"Yours till death, WALTER."

Mr. Bartley entered with the telegraph forms, and said to Mary, sharply, "Where is he?" Mary told him. "Well, write him a telegram. It shall be at the railway in half an hour, at Marseilles theoretically in one hour, practically in four."

Mary sat down and wrote her telegram: "Pray come to Clifford Hall. Your father is dangerously ill."

"Show it to me," said Bartley. And on perusing it: "A woman's telegram. Don't frighten him too much; leave him the option to come or stay."

He tore it up, and said, "Now write a business telegram, and make sure of the thing you want."

"Come home directly—your father is dying."

Old Baker started up. "God bless you, sir," says he, "and God bless you, miss, and make you happy one day. I'll take it myself, as my trap is at the door." He bustled out, and his carriage drove away at a great rate.

Mr. Bartley went quietly to his study to business without another word, and Mary leaned back a little exhausted by the scene, but a smile almost of happiness came and tarried on her sweet face for the first time these many days; as for old John Baker, he told his tale triumphantly at the Hall, and not without vanity, for he was proud of his good judgment in going to Mary Bartley.

To the old housekeeper, a most superior woman of his own age, and almost a lady, he said something rather remarkable which he was careful not to bestow on the young wags in the servants' hall: "Mrs. Milton," says he, "I am an old man, and have knocked about at home and abroad, and seen a deal of life, but I've seen something to-day that I never saw before."

"Ay, John, surely; and what ever was that?"

"I've seen an angel pray to God, and I have seen God answer her."

From that day Mary had two stout partisans in Clifford Hall.

* * * * *

Mr. Bartley's views about Mary now began to waver. It occurred to him that should Colonel Clifford die and Walter inherit his estates, he could easily come to terms with the young man so passionately devoted to his daughter. He had only to say: "I can make no allowance at present, but I'll settle my whole fortune upon Mary and her children after my death, if you'll make a moderate settlement at present," and Walter would certainly fall into this, and not demand accounts from Mary's trustee. So now he would have positively encouraged Mary in her attachment, but one thing held him back a little: he had learned by accident that the last entail of Clifford Hall and the dependent estates dated two generations back, so that the entail expired with Colonel Clifford, and this had enabled the Colonel to sell some of the estates, and clearly gave him power now to leave Clifford Hall away from his son. Now the people who had begun to fetch and carry tales between the two magnates told him of the lawyer's recent visits to Clifford Hall, and he had some misgivings that the Colonel had sent for the lawyer to alter his will and disinherit, in whole or in part, his absent and rebellious son. All this taken together made Mr. Bartley resolve to be kinder to Mary in her love affair than he ever had been, but still to be guarded and cautious.

"Mary, my dear," said he, "I am sure you'll be on thorns till this young man comes home; perhaps now would be a good time to pay your visit to Mrs. Easton."

"Oh, papa, how good of you! but it's twenty miles, I believe, to where she is staying at the lakes."

"No, no," said Mr. Bartley; "she's staying with her sister Gilbert; quite within a drive."

"Are you sure, papa?"

"Quite sure, my dear; she wrote to me yesterday about her little pension; the quarter is just due."

"What! do you allow her a pension?"

"Certainly, my dear, or rather I pay her little stipend as before: how surprised you look, Mary! Why, I'm not like that old Colonel, intolerant of other people's views, when they advance them civilly. That woman helped me to save your life in a very great danger, and for many years she has been as careful as a mother, and we are not, so to say, at daggers drawn about Walter Clifford. Why, I only demand a little prudence and patience both from you and from her. Now tell me. Is there proper accommodation for you in Mrs. Gilbert's house?"

"Oh yes, papa; it is a farm-house now, but it was a grand place. There's a beautiful spare room with an oriel-window."

"Well, then, you secure that, and write to-day to have a blazing fire, and the bed properly aired as well as the sheets, and you shall go to-morrow in the four-wheel; and you can take her her little stipend in a letter."

This sudden kindness and provision for her health and happiness filled Mary's heart to overflowing, and her gratitude gushed forth upon Mr. Bartley's neck. The old fox blandly absorbed it, and took the opportunity to say, "Of course it is understood that matters are to go no further between you and Walter Clifford. Oh, I don't mean that you're to make him unhappy, or drive him to despair; only insist upon his being patient like yourself. Everything comes sooner or later to those that can wait."

"Oh, papa," cried Mary, "you've said more to comfort me than Mrs. Easton or anybody can; but I feel the change will do me good. I am, oh, so grateful!"

So Mary wrote her letter, and went to Mrs. Easton next day. After the usual embraces, she gave Mrs. Easton the letter, and was duly installed in the state bedroom. She wrote to Julia Clifford to say where she was, and that was her way of letting Walter Clifford know.

Walter himself arrived at Clifford Hall next day, worn, anxious, and remorseful, and was shown at once to his father's bedside. The Colonel gave him a wasted hand, and said:

"Dear boy, I thought you'd come. We've had our last quarrel, Walter."

Walter burst into tears over his father's hand, and nothing was said between them about their temporary estrangement.

The first thing Walter did was to get two professional nurses from Derby, and secure his father constant attention night and day, and, above all, nourishment at all hours of the night when the patient would take it. On the afternoon after his arrival the Colonel fell into a sound sleep. Then Walter ordered his horse, and in less than an hour was at Mrs. Gilbert's place.



CHAPTER XI.

THE KNOT CUT.—ANOTHER TIED.

The farm-house the Gilberts occupied had been a family mansion of great antiquity with a moat around it. It was held during the civil war by a stout royalist, who armed and garrisoned it after a fashion with his own servants. This had a different effect to what he intended. It drew the attention of one of Cromwell's generals, and he dispatched a party with cannon and petards to reduce the place, whilst he marched on to join Cromwell in enterprises of more importance. The detachment of Roundheads summoned the place. The royalist, to show his respect for their authority, made his kitchen wench squeak a defiance from an upper window, from which she bolted with great rapidity as soon as she had thus represented the valor of the establishment, and when next seen it was in the cellar, wedged in between two barrels of beer. The men went at it hammer and tongs, and in twenty-four hours a good many cannon-balls traversed the building, a great many stuck in the walls like plums in a Christmas pudding, the doors were blown in with petards, and the principal defenders, with a few wounded Roundheads, were carried off to Cromwell himself; whilst the house itself was fired, and blazed away merrily.

Cromwell threatened the royalist gentleman with death for defending an untenable place.

"I didn't know it was untenable," said the gentleman. "How could I till I had tried?"

"You had the fate of fortified places to instruct you," said Cromwell, and he promised faithfully to hang him on his own ruins.

The gentleman turned pale and his lips quivered, but he said, "Well, Mr. Cromwell, I've fought for my royal master according to my lights, and I can die for him."

"You shall, sir," said Mr. Cromwell.

About next morning Mr. Cromwell, who had often a cool fit after a hot one, and was a very big man, take him altogether, gave a different order. "The fool thought he was doing his duty; turn him loose."

The fool in question was so proud of his battered house that he left it standing there, bullets and all, and built him a house elsewhere.

King Charles the Second had not landed a month before he made him a baronet, and one tenant after another occupied a portion of the old mansion. Two state-rooms were roofed and furnished with the relics of the entire mansion, and these two rooms the present baronet's surveyor occupied at rare intervals when he was inspecting the large properties connected with the baronet's estate.

Mary Bartley now occupied these two rooms, connected by folding-doors, and she sat pensive in the oriel-window of her bedroom. Young ladies cling to their bedrooms, especially when they are pretty and airy. Suddenly she heard a scurry and patter of a horse's hoof, reined up at the side of the house. She darted from the window and stood panting in the middle of the room. The next minute Mrs. Easton entered the sitting-room all in a flutter, and beckoned her. Mary flew to her.

"He is here."

"I thought he would be."

"Will you meet him down-stairs?"

"No, here."

Mrs. Easton acquiesced, rapidly closed the folding-doors, and went out, saying, "Try and calm yourself, Miss Mary."

Miss Mary tried to obey her, but Walter rushed in impetuously, pale, worn, agitated, yet enraptured at the first sight of her, and Mary threw herself round his neck in a moment, and he clasped her fluttering bosom to his beating heart, and this was the natural result of the restraint they had put upon a passionate affection: for what says the dramatist Destouches, improving upon Horace, so that in England his immortal line is given to Moliere. "Chassez le naturel, il revient au galop."

The next thing was, they held each other at arm's-length, and mourned over each other.

"Oh, my poor Mary, how ill you look!"

"Oh, my poor Walter, how pale and worn!"

"It's all my fault," said Mary.

"No; it's all mine," said Walter.

And so they blamed themselves, and grieved over each other, and vowed that come what might they would never part again. But, lo and behold! Walter went on from that to say:

"And that we may never part again let us marry at once, and put our happiness out of the reach of accidents."

"What!" said Mary. "Defy your father upon his dying bed."

"Oh no," said Walter, "that I could not do. I mean marry secretly, and announce it after his decease, if I am to lose him."

"And why not wait till after his decease?" said Mary.

"Because, then, the laws of society would compel us to wait six months, and in that six months some infernal obstacle or other would be sure to occur, and another would be sure to follow. I am a great deal older than you, and I see that whoever procrastinates happiness, risks it; and whoever shilly-shallies with it deserves to lose it, and generally does."

Where young ladies are concerned, logic does not carry all before it, and so Mary opposed all manner of feminine sentiments, and ended by saying she could not do such a thing.

Then Walter began to be mortified and angry; then she cunningly shifted the responsibility, and said she would consult Mrs. Easton.

"Then consult her in my presence," said Walter.

Mary had not bargained for that; she had intended to secure Mrs. Easton on her side, and then take her opinion. However, as Walter's proposal was fair, she called Mrs. Easton, and they put the case to her, and asked her to give her candid opinion.

Mrs. Easton, however, took alarm at the gravity of the proposal, and told them both she knew things that were unknown to both of them, and it was not so easy for her to advise.

"Well, but," said Walter, "if you know more than we do, you are the very person that can advise. All I know is that if we are not married now, I shall have to wait six months at least, and if I stay here Mr. Bartley and I shall quarrel, and he will refuse me Mary; and if I go abroad again I shall get knocked on the head, or else Mary will pine away again, and Bartley will send her to Madeira, and we shall lose our happiness, as all shilly-shallying fools do."

Mrs. Easton made no reply to this, though she listened attentively to it. She walked to the window and thought quietly to herself; then she came back again and sat down, and after a pause she said, very gravely, "Knowing all I know, and seeing all I see, I advise you two to marry at once by special license, and keep it secret from every one who knows you—but myself—till a proper time comes to reveal it; and it's borne in upon me that that time will come before long, even if Colonel Clifford should not die this bout, which everybody says he will."

"Oh, nurse," said Mary, faintly, "I little thought that you'd be against me."

"Against you, Miss Mary!" said Mrs. Eastern, with much feeling. "I admire Mr. Walter very much, as any woman must with eyes in her head, and I love him for loving of you so truly, and like a man, for it does not become a man to shilly-shally, but I never saw him till he was a man, but you are the child I nursed, and prayed over, and trembled for in sickness, and rejoiced over in health, and left a good master because I saw he did not love you so well as I did."

These words went to Mary's heart, and she flew to her nurse, and hung weeping round her neck. Her tears made the manly but tender-hearted Walter give a sort of gulp. Mary heard it, and put her white hand out to him. He threw himself upon his knees, and kissed it devotedly, and the coy girl was won.

From this hour Walter gave her no breathing-time; he easily talked over old Baker, and got him to excuse his short absence; he turned his hunters into roadsters, and rode them very hard; he got the special license; he squared a clergyman at the head of the lake, who was an old friend of his and fond of fees, and in three days after her consent, Mary and Mrs. Easton drove a four-wheeled carriage Walter had lent them to the little hotel at the lakes. Walter had galloped over at eleven o'clock, and they all three took a little walk together. Walter Clifford and Mary Bartley returned from that walk MAN AND WIFE.



CHAPTER XII.

THE CLANDESTINE MARRIAGE.

Walter Clifford and Mary sat at a late breakfast in a little inn that looked upon a lake, which appeared to them more lovely than the lake of Thun or of Lucerne. He beamed steadily at her with triumphant rapture; she stole looks at him of wonder, admiration, and the deepest love.

As they had nothing now to argue about, they only spoke a few words at a time, but these were all musical with love.

To them, as we dramatists say, entered Mrs. Easton, with signs of hurry.

"Miss Mary—" said she.

"Mrs. Mary," suggested Walter, meekly.

Mrs. Mary blew him a kiss.

"Ay, ay," said Mrs. Easton, smiling. "Of course you will both hate me, but I have come to take you home, Mistress Mary."

"Home!" said Mary; "why, this feels like home."

"No doubt," said Mrs. Easton, "but, for all that, in half an hour we must start."

The married couple remonstrated with one accord, but Mrs. Easton was firm. "I dreamed," said she, "that we were all found out—and that's a warning. Mr. Walter, you know that you'll be missed at Clifford Hall, and didn't ought to leave your father another day. And you, Miss Mary, do but think what a weight I have taken upon my shoulders, and don't put off coming home, for I am almost shaking with anxiety, and for sure and certain my dream it was a warning, and there's something in the wind."

They were both so indebted to this good woman that they looked at each other piteously, but agreed. Walter rang the bell, and ordered the four-wheeler and his own nag.

"Mary, one little walk in that sweet garden."

"Yes, dear," said Mary, and in another moment they were walking in the garden, intertwined like the ivy and the oak, and purring over their present delights and glowing prospects.

In the mean time Mrs. Easton packed up their things: Walter's were enrolled in a light rug with straps, which went upon his saddle. They left the little inn, Mary driving. When they had gone about two miles they came to cross-roads.

"Please pull up," said Mrs. Easton; then turning to Walter, who was riding ridiculously close to Mary's whip hand, "Isn't that the way to Clifford Hall?"

"It's one way," said he; "but I don't mean to go that way. How can I? It's only three miles more round by your house."

"Nurse," said Mary, appealingly.

"Ay, ay, poor things," said Mrs. Easton. "Well, well, don't loiter, anyway. I shall not be my own woman again till we're safe at the farm."

So they drove briskly on, and in about an hour more they got to a long hill, whence they could see the Gilberts' farm.

"There, nurse," said Mary, pouting a little, "now I hope you're content, for we have got safe home, and he and I shall not have a happy day together again."

"Oh yes, you will, and many happy years," said Mrs. Easton. "Well, yes, I don't feel so fidgety now."

"Oh!" cried Mary, all of a sudden. "Why, there's our gray mare coming down the hill with the dog-cart! Who's that driving her? It's not papa. I declare it's Mr. Hope, come home safe and sound. Dear Mr. Hope! Oh, now my happiness is perfect!"

"Mr. Hope!" screamed Mrs. Easton. "Drive faster, for Heaven's sake! Turn your horse, sir, and gallop away from us as hard as you can!"

"Well, but, Mrs. Easton—" objected Walter.

Mrs. Easton stood up in the carriage. "Man alive!" she screamed, "you know nothing, and I know a deal; begone, or you are no friend of mine: you'll make me curse the hour that I interfered."

"Go, darling," said Mary, kindly, and so decidedly that he turned his horse directly, gave her one look of love and disappointment, and galloped away.

Mary looked pale and angry, and drove on in sullen silence.

Mrs. Easton was too agitated to mind her angry looks. She kept wiping the perspiration from her brow with her handkerchief, and speaking in broken sentences: "If we could only get there first—fool not to teach my sister her lesson before we went, she's such a simpleton!—can't you drive faster?"

"Why, nurse," said Mary, "don't be so afraid of Mr. Hope. It's not him I'm afraid of; it's papa."

"Yon don't know what you're talking about, child. Mr. Bartley is easily blinded; I won't tell you why. It isn't so with Mr. Hope. Oh, if I could only get in to have one word with my simple sister before he turns her inside out!"

This question was soon decided. Hope drove up to the door whilst Mary and Mrs. Eastern were still some distance off and hidden by a turn in the road. When they emerged again into sight of the farm they just caught sight of Hope's back, and Mrs. Gilbert curtseying to him and ushering him into the house.

"Drive into the stable-yard," said Mrs. Easton, faintly. "He mustn't see your travelling basket, anyway."

She told the servant to put the horse into the stable immediately, and the basket into the brew-house. Then she hurried Mary up the back stairs to her room, and went with a beating heart to find Mr. Hope and her sister.

Mrs. Gilbert, though a simple and unguarded woman, could read faces like the rest, and she saw at once that her sister was very much put out by this visit of Mr. Hope, and wanted to know what had passed between her and him. This set the poor woman all in a flutter for fear she should have said something injudicious, and there-upon she prepared to find out, if possible, what she ought to have said.

"What! Mr. Hope!" said Mrs. Easton. "Well, Mary will be glad. And have you been long home, sir?"

"Came last night," said Hope. "She hasn't been well, I hear. What is the matter?" And he looked very anxious.

"Well, sir," said Mrs. Easton, very guardedly, "she certainly gave me a fright when she came here. She looked quite pale; but whether it was that she wanted a change—but whatever it was, it couldn't be very serious. You shall judge for yourself. Sister, go to Miss Mary's room, and tell her."

Mrs. Easton, in giving this instruction, frowned at her sister as much as to say, "Now don't speak, but go."

When she was gone, the next thing was to find out if the woman had made any foolish admission to Mr. Hope; so she waited for him.

She had not long to wait.

Hope said: "I hardly expected to see you; your sister said you were from home."

"Well, sir," said Mrs. Easton, "we were not so far off, but we did come home a little sooner than we intended, and I am rare glad we did, for Miss Mary wouldn't have missed you for all the views in the county."

With that she made an excuse, and left him. She found her sister in Mary's room: they were comparing notes.

"Now," said she to Mrs. Gilbert, "you tell me every word you said to Mr. Hope about Miss Mary and me."

"Well, I said you were not at home, and that is every word; he didn't give me time to say any more for questioning of me about her health."

"That's lucky," said Mrs. Easton, dryly. "Thank Heaven, there's no harm done; he sha'n't see the carriage."

"Dear me, nurse," said Mary, "all this time I'm longing to see him."

"Well, you shall see him, if you won't own to having been a night from home."

Mary promised, and went eagerly to Mr. Hope. It did not come natural to her to be afraid of him, and she was impatient for the day to come when she might tell him the whole story. The reception he gave her was not of a nature to discourage this feeling; his pale face—for he had been very ill—flushed at sight of her, his eyes poured affection upon her, and he held out both hands to her. "This the pale girl they frightened me about!" said he. "Why, you're like the roses in July."

"That's partly with seeing of you, sir," said Mrs. Easton, quietly following, "but we do take some credit to ourselves too; for Miss Mary was rather pale when she came here a week ago; but la, young folks want a change now and then."

"Nurse," said Mary, "I really was not well, and you have done wonders for me, and I hope you won't think me ungrateful, but I must go home with Mr. Hope."

Hope's countenance flushed with delight, and Mrs. Easton saw in a moment that Mary's affection was co-operating with her prudence. "I thought that would be her first word, sir," said she. "Why, of course you will, miss. There, don't you take any trouble; we'll pack up your things and put them in the dog-cart; but you must eat a morsel both of you before you go. There's a beautiful piece of beef in the pot, not oversalted, and some mealy potatoes and suet dumplings. You sit down and have your chat, whilst Polly and I get everything ready for you."

Then Mary asked Mr. Hope so many questions with such eager affection that he had no time to ask her any, and then she volunteered the home news, especially of Colonel Clifford's condition, and then she blushed and asked him if he had said anything to her father about Walter Clifford.

"Not much," said Mr. Hope. "You are very young, Mary, and it's not for me to interfere, and I won't interfere. But if you want my opinion, why, I admire the young man extremely. I always liked him; he is a straightforward, upright, manly, good-hearted chap, and has lots of plain good sense—Heaven knows where he got it!"

This eulogy was interrupted by Mary putting a white hand and a perfect nose upon Hope's shoulder, and kissing the cloth thereon.

"What," said Hope, tenderly, and yet half sadly—for he knew that all middle-aged men must now be second—"have I found the way to your heart?"

"You always knew that, Mr. Hope," said Mary, softly; "especially since my escapade in that horrid brook."

Their affectionate chat was interrupted by a stout servant laying a snowy cloth, and after her sailed in Mrs. Gilbert, with a red face, and pride unconcealed and justifiable, carrying a grand dish of smoking hot boiled beef, set in a very flower bed, so to speak, of carrots, turnips, and suet dumplings; the servant followed with a brown basin, almost as big as a ewer, filled with mealy potatoes, whose jackets hung by a thread. Around this feast the whole party soon collected, and none of them sighed for Russian soups or French ragouts; for the fact is that under the title of boiled beef there exist two things, one of which, without any great impropriety, might be called junk; but this was the powdered beef of our ancestors, a huge piece just slightly salted in the house itself, so that the generous juice remained in it, but the piquant slices, with the mealy potatoes, made a delightful combination. The glasses were filled with home-brewed ale, sparkling and clear and golden as the finest Madeira. They all ate manfully, stimulated by the genial hostess. Even Mary outshone all her former efforts, and although she couldn't satisfy Mrs. Gilbert, she declared she had never eaten so much in all her life. This set good Mrs. Gilbert's cheeks all aglow with simple, honest satisfaction.

Hope drove Mary home in the dog-cart. He was a happy man, but she could hardly be called a happy woman. She was warm and cold by turns. She had got her friend back, and that was a comfort, but she was not treating him with confidence; indeed, she was passively deceiving him, and that chilled her; but then it would not be for long, and that comforted her, and yet even when the day should come for the great doors of Clifford Hall to fly open to her, would not a sad, reproachful look from dear Mr. Hope somewhat imbitter her cup of happiness? Deceit, and even reticence, did not come so natural to her as they do to many women: she was not weak, and she was frank, though very modest.

Mr. Bartley met them at the door, and, owing to Hope's presence, was more demonstrative than usual. He seemed much pleased at Mary's return, and delighted at her appearance.

"Well," said he, "I am glad I sent you away for a week. We have all missed you, my dear, but the change has set you up again, I never saw you look better. Now you are well, we must try and keep you well."

* * * * *

We must leave the reader to imagine the mixed feelings with which Mrs. Walter Clifford laid her head upon the pillow that night, and we undertake to say that the female readers, at all events, will supply this blank in our narrative much better than we could, though we were to fill a chapter with that subject alone.

* * * * *

Passion is a terrible enemy to mere affection. Walter Clifford loved his father dearly, yet for twenty-four hours he had almost forgotten him. But the moment he turned his horse's head toward Clifford Hall, uneasiness and something very like remorse began to seize him. Suppose his father had asked for him, and wondered where he was, and felt himself deserted and abandoned in his dying moments. He spurred his horse to a gallop, and soon reached Clifford Hall. As he was afraid to go straight to his father's room, he went at once to old Baker, and said, in an agitated voice,

"One word, John—is he alive?"

"Yes, sir, he is," said John, gravely, and rather sternly.

"Has he asked for me?"

"More than once or twice, sir."

Walter sank into a chair, and covered his face with his hands. This softened the old servant, whose manner till then had been sullen and grim.

"You need not fret, Mr. Walter," said he; "it's all right. In course I know where you have been."

Walter looked up alarmed.

"I mean in a general way," said the old man. "You have been a-courting of an angel. I know her, sir, and I hope to be her servant some day; and if you was to marry any but her, I'd leave service altogether, and so would Rhoda Milton; but, Mr. Walter, sir, there's a time for everything: I hope you'll forgive me for saying so. However you are here now, and I was wide-awake, and I have made it all right, sir."

"That's impossible," said Walter. "How could you make it right with my poor dear father, if in his last moments he felt himself neglected?"

"But he didn't feel himself neglected."

"I don't understand you," said Walter.

"Well, sir," said old Baker, "I'm an old servant, and I have done my duty to father and son according to my lights: I told him a lie."

"A lie, John!" said Walter.

"A thundering lie," said John, rather aggressively. "I don't know as I ever told a greater lie in all my life. I told him you was gone up to London to fetch a doctor."

Walter grasped John Baker's hand. "God bless you, old man," said he, "for taking that on your conscience! Well, you sha'n't have yourself to reproach for my fault. I know a first-class gout doctor in London; he has cured it more than once. I'll wire him down this minute; you'll dispatch the message, and I'll go to my father."

The message was sent, and when the Colonel awoke from an uneasy slumber he saw his son at the foot of the bed, gazing piteously at him.

"My dear boy," said he, faintly, and held out a wasted hand. Walter was pricked to the heart at this greeting: not a word of remonstrance at his absence.

"I fear you missed me, father," said he, sadly.

"That I have," said the old man; "but I dare say you didn't forget me, though you weren't by my side."

The high-minded old soldier said no more, and put no questions, but confided in his son's affection, and awaited the result of it. From that hour Walter Clifford nursed his father day and night. Dr. Garner arrived next day. He examined the patient, and put a great many questions as to the history and progress of the disorder up to that date, and inquired in particular what was the length of time the fits generally endured. Here he found them all rather hazy. "Ah," said he, "patients are seldom able to assist their medical adviser with precise information on this point, yet it's very important. Well, can you tell me how long this attack has lasted?"

They told him that within a day or two.

"Then now," said he, "the most important question of all: What day did the pain leave his extremities?"

The patient and John Baker had to compare notes to answer this question, and they made it out to be about twenty days.

"Then he ought to be as dead as a herring," whispered the doctor.

After this he began to walk the room and meditate, with his hands behind him.

"Open those top windows," said he. "Now draw the screen, and give his lungs a chance; no draughts must blow upon him, you know." Then he drew Walter aside. "Do you want to know the truth? Well, then, his life hangs on a thread. The gout is creeping upward, and will inevitably kill him if we can't get it down. Nothing but heroic remedies will do that, and it's three to five against them. What do you say?"

"I dare not—I dare not. Pray put the question to him."

"I will," said the doctor; and accordingly he did put it to him with a good deal of feeling and gentleness, and the answer rather surprised him.

Weak as he was, Colonel Clifford's dull eye flashed, and he half raised himself on his elbow. "What a question to put to a soldier!" said he. "Why, let us fight, to be sure. I thought it was twenty to one—five to three? I have often won the rubber with five to three against me."

"Ah!" said Dr. Garner, "these are the patients that give the doctor a chance." Then he turned to Baker. "Have you any good champagne in the house—not sweet, and not too dry, and full of fire?"

"Irroy's Carte d'Or," suggested the patient, entering into the business with a certain feeble alacrity that showed his gout had not always been unconnected with imprudence in diet.

Baker was sent for the champagne. It was brought and opened, and the patient drank some of it fizzing. When he had drank what he could, his eyes twinkled, and he said,

"That's a hair of a dog that has often bitten me."

The wine soon got into his weakened head, and he dropped asleep.

"Another draught when he wakes," said the doctor, "but from a fresh bottle."

"We'll finish this one to your health in the servants' hall," said honest John Baker.

Dr. Garner staid there all night, keeping up the patient's strength with eggs and brandy, and everything, in short, except medicine; and he also administered champagne, but at much longer intervals.

At one o'clock next day the patient gave a dismal groan; Walter and the others started up in alarm.

"Good!" said the doctor, calmly; "now I'll go to bed. Call me if there's any fresh symptom."

At six o'clock old Baker burst in the room: "Sir, sir, he have swore at me twice. The Lord be praised!"

"Excellent!" said the doctor. "Now tell me what disagrees with him most after champagne?"

"Why, Green Chartreuse, to be sure," said old Baker.

"Then give him a table-spoonful," said the doctor. "Get me some hot water."

"Which first?" inquired Baker.

"The patient, to be sure," said Dr. Garner.

Soon after this the doctor stood by his patient's side, and found him writhing, and, to tell the truth, he was using bad language occasionally, though he evidently tried not to.

Dr. Garner looked at his watch. "I think there's time to catch the evening train."

"Why," said Walter, "surely you would not desert us; this is the crisis, is it not?"

"It's something more than that," said the doctor; "the disease knows its old place; it has gone back to the foot like a shot; and if you can keep it there, the patient will live; he's not the sort of patient that strikes his colors while there's a bastion left to defend."

These words pleased the old Colonel so that he waved a feeble hand above his head, then groaned most dismally, and ground his teeth to avoid profanity.

The doctor, with exquisite gentleness, drew the clothes off his feet, and sent for a lot of fleecy cotton or wool, and warned them all not to touch the bed, nor even to approach the lower part of it, and then he once more proposed to leave, and gave his reasons.

"Now, look here, you know, I have done my part, and if I give special instructions to the nurses, they can do the rest. I'm rather dear, and why should you waste your money?"

"Dear!" said Walter, warmly; "you're as cheap as dirt, and as good as gold, and the very sight of you is a comfort to us. There's a fast train at ten; I'll drive you to the station after breakfast myself. Your fees—they are nothing to us. We love him, and we are the happiest house in Christendom; we, that were the saddest."

"Well," said the doctor, "you north countrymen are hearty people. I'll stay till to-morrow morning—indeed, I'll stay till the afternoon, for my London day will be lost anyway."

He staid accordingly till three o'clock, left his patient out of all present danger, and advised Walter especially against allowing colchicum to be administered to him until his strength had recovered.

"There is no medicinal cure for gout," said he; "pain is a mere symptom, and colchicum soothes that pain, not by affecting the disease, but by stilling the action of the heart. Well, if you still the action of that heart there, you'll kill him as surely as if you stilled it with a pistol bullet. Knock off his champagne in three or four days, and wheel him into the sun as soon as you can with safety, fill his lungs with oxygen, and keep all worry and disputes and mental anxiety from him, if you can. Don't contradict him for a month to come."

The Colonel had a terrible bout of it so far as pain was concerned, but after about a fortnight the paroxysms intermitted, the appetite increased. Everybody was his nurse; everybody, including Julia Clifford, humored him; Percy Fitzroy was never mentioned, and the name of Bartley religiously avoided. The Colonel had got a fright, and was more prudent in his diet, and always in the open air.

Walter left him only at odd times, when he could hope to get a hasty word with Mary, and tell her how things were going, and do all that man could do to keep her heart up, and reconcile her to the present situation.

Returning from his wife one day, and leaving her depressed by their galling situation, though she was never peevish, but very sad and thoughtful, he found his father and Julia Clifford in the library. Julia had been writing letters for him; she gave Walter a deprecatory look, as much as to say, "What I am doing is by compulsion, and you won't like it." Colonel Clifford didn't leave the young man in any doubt about the matter. He said: "Walter, you heard me speak of Bell, the counsel who leads this circuit. I was once so fortunate as to do him a good turn, and he has not forgotten it; he will sleep here the day after to-morrow, and he will go over that black-guard's lease: he has been in plenty of mining cases. I have got a sort of half opinion out of him already; he thinks it contrary to the equity of contracts that minerals should pass under a farm lease where the surface of the soil is a just equivalent to the yearly payment; but the old fox won't speak positively till he has read every syllable of the lease. However, it stands to reason that it's a fraud; it comes from a man who is all fraud; but thank God I am myself again."

He started up erect as a dart. "I'll have him off my lands; I'll drag him out of the bowels of the earth, him and all his clan."

With this and other threats of the same character he marched out of the room, striking the floor hard with his stick as he went, and left Julia Clifford amazed, and Walter Clifford aghast, at his vindictive fury.



CHAPTER XIII.

THE SERPENT LET LOOSE.

Walter Clifford was so distressed at this outburst, and the prospect of actual litigation between his father and his sweetheart's father, that Julia Clifford pitied him, and, after thinking a little, said she would stop it for the present. She then sat down, and in five minutes the docile pen of a female letter-writer produced an ingratiating composition impossible to resist. She apologized for her apparent insincerity, but would be candid, and confide the whole truth to Mr. Bell. Then she told him that Colonel Clifford "had only just been saved from death by a miracle, and a relapse was expected in case of any great excitement or irritation, such as a doubtful lawsuit with a gentleman he disliked would certainly cause. The proposed litigation was, for various reasons, most distressing to his son and successor, Walter Clifford, and would Mr. Bell be so very kind as to put the question off as long as possible by any means he thought proper?"

Walter was grateful, and said, "What a comfort to have a lady on one's side!"

"I would rather have a gentleman on mine," said Julia, laughing.

Mr. Bell wrote a discreet reply. He would wait till the Assizes—six weeks' delay—and then write to the Colonel, postponing his visit. This he did, and promised to look up cases meantime.

But these two allies not only baffled their irascible chief; they also humored him to the full. They never mentioned the name of Bartley, and they kept Percy Fitzroy out of sight in spite of his remonstrances, and, in a word, they made the Colonel's life so smooth that he thought he was going to have his own way in everything, and he improved in health and spirits; for you know it is an old saying, "Always get your own way, and you'll never die in a pet."

And then what was still a tottering situation was kept on its legs by the sweet character and gentle temper of Mary Bartley.

We have already mentioned that she was superior to most women in the habit of close attention to whatever she undertook. This was the real key to her facility in languages, history, music, drawing, and calisthenics, as her professor called female gymnastics. The flexible creature's limbs were in secret steel. She could go thirty feet up a slack rope hand over hand with wonderful ease and grace, and hang by one hand for ten minutes to kiss the other to her friends. So the very day she was surprised into consenting to marry Walter secretly she sat down to the Marriage Service and learned it all by heart directly, and understood most of it.

By this means she realized that now she had another man to obey as well as her father. So now, when Walter pressed her for secret meetings, she said, submissively, "Oh yes, if you insist." She even remarked that she concluded clandestine meetings were the natural consequence of a clandestine marriage.

She used to meet her husband in the day when she could, and often for five minutes under the moon. And she even promised to spend two or three days with him at the lakes if a safe opportunity should occur. But for that she stipulated that Mr. Hope must be absent.

Walter asked her why she was more afraid of Mr. Hope than of her father.

Her eyes seemed to look inward dimly, and at first she said she didn't know. But after pondering the matter a little she said, "Because he watches me more closely than papa, and that is because—You won't tell anybody?"

"No."

"Not a soul, upon your honor?"

"Not a soul, dearest, upon my honor."

"Well, then, because he loves me more."

"Oh, come!" said Walter, incredulously.

But Mary would neither resign her opinion nor pursue a subject which puzzled and grieved her.

We have now indicated the peaceful tenor of things in Derbyshire for a period of some months. We shall have to show by-and-by that elements of discord were accumulating under the surface; but at present we must leave Derbyshire, and deal very briefly with another tissue of events, beginning years ago, and running to a date three months, at least, ahead of Colonel Clifford's recovery. The reader will have no reason to regret this apparent interruption. Our tale hitherto has been rather sluggish; but it is in narrative as it is in nature, when two streams unite their forces the current becomes broader and stronger.

Leonard Monckton was sent to Pentonville, and after some years transferred to Portland. In both places he played the game of an old hand; always kept his temper and carnied everybody, especially the chaplain and the turnkeys. These last he treated as his only masters; and if they gave him short weight in bread or meat, catch him making matters worse by appealing to the governor! Toward the end of his time at Pentonville he had some thought of suicide, but his spirits revived at Portland, where he was cheered by the conversation of other villains. Their name was legion; but as he never met one of them again, except Ben Burnley, all those miscreants are happily irrelevant. And the reader need not fear an introduction to them, unless he should find himself garroted in some dark street or suburb, or his home rifled some dark and windy night. As for Ben Burnley, he was from the North country, imprisoned for conspiracy and manslaughter in an attack upon non-union miners. Toward the end of his time he made an attack upon a warder, and got five years more. Then Monckton showed him he was a fool, and explained to him his own plan of conduct, and bade him observe how popular he was with the warders, and reaped all the favor they dared to show him.

"He treated me like a dog," said the man, sullenly.

"I saw it," said Leonard. "And if I had been you I would have said nothing, but waited till my time was out, and then watched for him till he got his day out, and settled his hash. That is the way for your sort. As for me, killing is a poor revenge; it is too soon over. Do you think I don't mean to be revenged on that skunk Bartley, and, above all, on that scoundrel Hope, who planted the swag in my pockets, and let me into this hole for fourteen years?" Then, with all his self-command, he burst into a torrent of curses, and his pale face was ghastly with hate, and his eyes glared with demoniac fire, for hell raged in his heart.

Just then a warder approached, and to Burnley's surprise, who did not see him coming, Monckton said, gently, "And therefore, my poor fellow, do just consider that you have broken the law, and the warders are only doing their duty and earning their bread, and if you were a warder to-morrow, you'd have to do just what they do."

"Ay," said the warder, in passing, "you may lecture the bloke, but you will not make a silk purse out of a sow's ear."

That was true, but nevertheless the smooth villain Monckton obtained a great ascendency over this rough, shock-headed ruffian Burnley, and he got into no more scrapes. He finished his two sentences, and left before Monckton. This precious pair revealed to each other certain passages in their beautiful lives. Monckton's were only half-confidences, but Burnley told Monckton he had been concerned with others in a burglary at Stockton, and also in the death of an overseer in a mine in Wales, and gave the particulars with a sort of quaking gusto, and washing his hands nervously in the tainted air all the time. To be sure the overseer had earned his fate; he had himself been guilty of a crime—he had been true to his employer.

The grateful Burnley left Portland at last, and promised faithfully to send word to a certain friend of Monckton's, in London, where he was, and what he was doing. Meantime he begged his way northward from Portland, for the southern provinces were a dead letter to him.

Monckton's wife wrote to him as often as the rules of the jail permitted, and her letters were full of affection, and of hope that their separation would be shortened. She went into all the details of her life, and it was now a creditable one. Young women are educated practically in Germany; and Lucy was not only a good scholar, and almost a linguist, but excellent at all needlework, and, better still, could cut dresses and other garments in the best possible style. After one or two inferior places, she got a situation with an English countess; and from that time she was passed as a treasure from one member of the aristocracy to another, and received high stipends, and presents of at least equal value. Being a German, she put by money, and let her husband know it. But in the seventh year of her enforced widowhood her letters began to undergo subtle changes, one after another.

First there were little exhibitions of impatience. Then there were signs of languor and a diminution of gush.

Then there were stronger protestations of affection than ever.

Then there were mixed with these protestations queries whether the truest affection was not that which provided for the interests of the beloved person.

Then in the eighth year of Monckton's imprisonment she added to remarks of the above kind certain confessions that she was worn out with anxieties, and felt her lonely condition; that youth and beauty did not last forever; that she had let slip opportunities of doing herself substantial service, and him too, if he could look at things as coolly now as he used to; and she began to think she had done wrong.

This line once adopted was never given up, though it was accompanied once or twice with passionate expressions of regret at the vanity of long-cherished hopes. Then came a letter, or two more in which the fair writer described herself as torn this way and that way, and not knowing what to do for the best, and inveighed against Fate.

Then came a long silence.

Then came a short letter imploring him, if he loved her as she loved him, to try and forget her, except as one who would always watch over his interests, and weep for him in secret.

"Crocodile!" said Monckton, with a cold sneer.

All this showed him it was his interest not to lose his hold on her. So he always wrote to her in a beautiful strain of faith, affection, and constancy.

But this part of the comedy was cut short by the lady discontinuing the correspondence and concealing her address for years.

"Ah!" said Monckton, "she wants to cure me. That cock won't fight, my beauty. A month before he was let loose upon society came a surprise—a letter from his wife, directing him to call at the office of a certain solicitor in Serjeant's Inn, Fleet Street, when he would receive L50 upon his personal receipt, and a similar sum from time to time, provided he made no attempt to discover her, or in any way disturb her life. 'Oh, Leonard,' said she, 'you ruined me once. Pray do not destroy me again. You may be sure I am not happy; but I am in peace and comfort, and I am old enough to know their value. Dear Leonard, I offer them both to you. Pray, pray do not despise them, and, whatever you do, do not offend against the law again. You see how strong it is.'"

Monckton read this with calm indifference. He did not expect a woman to give him a pension unconditionally, or without some little twaddle by way of drawback. He called on the lawyer, and sent in his name. He was received by the lawyer in person, and eyed very keenly. "I am directed to call here for L50, sir," said he.

"Yes, Mr. Monckton. I believe the payment is conditional."

"No, sir; not the first L50. It is the future payments that are to depend upon my conniving at my wife's infidelity;" and with that he handed him the letter.

The lawyer perused it, and said: "You are right, sir. The L50 shall be paid to you immediately; but we must request you to consider that our client is your friend, and acts by our advice, and that it will not be either graceful or delicate to interpret her conduct to her discredit."

"My good sir," said Monckton, with one of his cynical sneers, "every time your client pays me L50, put on the receipt that black is white in matters of conjugal morality, and I'll sign the whole acknowledgment."

Finding he had such a serpent to deal with, the lawyer cut the dialogue short, and paid the money. However, as Monckton was leaving, he said: "You can write to us when you want any more, and would it be discreet of me to ask where we can address you?"

"Why not?" said Monckton. "I have nothing to conceal. However, all I can tell you at present is that I am going to Hull to try and find a couple of rogues."

To Hull he went, breathing avarice and vengeance. This dangerous villain was quite master of Bartley's secret, and Hope's. To be sure, when Hope first discovered him in Bartley's office, he was puzzled at the sudden interference of that stranger. He had only seen Hope's back until this, and, moreover, Hope had been shabbily dressed in black cloth hard worn, whereas he was in a new suit of tweed when he exposed Monckton's villainy. But this was explained at the trial, and Monckton instructed his attorney to cross-examine Hope about his own great fraud; but counsel refused to do so, either because he disbelieved his client, or thought such a cross-examination would be stopped, or set the court still more against his client.

Monckton raged at this, and, of course, said he had been bought by the other side. But now he was delighted that his enemies' secret had never been inquired into, and that he could fall on them both like a thunder-bolt.

He was at Hull next day, and rambled about the old shop, and looked in at the windows. All new faces, and on the door-plate, "Atkinson & Co."

Then he went in, and asked for Mr. Bartley.

Name not known.

"Why, he used to be here. I was in his employ."

No; nobody knew Mr. Bartley.

Could he see Mr. Atkinson?

Certainly. Mr. Atkinson would be there at two o'clock.

Monckton, after some preamble, asked whether he had not succeeded in this business to Mr. Robert Bartley.

No. He had bought the business from Mrs. Duplex, a widow residing in this town, and he happened to know that her husband had taken it from Whitaker, a merchant at Boston.

"Is he alive, sir?"

"I believe so, and very well known."

Monckton went off to Whitaker, and learned from him that he had bought the business from Bartley, but it was many years ago, and he had never heard of the purchaser since that day.

Monckton returned to London baffled. What was he to do? Go to a secret-inquiry office? Advertise that if Mr. Robert Bartley, late of Hull, would write to a certain agent, he would hear of something to his advantage? He did not much fancy either of these plans. He wanted to pounce on Bartley, or Hope, or both.

Then he argued thus: "Bartley has got lots of money now, or he would not have given up business. Ten to one he lives in London, or visits it. I will try the Park."

Well, he did try the Park, both at the riding hour and the driving hour. He saw no Bartley at either time.

But one day in the Lady's Mile, as he listlessly watched the carriages defile slowly past him, with every now and then a jam, there crawled past him a smart victoria, and in it a beautiful woman with glorious dark eyes, and a lovely little boy, the very image of her. It was his wife and her son.

Monckton started, but the lady gave no sign of recognition. She bowed, but it was to a gentleman at Monckton's side, who had raised his hat to her with marked respect.

"What a beautiful crechaar!" said a little swell to the gentleman in question. "You know her?"

"Very slightly."

"Who is she? A duchess?"

"No; a stock-broker's wife, Mrs. Braham. Why, she is a known beauty."

That was enough for Monckton. He hung back a little, and followed the carriage. He calculated that if it left the Park at Hyde Park corner, or the Marble Arch, he could take a hansom and follow it.

When the victoria got clear of the crowd at the corner, Mrs. Braham leaned forward a moment and whispered a word to her coachman. Instantly the carriage dashed at the Chesterfield Gate and into Mayfair at such a swift trot that there was no time to get a cab and keep it in sight.

Monckton lighted a cigarette. "Clever girl!" said he, satirically. "She knew me, and never winked."

The next day he went to the lawyer and said, "I have a little favor to ask you, sir."

The lawyer was on his guard directly, but said nothing.

"An interview—in this office—with Mrs. Braham."

The lawyer winced, but went on his guard again directly.

"Client of ours?"

"Yes, sir."

"Braham? Braham?" said the lawyer, affecting to search the caverns of professional memory.

"Stock-broker's wife."

"Where do they live?"

"What! don't you know? Place of business—Threadneedle Street. Place of bigamy—Portman Square."

"I have no authority to grant a personal interview with any such person."

"But you have no power to hinder one, and it is her interest the meeting should take place here, and the stock-broker be out of it."

The lawyer reflected.

"Will you promise me it shall be a friendly interview? You will never go to her husband?"

"Her stock-broker, you mean. Not I. If she comes to me here when I want her."

"Will that be often?"

"I think not. I have a better card to play than Mrs. Braham. I only want her to help me to find certain people. Shall we say twelve o'clock to-morrow?"

The lawyer called on Mrs. Braham, and after an agitated and tearful interview, persuaded her to keep the appointment.

"Consider," said he, "what you gain by making our office the place of meeting. Establish that at once. It's a point of defense."

The meeting took place in the lawyer's private room, and Mrs. Braham was so overcome that she nearly fainted. Then she was hysterical, and finally tears relieved her.

When she came to this point, Monckton, who had looked upon the whole exhibition as a mere preliminary form observed by females, said,

"Come, Lucy, don't be silly. I am not here to spoil your little game, but to play my own. The question is, will you help me to make my fortune?"

"Oh, that I will, if you will not break up my home."

"Not such a fool, my dear. Catch me killing a milk-cow! You give me a percentage on your profits, and I'm dumb."

"Then all you want is more money?"

"That is all; and I shall not want that in a month's time."

"I have brought L100, Leonard," she said, timidly.

"Sensible girl. Hand it over."

Two white hands trembled at the strings of a little bag, and took out ten crisp notes.

Leonard took them with satisfaction.

"There," said he. "This will last me till I have found Bartley and Hope, and made my fortune."

"Hope!" said Mrs. Braham. "Oh, pray keep clear of him! Pray don't attack him again. He is such an able man!"

"I will not attack him again to be defeated. Forewarned, forearmed. Indeed, if I am to bleed Bartley, I don't know how I can be revenged on Hope. That is the cruel thing. But don't you trouble about my business, Lucy, unless," said he, with a sneer, "you can tell me where to find them, and so save me a lot of money."

"Well, Leonard," said Lucy, "it can't be so very hard to find Hope. You know where that young man lives that you—that I—"

"Oh, Walter Clifford! Yes, of course I know where he lives. At Clifford Hall, in Derbyshire."

"Well, Leonard, Hope saved him from prison, and ruined you. That young man had a good heart. He would not forget such a kindness. He may not know where Mr. Bartley lives, but surely he will know where Hope is."

"Lucy," said Leonard, "you are not such a fool as you were. It is a chance, at all events. I'll go down to that neighborhood directly. I'll have a first-rate disguise, and spy about, and pick up all I can."

"And you will never say anything or do anything to—Oh, Leonard, I'm a bad wife. I never can be a good one now to anybody. But I'm a good mother; and I thought God had forgiven me, when he sent me my little angel. You will never ruin his poor mother, and make her darling blush for her!"

"Curse me if I do!" said Leonard, betrayed into a moment's warmth. But he was soon himself again. "There," said he, "I'll leave the little bloke my inheritance. Perhaps you don't know I'm heir to a large estate in Westmoreland; no end of land, and half a lake, and only eleven lives between the estate and me. I will leave my 'great expectations' to that young bloke. What's his Christian name?"

"Augustus."

"And what's his father's name?"

"Jonathan."

Leonard then left all his property, real and personal, and all that should ever accrue to him, to Augustus Braham, son of Jonathan Braham, and left Lucy Braham sole executrix and trustee.

Then he hurried into the outer office, signed this document, and got it witnessed. The clerks proposed to engross it.

"What for?" said he. "This is the strongest form. All in the same handwriting as the signature; forgery made easy are your engrossed wills."

He took it in to Mrs. Braham, and read it to her, and gave it her. He meant it all as a joke; he read it with a sneer. But the mother's heart over-flowed. She put it in her bosom, and kissed his hand.

"Oh, Leonard," said she, "God bless you! Now I see you mean no ill to me and mine. You don't love me enough to be angry with me. But it all comes back to me. A woman can't forget her first. Now promise me one thing; don't give way to revenge or avarice. You are so wise when you are cool, but no man can give way to his passions and be wise. Why run any more risks? He is liberal to me, and I'm not extravagant. I can allow you more than I said, and wrong nobody."

Monckton interrupted her, thus: "There, old girl, you are a good sort; you always were. But not bleed that skunk Bartley, and not be revenged on that villain Hope? I'd rather die where I stand, for they have turned my blood to gall, and lighted hell in my heart this many a year of misery."

He held out his hand to her; it was cold. She grasped it in her warm, soft palm, and gave him one strange, searching look with her glorious eyes; and so they parted.

Next day, at dusk, there arrived at the Dun Cow an elderly man with a large carpet-bag and a strapped bundle of patterns—tweed, kersey, velveteen, and corduroys. He had a short gray mustache and beard, very neat; and appeared to be a commercial traveller.

In the evening he asked for brandy, old rum, lemons, powdered sugar, a kettle, and a punch-bowl. A huge one, relic of a past age, was produced. He mixed delicious punch, and begged the landlady to sit down and taste it. She complied, and pronounced it first-rate. He enticed her into conversation.

She was a rattling gossip, and told him first her own grievances. Here was the village enlarging, and yet no more custom coming to her because of the beer-house. The very mention of this obnoxious institution moved her bile directly. "A pretty gentleman," said she, "to brew his own beer and undersell a poor widow that have been here all her days and her father before her! But the Colonel won't let me be driven out altogether, no more will Mr. Walter: he do manage for the old gentleman now."

Monckton sipped and waited for the name of Hope, but it did not come. The good lady deluged him with the things that interested her. She was to have a bit of a farm added on to the Dun Cow. It was to be grass land, and not much labor wanted. She couldn't undertake that; was it likely? But for milking of cows and making butter or cheese, that she was as good at as here and there one; and if she could have the custom of the miners for her milk. "But, la, sir," said she, "I'll go bail as that there Bartley will take and set up a dairy against me, as he have a beer shop."

"Bartley?" said Monckton, inquiringly.

"Ay, sir; him as owns the mine, and the beer shop, and all, worse luck for me."

"Bartley? Who is he?"

"Oh, one of those chaps that rise from nothing nowadays. Came here to farm; but that was a blind, the Colonel says. Sunk a mine, he did, and built a pit village, and turns everything into brass [money]. But there, you are a stranger, sir; what is all this to you?"

"Why, it is very interesting," said Monckton. "Mistress, I always like to hear the whole history of every place I stop at, especially from a sensible woman like you, that sees to the bottom of things. Do have another glass. Why, I should be as dull as ditch-water, now, if I had not your company."

"La, sir, I'm sure you are welcome to my company in a civil way; and for the matter of that you are right; life is life, and there's plenty to be learned in a public—do but open your eyes and ears."

"Have another glass with me. I am praised for my punch."

"You deserve it, sir. Better was never brewed."

She sipped and sipped, and smacked her lips, till it was all gone.

This glass colored her cheeks, brightened her eyes, and even loosened her tongue, though that was pretty well oiled by nature.

"Well, sir," said she, "you are a bird of passage, here to-day and gone to-morrow, and it don't matter much what I tell you, so long as I don't tell no lies. There will be a row in this village."

Having delivered this formidable prophecy, the coy dame pushed her glass to her companion for more, and leaning back cozily in the old-fashioned high-backed chair, observed the effect of her thunder-bolt.

Monckton rubbed his hands. "I'm glad of it," said he, genially; "that is to say, provided my good hostess does not suffer by it."

"I'm much beholden to you, sir," said the lady. "You are the civilest-spoken gentleman I have entertained this many a day. Here's your health, and wishing you luck in your business, and many happy days well spent. My service to you, sir."

"The same to you, ma'am."

"Well, sir, in regard to a row between the gentlefolks—not that I call that there Bartley one—judge for yourself. You are a man of the world and a man of business, and an elderly man apparently."

"At all events, I am older than you, madam."

"That is as may be," said Mrs. Dawson, dryly. "We hain't got the parish register here, and all the better for me. So once more I say, judge for yourself."

"Well, madam," said Monckton, "I will try, if you will oblige me with the facts."

"That is reasonable," said Mrs. Dawson, loftily, but after some little consideration. "The facts I will declare, and not a lie among 'em."

"That will be a novelty," thought her cynical hearer, but he held his tongue, and looked respectfully attentive.

"Colonel Clifford," said Mrs. Dawson, "hates Bartley like poison, and Bartley him. The Colonel vows he will have him off the land and out of the bowels of the earth, and he have sent him a lawyer's letter; for everything leaks out in this village, along of the servants' chattering. Bartley he don't value a lawyer's letter no more than that. He defies the Colonel, and they'll go at it hammer and tongs at the 'Sizes, and spend a mint of money in law. That's one side of the question. But there's another. Master Walter is deep in love with Miss Mary."

"Who is she?"

"Who is she? Why, Bartley's daughter, to be sure; not as I'd believe it if I hadn't known her mother, for she is no more like him in her looks or her ways than a tulip is to a dandelion. She is the loveliest girl in the county, and better than she's bonny. You don't catch her drawing bridle at her papa's beer-house, and she never passes my picture. It's 'Oh, Mrs. Dawson, I am so thirsty, a glass of your good cider, please, and a little hay and water for Deersfoot.' That's her way, bless your silly heart! She ain't dry; and Deersfoot, he's full of beans, and his coat's like satin; but that's Miss Mary's way of letting me know that she's my customer, and nobody else's in the town. God bless her, and send her many happy days with the man of her heart, and that is Walter Clifford, for she is just as fond of him as he is of her. I seen it all from the first day. 'Twas love at first sight, and still a-growing to this day. Them old fogies may tear each other to pieces, but they won't part such lovers as those. There's not a girl in the village that doesn't run to look at them, and admire them, and wish them joy. Ay, and you mark my words, they are young, but they have got a spirit, both of them. Miss Mary, she looks you in the face like a lion and a dove all in one. They may lead her, but they won't drive her. And Walter, he's a Clifford from top to toe. Nothing but death will part them two. Them's the facts, sir, without a lie, which now I'm a-waiting for judgment."

"Mrs. Dawson," said Monckton, solemnly, "since you do me the honor to ask my opinion, I say that out of these facts a row will certainly arise, and a deadly one."

"It must, sir; and Will Hope will have to take a side. 'Tis no use his trying to be everybody's friend this time, though that's his natural character, poor chap."

Monckton's eyes flashed fire, but he suppressed all appearance of excitement, and asked who Mr. Hope was.

Mrs. Dawson brightened at the very name of her favorite, and said, "Who is Will Hope? Why, the cleverest man in Derbyshire, for one thing; but he is that Bartley's right-hand man, worse luck. He is inspector of the mine and factotum. He is the handiest man in England. He invents machines, and makes fiddles and plays 'em, and mends all their clocks and watches and wheel-barrows, and charges 'em naught. He makes hisself too common. I often tell him so. Says I, 'Why dost let 'em all put on thee so? Serve thee right if I was to send thee my pots and pans to mend.' 'And so do,' says he, directly. 'There's no art in it, if you can make the sawder, and I can do that, by the Dick and Harry!' And one day I said to him, 'Do take a look at this fine new cow of mine as cost me twenty-five good shillings and a quart of ale. What ever is the matter with her? She looks like the skin of a cow flattened against the board.' So says he, 'Nay, she's better drawn than nine in ten; but she wants light and shade. Send her to my workshop.' 'Ay, ay,' says I; 'thy workshop is like the church-yard; we be all bound to go there one day or t'other.' Well, sir, if you believe me, when they brought her home and hung her again she almost knocked my eye out. There was three or four more women looking on, and I mind all on us skreeked a bit, and our hands went up in the air as if one string had pulled the lot; and says Bet Morgan, the carter's wife, 'Lord sake, gie me a bucket somebody, and let me milk her!' 'Nay, but thou shalt milk me,' said I, and a pint of fourpenny I gave her, then and there, for complimenting of my cow. Will Hope, he's everybody's friend. He made the Colonel a crutch with his own hands, which the Colonel can use no other now. Walter swears by him. Miss Mary dotes on him: he saved her life in the river when she was a girl. The very miners give him a good word, though he is very strict with them; and as for Bartley, it's my belief he owes all his good luck to Will Hope. And to think he was born in this village, and left it a poor lad; ay, and he came back here one day as poor as Job, seems but t'other day, with his bundle on his back and his poor little girl in his hand. I dare say I fed them both with whatever was going, poor bodies."

"What was she like?"

"A poor little wizened thing. She had beautiful golden hair, though."

"Like Miss Bartley's?"

"Something, but lighter."

"Have you ever seen her since?"

"No; and I never shall."

"Who knows?"

"Nay, sir. I asked him after her one day when he came home for good. He never answered me, and he turned away as if I had stung him. She has followed her mother, no doubt. And so now she is gone he's well-to-do; and that is the way of it, sir. God sends mouths where there is no meat, and meat where there's no mouths. But He knows best, and sees both worlds at once. We can only see this one—that's full of trouble."

Monckton now began to yawn, for he wanted to be alone and think over the schemes that floated before him now.

"You are sleepy, sir," said Mrs. Dawson. "I'll go and see your bed is all right."

He thanked her and filled her glass. She tossed it off like a man this time, and left him to doze in his chair.

Doze, indeed! Never did a man's eyes move to and fro more restlessly. Every faculty was strung to the utmost.

At first as all the dramatis personae he was in search of came out one after another from that gossip's tongue, he was amazed and delighted to find that instead of having to search for one of them in one part of England, and another in another, he had got them all ready to his hand. But soon he began to see that they were too near each other, and some of them interwoven, and all the more dangerous to attack.

He saw one thing at a glance. That it would be quite a mistake to settle a plan of action. That is sometimes a great advantage in dealing with the unguarded. But it creates a stiffness. Here all must be supple and fitted with watchful tact to the situation as it rose. Everything would have to be shot flying.

Then as to the immediate situation, Reader, did ever you see a careful setter run suddenly into the middle of a covey who were not on their feet nor close together, but a little dispersed and reposing in high cover in the middle of the day? No human face is ever so intense or human form more rigid. He knows that one bird is three yards from his nose, another the same distance from either ear, and, in short, that they are all about him, and to frighten one is to frighten all.

His tail quivers, and then turns to steel, like his limbs. His eyes glare; his tongue fears to pant; it slips out at one side of his teeth and they close on it. Then slowly, slowly, he goes down, noiseless as a cat, and crouches on the long covert, whether turnips, rape, or clover.

Even so did this designing cur crouch in the Dun Cow.

The loyal quadruped is waiting for his master, and his anxiety is disinterested. The biped cur was waiting for the first streak of dawn to slip away to some more distant and safe hiding-place and sally-port than the Dun Cow, kept by a woman who was devoted to Hope, to Walter, and to Mary, and had all her wits about her—mother-wit included.



CHAPTER XIV.

THE SERPENT.

Monckton slipped away at the dawn, and was off to Derby to prepare first-rate disguises.

At Derby, going through the local papers, he found lodgings offered at a farm-house to invalids, fresh milk and eggs, home-made bread, etc. The place was within a few miles of Clifford Hall. Monckton thought this would suit him much better than being too near. When his disguises were ready, he hired a horse and dog-cart by the month, and paid a deposit, and drove to the place in question. He put some shadow under his eyes to look more like an invalid. He had got used to his own cadaverous tint, so that seemed insufficient.

The farmer's wife looked at him, and hesitated.

"Well, sir," said she, with a blush, "we takes 'em in to cure, not to—"

"Not to bury," said Monckton. "Don't you be alarmed. I have got no time to die; I'm too busy. Why, I have been much worse than this. I am convalescent now."

"Ye don't say so, sir!" said she. "Well, I see your heart is good" (the first time he had ever been told that), "and so I've a mind to risk it."

Then she quickly clapped on ten shillings a week more for color, and he was installed. He washed his face, and then the woman conceived hopes of him, and expressed them in rustic fashion. "Well," said she, "dirt is a disguise. Now I look at you, you have got more mischief to do in the world yet, I do believe."

"A deal more, I hope," said he.

It now occurred to him, all of a sudden, that really he was not in good health, and that he had difficulties before him which required calm nerves, and that nerves are affected by the stomach. So, not to throw a chance away, he had the sense and the resolution to devote a few days to health and unwholesome meditation.

This is a discordant world: even vices will not always pull the same way. Here was a sinister villain distracted between avarice and revenge, and sore puzzled which way to turn. Of course he could expose the real parentage of Mary Bartley, and put both Bartley and Hope to shame, and then the Cliffords would make Bartley disgorge the L20,000. But he, Monckton, would not make a shilling by that, and it would be a weak revenge on Bartley, who could now spare L20,000, and no revenge at all on Hope, for Hope was now well-to-do, and would most likely be glad to get his daughter back. Then, on the other hand, he could easily frighten Bartley into giving him L5000 to keep dark, but in that case he must forego his vengeance on Hope.

This difficulty had tormented Monckton all along; but now Mrs. Dawson had revealed another obstacle. Young Clifford and Mary in love with each other. What Mrs. Easton saw as a friend, with her good mother-wit, this man saw in a moment as an enemy, viz., that this new combination dwarfed the L20,000 altogether. Monckton had no idea that his unknown antagonist Nurse Easton had married the pair, but the very attachment, as the chatter-box of the Dun Cow described it, was a bitter pill to him. "Who could have foreseen this?" said he. "It's devilish." We did not ourselves intend our readers to feel it so, or we would not have spent so much time over it. But as regards that one adjective, Mr. Monckton is a better authority than we are. He had a document with him that, skillfully used, might make mischief for a time between these lovers. But he foresaw there could be no permanent result without the personal assistance of Mrs. Braham. That he could have commanded fourteen years ago, but now he felt how difficult it would be. He would have to threaten and torment her almost to madness before she would come down to Derbyshire and declare that this Walter Clifford was the Walter Clifford of the certificate, and that she was his discarded wife. But Monckton was none the less resolved she should come if necessary. Leaving him varius distractum vitiis, and weighing every scheme, with its pros and cons, and, like a panther crouching and watching before he would make his first spring, we will now bring our other characters up to the same point, and that will not take us long, for during the months we have skipped there were not many events, and Mrs. Dawson has told the readers some of them, and the rest were only detached incidents.

The most important in our opinion were:

1. That Colonel Clifford resumed his determination to marry Julia Clifford to Walter, and pooh-poohed Fitzroy entirely, declaring him to be five feet nothing, and therefore far below the military standard.

2. That Hope rented a cottage of Walter about three hundred yards from the mine, and not upon the land that was leased to Bartley; that there was a long detached building hard by, which Walter divided for him, and turned into an office with a large window close to the ground, and a workshop with a doorway and an aperture for a window, but no window nor door.

3. That Hope got more and more uneasy about the L20,000, and observed to Bartley that they must be robbing somebody of it without the excuse they once had. He, for his part, would work to disgorge his share. Bartley replied that the money would have gone to a convent if he had not saved it from so vile a fate. This said the astute Bartley because one day Hope, who had his opinions on everything, inveighed against a convent, and said no private prisons ought to exist in a free country. So Bartley's ingenious statement stunned Hope for a minute, but did not satisfy his conscience.

4. Hope went to London for a week, and Mary spent four days with her husband at a hotel near the lake; but not the one held by Mrs. Easton's sister. This change was by advice of Mrs. Easton. On this occasion Mary played the woman. She requested Walter to get her some orange blossoms, and she borrowed a diamond bracelet of Julia, and sat down to dinner with her husband in evening dress, and dazzled him with her lovely arms and bust, and her diamond bracelet and eyes that outshone it. She seemed ever so much larger as well as lovelier, and Walter gazed at her with a sort of loving awe, and she smiled archly at him, and it was the first time she had really enjoyed her own beauty, or even troubled her head much about it. They condensed a honey-moon into these four days, and came home compensated for their patience, and more devoted than ever. But whilst they were away Colonel Clifford fired his attorney at Mr. Bartley, and when Mary came home, Bartley, who had lately connived at the love affair, told Mary this, and forbade her strictly to hold any more intercourse with Walter Clifford.

This was the state of things when "the hare with many friends," and only one enemy, returned to his cottage late in the afternoon. But before night everybody knew he had come home, and next morning they were all at him in due order. No sooner was he seated in his workshop, studying the lines of a new machine he was trying to invent, than he was startled from intense thought into the attitude of Hogarth's enraged musician by cries of "Mr. Hope! Mr. Hope! Mr. Hope!" and there was a little lot of eager applicants. First a gypsy boy with long black curls and continuous genuflections, and a fiddle, and doleful complaints that he could not play it, and that it was the fiddle's fault.

"Well, it is for once," said Hope. "Why, you little duffer, don't you see the bridge is too low?"

He slackened the string, removed the bridge, fitted on a higher one, tuned it, and handed it over.

"There," said he, "play us one of the tunes of Egypt. 'The Rogue's March,' eh? and mizzle."

The supple Oriental grinned and made obeisances, pretended not to know "The Rogue's March" (to the hen-house), and went off playing "Johnny Comes Marching Home." (Bridewell to wit.)

Then did Miss Clifford's French maid trip forward smirking with a parasol to mend: Desolee de vous deranger, Monsieur Hope, mais notre demoiselle est au desespoir: oh, ces parasols Anglais!

"Connu," said Hope, "voyons ca;" and in a minute repaired the article, and the girl spread it, and went off wriggling and mincing with it, so that there was a pronounced horse-laugh at her minauderies.

Then advanced a rough young English nurse out of a farm-house with a child that could just toddle. She had left an enormous doll with Hope for repairs, and the child had given her no peace for the last week. Luckily the doll was repaired, and handed over. The mite, in whose little bosom maternal feelings had been excited, insisted on carrying her child. The consequence was that at about the third step they rolled over one another, and to spectators at a little distance it was hard to say which was the parent and which the offspring. Them the strapping lass in charge seized roughly, and at the risk of dislocating their little limbs, tossed into the air and caught, one on each of her own robust arms, and carried them off stupidly irritated—for want of a grain of humor—at the good-natured laugh this caused, and looking as if she would like to knock their little heads together.

Under cover of this an old man in a broad hat, and seemingly infirm, crept slowly by and looked keenly at Hope, but made no application. Only while taking stock of Hope his eyes flashed wickedly, and much too brightly for so old a man as he appeared. He did not go far; he got behind a tree, and watched the premises. Then a genuine old man and feeble came and brought Hope his clock to mend. Hope wound it up, and it went to perfection. The old man had been a stout fellow when Hope was a boy, but now he was weak, especially in the upper story. Hope saw at once that the young folk had sent him there for a joke, and he did not approve it.

"Gaffer," said he, "this will want repairing every eight days; but don't you come here any more; I'll call on you every week, and repair it for auld lang syne."

Whilst he toddled away, and Hope retired behind his lathe to study his model in peace, Monckton raged at the sight of him and his popularity.

"Ay," said he, "you are a genius. You can model a steam-engine or mend a doll, and you outwitted me, and gave me fourteen years. But you will find me as ingenious as you at one thing, and that's revenge."

And now a higher class of visitors began to find their way to the general favorite. The first was a fair young lady of surpassing beauty. She strolled pensively down the green turf, cast a hasty glance in at the workshop, and not seeing Hope, concluded he was a little tired after his journey, and had not yet arrived. She strolled slowly down then, and seated herself in a large garden chair, stuffed, that Hope had made, and placed there for Colonel Clifford. That worthy frequented the spot because he had done so for years, and because it was a sweet turfy slope; and there was a wonderful beech-tree his father had made him plant when he was five years old. It had a gigantic silvery stem, and those giant branches which die crippled in a beech wood but really belong to the isolated tree, as one Virgil discovered before we were born. Mary Bartley then lowered her parasol, and settled into the Colonel's chair under the shade patulae fagi—of the wide-spreading beech-tree.

She sat down and sighed. Monckton eyed her from his lurking-place, and made a shrewd guess who she was, but resolved to know.

Presently Hope caught a glimpse of her, and came forward and leaned out of the window to enjoy the sight of her. He could do that unobserved, for he was a long way behind her at a sharp angle.

He was still a widower and this his only child, and lovely as an angel; and he had seen her grow into ripe loveliness from a sick girl. He had sinned for her and saved her; he had saved her again from a more terrible death. He doted on her, and it was always a special joy to him when he could gloat on her unseen. Then he had no need to make up an artificial face and hide his adoration from her.

But soon a cloud came over his face and his paternal heart. He knew she had a lover; and she looked like a girl who was waiting pensively for him. She had not come there for him whom she knew only as her devoted friend. At this thought the poor father sighed.

Mary's quick senses caught that, and she turned her head, and her sweet face beamed.

"You are there, after all, Mr. Hope."

Hope was delighted. Why, it was him she had come to see, after all. He came down to her directly, radiant, and then put on a stiff manner he often had to wear, out of fidelity to Bartley, who did not deserve it.

"This is early for you to be out, Miss Bartley."

"Of course it is," said she. "But I know it is the time of day when you are kind to anybody that comes, and mend all their rubbish for them, and I could kill them for their impudence in wasting your time so. And I am as bad as the rest. For here I am wasting your time in my turn. Yes, dear Mr. Hope, you are so kind to everybody and mend their things, I want you to be kind to me and mend—my prospects for me."

Hope's impulse was to gather into his arms and devour with kisses this sweet specimen of womanly tenderness, frank inconsistency, naivete, and archness.

As he could not do that, he made himself extra stiff.

"Your prospects. Miss Bartley! Why, they are brilliant. Heiress to all the growing wealth and power around you."

"Wealth and power!" said the girl. "What is the use of them, if our hearts are to be broken? Oh, Mr. Hope, papa is so unkind. He has forbidden me to speak to him." Then, gravely, "That command comes too late."

"I fear it does," said Hope. "I have long suspected something."

"Suspected?" said Mary, turning pale. "What?"

"That you and Walter Clifford—"

"Yes," said Mary, trembling inwardly, but commanding her face.

"Are—engaged."

Mary drew a long breath. "What makes you think so?" said she, looking down.

"Well, there is a certain familiarity—no, that is too strong a word; but there is more ease between you than there was. Ever since I came back from Belgium I have seen that the preliminaries of courtship were over, and you two looked on yourselves as one."

"Mr. Hope," said this good, arch girl, and left off panting, "you are a terrible man. Papa is eyes and no eyes. You frighten me; but not very much, for you would not watch me so closely if you did not love me—a little."

"Not a little, Miss Bartley."

"Mary, please."

"Mary. I have seen you a sickly child; I have been anxious—who would not? I have seen you grow in health and strength, and every virtue."

"And seen me tumble into the water and frighten you out of your senses, and there's nothing one loves like a downright pest, especially if she loves us; and I do love you, Mr. Hope, dearly, dearly, and I promise to be a pest to you all your days. Ah, here he comes at last." She made two eager steps to meet him, then she said, "Oh! I forgot," and came back again and looked prodigiously demure and innocent.

Walter came on with his usual rush, crying, "Mary, how good of you!"

Mary put her fingers in her ears. "No, no, no; we are forbidden to communicate." Then, imitating a stiff man of business—for she was a capital mimic when she chose—"any communication you may wish to honor me with must be addressed to this gentleman, Mr. Hope; he will convey it to me, and it shall meet with all the attention it deserves."

Walter laughed, and said, "That's ingenious."

"Of course it is ingenuous," said Mary, subtly. "That's my character to a fault."

"Well, young people," said Hope, "I am not sure that I have time to repeat verbal communications to keen ears that heard them. And I think I can make myself more useful to you. Walter, your father has set his lawyer on to Mr. Bartley, and what is the consequence? Mr. Bartley forbids Mary to speak to you, and the next thing will be a summons, lawsuit, and a great defeat, and loss to your father and you. Mr. Bartley sent me the lawyer's letter. He hopes to get out of a clear contract by pleading a surprise. Now you must go to the lawyer—it is no use arguing with your father in his present heat—and you must assure him there has been no surprise. Why, I called on Colonel Clifford years ago, and told him there was coal on that farm; and I almost went on my knees to him to profit by it."

"You don't say that, Mr. Hope?"

"I do say it, and I shall have to swear it. You may be sure Mr. Bartley will subpoena me, if this wretched squabble gets into court."

"But what did my father say to you?"

"He was kind and courteous to me. I was poor as a rat, and dusty with travel—on foot; and he was a fine gentleman, as he always is, when he is not in too great a passion. He told me more than one land-owner had wasted money in this county groping for coal. He would not waste his money nor dirty his fingers. But he thanked me for my friendly zeal, and rewarded me with ten shillings."

"Oh!" cried Walter, and hid his face in his hands. As for Mary, she put her hand gently but quietly on Hope's shoulder, as if to protect him from such insults.

"Why, children," said Hope, pleased at their sympathy, but too manly to hunt for it, "it was more than he thought the information worth, and I assure you it was a blessed boon to me. I had spent my last shilling, and there I was trapesing across the island on a wild-goose chase with my reaping-hook and my fiddle; and my poor little Grace, that I—that I—"

Mary's hand went a moment to his other shoulder, and she murmured through her tears, "You have got me."

Then Hope was happy again, and indeed the simplest woman can find in a moment the very word that is balm of Gilead to a sorrowful man.

However, Hope turned it off and continued his theme. The jury, he said, would pounce on that ten shillings as the Colonel's true estimate of his coal, and he would figure in the case as a dog in the manger who grudged Bartley the profits of a risky investment he had merely sneered at and not opposed, until it turned out well; and also disregarded the interests of the little community to whom the mine was a boon. "No," said Hope; "tell your lawyer that I am Bartley's servant, but love equity. I have proposed to Bartley to follow a wonderful seam of coal under Colonel Clifford's park. We have no business there. So if the belligerents will hear reason I will make Bartley pay a royalty on every ton that comes to the surface from any part of the mine; and that will be L1200 a year to the Cliffords. Take this to the lawyer and tell him to unfix that hero's bayonet, or he will charge at the double and be the death of his own money—and yours."

Walter threw up his hands with amazement and admiration. "What a head!" said he.

"Fiddledee!" said Mary; "what a heart!"

"In a word, a phoenix," said Hope, dryly. "Praise is sweet, especially behind one's back. So pray go on, unless you have something better to say to each other;" and Hope retired briskly into his office. But when the lovers took him at his word, and began to strut up and down hand in hand, and murmur love's music into each other's ears, he could not take his eyes off them, and his thoughts were sad. She had only known that young fellow a few months, yet she loved him passionately, and he would take her away from her father before she even knew all that father had done and suffered for her. When the revelation did come she would perhaps be a wife and a mother, and then even that revelation would fall comparatively flat.

Besides his exceptional grief, he felt the natural pang of a father at the prospect of resigning her to a husband. Hard is the lot of parents; and, above all, of a parent with one child whom he adores. Many other creatures love their young tenderly, and their young leave them. But then the infancy and youth of those creatures are so short. In a few months the young shift for themselves, forgetting and forgotten. But with our young the helpless periods of infancy and youth are so long. Parental anxiety goes through so many trials and so various, and they all strike roots into the parent's heart. Yet after twenty years of love and hope and fear comes a handsome young fellow, a charming highwayman to a parent's eye, and whisks her away after two months' courtship. Then, oh, ye young, curb for a moment your blind egotism, and feel a little for the parents who have felt so much for you! You rather like William Hope, so let him help you to pity your own parents. See his sad face as he looks at the love he is yet too unselfish to discourage. To save that tender root, a sickly child, he transplanted it from his own garden, and still tended it with loving care for many a year. Another gathers the flower. He watched and tended and trembled over the tender nestling. The young bird is trying her wings before his eyes; soon she will spread them, and fly away to a newer nest and a younger bosom.

In this case, however, the young people had their troubles too, and their pretty courtship was soon interrupted by an unwelcome and unexpected visitor, who, as a rule, avoided that part, for the very reason that Colonel Clifford frequented it. However, he came there to-day to speak to Hope. Mr. Bartley, for he it was, would have caught the lovers if he had come silently; but he was talking to a pitman as he came, and Mary's quick ears heard his voice round the corner.