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Dynevor Terrace; Or, The Clue of Life — Volume 2

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Title: Dynevor Terrace; Or, The Clue of Life — Volume 2

Author: Charlotte M. Yonge


        
Release date: July 1, 2003 [eBook #4236]
                Most recently updated: December 27, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4236

Credits: Produced by Sandra Laythorpe.  HTML version by Al Haines.


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DYNEVOR TERRACE; OR, THE CLUE OF LIFE — VOLUME 2 ***




Produced by Sandra Laythorpe.  HTML version by Al Haines.









DYNEVOR TERRACE.

VOL. II.


BY

CHARLOTTE M. YONGE




CONTENTS

      1.  THE TRYSTE.
     II.  THE THIRD TIME.
    III.  MISTS.
     IV.  OUTWARD BOUND.
      V.  THE NEW WORLD.
     VI.  THE TWO PENDRAGONS.
    VII.  ROLAND AND OLIVER
   VIII.  THE RESTORATION.
     IX.  THE GIANT OF THE WESTERN STAR.
      X.  THE WRONG WOMAN IN THE WRONG PLACE.
     XI.  AUNT CATHARINE'S HOME.
    XII.  THE FROST HOUSEHOLD.
   XIII.  THE CONWAY HOUSEHOLD.
    XIV.  THE TRUSTEES' MEETING.
     XV.  SWEET USES OF ADVERSITY.
    XVI.  THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION.
   XVII.  'BIDE A WEE.'
  XVIII.  THE CRASH.
    XIX.  FAREWELL TO GREATNESS.
     XX.  WESTERN TIDINGS.
    XXI.  STEPPING WESTWARD.
   XXII.  RATHER SUDDEN.
  XXIII.  THE MARVEL OF PERU.




CHAPTER I.

THE TRYSTE.

  One single flash of glad surprise
  Just glanced from Isabel's dark eyes,
  Then vanished in the blush of shame
  That as its penance instant came--
  'O thought unworthy of my race!'
                     The Lord of the Isles.


As little recked Fitzjocelyn of the murmurs which he had provoked, as
he guessed the true secret of his victory.  In his eyes, it was the
triumph of merit over prejudice, and Mrs. Frost espoused the same
gratifying view, though ascribing much to her nephew's activity, and
James himself, flushed with hope and success, was not likely to dissent.

Next they had to make their conquest available.  Apart from Louis's
magnificent prognostications, at the lowest computation, the head
master's income amounted to a sum which to James appeared affluence;
and though there was no house provided, it mattered the less since
there were five to choose from in the Terrace, even if his grandmother
had not wished that their household should be still the same.  With
Miss Conway's own fortune and the Terrace settled on herself, where
could be any risk?

Would Lady Conway think so? and how should the communication be made?
James at first proposed writing to her, enclosing a letter to Isabel;
but he changed his mind, unable to satisfy himself that, when absent
from restraint, she might not send a refusal without affording her
daughter the option.  He begged his grandmother to write to Isabel; but
she thought her letter might carry too much weight, and, whatever might
be her hopes, it was not for her to tell the young lady that such means
were sufficient.

Louis begged to be the bearer of the letter.  His aunt would certainly
keep terms with him, and he could insure that the case was properly
laid before Isabel; and, as there could be no doubt at present of his
persuasive powers, James caught at the offer.  The party were still at
Beauchastel, and he devised going to his old quarters at Ebbscreek, and
making a descent upon them from thence.

When he came to take up his credentials, he found James and his little
black leathern bag, determined to come at least to Ebbscreek with him,
and declaring it made him frantic to stay at home and leave his cause
in other hands, and that he could not exist anywhere but close to the
scene of action.

Captain Hannaford was smoking in his demi-boat, and gave his former
lodgers a hearty welcome, but he twinkled knowingly with his eye, and
so significantly volunteered to inform them that the ladies were still
at Beauchastel, that James's wrath at the old skipper's impudence began
to revive, and he walked off to the remotest end of the garden.

The Captain, remaining with Louis, with whom he was always on far more
easy terms, looked after the other gentleman, winked again, and
confessed that he had suspected one or other of them might be coming
that way this summer, though he could not say he had expected to see
them both together.

'Mind, Captain,' said Louis,' it wasn't _I_ that made the boat late
this time last year.'

'Well!  I might be wrong, I fancied you cast an eye that way.  Then
maybe it ain't true what's all over the place here.'

Louis pressed to hear what.  'Why, that when the French were going on
like Robert Spear and them old times, he had convoyed the young lady
right through the midst of them, and they would both have been shot, if
my Lady's butler hadn't come down with a revolver, killed half-a-dozen
of the mob, and rescued them out of it, but that Lord Fitzjocelyn had
been desperately wounded in going back to fetch her bracelet, and Mr.
Delaford had carried him out in his arms.'

'Well!' said Louis, coolly, without altering a muscle of his face, as
the Captain looked for an angry negative.

'And when they got home,--so the story went,--Mr. Frost, the tutor, was
so mad with jealousy and rage, that my Lady declared those moorings
would not suit her no longer, but had let go, and laid her head right
for Beauchastel.'

'Pray what was the young lady supposed to think of the matter?'

'Stories appeared to vary.  One version said that Mr. Delaford had
found him on his knees to her; and that my Lady had snatched her
cruelly away, because she would not have her married before her own
daughters, and looked over all the post, for fear there should be a
letter for her.  Another declared that Miss Conway would not have him
at any price, and was set upon the poor tutor, and that he was lying
dangerously ill of a low fever. --The women will have it so,' observed
the Captain, 'the story's everywhere, except maybe in the parlour at
Beauchastel, and I wouldn't wonder if Mrs. Mansell knew it all herself,
for her maid has a tongue a yard long.  I won't say but I thought there
might be some grain of truth at the bottom--'

'And you shall hear it by-and-by, when I know what it is myself.'

'I'd not say I would have believed it the more if that fine gentleman
had taken his oath of it--a fellow that ain't to be trusted,' observed
the Captain.

This might have led to a revelation, if Louis had had time to attend to
it; but he had pity on James's impatient misery, and proceeded to ask
the loan of the boat.  The tide would not, however, serve; and as
waiting till it would was not to be endured, the two cousins set off to
walk together through the woods, Louis beguiling the way by chaffing
James, as far as he would bear, with the idea of Isabel's name being
trifled with by the profane crowd.

He left James at the gate of the park, prowling about like a panther to
try for a glimpse of Isabel's window, and feeding his despair and
jealousy that Louis should boldly walk up to the door, while he, with
so much better a right, was excluded by his unguarded promise to Lady
Conway.

All the tumultuary emotions of his mind were endlessly repeated, and
many a slow and pealing note of the church-clock had added fuel to his
impatience, and spurred him to rush up to the door and claim his
rights, before Louis came bounding past the lodge-gates, flourishing
his cap, and crying, 'Hurrah, Jem!  All right!'

'I'm going to her at once!' cried Jem, beginning to rush off; but Louis
caught and imprisoned his arm.

'Not so fast, sir!  You are to see her.  I promise you shall see her if
you wish it, but it must be in my aunt's way.'

'Let me go, I say!'

'When I have walked five miles in your service, you won't afford me an
arm to help me back.  I am not a horse with wings, and I won't be
Cupid's post except on my own terms.  Come back.'

'I don't stir till I have heard the state of the case.'

'Yes, you do; for all the sportsmen will be coming home, and my aunt
would not for all the world that Mr. Mansell caught you on the
forbidden ground.'

'How can you give in to such shuffling nonsense!  If I am to claim
Isabel openly, why am I not to visit her openly?  You have yielded to
that woman's crooked policy.  I don't trust you!'

'When you are her son, you may manage her as you please.  Just now she
has us in her power, and can impose conditions.  Come on; and if you
are good, you shall hear.'

Drawing James along with him through the beechwood glades, he began,
'You would have been more insane still if you had guessed at my luck. I
found Isabel alone.  Mrs. Mansell had taken the girls to some juvenile
fete, and Delaford was discreet enough not to rouse my aunt from her
letters.  I augured well from the happy conjunction.'

'Go on; don't waste time in stuff.'

'Barkis is willing, then.  Is that enough to the point?'

'Fitzjocelyn, you never had any feelings yourself, and therefore you
trifle with those of others.'

'I beg your pardon.  It was a shame!  Jem, you may be proud.  She
trusts you completely, and whatever you think sufficient, she regards
as ample.'

'Like her!  Only too like her.  Such confidence makes one feel a
redoubled responsibility.'

'I thought I had found something at which you could not grumble.'

'How does she look?  How do they treat her?'

'Apparently they have not yet fed her on bread and water.  No;
seriously, I must confess that she looked uncommonly well and lovely!
Never mind, Jem; I verily believe that, in spite of absence and all
that, she had never been so happy in her life.  If any description
could convey the sweetness of voice and manner when she spoke of you! I
could not look in her face.  Those looks can only be for you.  We
talked it over, but she heeded no ways and means; it was enough that
you were satisfied.  She says the subject has never been broached since
the flight from Northwold, and that Lady Conway's kindness never
varies; and she told me she had little fear but that her dear mamma
would be prevailed on to give sanction enough to hinder her from
feeling as if she were doing wrong, or setting a bad example to her
sisters.  They know nothing of it; but Walter, who learnt it no one
knows how, draws the exemplary moral, that it serves his mother right
for inflicting a tutor on him.'

'Has she had my letter?  Does she know I am here?'

'Wait!  All this settled, and luncheon being ready, down came my Lady,
and we played unconsciousness to our best ability.  I must confess my
aunt beat us hollow!  Isabel then left us to our conference, which we
conducted with the gravity of a tailor and an old woman making a match
in Brittany.'

'You came out with that valuable improvable freehold, the Terrace, I
suppose?'

'I told the mere facts!  My aunt was rather grand about a
grammar-school; she said even a curacy would sound better, and she must
talk it over with Isabel.  I gave your letter, conjuring her to let
Isabel have it, and though she declared that it was no kindness, and
would put the poor darling into needless perplexity, she was touched
with my forbearance, in not having given it before, when I had such an
opportunity.  So she went away, and stayed a weary while: but when she
came, it was worth the waiting.  She said Isabel was old enough to know
her own mind, and the attachment being so strong, and you so
unexceptionable, she did not think it possible to object: she had great
delight in seeing you made happy, and fulfilling the dictates of her
own heart, now that it could be done with moderate prudence. They go to
Scarborough in a fortnight, and you will be welcome there. There's for
you!'

'Louis, you are the best fellow living!  But you said I was to see her
at once.'

'I asked, why wait for Scarborough?' and depicted you hovering
disconsolately round the precincts.  Never mind, Jem, I did not make
you more ridiculous than human nature must needs paint a lover, and it
was all to melt her heart.  I was starting off to fetch you, when I
found she was in great terror.  She had never told the Mansells of the
matter, and they must be prepared.  She cannot have it transpire while
she is in their house, and, in fact, is excessively afraid of Mr.
Mansell, and wants to tell her story by letter.  Now, I think,
considering all things, she has a right to take her own way.'

'You said I was not to go without meeting her!'

'I had assented, and was devising how to march off my lunatic quietly,
when the feminine goodnatured heart that is in her began to relent, and
she looked up in my face with a smile, and said the poor dears were
really exemplary, and if Isabel should walk to the beach and should
meet any one there, she need know nothing about it.'

'What says Isabel?'

'She held up her stately head, and thought it would be a better return
for Mr. Mansell's kindness to tell him herself before leaving
Beauchastel; but Lady Conway entreated her not to be hasty, and
protested that her fears were of Mr. Mansell's displeasure with her for
not having taken better care of her--she dreaded a break, and so
on,--till the end of it was, that though we agree that prudence would
carry us off to-morrow morning, yet her ladyship will look the other
way, if you happen to be on the southern beach at eleven o'clock
to-morrow morning.  I suppose you were very headlong and peremptory in
your note, for I could not imagine Isabel consenting to a secret tryste
even so authorized.'

'I never asked for any such thing!  I would not for worlds see her led
to do anything underhand.'

'She will honour you!  That's right, Jem!'

'Neither as a clergyman, nor as a Dynevor, can I consent to trick even
those who have no claim to her duty!'

'Neither as a gentleman, nor as a human creature,' added Louis, in the
same tone.  'Shall I go back and give your answer?'

'No; you are walking lame enough already.'

'No matter for that.'

'To tell you the truth, I can't stand your being with her again, while
I am made a fool of by that woman.  If I'm not to see her, I'll be off.
I'll send her a note; we will cross to Bickleypool, and start by the
mail-train this very night.'

Louis made no objection, and James hurried him into the little parlour,
where in ten minutes the note was dashed off:--


My Own Most Precious One!--(as, thanks to my most unselfish of cousins,
I may dare to call you,)--I regret my fervency and urgency for an
interview, since it led you to think I could purchase even such
happiness by a subterfuge unworthy of my calling, and an ill return of
the hospitality to which we owed our first meeting.  We will meet when
I claim you in the face of day, without the sense of stolen felicity,
which is a charm to common-place minds.  My glory is in the assurance
that you understand my letter, approve, and are relieved.  With such
sanction, and with ardour before you like mine, I see that you could do
no other than consent, and there is not a shadow of censure in my mind;
but if, without compromising your sense of obedience, you could openly
avow our engagement to Mr. Mansell, I own that I should feel that we
were not drawn into a compromise of sincerity.  What this costs me I
will not say; it will be bare existence till we meet at Scarborough.

                                       'Your own, J. E. F. D.'


Having written this and deposited it in the Ebbscreek post-office,
James bethought himself that his submissive cousin had thrown himself
on the floor, with his bag for a pillow, trying to make the most of the
few moments of rest before the midnight journey.  Seized with
compunction, James exclaimed, 'There, old fellow, we will stay
to-night.'

'Thank you--' He was too sleepy for more.

The delay was recompensed.  James was trying to persuade Louis to rouse
himself to be revived by bread-and-cheese and beer, and could extort
nothing but a drowsy repetition of the rhyme, in old days the war-cry
of the Grammar-school against the present headmaster,--

     'The Welshman had liked to be choked by a mouse,
      But he pulled him out by the tail,'--

when an alarum came in the shape of a little grinning boy from
Beauchastel, with a note on which James had nearly laid hands, as he
saw the writing, though the address was to the Viscount Fitzjocelyn.

'You may have it,' said Louis.  'If anything were wanting, the
coincidence proves that you were cut out for one another.  I rejoice
that the moon does not stoop from her sphere.'


'My Dear Cousin,--I trust to you to prevent Mr. F. Dynevor from being
hurt or disappointed; and, indeed, I scarcely think he will, though I
should not avail myself of the permission for meeting him so kindly
intended.  I saw at once that you felt as I did, and as I know he will.
He would not like me to have cause to blush before my kind friends--to
know that I had acted a deceit, nor to set an example to my sisters for
which they might not understand the justification.  I know that you
will obtain my pardon, if needed; and to be assured of it, would be all
that would be required to complete the grateful happiness of

             'Isabel.'


The boy had orders not to wait; and these being seconded by fears of
something that 'walked' in Ebbscreek wood after dark, he was gone
before an answer could be thought of.  It mattered the less, since
Isabel must receive James's note early in the morning; and so, in fact,
she did--and she was blushing over it, and feeling as if she could
never have borne to meet his eye but for the part she had fortunately
taken, when Louisa tapped at her door, with a message that Mr. Mansell
wished to speak with her, if she were ready.

She went down-stairs still in a glow; and her old friend's first words
were a compliment on her roses, so pointed, that she doubted for a
moment whether he did not think them suspicious, especially as he put
his hands behind his back, and paced up and down the room, for some
moments.  He then came towards her, and said, in a very kind tone,
'Isabel, my dear, I sent for you first, because I knew your own mother
very well, my dear; and though Lady Conway is very kind, and has always
done you justice,--that I will always say for her,--yet there are times
when it may make a difference to a young woman whether she has her own
mother or not.'

Isabel's heart was beating.  She was certain that some discovery had
been made, and longed to explain; but she was wise enough not to speak
in haste, and waited to see how the old gentleman would finally break
it to her.  He blundered on a little longer, becoming more confused and
distressed every minute, and at last came to the point abruptly.  'In
short, Isabel, my dear, what can you have done to set people saying
that you have been corresponding with the young men at Ebbscreek?'

'I sent a note to my cousin Fitzjocelyn last night,' said Isabel, with
such calmness, that the old gentleman fairly stood with his mouth open,
looking at her aghast.

'Fitzjocelyn!  Then it is Fitzjocelyn, is it?' he exclaimed.  'Then,
why could he not set about it openly and honourably?  Does his father
object?  I would not have thought it of you, Isabel, nor of the lad
neither!'

'You need not think it, dear Mr. Mansell.  There is nothing between
Lord Fitzjocelyn and myself but the warmest friendship.'

'Isabel!  Isabel! why are you making mysteries?  I do not wish to pry
into your affairs.  I would have trusted you anywhere; but when it
comes round to me that you have been sending a private messenger to one
of the young gentlemen there, I don't know what to be at!  I would not
believe Mrs. Mansell at first; but I saw the boy, and he said you had
sent him yourself.  My dear, you may mean, very rightly--I am sure you
do, but you must not set people talking!  It is not acting rightly by
me, Isabel; but I would not care for that, if it were acting rightly by
yourself.'  And he gazed at her with a piteous, perplexed expression.

'Let me call mamma,' said Isabel.

'As you will, my dear, but cannot you let the simple truth come out
between you and your own blood-relation, without all her words to come
between?  Can't you, Isabel?  I am sure you and I shall understand each
other.'

'That we shall,' replied Isabel, warmly.  'I have given her no promise.
Dear Mr. Mansell, I have wished all along that you should know that I
am engaged, with her full consent, to Mr. Frost Dynevor.'

'To the little black tutor!' cried Mr. Mansell, recoiling, but
recollecting himself.  'I beg your pardon, my dear, he may be a very
good man, but what becomes of all this scrambling over barricades with
the young Lord?'

Isabel described the true history of her engagement; and it was
received with a long, low whistle, by no means too complimentary.

'And what makes him come and hide in holes and corners, if this is all
with your mamma's good will?'

'Mamma thought you would be displeased; she insisted on taking her own
time for breaking it to you,' said Isabel.

'Was there ever a woman but must have her mystery?  Well, I should have
liked him better if he had not given into it!'

'He never did!' said Isabel, indignant enough to disclose in full the
whole arrangement made by Lady Conway's manoeuvres and lax good-nature.
'I knew it would never do,' she added, 'though I could not say so
before her and Fitzjocelyn.  My note was to tell them so: and look
here, Mr. Mansell, this is what Mr. Dynevor had already written before
receiving mine.'

She held it out proudly; and Mr. Mansell, making an unwilling sound
between his teeth, took it from her; but, as he read, his countenance
changed, and he exclaimed, 'Ha! very well!  This is something like! So
that's it, is it?  You and he would not combine to cheat the old man,
like a pair of lovers in a trumpery novel!'

'No, indeed!' said Isabel, 'that would be a bad way of beginning.'

'Where is the young fellow?--at Ebbscreek, did you say?  I'll tell you
what, Isabel,' with his hand on the bell, 'I'll have out the dogcart
this minute, and fetch him home to breakfast, to meet my Lady when she
comes down stairs, if it be only for the sake of showing that I like
plain dealing!'

'Isabel could only blush, smile, look doubtful, and yet so very happy
and grateful, that Mr. Mansell became cautious, lest his impulse should
have carried him too far, and, after having ordered the vehicle to be
prepared, he caught her by the hand, and detained her, saying, 'Mind
you, Miss, you are not to take this for over-much.  I'm afraid it is a
silly business, and I did not want you to throw yourself away on a
schoolmaster.  I must see and talk to the man myself; but I won't have
anything that's not open and above-board, and that my Lady shall see
for once in her life!'

'I'm not afraid,' said Isabel, smiling.  'James will make his own way
with you.'

Isabel ran away to excuse and explain her confession to Lady Conway;
while Mr. Mansell indulged in another whistle, and then went to inform
his wife that he was afraid the girl had been making a fool of herself;
but it was not Lady Conway's fault that she was nothing worse, and he
was resolved, whatever he did, to show that honesty was the only thing
that would go down with him.

The boat was rocking on the green waves, and Louis was in the act of
waving an adieu to deaf Mrs. Hannaford, when a huntsman's halloo caused
James to look round and behold Mr. Mansell standing up in his dogcart,
making energetic signals with his whip.

He had meant to be very guarded, and wait to judge of James before
showing that he approved, but the excitement of the chase betrayed him
into a glow of cordiality, and he shook hands with vehemence.

'That's right!--just in time!  Jump in, and come home to breakfast. So
you wouldn't be a party to my Lady's tricks!--just like her--just as
she wheedled poor Conway.  I will let her see how I esteem plain
dealing!  I don't say that I see my way through this business; but
we'll talk it over together, and settle matters without my Lady.'

James hardly knew where he was, between joy and surprise.  The
invitation was extended to his companion; but Fitzjocelyn discerned
that both James and Mr. Mansell would prefer being left to themselves;
he had a repugnance to an immediate discussion with the one aunt, and
was in haste to carry the tidings to the other: and besides, it was
becoming possible that letters might arrive from the travellers.
Actuated by all these motives, he declined the offer of hospitality,
and rowed across to Bickleypool, enlightening the Captain on the state
of affairs as far as he desired.




CHAPTER II.

THE THIRD TIME.

  Tho' this was fair, and that was braw,
    And you the toast of all the town,
  I sighed and said, amang them a',
    Ye are not Mary Morison.
                            BURNS.


Mrs. Frost and Louis were very merry over the result of Lady Conway's
stratagems, and sat up indulging in bright anticipations until so late
an hour, that Louis was compelled to relinquish his purpose of going
home that night, but he persisted in walking to Ormersfield before
breakfast, that he might satisfy himself whether there were any letters.

It was a brisk October morning, the sportsman's gun and whistle
re-echoing from the hill sides; where here and there appeared the dogs
careering along over green turnip-fields or across amber stubble. The
Little Northwold trees, in dark, sober tints of brown and purple, hung
over the grey wall, tinted by hoary lichen; and as Louis entered the
Ormersfield field paths, and plunged into his own Ferny dell, the long
grass and brackens hung over the path, weighed down with silvery dew,
and the large cavernous web of the autumnal spider was all one thick
flake of wet.

If he could not enter the ravine without thankfulness for his past
escape, neither could he forget gratitude to her who had come to his
relief from hopeless agony!  He quickened his pace, in the earnest
longing for tidings, which had seized him, even to heart sickness.

It was the reaction of the ardour and excitement that had so long
possessed him.  The victory had been gained--he had been obliged to
leave James to work in his own cause, and would be no longer wanted in
the same manner by his cousin.  The sense of loneliness, and of the
want of an object, came strongly upon him as he walked through the prim
old solitary garden, and looked up at the dreary windows of the house,
almost reluctant to enter, as long as it was without Mary's own serene
atmosphere of sympathy and good sense, her precious offices of love,
her clear steady eyes, even in babyhood his trustworthy counsellors.

Was it a delusion of fancy, acting on reflections in the glass, that,
as he mounted the steps from the lawn, depicted Mary's figure through
the dining-room windows?  Nay, the table was really laid for
breakfast--a female figure was actually standing over the tea-chest.

'A scene from the Vicar of Wakefield deluding me,' decided Louis,
advancing to the third window, which was open.

It was Mary Ponsonby.

'Mary!'

'You here?--They said you were not at home!'

'My father!--Where?'

'He is not come down.  He is as well as possible.  We came at eleven
last night.  I found I was not wanted,' added Mary, with a degree of
agitation, that made him conclude that she had lost her father.

One step he made to find the Earl, but too much excited to move away or
to stand still, he came towards her, wrung her hand in a more real way
than in his first bewildered surprise, and exclaimed in transport, 'O
Mary! Mary! to have you back again!' then, remembering his inference,
added, low and gravely, 'It makes me selfish--I was not thinking of
your grief.'

'Never mind,' said Mary, smiling, though her eyes overflowed, 'I must
be glad to be at home again, and such a welcome as this--'

'O Mary, Mary!' he cried, nearly beside himself, 'I have not known what
to do without you!  You will believe it now, won't you?'--oh, won't
you?'

Mary would have been a wonderful person had she not instantly and
utterly forgotten all her conclusions from Frampton's having declared
him gone to Beauchastel for an unlimited time; but all she did was to
turn away her crimson tearful face, and reply, 'Your father would not
wish it now.'

'Then the speculations have failed?  So much the better!'

'No, no! he must tell you--'

She was trying to withdraw her hand, when Lord Ormersfield opened the
door, and in the moment of his amazed 'Louis!' Mary had fled.

'What is it? oh! what is it, father? cried Louis for all greeting, 'why
can she say you would not wish it now?'

'Wish it? wish what?' asked the Earl, without the intuitive perception
of the meaning of the pronoun.

'What you have always wished--Mary and me--What is the only happiness
that life can offer me!'

'If I wished it a year ago, I could only wish it the more now,' said
the Earl.  'But how is this?--I fully believed you committed to Miss
Conway.'

'Miss Conway!  Miss Conway!' burst out Louis, in a frenzy.  'Because
Jem Frost was in love with her himself, he fancied every one else must
be the same, and now he will be married to her before Christmas, so
that's disposed of.  As to my feeling for her a particle, a shred of
what I do for Mary, it was a mere fiction--a romance, an impossibility.'

'I do not understand you, Louis. Why did you not find this out before?'

'Mrs. Ponsonby called it my duty to test my feelings, and I have tested
them.  That one is a beautiful poet's dream.  Mary is a woman, the only
woman I can ever love.  Not an hour but I have felt it, and now,
father, what does she mean?'

'She means, poor girl, what only her own scrupulous delicacy could
regard as an objection, but what renders me still more desirous to have
a right to protect her.  The cause of our return--'

'How?  I thought her father was dead.'

'Far worse.  At Valparaiso we met Robson, the confidential agent.  I
learnt from him that Mr. Ponsonby had hardly waited for her mother's
death to marry a Limenian, a person whom everything pointed out as
unfit to associate with his daughter.  Even Robson, cautious as he was,
said he could not undertake to recommend Miss Ponsonby to continue her
journey.'

'And this was all?' exclaimed Louis, too intent on his own views for
anything but relief.

'All?  Is it not enough to set her free?  She acquiesced in my judgment
that she could do no otherwise than return.  She wrote to her father,
and I sent three lines to inform him that, under the circumstances, I
fulfilled my promise to her mother by taking her home.  I had nearly
made her promise that, should we find you about to form an
establishment of your own, she would consider herself as my child;
but--'

'Oh, father! how shall we make her believe you care nothing for her
scruple?  The wretched man!  But--oh! where is she?'

'It does not amount to a scruple in her case,' deliberately resumed the
Earl.  'I always knew what Ponsonby was, and nothing from him could
surprise me--even such an outrage on feeling and decency. Besides, he
has effectually shut himself out of society, and degraded himself
beyond the power of interfering with you.  For the rest, Mary is
already, in feeling, so entirely my child, that to have the right to
call her so has always been my fondest wish.  And, Louis, the months I
have spent with her have not diminished my regard.  My Mary! she will
have a happier lot than her mother!'

The end of the speech rewarded Louis for the conflict by which he had
kept himself still to listen to the beginning.  Lord Ormersfield had
pity on him, and went in search of Mary; while he, remembering former
passages, felt that his father might be less startling and more
persuasive, but began to understand what James must have suffered in
committing his affairs to another.

The Earl found Mary in what had been her mother's sitting-room,
striving to brace her resolution by recalling the conversation that had
taken place there on a like occasion.  But alas! how much more the
heart had now to say!  How much it felt as if the only shelter or rest
in the desolate world was in the light of the blue eyes whose tender
sunshine had been on her for one instant!

Yet she began firmly--'If you please, would you be so kind as to let me
go to Aunt Melicent?'

'By-and-by, my dear, when you think fit.'

'Oh, then, at once, and without seeing any one, please!'

'Nay, Mary,' with redoubled gentleness, 'there is one who cannot let
you go without seeing him.  Mary, you will not disappoint my poor boy
again.  You will let him be an amendment in my scheme.'

'You have been always most kind to me, but you cannot really like this.'

'You forget that it has been my most ardent wish from the moment I saw
you what only your mother's child could be.'

'That was before-- No, I ought not!  Yours is not a family to bring
disgrace into.'

'I cannot allow you to speak thus.  I knew your trials at home when
first I wished you to be my son's wife, and my opinion is unchanged,
except by my increased wish to have the first claim to you.'

'Lord Ormersfield,' said Mary, collecting herself 'only one thing. Tell
me, as if we were indifferent persons, is this a connexion such as
would do Louis any harm?  I trust you to answer.'

He paced along the room, and she tried to control her trembling.  He
came back and spoke: No, Mary.  If he were a stranger, I should give
the same advice.  Your father's own family is unexceptionable; and
those kind of things, so far off--few will ever hear of them, and no
one will attach consequence to them.  If that be your only scruple, it
does you infinite credit; but I can entirely remove it.  What might be
an injury to you, single, would be of comparatively little importance
to him.'

'Miss Conway,' faltered Mary, who could never remember her, when in
Louis's presence.

'A mere delusion, of our own.  There was nothing in it.  He calls you
the only woman who can make him happy, as I always knew you were.  He
must explain all.  You will come to him, my dear child.'

Mary resisted no more; he led her down stairs, and left her within the
dining-room door.

'Mary, you will now--' was all Louis said; but she let him draw her
into his arms, and she rested against his breast, as when he had come
to comfort her in the great thunderstorm in auld lang-syne.  She felt
herself come at length to the shelter and repose for which her heart
had so long yearned, in spite of her efforts, and as if the world had
nothing more to offer of peace or joy.

'Oh, Mary, how I have wanted you!  You believe in me now!'

'I am sure mamma would!' murmured Mary.

He could have poured forth a torrent of affection, but the suspicion of
a footstep made her start from him; and the next moment she was
herself, glowing, indeed, and half crying with happiness, but alarmed
at her own agitation, and struggling to resume her common-place manner.

'There's your father not had a morsel of breakfast!' she exclaimed,
hurrying back to her teacups, whose ringing betrayed her trembling
hand.  'Call him, Louis.'

'Must I go?' said Louis, coming to assist in a manner that threatened
deluge and destruction.

'Oh yes, go!  I shall be able to speak to you when you come back.'

He had only to go into the verandah.  His father was watching at the
library window, and they wrung each other's hand in gladness beyond
utterance.

Mary had seated herself in the solid stately chair, with the whole
entrenchment of tea equipage before her.  They knew it signified that
she was to be unmolested; they took their places, and the Earl carved
ham, and Louis cut bread, and Mary poured out tea in the most
matter-of-fact manner, hazarding nothing beyond such questions as, 'May
I give you an egg?'

Then curiosity began to revive: Louis ventured, 'Where did you land?'
and his father made answer, 'At Liverpool, yesterday,' and how the
Custom-house had detained them, and he had, therefore, brought Mary
straight home, instead of stopping with her at Northwold, at eleven
o'clock, to disturb Mrs. Frost.

'You would have found us up,' said Louis.

'You were sleeping at the Terrace?'

'Yes, I walked here this morning.'

'Then your ankle must be pretty well,' was Mary's first contribution to
the conversation.

'Quite well for all useful purposes,' said Louis, availing himself of
the implied permission to turn towards her.

'But, Louis,' suddenly exclaimed the Earl, 'did you not tell me
something extraordinary about James Frost?  Whom did you say he was
going to marry?'

'Isabel Conway.'

Never was his love of electrifying more fully gratified!  Lord
Ormersfield was surprised into an emphatic interjection, and inquiry
whether they were all gone mad.

'Not that I am aware of,' said Louis.  'Perhaps you have not heard that
Mr. Lester is going to retire, and Jem has the school?'

'Then, it must be Calcott and the trustees who are out of their senses.'

'Do you not consider it an excellent appointment?'

'It might be so some years hence,' said the Earl.  'I am afraid it will
tie him down to a second-rate affair, when he might be doing better;
and the choice is the last thing I should have expected from Calcott.'

'He opposed it.  He wanted to bring in a very ordinary style of person,
from ---- School, but Jem's superiority and the general esteem for my
aunt carried the day.'

'What did Ramsbotham and his set do?'

'They were better than could have been hoped; they gave us their votes
when they found their man could not get in.'

'Ha?  As long as that fellow is against Calcott, he cares little whom
he supports.  I am sorry that Calcott should be defeated, even for
James's sake.  How did Richardson vote?'

'He was doubtful at first, but I brought him over.'

Lord Ormersfield gave a quick, searching glance as he said,' James
Frost did not make use of our interest in this matter.'

'Jem never did.  He and my aunt held back, and were unwilling to oppose
the Squire.  They would have given it up, but for me.  Father, I never
supposed you could be averse to my doing my utmost for Jem, when all
his prospects were at stake.'

'I should have imagined that James was too well aware of my sentiments
to allow it.'

What a cloud on the happy morning!

Louis eagerly exclaimed: 'James is the last person to be blamed!  He
and my aunt were always trying to stop me, but I would not listen to
their scruples.  I knew his happiness depended on his success, and I
worked for him, in spite of himself.  If I did wrong, I can only be
very sorry; but I cannot readily believe that I transgressed by setting
the question before people in a right light.  Only, whose fault soever
it was, it was not Jem's.'

Lord Ormersfield had not the heart to see one error in his son on such
a day as this, more especially as Mary peeped out behind the urn to
judge of his countenance, and he met her pleading eyes, swimming in
tears.

'No, I find no fault,' he kindly said.  'Young, ardent spirits may be
excused for outrunning the bounds that their elders might impose. But
you have not removed my amazement.  James intending to marry on the
grammar-school!--it cannot be worth 300 pounds a year.'

'Isabel is satisfied.  She never desired anything but a quiet, simple,
useful life.'

'Your Aunt Catharine delighted, of course?  No doubt of that; but what
has come to Lady Conway?'

'She cannot help it, and makes the best of it.  She gave us very little
trouble.'

'Ah! her own daughter is growing up,' said the Earl, significantly.

'Isabel is very fond of Northwold,' said Mary, feeling that Louis was
wanting her sympathy.  'She used to wish she could settle there--with
how little consciousness!'

'If I had to judge in such a case,' said Lord Ormersfield,
thoughtfully, 'I should hesitate to risk a woman's happiness with a
temper such as that of James Frost.'

'Oh, father!' cried Louis, indignantly.

'I suspect,' said Lord Ormersfield, smiling, 'that of late years,
James's temper has been more often displayed towards me than towards
you.'

'A certain proof how safe his wife will be,' returned Louis.

His father shook his head, and looking from one to the other of the
young people, congratulated himself that here, at least, there were no
perils of that description.  He asked how long the attachment had
existed.

'From the moment of first sight,' said Louis; 'the fine spark was
lighted on the Euston Square platform; and it was not much later with
her.  He filled up her beau ideal of goodness--'

'And, in effect, all Lady Conway's pursuit of you threw them together,'
said Lord Ormersfield, much entertained.

'Lady Conway has been their very best friend, without intending it. It
would not have come to a crisis by this time, if she had not taken me
to Paris.  It would have been a pity if the catastrophe of the
barricades had been all for nothing.'

Lord Ormersfield and Mary here broke out in amazement at themselves,
for having hitherto been oblivious of the intelligence that had greeted
them on their first arrival, when Frampton had informed them of Lord
Fitzjocelyn's wound and gallant conduct, and his father had listened to
the story like the fastening of a rivet in Miss Conway's chains, and
Mary with a flush of unselfish pride that Isabel had been taught to
value her hero.  They both claimed the true and detailed account, as if
they had hitherto been defrauded of it, and insisted on hearing what
had happened to him.

'I dare say you know best,' said Louis, lazily.  'I have heard so many
different accounts of late, that I really am beginning to forget which
is the right one, and rather incline to the belief that Delaford
brought a rescue or two with his revolver, and carried us into a
fortress where my aunt had secured the windows with feather-beds--'

'You had better make haste and tell, that the true edition may be
preserved,' said Mary, rallying her spirits in her eagerness.

'I have begun to understand why there never yet has been an authentic
account of a great battle,' said Louis.  'Life would make me coincide
with Sir Robert Walpole's judgment on history.  All I am clear about
is, that even a Red Republican is less red than he is painted; that
Isabel Conway is fit to visit the sentinels in a beleaguered castle--a
noble being-- But oh, Mary! did I not long sorely after you when it
came to the wounded knight part of the affair!  I am more sure of that
than of anything else!'

Mary blushed, but her tender heart was chiefly caring to know how much
he had been hurt, and so the whole story was unfolded by due
questioning; and the Earl had full and secret enjoyment of the signal
defeat of his dear sister-in-law, the one satisfaction on which every
one seemed agreed.

It was a melancholy certainty that Mary must go to Mrs. Frost, but the
Earl deferred the moment by sending the carriage with an entreaty that
she would come herself to fetch her guest.  Mary talked of writing a
note; but the autumn sun shone cheerily on the steps, and Louis wiled
her into seating herself on the upper step, while he reclined on the
lower ones, as they had so often been placed when this was his only way
of enjoying the air.  The sky was clear, the air had the still calm of
autumn, the evergreens and the yellow-fringed elms did not stir a
leaf--only a large heavy yellow plane leaf now and then detached itself
by its own weight and silently floated downwards.  Mary sat, without
wishing to utter a word to disturb the unwonted tranquillity, the rest
so precious after her months of sea-voyage, her journey, her
agitations.  But Louis wanted her seal of approval to all his past
doings, and soon began on their inner and deeper story, ending with,
'Tell me whether you think I was right, my own dear governess--'

'Oh no, you must never call me that any more.'

'It is a name belonging to my happiest days.'

'It was only in play.  It reverses the order of things.  I must look up
to you.'

'If you can!' said Louis, playfully, slipping down to a lower step.

A tear burst out as Mary said, 'Mamma said it must never be that way.'
Then recovering, she added, 'I beg your pardon, Louis; I was treating
it as earnest.  I think I am not quite myself to-day, I will go to my
room!'

'No, no, don't,' he said; 'I will not harass you with my gladness,
dearest.'  He stepped in-doors, brought out a book, and when Mrs. Frost
arrived to congratulate and be congratulated, she found Mary still on
the step, gazing on without seeing the trees and flowers, listening
without attending to the rich, soothing flow of Lope de Vega's
beautiful devotional sonnets, in majestic Spanish, in Louis's low,
sweet voice.




CHAPTER III.

MISTS.

  Therefore thine eye through mist of many days
    Shines bright; and beauty, like a lingering rose,
  Sits on thy cheek, and in thy laughter plays;
    While wintry frosts have fallen on thy foes,
  And, like a vale that breathes the western sky,
  Thy heart is green, though summer is gone by.
                                      F. TENNYSON.


Happy Aunt Kitty!--the centre, the confidante of so much love! Perhaps
her enjoyment was the most keen and pure of all, because the most free
from self--the most devoid of those cares for the morrow, which, after
besetting middle life, often so desert old age as to render it as free
and fresh as childhood.  She had known the worst: she had been borne
through by heart-whole faith and love, she had seen how often frettings
for the future were vain, and experienced that anticipation is worse
than reality.  Where there was true affection and sound trust, she
could not, would not, and did not fear for those she loved.

James went backwards and forwards in stormy happiness.  He had come to
a comfortable understanding with old Mr. Mansell, who had treated him
with respect and cordiality from the first, giving him to understand
that Isabel's further expectations only amounted to a legacy of a
couple of thousands on his own death, and that meantime he had little
or no hope of helping him in his profession.  He spoke of Isabel's
expensive habits, and the danger of her finding it difficult to adapt
herself to a small income; and though, of course, he might as well have
talked to the wind as to either of the lovers, his remonstrance was so
evidently conscientious as not to be in the least offensive, and Mr.
Frost Dynevor was graciously pleased to accept him as a worthy relation.

All was smooth likewise with Lady Conway.  She and Mr. Mansell
outwardly appeared utterly unconscious of each other's proceedings,
remained on the most civil terms, and committed their comments and
explanations to Mrs. Mansell, who administered them according to her
own goodnatured, gossiping humour, and sided with whichever was
speaking to her.  There was in Lady Conway much kindness and
good-humour, always ready to find satisfaction in what was inevitable,
and willing to see all at ease and happy around her--a quality which
she shared with Louis, and which rendered her as warm and even
caressing to 'our dear James' as if he had been the most welcome suitor
in the world; and she often sincerely congratulated herself on the
acquisition of a sensible gentleman to consult on business, and so
excellent a brother for Walter.  It was not falsehood, it was real
amiability; and it was an infinite comfort in the courtship, especially
the courtship of a Pendragon.  As to the two young sisters, their
ecstasy was beyond description, only alloyed by the grief of losing
Isabel, and this greatly mitigated by schemes of visits to Northwold.

The marriage was fixed for the end of November, so as to give time for
a little tranquillity before the commencement of James's new duties.
As soon as this intelligence arrived, Mrs. Frost removed herself, Mary,
and her goods into the House Beautiful, that No. 5 might undergo the
renovations which, poor thing! had been planned twenty years since,
when poor Henry's increasing family and growing difficulties had
decided her that she could 'do without them' one year more.

'Even should Miss Conway not like to keep house with the old woman,'
said she, by way of persuading herself she had no such expectation, 'it
was her duty to keep the place in repair.'

That question was soon at rest: Isabel would be but too happy to be
allowed to share her home, and truly James would hardly have attached
himself to a woman who could not regard it as a privilege to be with
the noble old lady.  Clara was likewise to be taken home; Isabel
undertook to complete her education, and school and tuition were both
to be removed from the contemplation of the happy girl, whose letters
had become an unintelligible rhapsody of joy and affection.

Isabel had three thousand pounds of her own, which, with that valuable
freehold, Dynevor Terrace, James resolved should be settled on herself,
speaking of it with such solemn importance as to provoke the gravity of
those accustomed to deal with larger sums.  With the interest of her
fortune he meant to insure his life, that, as he told Louis, with
gratified prudence, there might be no repetition of his own case, and
his family might never be a burden on any one.

The income of the school, with their former well-husbanded means, was
affluence for the style to which he aspired; and his grandmother,
though her menus plaisirs had once doubled her present revenue,
regarded it as the same magnificent advance, and was ready to launch
into the extravagance of an additional servant, and of fitting up the
long-disused drawing-room, and the dining-parlour, hitherto called the
school-room, and kicked and hacked by thirty years of boys.  She and
Clara would betake themselves to their present little sitting-room, and
make the drawing-room pleasant and beautiful for the bride.

And in what a world of upholstery did not the dear old lady spend the
autumn months!  How surpassingly happy was Jane, and how communicative
about Cheveleigh! and how pleased and delighted in little Charlotte's
promotion!

And Charlotte!  She ought to have been happy, with her higher wages and
emancipation from the more unpleasant work, with the expectation of one
whom she admired so enthusiastically as Miss Conway, and, above all,
with the long, open-hearted, affectionate letter, which Miss Ponsonby
had put into her hand with so kind a smile.  Somehow, it made her do
nothing but cry; she felt unwilling to sit down and answer it; and, as
if it were out of perverseness, when she was in Mrs. Martha's very
house, and when there was so much to be done, she took the most violent
fit of novel-reading that had ever been known; and when engaged in
working or cleaning alone, chanted dismal ballads of the type of
'Alonzo the brave and the fair Imogens,' till Mrs. Martha declared that
she was just as bad as an old dumbledore, and not worth half so much.

One day, however, Miss Ponsonby called her into her room, to tell her
that a parcel was going to Lima, in case she wished to send anything by
it.  Miss Ponsonby spoke so kindly, and yet so delicately, and
Charlotte blushed and faltered, and felt that she must write now!

'I have been wishing to tell you, Charlotte,' added Mary, kindly, 'how
much we like Mr. Madison.  There were some very undesirable people
among the passengers, who might easily have led him astray; but the
captain and mate both spoke to Lord Ormersfield in the highest terms of
his behaviour.  He never missed attending prayers on the Sundays; and,
from all I could see, I do fully believe that he is a sincerely good,
religions man; and, if he keeps on as he has begun, I think you are
very happy in belonging to him.'

Charlotte only curtsied and thanked; but it was wonderful how those
kind, sympathizing words blew off at once the whole mists of nonsense
and fancy.  Tom was the sound, good, religious man to whom her heart
and her troth were given; the other was no such thing, a mere
flatterer, and she had known it all along.  She would never think of
him again, and she was sure he would not think of her.  Truth had
dispelled all the fancied sense of hypocrisy and double-dealing: she
sat down and wrote to Tom as if Delaford had never existed, and
forthwith returned to be herself again, at least for the present.

Poor Mary! she might speak cheerfully, but her despatches were made up
with a trembling heart.  Louis and Mary missed the security and
felicity that seemed so perfect with James and Isabel.  In the first
place, nothing could be fixed without further letters, although the
Earl had tried to persuade Mary that her father had virtually forfeited
all claim to her obedience, and that she ought to proceed as if in fact
an orphan, and secure herself from being harassed by him, by hastening
her marriage.  Of this she would not hear, and she was exceedingly
grateful to Louis for abstaining from pressing her, as well as for
writing to Mr. Ponsonby in terms against which no exception could be
taken.

Till secure of his consent, she would not consider her engagement as
more than conditional, nor consent to its being mentioned to any one.
If Isabel knew it, that was James's fault.   Even the Faithfull sisters
were kept in ignorance; and she trusted thus to diminish the wrong that
she felt her secrecy to be doing to Aunt Melicent, who was so much
vexed and annoyed at her return, that she dreaded exceedingly the
effect of the knowledge of her engagement.  Miss Ponsonby was convinced
that the news had been exaggerated, and insisted that but for Lord
Ormersfield's dislike, it would have been further sifted; and she wrote
to Mary to urge her coming to her to await the full tidings, instead of
delaying among her father's avowed enemies.

Mary settled this point by mentioning her promise to Mrs. Frost to
remain with her until her grandchildren should be with her; and Miss
Ponsonby's correspondence ceased after a dry, though still kind letter,
which did not make Mary more willing to bestow her confidence, but left
her feeling in her honest heart as if she were dealing insincerely by
Aunt Melicent.

The discretion and reserve rendered requisite by the concealment were
such as to be very tormenting even to so gentle a temper as that of
Louis, since they took from him all the privileges openly granted to
the cousin, and scarcely left him those of the friend.  She, on whose
arm he had leant all last summer, would not now walk with him without
an escort, and, even with Mrs. Frost beside her, shrank from
Ormersfield like forbidden ground.  Her lively, frank tone of playful
command had passed away; nay, she almost shrank from his confidence,
withheld her counsel, and discouraged his constant visits.  He could
not win from her one of her broad, fearless comments on his past
doings; and in his present business, the taking possession of
Inglewood, the choice of stock, and the appointment of a bailiff,
though she listened and sympathized, and answered questions, she
volunteered no opinions, ahe expressed no wishes, she would not come to
see.

Poor Louis was often mortified into doubts of his own ability to
interest or make her happy; but he was very patient.  If disappointed
one day, he was equally eager the next; he submitted obediently to her
restrictions, and was remorseful when he forgot or transgressed; and
they had real, soothing, comforting talks just often enough to be
tantalizing, and yet to convince him that all the other unsatisfactory
meetings and partings were either his own fault, or that of some
untoward circumstance.

He saw, as did the rest, that Mary's spirits had received a shock not
easily to be recovered.  The loss of her mother was weighing on her
more painfully than in the first excitement; and the step her father
had taken, insulting her mother, degrading himself, and rending away
her veil of filial honour, had exceedingly overwhelmed and depressed
her; while sorrow hung upon her with the greater permanence and
oppression from her strong self-control, and dislike to manifestation.

All this he well understood; and, reverent to her feeling, he laid
aside all trifling, and waited on her mood with the tenderest
watchfulness.  When she could bear it, they would dwell together on the
precious recollections of her mother; and sometimes she could even
speak of her father, and relate instances of his affection for herself,
and all his other redeeming traits of character; most thankful to Louis
for accepting him on her word, and never uttering one word of him which
she could wish unsaid.

What Louis did not see, was that the very force of her own affection
was what alarmed Mary, and caused her reserve.  To a mind used to
balance and regulation, any sensation so mighty and engrossing appeared
wrong; and repressed as her attachment had been, it was the more
absorbing now that he was all that was left to her.  Admiration,
honour, gratitude, old childish affection, and caressing elder-sisterly
protection, all flowed in one deep, strong current; but the very depth
made her diffident.  She could imagine the whole reciprocated, and she
feared to be importunate.  If the day was no better than a weary
turmoil, save when his voice was in her ear, his eyes wistfully bent on
her, the more carefully did she restrain all expression of hope of
seeing him to-morrow, lest she should be exacting and detain him from
projects of his own.  If it was pride and delight to her to watch his
graceful, agile figure spring on horseback, she would keep herself from
the window, lest he should feel oppressed by her pursuing him; and when
she found her advice sought after as his law, she did not venture to
proffer it.  She was uncomfortable in finding the rule committed to
her, and all the more because Lord Ormersfield, who had learnt to talk
to her so openly that she sometimes thought he confounded her with her
mother, used in all his schemes to appear to take it for granted that
she should share with him in the managing, consulting headship of the
house, leaving Louis as something to be cared for and petted like a
child, without a voice in their decisions.  These conversations used to
make her almost jealous on Louis's account, and painfully recall some
of her mother's apprehensions.

That was the real secret source of all her discomfort--namely, the
misgiving lest she had been too ready to follow the dictates of her own
heart.  Would her mother have been satisfied?  Had not her fondness and
her desolation prevailed, where, for Louis's own sake, she should have
held back!  Every time she felt herself the elder in heart, every time
she feared to have disappointed him, every time she saw that his
liveliness was repressed by her mournfulness, she feared that she was
letting him sacrifice himself.  And still more did she question her
conduct towards her father.  She had only gradually become aware of the
extent of the mutual aversion between him and the Earl; and Miss
Ponsonby's reproaches awakened her to the fear that she had too lightly
given credence to hostile evidence.  Her affection would fain have
justified him; and, forgetting the difficulties of personal
investigation in such a case, she blamed herself for having omitted
herself to question the confidential clerk, and having left all to Lord
Ormersfield, who, cool and wary as he ordinarily was, would be less
likely to palliate Mr. Ponsonby's errors than those of any other
person.  Her heart grew sick as she counted the weeks ere she could
hear from Lima.

None of her troubles were allowed to interfere with Mrs. Frost's peace.
Outwardly, she was cheerful and helpful; equable, though less lively.
Those carpets and curtains, tables and chairs, which were the grand
topics at the House Beautiful, were neither neglected nor treated with
resigned impatience.  Mary's taste, counsel, and needle did good
service; her hearty interest and consideration were given to the
often-turned volume of designs for bedsteads, sofas, and
window-curtains; and Miss Mercy herself had hardly so many resources
for making old furniture new.  Many of her happiest half-hours with
Louis were spent as she sewed the stiff slippery chintz, and he held
the curtain rings, while Aunt Catharine went to inspect the workmen,
and many a time were her cares forgotten, and her active spirits
resumed, while Louis acted carpenter under her directions, and
rectified errors of the workmen.  It might not be poetical, but the
French sky-blue paper, covered with silvery fern-leaves, that Louis
took such pains to procure, and the china door-handles that he brought
over in his pockets, and the great map which Mary pasted over the
obstinate spot of damp in the vestibule, were the occasions of the
greatest blitheness and merriment that they shared together.  Much did
they enjoy the prediction that James would not know his own house;
greatly did they delight in sowing surprises, and in obtaining Aunt
Catharine's never-failing start of well-pleased astonishment.  Each
wedding present was an event;--Mr. Mansell's piano, which disconcerted
all previous designs; Lord Ormersfield's handsome plate; and many a
minor gift from old scholars, delighted to find an occasion when an
offering would not be an offence.  Even Mr. Calcott gave a valuable
inkstand, in which Mrs. Frost and Louis beheld something of forgiveness.

Isabel had expressed a wish that Mary should be one of her bridesmaids.
A wedding was not the scene which poor Mary wished to witness at
present; but she saw Louis bent on having her with him, and would not
vex him by reluctance.  He had also prevailed on his father to be
present, though the Earl was much afraid of establishing a precedent,
and being asked to act the part of father on future contingencies.
There was only one bride, as he told Louis, whom he could ever wish to
give away.  However, that trouble was spared him by Mr. Mansell; but
still Louis would not let him off, on the plea that James's side of the
house should make as imposing a demonstration as possible.

Mrs. Frost was less manageable.  Though warmly invited by the Conways,
and fondly entreated by her grandson, she shook her head, and said she
was past those things, and that the old mother always stayed at home to
cook the wedding dinner.  She should hear all when Clara came home the
next day, and should be ready for the happy pair when they would return
for Christmas, after a brief stay at Thornton Conway, which Isabel
wished James to see, that he might share in all her old associations.

All the rest of the party journeyed to London on a November day; and,
in gaslight and gloom, they deposited Mary at her aunt's house in
Bryanston Square.

Gaslight was the staple of Hymen's torch the next morning.  London was
under one of the fogs, of which it is popularly said you may cut them
with a knife.  The church was in dim twilight; the bride and bridegroom
loomed through the haze, and the indistinctness made Clara's fine tall
figure appear quite majestic above the heads of the other bridesmaids.

The breakfast was by lamp-light, and the mist looked lurid and grim
over the white cake, and no one talked of anything but the comparative
density of fogs; and Mr. Mansell's asthma had come on, and his speech
was devolved upon Lord Ormersfield, to whom Louis had imprudently
promised exemption.

What was worse, Lady Conway had paired them off in the order of
precedence; and Louis was a victim to two dowagers, between whom he
could neither see nor speak to Mary.  He was the more concerned,
because he had thought her looking depressed and avoiding his eye.

He tried to believe this caution, but he thought she was also eluding
his father, and her whole air gave him a vague uneasiness.  The whole
party were to dine with Lady Conway; and, trusting in the meantime to
discover what was on her spirits, he tried to resign himself to the
order of the day, without a farther glimpse of her.

When the married pair took leave, Walter gave his sister a great hug,
but had no perception of his office of handing her downstairs; and it
was Fitzjocelyn who gave her his arm, and put her into the carriage,
with an augury that the weather would be beautiful when once they had
left the fog in London.

She smiled dreamily, and repeated, 'beautiful,' as though all were so
beautiful already to her that she did not so much as perceive the fog.

James pressed his hand, saying, 'I am glad you are to be the one to be
happy next.'

'You do not look so,' said Clara, earnestly.

The two sisters had come partly downstairs, but their London habits had
restrained them from following to the street-door, as Clara had done;
and now they had rushed up again, while Clara, with one foot on the
staircase, looked in her cousin's face, as he tried to smile in answer,
and repeated, 'Louis, I hoped you were quite happy.'

'I am,' said Louis, quickly.

'Then why do you look so grave and uneasy?'

'Louis!' said an entreating voice above, and there stood Mary--'Pray
say nothing, but call a cab for me, please.  No, I am not ill--indeed,
I am not--but I cannot stay!'

'You look ill!  It has been too much for you!  Clara, take her--let her
lie down quietly,' cried Louis, springing to her side.

'Oh no, thank you-no,' said Mary, decidedly, though very low; 'I told
Lady Conway that I could not stay.  I settled it with Aunt Melicent.'

'That aunt of yours--'

'Hush!  No, it is for my own sake--my own doing.  I cannot bear it any
longer!  Please let me go!'

'Then I will take you.  I saw the brougham waiting.  We will go quietly
together.'

'No, that must not be.'

'I was thoughtless in urging you to come.  The turmoil has been too
much.  My poor Mary!  That is what comes of doing what I like instead
of what you like.  Why don't you always have your own way?  Let me
come; nay, if you will not, at least let Clara go with you, and come
back.'

Mary roused herself at last to speak, as she moved downstairs--'You
need not think of me; there is nothing the matter with me.  I promised
Aunt Melicent to come home.  She is very kind--it is not that.'

'You must not tell me not to think.  I shall come to inquire.  I shall
be with you the first thing tomorrow.'

'Yes, you must come to-morrow,' said Mary, in a tone he could not
interpret, and a tight lingering grasp on his hand, as he put her into
his father's carriage.

He stood hesitating for a moment as it drove off; then, instead of
entering the house, walked off quickly in the same direction.

Clara had stood all the time like a statue on the stairs, waiting to
see if she were wanted, and gazing intently, with her fingers clasped.
When both were gone she drew a long breath, and nodded with her head,
whispering to herself, in a grave and critical voice--'That is love!'

She did not see Fitzjocelyn again till nearly dinner-time; and, as he
caught her anxious interrogating eye, he came to her and said, very
low, 'I was not let in; Miss Ponsonby was engaged.  Miss Mary lying
down--I believe they never told her I was there.'

'It is all that aunt--horrid woman!'

'Don't talk of it now.  I _will_ see her to-morrow.'

Clara grieved for him whenever she saw him called on to exert himself
to talk; and she even guarded him from the sallies of his young
cousins.  Once, when much music and talk was going on, he came and sat
by her, and made her tell him how fondly and affectionately she had
parted with her schoolfellows; and how some of her old foes had become,
as she hoped, friends for life; but she saw his eye fixed and absent
even while she spoke, and she left off suddenly.  'Go on,' he said, 'I
like to hear;' and with a manifest effort he bent his mind to attend.

'Oh!' thought Clara, as she went up that night--'why will the days one
most expects to be happy turn out so much otherwise?  However, he will
manage to tell me all about it when he and his father take me home
to-morrow.'




CHAPTER IV.

OUTWARD BOUND.

  The voice which I did more esteem
    Than music in her sweetest key--
  Those eyes which unto me did seem
    More comfortable than the day--
  Those now by me, as they have been,
  Shall never more be heard or seen.
                              GEORGE WITHER.


In suspense and impatience, Fitzjocelyn awaited the end of his father's
breakfast, that he might hasten to learn what ailed Mary. The post came
in, vexing him at first merely as an additional delay, but presently a
sound of dissatisfaction attracted his notice to the foreign air of two
envelopes which had been forwarded from home.

'Hem!' said the Earl, gravely, 'I am afraid this fellow Ponsonby will
give us some trouble.'

'Then Mary had heard from him!' cried Louis.  'She was keeping it from
me, not to spoil the day.  I must go to her this moment--'but pausing
again, 'What is it?  He cannot have had my letter!'

'No, but he seems to have anticipated it.  Puffed up as they are about
these speculations, he imagines me to have brought Mary home for no
purpose but to repair our fortunes; and informs me that, in the event
of your marriage, she will receive not a farthing beyond her mother's
settlements.  I am much obliged!  It is all I ever thought you would
receive; and but for me, it would have been in the bottom of some mine
long ago!  Do you wish to see what he says?'

Louis caught up the missive.  It was the letter of a very angry man,
too violent to retain the cold formality which he tried to assume. 'He
was beholden to his lordship for his solicitude about his daughter.  It
was of a piece with other assistance formerly rendered to him in his
domestic arrangements, for which he was equally obliged.  He was happy
to inform his lordship that, in this instance, his precautions had been
uncalled for; and referred him to a letter which he would receive from
Mr. Dynevor by the same mail, for an explanation of the circumstances
to which he referred.  He had been informed, by undoubted authority,
that Lord Fitzjocelyn had done his daughter the honour of soliciting
her hand.  It might console his lordship to learn that, should the
union take place, the whole of his property would be secured to Mrs.
Ponsonby, and his daughter's sole fortune would be that which she
inherited by her mother's marriage settlements.  Possibly this
intelligence might lead to a cessation of these flattering attentions.'

'Mrs. Ponsonby! he can mention her in the same sentence with Mary's
mother!' said the Earl.

Louis turned pale as he read, and scarcely breathed as he looked up at
his father, dreading that he might so resent the studied affronts as to
wish to break off the connexion, and that he might have him likewise to
contend with; but on that score he was set at rest.  The Earl replied
to his exclamation of angry dismay, 'It is little more than I looked
for.  It is not the first letter I have had from him. I find he has
some just cause for offence.  The marriage is less disgraceful than I
had been led to believe.  Here is Oliver Dynevor's testimony.'

Oliver Dynevor's was a succinct business-like letter, certifying his
cousin that he had been mistaken in his view of the marriage.  Dona
Rosita de Guzman was an orphan of a very respectable family, who had
come to spend the year before her intended noviciate at the house of an
uncle.  She was very young, and Mr. Dynevor believed that the marriage
had been hastened by her relations making her feel herself unwelcome,
and her own reluctance to return to her convent, and that she might not
be aware how very recently Mr. Ponsonby had become a widower.  For his
own part, he was little used to ladies' society, and could form no
judgment of the bride; but he could assure Lord Ormersfield that she
had been guilty of no impropriety; she was visited by every one; and
that there was no reason against Mary Ponsonby associating with her.

'What could the clerk be thinking of?' exclaimed Louis.

'My first impression was not taken from the clerk.  What I heard first,
and in the strongest terms, was from the captain of a ship at
Valparaiso.  In fact, it was in the mouth of all who had known the
family.  Robson neither confirmed nor contradicted, and gave me the
notion of withholding much from regard for his employer.  He lamented
the precipitation, but seemed willing to make excuses.  He distinctly
said, he would not take it on himself to recommend Miss Ponsonby's
continuing her journey.  He was right.  If I had known all this, I
should still have brought her home.  I must write an apology, as far as
her character is concerned; but, be that as it may, the marriage is
atrocious--an insult--a  disgrace!  He could not have waited six
weeks--'

'But I must go to Mary!' cried Louis, as though reproaching himself for
the delay.  'Oh! that she should have forced herself to that wedding,
and spared me!'

'I am coming with you,' said the Earl.  'She will require my personal
assurance that all this makes no difference to me.'

'I am more afraid of the difference it may make to her,' said Louis.
'You have never believed how fond she is of her father.'

On arriving, they were ushered into the room where Miss Ponsonby was at
breakfast, and a cup of tea and untasted roll showed where her niece
had been.  She received them with stiff, upright chillness; and to
their hope that Mary was not unwell, replied--'Not very well.  She had
been over-fatigued yesterday, and had followed her advice in going to
lie down.'

Louis began to imagine a determination to exclude him, and was eagerly
beginning to say that she had asked him to come that morning--could she
not see him? when the lady continued, with the same severity--'Until
yesterday, I was not aware how much concern Lord Fitzjocelyn had taken
in what related to my niece.'

At that moment, when Louis's face was crimson with confusion and
impatience, the door was softly pushed ajar, and he heard himself
called in low, hoarse tones.  Miss Ponsonby was rising with an air of
vexed surprise, but he never saw her, and, hastily crossing the room,
he shut the door behind him, and followed the form that flitted up the
stairs so fast, that he did not come up with her till she had entered
the drawing-room, and stood leaning against a chair to gather breath.
She was very pale, and her eyes looked as if she had cried all night,
but she controlled her voice to say, 'I could not bear that you should
hear it from Aunt Melicent.'

'We had letters this morning, dearest.  Always thinking for me!  But I
must think for you.  You can hardly stand--'

He would have supported her to the sofa, but she shrank from him; and,
leaning more heavily on the chair, said--'Do you not know, Louis, all
that must be at an end?'

'I know no such thing.  My father is here on purpose to assure you that
it makes not the slightest difference to him.'

'Yours!  Yes!  But oh, Louis!' with a voice that, in its faintness and
steadiness, had a sound of anguish--'only think what I allowed him to
make me do!  To insult my father and his choice!  It was a mistake, I
know,' she continued, fearing to be unjust and to grieve Louis; 'but a
most dreadful one!'

'He says he should have brought you home all the same--' began Louis.
'Mary, you must sit down!' he cried, interrupting himself to come
nearer; and she obeyed, sinking into the chair.  'What a state you are
in!  How could you go through yesterday?  How could you be distressed,
and not let me know?'

'I could not spoil their wedding-day, that we had wished for so long.'

'Then you had the letter?'

'In the morning.  Oh, that I had examined farther!  Oh, that I had
never come home!'

'Mary! I cannot hear you say so.'

'You would have been spared all this.  You were doing very well without
me--as you will--'

He cried out with deprecating horror.

'Louis!' she said, imploringly.  'Oh, Louis! do not make it harder for
me to do right.'

'Why--what?  I don't understand!  Your father has not so much as heard
how we stand together.  He cannot be desiring you to give me up.'

'He--he forbids me to enter on anything of the sort with you.  I don't
know what made him think it possible, but he does.  And--' again Mary
waited for the power of utterance, 'he orders me to come out with Mrs.
Willis, in the Valdivia, and it sails on the 12th of December!'

'But Mary, Mary! you cannot be bound by this.  It is only fair towards
him, towards all of us, to give him time to answer our letters.'

Mary shook her head.  'The only condition, he says, on which he could
allow me to remain, would be if I were engaged to James Frost.'

'Too late for that, certainly,' said Louis; and the smile was a relief
to both.  'At any rate, it shows that he can spare you.  Only give him
time.  When he has my father's explanation--and my father is certain to
be so concerned at having cast any imputation on a lady. His first
thought was to apologize--'

'That is not all!  I remember now that dear mamma always said she did
not know whether he would consent.  Oh! how weak I was ever to listen--'

'No, Mary, that must not be said.  It was my presumptuous, inveterate
folly that prevented you from trusting my affection when she might have
helped us.'

'I don't know.  It would have caused her anxiety and distress when she
was in no state for them.  I don't think it did,' said Mary,
considering; 'I don't think she ever knew how much I cared.'

The admission could only do Louis's heart good, and he recurred to his
arguments that her father could be persuaded by such a letter as he
felt it in him to write.

'You do not know all,' said Mary.  'I could not show you his letter;
but, from it and from my aunt, I better understand what impressions he
has of you all, and how hopeless it is.'

'Tell me!'

She could not help giving herself the relief, when that most loving,
sympathizing face was pleading with her to let him comfort her.  She
knew there was no fiery nor rancorous temper to take umbrage, and it
was best for him to know the completeness of the death-blow.

'Oh, Louis! he fancies that my dear mother's fondness for her own
family destroyed his domestic peace.  He says their pride and narrow
notions poisoned--yes, that is the word--poisoned her mind against him;
and that was the reason he insisted on my being brought up here, and
kept from you all.'

'But I don't understand why he let you come straight home to us, and
live in Dynevor Terrace?'

'Then he was really sorry mamma was so ill; and--and for all that was
past; I am sure he felt it was the last parting, and only wished to do
anything that could make up to her.  He freely gave her leave to go
wherever she pleased, and said not a word against Northwold.  It was
one of her great comforts that he never seemed in the least vexed at
anything she had done since we went home.  Besides, my aunt says that
he and Mr. Dynevor had some plans about James and me.'

'He will have that out of his head.  He will come to reason.  Fond of
you, and sorry for the past, he will listen.  No wonder he was in a
passion; but just imagine what it would be to heed half Jem Frost says
when he is well worked up!'

'Papa is not like James,' said Mary; 'things go deeper with him.  He
never forgets!  I shall never forgive myself for not having spoken to
Robson!  I know his manner, seeming to assent and never committing
himself, and I ought to have gone through anything rather than have
taken such an accusation for granted.'

To hinder his pleading against her self-conviction, she re-opened her
letter to prove the cruelty of the injustice.  Mr. Ponsonby professed
to have been unwilling to enter so speedily on the new tie; but to have
been compelled, by the species of persecution which was exercised on
Rosita, in order to make her return to her nunnery.  He dwelt on her
timid affection and simplicity, and her exceeding mortification at the
slur which Mary had been induced to cast upon her; though, he said, her
innocent mind could not comprehend the full extent of the injury; since
the step his daughter had taken would, when known, seriously affect the
lady's reception into society, in a manner only to be repaired by
Mary's immediately joining them at Lima.  He peremptorily indicated the
ship and the escort--a merchant's wife, well known to her and charged
her, on her duty, as the only proof of obedience or affection which
could remedy the past, to allow no influence nor consideration whatever
to detain her.  'You see?' said Mary.

'I see!' was the answer.  'Mary, you are right, you must go.'

The words restored her confiding look, and her face lost almost all the
restless wretchedness which had so transformed it.  'Thank you,' she
said, with a long breath; 'I knew you would see it so.'

'It will be a very pretty new style of wedding tour.  Andes for Alps!
No, Mary, you need not suspect me of trifling now!  I really mean it,
and, seriously, our going in that way would set this Rosita straight
with society much more handsomely and effectually.  Don't doubt my
father--I will fetch him.'

'Stop, Louis!  You forget!  Did I not tell you that he expressly warns
me against you?  He must have heard of what happened before: he says I
had prudence once to withstand, and he trusts to my spirit and
discretion to--' Mary stopped short of the phrase before her eyes--to
resist the interested solicitations of necessitous nobility, and the
allurements of a beggarly coronet.  'No,' she concluded; 'he says that
you are the last person whom he could think of allowing me to accept.'
She hid her face in her hands, and her voice died away.

'Happily that is done,' said Louis, not yet disconcerted; 'but if you
go, as I own you must, it shall be with a letter of mine, explaining
all.  You will plead for me--I think you will, and when he is satisfied
that we are no rebels, then the first ship that sails for Peru--Say
that will do, Mary.'

'No, Louis, I know my father.'  She roused herself and sat upright,
speaking resolutely, but not daring to look at him--'I made up my mind
last night.  It was weak and selfish in me to enter into this
engagement, and it must be broken off.  You must be left free--not
bound for years and years.'

'Oh, Mary!  Mary! this is too much.  I deserved distrust by my wretched
folly and fickleness last year, but I did not know what you were to me
then--my most precious one!  Can you not trust me!  Do you not know how
I would wait?'

'You would wait,' said poor Mary, striving with choking tears, 'and be
sorry you had waited.'

'Are you talking madness, Mary?  I should live for the moment to
compensate for all.'

'You would waste your best years, and when the time came, you would
still be young, and I grown into an old careworn woman.  You would find
you had waited for what was nothing worth!'

'How can you talk so!' cried Louis, wounded, 'when you know that to
cherish and make up to you would be my dearest, fondest wish!  No,
don't shake your head!  You know it is not a young rose and lily beauty
that I love,--it is the honest, earnest glance in my Mary's eyes, the
rest, and trust, and peace, whenever I do but come near her.  Time
can't take that away!'

'Pray,' said Mary, feebly, 'don't let us discuss it now.  I know it is
right.  I was determined to say it to-day, that the worst might be
over, but I can't argue, nor bear your kindness now.  Please let it
wait.'

'Yes, let it wait.  It is depression.  You will see it in a true light
when you have recovered the shock, and don't fancy all must be given up
together.  Lie down and rest; I am sure you have been awake all night.'

'I may rest now I have told you, and seen you not angry with poor papa,
nor with me.  Oh! Louis--the gratitude to you, the weight off my mind!'

'I don't think any one could help taking the same view,' said Louis.
'It seems to me one of the cases where the immediate duty is the more
clear because it is so very painful.  Mary, I think that you are
committing your way unto the Lord, and you know 'He shall bring it to
pass.''

As he spoke there was a tap at the door, and Miss Ponsonby, stiffly
entering, said, 'Excuse my interruption, but I hope Lord Fitzjocelyn
will be considerate enough not to harass you any longer with
solicitations to act against your conscience.'

'He is not persuading me,' said Mary, turning towards her aunt a face
which, through all her dejection, proved her peace in his support and
approval, 'he is helping me.'

'Yes,' said Louis to the astonished aunt; 'since I have heard the true
state of the case, I have been convinced that there is no choice for
her but to go out, to repair the injustice so unfortunately done to
this poor lady.  It is a noble resolution, and I perfectly concur with
her.'

'I am glad you think so properly, sir,' returned Miss Ponsonby. 'Lord
Ormersfield seems quite of another opinion.  He was desirous of seeing
you, Mary; but I have been telling him I could permit no more
interviews to-day.'

'Oh no,' said Mary, putting her hand to her head, as if it could bear
no more; 'not to-day!   Louis, tell him how it is.  Make him forgive
me; but do not let me see him yet.'

'You shall see no one,' said Louis, tenderly; 'you shall rest. There--'
and, as if he had the sole right to her, he arranged the cushions,
placed her on the sofa, and hung over her to chafe her hands, and bathe
her forehead with eau de Cologne; while, as he detected signs of hasty
preparations about the room, he added, 'Don't trouble yourself with
your arrangements; I will see about all I can to help you.  Only rest,
and cure your head.'

'Say that one thing to me again,' whispered Mary, ere letting his hand
go.

Again he murmured the words, 'Commit thy way unto the Lord, and He
shall bring it to pass.'

Then Mary felt her hand pressed to his lips, but she would not unclose
her burning eyes; she would fain sleep beneath the impress of that
spell of patient confidence.

The gentle authority of his manner had deprived Miss Ponsonby of all
notion of interfering.  This 'odious, frivolous young man of fashion,'
so entirely disconcerted her ideas of ardent lovers, or of
self-interested puppies, that she gazed at him, surprised and softened;
and when he looked at her anxiously, to judge whether Mary would find
in her a kind comforter, her eyes were full of tears, and she said as
they left the room, 'It must be a great relief to my poor Mary that you
see it so sensibly.  She has been suffering much in anticipation of
this meeting.'

'Her unselfishness goes to one's heart!' said Louis, almost overcome.
'If she would but have spared herself yesterday!'

'Ah! she said she could not bear that you should be pained on your
friend's wedding-day.  I am much comforted to find that you appreciate
the effort.'

This was not what Miss Ponsonby had intended to say, but there was
something about the young man that touched her exceedingly; even when
fresh from a very civil and decorous combat with his father, and a
ripping-up of all the ancient grievances of the married life of their
two relations, rendering wider than ever the breach between the houses
of Ponsonby and Fitzjocelyn.

Lord Ormersfield came forward to learn whether he might see Mary, and
was met by assurances that she must be kept as quiet as possible; upon
which he took leave, making a stately bend of the head, while Louis
shook Miss Ponsonby's hand, and said he should come to the door to
inquire before the day was over.

'I never saw her so broken down,' he said, in answer to his father's
compassionate but indignant exclamation as they walked home. 'Yesterday
was a terrible strain on her.'

'I wish we had never brought her here,' said Lord Ormersfield.  'The
aunt is your enemy, as she always was that of Mary's mother.  She
nearly avowed that she set her brother on making this premature
prohibition.'

'I do not think she is unkind to Mary,' said Louis; 'I could be almost
glad that the dear Aunt Kitty is spared all this worry.  It would make
her so very miserable.'

'Her influence would be in your favour, whereas this woman is perfectly
unreasonable.  She justifies her brother in everything, and is actually
working on that poor girl's scruples of conscience to send her out by
this ship.'

'Nay,' said Louis, 'after hearing her father's letter, I do not see
that it is possible for her to do otherwise.'

Lord Ormersfield hastily turned to look at his son's countenance,--it
was flushed and melancholy, but fully in earnest; nevertheless the Earl
would not believe his ears, and made a sound as if he had missed the
words.

'I am grieved enough to say so,' repeated Louis; 'but, as he puts it, I
do not see how Mary can refuse to obey him.'

'I declare, Fitzjocelyn,' exclaimed his father, with some anger, 'any
one who takes the trouble, may talk you into anything imaginable!'

'Not into believing her wrong.'

'I did not think you so weak!' continued his father.  'It is the very
case where a woman's exaggerated notions of right may be wrought on to
do her infinite harm!  They become quite ridiculous without some one to
show that such things may be carried too far!  I must say, I did expect
strength of mind and common sense for your own interest. I esteem it a
mere matter of duty to put an end to such nonsense.'

'My dear father,' said Louis, 'it was Mary and her mother who first
taught me my own obligations.  I should never dare to interfere with
any one's filial duty--above all, where my own happiness is so deeply
concerned.'

'Yours!  I am not talking of yours.  What is to become of Mary with
such a man as that? and this Spanish woman, who, if she does not
deserve all that has been said of her, no doubt soon will?--no
education, no principles, breaking out of her convent!  And you let
yourself be drawn into calling it Mary's duty to run into such company
as that!  You are not fit to protect her.'

'From all I have heard of Mr. Ponsonby, I am convinced he has too much
regard for his daughter to summon her into any improper society. I do
not hear that he has been to blame as a father.  I wish I could see it
as you do; but not only do I know that Mary could not have an instant's
peace under the sense of his displeasure, but it seems to me that this
is one of the express commands which could not be disobeyed without
setting aside the law of Heaven.  If I gave my voice against it, I
should fear to bring on us a curse, and not a blessing.'

'Fitzjocelyn, I always knew how it would be if you took to being one of
those very good people.  Nothing is so weak, and yet so unmanageable.
Any rational being would look on it as a duty to rescue her from such a
man as that; but that is too ordinary a virtue for you.  You must go
higher.'

Louis made no answer.  Never had his father pained him so much, and he
could ill brook additional suffering.

'However,' said the Earl, recovering, 'I shall see her.  I shall put
the matter in a just light.  She is a sensible girl, and will
understand me when she has recovered the shock.  On one head I shall
give warning.  She must choose between us and her father.  If she
persist in going out to join this establishment, I will have your
engagement given up.'

'Father! father! you would not be so cruel!'

'I know what I am saying.  Am I to allow you to be encumbered all the
time she is on the other side of the world, waiting Ponsonby's
pleasure, to come home at last, in ten or fifteen years' time, worried
and fretted to death, like her poor mother?  No, Louis, it must be now
or never.'

'You are only saying what I would not hear from her.  She has been
insisting on breaking off, and all my hope was in you.'

'She has?  That is like her!  The only reasonable thing I have heard
yet.'

'Then you will not help me?  You, who I thought loved her like your own
daughter, and wished for nothing so much!'

'So I might; but that is a different thing from allowing you to wear
out your life in a hopeless engagement.  If she cast off her family,
nothing could be better, otherwise, I would never connect you with
them.'

It did not occur to his lordship that he was straining pretty hard the
filial duty of his own son, while he was arguing that Mary should snap
asunder the same towards her father.

The fresh discomfiture made poor Louis feel utterly dejected and almost
hopeless, but lest silence should seem to consent, he said, 'When you
see Mary, you will be willing for me to do anything rather than lose
what is so dear and so noble.'

'Yes, I will see Mary.  We will settle it between us, and have it right
yet; but we must give her to-day to think it over, and get over the
first shock.  When she has had a little time for reflection, a few cool
arguments from me will bring her to reason.'

So it was all to be settled over Louis's passive head; and thus
satisfied, his father, who was exceedingly sorry for him, forgot his
anger, and offered to go home alone as Clara's escort, promising to
return on the Monday, to bring the full force of his remonstrances to
bear down Mary's scruples.

Lord Ormersfield believed Clara too much of a child to have any ideas
on what was passing; and had it depended on him, she must have gone
home in an agony of ignorance on the cause of her cousin's trouble, but
Louis came with them to the station, and contrived to say to her while
walking up and down the platform, 'Her father is bitter against me.  He
has sent for her, and she is going!'

Clara looked mutely in his face, with a sort of inquiring dismay.

'You'll hear all about it when my father has told Aunt Kitty,' said
Louis.  'Clara,'--he paused, and spoke lower--'tell her I see what is
right now; tell her to--to pray for me, that I may not be talked into
tampering with my conscience or with hers.  Don't let it dwell on you
or on my aunt,' he added, cheerfully.  'No, it won't; you will be
thinking of Jem and Isabel.'  And as his father came up, his last words
were, in his own bright tone, 'Tell granny from me that giraffes ought
always to be seen by gaslight.'

Clara's countenance returned him a look of sorrowful reproach, for
thinking her capable of being amused when he was in distress; and she
sat in silent musings all the way home--pondering over his words,
speculating on his future, wondering what Mary felt, and becoming blunt
and almost angry, when her grave escort in the opposite corner
consulted civility by addressing some indifferent remark to her, as if,
she said to herself, 'she were no better than a stuffed giraffe, and
knew and cared nothing about anybody!'

He might have guessed that she understood something by the sudden way
in which she curtailed her grandmother's rapturous and affectionate
inquiries about the wedding, ran upstairs on the plea of taking off her
bonnet, and appeared no more till he had gone home; when, coming down,
she found granny, with tearful eyes, lamenting that Mr. Ponsonby was so
harsh and unkind, and fully possessed with the rational view which her
nephew had been impressing on her.

'Ha!' said Clara, 'that is what Louis meant.  I'll tell you what,
granny, Lord Ormersfield never knew in his life what was right, half as
well as Louis does.  I wish he would let him alone.  If Mary is good
enough for him, she will go out and wait till her father comes round.
If she is not, she won't; and Lord Ormersfield has no business to tease
her.'

'Then you would like her to go out?' said Mrs. Frost.

'I like anything that makes Louis happy.  I thought it would have been
delightful to have him married--one could be so much more at
Ormersfield, and Mary would be so nice; but as to their being
over-persuaded, and thinking themselves half wrong! why, they would
never be happy in their lives; and Louis would be always half-asleep or
half mad, to save himself the trouble of thinking.  But he'll never do
it!'

On the Saturday morning Mary's healthy and vigorous spirit had quite
resumed its tone.  The worst was over when she had inflicted the stroke
on Louis, and seen him ready to support instead of adding to her
distress.  He found her pale and sorrowful, but calm, collected, and
ready for exertion.  By tacit consent, they avoided all discussion of
the terms on which they were to stand.  Greatly touched by her
consideration for him on the wedding-day, he would not torture her with
pleadings, and was only too grateful for every service that he was
allowed to render her without protest, as still her chief and most
natural dependence.

She did not scruple to allow him to assist her; she understood the
gratification to him, and it was only too sweet to her to be still his
object.  She could trust him not to presume, his approval made her
almost happy; and yet it was hard that his very patience and
acquiescence should endear him so much as to render the parting so much
the more painful.  The day was spent in business.  He facilitated much
that would have been arduous for two solitary women, and did little all
day but go about for Mary, fulfilling the commissions which her father
had sent home; and though he did it with a sore heart, it was still a
privilege to be at work for Mary.

Rigid as Miss Ponsonby was, she began to be touched.  There was a doubt
as to his admission when he came on Sunday morning--'Mistress saw no
one on Sunday,' but when his name was carried in, Miss Ponsonby could
not withstand Mary's face.  She took care to tell him her rule; but
that, considering the circumstances, she had made an exception in his
favour, on the understanding that nothing was to break in upon the
observance of the Sabbath.

Louis bent his head, with the heartfelt answer that he was but too glad
to be permitted to go to church once more with Mary.

Aunt Melicent's Sunday was not quite their own Sunday, but all that
they could desire was to be quietly together, and restricted from all
those agitating topics and arrangements.  It was a day of rest, and
they valued it accordingly.  In fact, Miss Ponsonby found the young
Lord so good and inoffensive, that she broke her morning's resolution,
invited him to partake of the cold dinner, let him go to church with
them again in the evening, and remain to tea; and when he took leave,
she expressed such surprised admiration at his having come and gone on
his own feet, his church-going, and his conduct generally, that Mary
could not help suspecting that her good aunt had supposed that he had
never heard of the Fourth Commandment.

Miss Ponsonby was one of the many good women given to hard judgments on
slight grounds, and to sudden reactions still more violent; and the
sight of Lord Fitzjocelyn spending a quiet, respectable Sunday, had
such an effect on her, that she transgressed her own mandate, and
broached 'the distressing subject.'

'Mary, my dear, I suppose this young gentleman is an improved
character?'

'He is always improving,' said Mary.

'I mean, that an important change must have taken place since I
understood you to say you had refused him.  I thought you acted most
properly then; and, as I see him now, I think you equally right in
accepting him.'

'He was very much what he is now,' said Mary.

'Then it was from no doubt of his being a serious character?'

'None whatever,' said Mary, emphatically.

'Well, my dear, I must confess his appearance, his family, and your
refusal, misled me.  I fear I did him great injustice.'

A silence, and then Miss Ponsonby said, 'After all, my dear, though I
thought quite otherwise at first, I do believe that, considering what
the youth is, and how much attached he seems, you might safely continue
the engagement.'

Mary's heart glowed to her aunt for having been thus conquered by
Louis--she who, three nights back, had been so severely incredulous, so
deeply disappointed in her niece for having been deluded into endurance
of him.  But her resolution was fixed.  'It would not be right,' she
said; 'his father would not allow it.  There is so little chance of
papa's relenting, or of my coming home, that it would be wrong to keep
him in suspense.  He had better turn his thoughts elsewhere while he is
young enough to begin again.'

'It might save him from marrying some mere fine lady.'

'That will never be, whatever woman he chooses will--' She could not go
on, but presently cleared her voice--'No; I should like to leave him
quite free.  I was less his choice than his father's; and, though I
thought we should have been very happy, it does not seem to be the
leading of Heaven.  I am so far his inferior in cleverness, and
everything attractive, and have been made so like his elder sister,
that it might not have been best for him.  I want him to feel that, in
beginning afresh, he is doing me no injury; and then in time, whenever
I come home, it may be such a friendship as there was between our
elders.  That is what I try to look forward to,--no, I don't think I
look forward to anything.  Good night, Aunt Melicent--I am so glad you
like him!'

In this mind Mary met Lord Ormersfield.  The delay had been an
advantage, for he was less irritated, and she had regained
self-possession.  Her passage had been taken, and this was an argument
that told on the Earl, though he refused to call it irrevocable.  He
found that there was no staggering her on the score of the life that
awaited her; she knew more on that subject than he did, had confidence
in her father, and no dread of Rosita; and she was too much ashamed and
grieved at the former effect of his persuasions to attend to any more
of a like description.  He found her sense of duty more stubborn than
he had anticipated, and soon had no more to say. She might carry it too
far; but the principle was sound, and a father could not well
controvert it.  He had designed the rupture with Louis as a penalty to
drive her into his measures; but he could not so propound it, and was
wondering how to bring it in, when Mary relieved him by beginning
herself, and stating the grounds with such sensible, unselfish, almost
motherly care of Louis's happiness, that he was more unwilling than
ever to let him resign her, and was on the point of begging her to
re-consider, and let Louis wait for ever rather than lose her.  But he
knew they ought not to be bound, under such uncertainties, and his
conviction was too strong to give way to emotion.  He thanked her, and
praised her with unwonted agitation, and regretted more than ever; and
so they closed the conference by deciding that, unless Mr. Ponsonby
should be induced to relent by his daughter's representations on her
arrival, Mary and Louis must consider themselves as mutually released.

That loophole--forlorn, most forlorn hope, as they knew it to be--was
an infinite solace to the young people, by sparing them a formal
parting, and permitting them still to feel that they belonged to each
other.  If he began declaring that nothing would ever make him feel
disconnected with Mary, he was told that it was not time to think of
that, and they must not waste their time.  And once Mary reminded him
how much worse it would be if they had been separated by a quarrel.
'Anger might give one spirits,' he said, smiling mournfully.

'At the time; but think what it would be not to be able to remember
happy times without remorse.'

'Then you do mean to recollect, Mary?'

'I trust to bring myself to remember rightly and wisely.  I shall try
to set it for a reward for myself to cure me of repinings,' said Mary,
looking into his face, as if the remembrance of it must bring
cheerfulness and refreshment.

'And when shall I not think, Mary!  When I leave off work, I shall want
you for a companion; when I go to work, the thought must stir me up.
Your judgment must try my own.'

'Oh, hush, Louis! this is not good.  Be yourself, and be more than
yourself, and only think of the past as a time when we had a great deal
of pleasantness, and you did me much good.'

'Did I?'

'Yes; I see it now I am with Aunt Melicent.  You put so many more
thoughts in my head, and showed me that so much more was good and
wholesome than I used to fancy.  Dear mamma once said you were
educating me; and I hope to go on, and not let your lessons waste away.'

'Nay, Mary, you won good everywhere.  If you had not been Mary, I might
have made you a great goose.  But you taught me all the perseverance I
ever had.  And oh! Mary, I don't wonder you do not trust it.'

'There is the forbidden subject,' said Mary, firmly.

That was the sort of conversation into which they fell now and then
during those last days of busy sadness.

Truly it could have been worse.  Suffering by their own fault would
have rent them asunder more harshly, and Louis's freedom from all
fierceness and violence softened all ineffably to Mary.  James Frost's
letter of fiery indignation, almost of denunciation, made her thankful
that he was not the party concerned; and Louis made her smile at
Isabel's copy of all his sentiments in ladylike phrases.

The last day came.  Louis would not be denied seeing Mary on board the
Valdivia; and, in spite of all Miss Ponsonby's horror of railways, he
persuaded her to trust herself under his care to Liverpool.  She
augured great things from the letter which she had entrusted to Mary,
and in which she had spoken of Lord Fitzjocelyn in the highest terms
her vocabulary could furnish.

They parted bravely.  Spectators hindered all display of feeling, and
no one cried, except Miss Ponsonby.

'Good-bye, Louis; I will not forget your messages to Tom Madison.  My
love to your father and Aunt Catharine.'

'Good-bye, Mary; I shall see Tom and Chimborazo yet.'




CHAPTER V.

THE NEW WORLD.

  Still onward, as to southern skies,
  We spread our sails, new stars arise,
  New lights upon the glancing tide,
  Fresh hues where pearl and coral hide:
  What are they all but tokens true
  Of grace for ever fresh and new!
                        Prayers for Emigrants.


There are some days in the early year, devoid indeed of spring
brilliance, but full of soft, heavy, steaming fragrance, pervading the
grey air with sweet odours, and fostering the growth of tender bud and
fragile stem with an unseen influence, more mild and kindly than even
the smiling sunbeam or the gushing shower.  'A growing day,' as the
country-people term such genial, gentle weather, might not be without
analogy to the brief betrothal of Louis and Mary.

Subdued and anxious, there had been little of the ordinary light of
joy, hope, or gaiety, and their pleasures had been less their own than
in preparing the happiness of their two friends.  It was a time such as
to be more sweet in memory than it was in the present; and the shade
which had hung over it, the self-restraint and the forbearance which it
had elicited, had unconsciously conduced to the development of the
characters of both, preparing them to endure the parting far more
effectually than unmixed enjoyment could have done. The check upon
Louis's love of trifling, the restraint on his spirits, the being
thrown back on his own judgment when he wanted to lean upon Mary, had
given him a habit of controlling his boyish ways.

It was a call to train himself in manliness and self-reliance.  It
changed him from the unstable reed he once had been, and helped him to
take one steady and consistent view of the trial required of him and of
Mary, and then to act upon it resolutely and submissively. With Mary
gone, he cared little what became of him until her letters could
arrive; and his father, with more attention to his supposed benefit
than to his wishes, carried him at once, without returning home, to a
round of visits among all his acquaintance most likely to furnish a
distracting amount of Christmas gaieties.  In the midst of these, there
occurred a vacancy in the representation of a borough chiefly under the
influence of Sir Miles Oakstead; and, as it was considered expedient
that he should be brought into Parliament, his father repaired with him
at once to Oakstead, and involved him in all the business of the
election.  On his success, he went with his father to London for the
session, and this was all that his friends at Northwold knew of him.
He wrote hurried notes to James or to Mr. Holdsworth on necessary
affairs connected with his farm and improvements, mentioning facts
instead of feelings, and promising to write to Aunt Catharine when he
should have time; but the time did not seem to come, and it was easy to
believe that his passiveness of will, increased by the recent stroke,
had caused him to be hurried into a condition of involuntary practical
activity.

Mary, meanwhile, was retracing her voyage, in the lull of spirits
which, after long straining, had nothing to do but to wait in patience,
bracing themselves for a fresh trial.  Never suffering herself, at sea,
her first feelings, after the final wrench of parting, were interrupted
by the necessity of attending to her friend, a young mother, with
children enough to require all the services that the indefatigable Mary
could perform.  If Mrs. Willis always averred that she never could have
gone through the voyage without Miss Ponsonby, Mary felt, in return,
that the little fretful boy and girl, who would never let her sit and
think, except when both were asleep, had been no small blessing to her.

Yet Mary was not so much absorbed and satisfied with the visible and
practical as had once been the case.  The growth had not been all on
Louis's side.  If her steadfast spirit had strengthened his wavering
resolution, the intercourse and sympathy with him had opened and
unfolded many a perception and quality in her, which had been as
tightly and hardly cased up as leaf-buds in their gummy envelopes.  A
wider range had been given to her thoughts; there was a swelling of
heart, a vividness of sensation, such as she had not known in earlier
times; she had been taught the mystery of creation, the strange
connexion with the Unseen, and even with her fellow-men.  Beyond the
ordinary practical kind offices, for which she had been always ready,
there was now mingled something of Louis's more comprehensive spirit of
questioning what would do them good, and drawing food for reflection
from their diverse ways.

She was sensible of the change again and again, when sights recurred
which once had only spoken to her eye.  That luminous sea, sparkling
like floods of stars, had been little more than 'How pretty! how
funny!' at her first voyage.  Now, it was not only 'How Louis would
admire it!' but 'How profusely, how gloriously has the Creator spread
the globe with mysterious beauty! how marvellously has He caused His
creatures to hold forth this light, to attract others to their needful
food!'  And the furrow of fire left by their vessel's wake spoke to her
of that path 'like a shining light, shining more and more unto the
perfect day.'  If with it came the remembrance of his vision of the
threads of light, it was not a recollection which would lead to
repining.

And when at Cape Horn, a mighty ice mountain drifted within view,
spired, pinnacled, encrusted with whiteness, rivalled only by the glory
of the summer cloud, caverned here and there into hollows of sapphire
blue, too deeply dazzling to behold, or rising into peaks of clear,
hard, chill green; the wild fantastic points sometimes glimmering with
fragments of the rainbow arch; the rich variety, endless beyond measure
in form and colouring, and not only magnificent and terrible in the
whole mass, but lovely beyond imagination in each crystal too minute
for the eye.  Mary had once, on a like occasion, only said, 'it was
very cold;' and looked to see whether the captain expected the monster
to bear down on the ship. But the present iceberg put her in mind of
the sublime aspirations which gothic cathedrals seem as if they would
fain embody.  And then, she thought of the marvellous interminable
waste of beauty of those untrodden regions, whence yonder enormous
iceberg was but a small fragment--a petty messenger--regions unseen by
human eye--beauty untouched by human hand-the glory, the sameness, yet
the infinite variety of perfect purity.  Did it not seem, with all the
associations of cold, of peril, of dreariness, to be a visible token
that indeed He who fashioned it could prepare 'good things past man's
understanding!'

It was well for Mary that southern constellations, snowy, white-winged
albatross, leaping flying-fish, and white-capped mountain-coast, had
been joined in her mind with something higher, deeper, and less
personal, or their recurrence would have brought her nothing but pain
unmitigated in the contrast with the time when first she had beheld
them six years ago.

Then she was full of hope and eager ardour to arrive, longing for the
parental presence of which she had so long been deprived, hailing every
novel scene as a proof that she was nearer home, and without the
anticipation of one cloud, only expecting to be loved, to love, and to
be useful.  And now, all fond illusions as to her father had been
snatched away, her very love for him rendering the perception doubly
cruel; her mother, her precious mother, far away in Ormersfield
churchyard--her life probably shortened by his harshness--her place
occupied by a young girl, differing in language, in Church, in
everything--Mary's own pardon uncertain, after all her sacrifices--A
sense of having deeply offended, hung upon her; and her heart was so
entirely in England, that had her home been perfect, her voyage must
still have been a cruel effort.  That one anticipation of being set at
rest by her father's forgiveness, and the forlorn despairing hope of
his relenting towards Louis, were all she dared to dwell on; and when
Mrs. Willis counted the days till she could arrive and meet her
husband, poor Mary felt as if, but for these two chances of comfort,
she could gladly have prolonged the voyage for the rest of her life.

But one burning tropical noon, the Valdivia was entering Callao
harbour, and Mary, sick and faint at heart, was arraying herself in a
coloured dress, lest her mourning should seem to upbraid her father.
The voyage was over, the ship was anchored, boats were coming offshore,
the luggage was being hoisted out of the hold, the passengers were
congregated on deck, eager to land, some gazing with curious and
enterprising eyes on the new country, others scanning every boat in
hopes of meeting a familiar face.  Mrs. Willis stood trembling with
hope, excitement, and the strange dread often rushing in upon the last
moment of expectation.  She clung to Mary for support, and once said--

'Oh, Miss Ponsonby, how composed you are!'  Mary's feelings were too
deep--too much concentrated for trembling.  She calmed and soothed the
wife's sudden fright, lest 'something should have happened to George;'
and she even smiled when the children's scream of ecstacy infected
their mother, when the papa and uncle they had been watching for with
straining eyes proved to be standing on deck close beside them.

Mary cast her eyes round, and saw nothing of her own.  She stood apart,
while the Willis family were in all the rapture of the meeting; she saw
them moving off, too happy and sufficient for themselves even to
remember her.  She had a dull, heavy sensation that she must bear all,
and this was the beginning; and she was about to begin her arrangements
for her dreary landing, when Mrs. Willis's brother, Mr. Ward, turned
back.  He was a middle-aged merchant, whom her mother had much liked
and esteemed, and there was something cheering in his frank, hearty
greeting, and satisfaction in seeing her.  It was more like a welcome,
and it brought the Willises back, shocked at having forgotten her in
the selfishness of their own joy; but they had made sure that she had
been met.  Mr. Ward did not think that she was expected by the
Valdivia; Mr. Ponsonby had not mentioned it as likely.  So they were
all seated in the boat, with the black rowers; and while the Willises
fondled their children, and exchanged home-news, Mr. Ward sat by Mary,
and spoke to her kindly, not openly referring to the state of her home,
but showing a warmth and consideration which evinced much delicate
sympathy.

They all drove together in the Willises' carriage up the sloping road
from Callao to Lima, and Mary heard astonishment, such as she had once
felt, breaking out in screams from the children at the sight of
omnibuses filled with gaily-dressed negroes, and brown horsewomen in
Panama hats and lace-edged trousers careering down the road.  But then,
her father had come and fetched her from on board, and that dear mamma
was waiting in the carriage!  They entered the old walled town when
twilight had already closed in, and Mrs. Willis was anxious to take her
tired little ones home at once.  They were set down at their own door;
but Mr. Ward, with protecting anxious kindness, insisted on seeing Miss
Ponsonby safely home before he would join them.  As they drove through
the dark streets, Mary heard a little restless movement, betraying some
embarrassment; and at last, with an evident desire of reassuring her,
he said, 'Senora Rosita is thought very pleasing and engaging;' and
then, as if willing to change the subject, he hastily added, 'I suppose
you did not speak the Pizarro?'

'No.'

'She has sailed about three weeks.  She takes home your cousin, Mr.
Dynevor.'

Mary cried out with surprise.

'I thought him a complete fixture, but he is gone home for a year. It
seems his family property was in the market, and he was anxious to
secure it.'

'How glad his mother will be!' was all Mary could say, as there rushed
over her the thought of the wonderful changes this would make in
Dynevor Terrace.  Her first feeling was that she must tell Louis; her
second, that two oceans were between them; and then she thought of Aunt
Catharine having lived, after all, to see her son.

She had forgotten to expect the turn when the carriage wheeled under
the arched entry of her father's house.  All was gloom and stillness,
except where a little light shone in a sort of porter's lodge upon the
eager negro features of two blacks, with much gesticulation, playing at
dice.  They came out hastily at the sound of the carriage; and as Mr.
Ward handed out Mary, and inquired for Mr. Ponsonby, she recognised and
addressed the white-woolled old Xavier, the mayor domo.  Poor old
Xavier!  Often had she hunted and teased him, and tried to make him
understand 'cosas de Inglaterra,' and to make him cease from his
beloved dice; but no sooner did he see her face than, with a cry of
joy, 'La Senorita Maria! la Senorita Maria!' down he went upon his
knees, and began kissing the hem of her dress.

All the rest of the negro establishment came round, capering and
chattering Spanish; and, in the confusion, Mary could not get her
question heard--Where was her father? and Xavier's vehement threats and
commands to the others to be silent, did not produce a calm.  At last,
bearing a light, there came forward a faded, sallow dame, with a candle
in her hand, who might have sat for the picture of the Duena Rodriguez,
and at her appearance the negroes subsided.  She was an addition to the
establishment since Mary's departure; but in her might be easily
recognised the Tia, the individual who in Limenian households holds a
position between companion and housekeeper.  She introduced herself by
the lugubrious appellation of Senora Dolores, and, receiving Mary with
obsequious courtesy, explained that the Senor and Senora were at a
tertulia, or evening party.  She lighted Mary and Mr. Ward into the
quadra; and there Mr. Ward, shaking hands with her as if he would
thereby compensate for all that was wanting in her welcome, promised to
go and inform her father of her arrival.

Mary stood in the large dark room, with the soft matted floor, and the
windows high up near the carved timbered ceiling, the single lamp,
burning in rum, casting a dim gleam over the well-known furniture, by
which her mother had striven to give an English appearance to the room.
It was very dreary, and she would have given the world to be alone with
her throbbing head, her dull heartache, and the weariness of spirits
over-long wound up for the meeting; but her own apartment could be no
refuge until it had been cleansed and made ready, and Dolores and
Xavier were persecuting her every moment with their hospitality and
their inquiries.  Then came a quick, manly tread, and for a moment her
heart almost seemed to stand still, in the belief that it was her
father; but it was only Robson, hurrying in to offer his services and
apologies.  Perhaps he was the very last person she could bear to see,
feeling, as she did, that if he had been more explicit all the offence
would have been spared.  He was so much aware of all family matters,
and was accustomed to so much confidence from her father, that she
could not believe him unconscious; and there was something hateful to
her in the plausible frankness and deferential familiarity of his
manners, as, brushing up his sandy hair upon his forehead, he poured
forth explanations that Mr. Ponsonby would be delighted, but grieved
that no one had met her--Valdivia not expected so soon--not anticipated
the pleasure--if they had imagined that Miss Ponsonby was a passenger--

'My father desired that I would come out by her,' said Mary.

'Ay, true--so he informed me; but since later intelligence'--and he
cast a glance at Mary, to judge how much further to go; but meeting
with nothing but severity, he covered the impertinence by saying, 'In
fact, though the Valdivia was mentioned, and Mrs. Willis, Mr. Ponsonby
had reason to suppose you would not receive his letters in time to
avail yourself of the escort.'

'I did so, however,' said Mary, coldly.

'Most gratifying.  Mr. and Mrs. Ponsonby will be highly gratified. In
fact, Miss Ponsonby, I must confess that was a most unfortunate blunder
of mine last August.  I should not have fallen into the error had I not
been so long absent at Guayaquil that I had had no opportunity of
judging of the amiable lady; and I will own to much natural surprise
and some indignation, before I had had the pleasure of personal
acquaintance with the charms and the graces--Hem! In effect, it was a
step that no one could have recommended; and when your noble relative
put it to me in so many words whether I would counsel your continuing
your journey, I could not take it on me to urge a measure so painful to
your feelings, unaware as I was then of the amiable qualities of the
lady who occupies the situation of the highly beloved and esteemed--'

Mary could not bear to hear her mother's name in his mouth, so she cut
him short by saying, 'I suppose you thought you acted for the best, Mr.
Robson; it was very unfortunate, but it cannot be helped. Pray can you
tell me where the lad Madison is?' she added, resolved to show him that
she would not discuss these matters with him; 'I have a parcel for him.'

'He is at the San Benito mine, Miss Ponsonby.'

'How does he go on?'

'Well--I may say very well, allowing for inexperience.  He appears a
steady, intelligent lad, and I have no doubt will answer the purpose
well.'

There was one gratification for Mary, at least, in the pleasure this
would afford at home; but Robson continued making conversation about
Mr. Dynevor's visit to England, and the quantity of work this temporary
absence entailed on him; and then on the surprise it would be to his
patron to find her, and Senora Rosita's interest in her, and the
numerous gaieties of the bride, and the admiration she excited, and his
own desire to be useful.   This afforded Mary an opportunity for
getting rid of him at last, by sending him to make arrangements for her
baggage to be sent from Callao the next morning.

Ten minutes more, half spent in conquering her disgust, half in sick
anticipation, and other feet were crossing the matted sala, the curtain
over the doorway was drawn aside, and there stood her father, and a
lady, all white and diamonds, by his side.  He held out his arms, Mary
fell into them, and it was the same kind rough kiss which had greeted
her six years back.  It seemed to be forgiveness, consolation,
strength, all at once; and their words mingled--'Papa, you forgive
me'--'Mary, my good girl, I did not think they would have let you come
back to me.  This was but a dreary coming home for you, my dear.'  And
then, instantly changing his language to Spanish, he added, appealing
to his wife, that had they guessed she was on board, they would have
come to meet her.

Rosita replied earnestly to that effect, and warmly embraced Mary,
pitying her for such an arrival, and hoping that Dolores had made her
comfortable.  The rest of the conversation was carried on in the same
tongue.  Rosita was much what Mary had expected--of a beautiful figure,
with fine eyes, and splendid raven hair, but without much feature or
expression.  She looked almost like a dream to-night, however, with her
snowy robes, and the diamonds sparkling with their dewdrop flashes in
her hair and on her arms, with the fitful light caught from the
insufficient candles.  All she ventured to say had a timid gracefulness
and simplicity that were very winning; and her husband glanced more
than once to see if she were not gaining upon his daughter; and so in
truth she was, personally, though it was exceedingly painful to see her
where Mary had been used to see that dear suffering face; and it was
impossible not to feel the contrast with her father as painfully
incongruous.  Mr. Ponsonby was a large man, with the jovial manner of
one never accustomed to self-restraint; good birth and breeding making
him still a gentleman, in spite of his loud voice and the traces of
self-indulgence.  He was ruddy and bronzed, and his eyebrows and hair
looked as if touched by hoar frost; altogether as dissimilar a partner
as could be devised for the slender girlish being by his side.

After a little Spanish conversation, all kind on his aide, and thus
infinitely relieving Mary, they parted for the night.  She laid before
him the packet of letters, which she had held all this time as the last
link to Louis, and sought his eye as she did so with a look of appeal;
but he carefully averted his glance, and she could read nothing.

Weary as she was, Mary heard again and again, through her unglazed
windows, the watchman's musical cry of 'Ave Maria purisima, las--es
temblado!'  'Viva Peru y sereno!' and chid herself for foolish
anticipations that Louis would hear and admire all the strange sounds
of the New World.  The kindness of her welcome gave her a little hope;
and she went over and over again her own part of the discussion which
she expected, almost persuading herself, that Louis's own conduct and
her aunt's testimony must win the day.

She need not have spent so many hours in preparation for the morning.
She was up early, in hopes of seeing her father before he went to his
office, but he was gone for a ride.  The English breakfast, which had
been established, much to his content, by her own exertions, had quite
vanished, each of the family had a cup of chocolate in private, and
there was no meeting till, late in the morning, Rosita sauntered into
her room, embraced her, made inquiries as to her rest, informed her
that she was going to the Opera that night, and begged her to accompany
her.  To appear in public with Rosita was the tribute for which Mary
had come out, so she readily agreed; and thereupon the Senora digressed
into the subject of dress, and required of Mary a display of all her
robes, and an account of the newest fashions of the English ladies.  It
was all with such innocent, earnest pleasure, that Mary could not be
annoyed, and good-naturedly made all her disappointing display.

The midday meal brought her father--still kind and affectionate, but
never dropping the Spanish, nor manifesting any consciousness of her
letters.  She had hopes of the period allotted to the siesta, to which
custom, in old days, she had never acceded, but had always spent the
interval on any special occupation--above all, to writing for him; but
he went off without any notice of her, and she was in no condition to
dispense with the repose, for her frame was tired out, though her hopes
and fears could not even let her dreams rest.

Then came a drive with Rosita, resplendent in French millinery, then
supper; then the Opera, to which her father accompanied them, still
without a word.  Another day was nearly the same, only that this time
she had to do her best to explain the newest fashions in behalf of a
dress of Rosita's, then being made, and in the evening to go to a party
at the Consul's, where she met Mr. Ward, and had some talk which she
might have enjoyed but for her suspense.

On the third, Rosita was made happy by unpacking an elegant little
black papier mache table, a present from Miss Ponsonby.  Good Melicent!
were ever two sisters-in-law more unlike?   But Lord Ormersfield had
done Rosita and her husband good service.  If Aunt Melicent had first
learned the real facts, her wrath would have been extreme--a mere
child, a foreigner, a Roman Catholic, a nun!  Her horror would have
known no bounds, and she would, perhaps, have broken with her brother
forever.  But by making the newly-married pair victims of injustice,
the Earl had made the reality a relief, and Melicent had written
civilly to her brother, and a sisterly sort of stiff letter to the
bride--of which the Limenian could not understand one word; so that
Mary had to render it all into Spanish, even to her good aunt's hopes
that Rosita would be kind to her, and use all her influence in favour
of her happiness.

Whether Rosita would have comprehended this without Mary's blushes
might be questioned, but she did say, 'Ah! yes! you were to have
married the Visconde, were you not?  El Senor was so angry!  Did his
father forbid when your father refused your portion?'

'Oh no, he would receive me if I brought nothing.'

'And you wish to marry?' said Rosita.

'If my father would only consent.'

'But why did you come here then?' said Rosita, opening her large eyes.

'My father commanded me.'

'England is a long way off,' said Rosita, languidly, 'he could not have
reached you there.  You would have been a great lady and noble! How
could you come away, if he would still have you?'

'Because it would have been wrong.  We could not have been happy in
disobeying my father.'

'Ah! but you could have done penance.  I had many penances to do for
quitting my convent; Padre Inigo was very severe, but they are over at
last, and I am free for giving alms twice a week, and the Sisters have
forgiven me, and send me so many silver flowers and dulces; I will show
them to you some day.  Could you not have done penance?'

'I am afraid not.'

'Ah! I forgot you were a heretic, poor thing!  How inconvenient!  And
so you will not come with me to the bull-fight next Sunday?'

Such being Rosita's ideas on the point, Mary gave up much hope in her
influence, and tried what a good-humoured announcement of her
re-establishment of the English breakfast would effect towards bringing
her father to a tete-a-tete, but he never came near it.  The waiting in
silence was miserable enough for herself, but she would have continued
to bear it except for the injustice to Louis, who must not be kept in
suspense.  The departure of the next English mail should be the limit
of her endurance, and after a day of watching, she finally went up to
her father when he would have bidden her good night, and said, in
English, 'Papa, if you please, I must speak to you.'

'So you shall, my dear, but we are all tired; we must have our night's
rest.'

'No, papa, it must be to-night, if you please.  It is necessary for me
to know before to-morrow how I am to write to Lord Fitzjocelyn.'

'Pshaw!  Mary, I've settled that young fellow!'

'Papa, I don't think you know--'

'I've written him a civil answer, if that's what you mean, much
civiller than he or his father deserve,' he said, speaking loud, and
trying to fling away from her, but she stood her ground, and spoke
calmly and steadily, though her heart beat violently.

'You do not understand the true state of the case, papa; and without
doing so, you cannot write such an answer as they deserve.'

'I know this, that old Ormersfield has been the curse of my life!' and
out poured one of those torrents of fierce passion which had been
slowly but surely the death of his wife.  Mary had never heard one in
the full tide before, but she stood firm; there were none of the tears,
auch as, in her mother, had been wont to exasperate him further, but
with pale cheeks, compressed lips, and hands locked together, her heart
was one silent entreaty that it might be forgiven him above.  Thus she
stood while the storm of anger raged, and when at last it had exhausted
itself, he said, in a lower voice, 'And so you are still taken with
this fellow's son, this young puppy!  I thought you had more spirit and
sense, Mary, or I never would have trusted you among them.'

'There are very few people in this world half so good or so
right-minded as Fitzjocelyn,' said Mary, earnestly and deliberately.
'It was he who bade me come to you, well knowing that we could never be
happy without your consent.'

'Oh! he did so, did he?  He is deeper than I thought would not risk
your fortune.  Why, Mary, I did not think a girl of your sense could be
so taken in!  It is transparent, I tell you.  They get you there,
flatter you up with their attentions, but when they find you too wise
for them the first time, off goes this youth to Miss Conway, finds her
a bad speculation, no heiress at all, and disposes of her to his
cousin.  I wonder if he'll find old Dynevor grateful.  Meanwhile the
old Lord must needs come out here, finds our gains a better prize than
he expected, trumps up this story at Valparaiso, takes you in, and
brings you home to this precious youth.  And you, and your aunt too,
are ready to believe it all!  I always knew that women were fools
whenever a title came in their way, I see it more than ever now, since
you and Melicent are both like the rest of 'em.'

'Papa,' said Mary, again rallying her firmness, 'we have found sadly
how easy it is to be deceived when one is not on the spot.  Will you
listen to me, who saw it all?'

'No, Mary, I will not hear the nonsense they have put into your head,
my poor girl.  No!  I tell you it is of no use!  It is my resolute
purpose that not one farthing of mine shall go to patch up the
broken-down Ormersfield property!  The man is my enemy, and has sown
dissension in my family from the first moment I connected myself with
him.  I'll never see my daughter his son's wife.  I wonder he had the
impudence to propose it!  I shall think you lost to all feeling for
your father, if you say another word about it.'

'Very well,' said Mary, with steady submission.  'Then I will only
write one more letter to Fitzjocelyn, and tell him that your objections
are insuperable, and that he must think of it no more.'

'That's right, Mary! you are a good girl, after all!  You'll stand by
your father, in spite of all the House of Peers!  I'm glad to see you
hold up your head so bravely.  So you did fancy being a Viscountess,
did you! but it is not a heartbreaking matter either, my girl!'

This was too much for Mary, and when her father would have kissed her,
she laid her head on his shoulder and wept silently but bitterly.

'Ha! what's all this?  Why, you don't pretend to care for a young
mercenary scamp like that?'

'He is the noblest, most generous, most disinterested man I ever knew!'
said Mary, standing apart, and speaking clearly.  'I give him up
because--you command me, father, but I will not hear him spoken of
unjustly.'

'Ha! ha! so long as you give him up, we won't quarrel.  He shall be all
that, and more too, if you like; and we'll never fight over the matter
again, since I have you safe back, my child.'

'I do not mean to mention him again,' said Mary; 'I wish to obey you.'

'Then there's an end of the matter.  You'll get over it, my girl, and
we'll find some honest man worth two of your niggardly, proud-spirited
earls.  There, I know you are a reasonable girl that can be silent, and
not go on teasing.  So, Mary, you may have a cup of tea for me
to-morrow in the sala, like old times.  Goodnight, my dear.'

Waiting upon himself!  That was the reward that Mr. Ponsonby held out
to his daughter for crushing her first love!

But it was a reward.  Anything that drew her father nearer to her was
received with gratitude by Mary, and the words of kindness in some
degree softened the blow. She had never had much hope, though now she
found it had been more than she had been willing to believe; and even
now she could not absolutely cease to entertain some hopes of the
results of Oliver's return, nor silence one lingering fancy that Louis
might yet wait unbound; although she told herself of his vacillation
between herself and Isabel, of his father's influence, and of the
certainty that he would see many more worthy of his love than herself.
Not any one who could love him so well--oh no!  But when Mary found her
thoughts taking this turn, she rose up as she lay, clasped her hands
together, and repeated half aloud again and again, 'Be Thou my all!'

And by the morning, though Mary's cheek was very white, and her eyes
sunken for want of sleep, she had a cheerful word for her father, and a
smile, the very sight of which would have gone to the heart of any one
of those from whom he had cut her off.

Then she wrote her letters.  It was not so hard to make this final
severance as it had been to watch Louis's face, and think of the pain
she had to inflict.  Many a time had she weighed each phrase she set
down, so that it might offend neither against sincerity nor
resignation, and yet be soothing and consoling.  Some would have
thought her letter stiff and laboured, but she had learned to believe
that a grave and careful style befitted a serious occasion, and would
have thought incoherency childish or affected.

She released him entirely from his engagement, entreating him not to
rebel against the decision, but to join her in thankfulness that no
shade need be cast over the remembrance of the happy hours spent
together; and begging him not to grieve, since she had, after the first
pain, been able to acquiesce in the belief that the separation might
conduce to his happiness; and she should always regard him as one of
those most near and dear to her, and rejoice in whatever was for his
welfare, glad that his heart was still young enough to form new ties.
'Forgive me for speaking thus,' she added; 'I know that it may wound
you now, but there may come a time when it may make you feel more at
ease and unfettered; and I could not endure to imagine that the
affection which you brought yourself to lavish on one so unworthy,
should stand in the way of your happiness for life.'  She desired him
to make no answer, but to consider this as the final dissolution: and
she concluded by all that she thought would prove most consoling, as to
the present state of affairs with her; and with a few affectionate
words, to show that he was still a great deal to her, though everything
he might not be.

This done, Mary faced her life in the New World.  She had to form her
habits for herself, for her importance in the house was gone; but she
went to work resolutely, and, lonely as she was, she had far more
resources than if she had never been at Ormersfield.  She had many
hours to herself, and she unpacked her books, and set herself courses
of study, to which Louis had opened the door.  She unveiled her eyes to
natural history, and did not find flower or butterfly unsoothing. She
undertook the not very hopeful task of teaching a tiny negro imp, who
answered the purpose of a bell, to read and work; and she was
persevering in her efforts to get Xavier and Dolores to make her father
comfortable.

Her father was decidedly glad of her company.  He liked conversation,
and enjoyed the morning meeting, to which Mr. Ward was often a welcome
addition, delighting in anything so English, and finding Miss Ponsonby
much improved by her introduction to English society. Sometimes Mary
wrote for her father, and now and then was consulted; and she was
always grateful for whatever made her feel herself of use.  She was on
kind and friendly terms with Rosita, but they did not become more
intimate than at first.  The Senora was swinging in a hammock
half-asleep, with a cigarette between her lips, all the morning; and
when she emerged from this torpid state, in a splendid toilette, she
had too many more congenial friends often to need her step-daughter in
her visits, her expeditions to lotteries, and her calls on her old
friends the nuns.  On a fast-day, or any other occasion that kept her
at home, she either arranged her jewels, discussed her dresses, or had
some lively chatter, which she called learning English.  She coaxed,
fondled, and domineered prettily over Mr. Ponsonby; and he looked on
amused, gratified her caprices, caressed her, and seemed to regard her
as a pretty pet and plaything.




CHAPTER VI.

THE TWO PENDRAGONS.

  The red dragon and the white,
  Hard together gan they smite,
  With mouth, paw, and tail,
  Between hem was full hard batail.
                 The History of Merlin.


SPRING was on the borders of summer, when one afternoon, as Clara sat
writing a note in the drawing-room, she heard a tap at the door of the
little sitting-room, and springing to open it, she beheld a welcome
sight.

'Louis!  How glad I am!  Where do you come from?'

'Last from the station,' said Louis.

'What makes you knock at that door, now the drawing-room is alive?'

'I could not venture on an unceremonious invasion of Mrs. James Frost's
territory.'

'You'll find no distinction of territory here,' laughed Clara.  'It was
a fiction that we were to live in separate rooms, like naughty
children.  Does not the drawing-room look nice?'

'As much improved as the inhabitant.  Where are the other natives?'

'Granny and Isabel are walking, and will end by picking up Jem coming
out of school.  We used to wait for him so often, that at last he said
we should be laughed at, so there's a law against it which no one dares
to transgress but granny.'

'So I conclude that you are a happy family.'

'After all, it was worth spending two years at school to enjoy properly
the having it over.'

'I give Jem credit for having secured a first-rate governess for you.'

'That she is!  Why, with her I really do like reading and drawing all
the morning!  I almost believe that some day I shall wake up and find
myself an accomplished young lady!  And, Louis, have you read the last
Western Magazine?'

'I have read very little for sport lately.'

'Then I must tell you.  Jem was bemoaning himself about having nothing
to give to the new Blind Asylum, and the next evening Isabel brought
out the prettiest little manuscript book, tied with blue ribbon, and
told him to do as he pleased with it.  It was a charming account of her
expedition to the Hebrides, written out for her sisters, without a
notion of anything further; but Jem sent it to this Magazine, and it is
accepted, and the first part is out.  She will have quite a sum for it,
and all is to go to the Blind Asylum!'

'Capital!--Let me take it home to night, Clara, and I will stand an
examination on it to-morrow.'

'We ask her whether she projects a sketch of the Paris Revolution,'
said Clara, laughing.  'She has a famous heap of manuscripts in her
desk, and one long story about a Sir Roland, who had his name before
she knew Jem, but it is all unfinished, she tore out a great many
pages, and has to make a new finish; and I am afraid the poor knight is
going to die of a mortal wound at his lady's feet.  Isabel likes sad
things best;--but oh! here they come, and I'm talking dreadful treason.'

Three more joyous-looking people could hardly have been found than
those who entered the room, welcoming Louis with delight, and asking
what good wind had brought him.

'Partly that Inglewood is crying out for the master's eye,' said Louis;
'and partly that my father fancied I looked fagged, and kindly let me
run down for a holiday.'

'I am of his mind,' said Mrs. Frost, tenderly; 'there is an M.P.
expression gathering on your brows, Louis.'

'For you to dispel, Aunt Kitty.  I told him you were the best
dissipation, and Virginia was of the same mind.  Isabel, she says
Dynevor Terrace is the only place she ever wishes to see again.'

'Do you often see Virginia?' asked Isabel.

'Not unless I go early, and beg for her; and then she generally has
some master.  That last onset of accomplishments is serious!'

'Yes,' said Isabel, 'the sense of leisure and tranquillity here is
marvellous!'

'Not leisure in the sense of idleness,' said James.

'No,' said Isabel; 'but formerly idle requirements thronged my time,
and for nothing worth doing could I find leisure.'

'There is nothing more exacting than idle requirements,' said James.
'Pray is Clara accepting that invitation?  Come to dinner, Louis, and
give us an excuse.'

'No, he won't,' said Mrs. Frost, 'he will take my side.  These young
people want to cast off all their neighbours.'

'Now, granny,' exclaimed James, 'have we not dutifully dined all round?
Did not Isabel conduct Clara to that ball?  Is it not hard to reproach
us with sighing at an evening immolated at the shrine of the
Richardsons?'

'Well, my dears, you must judge.'

'I am ready to do whatever you think right; I leave you to settle it,'
said Isabel, moving out of the room, that Louis might be free for a
more intimate conversation.

'Now,' cried James, 'is it in the nature of things that she should live
in such society as Mrs. Walby's and Mrs. Richardson's?  People who call
her Mrs. James!'

'Such a queen as she looks among them!' said Clara.

'One comfort is, they don't like that,' said James.  'Even Mrs. Calcott
is not flattered by her precedence.  I hope we shall soon be dropped
out of their parties.  As long as I do my duty by their sons, what
right have they to impose the penance of their society on my wife?  All
the irksomeness of what she has left, and none of the compensations!'

'Blissful solitude' said Louis, 'thereto I leave you.'

'You are not going yet!  You mean to dine here?' was the cry.

'My dear friends,' he said, holding up his hands, 'if you only knew how
I long to have no one to speak to!'

'You crying out for silence!' exclaimed James.

'I am panting for what I have not had these five months--space for my
thoughts to turn round.'

'Surely you are at liberty to form your own habits!' said James.

'I am told so whenever my father sees me receive a note,' said Louis,
wearily; 'but I see that, habituated as he is to living alone, he is
never really at ease unless I am in the way; so I make our hours agree
as far as our respective treadmills permit; and though we do not speak
much, I can never think in company.'

'Don't you have your rides to yourself?'

'Why, no.  My father will never ride enough to do him good, unless he
wants to do me good.  People are all surprised to see him looking so
well; the country lanes make him quite blooming.'

'But not you, my poor boy,' said his aunt; 'I am afraid it is a sad
strain.'

'There now, Aunt Kitty, I am gone.  I must have the pleasure of looking
natural sometimes, without causing any vituperation of any one beyond
seas.'

'You shall look just as you please if you will only stay.  We are just
going to dinner.'

'Thank you, let me come to-morrow.  I shall be better company when I
have had my sulk out.'

His aunt followed him to the stairs, and he turned to her, saying,
anxiously, 'No letter?'  She shook her head.  'It would be barely
possible,' he said, 'but if it would only come while I am at home in
peace!'

'Ah! this is sadly trying!' said she, parting his hair on his brow as
he stood some steps below her, and winning a sweet smile from him.

'All for the best,' he said.  'One thing may mitigate another.  That
political whirlpool might suck me in, if I had any heart or hopes for
it.  And, on the other hand, it would be very unwholesome to be left to
my own inertness--to be as good for nothing as I feel.'

'My poor dear boy, you are very good about it.  I wish you could have
been spared.'

'I did not come to make you sad, Aunt Kitty,' he replied, smiling; 'no;
I get some energy back when I remember that this may be a probation.
Her mother would not have thought me man enough, and that is what I
have to work for.  Whether this end well or not, she is the leading
star of my life.'  And, with the renewal of spirit with which he had
spoken, he pressed his aunt's hand, and ran down stairs.

When he rode to Northwold, the following afternoon, having spent the
morning in walking over his fields, he overtook a most comfortable
couple--James and Isabel, returning from their holiday stroll, and
Louis, leaving his horse at the inn, and joining them, began to hear
all their school affairs.  James had thrown his whole heart into his
work, had been making various reforms, introducing new studies, making
a point of religious instruction, and meditating on a course of
lectures on history, to be given in the evenings, the attendance to be
voluntary, but a prize held out for proficiency.  Louis took up the
subject eagerly, and Isabel entered into the discussion with all her
soul, and the grammar-school did indeed seem to be in a way to become
something very superior in tone to anything Northwold had formerly
seen, engrossing as it did all the powers of a man of such ability, in
the full vigour of youth.

Talking earnestly, the trio had reached the Terrace, and James was
unlatching the iron gate, when he interrupted himself in the midst of
detailing his views on modern languages to say, 'No, I have nothing for
you.'

'Sir, I beg your pardon!' was the quick reply from a withered, small,
but not ill-dressed old man, 'I only asked--'

'Let the lady pass,' said James, peremptorily, wishing to save his wife
from annoyance, 'it is of no use, I never look at petitions.'

'Surely he is not a beggar!' said Isabel, as he drew her on.

'You may be easy about him, my dear,' said James.  'He has laid hold of
Louis, who would swallow the whole Spanish legion of impostors. He will
be after us directly with a piteous story.'

Louis was after him, with a face more than half arch fun--'Jem, Jem, it
is your uncle!'

'Nonsense!  How can you be so taken in!  Don't go and disappoint
granny--I'll settle him.'

'Take care, Jem--it is Oliver, and no mistake!  Why, he is as like you
as Pendragon blood can make him!  Go and beg his pardon.'

James hastened down stairs, as Louis bounded up--sought Mrs. Frost in
the sitting-rooms, and, without ceremony, rushed up and knocked at the
bed-room door.  Jane opened it.

'He is come!' cried Louis--'Oliver is come.'

Old Jane gave a shriek, and ran back wildly, clapping her hands.  Her
mistress started forward--'Come!--where?'

'Here!--in the hall with Jem.'

He feared that he had been too precipitate, for she hid her face in her
hands; but it was the intensity of thanksgiving; and though her whole
frame was in a tremor, she flew rather than ran forward, never even
seeing Louis's proffered arm.  He had only reached the landing-place,
when beneath he heard the greeting--'Mother, I can take you
home--Cheveleigh is yours.'  But to her the words were drowned in her
own breathless cry--'My boy! my boy!'  She saw, knew, heard nothing,
save that the son, missed and mourned for thirty-four years, was safe
within her arms, the longing void filled up.  She saw not that the
stripling had become a worn and elderly man,--she recked not how he
came.  He was Oliver, and she had him again!  What was the rest to her?

Those words?  They might be out of taste, but Fitzjocelyn guessed that
to speak them at the first meeting had been the vision of Oliver's
life--the object to which he had sacrificed everything. And yet how
chill and unheeded they fell!

Louis could have stood moralizing, but his heart had begun to throb at
the chance that Oliver brought tidings of Mary.  He felt himself an
intrusive spectator, and hastened into the drawing-room, when Clara
nearly ran against him, but stood still.  'I beg your pardon, but what
is Isabel telling me?  Is it really?'

'Really!  Kindred blood signally failed to speak.'

Clara took a turn up and down the room.  'I say, Louis, ought I to go
down?'

'No; leave him and granny to their happiness,' said Louis; and James,
at the same moment running up, threw himself into a chair, with an
emphatic 'There!'

'Dear grandmamma!' said Isabel; 'I hope it is not too much for her.'

James made no answer.

'Are you disappointed in him, dear James?' she continued.

'I could not be disappointed,' he answered, shortly.

'Poor man--he has a poor welcome among you,' said Louis.

'Welcome is not to be bought,' said James.  'I could not stand hearing
him reply to poor granny's heartfelt rapture with his riches and his
Cheveleigh, as if that were all she could prize.'

Steps were mounting the stairs, and the alert, sharp tones of Oliver
were heard--'Married then?  Should have waited--done it in style.'

James and Isabel glanced at each other in amused indignation; and Mrs.
Frost entered, tremulous with joy, and her bright hazel eyes lustrous
with tears, as she leant on the arm of her recovered son. He was a
little, spare, shrivelled man, drolly like his nephew, but with all the
youthfulness dried out of him, the freckles multiplied by scores, and
the keen black eyes sunken, sharpened, and surrounded with innumerable
shrewd puckers.  The movements were even more brisk, as if time were
money; and in speech, the small change of particles was omitted, and
every word seemed bitten off short at the end; the whole man, in
gesture, manner, and voice, an almost grotesque caricature of all
James's peculiarities.

'Mrs. Roland Dynevor, I presume? said Oliver, as Isabel came forward to
meet him.

'Never so known hitherto,' returned her husband.  'My wife is Mrs.
James Frost, if you please.'

'That is over now,' said Oliver, consequentially; and as his mother
presented to him 'poor Henry's little Clara,' he kissed her
affectionately, saying, 'Well-grown young lady, upon my word!  Like her
father--that's right.'

'Here is almost another grandchild,' said Mrs. Frost--'Louis
Fitzjocelyn--not much like the Fitzjocelyn you remember, but a new M.P.
as he was then.'

'Humph!' said Oliver, with a dry sound, apparently expressing, 'So that
is what our Parliament is made of.  Father well?' he asked.

'Quite well, thank you, sir.'

Oliver levelled his keen eyes on him, as though noting down
observations, while he was burning for tidings of Mary, yet held back
by reserve and sense of the uncongeniality of the man.  His aunt,
however, in the midst of her own joy, marked his restless eye, and put
the question, whether Mary Ponsonby had arrived?

'Ha! you let her go, did you?' said Oliver, turning on Louis.  'I told
her father you'd be no such fool.  He was in a proper rage at your
letter, but it would have blown over if you had stuck by her, and he is
worth enough to set you all on your legs.'

Louis could not bring himself to make any answer, and his mother
interrupted by a question as to Dona Rosita.

'Like all the rest.  Eyes and feet, that's all.  Foolish business! But
what possessed Ormersfield to make such a blunder?  I never saw
Ponsonby in such a tantrum, and his are no trifles.'

'It was all the fault of your clerk, Robson,' said James; 'he would not
refute the story.'

'Sharp fellow, Robson,' chuckled Oliver; 'couldn't refute it.  No; as
he told me, he knew the way Ponsonby had gone on ever since his wife
went home, and of late he had sent him to Guayaquil, about the
Equatorial Navigation--so he had seen nothing;--and, says he to me, he
had no notion of bringing out poor Miss Ponsonby--did not know whether
her father would thank him; and yet the best of it is, that he pacifies
Ponsonby with talking of difficulty of dealing with preconceived
notions.  Knows how to get hold of him.  Marriage would never have been
if he had been there, but it was the less damage. Mary would have had
more reason to have turned about, if she had not found him married.'

'But, Oliver,' said his mother, 'I thought this Robson was an honest
man, in whom you had entire confidence!'

'Ha! ha!  D'ye think I'd put that in _any_ man?  No, no; he knows how
far to go with me.  I've plenty of checks on him.  Can't get business
done but by a wide-awake chap like that.'

'Is Madison under him?' asked Louis, feeling as if he had been
apprenticing the boy to a chief of banditti.

'The lad you sent out?  Ay.  Left him up at the mines.  Sharp fellow,
but too raw for the office yet.'

'Too scrupulous!' said James, in an undertone, while his uncle was
explaining to his mother that he could not have come away without
leaving Robson to manage his affairs, and Mr. Ponsonby, and telling
exultingly some stories of the favourite clerk's sharp practice.

The party went down together in a not very congenial state.

Next to Mrs. Frost's unalloyed gladness, the most pleasant spectacle
was old Jane, who volunteered her services in helping to wait, that she
might have the delight of hovering about Master Oliver, to whom she
attended exclusively, and would not let Charlotte so much as offer him
the potatoes.  And Charlotte was in rather an excited state at the
presence of a Peruvian production, and the flutter of expecting a
letter which would make her repent of the smiles and blushes she had
expended over an elaborate Valentine, admired as an original
production, and valued the more, alas! because poor Marianne had
received none.  Charlotte was just beginning to repent of her
ungenerous triumph, and agitation made her waiting less deft and pretty
than usual; but this mattered the less, since to Oliver any attendance
by women-servants was a shock, as were the small table and plain fare;
and he looked round uneasily.

'Here is an old friend, Oliver,' said his mother, taking up a curious
old soup-ladle.

'I see.  It will take some time to get up the stock of plate.  I shall
give an order as I pass through London.  To be engraved with the
Dynevor crest as before, or would you prefer the lozenge, ma'am?'

'Oh, my dear, don't talk of it now!  I am only sorry this is nothing
but mutton-broth; but that's what comes of sudden arrivals, Oliver.'

'It shall be remedied at home,' said Oliver, as if he considered
mutton-broth as one degree from famine.

'I know you had it for me,' said Louis.  'If Jane excels in one art
before all others, it is in mutton-broth.'

Oliver darted a glance as if he imagined this compliment to be mere
derision of his mother and Jane.

Things went on in this style all the evening.  Oliver had two
ideas--Cheveleigh, and the Equatorial Steam Navigation Company--and on
these he rang the changes.

There was something striking in his devotion of a lifetime to redeem
his mother's fortunes, but the grandeur was not easily visible in the
detail.  He came down on Dynevor Terrace as a consequential, moneyed
man, contemptuous of the poverty which he might have alleviated, and
obtruding tardy and oppressive patronage.  He rubbed against the new
generation in too many places for charity or gratitude to be easy. He
was utterly at variance with taste, and openly broached unworthy
sentiments and opinions, and his kindness and his displeasure were
equally irksome.  If such repugnance to him were felt even by Louis,
the least personally affected, and the best able to sympathize with his
aunt; it was far stronger in James, abhorring patronage, sensible that,
happen what might, his present perfect felicity must be disturbed, and
devoid of any sentiment for Cheveleigh that could make the restoration
compensate for the obligation so unpleasantly enforced; and Isabel's
fastidious taste made her willing to hold aloof as far as might be
without vexing the old lady.

There was no amalgamation.  Fitzjocelyn and Isabel were near the
window, talking over her former home and her sisters, and all the
particulars of the society which she had left, and he had entered;
highly interesting to themselves and to the listening Clara, but to the
uninitiated sounding rather like 'taste, Shakspeare, and the musical
glasses.'

Oliver and his mother, sitting close together, were living in an old
world; asking and answering many a melancholy question on friends, dead
or lost sight of, and yet these last they always made sure that they
should find when they went home to Cheveleigh--that home to which the
son reverted with unbroken allegiance; while the whole was interspersed
with accounts of his plans, and explanations of his vast designs for
the renovation of the old place.

James hovered on the outskirts of both parties, too little at ease to
attach himself to either; fretted by his wife's interest in a world to
which he was a stranger, impatient of his uncle's plans, and trebly
angered by observing the shrewd curious glances which the old man cast
from time to time towards the pair by the window. Fortunately, Mrs.
Frost was still too absolutely wrapt in maternal transport to mark the
clouds that were gathering over her peace.  To look at her son, wait on
him, and hear his voice, so fully satisfied her, that as yet it made
little difference what that voice said, and it never entered her mind
to suppose that all her dear ones were not sharing her bliss.

'You were the first to tell me,' she said, as she bade Louis good night
with fondness additional to her messenger of good news; but, as he
pressed her dear old trembling hand, his heart misgave him whether her
joy might not be turned to pain; and when he congratulated Jane, and
heard her call it a blessed day, he longed to be certain that it would
prove so.

And, before he could sleep that night, he wrote a letter to Tom
Madison, warning him to let no temptation nor bad example lead him
aside from strict justice and fair dealing; and advising him rather to
come home, and give up all prospects of rising, than not preserve his
integrity.

James and Isabel were not merciful to their uncle when they could speak
of him without restraint; and began to conjecture his intentions with
regard to them.

'You don't wish to become an appendage to Cheveleigh?' said James,
fondly.

'I! who never knew happiness till I came here!'

'I do not know what my uncle may propose,' said James, 'but I know you
coincide in my determination that he shall never interfere with the
duties of my office.'

'You do not imagine that he wishes it?'

'I know he wishes I were not in Holy Orders.  I knew he disliked it at
the time of my ordination; but if he wished me to act according to his
views, he should have given himself the right to dictate.'

'By not neglecting you all your youth.'

'Not that I regret or resent what concerns myself; but it was his
leaving me a burden on my grandmother that drove me to become a
clergyman, and a consistent one I will be, not an idle heir-apparent to
this estate, receiving it as his gift, not my own birthright.'

'An idle clergyman!  Never! never!' cried Isabel.  'I should not
believe it was you!  And the school--you could not leave it just as
your plans are working, and the boys improving?'

'Certainly not; it would be fatal to abandon it to that stick, Powell.
Ah! Isabel,' as he looked at her beautiful countenance, 'how I pity the
man who has not a high-minded wife!  Suppose you came begging and
imploring me not to give any umbrage to the man, because you so doted
upon diamonds.'

'The less merit when one has learnt that they are very cold hard
stones,' said Isabel, smiling.

Isabel was a high-minded wife, but she would have been a still better
one if her loving admiration had allowed her to soften James, or to
question whether pride and rancour did not lurk unperceived in the
midst of the really high and sound motives that prompted him.

While their grandmother could only see Oliver on the best side, James
and Isabel could only see him on the worst, and lost the greatness of
the design in the mercenary habits that exclusive perseverance in it
had produced.  It had been a false greatness, but they could not grant
the elevation of mind that had originally conceived it.

The following day was Sunday, and nothing worse took place than little
skirmishes, in which the uncle and nephew's retort and rejoinder were
so drolly similar, that Clara found herself thinking of Miss
Faithfull's two sandy cats over a mouse; but she kept her simile to
herself, finding that Isabel regarded the faintest, gentlest comparison
of the two gentlemen almost as an affront.  All actual debate was
staved off by Mrs. Frost's entreaty that business discussion should be
deferred.  'Humph!' said Oliver, 'you reign here, ma'am, but that's not
the way we get on at Lima.'

'I dare say,' said James.

Mrs. Frost's joy was still undimmed.  It was almost a trance of
gladness, trembling in her smile, and overflowing in her eye, at every
congratulation and squeeze of the hand from her friends.

'Dear Jemmy,' said she, taking his arm as they went home in the
evening, 'did not that psalm seem meant for us?--'If riches increase,
set not your heart upon them.''

James had been thinking it meant for some one; but, as he said,
'certainly not for you, dear granny.'

'Ah! snares of wealth were set far enough from me for a time!  I never
felt so covetous as when there was a report that there was to be an
opposition school.  But now your dear uncle is bringing prosperity
back, I must take care not to set my heart even on what he has gained
for me.'

'I defy riches to hurt you,' said James, smiling.

'Ah!  Jemmy, you didn't know me as a county grandee,' she said, with a
bright sad look, 'when your poor grandpapa used to dress me up. I'm an
old woman now, past vanities, but I never could sit as loose to them as
your own dear wife does.  I never tried.  Well, it will be changed
enough; but I shall be glad to see poor old Cheveleigh.  It does me
good to hear poor Oliver call it home.  If only we had your dear
father!'

'To me Dynevor Terrace is home,' said James.

'A happy home it has been,' said the old lady.

''Goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life!'  And
now, Oliver, whom I never thought to see again--oh! what can I do to be
thankful enough!  I knew what he was doing!  I knew he was not what you
all thought him!  And roughing it has been no harm to you or Clara, and
it is all over now!  And the dear old place comes back to the old name.
Oh, James, I can sometimes hardly contain myself--that my poor boy has
done it, and all for me, and his brother's children!'

James could scarcely find it in his heart to say a single word to damp
her joy, and all his resolution enabled him to do was to say gently,
'You know, dear granny, we must not forget that I am a clergyman.'

'I know.  I have been telling your uncle so; but we can do something.
You might take the curacy, and do a great deal of good.  There used to
be wild places sadly neglected in my time.  I hope that, since it has
been given back to us, we may feel it more as a stewardship than I did
when it was mine.'

James sighed, and looked softened and thoughtful.

'Your uncle means to purchase an annuity for Jane,' she added; 'and if
we could only think what to do for the Faithfulls!  I wonder whether
they would come and stay with us.  At least they can never vex
themselves again at not paying rent!'

After a pause--'Jem, my dear, could you manage to give your uncle the
true account of your marriage?  He admires Isabel very much, I can tell
you, and is pleased at the connexion.  But I fancy, though he will not
say so, that Mr. Ponsonby has desired him to find out all he can about
Louis; and unluckily they have persuaded themselves that poor Louis
courted Isabel, supposing that she was to have Beauchastel, and,
finding his error, betook himself to Mary.'

'Turning Isabel over to me!  Extremely flattering.'

'Now, Jem, don't be angry.  It is only foolish talk!  But unluckily I
can't persuade your uncle not to think the real story all my
partiality; and you might do much more, if it be not too unpleasant to
you.'

'Thank you, granny, it is out of the question.  If it were as he does
us the honour to imagine, I should be the last person to confess it. My
evidence could be of no service to Fitzjocelyn, when my uncle's maxim
is to place confidence in no one.  The sole refutation in my power is
the terms on which we meet.'

'Now, I have vexed you.  I wish I had said nothing about it; but when
dear Louis's happiness may depend on his report--'

'If I were base enough to have acted as he supposes, I should be base
enough to deny it.  There is not enough to be hoped to make me speak
with unreserve on such a subject.'

He saved himself from saying--to such a man; but the shrewd, suspicious
old bachelor was not an inviting confidant for the vicissitudes of
delicate and tender feelings of such recent date, and Mrs. Frost
reproached herself with asking too much of her proud, sensitive
grandson.

The black gown and trencher cap by no means gratified Oliver, when
James set off to school on Monday morning; but he consoled himself with
observing, 'We shall soon put an end to that.'

'James is quite devoted to the school,' said Isabel, and she was
answered by the dry growl.

'It will be a hard thing to transplant our young people,' said Mrs.
Frost, 'they have managed to be very happy here.'

'So hard of transplantation that I doubt the possibility,' said Isabel.
'You have made us take very deep root here.'

'Have you ever seen Cheveleigh, Mrs. Dynevor?'

'Never.'

'Poor Oliver! you and I think no place equal to our birthplace,' said
Mrs. Frost.

'I should think Mrs. Roland Dynevor would find it compensation.  How
many beds did we make up, mother, the year my father was sheriff?'

'You must go to Jane for that,' said his mother, laughing.  'I'm sure I
never knew.'

'I believe it was twenty-seven,' said Oliver, gravely.  'I know there
were one hundred and eighty-five persons at the ball, and that the room
was hung with blue brocade, mother; and you opened the ball with Lord
Francis.  I remember you had violet satin and white blonde.'

'My dear, how can you remember such things!  You were a little bit of a
schoolboy!'

'I was sixteen' said Oliver.  'It was the year '13.  I will have the
drawing-room hung with blue brocade, and I think Mrs. Roland Dynevor
will own that nothing can exceed it.'

'Very likely,' said Isabel, indifferently; and she escaped, beckoning
with her Clara, who was rather entertained with the reminiscences over
which granny and Uncle Oliver seemed ready to linger for ever; and yet
she was rather ashamed of her own amusement and interest, when she
heard her sister-in-law say, 'If he did but know how weary I am of that
hateful thing, a great house!'

'I hope Cheveleigh is not grander than Ormersfield,' said Clara, in an
odd sort of voice.

The ladies, for the first time, did not sit together this morning.
Clara practised, and Isabel took the Chapel in the Valley out of her
desk, and began a process of turning the Sir Roland into Sir Hubert.

Oliver and his mother were in the sitting-room, and, on James's return
from school in the middle of the day, he was summoned thither. Mrs.
Frost was sitting by the fire, rather tearful and nervous, and her son
stood full in the front, as dignified and magnanimous as size and
features would permit, and the same demeanour was instantly and
unconsciously assumed by his nephew, who was beyond measure chafed by
the attempt at a grand coup.

'I have requested your presence,' began Oliver, 'as the eldest son of
my elder brother, and thus, after my mother, the head of our family.
You are aware that when unfortunate circumstances involved my mother's
property, it was my determination to restore the inheritance to her,
and to my dear brother Henry.  For this object, I have worked for the
last thirty-four years, and a fortunate accident having brought our
family estate into the market, I have been enabled to secure it.  I am
now ready to make it over to my mother, with entail to yourself and
your heirs, as representatives of my brother Henry, and settling five
thousand pounds on your sister, as the portion to which the younger
children of our family have always been entitled. If you are willing to
reside at our family seat with my mother, I will assure you of a
suitable allowance during her lifetime, and--'

Nothing was more intolerable to a man like James than a shower of
obligations; and his spirit, angered at the very length of the address,
caught at the first opening for avoiding gratitude, and beheld in the
last proposal an absolute bribe to make him sacrifice his sacred
ministry, and he burst forth, 'Sir, I am much obliged to you, but no
offers shall induce me to forsake the duties of my calling.'

'You mistake, if you think I want anything unclerical.  No occasion to
hunt--Mr. Tresham used in my day--no one thought the worse of
him--unlucky your taking Orders.'

'There is no use in entering on that point,' said James.  'No other
course was left open to me, and my profession cannot be taken up nor
laid down as a matter of convenience.'

'Young men are taught to think more seriously than they were in our
day,' said Mrs. Frost.  'I told you that you must not try to make him
turn squire.'

'Well! well! good living may be had perhaps.  Move to Cheveleigh, and
look out for it at leisure, if nothing else will content him.  But
we'll have this drudgery given up.  I'll not go home and show my
nephew, heir of the Dynevors, keeping a third-rate grammar-school,'
said Oliver, with his one remaining Eton quality of contempt for
provincial schools.

The Northwold scholar and master were both roused to arms in James.

'Sir,' he said, 'you should have thought of that when you left this
heir of the Dynevors to be educated by the charity of this third-rate
grammar-school.'

'Is this your gratitude, sir!' passionately exclaimed Oliver; 'I, who
have toiled my whole life for your benefit, might look for another
return.'

'It was not for me,' said James.  'It was for family pride.  Had it
been from the affection that claims gratitude, you would not have left
your mother in her old age, to labour unaided for the support of your
brother's orphans.  For ourselves, I thank you; the habits nurtured by
poverty are the best education; but I cannot let you suppose that a
grand theatrical restoration can atone to me for thirty years' neglect
of my grandmother, or that my gratitude can be extorted by benefactions
at the expense of her past suffering.'

'Jem! dear Jem! what are you saying!' cried Mrs. Frost.  'Don't you
know how kindly your uncle meant?  Don't you know how happy we have
been?'

'You may forgive.  You are his mother, and you were injured, but I can
never forget what I have seen you undergo.'

'You foolish boy, to forget all our happiness--'

'Nor,' proceeded James, 'can I consent to forego the career of
usefulness that has been opened to me.'

'But, Jem, you could be so useful in the parish! and your uncle could
not wish you to do anything unhandsome by the trustees--'

'I wish him to do nothing, ma'am,' said Oliver.  'If he is too high and
mighty to accept a favour, it is his own loss.  We can do without him,
if he prefers the Fitzjocelyn patronage.  Much good may it do him!'

James deigned no answer, looked at his watch, and found it time to
return to the school.

Oliver broke out into angry exclamations, and his mother did her utmost
to soothe him.  He had no turn for being a country-gentleman, he was
fit for nothing but his counting-house, and he intended to return
thither as soon as he had installed his mother at Cheveleigh; and so
entirely did all his plans hinge upon his nephew, that even now he was
persuaded to hold out his forgiveness, on condition that James would
apologize, resign the school, and call himself Dynevor.

Mrs. Frost hoped that Isabel would prevail on her husband to listen
favourably; but Isabel gloried in his impracticability, and would have
regarded any attempt at mediation as an unworthy effort to turn him
aside from the path of duty.  She replied, that she would never say a
word to change his notions of right, and she treated poor Oliver with
all the lofty reserve that she had formerly practised upon possible
suitors.

When Fitzjocelyn came in the afternoon to take leave, before his return
to London, Mrs. Frost begged him to use his influence with James.  'Who
would have thought it would have so turned out?' she said.  'My poor
Oliver! to be so met after all his generous plans! and yet Jem does
want to do right!'

Unfortunately, Louis felt that, to own Oliver's generosity, it was
necessary to be out of sight of him; and finding that there was silence
and constraint in the drawing-room, he asked Isabel to walk with him to
meet James.

'One breathes freely!' said she, as they left the house.  'Was there
ever a more intolerable man?'

'Never was a man who made a more unlucky error in judgment.'

'And that is all you call it?'

'The spurious object warped the mind aside,' said Louis.  'The grand
idea was too exclusive, and now he suffers for the exclusiveness.  It
is melancholy to see the cinder of a burnt-offering to Mammon,
especially when the offering was meant for better things.'

In this strain he chose to talk, without coming to particulars, till,
near the corner of the old square, they met the shouting throng of
boys, and presently James himself, descending the steps of the grim old
grey building.

'I thought you would forgive me for coming to meet you under such an
escort,' said Isabel, 'especially as it was to escape from our Peruvian
relative.'

'Poor man! it was a great pity he did not come last year!' said Louis.

'I am glad I have no temptation to bend to his will,' returned James.

'Ha!  I like the true core of the quarrel to display itself.'

'Fitzjocelyn, you do not mean that you do not fully approve of the
course I have taken!'

'Extremely magnanimous, but not quite unprecedented.  Witness St.
Ronan's Well, where the younger Scrogie abjures the name of Mowbray.'

'Pshaw!  Louis, can't you understand?  Frost is a glorious name to me,
recording my grandmother's noble exertions on our behalf, but I can
imagine it to be hateful to him, recalling the neglect that made her
slaving necessary.'

'For which amiable reason you insist on obtruding it.  Pray, are the
houses henceforth to be Frost Terrace or Arctic Row?'

'Are you come to laugh or to remonstrate?' exclaimed James, stopping.

'Oh! you want to put on your armour!  Certainly, I should never tell if
I were come to remonstrate, nor should I venture in such a case--'

'Then you are come to approve,' said Isabel.  I knew it!'

'Little you two care--each of you sure of an admiring double.'

'I care for your opinion as much as ever I did,' said James.

'Exactly so,' said Louis, laughing.

'I desire to have your judgment in this matter.'

'If I could judge, I would,' said Louis.  'I see you right in
principle, but are you right in spirit?  I own my heart bleeds for Aunt
Kitty, regaining her son to battle with her grandson.'

'I am very sorry for her,' said James; 'but it can't be helped.  I
cannot resign my duties here for the sake of living dependent on a
suitable allowance.'

'Ah! Jem! Jem!  Oliver little knew the damage his neglect did you.'

'What damage?'

'The fostering an ugly little imp of independence.'

'Aye! you grandees have naturally a distaste for independence, and make
common cause against it.'

'Especially when in a rabid state.  Take care, Jem.  Independence never
was a Christian duty yet--'

'Then, you want me to go and live on the hoards for the sake of which
my grandmother was left to toil.  You would like to see me loitering
about, pensioned to swell the vanity of Cheveleigh, neglecting my vows,
forsaking my duties--'

'You unreasonable man!  Is there no way in this whole world for you to
do your duty as a clergyman, but hearing Northwold boys the Latin
grammar?'

'Then, what do you want me to do?'

'I don't want you to do anything.  You are the man to know what is
right; only, Isabel, don't help him to hate people more than can
possibly be avoided; and don't break dear Aunt Kitty's heart amongst
you.  That's what I care most about!'

When Louis bade his aunt farewell, he threw his arm round her neck,
looked fondly at her, and said, 'Dear aunt, you won't let them tease
you?'

'No, my dear, I am getting past being teased,' she said.  'Vexations
don't hurt me as much as love does me good, and they'll not forget
their affection.  It is all goodness in Jem, and poor Oliver will
understand it when I have got him into our home ways again; but he has
been so long away from home, poor fellow!'

'That's right.  I won't be uneasy for you.  Squabble as they will, they
won't hurt you. But, oh!  Dynevor Terrace without you!'

'Ah! you must come to me at _home_!'

'Home!  I'm like Jem, jealous for this old house.'

'It is odd how little I feel these things,' said his aunt.  'If any one
had told me, when I tore myself away from Cheveleigh, that I should
have it back, how little I should have thought that I could take it so
easily!  I wonder at myself when I wake in the morning that I am not
more moved by it, nor by leaving this dear old place. I suppose it is
because I have not long to stay anywhere.  I can keep nothing in my
head, but that I have got my Oliver!'

'I believe it is the peace that is not of this world!' said Louis.




CHAPTER VII.

ROLAND AND OLIVER

    'Twas old ancestral pride,
  'Twas hope to raise a fallen house
    From penury's disgrace,
  To purchase back from usurers
    The birthright of his race.
                       The Lump of Gold--C. MACKAY.


Mary's letter arrived not long after Louis's return to London; and her
calm, serious, beautifully-expressed farewell came upon him at last
like a blow which had been long impending, but of which preparation had
failed to lessen the weight.

'Ah!' said the Earl, when the chief part had been read to him, 'she is
admirable and excellent as ever.  It is a great disappointment that she
is unattainable, but I am glad she writes so sensibly, and sees that it
is right you should think no more about her.  After all, the connexion
with that fellow Ponsonby might have been very troublesome, and it is
well, as she says, that it was all over while you are so young.'

'Young or old, there is no other Mary in the world,' said Louis, sadly.

'We will say no more about it now.  I understand you, but you will
think differently by-and-by.'

Louis did not answer.  He knew that others might have been deceived by
the tardiness and uncertainty of his attachment, but that it had taken
such deep root, that he believed he could no more detach himself from
Mary than if she were his wife.  His heart fainted as he thought of
years without the strength and soothing which her very letter breathed
forth; as he pictured to himself alternations between his chill and
stately home and the weary maze of London, foresaw persuasions from his
father to induce him to form some new attachment, and dreaded to think
of the facility with which, perhaps, he might still be led out of his
own convictions.  Yet he still believed that patience and perseverance
would win the day, and tried to derive encouragement and energy from
the thought that this might be a trial sent for the very purpose of
training him in steadfastness.

A strong impulse drew him to Bryanston Square, where Miss Ponsonby was
very kind and warm, the more so because she had discovered how much
easier it had been to say than to unsay, and strongly regretted the
injustice she had done him.  He had the satisfaction of talking for a
good hour about Mary, and of sending a message, that he did not write
because he wished to be guided by her in everything, and that he was
striving to work so as to please her.  The conversation ended with some
good auguries as to the effect of Oliver's return to Peru; and Louis
went away cheered, bearing the final dismissal better than his father
had expected.  Lord Ormersfield attributed his tranquillity to having
his mind settled; and so it was, though not quite as his lordship
imagined.

Meantime, there was a lull at Dynevor Terrace.  Oliver was gone to take
possession and furnish the mansion, and Mrs. Frost's great object was
to keep the subject from irritating her grandson, so as to save him
from binding himself by any rash vows.  Cheveleigh was treated in the
domestic circle with judicious silence, Oliver's letters were read by
his mother in private, and their contents communicated to Jane alone,
whose happiness was surpassing, and her contempt for Dynevor Terrace
quite provoking to poor Mrs. Martha.

'Really,' said Charlotte one day, 'I don't think a catastrophe is half
so pretty as it ought to be.  Mr. Oliver is but a poor little puny man,
and I never knew Mr. James so hard to please.'

Charlotte and Marianne had begun to merge their rivalry in honest
friendship, cemented by Marianne's increasing weakness, and difficulty
in getting through even the light work her mistress required.  Jane
petted her now still more than Charlotte, and was always promising her
the delightful air and the luxuries of Cheveleigh.

'See here, Charlotte,' said Marianne, one afternoon when they sat down
together to their sewing; Marianne's eyes were brighter, and her cheeks
pinker, than for many days--'See here; it is for your good I show it
you, that you mayn't build on no false expectations.  It was marked
private; but I think it but fair you should see.'

'Mine was marked private too,' said Charlotte, slowly, as she fixed her
eyes on the envelope Marianne held out to her, and putting her hand
into her pocket, pulled out a similar one, directed to Miss Arnold.

Marianne scarcely suppressed a shriek, gasped, and turned pale.  Each
lady then proceeded to unfold a pink sheet of note-paper, containing an
original copy of verses, each labelled, 'On a hair of ----.'  Then came
a scented shining note, requesting to be informed whether the right
construction had been put on some words that had dropped from the Miss
Conways, and if it were true that the reverend and respected Mr. F.
Dynevor had come into a large fortune.  In that case, Mr. Delaford,
mercenary considerations apart, would take the earliest opportunity of
resigning his present position, and entering the family which contained
his charmer.

The Merry Wives were parodied by the hysterical maids.  Charlotte might
afford to laugh, but Marianne's heart was more in the matter, and they
struck up such a chorus that Jane broke upon them, declaring that they
would frighten Mrs. James Frost out of her senses.  When Charlotte told
her what was the matter, her comment was, 'And a very good thing, too,
that you should find him out in time!  A pair of silly girls you!  I
always was thankful I never could write, to be deluded with nonsense by
the post; and I am more so than ever now! Come, leave off crying,
Marianne; he ain't worth it.'

'But how shall we answer him, Mrs. Beckett?' said Charlotte.

'Never demean yourself to answer him,' said Jane; 'let him never hear
nought about you--that's the best for the like of him.  I can tell him
he need not be in no hurry about giving warning to Lady Conway. At
Cheveleigh we'll have a solemn, steady butler, with no nonsense, nor
verses, nor guitars--forty years old--and a married man.'

Charlotte took the advice, and acted with dignified contempt and
silence, relieved to imagine that Tom had never been in danger from
such a rival.  Marianne did not divulge the tender and melancholy
letter of reproach that she posted privately; but she grew paler, and
coughed more, all that bright summer.

Mrs. Frost had refused to let any cause remove her from Northwold,
until after an event which it was hoped would render James less
disdainful of his inheritance.  But--'Was there ever anything more
_contrary_?' exclaimed Jane, as she prepared to set out the table for a
grand tea.  'There's Master James as pleased and proud of that there
little brown girl, as if she was as fine a boy as Master Henry himself.
I do believe, upon my word, it is all to spite poor dear Master Oliver.'

Poor Jane, she was almost growing tart in her partizanship of Oliver.

The little brown girl was no dove of peace.  Her father decidedly
triumphed in the mortification that her sex was to others of the
family; and though he averred that the birth of a son would not have
made him change his mind, he was well satisfied to be spared the attack
which would have ensued.  Oliver, like Jane, appeared to regard the
poor child as a wilful offence, and revenged himself by a letter
announcing that Clara would be his heiress, information which Mrs.
Frost kindly withheld from her granddaughter, in the hope of a
reconciliation.

Lord Ormersfield took James in hand, undertaking to make him hear
common sense; but the sense was unfortunately too common, and the
authoritative manner was irritating, above all when a stately warning
was given that no Church-preferment was to be expected from his
influence; whereupon James considered himself insulted, and they parted
very stiff and grand, the Earl afterwards pronouncing that nothing was
so wrongheaded as a conscientious man.  But they were too much
accustomed to be on respectfully quarrelsome terms to alter their
regard for one retort more or less; and after all, there were very few
men whom Lord Ormersfield liked or esteemed half so much as the
fearless and uncompromising James Frost--James Frost--as he curtly
signed himself, in spite of all Louis's wit on Rolands and Olivers--and
yet those soft satirical speeches did more than all direct attacks to
shake his confidence in his own magnanimity; more especially because
Fitzjocelyn always declared himself incompetent to judge, and never
failed to uphold that he was so far right, that his ministry must stand
above all worldly considerations.

The breach had become so wide, that Oliver would not have accepted the
terms he had formerly offered.  His object seemed to be to pique his
nephew and niece, by showing them what they had lost.  He wrote the
most magnificent descriptions of Cheveleigh, and insisted that his
mother and Clara should come and take possession on the eightieth
birthday of the former, the 14th of September; and Isabel was
recovering so rapidly, that there was nothing to oppose to his project,
although the new Catharine would be scarcely three weeks old by that
time.

Thereupon came down, addressed to Clara, a case of Peruvian jewels,
newly set in London--intended doubtless to excite great jealousy in her
sister-in-law.  Poor Oliver! could he but have known that Isabel only
glanced at them to tell Clara the names of the ornaments, and to
relieve her mind by assurances that the whole of a set need not be worn
at once!  Next arrived an exceedingly smart French milliner, who, by
the help of Jane and Marianne, got Clara into her toils, and pinned and
measured her for a whole mortal morning; and even grandmamma ordered a
black velvet gown and accompaniments.

Lastly, there descended on Clara's devoted head a cheque for a sum
which terrified her imagination, and orders to equip herself suitably
as Miss Dynevor of Cheveleigh, who was to enjoy the same allowance
half-yearly.  Her first idea was what delightful presents could be made
to every one; but as she was devising showers of gifts for her niece,
James cut her short,--'I am sorry to give you pain, Clara, but it must
be understood that neither directly nor indirectly can I nor mine
receive anything bought with my uncle's money.'

'That was the only thing to make me not hate it.'

'It is best you should hate it.'

'I do!  Why did he come home to bother us?  Oh, Jem, can't I still live
here, and only visit there?'

'No, Clara.  The care of granny is your first duty; and during her
life, so long as you are single, her home must be yours.'

The edict was given in stern self-abnegation; but James was very kind
to her, treating her as a victim, and spending his leisure in walking
about with her, that she might take leave of every favourite haunt. He
was indulgent enough even to make no objection to going with her to
Ormersfield, where she wandered about the park, visited old scenes with
Louis, and went over all his improvements.  His cottages had as yet the
sole fault of looking too new, and one of his tenants would not shut up
his pigs; but otherwise all was going on well, and Inglewood was in the
excitement of Louis's first harvest.  He walked about with ears of
wheat in his hand, talked knowingly of loads and acres, and had almost
taught his father to watch the barometer.  It added to Clara's regrets
that she should miss the harvest-supper, for which he and Mr.
Holdsworth had wonderful designs; but it was not to take place until
Fitzjocelyn's return from Cheveleigh.  Oliver had invited him and his
father to conduct Mrs. Frost thither, and add eclat to her reception;
and this, as Clara said, 'was the only comfort in the business.'

James had effectually destroyed all pleasure on her part, and had made
the change appear an unmitigated misfortune, even though she did not
know what she would have thought the worst.  Congratulations were
dreadful to her, and it was all that Isabel could do to persuade her to
repress her dislike so as not to distress her grandmother.

To Mrs. Frost it was pain to leave what she owned, with thankful tears,
to have been a happy, peaceful refuge for her widowhood and poverty;
she grieved over each parting, clung to the Faithfulls, reiterated fond
counsels to Isabel, and could hardly bear to detach herself from the
great-grandchild.  But still it was her own son, and her own home, and
Oliver and Cheveleigh were more to her than even James and Dynevor
Terrace; so that, though she was sorry, it was not with a melancholy
sorrow, and she could still hope against hope, that uncle and nephew
might be brought together at last, and that a son of James would yet
reign in the dear old place.

Besides, she had not time to be unhappy.  She was fully employed
nursing Isabel, doing honour to the little one, answering Oliver's
letters, superintending Clara's wardrobe; choosing parting gifts for
innumerable friends, high and low; and making arrangements for the
inexperienced household.

Jane's place was to be--not exactly supplied, but occupied by a cook.
Miss Dynevor was to have 'a personal attendant;' and Mrs. Beckett
begged that Marianne might be chosen, since she could not bear to see
the poor thing sent away, when in so much need of care.  The diamonds,
the French millinery, and Jane's motherly care, came in strong contrast
to the miserable lodging, or the consumptive hospital, which poor
Marianne had begun to anticipate; and weeping with gratitude, she
declared that she had never seen nor thought of such kindness since her
mother died.

Isabel seldom roused herself to understand anything about her servants;
but she liked Marianne, and was glad Clara should have her, since she
was not strong enough to undertake nursery cares.  She believed it had
not agreed with her to sit up late.  Compunction for having been the
cause had never dawned on Isabel's mind.

Charlotte was to remain at Dynevor Terrace; James and Isabel wished to
keep her, and Mrs. Beckett thought her sufficiently indoctrinated with
her ways to have some chance of going on well.  'Besides,' as Jane
said, 'I can't be accountable for taking her into that large family,
until I see what company there may be.  She's a well-behaved girl
enough, but she's too pretty and too simple-like for me to have her
among the common run of servants.  I'll see what I can do for her, when
I see what sort of a housekeeper it is.'

And Jane gave Charlotte infinite injunctions, varying from due care of
the 'chaney images' to reserve with mankind.  'Because you see,
Charlotte' she said, 'you'll be terribly forsaken.  Mrs. James, poor
dear!--she would not know if the furniture weren't rubbed once in ten
years; but you must make it a pride to yourself to be faithful.'

'I am faithful!' cried Charlotte.  'I never cared for that traitor,
Delaford, and his guitar; but I could not get rid of him.  And I'll
tell you what--I'll seal up his fine red book, and all his verses; and
you shall leave them in London as you go through, with my compliments.
I think that will be proper and scornful.'

'Hoity-toity!  That's what she's at!  The best thing you can do too,
Charlotte; and I'm glad that you've too much spirit to pine like poor
Marianne.  I'd take my affidavit that if the crowner could sit upon her
when she dies--and die she will--that there fine gentleman and his
guitar will be found at the bottom of her chest.  But don't go off
about that now--though 'tis the reason I won't part from the poor thing
till I can help--the better luck for you that you'd got more in your
head than vanities and furbelows.  What I meant was not being faithful
to him out in Peru--that's your own affair, but the being faithful to
your duty to your mistress, whether she's after you or not.  You know
what a good servant is, and you've got to show it ain't all
eye-service.'

Charlotte cried heartily.  No one else was allowed that privilege when
the 13th came, excepting Mrs. Frost herself.  James, afraid that a
scene would hurt his wife, severely forbade Clara to give way; and the
poor girl, mute and white, did as she was told, and ventured not a word
of farewell, though her embraces were convulsive, and when she went
down stairs she could not help kissing Charlotte.

James handed his grandmother to her seat in the carriage which was to
take her to the station.

'Good-bye, my dear,' she said; 'I know the day will come when all this
will be made up.  You know how I have loved you both.'

'I wish my uncle all good.'

'I see it now,' she said, holding his hand between both of hers.  'It
is my fault.  I fostered our family pride.  May God take away the sin
from us both!'

The words were hardly articulate through tears, and perhaps James did
not hear.  He hurried Clara down the garden and into the carriage, and
she had her last nod from Miss Faithfull at the open window. Miss Mercy
was at the station, whither school-hours had hindered James from
accompanying them, but where they found Lord Ormersfield and Louis.

The warm-hearted little woman was all tears and smiles.  'Oh! dear Mrs.
Frost, I am so sorry, and yet it is selfish.  I am so happy! but where
shall we find such another neighbour?'

'Come and see us.  You know you are to persuade your sister.'

'Ah!'  She shook her head.  'Salome is hard to move.  But you--you are
such a traveller--you will come to see Mr. James?'

'I'm eighty to-morrow: I little expect to make any more journeys except
one, Mercy.  I never look to see poor Northwold more; but it has been a
place of blessings to me, and you have been one of them. Don't think
I'm too glad to go away, but I cannot but be thankful that my dear boy
is bringing me home to lay me down where my father and his father lie.'

It was said with that peculiar cheerfulness with which happy old age
can contemplate the end of the pilgrimage, and she looked at Louis with
a sunny smile.




CHAPTER VIII.

THE RESTORATION.

  When silent time, wi' lightly foot,
    Had trod on thirty years,
  I sought again my native land
    Wi' mony hopes and fears.
  As I drew near my ancient pile,
    My heart beat a' the way;
  The place I passed seemed yet to speak
    Of some dear former day.
  Some pensy chiels, a new-sprung race,
    Wad next their welcome pay;
    *   *   *   *   *
  But sair on ilka well-kenned face
    I missed the youthful bloom.
                         Miss Blamire


Oliver had sent orders to his mother to sleep in London, and proceed
the next morning by a 

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