"Patience, Margaret! A little patience, my dear sister. All may be well; all must be well for such as you; but I mean that I trust all may be repaired. He has been wrought upon by some bad influence—"

"Then all is over. If, knowing me as he did—. But, Edward, do not speak to me. Go: leave me! I cannot speak another word now—"

"I cannot leave you here. This is no place for you. Think of your sister, Margaret. You will do nothing to alarm her. If she were to see you now—."

Margaret raised herself; took her brother's arm, and went out into the air. No one was near.

"Now leave me, brother. I must be alone. I will walk here, and think what I must do. But how can I know, when all is made such a mystery? Oh, brother, tell me what I ought to do!"

"Calm yourself now. Command yourself; for this day. You, innocent as you are, may well do so. If I had such a conscience as yours—if I were only in your place, Margaret—if I had nothing to bear but wrongs, I would thank Heaven as Heaven was never yet thanked."

"You, Edward!"

"If the universe heaped injuries upon me, they should not crush me. If I had a self-respect like yours, I would lift my head to the stars."

"You, Edward!"

"Margaret, wretched as you are, your misery is nothing to mine. Have pity upon me, and command yourself. For my sake and your sister's, look and act like yourself, and hope peacefully, trust steadily, that all will yet be right."

"It cannot be that you have wronged me, brother. You sent him from me, I know; and that was unkind: but you could never really wrong any one."

"I never meant it. I honour you, and would protect you—I will protect you as a brother should. Only do not say again that you are forsaken. It would break our hearts to hear you say that again."

"I will not. And I will try to be for to-day as if nothing had happened: but I promise no more than to endeavour—I am so bewildered!"

"Then I will leave you. I shall not be far off. No one shall come to disturb you."

There is, perhaps, no mood of mind in which it is impossible for the sweet ministrations of nature to be accepted. Even now, as Margaret stood on the river-bank, the influences of the scene flowed in upon her. The operations of thought were quickened, and she was presently convinced that the next time she saw Philip she should learn all—she might even find him repentant for having been weak and credulous. Edward's self-reproach was the most inexplicable mystery of all. In his brotherly grief he had no doubt exaggerated some slight carelessness of speech, some deficiency of watchfulness and zeal. Hester must never know of these sorrowful things that Edward had said. There was substantial comfort in other of his words. It was true that she was only wronged. In her former season of wretchedness, it had been far worse: there was not only disappointment, but humiliation; loss, not only of hope, but of self-respect. Now, she was innocent of any wrong towards Philip and herself; and, in this consciousness, any lot must be supportable. While thus musing, she walked slowly along, sighing away some of her oppression. Her heart and head throbbed less. Her eye was caught by the little fish that leaped out of the water after the evening flies: she stood to watch them. The splash of a water-rat roused her ear, and she turned to track him across the stream. Then she saw a fine yellow iris, growing among the flags on the very brink, and she must have it for Maria. To reach it without a wetting required some skill and time. She tried this way—she tried that; but the flower was just out of reach. She went to the next alder-bush for a bough, which answered her purpose; and she had drawn the tuft of flags towards her, and laid hold of the iris, when Sydney shouted her name from a distance, and summoned her to tea.

Maria was seated at the table, amidst the greater proportion of the party, when Margaret arrived, escorted by Sydney, and followed at a little distance by Mr Hope. Never had flower been more welcome to Maria than this iris, offered to her with a smile. Pale as the face was, and heavy as were the eyes, there was a genuine smile. Maria had kept a place for Margaret, which she took, though Mrs Grey kept gazing at her, and assured her that she must sit beside her. Mr Enderby was not to be seen. Frequent proclamation was made for him; but he did not appear; and it was settled that if he preferred wood-ranging to good cheer, he must have his own way.

Tea passed off well enough. Dr Levitt and Mr Hope went over the subject of the abbey again, for the benefit of the rearward portion of the company, who had not heard it before. Mr Rowland and the farmer discussed the bad crops. Sophia spilled her tea, from Mr Walcot having made her laugh when she was carrying the cup to her lips; and Sydney collected a portion of every good thing that was on the table for Mr Enderby to enjoy on his return.

Mr Enderby did not return till it was quite time to be gone. Mr Grey had long been hurrying the servants in their business of packing up plates and spoons. He even offered help, and repeated his cautions to his guests not to stray beyond call. The farmer shook his head as he looked up at the leaden-coloured sky, across which black masses of cloud, like condensed smoke, were whirled, and prophesied a stormy night. There was no time to be lost. The boatmen came bustling out of the farm-kitchen, still munching; and they put the boats in trim with all speed, while the ladies stood on the bank quite ready to step in. Mrs Grey assorted the two parties, still claiming Margaret for her own boat, but allowing Maria to enter instead of Sydney. Hope chose to remain with them; so Dr Levitt exchanged with Sophia. Mr Walcot thought there was a lion in his path either way—Mr Hope, his professional rival, in one boat, and Mr Enderby, whom he fancied he had offended, in the other. He adhered to Sophia, as a sure ally.

"Mr Enderby! Where can he be?" was the exclamation, when all were seated, and the boatmen stood ready to start, with the tow-rope about their shoulders; when the dame of the farm had made her parting curtsey, and had stepped a few paces backward, after her swimming obeisance. The farmer was running over the meadow towards the copse in search of the missing gentleman, and Sydney would have sprung out of the boat to join in the chase, when his father laid a strong hand on him, and said that one stray member of a party on a threatening evening was enough. He could not have people running after one another till the storm came on. Mr Rowland was full of concern, and would have had Sydney throw away the basketful of good things he had hoarded for his friend. If Enderby chose to absent himself for his own enjoyments, Mr Rowland said, he could not expect to share other people's. Hope was standing up in the first boat, gazing anxiously round, and Margaret's eyes were fixed on his face, when every body cried out at once, "Here he is! here he comes!" and Enderby was seen leaping through a gap in the farthest hedge, and bounding over the meadow. He sprang into the boat with a force which set it rocking, and made the ladies catch at whatever could be grasped.

"Your hat!" exclaimed several voices.

"Why, Mr Enderby, where is your hat?" cried Sydney, laughing. Enderby clapped his hand on the top of his head, and declared he did not know. He had not missed his hat till this moment.

Hope called from the first boat to the farmer, and asked him to look in the aisle of the abbey for the gentleman's hat. It was brought thence; and Fanny and Mary laughed at Mr Hope for being such a good guesser as to fancy where Mr Enderby's hat might be, when Mr Enderby did not know himself. The moment the hat was tossed into the lap of its owner, Mr Grey's voice was heard shouting to the men—

"Start off, and get us home as soon as you can."

The men gave a glance at the sky, and set forth at a smart pace. Mr Grey saw that the umbrellas lay at his hand, ready for distribution, and advised each lady to draw her cloak about her, as the air felt to him damp and chill.

A general flatness being perceptible, some one proposed that somebody else should sing. All declined at first, however, except Maria, whose voice was always most ready when it was most difficult to sing—when the party was dull, or when no one else would begin. She wanted to prevent Margaret's being applied to, and she sang, once and again, on the slightest hint. Sophia had no music-books, and could not sing without the piano, as every one knew beforehand she would say. Mrs Grey dropped a tear to the memory of Mrs Enderby, whose ballad was never wanting on such occasions as these. Sydney concluded that it was the same thought which made Mr Enderby bury his head in his hat between his knees while Miss Young was singing. It could not surely be all from shame at having kept the party waiting.

It was with some uncertainty and awe that he whispered in his friend's ear—

"Don't you think you could sing your new song that cousin Margaret is so fond of? Do: we are all as flat as flounders, and everybody will be asleep presently if we don't do something. Can't you get over a thing or two, and sing for us?"

"I am sure I would if I only could."

Enderby shook his head without raising it from his knees.

Mr Walcot had no idea of refusing when he was asked. He could sing the Canadian Boat Song; but he was afraid they might have heard it before.

"Never mind that. Let us have it," said everybody.

"But there should be two: it is a duet, properly, you know."

Sophia believed she could sing that—just that—without the piano. She would try the first part, if he would take the second. Mr Grey thought to himself that his daughter seemed to have adopted his hint about civility to his guests very dutifully. But Mr Walcot could sing only the first part, because he had a brother at home who always took the second. He could soon learn it, he had no doubt, but he did not know it at present: so he had the duet all to himself; uplifting a slender voice in a very odd key, which Fanny and Mary did not quite know what to make of. They looked round into all the faces in their boat to see whether anyone was going to laugh: but everybody was immoveable, except that Sophia whispered softly to Miss Young, that Mr Walcot was a most delightful young man, after all—so accomplished and so refined!

Mr Walcot's song ended with a quaver, from a large, cold, startling drop of rain falling on his nose, as he closed his eyes to draw out his last note. He blushed at having started and flinched from a drop of rain, and so spoiled his conclusion. Some of his hearers supposed he had broken-down, till assured by others that he had finished. Then everybody thanked him, and agreed that the rain was really coming on.

There were now odd fleeces of white cloud between the lead colour and the black. They were hurried about in the sky, evidently by counter currents. The river was almost inky in its hue, and every large drop made its own splash and circle. Up went the umbrellas in both boats; but almost before they were raised, some were turned inside out, and all were dragged down again. The gust had come, and brought with it a pelt of hail—large hailstones, which fell in at Fanny's collar behind, while she put down her head to save her face, and which almost took away Mary's breath, by coming sharp and fast against her cheeks. Then somebody descried a gleam of lightning quivering in the grey roof of the sky; and next, every one saw the tremendous flash which blazed over the surface of the water, all round about. How Mr Walcot would have quavered if he had been singing still. But a very different voice was now to be heard—the hoarse thunder rolling up, like advancing artillery; first growling, then roaring, and presently crashing and rattling overhead. The boatmen's thoughts were for the ladies, exposed as they were, without the possibility of putting up umbrellas. It felt almost dark to those in the boats, as they cut rapidly—more and more rapidly—through the water which seethed about the bows. The men were trotting, running. Presently it was darker still: the bent heads were raised, and it appeared that the boats were brought to, under the wide branches of two oaks which overhung the water. The woods were reached already.

"Shelter for the ladies, sir," said the panting boatmen, touching their hats, and then taking them off to wipe their brows. Mr Grey looked doubtful, stood up to survey, and then asked if there was no farm, no sort of house anywhere near. None nearer than you village where the spire was, and that was very little nearer than Deerbrook itself. The ladies who were disposed to say anything, observed that they were very well as they were: the tree kept off a great deal of the hail, and the wind was not felt quite so much as on the open river. Should they sit still, or step on shore? Sit still, by all means. Packed closely as they were, they would be warmer and drier than standing on shore; and they were now ready to start homewards as soon as the storm should abate. It did not appear that there was any abatement of the storm in five minutes, nor in a quarter of an hour. The young people looked up at the elder ones, as if asking what to expect. Several of the party happened to be glancing in the same direction with the boatmen, when they saw a shaft of lightning strike perpendicularly from the upper range of cloud upon the village spire, and light it up.

"Lord bless us!" exclaimed Mr Grey, as the spire sent its smoke up like a little volcano.

Fanny burst out a-crying, but was called a silly child, and desired not to make a noise. Everyone was silent enough now; most hiding their faces, that they might not see what happened next. Half way between the river and the smoking church, in the farther part of the opposite meadow, was a fine spreading oak, under which, as might just be seen, a flock of sheep were huddled together for shelter. Another fiery dart shot down from the dark canopy, upon the crown of this oak. The tree quivered and fell asunder, its fragments lying in a circle. There was a rush forth of such of the sheep as escaped, and a rattle of thunder which would have overpowered any ordinary voices, but in the midst of which a scream was heard from the first boat. It was a singular thing that, in talking over this storm in after-days at home, no lady would own this scream.

"I'm thinking, sir," said Ben, as soon as he could make himself heard, "we are in a bad place here, as the storm seems thickening this way. We had best get from under the trees, for all the hail."

"Do so, Ben; and make haste."

When the first boat was brought a little out into the stream, in order to clear it of the flags, Margaret became aware that Philip was gazing earnestly at her from the other boat. She alone of the ladies had sat with face upraised, watching the advance of the storm. She alone, perhaps, of all the company, had enjoyed it with pure relish. It had animated her mind, and restored her to herself. When she saw Philip leaning back on his elbow, almost over the edge of the boat, to contemplate her, she returned his gaze with such an expression of mournful wonder and composed sorrow, as moved him to draw his hat over his eyes, and resolve to look no more.

The storm abated, but did not cease. Rain succeeded to hail, lightning still hovered in the air, and thunder continued to growl afar off. But the umbrellas could now be kept up, and the ladies escaped with a slight wetting.

Before the party dispersed from the wharf Hope sought Philip, and had a few moments' conversation with him, the object of which was to agree upon further discourse on the morrow. Hope and Margaret then accompanied Maria to her lodging, and walked thence silently home.

Hester was on the watch for them—a little anxious lest they should have suffered from the storm, and ready with some reflections on the liabilities of parties of pleasure; but yet blithe and beaming. Her countenance fell when she saw her sister's pale face.

"Margaret! how you look!" cried she. "Cold, wet, and weary: and ill, too, I am sure."

"Cold, wet, and weary," Margaret admitted. "Let me make haste to bed. And do you make tea for Edward, and send some up to me. Good-night! I cannot talk now. Edward will tell you."

"Tell me what?" Hester asked her husband, when she found that Margaret had really rather have no attendance.

"That Margaret is unhappy, love, from some misunderstanding with Enderby. Some busy devil—I have no doubt the same that has caused so much mischief already—has come between him and Margaret."

He then told the story of Philip's sudden appearance, and his conduct throughout the day, omitting all hint that any conversation with himself had taken place. He hoped, in conclusion, that all would be cleared up, and the mutual faith of the lovers restored.

Hester thought this impossible. If Philip could be prejudiced against Margaret by any man or woman on earth, or any devil in hell, there must be an instability in his character to which Margaret's happiness must not be committed. Hope was not sure of this. There were circumstances of temptation, modes of delusion, under which the faith of a seraph might sink. But worse still, Hester said, was his conduct of to-day, torturing Margaret's affection, wounding her pride, insulting her cruelly, in the presence of all those among whom she lived. Hope was disposed to suspend his judgment even upon this. Enderby was evidently half-frantic. His love was undiminished, it was clear. It was the soul of all the madness of to-day. Margaret had conducted herself nobly. Her innocence, her faith, must triumph at last. They might bring her lover to her side again, Hester had little doubt: but she did not see what could now render Philip worthy of Margaret. This had always been her apprehension. How, after the passions of this day, could they ever again be as they had been? And tears, as gentle and sorrowful as Margaret had ever shed for her, now rained from Hester's eyes.

"Be comforted, my Hester—my generous wife, be comforted. You live for us—you are our best blessing, my love, and we can never bear to see you suffer for her. Be comforted, and wait. Trust that the retribution of this will fall where it ought; and that will never be upon our Margaret. Pray that the retribution may fall where it ought, and that its bitterness may be intense as the joy which Margaret and you deserve."

"I never knew you so revengeful, Edward," said his wife, taking the hand he held before his eyes. "Shall I admonish you for once? Shall I give you a reproof for wishing woe to our enemies? Shall I remind you to forgive—fully, freely, as you hope to be forgiven?"

"Yes, love; anything for the hope of being forgiven."

"Ah! how deep your sorrow for Margaret is! Grief always humbles us in our own eyes. Such humiliation is the test of sorrow. Bless you, love, that you grieve so for Margaret!"



CHAPTER THIRTY SIX.

THE NEXT DAY.

The hours of a sleepless night were not too long for Hope to revolve what he must say and do on the morrow. He must meet Enderby; and the day would probably decide Margaret's fate. That this decision would implicate his own happiness or misery was a subordinate thought. It was not till after he had viewed Margaret's case in every light, in which apprehension could place it, that he dwelt upon what the suffering to himself must be of seeing Margaret, day by day, living on, in meek patience, amidst the destruction of hope and happiness which his attachment had caused. When he did dwell upon it, his heart sank within him. All that had made him unhappy seemed of late to have passed away. For many months he had seen Margaret satisfied in her attachment to another; he had seen Hester coming out nobly from the trial of adversity, in which all her fine qualities had been exercised, and her weaknesses almost subdued. She had been not only the devoted wife, but patient and generous towards her foes, full of faith and cheerfulness in her temper, and capable of any degree of self-denial in the conduct of her daily life. She had been of late all that in the days of their engagement—in the days when he had dealt falsely with his own mind—he had trusted she would be. A friendship, whose tenderness was life enough for them both, had grown up in his soul, and he had been at peace. It had been a subject of incessant thankfulness to him, that the evil of what he could now hardly consider as a false step had been confined to himself—that his struggles, his strivings, the dreadful solitary conflicts of a few months, had not been in vain; that he had fulfilled the claims of both relations, and marred no one's peace. Now, he was plunged into the struggle again. The cause was at an end; but consequences, of perhaps endless wretchedness, remained to be borne. His secret was known, and made the basis of untruths to which the whole happiness of his household, so victoriously struggled for, so carefully cherished by him, and so lately secured, must be sacrificed. Again and again he turned from the fearful visions of Margaret cast off, of the estrangement of the sisters, of the possible loss of some of their fair fame—from these harrowing thoughts he turned again and again to consider what must be done.—The most certain thing was, that he must not by word, look, pause, or admission, countenance to Enderby himself the supposition that he had not preferred Hester at the time she became his wife. In the present state of their attachment, this was the merest justice to her. Nothing that it was in Mrs Grey's power to reveal bore a relation to any time later than his early, and, it might be assumed, superficial, intercourse with the sisters and, as far as he knew, no one else, unless it were Frank (by this time in possession of the facts), had ever conceived of the true state of the case. He must decline all question about his domestic relations, except as far as Margaret was concerned. Beyond this, he would allow of no inquisition, and would forbid all speculation. For Margaret's sake, no less than Hester's, this was necessary. If she should ever be Enderby's wife, it was of the utmost importance that Enderby should not, in his most secret soul, hold this information, however strongly he might be convinced that Margaret was in ignorance of it, and had never loved any but himself. There must be no admission to Enderby of that which had been truth, but which would become untruth by being first admitted now. There must be entire silence upon the whole subject of himself.—As to Margaret, he did not see what could be done, but to declare his true and perfect belief that she had never loved any but Enderby. But alas! what chance was there of this testimony being received; the very point of Enderby's accusation being, that they both looked, perhaps in self-delusion, at the connection with him as their security from the consequences of Hope's weakness in marrying Hester? It was all confused—all wretched—all nearly hopeless. Margaret would be sacrificed without knowing why— would have her heart wrung with the sense of injury in addition to her woe.

From reflections and anticipations, Hope rose early to the great duty of the day. He told Hester that he was going to meet Enderby in the meadows, to receive a full explanation of his conduct of the preceding day; and that it was probable that he should bring home whatever tidings it might be Margaret's lot to hear.

He found, during the long and anxious conversation in the meadow, that he had need of all the courage, calmness, and discretion he could command. It was a cruel trial to one whose wont it had been from his childhood to converse in "simplicity and godly sincerity,"—it was a cruel trial to hear evidence, upon evidence brought of what he knew to have been fact, and to find connected with this, revolting falsehoods, against which he could only utter the indignation of his soul. When he afterwards reflected how artfully the facts and falsehoods were connected, he could no longer wonder at Enderby's convictions, nor at the conduct which proceeded from them. There was in Enderby this morning no undue anger, no contempt which could excite anger in another;—no doubt cast by him upon Hope's honour, or Margaret's purity of mind, as the world esteems purity. However this might have been before their meeting of yesterday, it was now clear that, though immoveably convinced of their mutual attachment, he supposed it to have been entertained as innocently as it was formed;—that Hope had been wrought upon by Mrs Grey, and by a consciousness of Hester's love; that he had married from a false sense of honour, and then discovered his mistake;—that he had striven naturally, and with success, to persuade himself that Margaret loved his friend, while Margaret had made the same effort, and would have married that friend for security and with the hope of rest in a home of her own, with one whom she might possibly love and to whom she was bound by his love of herself.

As for the evidence on which his belief was founded, there seemed to be no end to it. Hope could do little but listen to the detail. If he had been sitting in judgment on the conduct of an imputed criminal, he would have wrestled with the evidence obstinately and long; but what could he do, when it was the lover of his sister-in-law who was declaring why his confidence in her was gone, and he must resume his plighted faith? None but those who had done the mischief could repair it; and least of all, Hope himself. He could only make one single, solemn protestation of his belief that Margaret had loved none but Enderby, and deny the truth of every statement that was inconsistent with this.

The exhibition of the evidence showed how penetrating, how sagacious, as well as how industrious, malice can be. There seemed to be no circumstance connected with the sisters and their relation to Mr Hope, that Mrs Rowland had not laid hold of. Mrs Grey's visit to Hope during his convalescence; his subsequent seclusion, and his depression when he reappeared—all these were noted; and it was these which sent Enderby to Mrs Grey for an explanation, which she had not had courage or judgment to withhold—which, indeed, she had been hurried into giving. She had admitted all that had passed between herself and Mr Hope—his consternation at finding that it was Hester who loved him, and whom he must marry, and the force with which Mrs Grey had felt herself obliged to urge that duty upon him. Enderby connected with this his own observations and feelings at the time; his last summer's conviction that it was Margaret whom Hope loved; his rapturous surprise on hearing of the engagement being to Hester; and his wonder at the coldness with which his friend received his congratulations. He now thought that he must have been doomed to blindness not to have discerned the truth through all this.—Then there was his own intrusion during the interview which Hope had with Margaret;—their countenances had haunted him ever since. Hope's was full of constraint and anxiety;—he was telling his intentions:—Margaret's face was downcast, and her attitude motionless; she was hearing her doom.—Then, after Hope was married, all Deerbrook was aware of his failure of spirits; and of Margaret's no less. It was a matter of common remark, that there must be something amiss—that all was not right at home. They had, then, doubtless discovered that the attachment was mutual; and they might well be wretched.—Those who ought to know best had been convinced of this at an earlier stage of the intercourse. Mrs Rowland had met at Cheltenham a young officer, an intimate friend of Mr Hope's family, who would not be persuaded that it was not to the younger sister that Mr Hope was married. He declared that he knew, from the highest authority, that Hope was attached to Margaret, and that the attachment was returned. It was not till Mrs Rowland had shown him the announcement of the marriage in an old Blickley newspaper, which she happened to have used in packing her trunk, that he would believe that it was the elder sister who was Hope's wife.—There was one person, however, who had known the whole, Enderby said; perhaps she was the only person who had been aware of it all: and that was his mother.

In answer to Hope's exclamations upon the absurdity of this, Enderby said, that a thousand circumstances rose up to confirm Mrs Rowland's statement that her mother had known all, and had learned it from Margaret herself. Margaret had confided in her old friend as in a mother; and nothing could be more natural—nothing probably more necessary to an overburdened heart. This explained his mother's never having shown his letters to Margaret—the person for whom, as she knew, they were chiefly written. This explained the words of concern about the domestic troubles of the Hopes, which, now and then during her long confinement, she had dropped in Phoebe's hearing, and even in her letters to her son. She had repeatedly regretted that Margaret would not leave her sister's house, and return to Birmingham—saying that income and convenience were not to be thought of for a moment, in comparison with some other considerations. In fact she had—it was weakness, perhaps, but one not to be too hardly judged under the circumstances—she had revealed the whole to her daughter under injunctions to secrecy, which had been strictly observed while she lived, and broken now only for a brother's sake, and after a long conflict between obligations apparently contradictory. When, from her deathbed, she had welcomed Margaret as a daughter-in-law, it was in the gratitude which it was natural for a mother to feel, on finding the attachment of an only son at length appreciated and rewarded. When she had implored Mrs Rowland to receive Margaret as a sister, and had seen them embrace, her generous spirit had rejoiced in her young friend's conquest of an unhappy passion; and she had meant to convey to Priscilla an admonition to bury in oblivion what had become known to her, and to forgive Margaret for having loved any one but Philip. Priscilla could not make a difficulty at such a time, and in such a presence; she had submitted to the embrace, but her soul had recoiled from it; she had actually fainted under the shock: and ever since, she had declared to her brother, with a pertinacity which he had been unable to understand— which, indeed, had looked like sheer audacity, that he would never marry Margaret Ibbotson. Philip was now convinced that he had done his sister much wrong. Her temper and conduct were in some instances indefensible; but since he had learned all this, and become aware how much of what he had censured had been said and done out of affection for himself, he had been disposed rather to blame her for the lateness of her explanations, than for any excess of zeal on his account,—zeal which he admitted had carried her a point or two beyond the truth in some of her aims. These statements about the condition of Margaret's mind were borne out by circumstances known to others. When Margaret had been rescued from drowning, Hope was heard to breathe, as he bent over her, "Oh God! my Margaret!" and it was observed that she rallied instantly on hearing the exclamation, and repaid him with a look worthy of his words. This had been admitted to Enderby himself by the one who heard it, and who might be trusted to speak of it to no one else. Then, it was known that when Margaret was in the habit of taking long walks alone, towards the end of the winter, she was met occasionally by her brother-in-law in his rides—naturally enough. Their conversation had been overheard, once at least, when they consulted about the peace of their home—how much of a certain set of circumstances they should communicate to Mrs Hope, and whether or not Mr Enderby was engaged to a lady abroad. Without these testimonies, Enderby felt that he had only to recur to his own experience to be convinced that Margaret had never loved him, though striving to persuade herself, as well as him, that she did. The calmness with which she had received his avowals that first evening last winter, struck him with admiration at the time: he now understood it better. He wondered he had felt so little till now the coldness of the tone of her correspondence. The first thing which awakened him to an admission of it, was her refusal to marry him in the spring. She shrank, as she avowed, from leaving her present residence—she might have said, from quitting those she loved best.

It was clear that in marrying she was to make a sacrifice to duty—to secure innocence and safety for herself and those who were dearest to her; and that, when the time drew near, she recoiled from the effort. Enderby was thankful that all had become clear in time for her release and his own.

The horror with which Hope listened to this was beyond what he had prepared himself for—beyond all that he had yet endured. Enderby seemed quite willing to hear him; but what could be said? Only that which he had planned. His protest against the truth of certain of the statements, and the justice of some of the constructions of facts, was strong. He declared that, in his perfect satisfaction with his domestic state, his happiness with his beloved and honoured wife, he would admit of no question about his family affairs, as far as he and Hester were concerned. He denied at once and for ever, all that went to show that Margaret had for a moment regarded him otherwise than as a friend and a brother; and declared that the bare mention to her of the idea which was uppermost in Enderby's mind would be a cruelty and insult which could never be retrieved. He was not going to plead for her. Bitterly as she must suffer, it was from a cause which lay too deep for cure—from a want of faith in her in one who ought to know her best, but from whom she would be henceforth best separated, if what he had been saying was his deliberate belief and judgment.—Enderby declaring that it was so, and that it was his intention to release Margaret from her engagement, gently and carefully, without useless explanation and without reproach, there was nothing more to be said or done. Hope prophesied, in parting, that, of all the days of Enderby's life, this was perhaps that of which he would one day most heartily repent; and while he spoke, he felt that this same day was the one which he might himself find the most difficult to endure. He left Enderby still pacing the meadow, and walked homewards with a heart weighed down with grief—a grief which yet he would fain have increased to any degree of intensity by taking Margaret's upon himself.

Margaret was at the breakfast-table with her sister when he entered. Her eyes were swollen, but her manner was gentle and composed. She looked up at Edward, when he appeared, with an expression of timid expectation in her face, which went to his soul. A few words passed—a very few, and then no more was said.

"Yes; I have seen him. He is very wretched. He will not come, but we shall hear something, I have no doubt. A strange persuasion which I cannot remove, of a prior attachment—of a want of frankness and confidence. He will explain himself presently. But his persuasion is irremoveable."

Hester had much to say of him out of her throbbing heart; but she looked at Margaret, and restrained herself. What must there be in that heart? To utter one word would be irreverent. The breakfast passed in an almost unbroken silence.

It had not been long over when the expected letter came. Hope never saw it; but there was no need: he perfectly anticipated its contents, while to her for whom they were written they were incomprehensible.

"I spare you and myself the misery of an interview. It must be agonising to you, and there would be dishonour as well as pain to me, in witnessing that agony. If, as I fully believe, you have been hitherto blind to the injustice of your connecting yourself with me, from a sense of duty and expediency, when you had not a first genuine love to give, I think you will see it now; and I pity your suffering in the discovery. There is only one point on which I wish or intend to hang any reproach. Why did you not, when I had become entitled to your confidence, lay your heart fully open to me? Did I not do so by you? Did I not reveal to you even the transient fancy which I entertained long ago, and which I showed my faith in you, her friend, by revealing? If you had only done the same—if you had only let me know, without a hint as to the object, that you had been attached, and that you believed I might succeed to your affections in time—if you had done this, I do not say that we should then have been what I so lately trusted we were to be, for my soul is jealous—has been made so by what I thought you—and will bear none but a first, and an entire, and an exclusive love: but in that case I should have cherished you in my inmost heart, as all that I have believed you to be, though not destined for me.

"But I do not blame you. You have done what you meant to be right; though, from too great regard to one set of considerations, you have mistaken the right, and have sacrificed me. I make allowance for your difficulty, and, for my own part, pardon you, and testify most sincerely and earnestly to the purity of your mind and intentions. Do not reject this parting testimony. I offer it because I would not have you think me harsh, or suppose that passion has made me unjust. I love you too deeply to do more than mourn. I have no heart to blame, except for your want of confidence. Of that I have a right to complain: but, for the rest, spare yourself the effort of self-justification. It is not needed. I do not accuse you. You were right in saying yesterday that I love you still. I shall ever love you, be our separate lives what they may. God bless you!

"PE."

"Will you not wait, my dearest Margaret?" said Hester, when, within half an hour of the arrival of Enderby's letter, she met her sister on the stairs, with the reply in her hand, sealed, and ready to be sent. "Why such haste? The events of your life may hang on this day, on this one letter. Can it be right to be so rapid in what you think and do?"

"The event of my life is decided," she replied, "unless—No—the event of my life is decided. I have nothing more to wait for. I have written what I think, and it must go."

It was as follows:—

"I have nothing to say in reply to your letter, for I cannot understand it. Yet I wonder less at your letter than at your having written it instead of coming to me, to say all that is in your mind. At some moments I still think that you will—I feel that you are on your way hither, and I fancy that this dreadful dream of your displeasure will pass away. It is the first time in my life that any one has been seriously and lastingly displeased with me; and, though I feel that I have not deserved it, I am very wretched that you, of all others, should blame me, and cease to trust me. There ought to be some comfort in the thought that your anger is without cause: but I cannot find such comfort; for I feel that though I could endure your loss by long absence or death, I cannot live in the spirit in which I should wish to live, without your esteem.

"It is useless, alas! to entreat of you to come and explain yourself, or in some other way to put me in possession of the cause of your anger. If you could resist the claims I had upon you for confidence before I knew what was going to befall me—if you could resist the demand I made yesterday, I fear there is little use in imploring you to do me justice. If I thought there was any chance, I would submit to entreat, though I would not have you, any more than myself, forget that I have a right to demand. But indeed I would yield everything that I dare forego, to have you awakened from this strange delusion which makes us both wretched. It is no time for pride now. I care not how fully you know what I feel. I only wish that you could see into my soul as into your own; for then you would not misjudge me as you do. I care not what any one may think of my throwing myself upon the love which I am certain you feel for me, if I can only persuade you to tell me what you mean, and to hear what I shall then have to say. What can I now say? I will not reproach you, for I know you must be even, if possible, more miserable than I: but yet, how can I help feeling that you have been unjust and harsh with me? Yes; though the tone of your letter seems to be gentle, and you clearly mean it to be so, I feel that you have been very harsh to me. Nothing that you can do shall ever make me so cruel to you. You may rest satisfied that, if we should not meet again, I will never be unjust to you. To every one about me it will appear that you are fickle and dishonourable—that you have acted towards me as it is in the nature of some men to act towards the women whose affections they possess; in the nature of some men, but not in yours. I know you to be incapable of anything worse than error and mistrust (and, till yesterday, I could not have believed you capable of this much wrong): and you may trust me to impute to you nothing worse than this. Suffering as I now am, as we both are, under this error and mistrust, may I not implore you, for your own sake (for mine it is too late), to nourish the weak part of yourself, to question your own unworthy doubts, and to study the best parts of the minds you meet, till you grow assured (as a religious man ought to be) that there can be no self-interest, and much less falsehood, mixed up with any real affection—with any such affection as has existed between us two?

"I must not write more; for I do not know, I cannot conjecture, how you may receive what I have written, thinking of me as you now do. It seems strange to remember that at this time yesterday, in this very chair, I was writing to you. Oh how differently! Is it possible that it was only yesterday—such a world of misery as we have lived through since? But I can write no more. It may be that you will despise me in every line as you read: after what has happened, I cannot tell. Notwithstanding all I have said about trusting, I feel at this moment as if I could never depend on anything in this world again. If you should come within this hour and explain all, how could I be sure that the same thing might not happen again? But do not let this weigh a moment with you, if indeed you think of coming. If I do not see you to-day, I shall never see you. I will then bear in mind, as you desire, and as I cannot help, that you love me still; but how little comfort is there in such love, when trust is gone! God comfort us both!

"Margaret Ibbotson."

Mrs Rowland was crossing the hall at the moment that her maid Betsy opened the door to Mr Hope's errand-boy, and took in this letter.

"Where are you carrying that letter?" said she, as Betsy passed her.

"To the study, ma'am, against Mr Enderby comes in. It is for Mr Enderby, ma'am."

"Very well."

The letter was placed on the study mantelpiece; the place of deposit for letters for absent members of the family. Mrs Rowland meantime resumed her seat in the drawing-room, where the nursemaid was amusing the baby. Mamma took the baby, and sent the maid away. She had a strong belief that her brother might be found somewhere in the shrubbery, though some feeling had prevented her telling the servant so when the letter was taken in. She went, with the baby in her arms, into the study, to see whether Philip was visible in any part of the garden that could be seen thence. But she stopped short of the window. The handwriting on the address of the letter troubled her sight. More than half-persuaded, as she was, of the truth of much that she had told her brother, strenuously as she had nourished the few facts she was in possession of, till she had made them yield a double crop of inferences, she was yet conscious of large exaggerations of what she knew, and of huge additions to what she believed to be probabilities, and had delivered as facts. There was in that handwriting a prophecy of detection: and, like other cowards, she began to tamper with her reason and conscience.

"There is great mischief in letters at such times," she thought. "They are so difficult to answer! and it is so possible to produce any effect that may be wished by them! As my husband was reading the other day—'It is so easy to be virtuous, to be perfect, upon paper!' Nothing that the girl can say ought to alter the state of the case: it can only harass Philip's feelings, and perhaps cause all the work to be gone over again. His letter was meant to be final, I am confident, from his intending to go away this evening. There should have been no answer. This letter is a pure impertinence, and ought to be treated as such. It is a sort of duty to use it as it deserves. Many parents (at least I know old Mr Boyle did) burn letters which they know to contain offers to daughters whom they do not wish to part with. Mr Boyle had no scruple; and I am sure this is a stronger case. Better end the whole affair at once; and then Philip will be free to form a better connection. He will thank me one day for having broken off this."

She carried the letter into the drawing-room, slowly contemplating it as she went. She thought, for one fleeting instant, of reading it. She was not withheld by honour, but by fear. She shrank from encountering its contents. She glanced over the mantelpiece, and saw that the lucifer-matches were at hand. To make the letter burn quickly, it was necessary to unfold it. She put the child down upon the rug—a favourite play-place, for the sake of the gay pink and green shavings which, at this time of the year, curtained the grate. While baby crawled, and gazed quietly and contentedly there, Mrs Rowland broke the seal of Margaret's letter, turning her eyes from the writing, laid the blistered sheet in the hearth, and set fire to it. The child set up a loud crow of delight at the flame. At that moment, even this simple and familiar sound startled its mother out of all power of self-control. She snatched up the child with a vehemence which frightened it into a shrill cry. She feared the nursemaid would come before all the sparks were out; and she tried to quiet the baby by dancing it before the mirror over the mantelpiece. She met her own face there, white as ashes; and the child saw nothing that could amuse it, while its eyes were blinded with tears. She opened the window to let it hearken to the church clock; and the device was effectual. Baby composed its face to serious listening, before the long succession of strokes was finished, and allowed the tears to be wiped from its cheeks.

One thing more remained to be done. Mrs Rowland heard a step in the hall, and looked out: it was Betsy's.

"I thought it was you. Pray desire cook to send up a cup of broth for Miss Rowland's lunch; and be sure and let Miss Rowland know, the moment it is ready. Mr Enderby is in the shrubbery, I think."

"Yes, ma'am; seeing he was there, I was coming to ask about the letter, ma'am, to carry it to him."

"Oh, that letter—I sent it to him. He has got it. Tell cook directly about the broth."

At lunch-time, one of the children was desired to summon Uncle Philip. Mrs Rowland took care to meet him at the garden door. She saw him cast a wistful eye towards the study mantelpiece, as he passed the open door. His sister observed that she believed it was past post time for this half-week. He sighed deeply; and she felt that no sigh of his had ever so gone to her heart before.

"Why, mamma! do look!" cried George, as well as a mouthful of bread would allow. "Look at the chimney! Where are all the shavings gone? There is the knot at the top that they were tied together with, but not a bit of shaving left. Have they blown up the chimney?"

"What will poor baby say?" exclaimed Matilda. "All the pretty pink and green gone!"

"There is some tinder blowing about," observed George. "I do believe they have been burnt."

"Shut the window, George, will you? There is no bearing this draught. There is no bearing Betsy's waste either. She has burned those shavings somehow in cleaning the grate. Her carelessness is past endurance."

"Make her buy some new shavings, mamma, for baby's sake."

"Do be quiet, and get your lunch. Hand your uncle the dish of currants."

Philip languidly picked a few bunches. He had noticed nothing that had passed, as his sister was glad to observe. Besides being too much accustomed, to hear complaints of the servants to give any heed to them, he was now engrossed with his own wretched thoughts. Every five minutes that passed without bringing a reply from Margaret, went to confirm his most painful impressions.

Margaret meantime was sitting alone in her chamber, enduring the long morning as she best might. Now plying her needle as if life depended on her industry, and now throwing up her employment in disgust, she listened for the one sound she needed to hear, till her soul was sick of every other. "I must live wholly within myself now," she thought, "as far as he is concerned. I can never speak of him, or allow Hester and Maria to speak of him to me; for they will blame him. Every one will blame him: Maria did yesterday. No one will do him justice. I cannot ask Mrs Grey, as I intended, anything of what she may have seen and heard about all this. I have had my joy to myself: I have carried about my solitary glory and bliss in his being mine; and now I must live alone upon my grief for him; for no one person in the world will pity and justify him but myself. He has done me no wrong that he could help. His staying away to-day is to save me pain, as he thinks. I wish I had not said in my letter that he has been harsh to me. Perhaps he would have been here by this time if I had not said that. How afraid he was, that day in the spring when he urged me so to marry at once—(Oh! if I had, all this would have been saved! and yet I thought, and I still think, I was right.) But how afraid he was of our parting, lest evil should come between us! I promised him it should not, for my own part: but who could have thought that the mistrust would be on his side? He had a superstitious feeling, he said, that something would happen—that we should be parted: and I would not hear of it. How presumptuous I was! How did I dare to make so light of what has come so dreadfully true?—Oh! why are we so made that we cannot see into one another's hearts? If we are made to depend on one another so absolutely as we are, so that we hold one another's peace to cherish or to crush, why is it such a blind dependence? Why are we left so helpless? Why, with so many powers as are given us, have we not that one other, worth all the rest, of mutual insight? If God would bestow this power for this one day, I would give up all else for it for ever after. Philip would trust me again then, and I should understand him; and I could rest afterwards, happen what might—though then nothing would happen but what was good. But now, shut in, each into ourselves, with anger and sorrow all about us, from some mistake which a moment's insight might remove—it is the dreariest, the most tormenting state! What are all the locks, and bars, and fetters in the world to it? So near each other too! When one look, one tone, might perhaps lead to the clearing up of it all! There is no occasion to bear this, however. So near as we are, nothing should prevent our meeting—nothing shall prevent it."

She started up, and hastily put on her bonnet and gloves: but when her hand was on the lock of her door, her heart misgave her. "If it should fail!" she thought. "If he should neither look at me nor speak to me— if he should leave me as he did yesterday! I should never get over the shame. I dare not store up such a wretched remembrance, to make me miserable as often as I think of it, for as long as I live. If he will not come after reading my letter, neither would he hear me if I went to him. Oh! he is very unjust! After all his feats of my being influenced against him, he might have distrusted himself. After making me promise to write, on the first doubt that any one might try to put into my mind, he might have remembered to do the same by me, instead of coming down in this way, not to explain, but to overwhelm me with his displeasure, without giving me a moment's time to justify myself. Edward seems strangely unkind too," she sighed, as she slowly untied her bonnet and put it away, as if to avoid tempting herself with the sight of it again. "I never knew Edward unjust or unkind before; but I heard him ask Philip why he staid to hear me in the abbey yesterday; and though he has been with Philip this morning, he does not seem to have made the slightest attempt to bring us together. When such as Edward and Philip do so wrong, one does not know where to trust, or what to hope. There is nothing to trust, but God and the right. I will live for these, and no one shall henceforth hear me complain, or see me droop, or know anything of what lies deepest in my heart. This must be possible; it has been done. Many nuns in their convents have carried it through: and missionaries in heathen countries, and all the wisest who have been before their age; and some say—Maria would say—almost every person who has loved as I have: but I do not believe this: I do not believe that many—that any can have felt as I do now. It is not natural and right that any should live as I mean to do. We are made for confidence, not for such solitude and concealment. But it may be done when circumstances press as they do upon me; and, if God gives me strength, I will do it. I will live for Him and his; and my heart, let it suffer as it may, shall never complain to human ear. It shall be as silent as the grave."

The resolution held for some hours. Margaret was quiet and composed through dinner, though her expectation, instead of dying out, grew more intense with every hour. After dinner, Hope urged his wife to walk with him. It had been a fine day, and she had not been out. There was still another hour before dark. Would not Margaret go too? No; Margaret could not leave home.

When Hester came down, equipped for her walk, she sat beside her sister on the sofa for a minute or two, while waiting for Edward.

"Margaret," said she, "will you let me say one word to you?"

"Anything, Hester, if you will not be hard upon any one whom you cannot fully understand."

"I would not for the world be hard, love. But there was once a time, above a year ago, when you warned me, kindly warned me, though I did not receive it kindly, against pride as a support. You said it could not support me; and you said truly. May I say the same to you now?"

"Thank you. It is kind of you. I will consider; but I do not think that I have any pride in me to-day. I feel humbled enough."

"It is not for you to feel humbled, love. Reverence yourself; for you may. Nothing has happened to impair your self-respect. Admit freely to your own mind, and to us, that you have been cruelly injured, and that you suffer as you must and ought. Admit this freely, and then rely on yourself and us."

Margaret shook her head. She did not say it, but she felt that she could not rely on Edward, while he seemed to stand between her and Philip. He came in at the moment, and she averted her eyes from him. He felt her displeasure in his heart's core.

When they returned, sooner than she had expected, from their walk, they had bad news for her, which they had agreed it was most merciful not to delay. They had seen Enderby in Mr Rowland's gig on the Blickley road. He had his carpet-bag with him; and Mr Rowland's man was undoubtedly driving him to Blickley, to meet the night coach for London.

"It is better to save you all further useless expectation," observed Edward. "We keep nothing from you."

"You keep nothing from me!" said Margaret, now fixing her eyes upon him. "Then what is your reason for not having brought us together, if indeed you have not kept us apart? Do you suppose I did not hear you send him from me yesterday? And how do I know that you have not kept him away to-day?"

"My dear Margaret!" exclaimed Hester: but a look from her husband, and the recollection of Margaret's misery, silenced her. For the first time Hester forgave on the instant the act of blaming her husband.

"Whatever I have done, whether it appears clear to you or not," replied Hope, "it is from the most tender respect for your feelings. I shall always respect them most tenderly; and not the less for their being hurt with me."

"I have no doubt of your meaning all that is kind, Edward: but surely when two people misunderstand each other, it is best that they should meet. If you have acted from a regard to what you consider my dignity, I could wish that you had left the charge of it to myself."

"You are right: quite right."

"Then why—. Oh! Edward, if you repent what you have done, it may not yet be too late!"

"I do not repent. I have done you no wrong to-day, Margaret. I grieve for you, but I could not have helped you."

"Let us never speak on this subject again," said Margaret, stung by the consciousness of having so soon broken the resolution of the morning, that her suffering heart should be as silent as the grave. "It is not from pride, Hester, that I say so; but let us never again speak of all this."

"Let us know but one thing, Margaret," said Edward;—"that yours is the generous silence of forgiveness. I do not mean with regard to him—for I fear you will forgive him sooner than we can do. I do not mean him particularly, nor those who have poisoned his ear; but all. Only tell us that your silence is the oblivion of mercy, so mourning for the erring that, for its own sake, it remembers their transgressions no more."

Margaret looked up at them both. Though her eyes swam in tears, there was a smile upon her lips as she held out her hand to her brother, and yielded herself to Hester's kiss.



CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN.

THE CONQUEROR.

Mrs Rowland did not find herself much the happier for being borne out by the whole world in her assertions, that Philip and Margaret were not engaged. She knew that, with regard to this, she now stood justified in the eyes of all Deerbrook, that almost everyone there now believed that it had been an entanglement from which she had released her brother. From selfish fear, from dread of the consequences of going so far as to be again sent by her husband to Cheltenham, or by the Levitts to Coventry; from foresight of the results which would ensue from her provoking an inquiry into the domestic concerns of the Hopes—an inquiry which might end in the reconciliation of Philip and Margaret, and in some unpleasant discoveries about herself—she was very guarded respecting the grand accusation by which she had wrought on her brother. No hint of it got abroad in Deerbrook: nothing was added to the ancient gossip about the Hopes not being very happy together. Mrs Rowland knew that affairs stood in this satisfactory state. She knew that Margaret was exposed to as much observation and inquiry as a country village affords, respecting her disappointed attachment—that the Greys were very angry, and praised Margaret to every person they met—that Mr Walcot eulogised Mrs Rowland's discernment to all Mrs Rowland's party—that Mrs Howell and Miss Miskin lifted up their eyes in thankfulness at Mr Enderby's escape from such a connection—that Mr Hope was reported to be rather flat in spirits—and that Margaret was certainly looking thin: she knew of all this success, and yet she was not happier than six months ago. The drawback on such successes is, that they are never complete. There is always some Mordecai sitting at the gate to mar the enjoyment. Mrs Rowland was aware of Mrs James having dropped that she and her husband had nothing to do with anybody's family quarrels; that there was always a great deal to be said on both sides in such cases; and that they had never seen anything but what was amiable and pleasant in Miss Ibbotson and her connections. She knew that Dr Levitt called on the Hopes full as often as at any house in Deerbrook; and that Mrs Levitt had offered to take some of Margaret's plants into her greenhouse, to be nursed through the winter. She was always hearing that Miss Young and Margaret were much together, and that they were happy in each other's society; and she alternately fancied them talking about her, exposing to each other the injuries she had wrought to both, and enjoying an oblivion of their cares in her despite. She could never see Maria taking an airing in the Greys' shrubbery, leaning on Margaret's arm, or Margaret turning in at the farrier's gate, without feeling her colour rise. She knew that Mr Jones was apt to accommodate Miss Ibbotson with a choice of meat, in preference to his other customers; and that Mrs Jones had spoken indignantly to a neighbour about fine gentlemen from London that think little of breaking one young heart after another, to please their own vanity, and never come back to look upon the eyes that they have made dim, and the cheeks that grow pale for them.

All these things Mrs Rowland knew; and they ate into her heart. In these days of her triumph she moved about in fear; and no hour passed without troubling her victory. She felt that she could not rest till the corner-house family was got rid of. They did not seem disposed to move of their own accord. She incessantly expressed her scorn of the want of spirit of a professional man who would live on in a place where he had lost his practice, and where a rival was daily rising upon his ruins: but the Hopes staid on still. Week after week they were to be met in the lanes and meadows—now gleaning in the wake of the harvest-wain, with Fanny and Mary, for the benefit of widow Rye; now blackberry gathering in the fields; now nutting in the hedgerows. The quarterly term came round, and no notice that he might look out for another tenant reached Mr Rowland. If they would not go of their own accord, they must be dislodged; for she felt, though she did not fully admit the truth to herself; that she could not much longer endure their presence. She looked out for an opportunity of opening the subject advantageously with Mr Rowland.

The wine and walnuts were on the table, and the gentleman and lady were amusing themselves with letting Anna and Ned try to crack walnuts (the three elder children being by this time at school at Blickley), when Mrs Rowland began her attack.

"My dear," said she, "is the corner-house in perfectly good repair at present?"

"I believe so. It was thoroughly set to rights when Mr Hope went into it, and again after the riot; and I have heard no complaint since."

"Ah! after the riot; that is what I wanted to know. The surgery is well fitted up, is it?"

"No doubt. The magistrates took care that everything should be done handsomely. Mr Hope was fully satisfied."

"He was: then there seems no doubt that Mr Walcot had better remove to the corner-house when the Hopes go away. It is made to be a surgeon's residence: and I own I do not like to see those blinds of Mr Walcot's, with that staring word 'Surgery,' upon them, in the windows of my poor mother's breakfast-room."

"Nor I: but the Hopes are not going to remove."

"I believe they will be leaving Deerbrook before long."

"I believe not."

"My dear Mr Rowland, I have reason for what I say."

"So have I. Take care of that little thumb of yours, my darling, or you will be cracking it instead of the walnut."

"What is your reason for thinking that the Hopes will not leave Deerbrook, Mr Rowland?"

"Mr Hope told me so himself."

"Ah! that is nothing. You will be about the last person he will inform of his plans. Mr Walcot's nearest friends will be the last to know, of course."

"Pray, do not make me out one of Mr Walcot's nearest friends, my dear. I have a very slight acquaintance with the young gentleman, and do not intend to have more."

"You say so now to annoy me, my love: but you may change your mind. If you should see Mr Walcot your son-in-law at some future day, you will not go on to call him a slight acquaintance, I suppose?"

"My son-in-law! Have you been asking him to marry Matilda?"

"I wait, Mr Rowland, till he asks it himself; which I foresee he will do as soon as our dear girl is old enough to warrant his introducing the subject. Her accomplishments are not lost upon him. He has the prophetic eye which sees what a wonderful creature she must become. And if we are permitted to witness such an attachment as theirs will be, and our dear girl settled beside us here, we shall have nothing left to wish."

"To speak of something more nearly at hand, I beg, my dear, that you will hold out no expectation of the corner-house to Mr Walcot, as it is not likely to be vacated."

"Has the rent been regularly paid, so far?"

"To be sure it has."

"By Mr Grey's help, I have no doubt. My dear, I know what I am saying. The Hopes are as poor as the rats in your granary; and it is not to be supposed that Mr Grey will long go on paying their rent for them, just for the frolic of sustaining Mr Hope against Mr Walcot. It is paying too dear for the fancy. The Hopes are wretchedly pinched for money. They have dropped their subscription to the book club."

"I am very sorry to hear it. I would give half I am worth that it were otherwise."

"Give it them at once, then, and it will be otherwise."

"I would, gladly; but they will not take it."

"I advise you to try, however; it would make such a pretty romantic story!—Well, Mr Grey is extremely mortified at their withdrawing from the book club. He remonstrated very strongly indeed."

"That does not agree very well with his paying their rent for them."

"Perfectly well. He thinks that if he undertakes the large thing, for the sake of their credit, they might have managed the small. This is his way of viewing the matter, no doubt. He sees how their credit will suffer by their giving up the book club. He sees how everybody will remark upon it."

"So do they, I have no doubt."

"And the matter will not be mended by Sophia Grey's nonsense. What absurd things that girl does! I wonder her mother allows it,—only that, to be sure, she is not much wiser herself. Sophia has told some of her acquaintance, and all Deerbrook will hear it before long, that her cousins have withdrawn from the book club on account of Hester's situation; that they are to be so busy with the baby that is coming, that they will have no time to read."

"As long as the Hopes are above false pretences, they need not care for such as are made for them. There! show mamma what a nice plump walnut you have cracked for her."

"Nicely done, my pet. But, Mr Rowland, the Hopes cannot hold out. They cannot possibly stay here. You will not get their rent at Christmas, depend upon it."

"I shall not press them for it, I assure you."

"Then you will be unjust to your family. You owe it to your children, to say nothing of myself, to look after your property."

"I owe it to them not to show myself a harsh landlord to excellent tenants. But we need not trouble ourselves about what will happen at Christmas. It may be that the rent will make its appearance on the morning of quarter-day."

"Then, if not, you will give them notice that the house is let from the next quarter, will you not?"

"By no means, my dear."

"If you do not like to undertake the office yourself, perhaps you will let me do it. I have a good deal of courage about doing disagreeable things, on occasion."

"You have, my dear; but I do not wish that this should be done. I mean, I desire that it be not done. The Hopes shall live in that house of mine as long as they please. And if," continued Mr Rowland, not liking the expression of his lady's eye,—"if any one disturbs them in their present abode—the consequence will be that I shall be compelled to invite them here. I shall establish them in this very house, sooner than that they shall be obliged to leave Deerbrook against their will; and then, my dear, you will have to be off to Cheltenham again."

"What nonsense you talk, Mr Rowland! Who should disturb them, if you won't be open to reason, so as to do it yourself? I thought you knew enough of what it is to be ridden by poor tenants, to wish to avoid the plague, if warned in time. But some people can never take warning."

"Let us see that you can, my love. You will remember what I have said about the Hopes being disturbed, I have no doubt. And now we have done with that, I want to tell you—"

"Presently, when we have really done with this subject, my dear. I have other reasons—"

"Which you will spare me the hearing. My dear Priscilla, there are no reasons on earth which can justify me in turning this family out of their house, or you in asking me to do it. Let us hear no more about it."

"But you must hear. I will be heard on a subject in which I have such an interest, Mr Rowland."

"Ring the bell, my little fellow. Pull hard. That's it—Candles in the office immediately."

And Mr Rowland tossed off the last half of his glass of port, kissed the little ones, and was gone. The lady remained to compassionate herself; which she did very deeply, that she could find no means of ridding herself of the great plague of her life. These people were always in her way, and no one would help her to dislodge them. Her own husband was against her—quite unmanageable and perverse.



CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT.

THE VICTIMS.

If Mrs Rowland was dissatisfied with her success, while seeing that some resources of comfort remained to the Hopes and Margaret, a view of the interior of the corner-house would probably have affected her deeply, and set her moralising on the incompleteness of all human triumphs. There was peace there which even she could not invade—could only, if she had known it, envy. Her power was now exhausted, and her work was unfinished. For many weeks, she had made Margaret as miserable as she had intended to make her. Margaret had suffered from an exasperating sense of injury; but that was only for a few hours. Hers was not a nature which could retain personal resentment for any length of time. She needed the relief of compassionate and forgiving feelings; and she cast herself into them for solace, as the traveller, emerging from the glaring desert, throws himself down beside the gushing spring in the shade. From the moment that she did this, it became her chief trouble that Philip was blamed by others. Her friends said as little as they could in reference to him, out of regard for her feelings; but she could not help seeing that Maria's indignation was strong, and that Hester considered that her sister had had a happy escape from a man capable of treating her as Philip had done. If it had been possible to undertake his defence, Margaret would have done so. As there were no means of working upon others to forgive her wrongs, she made it her consolation to forgive them doubly herself; to cheer up under them; to live for the aim of being more worthy of Philip's love, the less he believed her to be so. Her lot was far easier now than it had been in the winter. She had been his; and she believed that she still occupied his whole soul. She was not now the solitary, self-despising being she had felt herself before. Though cut off from intercourse with him as if the grave lay between them, she knew that sympathy with her heart and mind existed. She experienced the struggles, the moaning efforts, of affections doomed to solitude and silence; the shrinking from a whole long life of self-reliance, of exclusion from domestic life; the occasional horror of contemplating the waste and withering of some of the noblest parts of the immortal nature,—a waste and withering which are the almost certain consequence of violence done to its instincts and its laws. From these pains and terrors she suffered; and from some of smaller account,—from the petty insults, or speculations of the more coarse-minded of her neighbours, and the being too suddenly reminded by passing circumstances of the change which had come over her expectations and prospects; but her love, her forgiveness, her conviction of being beloved, bore her through all these, and saved her from that fever of the heart, in the paroxysms of which she had, in her former and severer trial, longed for death, even for non-existence.

She could enjoy but little of what had been her favourite solace at that time. She had but few opportunities now for long solitary walks. She saw the autumn fading away, melting in rain and cold fog, without its having been made use of. It had been as unfavourable a season as the summer,—dreary, unproductive, disappointing in every way; but there had been days in the latter autumn when the sun had shown his dim face, when the dank hedges had looked fresh, and the fallen leaves in the wood-paths had rustled under the tread of the squirrel; and Margaret would on such days have liked to spend the whole morning in rambles by herself. But there were reasons why she should not. Almost before the chilliness of the coming season began to be felt, hardship was complained of throughout the country. The prices of provisions were inordinately high; and the evil consequences which, in the rural districts, follow upon a scarcity, began to make themselves felt. The poachers were daring beyond belief; and deep was the enmity between the large proprietors and the labourers around them. The oldest men and women, and children scarcely able to walk, were found trespassing day by day in all plantations, with bags, aprons, or pinafores, full of fir-cones, and wood snapped off from the trees, or plucked out of the hedges. There was no end to repairing the fences. There were unpleasant rumours, too, of its being no longer safe to walk singly in the more retired places. No such thing as highway robbery had ever before been heard of at Deerbrook, within the memory of the oldest inhabitant; the oldest of the inhabitants being Jim Bird, the man of a hundred years. But there was reason now for the caution. Mr Jones's meat-cart had been stopped on the high-road, by two men who came out of the hedge, and helped themselves to what the cart contained. An ill-looking fellow had crossed the path of Mrs James and her young sister in the Verdon woods, evidently with the intention of stopping the ladies; but luckily the jingling of a timber-wain was heard below, and the man had retreated. Mr Grey had desired that the ladies of his family would not go further without his escort than a mile out and back again on the high-road. They were not to attempt the lanes. The Miss Andersons no longer came into Deerbrook in their pony-chaise; and Mrs Howell reported to all her customers that Lady Hunter never walked in her own grounds without a footman behind her, two dogs before her, and the game-keeper within hearing of a scream. Mr Walcot was advised to leave his watch and purse at home when he set forth to visit his country patients; and it did not comfort him much to perceive that his neighbours were always vigilant to note the hour and minute of his setting forth, and to learn the precise time when he might be looked for at home again. It was observed, that he was generally back half-an-hour sooner than he was expected, with a very red face, and his horse all in a foam.

In addition to these grounds of objection to solitary walks, Margaret had strong domestic reasons for denying herself the rambles she delighted in. As the months rolled on, poverty pressed closer and closer. When the rent was secured, and some of the comforts provided which Hester must have in her confinement, so little was left that it became necessary to limit the weekly expenses of the family to a sum small enough to require the nicest management, and the most strenuous domestic industry, to make it suffice. Hope would not pledge his credit while he saw so little prospect of redeeming it. His family were of one mind as to purchasing nothing which they were not certainly able to pay for. This being his principle, he made every effort to increase his funds. A guinea or two dropped in now and then, in return for contributions to medical periodicals. Money was due to him from some of his patients. To these he sent in his bills again, and even made personal application. From several he obtained promises; from two or three the amount of whose debt was very small, he got his money, disgraced by smiles of wonder and contempt. From the greater number he received nothing but excuses on account of the pressure of the times. The small sums he did recover were of a value which none of the three had ever imagined that money could be to them. Every little extra comfort thus obtained,—the dinner of meat once oftener in the week, the fire in the evening, the new gloves for Hope, when the old ones could no longer, by any mending, be made to look fit for him,—what a luxury it was! And all the more for being secretly enjoyed. No one out of the house had a suspicion how far their poverty had gone. Mr Grey had really been vexed at them for withdrawing from the book club; had attributed this instance of economy to the "enthusiasm" which was, in his eyes, the fault of the family; and never dreamed of their not dining on meat, vegetables, and pudding, with their glass of wine, every day. The Greys little knew what a blessing they were conferring on their cousins, when they insisted on having them for a long day once more before Hester's confinement, and set them down to steaming soup, and a plentiful joint, and accompaniments without stint. The guests laughed, when they were at home again, over the new sort of pleasure they had felt, the delight at the sight of a good dinner, to which nothing was wanting but that Morris should have had her share. Morris, for her part, had been very happy at home. She had put aside for her mistress's luncheon next day, the broth which she had been told was for her, and had feasted on potatoes and water, and the idea of the good dinner her young ladies were to enjoy. While their affairs were in this state, it was a great luxury in the family to have any unusual comfort which betokened that Hope had been successful in some of his errands,—had received a fee, or recovered the amount of a bill. One day, Morris brought in a goose and giblets, which had been bought and paid for by Mr Hope, the messenger said. Another morning, came a sack of apples, from the orchard of a country patient who was willing to pay in kind. At another time Edward emptied his pockets of knitted worsted stockings and mittens, the handiwork of a farmer's dame, who was flattered by his taking the produce of her evening industry instead of money, which she could not well spare at the present season. There was more mirth, more real gladness in the house, on the arrival of windfalls like these, than if Hope had daily exhibited a purse full of gold. There was no sting in their poverty; no adventitious misery belonging to it. They suffered its genuine force, and that was all.

What is Poverty? Not destitution, but poverty? It has many shapes,— aspects almost as various as the minds and circumstances of those whom it visits. It is famine to the savage in the wilds; it is hardship to the labourer in the cottage; it is disgrace to the proud; and to the miser despair. It is a spectre which "with dread of change perplexes" him who lives at ease. Such are its aspects: but what is it? It is a deficiency of the comforts of life,—a deficiency present and to come. It involves many other things; but this is what it is. Is it then worth all the apprehension and grief it occasions? Is it an adequate cause for the gloom of the merchant, the discontent of the artisan, the foreboding sighs of the mother, the ghastly dreams which haunt the avaricious, the conscious debasement of the subservient, the humiliation of the proud? These are severe sufferings; are they authorised by the nature of poverty? Certainly not, if poverty induced no adventitious evils, involved nothing but a deficiency of the comforts of life, leaving life itself unimpaired. "The life is more than food, and the body than raiment;" and the untimely extinction of the life itself would not be worth the pangs which apprehended poverty excites. But poverty involves woes which, in their sum, are far greater than itself. To a multitude it is the loss of a pursuit which they have yet to learn will be certainly supplied. For such, alleviation or compensation is in store, in the rising up of objects new, and the creation of fresh hopes. The impoverished merchant, who may no longer look out for his argosies, may yet be in glee when he finds it "a rare dropping morning for the early colewort." To another multitude, poverty involves loss of rank,— a letting down among strangers whose manners are ungenial, and their thoughts unfamiliar. For these there may be solace in retirement, or the evil may fall short of its threats. The reduced gentlewoman may live in patient solitude, or may grow into sympathy with her neighbours, by raising some of them up to herself, and by warming her heart at the great central fire of Humanity, which burns on under the crust of manners as rough as the storms of the tropics, or as frigid as polar snows. The avaricious are out of the pale of peace already, and at all events. Poverty is most seriously an evil to sons and daughters, who see their parents stripped of comfort, at an age when comfort is almost one with life itself: and to parents who watch the narrowing of the capacities of their children by the pressure of poverty,—the impairing of their promise, the blotting out of their prospects. To such mourning children there is little comfort, but in contemplating the easier life which lies behind, and (it may be hoped) the happier one which stretches before their parents, on the other side the postern of life. If there is sunshine on the two grand reaches of their path, the shadow which lies in the midst is necessarily but a temporary gloom. To grieving parents it should be a consoling truth, that as the life is more than food, so is the soul more than instruction and opportunity, and such accomplishments as man can administer: that as the fowls are fed and the lilies clothed by Him whose hand made the air musical with the one, and dressed the fields with the other, so is the human spirit nourished and adorned by airs from heaven, which blow over the whole earth, and light from the skies, which no hand is permitted to intercept. Parents know not but that Providence may be substituting the noblest education for the misteaching of intermediate guardians. It may possibly be so; but if not, still there is appointed to every human being much training, many privileges, which capricious fortune can neither give nor take away. The father may sigh to see his boy condemned to the toil of the loom, or the gossip and drudgery of the shop, when he would fain have beheld him the ornament of a university; but he knows not whether a more simple integrity, a loftier disinterestedness, may not come out of the humbler discipline than the higher privilege. The mother's eyes may swim as she hears her little daughter sing her baby brother to sleep on the cottage threshold,—her eyes may swim at the thought how those wild and moving tones might have been exalted by art. Such art would have been in itself a good; but would this child then have been, as now, about her Father's business, which, in ministering to one of his little ones, she is as surely as the archangel who suspends new systems of worlds in the furthest void? Her occupation is now earnest and holy; and what need the true mother wish for more?

What is poverty to those who are not thus set in families? What is it to the solitary, or to the husband and wife who have faith in each other's strength? If they have the higher faith which usually originates mutual trust, mere poverty is scarcely worth a passing fear. If they have plucked out the stings of pride and selfishness, and purified their vision by faith, what is there to dread? What is their case? They have life, without certainty how it is to be nourished. They do without certainty, like "the young ravens which cry," and work for and enjoy the subsistence of the day, leaving the morrow to take care of what concerns it. If living in the dreariest abodes of a town, the light from within shines in the dark place, and, dispelling the mists of worldly care, guides to the blessing of tending the sick, and sharing the food of to-day with the orphan, and him who has no help but in them. If the philosopher goes into such retreats with his lantern, there may he best find the generous and the brave. If, instead of the alleys of a city, they live under the open sky, they are yet lighter under their poverty. There, however blank the future may lie before them, they have to-day the living reality of lawns and woods, and flocks in "the green pasture and beside the still waters," which silently remind them of the Shepherd, under whom they shall not want any real good thing. The quiet of the shady lane is theirs, and the beauty of the blossoming thorn above the pool. Delight steals through them with the scent of the violet, or the new mown hay. If they have hushed the voices of complaint and fear within them, there is the music of the merry lark for them, or of the leaping waterfall, or of a whole orchestra of harps, when the breeze sweeps through a grove of pines. While it is not for fortune to "rob them of free nature's grace," and while she leaves them life and strength of limb and soul, the certainty of a future, though they cannot see what, and the assurance of progression, though they cannot see how,—is poverty worth, for themselves, more than a passing doubt? Can it ever be worth the torment of fear, the bondage of subservience?—the compromise of free thought,— the sacrifice of free speech,—the bending of the erect head, the veiling of the open brow, the repression of the salient soul? If; instead of this, poverty should act as the liberator of the spirit, awakening it to trust in God and sympathy for man, and placing it aloft, fresh and free, like morning on the hill-top, to survey the expanse of life, and recognise its realities from beneath its mists, it should be greeted with that holy joy before which all sorrow and sighing flee away.