"No, dear, I shall not stay behind. Arnold doesn't want me. And I have always put up with you somehow—I mean, you have put with me—we shall manage to do it still. We'll live together again, as we did for so many years, in our pretty cottage and garden that dear Arnold gave us, and I will look after my poultry, and you shall do your visiting. Yes, dear Henrietta, it will be all for the best. We shall be so independent, so happy."

Happy! It was not a word in Miss Gascoigne's dictionary. But she looked with a certain tenderness at the fond little woman who had loved her, borne with her, never in the smallest degree resisted her since they were girls together. It was a strange tie, perhaps finding its origin in something deeper than itself—in that dead captain, whose old- fashioned miniature still lay in poor Maria's drawer—the fierce, handsome face, proving that, had he lived, he might have been as great a tyrant over her as his sister Henrietta. Still, however it arose, the bond was there, and nothing but death could ever break it between these two lonely women.

"Come, then, Maria, we shall share our last crust together. You, at least, have never wronged me. Come away."

Gathering her dress about her with a tragical air, and plucking it, as she passed Mrs. Grey, as though the possible touch were pollution, Aunt Henrietta swept from the room; Aunt Maria, after one deprecatory look behind, as if to say, "You see I can't do otherwise," slowly following.

And so it was all over—safely over—this great change, which, however longed for, had not been contemplated as a possibility one hour before. It had arranged itself out of the most trivial elements, as great events often do. There could be no question that every body felt it to be the best thing, and every body was thankful; and yet Christian watched her husband with a little uncertainty until she heard him heave a sigh of relief.

"Yes, I am sure it was right to be done, and I am glad it is done. Are not you, Christian?"

"Oh, so glad! I hope it is not wicked in me, but I am so glad!"

"Why—to have me all to yourself?" said he, smiling at her energy.

A strange, unwonted thrill ran through Christian's heart as she recognized, beyond possibility of doubt, that this was the secret source of her delight—of the feeling as if a new existence were opening before her—as if the heavy weight which had oppressed her were taken off, and she could move through those old gloomy rooms, which had once struck a chill through her whole being, with a sense as if she were as light as air, and as merry as a bird in the spring.

To have the Lodge made into a real home—a home altogether her own— and emptied of all but those who were really her own, with a glad welcome for any visitors, but still only as visitors, coming and going, and never permanently interfering with the sweet, narrow circle of the family fireside; to be really mistress in her own house; to have her time to herself; to spend long mornings with the children; long evenings alone with her husband, even if he sat for hours poring over his big books and did not speak a word—oh, how delicious it would be!

"Yes, all to myself—I'll have you all to myself," she murmured, as she put her arms round his neck, and looked right up into his eyes. For the first time she was sure—quite sure that she loved him. And as she stood embraced, encircled and protected by his love, and thought of her peaceful life now and to come, full of duties, blessings, and delights, ay, though it had also no lack of cares. Christian felt sorry—oh, so infinitely sorry for poor Aunt Henrietta.



Chapter 12.

"Weave, weave, weave, The tiniest thread will do; The filmiest thread from a spider's bed Is stout enough for you.

"Twist, twist, twist, With fingers dainty and small; Let the wily net be quietly set, That the innocent may fall."

Arthur never got his thrashing. The serious results, of which he had been the primary cause, for a while put his naughtiness out of every body's head; and when, after an hour or more, Christian went up stairs, and found the poor little fellow waiting patiently and obediently in mother's bedroom, it seemed rather hard to punish him.

She went down again into the study, and had a long talk with her husband, in which she spoke her mind very freely—more freely than she had ever done before, and told him things which had come to her knowledge concerning the children of which he, poor man! had hitherto been kept in total ignorance.

Thus taking counsel together, the father and mother decided that, except in very rare instances, corporal punishment should be entirely abolished, and never, under any circumstances, should be administered by Phillis. That Phillis's sway was to be narrowed as much as possible, without any absolute laws being made that would wound her feelings, or show indifference to her long fidelity.

"For," said Dr. Grey, "we must not forget, Christian, that she loved the children when they had not quite so much love as they have now."

No, Arthur was not thrashed—was promised faithfully that Phillis should never be allowed to thrash him any more; but his step-mother made him write the meekest, humblest letter of apology to his Aunt Henrietta, which that lady returned unanswered. This, however, as Christian took some pains to explain to him, was a matter of secondary consequence. Whatever she did, he had done only what was his duty. And he was enjoined, when they did meet, to address her politely and respectfully, as a nephew and a gentleman should—as his father always addressed her, even in answer to those sharp speeches which, though in his children's presence, Miss Gascoigne continually let fall.

Nevertheless, Dr. Grey bore them, and so did his wife, which was harder. She did not mind rudeness to herself, but to hear her husband thus spoken to and spoken of was a sufficient trial to make her long for the time of release. And yet through it all came the deep sense of pity that any woman who could show herself in so pleasant a light abroad— for many of the morning visitors quite condoled with Mrs. Grey on the impending change at the Lodge, and of the great loss she would have in her sister-in-law—should be so obnoxious at home that her nearest relatives counted the days until her shadow should cease to darken their doors.

And so, gradually and often painfully, but still with a firm conviction on every body's mind that the plan so suddenly decided on had been the best for all parties, came round the time of the aunts' departure.

Christian had spent all the previous day at Avonside, which she found a very pretty cottage, all woodbine and roses, with nothing at all poverty-stricken about it, either within or without. She had gone over it from garret to basement, making every thing as comfortable as possible, as she had carte blanche from her husband to do, and gladly did; for on her tender conscience rankled every bitter word of Miss Gascoigne's as though it were real truth; and sometimes, in spite of herself, she could not suppress an uneasy feeling as if the aunts were being "turned out." The last day of their stay at the Lodge was so exceedingly painful, that, having done all she could, she at length rushed out of the house with Arthur for a breath of fresh air and a quiet half hour before dinner, if such were possible.

She did not go far, only just crossing the bridge to the cottage grounds opposite where, in sight of the Lodge windows, she could walk up and down the beautiful avenue, which still bears the name of the old philosopher who loved it. If his wise, gentle ghost still haunted the place, it might well have watched with pleasure this fair, grave, sweet- looking young woman sauntering up and down with the boy in her hand, listening vaguely to his chatter, and now and then putting in a smiling answer. She had a smiling, peaceful face, and her thoughts were peaceful too. She was thinking to herself how pretty Avonsbridge was in its June dress of freshest green, how quietly and innocently life passed under shadow of these college walls, and how could any one have the heart to make it otherwise?

She would not after today. She would cease to vex herself, or let her husband vex himself about Miss Gascoigne. With a mile and a half between them, the Lodge would certainly feel safe from her. And oh! what a wonderful peace would come into the house when she left it! How good the children would be! How happy their father!—yes, he could be made happy, Christian knew that, and it was she who could make him so. The consciousness of power in this sweet sense, and the delight of exercising it was becoming the most exquisite happiness Christian had ever known. She sat dreaming over it almost like a girl in her first love-dream—only this dream was deeper and calmer, with all the strength of daily duty added to the joy of loving and being loved. Not that she reasoned much—she was not given to much analyzing of herself—she only knew that she was content, and found content in every thing—in the ripple of the river at her feet, the flutter of the leaves over her head, the soft blue sky above the colleges, and the green grass gemmed with daisies, where an old man was mowing on the one side, and a large thrush, grown silent with summer, was hopping about on the other. Every thing seemed beautiful, for the beauty began in her own heart.

"Good-morning, Mrs. Grey."

People talk about "looking as if they had seen a ghost"—and perhaps that look was not unlike Christian's as she started at this salutation behind her. He must have come stealthily across the grass, for she had heard nothing, did not even know that any body was near, till she looked up and saw Sir Edwin Uniacke.

The surprise was so great that it brought (oh, what shame to feel it, and feel sure that he saw it!) the blood up to her face—to her very forehead. She half rose, and then sat down again, with a blind instinct that any thing was better than either to be or to appear afraid.

Without waiting for either a reply or a recognition—which indeed came not, nothing but that miserable blush—the young man seated himself on the bench and began to make acquaintance with Arthur.

"I believe I have seen you before, my little friend. You are Dr. Grey's son, and I once offered to carry you, but was refused. Are you quite well now, Master Albert? Isn't that your name?"

"No; Arthur," said the boy, rather flattered at being noticed. "Are you one of the men at our college? You haven't your gown on."

"Not now," with a queer look, half amusement, half irritation. "I don't belong to Avonsbridge. I have a house of my own in the country—such a pretty place, with a park, and deer, and a lake, and a boat to row on it. Wouldn't you like to see it?"

"Yes." said Arthur, all eyes and ears.

"I live there, but I am always coming over to Avonsbridge. Do what I will, I can not keep away."

The tone, the glance across the child, were unmistakable. Christian rose, her momentary stupefaction gone.

"Come, Arthur, papa will be waiting dinner. We never keep papa waiting, you know."

Simple as the words were, they expressed volumes.

For an instant her composed matronly grace—her perfect indifference, silenced, nay, almost awed the young man, and then irritated him into resistance. He caught hold of Arthur in passing.

"You need not go yet. It is only just five, and your papa does not dine till six."

"How do you know?" asked the child.

"Oh. I know every thing. I watch you in and out of the Lodge, and am aware of all you do. But about the boat I promised you. It is at my place, Lake Hall, near—"

"Arthur. we must go."

Arthur jumped up at once. Gentle as it was, he had learned that that voice must never be disobeyed.

"I can't stay, sir; mother calls me. But I'll tell papa we met you, and ask him to let me come and see you, if you will tell me your name."

Sir Edwin hesitated.

"There is no necessity," said Mrs. Grey. "Arthur, I know this gentleman. I myself shall tell your papa that we have met him here. Good-morning, Sir Edwin Uniacke."

She bowed with that perfect, repellant courtesy against which there is no appeal, and passed on; had she seen—she did not, for she looked straight on and saw nothing—but had she seen the look of mingled hate and love which darkened over Sir Edwin's face, it might have terrified her. But no, she was too courageous a woman to fear anything save doing wrong.

After a minute's angry beating of his boot with his stick, the young man rose and followed them down the avenue, contriving, by dint of occasional conversation with Arthur, to keep along side of them the whole way as far as the bridge which connected the college grounds with the college buildings, and which was overlooked by the whole frontage of the Lodge.

With a vague sense of relief and protection, Christian glanced to the windows of her home, and there, at the open nursery casement, she saw a group, Phillis, Oliver, Letitia, and behind Letitia another person—Miss Susan Bennett, who had come with a message from old Mrs. Ferguson, and whom, in her kindness, Mrs. Grey had sent to have a cup of tea in the nursery before returning to the village, where the girl said she was "quite comfortable." There she stood, she and Phillis, watching, as they doubtless had watched the whole interview, from the time Sir Edwin sat down, on the bench till his parting shake of the hand to Arthur, and farewell bow to herself, which bow was rather easy and familiar than distantly ceremonious.

Had he done it on purpose? Had he too seen the group at the window, and, moved by a contemptible vanity, or worse, behaved so that these others ought notice his manner to Mrs. Grey, and put upon it any construction they pleased?

Yet what possible construction could be put upon it, even by the most ill-natured and malicious witnesses? The college grounds were free to all; this meeting was evidently accidental and all that had passed thereat was a few words with the boy, which Arthur would be sure to repent at once; nor did Christian desire to prevent him.

It was a hard position. She had done no wrong—not the shadow of wrong—and yet here was she, Christian Grey, discovered meeting and walking with a man whom her husband had distinctly forbidden the house—discovered both by her servant, who, having an old servant's love of prying into family affairs, no doubt knew of this prohibition, and by Miss Bennett, to whom she herself had said that Sir Edwin was a man unfit for any respectable woman's acquaintance.

"What would they both think? And, moreover, when she heard of it—as assuredly she would—what would Miss Gascoigne think and say?"

That overpowering dread, "What will people say?" for the first time in her life began to creep over Christian's fearless heart. Such an innocent heart it was, and oh, such a contented one only half an hour ago.

"How dare he?" she said, fiercely, as she found herself alone in her own room, with but just time enough to dress and take her place as the fair, stately, high-thoughted, pure-hearted mistress of her husband's table. "How dare he?" and, standing at the glass, she looked almost with disgust into the beautiful face that burnt, hotly still only at the remembrance of the last ten minutes. "But he must see—he must surely understand how utterly I despise him. He will not presume again. Oh, if I had only told my husband! It was a terrible mistake?"

What was—her secret or her marriage? or both?

Christian did not stop to think. Whatever it was, she knew that, like most of the mistakes and miseries of this world, it was made to be remedied—made possible of remedy. At all events, the pain must be endured, fought through, struggled with, any thing but succumbed to.

In the five minutes that, after all, she found she had to wait in the drawing-room before the aunts or her husband appeared. Christian took herself seriously to task for this overwhelming, cowardly fear. What had she really to dread? What harm could he do her—the bad man of whom she had so ignorantly made a girl's ideal? The only testimony thereof was her letters, if he still had them in his possession— her poor, innocent, girlish letters—very few—just two or three. Foolish they might have been, sentimental and ridiculous, but she could not remember any thing wrong in them—any thing that a girl in her teens need blush to have written, either to friend or lover, save for the one fact that, a girl is wiser to have no friend at all among men—except her lover. And, whatever they were, most likely he had destroyed them long ago.

"No, no," she thought, "he can not do me any harm; he dare not!"

It was difficult to say what Sir Edwin Uniacke would not dare; for, going back to her room for some trifle forgotten, she discovered that he was still lounging, cigar in mouth, up and down the river-side avenue opposite, where he could plainly see and be seen from almost every window in the Lodge.

And there, hurrying to meet him, she saw Susan Bennett. But the meeting appeared not satisfactory, and after a few minutes the girl had left him and he was again seen walking up and down alone.

A vain woman might have been flattered, perhaps allured, by this persistence. In Christian it produced only repulsion, actual hatred, if so gentle a spirit could hate. An honest love from the very humblest man alive, she would have been tender over; but this, which to her, a wife, was necessarily utter insult and wickedness, awoke in her nothing but abhorrence—the same sort of righteous abhorrence that she would have felt—she knew she would—toward any woman who had tried to win her husband from herself. Win her husband? The fancy almost made her smile, and then filled her with a brimming sense of joy that he was— what he was, a man to whom the bare idea of loving any woman but his own wife was so impossible that it became actually ludicrous.

She smiled, she even laughed, with an ever-growing sense of all he was to her and she to him, when she heard him open his study-door and call "Christian."

She went quickly, to explain in a word or two, before they went down to dinner, her rencontre with Sir Edwin Uniacke. Afterward, in their long, quiet evenings, to which she so looked forward, she would tell her husband the whole story, and give herself the comfort of feeling that now at last he was fully acquainted with her whole outer life and inmost soul, as a husband ought to be.

But there stood the two aunts, one stately and grim, the other silent and tearful; and it took all Dr. Grey's winning ways to smooth matters so as to make their last meal together before the separation any thing like a peaceful one.

He seemed so anxious for this—nervously anxious—that his wife forgot every thing in helping him to put a cheerful face on every thing. And when she watched him, finding a pleasant word for every one, and patient even with Miss Gascoigne, who today seemed in her sharpest mood, gray-haired, quaint, and bookish-looking as he was, it appeared to Christian that not a young man living could bear a moment's comparison with Dr. Arnold Grey.

He tried his best, and she tried her best but it was rather a dull dinner, and she found no opportunity to say, as at last she had decided to say publicly, just as a piece of news, no more, that she had today met Sir Edwin Uniacke. And so it befell that the first who told the fact was Arthur, blurting out between his strawberries, "Oh, papa I want you to let me go to a place called Lake Hall."

"Lake Hall?"

"Yes; the owner of it invited me there; he did, indeed. He is the kindest, pleasantest gentleman I ever met. A 'Sir,' too. His name is Sir Edwin Uniacke."

"My boy, where did you meet Sir Edwin Uniacke?"

So the whole story came out. Dr. Grey listened in grave silence—even a little displeasure, or something less like displeasure than pain. At length, he said,

"I think you must have made some mistake, Arthur. Your mother could never have allowed—"

"She did not say she would allow me to go. She looked rather vexed; I don't think she liked Sir Edwin Uniacke. And if she is very much against my going—well, I won't go," said Arthur, heroically.

"You are a good boy; but I think this gentleman ought to have hesitated a little before he thus intruded himself upon my wife and my son."

"I think so, too," said Christian, the first words she had spoken.

Dr. Grey glanced at her sharply, but the most suspicious husband could have read nothing in her face beyond what she said.

"And I think," burst in Miss Gascoigne, who had listened to it all, her large eyes growing every minute larger and larger, "that it must be somehow a lady's own fault when a gentleman is intrusive, I never believed—I never could have believed—after all Dr. Grey has said about Sir Edwin, that the three figures—a lady, and gentleman, and a child, whom I saw this afternoon sitting so comfortably together on the bench—as comfortably, I vow and declare, as if they had been sitting there an hour, which perhaps they had—"

"Not more than two minutes," interrupted Christian, speaking very quietly, but conscious of a wild desire to fly at Miss Gascoigne and shake her as she stood, putting forward, in her customary way, those mangled fragments of truth which are more irritating than absolute lies. "Indeed, it was only two minutes. I did not choose, even if I had no other reason, that a man of whom Dr. Grey did not approve should hold any communication with Arthur?"

"Thank you, that was right," said Dr. Greg.

"Yet you let him walk with you—I know you did, up to the very Lodge door."

"To the bridge, Miss Gascoigne."

"Well, it's all the same. And I must confess it is most extraordinary conduct. To refuse a gentleman's visits—his open visits here—on the pretext that he is not good enough for your society, and then to meet him, sit with him, walk with him in the college grounds. What will people say."

Christian turned like a hunted creature at bay, "I do not care—not a jot, what people say."

"I thought not. People like you never do care. They fly in the face of society; they—"

"Husband!" with a sort of wild appeal, the first she had ever made for protection—for at least justice.

Dr. Grey looked up, started out of a long fit of thoughtfulness—sadness it might be, during which he had let the conversation pass him by.

"The only thing I care for is what my husband thinks. If he blames me—"

"For what, my dear?"

"Because, when I was walking in the college grounds, as any lady may walk, that man, Sir Edwin Uniacke, whose acquaintance I desire as little as you do, came up and spoke to me, or rather to Arthur. I could not help it, could I?"

"No, my child," with a slight emphasis on the words "my child," that went to Christian's heart. Yes, surely, if she had only had courage to tell him, in his large tenderness he could have understood that childish folly, the dream of a day, and the long misery it had brought her. She would tell him all the very first opportunity; however much it pained and humiliated her, she would tell her good husband all.

"And, papa, have I been naughty too?" said Arthur? "I am sure I did not see any thing so very dreadful in Sir Edwin. He came up and spoke to mother as if he knew her quite well, and then he talked ever so much to me, and said if I would visit him he would give me a boat to row, and a horse to ride. And I'm sure he seemed the very kindest, pleasantest gentleman."

"So he is; and nothing shall ever make me believe he isn't." cried Miss Gascoigne, always delighted to pull against the tide. "And I must say, Dr. Grey, the way you and your wife set up your opinion against that of really good society is perfect nonsense. For my part, when I have a house of my own once more, and can invite whomsoever I please—"

"I would nevertheless advise, so far as a brother may," interrupted Dr. Grey, very seriously, "that you do not invite Sir Edwin Uniacke. And now, aunts both," with that sun-shiny smile which could disperse almost any domestic cloud, "as this conversation is not particularly interesting to the children, suppose we end it. When do you intend to have us all to tea at Avonside?"



Chapter 13.

"Forgive us each his daily sins, If few or many, great or small; And those that sin against us, Lord, Good Lord! Forgive them all.

"Judge us not as we others judge; Condemn us not as we condemn; They who are merciless to us, Be merciful to them.

"And if the cruel storm should pass, And let Thy heaven of peace appear, Make not our right the right—or might, But make the right shine clear."

"Well, the least I can say of it is that it is very extraordinary!"

"What is extraordinary?" asked Miss Grey, looking up placidly from her knitting, which did not get on very fast now. For Aunt Maria was exceedingly busy and exceedingly happy. If ever her brother or his wife had the least qualms of conscience about her removal from the Lodge to Avonside, they would have been dispelled by the sight of the dear little fat woman trotting about, the picture of content, full of housekeeping plans, and schemes for her poultry-yard, her pigeon- house, and her green-house. As for her garden, it was a source of perpetual pride, wonder, and delight. The three years which she had spent at the Lodge—which, in her secret heart, she owned were rather dull and trying years—were ended.

She herself, and, indeed, the whole establishment, resumed again exactly the place they had filled in the lifetime of the first Mrs. Grey. Avonside became once more a regular aunts' house—devoted to children, who now, at the distance of a mile and a half, thought nothing so delightful as to spend long days there, and be petted by Aunt Maria.

The sudden revolution had succeeded—as honest revolutions usually do. when any one has the courage to attempt them—to break through a false domestic position, and supply it with a true one. Even Miss Gascoigne was the happier for it; less worried in her mind, having no feeling of domestic responsibility, and being no longer haunted by the children. The poor little souls! she could get on well enough with them for an hour or two at Avonside, but they had been a sore affliction to her at the Lodge. Any woman who can not wholly set aside self is sure to be tormented by, and be a still worse torment to, children.

No; much as she pitied herself, and condoled with Aunt Maria every hour in the day, Aunt Henrietta was a great deal better in every way since she came to Avonside—less cross, less ill-natured; even her perpetual mill-stream of talk flowed on without such violent outbreaks of wrath against the whole as had embittered the atmosphere of the Lodge. Now, though her answer was sharp, it was not so sharp as it might have been—would certainly have been—a few weeks before.

"Maria, I don't think you ever do listen to me when I'm talking. I am afraid all I say goes in at one ear and out at the other," which was not impossible, perhaps not unfortunate otherwise, since Miss Gascoigne talked pretty nearly all day long, Miss Grey's whole life might have been spent in listening. She replied, with a meek smile, "Oh no, dear Henrietta!"

"Then you surely would have made some observation on what I have been telling you—this very extraordinary thing which Miss Smiles told me last night at the Lodge, while Mrs. Grey was singing—as I forewarned you, Mrs. Grey sings every where now—and her husband lets her do it—likes it, too—he actually told me it was a pleasure to him that his wife should make herself agreeable to other people. They mean to give tea-parties once a week to the undergraduates at Saint Bede's, because she says the master ought to be like a father over them, invite them and make his house pleasant to them. Such a thing was never heard of in our days."

"No; but I dare say dear Arnold knows best. And what about Miss Smiles?"

"I've told you twenty times already, Maria, how Miss Smiles said that Mrs. Brereton said—you know Mrs. Brereton, who has so many children, and never can keep a governess long—that her new governess, who happens to be Miss Susan Bennett, whom, you may remember, I once got for Letitia—told her a long story about Mrs. Grey and Sir Edwin Uniacke—how he was an old acquaintance of hers before she was married."

"Of Christian's? She never said so. Oh no! it can't be, or she would have said so."

"Don't be too sure of that," said Aunt Henrietta, mysteriously.

"Besides, she dislikes him. You know, Henrietta, that when he called here last week, and she happened to be with us, she put on her bonnet and went home immediately, without seeing him!"

"And a very rude thing, too, on her part. Any visitors whom I choose to invite to my house—"

"But he invited himself."

"No matter, he came, and I certainly had no reason to turn him out. I consider Dr. Grey's objections to him perfectly ridiculous. Why, one meets the young man every where, in the very best society, and his manners are charming. But that is not the question. The question is just this: Was he, or was he not, an acquaintance of Mrs. Grey's before her marriage? and if he were, why did she not say so?"

"Perhaps she did."

"Not to me; when he called at the Lodge and I introduced them, they bowed as if they were just ordinary strangers. Now that was a rather odd thing, and a very disrespectful thing to myself, not to tell me they had met before, I certainly have a right to be displeased. Don't you feel it so, Maria?"

Whether she did or not, Maria only answered with her usual deprecatory smile.

"There is another curious circumstance, now I recall it. Sir Edwin showed great surprise, which, indeed, I could scarcely wonder at, when I told him—(I forget how it happened, but I know I was somehow obliged to tell him)—who it was your brother had married—Miss Oakley, the organist's daughter."

"Don't you think," said Aunt Maria, with a sudden sparkle of intelligence, "it might have been her father he was acquainted with? Sir Edwin is so very musical himself that it is not unlikely he should seek the company of musicians. As for Christian "—simple as she was, Aunt Maria had not lived fifty years in the world, and twenty with Miss Gascoigne, without some small acuteness—"I can see, of course, how very bad it would have been for poor Christian to have any acquaintance among young gownsmen, and especially with a person like Sir Edwin Uniacke."

"He is no worse than his neighbors, and I beg you will make no remarks upon him," said Miss Gascoigne, with dignity. "As to Mrs. Grey—"

"Perhaps," again suggested Aunt Maria, appealingly, "perhaps it isn't true. People do say such untrue things. Mrs. Brereton may have imagined it all."

"It was no imagination. Haven't I told you that Miss Bennett gave the whole story, with full particulars, exactly as she had learned it lately from the servant at the farm where Mr. Oakley and his daughter once lodged and where Mr. Uniacke used to come regularly? Not one day did he miss during a whole month. Now, Maria, I should be sorry to think ill of her for your brother's sake but you must allow, when a young person in her station receives constant visits from young gentlemen—gentlemen so much above her as Sir Edwin is—it looks very like—"

"Oh, Henrietta," cried Miss Grey, the womanly feeling within her forcing its way, even through her placid non-resistance, "do stop! you surely don't consider what you are saying?"

"I am not in the habit of speaking without consideration, and I am, I assure you, perfectly aware of what I am saying. I say again, that such conduct was not creditable to Miss Oakley. Of course, one could not expect from a person like her the same decorum that was natural to you and me in our girlhood. I do not believe you and William ever so much as looked at one another before you were engaged."

A faint light, half tearful, half tender, gleamed in those poor, faded blue eyes. "Never mind that now Henrietta. Consider Christian. It will be a terrible thing if any ill-natured stories go about concerning poor dear Christian."

"It will, and therefore I am determined, for your brother's sake, to sift the story to the very bottom. In fact, I think—to end all doubt—I shall put the direct question myself to Sir Edwin Uniacke."

Speak of the—But it would not be fair to quote the familiar proverb against the young man who appeared that instant standing at the wicket-gate.

"Well, I never knew such a coincidence," cried Miss Grey.

"Such a providence rather," cried Miss Gascoigne. And perhaps, in her strange obliquity of vision, or, rather, in that sad preponderance of self which darkened all her vision, like a moral cataract in the eye of her soul, this woman did actually think Providence was leading her toward a solemn duty in the investigating of the past history of the forlorn girl whom Dr. Grey had taken as his wife.

"Speak of an angel and you see his wings," said she, with exceeding politeness. "We were just talking about you, Sir Edwin."

"Thank you; and for your charming parody on the old proverb likewise, I hope I am not the angel of darkness anyhow."

He did not look it—this graceful, handsome young man, gifted with that peculiar sort of beauty which you see in Goethe's face, in Byron's, indicating what may be called the Greek temperament—the nature of the old Attic race—sensuous, not sensual; pleasure-loving, passionate, and changeable; not intentionally vicious, but reveling in a sort of glorious enjoyment, intellectual and corporeal, to which every thing else is sacrificed—in short, the heathen as opposed to the Christian type of manhood—a type, the fascination of which lasts as long as the body lasts, and the intellect; when these both fail, and there is left to the man only that something which we call the soul, the immortal essence, one with Divinity, and satisfied with nothing less than the divine—alas for him!

A keen observer, who had lived twenty years longer in the world than he, might, regarding him in all his beauty and youth, feel a sentiment not unlike compassion for Edwin Uniacke.

He sat down, making himself quite at home, though this was only his second visit to Avonside Cottage. But Miss Gascoigne, if only from love of opposition, had made it pretty clear to him that he was welcome there, and that she liked him. He enjoyed being liked, and had the easy confidence of one who is well used to it.

"Yes, I am ready to avouch, this is the prettiest little paradise within miles of Avonsbridge. No wonder you should have plenty of visitors, I met a tribe coming here—your sister-in-law (charming person is Mrs. Grey!) your nephews and niece, and that gipsy-looking, rather handsome nurse, who is a little like the head of Clytie, only for her sullen, underlying mouth and projecting chin."

"How you notice faces, Sir Edwin!"

"Of course. I am a little bit of an artist."

"And a great piece of a musician, as I understand. Which reminds me," added Miss Gascoigne, eager to plunge into her mission, which, in her strange delusion, she earnestly believed was a worthy and righteous one, in which she had embarked for the family benefit—"I wanted to ask whether you did not know Mrs. Grey's father, the organist? And herself too, when she was Miss Oakley?"

"Every body knew Mr. Oakley," was the evasive answer. "He was a remarkable man—quite a genius, with all the faults of a genius. He drank, he ate opium, he—"

"Nay, he is dead," faintly said Aunt Maria.

"Which, you mean, is a good reason why I should speak no more about him. I obey you, Miss Grey."

"But his daughter? Did you say you knew his daughter?" pursued Miss Gascoigne.

"Oh yes, casually. A charming girl she was! very pretty, though immature. Those large, fair women sometimes do not look their best until near thirty. And she had a glorious voice. She and I used to sing duets-together continually."

He might not have thought what he was doing—it is but charity to suppose so; that he spoke only after his usual careless and somewhat presumptuous style of speaking about all women, but he must have been struck by the horrified expression of Miss Gascoigne's face.

"Sing duets together! a young man in your position, and a young woman in hers! Without a mother, too!"

"Oh, her father was generally present, if you think of propriety. But I do assure you, Miss Gascoigne, there was not the slightest want of propriety. She was a very pretty girl, and I was a young fellow, rather soft, perhaps, and so we had a—well, you might call it a trifling flirtation. But nothing of any consequence—nothing. I do assure you."

"Of course it was of no consequence," said Aunt Maria, again breaking in with a desperate courage. And still more desperate were the nods and winks with which she at last aroused even Aunt Henrietta to a sense of the position into which the conversation was bringing them both, so that she, too, had the good feeling to add,

"Certainly it is not of the slightest consequence. Dr. Grey is probably aware of it all?"

"Which may be the reason I am never invited to the Lodge," laughed the young man, so pleasantly that one would hardly have paused to consider what he laughed at or what it implied. "By-the-by, I hear they had such a pleasant gathering there last night—a musical evening, where every body sang a great deal, and Mrs. Grey only once, but then, of course, divinely. I should like to hear her again. But look, there are the children. Shall I take the liberty of unfastening for them the latch of your garden gate?"

He sprang out of the low window, and came back heading the small battalion of visitors—Phillis, Arthur, Letitia, and Oliver. But Mrs. Grey was not there. She had come half way, and returned home alone.

"Well, I must say that is very odd, considering I invited her to spend the day, and, I think, rather disrespectful of me—to us both, Maria."

"She might have been tired after the party last night," put in Aunt Maria.

"No, she wasn't tired, for she never told me so." said Arthur. "She told me to say—not you, Phillis, mother always trusts me with her messages— that she had gone back on account of papa's wanting her, and that if he came to fetch us, she would come here with him in the evening."

"Very devoted! 'An old man's darling and a young man's slave,' runs the proverb; but Mrs. Grey seems to reverse it. She will soon never stir out an inch without your brother, Maria."

"And I am sure my brother never looks so happy as when she is beside him," said Aunt Maria. "We shall quite enjoy seeing them both together to-night."

"And I only wish it had been my good fortune to join such a pleasant family party," observed Sir Edwin Uniacke.

It was rather too broad a hint, presuming even upon Miss Gascoigne's large courtesy. In dignified silence she passed it over, sending the children and Phillis away to their early dinner, and after an interval of that lively conversation, in which, under no circumstances, did Sir Edwin ever fail, allowing him also to depart.

As he went down the garden, Miss Grey, with great dismay, watched him stop at her beautiful jessamine bower, pull half a dozen of the white stars, smell at them, and throw them away. He would have done the same—perhaps had done it—with far diviner things than jessamine flowers.

"Yes," said Miss Gascoigne, looking after him, and then sitting down opposite Miss Grey, spreading out her wide silk skirts, and preparing herself solemnly for a wordy war—that is, if it could be called a war which was all on one side—"yes, I have come to the bottom of it all. I knew I should. Nothing ever escapes me. And pray, Maria, what do you think of her now."

"Think of whom?"

"You are so dull when you won't hear. Of your sister-in-law, Christian Grey."

Poor Aunt Maria looked up with a helpless pretense of ignorance. "What about her. Henrietta, dear?"

"Pshaw! You know as well as I do, only you are so obtuse, or so meek," (A mercy she was, or she would never have lived a week, not to say twenty years, with Henrietta Gascoigne.) "Once for all, tell me what you propose doing?"

"Doing? I?"

"Yes, you. Can't you see, my dear Maria, that it is your business to inform your brother what you have discovered concerning his wife?"

"Discovered?"

"Certainly; it is a discovery, since she has never told it—never told her husband that before her marriage she had been in the habit of singing duets (love-songs, no doubt, most improper for any young woman) with a young gentleman of Sir Edwin's birth and position, who, of course, never thought of marrying her—(your brother, I do believe, is the only man in Avonsbridge who would have so committed himself)— and who, by the light way he speaks of her, evidently shows how little respect he had for her."

"Perhaps," mildly suggested Aunt Maria, "perhaps she really has told dear Arnold."

"Then why did he not tell us—tell me? Why did he place me in the very awkward position of not knowing of this previous acquaintance of his wife's? Why, in that very unpleasant conversation we had one day at the Lodge, was I the only person to be kept in ignorance of his reasons— and very good reasons I now see they were—for forbidding Sir Edwin's visits? Singing duets together! Who knows but that they may meet and sing them still? That new piano! and we turned out of the house directly afterward—literally turned out! But perhaps that was the very reason she did it—that she might meet him the more freely. Oh, Maria! your poor deluded brother!"

It is strange the way some women have—men too, but especially women—of rolling and rolling their small snowball of wrath until it grows to an actual mountain, which has had dragged into it all sorts of heterogeneous wrongs, and has grown harder and blacker day by day, till no sun of loving-kindness will ever thaw it more. In vain did poor Maria ejaculate her pathetic "Oh, Henrietta!" and try, in her feeble way, to put in a kindly word or two; nothing availed. Miss Gascoigne had lashed herself up into believing firmly every thing she had imagined and it was with an honest expression of real grief and pain that she repeated over and over again, "What ought we to do? Your poor, dear brother!"

For, with all her faults, Miss Gascoigne was a conscientious woman; one who, so far as she saw her duty, tried to fulfill it, and as strongly, perhaps a little more so, insisted on other people's fulfilling theirs. She stood aghast at the picture, her own self-painted picture, of the kind brother-in-law, of whom in her heart she was really fond, married to a false, wicked woman, more than twenty years his junior, who mocked at his age and peculiarities, and flirted behind his back with any body and every body. To do Aunt Henrietta justice, however, of more than flirtation she did not suspect—no person with common sense and ordinary observation could suspect—Christian Grey.

"I must speak to her myself, poor thing! I must open her eyes to the danger she is running. Only consider, Maria, if that story did go about Avonsbridge, she would never be thought well of in society again. I must speak to her. If she will only confide in me implicitly, so that I can take her part, and assure every body I meet that, however bad appearances may be as regards this unlucky story, there is really no- thing in it—nothing at all—don't you see, Maria?"

Alas! Maria had been so long accustomed to look at every thing through the vision of dear Henrietta, that she had no clear sight of her own whatever. She only found courage to say, in a feeble way,

"Take care, oh, do take care! I know you are much cleverer than I am, and can manage things far better; but oh please take care?"

And when, some hours after, Dr. and Mrs. Grey not appearing, she was called into Miss Gascoigne's room, where that lady stood tying her bonnet-strings with a determined air, and expressing her intention of going at once to the Lodge, however inconvenient, still, all that Aunt Maria ventured to plead was that melancholy warning, generally unheeded by those who delight in playing with hot coals and edged tools, as Aunt Henrietta had done all her life, "Take care!"

In her walk to the Lodge, through the still, sweet autumn evening, with a fairy-like wreath of mist rising up above the low-lying meadows of the Avon, and climbing slowly up to the college towers, and the far-off sunset clouds, whose beauty she never noticed, Miss Gascoigne condescended to some passing conversation with Phillis, and elicited from her, without betraying any thing, as she thought, a good deal— namely, that Sir Edwin Uniacke was often seen walking up and down the avenue facing the Lodge, and that once or twice he had met and spoken to the children.

"But Mrs. Grey doesn't like it, I think she wants to drop his acquaintance," said the sharp Phillis, who was gaining quite as much information as she bestowed.

"Why, did they ever—did she ever"—and then some lingering spark of womanly feeling, womanly prudence, made Miss Gascoigne hesitate, and add with dignity. "Yes, very likely Mrs. Grey may not choose his acquaintance. He is not approved of by every body."

"I know that." said Phillis, meaningly.

The two women, the lady and the servant, exchanged looks. Both were acute persons, and the judgment either passed on the other was keen and accurate. Probably neither judged herself, or recognized the true root of her judgment upon the third person, unfortunate Christian. "She has interfered with my management, and stolen the hearts of my children;" "she has annoyed me and resisted my authority?" would never have been given by either nurse or aunt as a reason for either their feelings or their actions; yet so it was.

Nevertheless, when in the hall of the Lodge they came suddenly face to face with Mrs. Grey, entering, hat in hand, from the door of the private garden, the only place where she ever walked alone now, they both started as if they had been detected in something wrong. She looked so quiet and gentle, grave and sweet, modest as a girl and dignified as a young matron—so perfectly unconscious of all that was being said or planned against her, that if these two malicious women had a conscience—and they had, both of them—they must have felt it smite them now.

"Miss Gascoigne, how kind of you to walk home with the children! Papa and I would have come, but he was obliged to dine in Hall. He will soon be free now, and will walk back with you. Pray come in and rest; you look tired."

Mrs. Grey's words and manner, so perfectly guileless and natural, for the moment quite confounded her enemy—her enemy, and yet an honest enemy. Of the number of cruel things that are done in this world, how many are done absolutely for conscience sake by people who deceive themselves that they are acting from the noblest, purest motives— carrying out all the Christian virtues, in short, only they do so, not in themselves, but against other people. And from their list of commandments they obliterate one—"Judge not, that ye be not judged condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned."

But, for the time being, Miss Gascoigne was puzzled. Her stern reproof, her patronizing pity, were alike disarmed. Her mountain seemed crumbling to its original mole-hill. The heap of accusing evidence which she had accumulated dwindled into the most ordinary and commonplace facts at sight of Christian's innocent face and placid mien. Nothing could be more unlike a woman who had ever contemplated the ordinary "flirting" of society. As for any thing worse, the idea was impossible to be entertained for a moment. It was simply ridiculous.

Aunt Henrietta sat a good while talking, quite mildly for her, of ordinary topics, before she attempted to broach the real object of her visit. It was only as the hour neared for Dr. Grey's coming in that she nerved herself to her mission. She had an uneasy sense that it would be carried out better in his absence than in his presence.

Without glancing often at Christian, who sat so peaceful, looking out into the fading twilight, she launched her thunderbolt at once.

"We had a visit today from Sir Edwin Uniacke."

"So I supposed, since I and the children met him on the way to Avonside."

In this world, so full of shams, bow utterly bewildering sometimes is the direct innocent truth! At this answer of Christian's Miss Gascoigne looked more amazed than if she had been told a dozen lies.

"Was that the reason you turned back and went home?"

"Partly; I really had forgotten something which Dr. Grey wanted, but I also wished to avoid meeting your visitor."

"Why so?"

"Surely you must guess. How can I voluntarily meet any one who is not a friend of my husband's?"

"Not though he may have been a friend of your own? For, as I understand, you once had a very close acquaintance with Sir Edwin Uniacke."

The thrust was so unexpected, unmistakable in its meaning, that Christian, in her startled surprise, said the very worst thing she could have said to the malicious ears which were held open to every thing and eager to misconstrue every thing, "Who told you that?"

"Told me! Why all Avonsbridge is talking about it, and about you."

This was a lie—a little white lie; one of those small exaggerations of which people make no account; but Christian believed it, and it seemed to wrap her round as with a cold mist of fear. All Avonsbridge talking of her—her, Dr. Grey's wife, who had his honor as well as her own in her keeping—talking about herself and Sir Edwin Uniacke! What? how much? how had the tale come about? how could it be met?

With a sudden instinct of self-preservation, she forcibly summoned back her composure. She knew with whom she had to deal. She must guard every look, every word.

"Will you tell me. Miss Gascoigne, exactly who is talking about me, and what they say? I am sure I have never given occasion for it."

"Never? Are you quite certain of that?"

"Quite certain. Who said I had 'a very close acquaintance'—were not these your words—with Sir Edwin Uniacke?"

"Himself."

"Himself!"

Then Christian recognized the whole amount of her difficulty—nay, her danger; for she was in the power, not of a gentleman, but of a villain. Any man must have been such who, under the circumstances, could have boasted of their former acquaintance, or even referred to it at all.

"Kiss and tell?" runs the disdainful proverb. And even the worldliest of men, in their low code of honor, count the thing base and ignoble. Alas! all women do not.

In the strangely mistaken code of feminine "honorable-ness," it is deemed no disgrace for a woman to chatter and boast of a man's love, but the utmost disgrace for her to own or feel on her side any love at all. But Christian was unlike her sex in some things. To her, with her creed of love, it would have appeared far less mean, less cowardly, less dishonorable, openly to confess, "I loved this man," than to betray "This man loved me." And it was with almost contemptuous indignation that she repeated, "What! he told it himself?"

"He did. I first heard it through Miss Bennett, your protge, who has come back, and is now a governess at Mrs. Brereton's. But when I questioned Sir Edwin himself, he did not deny it."

"You questioned him?"

"Certainly. I felt it to be my duty. He says that he knew you in your father's lifetime; that he was intimate with you both: that you and he used to sing duets together; in short, that—"

"Go on. I wish to hear it all."

"That is all. And I am sure, Mrs. Grey, it is enough."

"It is enough. And he has been saying this, and you have been listening to it, perhaps repeating it to all Avonsbridge. What a wicked woman you must be!"

The words were said, not fiercely or resentfully, but in a sort of meditative, passive despair. A sense of the wickedness, the cruelty there was in the world, the hopelessness of struggling against it, of disentangling fact from falsehood, of silencing malice and disarming envy, came upon Christian in a fit of bitterness uncontrollable. She felt as if she could cry out, like David, "The waters have overwhelmed me, the deep waters have gone over my soul."

Even if she were not blameless—who is blameless in this mortal Life?— even if she had made a mistake—a great mistake—her punishment was sharp. Just now, when happiness was dawning upon her, when the remorse for her hasty marriage and lack of love toward her husband had died away, when her heart was beginning to leap at the sound of his step, and her whole soul to sun itself in the tender light of his loving eyes, it was very, very hard!

"Well, Mrs. Grey, and what have you to say for yourself?"

Christian looked up instinctively—lifted her passive hands, and folded them on her lap, but answered nothing.

"You must see," continued Miss Gascoigne, "what an exceedingly unpleasant story it is, and how necessary it was for me to speak about it. Such a matter easily might become the whole town's talk. An acquaintance before your marriage, which you kept so scrupulously concealed that your nearest connections—I myself even—had not the slightest idea of it. You must perceive, Mrs. Grey, what conclusions people will draw—indeed, can not help drawing. Not that I believe—I assure you I don't—one word against you. Only confide in me, and I will make the matter clear to all Avonsbridge. You hear me?"

"Yes"

"And now, my dear"—the energy of her protection making Aunt Henrietta actually affectionate—"do speak out. Tell me all you have to say for yourself."

"Nothing."

"Nothing? What do you mean?"

It may seem an odd thing to assert, and a more difficult thing still to prove, but Miss Gascoigne was not at heart a bad woman. She had a fierce temper and an enormous egotism, yet these two qualities, in the strangely composite characters that one meets with in life, are not incompatible with many good qualities.

Pain, most sincere and undisguised, not unmingled with actual pity, was visible in Miss Gascoigne's countenance as she looked on the young creature before her, to whom her words had caused such violent emotion. For this emotion her narrow nature—always so ready to look on human nature in its worst side, and to suspect wherever suspicion could alight—found but one interpretation—guilt.

She drew back, terrified at what her interference had done. What if the story should prove to be, not mere idle gossip, but actual scandal—the sort of scandal which would cast a slur forever on the whole Grey family, herself included?

There, above all, the fear struck home. Suppose she had meddled in a matter which no lady could touch without indecorum, perhaps actual defilement? Suppose, in answer to her entreaty, Christian should confide to her something which no lady ought to hear? What a fearful position for her—Miss Gascoigne—to be placed in! What should she say to Dr. Grey?

Hard as her heart might be, this thought touched the one soft place in it. Her voice actually trembled as she said,

"Your poor husband! what would become of him?"

Christian sprang up with a shrill cry. "Yes, yes I know what I will do, I will go and tell my husband." Miss Gascoigne thought she was mad. And, indeed, there was something almost frenzied in the way her victim rushed from the room, like a creature driven desperate by misery.

Aunt Henrietta did not know how to act. To follow Christian was quite beneath her dignity; to go home, with her mission unfulfilled, her duty undone, that too was impossible. She determined to wait a few minutes, and let things take their chance.

Miss Gascoigne was not a bad woman, only an utterly mistaken and misguided one. She meant no harm—very few people do deliberately mean harm—they only do it. She had set herself against her brother-in- law's marriage—not in the abstract, she was scarcely so wicked and foolish as that; but against his marrying this particular woman, partly because Christian was only a governess, with somewhat painful antecedents—one who could neither bring money, rank, nor position to Dr. Grey and his family, but chiefly because it had wounded her self- love that she, Miss Gascoigne, had not been consulted, and had had no hand in bringing about the marriage.

Therefore she had determined to see it, and all concerning it, in the very worst light to modify nothing, to excuse nothing. She had made up her mind that things were to be so and so, and so and so they must of necessity turn out. Audi alteram partem was an idea that never occurred, never had occurred, in all her life to Henrietta Gascoigne. In fact, she would never have believed there could be "another side," since she herself was not able to behold it.

Yet she had not a cruel nature, and the misery she endured during the few minutes that she sat thinking of the blow that was about to fall on Dr. Grey and his family, heaping on the picture every exaggerated imagination of a mind always prone to paint things in violent colors, was enough to atone for half the wrong she had done.

She started up like a guilty creature when the door opened, and Phillis entered with a letter in her hand.

"Beg pardon, ma'am, I thought you were Mrs. Grey."

"She is just gone up stairs—will be back directly," said Miss Gascoigne, anxious to keep up appearances to the last available moment. "Is that letter for her? Shall I give it to her?"

"No, thank you, I'll give it myself; and it'll be the last that ever I will give, for it isn't my business," added Phillis, flustered and indignant, so much so that she dropped the letter on the floor.

By the light of the small taper there was a mutual search for it—why mutual Miss Gascoigne best knew. It was she who picked it up, and before she had delivered it back she had clearly seen it all— handwriting, seal and tinted envelope, with the initials "E. U." on the corner.

Some hidden feeling in both of them, the lady and the servant, some last remnant of pity and charity, prevented their confiding openly in one another, even if Miss Gascoigne could have condescended so far. But she knew as well as if Phillis had told, and Phillis likewise was perfectly aware she knew, that the note came from Sir Edwin Uniacke.

Poor Aunt Henrietta! She was so horrified—literally horrified, that she could bear no more. She left no message—waited for nobody—but hurried back as fast as she could walk, through twilight, to her own cottage at Avonside.



Chapter 14.

"Peace on Earth, and mercy mild, Sing the angels, reconciled; Over each sad warfare done, Each soul-battle lost and won.

"He that has a victory lost May discomfit yet a host; And, it often doth befall, He who conquers loses all."

Christian, after sitting waiting in the study for a long hour, received a message from her husband that he would not be home that night. He had to take a sudden journey of twenty miles on some urgent affairs. This was not unusual. Dr. Grey was one of those people whom all their friends come to in any emergency, and the amount of other people's business, especially painful business, which he was expected to transact, and did transact, out of pure benevolence, was incalculable.

So his wife had to wait still. She submitted as to fatality, laid her head on her pillow, and fell at once into that dull, stupid sleep which mercifully comes to some people, and always came to her, in heavy trouble. She did not wake from it till late in the following morning.

A great dread, like a great joy, always lies in ambush, ready to leap upon us the instant we open our eyes. Had Miss Gascoigne known what a horrible monster it was, like a tiger at her throat, which sprang upon Christian when she waked that morning, she, even she, might have felt remorseful for the pain she had caused. Yet perhaps she would not. In this weary life of ours,

"With darkness and the death-hour rounding it,"

It is strange how many people seem actually to enjoy making other people miserable.

Christian rose and dressed; for her household ways must go on as usual; she must take her place at the breakfast-table, and make it cheerful and pleasant, so that the children might not find out any thing wrong with mother. She did so, and sent them away to their morning play—happy little souls! Then she sat down to think for a little, all alone.

Not what to do—that was already decided; but how to do it—how to tell Dr. Grey in the least painful way that his love had not been the first love she had received—and given; that she had had this secret, and kept it from him, though he was her husband, for six whole months.

Oh, had she but told him before her marriage, long, long ago! Now, he might think she only did it out of fear, dread of public opinion, or seeking protection from the public scandal that might overtake her, however innocent. For was she not in the hands of an unscrupulous man and a malicious woman? It was hopeless to defend herself. Why should she attempt it? Had she not better let herself be killed—she sometimes thought she should be killed, to so great a height of morbid dread had risen her secret agony—and die, quietly, silently, thus escaping out of the hands of her enemies, who pursued her with this relentless hatred.

Dying might have felt easier to her but for one fact—she loved her husband—loved him, as she now knew, so passionately, so engrossingly, that all this misery converged in one single fear—the fear that she might lose his love. What the world thought of her—what Miss Gascoigne thought of her, became of little account. All she dreaded was what Dr. Grey would think. Would he, in his large, tender, compassionate heart, on hearing her confession, say only "Poor thing! she could not help it; she was foolish and young," or would he feel she had deceived him, and cast her off from his trust, his respect, his love for evermore?

In either case she hesitated not for a moment. Love, bought by a deception, she knew to be absolutely worthless. Knowing now what love was, she knew this truth also. Had no discovery been made, she knew that she must have told all to Dr. Grey. She hated, despised herself for having already suffered day after day to pass by without telling him, though she had continually intended to do it. All this was a just punishment for her cowardice; for she saw now, as she had never seen before, that every husband, every wife, before entering into the solemn bond of marriage, has a right to be made acquainted with every secret of the other's heart, every event of the other's life that such confidence, then and afterward, should know no reservations, save and except trusts reposed in both before marriage by other people, which marriage itself is not justified in considering annulled.

But, the final moment being come, when a day—half a day—would decide it all—decide the whole future of herself and her husband, Christian's courage seemed to return.

She sat trembling, yet not altogether hopeless; very humble and yet strong, with the strength that the inward consciousness of deeply loving—not of being loved, but of loving—always gives to a woman, and waited till Dr. Grey came home.

When the parlor door opened she rushed forward, thinking it was he, but it was only Phillis—Phillis, looking insolent, self-important, contemptuous, as she held out to her mistress a letter.

"There! I've took it in for once, and given it to you, by yourself, as he bade me, but I'll never take in another. I'm an honest woman, and my master has been a good master to me."

"Phillis!" cried Mrs. Grey, astonished. But when she saw the letter she was astonished no more.

The tinted perfumed paper, the large seal, the dainty handwriting, all were familiar of old.

Fierce indignation, unutterable contempt, and then a writhing sense of personal shame, as if she were somehow accountable for this insult, swept by turns over Christian's soul, until she recollected that she must betray nothing; for more than her own sake—her husband's—she must not put herself in her servant's power.

So she did not throw the letter in the fire, or stamp upon it, or do any of the frantic things she was tempted to do; she held it in her hand like a common note, and said calmly.

"Who brought this? and when did, it come?"

"Last night, only I couldn't find you. It was nigh dropping into Miss Gascoigne's hands, and a pretty mess that would have been. And I warn you—you had better mind what you are about—Miss Susan Bennett told me all about it; and a nice little story it is, too, for a married lady. And Miss Gascoigne has scented it out, I'll be bound and if Dr. Grey once gets hold of it—"

"Stop!" said Christian, firmly, though she felt her very lips turning white. "You are under some extraordinary delusion. There is nothing to be got hold of. Take this letter to my husband's study—it is his affair. I have no communications whatever with Sir Edwin Uniacke."

Phillis looked utterly amazed. Though her mistress did not speak another word, there was something in her manner—her perfect, quiet conviction of innocence, self-asserted, though without any open self- defense, which struck the woman more than any amount of anger would have done.

"If I've made a mistake, I'm sure I beg your pardon, ma'am," began she quite humbly.

"What for? Except for receiving and bringing to me privately a letter which should have been left with Barker at the door, it being Barker's business, and not yours. Remember that another time. Now take the letter to the study, and go."

Phillis hesitated. She looked again and again at that calm, proud, innocent lady, whom she had so wickedly misjudged and maligned, how far and how fatally her own conscience alone could tell. And Phillis knew what innocence was, for, poor woman, she had known what it was not. Malice also she knew; and judging her mistress by herself, she trembled.

"If you're going to bear spite against me for this, I'd best give warning at once, Mrs. Grey—only it would nigh break my heart to leave the children."

"I have no wish for you to leave the children, and I never bear spite against anybody. Life is not long enough for it," added Mrs. Grey, sighing. Then, with a sudden impulse, if by any means she could smooth matters and win a little household peace, "I desire to be a good mistress to you, Phillis; why should you not be a good servant to me? You love the children; you are to them a most faithful nurse; why can not you believe that I shall be a faithful mother? Let us turn over a new leaf, and begin again."

She held out her hand, and Phillis took it; looked hard in her mistress's face—the kind, friendly face, that was not ashamed to be a friend even to a poor servant; then, with something very like a sob, she turned and ran out of the room.

But when she was gone, Christian sat down exhausted. With a desperate self-control she had wrenched herself out of Phillis's power, she had saved herself and her husband from the suspicion that it was possible Dr. Grey's wife could receive, or give occasion to receive, a secret letter, a love-letter, from any man; but when the effort was over she broke down. Convulsive sobs, one after the other, shook her, until she felt as if her very life were departing. And in the midst of this agony appeared—Miss Gascoigne.

Aunt Henrietta had spent the whole night, except a brief space for sleeping, in thinking over and talking over her duties and her wrongs, the two being mixed up together in inextinguishable confusion. Almost any subject, after being churned up in such a nature as hers for twelve mortal hours, would at the end look quite different from what it did at first, or what it really was. And so, with all honesty of purpose, and with the firmest conviction that it was the only means of saving her brother-in-law and his family from irretrievable misery and disgrace, poor Miss Gascoigne had broken through all her habits, risen, dressed, and breakfasted at an unearthly hour, and there she stood at the Lodge door at nine in the morning, determined to "do her duty," as she expressed it, but looking miserably pale, and vainly restraining her agitation so as to keep up a good appearance "before the servants."

"That will do, Barker. You need not disturb the master; I came at this early hour just for a little chat with your mistress and the children."

And then entering the parlor, she sat down opposite to Christian to take breath.

Miss Gascoigne was really to be pitied. Mere gossip she enjoyed; it was her native element, and she had plunged into this matter of Sir Edwin Uniacke with undeniable eagerness. But now, when it might be not gossip, but disgrace, her terror overpowered her. For disgrace, discredit in the world's eye, was the only form the matter took to this worldly woman, who rarely looked on things except on the outside. Guilt, misery, and their opposites, which alone give strength to battle with them, were things too deep to be fathomed in the slightest degree by Miss Gascoigne.

Therefore, as her looks showed, she was not so much shocked as simply frightened, and had come to the Lodge with a frantic notion of hushing up the matter somehow, whatever it was. Her principal terror was, not so much the sin itself, but that the world might hear of it.

"You see, Mrs. Grey, I am come again," said she, very earnestly. "In spite of every thing, I have come back to advise with you. I am ready to overlook everything, to try and conceal everything. Maria and I have been turning over in our minds all sorts of plans to get you away till this has blown over—call it going to the seaside, to the country with Arthur—any thing, in short, just that you may leave Avonsbridge."

"I leave Avonsbridge? Why?"

"Yon know why. When you had a lover before your marriage, of whom you did not tell your husband or his friends—when this gentleman afterward meets you, writes to you—I saw the letter—"

"You saw the letter!"

There was no hope. She was hunted down, as many an innocent person has been before now, by a combination of evidence, half truths, half lies, or truths so twisted that they assume the aspect of lies, and lies so exceedingly probable that they are by even keen observers mistaken for truth. Passive and powerless Christian sat. Miss Gascoigne might say what she would—all Avonsbridge might say what it would—she would never open her lips more.

At that moment, to preserve her from going mad—(she felt as if she were—as if the whole world were whirling round, and God had forgotten her)—Dr. Grey walked in.

"Oh, husband! save me from her—save me—save me!" she shrieked again and again. And without one thought except that he was there— her one protector, defender, and stay—she sprang to him, and clung desperately to his breast.

And so, in this unforeseen and unpremeditated manner, told, how or in whom, herself or Miss Gascoigne, or both together, Christian never clearly remembered—her one secret, the one error of her sad girlhood, was communicated to her husband.

He took the revelation calmly enough, as he did everything; Dr. Grey was not the man for tragic scenes. The utmost he seemed to think of in this one was calming and soothing his wife as much as possible, carrying her to the sofa making her lie down, and leaning over her with a sort of pitying tenderness, of which the only audible expression was, "Poor child, poor child!"

Christian tried to see his face, but could not. She sought feebly for his hand—his warm, firm, protecting hand—and let him take hers in it. Then she knew that she was safe.

No, he never would forsake her, he had loved her—once and for always—with the love that has strength to hold its own through every thing and in spite of every thing. Whatever she was, whatever the world might think her, she was his wife, and he loved her. She crept into her husband's bosom, knowing that it was her sure refuge, never to be closed against her until she died.

The next thing she remembered was his speaking to Miss Gascoigne— not harshly, or as if in great mental suffering, but in his natural voice.

"And now! Henrietta, just tell me the utmost you have to allege against my wife. That Sir Edwin was known to her father and herself, of which acquaintance she never told her husband; that she has accidently met him since a few times; and that he has been rude enough to address a letter to her—where is it?"

It was lying on the table, for Phillis, in her precipitate disappearance, had forgotten it. Dr. Grey put it into his pocket unopened.

"Well, Aunt Henrietta, is that all? Have you any more to say, any thing else of which to accuse my wife? Say it all out, only remember one thing, that you are saying it to a man, and about his wife."

Brief as the words were, they implied volumes—all that Dr. Grey was, and every honest man should be, toward his wife, whom he has taken to himself, to cherish and protect, if necessary, against the whole world— everything for which the bond of marriage was ordained, to be maintained unannulled by time, or change, or faultiness, perhaps even actual sin. One has heard of such guardianship—of a husband pitying and protecting till death a wife who had sinned against him; and if possible to any man, this would have been possible to one like Arnold Grey.

But in his manner was not only protection, there was also love—the sort of' love which passionate youth can seldom understand; but Paul the apostle did, unmarried though he was, when he spoke in such mystical language of a husband's "nourishing and cherishing" his wife "as the Lord the Church." And now Christian seemed to comprehend this, when, looking up to her husband, she felt that he was also her "lord,'' ruling and guiding her less by harsh authority than by the perfect law of love.

"Nay," she said, faintly, "don't blame your sister: she meant no harm, nor did I. I only—"

"Hush!" Dr. Grey replied, laying his hand upon her mouth; "that is a matter solely between you and your husband."

But whether, thus met at all points, Miss Gascoigne began to doubt whether her mountain were not a mere molehill after all, or whether she involuntarily succumbed to the influence of such honest love, such unbounded trust, and felt that to interfere farther between this husband and wife would be not only hopeless, but wicked, it is impossible to say. Perhaps—let us give her the credit of a good motive rather than a bad one—she really felt she had been wrong, was moved and softened, and brought to a better mind.

In any case, that happened which had never been known to happen before in Miss Gascoigne's existence—when asked to speak she had literally nothing to say!

"Then," continued Dr. Grey, good-humouredly, still holding his wife's hand, and sitting beside her on the sofa, "this mighty matter may come to an end, which is, indeed, the best thing for it. Since I am quite satisfied concerning my wife, I conclude my sister may be. We will consider the subject closed. Make friends, you two. Christian, will you not?"

Christian rose. She had never kissed Miss Gascoigne in her life, had had no encouragement to do it, and it would have seemed a piece of actual hypocrisy. Now it was not. The kiss of affection it could hardly be, but there is such a thing as the kiss of peace.

She rose and went, white and tottering as she was, across the room to where Miss Gascoigne sat, hard, bitter, and silent, determined that not a step should be taken on her side—she would not be the first to "make friends."

"Forgive me, Aunt Henrietta, if I ever offended you. I did not mean it. Let us try to get on better for the future. We ought, for we are both so fond of the children and of Arnold."

Such simple words, such a natural feeling! if that hard heart were only natural and soft enough to take it in. And it was—for once.

Miss Gascoigne looked incredulously up, then down again, in a shamefaced, uncomfortable way, then held out her hand, and kissed Christian, while two tears—only two—gathered and dropped from her eyes.

But the worst was over. The ice was broken and the stream ran clear. How long it would run good angels only could tell. But they sang, and kept on singing, all that day, in Christian's heart, the song of peace— "peace on earth"—for the battle was over and the foes were reconciled.



Chapter 15.

_"It may be under palace roof, Princely and wide; No pomp foregone, no pleasure lost, No wish denied; But if beneath the diamonds' flash Sweet, kind eyes hide, A pleasant place, a happy place, Is our fireside.

"It may be 'twixt four lowly walls, No show, no pride; Where sorrows oftimes enter in, But never abide. Yet, if she sits beside the hearth, Help, comfort, guide, A blessed place, a heavenly place, Is our fireside."

The very instant Miss Gascoigne was gone, Christian, throwing herself on her husband's neck, clasping him, clinging to him, ready almost to fling herself at his knees in her passion of humility and love, told him without reserve, without one pang of hesitation or shame—perhaps, indeed, there was little or nothing to be ashamed of—every thing concerning herself and Edwin Uniacke.

He listened, not making any answer, but only holding her fast in his arms, till at length she took courage to look up in his face.

"What! you are not angry or grieved? Nay, I could fancy you were almost smiling."

"Yes, my child! Because, to tell you the plain truth, I knew all this before."

"Knew it before!" cried Christian, in the utmost astonishment.

"I really did. Nobody told me. I found it out—found it out even before I knew you. It was the strangest thing, and yet quite natural."

And then he explained to her that, after the disgraceful circumstance occurred which caused Mr. Uniacke's rustication, he had fled, from justice it might be, or, in any case, from the dread of it, leaving all his papers open, and his rooms at the mercy of all comers. But, of course, the master and dean of his college had taken immediate possession there; and Dr. Grey, being known to the young man's widowed mother, from whom he had received much kindness in his youth, was deputed by her to overlook every thing, and investigate every thing, if by any means his relatives might arrive at the real truth of that shameful story which, now as heretofore, Dr. Grey passed over unexplained.

"It would serve no purpose to tell it," he said, "and it is all safely ended now."

How far his own strong, clear common sense and just judgment had succeeded in hushing it up, and saving the young man from a ruined life, and his family from intolerable disgrace, Dr. Grey was not likely to say. But his wife guessed all, then and afterward.

He proceeded to tell her how, in searching these papers, among a heap of discreditable letters he had lighted upon two or three, pure as white lilies found lying upon a refuse heap, signed "Christian Oakley."

"I read them—I was obliged to read them—but I did so privately, and I put them in my pocket before the dean saw them. No one ever cast eyes upon them except myself. I took them home with me and kept them, And I keep them now, for they first taught me what she was—this chosen wife of mine. They let me into the secret of that simple, gentle. innocent, girlish heart; they made me feel the worth of it, even though it was being thrown away on a worthless man. And I suspect, from that time I wanted it for my own."

He went on to say how he had first made acquaintance with her—on business grounds partly, connected with her father's sudden death, but also intending, as soon as he felt himself warranted in taking such a liberty, to return these letters, and tell her in a plain, honest, fatherly manner what a risk she had run, and what a merciful escape she had made from this young man, who, Dr. Grey then felt certain, would never again dare to appear at Avonsbridge.

But the opportunity never came. The "fatherly" feeling was swallowed up in another, which effectually sealed the good man's tongue. He determined to make her his wife, and then the letters, the whole story, in which he had read her heart as clear as a book, and was afraid of nothing, concerned himself alone. He felt at liberty to tell her how or when he chose. At least so he persuaded himself.

"But perhaps I, too, was a little bit of a coward, my child. I, too, might have avoided much misery if I had had the strength to speak out. But we all make mistakes sometimes, as I told you once. The great thing is not to leave them as mistakes, not to sink under them, but to recognize them for what they are, and try to remedy them if possible. Even if we married too hastily—I, because it was the only way in which I could shelter and protect my darling, and you—well, perhaps because I over- persuaded you, still, we are happy now."

Happy? It was a word too small—any word would be. The only expression for such happiness was silence.

"And what are we to do about him?"

"Him! who?"

Christian said it quite naturally for, woman-like, in that rapture of content, the whole world dwindled down into but two beings, herself and her husband.

Dr. Grey smiled—not dissatisfied. "I meant Sir Edwin Uniacke. May I read his letter?"

"Certainly."

She turned her face away, blushing in bitter shame. But there was no need. Either "the de'il is not so black as he's painted," or, what was more probable, that personage himself, incarnate in man's evil nature, shrinks from intruding his worst blackness upon the white purity of a good woman. Probably never was an illicit or disgraceful love-letter written to any woman for which she herself was quite blameless.

Dr. Grey perused very composedly Sir Edwin's epistle to his wife, saying at the end of it, "Shall I read this aloud? There is no reason why I should not."

And he read:

"My dear Christian,

"If you have forgotten me, I have not forgotten you. A man does not generally meet with a girl like you twice in his lifetime. If, pressed by circumstances, I let you slip through my fingers, it was the worse for me, and, perhaps, the better for you. I bear no grudge against that worthy don and most respectable old fogie, your husband!"

Christian recoiled with indignation, but Dr. Grey laughed—actually laughed in the content of his heart, and, putting his arm round his wife's waist, made her read the remainder of the letter with him.

"I have followed you pretty closely for some weeks. I can not tell why, except that once I was madly in love with you, and perhaps I am still—I hardly know. But I am a gentleman, and not a fool either. And when a man sees a woman cares no more for him than she does for the dust under her feet, why, if he keeps on caring for her, he's a fool.

"The purport of this letter is, therefore, nothing to which you can have the slightest objection, it being merely a warning. There is a young woman in Avonsbridge, Susan Bennett by name, who, from an unfortunate slip of the tongue of mine, hates you, as all women do hate one another (except one woman, whom I once had the honor of meeting every day for four weeks, which fact may have made me a less bad fellow than I used to be, God knows—if there is a God, and if He does know any thing). Well, what I had to say is, beware of Susan Bennett, and beware of another person, who thinks herself much superior to Bennett, and yet they are as like as two peas—Miss Gascoigne. Defend yourself; you may need it. And as the best way to defend you, I mean immediately to leave Avonsbridge—perhaps for personal reasons also, discretion being the better part of valor, and you being so confoundedly like an angel still. Good-by. Yours truly,"

"Edwin Uniacke"

A strange "love-letter" certainly, yet not an ill one, and one which it was better to have received than not. Better than any uncomfortable mystery to have had this clearing up of the doings and intentions of that strange, brilliant, erratic spirit which had flashed across the quiet atmosphere of Saint Bede's and then vanished away in darkness— darkness not hopelessly dark. No one could believe so—at least no good Christian soul could, after reading that letter.

The husband and wife sat silent for a little, and then Dr. Grey said, "I always thought he was not altogether bad—there was some good in him, and he may be the better, poor fellow, all his life for having once had a month's acquaintance with Christian Oakley."

Christian pressed her husband's hand gratefully. That little word or two carried in it a world of healing. But she was not able to say much; her heart was too full.

"And now what is to be done?" said Dr. Grey, meditatively. "He must have had some motive in writing this letter—a not unkindly motive either. He must be aware of some strong reason for it when he tells you to 'defend yourself.' He forgets." added Christian's husband, tenderly, "that now there is some body else to do it for you."

Christian burst into tears. All her forlorn, unprotected youth, the more forlorn that in her father's lifetime it was under a certain hollow sham of protection; the total desolation afterward, exposed to every insult of the bitter world, or at least that bitter portion of it which is always ready to trample down a woman if she is helpless, and to hunt her down if she is strong enough to help herself—all this was gone by forever. She was afraid of nothing any more. She did not need to defend herself again. She had been taken out of all her misery, and placed in the safe shelter of a good man's love. What had she done to deserve such blessedness? What could she do to show her recognition of the same? She could only weep, poor child! and feel like a child, whom the Great Father has ceased to punish—forgiven, and taken back to peace.

"I think," she said, looking up from her hiding-place, "I am so happy, I should almost like to die."

"No, no. Not just yet, my foolish little woman," said Dr. Grey. "We have, I trust, a long lifetime before us. Mine seems only just beginning."

Strange, but true. He was forty-five and she twenty-one and yet to both this was the real spring-time of their lives.

After a pause, during which he sat thinking rather deeply, the master rose and rang the bell.

"Barker, do you know whether Sir Edwin Uniacke is still in Avonsbridge?"

Barker had seen him not an hour ago, near the senate-house.

"Will you go to his lodgings?—let me see; can you make out this address, my dear?" and Dr. Grey pointedly handed over the letter—the fatal letter, which had doubtless been discussed by every servant in the house—to his wife. "Yes, that is it. Go, Barker, present my compliments, and say that Mrs. Grey and myself shall be happy to see Sir Edwin at the Lodge this morning."

"Very well, master," said Barker, opening his round eyes to their roundest as he disappeared from the room.

"What shall you say to him?" asked Christian.

"The plain truth," answered Dr. Grey, smiling. "It is the only weapon, offensive or defensive, that an honest man need ever use."

But there was no likelihood of using it against Sir Edwin, for Barker brought word that he was absent from his lodgings, and his return was quite indefinite. So in some other way must be inquired into and met this cruel gossip which had been set afloat, and doubtless was now swimming about every where on the slow current of Avonsbridge society.

"But perhaps it may be needless, alter all," said Dr. Grey, cheerfully. "We give ourselves a good deal of trouble by fancying our affairs are as important to the world as they are to ourselves. Whether or not, be content, my darling. One and one makes two. I think we two can face the world."

Long after her husband had gone to his study, and Christian had returned to her routine of household duties, one of which was teaching Arthur and Letitia—not the pleasantest of tasks—the peace of his words remained in her heart, comforting her throughout the day. She ceased to trouble or perplex herself about what was to come; it seemed, indeed, as if nothing would ever trouble her any more. She rested in a deep dream of tranquility, so perfect that it beautified and glorified her whole appearance. Arthur more than once stopped in his lessons to say, in his fondling way, in which to the clinging love of the child was added a little of the chivalrous admiration of the boy,

"Mother, how very pretty you do look!"

"Do I? I am so glad!"

At which answer Letitia, who was still prim and precise, though a little less so than she used to be, looked perfectly petrified with astonishment. And her step-mother could not possibly explain to the child why she was "so glad." Glad, for the only reason which makes a real woman care to be lovely, because she loves and is beloved.

The day wore by; the days at the Lodge went swiftly enough now, even under the haunting eyes of the pale foundress, and the grim, defunct masters, which Christian used to fancy pursued her, and glared at her from morning till night. Now the sad queen seemed to gaze at her with a pensive envy, and the dark-visaged mediaeval doctors to look after her with a good-natured smile. They had alike become part and portions of her home—the dear home in which her life was to pass—and she dreaded neither them nor it any more.

In the evening the family were all gathered together in their accustomed place, round Christian's new piano in the drawing-room; for, since Miss Gascoigne's departure, she had earned out her own pleasure in a long contested domestic feud, and persisted in using the drawing-room every night. She did not see why its pleasant splendors should gratify the public and not the family; so she let Arthur and Letitia, and even Oliver, enjoy the sight of the beautiful room, and learn to behave themselves in it accordingly even toward her lovely piano which was kept open for a full hour every evening, for a sort of family concert.

She had taken much pains, at what personal cost keen lovers of music will understand, to teach her little folk to sing. It was possible, for they had all voices, but it had its difficulties, especially when Oliver insisted on joining the concert, as he did now, tossing his curls, and opening his rosy mouth like a great round O, but, nevertheless, looking so exceeding like a singing cherub that Christian caught him up and kissed him with a passionate delight.

And then she proceeded gravely with the song, words and music of which she had to compose and to arrange, as she best could, so as to suit the capacity of her performers. And this was what her musical genius had come to—singing and making baby-songs for little children, to which the only chorus of applause was a faint "Bravo!" and a clapping of hands from the distant fireside.

"Papa, we never thought you heard us. We thought when you were deep in that big book you heard nothing."

"Indeed? Very well" said papa, and disappeared below the surface again, until he revived to take out his watch and observe that it was nearly time for little people to be safe asleep in their little beds.

Papa was always unquestioningly and instantaneously obeyed, so the young trio ceased their laughing over their funny songs, and prepared for one—a serious one—which always formed the conclusion of the night's entertainments.

Every body knows it; most people have been taught it, the first song they were ever taught, from their mother's lips. Christian had learned it from her mother, and it was the first thing she taught to these her children—the Evening Hymn—"Glory to Thee, my God, this night."

She had explained its meaning to them, and made them sing it seriously—not carelessly. As they stood round the piano, Titia and Atty one at each side, and Oliver creeping in to lean upon his step-mothers knee, there was a sweet grave look on all their faces, which made even the two eldest not unpretty children; for their hearts were in their faces—their once frightened, frozen, or bad and bitter hearts. They had no need to hide any thing, or be afraid of any thing. They were loved. The sunshine of that sweet nature, which had warmed their father's heart, and made it blossom out, when past life's summer, with all the freshness of spring, had shined down upon these poor little desolate, motherless children, and made them good and happy—good, perhaps, because they were happy, and most certainly happy because they were good.

For that mother—their real mother, who, living, had been to them—what Christian never allowed herself to inquire or even to speculate—she was gone now. And being no longer an imperfect woman, but a disembodied spirit—perhaps—who knows?—she might be looking down on them all, purified from every feeling but gladness; content that her children were taken care of and led so tenderly into the right way.

Clear and sweet rose up their voices in the familiar words, over which their step-mother's voice, keeping them all steady with its soft undertone, faltered more than once, especially when she thought of all the "blessings" which had to come to herself since the dawning "light:"

"Glory to Thee, my God, this night, For all the blessings of the light. Keep me, oh keep me, King of kings, Beneath Thine own almighty wings!"

The strain had just ended—as if he had waited for its ending—when the drawing-room door opened, and there entered for the second time into the family circle at the Lodge—Sir Edwin Uniacke.

Certainly the young man was no coward, or he never would have entered there. When he did so, bold as he looked, with his easy "fast" air, his handsome face flushed, as if with just a little too long lingering over wine, he involuntarily drew back a step, apparently feeling that the atmosphere of this peaceful home was not fitted for him, or that he himself was not fitted to be present there.

"I fear that I may be intruding, but I have only just received a message you sent me; I had been out all day, and I leave Avonsbridge early tomorrow," he began to say, hesitatingly, apologetically.

"I am glad to see you," said the master. "Christian, will you send the children away? or rather, Sir Edwin, will you come to my study?"

"With pleasure," was the answer, as with an altogether perplexed air, and vainly striving to keep up his usual exceeding courtesy of manner, the young man bowed to Mrs. Grey and passed out.

"How funny! That's Sir Edwin Uniacke, Titia—the gentleman that met me, and—"

"And that you were always talking about, till Phillis told us we mustn't speak of him any more. And I think I know why, mother." hanging down her head with rosy blushes that made the thin face almost pretty. "Mother, I think I ought to tell you—I always do tell you every thing now—that that was the gentleman who met me and Miss Bennett. But I will never do any thing, or meet any body you don't like again."

"No, dear."

"And, mother," said Arthur, sliding up to her, "don't you think, if you were to say something yourself about it, Sir Edwin would ask me again to go and see him, and let me row on the lake at Lake Hall."

"I don't know, my boy but I can not speak to Sir Edwin. We must leave every thing to papa—he always knows best."

And in that firm faith, almost as simple and unreasoning as that of the child, and which it sometimes seemed, God had specially sent this good man to teach her—her, who had hitherto had so little cause to trust or to reverence any body—Christian rested as completely and contentedly as Arthur. Happy son and happy wife, who could so rest upon father and husband.

For nearly an hour Dr. Grey and Sir Edwin remained in the study together. What passed between them the former never told, even to his wife, and she did not inquire. She was quite certain in this, as in all other matters, that "papa knew best."

When he did come in he found her sitting quietly sewing. She looked up hastily, but saw that he was alone, and smiled.

Dr. Grey smiled too—at least not exactly, but there was a brightness in his face such as—not to liken it profanely—might have been seen in the one Divine face after saying to any sinner "Go, and sin no more."

"My dearest," said Dr. Grey, sitting down beside his wife and taking her hand, "you maybe quite content; all is well."

"I am very glad."

"We have talked over every thing, and come to a right understanding. But it is necessary to bring our neighbors to a right understanding also, and to stop people's mouths if we can. To-morrow is Sunday. I have arranged with Sir Edwin that he shall meet me in chapel, and sit with me, in face of all the world, in the master's pew. Do you dislike this, Christian?"

"No."

"We have likewise settled that he shall start off for a long tour in Greece and Egypt with an old friend of mine, who will be none the worse for the companionship of such a brilliant young fellow. Besides, it will break off all bad associations, and give him a chance of 'turning over a new leaf,' as people say. Somehow I feel persuaded that he will."

"Thank God!"

"I too say thank God; for his mother was a good friend to me when I was his age. He is only just one-and-twenty. There may be a long successful life before him yet."

"I hope so," said Christian, earnestly. "And perhaps a happy one too. But it could never be half so happy as mine."

Thus did these two, secure and content, rejoice over the "lost piece of silver," believing, with a pertinacity that some may smile at, that it was silver after all.

"One thing more. He will be at least three years away; and no one knows what may happen to him in the mean time, he says. He would like to shake hands with you before he goes. Have you any objection to this?"

"None."

"Come then with me into the study."

They found Sir Edwin leaning against the mantelpiece, with his head resting on his arms. When he raised it, it was the same dashing, handsome head, which a painter might have painted for an angel or an evil spirit, according as the mood seized him. But now it was the former face, with the mouth quivering with emotion, and something not unlike tears in the brilliant eyes.