"I have a great mind to go back all the way round by Wigfield to take leave of him," said Crayshaw. "You think I don't love that dog? All I know is, then, that I called him out of his kennel the last time I left him—woke him from his balmy slumber, and kissed him."

"Oh, yes, we know all about that," observed Barbara. "It was quite dusk, mamma, and Johnnie had stuck up the kitchenmaid's great mop, leaning against the roof of Blob's kennel, where he often sits when he is sulky. We all went to see the fun, and Cray thrust his face into it. It looked just like Blob's head."

"I'm sure I don't know what A.J. Mortimer could see of a military nature in that tender incident," said Crayshaw, with great mildness. "I did not expect, after our long friendship, to have a Latin verse written upon me, and called 'The Blunderbuss.'"

Crayshaw had grown into a handsome young fellow, and looked old for his years, and manly, though he was short. He had quite lost his former air of delicate health, and, though sorry to part with the young Mortimers, could not conceal a certain exultation in the thought of leaving school, and returning to his native country.

"Scroggins has been growing faster than ever," he said, half-enviously. "Whenever he gets from under my eyes he takes advantage of it to run up."

Emily remonstrated. "I don't like to hear you call Johnnie 'Scroggins.'"

"Oh, that's only my poetical way; the old poets frequently did it. 'Lines to his Mistress, Eliza Wheeler, under the name of Amaryllis.' You often see that kind of thing. In the same way I write to my chum, A.J. Mortimer, under the name of Scroggins. 'Scroggins, of vertuous father vertuous son.' I think it sounds extremely well."

Valentine was very well pleased the next afternoon to find himself sitting among a posse of young Mortimers and Crayshaw, under the great pear and apple trees, the latter just coming out to join their blossom to that of their more forward neighbours. It was his nature to laugh and make laugh, and his character to love youth, his own being peculiarly youthful. His usual frame of mind was repentant and humble, and he was very grateful for the apparent removal of illness. He was soon to be well, and hope and joy woke up in his heart, and came forth to meet the spring.

John Mortimer and Emily sat near enough, without joining the group, to catch the conversation, when they chose to listen. John was peculiarly grave and silent, and Emily was touched for the supposed cause. Valentine was the only relation left who had lived in his presence. She knew he had almost a brother's affection and partial preference for him. She knew that he had doubts and fears as to his health, and she thought of nothing more as the cause of his silence and gravity.

She made some remark as to Valentine's obvious improvement that morning; in fact, his spirits were lightened, and that alone was enough to refresh him. Things were making progress also in the direction he wished; his berth was secured, his courier was engaged, and some of his packing was done.

By degrees the mere satisfaction of Emily's presence made it easier for John Mortimer to accept the consolation of her hope. He began to think that Valentine might yet do well, and the burnt letters receded into the background of his thoughts. Why, indeed, unless his cousin died, need he ever allow them to trouble him again?

Valentine looked from time to time at John and at Emily, and considered also the situation, thinking, "He loves her so, his contentment with her is so supreme, that nothing of dead and done crime or misery will hang about his thoughts long. He will get away, and in absence forget it, as I shall. I'll take a long look, though, now, at these high gables, with the sunshine on them, and at those strange casements, and these white trees. I know I shall never regret them, but I shall wish to remember what they were like."

He looked long and earnestly at the place and at the group. The faces of some were as grave as their father's.

Little Hugh, having a great matter to decide, could hear and see nothing that passed. What should he give Crayshaw for a keepsake? The best thing he had was his great big plank, that he had meant to make into a see-saw. It was such a beauty! Cray loved carpentering. Now, the question was—Cray would like it, no doubt, but would the ship take it over? How could it be packed?

Next to him sat Gladys, and what she felt and thought she hardly knew herself. A certain link was to be snapped asunder, which, like some growing tendril, had spread itself over and seemed to unite two adjacent trees.

Cray was in very high spirits at the thought of going home. She felt she might be dull when he was gone.

She had read his letter to Johnnie; there was in it only a very slight allusion to her. She had told him how the German governess had begun one to her, "Girl of my heart." He had not answered, but he showed thus that he had read her anecdote.

His letter to Johnnie ran as follows:—

"Augustus John of my heart,—When I heard I was going home to America, I heaved up one of the largest sighs that ever burst from a young-manly bosom. I'm better now, thank you. In short, I feel that if I were to be deprived of the fun of the voyage, it would blight a youth of heretofore unusual promise.

"George Crayshaw, when he saw my dismay at the notion of leaving this little island (into which, though you should penetrate to the very centre, you could never escape the salt taste of the sea-air on your lips), said he was ashamed of me. The next day, when I was furious because he declared that we couldn't sail for three weeks on account of packing the rubbish he has collected, he said so again. There is a great want of variety in that citizen," &c.

Gladys was roused from her cogitations by hearing Valentine say—

"Sitting with your back to Barbara! You'll have to take some lessons in manners before you go where they think that 'the proper study of mankind is woman.'"

"It was I who moved behind him," said Barbara, "to get out of the sun."

Crayshaw replied with a sweet smile and exceeding mildness of tone—

"Yes, I must begin to overhaul my manners at once. I must look out for an advertisement that reads something like this:—

"'The undersigned begs to thank his friends and the public for their continued patronage, and gives notice that gentlemen of neglected education can take lessons of him as usual on his own premises, at eightpence an hour, on the art of making offers to the fair sex. N.B.—This course paid in advance.

"'Dummy ladies provided as large as life. Every gentleman brings a clean white pocket-handkerchief, and goes down on his own knees when he learns this exercise, Fancy styles extra.

"'Signed,

"'Valentine Melcombe.

"'References exchanged.'"

"You impudent young dog!" exclaimed Valentine, delighted with this sally, and not at all sorry that Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer were out of hearing—they having risen and strolled down to a lower portion of the orchard.

Valentine was seated on a low garden-chair, and his young guests were grouped about him on a Persian carpet which had been spread there. Gladys was roused from her reverie by seeing Valentine snatch a piece of paper from Crayshaw—peals of laughter following his pretended reading of it.

"They actually think, those two, of having their poems printed," Barbara had been saying.

"It would only cost about L30," said Crayshaw, excusing himself, "and Mrs. Mortimer promised to subscribe for twenty copies. Why, Lord Byron did it. If he wrote better Latin verse than Scroggins does, where is it?"

"The first one, then," said Barbara, "ought to be Johnnie's parody that he did in the holidays. Mamma gave him a title for it, 'Ode on a Distant Prospect of leaving Harrow School.'"

Then it was that Valentine snatched the paper.

"Most of them are quite serious," Crayshaw here remarked.

"Ah, so this is the list of them," said Valentine, pretending to read:—

"'POEMS BY TWO SCHOOLBOYS.'

"One.—'Lines written on a late Auspicious Occasion' (I do so like that word auspicious), 'and presented to my new step-uncle-in-law, with a smile and a tear.' I'll read them:—

"'Respecting thee with all my might, Thy virtues thus I sing.'"

"It's a story!" shouted Johnnie, interrupting him. "I don't respect you a bit, and I never wrote it."

"Two," proceeded Valentine, "'The Whisper, by a Lisper,' and 'The Stick of Chocolate, a Reverie.' Now, do you mean to tell me that you did not write these?"

"No, I didn't! you know I didn't!"

"Four," Valentine went on, "'The City of the Skunk, an Ode.' Now, Cray, it is of no use your saying you did not write this, for you sent me a copy, and told me that was the poetical name for Chicago."

"Well," said Crayshaw, "I tried that subject because Mr. Mortimer said something about the true sustenance of the poetic life coming from the race and the soil to which the poet belonged; but George was so savage when I showed it to him that I felt obliged to burn it."

"Five.—'To Mrs. M. of M.,'" continued Valentine. "It seems to be a song:—

"'Oh, clear as candles newly snuffed Are those round orbs of thine.'"

"It's false," exclaimed Crayshaw; "Mrs. Melcombe indeed! She's fat, she's three times too old for me."

"Why did you write it, then?" persisted Valentine. "I think this line,—

"'Lovely as waxwork is thy brow,'

"does you great credit. But what avails it! She is now another's. I got her wedding cards this morning. She is married to one Josiah Fothergill, and he lives in Warwick Square.

"Six—'The Black Eye, a Study from Life.'"

"But their things are not all fun, cousin Val," said Gladys, observing, not without pleasure, that Crayshaw was a little put out at Valentine's joke about Mrs. Melcombe. "Cray is going to be a real poet now, and some of his things are very serious indeed."

"This looks very serious," Valentine broke in; "perhaps it is one of them: 'Thoughts on Futurity, coupling with it the name of my Whiskers,'"

"There's his ode to Sincerity," proceeded Gladys; "I am sure you would like that."

"For we tell so many stories, you know," remarked Barbara; "say so many things that we don't mean. Cray thinks we ought not."

"For instance," said Johnnie, "sometimes when people write that they are coming to see us, we answer that we are delighted, when in reality we wish that they were at the bottom of the sea."

"No, no," answered Valentine, in a deprecatory tone; "don't say at the bottom, that sounds unkind. I'm sure I never wished anybody more than half-way down."

Two or three days after this a grand early dinner took place at Melcombe. All the small Mortimers were present, and a number of remarkable keepsakes were bestowed afterwards on Crayshaw by way of dessert. After this, while Mr. and Mrs. John Mortimer sat together in the house the party adjourned to the orchard, and Crayshaw presently appeared with a small box in which had hitherto been concealed his own gifts of like nature. Among them were two gold lockets, one for each of the twins.

"I helped him to choose them," said Johnnie, "and he borrowed the money of his brother."

"There's nothing in them," observed Barbara. "It would be much more romantic if we put in a lock of Cray's hair."

"I thought of that," quoth the donor, "but I knew very well that the first new friend you had, you would turn it out and put his in, just as both of you turned my photograph out of those pretty frames, and put in Prince Leopold after he had passed through the town. You are to wear these lockets."

"Oh yes," said Barbara, "and how pretty they are with their little gold chains!"

"Cray, if you will give me a lock of your hair, I promise not to take it out," said Gladys.

She produced a little pair of scissors, and as he sat at her feet, cut off a small curl, and between them they put it in. A certain wistfulness was in her youthful face, but no one noticed it.

"I shouldn't wonder," she remarked, "if you never came back any more."

"Oh yes, I shall," he answered in a tone of equal conviction and carelessness.

"Why? you have no friends at all but us."

"No, I haven't," he answered, and looked up at her as she stood knitting, and leaning against a tree.

"Of course you'll come," exclaimed Johnnie, "you're coming for your wedding tour. Your wife will make you; you're going to be married as soon as you're of age, old fellow."

Then Crayshaw, blushing hotly, essayed to hit Johnnie, who forthwith started up and was pursued by him with many a whoop and shout, in a wild circling chase among the trees. At length, finding he was not to be caught, Crayshaw returned a good deal heated, and Johnnie followed smiling blandly, and flung himself on the grass breathing hard.

"Well, I'm glad you two are not going to finish up your friendship with another fight," said Valentine.

"He's always prophesying something horrid about me," exclaimed Crayshaw. "Why am I to be married any more than he is, I should like to know? If I do, you'll certainly have to give up that visit to California, that Mr. Mortimer almost promised you should make with me. Gladys, I suppose he would not let you and Barbara come too?"

"Oh no. I am sure he would not."

"What fun we might have!"

"Yes."

"I don't see if you were a family man, why it shouldn't be done," said Johnnie, returning to the charge, "but if you won't marry, even to oblige your oldest friends, why you won't."

"Time's up," said Valentine, looking at his watch, "and there's my dog-cart coming round to the door."

The youth rose then with a sigh, took leave of Valentine, and reluctantly turned towards the house, all the young Mortimers following. They were rather late for the train, so that the parting was hurried, and poor little Gladys as she gazed after the dog-cart, while Johnnie drove and Crayshaw looked back, felt a great aching pain at her heart, and thought she should never forget him.

But perhaps she did.

The young Mortimers were to leave Melcombe themselves the next day, and Valentine was to accompany them home, sleeping one night at their father's house by way of breaking his journey, and seeing his family before he started on his voyage.

He was left alone, and watched his guests as their receding figures were lost among the blossoming trees. He felt strangely weak that afternoon, but he was happy. The lightness of heart that comes of giving up some wrong or undesirable course of action (one that he thought wrong) might long have been his, but he had not hitherto been able to get away from the scene of it.

To-morrow he was to depart. Oh, glad to-morrow!

He laid himself back in his seat, and looked at the blue hills, and listened to the sweet remote voices of the children, let apple-blossoms drop all over him, peered through great brown boughs at the empty sky, and lost himself in a sea of thought which seemed almost as new to him and as fathomless as that was.

Not often does a man pass his whole life before him and deliberately criticize himself, his actions and his way.

If he does, it is seldom when he would appear to an outsider to have most reasonable occasion; rather during some pause when body and mind both are still.

The soul does not always recognise itself as a guest seated within this frame; sometimes it appears to escape and look at the human life it has led, as if from without. It seems to become absorbed into the august stream of being; to see that fragment itself, without self-love, and as the great all of mankind would regard it if laid open to them.

It perceives the inevitable verdict. Thus and thus have I done. They will judge me rightly, that thus and thus I am.

If a man is reasonable and sees things as they were, he does not often fix on some particular act for which to blame himself when he deplores the past, for at times of clear vision, the soul escapes from the bondage of incident. It gets away from the region of particulars, and knows itself by nature even better than by deed. There is a common thought that beggars sympathy in almost every shallow mind. It seldom finds deliberate expression. Perhaps it may be stated thus:—

The greatness of the good derived from it, makes the greatness of the fault.

A man tells a great lie, and saves his character by it. No wonder it weighs on his conscience ever after. And yet perhaps he has told countless lies, both before and since, told them out of mere carelessness, or from petty spite or for small advantages, and utterly forgotten them. Now which of these, looked at by the judge, is the great offender? Is the one lie he repents of the most wicked, or are those that with small temptation he flung about daily, and so made that one notable lie easy?

Was it strange that Valentine, looking back, should not with any special keenness of pain have rued his mistake in taking Melcombe?

No. That was a part of himself. It arose naturally out of his character, which, but for that one action, he felt he never might have fully known.

So weak, so longing for pleasure and ease, so faintly conscious of any noble desire for good, so wrapped up in a sense as of the remoteness of God, how could it be otherwise?

If a man is a Christian, he derives often in such thoughts a healing consciousness of the Fatherhood and Humanity of God. He perceives that he was most to be pitied and least to be judged, not while he stood, but when he fell. There is no intention of including here hardened crimes of dishonesty, and cruelty, and violence, only those pathetic descents which the ingrain faults and original frailty of our nature make so easy, and which life and the world are so arranged as to punish even after a loving God forgives.

"Those faults," he may say, "they seem to live, though I shall die. They are mine, though I lose all else beside. Where can I lay them down, where lose them? Is there any healing to be found other than in His sympathy, His forgiveness who made our nature one with His to raise it to Himself?"

The world is not little. Life is not mean. It spreads itself in aspiration, it has possession through its hope. It inhabits all remoteness that the eye can reach; it inherits all sweetness that the ear can prove; always bereaved of the whole, it yet looks for a whole; always clasping its little part, it believes in the remainder. Sometimes, too often, like a bird it gets tangled in a net which notwithstanding it knew of. It must fly with broken wings ever alter. Or, worse, it is tempted to descend, as the geni into the vase, for a little while, when sealed down at once unaware, it must lie in the dark so long, that it perhaps denies the light in heaven for lack of seeing it.

If those who have the most satisfying lot that life can give are to breathe freely, they must get through, and on, and out of it.

Not because it is too small for us, but too great, it bears so many down. On the whole that vast mass of us which inherits its narrowest portion, tethered, and that on the world's barest slope, does best.

The rich and the free have a choice, they often choose amiss. Yet no choice can (excepting for this world) be irretrievable; and that same being for whom the great life of the world proved too much, learns often in the loss of everything, what his utmost gain was not ordained to teach.

He wanted all, and at last he can take that all, without which nothing can make him content. He perceives, and his heart makes answer to, the yearning Fatherhood above; he recognises the wonderful upward drawing with love and fear.

"This is God! He moves me so, to take of Him what lacks; My want is God's desire to give; He yearns To add Himself to life, and so for aye Make it enough."



CHAPTER XXXVII.

HIS VISITOR.

"The fairy woman maketh moan, 'Well-a-day, and well-a-day, Forsooth I brought thee one rose, one, and thou didst cast my rose away.' Hark! Oh hark, she mourneth yet, 'One good ship—the good ship sailed, One bright star, at last it set, one, one chance, forsooth it failed.'

"'Clear thy dusk hair from thy veiled eyes, show thy face as thee beseems, For yet is starlight in the skies, weird woman piteous through my dreams, 'Nay,' she mourns, 'forsooth not now, veiled I sit for evermore, Rose is shed, and charmed prow shall not touch the charmed shore.

"There thy sons that were to be, thy small gamesome children play; There all loves that men foresee straight as wands enrich the way. Dove-eyed, fair, with me they wonn where enthroned I reign a queen, In the lovely realms foregone, in the lives that might have been."

That glad to-morrow for Valentine never came. At the time when he should have reached Wigfield, a letter summoned his brother to Melcombe.

Emily and John Mortimer had delayed their return, for Valentine, whether from excitement at the hope of setting off, or from the progress of his disease, had been attacked, while sitting out of doors, with such sudden prostration of strength that he was not got back again to the house without the greatest difficulty. They opened a wide window of the "great parlour," laid him on a couch, and then for some hours it seemed doubtful whether he would rally.

He was very calm and quiet about it, did not at all give up hope, but assented when his sister said, "May I write to St. George to come to you?" and sent a message in the letter, asking his brother to bring his wife and child.

He seemed to be much better when they arrived, and for two or three days made good progress towards recovery; but the doctors would not hear of his attempting to begin his journey, or even of his rising from the bed which had been brought down for him into the wide, old-fashioned parlour.

And so it came to pass that Brandon found himself alone about midnight with Valentine, after a very comfortable day of little pain or discomposure. All the old intimacy had returned now, and more than the old familiar affection. Giles was full of hope, which was all the stronger because Valentine did not himself manifest that unreasonable hopefulness which in a consumptive patient often increases as strength declines.

His will was signed, and in his brother's keeping; all his affairs were settled.

"I know," he had said to his brother, "that I have entirely brought this illness on myself. I was perfectly well. I often think that if I had never come here I should have been so still. I had my choice; I had my way. But if I recover, as there seems still reason to think I may, I hope it will be to lead a higher and happier life. Perhaps even some day, though always repenting it, I may be able to look back on this fault and its punishment of illness and despondency with a thankful heart. It showed me myself. I foresee, I almost possess such a feeling already. It seems to have been God's way of bringing me near to Him. Sometimes I feel as if I could not have done without it."

Valentine said these words before he fell asleep that night, and Giles, as he sat by him, was impressed by them, and pondered on them. So young a man seldom escapes from the bonds of his own reticence, when speaking of his past life, his faults, and his religious feelings. This was not like Valentine. He was changed, but that, considering what he had undergone, did not surprise a man who could hope and believe anything of him, so much as did his open, uncompromising way of speaking about such a change.

"And yet it seems strange," Valentine added, after a pause, "that we should be allowed, for want of knowing just a little more, to throw ourselves away."

"We Could hardly believe that it was in us, any of us, to throw ourselves away," Brandon answered, "if we were always warned to the point of prevention."

Valentine sighed. "I suppose we cannot have it both ways. If God, because man is such a sinner, so overruled and overawed him that no crime could be committed, he would be half-unconscious of the sin in his nature, and would look up no more either for renewal or forgiveness. Men obliged to abstain from evil could not feel that their nature was lower than their conduct. When I have wished, Giles, as I often have done lately, that I could have my time over again, I have felt consoled, in knowing this could not be, to recollect how on the consciousness of the fault is founded the conscious longing for pardon. But I will tell you more of all this to-morrow," he added; and soon after that he fell asleep.

A nurse was to have watched with him that night, but Brandon could not sleep, and he desired that she should rest in an adjacent room till he called her. In the meantime, never more hopeful since he had first seen Valentine on reaching Melcombe, he continued to sit by his bed, frequently repeating that he would go up-stairs shortly, but not able to do it.

At one o'clock Valentine woke, and Brandon, half excusing himself for being still there, said he could not sleep, and liked better to wake in that room than anywhere else.

Valentine was very wakeful now, and restless; he took some nourishment, and then wanted to talk. All sorts of reminiscences of his childhood and early youth seemed to be present with him. He could not be still, and at length Brandon proposed to read to him, and brought the lamp near, hoping to read him to sleep.

There was but one book to be read to a sick man in the dead of the night, when all the world was asleep, and great gulfs of darkness lurked in the corners of the room.

Giles read, and felt that Valentine was gradually growing calmer. He almost thought he might be asleep, when he said—"St. George, there's no air in this room."

"You must not have the windows open," answered Brandon.

"Read me those last words again, then," said Valentine, "and let me look out; it's so dark here."

Brandon read, "The fulness of Him that filleth all in all."

Valentine asked to have the curtain drawn back, and for more than an hour continued gazing out at the great full moon now rapidly southing, and at the lofty pear-trees, so ghostly white, showering down their blossom in the night. Brandon also sat looking now at the scene, now at him, till the welcome rest of another sleep came to him; and the moon went down, leaving their shaded lamp to lighten the space near it, and gleam on the gilding of quaint old cabinets and mirrors, and frames containing portraits of dead Melcombes, not one of whom either of these brothers had ever seen.

Brandon sat deep in thought, and glad to hear Valentine breathing so quietly, when the first solemn approaches of dawn appeared in the east; and as he turned to notice the change, Valentine woke, and gazed out also among the ghostly trees.

"There he is," said Valentine, in his usual tone of voice.

"Who is?" asked Brandon.

"My father—don't you see him walking among the trees? He came to see my uncle—I told you so!"

Brandon was inexpressibly startled. He leaned neared, and looked into Valentine's wide-open eyes, in which was no sign of fear or wonder.

"Why, you are half asleep, you have been dreaming," he presently said, in a reassuring tone. "Wake up, now; see how fast the morning dawns."

Valentine made him no answer, but he looked as usual. There was nothing to bespeak increased illness till he spoke again, faintly and fast—"Dorothea—did he bring Dorothea?"

Giles then perceived with alarm that he was not conscious of his presence—took no notice of his answer. He leaned down with sudden and eager affright, and heard Valentine murmur—"I thought he would have let me kiss her once before I went away."

Brandon started from his knees by Valentine's bed as this last faint utterance reached him, and rushed up-stairs to his wife's room with all the speed he could command.

Oh, so fast asleep! her long hair loose on the pillow. How fair she looked, and how serene, in her dimpled, child-like beauty!

"Love, love!—wake up, love! I want you, Dorothea."

She opened her startled eyes, and turned with a mother's instinct to glance at her little child, who was asleep beside her, looking scarcely more innocent than herself.

"Love, make haste! Valentine is very ill. I want you to come to him. Where's your dressing-gown?—why here. Are you awake now? What is it, do you ask? Oh, I cannot tell—but I fear, I fear."

He rushed down-stairs again, and was supporting Valentine's head with his arm when Dorothea appeared, and stopped for one instant in the doorway, arrested by some solemn words. Could it be Valentine that spoke? There was a change in his voice that startled her, and as she came on her face was full of tender and awe-struck wonder.

"The fulness of Him," he said, "that filleth all in all."

Brandon looked up, and in the solemn dawn beheld her advancing in her long white drapery, and with her fair hair falling about her face. She looked like one of those angels that men behold in their dreams.

Valentine's eyes were slowly closing.

"Kiss him, my life!" said Brandon, and she came on, and kneeling beside him put her sweet mouth to his.

Valentine did not have that kiss!

THE END