"Very well, sir," said Ferdinand, laughing, "I reform. Instead of carrying easel and porte-couleur, Harvey shall go about with a copy of 'The Wealth of Nations,' and when a voter passes I'll stop and consult the volume and make a note. But l'homme serieux is not the only man for election times. I'll wager all I am ever likely to make out of politics that I have secured a vote this afternoon, though I have done nothing more than offer a farmer's wife a little artistic advice about the choice of a bonnet. I told her that yellow was fatal to that charming complexion, and advised blue. Old Holland is proud of his young wife, and I hooked him to a certainty."

"Holland!" cried his lordship, more pettishly than ever—"Holland is conservative to the backbone. We were always sure of Holland."

"Well, well," said Ferdinand, in a voice of toleration, "we are at least as sure of him as ever."

The allowance in the young man's manner exasperated the old nobleman. But he liked his young friend in spite of his insolence and tranquil swagger, and he dreaded to say something which might be too strong for the occasion.

"We will talk this question over at another time," he said, controlling himself; "we will talk it over after dinner."

"I must go vote-catching after dinner," returned Ferdinand. "I promised to go and listen to the quartette party this evening."

"Very well," returned his lordship, with a sudden frostiness of manner. "I shall dine alone. Good-evening."

He marched away, the senile nodding of his head accentuated into pettishness; and Ferdinand stood looking after him for a second or two with a smile, but presently thinking better of it, he hastened after the angry old man and overtook him.

"I am sorry, sir, if I disappoint you," he said. "I don't want to do that, and I won't do it if I can help it." The earl said nothing, but walked on with an injured air which was almost feminine. "Are you angry at my proposing to go to see old Fuller? I understood you to say yesterday that his vote was undecided, and that nothing was so likely to catch him as a little interest in his musical pursuits."

"I have no objections to offer to your proposal," replied his lordship, frostily—"none whatever."

"I am glad to hear that, sir," said Ferdinand, with rather more dryness than was needed. His lordship walked on again, and the young man lingered behind.

The household ways at the Hall were simple, and the hours kept there were early. It was not yet seven o'clock when Ferdinand, having already eaten his lonely dinner, strolled down the drive, cigar in month, bound for old Fuller's garden. He thought less of electioneering and less of music than of the pretty girl he had discovered yesterday. She interested him a little, and piqued him a little. Without being altogether a puppy, he was well aware of his own advantages of person, and was accustomed to attribute to them a fair amount of his own social successes. He was heir to a baronetcy and to the estates that went with it. It was impossible in the course of nature that he should be long kept out of these desirable possessions, for the present baronet was his grandfather, and had long passed the ordinary limits of old age. The old man had outlived his own immediate natural heir, Ferdinand's father, and now, in spite of an extraordinary toughness of constitution, was showing signs of frailty which increased almost day by day. And apart from his own personal advantages, and the future baronetcy and the estates thereto appertaining, the young man felt that, as the chosen candidate of the constitutional party for that division of the county at the approaching election, he was something of a figure in the place. It was rather abnormal that any pretty little half-rustic girl should treat him with anything but reverence. If the girl had been shy, and had blushed and trembled before him a little, he could have understood it. Had she been pert he could have understood it. Young women of the rustic order, if only they were a trifle good-looking, had an old-established license to be pert to their male social superiors. But this young woman was not at all disposed to tremble before him, and was just as far removed from pertness as from humility.

As he strolled along he bethought him, vaguely enough—for he was not a young gentleman who was accustomed to put too much powder behind his purposes—that it would be rather an agreeable thing than otherwise to charm this young woman, if only just to show her that she could be charmed, and that he could be charming. He had been a little slighted, and it would be nice to be a little revenged. He was not a puppy, in spite of the fact that his head gave house-room to this kind of nonsense. The design is commoner among girls than boys, but there are plenty of young men who let their wits stray after this manner at times, and some of them live to laugh at themselves.

But while Ferdinand was thinking, an idea occurred to him which caused him to smile languidly. It would be amusing to awaken Barfield's wrath by starting a pronounced flirtation with this village beauty. It was scarcely consistent to have an inward understanding with himself, that if the flirtation should take place it should be kept secret from his noble patron of all men in the world. It would certainly be great fun to take the little hussy from her pedestal. She was evidently disposed to think of herself a good deal more highly than she ought to think, and perhaps it might afford a useful lesson to her to be made a little more pliant, a little less self-opinionated, a little less disposed to snub young gentlemen of unimpeachable attractions. Thinking thus, Ferdinand made up quite a contented mind to be rustic beauty's school-master.

The green door in the garden wall was still a little open when he reached it, but he could hear neither music nor voices.

The evening concert had not yet begun, and he was fain to stroll on a little farther. This of itself was something of an offence to his majesty, though he hardly saw on whom to fix it. He did not know his way round to the front of the house, and did not care to present himself at the rear unless there were somebody there to receive him. He lit a new cigar to pass away the time, and re-enacted his first and only interview with the girl he had made up his mind to subjugate. In the course of this mental exercise he experienced anew the sense of slight he had felt at her hands, but in a more piercing manner. He had spoken to her, and she had waved her hand against him as if he had been a child to be silenced. He had spoken to her again, and she had not even responded. In point of fact she had ignored him. The more he looked at it the more remarkable this fact appeared, and the more uncomfortable and the more resolved he felt about it.

When his cigar was smoked half through he sighted the upright and stalwart figure of Reuben Gold, who was striding at a great pace towards him, swinging his violin-case in one hand. Ferdinand paused to await him..

"Good-evening, Mr. Gold," he said, as Reuben drew near.

"Good-evening," said Reuben, raising his eyes for a moment, and nodding with a preoccupied air. His rapid steps carried him past Ferdinand in an instant, and before the young gentleman could propose to join him he was so far in advance that it was necessary either to shout or run to bring him to a more moderate pace. Ferdinand raised his eye-glass and surveyed the retreating figure with some indignation, and dropped it with a little click against one of his waistcoat-buttons. Then he smiled somewhat wry-facedly.

"A cool set, upon my word," he murmured. "Boors, pure and simple."

He was half inclined to change his mind and stay away from the al fresco concert, but then the idea of the duty he owed himself in respect to that contumelious young beauty occurred to him, and he decided to go, after all. He followed, therefore, in Reuben's hasty footsteps, but at a milder pace, and, regaining the green door, looked into the garden and saw the quartette party already assembled. Old Fuller, who was the first to perceive him, came forward with rough heartiness, and shook hands with a burly bow.

"Good-evenin', Mr. De Blacquaire," said Fuller. "We're pleased to see you. If you'd care to tek a hand i'stead of settin' idle by to listen, we shall be glad to mek room. Eh, lads?"

"No, no, thank you, Mr. Fuller," said Ferdinand, "I would rather be a listener." Ruth was standing near the table, and he raised his cap to her. She answered his salute with a smile of welcome, and brought him a chair. "Good-evening, Miss Fuller," he said, standing cap in hand before her. "What unusually beautiful weather we are having. Do you know, I am quite charmed with this old garden? There is something delightfully rustic and homely and old-fashioned about it."

"You are looking at the statues?" she said, with half a laugh. "They are an idea of father's. He wants to have them painted, but I always stand out against that—they look so much better as they are."

"Painted?" answered Ferdinand, with a little grimace, and a little lifting of the hands and shrinking of the body as if the idea hurt him physically. "Oh no. Pray don't have them painted."

"Well, well. Theer!" cried Fuller. "Here's another as is in favor o' grime an' slime! It's three to three now. Ruth and Reuben have allays been for leavin' 'em i' this way."

"Really, Mr. Fuller," said Ferdinand, "you must be persuaded to leave them as they are. As they are they are charming. It would be quite a crime to paint them. It would be horribly bad taste to paint them!"

After this partisan espousal of her cause, he was a little surprised to notice an indefinable but evident change in the rustic beauty's manner. Perhaps she disliked to hear a stranger accuse her father—however truly—of horribly bad taste, but this did not occur to Ferdinand, who had intended to show her that a gentleman was certain to sympathize with whatever trace of refinement he might discover in her.

"Would it?" said Fuller, simply. "Well, theer's three of a mind, and they'm likely enough to be right. Anny ways theer's no danger of a brush coming anigh 'em while the young missis says 'No.' Her word's law i' this house, and has been ever since her was no higher than the table."

"Wasn't that a ring at the front door?" asked Sennacherib, holding up his hand.

"Run and see, wench," said Fuller.

Ruth ran down the grass-plot and into the house. She neither shuffled nor ambled, but skimmed over the smooth turf as if she moved by volition and her feet had had nothing to do with the motion. She had scarce disappeared, when Isaiah, who faced the green door, sung out,

"Here's Ezra Gold, and bringin' a fiddle, too. Good-evenin', Mr. Gold. Beest gooin' to tek another turn at the music?"

"No," said Ezra, advancing. "I expected to find Reuben here. I've got it on my mind as the poor old lady here "—he touched the green baize bag he carried beneath his arm—"is in a bit o' danger o' losin' her voice through keeping silence all these length o' years, and I want him to see what sort of a tone her's got left in her."

Reuben rose from his seat with sparkling eyes and approached his uncle.

"Is that the old lady I've heard so much about?" he asked.

"Yes," replied Ezra, "it's the old lady herself. I don't know," he went on, looking mildly about him, "as theer's another amateur player as I'd trust her to. Wait a bit, lad, while I show her into daylight."

Reuben stood with waiting hands while the old man unknotted the strings at the mouth of the green baize bag, and all eyes watched Ezra's lean fingers. At the instant when the knot was conquered and the mouth of the bag slid open, Ruth's clear voice was heard calling,

"Father, here's Aunt Rachel! Come this way, Aunt Rachel. We're going to have a little music."



CHAPTER VI.

Ezra Gold, seizing the violin gently by the neck, suffered the green baize bag to fall to the ground at his feet, and then tenderly raising the instrument in both hands, looked up and dropped it to the ground. A little cry of dismay escaped from Reuben's lips, and he was on his knees in an instant.

"She's not hurt," he said, examining the violin with delicate care— "not hurt at all."

Then he looked up, and at the sight of his uncle's face rose swiftly to his feet. The old man's eyes were ghastly, and his cheeks, which had usually a hectic flush of color too clear and bright for health, were of a leaden gray. Ezra's hand was on his heart.

"Not hurt?" he said, in a strange voice. "Art sure she's not hurt, lad? That's fortunate."

The color came back to his face as suddenly as it had disappeared.

"No," said Reuben, tapping the back of the fiddle lightly with his finger-tips, and listening to the tone, though he kept his eyes fixed upon his uncle's—"she's as sound as a bell."

"That's well, lad, that's well," said Ezra, in the same strange voice. The hands he reached out towards his nephew trembled, and Reuben handed back the precious instrument in some solicitude. It was natural that an old player should prize his favorite instrument, but surely, he thought, a little chance danger to it should scarcely shake a man in this way. Ezra's trembling hands began to tune the strings, and at the sound of Ruth's voice Reuben turned away. His uncle's agitation shocked him. He had known for years, as everybody had known, that Ezra had but a weakly constitution, but he had never seen so striking a sign of it before, and the old man's agitation awoke the young man's fears. There was a very close and tender affection between them.

"Reuben," Ruth was saying, "this is my aunt Rachel. Aunt, this is Mr. Reuben Gold. I don't suppose you remember him."

"I do not remember Mr. Reuben Gold," said the little old lady, mincingly. "Is Mr. Gold a native of Heydon Hay? I do not think, from Mr. Gold's appearance, that he was born when I quitted the village. I think I recognize my old friends, the Elds," she went on, with an air almost of patronage. "This will be Mr. Isaiah? Yes! I thought so. Mr. Isaiah was always mild in manner. And this will be Mr. Sennacherib? Yes! Mr. Sennacherib was unruly. I recognize them by their expressions."

"You remember me, Rachel?" said Mr. De Blacquaire, who had been watching the old lady since her arrival. She turned her head in a swift, bird-like way, and fixed her curiously youthful eyes upon him for an instant. The withered old face lit up with a smile which so transfigured it that for the moment it matched the youth of her eyes.

"Is it possible!" she cried. "Mr. Ferdinand! The dear, dear child!" She seized one of his hands and kissed it, but he drew it away, and putting an arm about her shoulders, stooped to kiss her wrinkled cheek. "The grandson," she cried, turning on the others with an air of pride and tender triumph, "of my dear mistress, Lady De Blacquaire. I nursed Mr. Ferdinand in his infancy. I bore him to the font, and in my arms he received his baptismal appellation."

If she had laid claim to the loftiest of worldly distinctions she could scarcely have done it with a greater air of pride.

Ezra's tremulous fingers were still at work at the violin keys when Ruth addressed him.

"I dare say you know my aunt Rachel, Mr. Gold," she said. "Heydon Hay was such a little place five-and-twenty years ago that everybody must have known everybody."

"It was my privilege to know Miss Blythe when she lived here," said Ezra, looking up and speaking in a veiled murmur.

The little old lady started, turned pale, drew herself to her full height, and turned away. Sennacherib, who was watching the pair, drove out his clinched fist sideways with intent to nudge his brother Isaiah in the ribs, to call his attention to this incident as a confirmation of the history he had told the night before. He miscalculated his distance, and landed on Isaiah's portly waistcoat with such force that the milder brother grunted aloud, and, arising, demanded with indignation to know why he was thus assaulted. For a mere second Sennacherib was disconcerted, but recovering himself, he drew Isaiah on one side and whispered in his ear,

"I on'y meant to gi'e thee a nudge, lad. Dost mind what I tode thee about 'em? Didst tek note how they met?"

"Thinkest thou'rt th' only man with a pair of eyes in his head?" demanded Isaiah, angrily and aloud. Sennacherib, by winks and nods and gestures, entreated him to silence, but for a minute or two Isaiah refused to be pacified, and sat rubbing at his waistcoat and darting looks of vengeance at his brother. "Punchin' a man at my time o' life i' that way!" he mumbled wrathfully; "it's enough t' upset the systim for a month or more."

Nobody noticed the brethren, however, for the other members of the little party had each his or her preoccupation.

"Mr. Ferdinand," said Miss Blythe, turning suddenly upon the young gentleman, "I must seize this opportunity to ask what news there is of my dear mistress. I know that she is frail, and that correspondence would tax her energies too severely, but I make a point of writing to her once a week and presenting to her my respectful service."

She took his hand again as she addressed him, and Ferdinand noticed that it was icy cold. She was trembling all over and her eyes were troubled. He was just about to answer when a sharp twang caught his ear, and turning his head he saw Ezra in the act of handing the violin to Reuben.

"Have you got a fourth string, lad?" asked Ezra, speaking unevenly and with apparent effort; "this has gi'en way. I'm no hand at a fiddle nowadays," he added, with a pitiable smile, "or else there's less virtue in catgut than there used to be."

"They make nothing as they used to do," said Reuben. He had drawn a flat tin box from his pocket and had selected a string from it, when Rachel drew Ferdinand on one side.

"Let me bring you a chair, Mr. Ferdinand," she said. "We will sit here and you must tell me of my dear mistress."

"Stay here," said Ferdinand, "I will bring you a chair." He was not sorry to be seen in this amiable light. It was agreeable to bend condescendingly to his grandmother's attached and faithful servitor, and to be observed. There was a genuine kindliness in him, too, towards the little withered old woman who had nursed him in his babyhood, and had taught him his first lessons. He brought the chairs and sat down with his old nurse at the edge of the grass-plot at some little distance from the others.

"We will talk for a little time about my dear mistress," said Rachel, "and then I will ask you to take me away." She leaned forward in her chair, looking up at her companion and laying both hands upon his arm. "I cannot stay here," she went on, in a whisper. "There are reasons. There is a person here I have not seen for more than a quarter of a century. You have observed that I am sometimes a little flighty." She withdrew one of her hands and tapped her forehead.

"My dear Rachel!" said Ferdinand, in smiling protestation.

"Yes, yes," she insisted, in a mincing whisper, as if she were laying claim to a distinction. "A little flighty. You do no credit to your own penetration, dear Mr. Ferdinand, if you deny it. That person is the cause. I suffered a great wrong at that person's hands. Let us say no more. Tell me about my dear mistress."

The varnish of unconscious affectation was transparent enough for Ferdinand to see through. The little old woman minced and bridled, and took quaintly sentimental airs, but she was moved a great deal, though in what way he could not guess. He sat and talked to her with a magnificent unbending, and she took his airs as no more than his right, and was well contented with them.

"And now, Reuben," cried Fuller, who, like everybody else, had noticed Miss Blythe's curious behavior to Ezra and was disturbed by it—"and now, Reuben, if thee hast got the old lady into fettle, let's have a taste of her quality. It's maney an' maney a year now since I had a chance of listenin' to her. Let's have a solo, lad. Gi'e us summat old and flavorsome. Let's have 'The Last Rose o' Summer.'"

Reuben sat down, threw one leg over the other, and began to play. The evening was wonderfully still and quiet, but from far off, the mere ghost of a sound, came the voice of church-bells. Their tone was so faint and far away that at the first stroke of the bow they seemed to die, and the lovely strain rose upon the air pure and unmingled with another sound. Rachel ceased her emphatic noddings and her mincing whisper, and sat with her hands folded in her lap to listen. Ezra, with his gaunt hands folded behind him, stood with his habitual stoop more marked than common, and stared at the grass at his feet. Ruth, from her old station by the apple-tree, looked from one to the other. She had heard Sennacherib's story from her father, and her heart was predisposed to read a romance here, little as either of the actors in that obscure drama of so many years ago looked like the figures of a romance now. They had been lovers before she was born, and had quarrelled somehow, and had each lived single. And now, when they had met after this great lapse of years, the gray old man trembled, and the wrinkled old woman turned her back upon him. The music was not without its share in the girl's emotion. And there was Reuben, with manly head and great shoulders, with strength and masculine grace in every line of him, to her fancy, drawing the loveliest music from the long-silent violin, and staring up at the evening sky as he played. Ah! if Reuben and she should quarrel and part!

But Reuben had never spoken a word, and the girl, catching herself at this romantic exercise, blushed for shame, and for one swift second hid her face in her hands. Then with a sudden pretence of perfect self-possession, such as only a woman could achieve on such short notice, she glanced with an admirably casual air about her to see that the gesture had not been observed. Nobody looked at her. Her father and the two brothers were watching Reuben, Ezra preserved his old attitude, Ferdinand was fiddling with his eye-glass, and moving his hand and one foot in time to the music, and Rachel's strangely youthful eyes were bright with tears. As the girl looked at her a shining drop brimmed over from each eye and dropped upon the neat mantle of black silk she wore. The little old maid did not discover that she had been crying until Reuben's solo was over, and then she wiped her eyes composedly and turned to renew her conversation with Ferdinand.

"Ah!" said Fuller, expelling a great sigh when Reuben laid down his bow upon the table, "theer's a tone! That's a noble instrument, Mr. Gold."

"She'll be the better for being played upon a little," said Ezra, mildly.

"Well, thee seest," said Isaiah, with a look of contemplation, "her's been a leadin' what you might call a hideal sort o' life this five-and-twenty 'ear for a fiddle. Niver a chance of ketchin' cold or gettin' squawky. Allays wrapped up nice and warm and dry. Theer ain't, I dare venture to say it, a atom o' sap in the whole of her body. Her's as dry as—"

"As I be," interposed Sennacherib. "It 'ud be hard for anything to be drier. Let's have a drop o' beer, Fuller, and then we'll get to work."

Ruth ran into the house laughing, and the four musicians gathered round the table. Ferdinand arose, strolled towards them, and took up a position behind Sennacherib's chair. Ezra made an uncertain movement or two, and finally, with grave resolve, crossed the grass-plot and took the chair the young gentleman had vacated.

"I am informed, Miss Blythe," he said, with a slow, polite formality, "as you have come once more to reside among us." She inclined her head, but vouchsafed no other answer. The movement was prim to the verge of comedy, but it was plain that she meant to be chilly with him. He coughed behind his shaky white hand, and hesitated. "I do not know, Miss Blythe," he began again, with a new resolve, "in what manner I chanced to 'arn your grave displeasure. That is a thing I never knew." She turned upon him with a swift and vivid scorn. "A thing I never knew," he repeated. "If it is your desire to visit it upon me at this late hour, I have borne it for so many 'ears that I can bear it still. But I should like to ask, if I might be allowed to put the question, how it come to pass. I have allays felt as there was a misunderstandin' i' the case. It is a wise bidding in Holy Writ as says, 'Let not the sun go down upon thy wrath.' And when the sun is the sun of life the thing is the more important."

"My good sir," said Rachel, rising from her seat and asserting every inch of her small stature, "I desire to hold no communication with you now or henceforth."

"That should be enough for a man, Miss Blythe," said Ezra, mildly. "But why? if I may make so bold."

"I thought," said the little old lady, more starched and prim than ever, "I believed myself to have intimated that our conversation was at an end."

"You was not wont to be cruel nor unjust in your earlier days," Ezra answered. "But it shall be as you wish."

He left the seat, gave her a quaint old-fashioned bow, and returned to his former standing-place. Ruth was back again by this time, and Rachel crossed over to where she stood.

"Niece Ruth," she said, speaking after a fashion which was frequent with her, with an exaggerated motion of the lips, "I shall be obliged to you if you will accompany me to the house."

"Certainly, aunt," the girl answered, and placing an arm around her shoulders, walked away with her. "There is something the matter, dear. What is it?"

"There is nothing the matter," said the old lady, coldly.

"There is something serious the matter," said Ruth. They were in the house by this time, and sheltered from observation. "You are trembling and your hands are cold. Let me get you a glass of wine."

Aunt Rachel stood erect before her, and answered with frozen rebuke,

"In my young days girls were not encouraged to contradict their seniors. I have said there is nothing the matter."

Ruth bent forward and took the two cold, dry little hands in her own warm grasp, and looked into her aunt's eyes with tender solicitude. The hands were suddenly snatched away, and Aunt Rachel dropped into a seat, and without preface began to cry. Ruth knelt beside her, twining a firm arm and supple hand about her waist, and drawing down her head softly until its gray curls were pressed against her own ripe cheek. Not a word was spoken, and in five minutes the old maid's tears were over.

"Say nothing of this, my dear," she said, as she kissed Ruth, and began to smooth her ruffled ribbons and curls. Her manner was less artificial than common, but the veneer of affectation was too firmly fixed to be peeled off at a moment's notice. "We are all foolish at times. You will find that out for yourself, child, as you grow older. I have been greatly disturbed, my dear, but I shall not again permit my equilibrium to be shaken by the same causes. Tell me, child, is Mr. Ezra Gold often to be found here?"

"Not often," said Ruth; "he seems scarcely ever to move from home."

"I am glad to know it," said Aunt Rachel. "I cannot permit myself to move in the same society with Mr. Ezra Gold."

"We all like him very much," Ruth answered, tentatively.

"Ah!" said Aunt Rachel, pinching her lips and nodding. "You do not know him. I know him. A most despicable person. They will tell you that I am a little flighty."

"My dear aunt! What nonsense!"

"It is not nonsense, and you know it. I am a little flighty—at times. And I owe that to Mr. Ezra Gold. I owe a great deal to Mr. Ezra Gold, and that among it. Now, dear, not a word of this to anybody. Will you tell dear Mr. Ferdinand that I shall be honored if he will grace my humble cottage with his presence? Thank you. Good-night, child. And remember, not a word to anybody."

She dropped her veil and walked to the front door with her usual crisp and bird-like carriage. At the door she turned.

"Shun Mr. Ezra Gold, my dear. Shun all people who bear his name. I know them. I have cause to know them. They are cheats! deceivers! villains!"

She closed her lips tightly after this, and nodded many times. Then turning abruptly she hopped down the steps which led towards the garden gate, and disappeared. Ruth stood looking into the quiet street a moment, then closed the door and returned to the garden.

"Not all," she said to herself, as she paused in sight and hearing of the quartette party, who were by this time deep in an andante of Haydn's—"not all."



CHAPTER VII.

When Aunt Rachel had spent a fortnight or thereabouts in Heydon Hay, and had got her own small dwelling-place into precise order, she began to make a round of visits among the people she had known in her youth. She had met most of the survivors of that earlier day at the parish church on Sundays, and had had no occasion to find fault with the manner of her reception at their hands. If there was not precisely that warmth of greeting which she felt in her own heart, she found at least a kindly interest in her return and a friendly curiosity as to her past. To her, her return to her birthplace was naturally an event of absorbing interest. To the other inhabitants of the village it was no more than an episode, but nobody being distinctly cold or careless, Rachel was not allowed to see the difference between their stand-point and her own.

In her round of calls she left the house of Sennacherib Eld till the last, though she and Mrs. Sennacherib had been school-fellows and close friends. Perhaps she had not found Sennacherib's manner inviting, or perhaps the fact that Ezra Gold's house lay between her own and his had held her back a little. Everybody had supposed that she and Ezra Gold were going to be married six-and-twenty years ago, Rachel herself being among the believers, and having, it must be confessed, admirable ground for the belief. Nobody knew how the match had come to be broken off. It was so Old-world a bit of history that even in Heydon Hay, where history dies hard, it had died and been buried long ago. Even Rachel's return could not resuscitate it for more than one or two. But the story that was dead for other people was still alive to her, and as fresh and young—now that it was back in its native air again—as if it had been an affair of yesterday. It was something of a task to her to pass the house in which the faithless lover lived. It would be the first achievement of that feat since Ezra had treated her so shamelessly, and it was almost as difficult after six-and-twenty years as it might have been after as many days.

She clinched her lips tightly as she came in sight of the tall poplars which stood beyond the spire of the church, and rose to an equal height with it, and at the lich-gate of the church she paused a little, feigning to take interest in one or two tombstones which recorded the death of people she had known. Her troubled eyes took no note of the inscriptions, but in a while she found resolution Jo go on again. With her little figure drawn uncompromisingly to its fullest height, she rounded the corner of the church-yard and saw the familiar walls. Ezra, contrary to his habit, was standing at the side door and looking out upon the street. She was aware of his presence, but walked stiffly past, disregarding him, and he coughed behind his wasted hand. She thought the cough had a sound of embarrassed appeal or deprecation, as perhaps it had, but she refused to take notice of it, except by an added rigidity of demeanor.

Sennacherib's house stood back from the highway a hundred yards or so beyond Ezra's. It was fenced all round by an ill-trimmed hedge of hawthorn, and the only break in the hedge was made by the un-painted wooden gate which led by a brick-paved walk to the three brick steps before the door. The door stood open when Rachel reached it, and the knocker being set high up and out of reach, she tapped upon the wood-work with the handle of her sunshade. This summons eliciting no response, she repeated it; but by-and-by the opening of a door within the house let out upon her the sound of Sennacherib's voice, hitherto audible only as an undefined and surly buzz.

"Who's master i' this house?" Sennacherib was asking—"thee or me?"

"If brag and swagger could ha' made a man the master," said a feminine voice, in tones of feeble resignation, "theer's no doubt it's you, Sennacherib."

"Brag and swagger?" said Sennacherib.

"Lord o' mercy!" replied the feminine voice, "what do you want to shout a body deaf for? Brag and swagger was what I said, Sennacherib. But if you think as a mother's heart is agoing to be overcome by that sort o' talk, and as I shall turn my back upon my very own born child, you've fell into the biggest error of your lifetime."

Rachel rapped again somewhat louder than before.

"Canst choose betwixt that young rip and me," replied Sennacherib.

"That's right; let the parish know your hard-heartedness! Theer's somebody knockin' at the door. Go and tell 'em what you've made up your wicked mind to—do!"

Sennacherib thrust his head into the hall and stared frowningly at the visitor through his spectacles.

"Good-morning, sir," said Rachel, with frigid politeness. "I called for the purpose of paying my respects to Mrs. Eld. If the moment is inauspicious I will call again."

At the sound of her voice Mrs. Sennacherib appeared—a large woman of matronly figure but dejected aspect. She had been comely, but thirty years of protest and resignation had lifted the inner ends of her eyebrows and depressed the corners of her mouth until, even in her most cheerful moments, she had a look of meek submission to unmeasured wrongs.

"Dear me!" said Mrs. Sennacherib, sailing round her husband and down the hall, "it's Miss Blythe! Come in, my dear, and tek off your cloak and bonnet. I'm glad to see you. I wondered if you was never comin' to see me. And how be you?" She bent over the little figure of her guest and buried it in an embrace like that of a feather-bed. "It's beautiful weather for the time o' year," she continued, almost tearfully, "and I have been a-thinking of makin' a call upon you; but I'm short of breath, and Eld is such a creetur he'd rather see a body stop in the house as if it was a prison, than harness the pony and drive me half a mile, to save his life."

"Short o' breath!" said Sennacherib. "Thee talkest like one as is short o' breath! Her talks enough," he added, addressing the visitor, "to break the wind of a Derby race-hoss."

"Ah," said his wife, shaking her head in a kind of doleful triumph, "Miss Blythe won't ha' been long i' the village afore her'll know what manner o' man you be, Sennacherib."

"I'll leave thee to tell her," said Sennacherib, with a grunt of scorn. "If I'd ha' been the manner o' man you'd ha' liked for a husband, I should ha' been despisable. My missis"—he addressed his wife's visitor again—"ought to ha' married a door-mat, then her could ha' wiped her feet upon him wheniver the fancy took her."

With this he took his hat from a peg, stuck it at the back of his head, and marched out at the open front door.

"Ah, my dear," said Mrs. Sennacherib, "you did a wise thing when you made up your mind to be a single woman. The men's little more than a worrit—the best of 'em—and even the childern, as is counted upon for a blessin', brings trouble oftener nor j'y."

The visitor pinched her lips together and nodded, as if to say there was no disputing this glaring statement. The hostess, stooping over her, untied her bonnet-strings as if she had been a child, helped her to remove her mantle, and then ushered her into a sitting-room which looked upon a well-cultivated garden.

"I wouldn't say," pursued the hostess, "as I'd got a bad husband—not for the world. But he's that hard and unbendin' both i' little things an' big uns. I've suffered under him now for thirty 'ear, but I niver counted as he'd put the lad to the door and forbid his mother to speak to him. Though as for that, my dear, he may forbid and go on forbiddin' as long as theer's a breath in his body, but a mother's heart is a mother's heart, my dear, though the whole world should stand up again her."

"Precisely," said Rachel.

"The lad's just as unbendin' as his father," pursued Mrs. Sennacherib, "though in a lighter-hearted sort of a way. He's as gay as the lark, our Snac is, even i' the face o' trouble, but there's no more hope o' movin' him than theer'd be o' liftin' the parish church and carryin' it to market. He's gone and married again his father's will, and now his father's gone an' made his last dyin' testyment an' cut him off wi' a shilling. He'll get my money, as is tied on me hard an' fast, and that's my only comfort."

"They may be reconciled," said Rachel. "We must try to reconcile them."

"Reconcile Sennacherib Eld!" cried the wife, dolefully. "Ah, my dear, you don't know the man. Why, who's that? There's somebody a-walkin' in as if the house belonged to 'em."

A young man in a stand-up collar, and trousers supernaturally tight, appeared at the open door and nodded in a casual manner.

"Mornin', mother," said the young man, cheerfully. "Wheer's the governor?"

Mrs. Sennacherib screamed, and running at the new-comer began to embrace him and to kiss him and cry over him.

"Theer, theer!" he said, after kissing her off-hand. "Tek it easy."

"Oh, Snac!" cried his mother, "if father should come in what should we do?"

"Do?" said the younger Sennacherib, "why, set me down afore the kitchen fire, an' mek me happetizin' afore he sets to work to eat me. How be you, mum?"

The younger Sennacherib's face was gay and impudent, with that peculiar mingling of gayety and impudence which seems inseparable from freckles. His face was mottled with freckles, and the backs of his hands were of a dark yellowish brown with them.

"This is Miss Rachel Blythe," said his mother, "as was at school with me when I was a gell. This is my poor persecuted child, Miss Blythe."

"Me, mum!" said the persecuted child, standing with his feet wide apart, and bending first one knee and then the other, and then bending both together. "The governor's out, is he?"

"He's only just gone," returned his mother. "But, Snac, you'll only anger him, comin' in i' this way. You'd better wait a bit and let things blow over."

"Well," said Snac, "I shouldn't ha' come for any-thin' but business. But I've got a chance o' doin' a bit o' trade with him. He's had his mind set on Bunch's pony this two 'ear, an' Bunch an' him bein' at daggers drawn theer was niver a chance to buy it. But me an' him bein' split, old Bunch sells me the pony, and I called thinkin' he might like to have it."

He laughed with great glee, and flicked one tightly clad leg with the whip he carried.

"Wait a bit, Snac," his mother besought him. "Let it blow over a bit afore approachin' him."

"Wait for the Beacon Hill to blow over!" said Snac, in answer. "I've no more expectations as the one 'll blow over than th' other. He'll do what he says he'll do. That's the pattern he's made in. I've got no more hopes of turnin' the governor than I should have if I was to go and tell a hox to be a donkey. It's again his natur' to change, and nothing short of a merracle 'll alter him. But as for livin' at enmity with him—wheer's the use o' that? He's all the feythers I've got, or am like to find at my time o' life, and I must just mek the best on him."

"A most commendable and Christian resolution," said Rachel, decisively.

"Very nice and kind of you to say so, mum," Snac answered, setting his hat a little more on one side, and bending both knees with a rakish swagger. "You can tell the governor as I called, mother. The pony's as genuine a bit of blood as is to be found in Heydon Hay. The p'ints of a hoss and a dog is a thing as every child thinks he knows about, but bless your heart theer's nothing i' the world as is half so difficult t' understand, unless it is the ladies." There was such an air of compliment about the saving clause that Rachel involuntarily inclined her head to it. "You'll tell the governor as I was here, mother," Snac concluded, stooping down to kiss her.

"You mustn't ask me to do that, Snac," she answered. "I dar' not name your name."

"Rubbidge!" said Snac, genially. "Does he bite?"

"It's for your sake, Snac," said his mother, "not for mine. But I dar' not do it."

"Well, well, mayhap I shall light upon him i' the village. If I shouldn't, I'll look in again. Good-mornin', mother, and good-day to you, mum. I'm just goin' to drop in on Mr. Ezra Gold, seein' as I'm this way. I'm told he wants to part with that shorthorn cow of hisn, and I'm allays game for a bit o' trade."

"Ah!" said Mrs. Sennacherib, shaking her doleful head. "He'll part with everythin' earthly, poor man, afore he's much older."

"Why," cried Snac, "what's the matter with the man?"

"The young uns see nothin', Miss Blythe," said Mrs. Sennacherib, shaking her head again, but this time with a sort of relish. "But old experienced folks can tell when any poor feller-creetur's time is drawing nigh. His father went just at his time o' life by the same road as he's a-takin'."

"Well, what road is he takin'?" her son demanded.

"Look at his poor hands," said Mrs. Sennacherib, with a pitying gusto. "As thin as egg-shells, and with no more color in 'em than there is in that cha-ney saucer. Hark to that dry cough as keeps on a hack-hack-hackin' at him."

"Pooh!" cried young Sennacherib. "He's been like that as long as I can remember him."

"Mark my words," his mother answered, with a stronger air of doleful relish than before, "he'll niver be like that much longer."

"Theer's them as looks at the dark side," returned Snac, "and them as looks at the bright. Niver say die till your time comes. I'll go and wake him up a bit, though he's no great hand at a bargain, and seems to find less contentment in gettin' on the blind side of a man than most on 'em. Good-mornin', mother; good-mornin', mum."

Snac took his way with a flourish, and his mother looked after the tight-clad legs, the broad shoulders, the tall collar, and the rakish hat with mournful admiration.

"Do you think," asked the little old maid, coughing behind her hand, and looking out of window as she spoke, as if the theme had but little interest for her, "that Mr. Ezra Gold is really unwell?"

"Yes, my dear," said Mrs. Sennacherib; "he's got enough to last his time, unless it should please the Lord to send him a new and suddener affliction. I've seen a many go the same road. It's mostly the young as bears his particular kind of sufferin', but it's on his face in as plain readin' as the family Bible. He's a lonish sort of a man, save for his nephew Reuben, but he'll ha' the parish for his mourners when his time does come. The gentlest, harmlessest creetur as ever was a neighbor is Ezra Gold."

"Hem!" said Aunt Rachel. The monosyllable was at once curt and frozen. It implied as complete a denial as could have been expressed in a volume.

"Why, what have you got again him?" asked Mrs. Sennacherib.

"I?" said Rachel. "Against whom, my dear creature?"

Mrs. Sennacherib had spoken in the absolute certainty of impulse, and found herself a little confused.

"Mr. Gold," she answered, somewhat feebly.

"What should I have against Mr. Gold?" asked the old maid, with a chill air of dignity and a pretence of surprise. She was not going to take everybody into her confidence.

"What, to be sure?" said Mrs. Sennacherib, retiring from instinct. "In old days there used to be a sort of kindness between you; at least it was said so."

"It is a great pity that people cannot be taught to mind their own business," said Rachel.

"So it is, Miss Blythe—so it is," Mrs. Sennacherib assented, hastily. "I hate them folks as has got nothing better to do than to talk about their neighbors. But, as I was a-sayin', he's a-breakin' up fast, poor man, and that's a thing as is only too clear to a old experienced eye like mine. A beautiful sperrit the man's got, to be sure, but allays a mild and sorrowful look with him. When me and Sennacherib was first married, he'd a habit of coming over here with 'Saiah Eld and Mr. Fuller for the music. It was pretty to hear 'em, for they'm all fine players, though mostly theer music was above my mark; but sometimes they'd get him to play somethin' by himself, and then 'twas sweet. But he give up playin' all of a sudden—I could niver mek out why or wheer-for, an' I suppose it's over five-an'-twenty 'ear since he touched the fiddle."

Now Mrs. Sennacherib, though not an untruthful woman as a general thing, had an idea as to the why and wherefore of Ezra Gold's withdrawal from the amateur ranks of Heydon Hay. She took most of her ideas from her husband, though she was not accustomed to think so, and it was he who had inoculated her with this one. She laid her small trap for her old friend and school-fellow with an admirable nonchalance and indifference of aspect, and looked at Rachel with an eye from which all appearance of speculation was carefully abstracted.

"He gave up playing?" Rachel asked, with a tone of surprise.

"Yes," said Mrs. Sennacherib, with a stolid-seeming nod. "He give it up clean. Why, now I come to think on it, I don't believe he iver touched the music—" She paused in some confusion, and to cover this feigned to consider. "Let me see. He give up the music just about the time as you went away to Barfield."

The old maid's lips twitched, her cheeks went pale, and a look of absolute terror rose to her eyes.

"I was always under the impression that nothing could have induced him to give up his music. As I remember him he was peculiarly devoted to it."

She did her best to speak indifferently, but her voice shook in spite of her.

"He give it up just about the time as you went away," repeated Mrs. Sennacherib. "I've heard our Sennacherib and his brother 'Saiah say over and over again as since that time he niver so much as opened a piece of music."

The little old maid arose with both hands on her heart, tight-clasped there. Her eyes were wild and she panted as if for breath.

"Miss Blythe!" cried the other, alarmed by her aspect—"Rachel! What's the matter? Why, my dear, you're ill! A glass o' wine; me own mekin', my dear. Theer's no better elderberry i' the parish. Tek a drop, now do; it'll do you good, I'm sure."

"No, thank you," said Rachel, waving the proffered glass aside and sinking back into her chair. "It passes very soon. It is quite gone. I thank you. Pray take no notice of my ailments, Mrs. Eld. I am sorry, to have discommoded you, even for a moment."

She was her prim and mincing self again, though there was still a tremor in her voice, and the exalted look in her young eyes was more marked than common. After a little time she recovered herself completely, and Mrs. Sennacherib entertained her for an hour with mournful histories of death and burial. The good woman had a rare nose for an invalid and a passion for nursing. Such of her old school-fellows as had died since Rachel's departure had mostly been nursed out of life under the care of Mrs. Sennacherib, and she was intimate with the symptoms of all of them, from the earliest to the latest. There was but little need for Rachel to talk at all when once her hostess had entered upon this absorbing topic, and when the old maid arose to go she had altogether recovered from the effect of whatever emotion had assailed her.

She walked homeward so prim, so old, so withered, that ninety-nine in a hundred would have laughed to know that she was living in the heart of a love-story, and that story her own. But we rarely grow old enough to forget our own griefs, howsoever cold the frost of age may make us to the griefs of others.



CHAPTER VIII.

The young Sennacherib, swaggering gayly from his unnatural parent's door, was aware of something as nearly approaching a flutter as not often disturbed the picturesque dulness of the village main street. By some unusual chance there were half a dozen people in the road, and not only did these turn to stare at him, but at least half a dozen others peered at him from behind the curtains of cottage interiors, or boldly flattened their noses against the bulbous little panes of glass in the diamonded windows.

"Theer's a look of summat stirrin' i' the place, gaffer," said Snac to one ancient of the village.

"Why, yis, Mr. Eld, theer is that sort of a air about the plaeas to-day," the old fellow answered, with a fine unconsciousness. "But then theer mostly is a bit of a crowd round our town pump."

The crowd about the town pump consisted of one slatternly small girl and a puppy.

"Can't a chap call on his feyther 'ithout the Midland counties turnin' out to look at him?" Snac asked, smilingly.

"Yis," returned the ancient, who was conveniently deaf on a sudden. "Theer's been no such fine ripenin' weather for the wheat sence I wur a lad."

Snac gave the riding-whip he carried a burlesque threatening flourish, and the old boy grinned humorously.

"Sin Joseph Beaker this mornin', Mr. Eld?" he asked.

"No," said Snac. "What about him?"

"His lordship's gi'en him a set o' togs," said the old rustic, "an' he's drunker wi' the joy on 'em than iver I was with ode ale at harvest-time."

"Aha!" cried Snac, scenting a jest. "Wheer is he?"

"Why, theer he is!" said the rustic, and turning, Snac beheld Joseph Beaker at that moment shambling round the corner of the graveyard wall, followed closely by the youth of the village. The Earl of Barfield had kept his promise, and had bestowed upon Joseph a laced waistcoat—a waistcoat which had not been worn since the first decade of the century, and was old-fashioned even then. It was of a fine crimson cloth, and had a tarnished line of lace about the edge and around the flaps of the pockets. Over this glorious garment Joseph wore a sky-bine swallow-tail coat of forgotten fashion, and below it a pair of knee-breeches which, being much too long for him, were adjusted midway about his shrunken calves. A pair of hob-nailed bluchers and a battered straw hat gave a somewhat feeble finish to these magnificences. As the poor Joseph aired the splendors of his attire there was a faint and far-away imitation of the Earl of Barfield in his gait, and he paused at times after a fashion his lordship had, and perked his head from side to side as if in casual observation of the general well-being.

"Good-morning, Lord Barfield," cried Snac, as Joseph drew near. "It's a sight for sore eyes to see your lordship a-lookin' so young and lusty." Joseph beamed at this public crowning of his loftiest hopes, and would have gone by with a mere nod of lordly recognition but the triumph was too much for him and he laughed aloud for joy. "Well, bless my soul!" said Snac, in feigned astonishment, "it's Mister Beaker. Send I may live if I didn't tek him for the Right Honorable th' Earl o' Barfield! Thee'st shake hands with an old friend, Mr. Beaker? That's right. Theer's nothin' I admire so much as to see a man as refuses to be carried away with pride." Joseph shook hands almost with enthusiasm.

"Theer's nothin' o' that sort about me, Mr. Eld," he replied.

"That I'm sure on," said Snac, with conviction. "But how gay we be to-day, Mr. Beaker."

"It was my lord as gi'en me these," said Joseph, retiring a pace or two to display his raiment, and gravely turning round in the presence of the little crowd that surrounded him so that each might see the fulness of its beauty.

At this moment Reuben Gold came swinging along the road with a green baize bag under his arm. He was on his way to his uncle's house, and, unobserved of Snac, took a place on the causeway to see what might be the reason of this unusual gathering.

"Now," said Snac, "I never thought as Lord Barfield 'ud be so mean as to do things in that half-an'-half manner. I should ha' fancied, if Lord Barfield had took it into his head to set up an extra gentleman in livery, he'd ha' done it thorough."

Joseph's countenance fell, and he surveyed his own arms and legs with an air of criticism. Then he took hold of the gold-laced flaps of the crimson waistcoat and laughed with a swift and intense approval.

"Ain't this been done thorough?" he demanded.

"As far as it goes, Joseph," replied the jocular Snac, "it's noble, to be sure." Joseph became critical again, but again at the sight of the gold-laced waistcoat his doubts vanished. "But surely, surely, Joseph, he should ha' gi'en you a pair o' them high collars as he wears, and a cravat, to go along with a get out like that."

"He might ha' done that, to be sure," said Joseph, tentatively.

"Might ha' done it!" cried Snac, with a voice of honest scorn. "Ah! and would ha' done it if he'd been half a man, let alone a peer of the realm. For that's what he is, Joseph—a peer of the realm."

"So he is," said the poor Joseph, who was rapidly sliding into the trap which was set for him. "You would have expected a peer of the realm to do it thorough, wouldn't you?"

"Look here, Joseph," continued Snac, opening his trap wide, "you go and tell him. 'My lord,' says you—a-speakin' like a man, Joseph, and a-lookin' his lordship i' the face as a man in a suit of clothes like them has got a right to do—'my lord,' you says, 'you're as mean as you're high,' says you. 'What for?' says he. 'Why,' says you, 'for settin' a man out i' this half-an'-half mode for the folks to laugh at. Give me a collar and a cravat this minute, you says,' or else be ashamed o' thyself. Be ayther a man or a mouse.' That's the way to talk to 'em, Joseph."

"Think so?" asked Joseph, with an air half martial and half doubtful.

"To be sure," cried Snac; and with one exception everybody in the little crowd echoed "To be sure!"

"I'll goo an' do it," said Joseph, thus fortified, "this instant minute."

"Wait a bit Joseph," said Reuben Gold, "I'm going that way. We'll go a little of the road together."

"Now, Mr. Gold," cried Snac, in a whisper, recognizing Reuben's voice before he turned, "don't you go an' spoil sport."

"Snac, my lad," responded Reuben, smiling, "it's poor sport."

"He'd go an' tell him," said Snac, with a delighted grin. "You can mek him say annythin'."

"That's why it's such poor sport," said Reuben. "It's too easy. It's sport to stand up for a bout with the sticks when the other man's a bit better than you are, but it's no fun to beat a baby."

"I like it better," Snac replied, with candor, "when th' odds is on t'other side. I like to be a bit better than t'other chap."

"You like to win? That's natural. But you like to deserve a bit of praise for winning; eh?"

Reuben walked away with the rescued Joseph at his side. Joseph was as yet unconscious of his rescue, and was fully bent upon his message to the earl.

"Theer's no denyin' that chap nothin," said Snac, looking after Reuben's retiring figure. "He's got that form an' smilin' manner as'll tek no such thing as a no. An' lettin' that alone," he continued, again relapsing into candor, "he could punch my head if he wanted to, though I'm a match for ere another man i' the parish—and he'd do it too, at anny given minute, for all so mild as he is."

"He's the spit of what his uncle was," said the aged rustic. "When he was a lad he was the best cudgel-player, the best man of his hands, and the prettiest man of his feet from here to Castle Barfield."

"He's fell off of late 'ears, then," said Snac.

"Ah!" quavered the old fellow, "it's time as is too many for the best on us, Mr. Eld. Who'd think as I'd iver stood again all comers for miles and miles around for the ten-score yards? I did though!"

"Didst?" cried Snac. "Then tek a shillin' and get a drop o' good stuff wi' it, an' warm up that old gizzard o' thine wi' thinkin' o' thy younger days."

And away he swaggered, carrying his shilling's worth with him in the commendations of the rustic circle. He was a young man who liked to be well thought of, and to that end did most of his benefactions in the open air.

In the mean time Reuben had disappeared with Joseph, and was already engaged in spoiling the village sport. Joseph was so resolved upon the collars and the cravat, and his imagination was so fired by the prospect of those splendid additions to his toilet, that Reuben was compelled to promise them from his own stores. Joseph became at once amenable to reason, and promised to overlook his lordship's meanness.

"Are you going to do anything for his lordship to-day, Joseph?" his protector asked him.

"No," said Joseph. "He's gi'en me a holiday. I tode him as 'twarn't natural to think as a man 'ud want to go to work i' togs like thesen. The fust day's wear, and all!"

"Well, if you should care to earn a shilling—"

"I couldn't undertek a grimy job," said Joseph. "Not to-day. A message now."

"A message? Could you take the message in a wheelbarrow, Joseph?"

"A barrer?" Joseph surveyed his arms and legs, and then took a grip of the laced waistcoat with both hands.

"A message in a wheelbarrow for a shilling, and a pair of collars and a black satin cravat to come I home in, Joseph."

"Gaffer," said Joseph, "it's a bargain."

Reuben's message was Ezra Gold's musical library, and the volumes having been carefully built up in a roomy wheelbarrow, Joseph set out with them at a leisurely pace towards his patron's home. Reuben on first entering his uncle's house had laid the green baize bag upon the table. When the books were all arranged, and Joseph had started away with them, Reuben re-entered.

"I've brought the old lady back again, uncle," he said.

"You've eased her down, I hope, lad," said the old man, untying the bag and drawing forth the violin. "That's right. As for bringing her back again, you remember what used to be the sayin' when you was a child, 'Give a thing and take a thing, that's the devil's plaything.' I meant thee to keep her, lad. It's a sin an' a shame as such a voice should be silent."

"Uncle," said Reuben, stammering somewhat, "I scarcely like to take her. It seems like—like trespassing on your goodness."

"I won't demean th' old lady," returned Ezra. "Her comes o' the right breed to have all the virtues of her kind. Her's a Stradivarius, Reuben, and my grandfather gi'en fifty guineas for her in the year seventeen hundred an' sixty-one. A king might mek a present of her to a king. And that's why in the natural selfishness of a man's heart I kep' her all these 'ears hangin' dumb and idle on the wall here. I take some shame to myself as I acted so, for you might ha' had her half a dozen years ago, and ha' done her no less than as much justice as I could iver ha' done her myself at the best days of my life. Her's yourn, my lad, and I only mek one bargain. If you should marry and have children of your own, and one of 'em should be a player, he can have her, but if not, I ask you to will her to somebody as'll know her value, and handle her as her deserves."

Reuben was embarrassed by the gift.

"To tell the truth, uncle," he said, "I should take her the more readily if I'd coveted her less."

"Bring her out into the gardin, lad," returned his uncle. "Let's hear the 'Last Rose' again."

Reuben followed the old man's lead. His uncle's house-keeper carried chairs to the grass-plot, and there the old man and the young one sat down together in the summer air, and Reuben, drawing a little pitch-pipe from his pocket, sounded its note, adjusted the violin, and played. Ezra set his elbows upon his knees and chin in his hands, and sat to listen.

"Lend her to me, lad," he said, when his nephew laid the instrument across his knees. "I don't know—I wonder—Let's see if there is any of the old skill left." His face was gray and his hands shook as he held them out. "Theer's almost a fear upon me," he said, as he took the fiddle and tucked it beneath his chin. "No, no, I dar' not. I doubt the poor thing 'ud shriek at me."

"Nonsense, uncle," answered Reuben, with a swift and subtle movement of the fingers of the left hand, such as only a violin-player could accomplish. "I doubt if there is such a thing as forgetting when once you have played. Try."

"No," said the old man, handing back the fiddle. "I dar' not. I haven't the courage for it. It's a poor folly, maybe, for a man o' my years to talk o' breakin' his heart over a toy like that, and yet, if the tone wasn't to come after all! That 'nd be a bitter pill, Reuben. No, no. It's a thousand to one the power's left me, but theer's just a chance it hasn't. I feel it theer." The gaunt left-hand fingers made just such a strenuous swift and subtle motion as Reuben's had made a minute earlier. "And yet it mightn't be." Reuben reached out the violin towards him, but he recoiled from it and arose. "No, no. I dar'n't fail," he said, with a gray smile. "I darn't risk it. Take her away, lad. No, lend her here. A man as hasn't pluck enow in his inwards for a thing o' that kind—Lend her here!"

He seized the instrument, tucked it once more beneath his chin, and with closed eyes laid the bow upon the strings. His left foot, stretched firmly out in advance of the right, beat noiselessly upon the turf, as if it marked the movement of a prelude inaudible except to him. Then the bow gripped the strings, and sounded one soft, long-drawn, melancholy note. A little movement of the brows, a scarcely discernible nod of the head marked his approval of the tone, and after marking anew the cadence of that airy prelude he began to play. For a minute or more his resolve and excitement carried him along, but suddenly a note sounded false and he stopped.

"Ah-h-h!" he cried, shaking his head as if to banish the sound from his ears, "take her, Reuben, take her. Give her a sweet note or two to take the taste o' that out of her mouth. Poor thing! Strike up, lad—anything. Strike up!"

Reuben dashed into "The Wind that Shakes the Barley!" and Ezra, with his gaunt hands folded behind him, walked twice or thrice the length of the grass-plot.

"Theer's no fool like an old fool," he said, when he paused at his nephew's side. "Theer's nothing as is longed for like that as can niver be got at. Good-day, lad. Tek her away and niver let anybody maul her i' that fashion again, poor thing. I'll rest a while. Good-day, Reuben."

Reuben thus dismissed shook hands and went his way, bearing his uncle's gift with him. His way took him to Fuller's house, and finding Ruth alone there he displayed his treasure and spent an hour in talk. If he had said then and there what he wanted to say, the historic Muse must needs have rested with him. But since, in spite of the promptings of his own desire, the favorableness of the time, and the delightful confusions of silence which overcame both Ruth and himself in the course of his visit, he said no more than any enthusiast in music might have said to any pretty girl who was disposed to listen to him, the historic Muse is free to follow Joseph Beaker, with whom she has present business.

In the ordinary course of things Joseph would have taken the shortest cut to his patron's house, but to-day neither the weight of the barrow-load, which was considerable, nor Joseph's objection to labor, which was strongly rooted, could prevent him from taking the lengthier route, which lay along the village main street, and therefore took him where he had most chance of being observed. He made but slow progress, being constantly stopped by his admirers, and making a practice of sitting down outside any house the doors of which happened to be closed, and there waiting to be observed. Despite the lingering character of his journey he had already passed the last house but one—Miss Blythe's cottage—and was forecasting in the dim twilight of his mind the impression he would make upon its inmate, when the little old maid herself went by without a glance.

"Arternoon, mum," said Joseph, setting down the wheelbarrow, and spitting upon his hands to show how little he was conscious of the glory of his own appearance.

"Good-afternoon," said the old maid. "Ah! Joseph Beaker?" To Joseph's great disappointment she took no notice of his attire, but her eye happening to alight upon the books, she approached and turned one of them over. Poor Joseph was not accustomed to read the signs of emotion, or he might have noticed that the hand that turned the leaves trembled curiously. "What are these?" she asked. "Where are you taking them?"

"These be Mr. Ezra Gold's music-books," he answered. "He's gi'en 'em to his nevew, and I'm a-wheelin' of 'em home for him. Look here—see what his lordship's gi'en to me."

But Miss Blythe was busily taking book after book, and was turning over the leaves as if she sought for something. Her hands were trembling more and more, and even Joseph thought it odd that so precise and neat a personage should have let her parasol tumble and lie unregarded in the dust.

"Wheel them to my house, Joseph Beaker," she said at last, with a covert eagerness. "I want to look at them; I should like to look at them."

"My orders was to wheel 'em straight home," returned Joseph. "I worn't told to let nobody handle 'em, but it stands to rayson as they hadn't ought to be handled."

"Wheel them to my door," said the little old maid, stooping for her fallen sunshade. "I will give you sixpence."

"That's another matter," said Joseph, sagely. "If a lady wants to look at 'em theer can't be nothin' again that, I should think."

The barrow was wheeled to Miss Blythe's door, and Miss Blythe in the open air, without waiting to remove bonnet, gloves, or mantle, began to turn over the leaves of the books, taking one systematically after the other, and racing through them as if her life depended on the task. Rapidly as she went to work at this singular task, it occupied an hour, and when it was all over the prim, starched old lady actually sat down upon her own door-step with lax hands, and crushed her best new bonnet against the door-post in a very abandonment of lassitude and fatigue.

"Done?" said Joseph, who had been sitting on the handle of the wheelbarrow, occasionally nodding and dozing in the pleasant sunlight. Miss Blythe arose languidly and gave him the promised sixpence. "You'm a wonner to read, you be, mum," he said, as he pocketed the coin. "I niver seed none on 'em goo at sich a pace as that. Sometimes my lord 'll look at one side of a noospaper for a hour together. I've sin him do it."

Receiving no reply, he spat upon his hands again, and started on the final course of his journey. Rachel closed the gate behind him, and walked automatically into her own sitting-room.

"There is no fool like an old fool," she said, mournfully. Then, with sudden fire, "I have known the man to be a villain these six-and-twenty years. Why should I doubt it now?"

And then, her starched dignity and her anger alike deserting her, she fell into a chair and cried so long and so heartily that at last, worn out with her grief, she fell asleep.



CHAPTER IX.

The church-bells made a pleasant music in Hey-don Hay on Sunday mornings, and were naturally at their best upon a summer Sunday, when the sunshine had thrown itself broadly down to sleep about the tranquil fields. Heydon Hay was undisturbed by the presence of a single conventicle in opposition to the parish church, and the leisurely figures in the fields and lanes and in the village street were all bent one way. In fine weather the worshippers were for the most part a little in advance of time, and thereby found opportunity to gather in knots about the lich-gate, or between it and the porch, where they exchanged observations on secular affairs with a tone and manner dimly tempered by the presence of the church.

Half a dozen people in voluminous broadcloth were already gathered about the lich-gate when Fuller appeared, carrying his portly waistcoat with a waddle of good-humored dignity, and mopping at his forehead. He was followed by a small boy, who with some difficulty carried the 'cello in a big green baize bag. One or two of the loungers at the gate carried smaller green bags, and while they and Fuller exchanged greetings, Sennacherib and Isaiah appeared in different directions, each with a baize-clothed fiddle tucked beneath his arm. The church of Heydon Hay boasted a string band of such excellence that on special occasions people flocked from all the surrounding parishes to listen to its performances. The members of the band and choir held themselves rather apart from other church-goers, like men who had special dignities and special interests. They had their fringe of lay admirers, who listened to their discussions on "that theer hef sharp," which ought to have sounded, or ought not to have sounded, in last Sunday's anthem.

Whether his lordship made a point of it or not, the Barfield carriage was always a little late, and Ferdinand certainly approved of the habit; but on this particular morning the young gentleman was earlier than common and arrived on foot. The male villagers took off their hats as he walked leisurely along, the female villagers bobbed courtesies at him, and the children raced before him to do him a sort of processional reverence. This simple incense was pleasant enough, for he had spent most of his time in larger places than Heydon Hay, and had experienced but little of the sweets of the territorial sentiment. He walked along in high good-humor, and enjoyed his triumphal progress, though he made himself believe that it was only the quaint, rural, and Old-world smack of it which pleased him.

Here and there he paused, and was affable with a county elector, but when he reached the lich-gate he was altogether friendly with Fuller and Sennacherib, and shook hands with Isaiah with actual warmth.

"Mr. Hales was dining at the Hall last night," he said. "He told us that some of the local people were in favor of an organ for the church, and had talked about getting up a subscription, but he wouldn't listen to the idea."

"Should think not," said Sennacherib. "Parson knows when he's well off."

"Indeed he does," returned Ferdinand; "he looks on the band as being quite a part of the church, and says that he would hardly know the place without it."

"A horgin!" grunted Sennacherib, scornfully. "An' when they'd got it, theer's some on 'em as 'ud niver be content till they'd got a monkey in a scarlit coat to sit atop on it."

"I hardly think they want that kind of organ, Mr. Eld," said Ferdinand, smoothly.

"I do' know why they shouldn't," returned Sennacherib. "It's nothin' but their Christian humbleness as could mek 'em want it at all. The Lord's made 'em a bit better off than their neighbors, an' they feel it undeserved. It's castin' pearls afore swine to play for half on 'em about here."

Fuller, with both hands posed on the baize-clad head of the 'cello, which the small boy had surrendered to him some moments before, shook his fat ribs at this so heartily that Sennacherib himself re laxed into a surly grin, and then Ferdinand felt him self at liberty to laugh also.

"You are rather severe upon your audience, Mr. Eld," he said.

"A tongue like a file, our Sennacherib's got," said the mild Isaiah. "Touches nothin' but what he rasps clean through it."

Ferdinand raised his hat at this moment and made a forward step, with his delicately gloved right hand extended.

"Good-morning, Miss Fuller."

Mr. De Blacquaire prided himself, and not without reason, on his own aplomb and self-possession, but he felt now a curious fluttering sensation to which he had hitherto been an entire stranger.

Ruth accepted his proffered hand and responded to his salute, and then shook hands with the two brethren. Ferdinand, with a jealousy at which he shortly found time to be surprised, noticed that her manner in shaking hands with these two stout and spectacled old vulgarians differed in no way from her manner in shaking hands with him. This in itself was a renewal of that calm, inexplicable disdain with which the girl had treated him from the first. If rustic beauty had been fluttered at his magnificent pressure, he could have gone his way and thought no more about it; but when rustic beauty was just as cool and unmoved by his appearance as if their social positions had been reversed, the thing became naturally moving, and had in it a lasting astonishment for leisure moments.

And there was no denying that the girl was surprisingly pretty. Prettier than ever this Sunday morning, in a remarkably neat dress of dove color, a demurely coquettish hat, and a bit of cherry-colored ribbon. Rustic beauty was not altogether disdainful of town-grown aids, it would seem, for Ferdinand's eye, trained to be critical in such matters, noted that the girl was finely gloved and booted.

Her dress was like a part of her, but that, though the young gentleman could not be supposed to know it, was a charm she owed to her own good taste and her own supple fingers. The young gentleman might have been supposed to know, perhaps, that her greatest charm of all was her unconsciousness of charming, and it was certainly this which touched him more than anything else about her.

There was no outer sign of the young Ferdinand's inward disturbance.

"I am afraid," he said, resolute to draw her into talk with himself if he could, though it were only for a moment, "I am afraid that I have made Mr. Eld very angry."

Ruth's brown eyes took a half-smiling charge of Sennacherib's surly figure.

"Seems," said Sennacherib, "the young gentleman was a-dinin' last night along with the vicar, and it appears as some o' the fools he knows want to rob the parish church o' the band, and build a horgin."

"The vicar won't listen to the idea," said Ferdinand. "There was only one opinion about it."

"It would be a great shame to break up the band," Ruth answered, speaking with vivacity, and addressing Ferdinand. "Everybody would miss it so. We would rather have the band than the finest organ in the world."

It happened, as such things will happen for the disturbance of lovers, that just as Ruth turned to address Ferdinand, Reuben Gold marched under the lich-gate and caught sight of the group. The girl, her father, the two Elds, and the young gentleman were standing by this time opposite the church porch, but as far away from it as the width of the pathway would allow. Various knots of villagers, observing that his lordship's guest had stayed to talk, stood respectfully apart to look on, and, if it might be, to listen. Now Reuben, for reasons already hinted at, disliked Mr. De Blacquaire. He was not, perhaps, quite so conscious as Mr. De Blacquaire himself that all the advantage of the differences between them rested on the young gentleman's side. Reuben was not the sort of youngster who says to himself, "I am a handsome fellow," or "I am a clever fellow," or "I am a fellow of a good heart," but in face of Ferdinand's obvious admiration of Ruth and his evident desire to stand well in her graces he had sprung up at once to self-measurement, and had set himself shoulder to shoulder with the intruder for purposes of comparison. With all the good the love for a good woman does us, with all the wheat and oil and wine it brings for the nourishment of the loftier half of us, it must needs bring a foolish bitter weed or two, which being eaten disturb the stomach and summon singular apparitions. And when Reuben saw the girl of his heart in vivacious public talk with a young man of another social sphere he was quite naturally a great deal more perturbed than he need have been. The gentleman admired her, and it was not outside the nature of things that she might admire the gentleman. He came up, therefore, mighty serious, and shook hands with Fuller and the brethren, and then with Ruth, with an air of severity which was by no means usual with him. He carried his violin case tucked beneath his arm—a fact which of itself gave him an unworthy aspect in Ferdinand's eyes—and he had shaken hands with Ruth without raising his hat. A denizen of Heydon Hay who had taken off his hat in the open air to a woman would have been scoffed by his neighbors, and would probably have startled the woman herself as much as his own sense of propriety. But all the same Reuben's salute seemed mutilated and boorish to the man of more finished breeding, and helped to mark him as unworthy to be the suitor of so charming a creature as the rustic beauty.

"Mr. De Blacquaire's a-tellin' us, Reuben," said old Fuller, "as theer's been some talk o' breaking up the church band and starting a horgin i' the place on it."

"That will end in talk," said Reuben, with a half-defiant, half-scrutinizing look at Ferdinand, as if he charged him in his own mind with having suggested the barbarism.

"There is no danger that it will go further in the vicar's time," returned Ferdinand. "Besides, his lordship is as strongly opposed to the change as anybody."

"It's time we was movin' inside, lads," said Fuller, glancing up at the church clock. Ruth inclined her head to Ferdinand, gave a nod and a smile to Reuben (who nodded back rather gloomily), and passed like a sunbeam into the shadow of the porch. Fuller took up his 'cello in a big armful, and followed, with the brethren in his rear. Ferdinand, feeling Reuben's company to be distasteful, lingered in it with a perverse hope that the young man might address him, and Reuben stood rather sullenly by to mark his own sense of social contrast by allowing the gentleman to enter first.

Each being disappointed by the other's immobility and quiet, a gradual sense of awkwardness grew up between them, and this was becoming acute when Ezra appeared, and afforded a diversion. Under cover of his uncle's arrival Reuben escaped into the church.

In the course of centuries the church-yard had grown so high about the building that grass waved on a level with the sills of the lower windows, and the church was entered by a small flight of downward steps. The band and choir had a little bare back gallery to themselves, and approached it by a narrow spiral stone staircase. There were no side galleries, and band and choir had therefore an uninterrupted survey of the building. Reuben valued his place because it gave him a constant sight of Ruth, and perhaps, though the fancy is certain of condemnation at the hands of some of the severer sort, the visible presence of the maiden, for whose sake he hoped for all possible excellences in himself, was no bad aid to devotion. She sat in a broad band of tinted sunlight with her profile towards her lover, looking to his natural fancy as if she caused the sunlight, and were its heart and centre. Opposite to her and with his profile towards the music gallery also, sat Ferdinand, and Reuben saw the young gentleman cast many glances across the church in Ruth's direction. This spectacle afforded no aid to devotion, and not even his music could draw the mind or eyes of the lover from Ferdinand, whom he began to regard as being an open rival.

There was enough in this reflection to spur the most laggard of admirers into definite action, and before the service was over Reuben had made up his mind. He would speak to Ruth after church, and at least decide his own chances. The vicar's sermon was brief, for the good man had no rival, and could afford to please himself; but its duration, short as it was, gave Reuben ample time to be rejected and accepted a score of times over, and to gild the future with the rosiest or cloud it with the most tempestuous of colors. The Earl of Barfield, according to his custom, had arrived late, and it comforted Reuben a little to think that in his presence, at all events, the young gentleman could make no progress with his love affairs. It comforted him further to see that Ruth took no notice of the glances of her admirer, and that she was to all appearance unconscious of them and of him.

But when once he had made up his mind to instant action, the vicar's brief discourse began to drag itself into supernatural length. Facing the preacher, and immediately beneath Reuben's feet, was a clock of old-fashioned and clumsy structure, and the measured tick, tick of its machinery communicated a faintly perceptible jar to a square foot or so of the gallery flooring. The mechanical rhythm got into Reuben's brain and nerves until every second seemed to hang fire for a phenomenal time, and the twenty minutes' discourse dragged into an age. Even when the vicar at last lifted his eyes from the neatly ranged papers which lay on the pulpit cushion before him, laid down his glasses, and without pause or change of voice passed on to the benediction, and even when after the customary decent pause the outward movement of the congregation began, Reuben's impatience had still to be controlled, for it was the duty of the band to play a solemn selection from the works of some old master while the people filed away. Reuben led, and since the others must needs follow at the pace he set, the old master was led to a giddier step than he had ever danced to in a church before. Sennacherib was scandalized, and even the mild Fuller was conscious of an inward rebellion. The taste in Heydon Hay was rather in favor of drawl than chatter, and the old masters in their serious moods were accustomed to be taken with something more than leisure.

"Why, Reuben, lad," began Sennacherib, "how didst come to let your hand run away with your elber i' that way?"

But Reuben, sticking his hat on anyhow, was gone before the old man had finished his question, thrusting his violin into its case as he made his way down the corkscrew stairs. A single glance assured him that Ruth was no longer in the churchyard. The Earl of Barfield's carriage blocked the way at the lich-gate, and the young fellow waited in high impatience until the obstacle should disappear. His lordship, in view of the approaching election, was much more amiable and talkative than common, and he and his protege stood exchanging talk upon indifferent topics with a little crowd of church-goers, but in a while the earl climbed slowly into the carriage. Ferdinand skipped nimbly after him and the two were driven away. Reuben, with hasty nods and good-mornings at one or two who would have detained him, strode into the highway just in time to see the dove-colored dress turn at a distant corner. He hurried after it at his swiftest walk, and reaching the corner in the most evident violent hurry, narrowly escaped walking over the object of the chase, who had halted in talk with Aunt Rachel at the place where their homeward ways divided.

He had expected to find her still far ahead, and this sudden encounter was amazingly disconcerting to him. To begin with, apart from his real purpose he had no business whatsoever round that particular corner. Then to pause suddenly in the midst of so violent a hurry was in itself a plain proclamation of his intent, and his hot courage had so rapidly gone cold that the change of inward temperature carried a shock with it. Nevertheless, he stopped and stammered a disjointed greeting to Rachel, who returned for sole answer an icy little nod, pinching her lips together somewhat superciliously as she gave it.

Ruth, who would have been burdened by a shyness equalling Reuben's own had he succeeded in catching her by herself, was bold enough in the presence of one of her own sex, and observed the situation with a delighted mischief. But this was changed, as swiftly as Reuben's emotions themselves, to a state of freezing discomfort when Aunt Rachel bolt upright, and with a mincing precision in her speech, demanded to know if this young—ahem!—this person had any communication to make.

"My dear aunt," said the poor girl, blushing scarlet, and casting an appealing glance at Reuben.

"You appeared to be in a hurry, Mr. Gold," said the terrible old lady. "My niece and I will not detain you."

"Thank you," responded Reuben, shaken back into self-possession. "I am not in a hurry any longer."

Aunt Rachel turned right about face with an almost military precision, and passing her arm through Ruth's led the girl away, leaving Reuben shaken back into internal chaos. Ruth's blushing face and humid brown eyes were turned towards him in momentary but keen apology, and he was left standing alone on the cobbled pavement with a feeling of perfect wreck.

"Aunt Rachel!" said the girl, as she suffered herself thus ignominiously to be towed away. "How could you make me behave so rudely?"

"Have nothing to do with those people," replied Aunt Rachel, frigidly. "They are bad, root and branch. I know them, my dear. That young man has the audacity to admire you. You must not encourage him."

"I am sure," said Ruth, guiltily, only half knowing what she said, "he has never spoken a word—"

"It is not necessary to wait for words," returned the old lady. "I can see quite clearly. I am experienced. I know the Golds. I have been familiar with the method of their villany for many years."

"How can you speak so?" the girl asked, recovering something of her native spirit. "I am sure that there is no better man in the world than Mr. Ezra Gold. Everybody speaks well of him."

"It is not quite accurate, my dear," said Aunt Rachel, "to say that everybody speaks well of him, when a person even so inconsiderable as myself is in the act of speaking ill of him." The quaint veneer of fashion with which for many years she had overlaid her speech and manner was more apparent in this address than common, but suddenly she broke through it and spoke with an approach to passion. "I know them; they are villains. Have nothing to do with any member of that family, my dear, as you value your happiness." She pinched her niece's arm tightly as she spoke, and for a little time they walked on in silence, Ruth not knowing what to say in answer to this outburst, but by no means convinced as yet of the villany either of Ezra or Reuben. "Now, my dear," Aunt Rachel began again, with a return to her customary mincing tones, "you are not far from your own residence. I observe," with a swift glance over her shoulder, "that the person still lingers at the corner. But if he should attempt to follow you may rely upon me to intercept him. My niece must act like my niece. You must show your detestation of his odious advances in a proper manner."

"But, Aunt Rachel!" protested Ruth, "he has never made any advances, and I—I haven't any detestation."

"All in good time, my dear," responded the old lady. "In the mean time, rely upon my protection." With this she stood up birdlike, and pecked affectionately at Ruth's rosy cheek. The girl was well-nigh crying, but restrained herself, and answered Rachel's "God bless you" with some self-possession.

"Good-morning, dear aunt. But you are quite, oh, quite mistaken."

"Indeed, my dear," said Aunt Rachel, with a glitter in her youthful eyes, and a compression of her mobile lips, "I am nothing of the kind." Ruth's eyes sank, and she blushed before the old lady's keen and triumphant smile. She moved away downcast, while Aunt Rachel took the opposite direction. The old lady wore a determined air which changed to a sparkling triumph as she saw Reuben cross the road with an inelastic step, and continue his homeward way with a head bent either in thought or dejection.



CHAPTER X.

When Reuben found time to gather himself together and to face his own emotions he discovered himself to be more amazed than disconcerted. He cast about in his mind for an explanation of the old lady's displeasure, and found none. Why should she desire to insult him? In what possible way could he have offended her? Even a lover (ingenious as lovers always are in the art of self-torment) could not persuade himself that Ruth was a willing party to her aunt's singular treatment of him. The apology in her glance had been unmistakable.

He was altogether at a loss to understand in what way he could have excited Miss Blythe's anger, but it was unpleasant to know that there was an enemy in the camp which he had always thought entirely friendly. With the exception of Ruth herself he had been sure of the approval of everybody concerned.

His performance at the homely one o'clock dinner spread at his mother's table was so poor as to be noticeable, and he had to endure and answer many tender but unnecessary inquiries as to the state of his health, and to pretend to listen while his mother related the melancholy history of a young man who fell into a decline and died through mere neglect of meal-times. When this narrative was over and done with he escaped to his own room, carrying writing materials with him, and sat down to express on paper the hopes he had fully meant to express vocally an hour earlier. The golden rule for writing is to know precisely what you want to say, but though Reuben seemed to know, he found it hard to get upon paper. Half a score of torn sheets went into the fire-grate, and were there carefully fired and reduced to ashes. It was only the discovery that he was reduced to his final sheet of paper which really screwed his courage to the sticking-point. Being once there it held until the need for it was over; but when the letter was written it would have followed its forerunners if there had but been another sheet of paper in the house or the day had been anything but Sunday. As it was, he let it stand perforce, enveloped and addressed it in a sort of desperation, and put it in his pocket ready for personal delivery. The quartette party always met on Sunday afternoons and played sacred music. Not so long ago they had been used to meet in church; but since the introduction of gas to the venerable building the afternoon service had been abandoned and an evening service instituted in its stead. The music-parties were held at Fuller's in the summer-time, and Reuben's chance of a declaration by letter looked simple and easy enough. It was but to slip the all-important note into Ruth's hand with a petition to her to read it, and the thing was done. He had time enough to do this over and over and over again in fancy as he walked down the sunlit street with his violin case tucked under his arm. He had time enough to be accepted and rejected just as often—to picture and enjoy the rapture of the one event and the misery and life-long loneliness entailed by the other. Every time his eager fancy slipped the note into Ruth's fingers his heart leaped and his hands went hot and moist, but if ever the screw of courage gave a backward turn the thought of Ferdinand twisted it back to the sticking-point again, and he was all resolve once more. The experience of ages has declared that there is no better spur for the halting paces of a laggard lover than that which is supplied by jealousy. The simplest coquette that ever tortured hearts in a hay-field is aware of the fact, and needs no appeal to the experience of ages to support her.