"You are the agent here, I presume?"

Maryllia's voice rang cold and clear,—there was not a trace of the sweet and coaxing tone in it that had warmed the heart of old Josey Letherbarrow.

Leach looked up, lifting his cap half reluctantly.

"I am!"

"You have had my orders?"

Leach was silent. The young rustics hustled one another forward, moved by strong excitement, all eager to see the feminine 'Humpire' who had descended upon them as suddenly as a vision falling from the skies, and all wondering what would happen next.

"You have had my orders?" repeated Maryllia;—then, as no answer was vouchsafed to her, she looked round and perceived Bainton. To him she at once addressed herself.

"Who has struck Spruce?"

Bainton hesitated. It was an exceedingly awkward position. He looked appealingly, as was his wont, up into the air and among the highest branches of the 'Five Sisters' for 'Passon Walden,' but naturally could not discover him at that elevation.

"Come, come!" said Maryllia, imperatively—"You are not all deaf, I hope! Give me a straight answer, one of you! Who struck Spruce?"

"Mister Leach did!" said the big-boned lad who had constituted himself Spruce's defender. "We 'eerd down in the village as 'ow you'd come 'ome, Miss, and as 'ow you'd give your orders that the Five Sisters was to be left stannin', and we coomed up wi' Spruce to see 'ow Leach 'ud take it, an' 'fore we could say a wurrd Leach he up wi' his whip and cut Spruce across the for'ead as ye see—"

Maryllia raised her hand and silenced him with a gesture. "Thank you! That will do. I understand!" She turned towards Leach; "What have you to say for yourself?" "I take no orders from a servant," replied Leach, insolently; "I have managed this estate for ten years, and I give in my statements and receive my instructions from the firm of solicitors who have it in charge. I am not called upon to accept any different arrangement without proper notice."

Maryllia heard him out with coldly attentive patience.

"You will accept a different arrangement without any further notice at all," she said; "You will leave the premises and resign all management of my property from this day henceforward. I dismiss you, for disobedience and insolence, and for assaulting my servant, Spruce, in the execution of his duty. And as for these trees, if any man touches a bough of one of them without my permission, I will have him prosecuted! Now you know my mind!".

She sat proudly erect in her saddle, while the village hobbledehoys who had instinctively gathered round her, like steel shavings round a magnet, fairly gasped for breath. Oliver Leach dismissed! Oliver Leach, the petty tyrant, the carping, snarling jack-in-office, cast out like a handful of bad rubbish! It was like a thunderbolt fallen from heaven and riving the earth on which they stood! Bainton heard, and could scarcely keep back a chuckle of satisfaction. He longed to make Spruce understand what was going on, but that unfortunate individual was slightly stunned by Leach's heavy blow, and sitting on the grass with his head between his two hands, was gazing, in a kind of stupefaction at the 'new Missis'; so that any 'bellowing' into his ear was scarcely possible.

Leach himself stared blankly and incredulously,—his face crimsoned with a sudden rush of enraged blood and then paled again, and changing his former insolent tone for one both fawning and propitiatory, he stammered out:

"I am very sorry—I—I beg your pardon, Madam!—if you will give yourself a little time to consider, you will see I have done my duty on this property all the time I have been connected with it. I hope you will not dismiss me for the first fault!—I—I—admit I should not have struck Spruce,—but—I—I was taken by surprise—I—I know my business,—and I am not accustomed to be interfered with—" Here his pent-up anger got the better of him and he again began to bluster. "I have done my duty—no man better!" he said in fierce accents. "There's not an acre of woodland here that isn't in a better condition than it was ten years ago—Ah!—and bringing in more money too!—and now I am to be turned off for a parcel of village idiots who hardly know a beech from an elm! I'll make a case of it! Sir Morton Pippitt knows me—I'll speak to Sir Morton Pippitt—"

"Sir Morton Pippitt!" echoed Maryllia disdainfully; "What has he to do with me or my property?" Here she suddenly spied Walden, who, in his eagerness to hear every word that passed had, unconsciously to himself, moved well out of the sheltering shadow of the trees—"Are YOU Sir Morton Pippitt?"

A broad grin, deepening into a scarcely suppressed titter, Went the round of the gaping young rustics. Walden himself smiled,—and recognising that the time had now come to declare himself, he advanced a step or two and lifted his hat.

"I have not that pleasure! I am the minister of this parish, and my name is John Walden. I'm afraid I am rather a trespasser here!—but I have loved these old trees for many years, and I came up this morning,—having heard what your orders were from my gardener Bainton,—to see that those orders were properly carried out,—and also to save possible disturbance—"

He broke off. Maryllia, while he spoke, had eyed him somewhat critically, and now favoured him with a charming smile.

"Thank you very much!" she said sweetly; "It was most kind of you! I wonder—" And she paused, knitting her pretty brows in perplexity; "I wonder if you could get rid of everybody for me?"

He glanced up at her in a little wonderment.

"Could you?" she repeated.

He drew nearer.

"Get rid of everybody?—you mean?—"

She leaned confidentially from her saddle.

"Yes—YOU know! Send them all about their business! Clergymen can always do that, can't they? There's really nothing more to be said or done—the trees shall not be touched,—the matter is finished. Tell all these big boys to go away—and—oh, YOU know!"

A twinkle of merriment danced in Walden's eyes. But he turned quite a set and serious face round on the magnetised lads of the village, who hung about, loth to lose a single glance or a single word of the wonderful 'Missis' who had the audacious courage to dismiss Leach.

"Now, boys!" he said peremptorily; "Clear away home and begin your day's work! You're not wanted here any longer. The trees are safe,— and you can tell everyone what Miss Vancourt says about them. Bainton! You take these fellows home,—Spruce had better go with you. Just call at the doctor's on the way and get his wound attended to. Come now, boys!—sharp's the word!"

A general scrambling movement followed this brief exordium. With shy awkwardness each young fellow lifted his cap as he shambled sheepishly past Maryllia, who acknowledged these salutes smilingly,- -Bainton assisted Spruce to rise to his feet, and then took him off under his personal escort,—and only Leach remained, convulsively gripping his dog-whip which he had picked up from the ground where the lads had thrown it,—and anon striking it against his boot with a movement of impatience and irritation.

"GOOD-morning, Mr. Leach!" said Walden pointedly. But Leach stood still, looking askance at Maryllia.

"Miss Vancourt," he said, hoarsely; "Am I to understand that you meant what you said just now?"

She glanced at him coldly.

"That I dismiss you from my service? Of course I meant it! Of course I mean it!"

"I am bound to have fair notice," he muttered. "I cannot collect all my accounts in a moment—"

"Whatever else you may do, you will leave this place at, once;" said Maryllia, firmly,—"I will communicate my decision to the solicitors and they will settle with you. No more words, please!"

She turned her mare slowly round on the grassy knoll, looking up meanwhile at the lovely canopy of tremulous young green above her head. John Walden watched her. So did Oliver Leach,—and with a sudden oath, rapped out like a discordant bomb bursting in the still air, he exclaimed savagely:

"You shall repent this, my fine lady! By God, you shall! You shall rue the day you ever saw Abbot's Manor again! You had far better have stayed with your rich Yankee relations than have made such a home-coming as this for yourself, and such an outgoing for me! My curse on you!"

Shaking his fist threateningly at her, he sprang down the knoll, and plunging through the grass and fern was soon lost to sight.

The soft colour in Maryllia's cheeks paled a little and a slight tremor ran through her frame. She looked at Walden,—then laughed carelessly.

"Guess I've given him fits!" she said, relapsing into one of her Aunt Emily's American colloquialisms, with happy unconsciousness that this particular phrase coming from her pretty lips sent a kind of shock through John's sensitive nerves. "He's not a very pleasant man to meet anyway! And it isn't altogether agreeable to be cursed on the first morning of my return home. But, after all, it doesn't matter much, as there's a clergyman present!" And her blue eyes. danced mischievously; "Isn't it lucky you came? You can stop that curse on its way and send it back like a homing pigeon, can't you? What do you say when you do it? 'Retro me Sathanas,' or something of that kind, isn't it? Whatever it is, say it now, won't you?"

Walden laughed,—he could not help laughing. She spoke, with such a whimsical flippancy, and she looked so bewitchingly pretty.

"Really, Miss Vancourt, I don't think I need utter any special formula on this occasion," he said, gaily. "You have done a good action to the whole community by dismissing Leach. Good actions bring their own reward, while curses, like chickens, come home to roost. Pray forgive me for quoting copybook maxims! But, for the curse of one ill-conditioned boor, you will have the thanks and blessings of all your tenantry. That will take the edge of the malediction; don't you think so?"

She turned her mare in the homeward direction, and began to guide it gently down the slope. Walking by her side, John held back one of the vast leafy boughs of the great trees to allow her to pass more easily, and glanced up at her smilingly as he put his question.

She met his eyes with an open frankness that somewhat disconcerted him.

"Well, I don't know about that!" she replied. "You see, in these days of telepathy and hypnotic suggestion, there may be something very catching about a curse. It's just like a little seed of disease;—if it falls on the right soil it germinates and spreads, and then all manner of wicked souls get the infection. I believe that in the old days everybody guessed this instinctively, without being able to express it scientifically,—and that's why they ran to the Church for protection agaiast curses, and the evil eye, and things of that sort. See how some of the old Scottish curses cling even to this day! The only way to take the sting out of a curse is to get it transposed"—and she smiled, glancing meditatively up into the brightening blue of the sky. "Like a song, you know! If it's too low for the voice you transpose it to a higher key. I daresay the Church was able to do that in the days when it had REAL faith—oh!— I beg your pardon!—I ought not to say that to a man of your calling."

"Why not?" said Walden; "Pray say anything you like to me, Miss Vancourt;—I should be a very poor and unsatisfactory sort of creature if I could not bear any criticism on my vocation. Besides, I quite agree with you. The early Church had certainly more faith than it has now."

"You're not a bit like a parson," said Maryllia gravely, studying his face with embarrassing candour and closeness; "You look quite a nice pleasant sort of man."

John Walden laughed again,—this time with sincere heartiness. Maryllia's eyes twinkled, and little dimples came and went round her mouth and chin.

"You seem amused at that," she said; "But I've seen a great deal of life—and I have met heaps and heaps of parsons—parsons young and parsons old—and they were all horrid, simply horrid! Some talked Bible—and others talked the Sporting Times—any amount of them talked the drama, and played villains in private theatricals. I never met but one real minister,—that is a man who ministers to the poor,—and he died in a London slum before he was thirty. I believe he was a saint; and if he had lived in the days of the early Church, he would certainly have been canonised. He would have been Saint William—his name was William. But he was only one William,—I've seen hundreds of them."

"Hundreds of Williams?" queried Walden suggestively.

This time it was Maryllia who laughed,—a gay little laugh like that of a child.

"No, I guess not!" she answered; "Some of them are real Johnnies! Oh dear me!"—and again her laughter broke forth; "I quite forgot! You said YOUR name was John!"

"So it is." And he smiled; "I'm sorry you don't like it!"

She checked her merriment abruptly, and became suddenly serious.

"But I do like it! You mustn't think I don't. Oh, how rude I must seem to you! Please forgive me! I really do like the name of John!"

He glanced up at her, still smiling.

"Thank you! It's very kind of you to say so!"

"You believe me, don't you?" she said persistently.

"Of course I do! Of course I must! Though unhappily a Churchman, I am not altogether a heretic.'"

The smile deepened in his eyes,—and as she met his somewhat quizzical glance a slight wave of colour rose to her cheeks and brow. She drew herself up in her saddle with a sudden, proud movement and carried her little head a trifle higher. Walden looked at her now as he would have looked at a charming picture, without the least embarrassment. She appeared so extremely young to him. She awakened in his mind a feeling of kindly paternal interest, such as he might have felt for Susie Prescott or Ipsie Frost. He was not even quite sure that he considered her in any way out of the common, so far as her beauty was concerned,—though he recognised that she was almost the living image of 'the lady in the vi'let velvet' whose portrait adorned the gallery in Abbot's Manor. The resemblance was heightened by the violet colour of the riding dress she wore and the absence of any head-covering save her own pretty brown-gold hair.

"I'm glad I've saved the old trees," she said presently, checking her mare's pace, and looking back at the Five Sisters standing in unmolested grandeur on their grassy throne. "I feel a pleasant consciousness of having done something useful. They are beautiful! I haven't looked at them half enough. I shall come here all by myself this afternoon and bring a book and read under their lovely boughs. Just now I've only had time to cry 'rescue.'" She hesitated a moment, then added:" I'm very much obliged to you for your assistance, Mr. Walden!—and I'm glad you also like the trees. They shall never be touched in my lifetime, I assure you I—and I believe—yes, I believe I'll put something in my last will and testament about them—something binding, you know! Something that will set up a block in the way of land agents. Such trees as these ought to stand as long as Nature will allow them."

Walden was silent. Somehow her tone had changed from kind playfulness to ordinary formality, and her eyes rested upon him with a cool, slightly depreciatory expression. The mare was restless, and pawed the green turf impatiently.

"She longs for a gallop;" said Maryllia, patting the fine creature's glossy neck; "Don't you, Cleo? Her name is Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt. Isn't she a beauty?"

"She is indeed!" murmured Walden, with conventional politeness, though he scarcely glanced at the eulogised animal.

"She isn't a bit safe, you know," continued Maryllia; "Nobody can hold her but me! She's a perfectly magnificent hunter. I have another one who is gentleness itself, called Daffodil. My groom rides her. He could never ride Cleo." She paused, patting the mare's neck again,—then gathering up the reins in her small, loosely- gloved hand, she said: "Well, good-morning, Mr. Walden! It was most kind of you to get up so early and come to help defend my trees! I am ever so grateful to you! Pray call and see me at the Manor when you have nothing better to do. You will be very welcome!"

She nodded gracefully to him, and a few loose curls of lovely hair fell with the action like a web of sunbeams over her brow. Smiling, she tossed them back.

"Good-bye!" she called.

He raised his hat,—and in another moment the gallop of Cleopatra's swift hoofs thudded across the grass and echoed over the fields, gradually diminishing and dying away, as mare and rider disappeared within the enfolding green of the Manor woods. He stood for a while looking after the vanishing flash of violet, brown and gold, scudding over the turf and disappearing under the closely twisted boughs of budding oak and elm,—and then started to walk home himself. His face was a study of curiously mingled expressions. Surprise, amusement, and a touch of admiration struggled for the mastery in his mind, and he was compelled to admit to himself, albeit reluctantly, that the doubtfully-anticipated 'Squire-ess' was by no means the sort of person he had expected to see. Herein he was at one with Bainton.

"'Like a little sugar figure on a wedding-cake, looking sweet, and smiling pleasant!'" thought Walden, humorously recalling his gardener's description; "Scarcely that! She has a will of her own, and—possibly—a temper! A kind of spoilt child-woman, I should imagine; just the person to wear all the fripperies Mrs. Spruce was so anxious about the other day, and quite frivolous enough to squeeze her feet into shoes a couple of sizes too small for her. Beautiful? No,—her features are not regular enough for actual beauty. Pretty? Well,—perhaps she is!—in a certain sense,—but I'm no judge. Fascinating? Possibly she might be—to some men. She certainly has a sweet voice, and a very charming manner. And I don't think she is likely to be disagreeable or discourteous. But there is nothing remarkable about her—she's just a woman—with a bright smile,—and a touch of American vivacity running through her English insularity. Just a woman—with a way!"

And he strode on, his terrier trotting soberly at his heels. But he was on the whole glad he had met the lady of the Manor, because now he no longer felt any uneasiness concerning her. His curiosity was satisfied,—his instinctive dislike of her had changed to a kindly toleration, and his somewhat morbid interest in her arrival had quite abated. The 'Five Sisters' were saved—that was a good thing; and as for Miss Vancourt herself,—well!—she was evidently a harmless creature who would most likely play tennis and croquet all day and take very little interest in anything except herself.

"She will not interfere with me, nor I with her," said Walden with a sigh of satisfaction and relief; "And though we live in the same village, we shall be as far apart as the poles,—which is a great comfort'"



XI

Meanwhile, Maryllia cantered home through the woods in complacent and lively humour. The first few hours of her return to the home of her forefathers had certainly not been lacking in interest and excitement. She had heard and granted a village appeal,—she had stopped an act of vandalism,—she had saved five of the noblest trees in England,—she had conquered the hearts of several village yokels,—she had thrust a tyrant out of office,—she had been cursed by the said tyrant, a circumstance which was, to say the very least of it, quite new to her experience and almost dramatic,—and,—she had 'made eyes' at a parson! Surely this was enough adventure for one morning, especially as it was not yet eight o'clock. The whole day had yet to come; possibly she might be involved later on in still more thrilling and sensational episodes,—who could tell! She carolled a song for pure gaiety of heart, and told the rustling leaves and opening flowers in very charmingly pronounced French that

"Votre coeur a beau se defendre De s'enflammer,—Le moment vient, il faut se rendre, Il faut aimer!"

Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, curveted and pranced daintily at every check imposed on her rein, as became an equine royalty,—she was conscious of the elastic turf under her hoofs, and glad of the fresh pure air in her nostrils,—and her mistress shared with her the sense of freedom and buoyancy which an open country and fair landscape must naturally inspire in those to whom life is a daily and abounding vigorous delight, not a mere sickly brooding over the past, or a morbid anticipation of the future. The woods surrounding Abbot's Manor were by no means depressing,—they were not dark silent vistas of solemn pine, leading into deeper and deeper gloom, but cheery and picturesque clumps of elm and beech and oak, at constant intervals with hazel-copse, hawthorn and eglantine,—true English woods, suggestive of delicate romance and poesy, and made magical by the songs of birds, whose silver-throated melodies are never heard to sweeter advantage than under the leafy boughs of such unspoilt green lanes and dells as yet remain to make the charm and glamour of rural England. Primroses peeped out in smiling clusters from every mossy nook, and the pale purple of a myriad violets spread a wave of soft colour among the last year's fallen leaves, which had served good purpose in keeping the tender buds warm till Spring should lift them from their earth-cradles into full-grown blossom. Maryllia's bright eyes, glancing here and there, saw and noted a thousand beauties at every turn,—the chains of social convention and ordinance had fallen from her soul, and a joyous pulse of freedom quickened her blood and sent it dancing through her veins in currents of new exhilaration and vitality. With her multi- millionaire aunt, she had lived a life of artificial constraint, against which, despite its worldly brilliancy, her inmost and best instincts had always more or less rebelled;—now,—finding herself alone, as it were, with Mother Nature, she sprang like a child to that great maternal bosom, and nestled there with a sense of glad refreshment and peace.

"What dear wildflowers!" she murmured now, as restraining Cleopatra's coquettish gambols, she rode more slowly along, and spied the bluebells standing up among tangles of green, making exquisite contrast with the golden glow of aconites and the fragile white of wood-anemones,—"They are ever so much prettier than the hot-house things one gets any day in Paris and London! Big forced roses,—great lolling, sickly-scented lilies, and orchids—oh dear! how tired I am of orchids! Every evening a bouquet of orchids for five weeks—Sundays NOT excepted,—shall I ever forget the detestable 'rare specimens'!"

A little frown puckered her brow, and for a moment the lines of her pretty mouth drooped and pouted with a quaintly petulant expression, like that of a child going to cry.

"It was complete persecution!" she went on, crooning her complaints to herself and patting Cleopatra's arched neck by way of accompaniment to her thoughts—"Absolute dodging and spying round corners after the style of a police detective. I just hate a lover who makes his love, if it is love, into a kind of whip to flog your poor soul with! Roxmouth here, Roxmouth there, Roxmouth everywhere!- -he was just like the water in the Ancient Mariner 'and not a drop to drink.' At the play, at the Opera, in the picture-galleries, at the races, at the flower-shows, at all the 'crushes' and big functions,—in London, in Paris, in New York, in St. Petersburg, in Vienna,—always 'ce cher Roxmouth'—as Aunt Emily said;—money no consideration, distance no object,—always 'ce cher Roxmouth,' stiff as a poker, clean as fresh paint, and apparently as virtuous as an old maid,—with all his aristocratic family looming behind him, and a long ancestry of ghosts in the shadow of time, extending away back to some Saxon 'nobles,' who no doubt were coarse barbarians that ate more raw meat than was good for them, and had to be carried to bed dead drunk on mead! It IS so absurd to boast of one's ancestry! If we could only just see the dreadful men who began all the great families, we should be perfectly ashamed of them! Most of them tore up their food with their fingers. Now we Vancourts are supposed to be descended from a warrior bold, named Robert Priaulx de Vaignecourt, who fought in the Crusades. Poor Uncle Fred used to be so proud of that! He was always talking about it, especially when we were in America. He liked to try and make the Pilgrim-Father- families jealous. Just as he used to boast that if he had only been born three minutes before my father, instead of three minutes after, he would have been the owner of Abbot's Manor. That three minutes' delay and consideration he took about coming into the world made him the youngest twin, and cut off his chances. And he told me that Robert the Crusader had a brother named Osmond, who was believed to have founded a monastery somewhere in this neighbourhood, and who died, so the story goes, during a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, though there's no authentic trace left of either Osmond or Robert anywhere. They might, of course, have been very decent and agreeable men,—but it's rather doubtful. If Osmond went on a pilgrimage he would never have washed himself, to begin with,—it would have destroyed his sanctity. And as for Robert the warrior bold, he would have been dreadfully fierce and hairy,—and I'm quite sure I could not possibly have asked him to dinner!"

She laughed at her own fancies, and guided her mare under a drooping canopy of early-flowering wild acacia, just for the sheer pleasure of springing lightly up in her saddle to pull off a tuft of scented white blossom.

"The fact is," she continued half aloud, "there's nobody I can ask to dinner even now as it is. Not down here. The local descriptions of Sir Morton Pippitt do not tempt me to make his acquaintance, and as for the parson I met just now,-why he would be impossible!— simply impossible!" she repeated with emphasis—" I can see exactly what he's like at a glance. One of those cold, quiet, clever men who 'quiz' women and never admire them,—I know the kind of horrid University creature! A sort of superior, touch-me-not-person who can barely tolerate a woman's presence in the room, and in his heart of hearts relegates the female sex generally to the lowest class of the animal creation. I can read it all in his face. He's rather good- looking—not very,—his hair curls quite nicely, but it's getting grey, and so is his moustache,—he must be at least fifty, I should think. He has a good figure—for a clergyman;—and his eyes—no, I'm not sure that I like his eyes—I believe they're deceitful. I must look at them again before I make up my mind. But I know he's just as conceited and disagreeable as most parsons—he probably thinks that he helps to turn this world and the next round on his little finger,—and I daresay he tells the poor village folk here that if they don't obey him, they'll go to hell, and if they do, they'll fly straight to heaven and put on golden crowns at once. Dear me! What a ridiculous state of things! Fancy the dear old man in the smock who came to see me last night, with a pair of wings and a crown!"

Laughing again, she flicked Cleopatra's neck with the reins, and started off at an easy swinging gallop, turning out of the woods into the carriage drive, and never checking her pace till she reached the house.

All that day she gave marked evidence that her reign as mistress of Abbot's Manor had begun in earnest. Changing her riding dress for a sober little tailor-made frock of home-spun, she flitted busily over the old house of her ancestors, visiting it in every part, peering into shadowy corners, opening antique presses and cupboards, finding out the secret of sliding panels in the Jacobean oak that covered the walls, and leaving no room unsearched. The apartment in which her father's body had lain in its coffin was solemnly unlocked and disclosed to her view under the title of 'the Ghost Room,'—whereat she was sorrowfully indignant,—so much so indeed that Mrs. Spruce shivered in her shoes, pricked by the sting of a guilty conscience, for, if the truth be told, it was to Mrs. Spruce's own too-talkative tongue that this offending name owed its origin. Quietly entering the peaceful chamber with its harmless and almost holy air of beautiful, darkened calm, Maryllia drew up the blinds, threw back the curtains, and opened the latticed windows wide, admitting a flood of sunshine and sweet air.

"It must never be called 'the Ghost Room' again,"—she said, with a reproachful gravity, which greatly disconcerted and overawed Mrs. Spruce—"otherwise it will have an evil reputation which it does not deserve. There is nothing ghostly or terrifying about it. It is a sacred room,—sacred to the memory of one of the dearest and best of men! It is wrong to let such a room be considered as haunted,—I shall sleep in it myself sometimes,—and I shall make it bright and pretty for visitors when they come. I would put a little child to sleep in it,—for my father was a good man, and nothing evil can ever be associated with him. Death is only dreadful to the ignorant and the wicked."

Mrs. Spruce wisely held her peace, and dutifully followed her new mistress to the morning-room, where she had to undergo what might be called quite a stiff examination regarding all the household and housekeeping matters. Armed with a fascinating little velvet-bound notebook and pencil, Maryllia put down all the names of the different servants, both indoor and outdoor (making a small private mark of her own against those who had served her father in any capacity, and those who were just new to the place), together with the amount of wages due every month to each,—she counted over all the fine house linen, much of which had been purchased for her mother's home-coming and had never been used;—she examined with all a connoisseur's admiration the almost priceless old china with which the Manor shelves, dressers and cupboards were crowded,—and finally after luncheon and an hour's deep cogitation by herself in the library, she wrote out in a round clerkly hand certain 'rules and regulations,' for the daily routine of her household, and handed the document to Mrs. Spruce,—much to that estimable dame's perturbation and astonishment.

"These are my hours, Spruce," she said—"And it will of course be your business to see that the work is done punctually and with proper method. There must be no waste or extravagance,—and you will bring me all the accounts every week, as I won't have bills running up longer than that period. I shall leave all the ordering in of provisions to you,—if it ever happens that you send something to table which I don't like, I will tell you, and the mistake need not occur again. Now is there anything else?"—and she paused meditatively, finger on lip, knitting her brows—"You see I've never done any housekeeping, but I've always had notions as to how I should do it if I ever got the chance to try, and I'm just beginning. I believe in method,—and I like everything that HAS a place to be in IN its place, and everything that HAS a time, to come up to its time. It saves ever so much worry and trouble! Now let me think!—oh yes!—I knew there was another matter. Please let the gardeners and outdoor men generally know that if they want to speak to me, they can always see me from ten to half-past every morning. And, by the way, Spruce, tell the maids to go about their work quietly,—there is nothing more objectionable than a noise and fuss in the house just because a room is being swept and turned out. I simply hate it! In the event of any quarrels or complaints, please refer them to me—and—and—" Here she paused again with a smile— "Yes! I think that's all—for the present! I haven't yet gone through the library or the picture-gallery;—however those rooms have nothing to do with the ordinary daily housekeeping,—if I find anything wanting to be done there, I'll send for you again. But that's about all now!"

Poor Mrs. Spruce curtseyed deferentially and tremulously. She was not going to have it all her own way as she had fondly imagined when she first saw the apparently child-like personality of her new lady. The child-like personality was merely the rose-flesh covering of a somewhat determined character.

"And anything I can do for you, Spruce, or for your husband," continued Maryllia, dropping her business-like tone for one of as coaxing a sweetness as ever Shakespeare's Juliet practised for the persuasion of her too tardy Nurse—"will be done with ever so much pleasure! You know that, don't you?" And she laid her pretty little hands on the worthy woman's portly shoulders—"You shall go out whenever you like—after work, of course!—duty first, pleasure second!—and you shall even grumble, if you feel like it,—and have your little naps when the midday meal is done with,—Aunt Emily's housekeeper in London used to have them, and she snored dreadfully! the second footman—QUITE a nice lad—used to tickle her nose with a straw! But I can't afford to keep a second footman—one is quite enough,—or a coachman, or a carriage;—besides, I would always rather ride than drive,—and my groom, Bennett, will only want a stable-boy to help him with Cleo and Daffodil. So I hope there'll be no one downstairs to tease you, Spruce dear, by tickling YOUR nose with a straw! Primmins looks much too staid and respectable to think of such a thing."

She laughed merrily,—and Mrs. Spruce for the life of her could not help laughing too. The picture of Primmins condescending to indulge in a game of 'nose and straw' was too grotesque to be considered with gravity.

"Well I never, Miss!" she ejaculated—"You do put things that funny!"

"Do I? I'm so glad!" said Maryllia demurely—"it's nice to be funny to other people, even if you're not funny to yourself! But I want you to understand from the first, Spruce, that everyone must feel happy and contented in my household. So if anything goes wrong, you must tell me, and I will try and set it right. Now I'm going for an hour's walk with Plato, and when I come in, and have had my tea, I'll visit the picture-gallery. I know all about it,—Uncle Fred told me,"—she paused, and her eyes darkened with a wistful and deepening gravity,—then she added gently—"I shall not want you there, Spruce,—I must be quite alone."

Mrs. Spruce again curtseyed humbly, and was about to withdraw, when Maryllia called her back.

"What about the clergyman here, Mr. Walden?"—she asked—"Is he a nice man?—kind to the village people, I mean, and good to the poor?"

Mrs. Spruce gave a kind of ecstatic gasp, folded her fat hands tightly together in front of her voluminous apron, and launched forth straightway on her favourite theme.

"Mr. Walden is jest one of the finest men God ever made, Miss," she said, with solemnity and unction—"You may take my word for it! He's that good, that as we often sez, if m'appen there ain't no saint in the Sarky an' nowt but dust, we've got a real live saint walkin' free among us as is far more 'spectable to look at in his plain coat an' trousers than they monks an' friars in the picter-books wi' ropes around their waistses an' bald crowns, which ain't no sign to me o' bein' full o' grace, but rather loss of 'air,—an' which you will presently see yourself, Miss, as 'ow Mr. Walden's done the church beautiful, like a dream, as all the visitors sez, which there isn't its like in all England—an' he's jest a father to the village an' friends with every man, woman, an' child in it, an' grudges nothink to 'elp in cases deservin', an' works like a nigger, he do, for the school, which if he'd 'ad a wife it might a' been better an' it might a' been worse, the Lord only knows, for no woman would a' come up 'ere an' stood that patient watchin' me an' my work, an' I tell you truly, Miss Maryllia, that when your boxes came an' I had to unpack 'em an' sort the clothes in 'em, I sent for Passon Walden jest to show 'im that I felt my 'sponsibility, an' he sez, sez he: 'You go on doin' your duty, Missis Spruce, an' your lady will be all right'—an' though I begged 'im to stop, he wouldn't while I was a- shakin' out your dresses with Nancy—"

Here she was interrupted by a ringing peal of laughter from Maryllia, who, running up to her, put a little hand on her mouth.

"Stop, stop, Spruce!" she exclaimed—"Oh dear, oh dear I Do you think I can understand all this? Did you show the parson my clothes- -actually? You did!" For Mrs. Spruce nodded violently in the affirmative. "Good gracious! What a perfectly dreadful thing to do!" And she laughed again. "And what is the saint in the Sarky?" Here she removed her hand from the mouth she was guarding. "Say it in one word, if you can,—what is the Sarky?"

"It's in the church,"—said Mrs. Spruce, dauntlessly proceeding with her flow of narrative, and encouraged thereto by the sparkling mirth in her mistress's face—"We calls it Sarky for short. Josey Letherbarrow, what reads, an' 'as larnin', calls it the Sarky Fagus, an' my Kitty, she's studied at the school, an' SHE sez 'it's Sar-KO- fagus, mother,' which it may be or it mayn't, for the schools don't know more than the public-'ouses in my opinion,—leastways it's a great long white coffin what's supposed to 'ave the body of a saint inside it, an' Mr. Walden he discovered it when he was rebuildin' the church, an' when the Bishop come to conskrate it, he sez 'twas a saint in there an' that's why the village is called St. Rest—but you'll find it all out yourself. Miss, an' as I sez an' I don't care who 'ears me, the real saint ain't in the Sarky at all,—it's just Mr. Walden himself,—"

Again Maryllia's hand closed her mouth.

"You really must stop, Spruce! You are the dearest old gabbler possible—but you must stop! You'll have no breath left—and I shall have no patience! I've heard quite enough. I met Mr. Walden this morning, and I'm sure he isn't a saint at all! He's a very ordinary person indeed,—most ordinary—not in the very least remarkable. I'm. glad he's good to the people, and that they like him—that's really all that's necessary, and it's all I want to know. Go along, Spruce!—don't talk to me any more about saints in the Sarky or out of the Sarky! There never was a real saint in the world—never!—not in the shape of a man!"

With laughter still dancing in her eyes, she turned away, and Mrs. Spruce, in full possession of restored nerve and vivacity, bustled off on her round of household duty, the temporary awe she had felt concerning the new written code of domestic 'Rules and Regulations' having somewhat subsided under the influence of her mistress's gay good-humour. And Maryllia herself, putting on her hat, called Plato to her side, and started off for the village, resolved to make the church her first object of interest, in order to see the wondrous 'Sarky.'

"I never was so much entertained in my life!" she declared to herself, as she walked lightly along,—her huge dog bounding in front of her and anon returning to kiss her hand and announce by deep joyous barks his delight at finding himself at liberty in the open country—"Spruce is a perfect comedy in herself,—ever so much better than a stage play! And then the quaint funny men who came to see me last night,—and those village boys this morning! And the 'saintly' parson! I'm sure he'll turn out to be comic too,—in a way—he'll be the 'heavy father' of the piece! Really I never imagined I should have so much fun!"

Here, spying a delicate pinnacle gleaming through the trees, she rightly concluded that it belonged to the church she intended to visit, and finding a footpath leading across the fields, she followed it. It was the same path which Walden had for so many years been accustomed to take in his constant walks to and from the Manor. It soon brought her to the highroad which ran through the village, and across this it was but a few steps to the gate of the churchyard. Laying one hand on her dog's neck, she checked the great creature's gambols and compelled him to walk sedately by her side, as with hushed footsteps she entered the 'Sleepy Hollow' of death's long repose, and went straight up to the church door which, as usual, stood open.

"Stay here, Plato!" she whispered to her four-footed comrade, who, understanding the mandate, lay down at once submissively in the porch to wait her pleasure.

Entering the sacred shrine she stood still,—awed by its exquisite beauty and impressive simplicity. The deep silence, the glamour of the soft vari-coloured light that flowed through the lancet windows on either side,—the open purity of the nave, without any disfiguring pews or fixed seats to mar its clear space,—(for the chairs which were used at service were all packed away in a remote corner out of sight)—the fair, slender columns, springing up into flowering capitals, like the stems of palms breaking into leaf- coronals,—the dignified plainness of the altar, with that strange white sarcophagus set in front of it,—all these taken together, composed a picture of sweet sanctity and calm unlike anything she had ever seen before. Her emotional nature responded to the beautiful in all things, and this small perfectly designed House of Prayer, with its unknown saintly occupant at rest within its walls, touched her almost to tears. Stepping on tip-toe up to the altar- rails, she instinctively dropped on her knees, while she read all that could be seen of the worn inscription on the sarcophagus from that side-'In Resurrectione—Sanctorum—Resurget.' The atmosphere around her seemed surcharged with mystical suggestions,—a vague poetic sense of the super-human and divine moved her to a faint touch of fear, and made her heart beat more quickly than its wont.

"It is lovely—lovely!" she murmured under her breath, as she rose from her kneeling attitude—"The whole church is a perfect gem of architecture! I have never seen anything more beautiful in its way,- -not even the Chapel of the Thorn at Pisa. And according to Mrs. Spruce's account, the man I met this morning—the quizzical parson with the grey-brown curly-locks, did it all at his own expense—he must really be quite clever,—such an unusual thing for a country clergyman!"

She took another observant survey of the whole building, and then went out again into the churchyard. There she paused, her dog beside her, shading her eyes from the sun as she looked wistfully from right to left across the sadly suggestive little hillocks of mossy turf besprinkled with daisies, in search of an object which was as a landmark of disaster in her life.

She saw it at last, and moved slowly towards it,—a plain white marble cross, rising from a smooth grassy eminence, where a rambling rose, carefully and even artistically trained, was just beginning to show pale creamy buds among its glossy dark green leaves. Great tears rose to her eyes and fell unheeded, as she read the brief inscription—'Sacred to the Memory of Robert Vancourt of Abbot's Manor,' this being followed by the usual dates of birth and death, and the one word 'Resting.' With tender touch Maryllia gathered one leaf from the climbing rose foliage, and kissing it amid her tears, turned away, unable to bear the thoughts and memories which began to crowd thickly upon her. Almost she seemed to hear her father's deep mellow voice which had been the music of her childhood, playfully saying as was so often his wont:—"Well, my little girl! How goes the world with you?" Alas, the world had gone very ill with her for a long, long time after his death! Hers was too loving and passionately clinging a nature to find easy consolation for such a loss. Her uncle Frederick, though indulgent to her and always kind, had never filled her father's place,—her uncle Frederick's American wife, had, in spite of much conscientious tutelage and chaperonage, altogether failed to win her affection or sympathy. The sorrowful sense that she was an orphan, all alone as it were with herself to face the mystery of life, never deserted her,—and it was perhaps in the most brilliant centres of society that this consciousness of isolation chiefly weighed upon her. She saw other girls around her with their fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters,—but she—she, by the very act of being born had caused her mother's death,—and she well knew that her father's heart, quietly as he had endured his grief to all outward appearances, had never healed of that agonising wound.

"I think I should never have come into the world at all,"—she said to herself with a sigh, as she returned over the fields to the Manor—"I am no use to anybody,—I never have been of any use! Aunt Emily says all I have to do to show my sense of proper feeling and gratitude to her for her care of me is to marry—and marry well— marry Lord Roxmouth, in short—he will be a duke when his father dies, and Aunt Emily would like to have the satisfaction of leaving her millions to enrich an English dukedom. Nothing could commend itself more favourably to her ideas—only it just happens my ideas won't fit in the same groove. Oh dear! Why can't I be 'amenable' and become a future duchess, and 'build up' the fortunes of a great family? I don't know I'm sure,—except that I don't feel like it! Great families don't appeal to me. I shouldn't care if there were none left. They are never interesting at the best of times,—perhaps out of several of them may come one clever man or woman,—and all the rest will be utter noodles. It isn't worth while to marry Roxmouth on such dubious grounds of possibility!"

Entering the Manor, she was conscious of some fatigue and listlessness,—a touch of depression weighed down her naturally bright spirits. She exchanged her home-spun walking dress for a tea- gown, and descended somewhat languidly to the morning-room where tea was served with more ceremoniousness than on the previous day, Primmins having taken command, with the assistance of the footman. Both men-servants stole respectful glances at their mistress, as she sat pensively alone at the open window, looking out on the verdant landscape that spread away from the terrace, in undulations of lawn, foliage and field to the last border of trees that closed in Abbot's Manor grounds from the public highway. Both would have said had they been asked, that she was much too pretty and delicate to be all alone in the great old house, with no companion of her own age to exchange ideas with by speech or glance,—and, with that masculine self-assurance which is common to all the lords of creation, whether they be emperors or household domestics, they would have opined that 'she ought to be married.' In which they would have entirely agreed with Maryllia's 'dragon' Aunt Emily. But Maryllia's own mind was far from being set on such themes as love and marriage. Her meditations were melancholy, and not unmixed with self-reproach. She blamed herself for having stayed away so long from her childhood's home, and her father's grave.

"I might have visited it at least once a year!" she thought with sharp compunction—"I never really forgot,—why did I seem to forget?"

The sun was sinking slowly in a glory of crimson and amber cloud, when, having resolved upon what she was going to do, she entered the picture-gallery. Softly she trod the polished floor,—with keen quick instinct and appreciative eyes, she noted the fine Vandyke portraits,—the exquisite Greuze that shone out, star-like, from a dark corner of the panelled walls,—and walking with measured pace she went straight up to the picture of 'Mary Elia Adelgisa de Vaignecourt'—and gazed at it with friendly and familiar eyes.

"I know YOU quite well!"—she said, addressing the painted beauty— "I have often dreamed about you since I left home! I always admired you and wanted to be like you. I remember when I must have been about seven or eight years old, I ran in from a game in the garden one summer's afternoon, and I knelt down in front of you and I said: 'Pray God make little Maryllia as pretty as big Mary Elia!' And I think,—I really do think—though of course I'm not half or quarter as pretty, I'm just a little like you! Just a very, very little! For instance my hair is the same colour—almost—and my eyes—no! I'm sure I haven't such beautiful eyes as yours—I wish I had!"

Her lovely ancestress appeared to smile,—if she could have spoken from the canvas that held her painted image she might have said:— "You have eyes that mirror the sunshine,—you have life, and I am dead,—your day is still with you—mine is done! For me love and the world's delight are ended,—and whither my phantom fairness has fled, who knows! But you are a vital breathing essence of beauty—be glad and rejoice in it while you may!"

Some thought of this kind would have suggested itself to an imaginative beholder had such an one stood by to compare the picture with its almost twin living copy. Maryllia however had a very small stock of vanity,—she was only pleasantly aware that she possessed a certain grace and fascination not common to the ordinary of her sex, but beyond that, she rated her personal charms at very slight value. The portrait of Mary Elia Adelgisa made her more seriously discontented with herself than ever,—and after closely studying the picturesque make of the violet velvet riding-dress which the fair one of Charles the Second's day had worn, and deciding that she would have one 'created' for her own adornment exactly like it, she turned towards the other end of the gallery. There hung that preciously guarded mysterious portrait of her dead mother, which she herself had never gazed upon, covered close with its dark green baize curtain,—a curtain no hand save her father's had ever dared to raise. She remembered how often he had used to enter here all alone and lock the doors, remaining thus in sorrow and solitude many hours. She recalled her own childish fears when, by chance running in to look at the pictures for her own entertainment, or to play with her ball on a rainy day for the convenience of space and a lofty ceiling, she was suddenly checked and held in awe by the sight of that great gilded frame enshrining the, to her, unknown presentment of a veiled Personality. Her father alone was familiar with the face hidden behind that covering which he had put up with his own hands,—fastening it by means of a spring pulley, which in its turn was secured to the wall by lock and key. Ever since his death Maryllia had worn that key on a gold chain hidden in her bosom, and she drew it out now with a beating heart and many tremours of hesitation. The trailing folds of her pretty tea-gown, all of the filmiest old lace and ivory-hued cashmere, seemed to make an obtrusive noise as they softly swept the floor,—she felt almost as though she were about to commit a sacrilege and break open a shrine,—yet—

"I must see her!" she said, whisperingly—"I shall not offend her memory. I have never done anything very wrong in my life,—if I had, I should have reason to be afraid—or ashamed,—and then of course wouldn't dare to look at her. I have often been silly and frivolous and thoughtless,—but never spiteful or malicious, or really wicked. I could meet my father if he were here, just as frankly as if I were still a little girl,—and I think he would wish me to see his Dearest now! His Dearest! He always called her that!"

With the breath coming and going quickly through her parted lips, she stepped slowly and timidly up to that corner in the wall behind the picture, where the fastenings of the spring pulley were concealed, and fitted the key into the padlock which guarded it. The light of the setting sun threw a flame of glory aslant through the windows, and filled the gallery with a warm rush of living colour and radiance; and as she removed the padlock, and came to the front of the picture to pull the curtain-cord, she stood, unconsciously to herself, in a pure halo of gold, which intensified the brown and amber shades of her hair and the creamy folds of her gown, so that she resembled 'an angel newly drest, save wings, for heaven,' such as one may see delineated on the illuminated page of some antique missal. Her hand trembled, as at the first touch on the pulley the curtain began to move,—inch by inch it ascended, showing pale glimmerings of white and rose,—still higher it moved, giving to the light a woman's beautiful hand, so delicately painted as to seem almost living. The hand held a letter, and plainly on the half unfolded scroll could be read the words:

"Thine till death, ROBERT VANCOURT."

Another touch, and the whole covering rolled up swiftly to its full height,—while Maryllia breathless with excitement and interest gazed with all her soul in her eyes at the exquisite, dreamy, poetic loveliness of the face disclosed. All the beauty of girlhood with the tenderness of womanhood,—all the visions of young romance, united to the fulfilled passion of the heart,—all the budding happiness of a radiant life,-all the promise of a perfect love;— these were faithfully reflected in the purely moulded features, the dark blue caressing eyes, and the sweet mouth, which to Maryllia's fervid imagination appeared to tremble plaintively with a sigh of longing for the joy of life that had been snatched away so soon. Arrayed in simplest white, with a rose at her breast, and her husband's letter clasped in her hand, the fair form of the young bride that never came home gathered from the sunset-radiance an aspect of life, and seemed to float forth from the dark canvas like a holy spirit of beauty and blessing. Shadow and Substance—dead mother and living child—these twain gazed on each other through cloud-veils of impenetrable mystery,—nor is it impossible to conceive that some intangible contact between them might, through the transference of a thought, a longing, a prayer, have been realised at that mystic moment. With a sudden cry of irresistible emotion Maryllia stretched out her arms, and dropping on her knees, broke out into a passion of tears.

"Oh mother, mother!" she sobbed—"Oh darling mother! I would have loved you!"



XII

In such wise, under the silent benediction of the lost loving dead, the long-deserted old Manor received back the sole daughter of its ancestry to that protection which we understand, or did understand at one time in our history, as 'Home.' Home was once a safe and sacred institution in England. There seemed no likelihood of its ever being supplanted by the public restaurant. That it has, in a great measure, been so supplanted, is no advantage to the country, and that many women, young and old, prefer to be seen in gregarious over-dressed hordes, taking their meals in Piccadilly eating-houses, rather than essay the becoming grace of a simple and sincere hospitality to their friends in their own homes, is no evidence of their improved taste or good breeding. Abbot's Manor was in every sense 'Home' in the old English sense of the word. Its ancient walls, hallowed by long tradition, formed a peaceful and sweet harbour of rest for a woman's life,—and the tranquil dignity of her old-world surroundings with all the legends and memories they awakened, soon had a beneficial effect on Maryllia's impressionable temperament, which, under her aunt's 'social' influence, had been more or less chafed and uneasy. She began to feel at peace with herself and all the world,—while the relief she experienced at having deliberately severed herself by both word and act from the undesired attentions of a too-persistent and detested lover in the person of Lord Roxmouth, future Duke of Ormistonne, was as keen and pleasurable as that of a child who has run away from school. She was almost confident that the fact of her having thrown off her aunt's protection together with all hope of inheriting her aunt's wealth, would be sufficient to keep him away from her for the future. "For it is Aunt Emily's money he wants—not me;" she said to herself—"He doesn't care a jot about me personally—any woman will do, provided she has the millions. And when he knows I've given up the millions, and don't intend ever to have the millions, he'll leave me alone. And he'll go over to America in search of somebody else—some proud daughter of oil or pork or steel!—and what a blessing that will be!"

Meanwhile, such brief excitement as had been caused in St. Rest by the return of 'th' owld Squire's gel' and by the almost simultaneous dismissal of Oliver Leach, had well-nigh abated. A new agent had been appointed, and though Leach had left the immediate vicinity, having employment on Sir Morton Pippitt's lands, he had secured a cottage for himself in the small outlying hamlet of Badsworth. He also undertook some work for the Reverend 'Putty' Leveson in assisting him to form an entomological collection for the private museum at Badsworth Hall. Mr. Leveson had a singular fellow-feeling for insects,—he studied their habits, and collected specimens of various kinds in bottles, or 'pinned' them on cardboard trays,—he was an interested observer of the sprightly manners practised by the harvest-bug, and the sagacious customs of the ruminating spider,—as well as the many surprising and agreeable talents developed by the common flea. Leach's virulent hatred of Maryllia Vancourt was not lessened by the apparently useful and scientific nature of the employment he had newly taken up under the guidance of his reverend instructor,—and whenever he caught a butterfly and ran his murderous pin through its quivering body at Leveson's bland command, he thought of her, and wished vindictively that she might perish as swiftly and utterly as the winged lover of the flowers. Every small bright thing in Nature's garden that he slew and brought home as trophy, inspired him with the same secret fierce desire. The act of killing a beautiful or harmless creature gave him pleasure, and he did not disguise it from himself. The Reverend 'Putty' was delighted with his aptitude, and with the many valuable additions he made to the 'specimen' cards and bottles, and the two became constant companions in their search for fresh victims among the blossoming hedgerows and fields. St. Rest, as a village, was only too glad to be rid of Leach's long detested presence to care anything at all as to his further occupations or future career,—and only Bainton kept as he said 'an eye on him.'

Bainton was a somewhat curious personage,—talkative as he showed himself on most occasions, he was both shrewd and circumspect; no stone was more uncommunicative than he when he chose. In his heart he had set Maryllia Vancourt as second to none save his own master, John Walden,—her beauty and grace, her firm action with regard to the rescue of the 'Five Sisters,' and her quick dismissal of Oliver Leach, had all inspired him with the most unbounded admiration and respect, and he felt that he now had a double interest in life,—the 'Passon'—and the 'lady of the Manor.' But he found very little opportunity to talk about his new and cherished theme of Miss Vancourt and Miss Vancourt's many attractions to Walden,—for John always 'shut him up' on the subject with quite a curt and peremptory decision whenever be so much as mentioned her name. Which conduct on the part of one who was generally so willing to hear and patient to listen, somewhat surprised Bainton.

"For," he argued—"there ain't much doin' in the village,—we ain't always 'on the go'—an' when a pretty face comes among us, surely it's worth looking at an' pickin' to pieces as 'twere. But Passon's that sharp on me when I sez any little thing wot might be interestin' about the lady, that I'm thinkin' he's got out o' the habit o' knowin' when a face is a male or a female one, which is wot often happens to bacheldors when they gits fixed like old shrubs in one pertikler spot o' ground. Now I should a' said he'd a' bin glad to 'ear of somethin' new an' oncommon as 'twere,—he likes it in the way o' flowers, an' why not in the way o' wimmin? But Passon ain't like other folk—he don't git on with wimmin nohow—an' the prettier they are the more he seems skeered off them."

But such opinions as Bainton entertained concerning his master, he kept to himself, and having once grasped the fact that any mention of Miss Vancourt's ways or Miss Vancourt's looks appeared to displease rather than to entertain the Reverend John, he avoided the subject altogether. This course of action on his part, if the truth must be told, was equally annoying to Walden, who was in the curious mental condition of wishing to know what he declined to hear.

For the rest, the village generally grew speedily accustomed to the presence of the mistress of the Manor. She had fulfilled her promise of paying a visit to Josey Letherbarrow, and had sat with the old man in his cottage, talking to him for the better part of two hours. Rumour asserted that she had even put the kettle on the fire for him, and had made his tea. Josey himself was reticent,—and beyond the fact that he held up his head with more dignity, and showed a touch of more conscious superiority in his demeanour, he did not give himself away by condescending to narrate any word of the lengthy interview that had taken place between himself and 'th' owld Squire's little gel.' One remarkable thing was noticed by the villagers and commented upon,—Miss Vancourt had now passed two Sundays in their midst, and had never once attended church. Her servants were always there at morning service, but she herself was absent. This occasioned much whispering and head-shaking in the little community, and one evening the subject was openly discussed in the bar-room of the 'Mother Huff' by a group of rustic worthies whose knowledge of matters theological and political was, by themselves, considered profound. Mrs. Buggins had started the conversation, and Mrs. Buggins was well known to be a lady both pious and depressing. She presided over her husband's 'public' with an air of meek resignation, not unmixed with sorrowful protest,—she occasionally tasted the finer cordials in the bar-room, and was often moved to gentle tears at the excellence of their flavour,—she had a chronic 'stitch in the side,' and a long smooth pale yellow countenance from which the thin grey hair was combed well back from the temples in the frankly unbecoming fashion affected by the provincial British matron. She begun her remarks by plaintively opining that "it was a very strange thing not to see Miss Vancourt at church, on either of the Sundays that had passed since her return—very strange! Perhaps she was 'High'? Perhaps she had driven into Riversford to attend the 'processional' service of the Reverend Francis Anthony?"

"Perhaps she ain't done nothing of the sort!"—growled a thick-set burly farmer, who with a capacious mug of ale before him was sucking at his pipe with as much zeal as a baby at its bottle—"Ef you cares for my 'pinion, which, m'appen you doan't, she's neither Low nor 'Igh. She's no Seck. If she h'longed to a Seck, she wouldn't be readin' on a book under the Five Sisters last Sunday marnin' when the bells was a-ringin' for church time. I goes past 'er, an' I sez 'Marnin,' mum!' an' she looks up smilin'-like, an' sez she: 'Good- marnin!' Nice day, isn't it?' 'Splendid day, mum,' sez I, an' she went on readin', an' I went on a walkin'. I sez then, and I sez now, she ain't no Seck!"

"Example," sighed Mrs. Buggins, "is better than precept. It would be more decent if the lady showed herself in church as a lesson to others,—if she did so more lost sheep might follow!"

"Hor-hor-hor!" chuckled Bainton, from a corner of the room—"Don't you worrit yourself, Missis Buggins, 'bout no lost sheep! Sheep allus goes where there's somethin' to graze upon,—leastways that's my 'speriemce, an' if there ain't no grazin' there ain't no sheep! An' them as grazes on Passon Walden, gittin' out of 'im all they can to 'elp 'em along, wouldn't go to church, no more than Miss Vancourt do, if they didn't know wot a man 'e is to be relied on in times o' trouble, an' a reg'lar 'usband to the parish in sickness an' in 'elth, for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse, till death do 'im part. Miss Vancourt don't want nothin' out of 'im as all we doos, an' she kin show 'er independence ef she likes to by stayin' away from church when she fancies, an' readin' books instead of 'earin' sermons,—there ain't no harm in that."

"I'm not so sure that I agree with you, Mr. Bainton,"—said a stout, oily-looking personage, named Netlips, the grocer and 'general store' dealer of the village, a man who was renowned in the district for the profundity and point of his observations at electoral meetings, and for the entirely original manner in which he 'used' the English language; "Public worship is a necessary evil. It is a factor in vulgar civilisations. Without it, the system of religious politics would fall into cohesion,—absolute cohesion!" And he rapped his fist on the table with a smartness that made his hearers jump. "At the last meeting I addressed in this division, I said we must support the props. The aristocracy must bear them on their shoulders. If your Squire stays away from church, he may be called a heathen with propriety, though a Liberal. And why? Because he makes public exposure of himself as a heathen negative! He is bound to keep up the church factor in the community. Otherwise he runs straight aground on Cohesion."

This oratorical outburst on the part of Mr. Netlips was listened to with respectful awe and admiration.

"Ay, ay!" said Roger Buggins, who as 'mine host' stood in his shirt sleeves at the entrance of his bar, surveying his customers and mentally counting up their reckonings—"Cohesion would never do— cohesion government would send the country to pieces. You're right, Mr. Netlips,—you're right! Props must be kep' up!"

"I don't see no props in goin' to church,"—said Dan Ridley, the little working tailor of the village—"I goes because I likes Mr. Walden, but if there was a man in the pulpit I didn't like, I'd stop away. There's a deal too many wolves in sheep's clothing getting ordained in the service o' the Lord, an' I don't blame Miss Vancourt if so be she takes time to find out the sort o' man Mr. Walden is before settin' under him as 'twere. She can say prayers an' read 'em too in her own room, an' study the Bible all right without goin' to church. Many folks as goes to church reg'lar are downright mean lyin' raskills—and don't never read their Bibles at all. Mebbe they does as much harm as what Mr. Netlips calls Cohesion, though I don't myself purfess to understand Government language, it bein' too deep for me."

Mr. Netlips smiled condescendingly, and nodded as one who should say—'You do well, my poor fellow, to be humble in my presence!'— and buried his nose in his tankard of ale.

"Mebbe Cohesion's got hold o' my red cow"—said the burly farmer who had spoken before—"For she's as ailin' as ever she was, an' if I lose her, I loses a bit o' my livin.' An' that's what I sez an' 'olds by, no church-goin' seems to 'elp us in a bit o' trouble, an' it ain't decent or Christian like, so it 'pears, to pray to the Almighty for the savin' of a cow. I asked Passon Walden if 'twould be right, for the cow's as valuable to me as ever my wife was when she was alive, if not more, an' he sez quite pleasant-like—'Well no, Mister Thorpe, I think it best not to make any sort of special prayer for the poor beast, but just do all you can for it, and leave the rest to Providence. A cow is worldly goods, you see—and we're not quite justified in praying to be allowed to keep our worldly goods.' 'Ain't we!' I sez—'Is that a fact? He smiled and said it was. So I thanked him and comed away. But I've been thinkin' it over since, an' I sez to myself—ef we ain't to pray for keepin' an' 'avin' our worldly goods, wot 'ave we got to pray for?"

"Oh Mr. Thorpe!" ejaculated Mrs. Buggins, almost tearfully—"It is not this world but the next, that we must think of! We must pray for our souls!"

"Well, marm, I ain't got a 'soul' wot I knows on—an' as for the next world, if there ain't no cattle farmin' there, I reckon I'll be out o' work. Do you count on keepin' a bar in the 'eavenly country?"

A loud guffaw went the round of the room, and Mrs. Buggins gasped with horror.

"Oh, Roger!" she murmured, addressing her portly spouse, who at once took up the argument.

"You goes too fur—you goes too fur, Mister Thorpe!" he said severely—"There ain't no keepin' bars nor farmin' carried on in the next world, nor marrying nor givin' in marriage. We be all as the angels there."

"A nice angel you'll make too, Mr. Buggins!" said Farmer Thorpe, as he sent his tankard to be refilled,—"Lord! We won't know you!"

Again the laugh went round, and Mrs. Buggins precipitately retired to her 'inner parlour' there to recover from the shock occasioned to her religious feelings by the irreverent remarks of her too matter- of-fact customer. Meanwhile Dan Ridley, the tailor, had again reverted to the subject of Miss Vancourt.

"There's one thing about her comin' to church,"—he said; "If so be as she did come it 'ud do us all good, for she's real pleasant to look at. I've seen her a many times in the village."

"Ah, so have I!" chorussed two or three more men.

"She's been in to see Adam Frost's children an' she gave Baby Hippolyta a bag o' sweeties,"—said Bainton. "An' she's called at the schoolhouse, but Miss Eden, she worn't in an' Susie Prescott saw her, an' Susie was that struck that she 'adn't a wurrd to say, so she tells us, an' Miss Vancourt she went to old Josey Letherbarrow's straight away an' there she stayed iver so long. She ain't called at our house yet."

"Which 'ouse might you be a-meanin', Tummas?" queried Farmer Thorpe, with a slow grin—"Your own or your measter's?"

"When we speaks in the plural we means not one, but two,"—rejoined Bainton with dignity. "An' when I sez 'our' I means myself an' Passon, which Miss Vancourt ain't as yet left her card on Passon. He went up in a great 'urry one afternoon when he knowed she was out,— he knowed it, 'cos I told 'im as 'ow I'd seen her gallopin' by on that mare of hers which, they calls Cleopatra-an' away 'e run like a March 'are, an' he ups to the Manor and down again, an' sez he, laughin' like: 'I've done my dooty by the lady' sez he—'I've left my card!' That was three days ago, an' there ain't been no return o' the perliteness up to the present—"

Here he broke off and began to drink his ale, as a small dapper man entered the bar-room with a brisk step and called for 'a glass of home-brewed,' looking round on those assembled with a condescending smile. All of them knew him as Jim Bennett, Miss Vancourt's groom.

"Well, mates!" he said with a sprightly air of familiarity—"All well and hearty?"

"As yourself, Mr. Bennett,"—replied Roger Buggins, acting as spokesman for the rest, and personally serving him with the foaming draught he had ordered. "Which, we likewise trusts your lady is well?"

"My lady enjoys the hest of health, thank you!" said Bennett, with polite gravity. And tossing off the contents of his glass, he signified by an eloquent gesture and accompanying wink, that he was 'good for another.'

"We was just a-sayin' as you come in, Mr. Bennett," observed Dan Ridley, "that we'd none of us seen your lady at church yet on Sundays, Mebbe she ain't of our 'persuasion' as they sez, or mehbe she goes into Riversford, preferrin' 'Igh services—-"

Bennett smiled a superior smile, and leaning easily against the bar, crossed his legs and surveyed the company generally with a compassionate air.

"I suppose it's quite a business down here,—goin' to church, eh?" he queried—"Sort of excitement like—only bit of fun you've got— helps to keep you all alive! That's the country way, but Lord bless you!—in town we're not taking any!"

Bainton looked up,—and Mr. Netlips loosened his collar and lifted his head, as though preparing himself for another flow of 'cohesion' eloquence. Farmer Thorpe turned his bull-neck slowly round, and brought his eyes to bear on the speaker.

"How d'ye make that out, Mr. Bennett?" he demanded. "Doan't ye sarve the A'mighty same in town as in country?"

"Not a bit of it!" replied Bennett airily—"You're a long way behind the times, Mr. Thorpe!—you are indeed, beggin' your pardon for sayin' so! The 'best' people have given up the Almighty altogether, owing to recent scientific discoveries. They've taken to the Almighty Dollar instead which no science can do away with. And Sundays aren't used any more for church-going, except among the middle-class population,—they're just Bridge days with OUR set— Bridge lunches, Bridge suppers,—every Sunday's chock full of engagements to 'Bridge,' right through the 'season.'"

"That's cards, ain't it?" enquired Dan Ridley.

"Just so! Harmless cards!" rejoined Bennett—"Only you can chuck away a few thousands or so on 'em if you like!"

Mr. Netlips here pushed aside his emptied ale-glass and raised his fat head unctuously out of his stiff shirt-collar.

"Are we to understand," he began ponderously, "that Miss Vancourt is addicted to this fashion of procrastinating the Lord's Day?"

Bennett straightened his dapper figure suddenly.

"Now don't you put yourself out, Mr. Netlips, don't, that's a good feller!" he said in sarcastically soothing tones—"There's no elections going on just at present—when there is you can bring your best leg foremost, and rant away for all you're worth! My lady don't gamble, if that's what you mean,—though she's always with the swagger set, and likely so to remain. But you keep up your spirits!- -your groceries 'ull be paid for all right!—she don't run up no bills—so don't you fear, cards or no cards! And as for procrastinating the Lord's Day, whatever that may be, I could name to you the folks what does worse than play Bridge on Sundays. And who are they? Why the clergymen theirselves! And how does they do worse? Why by tellin' lies as fast as they can stick! They says we're all going to heaven if we're good,—and they don't know nothing about it,—and we're all going to hell if we're bad, and they don't know nothing about that neither! I tell you, as I told you at first, in town we've got beyond all that stuff—we're just not taking any!"

He paused, and there was a deep silence, while he drank off his second glass of ale. The thoughts of every man present were apparently too deep for words.

"You're a smart chap!" said Bainton at last, breaking the mystic spell and rising to take his leave—"An' I don't want to argify with ye, for I'spect you're about right in what you sez about Sunday ways in town—but I tell ye what, young feller!—you've got to 'ave a deal o' patience an' a deal o' pity for they poor starveling sinners wot gits boxed up in cities an' never ain't got no room to look at the sky, or see the wide fields with all the daisies blowin' open to the sun. No wonder they're so took up wi' their scinetific muddlins over worms an' microbes an' sich-like, as to 'ave forgot what the Almighty is doin' in the workin' o' the Universe,—but it's onny jest like poor prisiners in a cell wot walks up an' down, up an' down, countin' the stones in the wall with scinetific multiplication-like, an' 'splainin' to their poor lonely selves as how many stones makes a square foot, an' so many square feet makes a square yard, an' on they goes a-walkin' their mis'able little round an' countin' their mis'able little sums, an' all the time just outside the prison the flowers is all bloomin' wild an' the birds singin', an' the blue sky over it all with God smilin' behind it. That's 'ow 'tis, Mr. Bennett!" and Bainton looked into the lining of his cap as was his wont before he put it on his head—"I believe all you say right enough, an' it don't put me out nohow—I've seen too much o' natur to be shook off my 'old on the Almighty—for there's no worm wot ain't sure of a rose or some kind o' flower an' fruit somewhere, though m'appen the poor blind thing don't know where to find it. It's case o' leadin' on, an' guidin' beyond our knowledge, Mr. Bennett,—an' that's wot Passon Walden tells us. HE don't bother us wi' no 'hows' nor 'whys' nor 'wherefores'—he says we can FEEL God with us in our daily work, an' so we can, if we've a mind to! Daily work and common things shows Him to us,—why look there!"— here he pulled from his pocket a small paper-bag, and opening it, showed some dry loose seed—"There ain't nothin' commoner than that! That's pansy seed—a special stock too,—well now, if you didn't know how common it is, wouldn't it seem a miracle as wonderful as any in the Testymen, that out o' that handful o' dust like, the finest flowers of purple an' yellow will come?—ay! some o' them two to three inches across, an' every petal like velvet an' silk! If so be you don't b'lieve in a God, Mr. Bennett, owin' to town opinions, you try the gardenin' business! That'll make a man of ye! I allus sez if Adam had stuck to the gardenin' business an' left the tailorin' trade alone we'd have all been in Eden now!"

His eyes twinkled, as glancing round the company, he saw that his words had made an impression and awakened a responsive smile—"Good- night t'ye!" And touching Bennett on the shoulder in passing, he added: "You come an' see me, my lad, when you feels like goin' a bit in the scinetific line! Mebbe I can tell ye a few pints wot the learned gentlemen in London don't know. Anyway, a little church- goin' under Passon Walden won't do you no 'arm, nor your lady neither, if she's what I takes her for, which is believin' her to be all good as wimmin goes. An' when Passon warms to his work an' tells ye plain as 'ow everything's ordained for the best, an' as 'ow every flower's a miracle of the Lord, an' every bird's song a bit o' the Lord's own special music, it 'eartens ye up an' makes ye more 'opeful o' your own poor mis'able self—it do reely now!"

With another friendly pat on the groom's shoulder, and a cheery smile, Bainton passed out, and left the rest of the company in the 'Mother Huff' tap-room solemnly gazing upon one another.

"He speaks straight, he do," said Farmer Thorpe, "An' he ain't no canter,—he's just plain Tummas, an' wot he sez he means."

"Here's to his 'elth,—a game old boy!" said Bennett good- humouredly, ordering another glass of ale; "It's quite a treat to meet a man like him, and I shan't be above owning that he's got a deal of right on his side. But what he says ain't Orthodox Church teaching."

"Mebbe not," said Dan Kidley, "but it's Passon Walden's teachin', an' if you ain't 'eard Passon yet, Mister Bennett, I'd advise ye to go next Sunday. An' if your lady 'ud make up her mind to go too just for once—-"

Bennett gave an expressive gesture.

"She won't go—you may depend on that!" he said; "She's had too much of parsons as it is. Why Mrs. Fred—that's her American aunt—was regular pestered with 'em coming beggin' of her for their churches and their windows and their schools and their infants and their poor, lame, blind, sick of all sorts, as well as for theirselves. D'rectly they knew she was a millionaire lady' they 'adn't got but one thought—how to get some of the millions out of her. There was three secretaries kept when we was in London, and they'd hardly time for bite nor sup with all the work they 'ad, refusin' scores of churches and religious folks all together. Miss Maryllia's got a complete scare o' parsons. Whenever she see a shovel-hat coming she just flew! When she was in Paris it was the Catholics as wanted money—nuns, sisters of the poor, priests as 'ad been turned out by the Government,—and what not,—and out in America it was the Christian Scientists all the time with such a lot of tickets for lectures and fal-lals as you never saw,—then came the Spiritooalists with their seeances; and altogether the Vancourt family got to look on all sorts of religions merely as so many kinds of beggin' boxes which if you dropped money into, you went straight to the Holy-holies, and if you didn't you dropped down into the great big D's. No!—I don't think anyone need expect to see my lady at church—it's the last place she'd ever think of going to!"

This piece of information was received by his hearers with profound gravity. No one spoke, and during the uncomfortable pause Bennett gave a careless 'Good-night!'—and took his departure.

"Things is come to a pretty pass in this 'ere country," then said Mr. Netlips grandiosely, "when the woman who is merely the elevation of the man, exhibits in public a conviction to which her status is unfitted. If the lady who now possesses the Manor were under the submission of a husband, he would naturally assume the control which is govemmentally retaliative and so compel her to include the religious considerations of the minority in her communicative system!"

Farmer Thorpe looked impressed, but slightly puzzled.

"You sez fine, Mr. Netlips,—you sez fine," he observed respectfully. "Not that I altogether understands ye, but that's onny my want of book-larnin' and not spellin' through the dictionary as I oughter when I was a youngster. Howsomever I makes bold to guess wot you're drivin' at and I dessay you may be right. But I'm fair bound to own that if it worn't for Mr. Walden, I shouldn't be found in church o' Sundays neither, but lyin' flat on my back in a field wi' my face turned up to the sun, a-thinkin' of the goodness o' God, and hopin' He'd put a hand out to 'elp make the crops grow as they should do. Onny Passon he be a rare good man, and he do speak to the 'art of ye so wise-like and quiet, and that's why I goes to hear him and sez the prayers wot's writ for me to say and doos as he asks me to do. But if I'd been unfort'nit enough to live in the parish of Badsworth under that old liar Leveson, I'd a put my fist in his jelly face 'fore I'd a listened to a word he had to say! Them's my sentiments, mates!—and you can read 'em how you like, Mr. Netlips. God's in heaven we know,—but there's onny churches on earth, an' we 'as to make sure whether there's men or devils inside of 'em 'fore we goes kneelin' and grubbin' in front of 'uman idols—Good-night t'ye!"

With these somewhat disjointed remarks Farmer Thorpe strode out of the tap-room, whistling loudly to his dog as he reached the door. The heavy tramp of his departing feet echoed along the outside lane and died away, and Roger Buggins, glancing at the sheep-faced clock in the bar, opined that it was 'near closin' hour.' All the company rose and began to take their leave.

"Church or no church, Miss Vancourt's a real lady!" declared Dan Bidley emphatically—"She may have her reasons, an' good ones too, for not attending service, but she ain't no heathen, I'm sartin' sure o' that."

"You cannot argumentarially be sure of what you do not know," said Mr. Netlips, with a tight smile, buttoning on his overcoat—"A heathen is a proscription of the law, and cannot enjoy the rights of the commons."

Dan stared.

"There ain't no proscription of the law in stayin' away from church," he said—"Nobody's bound to go. Lords nor commons can't compel us."

Mr. Netlips shook his head and frowned darkly, with the air of one who could unveil a great mystery if he chose.

"Compulsion is a legal community," he said—"And while powerless to bring affluence to the Christian conscience, it culminates in the citizenship of the heathen. Miss Vancourt, as her father's daughter, should be represented by the baptized spirit, and not by the afflatus of the ungenerate! Good-night!"

Still puckering his brow into lines of mysterious suggestiveness, the learned Netlips went his way, Roger Buggins gazing after him admiringly.

"That man's reg'lar lost down 'ere,"—he observed—"He oughter ha' been in Parliament."

"Ah, so he ought!" agreed Dan Ridley—"Where's there's fog he'd a made it foggier, and where's there's no understandin' he'd a made it less understandable. I daresay he'd a bin Prime Minister in no time- -he's just the sort. They likes a good old muddler for that work— someone as has the knack o' addlin' the people's brains an' makin' them see a straight line as though'twere crooked. It keeps things quiet an' yet worrity-like—first up, then down—this way, then that way, an' never nothin' certain, but plenty o' big words rantin' round. That's Netlips all over,—it's in the shape of his 'ed,—he was born like it. I don't like his style myself,—but he'd make a grand cab-nit minister!"

"Ay, so he would!" acquiesced Buggins, as he drew the little red curtains across the windows of the tap-room and extinguished the hanging lamp—"Easy rest ye, Dan!"

"Same to you, Mr. Buggins!" responded the tailor cheerfully, as he turned out into the cool sweet dimness of the hawthorn-hedged lane in which the 'Mother Huff' stood—"I make bold to say that church or no church, Miss Vancourt's bein' at her own 'ouse 'ull be a gain an' a blessing to the village."

"Mebbe so," returned Buggins laconically,—and closing his door he barred it across for the night, while Dan Ridley, full of the half- poetic, half philosophic thoughts which the subjects of religion and religious worship frequently excite in a more or less untutored rustic mind, trudged slowly homeward.

During these days, Maryllia herself, unconscious of the remarks passed upon her as the lady of the Manor by her village neighbours, had not been idle, nor had she suffered much from depression of spirits, though, socially speaking, she was having what she privately considered in her own mind 'rather a dull time.' To begin with, everybody in the neighbourhood that was anybody in the neighbourhood, had called upon her,—and the antique oaken table in the great hall was littered with a snowy array of variously shaped bits of pasteboard, bearing names small and great,—names of old county families,—names of new mushroom gentry,—names of clergymen and their wives in profusion, and one or two modest cards with the plain 'Mr.' of the only young bachelors anywhere near for fifteen miles round. Nearly every man had a wife—"Such a pity!" commented Maryllia, when noting the fact—"One can never ask any of them to dinner without their dragons!"

Most of the callers had paid their 'duty visits' at a time of the afternoon when she was always out,—roaming over her own woods and fields, and 'taking stock' as she said, of her own possessions,—but on one or two occasions she had been caught 'in,' and this was the case when Sir Morton Pippitt, accompanied by his daughter Tabitha, Mr. Julian Adderley, and Mr. Marius Longford were announced just at the apt and fitting hour of 'five-o'clock tea.' Rising from the chair where she had negligently thrown herself to read for a quiet half hour, she set aside her book, and received those important personages with the careless ease and amiable indifference which was a 'manner familiar' to her, and which invariably succeeded in making less graceful persons than she was, feel wretchedly awkward and unhappy about the management of their hands and feet. With a smiling upward and downward glance, she mastered Sir Morton Pippitt's 'striking and jovial personality,'—his stiffly-carried upright form, large lower chest, close-shaven red face, and pleasantly clean white hair,—"The very picture of a Bone-Melter"—she thought—"He looks as if he had been boiled all over himself—quite a nice well- washed old man,"—her observant eyes flashed over the attenuated form of Julian Adderley with a sparkle of humour,—she noticed the careful carelessness of his attire, the artistic 'set' of his ruddy locks, the eccentric cut of his trousers, and the, to himself, peculiar knot of his tie.

"The poor thing wants to be something out of the common and can't quite manage it," she mentally decided, while she viewed with extreme disfavour the feline elegance affected by Mr. Marius Longford, and the sleek smile, practised by him 'for women only,' with which he blandly admitted her existence. To Miss Tabitha Pippit she offered a chair of capacious dimensions, amply provided with large down cushons, inviting her to sit down in it with a gentleness which implied kindly consideration for her years and for the fatigue she might possibly experience as a result of the drive over from Badsworth Hall,—whereat the severe spinster's chronically red nose reddened more visibly, and between her thin lips she sharply enunciated her preference for 'a higher seat,—no cushions, thank you!' Thereupon she selected the 'higher seat' for herself, in the shape of an old-fashioned music-stool, without back or arm-rest, and sat stiffly upon it like a draper's clothed dummy put up in a window for public inspection. Maryllia smiled,—she knew that kind of woman well;—and paying only the most casual attention to her for the rest of the time, returned to her own place by the open windows and began to dispense the tea, while Sir Morton Pippitt opened conversation by feigning to recall having met her some two or three years back. He was not altogether in the best of humours, the sight of his recently dismissed butler, Primmins, having upset his nerves. He knew how servants 'talked.' Who could tell what Primmins might not say in his new situation at Abbot's Manor, of his former experiences at Badsworth Hall? And so it was with a somewhat heated countenance that Sir Morton endeavoured to allude to a former acquaintance with his hostess at a Foreign Office function.

"Oh no, I don't think so," said Maryllia, lazily dropping lumps of sugar into the tea-cups—"Do you take sugar? I ought to ask, I know,—such a number of men have the gout nowadays, and they take saccharine. I haven't any saccharine,—so sorry! You do like sugar, Mr. Adderley? How nice of you!" And she smiled. "None for you, Mr. Longford? I thought not. You, Miss Pippitt? No! Everybody else, yes? That's all right! The Foreign Office? I think not, Sir Morton,—I gave up going there long ago when I was quite young. My aunt, Mrs. Fred Vancourt, always went—you must have met her and taken her for me, I always hated a Foreign Office 'crush.' Such big receptions bore one terribly—you never see anybody you really want to know, and the Prime Minister always looks tired to death. His face is a study in several agonies. Two or three years ago? Oh no,—I don't think I was in London at that time. And you were there, were you? Really!"

She handed a cup of tea with a bewitching smile and a 'Will you kindly pass it?' to Julian Adderley, who so impetuously accepted the task she imposed upon him of acting as general waiter to the company, that in hastening towards her he caught his foot in the trailing laces of her gown and nearly fell over the tea-tray.

"A thousand pardons!" he murmured, righting himself with an effort— "So clumsy of me!"

"Don't mention it!" said Maryllia, placidly—"Will you hand bread- and-butter to Miss Pippitt, Do you take hot cake, Sir Morton?"

Sir Morton's face had become considerably redder during this interval, and, as he spread his handkerchief out on one knee to receive the possible dribblings of tea from the cup he had begun to sip at somewhat noisily, he looked as he certainly felt, rather at a loss what next to say. He was not long in this state of indecision, however, for a bright idea occurred to him, causing a smile to spread among his loose cheek-wrinkles.

"I'm sorry my friend the Duke of Lumpton has left me," he said with unctuous pomp. "He would have been delighted—er—delighted to call with me to-day—"

"Who is he?" enquired Maryllia, languidly.

Again Sir Morton reddened, but managed to conceal his discomfiture in a fat laugh.

"Well, my dear lady, he is Lumpton!—that is enough for him, and for most people—"

"Really?—Oh—well—of course!—I suppose so!" interrupted Maryllia, with an expressive smile, which caused Miss Tabitha's angular form, perched as it was on the high music-stool, to quiver with spite, and moved Miss Tabitha's neatly gloved fingers to clench like a cat's claws in their kid sheaths with an insane desire to scratch the fair face on which that smile was reflected.

"He is a charming fellow, the Duke-charming-charming!" went on Sir Morton, unconscious of the complex workings of thought in his elderly daughter's acidulated brain! "And his great 'chum,' Lord Mawdenham, has also been staying with us—but they left Badsworth yesterday, I'm sorry to say. They travelled up to London with Lady Elizabeth Messing, who paid us a visit of two or three days—"

"Lady Elizabeth Messing!" echoed Maryllia, with a sudden ripple of laughter—"Dear me! Did you have her staying with you? How very nice of you! She is such a terror!"