CHAPTER VI.

SHARP PRACTICE.

Hope paid a visit to his native place in Derbyshire, and his poor relations shared his prosperity, and blessed him, and Mr. Bartley upon his report; for Hope was one of those choice spirits who praise the bridge that carries them safe over the stream of adversity.

He returned to Sussex with all the news, and, amongst the rest, that Colonel Clifford had a farm coming vacant. Walter Clifford had insisted on a higher rent at the conclusion of the term, but the tenant had demurred.

Bartley paid little attention at the time; but by-and-by he said, "Did you not see signs of coal on Colonel Clifford's property?"

"That I did, and on this very farm, and told him so. But he is behind the age. I have no patience with him. Take one of those old iron ramrods that used to load the old musket, and cover that ramrod with prejudices a foot and a half deep, and there you have Colonel Clifford."

"Well, but a tenant would not be bound by his prejudices."

"A tenant! A tenant takes no right to mine, under a farm lease; he would have to propose a special contract, or to ask leave, and Colonel Clifford would never grant it."

There the conversation dropped. But the matter rankled in Bartley's mind. Without saying any more to Hope, he consulted a sharp attorney.

The result was that he took Mary Bartley with him into Derbyshire.

He put up at a little inn, and called at Clifford Hall.

He found Colonel Clifford at home, and was received stiffly, but graciously. He gave Colonel Clifford to understand that he had left business.

"All the better," said Colonel Clifford, sharply.

"And taken to farming."

"Ugh!" said the other, with his favorite snort.

At this moment, who should walk into the room but Walter Clifford.

Bartley started and stared. Walter started and stared.

"Mr. Bolton," said Bartley, scarcely above a whisper.

But Colonel Clifford heard it, and said, brusquely: "Bolton! No. Why, this is Walter Clifford, my son, and my man of business.—Walter, this is Mr. Bartley."

"Proud to make your acquaintance, sir," said the astute Bartley, ignoring the past.

Walter was glad he took this line before Colonel Clifford: not that he forgave Mr. Bartley that old affront the reader knows of.

The judicious Bartley read his face, and, as a first step toward propitiation, introduced him to his daughter. Walter was amazed at her beauty and grace, coming from such a stock. He welcomed her courteously, but shyly. She replied with rare affability, and that entire absence of mock-modesty which was already a feature in her character. To be sure, she was little more than fifteen, though she was full grown, and looked nearer twenty.

Bartley began to feel his way with Colonel Clifford about the farm. He told him he was pretty successful in agriculture, thanks to the assistance of an experienced friend, and then he said, half carelessly, "By-the-bye, they tell me you have one to let. Is that so?"

"Walter," said Colonel Clifford, "have you a farm to let?"

"Not at present, sir; but one will be vacant in a month, unless the present tenant consents to pay thirty per cent. more than he has done."

"Might I see that farm, Mr. Walter?" asked Bartley.

"Certainly," said Walter; "I shall be happy to show you over it." Then he turned to Mary. "I am afraid it would be no compliment to you. Ladies are not interested in farms."

"Oh, but I am, since papa is, and Mr. Hope: and then on our farm there are so many dear little young things: little calves, little lambs, and little pigs. Little pigs are ducks—very little ones, I mean; and there is nearly always a young colt about, that eats out of my hand. Not like a farm? The idea!"

"Then I will show you all over ours, you and your papa," said Walter, warmly. He then asked Mr. Bartley where he was to be found; and when Bartley told him at the "Dun Cow," he looked at Mary and said, "Oh!"

Mary understood in a moment, and laughed and said: "We are very comfortable, I assure you. We have the parlor all to ourselves, and there are samplers hung up, and oh! such funny pictures, and the landlady is beginning to spoil me already."

"Nobody can spoil you, Mary," said Mr. Bartley.

"You ought to know, papa, for you have been trying a good many years."

"Not very many, Miss Bartley," said Colonel Clifford, graciously. Then he gave half a start and said: "Here am I calling her miss when she is my own niece, and, now I think of it, she can't be half as old as she looks. I remember the very day she was born. My dear, you are an impostor."

Bartley changed color at this chance shaft. But Colonel Clifford explained:

"You pass for twenty, and you can't be more than—Let me see."

"I am fifteen and four months," said Mary, "and I do take people in—cruelly."

"Well," said Colonel Clifford, "you see you can't take me in. I know your date. So come and give your old ruffian of an uncle a kiss."

"That I will," cried Mary, and flew at Colonel Clifford, and flung both arms round his neck and kissed him. "Oh, papa," said she, "I have got an uncle now. A hero, too; and me that is so fond of heroes! Only this is my first—out of books."

"Mary, my dear," said Bartley, "you are too impetuous. Please excuse her, Colonel Clifford. Now, my dear, shake hands with your cousin, for we must be going."

Mary complied; but not at all impetuously. She lowered her long lashes, and put out her hand timidly, and said, "Good-by, Cousin Walter."

He held her hand a moment, and that made her color directly. "You will come over the farm. Can you ride? Have you your habit?"

"No, cousin; but never mind that. I can put on a long skirt."

"A skirt! But, after all, it does not matter a straw what you wear."

Mary was such a novice that she did not catch the meaning of this on the spot, but half-way to the inn, and in the middle of a conversation, her cheeks were suddenly suffused with blushes. A young man had admired her and said so. Very likely that was the way with young men. No doubt they were bolder than young women; but somehow it was not so very objectionable in them.

That short interview was a little era in Mary's young life. Walter had fixed his eyes on her with delight, had held her hand some seconds, and admired her to her face. She began to wonder a little, and flutter a little, and to put off childhood.

Next day, punctual to the minute, Walter drove up to the door in an open carriage drawn by two fast steppers. He found Mr. Bartley alone, and why? because, at sight of Walter, Mary, for the first time in her life, had flown upstairs to look at herself in the glass before facing the visitor, and to smooth her hair, and retouch a bow, etc., underrating, as usual, the power of beauty, and overrating nullities. Bartley took this opportunity, and said to young Clifford:

"I owe you an apology, and a most earnest one. Can you ever forgive me?"

Walter changed color. Even this humble allusion to so great an insult was wormwood to him. He bit his lip, and said:

"No man can do more than say he is sorry. I will try to forget it, sir."

"That is as much as I can expect," said Bartley, humbly. "But if you only knew the art, the cunning, the apparent evidence, with which that villain Monckton deluded me—"

"That I can believe."

"And permit me one observation before we drop this unhappy subject forever. If you had done me the honor to come to me as Walter Clifford, why, then, strong and misleading as the evidence was, I should have said, 'Appearances are deceitful, but no Clifford was ever disloyal.'"

This artful speech conquered Walter Clifford. He blushed, and bowed a little haughtily at the compliment to the Cliffords. But his sense of justice was aroused.

"You are right," said he. "I must try and see both sides. If a man sails under false colors, he mustn't howl if he is mistaken for a pirate. Let us dismiss the subject forever. I am Walter Clifford now—at your service."

At that moment Mary Bartley came in, beaming with youth and beauty, and illumined the room. The cousins shook hands, and Walter's eyes glowed with admiration.

After a few words of greeting he handed Mary into the drag. Her father followed, and he was about to drive off, when Mary cried out, "Oh, I forgot my skirt, if I am to ride."

The skirt was brought down, and the horses, that were beginning to fret, dashed off. A smart little groom rode behind, and on reaching the farm they found another with two saddle-horses, one of them, a small, gentle Arab gelding, had a side-saddle. They rode all over the farm, and inspected the buildings, which were in excellent repair, thanks to Walter's supervision. Bartley inquired the number of acres and the rent demanded. Walter told him. Bartley said it seemed to him a fair rent; still, he should like to know why the present tenant declined.

"Perhaps you had better ask him," said Walter. "I should wish you to hear both sides."

"That is like you," said Bartley; "but where does the shoe pinch, in your opinion?"

"Well, he tells me, in sober earnest, that he loses money by it as it is; but when he is drunk he tells his boon companions he has made seven thousand pounds here. He has one or two grass fields that want draining, but I offer him the pipes; he has only got to lay them and cut the drains. My opinion is that he is the slave of habit; he is so used to make an unfair profit out of these acres that he can not break himself of it and be content with a fair one."

"I dare say you have hit it," said Bartley. "Well, I am fond of farming; but I don't live by it, and a moderate profit would content me."

Walter said nothing. The truth is, he did not want to let the farm to Bartley.

Bartley saw this, and drew Mary aside.

"Should not you like to come here, my child?"

"Yes, papa, if you wish it; and you know it's dear Mr. Hope's birth-place."

"Well, then, tell this young fellow so. I will give you an opportunity."

That was easily managed, and then Mary said, timidly, "Cousin Walter, we should all three be so glad if we might have the farm."

"Three?" said he. "Who is the third?"

"Oh, somebody that everybody likes and I love. It is Mr. Hope. Such a duck! I am sure you would like him."

"Hope! Is his name William?"

"Yes, it is. Do you know him?" asked Mary, eagerly.

"I have reason to know him: he did me a good turn once, and I shall never forget it."

"Just like him!" cried Mary. "He is always doing people good turns. He is the best, the truest, the cleverest, the dearest darling dear that ever stepped, and a second father to me; and, cousin, this village is his birth-place, and he didn't say much, but it was he who told us of this farm, and he would be so pleased if I could write and say, 'We are to have the farm—Cousin Walter says so.'"

She turned her lovely eyes, brimming with tenderness, toward her cousin Walter, and he was done for.

"Of course you shall have it," he said, warmly. "Only you will not be angry with me if I insist on the increased rent. You know, cousin, I have a father, too, and I must be just to him."

"To be sure, you must, dear," said Mary, incautiously; and the word penetrated Walter's heart as if a woman of twenty-five had said it all of a sudden and for the first time.

When they got home, Mary told Mr. Bartley he was to have the farm if he would pay the increased rent.

"That is all right," said Bartley. "Then to-morrow we can go home."

"So soon!" said Mary, sorrowfully.

"Yes," said Bartley, firmly; "the rest had better be done in writing. Why, Mary, what is the use of staying on now? We are going to live here in a month or two."

"I forgot that," said Mary, with a little sigh. It seemed so ungracious to get what they wanted, and then turn their backs directly. She hinted as much, very timidly.

But Bartley was inexorable, and they reached home next day.

Mary would have liked to write to Walter, and announce their safe arrival, but nature withheld her. She was a child no longer.

Bartley went to the sharp solicitor, and had a long interview with him. The result was that in about ten days he sent Walter Clifford a letter and the draft of a lease, very favorable to the landlord on the whole, but cannily inserting one unusual clause that looked inoffensive.

It came by post, and Walter read the letter, and told his father whom it was from.

"What does the fellow say?" grunted Colonel Clifford.

"He says: 'We are doing very well here, but Hope says a bailiff can now carry out our system; and he is evidently sweet on his native place, and thinks the proposed rent is fair, and even moderate. As for me, my life used to be so bustling that I require a change now and then; so I will be your tenant. Hope says I am to pay the expense of the lease, so I have requested Arrowsmith & Cox to draw it. I have no experience in leases. They have drawn hundreds. I told them to make it fair. If they have not, send it back with objections.'"

"Oh! oh!" said Colonel Clifford. "He draws the lease, does he? Then look at it with a microscope."

Walter laughed.

"I should not like to encounter him on his own ground. But here he is a fish out of water; he must be. However, I will pass my eye over it. Where the farmer generally over-reaches us, if he draws the lease, is in the clauses that protect him on leaving. He gets part possession for months without paying rent, and he hampers and fleeces the incoming tenant, so that you lose a year's rent or have to buy him out. Now, let me see, that will be at the end of the document—No; it is exceedingly fair, this one."

"Show it to our man of business, and let him study every line. Set an attorney to catch an attorney."

"Of course I shall submit it to our solicitor," said Walter.

This was done, and the experienced practitioner read it very carefully. He pronounced it unusually equitable for a farmer's lease.

"However," said he, "we might suggest that he does all the repairs and draining, and that you find the materials; and also that he insures all the farm buildings. But you can hardly stand out for the insurance if he objects. There's no harm trying. Stay! here is one clause that is unusual: the tenant is to have the right to bore for water, or to penetrate the surface of the soil, and take out gravel or chalk or minerals, if any. I don't like that clause. He might quarry, and cut the farm in pieces. Ah, there's a proviso, that any damage to the surface or the agricultural value shall be fully compensated, the amount of such injury to be settled by the landlord's valuer or surveyor. Oh, come, if you can charge your own price, that can't kill you."

In short, the draft was approved, subject to certain corrections. These were accepted. The lease was engrossed in duplicate, and in due course signed and delivered. The old tenant left, abusing the Cliffords, and saying it was unfair to bring in a stranger, for he would have given all the money.

Bartley took possession.

Walter welcomed Hope very warmly, and often came to see him. He took a great interest in Hope's theories of farming, and often came to the farm for lessons. But that interest was very much increased by the opportunities it gave him of seeing and talking to sweet Mary Bartley. Not that he was forward or indiscreet. She was not yet sixteen, and he tried to remember she was a child.

Unfortunately for that theory she looked a ripe woman, and this very Walter made her more and more womanly. Whenever Walter was near she had new timidity, new blushes, fewer gushes, less impetuosity, more reserve. Sweet innocent! She was set by Nature to catch the man by the surest way, though she had no such design.

Oh, it was a pretty, subtle piece of nature, and each sex played its part. Bold advances of the man, with internal fear to offend, mock retreats of the girl, with internal throbs of complacency, and life invested with a new and growing charm to both. Leaving this pretty little pastime to glide along the flowery path that beautifies young lives to its inevitable climax, we go to a matter more prosaic, yet one that proved a source of strange and stormy events.

Hope had hardly started the farm when Bartley sent him off to Belgium—TO STUDY COAL MINES.



CHAPTER VII.

THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE.

Mr. Hope left his powerful opera-glass with Mary Bartley. One day that Walter called she was looking through it at the landscape, and handed it to him. He admired its power. Mary told him it had saved her life once.

"Oh," said he, "how could that be?"

Then she told him how Hope had seen her drowning, a mile off, with it, and ridden a bare-backed steed to her rescue.

"God bless him!" cried Walter. "He is our best friend. Might I borrow this famous glass?"

"Oh," said Mary, "I am not going into any more streams; I am not so brave now as I used to be."

"Please lend it me, for all that."

"Of course I will, if you wish it."

Strange to say, after this, whether Mary walked out or rode out, she very often met Mr. Walter Clifford. He was always delighted and surprised. She was surprised three times, and said so, and after that she came to lower her lashes and blush, but not to start. Each meeting was a pure accident, no doubt, only she foresaw the inevitable occurrence.

They talked about everything in the world except what was most on their minds. Their soft tones and expressive eyes supplied that little deficiency.

One day he caught her riding on her little Arab. The groom fell behind directly. After they had ridden some distance in silence, Walter broke out:

"How beautifully you ride!"

"Me!" cried Mary. "Why, I never had a lesson in my life."

"That accounts for it. Let a lady alone, and she does everything more gracefully than a man; but let some cad undertake to teach her, she distrusts herself and imitates the snob. If you could only see the women in Hyde Park who have been taught to ride, and compare them with yourself!"

"I should learn humility."

"No; it would make you vain, if anything could."

"You seem inclined to do me that good turn. Come, pray, what do these poor ladies do to offend you so?"

"I'll tell you. They square their shoulders vulgarly; they hold the reins in their hands as if they were driving, and they draw the reins to their waists in a coarse, absurd way. They tighten both these reins equally, and saw the poor devil's mouth with the curb and the snaffle at one time. Now you know, Mary, the snaffle is a mild bit, and the curb is a sharp one; so where is the sense of pulling away at the snaffle when you are tugging at the curb? Why, it is like the fellow that made two holes at the bottom of the door—a big one for the cat to come through and a little one for the kitten. But the worst of all is they show the caddess so plainly."

"Caddess! What is that; goddess you mean, I suppose?"

"No; I mean a cad of the feminine gender. They seem bursting with affectation and elated consciousness that they are on horseback. That shows they have only just made the acquaintance of that animal, and in a London riding-school. Now you hold both reins lightly in the left hand, the curb loose, since it is seldom wanted, the snaffle just feeling the animal's mouth, and you look right and left at the people you are talking to, and don't seem to invite one to observe that you are on a horse: that is because you are a lady, and a horse is a matter of course to you, just as the ground is when you walk upon it."

The sensible girl blushed at his praise, but she said, dryly, "How meritorious! Cousin Walter, I have heard that flattery is poison. I won't stay here to be poisoned—so." She finished the sentence in action; and with a movement of her body she started her Arab steed, and turned her challenging eye back on Walter, and gave him a hand-gallop of a mile on the turf by the road-side. And when she drew bridle her cheeks glowed so and her eyes glistened, that Walter was dazzled by her bright beauty, and could do nothing but gaze at her for ever so long.

If Hope had been at home, Mary would have been looked after more sharply. But if she was punctual at meals, that went a long way with Robert Bartley.

However, the accidental and frequent meetings of Walter and Mary, and their delightful rides and walks, were interfered with just as they began to grow into a habit. There arrived at Clifford Hall a formidable person—in female eyes, especially—a beautiful heiress. Julia Clifford, great-niece and ward of Colonel Clifford; very tall, graceful, with dark gray eyes, and black eyebrows the size of a leech, that narrowed to a point and met in finer lines upon the bridge of a nose that was gently aquiline, but not too large, as such noses are apt to be. A large, expressive mouth, with wonderful rows of ivory, and the prettiest little black down, fine as a hair, on her upper lip, and a skin rather dark but clear, and glowing with the warm blood beneath it, completed this noble girl. She was nineteen years of age.

Colonel Clifford received her with warm affection and old-fashioned courtesy; but as he was disabled by a violent fit of gout, he deputed Walter to attend to her on foot and horseback.

Miss Clifford, accustomed to homage, laid Walter under contribution every day. She was very active, and he had to take her a walk in the morning, and a ride in the afternoon. He winced a little under this at first; it kept him so much from Mary. But there was some compensation. Julia Clifford was a lady-like rider, and also a bold and skillful one.

The first time he rode with her he asked her beforehand what sort of a horse she would like.

"Oh, anything," said she, "that is not vicious nor slow."

"A hack or a hunter?"

"Oh, a hunter, if I may."

"Perhaps you will do me the honor to look at them and select."

"You are very kind, and I will."

He took her to the stables, and she selected a beautiful black mare, with a coat like satin.

"There," said Walter, despondingly. "I was afraid you would fix on her. She is impossible, I can't ride her myself."

"Vicious?"

"Not in the least."

"Well, then—"

Here an old groom touched his hat, and said, curtly, "Too hot and fidgety, miss. I'd as lieve ride of a boiling kettle."

Walter explained: "The poor thing is the victim of nervousness."

"Which I call them as rides her the victims," suggested the ancient groom.

"Be quiet, George. She would go sweetly in a steeple-chase, if she didn't break her heart with impatience before the start. But on the road she is impossible. If you make her walk, she is all over lather in five minutes, and she'd spoil that sweet habit with flecks of foam. My lady has a way of tossing her head, and covering you all over with white streaks."

"She wants soothing," suggested Miss Clifford.

"Nay, miss. She wants bleeding o' Sundays, and sweating over the fallows till she drops o' week-days. But if she was mine I'd put her to work a coal-cart for six months; that would larn her."

"I will ride her," said Miss Clifford, calmly; "her or none."

"Saddle her, George," said Walter, resignedly. "I'll ride Goliah. Black Bess sha'n't plead a bad example. Goliah is as meek as Moses, Miss Clifford. He is a gigantic mouse."

"I'd as lieve ride of a dead man," said the old groom.

"Mr. George," said the young lady, "you seem hard to please. May I ask what sort of animal you do like to ride?"

"Well, miss, summat between them two. When I rides I likes to be at peace. If I wants work, there's plenty in the yard. If I wants fretting and fuming, I can go home: I'm a married man, ye know. But when I crosses a horse I looks for a smart trot and a short stepper, or an easy canter on a bit of turf, and not to be set to hard labor a-sticking my heels into Goliah, nor getting a bloody nose every now and then from Black Bess a-throwing back her uneasy head when I do but lean forward in the saddle. I be an old man, miss, and I looks for peace on horseback if I can't get it nowhere else."

All this was delivered whilst saddling Black Bess. When she was ready, Miss Clifford asked leave to hold the bridle, and walk her out of the premises. As she walked her she patted and caressed her, and talked to her all the time—told her they all misunderstood her because she was a female; but now she was not to be tormented and teased, but to have her own way.

Then she asked George to hold the mare's head as gently as he could, and Walter to put her up. She was in the saddle in a moment. The mare fidgeted and pranced, but did not rear. Julia slackened the reins, and patted and praised her, and let her go. She made a run, but was checked by degrees with the snaffle. She had a beautiful mouth, and it was in good hands at last.

When they had ridden a few miles they came to a very open country, and Julia asked, demurely, if she might be allowed to try her off the road. "All right," said Walter; and Miss Julia, with a smart decision that contrasted greatly with the meekness of her proposal, put her straight at the bank, and cleared it like a bird. They had a famous gallop, but this judicious rider neither urged the mare nor greatly checked her. She moderated her. Black Bess came home that day sweating properly, but with a marked diminution of lather and foam. Miss Clifford asked leave to ride her into the stable-yard, and after dismounting talked to her, and patted her, and praised her. An hour later the pertinacious beauty asked for a carrot from the garden, and fed Black Bess with it in the stable.

By these arts, a very light hand, and tact in riding, she soothed Black Bess's nerves, so that at last the very touch of her habit skirt, or her hand, or the sound of her voice, seemed to soothe the poor nervous creature; and at last one day in the stable Bess protruded her great lips and kissed her fair rider on the shoulder after her manner.

All this interested and amused Walter Clifford, but still he was beginning to chafe at being kept from Miss Bartley, when one morning her servant rode over with a note.

"DEAR COUSIN WALTER,—Will you kindly send me back my opera glass? I want to see what is going on at Clifford Hall.

"Yours affectionately,

"MARY BARTLEY."

Walter wrote back directly that he would bring it himself, and tell her what was going on at Clifford Hall.

So he rode over and told her of Julia Clifford's arrival, and how his father had deputed him to attend on her, and she took up all his time. It was beginning to be a bore.

"On the contrary," said Mary, "I dare say she is very handsome."

"That she is," said Walter.

"Please describe her."

"A very tall, dark girl, with wonderful eyebrows; and she has broken in Black Bess, that some of us men could not ride in comfort."

Mary changed color. She murmured, "No wonder the Hall is more attractive than the farm!" and the tears shone in her eyes.

"Oh, Mary," said Walter, reproachfully, "how can you say that? What is Julia Clifford to me?"

"I can't tell," said Mary, dryly. "I never saw you together through my glasses, you know."

Walter laughed at this innuendo.

"You shall see us together to-morrow, if you will bless one of us with your company."

"I might be in the way."

"That is not very likely. Will you ride to Hammond Church to-morrow at about ten, and finish your sketch of the tower? I will bring Miss Clifford there, and introduce you to each other."

This was settled, and Mary was apparently quite intent on her sketch when Walter and Julia rode up, and Walter said:

"That is my cousin, Mary Bartley. May I introduce her to you?"

"Of course. What a sweet face!"

So the ladies were introduced, and Julia praised Mary's sketch, and Mary asked leave to add her to it, hanging, with pensive figure, over a tombstone. Julia took an admirable pose, and Mary, with her quick and facile fingers, had her on the paper in no time. Walter asked her, in a whisper, what she thought of her model.

"I like her," said Mary. "She is rather pretty."

"Rather pretty! Why, she is an acknowledged beauty."

"A beauty? The idea! Long black thing!"

Then they rode all together to the farm. There Mary was all innocent hospitality, and the obnoxious Julia kissed her at parting, and begged her to come and see her at the Hall.

Mary did call, and found her with a young gentleman of short stature, who was devouring her with his eyes, but did not overflow in discourse, having a slight impediment in his speech. This was Mr. Percy Fitzroy. Julia introduced him.

"And where are you staying, Percy?" inquired she.

"At the D—D—Dun Cow."

"What is that?"

Walter explained that it was a small hostelry, but one that was occasionally honored by distinguished visitors. Miss Bartley staid there three days.

"I h—hope to st—ay more than that," said little Percy, with an amorous glance at Julia.

Miss Clifford took Mary to her room, and soon asked her what she thought of him; then, anticipating criticism, she said there was not much of him, but he was such a duck.

"He dresses beautifully," was Mary's guarded remark.

However, when Walter rode home with her, being now relieved of his attendance on Julia, she was more communicative. Said she: "I never knew before that a man could look like fresh cambric. Dear me! his head and his face and his little whiskers, his white scarf, his white waistcoat, and all his clothes, and himself, seem just washed and ironed and starched. I looked round for the bandbox."

"Never mind," said Walter. "He is a great addition. My duties devolve on him. And I shall be free to—How her eyes shone and her voice mellowed when she spoke to him! Confess, now, love is a beautiful thing."

"I can not say. Not experienced in beautiful things." And Mary looked mighty demure.

"Of course not. What am I thinking of? You are only a child."

"A little more than that, please."

"At all events, love beautified her."

"I saw no difference. She was always a lovely girl."

"Why, you said she was 'a long black thing.'"

"Oh, that was before—she looked engaged."

After this young Fitzroy was generally Miss Clifford's companion in her many walks, and Walter Clifford had a delightful time with Mary Bartley.

Her nurse discovered how matters were going. But she said nothing. From something Bartley let fall years ago she divined that Bartley was robbing Walter Clifford by substituting Hope's child for his own, and she thought the mischief could be repaired and the sin atoned for if he and Mary became man and wife. So she held her tongue and watched.

The servants at the Hall watched the whole game, and saw how the young people were pairing, and talked them over very freely.

The only person in the dark was Colonel Clifford. He was nearly always confined to his room. However, one day he came down, and found Julia and Percy together. She introduced Percy to him. The Colonel was curt, but grumpy, and Percy soon beat a retreat.

The Colonel sent for Walter to his room. He did not come for some time, because he was wooing Mary Bartley.

Colonel Clifford's first word was, "Who was that little stuttering dandy I caught spooning your Julia?"

"Only Percy Fitzroy."

"Only Percy Fitzroy! Never despise your rivals, sir. Always remember that young women are full of vanity, and expect to be courted all day long. I will thank you not to leave the field open a single day till you have secured the prize."

"What prize, sir?"

"What prize, you ninny? Why, the beautiful girl that can buy back Oddington and Drayton, peaches and fruit and all. They are both to be sold at this moment. What prize? Why, the wife I have secured for you, if you don't go and play the fool and neglect her."

Walter Clifford looked aghast.

"Julia Clifford!" said he. "Pray don't ask me to marry her."

"Not ask you?—but I do ask you; and what is more, I command you. Would you revolt again against your father, who has forgiven you, and break my heart, now I am enfeebled by disease? Julia Clifford is your wife, or you are my son no more."



CHAPTER VIII.

THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE.

The next time Walter Clifford met Mary Bartley he was gloomy at intervals. The observant girl saw he had something on his mind. She taxed him with it, and asked him tenderly what it was.

"Oh, nothing," said he.

"Don't tell me!" said she. "Mind, nothing escapes my eye. Come, tell me, or we are not friends."

"Oh, come, Mary. That is hard."

"Not in the least. I take an interest in you."

"Bless you for saying so!"

"And so, if you keep your troubles from me, we are not friends, nor cousins."

"Mary!"

"Nor anything else."

"Well, dear Mary, sooner than not be anything else to you I will tell you, and yet I don't like. Well, then, if I must, it is that dear old wrong-headed father of mine. He wants me to marry Julia Clifford."

Mary turned pale directly. "I guessed as much," said she. "Well, she is young and beautiful and rich, and it is your duty to obey your father."

"But I can't."

"Oh yes, you can, if you try."

"But I can't try."

"Why not?"

"Can't you guess?"

"No."

"Well, then, I love another girl. As opposite to her as light is to darkness."

Mary blushed and looked down. "Complimentary to Julia," she said. "I pity her opposite, for Julia is a fine, high-minded girl."

"Ah, Mary, you are too clever for me; of course I mean the opposite in appearance."

"As ugly as she is pretty?"

"No; but she is a dark girl, and I don't like dark girls. It was a dark girl that deceived me so heartlessly years ago."

"Ah!"

"And made me hate the whole sex."

"Or only the brunettes?"

"The whole lot."

"Cousin Walter, I thank you in the name of that small company."

"Until I saw you, and you converted me in one day."

"Only to the blondes?"

"Only to one of them. My sweet Mary, the situation is serious. You, whose eye nothing escapes—you must have seen long ago how I love you."

"Never mind what I have seen, Walter," said Mary, whose bosom was beginning to heave.

"Very well," said Walter; "then I will tell you as if you didn't know it. I admired you at first sight; every time I was with you I admired you, and loved you more and more. It is my heaven to see you and to hear you speak. Whether you are grave or gay, saucy or tender, it is all one charm, one witchcraft. I want you for my wife, and my child, and my friend. Mary, my love, my darling, how could I marry any woman but you? and you, could you marry any man but me, to break the heart that beats only for you?"

This and the voice of love, now ardent, now broken with emotion, were more than sweet, saucy Mary could trifle with; her head drooped slowly upon his shoulder, and her arm went round his neck, and the tremor of her yielding frame and the tears of tenderness that flowed slowly from her fair eyes told Walter Clifford without a word that she was won.

He had the sense not to ask her for words. What words could be so eloquent as this? He just held her to his manly bosom, and trembled with love and joy and triumph.

She knew, too, that she had replied, and treated her own attitude like a sentence in rather a droll way. "But for all that," said she, "I don't mean to be a wicked girl if I can help. This is an age of wicked young ladies. I soon found that out in the newspapers; that and science are the two features. And I have made a solemn vow not to be one of them"—(query, a science or a naughty girl)—"making mischief between father and son."

"No more you shall, dear," said Walter. "Leave it to me. We must be patient, and all will come right."

"Oh, I'll be true to you, dear, if that is all," said Mary.

"And if you would not mind just temporizing a little, for my sake, who love you?"

"Temporize!" said Mary, eagerly. "With all my heart. I'll temporize till we are all dead and buried."

"Oh, that will be too long for me," said Walter.

"Oh, never do things by halves," said the ready girl.

If his tongue had been as prompt as hers, he might have said that "temporizing" was doing things by halves; but he let her have the last word. And perhaps he lost nothing, for she would have had that whether or no.

So this day was another era in their love. Girls after a time are not content to see they are beloved; they must hear it too; and now Walter had spoken out like a man, and Mary had replied like a woman. They were happy, and walked hand in hand purring to one another, instead of sparring any more.

On his return home Walter found Julia marching swiftly and haughtily up and down upon the terrace of Clifford Hall, and he could not help admiring the haughty magnificence of her walk. The reason soon appeared. She was in a passion. She was always tall, but now she seemed lofty, and to combine the supple panther with the erect peacock in her ireful march. Such a fine woman as Julia really awes a man with her carriage at such a time. The poor soul thinks he sees before him the indignation of the just; when very likely it is only what in a man would be called Petulance.

"Anything the matter, Miss Clifford?" said he, obsequiously.

"No, sir" (very stiffly).

"Can I be of any service?"

"No, you can not." And then, swifter than any weather-cock ever turned: "You are a good creature: why should I be rude to you? I ought to be ashamed of myself. It is that little wretch."

"Not our friend Fitzroy?"

"Why, what other little wretch is there about? We are all Grenadiers and May-poles in this house except him. Well, let him go. I dare say somebody else—hum—and Uncle Clifford has told me more than once I ought to look higher. I couldn't well look lower than five feet nothing. Ha! ha! ha! I told him so."

"That was cruel."

"Don't scold me. I won't be lectured by any of you. Of course it was, dear. Poor little Percy. Oh! oh! oh!"

And after all this thunder there was a little rain, by a law that governs Atmosphere and Woman impartially.

Seeing her softened, and having his own reasons for wishing to keep Fitzroy to his duty, Walter begged leave to mediate, if possible, and asked if she would do him the honor to confide the grievance to him.

"Of course I will," said Julia. "He is angry with Colonel Clifford for not wishing him to stay here, and he is angry with me for not making Uncle Clifford invite him. As if I could! I should be ashamed to propose such a thing. The truth is, he is a luxurious little fellow, and my society out-of-doors does not compensate him for the cookery at the Dun Cow. There! let him go."

"But I want him to stay."

"Then that is very kind of you."

"Isn't it?" said Walter, slyly. "And I must make him stay somehow. Now tell me, isn't he a little jealous?"

"A little jealous! Why, he is eaten up with it; he is petrie de jalousie."

"Then," said Walter, timidly, and hesitating at every word, "you can't be angry if I work on him a little. Would there be any great harm if I were to say that nobody can see you without admiring you; that I have always respected his rights, but that if he abandons them—"

Julia caught it in a moment. She blushed, and laughed heartily. "Oh, you good, sly Thing!" said she; "and it is the truth, for I am as proud as he is vain; and if he leaves me I will turn round that moment and make you in love with me."

Walter looked queer. This was a turn he had not counted on.

"Do you think I couldn't, sir?" said she, sharply.

"It is not for me to limit the power of beauty," said Walter, meekly.

"Say the power of flattery. I could cajole any man in the world—if I chose."

"Then you are a dangerous creature, and I will make Fitzroy my shield. I'm off to the Dun Cow."

"You are a duck," said this impetuous beauty. "So there!" She took him round the neck with both hands, and gave him a most delicious kiss.

"Why, he must be mad," replied the recipient, bluntly. She laughed at that, and he went straight to the Dun Cow. He found young Fitzroy sitting rather disconsolate, and opened his errand at once by asking him if it was true that they were to lose him.

Percy replied stiffly that it was true.

"What a pity!" said Walter.

"I d—don't think I shall be m—much m—missed," said Percy, rather sullenly.

"I know two people who will miss you."

"I d—don't know one."

"Two, I assure you—Miss Clifford and myself. Come, Mr. Fitzroy, I will not beat about the bush. I am afraid you are mortified, and I must say, justly mortified, at the coolness my father has shown to you. But I assure you that it is not from any disrespect to you personally."

"Oh, indeed!" said Percy, ironically.

"No; quite the reverse—he is afraid of you."

"That is a g—g—good joke."

"No; let me explain. Fathers are curious people. If they are ever so disinterested in their general conduct, they are sure to be a little mercenary for their children. Now you know Miss Clifford is a beauty who would adorn Clifford Hall, and an heiress whose money would purchase certain properties that join ours. You understand?"

"Yes," said the little man, starting up in great wrath. "I understand, and it's a—bom—inable. I th—thought you were my friend, and a m—man of h—honor."

"So I am, and that is why I warn you in time. If you quarrel with Miss Clifford, and leave this place in a pet, just see what risks we both run, you and I. My father will be always at me, and I shall not be able to insist on your prior claim; he will say you have abandoned it. Julia will take the huff, and you know beautiful women will do strange things—mad things—when once pique enters their hearts. She might turn round and marry me."

"You forget, sir, you are a man of honor."

"But not a man of stone. Now, my dear Fitzroy, be reasonable. Suppose that peerless creature went in for female revenge; why, the first thing she would do would be to make me love her, whether I chose or no. She wouldn't give me a voice in the matter. She would flatter me; she would cajole me; she would transfix my too susceptible heart with glances of fire and bewitching languor from those glorious eyes."

"D—d——! Ahem!" cried Percy, turning green.

Walter had no mercy. "I heard her say once she could make any man love her if she chose."

"So she could," said Percy, ruefully. "She made me. I had an awful p—p—prejudice against her, but there was no resisting."

"Then don't subject me to such a trial. Stick to her like a man."

"So I will; b—but it is a m—m—mortifying position. I'm a man of family. We came in with the C—Conquest, and are respected in our c—county; and here I have to meet her on the sly, and live at the D—Dun Cow."

"Where the cuisine is wretched."

"A—b—b—bominable!"

Having thus impregnated his mind with that soothing sentiment, jealousy, Walter told him he had a house to let on the estate—quite a gentleman's house, only a little dilapidated, with a fine lawn and garden, only neglected into a wilderness. "But all the better for you," said he. "You have plenty of money, and no occupation. Perhaps that is what leads to these little quarrels. It will amuse you to repair the crib and restore the lawn. Why, there is a brook runs through it—it isn't every lawn has that—and there used to be water-lilies floating, and peonies nodding down at them from the bank: a paradise. She adores flowers, you know. Why not rent that house from me? You will have constant occupation and amusement. You will become a rival potentate to my governor. You will take the shine out of him directly; you have only to give a ball, and then all the girls will worship you, Julia Clifford especially, for she could dance the devil to a stand-still."

Percy's eyes flashed. "When can I have the place?" said he, eagerly.

"In half an hour. I'll draw you a three months' agreement. Got any paper? Of course not. Julia is so near. What are those? Playing-cards. What do you play? 'Patience,' all by yourself. No wonder you are quarrelsome! Nothing else to bestow your energy on."

Percy denied this imputation. The cards were for pistol practice. He shot daily at the pips in the yard.

"It is the fiend Ennui that loads your pistols, and your temper too. Didn't I tell you so?"

Walter then demanded the ace of diamonds, and on its face let him the house and premises on a repairing lease for three years, rent L5 a year: which was a good bargain for both parties, since Percy was sure to lay out a thousand pounds or two on the property, and to bind Julia more closely to him, who was worth her weight in gold ten times over.

Walter had brought the keys with him, so he drove Percy over at once and gave him possession, and, to do the little fellow justice, the moisture of gratitude stood in his eyes when they parted.

Walter told Julia about it the same night, and her eyes were eloquent too.

The next day he had a walk with Mary Bartley, and told her all about it. She hung upon him, and gazed admiringly into his eyes all the time, and they parted happy lovers.

Mr. Bartley met her at the gate, "Mary," said he, gravely, "who was that I saw with you just now?"

"Cousin Walter."

"I feared so. You are too much with him."

Mary turned red and white by turns, but said nothing.

Bartley went on: "You are a good child, and I have always trusted you. I am sure you mean no harm. But you must be more discreet. I have just heard that you and that young man are looked upon as engaged lovers. They say it is all over the village. Of course a father is the last to hear these things. Does Mrs. Easton know of this?"

"Oh yes, papa, and approves it."

"Stupid old woman! She ought to be ashamed of herself."

"Oh, papa!" said Mary, in deep distress; "why, what objection can there be to Cousin Walter?"

"None whatever as a cousin, but every objection to intimacy. Does he court you?"

"I don't know, papa. I suppose he does."

"Does he seek your love?"

"He does not say so exactly."

"Come, Mary, you have never deceived me. Does he love you?"

"I am afraid he does; and if you reject him he will be very unhappy. And so shall I."

"I am truly sorry to hear it, Mary, for there are reasons why I can not consent to an engagement between him and you."

"What reasons, papa?"

"It would not be proper to disclose my reasons; but I hope, Mary, that it will be enough to say that Colonel Clifford has other views for his son, and I have other views for my daughter. Do you think a blessing will attend you or him if you defy both fathers?"

"No, no," said poor Mary. "We have been hasty and very foolish. But, oh, papa, have you not seen from the first? Oh, why did you not warn me in time? Then I could have obeyed you easily. Now it will cost me the happiness of my life. We are very unfortunate. Poor Walter! He left me so full of hope. What shall I do? what shall I do?"

It was Mary Bartley's first grief. She thought all chance of happiness was gone forever, and she wept bitterly for Walter and herself.

Bartley was not unmoved, but he could not change his nature. The sum he had obtained by a crime was dearer to him than all his more honest gains. He was kind on the surface, but hard as marble.

"Go to your room, my child," said he, "and try and compose yourself. I am not angry with you. I ought to have watched you. But you are so young, and I trusted to that woman."

Mary retired, sobbing, and he sent for Mrs. Easton.

"Mrs. Easton," said he, "for the first time in all these years I have a fault to find with you."

"What is that, sir, if you please?"

"Young Clifford has been courting that child, and you have encouraged it."

"Nay, sir," said the woman, "I have not done that. She never spoke to me, nor I to her."

"Well, then, you never interfered."

"No, sir; no more than you did."

"Because I never observed it till to-day."

"How could I know that, sir? Everybody else observed it. Mr. Hope would have been the first to see it, if he had been in your place." This sudden thrust made Bartley wince, and showed him he had a tougher customer to deal with than poor Mary.

"You can't bear to be found fault with, Easton," said he, craftily, "and I don't wonder at it, after fourteen years' fidelity to me."

"I take no credit for that," said the woman, doggedly. "I have been paid for it."

"No doubt. But I don't always get the thing I pay for. Then let by-gones be by-gones; but just assist me now to cure the girl of this folly."

"Sir," said the woman, firmly, "it is not folly; it is wisest and best for all; and I can't make up my mind to lift a finger against it."

"Do you mean to defy me, then?"

"No, sir. I don't want to go against you, nor yet against my own conscience, what's left on't. I have seen a pretty while it must come to this, and I have written to my sister Sally. She keeps a small hotel at the lakes. She is ready to have me, and I'm not too old to be useful to her. I'm worth my board. I'll go there this very day, if you please. I'm as true to you as I can be, sir. For I see by Miss Mary crying so you have spoken to her, and so now she is safe to come to me for comfort; and if she does, I shall take her part, you may be sure, for I love her like my own child." Here the dogged voice began to tremble; but she recovered herself, and told him she would go at once to her sister Gilbert, that lived only ten miles off, and next day she would go to the little hotel at the lakes, and leave him to part two true lovers if he could and break both their hearts; she should wash her hands of it.

Bartley asked a moment to consider.

"Shall we be friends still if you leave me like that? Surely, after all these years, you will not tell your sister? You will not betray me?"

"Never, sir," said she. "What for? To bring those two together? Why, it would part them forever. I wonder at you, a gentleman, and in business all your life, yet you don't seem to see through the muddy water as I do that is only a plain woman."

She then told him her clothes were nearly all packed, and she could start in an hour.

"You shall have the break and the horses," said he, with great alacrity.

Everything transpires quickly in a small house, and just as she had finished packing, in came Mary in violent distress. "What, is it true? Are you going to leave me, now my heart is broken? Oh, nurse! nurse!"

This was too much even for stout-hearted Nancy Easton.

"Oh, my child! my child!" she cried, and sat down on her box sobbing violently, Mary infolded in her arms, and then they sat crying and rocking together.

"Papa does not love me as I do him," sobbed Mary, turning bitter for the first time. "He breaks my heart, and sends you away the same day, for fear you should comfort me."

"No, my dear," said Mrs. Easton; "you are wrong. He does not send me away; I go by my own wish."

"Oh, nurse, you desert me! then you don't know what has happened."

"Oh yes, I do; I know all about it; and I'm leaving because I can't do what he wishes. You see it is this way, Miss Mary—your father has been very good to me, and I am his debtor. I must not stay here and help you to thwart him—that would be ungrateful—and yet I can't take his side against you. Master has got reasons why you should not marry Walter Clifford, and—"

"He told me so himself," said Mary.

"Ah, but he didn't tell you his reasons."

"No."

"No more must I. But, Miss Mary, I'll tell you this. I know his reasons well; his reasons why you should not marry Walter Clifford are my reasons why you should marry no other man."

"Oh, nurse! oh, you dear, good angel!"

"So when friends differ like black and white, 'tis best to part. I'm going to my sister Gilbert this afternoon, and to-morrow to my sister Sally, at her hotel."

"Oh, nurse, must you? must you? I shall have not a friend to advise or console me till Mr. Hope comes back. Oh, I hope that won't be long now."

Mrs. Easton dropped her hands upon her knees and looked at Mary Bartley.

"What, Miss Mary, would you go to Mr. Hope in such a matter as this? Surely you would not have the face?"

"Not take my breaking heart to Mr. Hope!" cried Mary, with a sudden flood of tears. "You might as well tell me not to lay my trouble before my God. Dear, dear Mr. Hope, who saved my life in those deep waters, and then cried over me, darling dear! I think more of that than of his courage. Do you think I am blind? He loves me better than my own father does; and it is not a young man's love; it is an angel's. Not cry to him when I am in the deep waters of affliction? I could not write of such a thing to him for blushing, but the moment he returns I shall find some way to let him know how happy I have been, how broken-hearted I am, and that papa has reasons against him, and they are your reasons for him, and that you are both afraid to let me know these curious reasons—me, the poor girl whose heart is being made a foot-ball of in this house. Oh! oh! oh!"

"Don't cry, Miss Mary," said Nurse Easton, tenderly; "and pray don't excite yourself so. Why, I never saw you like this before."

"Had I ever the same reason? You have only known the happy, thoughtless child. They have made a woman of me now, and my peace is gone. I must not defy my father, and I will not break poor Walter's heart—the truest heart that ever beat. Not tell dear Mr. Hope? I'll tell him everything, if I'm cut in pieces for it." And her beautiful eyes flashed lightning through her tears.

"Hum!" said Mrs. Easton, under her breath, and looking down at her own feet.

"And pray what does 'hum' mean?" asked Mary, fixing her eyes with prodigious keenness on the woman's face.

"Well, I don't suppose 'hum' means anything," said Mrs. Easton, still looking down.

"Doesn't it?" said Mary. "With such a face as that it means a volume. And I'll make it my business to read that volume."

"Hum!"

"And Mr. Hope shall help me."



CHAPTER IX.

LOVERS PARTED.

Walter, little dreaming the blow his own love had received, made Percy write Julia an apology, and an invitation to visit his new house if he was forgiven. Julia said she could not forgive him, and would not go. Walter said, "Put on your bonnet, and take a little drive with me."

"Oh, with pleasure," said Julia, slyly.

So then Walter drove her to the new house, without a word of remonstrance on her part, and Fitzroy met her radiant, and Walter slipped away round a corner, and when he came back the quarrel had dissolved. He had brought a hamper with all the necessaries of life—table-cloth, napkins, knives, forks, spoons, cold pie, salad, and champagne. They lunched beside the brook on the lawn. The lovers drank his health, and Julia appointed him solemnly to the post of "peace-maker," "for," said she, "you have shown great talent that way, and I foresee we shall want one, for we shall be always quarrelling; sha'n't we, Percy?"

"N—o; n—never again."

"Then you mustn't be jealous."

"I'm not. I d—despise j—jealousy. I'm above it."

"Oh, indeed," said Julia, dryly.

"Come, don't begin again, you two," said Walter, "or—no champagne."

"Now what a horrid threat!" said Julia. "I'll be good, for one."

In short they had a merry time, and Walter drove Julia home. Both were in high spirits.

In the hall Walter found a short note from Mary Bartley:

"DEAR, DEAR WALTER,—I write with a bleeding heart to tell you that papa has only just discovered our attachment, and I am grieved to say he disapproves of it, and has forbidden me to encourage your love, that is dearer to me than all the world. It is very hard. It seems so cruel. But I must obey. Do not make obedience too difficult, dear Walter. And pray, pray do not be as unhappy as I am. He says he has reasons, but he has not told me what they are, except that your father has other views for you; but, indeed, with both parents against us what can we do? Forgive me the pain this will give you. Ask yourself whether it gives me any less. You were all the world to me. Now everything is dull and distasteful. What a change in one little day! We are very unfortunate. But it can not be forever. And if you will be constant to me, you know I shall to you. I could not change. Ah, Walter, I little thought when I said I would temporize, how soon I should be called on to do it. I can't write any more for crying. I do nothing but cry ever since papa was so cruel; but I must obey. Your loving, sorrowful

"MARY."

This letter was a chilling blow to poor Walter. He took it into his own room and read it again and again. It brought the tears into his own eyes, and discouraged him deeply for a time. But, of course, he was not so disposed to succumb to authority as the weaker vessel was. He wrote back:

"My own Love,—Don't grieve for me. I don't care for anything so long as you love me. I shall resist, of course. As for my father, I am going to marry Julia to Percy Fitzroy, and so end my governor's nonsense. As for your father, I do not despair of softening him. It is only a check; it is not a defeat. Who on earth can part us if we are true to each other? God bless you, dearest! I did not think you loved me so much. Your letter gives me comfort forever, and only disappointment for a time. Don't fret, sweet love. It will be all right in the end.

"Your grateful, hopeful love, till death, WALTER."

Mary opened this letter with a beating heart. She read it with tears and smiles and utter amazement. She knew so little about the male character that this way of receiving a knockdown blow astonished and charmed her. She thought to herself, no wonder women look up to men. They will have their own way; they resist, of course. How sensible! We give in, right or wrong. What a comfort I have got a man to back me, and not a poor sorrowing, despairing, obeying thing like myself!

So she was comforted for the minute, and settled in her own mind that she would be good and obedient, and Walter should do all the fighting. But letters soon cease to satisfy the yearning hearts of lovers unnaturally separated. Walter and Mary lived so near each other, yet now they never met. Bartley took care of that. He told Mary she must not walk out without a maid or ride without a servant; and he gave them both special orders. He even obliged her with his own company, though that rather bored him.

Under this severe restraint Mary's health and spirits suffered, and she lost some of her beautiful color.

Walter's spirits were kept up only by anger. Julia Clifford saw he was in trouble, and asked him what was the matter.

"Oh, nothing that would interest you," said he, rather sullenly.

"Excuse me," said she. "I am always interested in the troubles of my friends, and you have been a good friend to me."

"It is very good of you to think so. Well, then, yes, I am unhappy. I am crossed in love."

"Is it that fair girl you introduced me to when out riding?"

"Yes."

"She is lovely."

"Miss Clifford, she is an angel."

"Ha! ha! We are all angels till we are found out. Who is the man?"

"What man?"

"That she prefers to my good Walter. She deserves a good whipping, your angel."

"Much obliged to you, Miss Clifford; but she prefers no man to your good Walter, though I am not worthy to tie her shoes. Why, we are devoted to each other."

"Well, you needn't fly out at me. I am your friend, as you will see. Make me your confidante. Explain, please. How can you be crossed in love if there's no other man?"

"It's her father. He has discovered our love, and forbids her to speak to me."

"Her father!" said Julia, contemptuously. "Is that all? That for her father! You shall have her in spite of fifty fathers. If it had been a lover, now."

"I should have talked to him, not to you," said Walter, with his eyes flashing.

"Be quiet, Walter; as it is not a lover, nor even a mother, you shall have the girl; and a very sweet girl she is. Will you accept me for your ally? Women are wiser than men in these things, and understand one another."

"Oh, Miss Clifford," said Walter, "this is good of you! Of course it will be a great blessing to us both to have your sympathy and assistance."

"Well, then," said Julia, "begin by telling me—have you spoken to her father?"

"No."

"Then that is the very first thing to be done. Come, order our horses. We will ride over directly. I will call on Miss Bartley, and you on Mister. Now mind, you must ignore all that has passed, and just ask his permission to court his daughter. Whilst you are closeted with him, the young lady and I will learn each other's minds with a celerity you poor slow things have no idea of."

"I see one thing," said Walter, "that I am a child in such matters compared with you. What decision! what promptitude!"

"Then imitate it, young man. Order the horses directly;" and she stamped her foot impatiently.

Walter turned to the stables without another word, and Julia flew upstairs to put on her riding-habit.

* * * * *

Bartley was in his study with a map of the farm before him, and two respectable but rather rough men in close conference over it. These were practical men from the county of Durham, whom he had ferreted out by means of an agent, men who knew a great deal about coal. They had already surveyed the farm, and confirmed Hope's opinion that coal lay below the surface of certain barren fields, and the question now was as to the exact spot where it would be advisable to sink the first shaft.

Bartley was heart and soul in this, and elevated by love of gain far above such puny considerations as the happiness of Mary Bartley and her lover. She, poor girl, sat forlorn in her little drawing-room, and tried to draw a bit, and tried to read a bit, and tried to reconcile a new German symphony to her ear as well as to her judgment, which told her it was too learned not to be harmonious, though it sounded very discordant. But all these efforts ended in a sigh of despondency, and in brooding on innocent delights forbidden, and a prospect which, to her youth and inexperience, seemed a wilderness robbed of the sun.

Whilst she sat thus pensive and sad there came a sudden rush and clatter of hoofs, and Miss Clifford and Walter Clifford reined up their horses under the very window.

Mary started up delighted at the bare sight of Walter, but amazed and puzzled. The next moment her quick intelligence told her this was some daring manoeuvre or other, and her heart beat high.

Walter opened the door and stood beside it, affecting a cold ceremony.

"Miss Bartley, I have brought Miss Clifford to call on you at her request. My own visit is to your father. Where shall I find him?"

"In his study," murmured Miss Bartley.

Walter returned, and the two ladies looked at each other steadily for one moment, and took stock of one another's dress, looks, character, and souls with supernatural rapidity. Then Mary smiled, and motioned her visitor to a seat, and waited.

Miss Clifford made her approaches obliquely at first.

"I ought to apologize to you for not returning your call before this. At any rate, here I am at last."

"You are most welcome, Miss Clifford," said Mary, warmly.

"Now the ice is broken, I want you to call me Julia."

"May I?"

"You may, and you must, if I call you Mary. Why, you know we are cousins; at least I suppose so. We are both cousins of Walter Clifford, so we must be cousins to each other."

And she fixed her eyes on her fair hostess in a very peculiar way.

Mary returned this fixed look with such keen intelligence that her gray eyes actually scintillated.

"Mary, I seldom waste much time before I come to the point. Walter Clifford is a good fellow; he has behaved well to me. I had a quarrel with mine, and Walter played the peace-maker, and brought us together again without wounding my pride. By-and-by I found out Walter himself was in grief about you. It was my turn, wasn't it? I made him tell me all. He wasn't very willing, but I would know. I see his love is making him miserable, and so is yours, dear."

"Oh yes."

"So I took it on me to advise him. I have made him call on your father. Fathers sometimes pooh-pooh their daughters' affections; but when the son of Colonel Clifford comes with a formal proposal of marriage, Mr. Bartley can not pooh-pooh him."

Mary clasped her hands, but said nothing.

Julia flowed on:

"And the next thing is to comfort you. You seem to want a good cry, dear."

"Yes, I d—do."

"Then come here and take it."

No sooner said than done. Mary's head on Julia's shoulder, and Julia's arm round Mary's waist.

"Are you better, dear?"

"Oh, so much."

"It is a comfort, isn't it? Well, now, listen to me. Fathers sometimes delay a girl's happiness; but they don't often destroy it; they don't go and break her heart as some mothers do. A mother that is resolved to have her own way brings another man forward; fathers are too simple to see that is the only way. And then a designing mother cajoles the poor girl and deceives her, and does a number of things a man would call villainies. Don't you fret your heart out for so small a thing as a father's opposition. You are sure to tire him out if he loves you, and if he doesn't love you, or loves money better, why, then, he is not a worthy rival to my cousin Walter, for that man really loves you, and would marry you if you had not a penny. So would Percy Fitzroy marry me. And that is why I prefer him to the grenadiers and plungers with silky mustaches, and half an eye on me and an eye and a half on my money."

Many other things passed between these two, but what we have endeavored to repeat was the cream of Julia's discourse, and both her advice and her sympathy were for the time a wonderful comfort to the love-sick, solitary girl.

But our business is with Walter Clifford. As soon as he was announced, Mr. Bartley dismissed his rugged visitors, and received Walter affably, though a little stiffly.

Walter opened his business at once, and told him he had come to ask his permission to court his daughter. He said he had admired her from the first moment, and now his happiness depended on her, and he felt sure he could make her happy; not, of course, by his money, but by his devotion. Then as to making a proper provision for her—

Here Bartley stopped him.

"My young friend," said he, "there can be no objection either to your person or your position. But there are difficulties, and at present they are serious ones. Your father has other views."

"But, Mr. Bartley," said Walter, eagerly, "he must abandon them. The lady is engaged."

"Well, then," said Bartley, "it will be time to come to me when he has abandoned those views, and also overcome his prejudices against me and mine. But there is another difficulty. My daughter is not old enough to marry, and I object to long engagements. Everything, therefore, points to delay, and on this I must insist."

Bartley having taken this moderate ground, remained immovable. He promised to encourage no other suitor; but in return he said he had a right to demand that Walter would not disturb his daughter's peace of mind until the prospect was clearer. In short, instead of being taken by surprise, the result showed Bartley quite prepared for this interview, and he baffled the young man without offending him. He was cautious not to do that, because he was going to mine for coal, and feared remonstrances, and wanted Walter to take his part, or at least to be neutral, knowing his love for Mary. So they parted good friends; but when he retailed the result to Julia Clifford she shook her head, and said the old fox had outwitted him. Soon after, knitting her brows in thought for some time, she said, "She is very young, much younger than she looks. I am afraid you will have to wait a little, and watch."

"But," said Walter, in dismay, "am I not to see her or speak to her all the time I am waiting?"

"I'd see both fathers hanged first, if I was a man," said Julia.

In short, under the courageous advice of Julia Clifford, Walter began to throw himself in Mary's way, and look disconsolate; that set Mary pining directly, and Julia found her pale, and grieving for Walter, and persuaded her to write him two or three lines of comfort; she did, and that drew pages from him. Unfortunately he did not restrain himself, but flung his whole heart upon paper, and raised a tumult in the innocent heart of her who read his passionate longings.

She was so worked upon that at last one day she confided to Julia that her old nurse was going to visit her sister, Mrs. Gilbert, who lived only ten miles off, and she thought she should ride and see her.

"When?" asked Julia, carelessly.

"Oh, any day next week," said Mary, carelessly. "Wednesday, if it is fine. She will not be there till Monday."

"Does she know?" asked Julia.

"Oh yes; and left because she could not agree with papa about it; and, dear, she said a strange thing—a very strange thing: she knew papa's reasons against him, and they were her reasons for him."

"Fancy that!" said Julia. "Your father told you what the reasons were?"

"No; he wouldn't. They both treat me like a child."

"You mean they pretend to," she added.

"I see one thing; there is some mystery behind this. I wonder what it is?"

"Ten to one, it is money. I am only twenty, but already I have found out that money governs the world. Let me see—your mother was a Clifford. She must have had money. Did she settle any on you?"

"I am sure I don't know."

"Ten to one she did, and your father is your trustee; and when you marry, he must show his accounts and cash up. There, that is where the shoe pinches."

Mary was distressed.

"Oh, don't say so, dear. I can't bear to think that of papa. You make me very unhappy."

"Forgive me, dear," said Julia. "I am too bitter and suspicious. Some day I will tell you things in my own life that have soured me. Money—I hate the very word," she said, clinching her teeth.

She urged her view no more, but in her own heart she felt sure that she had read Mr. Bartley aright. Why, he was a trader, into the bargain.

As for Mary, when she came to think over this conversation, her own subtle instinct told her that stronger pressure than ever would now be brought on her. Her timidity, her maiden modesty, and her desire to do right set her on her defense. She determined to have loving but impartial advice, and so she overcame her shyness, and wrote to Mr. Hope. Even then she was in no hurry to enter on such a subject by letter, so she must commence by telling him that her father had set a great many people, most of them strangers, to dig for coal. That cross old thing, Colonel Clifford, had been heard to sneer at her dear father, and say unkind and disrespectful things—that the love of money led to loss of money, and that papa might just as well dig a well and throw his money into that. She herself was sorry he had not waited for Mr. Hope's return before undertaking so serious a speculation. Warmed by this preliminary, she ventured into the delicate subject, and told him the substance of what we have told the reader, only in a far more timid and suggestive way, and implored him to advise her by return of post if possible—or why not come home? Papa had said only yesterday, "I wish Hope was here." She got an answer by return of post. It disappointed her, on the whole. Mr. Hope realized the whole situation, though she had sketched it faintly instead of painting it boldly. He was all sympathy, and he saw at once that he could not himself imagine a better match for her than Walter Clifford. But then he observed that Mr. Bartley himself offered no personal objection, but wished the matter to be in abeyance until she was older, and Colonel Clifford's objection to the connection should be removed or softened. That might really be hoped for should Miss Clifford marry Mr. Fitzroy; and really in the mean time he (Hope) could hardly take on him to encourage her in impatience and disobedience. He should prefer to talk to Bartley first. With him he should take a less hesitating line, and set her happiness above everything. In short, he wrote cautiously. He inwardly resolved to be on the spot very soon, whether Bartley wanted him or not; but he did not tell Mary this.

Mary was disappointed. "How kind and wise he is!" she said to Julia—"too wise."

Next Wednesday morning Mary Bartley rode to Mrs. Gilbert, and was received by her with courtesy, but with a warm embrace by Mrs. Easton. After a while the latter invited her into the parlor, saying there is somebody there; but no one knows. This, however, though hardly unexpected, set Mary's heart beating, and when the parlor door was opened, Mrs. Easton stepped back, and Mary was alone with Walter Clifford.

Then might those who oppose an honest and tender affection have learned a lesson. It was no longer affection only. It was passion. Walter was pale, agitated, eager; he kissed her hands impetuously, and drew her to his bosom. She sobbed there; he poured inarticulate words over her, and still held her, panting, to his beating heart. Even when the first gush of love subsided a little he could not be so reasonable as he used to be. He was wild against his own father, hers, and every obstacle, and implored her to marry him at once by special license, and leave the old people to untie the knot if they could.

Then Mary was astonished and hurt.

"A clandestine marriage, Mr. Clifford!" said she. "I thought you had more respect for me than to mention such a thing."

Then he had to beg her pardon, and say the separation had driven him mad.

Then she forgave him.

Then he took advantage of her clemency, and proceeded calmly to show her it was their only chance.

Then Mary forgot how severely she had checked him, and merely said that was the last thing she would consent to, and bound him on his honor never to mention to Julia Clifford that he had proposed such a thing. Walter promised that readily enough, but stuck to his point; and as Mary's pride was wounded, and she was a girl of great spirit though love-sick, she froze to him, and soon after said she was very sorry, but she must not stay too long or papa would be angry. She then begged him not to come out of the parlor, or the servant would see him.

"That is a trifle," said Walter. "I am going to obey you in greater things than that. Ah! Mary, Mary, you don't love me as I love you!"

"No, Walter," said Mary, "I do not love you as you love me, for I respect you." Then her lip trembled, and her eyes filled with tears.

Walter fell on his knees, and kissed her skirt several times; then ended with her hand. "Oh, don't harbor such a thought as that!" said he.

She sobbed, but made no reply.

They parted good friends, but chilled.

That made them both unhappy to think of.

It was only two, or at the most three, days after this that, as Mary was walking in the garden, a nosegay fell at her feet. She picked it up, and immediately found a note half secreted in it. The next moment it was entirely secreted in her bosom. She sauntered in-doors, and scudded upstairs to her room to read it.

The writer told her in a few agitated words that their fathers had met, and he must speak to her directly. Would she meet him for a moment at the garden gate at nine o'clock that evening?

"No, no, no!" cried Mary, as if he was there. She was frightened. Suppose they should be caught. The shame—the disgrace. But oh, the temptation! Well, then, how wrong of him to tempt her! She must not go. There was no time to write and refuse; but she must not go. She would not go. And in this resolution she persisted. Nine o'clock struck, and she never moved. Then she began to picture Walter's face of disappointment and his unhappiness. At ten minutes past nine she tied a handkerchief round her head and went.

There he was at the gate, pale and agitated. He did not give her time to scold him.

"Pray forgive me," he said; "but I saw no other way. It is all over, Mary, unless you love me as I love you."

"Don't begin by doubting me," she said. "Tell me, dear."

"It is soon told. Our fathers have met at that wretched pit, and the foreman has told me what passed between them. My father complained that mining for coal was not husbandry, and it was very unfair to do it, and to smoke him out of house and home. (Unfortunately the wind was west, and blew the smoke of the steam-engine over his lawn.) Your father said he took the farm under that express stipulation. Colonel Clifford said, 'No; the condition was smuggled in.' 'Then smuggle it out,' said Mr. Bartley."

"Oh!"

"If it had only ended there, Mary. But they were both in a passion, and must empty their hearts. Colonel Clifford said he had every respect for you, but had other views for his son. Mr. Bartley said he was thankful to hear it, for he looked higher for his daughter. 'Higher in trade, I suppose,' said my father; 'the Lord Mayor's nephew.' 'Well,' said Mr. Bartley, 'I would rather marry her to money than to mortgages.' And the end of it was they parted enemies for life."

"No, no; not for life!"

"For life, Mary. It is an old grudge revived. Indeed, the first quarrel was only skinned over. Don't deceive yourself. We have nothing to do but disobey them or part."

"And you can say that, Walter? Oh, have a little patience!"

"So I would," said Walter, "if there was any hope. But there is none. There is nothing to wait for but the death of our parents, and by that time I shall be an elderly man, and you will have lost your bloom and wasted your youth—for what? No; I feel sometimes this will drive me mad, or make me a villain. I am beginning to hate my own father, and everybody else that thwarts my love. How can they earn my hate more surely? No, Mary; I see the future as plainly as I see your dear face, so pale and shocked. I can't help it. If you will marry me, and so make sure, I will keep it secret as long as you like; I shall have got you, whatever they may say or do; but if you won't, I'll leave the country at once, and get peace if I can't get love."

"Leave the country?" said Mary, faintly. "What good would that do?"

"I don't know. Perhaps bring my father to his senses for one thing; and—who knows?—perhaps you will listen to reason when you see I can't wait for the consent of two egotists—for that is what they both are—that have no real love or pity for you or me."

"Ah," said Mary, with a deep sigh, "I see even men have their faults, and I admired them so. They are impatient, selfish."

"Yes, if it is selfish to defend one's self against brutal selfishness, I am selfish; and that is better than to be a slave to egotists, and lie down to be trodden on as you would do. Come, Mary, for pity's sake, decide which you love best—your father, who does not care much for you, or me, who adore you, and will give you a life of gratitude as well as love, if you will only see things as they are and always will be, and trust yourself to me as my dear, dear, blessed, adored wife!"

"I love you best," said Mary, "and I hope it is not wicked. But I love him too, though he does say 'wait.' And I respect myself, and I dare not defy my parent, and I will not marry secretly; that is degrading. And, oh, Walter, think how young I am and inexperienced, and you that are so much older, and I hoped would be my guide and make me better; is it you who tempt me to clandestine meetings that I blush for, and a clandestine marriage for which I should despise myself?"

Walter turned suddenly calm, for these words pricked his conscience.

"You are right," said he. "I am a blackguard, and you are an angel of purity and goodness. Forgive me, I will never tempt nor torment you again. For pity's sake forgive me. You don't know what men's passions are. Forgive me!"

"With all my heart, dear," said Mary, crying gently.

He put both arms suddenly round her neck and kissed her wet eyes with a sigh of despair. Then he seemed to tear himself away by a great effort, and she leaned limp and powerless on the gate, and heard his footsteps die away into the night. They struck chill upon her foreboding heart, for she felt that they were parted.



CHAPTER X.

THE GORDIAN KNOT.

Walter, however, would not despair until he had laid the alternative before his father. He did so, firmly but coolly.

His father, irritated by the scene with Bartley, treated Walter's proposal with indignant scorn.

Walter continued to keep his temper, and with some reluctance asked him whether he owed nothing, not even a sacrifice of his prejudices, to a son who had never disobeyed him, and had improved his circumstances.

"Come, sir," said he; "when the happiness of my life is at stake I venture to lay aside delicacy, and ask you whether I have not been a good son, and a serviceable one to you?"

"Yes, Walter," said the Colonel, "with this exception."

"Then now or never give me my reward."

"I'll try," said the grim Colonel; "but I see it will be hard work. However, I'll try and save you from a mesalliance."

"A mesalliance, sir? Why, she is a Clifford."

"The deuce she is!"

"As much a Clifford as I am."

"That is news to me."

"Why, one of her parents was a Clifford, and your own sister. And one of mine was an Irish woman."

"Yes; an O'Ryan; not a trader; not a small-coal man."

"Like the Marquis of Londonderry, sir, and the Earl of Durham. Come, father, don't sacrifice your son, and his happiness and his love for you, to notions the world has outlived. Commerce does not lower a gentleman, nor speculation either, in these days. The nobility and the leading gentry of these islands are most of them in business. They are all shareholders, and often directors of railways, and just as much traders as the old coach proprietors were. They let their land, and so do you, to the highest bidder, not for honor or any romantic sentiment, but for money, and that is trade. Mr. Bartley is his own farmer; well, so was Mr. Coke, of Norfolk, and the Queen made him a peer for it—what a sensible sovereign! Are Rothschild and Montefiore shunned for their speculations by the nobility? Whom do their daughters marry? Trade rules the world, and keeps it from stagnation. Genius writes, or paints, or plays Hamlet—for money; and is respected in exact proportion to the amount of money it gets. Charity holds bazars, and sells at one hundred per cent. profit, and nearly every new church is a trade speculation. Is my happiness and hers to be sacrificed to the chimeras and crotchets that everybody in England but you has outlived?"

"All this," replied the unflinching sire, "I have read in the papers, and my son shall not marry the daughter of a trader and cad who has insulted me grossly; but that, I presume, you don't object to."

This stung Walter so that he feared to continue the discussion.

"I will not reply," said he. "You drive me to despair. I leave you to reflect. Perhaps you will prize me when you see me no more."

With this he left the room, packed up his clothes, went to the nearest railway, off to London, collected his funds, crossed the water, and did not write one word to Clifford Hall, except a line to Julia. "Left England heart-broken, the victim of two egotists and my sweet Mary's weak conscientiousness. God forgive me, I am angry even with her, but I don't doubt her love."

This missive and the general consternation at Clifford Hall brought Julia full gallop to Mary Bartley.

They read the letter together, and Julia was furious against Colonel Clifford. But Mary interposed.

"I am afraid," said she, "that I am the person who was most to blame."

"Why, what have you done?"

"He said our case was desperate, and waiting would not alter it; and he should leave the country unless—"

"Unless what? How can I advise you if you have any concealments from me?"

"Well, then, it was unless I would consent to a clandestine marriage."

"And you refused—very properly."

"And I refused—very properly one would think—and what is the consequence? I have driven the man I love away from his friends, as well as from me, and now I begin to be very sorry for my properness."

"But you don't blush for it as you would for the other. The idea! To be married on the sly and to have to hide it from everybody, and to be found out at last, or else be suspected of worse things."

"What worse things?"

"Never you mind, child; your womanly instinct is better than knowledge or experience, and it has guided you straight. If you had consented, I should have lost my respect for you."

And then, as the small view of a thing is apt to enter the female head along with the big view, she went on, with great animation:

"And then for a young lady to sneak into a church without her friends, with no carriages, no favors, no wedding cake, no bishop, no proper dress, not even a bridal veil fit to be seen! Why, it ought to be the great show of a girl's life, and she ought to be a public queen, at all events for that one day, for ten to one she will be a slave all the rest of her life if she loves the fellow."

She paused for breath one moment.

"And it isn't as if you were low people. Why, it reminds me of a thing I read in some novel: a city clerk, or some such person, took a walk with his sweetheart into the country, and all of a sudden he said, 'Why, there is something hard in my pocket. What is it, I wonder? A plain gold ring. Does it fit you? Try it on, Polly. Why, it fits you, I declare; then keep it till further orders.' Then they walked a little further. 'Why, what is this? Two pairs of white gloves. Try the little pair on, and I will try the big ones. Stop! I declare here's a church, and the bells beginning to ring. Why, who told them that I've got a special license in my pocket? Hallo! there are two fellows hanging about; best men, witnesses, or some such persons, I should not wonder. I think I know one of them; and here is a parson coming over a stile! What an opportunity for us now just to run in and get married! Come on, old girl, lend me that wedding ring a minute, I'll give it you back again in the church.' No, thank you, Mr. Walter; we love you very dearly, but we are ladies, and we respect ourselves."

In short, Julia confirmed Mary Bartley in her resolution, but she could not console her under the consequences. Walter did not write a line even to her; she couldn't but fear that he was really in despair, and would cure himself of his affection if he could. She began to pine; the roses faded gradually out of her cheeks, and Mr. Bartley himself began at last to pity her, for though he did not love her, he liked her, and was proud of her affection. Another thing, Hope might come home now any day, and if he found the girl sick and pining, he might say this is a breach of contract.

He asked Mary one day whether she wouldn't like a change. "I could take you to the sea-side," said he, but not very cordially.

"No, papa," said Mary; "why should you leave your mine when everything is going so prosperously? I think I should like to go to the lakes, and pay my old nurse a visit."

"And she would talk to you of Walter Clifford?"

"Yes, papa," said Mary, firmly, "she would; and that's the only thing that can do me any good."

"Well, Mary," said Bartley, "if she could be content with praising him, and regretting the insuperable obstacles, and if she would encourage you to be patient—There, let me think of it."

Things went hard with Colonel Clifford. He felt his son's desertion very bitterly, though he was too proud to show it; he now found out that universally as he was respected, it was Walter who was the most beloved both in the house and in the neighborhood.

One day he heard a multitude shouting, and soon learned the reason. Bartley had struck a rich vein of coal, and tons were coming up to the surface. Colonel Clifford would not go near the place, but he sent old Baker to inquire, and Baker from that day used to bring him back a number of details, some of them especially galling to him. By degrees, and rapid ones, Bartley was becoming a rival magnate; the poor came to him for the slack, or very small coal, and took it away gratis; they flattered him, and to please him, spoke slightingly of Colonel Clifford, which they had never ventured to do before. But soon a circumstance occurred which mortified the old soldier more than all. He was sole proprietor of the village, and every house in it, with the exception of a certain beer-house, flanked by an acre and a half of ground. This beer-house was a great eye-sore to him; he tried to buy this small freeholder out; but the man saw his advantage, and demanded L1500—nearly treble the real value. Walter, however, by negotiating in a more friendly spirit, had obtained a reduction, and was about to complete the purchase for L1150. But when Walter left the country the proprietor never dreamed of going again to the haughty Colonel. He went to Bartley, and Bartley bought the property in five minutes for L1200, and paid a deposit to clinch the contract. He completed the purchase with unheard-of rapidity, and set an army of workmen to raise a pit village, or street of eighty houses. They were ten times better built than the Colonel's cottages; not one of them could ever be vacant, they were too great a boon to the miners; nor could the rent be in arrears, with so sharp a hand as the mine-owner; the beer-house was to be perpetuated, and a nucleus of custom secured from the miners, partly by the truck system, and partly by the superiority of the liquor, for Bartley announced at once that he should brew the beer.

All these things were too much for a man with gout in his system; Colonel Clifford had a worse attack of that complaint than ever; it rose from his feet to other parts of his frame, and he took to his bed.

In that condition a physician and surgeon visited him daily, and his lawyer also was sent for, and was closeted with him for a long time on more than one occasion.

All this caused a deal of speculation in the village, and as a system of fetch and carry was now established by which the rival magnates also received plenty of information, though not always accurate, about each other, Mr. Bartley heard what was going on, and put his own construction upon it.

* * * * *

Just when Mr. Hope was expected to return came a letter to Mary to say that he should be detained a day or two longer, as he had a sore throat and fever, but nothing alarming. Three or four days later came a letter only signed by him, to say he had a slight attack of typhoid fever, and was under medical care.

Mary implored Mr. Bartley to let her go to him. He refused, and gave his reasons, which were really sufficient, and now he became more unwilling than ever to let her visit Mrs. Easton.

This was the condition of affairs when one day an old man with white hair, dressed in black, and looking almost a gentleman, was driven up to the farm by Colonel Clifford's groom, and asked, in an agitated voice, if he might see Miss Mary Bartley.

Her visitors were so few that she was never refused on speculation, so John Baker was shown at once into her drawing-room. He was too much agitated to waste time.

"Oh, Miss Bartley," said he, "we are in great distress at the Hall. Mr. Walter has gone, and not left his address, and my poor master is dying!"

Mary uttered an unfeigned exclamation of horror.

"Ah, miss," said the old man, "God bless you; you feel for us, I'm not on the old man's side, miss; I'm on Mr. Walter's side in this as I was in the other business, but now I see my poor old master lying pale and still, not long for this world, I do begin to blame myself. I never thought that he would have taken it all to heart like this. But, there, the only thing now is to bring them together before he goes. We don't know his address, miss; we don't know what country he is in. He sent a line to Miss Clifford a month ago from Dover, but that is all; but, in course, he writes to you—that stands to reason; you'll give me his address, miss, won't you? and we shall all bless you."

Mary turned pale, and the tears streamed down her eyes. "Oh, sir," said she, "I'd give the world if I could tell you. I know who you are; my poor Walter has often spoken of you to me, Mr. Baker. One word from you would have been enough; I would have done anything for you that I could. But he has never written to me at all. I am as much deserted as any of you, and I have felt it as deeply as any father can, but never have I felt it as now. What! The father to die, and his son's hand not in his; no looks of love and forgiveness to pass between them as the poor old man leaves this world, its ambitions and its quarrels, and perhaps sees for the first time how small they all are compared with the love of those that love us, and the peace of God!" Then this ardent girl stretched out both her hands. "O God, if my frivolous life has been innocent, don't let me be the cause of this horrible thing; don't let the father die without comfort, nor the son without forgiveness, for a miserable girl who has come between them and meant no harm!"

This eloquent burst quite overpowered poor old John Baker. He dropped into a chair, his white head sunk upon his bosom, he sobbed and trembled, and for the first time showed his age.

"What on earth is the matter?" said Mr. Bartley's voice, as cold as an icicle, at the door. Mary sprang toward him impetuously. "Oh, papa!" she cried, "Colonel Clifford is dying, and we don't know where Walter is; we can't know."

"Wait a little," said Bartley, in some agitation. "My letters have just come in, and I thought I saw a foreign postmark." He slipped back into the hall, brought in several letters, selected one, and gave it to Mary, "This is for you, from Marseilles."

He then retired to his study, and without the least agitation or the least loss of time returned with a book of telegraph forms.

Meanwhile Mary tore the letter open, and read it eagerly to John Baker.

"GRAND HOTEL, NOAILLES, MARSEILLES, May 16.

"MY OWN DEAR LOVE,—I have vowed that I will not write again to tempt you to anything you think wrong; but it looks like quarrelling to hide my address from you. Only I do beg of you, as the only kindness you can do me now, never to let it be known by any living creature at Clifford Hall.