"Agatha, are you afraid? Will you descend?" asked he, suddenly.

"No—I will stay with you."

The struggle between man and brute lasted a minute or two longer, at the end of which, all danger being over, they were speeding on rapidly to Kingcombe Holm. Agatha sat very thoughtful.

"I fear," she said—when he tried to draw her out of her contemplative mood, showing her the wild furzy slopes and the fir-trees, almost the only trees that grow in this region—standing in black clumps on the hill-tops, like sentinel-ghosts of the old Romans, who used to encamp there—"I fear you have made me as much in awe of you as you have the pony."

He smiled, and was quoting something about "love casting out fear," when he suddenly corrected himself, and grew silent. In that silence they swept on to the gates of Kingcombe Holm.

It was a place—more like an ancient manorial farm than a gentleman's residence—nestled snugly in one of those fairy valleys which are found here and there among the bleak wastes of Dorsetshire coast scenery—the richer for the barrenness of all around. Before and behind the house rose sudden acclivities, thick with autumn-tinted trees. On another side was a smooth, curving, wavy hill, bare in outline, with white dots of grazing sheep floating about upon its green. The Holm, with its garden and park, lay on a narrow plain of verdurous beauty, at the bottom of the valley. Nothing was visible beyond it, save a long, bare, terraced range of hill, and the sky above all. There was no other habitation in sight, except a tiny church, planted on one acclivity, and two or three labourers' cottages, in the doors of which a few rolypoly, open-eyed children stood, poking their fingers in their mouths, and staring intensely at Agatha.

"Oh, what a delicious nest," she cried—overcome with excitement at her first view of Kingcombe Holm, where, however, there was not a creature visible but the great dog, that barked a furious welcome from the courtyard, and the peacock, that strutted to and fro before the blank windows, sweeping his draggled tail. "Are they at home, I wonder? Will they all be waiting for us?"

"In the drawing-room, most likely. It is my father's way. He receives there all strangers—new-comers, I mean. We shall see nobody till then."

"Don't be too sure of that, brother Nathanael," said a quick, lively voice. "So, ho! Dunce, hold still, do'ee! You used to be as precise as the Squire himself, bless his heart! Now then, N. L. Jump down!"

The speaker of all this had come flying out of the hall-door—a vision of flounces, gaiety, and heartiness, had given the pony a few pats, or rather slaps, en passant, and now stood balancing herself on one of the spokes of the wheel, and leaning over into the carriage.



"Is that you, Harrie? Agatha, this is my sister Mrs. Dugdale."

And Agatha found herself face to face (literally speaking, too, for "Harrie" kissed her) with a merry-looking, pretty woman, of a style a little too prononcee perhaps, for her features were on a similar mould to Major Harper's. Still, there could be no doubt as to the prettiness, and the airy, youthful aspect—younger, perhaps, than her years. Agatha was perfectly astounded to find in this gay "Harrie" the wife of the grave and middle-aged Duke Dugdale!

"You see, my dear—ahem! what shall I call you?—that I can't be formal and polite, and it's no use trying. So I just left my father sitting stately in the drawing-room with Mary on one side, as mistress of the household; Eulalie on the other, looking as bewitching and effective as she can, and both dying with curiosity to run out and see you. But I'm not a Miss Harper now; so, while they longed to do it, I—did it. Here I am! Welcome home, Mrs. Locke Harper!"

"Thank you," stammered the young bride, hardly knowing whether to laugh or to cry. Her husband was scarcely less agitated than herself, but showed it only in the nervous trembling of his upper lip, and in the extreme brevity of his words. He lifted his wife down from the carriage, and Mrs. Dugdale, throwing back the blue veil, peered curiously into the face of her new sister.

"E—h!" she said, in that long musical ejaculation just like her husband—the only thing in which she was like him. Never was a pair who so fully exemplified the theory of matrimonial opposites. "E—h, Nathanael!" And her quick glance at her brother indicated undisguised admiration of "the Pawnee-face."

He himself looked restless, uncomfortable, as if his sister slightly fidgeted him; she had indeed, with all her heartiness, a certain quicksilverishness of manner, jumping here, there, and everywhere like mercury on a plate, in a fashion that was very perplexing at first to quiet people.

"Come along, my dear," continued Harrie, tucking the young wife under her arm—"come and beautify a little—the Squire likes it. And run away to your father, N. L., my boy!" added she to her younger brother—younger—as a closer inspection of her fresh country face showed—possibly by some five or six years.

Mr. Harper assented with as good a grace as he could, and resigned his wife to his sister.

For the next ten minutes Agatha had a confused notion of being taken through many rooms and passages, hovered about by Mrs. Dugdale, her flounces, and her lively talk—of trying to answer a dozen questions per minute, and being so bewildered, that she succeeded in answering none, save that she had met Mr. Dugdale—that she did not think him "a beauty," and (she hastily and in terror added this fact) that there was not the least necessity for his being so.

"Not the least, my dear. I always thought the same! You'll love him heartily in a week—I did! Bless him for a dear, good, ugly, beautiful old soul!"

Here Agatha, who stood listening, and nervously arranging the long curls that would fall uncurled and untidy, felt a renewal of her old girlish enthusiasm for all true things; her eyes brightened, and her heart warmed towards "Harrie." She would have liked to stay talking longer, but for a vision of Mr. Harper waiting uncomfortably down-stairs.

"So you have finished adorning, and want to go! You can't bear to be ten minutes away from your husband, that's clear! Well, my dear, you'll get wiser when you have been married as long as I have. But I don't know," added Mrs. Dugdale laughing; "I'm always glad enough to get rid of Duke for an hour or two; yet somehow, when he is away, I'm always wanting him. By-the-by, did he happen to say what time he was coming over here—only to see you, you know? He has quite enough of 'the Missus.'"

Agatha laughingly asked how long "the Missus" had borne that title.

"Couldn't possibly count! Look at Gus and Fred in jacket and trousers, and little Brian learning to ride. Frightful antiquity! And yet when I married I was a girl like you; only ten times wilder—the greatest harum-scarum in the county! I often wonder poor Duke was not afraid to marry me! Heigho! Well, here we are down-stairs, and here—take your wife, most solemn brother Nathanael! If you were but a little more like Frederick! By the way, have you seen Fred lately?"

"He has left town," said Mr. Harper, shortly, as he drew his young wife's arm through his own, and led her to his father's presence.

Agatha was conscious of a tall, thin, white-haired gentleman—not unlike Major Harper frozen into stately age—who rose and came to meet her.

"I am most happy to welcome my son's wife to Kingcombe Holm."

Agatha felt the withered fingers touching her own—the kiss of welcome formally sealed on her forehead. She trembled exceedingly for a moment, but recovered herself, and met old Mr. Harper's keen observant gaze with one as clear and as composed as his own. One glance told her that he was not the sort of man into whose fatherly arms she could throw herself, and indulge the emotion brimming over in her heart. But his examination of her was evidently favourable.

"You are most welcome, believe me. And my daughters"—here he turned to two ladies, of whom Agatha at first distinguished nothing, save that one was very pretty, the other much older, and plain—"my daughters, receive your new sister." Here the ladies aforesaid approached and shook hands, the plain one very warmly.—"You also can tell her how truly glad we are to receive—Mrs. Harper."

He hesitated a little before the latter word, and pronounced it with some tremulousness, as though the old man were thinking how many years had passed since the name "Mrs. Harper" had been unspoken at Kingcombe Holm.

His daughters looked at one another—even Harriet observing a grave respect No one spoke, or took outward notice of the circumstance; but from that time the subject of much secret conjecture was set at rest, and Agatha was called by every one "Mrs. Harper."

During the somewhat awkward quarter of an hour that followed, in which the chief conversation was sustained by "the Squire," and occasionally by Nathanael—Mrs. Dugdale having vanished—the young girl observed her two sisters-in-law. Neither struck her fancy particularly, perhaps because there was nothing particular to strike it. The Misses Harper were, like most female branches of "county families," vegetating on their estates from generation to generation in uninterrupted gentility and uniformity. Of the two, Agatha liked Mary best; for there was great goodnature shining through her fearless plainness—a sort of placid acknowledgment of the fact that she was born for usefulness, not ornament. Eulalie, on the contrary, carried in her every gesture a disagreeable self-consciousness, which testified to her long assumption of one character—the beauty of the family. Despite Agatha's admiration of handsome women in general, she and the youngest Miss Harper eyed one another uncomfortably, as if sure from the first that they shall never like one another.

All this while Nathanael spoke but little to his wife, apparently leaving her to nestle down at her own will among his family. But he kept continually near her, within reach of a word or glance, had she given him either; and she more than once felt his look of grave tenderness reading her very soul. She could not think why, in spite of all his efforts to the contrary, he should be continually so serious, while she was quite ready to be happy and at ease.

There was one thing, however, which gave her keen satisfaction—the great honour in which her husband was evidently held by his family.

Very soon a heterogeneous post-prandial repast was announced for the benefit of the travellers; to which Mr. Harper graciously bade them retire—even leading his daughter-in-law to the dining-room door.

"He'll not come further in," whispered Mrs. Dugdale, who made herself most active about Agatha. "You arrived at seven, and my father would as soon think of changing his six o'clock dinner hour as he would of changing his politics; for all Duke says to the contrary."

Agatha was not sorry, since the idea of dining under the elaborate kindness and dignified courtliness of old Mr. Harper was rather alarming. Besides, she was so hungry!

The moment her father-in-law had closed the door, the sisters came gathering like bees round herself and her husband, Mary busy over every possible physical want, Harrie, sitting at, or rather, on the table. She had a wild and not ungraceful way of throwing herself about—rattling on like a very Major Harper in petticoats, and flinging away bon mots and witty sayings enough to make the fortune of many a "wonderfully clever woman,"—the very last character which this light-spirited country-lady would probably have imagined her own. For Eulalie, she had relaxed into a few words, and fewer smiles, the quality of neither being of sufficient value to make one regret the quantity. Nobody minded her much but Mary, who was motherly, kind, and reverential always to the inane beauty.

Such were Agatha's first impressions of her new sisters. With a shyness not unnatural she had taken little notice of her husband. He had chatted among his sisters, with whom he seemed very popular: but always in the intervals of talk the pale, grave, tired look came over him.

In quitting the dining-room—where Agatha, irresistibly led on by Mrs. Dugdale's pleasantness, had begun to feel quite at home, and had laughed till she was fairly tired out—he said, in a half whisper:

"Now, dear, I think we ought to go and see Elizabeth."

In the confusion of her arrival, Agatha had forgotten that there was another sister—in truth, the Miss Harper of the family—Mary, its head and housekeeper, being properly only "Miss Mary." She noticed that as Nathanael spoke, the other three looked at him and herself doubtfully, as if to inquire how much she knew—and anxiously, as though there were something painful and uncomfortable in a stranger's first seeing Elizabeth.

Mrs. Harper felt her cheeks tingle nervously, but still she put her arm in her husband's, and said, "I should much like to go."

Mary sent for lights, and prepared to accompany them herself, the other two moving away into the drawing-room.

Through the same sort of old-fashioned passages, but, as it seemed, to quite a different part of the house, Agatha went with her husband and his sister. The strangeness and gloom of the place, the doubt as to what sort of person she was going to see—for all she had heard was that from some great physical suffering Elizabeth never quitted her room—made the young girl feel timid, even afraid. Her hand trembled so that her husband perceived it.

"Nay, you need not mind," he whispered. "You will see nothing to pain you. We all dearly love her, and I do believe she is very happy—poor Elizabeth!"

As he spoke Mary opened a door, and they passed from the dark staircase into a large, well-lighted, pleasant room—made scrupulously pleasant, Agatha thought. It was filled with all sorts of pretty things, engravings, statuettes, vases, flowers, books, a piano; even the paper on the walls and the hangings at the window were of most delicate and careful choice. No rich drawing-room could show more taste in its arrangements, or have a more soothing effect on a mind to which the sense of aesthetic fitness is its native element.

At first, Agatha thought the room was empty, until, lying on a sofa—though so muffled in draperies as nearly to disguise all form—she saw what seemed at first the figure of a child. But coming nearer, the face was no child's face. It was that of a woman, already arrived at middle age. Many wrinkles seamed it; and the hair surrounding it in soft, close bands, was quite grey. The only thing notable about the countenance was a remarkable serenity, which in youth might have conveyed that painful impression of premature age often seen in similar cases, but which now in age made it look young. It was as if time and worldly sorrow had alike forgotten this sad victim of Nature's unkindness—had passed by and left her to keep something of the child's paradise about her still.

This face, and the small, thin, infantile-looking hands, crossed on the silk coverlet, were all that was visible. Agatha wondered she had so shrunk from the simple mystery now revealed.

Nathanael led her to the sofa, and placed her where Elizabeth could see her easily without turning round.

"Here is my wife! Is she like what you expected, sister?"

The head was raised, but with difficulty; and Agatha met the cheerful, smiling, loving eyes of her whom people called "poor Elizabeth." Such thorough content, such admiring pleasure, as that look testified! It took away all the painful constraint which most people experience on first coming into the presence of those whom Heaven has afflicted thus; and made Agatha feel that in putting such an angelic spirit into that poor distorted body, Heaven had not dealt hardly even with Elizabeth Harper.

"She is just what I thought," said a voice, thin, but not unmusical. "You described her well. Come here and kiss me, my dear new sister."

Agatha knelt down and obeyed, with her whole heart in the embrace. Of all greetings in the family, none had been like this. And not the least of its sweetness was that her husband seemed so pleased therewith, looking more like himself than he had done since they entered his father's doors.

They all sat down and talked for a long time, Elizabeth more cheerfully than any. She appeared completely versed in the affairs of the whole family, as though her mind were a hidden gallery in which were clearly daguerreotyped, and faithfully retained, all impressions of the external world. She seemed to know everybody and everybody's circumstances—to have ranged them and theirs distinctly and in order, in the wide, empty halls of her memory, which could be filled in no other way. For, as Agatha gradually learned, this spinal disease, withering up the form from infancy, had been accompanied with such long intervals of acute physical pain as to prevent all study beyond the commonest acquirements of her sex. It was not with her, as with some, that the intellect alone had proved sufficient to make out of a helpless body a noble and complete human existence; Elizabeth's mind was scarcely above the average order, or if it had been, suffering had stifled its powers. Her only possession was the loving heart.

She asked an infinitude of questions, her bright quick eyes seeming to extort and gain more than the mere verbal answers. She talked a good deal, throwing more light than Agatha had ever before received on the manners, characters, and history of the Harper family, the Dugdales, and Anne Valery. But there was in her speech a certain reticence, as though all the common gossip of life was in her clear spirit received, sifted, purified, and then distributed abroad in chosen portions as goodly and pleasant food. She seemed to receive the secrets of every one's life and to betray none.

Agatha now learnt why there had been such a mystery of regret, reverence, and love hanging over the very mention of the eldest Miss Harper.

When the tumult of this strange day had resolved itself into silence, Agatha, believing her husband fast asleep, lay pondering over it, wondering why he had not asked her what she thought of his family—wondering, above all, what was the strange weight upon him which he tried so hard to conceal, and to appear just the same to every one, especially to her. Her coming life rose up like a great maze, about which all the characters now apparently mingled therein wandered mistily in and out. Among them, those which had gained most vivid individuality in a fancy not prone to catch quick interests, affecting her alternately with a sense of pensive ideal calm, and cheerful healthy human liking, were Elizabeth Harper, the "Missus," and Duke Dugdale.

Likewise, as an especial pleasure, she had discovered the one to whom she clung as to a well-known friend among all these strangers, lived within eight miles of Kingcombe Holm.

"And"—she kept recurring to a fact spread abroad in the house just before bed-time, and apparently diffusing universal satisfaction—"and Anne Valery is sure to be here to-morrow."



CHAPTER XIII.

On the morning—her first morning at Kingcombe Holm—Mrs. Harper woke refreshed to a bright day. All the terraced outline of the hills was pencilled distinctly against the bluest of blue skies, which hung like a tent over the shut-up valley. She stood at the window looking at it, while Mary Harper made the breakfast and Eulalie curiously examined Agatha's dress, supposed to be the latest bridal fashion from London. Nathanael sat writing letters until breakfast was ready, and then took his father's place at the foot of the table.

"Elizabeth bade me ask you," said Mary, addressing him, "if you had any letters this morning from Frederick? You know she likes to look at all family letters—they amuse her. Shall I take this one?"

Nathanael put his hand upon a heap, among which was plainly distinguishable Major Harper's writing. "No, Mary—not now. If necessary, I will read part of it to Elizabeth myself."

Agatha, who had before vainly asked the same question, was annoyed by her husband's reserve. His silence in all his affairs, especially those relating to his brother, was impenetrable.

But this was rousing in her, day by day, a strong spirit of opposition. Had not the presence of his sisters restrained her, for her external wifely pride grew as much as her inward antagonism—she would have again boldly put forward her claim to read the letter. As it was, she had self-control enough to sit silent, but her mouth assumed that peculiar expression which at times revealed a few little mysteries of her nature—showing that beneath the quietude and simplicity of the girl lay the strong, desperate will of a resolute woman.

After breakfast, when Mr. Harper, with some slight apology, had gone to his letters again, she rose, intending to stroll about and explore the lawn. She had never been used to ask any one's permission for her out-goings and in-comings, so was departing quite naturally, when Mary stopped her.

"I hope you will not mind it, but we always stay in the house until my father comes down-stairs. He likes to see us before he begins the day."

Agatha submitted—with a good grace, of course; though she thought the rule absolute was painfully prevalent in the Harper family. But as half-an-hour went by, and the morning air, so fresh and cool, tempted her sorely, she tried to set aside this formal domestic regulation.

Mary looked quite frightened at her overt rebellion.—"My dear Mrs. Harper—indeed we never do it. Do we, Nathanael?" said she, appealingly.

He listened to the discussion a moment.—"My dear wife, since my father would not like it, you will not go, I know."

The tone was gentle, but Agatha would as soon have thought of overleaping a stone wall as of opposing a desire thus expressed. She sat quietly down again—or would have done so, but that she saw Eulalie smile meaningly at her sister. Intercepting the young wife, the smile changed into affected condolence.

"Nathanael will have his way, you see. If you only knew what he was as a little boy," and the Beauty shrugged her shoulders pathetically. "Really, as Harrie says, most men would never get wives at all, did their lady loves know them only half as well as their sisters do."

"Nay," said the good-natured Mary, "but Harrie also says that men, like wine, improve with age, especially if they are kept cool and not too much shaken up. She has no doubt that even her Duke was a very disagreeable boy. So, Mrs. Harper, let me assure you"———

"There is no need; I am quite satisfied," said Mrs. Harper, with no small dignity; and at this momentous crisis her father-in-law entered the room.

He entered dressed for riding—looking somewhat younger than the night before, more cheerful and pleasant too, but not a whit less stately. He saluted Agatha first, and then his daughters, with a gracious solemnity, patting their cheeks all round, something after the fashion of a good-humoured Eastern bashaw. The old gentleman evidently took a secret pride in his womenkind. Then he shook hands with "my son Nathanael," and threw abroad generally a few ordinary remarks, to which his two daughters listened with great reverence. But in all he did or said was the same benignant hauteur; he seemed frozen up within a conglomerate of reserve and formal courtesy; he walked, talked, looked perpetually as Nathanael Harper, Esquire, of Kingcombe Holm, who never allowed either his mind or his body to appear en deshabille. Agatha wondered how he could ever have been a baby squalling, a boy playing, or a young man wooing; nay, more (the thought irresistibly presented itself as she noticed the extreme feebleness which his dignity but half disguised), how he would ever stoop to the last levelling of all humanity—the grave-clothes and the tomb.

"Any letters, my dear children? Any news to tell me before I ride to Kingcombe?" said he, looking round the circle with a patronising interest, which Agatha would scarcely have believed real, but for the kindly expression of the old man's eye.

"There were plenty of letters for Elizabeth, as usual; one for Eulalie "—here Eulalie looked affectedly conscious—"no others, I think."

"Except one to Nathanael from Frederick," observed the Beauty.

At the name of his eldest son the Squire's mien became a little graver—a little statelier. He said coldly, "Nathanael, I hope you have pleasant news from your brother. Where is he now?"

"In the British Channel, on his way to the Continent."

"My son going abroad, and I never heard of it! Some mistake, surely. He is not really gone?"

"Yes, father, for a year, or perhaps more—but certainly a year."

The old gentleman's fingers nervously clutched the handle of his riding-whip. "If so, Frederick would certainly have shown his father the respect of informing him first. Excuse me if I doubt whether my son's plans are quite decided."

"They are indeed, sir," said Nathanael gently. "And I was aware of, indeed advised, this journey. He bids me explain to you that when this letter arrives he will be already gone."

The father started—and broke the whip he was playing with. He stood a minute, the dull red mounting to his temples and lying there like a cloud. Then he took the fragments of the riding-whip from his son's ready hand—thanked him—bade good morning to the womenkind all round, and left them.

"Shall I ride with you, father?" said Nathanael, following him to the hall-door, with a concerned air.

"Not to-day—I thank you! Not to-day."

Mary and Eulalie looked at one another. "This will be a sad blow to papa," said the former. "Frederick was always a great anxiety to him."

Agatha inquired wherefore.

"Because papa abhors a gay 'vagabondising' life, and always wished his eldest son to settle down in the county. I know—though he says nothing—that this has been a sore point between them for nearly twenty years."

"And I know," added Eulalie, mysteriously, "that papa was going to make a last effort, and have Frederick proposed as member for Kingcombe. A pretty fight there would have been—papa and Frederick against Marmaduke and his pet candidate!"

"'Tis well that is prevented! Everything happens for the best," said Mary, sagely. "But here comes Nathanael. Don't tell him, Mrs. Harper, or he would say we had been gossiping."

Mrs. Harper was standing moralising on the ins and outs of family life, from which her own experience had hitherto been so free. Her eyes were wandering up the road, where her father-in-law had just disappeared, riding slowly, but erect as a young man. While she looked, there came up one of those delicious little country pony-carriages, which a lady can drive, and make herself independent of everybody.

"It is Anne Valery!" was the general cry, as all ran to meet her at the door—Agatha being the first.

"My dear—my dear!" murmured Anne Valery, leaning out of her little carriage to pat the brown curls. "Are you quite well?—quite happy? And your husband?" She glanced from one to the other, with a keen inquiry. "Is all well, Nathanael?"

Nathanael, smiling at his wife, whose look of entire pleasure brought, as usual, the reflection of the same to him also, answered, warmly, "Yes, Anne, all is well!"

She seemed satisfied, and took his hand to dismount from her carriage. Agatha noticed that she walked more feebly, in spite of the bright colour which the wind had brought to her cheeks; and that soon after she came into the house this tint gradually faded, leaving her scarcely even so healthy-looking as she had appeared a month ago—the last time they had seen her. But her talk was full of cheerfulness.

"I am come to stay the whole day with you, by your father's desire—and my own. May I, Mary?"

"Oh, yes! We shall be so glad, especially Elizabeth, who was wondering and longing after you."

"I have not been well. London never suits me," said Anne carelessly. "But come, now I am about again, let me see what is to be done to-day. In the first place, I must have a long talk with Elizabeth. Is she risen yet, Eulalie?"

Eulalie did not know; but Mary added, that she feared this was one of Elizabeth's "hard days," when she could not talk much to any one till evening.

Anne continued, after a pause—"I want to drive over to Kingcombe about some business. I have had so much on my hands since poor Mr. Wilson's death."

"Anne's steward," whispered the Beauty importantly to her sister-in-law. "You know that half Kingcombe belongs to Anne Valery?" And Agatha noticed, with some amusement, what an extreme deference was infused into the usually nonchalant, contemptuous manner of the youngest Miss Harper.

"So poor Wilson is dead! And who have you to manage all your property?" asked Mr. Harper suddenly.

"No one at present I am very particular in my choice. As I am only a woman, my steward has necessarily considerable influence. I would wish him always to be what Mr. Wilson was: if possible a friend, but undoubtedly a gentleman."

As Miss Valery spoke, Nathanael listened in deep thought; then, meeting her eyes, he coloured slightly, but quickly recovering himself, said, in a low tone, "Some time to-day, Anne, I would like to have a little talk with you."

She assented with an inquiring look. But she seemed to understand Nathanael well enough to content herself with that look, asking no further questions.

"And, for the third important business which should be done to-day, and perhaps the sooner the better, I must certainly take Agatha up Holm Hill, and show her the view of the Channel."

Agatha drew back from the window. "Ah, not the sea!—I cannot bear the sea." Anne Valery watched her with peculiar earnestness.

"Were you ever on the sea, my dear?"

"Once, long ago."

"Nay, I must teach you to admire our magnificent coast. On with your bonnet, and come along that great hill-terrace—do you see it?—with Nathanael and me."

"But you will be tired," Mrs. Harper said, reluctant still, yet loth to resist Anne Valery.

"Tired? no! The salt breeze gives me strength—health. I hardly live when I am not in sight of the Channel. Make haste, and let us go, Agatha."

She seemed so eager, that no further objection was possible. So they soon started—they three only, for Mary had occupation in the house, and the Beauty was mightily averse to exercise and sea-air.

They climbed the steep road, overhung with trees, at whose roots grew clusters of large primrose leaves, showing what a lovely walk it must be in spring; then higher, till all this vegetation ceased, leaving only the short grass cropped by the sheep, the purple thistles, and the furze-bushes, yellow and cheerful all the year round. They then drove along a high ridge for a mile or two, till they got quite out of sight of Kingcombe Holm. Miss Valery talked gaily the whole way; and, as though the sea-breeze truly gave her life, was the very first to propose leaving the carriage and walking on, so as to catch the earliest glimpse of the Channel.

"There!" she said, breathlessly, and quitting Mr. Harper's arm, crossed over to his wife. "There, Agatha!"

It was such a view as in her life the young girl had never beheld. They stood on a high ridge, on one side of which lay a wide champaign of moorland, on the other a valley, bounded by a second ridge, and between the two sloping greenly down, till it terminated in a little bay. Parallel to the valley ran this grand hill-terrace—until it likewise reached the coast, ending abruptly in precipitous gigantic cliffs, against which the tides of centuries might have beat themselves in vain. Beyond all, motionless in the noonday dazzle, and curving itself away in a mist of brightness where the eye failed, was the great, wide, immeasurable sea.

The three stood gazing, but no one spoke. Agatha trembled, less with her former fear than with that awestruck sense of the infinite which is always given by the sight of the ocean—that ocean which One "holdeth in the hollow of his hand." Gradually this awe grew fainter, and she was able to look round her, and count the white dots scattered here and there on the dazzling sheet of waves.

"There go the ships," said Nathanael. "See what numbers of them—numbers, yet how few they seem!—are moving up and down on this highway of all nations. Look, Agatha, at that one, a mere speck, dipping in the horizon.

"Do you remember Tennyson's lines?—they reached Uncle Brian and me even in the wild forests of America:

"'Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail Which brings our friends up from the under world; Sad as the last which reddens over one That sinks, with all we love, below the verge.'"

"There! it is gone now," cried Agatha, almost with a sense of loss. She felt Anne Valery's fingers tighten convulsively over her arm, and saw her with straining eyes and quivering lips watching the vanishing—nay, vanished—ship, as if all her soul were flying with it to the "under world."

The sight was so startling, so moving—especially in a woman of Miss Valery's mature age and composed demeanour—that Nathanael's wife instinctively turned her eyes away and kept silence. In a minute or two Anne had returned to Mr. Harper's arm, and the three were walking on as before; until, ere long, they nestled themselves in a sheltered nook, where the sea-wind could not reach them, and the sun came in, warm as summer.

Nathanael began to show his wife the different points of scenery—especially the rocky island of Portland, beyond which the line of coast sweeps on ruggedly westward to the Land's End.

"But I believe," he said, "that there is nowhere a grander coast than we have here—not even in Cornwall."

"Speaking of Cornwall," Miss Valery said, closely observing Nathanael, "I lately heard a sad story about some mines there."

Mr. Harper seemed restless. "The speculation had failed, having been ill-managed, or, as I greatly fear, a cheat from the beginning. As I had property near in the county—what, did you not know that, Nathanael—I was asked to do something for the poor starving miners of Wheal Caroline. Have you heard the name, Agatha?"

"No," said Agatha, innocently, not paying much attention, except to the lovely view.

"Not heard? That is strange. But you, Nathanael"—

"I know all," he said hastily. "It is a sad history—too sad to be talked of here. Another time"—

His eye met hers—and both turned upon Agatha, who sat a little apart, enjoying the novel scene, and rejoicing above all that the sea—vague object of nameless terror—could ever appear so beautiful.

"Poor child!" murmured Miss Valery.

"Hush, Anne!" Nathanael whispered, so imploringly—nay, commandingly, that Anne was startled.

"How like you are to"—

"What were you saying?" asked Agatha, turning at last.

"I was saying," Miss Valery replied hastily—"I was saying how like Nathanael looked just then to his Uncle Brian."

"Did he indeed? Was that all you were speaking of?"

"Not quite all; but I find your husband knows the story; he will tell you, as he ought," added Anne pointedly.

"Surely I will, one day," said Nathanael. "But in this case, as in many others, where there has been misfortune or wrong, I consider the best, wisest, most charitable course is not to spread it abroad until the wrong has had a chance of being remedied. Do you not think so, Anne?"

"Yes," she answered, her eyes fixed upon the resolute young face that seemed compelling her to silence almost against her will. It was marvellous to see the influence Nathanael had, even over Anne Valery.

"And now," continued Mr. Harper, "while I am alone with you and my wife"—here he drew Agatha within the circle of talk, and made her lean against his knee, his arm shielding her from the wind—"I wanted to talk with you, Anne, about some plans I have."

"Say on."

"I have given up—as Agatha wrote you word—all idea of our settling at Montreal. It is necessary that I should at once find some employment in England."

"Not yet—not just yet," said his wife.

"I must, dear. It is right—it is necessary. Anne herself would say so."

Miss Valery assented, much to Agatha's surprise.

"The only question then is—what can I do? Nothing in the professions—for I have acquired none; nothing in literature—for I am not a genius; but anything in the clear, straightforward, man-of-business line—Uncle Brian used to accuse me of being so very practical.—Anne," he added, smiling, "I wish, instead of having to puff off myself thus, Uncle Brian were here to advertise my qualifications."

"Qualifications for what?" inquired Agatha, Miss Valery being silent

"For obtaining from my friend here what I would at once have applied for to any stranger; poor Wilson's vacant post as her overseer, land-agent, steward, or whatever the name may be."

"Steward!" cried Mrs. Harper. "Surely you would never dream of being a steward?"

"Why not? Because I am unworthy of the situation, or—as I fear my proud little wife thinks—because the situation is not worthy of me? Nay, a man never loses honour by earning his bread in honourable fashion; and Miss Valery herself said that for this office she required both a gentleman and a friend. Will she accept me?"

And he extended, proudly as his father might—yet with a frank independence nobler than the pride of all the Harpers—his honest right hand. Anne Valery took it, the tears rising in her eyes.

"I could never have offered you this, Nathanael; but since you are so steadfast, so wise——Yes! it is indeed, considering all things, the wisest course you can pursue. Only, I will agree to nothing unless your wife consents."

"I will not consent," said Agatha, determinedly.

There was an uncomfortable pause.

"I see in your plan no reason—no right," continued she, forgetting in her annoyance even the outward deference with which her sense of conjugal dignity led her invariably to treat her husband. "Why was I never told this before?"

"Because I never thought of it myself until this morning."

The exceeding gentleness of his tone surprised her, and restrained many more words, not over-sweet, which were issuing from her angry lips.

"The fact is, Agatha—I may speak before Anne Valery whom we both love"—

"And who loves you both as if you had been her own kindred."

These words, so tremulously said, swept away a little bitterness that was rising up in Agatha's heart against Miss Valery.

"It is necessary," Mr. Harper went on—"imperatively so, for my comfort—that I should at once do something. And in choosing one's work, it always seemed to me there was great wisdom in the rule—'Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.' Many things I could not do; this I can, well and faithfully, as Anne will find. Nor need I feel ashamed of being steward to Miss Valery."

Agatha felt her spirit of opposition quaking on its throne. "But your father—your sisters. What will they all say at Kingcombe Holm?"

"Nothing that I cannot combat. My father will be glad of our settling near him in Dorsetshire."

"In Dorsetshire!" echoed Mrs. Harper dolefully; and thereupon fled her last visions of a gay London home. Yet she already liked her husband's county and people well enough to bear the sacrifice with tolerable equanimity.

"And whatever he says, whatever any one else says, I have no fear, if my wife will only stand by me, and trust that I do everything for the best."

His wife listened, not without agitation, for she remembered their first dispute, only a few days ago. Here was rising another storm. Yet either she felt weaker to contend, or something in Nathanael's manner lured her to believe him in the right. She listened—only half-convinced, yet still she listened.

Anne Valery did the same, though she took no part in the argument Only continually her eyes wandered to Nathanael, less with smiling heart-warm affection than with the pensive tenderness with which one watches a dead likeness revived in a living face.

At last, when he had expressed all he could—everything except entreaty or complaint—Mr. Harper paused. "Now, Agatha, speak."

She felt that she must yield, yet tried to struggle a little longer. She had been so unused to control.

"You should have consulted with me—have explained more of your reasons, which as yet I do not comprehend. Why should you be so wondrously anxious to begin work? It is unreasonable, unkind."

"Am I unkind to you, my poor Agatha?" His accent was that of unutterable pain.

"No! no! that you never are! Only—I suppose because I am young and lately married—I do not half understand you. What must I do, Miss Valery?"

Anne looked from one to the other—Nathanael, who, as was his habit in all moments of great trial, assumed an aspect unnaturally hard—and Agatha whose young fierce spirit was just bursting out, wrathful, yet half repentant all the while. "What must you do? You must try to learn the lesson that every woman has to learn from and for the man she loves—to have faith in him."

"We women," she continued softly, "the very best and wisest of us, cannot enter thoroughly into the nature of the man we love. We can only love him. That is, when we once believe him worthy of affection. Firmly knowing that, we must bear with all the rest; and where we do not quite understand, we must, as I said, have faith in him. I have heard of some women whose faith has lasted all their life."

Anne's serious smile, and the beautiful steadfastness of her eyes, which vaguely turned seaward—though apparently looking at nothing—made a deep impression on the young wife.

She answered, thoughtfully, "I believe in my husband too, otherwise I would not have married him. Therefore, since our two wills seem to clash, and he is the older and the wiser—let him decide as he thinks best—I will try to 'have faith in him.'"

Nathanael grasped her hand, but did not speak—it seemed impossible to him. Soon after, they all rose and turned homeward, leaving the breezy terrace and the bright sunshiny sea. None turned to look back at either, excepting only—for one lingering, parting glance—Anne Valery.



CHAPTER XIV.

The same afternoon, Mr. and Mrs. Harper and Miss Valery drove to Kingcombe, to see if in that quaint little town there was a house suitable for the young couple. They had not said a word to either of the Miss Harpers concerning this sudden arrangement, agreeing that the father of the household ought to be shown the respect of receiving the first information.

"And then," said Nathanael, "I trust mainly to Anne Valery to overcome his scruples. Anne can do anything she likes with my father. Don't you remember," he continued, leaning over to the front seat where the two ladies were, and looking quite cheerful, as though a great load had been taken off his mind—"don't you remember—I do, though I was such a little boy—how there was one day a grand family tumult because Frederick wanted his commission, and my father refused it—how you walked up and down the garden, first with one and then with the other, persuading everybody to be friends, while Uncle Brian and I"—

"There, that will do," said Miss Valery. "Never mind old times, but let us look forward to the future. Here we are at Kingcombe. Agatha, how do you like the place?"

And Agatha, on this glowing autumn afternoon, eagerly examined her future home.

It was a rather noteworthy country town; small, clean, with an air of sober preservation, reminding one of a well-kept, dignified, healthy old age. It wore its antiquity with a sort of pride, as if its quaint streets, intersecting one another in cruciform shape, still kept the impress of mediaeval feet, baron's or priest's, in the days when Kingcombe had sixteen churches and a castle to boot—as if the Roman walls which enclosed it lay solemnly conscious that, at night, ghosts of old Latin warriors glided over the smooth turf of those great earthen mounds where the town's-children played. Even the very river, which came up to the town narrow and slow, with perhaps one sailing-barge on it visible far across the flat country, and looking like a boat taking an insane pedestrian excursion over the meadows—even the river seemed to run silently, as if remembering the time when it had floated up Danish ships with their fierce barbarian freight, and landed them just under that red sand-cliff, where the lazy cows now stood, and the innocent blackberry-bushes grew.

It was a curious place Kingcombe, or so Agatha thought.

"How strange it is," Mr. Harper observed. "All these old spots seem to me like places beheld in a dream. Uncle Brian often used to talk about them. I think to this day he remembers everything and everybody about Kingcombe."

"Does he?"

"And that some day or other he will come back again I do most firmly believe. Do not you, Anne?"

"Yes." As she spoke, her hand involuntarily was pressed upon her side. Agatha wondered she responded so coldly and with so melancholy a look, to such a joyous prospect as Uncle Brian's return would surely be to all the family.

But here they were in Kingcombe streets—very quiet, sleepy streets, which seemed to have taken an undisturbed doze for a few centuries, to atone for the terrible excitements there created successively by Danish, Roman, Saxon, and baronial ruffians. The poor little town seemed determined to spend its old age in peace and solitude, for you might have planted a cannonade at the market-place, and swept down East Street, West Street, North Street, and South Street, without laying more than a dozen official murders on your soul. There was indeed great reason for Mrs. Harper's innocent inquiry—"Where are all the people gone to?"

"Except on market-days, we rarely see more street passengers than now in Kingcombe," Aline Valery answered, smiling. "You will get accustomed to that and many other things when you are a country lady. Now, shall we drive to the Dugdales, or look first at the two houses I told you of?"

Mr. Harper preferred the latter course, under fear, his wife merrily declared, of being circumvented by Mrs. Dugdale. The brother and sister, she had already discovered, seemed on as pleasant terms as fire and water, since, as Harrie punningly averred, one invariably "put out" the other. They did not squabble—Nathanael Harper never squabbled—but they always met with a gentle hissing, like water sprinkled on coals. Agatha, who was quite new to these harmless fraternalities, always occurring in large families, was mightily amused thereat.

The first house the little party looked over was, as Emma Thornycroft would have phrased it, "a love of a place!" Dining-room, drawing-rooms, conservatory, gardens—quite a gentleman's mansion. Agatha set her heart upon it at once, and it blotted out even her lingering regret over the lost home in the Regent's Park. She ran over the rooms with the glee of a child, and only came back to her husband to urge him to take it, giving her this thing and that thing necessary to its beautification.

He patted her cheek with a pleased yet sad look.

"Dear, I will give you all I can; be quite sure of that. But"—

"Nay, no buts; I must have this house. Besides, Miss Valery says it is the only house to let in Kingcombe."

"Except the one I showed you as we passed."

"Oh, that mean little cottage—impossible. We could never think of living there."

"Nevertheless, let us look at it. You know we are but just beginning the world, and 'small beginnings make great endings' as Uncle Brian would sagely observe. Come along, my little wife."

She tried to slip from his hand and appeal to Miss Valery, but Anne had moved forward, and left them alone. There was no resource; and even while Agatha's spirit was rather restive under the coercion, she could not but acknowledge the pleasantness with which it was enforced.

"Well, I'll go with you, but I hereby declare rebellion. I will not have that miserable nutshell of a house," said she, laughing.

Yet it was a pretty nutshell—quite after the "love in a cottage" fashion—though adorned and perfected by the late Mr. Wilson, an old bachelor.

"Did he die here?" asked Agatha.

"No; in Cornwall," Anne answered. "He had gone over to look at some property I have lately bought there. The people on it, miners thrown out of work, gave him more anxiety than he could bear, for he was not strong. He said their misery broke his heart."

Miss Valery spoke softly, but the words caught Nathanael's ear. He looked greatly shocked—and said, in a low tone, "Anne, don't talk of this. If I live, the wrong shall be atoned for."

Agatha wondered for the moment what wrong there was which made her husband look so pained and humbled. But she forbore to ask questions, and again turned her attention to the house.

"It must have been a charming nest for an old bachelor, and I would have liked it very much myself had I been an old maid. But it would never do for us, you know."

Nathanael smiled, so loth to contradict her, or thwart her pretty ways.

"Don't you see, Miss Valery;" Agatha continued, gathering apprehensions from his silence, smiling though it was—"Don't you see how different the cases are? This little house might do very well for Mr. Wilson, but then if my husband takes his place as your steward, it is only for amusement. We are rich people, you know."

"My poor child!" began Anne Valery, looking regretfully, nay, reproachfully at Mr. Harper. But he whispered as he passed:

"Not yet, Anne—for my father's sake—the whole family's—nay, her own. Not just yet!"

Such was his earnestness, such his air of command, that, for the second time, Anne, looking in his face and reading the old likeness there—obeyed him.

Agatha, wondering, uncomfortable, recommenced what she jestingly called "her little rebellion." "I see, Mr. Harper, your heart is inclining to this place, though why or wherefore I cannot tell. But do incline it back again! We must have the other house—that delicious Honeywood."

"My dear little wife! Nobody could live at Honeywood under a thousand a year."

"Well, and have we not that? I am sure I thought I had more money than ever I could do with. How much have I?"

He hesitated—she fancied it was at the thoughtless "I," and generously changed the expression.

"How much have we?"

"Enough—I will make it enough—to keep you from wanting anything, and give you all the luxuries to which you were born. But not enough to warrant us in living at Honeywood. I cannot do it—not even for your sake, Agatha."

"I do not see the matter as you do."

"You cannot, dear! I know that. But in this one thing—when, on various accounts, I can judge better than she can—will not my wife trust me?"

And Anne Valery's glance seemed to echo, "Trust him."

Agatha, tried to the utmost of her small stock of patience, grew more bitter than she could have believed it possible to be with her husband and Anne Valery.

"You expect too much," she said, sharply. "I cannot trust, even though I may be compelled to obey."

Mr. Harper turned round anxiously. "Agatha, what must—what can I do? No," he muttered to himself, "I can do nothing." He walked to the window, and stood looking out mutely on the little garden—tiny, but so pretty, with its green verandah, its semicircle of arbutus trees serving as a frame to the hilly landscape beyond, its one wavy acacia, woodbine-clasped, at the foot of which a robin-redbreast was hopping and singing over the few fallen leaves.

While they all thus stood, there came a light foot and a flutter of draperies to the door.

"My patience! what are you all doing here? So, Agatha—Anne! How d'ye do, my worthy brother? Why didn't you all come to our house?"

"We were coming directly," Agatha said. "But how did you find out we were at Kingcombe?"

"You little London-lady! As if anybody, especially the much-beloved Anne Valery (saving her presence) and the much-wondered-at Mr. and Mrs. Locke Harper, could drive through Kingcombe without the fact being speedily circulated throughout the whole town? Why, my dear, if you must know, the grocer told Mrs. Edwards' nursemaid, and Mrs. Edwards' nursemaid told it to Mrs. Jones at the Library, and Mrs. Jones told Miss Trenchard, who was coming to call on me; so I asked Duke to give the children their dinner, and off I started, tracking you as cleverly as one of Nathanael's Red Indians. And here I am."

She stopped, breathless, her flounces, veil, and shawl flying abroad in all directions. But she looked so hearty, natural, and good-humoured, that her entrance was quite a relief to Agatha—more especially as, for a great wonder, she asked no questions.

"So, I hear you have been showing Honeywood to Mrs. Harper. Pretty place, isn't it! A pity it's not on your property, Anne, or you would not let it go to ruin unlet. And here is poor Mr. Wilson's old house, with all the furniture just as it was. How melancholy!"

She said "How melancholy!" just in the tone that she would have said "How entertaining!" From circumstances, or from natural peculiarity—that light easy temper which dances like a feather over the troubled waters of life—she had evidently never learnt the meaning of the word sorrow.

"But now," Harriet continued, "what I come for, is to carry you all off to lunch—the children's dinner. My dear, you must see my boys, your nephews."

Agatha stood aghast at the idea of having nephews!

"And such boys!" Miss Valery added, interposing. "'The Missus' has good right to be proud of them. If there is one thing in which Harrie succeeds better than another, it is in the management of her children."

"Bah! they manage themselves; I just leave them to nature," cried Mrs. Dugdale; but her eye—the mother's eye—twinkled with pleasure all the time, which greatly improved its expression, Agatha thought. She walked off gaily with her sister-in-law, Nathanael following. Anne stayed behind, conversing with the old woman who showed the house. She and Mr. Harper had pointedly avoided any private speech with one another.

"I declare there is Duke!" cried Mrs. Dugdale suddenly. "Just look at him, meandering up and down the town." (Agatha laughed at the word; "meandering" seemed so perfectly expressive of Duke Dugdale.) "But my husband always turns up everywhere, except where he's wanted. Does yours? I beg your pardon—since you are watching him as if you thought he were running away. Nonsense, Agatha—(I always call everybody by their Christian names)—Nonsense! He's only shaking hands with his brother-in-law, both looking as pleased as ever they can look."

The next moment Harrie and Agatha came up with the two gentlemen at the door of Mr. Dugdale's house. They were talking politically and earnestly, as men will do—Nathanael having apparently forgotten the bitter cloud of a few minutes since, which yet lay heavy on his wife's heart. At least it seemed so, and his indifference made her angry.

Neither spoke to their wives—being busy laying their heads together over a newspaper—until Harrie very unceremoniously began to pull at her husband's coat, which he bore for a time in perfect obliviousness. At last he turned and patted her with his great hand, just as some sage, mild Newfoundland dog would coax into peace the attacks of a wild young kitten.

"Nay, now, Missus—don't'ee, love; I'm busy.—And you see, Nathanael, as your brother is sure not to canvass or try for the town, and as Mr. Trenchard is such a fine fellow, your father's friend too, don't you think we could coax him round? By conviction, of course: Trenchard wouldn't take any man's votes except upon conviction."

"Wouldn't he?" said Nathanael, smiling at the simple-minded politician, who believed that everybody's politics were as honest as his own. At which unpropitious moment a number of half-drunken men, with "Vote for Trenchard!" stuck round their broken hats, came round the corner shouting:

"Hurrah for Free-trade! Duke Dugdale for ever! Bravo!—and give us a shilling! Amen!"

"You see now what comes of your politics," cried his wife, trying to pull him into the hall. But the good man still stood, bareheaded, a perplexed expression troubling his face.

"It's very odd, now: I made Trenchard promise not to give them a penny for drink. Poor fellows! if they only knew better! But I'll tell'ee what it is, Nathanael," and he used the slight Dorset accent, which always broadened when he was very earnest, "those lads drink because they are starving—drink drowns care. If they had Free-trade they wouldn't be starving: if they were not starving they wouldn't drink. Therefore, hurrah for Free-trade, and, my poor fellows, here's your shilling! Only don't'ee let it go for more drink'; and, hark'ee, remember it's no bribery money o' Mr. Trenchard's, its mine.

"Thank'ee, zir, thank'ee; hurrah for Duke Dugdale and Free-trade!" shouted the men as they staggered off.

Mr. Dugdale stood looking after them with that mild benevolent smile which made his ugly face quite beautiful—at least Agatha thought so;—which was very generous in her, seeing he had not taken the least notice of her all this while; when he did, it was in the most passing way.

"Eh—what, Missus? did you say Mrs. Harper was here?" He shook hands with her, looking in another direction;—then again turned to Nathanael.

"Utterly useless!" cried Harrie, laughing. "He's more misty than usual to-day. Let us leave the men alone, stupid bears as they are! and come up-stairs to the children."

All this time no one asked or looked for Miss Valery, who had lingered behind, bidding them go forward. It seemed the habit of the family that she should be left to go about in her own fashion, interfered with by nobody, and attended by nobody, save when she came among them to do them good. It was not wonderful; since, having passed that time of youth when a pleasant woman is everybody's petted darling, she had lived to feel herself alone in the world—wife, sister, and child to no one. It always takes a certain amount of moral courage to meet that destiny.

Aided by the beneficial influence of dinner, which in the Dugdales' house seemed to have the mysterious property of extending over an indefinite time, Agatha had succeeded in making friends with her "nephews" to say nothing of a lovely little niece, who would persist in putting chubby arms round "Pa's" neck, and dividing his attention sorely between Free-trade and rice-pudding. Mr. Harper had taken another child on his knee, and was cutting oranges and doing "Uncle Nathanael" to perfection. His wife stole beside him with affection. Why would he not be always as now? Why was he so good, so gentle to others, yet so hard to be understood by her? Was it her own fault? She almost believed so.

On this group, all happy, all united together by those lovely links in the chain of happiness—little children—Anne Valery entered. She passed round the table, having a word, or smile, or kiss for all. Then she went to an arm-chair, looking tired, though joining all the while in the conversation, particularly with Mr. Dugdale, who seemed to have a great regard for her.

"Ah, Miss Valery, I wish you were a man, and could vote for us!" said he, peering from underneath the baby-hands which made a pointed Norman arch over "Pa's" eyes. "You'd be sure to vote on the right side. Didn't we make a convert of you, Brian and I, years before people talked of Free-trade; long before he went out, and I got married to mamma there? Eh, Brian, my lad"—and he patted his youngest boy, throned on Mr. Harper's knee—"if you only grow up such a wise man as your grand-uncle!"

Agatha was amused to see how the idea and recollection of Uncle Brian had permeated through every branch of the Harper family. Almost every family has some such personage, mythical, sublime, exciting the wonder and hero-worship of all the young people. Little Brian opened wide his large grey eyes at the mention of his honoured namesake.

But while he gazed, his papa's pudding-laden spoon stopped half-way on its journey to the baby-mouth that was waiting for it—Duke Dugdale was in a reverie. He did not even hear the little clamourer on his knee.

"Really, now, that's very odd, very odd indeed." And he felt anxiously in his pocket. "No, I had another coat on that day—mamma, where's my grey overcoat?"

"Duke—what on earth are you talking about? Now, Agatha, confess—isn't my husband the very vaguest, mistiest man you ever knew? Oh, you dear old visionary, what do you want with grey overcoats at dinner-time?"

He smiled patiently—perhaps he did not even hear—put down his little girl, and walked out of the room, his wife anxiously jumping up and following with some pathetic exclamation about "Duke's being so cross!" Which seemed to Agatha the most amusing exaggeration possible.

In a minute or two this most opposite couple—opposite, but fitting like a dovetailed joint—came in merrily together, Harrie holding a letter.

"Would you believe, he got it last week, has been carrying it about ever since, and never thought of it! There, Nathanael, it's yours! Devour it!"

"From Uncle Brian!" cried the young man. At which name there ran a great sensation throughout the family, in all but Miss Valery, who still kept her chair.

"News! news!" cried Harrie, Agatha and the boys gathering round. Mr. Dugdale walked up and down the room—his hands behind him—smiling in benevolent content at everybody and at nobody. Brian and his tiny sister consoled themselves for the little attention they got by slily climbing on the table and embedding their fingers in the rice-pudding.

Nathanael read the letter aloud, as seemed to be the family custom with Uncle Brian's correspondence.

"My dear Boy," I find the Western solitudes are no nearer heaven than civilisation. My two red friends having escaped and got back, which they did on purpose to tomahawk me—I gave the tribe the slip, and am here in New York. There I accidentally received your letter.

"You are a foolish boy. When I was young, I think I would rather have died than have married a rich woman, even if she loved me, which no woman ever did. Nevertheless, I hope you will fare better than you deserve.

"Shall you ever come back to America? Not on my account, I pray, though I miss you, and am getting old and lonely. Perhaps it is as well that you left me, and have married and settled. That seems to me now the happier, worthier life for a man to lead. I should like to come and see you, if I could come not quite the beggar I am now. Therefore, I often think I shall go to California."

There was a light movement among the listening group, as Miss Valery was found quietly to have joined them, and to be leaning over Nathanael's shoulder. He pointed his finger to the letter that she might read it with him. She moved her head in thanks, and he continued:

"If in this or any other form of the mad gold-fever I can heap up a little of that cursed—I mean blessed dust, you may possibly see me in England. Till then—or till death—which seems equally likely, I remain,

"Your affectionate Uncle,

"Brian Locke Harper.

"P.S.—I send this through Marmaduke Dugdale's late agent in New York. Tell my old friend Duke that I congratulate him on having given up merchandising, so that my brother at Kingcombe Holm can no longer reproach him with being the only one of the Harper connection who earns a livelihood."

This letter, which was trying to read, being sharp and stinging on many points to more than one person present, Nathanael went steadily through, though several times his colour changed. No one made any comment except Agatha, who observed "that Uncle Brian must be rather bitter and sarcastic at heart."

"No—not bitter," Anne Valery said,—"only sorrowful. It is often so, when after a hard life men feel themselves growing old. What shall you do, Nathanael?"

"About what? His going to California? Nay, I cannot prevent that. What use in my writing when he gives me such lectures about my marriage?"

"He would not if he knew Agatha. Besides, in this doctrine he is a little wrong. It is of small moment on which side lies the wealth;—love makes all things even."

Mr. Harper turned away with one of those uneasy looks which Agatha had already begun to notice and speculate over. She made up her mind that at the first possible opportunity she would muster up courage, and claim her right as a wife to know her husband's whole heart.

The epistle produced a considerable change on the family group. The boys were clamorous to know all about California, and whether Uncle Brian would not come home in a gold ship with silver sails; on which subject Nathanael was too full of his own thoughts to give much satisfactory information. Mr. Dugdale had walked out of the window into the garden behind, where Miss Valery followed him, and they two were seen strolling up and down in close conversation. As they passed the window, Agatha noticed that. Anne Valery's cheeks were slightly flushed, and that Mr. Dugdale's "mistiness" of manner had assumed an unusual clearness. He was shaking his companion warmly by the hand.

"Anne, what a wise woman you are! Such a plan would have been years in coming into my head. And it's just the very thing. It will give him occupation and independence without hurting his pride. Moreover"—and a sudden thought dilated his whole countenance with pleasure—"I shouldn't wonder if it brought him home."

"Hush!"

"Oh yes, I'll remember, we must be very particular. By-the-by, Anne"—here a bright idea seemed to strike the worthy man—"what a help he would be to us against the Protectionists! Wouldn't he see the blessing of Free-trade?"

Anne smiled, with her finger on her lip to stop the conversation; and they stepped in at the window;—Mrs. Harper taking care to glide away, lest they should suspect what she had so unintentionally heard. It was doubtless one of Miss Valery's numerous anonymous charities, which fell as abundant and unnoticed as rain.

"Now"—and Anne startled her godchild Brian by turning up his little rosy chin and kissing him—"now, who will come back with us to that grand family-dinner which the Squire has set his heart upon, and Aunt Mary is so busy-about to-day at Kingcombe Holm?"

All soon started; Agatha being kidnapped, not much against her will, by her gay sister-in-law, and driven across the moors at such a helter-skelter pace that Nathanael, who had insisted upon following them on horseback, received his wife at the door with an evident thanksgiving that she had reached home alive.

Miss Valery's little equipage came leisurely on behind. Nobody asked what she and Duke Dugdale had conversed about; but Harrie shrewdly suspected he had been talking poor dear Anne to death about the votes of her Kingcombe tenantry, and the probable chances of Mr. Trenchard and Free-trade.



CHAPTER XV.

To see the elder Mr. Harper sitting at the head of his own dinner-table was a real pleasure. He never looked so well at any other time. His grandiose air was then so mixed with genuine kindliness that it only enriched his courtesies, like the "body" in mellow old wine. He leaned graciously back in the arm-chair peculiarly his own, surveying the long table shone over by soft wax-lights, and circled by smiling faces, most of them women, as the old gentleman liked best. Even the plain Mary, taking the foot of the table, looked well and mistress-like in her black velvet dress: Eulalie and Mrs. Dugdale kept up the good appearance of the family; while Miss Valery and the young Mrs. Harper took either side of the host, and were duly honoured by him.

Agatha wore her wedding-dress, of white silk, rich and plain, She looked very pretty, her girlish abandon of manner softened by a certain wifely dignity, which grew upon her day by day. She filled her position well, though often with secret trembling, and shy glances over to her husband to see if he were satisfied with her—a fact which no one but herself could doubt.

"Now, my children," said the Squire, when the servants had withdrawn, and dessert and wines foretold the chatty hour after dinner of which he was so fond—"now, my children—I may call you all so?" and he smiled at Anne Valery—"let me tell you how glad I am to see you, and especially the youngest of you"—here he softly patted Agatha's hand, on the table. "And since we always drink healths here—a good old fashion that I should be loth to renounce—let me give you the first toast—Mr. and Mrs. Nathanael Locke Harper!"

"Hear, hear!" said Mr. Dugdale vaguely from the bottom of the table, at which indecorum—probably occasioned by a county meeting that was running in his head—his father-in-law looked extremely severe. But the severity was soon drowned in the nods and smiles that circled round. After which Nathanael said briefly but with feeling:

"Father, my brother and sisters, and Anne—my wife and I thank you all"

"What do you think of this our old-fashioned custom?'" said the Squire, turning to his daughter-in-law. "A remnant of my young days, when every lady used to be called upon to give the health of a gentleman, and every gentleman of a lady. It was always so at your grandfather's table, Anne, where many a time when you were a baby in long-clothes I had the pleasure of giving yours."

"Thank you," said Anne, smiling. She was evidently a great favourite with the old gentleman.

"You should know, my dear daughter-in-law, that my acquaintance with this lady dates almost from her birth. And for nineteen years I held over her the right which I understand my eldest son"—he paused a moment—"which Major Harper had the honour to hold over you. Her grandfather left me his executor and sole guardian of his infant heiress. I was a young man then, but I tried to deserve his trust. Did I, Anne?"

Again she smiled—most affectionately.

"And I had the pleasure of seeing my ward at twenty-one the richest heiress and the truest gentlewoman in the west of England. She did me infinite credit, and I had fulfilled to my friend one of the most sacred trusts a man can receive. Your excellent grandfather Anne—let us drink his memory."

Reverently and in silence the old Squire raised the glass to his lips—a glass filled with only water—he never took wine.

"You see, my dear young lady, how this old custom brings back all lost or absent friends. We never forget them, and like to talk of them and of old times. Thus, always at this hour, we gather round us innumerable pleasant recollections, and remember all who are dear to us or to our guests at Kingcombe Holm.—Now, Mrs. Harper, we wait your toast."

Agatha coloured, felt nervous and ashamed, glanced at her husband, but met nothing except an encouraging smile. She thought—remembering her own few ties—that she would gratify Nathanael by naming some one nearest to him. So she looked up timidly, and gave "Uncle Brian."

Every one applauded—the Squire graciously acknowledging the compliment to his brother.

"The youngest and only surviving brother of many, and as such, much regarded by me," he explained to his daughter-in-law. "In spite of the great difference in our ages, and some trifling opposition in our characters, I cherish the highest esteem for my brother Brian." And hereupon he asked for the letter received that day; which was duly read aloud by his son—saving the wise omission of the postscript.

"Go to California?" said old Mr. Harper, knitting his brows. "I do not like that—it is unbecoming a gentleman. Though he was wild and daring enough, Brian never yet forgot he was a gentleman. Was it not so, Anne?"

Anne assented.

"He was a fine generous fellow, too. Do you remember how a week before he left us so suddenly he rode fifty miles across the country to get some ice for you in your fever? You were very ill then, my poor girl." It was touching to hear him call Miss Valery a "girl"—she whom the young Agatha regarded as quite an elderly woman.

"And though he did leave us so abruptly—wherefore, remains to this day a mystery, unless it was a young man's whim and love of change—still I have the greatest dependence on Brian Harper," continued the Squire, who seemed as a parental right to monopolise all the talk at table.

"Brian Harper!" exclaimed Mr. Dugdale, waking from a trance. "Yes—Brian would surely be able to furnish those statistics on Canadian wheat. His judgment was always as sound as his politics."

"What was your remark, Marmaduke" said the old Squire, testily.

"O, nothing—nothing, father!" Harrie quickly answered, with a half merry, half warning frown at her lord. Mr. Dugdale folded himself up again into silence, with the quiet consciousness of one who has a pearl in his keeping—the undoubted value of which there is no need either to put forward or to defend.

Miss Valery here came to the rescue, and turned the conversation into a merry channel Agatha was surprised to find what a wondrous power of unfeigned home-cheerfulness there was in this woman, who had lived to be called even by those that loved her, "an old maid." And when at last the Squire gracefully allowed the departure of his women-kind, who floated away like a flock of released birds, they all clustered around Anne, as though she were in the constant habit of knowing everybody's business, and of thinking and judging for everybody.

Agatha sat a little way off, watching her, and wondering what could be the strange influence which always made her take delight in watching Anne Valery.

There is something very peculiar in this admiration which one woman occasionally conceives for another, generally much older than herself. It is not exactly friendship, but partakes more of the character of love—in its idealisation, its shyness, its enthusiastic reverence, its hopeless doubt of requital, and, above all, its jealousies. For this reason, it generally comes previous to, or for want of, the real love, the drawing of the feminine soul towards its masculine half, which makes—according to the Platonic doctrine—a perfect being. Of course, this theory would be almost universally considered "sentimentalism"—Agatha's little infatuation being included therein; but the frequency of such infatuations existing in the world around us argues some truth at their origin.

To the young girl—still so girlish, though she was married—there was an inexplicable attraction in all Anne Valery said or did. The very sweep of her dress across the floor—her slow soft motions, which might have been haughty when she was young, but now were only gracious and self-possessed; the way she had of folding her hands on one another, and looking straight forward with a kind observant smile, free alike from sentiment, crossness, or melancholy; her tone and manner, neither showy nor sharp; her habit of saying the wisest things in the most simple way, so that nobody recognised them as wisdom till afterwards—all filled Agatha with a sense of satisfied admiration. She wished either that she had been a man, to have adored and married Anne years ago—or that her own marriage had been delayed for a little, until she had grown wiser and more fit for life's destiny by learning from and loving such a woman as Miss Valery.

Moreover, with the dawning jealousy that all strong likings bring, she wished to appropriate her—and was quite annoyed that Anne sat so long discussing winter mantles with Eulalie and Mary, afterwards diverging to a Christmas clothing fund to be started at Kingcombe under Mrs. Dugdale's eye; finally listening to a whispered communication on the part of the Beauty—which had reference to a certain "Edward"—about whose position in the family there could be no mistake. At last, to Agatha's great satisfaction, Miss Valery rose, and proposed that they two—Mrs. Harper and herself—should go and visit Elizabeth.

Passing through the galleries, Anne seemed tired, and walked slowly, stopping one minute at a window to show her companion the moonlight over the hills.

"Is it not a beautiful world? If we could but look at it always as we do when we are young!" The half sigh, the momentary shadow sweeping over her quiet face like a cloud over the moon—surprised and touched Agatha.

"Do you know I have stood and looked out of this same window ever since I was the height of its first pane. No wonder I have a weakness for stopping here and looking out for a minute at my dear old moon. But let us pass on."

She took up her candle again, and led Agatha by the hand, like a pet-child, to Elizabeth's door.

Miss Harper was lying as usual, but had a writing-case before her, and it was astonishing what neat caligraphy those weak childish-looking fingers could execute. It resembled the writer's own mind—clear, delicate, well-arranged, exact.

"We are not come to stay very long; but do we interrupt you, Elizabeth?"

"Never, Anne, dear! I was only writing to Frederick. He is gone abroad, you are aware?"

"Yes."

"I want to know why he went? Has Nathanael told either of you?" said Elizabeth, fixing her quick eyes on both her visitors.

Both answered in the negative—Miss Valery saying, with attempted gaiety, "You know, one might as well question a stone wall as Nathanael. He can be both deaf and dumb."

"Not to me. Everybody tells me everything, or I find it out. I found out that this little lady had a chance of being my sister-in-law before ever she herself was certain of the fact. Ah, Agatha, you should have seen Nathanael when he came down to us that week."

"What did he do?" the young wife asked, not without some painful curiosity—for sometimes, in the moments when she could not "make out" her husband's rather peculiar character, a wicked demon had whispered that perhaps Mr. Harper had never truly loved her, or that his devotion was too sudden to be a lasting reality.

"What did he do?—Oh, nothing. He was very quiet, very self-possessed. You could hardly tell he was in love at all. Nobody ever guessed it but I—not even Anne. But in love or not, I saw that he was determined to have you; and when Nathanael determines on a thing—Oh, I knew you would be married to him! You could not help it!"

"Nor did she wish—nor need she," said Anne, gently, as she saw Agatha's confusion. "But we shall soon cease teasing our young couple. I hear that at Christmas we shall have another marriage in the family. Edward Thorpe has got the living—the richest one."

"So, of course, Eulalie will marry him." The deduction reached Agatha as rather sarcastic, though perhaps more through the interpretation of her own feeling than that of the speaker. She asked, with one of her usual plain speeches:

"Does Eulalie love Mr. Thorpe very much?"

The remark was addressed to both; but after a pause Elizabeth said, "Answer that question, Anne."

"What sort of an answer do you want, my dear?"

"One perfectly plain. I like simplicity. Is Eulalie much attached to the man she is to marry?"

"Women marry with many forms of love; Eulalie's will do exceedingly well for Mr. Thorpe. He is a very worthy young clergyman, who takes a wife as a matter of necessity. As for love—have you noticed, Agatha, how many women one sees, wives and mothers, who live creditably through a long life, and go down to their graves without ever having known the real meaning of the word?"

Anne was talking more than usual to-night, and Agatha liked to listen. The subject came home to her. "Will Eulalie be one of these?"

"I think so. She may make a very good, attentive wife, but she will never know what is real love."

"Tell me, what is that sort of love—the right love—which one ought to bring to one's husband?"

Miss Valery looked surprised at the young girl's eager manner. "Are you seriously asking that question? and of me, who never had a husband?"

"Oh, one likes to hear various opinions. What do you call 'loving?'"

"Almost every human being loves in a different way."

"Well, then, your way I mean." But noticing the momentary reticence which Anne's manner showed, she added, "I mean the kind of love you have most sympathy with in other people."

"I have sympathy in all. My neighbours will tell you hereabouts that Anne Valery is the universal confidante, and the greatest marriage-maker (not match-maker) in all Dorset. I don't repudiate the character. It is pleasant to see young people loving one another."

"Still, you have not told me what you call loving."

"Do you really wish to hear?" said Anne, seriously. Then speaking in a low voice, she added: "I would have every woman marry, not merely liking a man well enough to accept him as a husband, but loving him so wholly, that, wedded or not, she feels she is at heart his wife and none other's, to the end of her life. So faithful, that she can see all his little faults (though she takes care no one else shall see them), yet would as soon think of loving him the less for these, as of ceasing to look up to heaven because there are a few clouds in the sky. So true, and so fond, that she needs neither to vex him with her constancy, nor burden him with her love, since both are self-existent, and entirely independent of anything he gives or takes away. Thus she will marry neither from liking, esteem, nor gratitude for his love, but from the fulness of her own. If they never marry, as sometimes happens"—and Anne's voice slightly faltered—"God will cause them to meet in the next existence. They cannot be parted—they belong to one another."

All were silent—these three women—one to whom love must have been only a name; the other who spoke of it quietly, seriously, as we talk of things belonging to the world to come; and the third, who sat thoughtful, wondering, doubting, afraid to believe in a truth which brought with it her own condemnation.

"You talk, Miss Valery, as people do in books. Some would call it romance."

"Would they? And do you?"

"Not quite. I used to think the same sometimes; but perfect love, like perfect beauty, is a thing one never meets with in real life."

"Yet one does not the less believe in it, and desire to find approximations thereto. No, my child, I do not talk romance, I am too old for that, and have seen too much of the world. Nevertheless, despite all I have seen—the false, foolish, weak attachments—the unholy marriages—the after-life of marriage made unholier still by struggling against what was inevitable—still I believe in the one true love which binds a woman's heart faithfully to one man in this life and, God grant it! in the next. But you have no need to hear all this—little wife? You do not wish to be taught how to love Nathanael?"

Agatha tried to smile—to conceal the pain rising in her heart.

"Come then, I will teach you how to love him—in better words than mine, and from a woman who, though writing out of the deep truth of her poet-heart, would scorn to write mere 'romance.'"

"Any woman would," answered Agatha, running her eyes over a book which Miss Valery had lifted from the silk coverlid, and which "poor Elizabeth" looked after fondly, as sick people do after the face of a friend.

"Listen, with your heart open. It is sure to find entrance there," said Anne, merrily, until, turning over the pages, she grew serious. She was not quite too old to be insensible to the glamour of poetry. Her voice was hardly like itself—at least, not like what Agatha had ever heard it—when she began to read:

"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth, and breadth, and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and Ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of every day's Most quiet need; by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for right: I love thee purely, as they turn from praise: I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith: I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints; I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life! and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death."

There was a pause of full-hearted silence, and then Agatha heard a sigh behind her.

Her husband had come to the door, and, hearing reading, had stolen in, no one noticing him but his sister. Agatha saw nothing; her eyelids were closely, fiercely shut, over the tears that rose at this vision of a lost or impossible paradise.

"Agatha!" She looked up, and saw him stand, wearing his palest, coldest aspect—that which always seemed to freeze up every young feeling within her. The pang it gave found vent in but one expression—scarcely meant to pass her lips—and inaudible to all save him:

"Oh, why—why did I marry!"

The moment after, she felt how wrong it was, and would have atoned; but Mr. Harper had moved quickly from her side. Elizabeth called him; he seemed not to hear; Anne, closing her book, addressed him: