Of course the talk fell on our neighbours—country talk always does. I sat still, listening to Sir Herbert Oldtower, who was wondering that Lord Luxmore suffered the Hall to drop into disgraceful decay, and had begun cutting down the pine-woods round it.

"Woods, older than his title by many a century—downright sacrilege! And the property being entailed, too—actual robbery of the heir! But I understand anybody may do anything with Lord Ravenel—a mere selfish, cynical, idle voluptuary!"

"Indeed you are mistaken, Sir Herbert!" cried Mr. Jessop of Norton Bury—a very honest fellow was Josiah Jessop. "He banks with me—that is, there are some poor Catholics in this neighbourhood whom I pay—but bless me! he told me not to tell. No, indeed. Cynical he may be; idle, perhaps—most men of fashion are—but Lord Ravenel is not the least like his father—is he, Mr. Halifax?"

"I have not seen Lord Ravenel for many years."

And as if, even to this day, the mention of the young man's name brought back thoughts of the last day we had seen him—a day which, its sadness having gone by, still kept its unspoken sacredness, distinct from all other days—John moved away and went and talked to a girl whom both he and the mother liked above most young girls we knew—simple, sunny-faced Grace Oldtower.

Dancing began. Spite of my Quaker education, or perhaps for that very reason, I delighted to see dancing. Dancing, such as it was then, when young folk moved breezily and lightly, as if they loved it; skimming like swallows down the long lines of the Triumph—gracefully winding in and out through the graceful country dance—lively always, but always decorous. In those days people did not think it necessary to the pleasures of dancing that any stranger should have liberty to snatch a shy, innocent girl round the waist, and whirl her about in mad waltz or awkward polka, till she stops, giddy and breathless, with burning cheek and tossed hair, looking,—as I would not have liked to see our pretty Maud look.

No; though while watching the little lady to-night, I was inclined to say to her:

"When you do dance, I wish you A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do Nothing but that."

And in her unwearied spirits she seemed as if she would readily have responded to the wish.

We did not see Guy among the dancers, who were now forming in a somewhat confused square, in order to execute a new dance called quadrilles, of which Miss Grace Oldtower was to be the instructress.

"Where is Guy?" said the mother, who would have missed him among a room full of people. "Have you seen Guy anywhere, Miss Silver?"

Miss Silver, who sat playing tunes—she had declined dancing—turned, colouring visibly.

"Yes, I have seen him; he is in the study."

"Would you be so kind as to fetch him?"

The governess rose and crossed the room, with a stately walk—statelier than usual. Her silk gown, of some rich soft colour, fashioned after Mrs. Halifax's taste, and the chaplet of bay-leaves, which Maud had insisted upon putting in her dark hair, made an astonishing change in Miss Silver. I could not help noticing it to Mrs. Halifax.

"Yes, indeed, she looks well. John says her features are fine; but for my part, I don't care for your statuesque faces; I like colour—expression. See that bright little Grace Oldtower!—a thoroughly English rose;—I like HER. Poor Miss Silver! I wish—"

What, out of compunction for a certain sharpness with which she had spoken, Mrs. Halifax was about to wish, remained undeclared. For, just this minute, Guy entered, and leaning his handsome head and his tender petits soins over the "English rose," as his mother called her, led her out to the dancing.

We sat down and looked on.

"Guy dances lazily; he is rather pale too, I fancy."

"Tired, probably. He was out far too long on the ice to-day, with Maud and Miss Silver. What a pretty creature his partner is!" added Ursula, thoughtfully.

"The children are growing up fast," I said.

"Ay, indeed. To think that Guy is actually twenty-one—the age when his father was married!"

"Guy will be reminding you of that fact some day soon."

Mrs. Halifax smiled. "The sooner the better, if only he makes a worthy choice—if only he brings me a daughter whom I can love."

And I fancied there was love—motherly love—in the eyes that followed through the graceful mazes of her dancing, the bonny English rose.

Guy and his partner sat down beside us. His mother noticed that he had turned very pale again, and the lad owned to be in some pain: he had twisted his foot that morning, in helping Maud and Miss Silver across the ice; but it was a mere trifle—not worth mentioning.

It passed over, with one or two anxious inquiries on the mother's part, and a soft, dewy shadow over the down-dropped cheek of the little rose, who evidently did not like to think of any harm coming to her old play-fellow. Then Sir Herbert appeared to lead Mrs. Halifax in to supper, Guy limped along with pretty Grace on his arm, and all the guests, just enough to fill our longest table in John's study, came thronging round in a buzz of mirthfulness.

Either the warm, hospitable atmosphere, or the sight of the merry youngsters, or the general influence of social pleasantness, had for the time being dispelled the cloud. But certainly it was dispelled. The master of the feast looked down two long lines of happy faces—his own as bright as theirs—down to where, at the foot of the table, the mother and mistress sat. She had been slightly nervous at times during the evening, but now she appeared thoroughly at ease and glad—glad to see her husband take his place at the head of his own hospitable board, in the midst of his own friends and his own people honoured and beloved. It seemed a good omen—an omen that the bitter things outside would pass away.

How bitter they had been, and how sore the wife's heart still felt, I could see from the jealous way in which, smiling and cheerful as her demeanour was, she caught every look, every word of those around her which might chance to bear reference to her husband; in her quick avoidance of every topic connected with these disastrous times, and, above all, in her hurried grasp of a newspaper that some careless servant brought in fresh from the night-mail, wet with sleet and snow.

"Do you get your country paper regularly?" asked some one at table. And then some others appeared to recollect the Norton Bury Mercury, and its virulent attacks on their host—for there ensued an awkward pause, during which I saw Ursula's face beginning to burn. But she conquered her wrath.

"There is often much interest in our provincial papers, Sir Herbert. My husband makes a point of taking them all in—bad and good—of every shade of politics. He believes it is only by hearing all sides that you can truly judge of the state of the country."

"Just as a physician must hear all symptoms before he decides on the patient's case. At least, so our good old friend Doctor Jessop used to say."

"Eh?" said Mr. Jessop the banker, catching his own name, and waking up from a brown study, in which he had seemed to see nothing—except, perhaps, the newspaper, which, in its printed cover, lay between himself and Mrs. Halifax. "Eh? did any one—Oh, I beg pardon—beg pardon—Sir Herbert," hastily added the old man; who was a very meek and worthy soul, and had been perhaps more subdued than usual this evening.

"I was referring," said Sir Herbert, with his usual ponderous civility, "to your excellent brother, who was so much respected among us,—for which respect, allow me to say, he did not leave us without an inheritor."

The old banker answered the formal bow with a kind of nervous hurry; and then Sir Herbert, with a loud premise of his right as the oldest friend of our family, tried to obtain silence for the customary speech, prefatory to the customary toast of "Health and prosperity to the heir of Beechwood."

There was great applause and filling of glasses; great smiling and whispering; everybody glancing at poor Guy, who turned red and white, and evidently wished himself a hundred miles off. In the confusion I felt my sleeve touched, and saw leaning towards me, hidden by Maud's laughing happy face, the old banker. He held in his hand the newspaper which seemed to have so fascinated him.

"It's the London Gazette. Mr. Halifax gets it three hours before any of us. I may open it? It is important to me. Mrs. Halifax would excuse, eh?"

Of course she would. Especially if she had seen the old man's look, as his trembling fingers vainly tried to unfold the sheet without a single rustle's betraying his surreptitious curiosity.

Sir Herbert rose, cleared his throat, and began:

"Ladies and gentlemen, I speak as a father myself, and as son of a father whom—whom I will not refer to here, except to say that his good heart would have rejoiced to see this day. The high esteem in which Sir Ralph always held Mr. Halifax, has descended, and will descend—"

Here some one called out:

"Mr. Jessop! Look at Mr. Jessop!"

The old man had suddenly sank back, with a sort of choking groan. His eyes were staring blankly, his cheek was the colour of ashes. But when he saw every one looking at him he tried desperately to recover himself.

"'Tis nothing. Nothing of the slightest moment. Eh?" clutching tightly at the paper which Mrs. Halifax was kindly removing out of his hand. "There's no news in it—none, I assure you."

But from his agitation—from the pitiful effort he made to disguise it—it was plain enough that there was news. Plain also, as in these dangerous and critical times men were only too quick to divine, in what that news consisted. Tidings, which now made every newspaper a sight of fear,—especially this—the London Gazette.

Edwin caught and read the fatal page—the fatal column—known only too well.

"W——'s have stopped payment."

W——'s was a great London house, the favourite banking-house in our country, with which many provincial banks, and Jessop's especially, were widely connected, and would be no one knew how widely involved.

"W——'s stopped payment!"

A murmur—a hush of momentary suspense, as the Gazette was passed hurriedly from hand to hand; and then our guests, one and all, sat looking at one another in breathless fear, suspicion, or assured dismay. For, as every one was aware (we knew our neighbours' affairs so well about innocent Enderley), there was not a single household of that merry little company upon whom, near or remote, the blow would not fall—except ours.

No polite disguise could gloss over the general consternation. Few thought of Jessop—only of themselves. Many a father turned pale; many a mother melted into smothered tears. More than one honest countenance that five minutes before had beamed like the rising sun, all friendliness and jocularity, I saw shrink into a wizened, worldly face with greedy selfishness peering out of the corners of its eyes, eager to conceal its own alarms and dive as far as possible into the terrors of its neighbours.

"There will be a run on Jessop's bank to-morrow," I heard one person saying; glancing to where the poor old banker still sat, with a vacant, stupefied smile, assuring all around him that "nothing had happened; really, nothing."

"A run? I suppose so. Then it will be 'Sauve qui peut,' and the devil take the hindmost."

"What say you to all this, Mr. Halifax?"

John still kept his place. He sat perfectly quiet, and had never spoken a syllable.

When Sir Herbert, who was the first to recover from the shock of these ill-tidings, called him by his name, Mr. Halifax looked quickly up. It was to see, instead of those two lines of happy faces, faces already gathering in troubled groups, faces angry, sullen, or miserable, all of which, with a vague distrust, seemed instinctively turned upon him.

"Mr. Halifax," said the baronet, and one could see how, in spite of his steadfast politeness, he too was not without his anxieties—"this is an unpleasant breaking-in upon your kindly hospitalities. I suppose, through this unpropitious event, each of us must make up our minds to some loss. Let me hope yours will be trifling."

John made no answer.

"Or, perhaps—though I can hardly hope anything so fortunate—perhaps this failure will not affect you at all?"

He waited—as did many others, for Mr. Halifax's reply; which was long in coming. However, since all seemed to expect it, it did come at last; but grave and sad as if it were the announcement of some great misfortune.

"No, Sir Herbert; it will not affect me at all."

Sir Herbert, and not he alone—looked surprised—uneasily surprised. Some mutters there were of "congratulation." Then arose a troubled murmur of talking, in which the master of the house was forgotten; until the baronet said, "My friends, I think we are forgetting our courtesy. Allow me to give you without more delay—the toast I was about to propose,—'Health, long life, and happiness to Mr. Guy Halifax.'"

And so poor Guy's birthday toast was drunk; almost in silence; and the few words he said in acknowledgment were just listened to, scarcely heard. Every one rose from table, and the festivities were over.

One by one all our guests began to make excuse. One by one, involuntarily perhaps, yet not the less painfully and plainly, they all shrunk away from us, as if in the universal trouble we, who had nothing to fear, had no part nor lot. Formal congratulations, given with pale lips and wandering eyes; brusque adieux, as some of the more honest or less courteous showed but too obviously how cruelly, even resentfully, they felt the inequalities of fortune; hasty departures, full of a dismay that rejected angrily every shadow of consolation;—all these things John had to meet and to bear.

He met them with composure; scarcely speaking a word, as indeed what was there to say? To all the friendly speeches, real or pretended, he listened with a kind of sad gravity: of all harsher words than these—and there were not a few—he took not the least notice, but held his place as master of the house; generously deaf and blind to everything that it were as well the master of the house should neither hear nor see.

At last he was left, a very Pariah of prosperity, by his own hearth, quite alone.

The last carriage had rolled away; the tired household had gone to bed; there was no one in the study but me. John came in and stood leaning with both his arms against the fireplace, motionless and silent. He leant there so long, that at last I touched him.

"Well, Phineas!"

I saw this night's events had wounded him to the core.

"Are you thinking of these honest, friendly, disinterested guests of ours? Don't! They are not worth a single thought."

"Not an angry thought, certainly." And he smiled at my wrath—a sad smile.

"Ah, Phineas! now I begin to understand what is meant by the curse of prosperity."



CHAPTER XXXI

A great, eager, but doggedly-quiet crowd, of which each had his or her—for it was half women—individual terror to hide, his or her individual interest to fight for, and cared not a straw for that of any one else.

It was market-day, and this crowd was collected and collecting every minute, before the bank at Norton Bury. It included all classes, from the stout farmer's wife or market-woman, to the pale, frightened lady of "limited income," who had never been in such a throng before; from the aproned mechanic to the gentleman who sat in his carriage at the street corner, confident that whatever poor chance there was, his would be the best.

Everybody was, as I have said, extremely quiet. You heard none of the jokes that always rise in and circulate through a crowd; none of the loud outcries of a mob. All were intent on themselves and their own business; on that fast-bolted red-baize door, and on the green blind of the windows, which informed them that it was "open from ten till four."

The Abbey clock struck three quarters. Then there was a slight stirring, a rustling here and there of paper, as some one drew out and examined his bank notes; openly, with small fear of theft—they were not worth stealing.

John and I, a little way off, stood looking on, where we had once watched a far different crowd; for Mr. Jessop owned the doctor's former house, and in sight of the green bank blinds were my dear old father's known windows.

Guy's birthday had fallen on a Saturday. This was Monday morning. We had driven over to Norton Bury, John and I, at an unusually early hour. He did not exactly tell me why, but it was not difficult to guess. Not difficult to perceive how strongly he was interested, even affected—as any man, knowing all the circumstances, could not but be affected—by the sight of that crowd, all the sadder for its being such a patient, decent, respectable crowd, out of which so large a proportion was women.

I noticed this latter fact to John.

"Yes, I was sure it would be so. Jessop's bank has such a number of small depositors and issues so many small notes. He cannot cash above half of them without some notice. If there comes a run, he may have to stop payment this very day; and then, how wide the misery would spread among the poor, God knows."

His eye wandered pitifully over the heaving mass of anxious faces blue with cold, and growing more and more despondent as every minute they turned with a common impulse from the closed bank door to the Abbey clock, glittering far up in the sunshiny atmosphere of morning.

Its finger touched the one heel of the great striding X—glided on to the other—the ten strokes fell leisurely and regularly upon the clear frosty air; then the chimes—Norton Bury was proud of its Abbey chimes—burst out in the tune of "Life let us Cherish."

The bells went through all the tune, to the very last note—then ensued silence. The crowd were silent too—almost breathless with intent listening—but, alas! not to the merry Abbey chimes.

The bank door remained closed—not a rattle at the bolts, not a clerk's face peering out above the blind. The house was as shut-up and desolate as if it were entirely empty.

Five whole minutes—by the Abbey clock—did that poor, patient crowd wait on the pavement. Then a murmur arose. One or two men hammered at the door; some frightened women, jostled in the press, begun to scream.

John could bear it no longer. "Come along with me," he said, hurriedly. "I must see Jessop—we can get in at the garden door."

This was a little gate round the corner of the street, well known to us both in those brief "courting days," when we came to tea of evenings, and found Mrs. Jessop and Ursula March in the garden watering the plants and tying up the roses. Nay, we passed out of it into the same summer parlour, where—I cannot tell if John ever knew of the incident, at all events he never mentioned it to me—there had been transacted a certain momentous event in Ursula's life and mine. Entering by the French window, there rose up to my mental vision, in vivid contrast to all present scenes, the picture of a young girl I had once seen sitting there, with head drooped, knitting. Could that day be twenty-five years ago?

No summer parlour now—its atmosphere was totally changed. It was a dull, dusty room, of which the only lively object was a large fire, the under half of which had burnt itself away unstirred into black dingy caverns. Before it, with breakfast untasted, sat Josiah Jessop—his feet on the fender, his elbows on his knees, the picture of despair.

"Mr. Jessop, my good friend!"

"No, I haven't a friend in the world, or shall not have an hour hence. Oh! it's you, Mr. Halifax?—You have not an account to close? You don't hold any notes of mine, do you?"

John put his hand on the old man's shoulder, and repeated that he only came as a friend.

"Not the first 'friend' I have received this morning. I knew I should be early honoured with visitors;" and the banker attempted a dreary smile. "Sir Herbert and half-a-dozen more are waiting for me up-stairs. The biggest fish must have the first bite—eh, you know?"

"I know," said John, gloomily.

"Hark! those people outside will hammer my door down!—Speak to them, Mr. Halifax—tell them I'm an old man—that I was always an honest man—always. If only they would give me time—hark—just hark! Heaven help me! do they want to tear me in pieces?"

John went out for a few moments, then came back and sat down beside Mr. Jessop.

"Compose yourself,"—the old man was shaking like an aspen leaf. "Tell me, if you have no objection to give me this confidence, exactly how your affairs stand."

With a gasp of helpless thankfulness, looking up in John's face, while his own quivered like a frightened child's—the banker obeyed. It seemed that great as was his loss by W——'s failure, it was not absolute ruin to him. In effect, he was at this moment perfectly solvent, and by calling in mortgages, etc., could meet both the accounts of the gentry who banked with him, together with all his own notes now afloat in the country, principally among the humbler ranks, petty tradespeople, and such like, if only both classes of customers would give him time to pay them.

"But they will not. There will be a run upon the bank and then all's over with me. It's a hard case—solvent as I am—ready and able to pay every farthing—if only I had a week's time. As it is I must stop payment to-day. Hark! they are at the door again! Mr. Halifax, for God's sake quiet them!"

"I will; only tell me first what sum, added to the cash you have available, would keep the bank open—just for a day or two."

At once guided and calmed, the old man's business faculties seemed to return. He began to calculate, and soon stated the sum he needed; I think it was three or four thousand pounds.

"Very well; I have thought of a plan. But first—those poor fellows outside. Thank Heaven, I am a rich man, and everybody knows it. Phineas, that inkstand, please."

He sat down and wrote: curiously the attitude and manner reminded me of his sitting down and writing at my father's table, after the bread riot—years and years ago. Soon a notice, signed by Josiah Jessop, and afterwards by himself, to the effect that the bank would open, "without fail," at one o'clock this day,—was given by John to the astonished clerk, to be posted in the window.

A responsive cheer outside showed how readily those outside had caught at even this gleam of hope. Also—how implicitly they trusted in the mere name of a gentleman who all over the country was known for "his word being as good as his bond,"—John Halifax.

The banker breathed freer; but his respite was short: an imperative message came from the gentlemen above-stairs, desiring his presence. With a kind of blind dependence he looked towards John.

"Let me go in your stead. You can trust me to manage matters to the best of my power?"

The banker overwhelmed him with gratitude.

"Nay, that ought to be my word, standing in this house, and remembering"—His eyes turned to the two portraits—grimly-coloured daubs, yet with a certain apology of likeness too, which broadly smiled at one another from opposite walls—the only memorials now remaining of the good doctor and his cheery little old wife. "Come, Mr. Jessop, leave the matter with me; believe me, it is not only a pleasure, but a duty."

The old man melted into senile tears.

I do not know how John managed the provincial magnates, who were sitting in council considering how best to save, first themselves, then the bank, lastly—If the poor public outside had been made acquainted with that ominous "lastly!" Or if to the respectable conclave above-stairs, who would have recoiled indignantly at the vulgar word "jobbing," had been hinted a phrase—which ran oddly in and out of the nooks of my brain, keeping time to the murmur in the street, "Vox populi, vox Dei"—truly, I should have got little credit for my Latinity.

John came out in about half an hour, with a cheerful countenance; told me he was going over to Coltham for an hour or two—would I wait his return?

"And all is settled?" I asked.

"Will be soon, I trust. I can't stay to tell you more now. Goodbye."

I was no man of business, and could assist in nothing. So I thought the best I could do was to pass the time in wandering up and down the familiar garden, idly watching the hoar-frost on the arbutus leaves, and on the dry stems of what had been dear little Mrs. Jessop's favourite roses—the same roses I had seen her among on that momentous evening—the evening when Ursula's bent neck flushed more crimson than the sunset itself, as I told her John Halifax was "too noble to die for any woman's love."

No—he had lived for it—earned it—won it. And musing over these long-ago times, my heart melted—foolish old heart that it was! with a trembling joy, to think that Providence had, in some way, used my poor useless hand to give to him this blessing, a man's chiefest blessing of a virtuous and loving wife—which had crowned his life for all these wonderful years.

As it neared one o'clock, I could see my ancient friend the Abbey clock with not a wrinkle in his old face, staring at me through the bare Abbey trees. I began to feel rather anxious. I went into the deserted office; and thence, none forbidding, ensconced myself behind the sheltering bank blinds.

The crowd had scarcely moved; a very honest, patient, weary crowd dense in the centre, thinning towards the edges. On its extremest verge, waiting in a curricle, was a gentleman, who seemed observing it with a lazy curiosity. I, having like himself apparently nothing better to do, observed this gentleman.

He was dressed in the height of the mode, combined with a novel and eccentric fashion, which had been lately set by that extraordinary young nobleman whom everybody talked about—my Lord Byron. His neckcloth was loose, his throat bare, and his hair fell long and untidy. His face, that of a man about thirty—I fancied I had seen it before, but could not recall where,—was delicate, thin, with an expression at once cynical and melancholy. He sat in his carriage, wrapped in furs, or looked carelessly out on the scene before him, as if he had no interest therein—as if there was nothing in life worth living for.

"Poor fellow!" said I to myself, recalling the bright, busy, laughing faces of our growing up lads, recalling especially their father's—full of all that active energy and wise cheerfulness which gives zest to existence; God forbid any man should die till he has lived to learn it!—"poor fellow! I wish his moodiness could take a lesson from us at home!"

But the gentleman soon retired from my observation under his furs; for the sky had gloomed over, and snow began to fall. Those on the pavement shook it drearily off, and kept turning every minute to the Abbey clock—I feared it would take the patience of Job to enable them to hold out another quarter of an hour.

At length some determined hand again battered at the door. I fancied I heard a clerk speaking out of the first-floor window.

"Gentlemen"—how tremblingly polite the voice was!—"Gentlemen, in five minutes—positively five minutes—the bank will—"

The rest of the speech was drowned and lost. Dashing round the street corner, the horses all in a foam, came our Beechwood carriage. Mr. Halifax leaped out.

Well might the crowd divide for him—well might they cheer him. For he carried a canvas bag—a great, ugly, grimy-coloured bag—a precious, precious bag, with the consolation—perhaps the life—of hundreds in it!

I knew, almost by intuition, what he had done—what, in one or two instances, was afterwards done by other rich and generous Englishmen, during the crisis of this year.

The bank door flew open like magic. The crowd came pushing in; but when John called out to them, "Good people, pray let me pass!" they yielded and suffered him to go in first. He went right up to the desk, behind which, flanked by a tolerable array of similar canvas bags, full of gold—but nevertheless waiting in mortal fear, and as white as his own neck-cloth—the old banker stood.

"Mr. Jessop," John said, in a loud, distinct voice, that all might hear him, "I have the pleasure to open an account with you. I feel satisfied that in these dangerous times no credit is more safe than yours. Allow me to pay in to-day the sum of five thousand pounds."

"Five thousand pounds!"

The rumour of it was repeated from mouth to mouth. In a small provincial bank, such a sum seemed unlimited. It gave universal confidence. Many who had been scrambling, swearing, almost fighting, to reach the counter and receive gold for their notes, put them again into their pockets, uncashed. Others, chiefly women, got them cashed with a trembling hand—nay, with tears of joy. A few who had come to close accounts, changed their minds, and even paid money in. All were satisfied—the run upon the bank ceased.

Mr. Halifax stood aside, looking on. After the first murmur of surprise and pleasure no one seemed to take any notice of him, or of what he had done. Only one old widow woman, as she slipped three bright guineas under the lid of her market-basket, dropped him a curtsey in passing by.

"It's your doing, Mr. Halifax. The Lord reward you, sir."

"Thank you," he said, and shook her by the hand. I thought to myself, watching the many that came and went, unmindful, "ONLY THIS SAMARITAN!"

No—one person more, standing by, addressed him by name. "This is indeed your doing, and an act of benevolence which I believe no man alive would have done, except Mr. Halifax."

And the gentleman who spoke—the same I had seen outside in his curricle—held out a friendly hand.

"I see you do not remember me. My name is Ravenel."

"Lord Ravenel!"

John uttered this exclamation—and no more. I saw that this sudden meeting had brought back, with a cruel tide of memory, the last time they met—by the small nursery bed, in that upper chamber at Enderley.

However, this feeling shortly passed away, as must needs be; and we all three began to converse together.

While he talked, something of the old "Anselmo" came back into Lord Ravenel's face: especially when John asked him if he would drive over with us to Enderley.

"Enderley—how strange the word sounds!—yet I should like to see the place again. Poor old Enderley!"

Irresolutely—all his gestures seemed dreamy and irresolute—he drew his hand across his eyes—the same white long-fingered, womanish hand which had used to guide Muriel's over the organ keys.

"Yes—I think I will go back with you to Enderley. But first I must speak to Mr. Jessop here."

It was about some poor Catholic families, who, as we had before learnt, had long been his pensioners.

"You are a Catholic still then?" I asked. "We heard the contrary."

"Did you?—Oh, of course. One hears such wonderful facts about oneself. Probably you heard also that I have been to the Holy Land, and turned Jew—called at Constantinople, and come back a Mohammedan."

"But are you of your old faith?" John said. "Still a sincere Catholic?"

"If you take Catholic in its original sense, certainly. I am a Universalist. I believe everything—and nothing. Let us change the subject." The contemptuous scepticism of his manner altered, as he inquired after Mrs. Halifax and the children. "No longer children now, I suppose?"

"Scarcely. Guy and Walter are as tall as yourself; and my daughter—"

"Your daughter?"—with a start—"oh yes, I recollect. Baby Maud. Is she at all like—like—"

"No."

Neither said more than this; but it seemed as if their hearts warmed to one another, knitted by the same tender remembrance.

We drove home. Lord Ravenel muffled himself up in his furs, complaining bitterly of the snow and sleet.

"Yes, the winter is setting in sharply," John replied, as he reined in his horses at the turnpike gate. "This will be a hard Christmas for many."

"Ay, indeed, sir," said the gate-keeper, touching his hat.

"And if I might make so bold—it's a dark night and the road's lonely—" he added, in a mysterious whisper.

"Thank you, my friend. I am aware of all that." But as John drove on, he remained for some time very silent.

On, across the bleak country, with the snow pelting in our faces—along roads so deserted, that our carriage-wheels made the only sound audible, and that might have been heard distinctly for miles.

All of a sudden, the horses were pulled up. Three or four ill-looking figures had started out of a ditch-bank, and caught hold of the reins.

"Holloa there!—What do you want?"

"Money."

"Let go my horses! They're spirited beasts. You'll get trampled on."

"Who cares?"

This brief colloquy passed in less than a minute. It showed at once our position—miles away from any house—on this desolate moor; showed plainly our danger—John's danger.

He himself did not seem to recognize it. He stood upright on the box seat, the whip in his hand.

"Get away, you fellows, or I must drive over you!"

"Thee'd better!" With a yell, one of the men leaped up and clung to the neck of the plunging mare—then was dashed to the ground between her feet. The poor wretch uttered one groan and no more. John sprang out of his carriage, caught the mare's head, and backed her.

"Hold off!—the poor fellow is killed, or may be in a minute. Hold off, I say."

If ever these men, planning perhaps their first ill deed, were struck dumb with astonishment, it was to see the gentleman they were intending to rob take up their comrade in his arms, drag him towards the carriage-lamps, rub snow on his face, and chafe his heavy hands. But all in vain. The blood trickled down from a wound in the temples—the head, with its open mouth dropping, fell back upon John's knee.

"He is quite dead."

The others gathered round in silence, watching Mr. Halifax, as he still knelt, with the dead man's head leaning against him, mournfully regarding it.

"I think I know him. Where does his wife live?"

Some one pointed across the moor, to a light, faint as a glow-worm. "Take that rug out of my carriage—wrap him in it." The order was at once obeyed. "Now carry him home. I will follow presently."

"Surely not," expostulated Lord Ravenel, who had got out of the carriage and stood, shivering and much shocked, beside Mr. Halifax. "You would not surely put yourself in the power of these scoundrels? What brutes they are—the lower orders!"

"Not altogether—when you know them. Phineas, will you drive Lord Ravenel on to Beechwood?"

"Excuse me—certainly not," said Lord Ravenel, with dignity. "We will stay to see the result of the affair. What a singular man Mr. Halifax is, and always was," he added, thoughtfully, as he muffled himself up again in his furs, and relapsed into silence.

Soon, following the track of those black figures across the snow, we came to a cluster of peat huts, alongside of the moorland road. John took one of the carriage-lamps in his hand, and went in, without saying a word. To my surprise Lord Ravenel presently dismounted and followed him. I was left with the reins in my hand, and two or three of those ill-visaged men hovered about the carriage; but no one attempted to do me any harm. Nay, when John reappeared, after a lapse of some minutes, one of them civilly picked up the whip and put it into his hand.

"Thank you. Now, my men, tell me what did you want with me just now?"

"Money," cried one. "Work," shouted another.

"And a likely way you went about to get it! Stopping me in the dark, on a lonely road, just like common robbers. I did not think any Enderley men would have done a thing so cowardly."

"We bean't cowards," was the surly answer. "Thee carries pistols, Mr. Halifax."

"You forced me to do it. My life is as precious to my wife and children, as—as that poor fellow's to his." John stopped. "God help us, my men! it's a hard world for us all sometimes. Why did you not know me better? Why not come to my house and ask honestly for a dinner and a half-crown?—you should have had both, any day."

"Thank'ee sir," was the general cry. "And, sir," begged one old man, "you'll hush up the 'crowner's 'quest—you and this gentleman here. You won't put us in jail, for taking to the road, Mr. Halifax?"

"No;—unless you attack me again. But I am not afraid—I'll trust you. Look here!" He took the pistol out of his breast-pocket, cocked it, and fired its two barrels harmlessly into the air. "Now, good-night; and if ever I carry fire-arms again, it will be your fault, not mine."

So saying, he held the carriage-door open for Lord Ravenel, who took his place with a subdued and thoughtful air: then mounting the box-seat, John drove, in somewhat melancholy silence, across the snowy, starlit moors to Beechwood.



CHAPTER XXXII

In the home-light.

It was a scene—glowing almost as those evening pictures at Longfield. Those pictures, photographed on memory by the summer sun of our lives, and which no paler after-sun could have power to reproduce. Nothing earthly is ever reproduced in the same form. I suppose Heaven meant it to be so; that in the perpetual progression of our existence we should be reconciled to loss, and taught that change itself is but another form for aspiration. Aspiration which never can rest, or ought to rest, in anything short of the One absolute Perfection—the One all-satisfying Good "IN WHOM IS NO VARIABLENESS, NEITHER SHADOW OF TURNING."

I say this, to excuse myself for thoughts, which at times made me grave—even in the happy home-light of John's study; where, for several weeks after the last incident I have recorded, the family were in the habit of gathering every evening. For poor Guy was a captive. The "mere trifle" had turned out to be a sprained foot, which happening to a tall and strong young man became serious. He bore his imprisonment restlessly enough at first, but afterwards grew more reconciled—took to reading, drawing, and society—and even began to interest himself in the pursuits of his sister Maud, who every morning had her lessons in the study.

Miss Silver first proposed this. She had evinced more feeling than was usual to her, since Guy's accident; showed him many little feminine kindnesses—out of compunction, it seemed; and altogether was much improved. Of evenings, as now, she always made one of the "young people," who were generally grouped together round Guy's sofa—Edwin, Walter, and little Maud. The father and mother sat opposite—as usual, side by side, he with his newspaper, she with her work. Or sometimes, falling into pleasant idleness, they would slip hand in hand, and sit talking to one another in an under-tone, or silently and smilingly watch the humours of their children.

For me, I generally took to my nook in the chimney-corner—it was a very ancient fire-place, with settles on each side, and dogs instead of a grate, upon which many a faggot hissed and crackled its merry brief life away. Nothing could be more cheery and comfortable than this old-fashioned, low-roofed room, three sides of which were peopled with books—all the books which John had gathered up during the course of his life. Perhaps it was their long-familiar, friendly faces which made this his favourite room, his own especial domain. But he did not keep it tabooed from his family; he liked to have them about him, even in his studious hours.

So, of evenings, we all sat together as now, each busy, and none interrupting the rest. At intervals, flashes of talk or laughter broke out, chiefly from Guy, Walter, or Maud, when Edwin would look up from his everlasting book, and even the grave governess relax into a smile. Since she had learnt to smile, it became more and more apparent how very handsome Miss Silver was. "Handsome" is, I think, the fittest word for her; that correctness of form and colour which attracts the eye chiefly, and perhaps the eye of men rather than of women;—at least, Mrs. Halifax could never be brought to see it. But then her peculiar taste was for slender, small brunettes, like Grace Oldtower; whereas Miss Silver was large and fair.

Fair, in every sense, most decidedly. And now that she evidently began to pay a little more attention to her dress and her looks, we found out that she was also young.

"Only twenty-one to-day, Guy says," I remarked one day to Ursula.

"How did Guy know it?"

"I believe he discovered the wonderful secret from Maud."

"Maud and her brother Guy have grown wonderful friends since his illness. Do you not think so?"

"Yes, I found the two of them—and even Miss Silver—as merry as possible, when I came into the study this morning."

"Did you?" said the mother, with an involuntary glance at the group opposite.

There was nothing particular to observe. They all sat in most harmless quietude, Edwin reading, Maud at his feet, playing with the cat, Miss Silver busy at a piece of that delicate muslin-work with which young women then used to ornament their gowns. Guy had been drawing a pattern from it, and now leant back upon his sofa, shading off the fire with his hand, and from behind it gazing, as I had often seen him gaze lately, with a curious intentness—at the young governess.

"Guy," said his mother (and Guy started), "what were you thinking about?"

"Oh, nothing; that is—" here, by some accident, Miss Silver quitted the room. "Mother, come over here, I want your opinion. There, sit down—though it's nothing of the least importance."

Nevertheless, it was with some hesitation that he brought out the mighty question, namely, that it was Miss Silver's birthday to-day; that he thought we ought to remember it, and give her some trifle as a present.

"And I was considering this large Flora I ordered from London,—she would like it extremely: she is so fond of botany."

"What do you know about botany?" said Edwin, sharply and rather irrelevantly as it seemed, till I remembered how he plumed himself upon his knowledge of this science, and how he had persisted in taking Maud, and her governess also, long wintry walks across the country, "in order to study the cryptogamia."

Guy vouchsafed no answer to his brother; he was too much absorbed in turning over the pages of the beautiful Flora on his knee.

"What do you say, all of you? Father, don't you think she would like it? Then, suppose you give it to her?"

At this inopportune moment Miss Silver returned.

She might have been aware that she was under discussion—at least so much of discussion as was implied by Guy's eager words and his mother's silence, for she looked around her uneasily, and was about to retire.

"Do not go," Guy exclaimed, anxiously.

"Pray do not," his mother added; "we were just talking about you, Miss Silver. My son hopes you will accept this book from him, and from us all, with all kind birthday wishes."

And rising, with a little more gravity than was her wont, Mrs. Halifax touched the girl's forehead with her lips, and gave her the present.

Miss Silver coloured, and drew back. "You are very good, but indeed I would much rather not have it."

"Why so? Do you dislike gifts, or this gift in particular?"

"Oh, no; certainly not."

"Then," said John, as he too came forward and shook hands with her with an air of hearty kindness, "pray take the book. Do let us show how much we respect you; how entirely we regard you as one of the family."

Guy turned a look of grateful pleasure to his father; but Miss Silver, colouring more than ever, still held back.

"No, I cannot; indeed I cannot."

"Why can you not?"

"For several reasons."

"Give me only one of them—as much as can be expected from a young lady," said Mr. Halifax, good-humouredly.

"Mr. Guy ordered the Flora for himself. I must not allow him to renounce his pleasure for me."

"It would not be renouncing it if YOU had it," returned the lad, in a low tone, at which once more his younger brother looked up, angrily.

"What folly about nothing! how can one read with such a clatter going on?"

"You old book-worm! you care for nothing and nobody but yourself," Guy answered, laughing. But Edwin, really incensed, rose and settled himself in the far corner of the room.

"Edwin is right," said the father, in a tone which indicated his determination to end the discussion, a tone which even Miss Silver obeyed. "My dear young lady, I hope you will like your book; Guy, write her name in it at once."

Guy willingly obeyed, but was a good while over the task; his mother came and looked over his shoulder.

"Louisa Eugenie—how did you know that, Guy? Louisa Eugenie Sil—is that your name, my dear?"

The question, simple as it was, seemed to throw the governess into much confusion, even agitation. At last, she drew herself up with the old repulsive gesture, which of late had been slowly wearing off.

"No—I will not deceive you any longer. My right name is Louise Eugenie D'Argent."

Mrs. Halifax started. "Are you a Frenchwoman?"

"On my father's side—yes."

"Why did you not tell me so?"

"Because, if you remember, at our first interview, you said no Frenchwoman should educate your daughter. And I was homeless—friendless."

"Better starve than tell a falsehood," cried the mother, indignantly.

"I told no falsehood. You never asked me of my parentage."

"Nay," said John, interfering, "you must not speak in that manner to Mrs. Halifax. Why did you renounce your father's name?"

"Because English people would have scouted my father's daughter. You knew him—everybody knew him—he was D'Argent the Jacobin—D'Argent the Bonnet Rouge."

She threw out these words defiantly, and quitted the room.

"This is a dreadful discovery. Edwin, you have seen most of her—did you ever imagine—"

"I knew it, mother," said Edwin, without lifting his eyes from his book. "After all, French or English, it makes no difference."

"I should think not, indeed!" cried Guy, angrily. "Whatever her father is, if any one dared to think the worse of her—"

"Hush!—till another time," said the father, with a glance at Maud, who, with wide-open eyes, in which the tears were just springing, had been listening to all these revelations about her governess.

But Maud's tears were soon stopped, as well as this painful conversation, by the entrance of our daily, or rather nightly, visitor for these six weeks past, Lord Ravenel. His presence, always welcome, was a great relief now. We never discussed family affairs before people. The boys began to talk to Lord Ravenel: and Maud took her privileged place on a footstool beside him. From the first sight she had been his favourite, he said, because of her resemblance to Muriel. But I think, more than any fancied likeness to that sweet lost face, which he never spoke of without tenderness inexpressible, there was something in Maud's buoyant youth—just between childhood and girlhood, having the charms of one and the immunities of the other—which was especially attractive to this man, who, at three-and-thirty, found life a weariness and a burthen—at least, he said so.

Life was never either weary or burthensome in our house—not even to-night, though our friend found us less lively than usual—though John maintained more than his usual silence, and Mrs. Halifax fell into troubled reveries. Guy and Edwin, both considerably excited, argued and contradicted one another more warmly than even the Beechwood liberty of speech allowed. For Miss Silver, she did not appear again.

Lord Ravenel seemed to take these slight desagremens very calmly. He stayed his customary time, smiling languidly as ever at the boys' controversies, or listening with a half-pleased, half-melancholy laziness to Maud's gay prattle, his eye following her about the room with the privileged tenderness that twenty years' seniority allows a man to feel and show towards a child. At his wonted hour he rode away, sighingly contrasting pleasant Beechwood with dreary and solitary Luxmore.

After his departure we did not again close round the fire. Maud vanished; the younger boys also; Guy settled himself on his sofa, having first taken the pains to limp across the room and fetch the Flora, which Edwin had carefully stowed away in the book-case. Then making himself comfortable, as the pleasure-loving lad liked well enough to do, he lay dreamily gazing at the title-page, where was written her name, and "From Guy Halifax, with—"

"What are you going to add, my son?"

He, glancing up at his mother, made her no answer, and hastily closed the book.

She looked hurt; but, saying nothing more, began moving about the room, putting things in order before retiring. John sat in the arm-chair—meditative. She asked him what he was thinking about?

"About that man, Jacques D'Argent."

"You have heard of him, then?"

"Few had not, twenty years ago. He was one of the most 'blatant beasts' of the Reign of Terror. A fellow without honesty, conscience, or even common decency."

"And that man's daughter we have had in our house, teaching our innocent child!"

Alarm and disgust were written on every feature of the mother's face. It was scarcely surprising. Now that the ferment which had convulsed society in our younger days was settling down,—though still we were far from that ultimate calm which enables posterity to judge fully and fairly such a remarkable historical crisis as the French Revolution,—most English people looked back with horror on the extreme opinions of that time. If Mrs. Halifax had a weak point, it was her prejudice against anything French or Jacobinical. Partly, from that tendency to moral conservatism which in most persons, especially women, strengthens as old age advances; partly, I believe, from the terrible warning given by the fate of one—of whom for years we had never heard—whose very name was either unknown to, or forgotten by, our children.

"John, can't you speak? Don't you see the frightful danger?"

"Love, try and be calmer."

"How can I? Remember—remember Caroline."

"Nay, we are not talking of her, but of a girl whom we know, and have had good opportunity of knowing. A girl, who, whatever may have been her antecedents, has lived for six months blamelessly in our house."

"Would to Heaven she had never entered it! But it is not too late. She may leave—she shall leave, immediately."

"Mother!" burst out Guy. Never since she bore him had his mother heard her name uttered in such a tone.

She stood petrified.

"Mother, you are unjust, heartless, cruel. She shall NOT leave; she shall NOT, I say!"

"Guy, how dare you speak to your mother in that way?"

"Yes, father, I dare. I'll dare anything rather than—"

"Stop. Mind what you are saying—or you may repent it."

And Mr. Halifax, speaking in that low tone to which his voice fell in serious displeasure, laid a heavy hand on the lad's shoulder. Father and son exchanged fiery glances. The mother, terrified, rushed between them.

"Don't, John! Don't be angry with him. He could not help it,—my poor boy!"

At her piteous look Guy and his father both drew back. John put his arm round his wife, and made her sit down. She was trembling exceedingly.

"You see, Guy, how wrong you have been. How could you wound your mother so?"

"I did not mean to wound her," the lad answered. "I only wished to prevent her from being unjust and unkind to one to whom she must show all justice and kindness. One whom I respect, esteem—whom I LOVE."

"Love!"

"Yes, mother! Yes, father! I love her. I intend to marry her."

Guy said this with an air of quiet determination, very different from the usual impetuosity of his character. It was easy to perceive that a great change had come over him; that in this passion, the silent growth of which no one had suspected, he was most thoroughly in earnest. From the boy he had suddenly started up into the man; and his parents saw it.

They looked at him, and then mournfully at one another. The father was the first to speak.

"All this is very sudden. You should have told us of it before."

"I did not know it myself till—till very lately," the youth answered more softly, lowering his head and blushing.

"Is Miss Silver—is the lady aware of it?"

"No."

"That is well," said the father, after a pause. "In this silence you have acted as an honourable lover should towards her; as a dutiful son should act towards his parents."

Guy looked pleased. He stole his hand nearer his mother's, but she neither took it nor repelled it; she seemed quite stunned.

At this point I noticed that Maud had crept into the room;—I sent her out again as quickly as I could. Alas! this was the first secret that needed to be kept from her; the first painful mystery in our happy, happy home!

In any such home the "first falling in love," whether of son or daughter, necessarily makes a great change. Greater if the former than the latter. There is often a pitiful truth—I know not why it should be so, but so it is—in the foolish rhyme which the mother had laughingly said over to me this morning!

"My son's my son till he gets him a wife, My daughter's my daughter all her life."

And when, as in this case, the son wishes to marry one whom his father may not wholly approve, whom his mother does not heartily love, surely the pain is deepened tenfold.

Those who in the dazzled vision of youth see only the beauty and splendour of love—first love, who deem it comprises the whole of life, beginning, aim, and end—may marvel that I, who have been young and now am old, see as I saw that night, not only the lover's but the parents' side of the question. I felt overwhelmed with sadness, as, viewing the three, I counted up in all its bearings and consequences, near and remote, this attachment of poor Guy's.

"Well, father," he said at last, guessing by intuition that the father's heart would best understand his own.

"Well, my son," John answered, sadly.

"YOU were young once."

"So I was;" with a tender glance upon the lad's heated and excited countenance. "Do not suppose I cannot feel with you. Still, I wish you had been less precipitate."

"You were little older than I am when you married?"

"But my marriage was rather different from this projected one of yours. I knew your mother well, and she knew me. Both of us had been tried—by trouble which we shared together, by absence, by many and various cares. We chose one another, not hastily or blindly, but with free will and open eyes. No, Guy," he added, speaking earnestly and softly, "mine was no sudden fancy, no frantic passion. I honoured your mother above all women. I loved her as my own soul."

"So do I love Louise. I would die for her any day."

At the son's impetuosity the father smiled; not incredulously, only sadly.

All this while the mother had sat motionless, never uttering a sound. Suddenly, hearing a footstep and a light knock at the door, she darted forward and locked it, crying, in a voice that one could hardly have recognized as hers—

"No admittance! Go away."

A note was pushed in under the door. Mrs. Halifax picked it up—opened it, read it mechanically, and sat down again; taking no notice, even when Guy, catching sight of the hand-writing, eagerly seized the paper.

It was merely a line, stating Miss Silver's wish to leave Beechwood immediately; signed, with her full name—her right name—"Louise Eugenie D'Argent."

A postscript added: "Your silence I shall take as permission to depart; and shall be gone early to-morrow."

"To-morrow! Gone to-morrow! And she does not even know that—that I love her. Mother, you have ruined my happiness. I will never forgive you—never!"

Never forgive his mother! His mother, who had borne him, nursed him, reared him; who had loved him with that love—like none other in the world—the love of a woman for her firstborn son, all these twenty-one years!

It was hard. I think the most passionate lover, in reasonable moments, would allow that it was hard. No marvel that even her husband's clasp could not remove the look of heart-broken, speechless suffering which settled stonily down in Ursula's face, as she watched her boy—storming about, furious with uncontrollable passion and pain.

At last, mother-like, she forgot the passion in pity of the pain.

"He is not strong yet; he will do himself harm. Let me go to him! John, let me!" Her husband released her.

Faintly, with a weak, uncertain walk, she went up to Guy and touched his arm.

"You must keep quiet, or you will be ill. I cannot have my son ill—not for any girl. Come, sit down—here, beside your mother."

She was obeyed. Looking into her eyes, and seeing no anger there, nothing but grief and love, the young man's right spirit came into him again.

"O mother, mother, forgive me! I am so miserable—so miserable."

He laid his head on her shoulder. She kissed and clasped him close—her boy who never could be wholly hers again, who had learned to love some one else dearer than his mother.

After a while she said, "Father, shake hands with Guy. Tell him that we forgive his being angry with us; that perhaps, some day—"

She stopped, uncertain as to the father's mind, or seeking strength for her own.

"Some day," John continued, "Guy will find out that we can have nothing in the world—except our children's good—so dear to us as their happiness."

Guy looked up, beaming with hope and joy. "O father! O mother! will you, indeed—"

"We will indeed say nothing," the father answered, smiling; "nothing, until to-morrow. Then we will all three talk the matter quietly over, and see what can be done."

Of course I knew to a certainty the conclusion they would come to.



CHAPTER XXXIII

Late that night, as I sat up pondering over all that had happened, Mrs. Halifax came into my room.

She looked round; asked me, according to her wont, if there was anything I wanted before she retired for the night?—(Ursula was as good to me as any sister)—then stood by my easy-chair. I would not meet her eyes, but I saw her hands fluttering in their restless way.

I pointed to her accustomed chair.

"No, I can't sit down. I must say good-night." Then, coming at once to the point—"Phineas, you are always up first in the morning. Will you—John thinks it had better be you—will you give a message from us to—Maud's governess?"

"Yes. What shall I say?"

"Merely, that we request she will not leave Beechwood until we have seen her."

If Miss Silver had overheard the manner and tone of that "request," I doubt if it would not have hastened rather than delayed her departure. But, God help the poor mother! her wounds were still fresh.

"Would it not be better," I suggested, "if you were to write to her?"

"I can't; no, I can't,"—spoken with the sharpness of exceeding pain. Soon after, as in faint apology, she added, "I am so tired; we are very late to-night."

"Yes; it is almost morning. I thought you were both in bed."

"No; we have been sitting talking in Guy's room. His father thought it would be better."

"And is all settled?"

"Yes."

Having told me this, and having as it were by such a conclusion confessed it was right the question should be thus "settled," Guy's mother seemed more herself.

"Yes," she repeated; "John thinks it ought to be. At least, that she should know Guy's—the feeling with which Guy regards her. If, after the probation of a year, it still remains, and he is content to begin life on a small income, we have given our consent to our son's marriage."

It struck me how the mother's mind entirely dwelt on the one party in this matter—"Guy's feelings"—"Our son's marriage"—and so on. The other side of the question, or the possibility of any hindrance there, never seemed to enter her imagination. Perhaps it would not, even into mine, for I shared the family faith in its best-beloved Guy; but for Mrs. Halifax's so entirely ignoring the idea that any consent except her son's and his parents' was necessary to this marriage.

"It will not part him from us so very much, you see, Phineas," she said, evidently trying to view the bright side—"and she has no relatives living—not one. For income—Guy will have the entire profit of the Norton Bury mills; and they might begin, as we did, in the old Norton Bury house—the dear old house."

The thought of her own young days seemed to come, soothingly and sweet, taking the sting out of her pain, showing her how it was but right and justice that Nature's holy law should be fulfilled—that children, in their turn, should love, and marry, and be happy, like their parents.

"Yes," she answered, as I gently hinted this; "I know you are right; all is quite right, and as it should be, though it was a shock at first. No matter: John esteems her—John likes her. For me—oh, I shall make a capital—what is it?—a capital MOTHER-IN-LAW—in time!"

With that smile, which was almost cheerful, she bade me good-night—rather hastily, perhaps, as if she wished to leave me while her cheerfulness lasted. Then I heard her step along the passage, pausing once—most likely at Guy's room door; her own closed, and the house was in silence.

I rose early in the morning;—not one whit too early, for I met Miss Silver in the hall, bonneted and shawled, carrying down with her own hands a portion of her chattels. She evidently contemplated an immediate departure. It was with the greatest difficulty that, without betraying my reasons, which, of course, was impossible, I could persuade her to change her determination.

Poor girl! last night's events had apparently shaken her from that indifference which she seemed to think the best armour of a helpless, proud governess against the world. She would scarcely listen to a word. She was in extreme agitation; half-a-dozen times she insisted on leaving, and then sat down again.

I had not given her credit for so much wholesome irresolution—so much genuine feeling. Her manner almost convinced me of a fact which every one else seemed to hold as certain, but which I myself should have liked to see proved; namely, that Guy, in asking her love, would have—what in every right and happy marriage a man ought to have—the knowledge that the love was his before he asked for it.

Seeing this, my heart warmed to the girl. I respected her brave departure—I rejoiced that it was needless. Willingly I would have quieted her distress with some hopeful, ambiguous word, but that would have been trenching, as no one ever ought to trench, on the lover's sole right. So I held my tongue, watching with an amused pleasure the colour hovering to and fro over that usually impassive face. At last, at the opening of the study-door—we stood in the hall still—those blushes rose up to her forehead in one involuntary tide.

But it was only Edwin, who had lately taken to a habit of getting up very early,—to study mathematics. He looked surprised at seeing me with Miss Silver.

"What is that box? She is not going?"

"No; I have been entreating her not. Add your persuasions, Edwin."

For Edwin, with all his quietness, was a lad of much wisdom, great influence, and no little penetration. I felt inclined to believe that though as yet he had not been let into the secret of last night, he guessed it pretty well already.

He might have done, by the peculiar manner in which he went up to the governess and took her hand.

"Pray stay; I beg of you."

She made no more ado, but stayed.

I left her with Edwin, and took my usual morning walk, up and down the garden, till breakfast-time.

A strange and painful breakfast it was, even though the most important element in its painfulness, Guy, was happily absent. The rest of us kept up a fragmentary, awkward conversation, every one round the table looking as indeed one might have expected they would look—with one exception.

Miss Silver, who, from her behaviour last night, and her demeanour to me this morning, I had supposed would now have gathered up all her haughtiness to resist Guy's parents—as, ignorant both of his feelings and their intentions towards her, a young lady of her proud spirit might well resist—was, to my astonishment, as mild and meek as this soft spring morning. Nay, like it, seemed often on the very verge of the melting mood. More than once her drooping eyelashes were gemmed with tears. And when, the breakfast-table being quickly deserted—Edwin, indeed, had left it almost immediately—she, sitting absently in her place, was gently touched by Mrs. Halifax, she started up, with the same vivid rush of colour that I had before noticed. It completely altered the expression of her face; made her look ten years younger—ten years happier, and, being happier, ten times more amiable.

This expression—I was not the only one to notice it—was, by some intuition, reflected on the mother's. It made softer than any speech of hers to Miss Silver—the few words—

"My dear, will you come with me into the study?"

"To lessons? Yes. I beg your pardon! Maud—where is Maud?"

"Never mind lessons just yet. We will have a little chat with my son. Uncle Phineas, you'll come? Will you come, too, my dear?"

"If you wish it." And with an air of unwonted obedience, she followed Mrs. Halifax.

Poor Guy!—confused young lover!—meeting for the first time after his confession the acknowledged object of his preference—I really felt sorry for him! And, except that women have generally twice as much self-control in such cases as men—and Miss Silver proved it—I might even have been sorry for her. But then her uncertainties would soon be over. She had not to make—all her family being aware she was then and there making it—that terrible "offer of marriage," which, I am given to understand, is, even under the most favourable circumstances, as formidable as going up to the cannon's mouth.

I speak of it jestingly, as we all jested uneasily that morning, save Mrs. Halifax, who scarcely spoke a word. At length, when Miss Silver, growing painfully restless, again referred to "lessons," she said:

"Not yet. I want Maud for half an hour. Will you be so kind as to take my place, and sit with my son the while?"

"Oh, certainly!"

I was vexed with her—really vexed—for that ready assent; but then, who knows the ins and outs of women's ways? At any rate, for Guy's sake this must be got over—the quicker the better. His mother rose.

"My son, my dear boy!" She leant over him, whispering—I think she kissed him—then slowly, quietly, she walked out of the study. I followed. Outside the door we parted, and I heard her go up-stairs to her own room.

It might have been half an hour afterwards, when Maud and I, coming in from the garden, met her standing in the hall. No one was with her, and she was doing nothing; two very remarkable facts in the daily life of the mother of the family.

Maud ran up to her with some primroses.

"Very pretty, very pretty, my child."

"But you don't look at them—you don't care for them—I'll go and show them to Miss Silver."

"No," was the hasty answer. "Come back, Maud—Miss Silver is occupied."

Making some excuse, I sent the child away, for I saw that even Maud's presence was intolerable to her mother. That poor mother, whose suspense was growing into positive agony.

She waited—standing at the dining-room window—listening—going in and out of the hall,—for another ten minutes.

"It is very strange—very strange indeed. He promised to come and tell me; surely at least he ought to come and tell me first—me, his mother—"

She stopped at the word, oppressed by exceeding pain.

"Hark! was that the study door?"

"I think so; one minute more and you will be quite certain."

Ay! one minute more, and we WERE quite certain. The young lover entered—his bitter tidings written on his face.

"She has refused me, mother. I never shall be happy more."

Poor Guy!—I slipped out of his sight and left the lad alone with his mother.

Another hour passed of this strange, strange day. The house seemed painfully quiet. Maud, disconsolate and cross, had taken herself away to the beech-wood with Walter; the father and Edwin were busy at the mills, and had sent word that neither would return to dinner. I wandered from room to room, always excepting that shut-up room where, as I took care, no one should disturb the mother and son.

At last I heard them both going up-stairs—Guy was still too lame to walk without assistance. I heard the poor lad's fretful tones, and the soothing, cheerful voice that answered them. "Verily," thought I, "if, since he must fall in love, Guy had only fixed his ideal standard of womanhood a little nearer home—if he had only chosen for his wife a woman a little more like his mother!" But I suppose that would have been expecting impossibilities.

Well, he had been refused!—our Guy, whom we all would have imagined irresistible—our Guy, "whom to look on was to love." Some harsh folk might say this might be a good lesson for the lad—nay, for most lads; but I deny it.—I doubt if any young man, meeting at the outset of life a rejection like this, which either ignorance or heedlessness on the woman's part had made totally unexpected, ever is the better for it: perhaps, for many years, cruelly the worse. For, most women being quick-sighted about love, and most men—especially young men—blind enough in its betrayal,—any woman who wilfully allows an offer only to refuse it, lowers not only herself but her whole sex, for a long, long time after, in the lover's eyes. At least, I think so;—as I was thinking, in the way old bachelors are prone to moralize over such things, when, coming out of Guy's room, I met Mrs. Halifax.

She crossed the passage, hastily but noiselessly, to a small ante-room which Miss Silver had for her own private study—out of which half-a-dozen stairs led to the chamber where she and her pupil slept. The ante-room was open, the bed-chamber door closed.

"She is in there?"

"I believe she is."

Guy's mother stood irresolute. Her knit brow and nervous manner betrayed some determination she had come to, which had cost her hard: suddenly she turned to me.

"Keep the children out of the way, will you, Phineas? Don't let them know—don't let anybody know—about Guy."

"Of course not."

"There is some mistake—there MUST be some mistake. Perhaps she is not sure of our consent—his father's and mine; very right of her—very right! I honour her for her indecision. But she must be assured to the contrary—my boy's peace must not be sacrificed. You understand, Phineas?"

Ay, perhaps better than she did herself, poor mother!

Yet, when in answer to the hasty knock, I caught a glimpse of Miss Silver opening the door—Miss Silver, with hair all falling down dishevelled, and features swollen with crying,—I went away completely at fault, as the standers-by seemed doomed to be in all love affairs. I began to hope that this would settle itself somehow—in all parties understanding one another after the good old romantic fashion, and "living very happy to the end of their lives."

I saw nothing more of any one until tea-time; when Mrs. Halifax and the governess came in together. Something in their manner struck me—one being subdued and gentle, the other tender and kind. Both, however, were exceedingly grave—nay, sad, but it appeared to be that sadness which is received as inevitable, and is quite distinct from either anger or resentment.

Neither Guy nor Edwin, nor the father were present. When John's voice was heard in the hall, Miss Silver had just risen to retire with Maud.

"Good-night, for I shall not come down-stairs again," she said hastily.

"Good-night," the mother answered in the same whisper—rose, kissed her kindly, and let her go.

When Edwin and his father appeared, they too looked remarkably grave—as grave as if they had known by intuition all the trouble in the house. Of course, no one referred to it. The mother merely noticed how late they were, and how tired they both looked. Supper passed in silence, and then Edwin took up his candle to go to bed.

His father called him back. "Edwin, you will remember?"

"I will, father."

"Something is amiss with Edwin," said his mother, when the two younger boys had closed the door behind them. "What did you wish him to remember?"

Her husband's sole reply was to draw her to him with that peculiarly tender gaze, which she knew well to be the forewarning of trouble; trouble he could not save her from—could only help her to bear. Ursula laid her head on his shoulder with one deep sob of long-smothered pain.

"I suppose you know all. I thought you would soon guess. Oh, John, our happy days are over! Our children are children no more."

"But ours still, love—always will be ours."

"What of that when we can no longer make them happy? When they look for happiness to others and not to us? My own poor boy! To think that his mother can neither give him comfort, nor save him pain, any more."

She wept bitterly.

When she was somewhat soothed, John, making her sit down by him, but turning a little from her, bade her tell him all that had happened to-day. A few words explained the history of Guy's rejection and its cause.

"She loves some one else. When I—as his mother—went and asked her the question she confessed this."

"And what did you say?"

"What could I say? I could not blame her. I was even sorry for her. She cried so bitterly, and begged me to forgive her. I said I did freely, and hoped she would be happy."

"That was right. I am glad you said so. Did she tell you who he—this lover, was?"

"No. She said she could not, until he gave her permission. That whether they would ever be married she did not know. She knew nothing, save that he was good and kind, and the only creature in the world who had ever cared for her."

"Poor girl!"

"John,"—startled by his manner—"you have something to tell me? You know who this is—this man who has stood between my son and his happiness?"

"Yes, I do know."

I cannot say how far the mother saw—what, as if by a flash of lightning, I did; but she looked up in her husband's face, with a sudden speechless dread.

"Love, it is a great misfortune, but it is no one's blame—neither ours, nor theirs—they never thought of Guy's loving her. He says so—Edwin himself."

"Is it Edwin?"—in a cry as if her heart was breaking. "His own brother—his very own brother! Oh, my poor Guy!"

Well might the mother mourn! Well might the father look as if years of care had been added to his life that day! For a disaster like this happening in any household—especially a household where love is recognized as a tangible truth, neither to be laughed at, passed carelessly over, nor lectured down—makes the family cease to be a family, in many things, from henceforward. The two strongest feelings of life clash; the bond of brotherly unity, in its perfectness, is broken for ever.

For some minutes we sat, bewildered as it were, thinking of the tale as if it had been told of some other family than ours. Mechanically the mother raised her eyes; the first object they chanced to meet was a rude water-colour drawing, kept, coarse daub as it was, because it was the only reminder we had of what never could be recalled—one red-cheeked child with a hoop, staring at another red-cheeked child with a nosegay—supposed to represent little Edwin and little Guy.

"Guy taught Edwin to walk. Edwin made Guy learn his letters. How fond they were of one another—those two boys. Now—brother will be set against brother! They will never feel like brothers—never again."

"Love—"

"Don't, John! don't speak to me just yet. It is so terrible to think of. Both my boys—both my two noble boys! to be made miserable for that girl's sake. Oh! that she had never darkened our doors. Oh! that she had never been born."

"Nay, you must not speak thus. Remember—Edwin loves her—she will be Edwin's wife."

"Never!" cried the mother, desperately; "I will not allow it. Guy is the eldest. His brother has acted meanly. So has she. No, John, I will NOT allow it."

"You will not allow what has already happened—what Providence has permitted to happen? Ursula, you forget—they love one another."

This one fact—this solemn upholding of the pre-eminent right and law of love,—which law John believed in, they both believed in, so sacredly and firmly—appeared to force itself upon Mrs. Halifax's mind. Her passion subsided.

"I cannot judge clearly. You can—always. Husband, help me!"

"Poor wife!—poor mother!" he muttered, caressing her, and in that caress himself all but giving way—"Alas! that I should have brought thee into such a sea of trouble."

Perhaps he referred to the circumstance of his bringing Miss Silver into our house; perhaps to his own blindness, or want of parental caution, in throwing the young people continually together. However, John was not one to lament over things inevitable; or by overweening blame of his own want of foresight, to imply a doubt of the foreseeing of Providence.

"Love," he said, "I fear we have been too anxious to play Deus ex machina with our children, forgetting in whose Hands are marrying and giving in marriage—life's crosses and life's crowns. Trouble has come when we looked not for it. We can but try to see the right course, and seeing it, to act upon it."

Ursula assented—with a bursting heart it seemed—but still she assented, believing, even as in her young days, that her husband's will was wisest, best.

He told her, in few words, all that Edwin had that day confessed to his father; how these two, being much together, had become attached to one another, as young folks will—couples whom no one would ever think suited each for each, except Nature, and the instinct of their own hearts. Absorbed in this love—which, Edwin solemnly declared, was never openly declared till this morning—they neither of them thought of Guy. And thus things had befallen—things which no earthly power could remove or obliterate—things in which, whatever way we looked, all seemed darkness. We could but walk blindly on, a step at a time, trusting to that Faith, of which all our lives past had borne confirmation—the firm faith that evil itself is to the simple and God-fearing but the disguised messenger of good.

Something like this John said, talking as his wife loved to hear him talk—every quiet, low word dropping like balm upon her grieved heart; not trying to deceive her into the notion that pain is not pain, but showing her how best to bear it. At length she looked up, as if with God's help—and her husband's comforting—she could bear it.

"Only one thing—Guy does not know. He need not know just yet—not till he is stronger. Surely, Edwin will not tell him?"

"No; he promised me he would not. Do not start so. Indeed, there is no fear."

But that very assurance seemed to rouse it. She began straining her ears to catch the least noise in the rooms overhead—the boys' rooms. Guy and Walter shared one; Edwin had his to himself.

"They surely will not meet. Yet Guy sometimes likes sitting over Edwin's fire. Hark!—was not that the creaking of Guy's room-door?"

"Love—" detaining her.

"I know, John. I am not thinking of going. Guy might suspect something. No, indeed I am not afraid. They were always fond of one another—my boys."

She sat down, violently forcing herself not to listen, not to fear. But the truth was too strong for her.

"Hark! I am sure they are talking. John, you said Edwin promised?"

"Faithfully promised."

"But if, by some accident, Guy found out the truth? Hark! they are talking very loud. That is a chair fallen. Oh, John—don't keep me! My boys—my boys." And she ran up-stairs in an agony.

What a sight for a mother's eyes. Two brothers of whom it had been our boast that from babyhood they had never been known to lift a hand against each other—now struggling together like Cain and Abel. And from the fury in their faces, the quarrel might have had a similar ending.

"Guy!—Edwin!" But the mother might as well have shrieked to the winds.

The father came and parted them. "Boys, are you gone mad? fighting like brutes in this way. Shame, Guy! Edwin, I trusted you."

"I could not help it, father. He had no right to steal into my room; no right to snatch her letter from me."

"It was her letter, then?" cried Guy, furiously. "She writes to you? You were writing back to her?"

Edwin made no answer; but held out his hand for the letter, with that look of white passion in him so rarely seen—perhaps not thrice since his infancy. Guy took no heed.

"Give it me back, Guy; I warn you."

"Not till I have read it. I have a right."

"You have none. She is mine."

"Yours?" Guy laughed in his face.

"Yes, mine. Ask my father—ask my mother. They know."

"Mother!"—the letter fell from the poor lad's hand. "Mother, YOU would not deceive me. He only says it to vex me. I was in a passion, I know. Mother, it isn't true?"

His piteous tone—the almost childish way in which he caught at her sleeve, as she turned from him—ah, poor Guy!

"Edwin, is it my brother Edwin? Who would have thought it?" Half-bewildered, he looked from one to the other of us all; but no one spoke, no one contradicted him.

Edwin, his passion quite gone, stooped in a sorrowful and humble way to pick up his betrothed's letter. Then Guy flew at him, and caught him by the collar.

"You coward!—how dared you?—No, I won't hurt him; she is fond of him. Go away, every one of you. Oh, mother, mother, mother!"

He fell on her neck, sobbing. She gathered him in her arms, as she had used to do in his childhood; and so we left them.

"AS ONE WHOM HIS MOTHER COMFORTETH."

Ay, Prophet of Israel, thou wert wise.



CHAPTER XXXIV

John and I sat over the study fire till long after midnight.

Many an anxious watch I had kept with him, but none sadder than this. Because now, for the first time, our house was divided against itself. A sorrow had entered it, not from without but from within—a sorrow which we could not meet and bear, as a family. Alas! darker and darker had the bitter truth forced itself upon us, that neither joy nor affliction would ever find us as a family again.

I think all parents must feel cruelly a pang like this—the first trouble in which they cannot help their children—the first time when those children must learn to stand alone, each for himself, compelled to carry his own burthen and work out, well or ill, his individual life. When the utmost the wisest or tenderest father can do, is to keep near with outstretched hand that the child may cling to, assured of finding sympathy, counsel, and love.

If this father had stood aloof all his life, on some pinnacle of paternal "pride," paternal "dignity"—if he had not made himself his boys' companion, counsellor, and friend, how great would have been his terrors now!

For, as we both knew well—too well to trust ourselves to say it—if there was one thing in the world that ruins a lad, drives him to desperation, shuts the door of home upon him, and opens many another door, of which the entrance is the very gate of hell—it is such a disappointment as this which had happened to our Guy.

His father saw it all. Saw it clearer, crueller, than even his mother could see. Yet when, very late, almost at dawn, she came in, with the tidings that Guy was himself again now—sleeping as quietly as a child—her husband was able to join in her deep thankfulness, and give her hope for the days to come.

"But what is to be done with Guy?"

"God knows," John answered. But his tone expressed a meaning different from that generally conveyed in the words: a meaning which the mother caught at once, and rested on.

"Ay—you are right. He knows!"—And so they went away together, almost content.

Next morning, I woke late; the sunshine falling across my bed, and the sparrows chattering loud in the ivy. I had been dreaming, with a curious pertinacity, of the old days at Rose Cottage, the days when John first fell in love with Ursula.

"Uncle Phineas." I heard myself called.

It was John's son, who sat opposite, with wan, wild eyes, and a settled anguish on his mouth—that merry, handsome mouth—the only really handsome mouth in the family.

"You are up early, my boy."

"What was the good of lying in bed? I am not ill. Besides, I wish to go about as usual. I don't wish anybody to think that—that I care."

He stopped—evidently fighting hard against himself. A new lesson, alas! for our Guy.

"Was I too violent last night? I did not mean it. I mean to be a man. Not the first man whom a lady has refused—eh?" And braving it out, he began to whistle; but the lips fell—the frank brow grew knotted with pain. The lad broke into a passion of misery.

The chief bitterness was that he had been deceived. Unwittingly, we well believed—but still deceived. Many little things he told me—Guy's was a nature that at once spent and soothed itself by talking—of Miss Silver's extreme gentleness and kindness towards him; a kindness which seemed so like, so cruelly like love.

"Love!—Oh, she loved me. She told me so. Of course!—I was Edwin's brother."

Ay, there was the sting, which never could be removed; which might rankle in the boy's heart for life. He had not only lost his love, but what is more precious than love—faith in womankind. He began to make light of his losings—to think the prize was not so great after all. He sat on my bed, singing—Guy had a fine voice and ear—singing out of mockery, songs which I had an especial aversion to—light songs written by an Irishman, Mr. Thomas Moore, about girls and wine, and being "far from the lips we love," but always ready enough "to make love to the lips we are near." Then, laughing at me, he threw up the window and looked out.

I think it was wrong of those two, wrong and selfish, as all lovers are—young lovers in the flush of their happiness; I think it was cruel of Edwin and Louise to walk up and down there in the elder brother's very eyes.

For a moment he struggled against his passion.

"Uncle Phineas, just look here. How charming! Ha, ha! Did you ever see such a couple of fools?"

Fools, maybe, but happy; happy to the very core—thoroughly engrossed in their happiness. The elder brother was almost maddened by it.

"He must mind what he does—tell him so, Uncle Phineas—it would be safer. He MUST mind, or I will not answer for myself. I was fond of Edwin—I was indeed—but now it seems sometimes as if I HATED him."

"Guy!"

"Oh, if it had been a stranger, and not he! If it had been any one in the world except my brother!"

And in that bitter cry the lad's heart melted again; it was such a tender heart—his mother's heart.

After a time he recovered himself, and came down with me to breakfast, as he had insisted upon doing; met them all, even Miss Silver—and Edwin, who had placed himself by her side with an air of right. These lovers, however deeply grieved they looked—and, to do justice, it was really so—needed not to be grieved over by any of us.

Nor, looking at the father and mother, would we have dared to grieve over THEM. In the silent watches of the night, heart to heart, husband and wife had taken council together; together had carried their sorrow to the only Lightener of burthens. It seemed that theirs was lightened; that even in this strange entanglement of fate they were able to wait patiently—trusting unto the Almighty Mercy not only themselves but the children He had given them.

When, breakfast being over, John according to his custom read the chapter and the prayer—no one rose up or went out; no one refused, even in this anguish of strife, jealousy, and disunion—to repeat after him the "Our Father" of their childhood.

I believe every one of us remembered for years, with an awe that was not altogether pain, this morning's chapter and prayer.

When it was ended, worldly troubles closed round us again.

Nothing seemed natural. We hung about in twos and threes, uncertain what to do. Guy walked up and down, alone. His mother asked him if, seeing his foot was so well, he would like to go down to the mills as usual; but he declined. Miss Silver made some suggestion about "lessons," which Edwin jealously negatived immediately, and proposed that she and Maud should take a drive somewhere.

Mrs. Halifax eagerly assented. "Lady Oldtower has been wanting them both for some time. You would like to go, would you not, for a day or two?" said she, addressing the governess.

Guy caught at this. "Going away, are you? When?"

He put the question to Miss Silver direct—his eyes blazing right into her own. She made some confused reply, about "leaving immediately."

"In the carriage, of course? Shall I have the honour of driving you?"

"No," said Edwin, decisively.

A fierce, vindictive look passed between the brothers—a look terrible in itself—more terrible in its warning of days to come. No wonder the mother shuddered—no wonder the young betrothed, pale and alarmed, slipped out of the room. Edwin followed her. Then Guy, snatching up his sister, lifted her roughly on his knee.

"Come along, Maud. You'll be my girl now. Nobody else wants you. Kiss me, child."

But the little lady drew back.

"So, you hate me too? Edwin has been teaching you? Very well. Get away, you cheat!"

He pushed her violently aside. Maud began to cry.

Her father looked up from his book—the book he had not been reading—though he had seemingly thought it best to take no notice of what was passing around him.

"Come here, Maud, my child. Guy, you should not be unkind to your little sister. Try and command yourself, my dear boy!"

The words, though spoken gently, almost in a whisper, were more than the lad's chafed spirit could brook.

"Father, you insult me. I will not bear it. I will quit the room."

He went out, shutting the door passionately after him. His mother rose up to follow him—then sat down again. The eyes that she lifted to her husband were deprecating, beseeching, heavy with a speechless pain.

For John—he said nothing. Not though, as was plain to see, this, the first angry or disrespectful word he had ever received from any one of his children, struck him like an arrow; for a moment stirred him even to wrath—holy wrath—the just displeasure of a father who feels that the least portion of his child's sin is the sin against him. Perhaps this very feeling, distinct from, and far beyond, all personal indignation, all sense of offended dignity, made the anger strangely brief—so brief, that when the other children, awed and startled, looked for some ebullition of it—lo! it was all gone. In its stead was something at which the children, more awed still, crept out of the room.

Ursula even, alarmed, looked in his face as if for the first time she could not comprehend her husband.

"John, you should forgive poor Guy! he did not intend any harm."

"No—no."

"And he is so very miserable. Never before did he fail in his duty to you."

"But what if I have failed in mine to him?—What if—you used to say I could not understand Guy—what if I have come short towards him? I, that am accountable to God for every one of my children."

"John—John"—she knelt down and put her arms round his neck. "Husband, do not look unhappy. I did not mean to blame you—we may be wrong, both of us—all of us. But we will not be afraid. We know Who pities us, even as we pity our children."

Thus she spoke, and more to the same purport; but it was a long time before her words brought any consolation. Then the parents talked together, trying to arrange some plan whereby Guy's mind might be occupied and soothed, or else Edwin removed out of his sight for a little while. Once I hinted at the advantage of Guy's leaving home; but Mrs. Halifax seemed to shrink from this project as though it were a foreboding of perpetual exile.

"No, no; anything but that. Beside, Guy would not wish it. He has never left me in his life. His going would seem like the general breaking up of the family."

Alas! she did not, would not see that the family was already "broken." Broken, more than either absence, marriage, or death itself could have effected.

One thing more we had to consider—a thing at once natural and right in any family, namely, how to hide its wounds from the chattering, scandalous world. And so, when by a happy chance there came over that morning our good friend Lady Oldtower and her carriage full of daughters, Mrs. Halifax communicated, with a simple dignity that quelled all comment, the fact of "my son Edwin's engagement," and accepted the invitation for Maud and Miss Silver, which was willingly repeated and pressed.

One thing I noticed, that in speaking of or to the girl who in a single day from merely the governess had become, and was sedulously treated as, our own, Mrs. Halifax invariably called her, as heretofore, "Miss Silver," or "my dear;" never by any chance "Louise," or "Mademoiselle D'Argent."

Before she left Beechwood, Edwin came in and hurriedly spoke to his mother. What he said was evidently painful to both.

"I am not aware of it, Edwin; I had not the slightest intention of offending her. Is she already made your judge and referee as to the actions of your mother?"

Edwin was a good lad, though perhaps a little less loving than the rest of the boys. His self-restraint, his exceeding patience, lulled the threatened storm.

"But you will be kind to her, mother?—I know you will."

"Did I not say so?"

"And may I bring her to you here?"

"If you choose."

It was the first open recognition between the mother and her son's betrothed. Their other meeting had been in public, when, with a sedulous dread, both had behaved exactly as usual, and no word or manner had betrayed their altered relations. Now, when for the first time it was needful for Miss Silver to be received as a daughter elect, with all the natural sympathy due from one woman to another under similar circumstances, all the warmth of kindness due from a mother to her son's chosen wife—then the want, the mournful want, made itself felt.