"Dr Levitt's early stir about this ring prevented its being disposed of, I have no doubt," said Edward. "If so, it is yet possible that we may recover your watch. I will speak to Dr Levitt in the morning."

"Dear Margaret!" said Hester. "She is now drinking in the hue of that turquoise, and blessing it for being unchanged. She regards this recovery of it as a good omen, I see; and far be it from us to mock at such a superstition!"

As usual, when she was upon this subject, Hester looked up into her husband's face: and as usual, when she spoke on this subject, he made no reply.



CHAPTER FORTY FOUR.

LATE RELIGION.

A few days after Morris's return, she told Margaret that the tidings in the village of Miss Rowland's illness were not good. Mrs Rowland was quite as sure as ever that, if anybody could cure Matilda, it was Mr Walcot; but Mr Walcot himself looked anxious; and a bed had been put up for him in the room next to the sick child. Margaret wondered why Mr Rowland did not send to Blickley for further advice: but Morris thought that Mrs Rowland would not give up her perfect faith in Mr Walcot, if all her children should die before her face.

When Morris had left the room, Margaret was absorbed in speculations, as she played with her sister's infant—speculations on the little life of children, and on their death. Her memory followed Matilda through every circumstance in which she had seen her. The poor little girl's very attitude, voice, and words—words full, alas! of folly and vanity—rose again upon her eye and ear, in immediate contrast with the image of death, and the solemnity of the life to come. In the midst of these thoughts came tears of shame and self-reproach; for another thought (how low! how selfish!) thrust itself in among them—that she was secure for the present from Philip's departure—that he would not leave Deerbrook while Matilda was in a critical state. As these tears rolled down her cheeks, the baby looked full in her face, and caught the infection of grief.

He hung his little lip, and looked so woe-begone, that Margaret dashed away the signs of her sorrow, and spoke gaily to him; and, as the sun shone in at the moment upon the lustres on the mantelpiece, she set the glass-drops in motion, and let the baby try to catch the bright colours that danced upon the walls and ceiling. At this moment, Hester burst in with a countenance of dismay.

"Margaret, my husband has a headache!"

A headache was no trifle in these days.

"Anything more than a headache?" asked Margaret. "No other feeling of illness? There is nothing to wonder at in a mere headache. It is very surprising that he has not had it before, with all his toil and want of sleep."

"He declares it is a trifle," said Hester: "but I see he can hardly hold up. What shall I do?"

"Make him lie down and rest, and let me go to Mrs Howell instead of you. She will be a little disappointed; but that cannot be helped. She must put up with my services to-day. Now, do not frighten yourself, as if no one ever had a headache without having a fever."

"I shall desire Morris to let no one in; and to bring no messages to her master while his headache lasts."

"Very right. I will tell her as I go for my bonnet. One more kiss before I go, baby. Do not wait tea for me, Hester. I cannot say when I shall be back."

Margaret had been gone to Mrs Howell's about an hour and a half, when there was a loud and hasty knock at the door of the corner-house. It roused Hope from a doze into which he had just fallen, and provoked Hester accordingly. There was a parley between Morris and somebody in the hall; and presently a voice was heard calling loudly upon Mr Hope. Hester could not prevent her husband from springing from the bed, and going out upon the stairs. Mr Rowland was already half-way up, looking almost beside himself with grief.

"You must excuse me, Mr Hope—you must not judge me hardly;—if you are ill, I am sorry... sir; but sir, my child is dying. We fear she is dying, sir; and you must come, and see if anything can save her. I shall never forgive myself for going on as we have been doing. She has been sacrificed—fairly sacrificed, I fear."

"Nay, Mr Rowland, I must comfort you there," said Hope, as they walked rapidly along the street. "I have had occasion to see a great deal of Mr Walcot and his professional conduct, in the course of the last few weeks; and I am certain that he has a very competent knowledge of his business. I assure you he shows more talent, more power altogether, in his professional than his unprofessional conduct; and in this particular disease he has now had much experience."

"God bless you for saying so, my dear sir! It is like you—always generous, always just and kind! You must forgive us, Mr Hope. At a time like this, you must overlook all causes of offence. They are very great, I know; but you will not visit them upon us now."

"We have only to do with the present now," said Hope. "Not a word about the past, I entreat you."

Mrs Rowland, to-day reckless of everything but her child, was standing out on the steps, watching, as for the last hope for her Matilda.

"She is much worse, Mr Hope; suddenly and alarmingly worse. This way: follow me."

Hope would speak with Mr Walcot first. As he entered the study, to await Mr Walcot, Philip passed out. They did not speak.

"Oh, Philip! speak to Mr Hope!" cried Mrs Rowland. "For God's sake do not do anything to offend him now!"

"I will do everything in my power, madam, to save your child," said Hope. "Do not fear that the conduct of her relations will be allowed to injure her."

"My love," said Mr Rowland, "Mr Hope came from a sick bed to help us. Do not distrust him. Indeed he deserves better from us."

"Pray forgive me," said the miserable mother. "I do not well know what I am saying. But I will atone for all if you save my child."

"Priscilla!" cried her brother, from the doorway, against which he was leaning. His tone of wonder was lost as Walcot entered, and the study was left for the conference of the medical men.

As the gentlemen went upstairs to Matilda's room, they saw one child here, and another there, peeping about, in silence and dismay. As Hope put his hand on the head of one in passing, Mr Rowland said:

"There is a carriage coming for them presently, to take them away. Anna and George are now with Miss Young, and she will take them all away. She is very good: but I knew we might depend upon her—upon her heart, and her forgiveness. Ah! you hear the poor child's voice. That shows you the way."

Matilda was wandering, and, for the moment, talking very loud. Something about grandmamma seeing her dance, and "When I am married," struck the ear as Hope entered her chamber, and entirely overset the mother. Matilda was soon in a stupor again.

It was impossible to hold out much prospect of her recovery. It was painful to every one to hear how Mrs Rowland attempted to bribe Mr Hope, by promises of doing him justice, to exert himself to the utmost in Matilda's behalf. He turned away from her, again and again, with a disgust which his compassion could scarcely restrain. Philip was so far roused by the few words which had been let drop below-stairs, as to choose to hear what passed now, in the antechamber to the patient's room. It was he who decidedly interposed at last. He sent his brother-in-law to Matilda's bedside, dismissed Mr Walcot from the room, and then said—

"A very few minutes will suffice, I believe, sister, to relieve your mind: and they will be well spent. Tell us what you mean by what you have been saying so often within this quarter of an hour. As you hope in Heaven—as you dare to ask God to spare your child, tell us the extent to which you feel that you have injured Mr Hope."

Hope sank down into the window-seat by which he had been standing. He thought the whole story of his love was now coming out. He waited for the first words as for a thunderclap. The first words were—

"Oh, Philip! I am the most wretched woman living! I never saw it so strongly before; I believe I did it with an idea of good to you; but I burned a letter of Margaret's to you."

"What letter? When?"

"The day you left us last—the day you were in the shrubbery all the morning—the day the children found the shavings burnt."

"What was in the letter? Did you read it?"

"No; I dared not."

"What made you burn it?"

"I was afraid you would go to her, and that your engagement would come on again."

"Then what you told me—what made me break it off—could not have been true."

"No, it was not—not all true."

"What was true, and what was not?"

Mrs Rowland did not answer, but looked timidly at Mr Hope. Now was the moment for him to speak.

"It was true," said he, "that, at the very beginning of my acquaintance with Hester and Margaret, I preferred Margaret—and that my family discerned that I did—as true as that Hester has long been the beloved of my heart—beloved as—but I cannot speak of my wife, of my home, in the hearing of one who has endeavoured to profane both. All I need say is that neither Hester nor Margaret ever knew where my first transient fancy lighted, while they both know—know as they know their own hearts—where it has fixed. It is not true that Margaret ever loved any one but you, Enderby; and Mrs Rowland cannot truly say that she ever did."

"What was it then that Margaret confided to my mother?" asked Enderby, turning to his sister.

"I cannot tell what possessed me at the time to say so, but that I thought I was doing the best for your happiness—but—but, Philip, I really believe now, that Margaret never did love any one but you. I know nothing to the contrary."

"But my mother?"

"She knew very little of any troubles in Mr Hope's family; and—and what she did hear was all from me."

"Do you mean that all you told me of Margaret's confidences to my mother was false?"

There was no answer; but Mrs Rowland's pale cheeks grew paler.

"Oh God! what can Margaret have thought of me all this time?" cried Philip.

"I can tell you what she has thought, I believe," said Hope. "Her brother and sister have read her innocent mind, as you yourself might have done, if your faith in her had been what she deserved. She has believed that you loved her, and that you love her still. She has believed that some one—that Mrs Rowland traduced her to you: and in her generosity, she blames you for nothing but that you would not see and hear her—that you went away on the receipt of her letter—of that letter which it now appears you never saw."

"Where is she?" cried Enderby, striding to the door.

"She is not at home. You cannot find her at this moment: and if you could, you must hear me first. You remember the caution I gave you when we last conversed—in the abbey, and again in the meadows."

"I do; and I will observe it now."

"You remember that she is unaware—"

"That you ever—that that interview with Mrs Grey ever took place? She shall never learn it from me. It is one of those facts which have ceased to exist—which is absolutely dead, and should be buried in oblivion. You hear, Priscilla?"

She bowed her head.

"You believe that—."

"Say no more, brother. Do not humble me further. I will make what reparation I can—indeed I will—and then perhaps God will spare my child."

Hope's passing reflection was, "How alike is the superstition of the ignorant and of the wicked! My poor neighbours stealing to the conjuror's tent in the lane, and this wretched lady, hope alike to bribe Heaven in their extremity—they by gifts and rites, she by remorse and reparation.—How different from the faith which say; 'Not as I will, but as thou wilt!'"

"Where is Margaret? Will you tell me?" asked Enderby, impatiently. "But before I see her, I ought to ask forgiveness from you, Hope. You find how cruelly I have been deceived—by what incredible falsehood—. But," glancing at his pale sister, "we will speak no more of that. If, in the midst of all this error and wretchedness, I have hurt your feelings more than my false persuasions rendered necessary... I hope you will forgive me."

"And me! Will you forgive me?" asked Mrs Rowland, faintly.

"There is nothing to pardon in you," said Hope to Philip. "Your belief in what your own sister told you in so much detail can scarcely be called a weakness; and you did and said nothing to me that was not warranted by what you believed.—And I forgive you, madam. I will do what I can to relieve your present affliction; and, as long as you attempt no further injustice towards my family, no words shall be spoken by any of us, to remind you of what is past."

"You are very good, Mr Hope."

"I tell you plainly," he resumed, "that you cannot injure us beyond a certain point. You cannot make it goodness in us to forget what is past. It is of far less consequence to us what you and others think of us than what we think of our neighbours. Our chief sorrow has been the spectacle of yourself in your dealings with us. We shall be thankful to be reminded of it no more. And now enough of this."

"Where is Margaret?" again asked Enderby, as if in despair of an answer.

"She is nursing Mrs Howell. As soon as I have seen this poor child again, I will go home, and take care that Margaret is prepared to see you. Remember how great the surprise, the mystery, must be to her."

"If the surprise were all—" said Philip.—"But will she hear me? Will she forgive me? Will she trust me?"

"Was there ever a woman who really loved who would not hear, would not forgive, would not trust?" said Hope, smiling. "I must not answer for Margaret; but I think I may answer for woman in the abstract."

"I will follow you in an hour, Hope."

"Do so. Now, madam."

And Hope followed Mrs Rowland again to the bedside of her dying child.



CHAPTER FORTY FIVE.

REST OF THE PLACABLE.

Margaret was not at Mrs Howell's at the moment that her brother believed and said she was. She had been there just in time to witness the poor woman's departure; and she was soon home again and relating the circumstances to Hester, by the fireside. Even the news that Edward was now in the same house with Philip, could not efface from her mind what she had seen; nor could Hester help listening, though full of anxiety about her husband.

"Miss Miskin was prevailed upon to leave her room at the last, I suppose?"

"Scarcely. Poor Nanny was supporting her mistress's head when I went in; and she said, with tears, that there was no depending on any one but us. They both looked glad enough to see me: but then, nothing would satisfy Mrs Howell but that I should warm myself, and be seated."

"To the last! and she offered you some cherry-bounce, I suppose."

"Yes; just as usual. Then she told me that it would be as well to mention now, in case she should grow worse, and be in any danger, that she should be gratified if you and I would select each a rug or screen pattern from her stock, and worsteds to work it with: and she gave a broad hint that there was one with a mausoleum and two weeping willows, which she hoped one of us would choose; and that perhaps her name might fill up the space on the tomb. Poor Nanny began to cry; and this affected Mrs Howell; and she begged earnestly to see Miss Miskin."

"And then she came, I suppose."

"Not she! She would not come till her friend sent a message threatening to haunt her if she did not."

"Did you carry the message?"

"No; but Nanny did; and, I thought, with hearty good will; Miss Miskin came trembling, but too much frightened to cry. She would not approach nearer than the doorway, and there fell down on her knees, and so remained the whole time she was receiving directions about the shop and the stock,—'in case,' as the poor soul again said, 'of my getting worse, so as to be in any danger.' And yet Dr Levitt thought he had told her, plainly enough, what he thought of her state this morning."

"And was she aware at last? or did she go off unconsciously?"

"I think she was aware; I think so from her last words—'Oh, my poor dear Howell!' I sat behind the curtain while she was speaking to Miss Miskin—sometimes so faintly that Nanny had to repeat her words, to make them heard as far as the door."

"That selfish wretch—Miss Miskin!"

"It was very moving, I assure you, to hear not one word of reproach,—or even notice of Miss Miskin's desertion in this illness. What was said was common-place enough; but every word was kind. I have it all. I took it down with my pencil, behind the curtain; for I was sure Miss Miskin would never remember it. Mrs Howell went on till she came to directions about the bullfinch that her poor dear Howell used to laugh to see perched upon her nightcap of a morning; and then she grew unintelligible. I thought she was only fainting; but while we were trying to revive her, Nanny said she was going. Miss Miskin drew back into the passage, shut the door, and made her escape. Her friend looked that way once more, and said that we had all been very good to her. She mentioned her husband, as I told you, and then died very quietly."

"Miss Miskin knows, of course?"

"I told her, and did not pretend to feel much sympathy in her lamentations. I told her she had lost a friend who would have watched over her, I believed, till her last breath, if she had been the one attacked by the fever."

"What did she say?"

"She exclaimed a great deal about how good we all were, and wondered what Deerbrook would have done without us; and said she was sure I was too kind to think of leaving her in the house with the corpse, with only Nanny. When I declined passing the night there, she comforted herself with thinking aloud that her friend would not haunt her—certainly would not haunt her—as she had gone to her room at last. Her final question was, how soon I thought it likely that she should feel the fever coming on, in case of her having caught it, after all, by going into the room."

"What an end to a sentimental friendship of so many years!"

"I rather expect to hear in the morning that she has taken refuge in some neighbour's house, and left Nanny alone with the corpse to-night."

"My husband's knock!" cried Hester, starting up. "How is your headache, love?" asked she anxiously, as she met him at the room door.

"Gone, quite gone," he replied. "I must step down into the surgery for a minute, about this poor little girl's medicine; and then I have a great deal to tell you."

The sisters sat in perfect silence till his return.

"Matilda?" said Margaret, looking up at her brother.

"She is very ill;—not likely to be better."

"And poor Mrs Howell is gone," said Hester. "What a sweep it is! Did you hear, love? Mrs Howell is dead."

"I hear. It is a terrible destruction that we have witnessed. But I trust it is nearly over. I know of only one or two cases of danger now, besides this little girl's. Poor Matilda! But we have little thought to spare, even for her, to-night. If I did not know that Margaret is ready for whatever may betide," he continued, fixing his benevolent gaze upon her, "and if, moreover, I were not afraid that some one would be coming to tell my news if I do not get it out at once, I should hesitate about saying what I have to say."

"Philip has been explaining—He is coming," said Margaret, with such calmness as she could command.

"Enderby is coming; and some one else, whose explanations are more to the purpose, has been explaining. Mrs Rowland, alarmed and shaken by her misery, has been acknowledging the whole series of falsehoods by which she persuaded, convinced her brother that you did not love him— that you were, in fact, attached elsewhere. I see how angry you are, Hester. I see you asking in your own mind how Enderby could be thus deluded—how he could trust his sister rather than Margaret—how I can speak of him as deserving to have her after all this. Your questions are reasonable enough, love, and yet they cannot be answered. Your doubts of Enderby are reasonable enough; and yet I declare to you that he is in my eyes almost, if not quite, blameless."

"Thank you, brother!" said Margaret, looking up with swimming eyes.

"There is one great point to be settled," resumed Hope: "and that is, whether you will both be content to bury in silence the subject of this quarrel, from this hour, relying upon my testimony and Mrs Rowland's."

"Oh, Edward, do not put your name and hers together!"

"For Enderby's justification, and for Margaret's sake, my name shall be joined with the arch-fiend's, if necessary, my love. You must, as I was saying, rely upon the testimony of those who know the whole, that Enderby's conduct throughout has been, if not the very wisest and best, perfectly natural, and consistent with the love for Margaret which he has cherished to this hour."

"I knew it," murmured Margaret.

"He will himself disclose as much as he thinks proper, when he comes: but he comes full of fear and doubt about his reception."

Margaret hung her head, feeling that it was well she was reminded what reason there was for his coming with doubt and trembling in his heart.

"As he comes full of fear and doubt," resumed Hope, "I must tell you first that he never received your last letter, Margaret. He thought you would not answer his. He thought you took him at his word about not attempting explanation."

"What an unhappy accident!" cried Hester. "Who carried that letter? How did it happen?"

"It was no accident, my dear. Mrs Rowland burned that letter."

Margaret covered her face with her hands; then, suddenly looking up, she cried:

"Did she read it?"

"No. She says she dared not. Why, Margaret, you seem sorry that she did not! You think it would have cleared you. I have no doubt she thought so too; and that that was the reason why she averted her eyes from it. Yes, it was a cruel injury, Margaret. Can you forgive it, do you think?"

"Not to-night," said Hester. "Do not ask it of her to-night."

"I believe I may ask it at this very moment. The happy can forgive. Is it not so, Margaret?"

"For myself I could and I do, brother. I would go now and nurse her child, and comfort her. But—"

"But you cannot forgive the wretchedness she has caused to Philip. Well, if you each forgive her for your own part, there is a chance that she may yet lift up her humbled head."

"What possessed her to hate us so?" said Hester.

"Her hatred to us is the result of long habits of ill-will, of selfish pride, and of low pertinacity about small objects. That is the way in which I account for it all. She disliked you first for your connection with the Greys; and then she disliked me for my connection with you. She nourished up all her personal feelings into an opposition to us and our doings; and when she had done this, and found her own only brother going over to the enemy, as she regarded it, her dislike grew into a passion of hatred. Under the influence of this passion, she has been led on to say and to do more and more that would suit her purposes, till she has found herself sunk in an abyss of guilt. I really believe she was not fully aware of her situation, till her misery of to-day revealed it to her."

"Poor thing!" said Margaret. "Is there nothing we can do to help her?"

"We will ask Enderby. I take hers to be no uncommon case. The dislikes of low and selfish minds generally bear very much the character of hers, though they may not be pampered by circumstances into such a luxuriance as in this case. In a city, Mrs Rowland might have been an ordinary spiteful fine lady. In such a place as Deerbrook, and with a family of rivals' cousins incessantly before her eyes, to exercise her passions upon, she has ended in being—"

"What she is," said Margaret, as Hope stopped for a word.

"Margaret is less surprised than you expected, is she not?" said Hester. "You did not suppose that she would sit and listen as she does to your analysis of Mrs Rowland. But if the truth were known, she carries a prophecy about her on her finger. I have no doubt she has been expecting this very news ever since she recovered her ring. Yes or no, Margaret?"

"I should rather say she has carried a prophecy in her heart all these long months," said Hope, "of which that on her finger is only the symbol."

"However it may be," said Hester, "it has prepared a reception for Mr Enderby. There is no resisting a prophecy. What is written is written."

"I must hear him, you know," said Margaret, gently.

"You must; and you must hear him favourably," said her brother.

"I had forgotten," said Hester, ringing the bell. "Morris, a good fire in the breakfast-room, immediately."

Within the hour, Philip and Margaret were by that fireside, finally wedded in heart and soul. It was astonishing how little explanation was needed when Margaret had once been told, in addition to the fact of her letter having been destroyed, that she was declared to have made Mrs Enderby the depository of her confidence about a prior attachment. There was, however, as much to relate as there was little to explain. How Enderby's heart burned within him, when, in sporting with the idea of a prior attachment, it came out what Margaret had felt at the moment of his intrusion upon the conference with Hope, of which he had since, as at the time, been so jealous! the amusement on her own part, and the joy on Hester's, which she was trying to conceal by her downcast looks! How his soul melted within him when she owned her momentary regret at being saved from under the ice, and the consolation and stimulus she had derived from her brother's expression of affection for her on the spot! How clear, how true a refutation were these revealings of the imputations that had been cast upon her! and how strangely had the facts been distorted by a prejudiced imagination! How sweet in the telling was the story of the ring, so sad in the experience! and the recountings of the times that they had seen each other of late. Philip had caught more glimpses than she. He came down—he dared not say to watch over her in this time of sickness—but because he could not stay away when he heard of the condition of Deerbrook. But for this sickness would they have met—should they ever have understood each other again? This was a speculation on which they could not dwell—it led them too near the verge of the grave which was yawning for Matilda. Mrs Rowland would have been relieved, but the relief would have been not unmixed with humiliation, if she could have known how easily she was let off in this long conference. Not only can the happy easily forgive, but they are exceedingly apt to forget the causes and the history of their woes; and the wretched lady who, in the midst of her grief and terror for her child, trembled at home at the image of the lovers she had injured, was, to those lovers in their happiness, much as if she had never existed.

"Mrs Howell!" said Margaret, hearing her sister mention their departed neighbour, after Philip was gone. "Is it possible that it was this very afternoon that I saw that poor woman die?"

"Even so, dear. How many days, or months, or years, have you lived since? A whole age of bliss, Margaret!"

Margaret's blush said "Yes."



CHAPTER FORTY SIX.

DEERBROOK IN SUNSHINE.

On the first news of the fever being gone, the Greys returned to Deerbrook, and Dr Levitt's family soon followed. The place wore a strange appearance to those who had been absent for some time. Large patches of grass overspread the main street, and cows might have pastured on the thatch of some of the cottages, while the once green churchyard looked brown and bare from the number of new graves crowded in among the old ones. In many a court were the spring-flowers running wild over the weedy borders, for want of hands to tend them; and the birds built in many a chimney from which the blue smoke had been wont to rise in the morning air. Sophia and her sisters noted these things as they walked through the place on the morning after their arrival, while their father was engaged in inspecting the parish register, to learn how many of his neighbours were gone, and their mother was paying her visit of condolence to Mrs Rowland.

Fanny and Mary were much impressed this day with Matilda's death. They had first wondered, and then wept, when they heard of it at a distance: and now, when once more on the spot where they had seen her daily, and had hourly criticised her looks, her sayings, and doings, they were under a strong sense of the meanness and frivolity of their talk, and the unkindness of their feelings about one whose faults could hardly be called her own, and who might now, they supposed, be living and moving in scenes and amidst circumstances whose solemnity and importance put to shame the petty intercourse they had carried on with her here. Both resolved in their hearts that if Anna Rowland should praise her own dancing, and flatten her back before she spoke, and talk often of the time when she should be married, they would let it all pass, and not tell mamma or Sophia, or exchange satirical looks with each other. They remembered now that Matilda had done good and kind things, which had been disregarded at the time when they were bent on ridiculing her. It was just hereabouts that she took off her worsted gloves, one bitter day in the winter, and put them on the hands of her little brother who was crying with cold; and it was by yonder corner that she directed a stranger gentleman into the right road so prettily that he looked after her as she walked away, and said she would be the pride of the place some day. Alas! there she lay—in the vault under the church; and she would be no one's pride in this world, except in her poor mother's heart.

"There is somebody not in mourning," cried Fanny; "the very first, besides my cousins, that we have seen to-day. Oh, it is Mrs James! Shall we not speak to her?"

Mrs James seemed warmed out of her usual indifference. She shook hands almost affectionately with Sophia. The meeting of acquaintances who find themselves alive after a pestilence is unlike any other kind of meeting: it animates the most indifferent, and almost makes friends of enemies. While Mrs James and Sophia were making mutual inquiries, Mary called Fanny's attention to what was to be seen opposite. There was a glittering row of large, freshly-gilt letters—"Miskin, late Howell, Haberdasher, etcetera." Miss Miskin, in the deepest mourning, with a countenance trained to melancholy, was peeping through the ribbons and handkerchiefs which veiled her window, to see whether the Miss Greys were on their way to her or not. Sophia would not have been able to resist going in, but that, on parting from Mrs James, she saw the true object of her morning walk approaching in the person of Mr Walcot. Her intention had been to meet him in his rounds; and here he was.

If Mrs James had been almost affectionate, what was Mr Walcot? He had really gone through a great deal of anxiety and suffering lately, and his heart was very soft and tender just now. He turned about, and walked with Sophia—walked a mile out into the country by her side, and neither seemed to have any thought of turning back, till Fanny reminded her sister how long mamma would have been kept waiting for her to go and call on the Levitts. The conversation had been in an under voice, all the way out and back; but, when the parting was to take place, when Mr Walcot was to leave them in the outskirts of the village, the little girls heard a few words, which threw some light on what had been passing. They caught from Sophia, "I must consult my parents;" and as they hurried homewards with her, they ventured to cast up a glance of droll meaning into her face, which made her try to help smiling, and to speak sharply; and then they knew that they had guessed the truth.

Mr Grey made his call upon his cousins that evening. He requested some private conversation with Hope. His objects were, to learn Hope's opinion of Mr Walcot, as he had seen him of late under very trying circumstances; and, if this opinion should be sufficiently favourable to warrant the proposition, to open the subject of a partnership—a partnership in which, as was fair, Mr Walcot should have a small share at present of the income, and a large proportion of the labour—which was all that the young man, under the effect of his recent terrors, and of his veneration for Mr Hope, wished or desired. He had declared that if he could obtain his beloved Sophia, and be permitted to rely on Mr Hope as his partner and friend, he should be the happiest man alive; and he was confident that his parents would consider him a most fortunate youth, to be received, at his outset into life, into such a family as Mr Grey's, and under the professional guidance of such a practitioner and such a man as Mr Hope.

There seemed to be every probability of his becoming the happiest man alive for the Greys were clearly well disposed towards him, and Mr Hope had nothing to say of him which could hurt their feelings. He repeated what he had declared to Mr Rowland—that Mr Walcot's energies seemed to be concentrated in the practice of his profession, and that his professional knowledge appeared to be sufficient. There was no doubt of his kindness of heart; and, though it could not be expected of him that he would ever make a striking figure in the world, yet he might sustain a fair portion of respectability and usefulness in a country station. As to the partnership, no difficulty arose. Mr Grey frankly explained that present income was far less of an object than to have his daughter settled beside her parents, and his son-in-law usefully and honourably occupied. Sophia would have enough money to make Walcot's income an affair of inferior consideration. If he should deserve an increase by and by, it would be all very well. If not, the young people must get on without. Anything was better than sending the young man away to establish himself in a new place, with no happier prospects to Sophia's family than that of parting with her to a distance at last.

It did not require many days to complete the arrangements. Hester was at first a little vexed, but on the whole much more amused, at the idea of her husband having Mr Walcot for a partner: and she soon saw the advantage of his being spared many a long country ride, and many a visit at inconvenient seasons, by his junior being at hand. She made no substantial objection, and invited Mr Walcot to the house with all due cordiality. The young man's gratitude and devotion knew no bounds; and the only trouble Hope felt in the business was the awkwardness of checking his expressions of thankfulness.

When the announcement of the double arrangement was to be made, Mrs Grey could not resist going herself to Mrs Rowland; and Sophia was sorry that she could not be present too, to see how the lady would receive the news of a third gentleman marrying into the Greys' connection so decidedly. But Mr Grey took care to enlighten his partner on the matter some hours before; so that Mrs Rowland was prepared. She persuaded herself that she was very apathetic—that she had no feelings left for the affairs of life—that her interests were all buried in the tomb of her own Matilda. Mrs Grey had therefore nothing in particular to tell Sophia when she returned from paying the visit.

In exchange for the news, Sir William and Lady Hunter sent back their congratulations, and a very gracious and extensive invitation to dinner. Finding that Mrs Rowland's brother was really, with the approbation of his family, going to marry Mrs Hope's sister, and that Mrs Rowland's protege was entering into partnership with Mr Hope himself, they thought it the right time to give their sanction to the reconciliations which were taking place, by being civil to all the parties round. So Lady Hunter came in state to Deerbrook, one fine day, made all due apologies, and invited to dinner the whole connection. Mrs Rowland could not go, of course; and Margaret declined: but all the rest went. Margaret was on the eve of her marriage, and she preferred one more day with Maria, to a visit of ceremony. She begged Philip to go, as his sister could not; and he obeyed with a good grace, grudging the loss of a sweet spring evening over Sir William Hunter's dinner-table the less, that he knew Margaret and Maria were making the best use of it together.

Once more the friends sat in the summer-house, by the window, whence they loved to look abroad upon meadow, wood, and stream. Here they had studied together, and cherished each other: here they had eagerly imparted a multitude of thoughts, and carefully concealed a few. Here they were now conversing together for the last time before their approaching separation. Maria sighed often, as she well might: and when Margaret looked abroad upon the bean-setters in the distant field, and listened to the bleat of the lambs which came up from the pastures, and was aware of the scent of the hyacinths occasionally wafted in from poor Matilda's neighbouring flower-plot, she sighed too.

"You must take some of our hyacinths with you to London, and see whether they will not blossom there," said Maria, answering to her friend's thought.

"I hardly know whether there would be most pain or pleasure in seeing plants sprout, and then wither, in the little balcony of a back drawing-room, which overlooks gables or stables, instead of these delicious green meadows."

"How fond you were, two years ago, of imagining the bliss of living always in sight of this very landscape! Yet it has yielded already to the back drawing-room, with a prospect of stables and gables."

"We shall come and look upon your woods sometimes, you know. I am not bidding good-bye to this place, or to you. God forbid!"

"Now tell me, Margaret," said Maria, after a pause, "tell me when you are to be married."

"That is what I was just about to do. We go on Tuesday."

"Indeed! in three days! But why should it not be so? It is a weary time since you promised first."

"A year ago, there were reasons, as Philip admits now, why I could not leave Hester and Edward. There are no such reasons now. They are prosperous: their days of struggle, when they wanted me—my head, my hands, my little income—are past. Edward's practice has come back to him, with increase for Mr Walcot. There is nothing more to fear for them."

"You have done your duty by them: now—"

"My duty! What has it been to theirs? Oh, Maria! what a spectacle has that been! When I think how they have 'overcome evil with good,' how they have endured, how forgiven, how toiled and watched on their enemies' behalf, till they have ruled all the minds, and touched all the hearts, of friends and foes for miles round, I think theirs the most gracious piece of tribulation that ever befell. At home,—Oh, even you do not know what a home it is!"

Nor was Margaret herself aware what that home was now. She saw how Edward had there, too, 'overcome evil with good' how he had permanently established Hester in her highest moods of mind, strengthened her to overcome the one unhappy tendency from which she had suffered through the whole of her life, and dispersed all storms from the dwelling wherein his child was to grow up: but she did not know half the extent of his victory, or the delight of its rewards. She knew nothing of the secret shudder with which he looked back upon the entanglement, the peril, the suffering he had gone through; or of the deep peace which had settled down upon his soul, now that the struggle was well past. She little imagined how, when all the world regarded him as an old married man, his was now, in truth, the soul of the lover: how, from having at one time pitied, feared, recoiled from her with whom he had connected himself for life, he had risen, by dint of a religious discharge of duty towards her, from self-reproach and mere compassion, to patience, to hope, to interest, to admiration, to love—love at last worthy of hers— love which satisfied even Hester's imperious affections, and set even her over-busy mind and heart at rest. Little did Margaret imagine all this. There was but one, beside Edward himself, who knew it; and that one was Morris, who daily thanked God that strength had been given according to the need.

"There is but one person in the world, Maria," said her friend, "on whose account I cannot help being anxious. I was faithless about Hester as long as it was possible to have an uneasy thought for her; and now I am afraid I shall sin in the same way about you."

"And why should you, Margaret? If I were without object, without hope, without experience, without the power of self-rule which such experience gives, you might well fear for me. But why now? It is not reasonable towards the Providence under which we live; it is not just to me."

"That is very true. But though it is not too much for your faith, that you are infirm and suffering in body, poor, solitary, living by toil, without love, without prospect—though all this may not be too much for your faith, Maria, I own it is at times for mine."

"Of all these evils, there is but one which is very hard to bear. I am solitary; and the suffering from the sense of this is great. But what has been borne may be borne; and this evil is precisely that which has been the peculiar trial of the greatest and best of their race—or of those who have been recognised as such. You will not suppose that I try to flatter my pride with this thought; or that the most insane pride could be a support under this kind of suffering. I mean only that there can be nothing morally fatal in a trial which many of the wisest and best have sustained."

"But it is painful—very painful."

"For the mere pain, let it pass; and for the other desagremens of my lot, let us not dare to speak evil of them, lest we should be slandering my best friends. If infirmity, toil, poverty, and the foibles of people about us, all go to fortify us in self-reliance, God forbid that we should quarrel with them!"

"But are you sure, quite sure, that you can stand the discipline? that your nerves, as well as your soul, can endure?"

"Far from sure: but my peril is less than it was; and I have, therefore, every hope of victory at last. In my wilderness, some tempter or another comes, at times when my heart is hungry, and my faith is fainting, and shows me such a lot as yours—all the sunny kingdoms of love and hope given into your hand—and then the desert of my lot looks dreary enough for the moment; but then arises the very reasonable question, why we should demand that one lot should, in this exceedingly small section of our immortality, be as happy as another: why we cannot each husband our own life and means without wanting to be all equal. Let us bless Heaven for your lot, by all means; but why, in the name of Providence, should mine be like it? Nay, Margaret, why these tears? For their sake I will tell you—and then we shall have talked quite enough about me—that you are no fair judge of my lot. You see me often, generally, in the midst of annoyance, and you do not (because no one can) look with the eye of my mind upon the future. If you could, for one day and night, feel with my feelings, and see through my eyes—."

"Oh, that I could! I should be the holier for ever after?"

"Nay, nay! but if you could do this, you would know, from henceforth, that there are glimpses of heaven for me in solitude, as for you in love; and that it is almost as good to look forward without fear of chance or change, as with such a flutter of hope as is stirring in you now. So much for the solitaries of the earth, and because Providence should be justified of his children. Now, when is this family meeting to take place in the corner-house?"

"Frank hopes to land in August; and Anne, Mrs Gilchrist, will meet him as soon as she can hear, in her by-corner of the world, of his arrival. The other sister is still abroad, and cannot come. I hope Anne may be a friend to you—an intimate. Judging by her brothers, and her own letters, I think she must be worthy."

"Thank you; but you are, and ever will be, my intimate. There can be no other. We shall be often seeing you here."

"Sometimes; and we shall have you with us."

"No: I cannot come to London. I shall never leave this place again, I believe; but you will be often coming to it. When that crowd of new graves in the churchyard shall be waving with grass, and those old woods looking more ancient still, and the grown people of Deerbrook telling their little ones all about the pestilence that swept the place at the end of the great scarcity, when they were children, you and yours, and perhaps I, may sit, a knot of grey-headed friends, and hear over again about those good old days of ours, as we shall then call them."

"And tell how there was an aged man, who told us of his seeing the deer come down through the forest to drink at the brook. I should like to behold those future days."

"And to remember whose face you saw in the torchlight, at the time and place of your hearing the old man's tale. Whose horse do I hear stopping at the stable?"

"It is Philip's. He has galloped home before the rest," said Margaret, drawing back from the window with the smile still upon her face. "Now, Maria, before any one comes, tell me—would you like to be with me on Tuesday morning or not? Do as you like."

"I will come, to be sure," said Maria, smiling. "And now, while there is any twilight left, go and give Mr Enderby the walk in the shrubbery that he galloped home for."

Margaret kept Philip waiting while she lighted her friend's lamp; and its gleam shone from the window of the summer-house for long, while, talking of Maria, the lovers paced the shrubbery, and let the twilight go.

THE END