"Has that lady been calling here?" she asked of Phillis, whom she met bringing in Oliver from his afternoon walk.

"Lady!" repeated Phillis, scornfully, "she's only the governess."

"The governess!"

"Lor! didn't you know it, ma'am? And she coming to Miss Letitia every day for this week past!" and Phillis gleamed all over with malicious satisfaction that her mistress did not know it, and might naturally feel annoyed and offended thereat.

Annoyed Mrs. Grey certainly was, but she was not readily offended. Her feeling was more that of extreme vexation at the introduction here of the very last person whom she would desire to see Letitia's governess, and a vague wonder as to how much Dr. Grey knew about the matter. Of course, engrossed as she was with the charge of Arthur, it was quite possible that, to save her trouble, he and his sisters might have arranged it all. Only she wished she had been told—merely told about it.

Any little pain, however, died out when, on entering the drawing-room, she caught the warm delight of Arthur's eyes, turning to her as eagerly as if she had been absent from him a week instead of half an hour.

"Oh, mother, I am so tired! Here have I been lying on this sofa, and Titia and somebody else—a great, big, red-checked woman—Titia says she isn't a lady, and I must not call her so—have been strum-strumming on your pretty piano, and laughing and whispering between whiles. They bother me so. Please don't let them come again."

Christian promised to try and modify things a little.

But she must come and practice here, Arthur. She is Miss Bennett— Titia's governess.

"Governess—a nice governess! Why, she hardly teaches her a bit. They were chattering the whole time; and I heard them plan to meet in Walnut-tree Court at five o'clock every evening, and go for a walk with a gentleman—a kind gentleman, who would give Titia as many sweet things as ever she could eat."

Mrs. Grey stood aghast. This was the sort of thing that had gone on—or would have gone on if not discovered—with the little Fergusons.

"Are you sure of this, Arthur? If so, I must ring for Phillis at once."

"Oh don't—please don't. Phillis will on'y fly into a passion and beat her—poor Titia! I'm very sorry I told of her. I wouldn't be a sneak if I could help it."

"My dear boy!" said Christian, fondly. "Well, I will not speak about it just yet, and certainly not to Phillis. Lie here till I see if Titia is still in the nursery. It is just five o'clock."

Yes, there the little damsel was, sitting as prim as possible over a book, looking the picture of industry and innocence.

"Miss Bennett has left for the day, has she not, Titia? You are not going out with her, or going out again at all?"

"No," said Titia, with her head bent down.

It was always Christian's belief—and practice—that to accuse a child, unproved, of telling a lie, was next to suggesting that lies should be told. She always took truth for granted until she had unequivocal evidence to the contrary.

"Very well," she said, kindly. "Is that a nice book you have? 'Arabian Nights?' Then sit and read it quietly till you go to bed. Good-night, my dear."

She kissed her, which was always a slight effort; it was hard work loving Titia, who was so cold and prim, and unchildlike, with so little responsiveness in her nature.

"I hope all is safe for today," thought Christian, anxiously, and determined to speak to Titia's father the first opportunity. He was dining in hall today, and afterward they were to go to the long-delayed entertainment at the vice chancellor's, which was to inaugurate her entrance into Avonsbridge society.

Miss Gascoigne was full of it; and during all the time that the three ladies were dining together, she talked incessantly, so that, even had she wished, Mrs. Grey could not have got in a single word of inquiry concerning Miss Bennett. She however, judged it best to wait quietly till the cloth was removed and Barker vanished.

Christian was not what is termed a "transparent" character; that is, she could "keep herself to herself," as the phrase is, better than most people. It was partly from habit, having lived so long in what was worse than loneliness, under circumstances when she was obliged to maintain the utmost and most cautious silence upon every thing, and partly because her own strong nature prevented the necessity of letting her mind and feelings bubble over on all occasions and to every body, as is the manner of weaker but yet very amiable women. But, on the other hand, though she could keep a secret sacredly, rigidly—so rigidly as to prevent people's even guessing that there was a secret to be kept, she disliked unnecessary mysteries and small deceptions exceedingly. She saw no use and no good in them. They seemed to her only the petty follies of petty minds. She had no patience with them, and would take no trouble about them.

So, as soon as the ladies were alone, she said to Miss Gascoigne outright, without showing either hesitation or annoyance.

"I met Miss Bennett in the hall to-day. Why did you not tell me that you and Aunt Maria had chosen a governess for Letitia?"

Sometimes nothing puzzles very clever people so much as a piece of direct simplicity. Aunt Henrietta actually blushed.

"Chosen a governess? Well, so we did! We were obliged to do it. And you were so much occupied with Arthur. Indeed, I must say," recovering herself from the defensive into the offensive position, "that the way you made yourself a perfect slave to that child, to the neglect of all your other duties, was—"

"Never mind that now, please. Just tell me about Miss Bennett. When did she come, and how did you hear of her?"

She spoke quite gently, in mere inquiry; she was so anxious neither to give nor to take offense, if it could possibly be avoided. She bore always in mind a sentence her husband had once quoted—and, though a clergyman, he did not often quote the Bible, he only lived it: "As much as in you lieth, live peaceably with all men." But she sometimes wondered, with a kind of sad satire, whether the same could ever, under any circumstances, be done with all women.

Alas! not with these, or rather this woman, Aunt Maria being merely the adjective of that very determined substantive, Aunt Henrietta. She braced herself to the battle immediately.

"Excuse me, Mrs. Grey; but I cannot see what right you have to question me, or I to answer. Am I not capable of the management of my own sister's children, who have been under my care ever since she died, and in whom I never supposed you would take the slightest interest?"

This after her charge of Arthur—when she had nursed the child back to life again, and knew that he still depended upon her for everything in life! But, knowing it was so, the secret truth was enough to sustain her under any heap of falsehoods—opposing falsehoods, too, directly contradicting one another; but Miss Gascoigne never paused to consider that. Lax-tongued people seldom do.

"I will not question the point of my interest in the children. If I can not prove it in other ways than words, the latter would be very useless. All I wish to say is, that I should like to have been consulted before any thing was decided as to a governess, and I am afraid Miss Bennett is not exactly the person I should have chosen."

"Indeed! And pray, why not, may I ask? She is a most respectable person—a person who knows her place. I am sure the deference with which she treats me, the attention with which she listens to all my suggestions, have given me the utmost confidence in the young woman; all the more, because, I repeat, she knows her place. She is content to be a governess; she never pretends to be a lady."

The insult was so pointed, so plain, that it could not be passed over.

Christian rose from her seat. "Miss Gascoigne, seeing that I am here at the head of my husband's table, I must request you to be a little more guarded in your conversation. I, too, have been a governess, but it never occurred to me that I was otherwise than a lady."

There was a dead silence, during which poor Aunt Maria cast imploring looks at Aunt Henrietta, who perhaps felt that she had gone too far, for she muttered some vague apology about "different people being different in their ways."

"Exactly so and what I meant to observe was, that my chief reason for doubting Miss Bennett's fitness to instruct Titia is what you yourself allow. If she is 'not a lady,' how can you expect her to make a lady of our little girl?"

"Our little girl?"

"Yes, our" the choking tears came as far as Christian's throat, and then were swallowed down again. "My little girl, if you will; for she is mine—my husband's daughter and I wish to see her grow up every thing that his daughter ought to be. I say again, I ought to have been consulted in the choice of her governess."

She stopped for, accidentally looking out of the window, where the lengthened spring twilight still lingered in the cloisters, she fancied she saw creeping from pillar to pillar a child's figure; could it possibly be Titia's? Yes, it certainly was Titia herself, stealing through two sides of the quad-rectangle and under the archway that led to Walnut-tree Court.

Without saying a word to the aunts—for she would not have accused any body, a child, or even a servant, upon anything short of absolute proof—Christian went up to her from the window of which she could see into Walnut-tree Court. There, walking round and round, in the solitude which at this hour was customary in most colleges, she distinguished, dim as the light was, three figures—a man, a woman, and a child; in all probability. Miss Bennett, her lover, and Titia, whom, with a mixture of cunning and shortsightedness, she had induced to play propriety, in case any discovery should be made.

Still, the light was too faint to make their identity sure; and to send a servant after them on mere suspicion would only bring trouble upon poor little Titia, besides disgracing, in the last manner in which any generous woman would wish to disgrace another woman, the poor friendless governess, who, after all, might only be taking an honest evening walk with her own honest lover, as every young woman has a perfect right to do.

"And love is so sweet, and life so bitter! I'll not be hard upon her, poor girl!" thought Christian, with a faint sigh. "Whatever is done I will do myself and then it can injure nobody."

So she put on shawl and bonnet, and was just slipping out at the hall door, rather thankful that Barker was absent from his post, when she met Titia creeping stealthily in, not at the front door, but at the glass door, which led to the garden behind; to which garden there was only one other entrance, a little door leading into Walnut-tree Court, and of this door Barker usually kept the key. Now, however, it hung from the little girl's hand, the poor frightened creature, who, the minute she saw her step-mother, tried to run away up stairs.

"Titia, come back! Tell me where you have been, without Phillis or any body, and when I desired you not to go out again."

"It was only to—to fetch a crocus for Atty."

"Where is the crocus?"

"I—dropped it."

"And this key. What did you want with the key?"

"I—I don't know."

The lie failed, if they were lies; but perhaps they might have been partly true; the child hung her head and began to whimper. She was not quite hardened, then.

"Come here to me," said Christian, sadly and gravely, leading her to the glass door, so that what light there was could shine upon her face; "let me look if you have been telling me the truth. Don't be afraid; if you have I will not punish you. I will not be hard upon you in any case, if you will only speak the truth. Titia, a little girl like you has no business to be creeping in and out of her papa's house like a thief. Tell at once where have you been, and who was with you?"

The child burst out crying. "I daren't tell, or Phillis will beat me. She said she would if I stirred an inch from the nursery, while she went down to have tea with cook and Barker. And I thought I might just run for ten minutes to see Miss Bennett, who wanted me so."

"You were with Miss Bennett, then? Any body else?"

"Only a gentleman," said Letitia, hanging her head and blushing with that painful precocity of consciousness so sad to see in a little girl.

"What was his name?"

"I don't know. Miss Bennett didn't tell me. She only said he was a friend of hers, who liked little girls, and that if I could come and have a walk with them, without telling Phillis or any body, she would let me off all the hardest of my French lessons. And so—and so—Oh, hide me, there's papa at the hall door, and Aunt Henrietta coming out of the dining- room. And Aunt Henrietta never believes what I say, even if I tell her the truth. Oh, let me run—let me run."

The child's terror was so uncontrollable that there was nothing for it but to yield; and she fled.

"Titia! Titia!" called out her father. "Christian, what is the matter? What was my little girl crying for?"

There was no avoiding the domestic catastrophe, even had Christian wished to avoid it, which she did not. She felt it was a case in which concealment was impossible—wrong. Dr. Grey ought to be told, and Miss Gascoigne likewise.

"Your little girl has been very naughty, papa; but others have been more to blame than she. Come with me—will you come too, Aunt Henrietta?—and I will tell you all about it."

She did so, as briefly as she could, and in telling it she discovered one fact—which she passed over, and yet it made her glad—that Dr. Grey, like herself, had been kept wholly in the dark about the engagement of Miss Bennett as governess.

"I meant to have told you today, though, after I had given her sufficient trial," said Miss Gascoigne, sullenly; "I had with her the best of recommendations, and I do not believe one word of all this story—that is," waking up to the full meaning of what she was saying, "not without the most conclusive evidence."

"Evidence," repeated Dr. Grey. "You have my wife's word, and my daughter's."

"Your daughter is the most arrant little liar I ever knew!"

The poor father shrank back. Perhaps he knew, by sad experience, that Aunt Henrietta's condemnation was not altogether without foundation. His look expressed such unutterable pain that Christian came forward and spoke out strongly, almost angrily.

"It is fear that makes a liar, even as harshness and injustice create deceit and underhandedness. Love a child and trust it, and if it does wrong, punish it neither cruelly nor unfairly, and it will never tell falsehoods. Titia will not—she shall not, as long as I am alive to keep her to the truth."

Dr. Grey looked fondly at his wile's young, glowing face and even Miss Gascoigne, the hard, worldly woman, viewing all things in her narrow, worldly way, was silenced for the time. Then she began again, pouring out a torrent of explanations and self-exculpations, which soon resolved themselves into the simple question, What was to be done? There—she ended.

"Don't ask me to do any thing. I will not. I wash my hands of the whole matter. If the story be true, and Miss Bennett can be guilty of conduct so indecorous, it would never do for me to be mixed up in such an improper proceeding and if untrue, and I accused her of it, I should find myself in a very unpleasant position. So, Mrs. Grey, since you have interfered in this matter, you must carry it out on your own responsibility. If you have taken a grudge against Miss Bennett—which I did not expect, considering your own antecedents—you must just do as you like concerning her. But, bless me! how the evening is slipping by. Come, Maria, I shall hardly have time to dress for the vice chancellor's."

So saying, Miss Gascoigne swept away, her silk skirts flowing behind her. Aunt Maria followed with one pathetic glance at "dear Arnold;" and the husband and wife were left alone.

Dr. Grey threw himself into his arm-chair, and there came across his face the weary look, which Christian had of late learned to notice, indicating that he was no more a young man, and that his life had been longer in trials than even in years.

"My dear, I wish you women-kind could settle these domestic troubles among yourselves. We men have so many outside worries to contend with. It is rather hard."

It was hard. Christian reproached herself almost as if she had been the primary cause of this, the first complaint she had ever heard him make, and which he seemed immediately to regret having allowed to escape him.

"I don't mean, my dear wife, that you should not have told me this; indeed, it was impossible to keep it from me. It all springs from Aunt Henrietta. I wish she—But she is Aunt Henrietta, and we must just make the best of her, as I have done for nearly twenty years."

"And why did you?" rose irrepressibly to Christian's lips. The sense of wild resistance to injustice and wrong, so strong in youth, was still not beaten down. It roused in her something very like fierceness—these gentle creatures can be fierce sometimes—to see a good man like Dr. Grey trodden down and domineered over by this narrow-minded, bad- tempered woman. "I often wonder at your patience, and at all you forgive."

"Seventy times seven," was the quick answer. And Christian became silenced and grave. "Still," he added, smiling, "a sin against one's self does not include a sin against another. The next time Henrietta speaks as she spoke to you just now, she and I will have a very serious quarrel."

"Oh no, no! Not for my sake. I had rather die than bring dissension into this house."

"My poor child, people can not die so easily. They have to live on and endure. But what were we talking about; for I forget: I believe I do forget things sometimes;" and he passed his hand over his forehead. "I am not so young as you, my dear; and, though my life has looked smooth enough outside; there has been a good deal of trouble in it. In truth,"—he added, "I have had some vexatious things perplexing me today, which must excuse my being so dull and disagreeable."

"Disagreeable!" echoed Christian, with a little forced sort of laugh, adding, in a strange, soft shyness, "I wish you would tell me what those vexatious things were. I know I am young, and foolish enough too; still, if I could help you—"

"Help me!" He looked at her eagerly, then shook his head and sighed. "No, my child, you can not help me. It is other people's business, which I am afraid I have no right to tell even to you. It is only that a person has come back to Avonsbridge, who, if I could suppose I had an enemy in the world—But here I am telling you."

"Never mind, you shall tell me no more," said Christian, cheerily, "especially as I do not believe that in the wide world you could have an enemy. And now give me your opinion as to this matter of Miss Bennett?"

"First, what is yours?"

Christian pondered a little. "It seems to me that the only thing is for me to speak to her myself, quite openly and plainly, when she comes tomorrow."

"And then dismiss her?"

"I fear so."

"For having a lover?" said Dr. Grey, with an amused twinkle in his eye.

"Not exactly, but for telling Titia about it, and making use of the child for her own selfish needs. Do you consider me hard? Well, it is because I know what this ends in. Miss Gascoigne does not see it, but I do. She only thinks of 'propriety.' I think of something far deeper—a girl's first notions about those sort of things. It is cruel to meddle with them before their time—to take the bloom off the peach and the scent off the rose; to put worldliness instead of innocence, and conceited folly instead of simple, solemn, awful love. I would rather die, even now—you will think I am always ready for dying—but I would rather die than live to think and feel about love like some women—ay, and not bad women either, whom I have known."

Mrs. Grey had gone on, hardly considering what she was saying or to what it referred, till she was startled to feel fixed upon her her husband's earnest eyes.

"You need not be afraid," said he smiling. "Christian, shall I tell you a little secret? Do you know why I loved you? Because you are unlike all other women—because you bring hack to me the dreams of my youth. And here," suddenly rising, as if he feared he had said too much, "we must put dreams aside, and arguments likewise, for Aunt Henrietta will never forgive us if we are late at this terrible evening party."



Chapter 8.

"Down, pale ghost! What doest thou here? The sky is cloudless overhead, The stream runs clear.

"I drowned thee, ghost, In a river of bitter brine: With whatever face thou risest up, Meet thou not mine!

"Back, poor ghost! Dead of thy own decay Let the dead bury their dead! I go my way."

While she was dressing for it, the evening party ceased to be terrible even in Christian's imagination. She kept thinking over and over the talk she had had with Dr. Grey; what he had said, and what she had said, of which she was a little ashamed that her impetuous impulse had faded. Yet why? Why should she not speak out her heart to her own husband? It began to be less difficult to do; for, though he did not answer much, he never misunderstood her, never responded with those sharp, cold, altogether wide-of-the-mark observations which, in talking with Miss Gascoigne or Miss Grey, made her feel that they and she looked at things from points of view as opposite as the poles.

"They can't help that; neither, I am sure, can I," she often thought. And yet how, thus diverse, they should all live under the same roof together for months and years to come, was more than Christian could conceive.

Besides, now, she had at times a new feeling—a wish to have her husband all to herself. She ceased to need the "shadowy third"—the invisible barricade against total dual solitude made by aunts or children. She would have been glad sometimes to send them all away, and spend a quiet evening hour, such as the last one, alone with Dr. Grey. It was so pleasant to talk to him—so comfortable. The comfort of it lasted in her heart all through her elaborate dressing, which was rather more weariness to her than to most young women of her age.

Letitia assisted thereat—poor Titia who, being sent for, had crept down to her step-mother's room, very humble and frightened, and received a few tender, serious words—not many, for the white face was sodden with crying, and there was a sullen look upon it which not all Christian's gentleness could chase away. Phillis had discovered her absence, and had punished her; not with whipping, that was forbidden, but with some of the innumerable nursery tyrannies which Phillis called government. And Titia evidently thought, with the suspiciousness of all weak, cowed creatures, that Mrs. Grey must have had some hand in it—that she had broken her promise, and betrayed her to this punishment.

She stood aloof, poor little girl, tacitly doing as she was bidden, and acquiescing in every thing, with her thin lips pressed into that hopeless line, or now and then opening to give vent to sharp, unchildlike speeches, so exceedingly like Aunt Henrietta's.

"Those are very pretty bracelets, but yours are not nearly so big as poor mamma's, and you don't wear half so many."

Was it that inherent feminine quality, tact or spite, according as it is used, which teaches women to find out, and either avoid or wound one another's sore places, which made the little girl so often refer to "poor mamma?" Or had she been taught to do it?

Christian could not tell. But it had to be borne, and she was learning how to bear it, she answered kindly.

"Probably I do wear fewer ornaments than your mamma did, for she was rich, and I was poor. Indeed, I have no ornaments to wear except what your papa has given me."

"He gives you lots of things, doesn't he? Every thing you have?"

"Yes."

"Do you like his doing it?"

"Very much indeed."

"Then was that the reason you married him? Aunt Henrietta said it was."

Christian's blood boiled. And yet Letitia only repeated what she had been told.

"My child," she said, feeling that now was the time to speak, and that the truth must be spoken even to a child, "your Aunt Henrietta makes a great mistake. She says and believes what is not true. I married your papa because I"—(oh that she could have said "loved him!")—"I thought him the best man in the world. And so he is, as we all know well. Don't we, Arthur?"

"Hurrah! Three cheers for papa! The jolliest papa that ever was!" cried Arthur from the sofa, where, by his own special desire, he lay watching the end of the toilet.

Letitia was too ladylike to commit herself to much enthusiasm, but she smiled. If there was a warm place in that poor little frigid heart, papa certainly had it, as in every heart belonging to him.

"You look quite pretty" said she, condescendingly. "Some day when you go to parties you'll dress me and make me look pretty too, and take me with you? You won't keep me shut up in the nursery till I am quite old, as Phillis says you will?"

"Did Phillis say that?" Christian answered, with a sore sinking of the heart at the utter impossibility that under such influences these children should ever learn to love her.

"Phillis is a fool," cried Arthur, angrily. "When I get well again, if ever she says one word to me of the things she used to say about mother, won't I pitch into her, that's all!"

Christian smiled—a rather sad smile, but she thought it best to take no notice, and soon Phillis came and fetched the two away.

After they were gone the young step-mother stood by her bedroom fire, thinking anxiously of these her children, turning over in her mind plan after plan as to how she should make them love her. But it seemed a very hopeless task still.

She looked into the blazing coals, and then began playing with a little chimney-piece ornament showing the day of the month—21st of March.

Could it be possible that she had been married three months? Three months since that momentous day when her solitary, self-contained life was swept out of the narrow boundaries of self forever—made full and busy, ay, and bright too? For it was not a sad face, far from it, which met her in the mirror above; it was a face radiant with youth and health, and the soft peacefulness which alone gives a kind of beauty.

Well, so best! She had not expected this, but she did not wish it otherwise.

The clock struck eight. She was, after all, ready too soon so she wrapped her white opera cloak around her, and went down to the drawing-room. To pass the time, she thought she would sing a little, as indeed she now made a point of doing daily, and would have done, whether she cared for it or not, if only out of gratitude to the love which had delighted itself in giving her pleasure.

But she did care for it. Nothing, nobody, could quench the artist nature which, the instant the heavy weight of sorrow was taken away, sprang up like a living fountain in this girl's soul. She sang, quite alone in the room, but with such a keen delight, such a perfect absorption of enjoyment, that she never noticed her husband's entrance till he had stood for some minutes behind her chair. When he touched her she started, then smiled.

"Oh, it is only you!"

"Only me. Did I trouble you?"

"Oh no; was I not troubling you?"

"How, my dear?"

Christian could not tell. Anyhow she found it impossible to explain, except that she had fancied he did not care for music.

"Perhaps I do, perhaps I don't. But I care for you. Tell me," he sat down and took her hand, "does not Arthur's 'bird' sometimes feel a little like a bird in a cage? Do you not wish you lived in the world—in London, where you could go to concerts and balls, instead of being shut up in a dull college with an old bookworm like me?"

"Dr. Grey! Papa!"

"Don't look hurt, my darling. But confess; isn't it sometimes so?"

"No! a thousand times no! Who has been putting such things into your head, for they never would come of themselves? It is wicked—wicked, and you should not heed them."

The tears burst from her eyes, to her husband's undisguised astonishment. He appeared so exceedingly grieved that she controlled herself as soon as she could, for his sake.

"I did not mean to be naughty. But you should remember I am still only a girl—a poor, helpless, half-formed girl, who never had any body to teach her any thing, who is trying so hard to be good, only they will not let me!"

"Who do you mean by they?"

No, he evidently had not the slightest idea how bitter was the daily household struggle, the petty guerilla warfare which she had to bear. And perhaps it was as well he should not. She would fight her own battles; she was strong enough now. It was a step-by-step advance, and all through an enemy's country. Still, she had advanced, and might go on to the end, if she only had strength and patience.

"Hush! I hear Miss Gascoigne at the door. Please go and speak to her. Don't let her see I have been crying."

Of this, happily, there was little fear, Miss Gascoigne being too much absorbed in her own appearance, which really was very fine. Her black satin rustled, her black lace fell airily, and her whole figure was that of a handsome, well-preserved, middle-aged gentlewoman. So pleased was she with herself that she was pleasant to every one else; and when, half an hour after, Dr. Grey entered the reception-rooms of St. Mary's Lodge with his wife on one arm and his sister on the other, any spectator would have said, how very nice they all looked; what a fortunate man he was, and what a happy family must be the family at Saint Bede's.

And, to her own surprise, when her first bewilderment was over, Christian really did feel happy. Her artistic temperament rejoiced in the mere beauty of the scene before her—a scene to be found nowhere out of Avonsbridge—lofty, grand old rooms, resplendent with innumerable wax-lights; filled, but not too full, with an ever-moving, gorgeously-colored crowd. Quite different from that of ordinary soires, where the coup d'oeil is that of a bed of variegated flowers, with a tribe of black emmets posed on their hind legs inserted between. Here the gentlemen made as goodly a show as the ladies, or more so, many of them being in such picturesque costumes that they might have just stepped down from the old pictures which covered the walls. In- numerable flowing gowns, of all shapes and colors, marked the college dons; then there were the gayly-clad gentlemen commoners, and two or three young noblemen, equally fine; while, painfully near the door, a few meek-looking undergraduates struggled under the high honor of the vice chancellor's hospitality.

As to the women, few were young, and none particularly lovely yet Christian enjoyed looking at them. Actually, for the first time in her life, did she behold "full dress"—the sparkle of diamonds, the delicate beauty of old point lace, the rustle of gorgeous silks and satins. She liked it—childishly liked it. It was a piece of art—a picture, in the interest of which her own part therein was utterly and satisfactorily forgotten. She was so amused with watching other people that she never thought whether other people were watching her; and when, after half an hour's disappearance among a crowd of gentlemen, her husband came up and asked her if she were enjoying herself, she answered "Oh, so much!" with an ardor that made him smile.

And she did enjoy herself, even though a good many people were brought up to her and introduced, and by their not too brilliant remarks on it somewhat tarnished the brilliancy of the scene. But also she had some pleasant conversation with people far greater and grander and cleverer than she had ever met in her life; who, nevertheless, did not awe her at all, but led her on to talk, and to feel pleasure in talking; she being utterly unaware that her simple unconsciousness was making her ten times more charming, more beautiful than before, and that round the room were passing and repassing innumerable flattering comments on the young wife of the Master of Saint Bede's.

Only she thought once or twice, with an amused wonder, which had yet some sadness in it, how little these people would have thought of her a year before—how completely they would ignore her now if she were not Dr. Grey's wife. And there came into her heart such a gush of— gratitude was it?—to that good man who had loved her just as she was— poor Christian Oakley, governess and orphan—in that saddest state of orphanage which is conscious that all the world would say she had need to be thankful for the same. She looked round for her husband several times, but missing him—and it felt a want, among all those strange faces—she sat down by Miss Gascoigne, who, taking the turn of the tide, now patronized "my sister, Mrs. Grey," in the most overwhelming manner.

It was after a whispered conference with Miss Gascoigne that the wife of the vice chancellor, herself young and handsome, and lately married, came up to ask Christian to sing.

Then, poor girl! all her fears and doubts returned. To sing to a whole roomful of people—she had never done it in her life. It would be as bad as that nightmare fancy which used to haunt her, of being dragged forward to find the ten thousand eyes of a crowded theater all focused upon her, a sensation almost as horrible as being under a burning-glass.

"Oh no! not tonight. I would much rather not. Indeed, I can not sing."

"May I beg to be allowed to deny that fact?" said the gentleman—a young gentleman upon whose arm the hostess had crossed the room—of whom she, a stranger in Avonsbridge, knew only that he was a baronet and had fifteen thousand a year.

"Well, Sir Edwin, try if you can persuade her. Mrs. Grey, let me present to you Sir Edwin Uniacke."

It was so sudden, and the compulsion of the moment so extreme, that Christian stood calm as death—stood and bowed, and he bowed too, as in response to an ordinary introduction to a perfect stranger. She was quite certain afterward that she had not betrayed herself by any emotion; that, as seemed her only course, she had risen and walked straight to the piano, her fingers just touching Sir Edwin's offered arm; that she had seated herself, and begun mechanically to take off her gloves, without one single word having been exchanged between them.

The young man took his place behind her chair. She never looked toward him—never paused to think how he had come there, or to wonder over the easy conscience of the world, which had readmitted him into the very society whence he had lately been ignominiously expelled. Her sole thought was that there was a song to be sung and she had to sing it, and go back as fast as she could into some safe hiding-place. Having accomplished this, she rose.

"Not yet, pray; one more song. Surely you know it—'Love in thine eyes.'"

As the voice behind her—a voice so horribly familiar, said this, Christian turned round. To ignore him was impossible; to betray, by the slightest sign, the quiver of fear, of indignation, which ran through all her frame, that, too, was equally impossible. One thing only presented itself to her as to be done. She lifted up her cold, clear eyes, fixed them on him, and equally cold and clear her few commonplace words fell:

"No, I thank you; I prefer not to sing any more to-night." What answer was made, or how, still touching Sir Edwin's arm, she was piloted back through the crowd to Miss Gascoigne's side, Christian had not the slightest recollection either then afterward; she only knew that she did it, and he did it, and that he then bowed politely and left her.

So it was all over. They had met, she and her sometime lover, her preux chevalier of a month—met, and she did not love him any more. Not an atom! All such feelings had been swept away, crushed out of existence by the total crushing of that respect and esteem without which no good woman can go on loving. At least no woman like Christian could.

Call her not fickle, nor deem it unnatural for love so to perish. After learning what she had learned from absolute incontrovertible evidence (it is useless to enter into the circumstances, for no one is benefited by wallowing in unnecessary mire), that she, or any virtuous maiden, should continue to love this man, would have been a thing still more unnatural—nay, wicked.

No, she did not love him any more, she was quite sure of that. She watched his tall, elegant figure—-he was as beautiful as Lucifer— moving about the rooms, and it seemed that his very face had grown ugly to her sight. She shivered to think that once—thank God, only once!—his lips had pressed hers; that she had let him say to her fond words, and write to her fond letters, and had even written back to him others, which, if not exactly love-letters, were of the sort that no girl could write except to a man in whom she wholly believed—in his goodness and in his love for herself.

What had become of those letters she had no idea; what was in them she hardly remembered; but the thought of them made her grow pale and terrible. In an agony of shame, as if all the world were pointing at her—at Dr. Grey's wife—she hid herself in a corner, behind the voluminous presence of Miss Gascoigne, and sat waiting, counting minutes like hours till her husband should appear.

He came at last, his kind face all beaming.

"Christian I have been having a long talk with—But you are very tired." His eye caught—she knew it would at once—the change in her face, "My darling," he whispered, "would you not like to go home!"

"Oh yes, home! Take me home!" Christian replied almost with a sob. She clung to his arm, and passed through the crowd with him. And whether she fully loved him or not, from the very bottom of her soul she thanked God for her husband.



Chapter 9.

"Teach me to feel for others' woes, To hide the fault I see; The mercy I to others show, That mercy show to me."

Breakfast was just over on the morning following the soire at the vice chancellor's. Christian sat with the two aunts, quietly sewing.

Ay, very quietly, even after last night. She had taken counsel with her own heart, through many wakeful hours, and grown calm and still. Neither her husband nor Miss Gascoigne had once named Sir Edwin. Probably Aunt Henrietta did not know him, and in the crowded party Dr. Grey might not have chanced to recognize him. Indeed, most likely the young man would take every means of avoiding recognition from the master of his own college, whence he had been ignominiously dismissed. His appearance at St. Mary's Lodge was strange enough, and only to be accounted for by his having been invited by the vice chancellor's young wife, who knew him only as Sir Edwin Uniacke, the rich young baronet.

But, under shadow of these advantages, no doubt he could easily get into society again, even at Avonsbridge, and would soon be met every where. She might have to meet him—she, who knew what she did know about him, and who, though there had been no absolute engagement between them, had suffered him to address her as a lover for four bright April weeks, ending in that thunderbolt of horror and pain, after which he never came again to the farm-house, and she never heard from or of him one word more.

Ought she to have told all this to her husband—was it her duty to tell him now? Again and again the question recurred to her, full of endless perplexities. She and Dr. Grey were not like two young people of equal years. Why trouble him, a man of middle age, with what he might think a silly, girlish love-story? and, above all, why wound him by what is the sharpest pain to a loving heart, the sudden discovery of things hitherto concealed, but which ought to have been told long ago? He might feel it thus—or thus—she could not tell; she did not, even yet, know him well enough to be quite sure. The misfortune of all hasty unions had been hers—she had to find out everything after marriage. The sweet familiarity of long courtship, which makes peculiarities and faults excusable, nay, dear, just because they are so familiar that the individual would not be himself or herself without them—this sacred guarantee for all wedded happiness had not been the lot of Christian Grey.

Even now, though it was the mere ghost of a dead love, or dead fancy, which she had to confess to her husband, she shrank from confessing it. She would rather let it slip to its natural Hades.

This was the conclusion she came to when cold, clear daylight put to flight all the bewilderments and perplexities which had troubled her through the dark hours; and she sat at the head of her breakfast-table with her own little circle around her—the circle which, with all its cares, became every day dearer and more satisfying, if only because it was her own.

And when she looked across to the husband and father, sitting so content, with the morning sun lighting up his broad forehead—wrinkled, it is true, but still open and clear, the honest brow of an honest man—it was with a trembling gratitude that made religious every throb of Christian's once half-heathen heart. The other man, with his bold eyes that made her shiver, the grasp of his hand from which her very soul recoiled—oh, thank God for having delivered her from him, and brought her into this haven of purity, peace and love!

As she stopped her needlework to cross to Arthur's sofa—he insisted on being carried every where beside her, her poor, spoiled, sickly boy—as she arranged his pillows and playthings, and gave him a kiss or two, taking about a dozen in return—she felt that the hardest duty, the most unrequited toil, in this her home would be preferable to that dream of Paradise in which she had once indulged, and out of which she must inevitably have wakened to find it a living hell.

The thanksgiving was still in her heart when she heard a ring at the hall bell, and remembered, with sudden compunction, that this was Miss Bennett's hour, and that she had to speak to her about the very painful matter which occurred yesterday.

She had quite forgotten it till this minute, as was not surprising. Now, with an effort, she threw off all thoughts about herself; this business was far more important, and might involve most serious consequences to the young governess if obliged to be dismissed under circumstances which, unless Miss Gascoigne's tongue could be stopped, would soon be parroted about to every lady in Avonsbridge.

"Poor girl!" thought Christian, "she may never get another situation. And yet perhaps she has done nothing actually wrong, no worse wrong than many do—than I did!"—she sighed—"in letting myself be made love to, and believing it all true, and sweet, and sacred, when it was all—But that is over now. And perhaps she has no friends any more than I had— no home to cling to, no mother to comfort her. Poor thing! I must be very tender over her—very careful what I say to her."

And following this intention, instead of sending for Miss Bennett into the dining-room, as Miss Gascoigne probably expected, for she sat in great state, determined to "come to the root of the matter," as she expressed it, Mrs. Grey went out and met her in the hall.

"You are the lady whom my sister-in-law engaged as governess?"

"Yes, ma'am. And you are Mrs. Grey?" peering at her with some curiosity; for, as every body knew every thing in Avonsbridge, no doubt Miss Bennett was perfectly well aware that Dr. Grey's young wife was the ci-devant governess at Mr. Ferguson's.

"Will you walk up into my room? I wanted a word with you before lessons."

"Certainly, Mrs. Grey. I hope you are quite satisfied with my instruction of Miss Grey. Indeed, my recommendations—as I told Miss Gascoigne—include some of the very first families—"

"I have no doubt Miss Gascoigne was satisfied," interrupted Mrs. Grey, not quite liking the flippant manner, the showy style of dress, and the air, at once subservient and forward; in truth, something which, despite her prettiness, stamped the governess as underbred, exactly what Aunt Henrietta had said—"not a lady."

"Your qualifications for teaching I have no wish to investigate; what I have to speak about is a totally different thing."

Miss Bennett looked uneasy for a minute, but Christian's manner was so studiously polite, even kindly, that she seemed to think nothing could be seriously wrong. She sat down composedly on the crimson sofa, and began investigating, with admiring, curious, and rather envious eyes, the handsome room, half boudoir, half bed-chamber.

"Oh, Mrs. Grey, what a nice room this is! How you must enjoy it! It's a hard life, teaching children."

"It is a hard life, as I know, for I was once a governess myself."

This admission, given so frankly, without the least hesitation, evidently quite surprised Miss Bennett. With still greater curiosity than the fine room, she regarded the fine lady who had once been a governess, and was not ashamed to own it.

"Well, all I can say is, you have been very lucky in your marriage, Mrs. Grey; I only wish I might be the same."

"That is exactly—" said Christian, catching at any thing in her nervous difficulty as to how she should open such an unpleasant subject—"no, not exactly, but partly, what I wished to speak to you about. Excuse a plain, almost rude question, which you can refuse to answer if you like; but, Miss Bennett, I should be very glad to know if you are engaged?"

"Engaged by Miss Gascoigne?"

"No; engaged to be married."

Miss Bennett drew back, blushed a little, looked much annoyed, and answered sharply, apparently involuntarily, "No!"

"Then—excuse me again—I would not ask if I did not feel it absolutely my duty, in order that we may come to a right understanding—but the gentleman you were walking with yesterday, when you asked Letitia to meet you in Walnut-tree Court, was he a brother, or cousin, or what?"

Susan Bennett was altogether confounded. "How did you find it all out? Did the child tell?—the horrid little—but of course she did. And then you set on and watched me! That was a nice trick for one lady to play another."

"You are mistaken," replied Christian, gravely; "I found this out by the merest accident; and as I can not allow the child to do the same thing again, I thought it the most honest course to tell you at once of the discovery I made, and receive your explanations."

"You can't get them; I have a perfect right to walk with whom I please?"

"Most certainly; but not to take Dr. Grey's little daughter with you as a companion. Don't you see, Miss Bennett"—feeling sorry for the shame and pain she fancied she must be inflicting—"how injurious these sort of proceedings must be to a little girl, who ought to know nothing about love at all—(pardon my concluding this is a love affair)—till she comes to it seriously, earnestly, and at a fitting age? And then the deception, underhandedness—can not you see how wrong it was to make secret appointments with a child, and induce her to steal out of the house unknown to both nurse and mother?"

"You are not her own mother, Mrs. Grey, it don't affect you."

"Pardon me," returned Christian very distantly, as she perceived her delicacy was altogether wasted upon this impertinent young woman, who appeared well able to hold her own under any circumstances, "it does affect me so much that, deeply as I shall regret it, I must offer you a check for your three months' salary. Your engagement, I believe, was quarterly, and I must beg of you to consider it canceled."

Miss Bennett turned red and pale; the offensive tone sank into one pitifully weak and cringing.

"Oh, Mrs. Grey! don't be hard upon me; I'm a poor governess, doing my best, and father has a large family of us, and the shop isn't as thriving as it was. Don't turn me away, and I'll never meet the young fellow again."

There was a little natural feeling visible through the ultra-humility of the girl's manner, and when she took out a coarse but elaborately laced pocket-handkerchief, and wept upon it abundantly, Christian's heart melted.

"I am very sorry for you—very sorry indeed; but what can I do? Will you tell me candidly, are you engaged to this gentleman?"

"No, not exactly; but I am sure I shall be by-and-by."

"He is your lover, then? he ought to be, if, as Letitia says, you go walking together every evening."

"Well, and if I do, it's nobody's business but my own, I suppose; and it's very hard it should lose me my situation."

So it was. Mrs. Grey remembered her own "young days," as she now called them—remembered them with pity rather than shame; for she had done nothing wrong. She had deceived no one, only been herself deceived—in a very harmless fashion, just because, in her foolish, innocent heart, which knew nothing of the world and the world's wiles, she thought no man would ever be so mean, so cowardly, as to tell a girl he loved her unless he meant it in the true, noble, knightly way—a lover

"Who loved one woman, and who clave to her"

—clave once and forever. A vague tenderness hung about those days yet, enough to make her cast the halo of her sympathy over even commonplace Susan Bennett.

"Will you give me your confidence? Who is this friend of yours, and why does he not at once ask you for his wife? Perhaps he is poor and can not afford to marry?"

"Oh. dear me! I'm not so stupid as to think of a poor man, Bless you! he has a title and an estate too. If I get him I shall make a splendid marriage."

Christian recoiled. Her sympathy was altogether thrown away. There evidently was not a point in common between foolish Christian Oakley, taking dreamy twilight saunters under the apple-trees—not alone; looking up to her companion as something between Sir Launcelot and the Angel Gabriel—and this girl, carrying on a clandestine flirtation, which she hoped would—and was determined to make—end in a marriage, with a young man much above her own station, and just because he was so. As for loving him in the sense that Christian had understood love, Miss Bennett was utterly incapable of it. She never thought of love at all—only of matrimony.

Still, the facts of the case boded ill. A wealthy young nobleman, and a pretty, but coarse and half-educated shopkeeper's daughter—no good could come of the acquaintance—perhaps fatal harm. Once more Christian thought she would try to conquer her disgust, and win the girl to better things.

"I do not wish to intrude—no third person has a right to intrude upon these affairs; but I wish I could be of any service. You must perceive, Miss Bennett, that your proceedings are not quite right—not quite safe. Are you sure you know enough about this gentleman? How long have you been acquainted with him? He probably belongs to the University."

Miss Bennnett laughed. "Not he—at least not now. He got into a scrape and left it, and has only been back here a week; but I have found out where his estate is, and all about him. He has the prettiest property, and is perfectly independent, and a baronet likewise. Only think"—and the girl, recovering her spirits, tossed her handsome head, and spread out her showy, tawdry gown—"only think of being called 'Lady!'—Lady Uniacke."

Had Miss Bennett been less occupied in admiring herself in the mirrors she must have seen the start Mrs. Grey gave—for the moment only, however—and then she spoke.

"Sir Edwin Uniacke's character here is well known. He is a bad man. For you to keep up any acquaintance with him is positive madness."

"Not in the least; I know perfectly what I am about, and can take care of myself, thank you. He has sown his wild oats, and got a title and estate, which makes a very great difference. Besides, I hope I'm as sharp as he. I shall not let myself down, no fear. I'll make him make me Lady Uniacke."

Christian's pity changed into something very like disgust. Many a poor, seduced girl would have appeared to her less guilty, less degraded than this girl, who, knowing all a man's antecedents, which she evidently did—bad as he was, set herself deliberately to marry him—a well-planned, mercenary marriage, by which she might raise herself out of her low station into a higher, and escape from the drudgery of labor into ease and splendor.

And yet is not the same thing done every day in society by charming young ladies, aided and abetted by most prudent, respectable, and decorous fathers and mothers? Let these, who think themselves so sinless, cast the first stone at Susan Bennett.

But to Christian, who had never been in society, and did not know the ways of it, the sensation conveyed was one of absolute repulsion. She rose.

"I fear, Miss Bennett, that if we continued this conversation forever we should never agree. It only proves to me more and more the impossibility of your remaining my daughter's governess. Allow me to pay you, and then let us part at once."

But the look of actual dismay which came over the girl's face once more made her pause.

"You send me away with no recommendation—and I shall never get another situation—and I have hardly a thing to put on—and I'm in debt awfully. You are cruel to me, Mrs. Grey—you that have been a governess yourself." And she burst into a passion of hysterical crying.

"What can I do?" said Christian sadly. "I can not keep you——I dare not. And it is equally true that I dare not recommend you. If I could find any thing else—not with children—something you really could do, and which would take you away from this town—"

"I'd go any where——do any thing to get my bread, for it comes to that. If I went home and told father this—if he found out why I had lost my situation, he'd turn me out of doors. And except this check, which is owed nearly all, I haven't one halfpenny—I really haven't. Mrs. Grey. It's all very well for you to talk—you in your fine house and comfortable clothes; but you don't know what it is to be shabby, cold, miserable. You don't know what it is to be in dread of starving."

"I do," said Christian, solemnly. It was true.

The shudder which came over her at thought of these remembered days obliterated every feeling about the girl except the desire to help her, blameworthy though she was, in some way that could not possibly injure any one else.

Suddenly she recollected that Mrs. Ferguson was in great need of some one to take care of Mr. Ferguson's old blind mother, who lived forty miles distant from Avonsbridge. If she spoke to her about Miss Bennett, and explained, without any special particulars, that, though unfit to be trusted with children, she might do well enough with an old woman in a quiet village, Mrs. Ferguson, whose kind-heartedness was endless, might send her there at once.

"Will you go? and I will tell nobody my reasons for dismissing you," said Christian, as earnestly as if she had been asking instead of conferring a favor. Her kindness touched even that bold, hard nature.

"You are very good to me; and perhaps I don't deserve it."

"Try to deserve it. If I get this situation for you, will you make me one promise?"

"A dozen,"

"One is enough—that you will give up Sir Edwin Uniacke."

"How do you mean?"

"Don't meet him, don't write to him—don't hold any communication with him for three months. If he wants you, let him come and ask you like an honest man."

Miss Bennett shook her head. "He's a baronet, you know."

"No matter. An honest man and an honest woman are perfectly equal, even though one is a baronet and the other a daily governess. And, if love is worth any thing, it will last three months; if worth nothing, it had better go."

But even while she was speaking—plain truths which she believed with her whole heart—Christian felt, in this case, the bitter satire of her words.

Susan Bennett only smiled at them in a vague, uncomprehending way. "Would you have trusted your lover—that means Dr. Grey, I suppose— for three months?"

Mrs. Grey did not reply. But her heart leaped to think how well she knew the answer. No need to speak of it, though. It would be almost profanity to talk to this women, who knew about as much of it as an African fetish-worshipper knows of the Eternal—of that love which counts fidelity not by months and years; which, though it has its root in mortal life, stretches out safely and fearlessly into the life everlasting.

"Well, I'll go, and perhaps my going away will bring him to the point," was the fond resolution of Miss Susan Bennett.

Mrs. Grey, infinitely relieved, wrote the requisite letters and dismissed her, determined to call that day and explain as much of the matter to honest Mrs. Ferguson as might put the girl in a safe position, where she would have a chance of turning out well, or, at least, better than if she had remained at Avonsbridge.

Then Christian had time to think of herself. Here was Sir Edwin Uniacke—this daring, unscrupulous man, close at her very doors; meeting her at evening parties; making acquaintance with her children, for Titia had told her how kind the gentleman was, and how politely he had inquired after her "new mamma."

Of vanity, either to be wounded or flattered, Christian had absolutely none. And she had never read French novels. It no more occurred to her that Sir Edwin would come and make love to her, now she was Dr. Grey's wife, than that she herself should have any feeling—except pity— in knowing of his love-affair with Miss Bennett. She was wholly and absolutely indifferent with regard to him and all things concerning him. Even the events of last night and this morning were powerless to cast more than a momentary gravity over her countenance—gone the instant she heard her husband calling her from his open study door.

"I wanted to hear how you managed Miss Bennett, you wise woman. Is it a lover?"

"I fear so, and not a creditable one. But I am certain of one thing. She does not love him—she only wants to marry him."

"A distinction with a difference," said Dr. Grey, smiling. "And you don't agree with her, my dear?"

"I should think not!"

Again Dr. Grey smiled. "How fiercely she speaks! What a tiger this little woman of mine could be if she chose. And so she absolutely believes in the old superstition that love is an essential element of matrimony."

"You are laughing at me."

"No, my darling, God forbid. I am only—happy."

"Are you really, really happy? Do you think I can make you so—I, with all my unworthiness?"

"I am sure of it."

She looked up in his face from out of his close arms, and they talked no more.



Chapter 10.

_"Get thee behind me, Satan! I know no other word: There is a battle that must be fought, And fought but with the sword—

"The clear, sharp, stainless, glittering sword Of purity divine: I'll hew my way through a host of fiends, If that strong sword be mine."

"I wish Mrs. Grey, you would learn to hold yourself a little more upright, and look a little more like the master's wife—a lady in as good a position as any in Avonsbridge—and a little less like a Resignation or a Patience on a monument."

"I am sure I beg your pardon," said Christian, laughing "I have not the slightest feeling either of resignation or patience. I am afraid I was thinking over something much more worldly—that plan about Miss Bennett's new situation of which I have just been telling you"—told as briefly as she could, for it was not very safe to trust Miss Gascoigne with any thing. "Also of the people we met last night at the vice chancellor's."

"And that reminds me—why don't you go and change your dress? I hate a morning-gown, as I wish you particularly to look as respectable as you can. We are sure to have callers to-day."

"Are we? Why?"

"To inquire for our health after last night's entertainment. It is a customary attention; but, of course, you can not be expected to be acquainted with these sort of things. Besides, one gentleman especially asked my permission to call today—a man of position and wealth, whose acquaintance—"

"Oh, please tell me about him after I come back," said Christian, hopelessly, "and I will go and dress at once."

"Take that boy with you. He never was allowed to be in the drawing- room. Get up, Arthur," in the sharp tone in which the most trivial commands were always conveyed to the children, which, no doubt, Miss Gascoigne thought—as many well-meaning parents and guardians do think—is the best and safest assertion of authority. But it had made of Letitia a cringing slave, and of Arthur a confirmed rebel, as he now showed himself to be.

"I won't go, Aunt Henrietta! I like this sofa. I'll not stir an inch!"

"I command you! Obey me, sir!"

Arthur pulled an insolent face, at which his aunt rose up and boxed his ears.

This sort of scene had been familiar enough to Christian in the early days of her marriage. It always made her unhappy, but she attempted no resistance. Either she felt no right or she had no courage. Now, things were different.

She caught Miss Gascoigne's uplifted hand, and Arthur's, already raised to return the blow.

"Stop! you must not touch that child. And, Arthur, how can you be so naughty! Beg your aunt's pardon, immediately!"

But Arthur began to sob and cough—that ominous cough which was their dread and pain still. It did not touch the heart of Aunt Henrietta.

"We shall see who is mistress here. I will at once send for Dr. Grey. Maria, ring the bell."

Poor Aunt Maria, the most subservient of women, was about to do it, when fate interfered in the shape of Barker and a visiting card, which changed the whole current of Miss Gascoigne's intentions.

"Sir Edwin Uniacke! the very gentleman I was speaking of. I shall be delighted to see him. Show him up immediately."

Which was needless, for he had followed Barker to the door. There he stood, a graceful, well-appointed, fashionable young man, with not a hair awry in his black curls, not a shadow on his handsome face, perfectly satisfied with himself and his fortunes—a little flushed, perhaps, it might be, with what he would call the "pluckiness" of coming thus to "beard the lion in his den," to visit the master of his late college. All men have some good in them, and the good in this man was, that, if a scapegrace, he was not a weak villain, not a coward.

"How kind of you! I am delighted to find a young gentleman so punctual in his engagements with an old woman," said Miss Gascoigne, with mingled dignity and empressement. "Sir Edwin Uniacke, my sister, Miss Grey; Mrs. Grey, my sister-in-law."

Certainly Aunt Henrietta's "manners" were superb.

Arthur lay crying and coughing still, but his luckless condition before visitors was covered over by these beautiful manners, and by the flow of small-talk which at once began, and in which it was difficult to say who carried off the position best, the young man or the elderly woman. Both deserved equal credit from that "world" to which they both belonged.

Presently a diversion was created by Christian's rising to carry Arthur away.

"You need not go," said Miss Gascoigne. "Ring for Phillis. The child has been ill, Sir Edwin, and Mrs. Grey has made herself a perfect slave to him."

"How very—ahem!—charming!" said Sir Edwin Uniacke.

Phillis appeared, but Arthur clung tighter than ever to his step-mother's neck. Nor did she wish to release him.

"I thank you, no. I can carry him quite easily," she replied to Sir Edwin's politely offered help, which was, indeed, the only sentence she had attempted to exchange with him. With her boy in her arms she quitted the room, and did not return thither all the afternoon.

It was impossible she could. Without any prudishness, without the slightest atom of self-distrust or fear to meet him, every womanly feeling in her kept her out of his way. Here was a young man whom she had once ignorantly suffered to make love to her, nay, loved in a foolish, girlish way; a young man whom she now knew—and he must know she knew it—no virtuous girl could or ought to have regarded with a moment's tenderness. Here was he insulting her by coming to her own house—her husband's house, without the permission of either. Had he been humble or shamefaced, she might have pitied him, for all pure hearts have such infinite pity for sinners. She would have wished him repentance, peace, and prosperity, and gone on her way, as he on his, each feeling very kindly to the other, but meeting, and desiring to meet, no more. Now, when he obtruded himself so unhesitatingly, so unblushingly, on the very scene of his misdoings and disgrace, pity was dried up in her heart, and indignation took its place.

"How dare he?" she thought, and nothing else but that. There was not one reviving touch of girlish admiration, not one thrill of self-complacent emotion, to see, what she could not help seeing, under his studiedly courteous manner, that he had forgotten, and meant her to feel he had forgotten, not a jot of the past. Whatever the episode of Susan Bennett might mean—if, indeed, such a man was not capable of carrying on a dozen such little episodes—his manner to Christian plainly showed that he admired her still; that he saw no difference between the pretty maiden Christian Oakley and the matron Christian Grey, and expressed this fact by tender tones and glances, alas! only too familiarly known by her of old. "How dared he?"

Christian was a very simple woman. She knew nothing at all of that fashionable world which, in its blas craving for excitement, delights, both in life and in books, to tread daintily on the very confines of guilt. She was not ignorant. She knew what sin was, as set forth in the Ten Commandments, but she understood absolutely nothing of that strange leniency or laxity which now-a-days makes vice so interesting as to look like virtue, or mixes vice and virtue together in a knot of circumstances until it is difficult to distinguish right from wrong.

Christian Grey was a wife. Therefore, both as wife and as woman, it never occurred to her as the remotest possibility that she could indulge in one tender thought of any man not her husband, or allow any man to lift up the least corner of that veil of matronly dignity with which every married woman, under whatever circumstances she has married or whatever may befall her afterward, ought to enwrap herself forever. "When I am dead," says Shakspeare's Queen Katherine,

"Let me be used with honor. Strew me over With maiden flowers, that all the world may know I was a chaste wife to my grave."

But Christian thought of something beyond the world. The 'honor' lay with herself alone; or, like her marriage vow, between herself, her husband, and her God. She was conscious of no dramatic struggles of conscience, no picturesque persistence in duty: she arrived at her end without any ethical or metaphysical reasoning, and took her course just because it seemed to her impossible there could be any other course to take.

It was a very simple one—total passiveness and silence. The young man could not come to the Lodge very often, even if Miss Gascoigne invited him ever so much, and was really as charmed with him as she appeared to be. And no wonder. He was one of those men who charm every body—perhaps because he was not deliberately bad, else how could he have attracted Christian Oakley? He had that rare combination of a brilliant intellect, an esthetic fancy, strong passions, and a weak moral nature, which makes some of the most dangerous and fatal characters the world ever sees.

But, be he what he might, he could not force his presence upon Christian against her will. "No, I am not afraid," she said to herself; "how could I be—with these?"

For, all the time she sat meditating Arthur lay half asleep, near her; and little Oliver, who had returned to his old habit of creeping about her room whenever he could, sat playing with his box of bricks on the hearth-rug at her feet, every now and then lifting up eyes of such heavenly depth of innocence that she felt almost a sort of compassion for the erring man who had no such child-angels in his home—nothing and no one to make him good, or to teach him, ere it was too late, that, even in this world, the wages of sin is death, and that the only true life is that of purity and holiness.

Christian spent the whole afternoon with her children. They tried her a good deal, for Arthur was fractious, and Oliver went into one of his storms of passion, which upon him, as once upon his elder brother, were increasing day by day. It was impossible it should be otherwise under the present nursery rule.

She sat and thought over plan after plan of getting Oliver more out of Phillis's hands—not by any open revolution, for she was tender over even the exaggerated rights of such a long-faithful servant, but by the quiet influence which generally accomplishes much more than force. Besides, time would do as much as she could, and a great deal more—it always does.

Almost smiling at herself for the very practical turn which her meditations were beginning invariably to take—such a contrast to the dreamy musings of old—Christian sent the children away, and hastily dressed for dinner.

It was the first time she had taken her place at the dinner-table since Arthur's illness, and she felt glad to be there. She sat, with sweet, calm brow, and lustrous, smiling eyes, a picture such as it does any man good to gaze at from his table's foot, and know that it is his own wife, the mistress of his household, the directress of his family, in whom her husband's heart may safely trust forever.

Dr. Grey seemed to feel it, though he said no more than that "it was good to have her back again." But his satisfaction did not extend itself to the rest.

Miss Gascoigne was evidently greatly displeased at something. Angry were the looks she cast around, and grim was the silence she maintained until Barker had disappeared.

"Now." said Christian, "shall we send for the children?"

"No," said Miss Gascoigne; "at least not until I have said a word which I should be sorry to say before young people. Dr. Grey, I wish that you, who have some knowledge of the usages of society, would instruct your wife in them a little more. I do not expect much from her, but still, now that she is your wife, some knowledge of manners, or even common civility—"

"What have I done?" exclaimed Christian, half alarmed and half amused.

Miss Gascoigne took no notice, but continued addressing Dr. Grey:

"I ask you, as a gentleman, when other gentlemen come to this house to pay their respects to me—that is, to the ladies generally, ought Mrs. Grey to take the earliest opportunity of escaping from the drawing- room, nor return to it the whole time the visitors stay? No doubt she is unused to society, feels a little awkward in it, but still—"

"I understand now," interrupted Christian. "Yes, I did this afternoon exactly as she says. I am fully aware of the fact."

"And, pray, who was the gentleman to whom you were so very rude?" asked Dr. Grey, smiling.

Christian replied without any hesitation—and oh! how thankful that she was able to do so— "It was Sir Edwin Uniacke."

But she was not prepared for the start and flash of sudden anger with which her husband heard the name.

"What! has he called at my house? That is more effrontery than I gave him credit for."

"Effrontery!" repeated Miss Gascoigne, indignantly. "It is no effrontery in a gentleman of his rank and fortune, a visitor at Avonsbridge, to pay a call at Saint Bede's Lodge. Besides, I gave him permission to do so. He was exceedingly civil to me last night, and I must say he is one of the pleasantest young men I have met for a long time. What do you know against him?"

"What do I know?" echoed the master, and stopped. Then added, "Of course you might not have heard; the dean and I keep these things private as much as we can; but he was 'rusticated' a year and a half ago."

Miss Gascoigne might have known this fact or not; anyhow, she was determined not to yield her point.

"Well, and if he were, doubtless it was for some youthful folly—debt, or the like. Now he has came into his property, he will sow his wild oats and become perfectly respectable."

"I hope so—I sincerely hope so," said Dr. Grey, not without a trace of agitation in his manner deeper than the occasion seemed to warrant. "But, in the meantime, he is not the sort of person whom I should wish the ladies of my family to have among their visiting acquaintance."

The argument had now waxed so warm that both parties forgot, or appeared to forget Christian, who sat silent, listening to it all—listening with a kind of wondering eagerness as to what her husband would say— her husband, a man in every way the very opposite of this man—Sir Edwin Uniacke. How would he feel about him? how judge him? Or how much had he known him to judge him by?

On this last head Dr. Grey was impenetrable, he parried, Or gave vague general replies to all Miss Gascoigne's questions. She gained nothing except the firm, decided answer, "I will not have Sir Edwin Uniacke visiting at the Lodge."

"But why not?" insisted Miss Gascoigne, roused by opposition into greater obstinacy. "Did we not meet him at the vice chancellor's? And he told me of two or three houses where we should be sure to meet him again next week."

"I can not help that, but in my own house I choose my own society."

"Your reasons?" insisted Miss Gascoigne, now seriously angry. "It is unfair to act so oddly—I must say so ridiculously, without giving a reason."

Dr. Grey paused a moment, and seemed to ponder before he answered.

"My reason, so far as I can state it, is, that this young man holds, and puts into open practice, opinions which I wholly condemn, and consider unworthy of a Christian, an honest man, or even a decent member of society."

"And, pray, what are they?"

"It is difficult to explain them to a woman. Do not think me hard," he added, and his eyes wandered round to his wife, though he still addressed only his sister. "A man may fail and rise again—and we know Who pitied and helped to raise all fallen sinners. But sin itself never ceases to be sin; and, while impenitent, can neither be forgiven nor blotted out. If a man or a woman—there is no difference—came to me and said, 'I have erred, but I mean to err no more,' I hope I would never shut my door against either; I would help, and comfort, and save both, in every possible way. But a man who continues in sin, hugs it, loves it, calls it by all manner of fine names, and makes excuses for it after the fashion of the world—the world may act as it chooses toward him, but there is only one way in which I can act."

"And what is that?" asked Miss Gascoigne, in astonishing meekness.

"I shut my door against him. Not injuring him, nor pharisaically condemning him, but merely showing to him, and to all others, that I consider sin to be sin and call it so. Likewise, that I will have no fellowship with it, whether it is perpetrated by the beggar in the streets or the prince on the throne. That no consideration, either of worldly advantage, or dread of what society may say, or do, or think, shall ever induce me to let cross my threshold, or bring into personal association with my family, any man who, to my knowledge, leads an unvirtuous life."

"Which most indecorous fact, as regards Sir Edwin, not only yourself, but your wife apparently, was quite aware of. Very extraordinary!"

This Parthian thrust was sharp indeed, but Dr. Grey bore it.

"If she was aware of it—which is not at all extraordinary—my wife did perfectly right in acting as she has done. It only shows, what I knew well before, that she and her husband think alike on this, as on most other subjects."

And he held out his hand to Christian. She could willingly have fallen at his feet. Oh, how small seemed all dreams of fancy, or folly of passionate youth, compared to the intense emotion—what was it, reverence or love?—that was creeping slowly and surely into every fiber of her being, for the man, her own wedded husband, who satisfied at once her conscience, her judgment, and her heart.

While these two exchanged a hand-grasp and a look—no more; but that was enough—Miss Cascoigne sat, routed, but unconquered still. She might have made one more effort at warfare but that Barker opportunely entered with the evening post-bag.

"Barker!" said Dr. Grey, as the man was closing the door.

"Yes master."

The master paused a second before speaking. "You know Sir Edwin Uniacke?"

"To be sure, sir," with a repressed twitch of the mouth, which showed he knew only too much, as Barker was apt to do of all college affairs.

"If he should call again, say the ladies are engaged; but should he ask for me, show him at once to my study."

"Very well, master."

And Barker, as he went out of the dining-room, broke into a broad grin; but it was behind the back of the master.



Chapter 11.

"A warm hearth, and a bright hearth, and a hearth swept clean, Where tongs don't raise a dust, and the broom isn't seen; Where the coals never fly abroad, and the soot doesn't fall, Oh, that's the fire for a man like me, in cottage or in hall.

"A light boat, and a tight boat, and a boat that rides well, Though the waves leap around it and the winds blow snell: A full boat, and a merry boat, we'll meet any weather, With a long pull, and a strong pull, and a pull altogether."

Sir Edwin Uniacke did not appear again at the Ledge, or not farther than the hall, where Christian, in passing, saw several of his cards lying in the card-basket. And, two Sundays, in glancing casually down the row of strangers who so often frequented the beautiful old chapel of St. Bede's, she thought she caught sight of that dark, handsome face, which had once seemed to her the embodiment of all manly beauty. But she looked steadily forward, neither seeking nor shrinking from recognition. There was no need. As she passed out of the chapel, leaning on her husband's arm, the grave, graceful woman, composed rather than proud, Sir Edwin Uniacke must have felt that Christian Grey was as far removed from him and the like of him as if she dwelt already in the world beyond the grave. But this, perhaps, only made him the more determined to see her.

Now and then, in her walks with Phillis and the children—she now never walked alone—she was certain she perceived him in the distance, his slight, tan figure, and peculiar way of swinging his cane, as he strolled down the long avenues, now glowing into the beauty of that exquisite May time which Avonsbridge people never weary of praising.

But still, if it were he, and if they did meet, what harm could it do to her? She could always guard herself by a lady's strongest armor— perfect courtesy. Even should he recognize her, it was easy to bow and pass on, as she made up her mind to do, should the occasion arrive.

It never did, though several times she had actually been in the same drawing-room with him. But it was in a crowded company, and he either did not see her, or had the good taste to assume that he had not done so. And Miss Gascoigne, whose eye he caught, had only given him a distant bow.

"I shall bow, in spite of Dr. Grey and his crotchets," said she. "But I suppose you are too much afraid of your husband." Christian did not reply, and the conversation dropped.

One good thing cheered her. Sir Edwin Uniacke remained in Avonsbridge, and Miss Susan Bennett was still staying, and doing well in the house of the blind old woman forty miles away.

Shortly her mind became full of far closer cares.

The domestic atmosphere of the Lodge was growing daily more difficult to breathe in. What is it that constitutes an unhappy household? Not necessarily a wicked or warring household but still not happy; devoid of that sunniness which, be the home ever so poor, makes it feel like "a little heaven below" to those who dwell in it, or visit it, or even casually pass it by. "See how these Christians love one another," used to be said by the old heathen world; and the world says it still—nay, is compelled to say it, of any real Christian home. Alas it could not always be said of Dr. Grey's.

Perhaps, in any case, this was unlikely. There were many conflicting elements therein. Whatever may be preached, and even practiced sometimes, satisfactorily, about the advantages of communism, the law of nature is that a family be distinct within itself—should consist of father, mother, and children, and them only. Any extraneous relationships admitted therein are always difficult and generally impossible. In this household, long ruled theoretically by Miss Gascoigne, and practically by Phillis, who was the cleverest and most determined woman in it, the elements of strife were always smoldering, and frequently bursting out into a flame. The one bone of contention was, as might be expected, the children—who should rule them, and whether that rule was to be one of love or fear,

Christian, though young, was neither ignorant nor inexperienced; and when, day by day and week by week, she had to sit still and see that saddest of all sights to a tender heart, children slowly ruined, exasperated by injustice, embittered by punishment, made deceitful or cowardly by continual fear, her spirit wakened up to its full dignity of womanhood and motherhood.

"They are my children, and I will not have things thus," was her continual thought. But how to effect her end safely and unobnoxiously was, as it always is, the great difficulty.

She took quiet methods at first—principally the very simple one of loving the children till they began to love her. Oliver, and by-and-by Letitia, seized every chance of escaping out of the noisy nursery, where Phillis boxed, or beats or scolded all day long, to mother's quiet room, where they always found a gentle word and a smile—a little rivulet from that

"Constant stream of love which knew no fail"

which was Cowper's fondest memory of his mother, and which should be perpetually flowing out from the hearts of all mothers toward all children. These poor children had never known it till now.

Their little hearts opened to it, and bathed in it as in a fountain of joy. It washed away all their small naughtinesses, made them strong and brave, gradually lessened the underhandedness of the girl, the roughness and selfishness of the boy, and turned the child Oliver into a little angel—that is, if children ever are angels except in poetry; but it is certain, and Christian often shuddered to see it, that mismanagement and want of love can change them into little demons.

And at last there came a day when, passive resistance being useless, she had to strike with strong hand; the resolute hand which, as before seen, Christian, gentle as she was, could lift up against injustice, and especially injustice shown to children.

It happened thus: One day Arthur had been very naughty, or so his Aunt Henrietta declared, when Mrs. Grey, who heard the disturbance, came to inquire into it. She thought it not such great wickedness— rather a piece of boyish mischief than intentional "insult," as Miss Gascoigne affirmed it was. The lady had lost her spectacles; Arthur had pretended deeply to sympathize, had aided in the search; and finally, after his aunt had spent several minutes of time and fuss, and angry accusations against every body, he had led her up to the dining- room mirror, where she saw the spectacles—calmly resting on her own nose!

"But I only meant it as a joke, mother. And oh! it was so funny!" cried Arthur, between laughing and sobbing; for his ears tingled still with the sharp blow which had proved that the matter was no fun at all to Aunt Henrietta.

"It was a very rude joke, and you ought to beg your aunt's pardon immediately," said Christian, gravely.

But begging pardon was not half enough salve to the wounded dignity of Miss Gascoigne. She had been personally offended—that greatest of all crimes in her eyes—and she demanded condign punishment. Nothing short of that well-known instrument which, in compliment to Arthur's riper years, Phillis had substituted for the tied up posy of twigs chosen out of her birch broom—a little, slender yellow thing, which black children might once upon a time have played with, and the use of which towards white children inevitably teaches them a sense of burning humiliation, rising into fierce indignation and desire for revenge, not unlike the revenge of negro slaves. And naturally; for while chastisement makes Christians, punishment only makes brutes.

Almost brutal grew the expression of Arthur's poor thin face when his aunt insisted on a flogging with the old familiar cane, and after the old custom, by Phillis's hands.

"Do it, and I'll kill Phillis!" was all he said, but he looked as if he could, and would.

And when Phillis appeared, not unready or unwilling to execute the sentence—for she had bitterly resented Arthur's secession from nursery rule—the boy clung desperately with both his arms round his step- mother's waist, and the shriek of "Mother mother!" half fury, half despair, pierced Christian's very heart.

Now Mrs. Grey had a few rather strong opinions of her own on the subject of punishment, especially corporal punishment. She thought it degraded rather than reformed, in most cases; and wherever she herself had seen it tried, it had always signally and fatally failed. At the utmost, the doubtfulness of the experiment was so great that she felt it ought never to be administered for any but grave moral offenses—theft, lying, or the like. Not certainly in such a case as the present—a childish fault, perhaps only a childish folly, where no moral harm was either done or intended.

"I didn't mean it! I didn't, mother!" cried the boy, incessantly, as he clung to her for protection. And Christian held him fast.

"Miss Gascoigne, if you will consider a little, I think you will see that Arthur's punishment had better be of some other sort than flogging. We will discuss it between ourselves. Phillis, you can go."

But Phillis did not offer to stir.

"Nurse, obey my orders," screamed Miss Gascoigne. "Take that wicked boy and cane him soundly."

"Nurse," said Christian, turning very pale, and speaking in an unusually suppressed voice, "if you lay one finger on my son you quit my service immediately."

The assumption of authority was so unexpected, so complete, and yet not overstepping one inch the authority which Mrs. Grey really possessed, that both sister-in-law and servant stood petrified, and offered no resistance, until Miss Gascoigne said, quivering with passion.

"This can not go on. I will know at once my rights in this house, or quit it. Phillis, knock at the study-door and say I wish to speak to Dr. Grey—that is, if Mrs. Grey, your mistress, will allow you."

"Certainly," said Christian.

And then, drawing Arthur beside her, and sitting down, for she felt shaking in every limb, she waited the event; for it was a struggle which she had long felt must come, and the sooner it came the better. There are crises when the "peace-at-any-price" doctrine becomes a weakness- -more, an absolute wrong. Much as she would have suffered, and had suffered, so long as all the suffering lay with herself alone, when it came to involve another, she saw her course was clear. As Arthur stood by her, convulsed with sobs crying at one minute, "Mother, it's not fair, I meant no harm," and the next, clenching his little fist with, "If Phillis touches me, I'll murder Phillis," she felt that it was no longer a question of pleasantness or ease, or even of saving her husband from pain. It became a matter or duty—her duty to act to the best of her conscience and ability toward the children whom Providence had sent to her. It was no kindness to her husband to allow these to be sacrificed, as, if she did not stand firm, Arthur might be sacrificed for life.

So she sat still, uttering not a word except an occasional whisper of "Be quiet, Arthur," until Dr. Grey entered the room. Even then, she restrained herself so far as to let Miss Gascoigne tell the story. She trusted—as she knew she could trust—to her husband's sense of justice and quick-sightedness, even through any amount of cloudy exaggeration. When the examination came to an end, and Dr. Grey, sorely perplexed and troubled, looked toward his wife questioningly, all she said was a suggestion that both the children—for Letitia had watched the matter with eager curiosity from a corner—should be sent out of the room.

"Yes, yes, certainly Arthur, let go your mother's hand, and run up to the nursery."

But Arthur's plaintive sobs began again. "I can't go, papa—I daren't; Phillis will beat me!"

"Is this true, Christian?"

"I am afraid it is. Had not the children better wait in my room?"

This order given, and the door closed, Dr. Grey sat down with very piteous countenance. He was such a lover of peace and quietness and now to be brought from his study into the midst of this domestic hurricane—it was rather hard. He looked from his wife to his sister, and back again to his wife. There his eyes rested and brightened a little. The contrast between the two faces was great—one so fierce and bitter, the other sad indeed, but composed and strong. Nature herself, who, in the long run, usually decides between false and true authority, showed at once who possessed the latter—which of the two women was the most fitted to govern children.

"Henrietta," said Dr. Grey, "what is it you wish me to do? if my boy has offended you, of course he must be punished. Leave him to Mrs. Grey; she will do what is right."

"Then I have no longer any authority in this house?"

"Authority in my wife's house my sister could hardly desire. Influence she might always have; and respect and affection will, I trust, never be wanting."

Dr. Grey spoke very kindly, and held out his hand, but Miss Gascoigne threw it angrily aside; and then, breaking through even the unconscious restraint in which most women, even the most violent, are held by the presence of a man, and especially such a man as the master, she burst out—this poor passionate woman, cursed with that terrible pre- dominance of self which in men is ugly enough, in women absolutely hateful—

"Never! Keep your hypocrisies to yourself, and your wife too—the greatest hypocrite I know. But she can not deceive me. Maria"—and she rushed at luckless Aunt Maria, who that instant, knitting in hand, was quietly entering the room—"come here, Maria, and be a witness to what your brother is doing. He is turning me out of his house—me, who, since my poor sister died, have been like a mother to his children. He is taking them from me, and giving them over to that woman—that bad, low, cunning woman!"

"Stop!" cried Dr. Grey. "One word more like that, and I will turn you out of my house—ay, this very night!"

There was a dead pause. Even Miss Gascoigne was frightened. Christian, who had never in all her life witnessed such a scene, wished she had done any thing—borne any thing, rather than have given cause for it. And yet the children! Looking at that furious woman, she felt— any observer would have felt—that to leave children in Miss Gascoigne's power was to ruin them for life. No; what must be done had better be done now than when too late. Yet her heart failed her at sight of poor Aunt Maria's sobs.

"Oh, dear Arnold, what is the matter? You haven't been vexing Henrietta? But you never vex any body, you are so good. Dear Henrietta, are we really to go back to our own house at Avonside? Well, I don't mind. It is a pretty house, far more cheerful than the Lodge; and our tenants are just leaving, and they have kept the furniture in the best of order—the nice furniture that dear Arnold gave us, you know. Even if he does want us to leave the Lodge, it is quite natural. I always said so. And we shall only be a mile away, and can have the children to spend long days with us, and—"

Simple Aunt Maria, in her hasty jumping at conclusions, had effected more than she thought of—more harm and more good.

"I assure you, Maria," said Dr. Grey with a look of sudden relief, which he tried hard—good man!—to conceal, "it never was my intention to suggest your leaving but since you have suggested it—"

"I will go," interrupted Miss Gascoigne. "Say not another word; we will go. I will not stay to be insulted here; I will return to my own house—my own poor humble cottage, where at least I can live independent and at peace—yes, Dr. Grey, I will, however you may try to prevent me."

"I do not prevent you. On the contrary, I consider it would be an excellent plan, and you have my full consent to execute it whenever you choose."

This quiet taking of her at her word—this brief, determined, and masculine manner of settling what she had no intention of doing unless driven to it through a series of feminine arguments, contentions, and storms, was quite too much for Miss Gascoigne.

"Go back to Avonside Cottage! Shut myself up in that poor miserable hole—"

"Oh, Henrietta!" expostulated Aunt Maria, "when it is so nicely furnished—with the pretty little green-house that dear Arnold built for us too!"

"Don't tell me of green-houses! I say it is only a hole. And I to settle down in it—to exile myself from Avonsbridge society, that Mrs. Grey may rule here, and boast that she has driven me out of the field—me, the last living relative of your dear lost wife, to say nothing of poor Maria, your excellent sister to whom you owe so much—"

"Oh, Henrietta!" pleaded Miss Grey once more. "Never mind her, dear, dear Arnold."

Dr. Grey looked terribly hurt, but he and Aunt Maria exchanged one glance and one long hand-clasp. Whatever debt there was between the brother and sister, love had long since canceled it all.

"Pacify her, Maria—you know you can. Make her think better of all this nonsense. My wife and my sisters could never be rivals; it is ridiculous to suppose such a thing. But, indeed, I believe we should all be much better friends if you were in your own house at Avonside."

"I think so, too," whispered Aunt Maria. "I have thought so ever so long."

"Then it is settled," replied Dr. Grey, in the mild way in which he did sometimes settle things, and after which you might just as well attempt to move him as to move the foundations of St. Bede's.

It was all so sudden, this total domestic revolution, which yet every body inwardly recognized as a great relief, that for a minute or two nobody found a word more to say, until Miss Gascoigne, who generally had both the first word and the last, broke out again.

"Yes, you have done it, and it shall never be undone, however you may live to repent it. Dr. Grey, I quit your house, shaking the dust off my feet: see that it does not rise up in judgment against you. Maria—my poor Maria—your own brother may forsake you, but I never will. We go away together—tomorrow."

"Not tomorrow," said Dr. Grey. "Your tenants have only just left, and we must have the cottage made comfortable for you. Let me see, this is the 8th; suppose we settle that you leave on the 20th of June. Will that do, Maria?"

As he spoke he took her little fat hand, patted it lovingly, and then kissed her.

"You'll not be unhappy, sister? You know it is only going back to the old ways, and to the old country life, which you always liked much better than this."

"Much—much better. You are quite right, as you always are, dear Arnold,"

This was said in a whisper, but Miss Gascoigne caught it.

"Ah! yes, I see what you are doing—stealing from me the only heart that loves me—persuading her to stay behind. Very well. Do it, Maria. Remain with your brother and your brother's wife. Forget me, who am nothing to any body—of no use to one creature living."

Poor woman without meaning it, she had hit upon something very near the truth. It always is so—always must be. People win what they earn; those who sow the wind reap the whirlwind. Handsome, clever, showy, and admired, as she had been in her day, probably not one living soul did now care for Henrietta Gascoigne except foolish, faithful Aunt Maria.

And yet there must have been some good in her, something worth caring for, even to retain that affection, weak and submissive as it may have been. Christian's heart smote her as if she herself had been guilty of injustice toward Miss Gascoigne when she saw Miss Grey creep up to her old friend, the tears flowing like a mill-stream.