.'--Fisher, Bishop of Rochester.


Mildred was not slow in perceiving that Dr. Heriot had imported a new
element of cheerfulness into the family circle; they were all seated
cosily round the supper-table when she came downstairs. Olive, who had
probably received some hint to that effect, had placed herself between
her father and Richard.

Mildred looked at the vacant place at the head of the table a little
dubiously.

'Never hesitate in claiming abrogated authority,' observed Dr. Heriot,
gravely, as he placed the chair for her.

Mildred gave him a puzzled glance: 'Does my brother--does Olive wish
it?'

'Can you doubt it?' he returned, reproachfully. 'Have you not found out
how wearily those young shoulders bear the weight of any
responsibility!' with a pitying glance in Olive's direction, which
seemed hardly needed, for she looked brighter than usual. 'Give them
time to gain strength, and she will thank you for the mercy shown her.
To-night she will eat her supper with some degree of enjoyment, now this
joint is off her mind,' and, quietly appropriating the carving-knife, he
was soon engaged in satisfying the young and healthy appetites round
him; while answering at the same time the numerous questions Roy and
Chrissy were pleased to put to him.

Dr. Heriot, or Dr. John, as they called him, seemed the family referee.
A great stress was laid on the three days' absence, which it was averred
had accumulated a mass of plans to be decided.

Richard wanted to consult him about the mare. Mr. Lambert had some
lengthy document from the Bounty Office to show him. Chrissy begged for
an invitation for herself and Polly for the following evening, and Olive
pleaded to be allowed to come too, as she wanted to refer to some books
in his library.

Polly looked from one to the other only half-pleased with all this
familiarity. 'He might be every one's guardian,' she remarked _sotto
voce_ to Roy; but Dr. Heriot soon found means to allay the childish
jealousy, which he was quick enough to perceive.

Mildred thought he looked younger and happier to-night, with all those
young aspirants for his notice pressing round him. She was startled to
hear a soft laugh from Olive once, though it was checked immediately, as
though duty put a force on inclination.

Mr. Lambert retired to his study after supper, and Olive, at Dr.
Heriot's request, went to the piano. Mildred had heard she had no taste
for music; but to her surprise she played some hymns with accuracy and
feeling, the others joining in as they pleased. Richard pleaded fatigue
and a headache, and sat in the farthest corner, looking over the dark
fells, and shading his eyes from the lamplight; but Dr. Heriot sang in a
rich, full voice, Polly sitting at his feet and sharing his hymn-book,
while Chrissy looked over his shoulder. Mildred was enjoying the
harmony, and wondering over Roy's beautiful tenor, when she was startled
to see him turn suddenly very pale, and leave off singing; and a moment
afterwards, as though unable to contain himself, he abruptly left the
room.

Olive glanced uneasily round, and then, under cover of the singing,
whispered to Mildred--

'I forgot. Oh, how careless!--how wrong of me! Aunt Milly, will you
please go after him?'

Mildred obeyed. She found him leaning against the open garden
door--white, and almost gasping.

'My dear boy, you are ill. Shall I call Dr. Heriot to you?' but he shook
his head impatiently.

'Nonsense--I am all right; at least, I shall be in a moment. Don't stay,
Aunt Milly. I would not have Cardie see me for worlds; he would be
blaming Olive, and I know she forgot.'

'The hymn we were singing, do you mean?'

'Yes; she--mamma--was so fond of it. We used to have it every night in
her room. She asked for it almost at the last. _Sun of my soul;_ the
hymn of hymns, she called it. It was just like Livy to forget. I can
stand any but that one--it beats me. Ah, Aunt Milly!' his boyish tones
suddenly breaking beyond control.

'Dear Rex, don't mind; these feelings do you honour. I love you the
better for them;' pressing the fair head tenderly to her shoulder, as
she had done Chrissy's. She was half afraid he might resent the action,
but for the moment his manhood was helpless.

'That is just what she used to do,' he said, with a half sob. 'You
remind me of her somehow, Aunt Milly. There's some one coming after us.
Please--please let me go,'--the petulant dignity of seventeen years
asserting itself again,--but he seemed still so white and shaken that
she ventured to detain him.

'Roy, dear, it is only Olive. There is nothing of which to be ashamed.'

'Livy, oh, I don't mind her. I thought it was Dick or Heriot. Livy, how
could you play that thing when you know--you know----' but the rest of
the speech was choked somehow.

'Oh, Rex, I am so sorry.'

'Well, never mind; it can't be helped now. Only Aunt Milly has seen me
make an ass of myself.'

'You are too good to scold me, Rex, I know, but I am grieved--I am
indeed. I am so fond of that hymn for her sake, that I always play it to
myself; and I forgot you could not bear it,' continued poor Olive,
humbly.

'All right; you need not cover yourself with dust and ashes,'
interrupted Roy, with a nervous laugh. 'Ah, confound it, there's
Richard! What a fellow he is for turning up at the wrong time.
Good-night, Livy,' he continued, with a pretence at cheerfulness; 'the
dews are unwholesome. Pleasant dreams and sweet repose;' but Olive still
lingered, regardless of Roy's good-humoured attempts to save an
additional scolding.

'Well, what's all this about?' demanded Richard, abruptly.

'It is my fault, as usual, Cardie,' returned Olive, courting her fate
with clumsy bravery. 'I upset him by playing that hymn. Of course I
ought to have remembered.'

'Culprit, plaintiff, defendant, and judge in one,' groaned Roy. 'Spare
us the rest, Dick, and prove to our young minds that honesty is the best
policy.'

But Richard's brow-grew dark. 'This is the second time it has happened;
it is too bad, Olive. Not content with harassing us from morning to
night with your shiftless, unwomanly ways, you must make a blunder like
this. One's most sacred feelings trampled on mercilessly,--it is
unpardonable.'

'Oh, draw it mild, Dick;' but Roy's lip still quivered; his sensitive
nature had evidently received a shock.

'You are too good-natured, Rex. Such cruel heedlessness deserves
reproof, but it is all lost on Livy; she will never understand how we
feel about these things.'

'Indeed, Cardie----' but Richard sternly checked her.

'There is no use in saying anything more about it. If you are so devoid
of tact and feeling, you can at least have the grace to be ashamed of
yourself. Come, Roy, a turn in the air will do you good; my head still
aches badly. Let us go down over Hillsbottom for a stroll;' and Richard
laid his hand persuasively on Roy's shoulder.

Roy shook off his depression with an effort. Mildred fancied his
brother's well-meant attempt at consolation jarred on him; but he was of
too easy a nature to contend against a stronger will; he hesitated a
moment, however.

'We have not said good-night to Livy.'

'Be quick about it, then,' returned Richard, turning on his heel; then
remembering himself, 'Good-night, Aunt Milly. I suppose we shall not see
you on our return?' but he took no notice of Olive, though she mutely
offered her cheek as he passed.

'My dear, you will take cold, standing out here with uncovered head,'
Mildred said, passing her arm gently through the girl's to draw her to
the house; but Olive shook her head, and remained rooted to the spot.

'He never bade me good-night,' she said at last, and then a large tear
rolled slowly down her lace.

'Do you mean Richard? He is not himself to-night; something is troubling
him, I am sure.' But Mildred felt a little indignation rising, as she
thought of her nephew's hardness.

'Rex kissed me, though; and he was the one I hurt. Rex is never hard and
unkind. Oh, Aunt Milly, I think Cardie begins to dislike me;' the tears
falling faster over her pale cheeks.

'My dear Olive, this is only one of your morbid fancies. It is wrong to
say such things--wrong to Richard.'

'Why should I not say what I think? There, do you see them'--pointing to
a strip of moonlight beyond the bridge--'he has his arm round Roy, and
is talking to him gently. I know his way; he can be, oh so gentle when
he likes. He is only hard to me; he is kinder even to Chrissy, who
teases him from morning to night; and I do not deserve it, because I
love him so;' burying her face in her hands, and weeping convulsively,
as no one had ever seen Olive weep before.

'Hush, dear--hush; you are tired and overstrained with the long day's
work, or you would not fret so over an impatient word. Richard does not
mean to be unkind, but he is domineering by nature, and----'

'No, Aunt Milly, not domineering,' striving to speak between her sobs;
'he thinks so little of himself, and so much of others. He is vexed
about Roy's being upset; he is so fond of Roy.'

'Yes, but he has no right to misunderstand his sister so completely.'

'I don't think I am the right sort of sister for him, Aunt Milly. Polly
would suit him better: she is so bright and winning; and then he cares
so much about looks.'

'Nonsense, Olive: men don't think if their sisters have beauty or not. I
mean it does not make any difference in their affection.'

'Ah, it does with Cardie. He thinks Chriss will be pretty, and so he
takes more notice of her. He said once it was very hard for a man not to
be proud of his sisters; he meant me, I know. He is always finding fault
with my hair and my dress, and telling me no woman need be absolutely
ugly unless she likes.'

'I can see a gleam in the clouds now. We will please our young
taskmaster before we have done.'

Olive smiled faintly, but the tears still came. It was true: she was
worn in body and mind. In this state tears are a needful luxury, as
Mildred well knew.

'It is not this I mind. Of course one would be beautiful if one could;
but I should think it paltry to care,' speaking with mingled simplicity
and resignation.

'Mamma told us not to trouble about such things, as it would all be made
up to us one day. What I really mind is his thinking I do not share his
and Roy's feelings about things.'

'People have different modes of expressing them. You could play that
hymn, you see.'

'Yes, and love to do it. When Roy left the room I had forgotten
everything. I thought mamma was singing it with us, and it seemed so
beautiful.'

'Richard would call that visionary.'

'He would never know;' her voice dropping again into its hopeless key.
'He thinks I am too cold to care much even about that; he does indeed,
Aunt Milly:' as Mildred, shocked and distressed, strove to hush her.
'Not that I blame him, because Roy thinks the same. I never talk to any
of them as I have done to you these two days.'

'Then we have something tangible on which to lay the blame. You are too
reserved with your brothers, Olive. You do not let them see how much you
feel about things.' She winced.

'No, I could not bear to be repulsed. I would rather--much rather--be
thought cold, than laughed at for a visionary. Would not you, Aunt
Milly? It hurts less, I think.'

'And you can hug yourself in the belief that no one has discovered the
real Olive. You can shut yourself up in your citadel, while they batter
at the outworks. My poor girl, why need you shroud yourself, as though
your heart, a loving one, Olive, had some hidden deformity? If Richard
had my eyes, he would think differently.'

Olive shook her head.

'My child, you depreciate yourself too much. We have no right to look
down on any piece of God's handiwork. Separate yourself from your
faults. Your poor soul suffers for want of cherishing. It does not
deserve such harsh treatment. Why not respect yourself as one whom God
intends to make like unto the angels?'

'Aunt Milly, no one has said such things to me before.'

'Well, dear!'

'It is beautiful--the idea, I mean--it seems to heal the sore place.'

'I meant it to do so. It is not more beautiful than the filial love that
can find rest by a mother's grave. Cardie would never think of doing
that. When his paroxysms of pain come on him, he vents himself in long
solitary walks, or shuts himself up in his room.'

'Aunt Milly, how did you know that? who told you?'

'My own intuition,' returned Mildred, smiling. 'Come, child, it is long
past ten. I wonder what Polly and Dr. Heriot have been doing with
themselves all this time. Go to sleep and forget all about these
troubles;' and Mildred kissed the tear-stained face tenderly as she
spoke.

She found Dr. Heriot alone when she entered the drawing-room. He looked
up at her rather strangely, she thought. Could he have overheard any of
their conversation?

'I was just coming out to warn you of imprudence,' he said, rising and
offering her his chair. 'Sit there and rest yourself a little. Do
mothers in Israel generally have such tired faces?' regarding her with a
grave, inscrutable smile.

He had heard then. Mildred could not help the rising colour that
testified to her annoyance.

'Forgive me,' he returned, leaning over the back of her chair, and
speaking with the utmost gentleness. 'I did not mean to annoy you, far
from it. Your voices just underneath the window reached me occasionally,
and I only heard enough to----'

'Well, Dr. Heriot?'

Mildred sat absolutely on thorns.

'To justify the name I just called you. I cannot help it, Miss Lambert,
you so thoroughly deserve it.'

Mildred grew scarlet.

'You ought to have given us a hint. Olive had no idea, neither had I. I
thought--we thought, you were talking to the girls.'

'So I was; but I sent them away long ago. My dear Miss Lambert, I
believe you are accusing me in your heart of listening,' elevating his
eyebrows slightly, as though the idea was absurd. 'Pray dismiss such a
notion from your mind. I was in a brown study, and thinking of my
favourite Richard, when poor Olive's sobs roused me.'

'Richard your favourite!'

'Yes, is he not yours?' with an inquisitive glance. 'All Dick's faults,
glaring as they are, could not hide his real excellence from such
observing eyes.'

'He interests me,' she returned, reluctantly; 'but they all do that of
course.' Somehow she was loath to confess to a secret predilection in
Richard's favour. 'He does not deserve me to speak well of him
to-night,' she continued, with her usual candour.

Dr. Heriot looked surprised.

'He has been captious and sharp with Olive again, I suppose. I love to
see a woman side with her sex. Well, do you know, if I were Richard,
Olive would provoke me.'

'Possibly,' was Mildred's cool reply, for the remembrance of the sad
tear-stained face made any criticism on Olive peculiarly unpalatable at
that moment.

Dr. Heriot was quick to read the feeling.

'Don't be afraid, Miss Lambert. I don't mean to say a word against your
adopted daughter, only to express my thankfulness that she has fallen
into such tender hands,' and for a moment he looked at the slim,
finely-shaped hands lying folded in Mildred's lap, and which were her
chief beauty. 'I only want you to be lenient in your judgment of
Richard, for in his present state she tries him sorely.'

'One can see he is very unhappy.'

'People are who create a Doubting Castle for themselves, and carry Giant
Despair, as a sort of old man of the mountains, on their shoulders,' he
returned, drily. '"The perfect woman nobly planned" is rather an
inconvenient sort of burden too. Well, it is growing late, and I must go
and look after those boys.'

'Wait a minute, Dr. Heriot. You know his trouble, perhaps?'

He nodded.

'Troubles, you mean. They are threefold, at least, poor Cardie! Very few
youths of nineteen know how to arrange their life, or to like other
people to arrange it for them.'

'I want to ask you something; you know them all so well. Do you think I
shall ever win his confidence?'

'You,' looking at her kindly; 'no one deserves it more, of course;
but----' pausing in some perplexity.

'You hesitate.'

'Well, Cardie is peculiar. His mother was his sole confidant, and, when
he lost her, I verily believe the poor fellow was as near heart-break as
possible. I have got into his good graces lately, and now and then he
lets off the steam; but not often. He is a great deal up at Kirkleatham
House; but I doubt the wisdom of an adviser so young and fair as Miss
Trelawny.'

'Miss Trelawny! Who is she?'

'What, have you not heard of "Ethel the Magnificent"? The neighbourhood
reports that Richard and I have both lost our hearts to her, and are
rivals. Only believe half you hear in Kirkby Stephen, Miss Lambert.' But
Richard is only nineteen.'

'True; and I was accused of wearing her hair in a locket at my
watch-guard. Miss Trelawny's hair is light brown, and this is bright
auburn. I don't trouble myself to inform people that I may possibly be
wearing my mother's hair.'

'Then you don't think my task will be easy?' asked Mildred, ignoring the
bitterness with which he had spoken.

'What task--that of winning Cardie's confidence? I hope you don't mean
to be an anxious mother, and grow gray before your time.' Then, as
though touched by Mildred's yearning look, 'I wish I could promise you
would have no difficulty; but facts are stubborn things. Richard is
close and somewhat impracticable; but as you seem an adept in winning,
you may soften down his ruggedness sooner than we expect. Come, is that
vaguely encouraging?'

One of Mildred's quaint smiles flitted over her face as she answered--

'Not very; but I mean to try, however. If I am to succeed I must give
Miss Trelawny a wide berth.'

'Why so I' looking at her in surprise.

'If your hint be true, Richard's mannishness would never brook feminine
interference.'

Dr. Heriot laughed.

'I was hardly prepared for such feminine sagacity. You are a wise woman,
Miss Lambert. If you go on like this, we shall all be afraid of you. The
specimen is rare enough in these parts, I assure you. Well, good-night.'

It was with mingled feelings that Mildred retired to rest that night.
The events of the day, with its jarring interests and disturbed harmony,
had given her deep insight into the young lives around her.

Three days!--she felt as though she had been three months among them.
She was thankful that Olive's confidence seemed already won--thankful
and touched to the heart; and though her conversation with Dr. Heriot
had a little damped her with regard to Richard, hers was the sort of
courage that gains strength with obstacles; and, before she slept that
night, the fond prayer rose to her lips, that Betha's sons might find a
friend in her.

She woke the next morning with a consciousness that duty lay ready to
hand, opening out before her as the dawn brightened into day. On her way
downstairs she came upon Olive, looking heavy-eyed and unrefreshed, as
though from insufficient sleep. She was hunting among her father's
papers for a book she had mislaid.

'Have you seen it, Aunt Milly?'

'Do you mean this?' holding out a dilapidated _Wilhelm Tell_ for her
inspection. 'I picked it up in the court, and placed it on the shelf for
safety. Wait a moment, dear,' as Olive was rushing away, 'I want to
speak to you. Was it by yours or your father's wish that you gave up
your seat at supper to me?'

'Oh, it was Dr. John--at least--I mean I would much rather you always
had it, Aunt Milly,' returned Olive, in her usual incoherent fashion.
'Please, do take it; it was such a load off my mind to see you sitting
there.'

'But, my dear,' remonstrated Mildred; but Olive interrupted her with
unusual eagerness.

'Oh, you must; you look so much nicer; and I hate it so. Dr. John
arranged it all, and papa said "Yes," as he always does. He put it so
kindly, that one could not mind; he told papa that with my
disposition--timidity he meant, and absence of mind--it would be better
for everybody's comfort if you assumed the entire management of
everything at once; and that it would be better for me to learn from you
for a few years, until you had made me a capable woman. Cardie heard
him, I know; for he gave quite a sigh of relief.'

'Perhaps they are right; but it seems strange for Dr. Heriot to
interfere in such a matter,' returned Mildred, in a puzzled tone.

'Oh, Dr. John always settles things; nobody calls it interference from
him,' explained Olive, in her simple matter-of-fact way. 'It is such a
relief to be told what to do. Papa only thanked him, and begged me to
put myself entirely under your direction. You are to have the keys, and
I am to show you the store cupboards and places, and to introduce you to
Nan. We are afraid you will find her a little troublesome at first, Aunt
Milly;' but Mildred only smiled, and assured her she was not afraid of
Nan, and as the bells were ringing the brief colloquy ceased.

Mildred was quite aware Dr. Heriot was in church, as his fine voice was
distinctly audible, leading the responses. To her surprise he joined
them after service, and without waiting for an invitation, announced his
intention of breakfasting with them.

'Nan's rolls are especially tempting on Monday morning,' he observed,
coolly; 'but to-day that is not my inducement. Is teaching one's ward
the catechism included in the category of a guardian's duty, Miss
Lambert?'

'I was not aware that such was the case,' returned Mildred, laughing.
'Do you mean to teach Polly hers?'

Polly drew herself up affronted.

'I am not a little girl; I am fourteen.'

'What a great age, and what a literal Polly!' taking her hands, and
looking at her with an amused twinkle in his eyes. 'Last night you
certainly looked nothing but a good little girl, singing hymns at my
feet; but to-day you are bridling like a young princess; you are as fond
of transformation as Proteus.'

'Who is Proteus?'

'A sea-god--but there is your breakfast; the catechism must wait till
afterwards. I mean to introduce you to Mrs. Cranford in proper style.
Miss Lambert, is your coffee always so good? I trust not, or my presence
may prove harassing at the breakfast-table.'

'It is excellent, Aunt Milly:' the last from Richard.

Mildred hoped the tone of hearty commendation would not reach Olive's
ear, as her German grammar lay by her plate as usual; but she only
looked up and nodded pleasantly.

'I never could make coffee nicely; you must teach me, Aunt Milly,' and
dropped her eyes on her book again.

'No paltry jealousy there,' thought Mildred; and she sat behind her urn
well pleased, for even Arnold had roused himself once to ask for his cup
to be replenished. Mildred had been called away on some household
business, and on her return she found Dr. Heriot alone, reading the
paper. He put it down as she entered.

'Well, is Nan formidable?'

'Her dialect is,' returned Mildred, smiling; 'I am afraid she looks upon
me in the light of an interloper. I hope she does not always mean to
call me "t'maister's sister."'

'Probably. Nan has her idiosyncrasies, but they are rather puzzling than
dangerous; she is a type of the old Daleswoman, sturdy, independent, and
sharp-tongued; but she is a good creature in the main, though a little
contemptuous on "women-foaks." I believe Dick is her special favourite,
though she told him once "he's niver off a grummle, and that she was
fair stot t' deeth wi't sound on't," if you know what that means.'

Mildred shook her head.

'You must not expect too much respect to a southerner at first. I did
battle on your behalf before you came, Miss Lambert, and got terribly
worsted. "Bless me, weel, Doctor!" says Nan, "what's the matter that
t'maister's sister come here? I can do verra weel by messel', and Miss
Olive can fend for hersel'; it's nought but daftness, but it's ne'er my
business; if they please themselves they please me. I must bide
t'bitterment."'

Mildred gave one of her quiet laughs.

'Nan and I will be great friends soon; we must learn to respect each
other's prejudices. Poor Olive had not a chance of putting in a word.
Nan treated her as though she were a mere infant.'

'She has known her ever since she was one, you see, Miss Lambert. I have
been putting Polly through her paces, and find she has plenty to learn
and unlearn.'

'I suppose she has been tolerably well educated?'

'Pretty fairly, but after a desultory fashion. I fancy she has picked up
knowledge somehow, as a bird picks up crumbs; her French accent is
perfect, and she knows a little German. She is mostly deficient in
English. I must have a long talk with Mrs. Cranford.'

'I understood Polly was to take lessons from her?'

'You must take an early opportunity of making her acquaintance; she is
truly excellent; the girls are fortunate in having such an instructress.
Do you know, Chrissy is already a fair Latin scholar.'

'Chrissy! you mean Olive, surely?'

'No, Chriss is the bluestocking--does Euclid with the boys, and already
develops a taste for mathematics. Mr. Lambert used to direct her severer
studies. I believe Richard does it now. Olive's talents lie in quite
another direction.'

'I am anxious to know--is she really clever?' asked Mildred, astonished
at this piece of information.

'I believe she is tolerably well read for a girl of her age, and is
especially fond of languages--the modern ones I mean--though her father
has taught her Latin. I have always thought myself, that under that
timid and lethargic exterior there is a vast amount of imaginative
force--certain turns of speech in her happier moments prove it to me. I
should not be surprised if we live to discover she has genius.'

'I am convinced that hers is no ordinary mind,' returned Mildred,
seriously; 'but her goodness somehow pains one.'

Dr. Heriot laughed.

'Have you ever heard Roy's addition to the table of weights and
measures, "How many scruples make an olive?" he asked. 'My dear Miss
Lambert, that girl is a walking conscience; she has the sort of mind
that adds, subtracts, divides, and multiplies duties, till the
grasshopper becomes a burden; she is one of the most thoroughly
uncomfortable Christians I ever knew. It is a disease,' he continued,
more gravely, 'a form of internal and spiritual hyperclimacteric, and
must be treated as such.'

'I wish she were more like your ward,' replied Mildred, anxiously;
'Polly is so healthy and girlish--she lives too much to have time for
always probing her feelings.'

'You are right,' was the answer. 'Polly is just the happy medium,
neither too clever nor too stupid--a loving-hearted child, who will one
of these days develop into a loving-hearted woman. Is she not delicious
with her boyish head and piquante face--pretty too, don't you think so?'
And as the sound of the girls' voices reached them at this moment, Dr.
Heriot rose, and a few minutes afterwards Mildred saw him cross the
court, with Polly and Chrissy hanging on each arm.




CHAPTER VIII

'ETHEL THE MAGNIFICENT'

    'A maid of grace and complete majesty.'


Later on in the morning Mildred was passing by the door of her brother's
study, when she heard his voice calling to her. He was sitting in his
usual chair, with his back to the light, reading, but he laid down his
book directly.

'Are you busy, Mildred?'

'Not if you want me,' she returned, brightly. 'I was just thinking I had
hardly spoken to you to-day.'

'The same thought was lying heavy on my conscience. Heriot tells me you
are looking better already. I hope you are beginning to feel at home
with us, my dear.'

'With you, Arnold--do you need to ask?' Mildred returned, reproachfully.
But the tears started to her eyes.

'And the children are good to you?' he continued, a little anxiously.

'They are everything I can wish. Cardie is most thoughtful for my
comfort, and Olive is fast losing her shyness. The only thing I regret
is that I manage to see so little of you, Arnold.'

He patted her hand gently. 'It is better so, my dear. I am poor company,
I fear, and have grown into strangely unsociable ways. They are good
children; but you must not let them spoil me, Mildred. Sometimes I think
I ought to rouse myself more for their sakes.'

'Indeed, Arnold, their conduct is most exemplary. Neither Cardie nor Roy
ever seem to let you go out alone.'

'Ay, ay,' he muttered; 'his mother was right. The lad is beyond his
years, and has a wise head on young shoulders. Heriot tells me I must be
looking out for a curate. I had some notion of waiting for Richard, but
he will have it the work is beyond me.'

Mildred was silent. She thought any work, however exhausting, was better
than the long lonely hours passed in the study--hours during which his
children were denied admittance, and for which all Richard's mannishness
was not allowed to find a remedy; and yet, as she looked at the wan,
thin face, and weary stoop of the figure, might it not be that Dr.
Heriot was right?

'Heriot has heard of some one at Durham who is likely to suit me, he
thinks; he wants me to have him down. By the bye, Mildred, how do you
get on with Heriot?'

'He is very nice,' she returned, vaguely, rather taken aback by the
suddenness of the question. 'Such a general favourite could not fail to
please,' she continued, a little mischievously.

'Ah, you are laughing at us. Well, Heriot is our weak point, I confess.
Cardie is not given to raptures, but he has not a word to say against
him, and Trelawny is always having him up at Kirkleatham. Kirkby Stephen
could not do without Heriot now.'

'He is clever in his profession, then?'

'Very. And then so thoroughly unselfish; he would go twenty miles to do
any one a service, and take as much pains to hide it afterwards. I shall
be disappointed, indeed Mildred, if you and he do not become good
friends.'

'Dear Arnold, he is a perfect stranger to me yet. I like him quite well
enough to wish to see more of him. There seems some mystery about him,'
she continued, hesitating; for Mildred, honest and straightforward by
nature, was a foe to all mysteries.

'Only the mystery of a disappointed life. He has no secrets with us--he
never had. We knew him when we lived at Lambeth, and even then his story
was well known to us.'

'Betha told me he had given up a large West End practice in consequence
of severe domestic trouble. She hinted once that he had a bad wife.'

'She was hardly deserving of the name. I have heard that she was nine
years older than he, and a great beauty; a woman, too, of marvellous
fascination, and gifted beyond the generality of her sex, and that he
was madly in love when he married her.'

'Perhaps the love was only on his side?'

'Alas! yes. He found out, when it was too late, that she had accepted
him out of pique, and that his rival was living. The very first days of
their union were embittered by the discovery that jealousy had forged
these life-long fetters for them, and that already remorse was driving
his unhappy bride almost frantic. Can you conceive the torment for poor
Heriot? He could not set her free, though he loved her so that he would
willingly have laid down his life to give her peace. She had no mother
living, or he would have sent her away when he saw how distasteful his
presence was to her; but, though she had murdered his happiness as well
as her own, he was bound to be her protector.'

'He was right,' returned Mildred, in a low voice.

'Ay, and he acted nobly. Instead of overwhelming her with reproaches
that could have done no good, or crushing her still more with his
coldness, he forgave her, and set himself to win the heart that proved
itself so unworthy of his forbearance. Any other husband would have
thought himself injured beyond reparation, but not so Heriot. He hid his
wretchedness, and by every means in his power tried to lighten the
burden of his domestic misery.'

'But people must have seen it?'

'Not through his complaint, for he ever honoured her. I have been told
by those who knew him at the time, that his conduct to her was
blameless, and that they marvelled at the gentleness with which he bore
her wayward fits. After the birth of their only child there was an
interval of comparative comfort; in her weakness there was a glimmering
of compassion for the man she had injured, and who was the father of her
boy. Heriot was touched by the unusual kindness of her manner; there
were even tears in her eyes when he took the little creature in his arms
and noticed the long eyelashes, so like his mother's.'

'But the child died?'

'Yes--"the little peacemaker," as Heriot fondly called it. But certainly
all peace was buried in its little grave; for it was during the months
that followed her child's loss that Margaret Heriot developed that
unwholesome craving for stimulants which afterwards grew to absolute
disease, and which was to wear out her husband's patience into slow
disgust and then into utter weariness of life.'

'Oh, Arnold, I never suspected this!'

'It was just then we made his acquaintance, and, as a priest, he sought
my help and counsel in ministering to what was indeed a diseased mind;
but, poor misguided woman! she would not see me. In her better moments
she would cling to Heriot, and beg him to save her from the demon that
seemed to possess her. She even knelt and asked his forgiveness once;
but no remedy that he could recommend could be effectual in the case of
one who had never been taught to deny herself a moment's gratification.
I shudder to think of the scenes to which she subjected him, of the
daily torture and uncertainty in which he lived: his was the mockery of
a home. Her sof

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