It caught Dr. Jessop's notice. I saw his air of vexed dignity change into a certain anxiety.

"Well, whose are they like—her father's or mine? His, I hope—it will be the better for her beauty. Nay, we'll excuse all compliments."

"I—I can't exactly tell. I could judge better by candlelight."

"We'll have candles."

"No—no! Had we not better put it off altogether, till another day?—I'll call in to-morrow and look at her eyes."

His manner was hesitating and troubled. John noticed it.

"Love, give her to me. Go and get us lights, will you?"

When she was gone, John took his baby to the window, gazed long and intently into her little face, then at Dr. Jessop. "Do you think—no—it's not possible—that there can be anything the matter with the child's eyes?"

Ursula coming in, heard the last words.

"What was that you said about baby's eyes?"

No one answered her. All were gathered in a group at the window, the child being held on her father's lap, while Dr. Jessop was trying to open the small white lids, kept so continually closed. At last the baby uttered a little cry of pain—the mother darted forward, and clasped it almost savagely to her breast.

"I will not have my baby hurt! There is nothing wrong with her sweet eyes. Go away; you shall not touch her, John."

"Love!"

She melted at that low, fond word; leaning against his shoulder—trying to control her tears.

"It shocked me so—the bare thought of such a thing. Oh! husband, don't let her be looked at again."

"Only once again, my darling. It is best. Then we shall be quite satisfied. Phineas, give me the candle."

The words—caressing, and by strong constraint made calm and soothing—were yet firm. Ursula resisted no more, but let him take Muriel—little, unconscious, cooing dove! Lulled by her father's voice she once more opened her eyes wide. Dr. Jessop passed the candle before them many times, once so close that it almost touched her face; but the full, quiet eyes, never blenched nor closed. He set the light down.

"Doctor!" whispered the father, in a wild appeal against—ay, it was against certainty. He snatched the candle, and tried the experiment himself.

"She does not see at all. Can she be blind?"

"Born blind."

Yes, those pretty baby-eyes were dark—quite dark. There was nothing painful nor unnatural in their look, save, perhaps, the blankness of gaze which I have before noticed. Outwardly, their organization was perfect; but in the fine inner mechanism was something wrong—something wanting. She never had seen—never would see—in this world.

"BLIND!" The word was uttered softly, hardly above a breath, yet the mother heard it. She pushed every one aside, and took the child herself. Herself, with a desperate incredulity, she looked into those eyes, which never could look back either her agony or her love. Poor mother!

"John! John! oh, John!"—the name rising into a cry, as if he could surely help her. He came and took her in his arms—took both, wife and babe. She laid her head on his shoulder in bitter weeping. "Oh, John! it is so hard. Our pretty one—our own little child!"

John did not speak, but only held her to him—close and fast. When she was a little calmer he whispered to her the comfort—the sole comfort even her husband could give her—through whose will it was that this affliction came.

"And it is more an affliction to you than it will be to her, poor pet!" said Mrs. Jessop, as she wiped her friendly eyes. "She will not miss what she never knew. She may be a happy little child. Look, how she lies and smiles."

But the mother could not take that consolation yet. She walked to and fro, and stood rocking her baby, mute indeed, but with tears falling in showers. Gradually her anguish wept itself away, or was smothered down, lest it should disturb the little creature asleep on her breast.

Some one came behind her, and placed her in the arm-chair, gently. It was my father. He sat down by her, taking her hand.

"Grieve not, Ursula. I had a little brother who was blind. He was the happiest creature I ever knew."

My father sighed. We all marvelled to see the wonderful softness, even tenderness, which had come into him.

"Give me thy child for a minute." Ursula laid it across his knees; he put his hand solemnly on the baby-breast. "God bless this little one! Ay, and she shall be blessed."

These words, spoken with as full assurance as the prophetic benediction of the departing patriarchs of old, struck us all. We looked at little Muriel as if the blessing were already upon her; as if the mysterious touch which had scaled up her eyes for ever had left on her a sanctity like as of one who has been touched by the finger of God.

"Now, children, I must go home," said my father.

They did not detain us: it was indeed best that the poor young parents should be left alone.

"You will come again soon?" begged Ursula, tenderly clasping the hand which he had laid upon her curls as he rose with another murmured "God bless thee!"

"Perhaps. We never know. Be a good wife to thy husband, my girl. And John, never be thou harsh to her, nor too hard upon her little failings. She is but young—but young."

He sighed again. It was plain to see he was thinking of another than Ursula.

As we walked down the street he spoke to me only once or twice, and then of things which startled me by their strangeness—things which had happened a long time ago; sayings and doings of mine in my childhood, which I had not the least idea he had either known of or remembered.

When we got in-doors I asked if I should come and sit with him till his bed-time.

"No—no; thee looks tired, and I have a business letter to write. Better go to thy bed as usual."

I bade him good-night, and was going, when he called me back.

"How old art thee, Phineas—twenty-four or five?"

"Twenty-five, father."

"Eh! so much?" He put his hand on my shoulder, and looked down on me kindly, even tenderly. "Thee art but weakly still, but thee must pick up, and live to be as old a man as thy father. Goodnight. God be with thee, my son!"

I left him. I was happy. Once I had never expected my old father and I would have got on together so well, or loved one another so dearly.

In the middle of the night Jael came into my room, and sat down on my bed's foot, looking at me. I had been dreaming strangely, about my own childish days, and about my father and mother when we were young.

What Jael told me—by slow degrees, and as tenderly as when she was my nurse years ago—seemed at first so unreal as to be like a part of the dream.

At ten o'clock, when she had locked up the house, she had come as usual to the parlour door, to tell my father it was bed-time. He did not answer, being sitting with his back to the door, apparently busy writing. So she went away.

Half an hour afterwards she came again. He sat there still—he had not moved. One hand supported his head; the other, the fingers stiffly holding the pen, lay on the table. He seemed intently gazing on what he had written. It ran thus:

"GOOD FRIEND,

"To-morrow I shall be—"

But there the hand had stopped—for ever.

O dear father! on that to-morrow thou wert with God.



CHAPTER XXII

It was the year 1812. I had lived for ten years as a brother in my adopted brother's house, whither he had brought me on the day of my father's funeral; entreating that I should never leave it again. For, as was shortly afterwards made clear, fate—say Providence—was now inevitably releasing him from a bond, from which, so long as my poor father lived, John would never have released himself. It was discovered that the profits of the tanning trade had long been merely nominal—that of necessity, for the support of our two families, the tan-yard must be sold, and the business confined entirely to the flour-mill.

At this crisis, as if the change of all things broke her stout old heart, which never could bend to any new ways—Jael died. We laid her at my father's and mother's feet—poor old Jael! and that grave-yard in St. Mary's Lane now covered over all who loved me, all who were of my youth day—my very own.

So thought I—or might have thought—but that John and Ursula then demanded with one voice, "Brother, come home."

I resisted long: for it is one of my decided opinions that married people ought to have no one, be the tie ever so close and dear, living permanently with them, to break the sacred duality—no, let me say the unity of their home.

I wished to try and work for my living, if that were possible—if not, that out of the wreck of my father's trade might be found enough to keep me, in some poor way. But John Halifax would not hear of that. And Ursula—she was sitting sewing, while the little one lay on her lap, cooing softly with shut eyes—Ursula took my hand to play with Muriel's. The baby fingers closed over mine—"See there, Phineas; SHE wants you too." So I stayed.

Perhaps it was on this account that better than all his other children, better than anything on earth except himself, I loved John's eldest daughter, little blind Muriel.

He had several children now. The dark old house, and the square town garden, were alive with their voices from morning till night. First, and loudest always, was Guy—born the year after Muriel. He was very like his mother, and her darling. After him came two more, Edwin and Walter. But Muriel still remained as "sister"—the only sister either given or desired.

If I could find a name to describe that child it would be not the one her happy mother gave her at her birth, but one more sacred, more tender. She was better than Joy—she was an embodied Peace.

Her motions were slow and tranquil—her voice soft—every expression of her little face extraordinarily serene. Whether creeping about the house, with a foot-fall silent as snow, or sitting among us, either knitting busily at her father's knee, or listening to his talk and the children's play, everywhere and always Muriel was the same. No one ever saw her angry, restless, or sad. The soft dark calm in which she lived seemed never broken by the troubles of this our troublous world.

She was, as I have said, from her very babyhood a living peace. And such she was to us all, during those ten struggling years, when our household had much to contend with, much to endure. If at night her father came home jaded and worn, sickened to the soul by the hard battle he had to fight daily, hourly, with the outside world, Muriel would come softly and creep into his bosom, and he was comforted. If, busying herself about, doing faithfully her portion too, that the husband when he came in of evenings might find all cheerful and never know how heavy had been the household cares during the day—if, at times, Ursula's voice took too sharp a tone, at sight of Muriel it softened at once. No one could speak any but soft and sweet words when the blind child was by.

Yet, I think either parent would have looked amazed had any one pitied them for having a blind child. The loss—a loss only to them, and not to her, the darling!—became familiar, and ceased to wound; the blessedness was ever new. "Ay, and she shall be blessed," had said my dear father. So she was. From her, or for her, her parents never had to endure a single pain. Even the sicknesses of infancy and childhood, of which the three others had their natural share, always passed her by, as if in pity. Nothing ever ailed Muriel.

The spring of 1812 was an era long remembered in our family. Scarlet fever went through the house—safely, but leaving much care behind. When at last they all came round, and we were able to gather our pale little flock to a garden feast, under the big old pear-tree, it was with the trembling thankfulness of those who have gone through great perils, hardly dared to be recognized as such till they were over.

"Ay, thank God it is over!" said John, as he put his arm round his wife, and looked in her worn face, where still her own smile lingered—her bright, brave smile, that nothing could ever drive away. "And now we must try and make a little holiday for you."

"Nonsense! I am as well as possible. Did not Dr. Jessop tell me, this morning, I was looking younger than ever? I—a mother of a family, thirty years old? Pray, Uncle Phineas, do I look my age?"

I could not say she did not—especially now. But she wore it so gracefully, so carelessly, that I saw—ay, and truly her husband saw—a sacred beauty about her jaded cheek, more lovely and lovable than all the bloom of her youth. Happy woman! who was not afraid of growing old.

"Love"—John usually called her "Love"—putting it at the beginning of a sentence, as if it had been her natural Christian name—which, as in all infant households, had been gradually dropped or merged into the universal title of "Mother." My name for her was always emphatically "The Mother"—the truest type of motherhood I ever knew.

"Love," her husband began again, after a long look in her face—ah, John, thine was altered too, but himself was the last thing he thought of—"say what you like—I know what we'll do: for the children's sake. Ah, that's her weak point;—see, Phineas, she is yielding now. We'll go for three months to Longfield."

Now Longfield was the Utopia of our family, old and young. A very simple family we must have been—for this Longfield was only a small farm-house, about six miles off, where once we had been to tea, and where ever since we had longed to live. For, pretty as our domain had grown, it was still in the middle of a town, and the children, like all naturally-reared children, craved after the freedom of the country—after corn-fields, hay-fields, nuttings, blackberryings—delights hitherto known only at rare intervals, when their father could spare a whole long day, and be at once the sun and the shield of the happy little band.

"Hearken, children! father says we shall go for three whole months to live at Longfield."

The three boys set up a shout of ecstacy.

"I'll swim boats down the stream, and catch and ride every one of the horses. Hurrah!" shouted Guy.

"And I'll see after the ducks and chickens, and watch all the threshing and winnowing," said Edwin, the practical and grave.

"And I'll get a 'ittle 'amb to p'ay wid me," lisped Walter—still "the baby"—or considered such, and petted accordingly.

"But what does my little daughter say?" said the father, turning—as he always turned, at the lightest touch of those soft, blind fingers, creeping along his coat sleeve. "What will Muriel do at Longfield?"

"Muriel will sit all day and hear the birds sing."

"So she shall, my blessing!" He often called her his "blessing," which in truth she was. To see her now leaning her cheek against his—the small soft face, almost a miniature of his own, the hair, a paler shade of the same bright colour, curling in the same elastic rings—they looked less like ordinary father and daughter, than like a man and his good angel; the visible embodiment of the best half of his soul. So she was ever to him, this child of his youth—his first-born and his dearest.

The Longfield plan being once started, father and mother and I began to consult together as to ways and means; what should be given up, and what increased, of our absolute luxuries, in order that the children might this summer—possibly every summer—have the glory of "living in the country." Of these domestic consultations there was never any dread, for they were always held in public. There were no secrets in our house. Father and mother, though sometimes holding different opinions, had but one thought, one aim—the family good. Thus, even in our lowest estate there had been no bitterness in our poverty; we met it, looked it in the face, often even laughed at it. For it bound us all together, hand in hand; it taught us endurance, self-dependence, and, best of all lessons, self-renunciation. I think, one's whole after-life is made easier and more blessed by having known what it was to be very poor when one was young.

Our fortunes were rising now, and any little pleasure did not take near so much contrivance. We found we could manage the Longfield visit—ay, and a horse for John to ride to and fro—without any worse sacrifice than that of leaving Jenny—now Mrs. Jem Watkins, but our cook still—in the house at Norton Bury, and doing with one servant instead of two. Also, though this was not publicly known till afterwards, by the mother's renouncing a long-promised silk dress—the only one since her marriage, in which she had determined to astonish John by choosing the same colour as that identical grey gown he had seen hanging up in the kitchen at Enderley.

"But one would give up anything," she said, "that the children might have such a treat, and that father might have rides backwards and forwards through green lanes all summer. Oh, how I wish we could always live in the country!"

"Do you?" And John looked—much as he had looked at long-tailed grey ponies in his bridegroom days—longing to give her every thing she desired. "Well, perhaps, we may manage it some time."

"When our ship comes in—namely, that money which Richard Brithwood will not pay, and John Halifax will not go to law to make him. Nay, father dear, I am not going to quarrel with any one of your crotchets." She spoke with a fond pride, as she did always, even when arguing against the too Quixotic carrying out of the said crotchets. "Perhaps, as the reward of forbearance, the money will come some day when we least expect it; then John shall have his heart's desire, and start the cloth-mills at Enderley."

John smiled, half-sadly. Every man has a hobby—this was his, and had been for fifteen years. Not merely the making a fortune, as he still firmly believed it could be made, but the position of useful power, the wide range of influence, the infinite opportunities of doing good.

"No, love; I shall never be 'patriarch of the valley,' as Phineas used to call it. The yew-hedge is too thick for me, eh, Phineas?"

"No!" cried Ursula—we had told her this little incident of our boyhood—"you have got half through it already. Everybody in Norton Bury knows and respects you. I am sure, Phineas, you might have heard a pin fall at the meeting last night when he spoke against hanging the Luddites. And such a shout as rose when he ended—oh, how proud I was!"

"Of the shout, love?"

"Nonsense!—but of the cause of it. Proud to see my husband defending the poor and the oppressed—proud to see him honoured and looked up to, more and more every year, till—"

"Till it may come at last to the prophecy in your birthday verse—'Her husband is known in the gates; he sitteth among the elders of the land.'"

Mrs. Halifax laughed at me for reminding her of this, but allowed that she would not dislike its being fulfilled.

"And it will be too. He is already 'known in the gates'; known far and near. Think how many of our neighbours come to John to settle their differences, instead of going to law! And how many poachers has he not persuaded out of their dishonest—"

"Illegal," corrected John.

"Well, their illegal ways, and made decent, respectable men of them! Then, see how he is consulted, and his opinion followed, by rich folk as well as poor folk, all about the neighbourhood. I am sure John is as popular, and has as much influence, as many a member of parliament."

John smiled with an amused twitch about his mouth, but he said nothing. He rarely did say anything about himself—not even in his own household. The glory of his life was its unconsciousness—like our own silent Severn, however broad and grand its current might be, that course seemed the natural channel into which it flowed.

"There's Muriel," said the father, listening.

Often thus the child slipped away, and suddenly we heard all over the house the sweet sounds of "Muriel's voice," as some one had called the old harpsichord. When almost a baby she would feel her way to it, and find out first harmonies, then tunes, with that quickness and delicacy of ear peculiar to the blind.

"How well she plays! I wish I could buy her one of those new instruments they call 'pianofortes;' I was looking into the mechanism of one the other day."

"She would like an organ better. You should have seen her face in the Abbey church this morning."

"Hark! she has stopped playing. Guy, run and bring your sister here," said the father, ever yearning after his darling.

Guy came back with a wonderful story of two gentlemen in the parlour, one of whom had patted his head—"Such a grand gentleman, a great deal grander than father!"

That was true, as regarded the bright nankeens, the blue coat with gold buttons, and the showiest of cambric kerchiefs swathing him up to the very chin. To this "grand" personage John bowed formally, but his wife flushed up in surprised recognition.

"It is so long since I had the happiness of meeting Miss March, that I conclude Mrs. Halifax has forgotten me?"

"No, Lord Luxmore, allow me to introduce my husband."

And, I fancied, some of Miss March's old hauteur returned to the mother's softened and matronly mien;—pride, but not for herself or in herself, now. For, truly, as the two men stood together—though Lord Luxmore had been handsome in his youth, and was universally said to have as fine manners as the Prince Regent himself—any woman might well have held her head loftily, introducing John Halifax as "my husband."

Of the two, the nobleman was least at his ease, for the welcome of both Mr. and Mrs. Halifax, though courteous, was decidedly cold. They did not seem to feel—and, if rumour spoke true, I doubt if any honest, virtuous, middle-class fathers and mothers would have felt—that their house was greatly honoured or sanctified by the presence of the Earl of Luxmore.

But the nobleman was, as I have said, wonderfully fine-mannered. He broke the ice at once.

"Mr. Halifax, I have long wished to know you. Mrs. Halifax, my daughter encouraged me to pay this impromptu visit."

Here ensued polite inquiries after Lady Caroline Brithwood; we learned that she was just returned from abroad, and was entertaining, at the Mythe House, her father and brother.

"Pardon—I was forgetting my son—Lord Ravenel."

The youth thus presented merely bowed. He was about eighteen or so, tall and spare, with thin features and large soft eyes. He soon retreated to the garden-door, where he stood, watching the boys play, and shyly attempting to make friends with Muriel.

"I believe Ravenel has seen you years ago, Mrs. Halifax. His sister made a great pet of him as a child. He has just completed his education—at the College of St. Omer, was it not, William?"

"The Catholic college of St. Omer," repeated the boy.

"Tut—what matters!" said the father, sharply. "Mr. Halifax, do not imagine we are a Catholic family still. I hope the next Earl of Luxmore will be able to take the oaths and his seat, whether or no we get Emancipation. By the by, you uphold the Bill?"

John assented; expressing his conviction, then unhappily a rare one, that every one's conscience is free; and that all men of blameless life ought to be protected by, and allowed to serve, the state, whatever be their religious opinions.

"Mr. Halifax, I entirely agree with you. A wise man esteems all faiths alike worthless."

"Excuse me, my lord, that was the very last thing I meant to say. I hold every man's faith so sacred, that no other man has a right to interfere with it, or to question it. The matter lies solely between himself and his Maker."

"Exactly! What facility of expression your husband has, Mrs. Halifax! He must be—indeed, I have heard he is—a first-rate public speaker."

The wife smiled, wife-like; but John said, hurriedly:

"I have no pretention or ambition of the kind. I merely now and then try to put plain truths, or what I believe to be such, before the people, in a form they are able to understand."

"Ay, that is it. My dear sir, the people have no more brains than the head of my cane (his Royal Highness's gift, Mrs. Halifax); they must be led or driven, like a flock of sheep. We"—a lordly "we!"—"are their proper shepherds. But, then, we want a middle class—at least, an occasional voice from it, a—"

"A shepherd's dog, to give tongue," said John, dryly. "In short, a public orator. In the House, or out of it?"

"Both." And the earl tapped his boot with that royal cane, smiling. "Yes; I see you apprehend me. But, before we commence that somewhat delicate subject, there was another on which I desired my agent, Mr. Brown, to obtain your valuable opinion."

"You mean, when, yesterday, he offered me, by your lordship's express desire, the lease, lately fallen in, of your cloth-mills at Enderley?"

Now, John had not told us that!—why, his manner too plainly showed.

"And all will be arranged, I trust? Brown says you have long wished to take the mills; I shall be most happy to have you for a tenant."

"My lord, as I told your agent, it is impossible. We will say no more about it."

John crossed over to his wife with a cheerful air. She sat looking grave and sad.

Lord Luxmore had the reputation of being a keen-witted, diplomatic personage; undoubtedly he had, or could assume, that winning charm of manner which had descended in perfection to his daughter. Both qualities it pleased him to exercise now. He rose, addressing with kindly frankness the husband and wife.

"If I may ask—being a most sincere well-wisher of yours, and a sort of connection of Mrs. Halifax's, too—why is it impossible?"

"I have no wish to disguise the reason: it is because I have no capital."

Lord Luxmore looked surprised. "Surely—excuse me, but I had the honour of being well acquainted with the late Mr. March—surely, your wife's fortune—"

Ursula rose, in her old impetuous way—"His wife's fortune! (John, let me say it!—I will, I must!)—of his wife's fortune, Lord Luxmore, he has never received one farthing. Richard Brithwood keeps it back; and my husband would work day and night for me and our children rather than go to law."

"Oh! on principle, I suppose? I have heard of such opinions," said the earl, with the slightest perceptible sneer. "And you agree with him?"

"I do, heartily. I would rather we lived poor all our days than that he should wear his life out, trouble his spirit, perhaps even soil his conscience, by squabbling with a bad man over money matters."

It was good to see Ursula as she spoke; good to see the look that husband and his wife interchanged—husband and wife, different in many points, yet so blessedly, so safely ONE! Then John said, in his quiet way,

"Love, perhaps another subject than our own affairs would be more interesting to Lord Luxmore."

"Not at all—not at all!" And the earl was evidently puzzled and annoyed. "Such extraordinary conduct," he muttered: "so very—ahem!—unwise. If the matter were known—caught up by those newspapers—I must really have a little conversation with Brithwood."

The conversation paused, and John changed it entirely by making some remarks on the present minister, Mr. Perceval.

"I liked his last speech much. He seems a clear-headed, honest man, for all his dogged opposition to the Bill."

"He will never oppose it more."

"Nay, I think he will, my lord—to the death."

"That may be—and yet—" his lordship smiled. "Mr. Halifax, I have just had news by a carrier pigeon—my birds fly well—most important news for us and our party. Yesterday, in the lobby of the House of Commons, Mr. Perceval was shot."

We all started. An hour ago we had been reading his speech. Mr. Perceval shot!

"Oh, John," cried the mother, her eyes full of tears; "his poor wife—his fatherless children!"

And for many minutes they stood, hearing the lamentable history, and looking at their little ones at play in the garden; thinking, as many an English father and mother did that day, of the stately house in London, where the widow and orphans bewailed their dead. He might or might not be a great statesman, but he was undoubtedly a good man; many still remember the shock of his untimely death, and how, whether or not they liked him living, all the honest hearts of England mourned for Mr. Perceval.

Possibly that number did not include the Earl of Luxmore.

"Requiescat in pace! I shall propose the canonization of poor Bellingham. For now Perceval is dead there will be an immediate election; and on that election depends Catholic Emancipation. Mr. Halifax," turning quickly round to him, "you would be of great use to us in parliament."

"Should I?"

"Will you—I like plain speaking—will you enter it?"

Enter parliament! John Halifax in parliament! His wife and I were both astounded by the suddenness of the possibility; which, however, John himself seemed to receive as no novel idea.

Lord Luxmore continued. "I assure you nothing is more easy; I can bring you in at once, for a borough near here—my family borough."

"Which you wish to be held by some convenient person till Lord Ravenel comes of age? So Mr. Brown informed me yesterday."

Lord Luxmore slightly frowned. Such transactions, as common then in the service of the country as they still are in the service of the Church, were yet generally glossed over, as if a certain discredit attached to them. The young lord seemed to feel it; at sound of his name he turned round to listen, and turned back again, blushing scarlet. Not so the earl, his father.

"Brown is—(may I offer you a pinch, Mr. Halifax?—what, not the Prince Regent's own mixture?)—is indeed a worthy fellow, but too hasty in his conclusions. As it happens, my son is yet undecided between the Church—that is, the priesthood, and politics. But to our conversation—Mrs. Halifax, may I not enlist you on my side? We could easily remove all difficulties, such as qualification, etc. Would you not like to see your husband member for the old and honourable borough of Kingswell?"

"Kingswell!" It was a tumble-down village, where John held and managed for me the sole remnant of landed property which my poor father had left me. "Kingswell! why there are not a dozen houses in the place."

"The fewer the better, my dear madam. The election would cost me scarcely any—trouble; and the country be vastly the gainer by your husband's talents and probity. Of course he will give up the—I forget what is his business now—and live independent. He is made to shine as a politician: it will be both happiness and honour to myself to have in some way contributed to that end. Mr. Halifax, you will accept my borough?"

"Not on any consideration your lordship could offer me."

Lord Luxmore scarcely credited his ears. "My dear sir—you are the most extraordinary—may I again inquire your reasons?"

"I have several; one will suffice. Though I wish to gain influence—power perhaps; still the last thing I should desire would be political influence."

"You might possibly escape that unwelcome possession," returned the earl. "Half the House of Commons is made up of harmless dummies, who vote as we bid them."

"A character, my lord, for which I am decidedly unfitted. Until political conscience ceases to be a thing of traffic, until the people are allowed honestly to choose their own honest representatives, I must decline being of that number. Shall we dismiss the subject?"

"With pleasure, sir."

And courtesy being met by courtesy, the question so momentous was passed over, and merged into trivialities. Perhaps the earl, who, as his pleasures palled, was understood to be fixing his keen wits upon the pet profligacy of old age, politics—saw, clearly enough, that in these chaotic days of contending parties, when the maddened outcry of the "people" was just being heard and listened to, it might be as well not to make an enemy of this young man, who, with a few more, stood as it were midway in the gulf, now slowly beginning to narrow, between the commonalty and the aristocracy. He stayed some time longer, and then bowed himself away with a gracious condescension worthy of the Prince of Wales himself, carrying with him the shy, gentle Lord Ravenel, who had spoken scarcely six words the whole time.

When he was gone the father and mother seemed both relieved.

"Truly, John, he has gained little by his visit, and I hope it may be long before we see an earl in our quiet house again. Come in to dinner, my children."

But his lordship had left an uncomfortable impression behind him. It lasted even until that quiet hour—often the quietest and happiest of our day—when, the children being all in bed, we elders closed in round the fire.

Ursula and I sat there, longer alone than usual.

"John is late to-night," she said more than once; and I could see her start, listening to every foot under the window, every touch at the door-bell; not stirring, though: she knew his foot and his ring quite well always.

"There he is!" we both said at once—much relieved; and John came in.

Brightness always came in with him. Whatever cares he had without—and they were heavy enough, God knows—they always seemed to slip off the moment he entered his own door; and whatever slight cares we had at home, we put them aside; as they could not but be put aside, nay, forgotten—at the sight of him.

"Well, Uncle Phineas! Children all right, my darling? A fire! I'm glad of it. Truly to-night is as cold as November."

"John, if you have a weakness, it is for fire. You're a regular salamander."

He laughed—warming his hands at the blaze. "Yes, I would rather be hungry than cold, any day. Love, our one extravagance is certainly coals. A grand fire this! I do like it so!"

She called him "foolish;" but smoothed down with a quiet kiss the forehead he lifted up to her as she stood beside him, looking as if she would any day have converted the whole house into fuel for his own private and particular benefit.

"Little ones all in bed, of course?"

"Indeed, they would have lain awake half the night—those naughty boys—talking of Longfield. You never saw children so delighted."

"Are they?" I thought the tone was rather sad, and that the father sat listening with less interest than usual to the pleasant little household chronicle, always wonderful and always new, which it was his custom to ask for and have, night after night, when he came home,—saying it was to him, after his day's toil, like a "babbling o' green fields." Soon it stopped.

"John dear, you are very tired?"

"Rather."

"Have you been very busy all day?"

"Very busy."

I understood, almost as well as his wife did, what those brief answers indicated; so, stealing away to the table where Guy's blurred copy-book and Edwin's astonishing addition sums were greatly in need of Uncle Phineas, I left the fire-side corner to those two. Soon John settled himself in my easy chair, and then one saw how very weary he was—weary in body and soul alike—weary as we seldom beheld him. It went to my heart to watch the listless stretch of his large, strong frame—the sharp lines about his mouth—lines which ought not to have come there in his two-and-thirty years. And his eyes—they hardly looked like John's eyes, as they gazed in a sort of dull quietude, too anxious to be dreamy, into the red coals—and nowhere else.

At last he roused himself, and took up his wife's work.

"More little coats! Love, you are always sewing."

"Mothers must—you know. And I think never did boys outgrow their things like our boys. It is pleasant, too. If only clothes did not wear out so fast."

"Ah!" A sigh—from the very depths of the father's heart.

"Not a bit too fast for my clever fingers, though," said Ursula, quickly. "Look, John, at this lovely braiding. But I'm not going to do any more of it. I shall certainly have no time to waste over fineries at Longfield."

Her husband took up the fanciful work, admired it, and laid it down again. After a pause he said:

"Should you be very much disappointed if—if we do not go to Longfield after all?"

"Not go to Longfield!" The involuntary exclamation showed how deep her longing had been.

"Because I am afraid—it is hard, I know—but I am afraid we cannot manage it. Are you very sorry?"

"Yes," she said frankly and truthfully. "Not so much for myself, but—the children."

"Ay, the poor children."

Ursula stitched away rapidly for some moments, till the grieved look faded out of her face; then she turned it, all cheerful once more, to her husband. "Now, John, tell me. Never mind about the children. Tell me."

He told her, as was his habit at all times, of some losses which had to-day befallen him—bad debts in his business—which would make it, if not impracticable, at least imprudent, to enter on any new expenses that year. Nay, he must, if possible, retrench a little. Ursula listened, without question, comment, or complaint.

"Is that all?" she said at last, very gently.

"All."

"Then never mind. I do not. We will find some other pleasures for the children. We have so many pleasures, ay, all of us. Husband, it is not so hard to give up this one."

He said, in a whisper, low almost as a lover's, "I could give up anything in the world but them and thee."

So, with a brief information to me at supper-time—"Uncle Phineas, did you hear? we cannot go to Longfield,"—the renunciation was made, and the subject ended. For this year, at least, our Arcadian dream was over.

But John's troubled looks did not pass away. It seemed as if this night his long toil had come to that crisis when the strongest man breaks down—or trembles within a hair's breadth of breaking down; conscious too, horribly conscious, that if so, himself will be the least part of the universal ruin. His face was haggard, his movements irritable and restless; he started nervously at every sound. Sometimes even a hasty word, an uneasiness about trifles, showed how strong was the effort he made at self-control. Ursula, usually by far the most quick-tempered of the two, became to-night mild and patient. She neither watched nor questioned him—wise woman as she was; she only sat still, busying herself over her work, speaking now and then of little things, lest he should notice her anxiety about him. He did at last.

"Nay, I am not ill, do not be afraid. Only my head aches so—let me lay it here as the children do."

His wife made a place for it on her shoulder; there it rested—the poor tired head, until gradually the hard and painful expression of the features relaxed, and it became John's own natural face—as quiet as any of the little faces on their pillows up-stairs, whence, doubtless, slumber had long banished all anticipation of Longfield. At last he too fell asleep.

Ursula held up her finger, that I might not stir. The clock in the corner, and the soft sobbing of the flame on the hearth, were the only sounds in the parlour. She sewed on quietly, to the end of her work; then let it drop on her lap, and sat still. Her cheek leaned itself softly against John's hair, and in her eyes, which seemed so intently contemplating the little frock, I saw large bright tears gather—fall. But her look was serene, nay, happy; as if she thought of these beloved ones, husband and children—her very own—preserved to her in health and peace,—ay, and in that which is better than either, the unity of love. For that priceless blessing, for the comfort of being HIS comfort, for the sweetness of bringing up these his children in the fear of God and in the honour of their father—she, true wife and mother as she was, would not have exchanged the wealth of the whole world.

"What's that?" We all started, as a sudden ring at the bell pealed through the house, waking John, and frightening the very children in their beds. All for a mere letter too, brought by a lacquey of Lord Luxmore's. Having—somewhat indignantly—ascertained this fact, the mother ran upstairs to quiet her little ones. When she came down, John still stood with the letter in his hand. He had not told me what it was; when I chanced to ask he answered in a low tone—"Presently!" On his wife's entrance he gave her the letter without a word.

Well might it startle her into a cry of joy. Truly the dealings of heaven to us were wonderful!

"Mr. John Halifax.

"SIR,

"Your wife, Ursula Halifax, having some time since attained the age fixed by her late father as her majority, I will, within a month after date, pay over to your order all moneys, principal and interest, accruing to her, and hitherto left in my hands, as trustee, according to the will of the late Henry March, Esquire.

"I am, sir, "Yours, etc., "RICHARD BRITHWOOD."

"Wonderful—wonderful!"

It was all I could say. That one bad man, for his own purposes, should influence another bad man to an act of justice—and that their double evil should be made to work out our good! Also, that this should come just in our time of need—when John's strength seemed ready to fail.

"Oh John—John! now you need not work so hard!"

That was his wife's first cry, as she clung to him almost in tears.

He too was a good deal agitated. This sudden lifting of the burthen made him feel how heavy it had been—how terrible the responsibility—how sickening the fear.

"Thank God! In any case, you are quite safe now—you and the children!"

He sat down, very pale. His wife knelt beside him, and put her arms around his neck—I quietly went out of the room.

When I came in again, they were standing by the fire-side—both cheerful, as two people to whom had happened such unexpected good fortune might naturally be expected to appear. I offered my congratulations in rather a comical vein than otherwise; we all of us had caught John's habit of putting things in a comic light whenever he felt them keenly.

"Yes, he is a rich man now—mind you treat your brother with extra respect, Phineas."

"And your sister too.

'For she sall walk in silk attire, And siller hae to spare.'

She's quite young and handsome still—isn't she? How magnificent she'll look in that grey silk gown!"

"John, you ought to be ashamed of yourself! you—the father of a family! you—that are to be the largest mill-owner at Enderley—"

He looked at her fondly, half deprecatingly. "Not till I have made you and the children all safe—as I said."

"We are safe—quite safe—when we have you. Oh, Phineas! make him see it as I do. Make him understand that it will be the happiest day in his wife's life when she knows him happy in his heart's desire."

We sat a little while longer, talking over the strange change in our fortunes—for they wished to make me feel that now, as ever, what was theirs was mine; then Ursula took her candle to depart.

"Love!" John cried, calling her back as she shut the door, and watching her stand there patient—watching with something of the old mischievous twinkle in his eyes. "Mrs. Halifax, when shall I have the honour of ordering your long-tailed grey ponies?"



CHAPTER XXIII

Not many weeks afterwards we went to live at Longfield, which henceforth became the family home for many years.

Longfield! happy Longfield! little nest of love, and joy, and peace—where the children grew up, and we grew old—where season after season brought some new change ripening in us and around us—where summer and winter, day and night, the hand of God's providence was over our roof, blessing our goings out and our comings in, our basket and our store; crowning us with the richest blessing of all, that we were made a household where "brethren dwelt together in unity." Beloved Longfield! my heart, slow pulsing as befits one near the grave, thrills warm and young as I remember thee!

Yet how shall I describe it—the familiar spot; so familiar that it seems to need no description at all.

It was but a small place when we first came there. It led out of the high-road by a field-gate—the White Gate; from which a narrow path wound down to a stream, thence up a green slope to the house; a mere farm-house, nothing more. It had one parlour, three decent bedrooms, kitchen and out-houses; we built extempore chambers out of the barn and cheese-room. In one of these the boys, Guy and Edwin, slept, against the low roof of which the father generally knocked his head every morning when he came to call the lads. Its windows were open all summer round, and birds and bats used oftentimes to fly in, to the great delight of the youthful inmates.

Another infinite pleasure to the little folk was that for the first year, the farm-house kitchen was made our dining-room. There, through the open door, Edwin's pigeons, Muriel's two doves, and sometimes a stately hen, walked in and out at pleasure. Whether our live stock, brought up in the law of kindness, were as well-trained and well-behaved as our children, I cannot tell; but certain it is that we never found any harm from this system, necessitated by our early straits at Longfield—this "liberty, fraternity, and equality."

Those words, in themselves true and lovely, but wrested to false meaning, whose fatal sound was now dying out of Europe, merged in the equally false and fatal shout of "Gloire! gloire!" remind me of an event which I believe was the first that broke the delicious monotony of our new life.

It was one September morning. Mrs. Halifax, the children, and I were down at the stream, planning a bridge across it, and a sort of stable, where John's horse might be put up—the mother had steadily resisted the long-tailed grey ponies. For with all the necessary improvements at Longfield, with the large settlement that John insisted upon making on his wife and children, before he would use in his business any portion of her fortune, we found we were by no means so rich as to make any great change in our way of life advisable. And, after all, the mother's best luxuries were to see her children merry and strong, her husband's face lightened of its care, and to know he was now placed beyond doubt in the position he had always longed for; for was he not this very day gone to sign the lease of Enderley Mills?

Mrs. Halifax had just looked at her watch, and she and I were wondering, with quite a childish pleasure, whether he were not now signing the important deed, when Guy came running to say a coach-and-four was trying to enter the White Gate.

"Who can it be?—But they must be stopped, or they'll spoil John's new gravel road that he takes such pride in. Uncle Phineas, would you mind going to see?"

Who should I see, but almost the last person I expected—who had not been beheld, hardly spoken of, in our household these ten years—Lady Caroline Brithwood, in her travelling-habit of green cloth, her velvet riding-hat, with its Prince of Wales' feathers, gayer than ever—though her pretty face was withering under the paint, and her lively manner growing coarse and bold.

"Is this Longfield?—Does Mr. Halifax—mon Dieu, Mr. Fletcher, is that you?"

She held out her hand with the frankest condescension, and in the brightest humour in the world. She insisted on sending on the carriage, and accompanying me down to the stream, for a "surprise"—a "scene."

Mrs. Halifax, seeing the coach drive on, had evidently forgotten all about it. She stood in the little dell which the stream had made, Walter in her arms—her figure thrown back, so as to poise the child's weight. Her right hand kept firm hold of Guy, who was paddling barefoot in the stream: Edwin, the only one of the boys who never gave any trouble, was soberly digging away, beside little Muriel.

The lady clapped her hands. "Brava! bravissima! a charming family picture, Mrs. Halifax."

"Lady Caroline!"

Ursula left her children, and came to greet her old acquaintance, whom she had never once seen since she was Ursula Halifax. Perhaps that fact touched her, and it was with a kind of involuntary tenderness that she looked into the sickly face, where all the smiles could not hide the wrinkles.

"It is many years since we met; and we are both somewhat altered, Cousin Caroline."

"You are, with those three great boys. The little girl yours also?—Oh yes, I remember William told me—poor little thing!" And with uneasy awe she turned from our blind Muriel, our child of peace.

"Will you come up to the house? my husband has only ridden over to Enderley; he will be home soon."

"And glad to see me, I wonder? For I am rather afraid of that husband of yours—eh, Ursula? Yet I should greatly like to stay."

Ursula laughed, and repeated the welcome. She was so happy herself—she longed to distribute her happiness. They walked, the children following, towards the house.

Under the great walnut-tree, by the sunk fence which guarded the flower-garden from the sheep and cows, Mrs. Halifax stopped and pointed down the green slope of the field, across the valley, to the wooded hills opposite.

"Isn't it a pretty view?" said Guy, creeping up and touching the stranger's gown; our children had lived too much in an atmosphere of love to know either shyness or fear.

"Very pretty, my little friend."

"That's One-tree Hill. Father is going to take us all a walk there this afternoon."

"Do you like going walks with your father?"

"Oh, don't we!" An electric smile ran through the whole circle. It told enough of the blessed home-tale.

Lady Caroline laughed a sharp laugh. "Eh, my dear, I see how things are. You don't regret having married John Halifax, the tanner?"

"Regret!"

"Nay, be not impetuous. I always said he was a noble fellow—so does the earl now. And William—you can't think what a hero your husband is to William."

"Lord Ravenel?"

"Ay, my little brother that was—growing a young man now—a frightful bigot, wanting to make our house as Catholic as when two or three of us lost our heads for King James. But he is a good boy—poor William! I had rather not talk about him."

Ursula inquired courteously if her Cousin Richard were well.

"Bah!—I suppose he is; he is always well. His late astonishing honesty to Mr. Halifax cost him a fit of gout—mais n'importe. If they meet, I suppose all things will be smooth between them?"

"My husband never had any ill-feeling to Mr. Brithwood."

"I should not bear him an undying enmity if he had. But you see, 'tis election time, and the earl wishes to put in a gentleman, a friend of ours, for Kingswell. Mr. Halifax owns some cottages there, eh?"

"Mr. Fletcher does. My husband transacts business—"

"Stop! stop!" cried Lady Caroline. "I don't understand business; I only know that they want your husband to be friendly with mine. Is this plain enough?"

"Certainly: be under no apprehension. Mr. Halifax never bears malice against any one. Was this the reason of your visit, Lady Caroline?"

"Eh—mon Dieu! what would become of us if we were all as straightforward as you, Mistress Ursula? But it sounds charming—in the country. No, my dear; I came—nay, I hardly know why. Probably, because I liked to come—my usual reason for most actions. Is that your salle-a-manger? Won't you ask me to dinner, ma cousine?"

"Of course," the mother said, though I fancied, afterwards, the invitation rather weighed upon her mind, probably from the doubt whether or no John would like it. But in little things, as in great, she had always this safe trust in him—that conscientiously to do what she felt to be right was the surest way to be right in her husband's eyes.

So Lady Caroline was our guest for the day—a novel guest—but she made herself at once familiar and pleasant. Guy, a little gentleman from his cradle, installed himself her admiring knight attendant everywhere: Edwin brought her to see his pigeons; Walter, with sweet, shy blushes, offered her "a 'ittle f'ower!" and the three, as the greatest of all favours, insisted on escorting her to pay a visit to the beautiful calf not a week old.

Laughing, she followed the boys; telling them how lately in Sicily she had been presented to a week-old prince, son of Louis Philippe the young Duke of Orleans and the Princess Marie-Amelie. "And truly, children, he was not half so pretty as your little calf. Ursula, I am sick of courts sometimes. I would turn shepherdess myself, if we could find a tolerable Arcadia."

"Is there any Arcadia like home?"

"Home!"—Her face expressed the utmost loathing, fear, and scorn. I remembered hearing that the 'Squire since his return from abroad had grown just like his father; was drunk every day and all day long. "Is your husband altered, Ursula? He must be quite a young man still. Oh, what it is to be young!"

"John looks much older, people say; but I don't see it."

"Arcadia again! Can such things be? especially in England, that paradise of husbands, where the first husband in the realm sets such an illustrious example. How do you stay-at-home British matrons feel towards my friend the Princess of Wales?"

"God help her, and make her as good a woman as she is a wronged and miserable wife," said Ursula, sadly.

"Query, Can a 'good woman' be made out of a 'wronged and miserable wife'? If so, Mrs. Halifax, you should certainly take out a patent for the manufacture."

The subject touched too near home. Ursula wisely avoided it, by inquiring if Lady Caroline meant to remain in England.

"Cela depend." She turned suddenly grave. "Your fresh air makes me feel weary. Shall we go in-doors?"

Dinner was ready laid out—a plain meal; since neither the father nor any of us cared for table dainties; but I think if we had lived in a hut, and fed off wooden platters on potatoes and salt, our repast would have been fair and orderly, and our hut the neatest that a hut could be. For the mother of the family had in perfection almost the best genius a woman can have—the genius of tidiness.

We were not in the least ashamed of our simple dinner-table, where no difference was ever made for anybody. We had little plate, but plenty of snow-white napery and pretty china; and what with the scents of the flower-garden on one side, and the green waving of the elm-tree on the other, it was as good as dining out-of-doors.

The boys were still gathered round Lady Caroline, in the little closet off the dining-room where lessons were learnt; Muriel sat as usual on the door-sill, petting one of her doves that used to come and perch on her head and her shoulder, of their own accord, when I heard the child say to herself:

"Father's coming."

"Where, darling?"

"Up the farm-yard way. There—he is on the gravel-walk. He has stopped; I dare say it is to pull some of the jessamine that grows over the well. Now, fly away, dove! Father's here."

And the next minute a general shout echoed, "Father's here!"

He stood in the doorway, lifting one after the other up in his arms; having a kiss and a merry word for all—this good father!

O solemn name, which Deity Himself claims and owns! Happy these children, who in its fullest sense could understand the word "father!" to whom, from the dawn of their little lives, their father was what all fathers should be—the truest representative here on earth of that Father in heaven, who is at once justice, wisdom, and perfect love.

Happy, too—most blessed among women—the woman who gave her children such a father!

Ursula came—for his eye was wandering in search of her—and received the embrace, without which he never left her, or returned.

"All rightly settled, John?"

"Quite settled."

"I am so glad." With a second kiss, not often bestowed in public, as congratulation. He was going to tell more, when Ursula said, rather hesitatingly, "We have a visitor to-day."

Lady Caroline came out of her corner, laughing. "You did not expect me, I see. Am I welcome?"

"Any welcome that Mrs. Halifax has given is also mine."

But John's manner, though polite, was somewhat constrained; and he felt, as it seemed to my observant eye, more surprise than gratification in this incursion on his quiet home. Also I noticed that when Lady Caroline, in the height of her condescension, would have Muriel close to her at dinner, he involuntarily drew his little daughter to her accustomed place beside himself,

"She always sits here, thank you."

The table-talk was chiefly between the lady and her host; she rarely talked to women when a man was to be had. Conversation veered between the Emperor Napoleon and Lord Wellington, Lord William Bentinck and Sardinian policy, the conjugal squabbles of Carlton House, and the one-absorbing political question of this year—Catholic emancipation.

"You are a staunch supporter of the Bill, my father says. Of course, you aid him in the Kingswell election to-morrow?"

"I can scarcely call it an election," returned John. He had been commenting on it to us that morning rather severely. An election! it was merely a talk in the King's Head parlour, a nomination, and show of hands by some dozen poor labourers, tenants of Mr. Brithwood and Lord Luxmore, who got a few pounds a-piece for their services—and the thing was done.

"Who is the nominee, Lady Caroline?"

"A young gentleman of small fortune, but excellent parts, who returned with us from Naples."

The lady's manner being rather more formal than she generally used, John looked up quickly.

"The election being to-morrow, of course his name is no secret?"

"Oh, no! Vermilye. Mr. Gerard Vermilye. Do you know him?"

"I have heard of him."

As he spoke—either intentionally or no—John looked full at Lady Caroline. She dropped her eyes and began playing with her bracelets. Both immediately quitted the subject of Kingswell election.

Soon after we rose from table; and Guy, who had all dinner-time fixed his admiring gaze upon the "pretty lady," insisted on taking her down the garden and gathering for her a magnificent arum lily, the mother's favourite lily. I suggested gaining permission first; and was sent to ask the question.

I found John and his wife in serious, even painful conversation.

"Love," he was saying, "I have known it for very long; but if she had not come here, I would never have grieved you by telling it."

"Perhaps it is not true," said Ursula, warmly. "The world is ready enough to invent cruel falsehoods about us women."

"'Us women!' Don't say that, Ursula. I will not have my wife named in the same breath with HER."

"John!"

"I will not, I say. You don't know what it cost me even to see her touch your hand."

"John!"

The soft tone recalled him to his better self.

"Forgive me! but I would not have the least taint come near this wife of mine. I could not bear to think of her holding intercourse with a light woman—a woman false to her husband."

"I do not believe it. Caroline was foolish, she was never wicked. Listen!—If this were true, how could she be laughing with our children now? Oh! John—think—she has no children."

The deep pity passed from Ursula's heart to her husband's. John clasped fondly the two hands that were laid on his shoulders, as, looking up in his face, the happy wife pleaded silently for one whom all the world knew was so wronged and so unhappy.

"We will wait a little before we judge. Love, you are a better Christian than I."

All afternoon they both showed more than courtesy—kindness, to this woman, at whom, as any one out of our retired household would have known, and as John did know well—all the world was already pointing the finger, on account of Mr. Gerard Vermilye. She, on her part, with her chameleon power of seizing and sunning herself in the delight of the moment, was in a state of the highest enjoyment. She turned "shepherdess," fed the poultry with Edwin, pulled off her jewelled ornaments, and gave them to Walter for playthings; nay, she even washed off her rouge at the spring, and came in with faint natural roses upon her faded cheeks. So happy she seemed, so innocently, childishly happy; that more than once I saw John and Ursula exchange satisfied looks, rejoicing that they had followed after the divine charity which "thinketh no evil."

After tea we all turned out, as was our wont on summer evenings; the children playing about; while the father and mother strolled up and down the sloping field-path, arm in arm like lovers, or sometimes he fondly leaning upon her. Thus they would walk and talk together in the twilight, for hours.

Lady Caroline pointed to them. "Look! Adam and Eve modernized; Baucis and Philemon when they were young. Bon Dieu! what it is to be young!"

She said this in a gasp, as if wild with terror of the days that were coming upon her—the dark days.

"People are always young," I answered, "who love one another as these do."

"Love! what an old-fashioned word. I hate it! It is so—what would you say in English?—so dechirant. I would not cultivate une grande passion for the world."

I smiled at the idea of the bond between Mr. and Mrs. Halifax taking the Frenchified character of "une grande passion."

"But home-love, married love, love among children and at the fire-side;—you believe in that?"

She turned upon me her beautiful eyes; they had a scared look, like a bird's driven right into the fowler's net.

"C'est impossible—impossible!"

The word hissed itself out between her shut teeth—"impossible." Then she walked quickly on, and was her lively self once more.

When the evening closed, and the younger children were gone to bed, she became rather restless about the non-appearance of her coach. At last a lacquey arrived on foot. She angrily inquired why a carriage had not been sent for her?

"Master didn't give orders, my lady," answered the man, somewhat rudely.

Lady Caroline turned pale—with anger or fear—perhaps both.

"You have not properly answered your mistress's question," said Mr. Halifax.

"Master says, sir—begging my lady's pardon for repeating it—but he says, 'My lady went out against his will, and she may come home when and how she likes.'"

"My lady" burst out laughing, and laughed violently and long.

"Tell him I will. Be sure you tell him I will. It is the last and the easiest obedience."

John sent the lacquey out of the room; and Ursula said something about "not speaking thus before a servant."

"Before a servant! Why, my dear, we furnish entertainment for our whole establishment, my husband and I. We are at the Mythe what the Prince Regent and the Princess of Wales are to the country at large. We divide our people between us; I fascinate—he bribes. Ha! ha! Well done, Richard Brithwood! I may come home 'when and how I like!' Truly, I'll use that kind permission."

Her eyes glittered with an evil fire: her cheeks were hot and red.

"Mrs. Halifax, I shall be thrown on your hospitality for an hour or two longer. Could you send a letter for me?"

"To your husband? Certainly."

"My husband?—Never!—Yes, to MY HUSBAND." The first part of the sentence was full of fierce contempt; the latter, smothered, and slowly desperate. "Tell me, Ursula, what constitutes a man one's husband? Brutality, tyranny—the tyranny which the law sanctions? Or kindness, sympathy, devotion, everything that makes life beautiful—everything that constitutes happiness and—"

"Sin."

The word in her ear was so low, that she started as if conscience only had uttered it—conscience, to whom only her intents were known.

John came forward, speaking gravely, but not unkindly.

"Lady Caroline, I am deeply grieved that this should have happened in my house, and through your visiting us against your husband's will."

"His will!"

"Pardon me; but I think a wife is bound to the very last to obey in all things, not absolutely wrong, her husband's will. I am glad you thought of writing to Mr. Brithwood."

She shook her head, in mocking denial.

"May I ask, then—since I am to have the honour of sending it—to whom is this letter?"

"To—" I think she would have told a falsehood, if John's eyes had not been so keenly fixed upon her. "To—a friend."

"Friends are at all times dangerous to a lady who—"

"Hates her husband—ha! ha! Especially male friends?"

"Especially male friends."

Here Guy, who had lingered out of his little bed most unlawfully—hovering about, ready to do any chivalrous duty to his idol of the day—came up to bid her good-night, and held up his rosy mouth, eagerly.

"I—kiss a little child! I!"—and from her violent laughter she burst into a passion of tears.

The mother signed me to carry Guy away; she and John took Lady Caroline into the parlour, and shut the door.

Of course I did not then learn what passed—but I did afterwards.

Lady Caroline's tears were evanescent, like all her emotions. Soon she became composed—asked again for writing materials—then countermanded the request.

"No, I will wait till to-morrow. Ursula, you will take me in for the night?"

Mrs. Halifax looked appealingly to her husband, but he gave no assent.

"Lady Caroline, you should willingly stay, were it not, as you must know, so fatal a step. In your position, you should be most careful to leave the world and your husband no single handle against you."

"Mr. Halifax, what right have you—"

"None, save that of an honest man, who sees a woman cruelly wronged, and desperate with her wrong; who would thankfully save her if he could."

"Save me? From what—or whom?"

"From Mr. Gerard Vermilye, who is now waiting down the road, and whom, if Lady Caroline Brithwood once flies to, or even sees, at this crisis, she loses her place among honourable English matrons for ever."

John said this, with no air of virtuous anger or contempt, but as the simple statement of a fact. The convicted woman dropped her face between her hands.

Ursula, greatly shocked, was some time before she spoke.

"Is it true, Caroline?"

"What is true?"

"That which my husband has heard of you?"

"Yes," she cried, springing up, and dashing back her beautiful hair—beautiful still, though she must have been five or six and thirty at least—"Yes, it is true—it shall be true. I will break my bonds and live the life I was made for. I would have done it long ago, but for—no matter. Why, Ursula, he adores me; young and handsome as he is, he adores me. He will give me my youth back again, ay, he will."

And she sang out a French chanson, something about "la liberte et ses plaisirs, la jeunesse, l'amour."

The mother grew sterner—any such wife and mother would. Then and there, compassion might have died out of even her good heart, had it not been for the sudden noise over-head of children's feet—children's chattering. Once more the pitiful thought came—"She has no children."

"Caroline," she said, catching her gown as she passed, "when I was with you, you had a child which only breathed and died. It died spotless. When you die, how dare you meet that little baby?"

The singing changed to sobbing. "I had forgotten. My little baby! Oh, mon Dieu, mon Dieu!"

Mrs. Halifax, taking in earnest those meaningless French ejaculations, whispered something about Him who alone can comfort and help us all.

"Him! I never knew Him, if indeed He be. No, no, there is no after-life."

Ursula turned away in horror. "John, what shall we do with her? No home!—no husband!—no God!"

"He never leaves Himself without a witness. Look, love."

The wretched woman sat rocking to and fro—weeping and wringing her hands. "It was cruel—cruel! You should not have spoken about my baby. Now—"

"Tell me—just one word—I will not believe anybody's word except your own. Caroline, are you—still innocent?"

Lady Caroline shrank from her touch. "Don't hold me so. You may have one standard of virtue, I another."

"Still, tell me."

"And if I did, you, an 'honourable English matron'—was not that your husband's word?—would turn from me, most likely."

"She will not," John said. "She has been happy, and you most miserable."

"Oh, most miserable."

That bitter groan went to both their hearts, Ursula leaned over her—herself almost in tears. "Cousin Caroline, John says true—I will not turn from you. I know you have been sinned against—cruelly—cruelly. Only tell me that you yourself have not sinned."

"I HAVE 'sinned,' as you call it."

Ursula started—drew closer to her husband. Neither spoke.

"Mrs. Halifax, why don't you take away your hand?"

"I?—let me think. This is terrible. Oh, John!"

Again Lady Caroline said, in her sharp, bold tone, "Take away your hand."

"Husband, shall I?"

"No."

For some minutes they stood together, both silent, with this poor woman. I call her "poor," as did they, knowing, that if a sufferer needs pity, how tenfold more does a sinner!

John spoke first. "Cousin Caroline." She lifted up her head in amazement. "We are your cousins, and we wish to be your friends, my wife and I. Will you listen to us?"

She sobbed still, but less violently.

"Only, first—you must promise to renounce for ever guilt and disgrace."

"I feel it none. He is an honourable gentleman—he loves me, and I love him. That is the true marriage. No, I will make you no such promise. Let me go."

"Pardon me—not yet. I cannot suffer my wife's kinswoman to elope from my own house, without trying to prevent it."

"Prevent!—sir!—Mr. Halifax! You forget who you are, and who I am—the daughter of the Earl of Luxmore."

"Were you the King's daughter it would make no difference. I will save you in spite of yourself, if I can. I have already spoken to Mr. Vermilye, and he has gone away."

"Gone away! the only living soul that loves me. Gone away! I must follow him—quick—quick."

"You cannot. He is miles distant by this time. He is afraid lest this story should come out to-morrow at Kingswell; and to be an M.P. and safe from arrest is better to Mr. Vermilye than even yourself, Lady Caroline."

John's wife, unaccustomed to hear him take that cool, worldly, half-sarcastic tone, turned to him somewhat reproachfully; but he judged best. For the moment, this tone had more weight with the woman of the world than any homilies. She began to be afraid of Mr. Halifax. Impulse, rather than resolution, guided her, and even these impulses were feeble and easily governed. She sat down again, muttering:

"My will is free. You cannot control me."

"Only so far as my conscience justifies me in preventing a crime."

"A crime?"

"It would be such. No sophistries of French philosophy on your part, no cruelty on your husband's, can abrogate the one law, which if you disown it as God's, is still man's—being necessary for the peace, honour, and safety of society."

"What law?"

"THOU SHALT NOT COMMIT ADULTERY."

People do not often utter this plain Bible word. It made Ursula start, even when spoken solemnly by her own husband. It tore from the self-convicted woman all the sentimental disguises with which the world then hid, and still hides, its corruptions. Her sin arose and stared her blackly in the face—AS SIN. She cowered before it.

"Am I—THAT? And William will know it. Poor William!" She looked up at Ursula—for the first time with the guilty look; hitherto, it had been only one of pain or despair. "Nobody knows it, except you. Don't tell William. I would have gone long ago, but for him. He is a good boy;—don't let him guess his sister was—"

She left the word unspoken. Shame seemed to crush her down to the earth; shame, the precursor of saving penitence—at least, John thought so. He quitted the room, leaving her to the ministry of his other self, his wife. As he sat down with me, and told me in a few words what indeed I had already more than half guessed, I could not but notice the expression of his own face. And I recognized how a man can be at once righteous to judge, tender to pity, and strong to save; a man the principle of whose life is, as John's was—that it should be made "conformable to the image" of Him, who was Himself on earth the image of God.

Ursula came out and called her husband. They talked some time together. I guessed, from what I heard, that she wished Lady Caroline to stay the night here, but that he with better judgment was urging the necessity of her returning to the protection of her husband's home without an hour's delay.

"It is her only chance of saving her reputation. She must do it. Tell her so, Ursula."

After a few minutes, Mrs. Halifax came out again.

"I have persuaded her at last. She says she will do whatever you think best. Only before she goes, she wants to look at the children. May she?"

"Poor soul!—yes," John murmured, turning away.

Stepping out of sight, we saw the poor lady pass through the quiet, empty house into the children's bed-room. We heard her smothered sob, at times, the whole way.

Then I went down to the stream, and helped John to saddle his horse, with Mrs. Halifax's old saddle—in her girlish days, Ursula used to be very fond of riding.

"She can ride back again from the Mythe," said John. "She wishes to go, and it is best she should; so that nothing need be said, except that Lady Caroline spent a day at Longfield, and that my wife and I accompanied her safe home."

While he spoke, the two ladies came down the field-path. I fancied I heard, even now, a faint echo of that peculiarly sweet and careless laugh, indicating how light were all impressions on a temperament so plastic and weak—so easily remoulded by the very next influence that fate might throw across her perilous way.

John Halifax assisted her on horseback, took the bridle under one arm and gave the other to his wife. Thus they passed up the path, and out at the White Gate.

I delayed a little while, listening to the wind, and to the prattle of the stream, that went singing along in daylight or in darkness, by our happy home at Longfield. And I sighed to myself, "Poor Lady Caroline!"



CHAPTER XXIV

Midnight though it was, I sat up until John and his wife came home. They said scarcely anything, but straightway retired. In the morning, all went on in the house as usual, and no one ever knew of this night's episode, except us three.

In the morning, Guy looked wistfully around him, asking for the "pretty lady;" and being told that she was gone, and that he would not be likely to see her again, seemed disappointed for a minute; but soon he went down to play at the stream, and forgot all.

Once or twice I fancied the mother's clear voice about the house was rarer than its wont; that her quick, active, cheerful presence—penetrating every nook, and visiting every creature, as with the freshness of an April wind—was this day softer and sadder; but she did not say anything to me, nor I to her.

John had ridden off early—to the flour-mill, which he still kept on, together with the house at Norton Bury—he always disliked giving up any old associations. At dinner-time he came home, saying he was going out again immediately.

Ursula looked uneasy. A few minutes after, she followed me under the walnut-tree, where I was sitting with Muriel, and asked me if I would go with John to Kingswell.

"The election takes place to-day, and he thinks it right to be there. He will meet Mr. Brithwood and Lord Luxmore; and though there is not the slightest need—my husband can do all that he has to do alone—still, for my own satisfaction, I would like his brother to be near him."

They invariably called me their brother now; and it seemed as if the name had been mine by right of blood always.

Of course, I went to Kingswell, riding John's brown mare, he himself walking by my side. It was not often that we were thus alone together, and I enjoyed it much. All the old days seemed to come back again as we passed along the quiet roads and green lanes, just as when we were boys together, when I had none I cared for but David, and David cared only for me. The natural growth of things had made a difference in this, but our affection had changed its outward form only, not its essence. I often think that all loves and friendships need a certain three days' burial before we can be quite sure of their truth and immortality. Mine—it happened just after John's marriage, and I may confess it now—had likewise its entombment, bitter as brief. Many cruel hours sat I in darkness, weeping at the door of its sepulchre, thinking that I should never see it again; but, in the dawn of the morning, it rose, and I met it in the desolate garden, different, yet the very same. And after that, it walked with me continually, secure and imperishable evermore.

I rode, and John sauntered beside me along the footpath, now and then plucking a leaf or branch off the hedge, and playing with it, as was his habit when a lad. Often I caught the old smile—not one of his three boys, not even handsome Guy, had their father's smile.

He was telling me about Enderley Mill, and all his plans there, in the which he seemed very happy. At last, his long life of duty was merging into the life he loved. He looked as proud and pleased as a boy, in talking of the new inventions he meant to apply in cloth-weaving; and how he and his wife had agreed together to live for some years to come at little Longfield, strictly within their settled income, that all the remainder of his capital might go to the improvement of Enderley Mills and mill-people.

"I shall be master of nearly a hundred, men and women. Think what good we may do! She has half-a-dozen plans on foot already—bless her dear heart!"

It was easy to guess whom he referred to—the one who went hand-in-hand with him in everything.

"Was the dinner in the barn, next Monday, her plan, too?"

"Partly. I thought we would begin a sort of yearly festival for the old tan-yard people, and those about the flour-mill, and the Kingswell tenants—ah, Phineas, wasn't I right about those Kingswell folk?"

These were about a dozen poor families, whom, when our mortgage fell in, he had lured out of Sally Watkins' miserable alley to these old houses, where they had at least fresh country air, and space enough to live wholesomely and decently, instead of herding together like pigs in a sty.

"You ought to be proud of your tenants, Phineas. I assure you, they form quite a contrast to their neighbours, who are Lord Luxmore's."

"And his voters likewise, I suppose?—the 'free and independent burgesses' who are to send Mr. Vermilye to Parliament?"

"If they can," said John, biting his lip with that resolute half-combative air which I now saw in him at times, roused by things which continually met him in his dealings with the world—things repugnant alike to his feelings and his principles, but which he had still to endure, not having risen high enough to oppose, single-handed, the great mass of social corruption which at this crisis of English history kept gathering and gathering, until out of the very horror and loathsomeness of it an outcry for purification arose.

"Do you know, Phineas, I might last week have sold your houses for double price? They are valuable, this election year, since your five tenants are the only voters in Kingswell who are not likewise tenants of Lord Luxmore. Don't you see how the matter stands?"

It was not difficult, for that sort of game was played all over England, connived at, or at least winked at, by those who had political influence to sell or obtain, until the Reform Bill opened up the election system in all its rottenness and enormity.

"Of course I knew you would not sell your houses; and I shall use every possible influence I have to prevent your tenants selling their votes. Whatever may be the consequence, the sort of thing that this Kingswell election bids fair to be, is what any honest Englishman ought to set his face against, and prevent if he can."

"Can you?"

"I do not feel sure, but I mean to try. First, for simple right and conscience; secondly, because if Mr. Vermilye is not saved from arrest by being placed in Parliament, he will be outlawed and driven safe out of the country. You see?"

Ay, I did, only too well. Though I foresaw that whatever John was about to do, it must necessarily be something that would run directly counter to Lord Luxmore—and he had only just signed the lease of Enderley Mills. Still, if right to be done, he ought to do it at all risks, at all costs; and I knew his wife would say so.

We came to the foot of Kingswell Hill, and saw the little hamlet—with its grey old houses, its small, ancient church, guarded by enormous yew-trees, and clothed with ivy that indicated centuries of growth.

A carriage overtook us here; in it were two gentlemen, one of whom bowed in a friendly manner to John. He returned it.

"This is well; I shall have one honest gentleman to deal with to-day."

"Who is he?"

"Sir Ralph Oldtower, from whom I bought Longfield. An excellent man—I like him—even his fine old Norman face, like one of his knightly ancestors on the tomb in Kingswell church. There's something pleasant about his stiff courtesy and his staunch Toryism; for he fully believes in it, and acts up to his belief. A true English gentleman, and I respect him."

"Yet, John, Norton Bury calls you a democrat."

"So I am, for I belong to the people. But I nevertheless uphold a true aristocracy—the BEST MEN of the country,—do you remember our Greeks of old? These ought to govern, and will govern, one day, whether their patent of nobility be births and titles, or only honesty and brains."

Thus he talked on, and I liked to hear him, for talking was rare in his busy life of constant action. I liked to observe how during these ten years his mind had brooded over many things; how it had grown, strengthened, and settled itself, enlarging both its vision and its aspirations; as a man does, who, his heart at rest in a happy home, has time and will to look out from thence into the troublous world outside, ready to do his work there likewise. That John was able to do it—ay, beyond most men—few would doubt who looked into his face; strong with the strength of an intellect which owed all its development to himself alone; calm with the wisdom which, if a man is ever to be wise, comes to him after he has crossed the line of thirty years. In that face, where day by day Time was writing its fit lessons—beautiful, because they were so fit—I ceased to miss the boyish grace, and rejoiced in the manhood present, in the old age that was to be.

It seemed almost too short a journey, when, putting his hand on the mare's bridle—the creature loved him, and turned to lick his arm the minute he came near—John stopped me to see the view from across Kingswell churchyard.

"Look, what a broad valley, rich in woods, and meadow-land, and corn. How quiet and blue lie the Welsh hills far away. It does one good to look at them. Nay, it brings back a little bit of me which rarely comes uppermost now, as it used to come long ago, when we read your namesake, and Shakspeare, and that Anonymous Friend who has since made such a noise in the world. I delight in him still. Think of a man of business liking Coleridge."