But John and I looked at the still, soft face, half a child's and half an angel's.

"Hush!" he said, as if Ursula's fancy were profanity; then eagerly snatched it up and laughed, confessing how angry he should be if anybody dared to "fall in love" with Muriel.

Next day was the one fixed for the trial of the new steam-engine; which trial being successful, we were to start at once in a post-chaise for Longfield; for the mother longed to be at home, and so did we all.

There was rather a dolorous good-bye, and much lamenting from good Mrs. Tod, who, her own bairns grown up, thought there were no children worthy to compare with our children. And truly, as the three boys scampered down the road—their few regrets soon over, eager for anything new—three finer lads could not be seen in the whole country.

Mrs. Halifax looked after them proudly—mother-like, she gloried in her sons; while John, walking slowly, and assuring Mrs. Tod over and over again that we should all come back next summer, went down the steep hill, carrying, hidden under many wraps and nestled close to his warm shoulder, his little frail winter-rose—his only daughter.

In front of the mill we found a considerable crowd; for the time being ripe, Mr. Halifax had made public the fact that he meant to work his looms by steam, the only way in which he could carry on the mill at all. The announcement had been received with great surprise and remarkable quietness, both by his own work-people and all along Enderley valley. Still there was the usual amount of contemptuous scepticism, incident on any new experiment. Men were peering about the locked door of the engine-room with a surly curiosity; and one village oracle, to prove how impossible it was that such a thing as steam could work anything, had taken the trouble to light a fire in the yard and set thereon his wife's best tea-kettle, which, as she snatched angrily away, scalded him slightly, and caused him to limp away swearing, a painful illustration of the adage, that "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing."

"Make way, my good people," said Mr. Halifax; and he crossed the mill-yard, his wife on his arm, followed by an involuntary murmur of respect.

"He be a fine fellow, the master; he sticks at nothing," was the comment heard made upon him by one of his people, and probably it expressed the feeling of the rest. There are few things which give a man more power over his fellows than the thoroughly English quality of daring.

Perhaps this was the secret why John had as yet passed safely through the crisis which had been the destruction of so many mill-owners, namely, the introduction of a power which the mill-people were convinced would ruin hand-labour. Or else the folk in our valley, out of their very primitiveness, had more faith in the master; for certainly, as John passed through the small crowd, there was only one present who raised the old fatal cry of "Down with machinery!"

"Who said that?"

At the master's voice—at the flash of the master's eye—the little knot of work-people drew back, and the malcontent, whoever he was, shrunk into silence.

Mr. Halifax walked past them, entered his mill, and unlocked the door of the room which he had turned into an engine-room, and where, along with the two men he had brought from Manchester, he had been busy almost night and day for this week past in setting up his machinery. They worked—as the Manchester fellows said they had often been obliged to work—under lock and key.

"Your folk be queer 'uns, Mr. Halifax. They say there's six devils inside on her, theer."

And the man pointed to the great boiler which had been built up in an out-house adjoining.

"Six devils, say they?—Well, I'll be Maister Michael Scot—eh, Phineas?—and make my devils work hard."

He laughed, but he was much excited. He went over, piece by piece, the complicated but delicate machinery; rubbed here and there at the brass-work, which shone as bright as a mirror; then stepped back, and eyed it with pride, almost with affection.

"Isn't it a pretty thing?—If only I have set it up right—if it will but work."

His hands shook—his cheeks were burning—little Edwin came peering about at his knee; but he pushed the child hastily away; then he found some slight fault with the machinery, and while the workmen rectified it stood watching them, breathless with anxiety. His wife came to his side.

"Don't speak to me,—don't, Ursula. If it fails I am ruined."

"John!"—she just whispered his name, and the soft, firm fold of her fingers closed round his, strengthening, cheering. Her husband faintly smiled.

"Here!"—He unlocked the door, and called to the people outside. "Come in, two of you fellows, and see how my devils work. Now then! Boys, keep out of the way; my little girl"—his voice softened—"my pet will not be frightened? Now, my men—ready?"

He opened the valve.

With a strange noise, that made the two Enderley men spring back as if the six devils were really let loose upon them, the steam came rushing into the cylinder. There was a slight motion of the piston-rod.

"All's right! it will work?"

No, it stopped.

John drew a deep breath.

It went on again, beginning to move slowly up and down, like the strong right arm of some automaton giant. Greater and lesser cog-wheels caught up the motive power, revolving slowly and majestically, and with steady, regular rotation, or whirling round so fast you could hardly see that they stirred at all. Of a sudden a soul had been put into that wonderful creature of man's making, that inert mass of wood and metal, mysteriously combined. The monster was alive!

Speechless, John stood watching it. Their trial over, his energies collapsed; he sat down by his wife's side, and taking Muriel on his knee, bent his head over hers.

"Is all right, father?" the child whispered.

"All quite right, my own."

"You said you could do it, and you have done it," cried his wife, her eyes glowing with triumph, her head erect and proud.

John dropped his lower, lower still. "Yes," he murmured; "yes, thank God."

Then he opened the door, and let all the people in to see the wondrous sight.

They crowded in by dozens, staring about in blank wonder, gaping curiosity, ill-disguised alarm. John took pains to explain the machinery, stage by stage, till some of the more intelligent caught up the principle, and made merry at the notion of "devils." But they all looked with great awe at the master, as if he were something more than man. They listened open-mouthed to every word he uttered, cramming the small engine-room till it was scarcely possible to breathe, but keeping at a respectful distance from the iron-armed monster, that went working, working on, as if ready and able to work on to everlasting.

John took his wife and children out into the open air. Muriel, who had stood for the last few minutes by her father's side, listening with a pleasing look to the monotonous regular sound, like the breathing of the demon, was unwilling to go.

"I am very glad I was with you to-day,—very glad, father," she kept saying.

He said, as often—twice as often—that next summer, when he came back to Enderley, she should be with him at the mills every day, and all day over, if she liked.

There was now nothing to be done but to hasten as quickly and as merrily as possible to our well-beloved Longfield.

Waiting for the post-chaise, Mrs. Halifax and the boys sat down on the bridge over the defunct and silenced water-fall, on the muddy steps of which, where the stream used to dash musically over, weeds and long grasses, mingled with the drooping water-fern, were already beginning to grow.

"It looks desolate, but we need not mind that now," said Mrs. Halifax.

"No," her husband answered. "Steam power once obtained, I can apply it in any way I choose. My people will not hinder; they trust me, they like me."

"And, perhaps, are just a little afraid of you. No matter, it is wholesome fear. I should not like to have married a man whom nobody was afraid of."

John smiled; he was looking at the horseman riding towards us along the high road. "I do believe that is Lord Luxmore. I wonder whether he has heard of my steam-engine. Love, will you go back into the mill or not?"

"Certainly not." The mother seated herself on the bridge, her boys around her; John avouched, with an air like the mother of the Gracchi, or like the Highland woman who trained one son after another to fight and slay their enemy—their father's murderer.

"Don't jest," said Ursula. She was much more excited than her husband. Two angry spots burnt on her cheeks when Lord Luxmore came up, and, in passing, bowed.

Mrs. Halifax returned it, haughtily enough. But at the moment a loud cheer broke out from the mill hard by, and "Hurrah for the master!" "Hurrah for Mr. Halifax!" was distinctly heard. The mother smiled, right proudly.

Lord Luxmore turned to his tenant—they might have been on the best terms imaginable from his bland air.

"What is that rather harsh noise I hear, Mr. Halifax?"

"It is my men cheering me."

"Oh, how charming! so grateful to the feelings. And WHY do they cheer you, may I ask?"

John briefly told him, speaking with perfect courtesy as he was addressed.

"And this steam-engine—I have heard of it before—will greatly advantage your mills?"

"It will, my lord. It renders me quite independent of your stream, of which the fountains at Luxmore can now have the full monopoly."

It would not have been human nature if a spice of harmless malice—even triumph—had not sparkled in John's eye, as he said this. He was walking by the horse's side, as Lord Luxmore had politely requested him.

They went a little way up the hill together, out of sight of Mrs. Halifax, who was busy putting the two younger boys into the chaise.

"I did not quite understand. Would you do me the favour to repeat your sentence?"

"Merely, my lord, that your cutting off of the water-course has been to me one of the greatest advantages I ever had in my life; for which, whether meant or not, allow me to thank you."

The earl looked full in John's face, without answering; then spurred his horse violently. The animal started off, full speed.

"The children. Good God—the children!"

Guy was in the ditch-bank, gathering flowers—but Muriel—For the first time in our lives, we had forgotten Muriel.

She stood in the horse's path—the helpless, blind child. The next instant she was knocked down.

I never heard a curse on John Halifax's lips but once—that once. Lord Luxmore heard it too. The image of the frantic father, snatching up his darling from under the horse's heels, must have haunted the earl's good memory for many a day.

He dismounted, saying, anxiously, "I hope the little girl is not injured? It was accident—you see—pure accident."

But John did not hear; he would scarcely have heard heaven's thunder. He knelt with the child in his arms by a little runnel in the ditch-bank. When the water touched her she opened her eyes with that wide, momentary stare so painful to behold.

"My little darling!"

Muriel smiled, and nestled to him. "Indeed, I am not hurt, dear father."

Lord Luxmore, standing by, seemed much relieved, and again pressed his apologies.

No answer.

"Go away," sobbed out Guy, shaking both his fists in the nobleman's face. "Go away—or I'll kill you—wicked man! I would have done it if you had killed my sister."

Lord Luxmore laughed at the boy's fury—threw him a guinea, which Guy threw back at him with all his might, and rode placidly away.

"Guy—Guy—" called the faint, soft voice which had more power over him than any other, except his mother's. "Guy must not be angry. Father, don't let him be angry."

But the father was wholly occupied in Muriel—looking in her face, and feeling all her little fragile limbs, to make sure that in no way she was injured.

It appeared not; though the escape seemed almost miraculous. John recurred, with a kind of trembling tenacity, to the old saying in our house, that "nothing ever harmed Muriel."

"Since it is safe over, and she can walk—you are sure you can, my pet?—I think we will not say anything about this to the mother; at least not till we reach Longfield."

But it was too late. There was no deceiving the mother. Every change in every face struck her instantaneously. The minute we rejoined her she said:

"John, something has happened to Muriel."

Then he told her, making as light of the accident as he could; as, indeed, for the first ten minutes we all believed, until alarmed by the extreme pallor and silence of the child.

Mrs. Halifax sat down by the roadside, bathed Muriel's forehead and smoothed her hair; but still the little curls lay motionless against the mother's breast,—and still to every question she only answered "that she was not hurt."

All this while the post-chaise was waiting.

"What must be done?" I inquired of Ursula; for it was no use asking John anything.

"We must go back again to Enderley," she said decidedly.

So, giving Muriel into her father's arms, she led the way, and, a melancholy procession, we again ascended the hill to Rose Cottage door.



CHAPTER XXVIII

Without any discussion, our plans were tacitly changed—no more was said about going home to dear Longfield. Every one felt, though no one trusted it to words, that the journey was impossible. For Muriel lay, day after day, on her little bed in an upper chamber, or was carried softly down in the middle of the day by her father, never complaining, but never attempting to move or talk. When we asked her if she felt ill, she always answered, "Oh, no! only so very tired." Nothing more.

"She is dull, for want of the others to play with her. The boys should not run out and leave their sister alone," said John, almost sharply, when one bright morning the lads' merry voices came down from the Flat, while he and I were sitting by Muriel's sofa in the still parlour.

"Father, let the boys play without me, please. Indeed, I do not mind. I had rather lie quiet here."

"But it is not good for my little girl always to be quiet, and it grieves father."

"Does it?" She roused herself, sat upright, and began to move her limbs, but wearily.

"That is right, my darling. Now let me see how well you can walk."

Muriel slipped to her feet and tried to cross the room, catching at table and chairs—now, alas! not only for guidance but actual support. At last she began to stagger, and said, half crying:

"I can't walk, I am so tired. Oh, do take me in your arms, dear father."

Her father took her, looked long in her sightless face, then buried his against her shoulder, saying nothing. But I think in that moment he too saw, glittering and bare, the long-veiled Hand which, for this year past, I had seen stretched out of the immutable heavens, claiming that which was its own. Ever after there was discernible in John's countenance a something which all the cares of his anxious yet happy life had never written there—an ineffaceable record, burnt in with fire.

He held her in his arms all day. He invented all sorts of tales and little amusements for her; and when she was tired of these he let her lie in his bosom and sleep. After her bed-time he asked me to go out with him on the Flat.

It was a misty night. The very cows and asses stood up large and spectral as shadows. There was not a single star to be seen.

We took our walk along the terrace and came back again, without exchanging a single word. Then John said hastily:

"I am glad her mother was so busy to-day—too busy to notice."

"Yes," I answered; unconnected as his words were.

"Do you understand me, Phineas? Her mother must not on any account be led to imagine, or to fear—anything. You must not look as you looked this morning. You must not, Phineas."

He spoke almost angrily. I answered in a few quieting words. We were silent, until over the common we caught sight of the light in Muriel's window. Then I felt rather than heard the father's groan.

"Oh, God! my only daughter—my dearest child!"

Yes, she was the dearest. I knew it. Strange mystery, that He should so often take, by death or otherwise, the DEAREST—always the dearest. Strange that He should hear us cry—us writhing in the dust, "O Father, anything, anything but this!" But our Father answers not; and meanwhile the desire of our eyes—be it a life, a love, or a blessing—slowly, slowly goes—is gone. And yet we have to believe in our Father. Perhaps of all trials to human faith this is the sorest. Thanks be to God if He puts into our hearts such love towards Him that even while He slays us we can trust Him still.

This father—this broken-hearted earthly father—could.

When we sat at the supper-table—Ursula, John, and I, the children being all in bed—no one could have told that there was any shadow over us, more than the sadly-familiar pain of the darling of the house being "not so strong as she used to be."

"But I think she will be, John. We shall have her quite about again, before—"

The mother stopped, slightly smiling. It was, indeed, an especial mercy of heaven which put that unaccountable blindness before her eyes, and gave her other duties and other cares to intercept the thought of Muriel. While, from morning till night, it was the incessant secret care of her husband, myself, and good Mrs. Tod, to keep her out of her little daughter's sight, and prevent her mind from catching the danger of one single fear.

Thus, within a week or two, the mother lay down cheerfully upon her couch of pain, and gave another child to the household—a little sister to Muriel.

Muriel was the first to whom the news was told. Her father told it. His natural joy and thankfulness seemed for the moment to efface every other thought.

"She is come, darling! little Maud is come. I am very rich—for I have two daughters now."

"Muriel is glad, father." But she showed her gladness in a strangely quiet, meditative way, unlike a child—unlike even her old self.

"What are you thinking of, my pet?"

"That—though father has another daughter, I hope he will remember the first one sometimes."

"She is jealous!" cried John, in the curious delight with which he always detected in her any weakness, any fault, which brought her down to the safe level of humanity. "See, Uncle Phineas, our Muriel is actually jealous."

But Muriel only smiled.

That smile—so serene—so apart from every feeling or passion appertaining to us who are "of the earth, earthy," smote the father to the heart's core.

He sat down by her, and she crept up into his arms.

"What day is it, father?"

"The first of December."

"I am glad. Little Maud's birthday will be in the same month as mine."

"But you came in the snow, Muriel, and now it is warm and mild."

"There will be snow on my birthday, though. There always is. The snow is fond of me, father. It would like me to lie down and be all covered over, so that you could not find me anywhere."

I heard John try to echo her weak, soft laugh.

"This month it will be eleven years since I was born, will it not, father?"

"Yes, my darling."

"What a long time! Then, when my little sister is as old as I am, I shall be—that is, I should have been—a woman grown. Fancy me twenty years old, as tall as mother, wearing a gown like her, talking and ordering, and busy about the house. How funny!" and she laughed again. "Oh! no, father, I couldn't do it. I had better remain always your little Muriel, weak and small, who liked to creep close to you, and go to sleep in this way."

She ceased talking—very soon she was sound asleep. But—the father!

Muriel faded, though slowly. Sometimes she was so well for an hour or two that the Hand seemed drawn back into the clouds, till of a sudden again we discerned it there.

One Sunday—it was ten days or so after Maud's birth, and the weather had been so bitterly cold that the mother had herself forbidden our bringing Muriel to the other side of the house where she and the baby lay—Mrs. Tod was laying the dinner, and John stood at the window playing with his three boys.

He turned abruptly, and saw all the chairs placed round the table—all save one.

"Where is Muriel's chair, Mrs. Tod?"

"Sir, she says she feels so tired like, she'd rather not come down to-day," answered Mrs. Tod, hesitatingly.

"Not come down?"

"Maybe better not, Mr. Halifax. Look out at the snow. It'll be warmer for the dear child to-morrow."

"You are right. Yes, I had forgotten the snow. She shall come down to-morrow."

I caught Mrs. Tod's eyes; they were running over. She was too wise to speak of it—but she knew the truth as well as we.

This Sunday—I remember it well—was the first day we sat down to dinner with the one place vacant.

For a few days longer, her father, every evening when he came in from the mills, persisted in carrying her down, as he had said, holding her on his knee during tea, then amusing her and letting the boys amuse her for half-an-hour or so before bed-time. But at the week's end even this ceased.

When Mrs. Halifax, quite convalescent, was brought triumphantly to her old place at our happy Sunday dinner-table, and all the boys came pressing about her, vying which should get most kisses from little sister Maud—she looked round, surprised amidst her smiling, and asked:

"Where is Muriel?"

"She seems to feel this bitter weather a good deal," John said; "and I thought it better she should not come down to dinner."

"No," added Guy, wondering and dolefully, "sister has not been down to dinner with us for a great many days."

The mother started; looked first at her husband, and then at me.

"Why did nobody tell me this?"

"Love—there was nothing new to be told."

"Has the child had any illness that I do not know of?"

"No."

"Has Dr. Jessop seen her?"

"Several times."

"Mother," said Guy, eager to comfort—for naughty as he was sometimes, he was the most tender-hearted of all the boys, especially to Muriel and to his mother,—"sister isn't ill a bit, I know. She was laughing and talking with me just now—saying she knows she could carry baby a great deal better than I could. She is as merry as ever she can be."

The mother kissed him in her quick, eager way—the sole indication of that maternal love which was in her almost a passion. She looked more satisfied.

Nevertheless, when Mrs. Tod came into the parlour, she rose and put little Maud into her arms.

"Take baby, please, while I go up to see Muriel."

"Don't—now don't, please, Mrs. Halifax," cried earnestly the good woman.

Ursula turned very pale. "They ought to have told me," she muttered; "John, YOU MUST let me go and see my child."

"Presently—presently—Guy, run up and play with Muriel. Phineas, take the others with you. You shall go up-stairs in one minute, my darling wife!"

He turned us all out of the room, and shut the door. How he told her that which was necessary she should know—that which Dr. Jessop himself had told us this very morning—how the father and mother had borne this first open revelation of their unutterable grief—for ever remained unknown.

I was sitting by Muriel's bed, when they came up-stairs. The darling laid listening to her brother, who was squatted on her pillow, making all sorts of funny talk. There was a smile on her face; she looked quite rosy: I hoped Ursula might not notice, just for the time being, the great change the last few weeks had made.

But she did—who could ever blindfold a mother? For a moment I saw her recoil—then turn to her husband with a dumb, piteous, desperate look, as though to say, "Help me—my sorrow is more than I can bear!"

But Muriel, hearing the step, cried with a joyful cry, "Mother! it's my mother!"

The mother folded her to her breast.

Muriel shed a tear or two there—in a satisfied, peaceful way; the mother did not weep at all. Her self-command, so far as speech went, was miraculous. For her look—but then she knew the child was blind.

"Now," she said, "my pet will be good and not cry? It would do her harm. We must be very happy to-day."

"Oh, yes." Then, in a fond whisper, "Please, I do so want to see little Maud."

"Who?" with an absent gaze.

"My little sister Maud—Maud that is to take my place, and be everybody's darling now."

"Hush, Muriel," said the father, hoarsely.

A strangely soft smile broke over her face—and she was silent.

The new baby was carried up-stairs proudly, by Mrs. Tod, all the boys following. Quite a levee was held round the bed, where, laid close beside her, her weak hands being guided over the tiny face and form, Muriel first "saw" her little sister. She was greatly pleased. With a grave elder-sisterly air she felt all over the baby-limbs, and when Maud set up an indignant cry, began hushing her with so quaint an imitation of motherliness, that we were all amused.

"You'll be a capital nurse in a month or two, my pretty!" said Mrs. Tod.

Muriel only smiled. "How fat she is!—and look, how fast her fingers take hold! And her head is so round, and her hair feels so soft—as soft as my dove's neck at Longfield. What colour is it? Like mine?"

It was; nearly the same shade. Maud bore, the mother declared, the strongest likeness to Muriel.

"I am so glad. But these"—touching her eyes anxiously.

"No—my darling. Not like you there," was the low answer.

"I am VERY glad. Please, little Maud, don't cry—it's only sister touching you. How wide open your eyes feel! I wonder,"—with a thoughtful pause—"I wonder if you can see me. Little Maud, I should like you to see sister."

"She does see, of course; how she stares!" cried Guy. And then Edwin began to argue to the contrary, protesting that as kittens and puppies could not see at first, he believed little babies did not: which produced a warm altercation among the children gathered round the bed, while Muriel lay back quietly on her pillow, with her little sister fondly hugged to her breast.

The father and mother looked on. It was such a picture—these five darlings, these children which God had given them—a group perfect and complete in itself, like a root of daisies, or a branch of ripening fruit, which not one could be added to, or taken from—

No. I was sure, from the parents' smile, that, this once, Mercy had blinded their eyes, so that they saw nothing beyond the present moment.

The children were wildly happy. All the afternoon they kept up their innocent little games by Muriel's bed-side; she sometimes sharing, sometimes listening apart. Only once or twice came that wistful, absent look, as if she were listening partly to us, and partly to those we heard not; as if through the wide-open orbs the soul were straining at sights wonderful and new—sights unto which HER eyes were the clear-seeing, and ours the blank and blind.

It seems strange now, to remember that Sunday afternoon, and how merry we all were; how we drank tea in the queer bed-room at the top of the house; and how afterwards Muriel went to sleep in the twilight, with baby Maud in her arms. Mrs. Halifax sat beside the little bed, a sudden blazing up of the fire showing the intentness of her watch over these two, her eldest and youngest, fast asleep; their breathing so soft, one hardly knew which was frailest, the life slowly fading or the life but just begun. Their breaths seemed to mix and mingle, and the two faces, lying close together, to grow into a strange likeness each to each. At least, we all fancied so.

Meanwhile, John kept his boys as still as mice, in the broad window-seat, looking across the white snowy sheet, with black bushes peering out here and there, to the feathery beech-wood, over the tops of which the new moon was going down. Such a little young moon! and how peacefully—nay, smilingly—she set among the snows!

The children watched her till the very last minute, when Guy startled the deep quiet of the room by exclaiming—"There—she's gone."

"Hush!"

"No, mother, I am awake," said Muriel. "Who is gone, Guy?"

"The moon—such a pretty little moon."

"Ah, Maud will see the moon some day." She dropped her cheek down again beside the baby sister, and was silent once more.

This is the only incident I remember of that peaceful, heavenly hour.

Maud broke upon its quietude by her waking and wailing; and Muriel very unwillingly let the little sister go.

"I wish she might stay with me—just this one night; and to-morrow is my birthday. Please, mother, may she stay?"

"We will both stay, my darling. I shall not leave you again."

"I am so glad;" and once more she turned round, as if to go to sleep.

"Are you tired, my pet?" said John, looking intently at her.

"No, father."

"Shall I take your brothers down-stairs?"

"Not yet, dear father."

"What would you like, then?"

"Only to lie here, this Sunday evening, among you all."

He asked her if she would like him to read aloud? as he generally did on Sunday evenings.

"Yes, please; and Guy will come and sit quiet on the bed beside me and listen. That will be pleasant. Guy was always very good to his sister—always."

"I don't know that," said Guy, in a conscience-stricken tone. "But I mean to be when I grow a big man—that I do."

No one answered. John opened the large Book—the Book he had taught all his children to long for and to love—and read out of it their favourite history of Joseph and his brethren. The mother sat by him at the fireside, rocking Maud softly on her knees. Edwin and Walter settled themselves on the hearth-rug, with great eyes intently fixed on their father. From behind him the candle-light fell softly down on the motionless figure in the bed, whose hand he held, and whose face he every now and then turned to look at—then, satisfied, continued to read.

In the reading his voice had a fatherly, flowing calm—as Jacob's might have had, when "the children were tender," and he gathered them all round him under the palm-trees of Succoth—years before he cried unto the Lord that bitter cry—(which John hurried over as he read)—"IF I AM BEREAVED OF MY CHILDREN, I AM BEREAVED."

For an hour, nearly, we all sat thus—with the wind coming up the valley, howling in the beech-wood, and shaking the casement as it passed outside. Within, the only sound was the father's voice. This ceased at last; he shut the Bible, and put it aside. The group—that last perfect household picture—was broken up. It melted away into things of the past, and became only a picture, for evermore.

"Now, boys—it is full time to say good-night. There, go and kiss your sister."

"Which?" said Edwin, in his funny way. "We've got two now; and I don't know which is the biggest baby."

"I'll thrash you if you say that again," cried Guy. "Which, indeed? Maud is but the baby. Muriel will be always 'sister.'"

"Sister" faintly laughed, as she answered his fond kiss—Guy was often thought to be her favourite brother.

"Now, off with you, boys; and go down-stairs quietly—mind, I say quietly."

They obeyed—that is, as literally as boy-nature can obey such an admonition. But an hour after I heard Guy and Edwin arguing vociferously in the dark, on the respective merits and future treatment of their two sisters, Muriel and Maud.

John and I sat up late together that night. He could not rest—even though he told me he had left the mother and her two daughters as cosy as a nest of wood-pigeons. We listened to the wild night, till it had almost howled itself away; then our fire went out, and we came and sat over the last faggot in Mrs. Tod's kitchen—the old Debateable Land. We began talking of the long-ago time, and not of this time at all. The vivid present—never out of either mind for an instant—we in our conversation did not touch upon, by at least ten years. Nor did we give expression to a thought which strongly oppressed me, and which I once or twice fancied I could detect in John likewise—how very like this night seemed to the night when Mr. March died; the same silentness in the house—the same windy whirl without—the same blaze of the wood-fire on the same kitchen ceiling.

More than once I could almost have deluded myself that I heard the faint moans and footsteps over-head—that the staircase door would open, and we should see there Miss March, in her white gown, and her pale, steadfast look.

"I think the mother seemed very well and calm to-night," I said, hesitatingly, as we were retiring.

"She is. God help her—and us all!"

"He will."

This was all we said.

He went up-stairs the last thing, and brought down word that mother and children were all sound asleep.

"I think I may leave them until daylight to-morrow. And now, Uncle Phineas, go you to bed, for you look as tired as tired can be."

I went to bed; but all night long I had disturbed dreams, in which I pictured over and over again, first the night when Mr. March died—then the night at Longfield, when the little white ghost had crossed by my bed's foot, into the room where Mary Baines' dead boy lay. And continually, towards morning, I fancied I heard through my window, which faced the church, the faint, distant sound of the organ, as when Muriel used to play it.

Long before it was light I rose. As I passed the boy's room Guy called out to me:

"Halloa! Uncle Phineas, is it a fine morning?—for I want to go down into the wood and get a lot of beech-nuts and fir-cones for sister. It's her birthday to-day, you know."

It WAS, for her. But for us—Oh, Muriel, our darling—darling child!

Let me hasten over the story of that morning, for my old heart quails before it still.

John went early to the room up-stairs. It was very still. Ursula lay calmly asleep, with baby Maud in her bosom; on her other side, with eyes wide open to the daylight, lay—that which for more than ten years we had been used to call "blind Muriel." She saw, now.

* * * * *

The same day at evening we three were sitting in the parlour; we elders only—it was past the children's bed-time. Grief had spent itself dry; we were all very quiet. Even Ursula, when she came in from fetching the boys' candle, as had always been her custom, and though afterwards I thought I had heard her going up-stairs, likewise from habit,—where there was no need to bid any mother's good-night now—even Ursula sat in the rocking-chair, nursing Maud, and trying to still her crying with a little foolish baby-tune that had descended as a family lullaby from one to the other of the whole five—how sad it sounded!

John—who sat at the table, shading the light from his eyes, an open book lying before him, of which he never turned one page—looked up at her.

"Love, you must not tire yourself. Give me the child."

"No, no! Let me keep my baby—she comforts me so." And the mother burst into uncontrollable weeping.

John shut his book and came to her. He supported her on his bosom, saying a soothing word or two at intervals, or when the paroxysm of her anguish was beyond all bounds supporting her silently till it had gone by; never once letting her feel that, bitter as her sorrow was, his was heavier than hers.

Thus, during the whole of the day, had he been the stay and consolation of the household. For himself—the father's grief was altogether dumb.

At last Mrs. Halifax became more composed. She sat beside her husband, her hand in his, neither speaking, but gazing, as it were, into the face of this their great sorrow, and from thence up to the face of God. They felt that He could help them to bear it; ay, or anything else that it was His will to send—if they might thus bear it, together.

We all three sat thus, and there had not been a sound in the parlour for ever so long, when Mrs. Tod opened the door and beckoned me.

"He will come in—he's crazy-like, poor fellow! He has only just heard—"

She broke off with a sob. Lord Ravenel pushed her aside and stood at the door. We had not seen him since the day of that innocent jest about his "falling in love" with Muriel. Seeing us all so quiet, and the parlour looking as it always did when he used to come of evenings—the young man drew back, amazed.

"It is not true! No, it could not be true!" he muttered.

"It is true," said the father. "Come in."

The mother held out her hand to him. "Yes, come in. You were very fond of—"

Ah! that name!—now nothing but a name! For a little while we all wept sore.

Then we told him—it was Ursula who did it chiefly—all particulars about our darling. She told him, but calmly, as became one on whom had fallen the utmost sorrow and crowning consecration of motherhood—that of yielding up her child, a portion of her own being, to the corruption of the grave—of resigning the life which out of her own life had been created, unto the Creator of all.

Surely, distinct and peculiar from every other grief, every other renunciation, must be that of a woman who is thus chosen to give her very flesh and blood, the fruit of her own womb, unto the Lord!

This dignity, this sanctity, seemed gradually to fall upon the mourning mother, as she talked about her lost one; repeating often—"I tell you this, because you were so fond of Muriel."

He listened silently. At length he said, "I want to see Muriel."

The mother lit a candle, and he followed her up-stairs.

Just the same homely room—half-bedchamber, half-nursery—the same little curtainless bed where, for a week past, we had been accustomed to see the wasted figure and small pale face lying, in smiling quietude, all day long.

It lay there still. In it, and in the room, was hardly any change. One of Walter's playthings was in a corner of the window-sill, and on the chest of drawers stood the nosegay of Christmas roses which Guy had brought for his sister yesterday morning. Nay, her shawl—a white, soft, furry shawl, that she was fond of wearing—remained still hanging up behind the door. One could almost fancy the little maid had just been said "good-night" to, and left to dream the childish dreams on her nursery pillow, where the small head rested so peacefully, with that pretty babyish nightcap tied over the pretty curls.

There she was, the child who had gone out of the number of our children—our earthly children—for ever.

Her mother sat down at the side of the bed, her father at its foot, looking at her. Lord Ravenel stood by, motionless; then stooping down, he kissed the small marble hand.

"Good-bye, good-bye, my little Muriel!"

And he left the room abruptly, in such an anguish of grief that the mother rose and followed him.

John went to the door and locked it, almost with a sort of impatience; then came back and stood by his darling, alone. Me he never saw—no, nor anything in the world except that little face, even in death so strangely like his own. The face which had been for eleven years the joy of his heart, the very apple of his eye.

For a long time he remained gazing, in a stupor of silence; then, sinking on his knee, he stretched out his arms across the bed, with a bitter cry:

"Come back to me, my darling, my first-born! Come back to me, Muriel, my little daughter—my own little daughter!"

But thou wert with the angels, Muriel—Muriel!



CHAPTER XXIX

We went home, leaving all that was mortal of our darling sleeping at Enderley, underneath the snows.

For twelve years after then, we lived at Longfield; in such unbroken, uneventful peace, that looking back seems like looking back over a level sea, whose leagues of tiny ripples make one smooth glassy plain.

Let me recall—as the first wave that rose, ominous of change—a certain spring evening, when Mrs. Halifax and I were sitting, as was our wont, under the walnut-tree. The same old walnut-tree, hardly a bough altered, though many of its neighbours and kindred had grown from saplings into trees—even as some of us had grown from children almost into young men.

"Edwin is late home from Norton Bury," said Ursula.

"So is his father."

"No—this is just John's time. Hark! there are the carriage-wheels!"

For Mr. Halifax, a prosperous man now, drove daily to and from his mills, in as tasteful an equipage as any of the country gentry between here and Enderley.

His wife went down to the stream to meet him, as usual, and they came up the field-path together.

Both were changed from the John and Ursula of whom I last wrote. She, active and fresh-looking still, but settling into that fair largeness which is not unbecoming a lady of middle-age, he, inclined to a slight stoop, with the lines of his face more sharply defined, and the hair wearing away off his forehead up to the crown. Though still not a grey thread was discernible in the crisp locks at the back, which successively five little ones had pulled, and played with, and nestled in; not a sign of age, as yet, in "father's curls."

As soon as he had spoken to me, he looked round as usual for his children, and asked if the boys and Maud would be home to tea?

"I think Guy and Walter never do come home in time when they go over to the manor-house."

"They're young—let them enjoy themselves," said the father, smiling. "And you know, love, of all our 'fine' friends, there are none you so heartily approve of as the Oldtowers."

These were not of the former race. Good old Sir Ralph had gone to his rest, and Sir Herbert reigned in his stead; Sir Herbert, who in his dignified gratitude never forgot a certain election day, when he first made the personal acquaintance of Mr. Halifax. The manor-house family brought several other "county families" to our notice, or us to theirs. These, when John's fortunes grew rapidly—as many another fortune grew, in the beginning of the thirty years' peace, when unknown, petty manufacturers first rose into merchant princes and cotton lords—these gentry made a perceptible distinction, often amusing enough to us, between John Halifax, the tanner of Norton Bury, and Mr. Halifax, the prosperous owner of Enderley Mills. Some of them, too, were clever enough to discover, what a pleasant and altogether "visitable" lady was Mrs. Halifax, daughter of the late Mr. March, a governor in the West Indies, and cousin of Mr. Brithwood of the Mythe. But Mrs. Halifax, with quiet tenacity, altogether declined being visited as anything but Mrs. Halifax, wife of John Halifax, tanner, or mill-owner, or whatever he might be. All honours and all civilities that did not come through him, and with him, were utterly valueless to her.

To this her peculiarity was added another of John's own, namely, that all his life he had been averse to what is called "society;" had eschewed "acquaintances,"—and—but most men might easily count upon their fingers the number of those who, during a life-time, are found worthy of the sacred name of "friend." Consequently, our circle of associations was far more limited than that of many families holding an equal position with us—on which circumstance our neighbours commented a good deal. But little we cared; no more than we had cared for the chit-chat of Norton Bury. Our whole hearts were bound up within our own home—our happy Longfield.

"I do think this place is growing prettier than ever," said John, when, tea being over—a rather quiet meal, without a single child—we elders went out again to the walnut-tree bench. "Certainly, prettier than ever;" and his eye wandered over the quaint, low house, all odds and ends—for nearly every year something had been built, or something pulled down; then crossing the smooth bit of lawn, Jem Watkins's special pride, it rested on the sloping field, yellow with tall buttercups, wavy with growing grass. "Let me see—how long have we lived here? Phineas, you are the one for remembering dates. What year was it we came to Longfield?"

"Eighteen hundred and twelve. Thirteen years ago."

"Ah, so long!"

"Not too long," said Mrs. Halifax, earnestly. "I hope we may end our days here. Do not you, John?"

He paused a little before answering. "Yes, I wish it; but I am not sure how far it would be right to do it."

"We will not open that subject again," said the mother, uneasily. "I thought we had all made up our minds that little Longfield was a thousand times pleasanter than Beechwood, grand as it is. But John thinks he never can do enough for his people at Enderley."

"Not that alone, love. Other reasons combined. Do you know, Phineas," he continued, musingly, as he watched the sun set over Leckington Hill—"sometimes I fancy my life is too easy—that I am not a wise steward of the riches that have multiplied so fast. By fifty, a man so blest as I have been, ought to have done really something of use in the world—and I am forty-five. Once, I hoped to have done wonderful things ere I was forty-five. But somehow the desire faded."

His wife and I were silent. We both knew the truth; that calm as had flowed his outer existence, in which was omitted not one actual duty, still, for these twelve years, all the high aims which make the glory and charm of life as duties make its strength, all the active energies and noble ambitions which especially belong to the prime of manhood, in him had been, not dead perhaps, but sleeping. Sleeping, beyond the power of any human voice to waken them, under the daisies of a child's grave at Enderley.

I know not if this was right—but it was scarcely unnatural. In that heart, which loved as few men love, and remembered as few men remember, so deep a wound could never be thoroughly healed. A certain something in him seemed different ever after, as if a portion of the father's own life had been taken away with Muriel, and lay buried in the little dead bosom of his first-born, his dearest child.

"You forget," said Mrs. Halifax, tenderly—"you forget, John, how much you have been doing, and intend to do. What with your improvements at Enderley, and your Catholic Emancipation—your Abolition of Slavery and your Parliamentary Reform—why, there is hardly any scheme for good, public or private, to which you do not lend a helping hand."

"A helping purse, perhaps, which is an easier thing, much."

"I will not have you blaming yourself. Ask Phineas, there—our household Solomon."

"Thank you, Ursula," said I, submitting to the not rare fortune of being loved and laughed at.

"Uncle Phineas, what better could John have done in all these years, than look after his mills and educate his three sons?"

"Have them educated, rather," corrected he, sensitive over his own painfully-gained and limited acquirements. Yet this feeling had made him doubly careful to give his boys every possible advantage of study, short of sending them from home, to which he had an invincible objection. And three finer lads, or better educated, there could not be found in the whole country.

"I think, John, Guy has quite got over his fancy of going to Cambridge with Ralph Oldtower."

"Yes; college life would not have done for Guy," said the father thoughtfully.

"Hush! we must not talk about them, for here come the children."

It was now a mere figure of speech to call them so, though in their home-taught, loving simplicity, they would neither have been ashamed nor annoyed at the epithet—these two tall lads, who in the dusk looked as man-like as their father.

"Where is your sister, boys?"

"Maud stopped at the stream with Edwin," answered Guy, rather carelessly. His heart had kept its childish faith; the youngest, pet as she was, was never anything to him but "little Maud." One—whom the boys still talked of, softly and tenderly, in fireside evening talks, when the winter winds came and the snow was falling—one only was ever spoken of by Guy as "sister."

Maud, or Miss Halifax, as from the first she was naturally called—as naturally as our lost darling was never called anything else than Muriel—came up, hanging on Edwin's arm, which she was fond of doing, both because it happened to be the only arm low enough to suit her childish stature, and because she was more especially "Edwin's girl," and had been so always. She had grown out of the likeness that we longed for in her cradle days, or else we had grown out of the perception of it; for though the external resemblance in hair and complexion still remained, nothing could be more unlike in spirit than this sprightly elf, at once the plague and pet of the family—to our Muriel.

"Edwin's girl" stole away with him, merrily chattering. Guy sat down beside his mother, and slipped his arm round her waist. They still fondled her with a child-like simplicity—these her almost grown-up sons; who had never been sent to school for a day, and had never learned from other sons of far different mothers, that a young man's chief manliness ought to consist in despising the tender charities of home.

"Guy, you foolish boy!" as she took his cap off and pushed back his hair, trying not to look proud of his handsome face, "what have you been doing all day?"

"Making myself agreeable, of course, mother."

"That he has," corroborated Walter, whose great object of hero-worship was his eldest brother. "He talked with Lady Oldtower, and he sang with Miss Oldtower and Miss Grace. Never was there such a fellow as our Guy."

"Nonsense!" said his mother, while Guy only laughed, too accustomed to this family admiration to be much disconcerted or harmed thereby.

"When does Ralph return to Cambridge?"

"Not at all. He is going to leave college, and be off to help the Greeks. Father, do you know everybody is joining the Greeks? Even Lord Byron is off with the rest. I only wish I were."

"Heaven forbid!" muttered the mother.

"Why not? I should have made a capital soldier, and liked it too, better than anything."

"Better than being my right hand at the mills, and your mother's at home?—Better than growing up to be our eldest son, our comfort and our hope?—I think not, Guy."

"You are right, father," was the answer, with an uneasy look. For this description seemed less what Guy was than what we desired him to be. With his easy, happy temper, generous but uncertain, and his showy, brilliant parts, he was not nearly so much to be depended on as the grave Edwin, who was already a thorough man of business, and plodded between Enderley mills and a smaller one which had taken the place of the flour mill at Norton Bury, with indomitable perseverance.

Guy fell into a brown study, not unnoticed by those anxious eyes, which lingered oftener upon his face than on that of any of her sons. Mrs. Halifax said, in her quick, decisive way, that it was "time to go in."

So the sunset picture outside changed to the home-group within; the mother sitting at her little table, where the tall silver candlestick shed a subdued light on her work-basket, that never was empty, and her busy fingers, that never were still. The father sat beside her; he kept his old habit of liking to have her close to him; ay, even though he was falling into the middle-aged comforts of an arm-chair and newspaper. There he sat, sometimes reading aloud, or talking; sometimes lazily watching her, with silent, loving eyes, that saw beauty in his old wife still.

The young folk scattered themselves about the room. Guy and Walter at the unshuttered window—we had a habit of never hiding our home-light—were looking at the moon, and laying bets, sotto voce, upon how many minutes she would be in climbing over the oak on the top of One-tree Hill. Edwin sat, reading hard—his shoulders up to his ears, and his fingers stuck through his hair, developing the whole of his broad, knobbed, knotted forehead, where, Maud declared, the wrinkles had already begun to show. For Mistress Maud herself, she flitted about in all directions, interrupting everything, and doing nothing.

"Maud," said her father, at last, "I am afraid you give a great deal of trouble to Uncle Phineas."

Uncle Phineas tried to soften the fact, but the little lady was certainly the most trying of his pupils. Her mother she had long escaped from, for the advantage of both. For, to tell the truth, while in the invisible atmosphere of moral training the mother's influence was invaluable, in the minor branch of lesson-learning there might have been found many a better teacher than Ursula Halifax. So the children's education was chiefly left to me; other tutors succeeding as was necessary; and it had just begun to be considered whether a lady governess ought not to "finish" the education of Miss Halifax. But always at home. Not for all the knowledge and all the accomplishments in the world would these parents have suffered either son or daughter—living souls intrusted them by the Divine Father—to be brought up anywhere out of their own sight, out of the shelter and safeguard of their own natural home.

"Love, when I was waiting to-day in Jessop's bank—"

(Ah! that was another change, to which we were even yet not familiar, the passing away of our good doctor and his wife, and his brother and heir turning the old dining-room into a "County Bank—open from ten till four.")

"While waiting there I heard of a lady who struck me as likely to be an excellent governess for Maud."

"Indeed!" said Mrs. Halifax, not over-enthusiastically. Maud became eager to know "what the lady was like?" I at the same time inquiring "who she was?"

"Who? I really did not ask," John answered, smiling. "But of what she is, Jessop gave me first-rate evidence—a good daughter, who teaches in Norton Bury anybody's children for any sort of pay, in order to maintain an ailing mother. Ursula, you would let her teach our Maud, I know?"

"Is she an Englishwoman?"—For Mrs. Halifax, prejudiced by a certain French lady who had for a few months completely upset the peace of the manor-house, and even slightly tainted her own favourite, pretty Grace Oldtower, had received coldly this governess plan from the beginning. "Would she have to live with us?"

"I think so, decidedly."

"Then it can't be. The house will not accommodate her. It will hardly hold even ourselves. No, we cannot take in anybody else at Longfield."

"But—we may have to leave Longfield."

The boys here turned to listen; for this question had already been mooted, as all family questions were. In our house we had no secrets: the young folk, being trusted, were ever trustworthy; and the parents, clean-handed and pure-hearted, had nothing that they were afraid to tell their children.

"Leave Longfield!" repeated Mrs. Halifax; "surely—surely—" But glancing at her husband, her tone of impatience ceased.

He sat gazing into the fire with an anxious air.

"Don't let us discuss that question—at least, not to-night. It troubles you, John. Put it off till to-morrow."

No, that was never his habit. He was one of the very few who, a thing being to be done, will not trust it to uncertain "to-morrows." His wife saw that he wanted to talk to her, and listened.

"Yes, the question does trouble me a good deal. Whether, now that our children are growing up, and our income is doubling and trebling year by year, we ought to widen our circle of usefulness, or close it up permanently within the quiet bound of little Longfield. Love, which say you?"

"The latter, the latter—because it is far the happiest."

"I am afraid, NOT the latter, because it IS the happiest."

He spoke gently, laying his hand on his wife's shoulder, and looking down on her with that peculiar look which he always had when telling her things that he knew were sore to hear. I never saw that look on any living face save John's; but I have seen it once in a picture—of two Huguenot lovers. The woman is trying to fasten round the man's neck the white badge that will save him from the massacre (of St. Bartholomew)—he, clasping her the while, gently puts it aside—not stern, but smiling. That quiet, tender smile, firmer than any frown, will, you feel sure, soon control the woman's anguish, so that she will sob out—any faithful woman would—"Go, die! Dearer to me than even thyself are thy honour and thy duty!"

When I saw this noble picture, it touched to the core this old heart of mine—for the painter, in that rare expression, might have caught John's. Just as in a few crises of his life I have seen it, and especially in this one, when he first told to his wife that determination which he had slowly come to—that it was both right and expedient for us to quit Longfield, our happy home for so many years, of which the mother loved every flower in the garden, every nook and stone in the walls.

"Leave Longfield!" she repeated again, with a bitter sigh.

"Leave Longfield!" echoed the children, first the youngest, then the eldest, but rather in curiosity than regret. Edwin's keen, bright eyes were just lifted from his book, and fell again; he was not a lad of much speech, or much demonstration of any kind.

"Boys, come and let us talk over the matter."

They came at once and joined in the circle; respectfully, yet with entire freedom, they looked towards their father—these, the sons of his youth, to whom he had been from their birth, not only parent and head, but companion, guide, and familiar friend. They honoured him, they trusted him, they loved him; not, perhaps, in the exact way that they loved their mother; for it often seems Nature's own ordinance, that a mother's influence should be strongest over her sons, while the father's is greatest over his daughters. But even a stranger could not glance from each to each of those attentive faces, so different, yet with a curious "family look" running through them all, without seeing in what deep, reverent affection, such as naturally takes the place of childish fondness, these youths held their father.

"Yes, I am afraid, after much serious thought on the matter, and much consultation with your mother here,—that we ought to leave Longfield."

"So I think," said Mistress Maud, from her footstool; which putting forward of her important opinion shook us all from gravity to merriment, that compelled even Mrs. Halifax to join. Then, laying aside her work, and with it the saddened air with which she had bent over it, she drew her chair closer to her husband, slipping her hand in his, and leaning against his shoulder. Upon which Guy, who had at first watched his mother anxiously, doubtful whether or no his father's plan had her approval, and therefore ought to be assented to,—relapsed into satisfied, undivided attention.

"I have again been over Beechwood Hall. You all remember Beechwood?"

Yes. It was the "great house" at Enderley, just on the slope of the hill, below Rose Cottage. The beech-wood itself was part of its pleasure ground, and from its gardens honest James Tod, who had them in keeping, had brought many a pocketful of pears for the boys, many a sweet-scented nosegay for Muriel.

"Beechwood has been empty a great many years, father? Would it be a safe investment to buy it?"

"I think so, Edwin, my practical lad," answered the father, smiling. "What say you, children? Would you like living there?"

Each one made his or her comment. Guy's countenance brightened at the notion of "lots of shooting and fishing" about Enderley, especially at Luxmore; and Maud counted on the numerous visitors that would come to John Halifax, Esquire, of Beechwood Hall.

"Neither of which excellent reasons happen to be your father's," said Mrs. Halifax, shortly. But John, often tenderer over youthful frivolities than she, answered:

"I will tell you, boys, what are my reasons. When I was a young man, before your mother and I were married, indeed before I had ever seen her, I had strongly impressed on my mind the wish to gain influence in the world—riches if I could—but at all events, influence. I thought I could use it well, better than most men; those can best help the poor who understand the poor. And I can; since, you know, when Uncle Phineas found me, I was—"

"Father," said Guy, flushing scarlet, "we may as well pass over that fact. We are gentlefolks now."

"We always were, my son."

The rebuke, out of its very mildness, cut the youth to the heart. He dropped his eyes, colouring now with a different and a holier shame.

"I know that. Please will you go on, father."

"And now," the father continued, speaking as much out of his own thoughts as aloud to his children—"now, twenty-five years of labour have won for me the position I desired. That is, I might have it for the claiming. I might take my place among the men who have lately risen from the people, to guide and help the people—the Cannings, Huskissons, Peels."

"Would you enter parliament? Sir Herbert asked me to-day if you ever intended it. He said there was nothing you might not attain to if you would give yourself up entirely to politics."

"No, Guy, no. Wisdom, like charity, begins at home. Let me learn to rule in my own valley, among my own people, before I attempt to guide the state. And that brings me back again to the pros and cons about Beechwood Hall."

"Tell them, John; tell all out plainly to the children."

The reasons were—first, the advantage of the boys themselves; for John Halifax was not one of those philanthropists who would benefit all the world except their own household and their own kin. He wished—since the higher a man rises, the wider and nobler grows his sphere of usefulness—not only to lift himself, but his sons after him; lift them high enough to help on the ever-advancing tide of human improvement, among their own people first, and thence extending outward in the world whithersoever their talents or circumstances might call them.

"I understand," cried the eldest son, his eyes sparkling; "you want to found a family. And so it shall be—we will settle at Beechwood Hall; all coming generations shall live to the honour and glory of your name—our name—"

"My boy, there is only one Name to whose honour we should all live. One Name 'in whom all the generations of the earth are blessed.' In thus far only do I wish to 'found a family,' as you call it, that our light may shine before men—that we may be a city set on a hill—that we may say plainly unto all that ask us, 'For me and my house, we will serve the Lord.'"

It was not often that John Halifax spoke thus; adopting solemnly the literal language of the Book—his and our life's guide, no word of which was ever used lightly in our family. We all listened, as in his earnestness he rose, and, standing upright in the firelight, spoke on.

"I believe, with His blessing, that one may 'serve the Lord' as well in wealth as in poverty, in a great house as in a cottage like this. I am not doubtful, even though my possessions are increased. I am not afraid of being a rich man. Nor a great man neither, if I were called to such a destiny."

"It may be—who knows?" said Ursula, softly.

John caught his wife's eyes, and smiled.

"Love, you were a true prophet once, with a certain 'Yes, you will,' but now—Children, you know when I married your mother I had nothing, and she gave up everything for me. I said I would yet make her as high as any lady in the land,—in fortune I then meant, thinking it would make her happier; but she and I are wiser now. We know that we never can be happier than we were in the old house at Norton Bury, or in this little Longfield. By making her lady of Beechwood I should double her responsibilities and treble her cares; give her an infinitude of new duties, and no pleasures half so sweet as those we leave behind. Still, of herself and for herself, my wife shall decide."

Ursula looked up at him; tears stood in her eyes, though through them shone all the steadfastness of faithful love. "Thank you, John. I have decided. If you wish it, if you think it right, we will leave Longfield and go to Beechwood."

He stooped and kissed her forehead, saying only: "We will go."

Guy looked up, half-reproachfully, as if the father were exacting a sacrifice; but I question whether the greater sacrifice were not his who took rather than hers who gave.

So all was settled—we were to leave beloved Longfield. It was to be let, not sold; let to a person we knew, who would take jealous care of all that was ours, and we might come back and see it continually; but it would be ours—our own home—no more.

Very sad—sadder even than I had thought—was the leaving all the familiar things; the orchard and the flower-garden, the meadow and the stream, the woody hills beyond, every line and wave of which was pleasant and dear almost as our children's faces. Ay, almost as that face which for a year—one little year, had lived in sight of, but never beheld, their beauty; the child who one spring day had gone away merrily out of the white gate with her three brothers, and never came back to Longfield any more.

Perhaps this circumstance, that her fading away and her departure happened away from home, was the cause why her memory—the memory of our living Muriel, in her human childhood—afterwards clung more especially about the house at Longfield. The other children altered, imperceptibly, yet so swiftly, that from year to year we half forgot their old likenesses. But Muriel's never changed. Her image, only a shade, yet often more real than any of these living children, seemed perpetually among us. It crept through the house at dusk; in winter fire-light it sat smiling in dim corners; in spring mornings it moved about the garden borders, with tiny soft footsteps neither seen nor heard. The others grew up—would be men and women shortly—but the one child that "was not," remained to us always a child.

I thought, even the last evening—the very last evening that John returned from Enderley, and his wife went down to the stream to meet him, and they came up the field together, as they had done so for many, many years;—ay, even then I thought I saw his eyes turn to the spot where a little pale figure used to sit on the door-sill, listening and waiting for him, with her dove in her bosom. We never kept doves now.

And the same night, when all the household was in bed—even the mother, who had gone about with a restless activity, trying to persuade herself that there would be at least no possibility of accomplishing the flitting to-morrow—the last night, when John went as usual to fasten the house-door, he stood a long time outside, looking down the valley.

"How quiet everything is. You can almost hear the tinkle of the stream. Poor old Longfield!" And I sighed, thinking we should never again have such another home.

John did not answer. He had been mechanically bending aside and training into its place a long shoot of wild clematis—virgin's bower, which Guy and Muriel had brought in from the fields and planted, a tiny root; it covered the whole front of the house now. Then he came and leaned beside me over the wicket-gate, looking fixedly up into the moon-light blue.

"I wonder if she knows we are leaving Longfield?"

"Who?" said I; for a moment forgetting.

"The child."



CHAPTER XXX

Father and son—a goodly sight, as they paced side by side up and down the gravel walk—(alas! the pretty field-path belonged to days that were!)—up and down the broad, sunshiny walk, in front of the breakfast-room windows of Beechwood Hall.

It was early—little past eight o'clock; but we kept Longfield hours and Longfield ways still. And besides, this was a grand day—the day of Guy's coming of age. Curious it seemed to watch him, as he walked along by his father, looking every inch "the young heir;" and perhaps not unconscious that he did so;—curious enough, remembering how meekly the boy had come into the world, at a certain old house at Norton Bury, one rainy December morning, twenty-one years ago.

It was a bright day to-day—bright as all our faces were, I think, as we gathered round the cosy breakfast-table. There, as heretofore, it was the mother's pride and the father's pleasure that not one face should be missing—that, summer and winter, all should assemble for an hour of family fun and family chat, before the busy cares of the day; and by general consent, which had grown into habit, every one tried to keep unclouded this little bit of early sunshine, before the father and brothers went away. No sour or dreary looks, no painful topics, were ever brought to the breakfast-table.

Thus it was against all custom when Mr. Halifax, laying down his paper with a grave countenance, said:

"This is very ill news. Ten Bank failures in the Gazette to-day."

"But it will not harm us, father."

"Edwin is always thinking of 'us,' and 'our business,'" remarked Guy, rather sharply. It was one of the slight—the very slight—jars in our household, that these two lads, excellent lads both, as they grew into manhood did not exactly "pull together."

"Edwin is scarcely wrong in thinking of 'us,' since upon us depend so many," observed the father, in that quiet tone with which, when he did happen to interfere between his sons, he generally smoothed matters down and kept the balance even. "Yet though we are ourselves secure, I trust the losses everywhere around us make it the more necessary that we should not parade our good fortune by launching out into any of Guy's magnificences—eh, my boy?"

The youth looked down. It was well known in the family that since we came to Beechwood his pleasure-loving temperament had wanted all sorts of improvements on our style of living—fox-hounds, dinner-parties, balls; that the father's ways, which, though extended to liberal hospitalities, forbade outward show, and made our life a thorough family life still—were somewhat distasteful to that most fascinating young gentleman, Guy Halifax, Esquire, heir of Beechwood Hall.

"You may call it 'magnificence,' or what you choose; but I know I should like to live a little more as our neighbours do. And I think we ought too—we that are known to be the wealthiest family—"

He stopped abruptly—for the door opened; and Guy had too much good taste and good feeling to discuss our riches before Maud's poor governess—the tall, grave, sad-looking, sad-clothed Miss Silver; the same whom John had seen at Mr. Jessop's bank; and who had been with us four months—ever since we came to Beechwood.

One of the boys rose and offered her a chair; for the parents set the example of treating her with entire respect—nay, would gladly have made her altogether one of the family, had she not been so very reserved.

Miss Silver came forward with the daily nosegay which Mrs. Halifax had confided to her superintendence.

"They are the best I can find, madam—I believe Watkins keeps all his greenhouse flowers for to-night."

"Thank you, my dear. These will do very well.—Yes, Guy, persuade Miss Silver to take your place by the fire. She looks so cold."

But Miss Silver, declining the kindness, passed on to her own seat opposite.

Ursula busied herself over the breakfast equipage rather nervously. Though an admirable person, Miss Silver in her extreme and all but repellant quietness was one whom the mother found it difficult to get on with. She was scrupulously kind to her; and the governess was as scrupulously exact in all courtesy and attention; still that impassible, self-contained demeanour, that great reticence—it might be shyness, it might be pride—sometimes, Ursula privately admitted, "fidgeted" her.

To-day was to be a general holiday for both masters and servants; a dinner at the mills; and in the evening something which, though we call it a tea-drinking, began to look, I was amused to see, exceedingly like "a ball." But on this occasion both parents had yielded to their young people's wishes, and half the neighbourhood had been invited, by the universally-popular Mr. Guy Halifax to celebrate his coming of age.

"Only once in a way," said the mother, half ashamed of herself for thus indulging the boy—as, giving his shoulder a fond shake, she called him "a foolish fellow."

Then we all dispersed; Guy and Walter to ride to the manor-house, Edwin vanishing with his sister, to whom he was giving daily Latin lessons in the school-room.

John asked me to take a walk on the hill with him.

"Go, Phineas," whispered his wife—"it will do him good. And don't let him talk too much of old times. This is a hard week for him."

The mother's eyes were mournful, for Guy and "the child" had been born within a year and three days of each other; but she never hinted—it never would have struck her to hint—"this is a hard week for ME."

That grief—the one great grief of their life, had come to her more wholesomely than to her husband: either because men, the very best of men, can only suffer, while women can endure; or because in the mysterious ordinance of nature Maud's baby lips had sucked away the bitterness of the pang from the bereaved mother, while her loss was yet new. It had never been left to rankle in that warm heart, which had room for every living child, while it cherished, in tenderness above all sorrow, the child that was no more.

John and I, in our walk, stood a moment by the low churchyard wall, and looked over at that plain white stone, where was inscribed her name, "Muriel Joy Halifax,"—a line out of that New Testament miracle-story she delighted in, "WHEREAS I WAS BLIND, NOW I SEE,"—and the date when SHE SAW. Nothing more: it was not needed.

"December 5, 1813," said the father, reading the date. "She would have been quite a woman now. How strange! My little Muriel!"

And he walked thoughtfully along, almost in the same footprints where he had been used to carry his darling up the hillside to the brow of Enderley Flat. He seemed in fancy to bear her in his arms still—this little one, whom, as I have before said, Heaven in its compensating mercy, year by year, through all changes, had made the one treasure that none could take away—the one child left to be a child for ever.

I think, as we rested in the self-same place, the sunshiny nook where we used to sit with her for hours together, the father's heart took this consolation so closely and surely into itself that memory altogether ceased to be pain. He began talking about the other children—especially Maud—and then of Miss Silver, her governess.

"I wish she were more likeable, John. It vexes me sometimes to see how coldly she returns the mother's kindness."

"Poor thing!—she has evidently not been used to kindness. You should have seen how amazed she looked yesterday when we paid her a little more than her salary, and my wife gave her a pretty silk dress to wear to-night. I hardly knew whether she would refuse it, or burst out crying—in girlish fashion."

"Is she a girl? Why, the boys say she looks thirty at least. Guy and Walter laugh amazingly at her dowdy dress and her solemn, haughty ways."

"That will not do, Phineas. I must speak to them. They ought to make allowance for poor Miss Silver, of whom I think most highly."

"I know you do; but do you heartily like her?"

"For most things, yes. And I sincerely respect her, or, of course, she would not be here. I think people should be as particular over choosing their daughter's governess as their son's wife; and having chosen, should show her almost equal honour."

"You'll have your sons choosing themselves wives soon, John. I fancy Guy has a soft place in his heart for that pretty Grace Oldtower."

But the father made no answer. He was always tenacious over the slightest approach to such jests as these. And besides, just at this moment Mr. Brown, Lord Luxmore's steward, passed—riding solemnly along. He barely touched his hat to Mr. Halifax.

"Poor Mr. Brown! He has a grudge against me for those Mexican speculations I refused to embark in; he did, and lost everything but what he gets from Lord Luxmore. I do think, Phineas, the country has been running mad this year after speculation. There is sure to come a panic afterwards, and indeed it seems already beginning."

"But you are secure? You have not joined in the mania, the crash cannot harm you? Did I not hear you say that you were not afraid of losing a single penny?"

"Yes—unfortunately," with a troubled smile.

"John, what do you mean?"

"I mean, that to stand upright while one's neighbours are falling on all sides is a most trying position. Misfortune makes people unjust. The other day at the sessions I got cold looks enough from my brother magistrates—looks that would have set my blood boiling twenty years ago. And—you saw in the Norton Bury Mercury that article about 'grasping plebeian millionaires'—'wool-spinners, spinning out of their country's vitals.' That's meant for me, Phineas. Don't look incredulous. Yes—for me."

"How disgraceful!"

"Perhaps so—but to them more than to me. I feel sorry, because of the harm it may do me—especially among working people, who know nothing but what they hear, and believe everything that is told them. They see I thrive and others fail—that my mills are the only cloth mills in full work, and I have more hands than I can employ. Every week I am obliged to send new-comers away. Then they raise the old cry—that my machinery has ruined labour. So, you see, for all that Guy says about our prosperity, his father does not sleep exactly upon a bed of roses."

"It is wicked—atrocious!"

"Not at all. Only natural—the penalty one has to pay for success. It will die out most likely; meantime, we will mind it as little as we can."

"But are you safe?—your life—" For a sudden fear crossed me—a fear not unwarranted by more than one event of this year—this terrible 1825.

"Safe?—Yes—" and his eyes were lifted, "I believe my life is safe—if I have work to do. Still, for others' sake, I have carried this month past whenever I go to and from the Coltham bank, besides my cash-box—this."

He showed me, peering out of his breast-pocket, a small pistol.

I was greatly startled.

"Does your wife know?"

"Of course. But she knows too that nothing but the last extremity would force me to use it: also that my carrying it, and its being noised about that I do so, may prevent my ever having occasion to use it. God grant I never may! Don't let us talk about this."

He stopped, gazing with a sad abstraction down the sunshiny valley—most part of which was already his own property. For whatever capital he could spare from his business he never sunk in speculation, but took a patriarchal pleasure in investing it in land, chiefly for the benefit of his mills and those concerned therein.

"My poor people—they might have known me better! But I suppose one never attains one's desire without its being leavened with some bitterness. If there was one point I was anxious over in my youth, it was to keep up through life a name like the Chevalier Bayard—how folk would smile to hear of a tradesman emulating Bayard—'sans peur et sans reproche!' And so things might be—ought to be. So perhaps they shall be yet, in spite of this calumny."

"How shall you meet it? What shall you do?"

"Nothing. Live it down."

He stood still, looking across the valley to where the frosty line of the hill-tops met the steel-blue, steadfast sky. Yes, I felt sure he WOULD 'live it down.'

We dismissed the subject, and spent an hour more in pleasant chat, about many things. Passing homeward through the beech-wood, where through the bare tree-tops a light snow was beginning to fall, John said, musingly:

"It will be a hard winter—we shall have to help our poor people a great deal. Christmas dinners will be much in request."

"There's a saying, that the way to an Englishman's heart is through his stomach. So, perhaps, you'll get justice by spring."

"Don't be angry, Phineas. As I tell my wife, it is not worth while. Half the wrongs people do to us are through sheer ignorance. We must be patient. 'IN YOUR PATIENCE POSSESS YE YOUR SOULS.'"

He said this, more to himself than aloud, as if carrying out the thread of his own thought. Mine following it, and observing him, involuntarily turned to another passage in our Book of books, about the blessedness of some men, even when reviled and persecuted.

Ay, and for all his many cares, John Halifax looked like a man who was "blessed."

Blessed, and happy too, throughout that day, especially in the midst of the mill-yard dinner—which reminded me forcibly of that feast at which guests were gathered out of the highways and hedges—guests such as John Halifax liked to have—guests who could not, by any possibility, "recompense"' him. Yet it did one's heart good to hear the cheer that greeted the master, ay, and the young master too, who was to-day for the first time presented as such: as the firm henceforward was to be, "Halifax and Son."

And full of smiling satisfaction was the father's look, when in the evening he stood in the midst of his children waiting for "Guy's visitors," as he pertinaciously declared them to be—these fine people, for whose entertainment our house had been these three days turned upside down; the sober old dining-room converted into a glittering ball-room, and the entrance-hall a very "bower of bliss"—all green boughs and Chinese lanterns. John protested he should not have known his own study again; and that, if these festive transformations were to happen frequently he should soon not even know himself!

Yet for all that, and in spite of the comical horror he testified at this first bouleversement of our quiet home ways, I think he had a real pleasure in his children's delight; in wandering with them through the decorated rooms, tapestried with ivy and laurel, and arbor vitae; in making them all pass in review before him, and admiring their handiwork and themselves.

A goodly group they made—our young folk; there were no "children" now—for even Maud, who was tall and womanly for her age, had bloomed out in a ball dress, all white muslin and camellias, and appeared every inch "Miss Halifax." Walter, too, had lately eschewed jackets, and began to borrow razors; while Edwin, though still small, had a keen, old-man-like look, which made him seem—as he was, indeed, in character—the eldest of the three. Altogether, they were "a fine family," such as any man might rejoice to see growing, or grown up, around him.

But my eyes naturally sought the father as he stood among his boys, taller than any of them, and possessing far more than they that quality for which John Halifax had always been remarkable—dignity. True, Nature had favoured him beyond most men, giving him the stately, handsome presence, befitting middle age, throwing a kind of apostolic grace over the high, half-bald crown, and touching with a softened grey the still curly locks behind. But these were mere accidents; the true dignity lay in himself and his own personal character, independent of any exterior.

It was pleasant to watch him, and note how advancing years had given rather than taken away from his outward mien. As ever, he was distinguishable from other men, even to his dress—which had something of the Quaker about it still, in its sober colour, its rarely-changed fashion, and its exceeding neatness. Mrs. Halifax used now and then to laugh at him for being so particular over his daintiest of cambric and finest of lawn—but secretly she took the greatest pride in his appearance.

"John looks well to-night," she said, coming in and sitting down by me, her eyes following mine. One would not have guessed from her quiet gaze that she knew—what John had told me she knew, this morning. But these two in their perfect union had a wonderful strength—a wonderful fearlessness. And she had learned from him—what perhaps originally was foreign to her impressible and somewhat anxious mind—that steadfast faith, which, while ready to meet every ill when the time comes, until the time waits cheerfully, and will not disquiet itself in vain.

Thus, for all their cares, her face as well as his, was calm and bright. Bright, even with the prettiest girlish blush, when John came up to his wife and admired her—as indeed was not surprising.

She laughed at him, and declared she always intended to grow lovely in her old age. "I thought I ought to dress myself grandly, too, on Guy's birthday. Do you like me, John?"

"Very much: I like that black velvet gown, substantial, soft, and rich, without any show. And that lace frill round your throat—what sort of lace is it?"

"Valenciennes. When I was a girl, if I had a weakness it was for black velvet and Valenciennes."

John smiled, with visible pleasure that she had even a "weakness" gratified now. "And you have put on my brooch at last, I see."

"Yes; but—" and she shook her head—"remember your promise!"

"Phineas, this wife of mine is a vain woman. She knows her own price is 'far above rubies'—or diamonds either. No, Mrs. Halifax, be not afraid; I shall give you no more jewels."

She did not need them. She stood amidst her three sons with the smile of a Cornelia. She felt her husband's eyes rest on her, with that quiet perfectness of love—better than any lover's love—

"The fulness of a stream that knew no fall"— the love of a husband who has been married nearly twenty-five years.

Here a troop of company arrived, and John left me to assume his duty as host.

No easy duty, as I soon perceived; for times were hard, and men's minds troubled. Every one, except the light-heeled, light-hearted youngsters, looked grave.

Many yet alive remember this year—1825—the panic year. War having ceased, commerce, in its worst form, started into sudden and unhealthy overgrowth. Speculations of all kinds sprung up like fungi, out of dead wood, flourished a little, and dropped away. Then came ruin, not of hundreds, but thousands, of all ranks and classes. This year, and this month in this year, the breaking of many established firms, especially bankers, told that the universal crash had just begun.

It was felt even in our retired country neighbourhood, and among our friendly guests this night, both gentle and simple—and there was a mixture of both, as only a man in Mr. Halifax's position could mix such heterogeneous elements—towns-people and country-people, dissenters and church-folk, professional men and men of business. John dared to do it—and did it. But though through his own personal influence many of different ranks whom he liked and respected, meeting in his own house, learned to like and respect one another, still, even to-night, he could not remove the cloud which seemed to hang over all—a cloud so heavy that none present liked referring to it. They hit upon all sorts of extraneous subjects, keeping far aloof from the one which evidently pressed upon all minds—the universal distress abroad, the fear that was knocking at almost every man's door but ours.