The next day, however, just as Jock was about to set forth, intending, as far as might be, to keep him up to the point, Bobus made his appearance, and scornfully held out an envelope. There was the letter, and therewith these words:-

"On consideration, I recur to my first conclusion, that this situation is out of the question. To say nothing of the injury to my health and nerves from agitation and suspense, rendering me totally unfit for drudgery and annoyance, I cannot feel it right to place myself in a situation equivalent to the abandonment of all hope. It is absurd to act as if we were reduced to abject poverty, and I will never place myself in the condition of a dependent. This season has so entirely knocked me up that I must at once have sea air, and by the time you receive this I shall be on my way to Ryde for a cruise in the Petrel."

"His health!" cried Bobus, his tone implying three notes, scarcely of admiration.

"Well, poor old Turk, he is rather seedy, " said Jock. "Can't sleep, and has headaches! But 'tis a regular case of having put him to flight!"

"Well, I've done with him," said Bobus, "since there's a popular prejudice against flogging, especially one's elder brother. This is a delicate form of intimation that he intends doing the dolce at mother's expense."

"The poor old chap has been an ornamental appendage so long that he can't make up his mind to anything else," said Jock.

"He is no worse off than the rest of us," said Bobus.

"In age, if in nothing else. "

"The more reason against throwing away a chance. The yacht, too! I thought there was a Quixotic notion of not dipping into that Elf's money. I'm sure poor mother is pinching herself enough."

"I don't think Ali knows when he spends money more than when he spends air," returned Jock. "The Petrel can hardly cost as much in a month as I have seen him get through in a week, protesting all the while that he was living on absolutely nothing. "

"I know. You may be proud to get him down Oxford Street under thirty shillings, and he never goes out in the evening much under half that."

"Yes, he told me selling my horses was shocking bad economy."

"Well, it was your own doing, having him up here," said Bobus.

"I wonder how he will go on when the money is really not there."

"Precisely the same," said Bobus; "there's no cure for that sort of complaint. The only satisfaction is that we shall be out of sight of it."

"And a very poor one," sighed Jock, "when mother is left to bear the brunt."

"Mother can manage him much better than we can," said Bobus; "besides, she is still a youngish woman, neither helpless nor destitute; and as I always tell you, the greatest kindness we can do her is to look out for ourselves."

Bobus himself had done so effectually, for he was secure of a handsome salary, and his travelling expenses were to be paid, when, early in the next year, he was to go out with his Principal to confer on the Japanese the highest possible culture in science and literature without any bias in favour of Christianity, Buddhism, or any other sublime religion.

Meantime he was going home to make his preparations, and pack such portions of his museum as he thought would be unexampled in Japan. He had fulfilled his intention of only informing his mother after his application had been accepted; and as it had been done by letter, he had avoided the sight of the pain it gave her and the hearing of her remonstrances, all of which he had referred to her maternal dislike of his absence, rather than to his association with the Principal, a writer whose articles she kept out of reach of Armine and Barbara.

The matter had become irrevocable and beyond discussion, as he intended, before his return to Belforest, which he only notified by the post of the morning before he walked into luncheon. By that time it was a fait accompli, and there was nothing to be done but to enter on a lively discussion on the polite manners and customs of the two- sworded nation and the wonderful volcanoes he hoped to explore.

Perhaps one reason that his notice was so short was that there might be the less time for Kencroft to be put on its guard. Thus, when, by accident of course, he strolled towards the lodge, he found his cousin Esther in the wood, with no guardians but the three youngest children, who had coaxed her, in spite of the heat, to bring them to the slopes of wood strawberries on their weekly half-holiday.

He had seen nothing, but had only been guided by the sound of voices to the top of the sloping wooded bank, where, under the shade of the oak-trees, looking over the tall spreading brackens, he beheld Essie in her pretty gipsy hat and holland dress, with all her bird-like daintiness, kneeling on the moss far below him, threading the scarlet beads on bents of grass, with the little ones round her.

"I heard a chattering," he said, as, descending through the fern, he met her dark eyes looking up like those of a startled fawn; "so I came to see whether the rabbits had found tongues. How many more are there? No, thank you," as Edmund and Lina answered his greeting with an offer of very moist-looking fruit, and an ungrammatical "Only us."

"Then us run away. They grow thick up that bank, and I've got a prize here for whoever keeps away longest. No, you shan't see what it is. Any one who comes asking questions will lose it. Run away, Lina, you'll miss your chance. No, no, Essie, you are not a competitor."

"I must, Robert; indeed I must."

"Can't you spare me a moment when I am come down for my last farewell visit?"

"But you are not going for a good while yet."

"So you call it, but it will seem short enough. Did you ever hear of minutes seeming like diamond drops meted out, Essie?"

"But, you know, it is your own doing," said Essie.

"Yes, and why, Essie? Because misfortune has made such an exile as this the readiest mode of ceasing to be a burden to my mother."

"Papa said he was glad of it," said Esther, "and that you were quite right. But it is a terrible way off!"

"True! but there is one consideration that will make up to me for everything."

"That it is for Aunt Caroline!"

"Partly, but do you not know the hope which makes all work sweet to me?" And the look of his eyes, and his hand seeking hers, made her say,

"Oh don't, Robert, I mustn't."

"Nay, my queen, you were too duteous to hearken to me when I was rich and prosperous. I would not torment you then, I meant to be patient; but now I am poor and going into banishment, you will be generous and compassionate, and let me hear the one word that will make my exile sweet."

"I don't think I ought," said the poor child under her breath. "0, Robert, don't you know I ought not."

"Would you if that ugly cypher of an ought did not stand in the way?"

"Oh don't ask me, Robert; I don't know."

"But I do know, my queen," said he. "I know my little Essie better than she knows herself. I know her true heart is mine, only she dares not avow it to herself; and when hearts have so met, Esther, they owe one another a higher duty than the filial tie can impose."

"I never heard that before," she said, puzzled, but not angered.

"No, it is not a doctrine taught in schoolrooms, but it is true and universal for all that, and our fathers and mothers acted on it in their day, and will give way to it now."

Esther had never been told all her father's objections to her cousin. Simple prohibition had seemed to her parents sufficient for the gentle, dutiful child. Bobus had always been very kind to her, and her heart went out enough to him in his trouble to make coldness impossible to her. Tears welled into her eyes with perplexity at the new theory, and she could only falter out-

"That doesn't seem right for me."

"Say one word and trust to me, and it shall be right. Yes, Esther, say the word, and in it I shall be strong to overcome everything, and win the consent you desire. Say only that, with it, you would love me."

"If?" said Esther.

It was an interrogative if, and she did not mean it for "the one word," but Bobus caught at it as all he wanted. He meant it for the fulcrum on which to rest the strong lever of his will, and before Esther could add any qualification, he was overwhelming her with thanks and assurances so fervent that she could interpose no more doubts, and yielded to the sweetness of being able to make any one so happy, above all the cousin whom most people thought so formidably clever.

Edmund interrupted them by rushing up, thus losing the prize, which was won by the last comer, and proved to be a splendid bonbon; but there was consolation for the others, since Bobus had laid in a supply as a means of securing peace.

He would fain have waited to rivet his chains before manifesting them, but he knew Essie too well to expect her to keep the interview a secret; and he had no time to lose if, as he intended, though he had not told her so, he was to take her to Japan with him.

So he stormed the castle without delay, walked to Kencroft with the strawberry gatherers, found the Colonel superintending the watering of his garden, and, with effrontery of which Essie was unconscious, led her up, and announced their mutual love, as though secure of an ardent welcome.

He did, mayhap, expect to surprise something of the kind out of his slowly-moving uncle, but the only answer was a strongly accentuated "Indeed! I thought I had told you both that I would have none of this foolery. Esther, I am ashamed of you. Go in directly."

The girl repaired to her own room to weep floods of tears over her father's anger, and the disobedience that made itself apparent as soon as she was beyond the spell of that specious tongue. There were a few fears too for his disappointment; but when her mother came up in great displeasure, the first words were-

"O, mamma, I could not help it!"

"You could not prevent his accosting you, but you might have prevented his giving all this trouble to papa. You know we should never allow it."

"Indeed I only said if!"

"You had no right to say anything. When a young lady knows a man is not to be encouraged, she should say nothing to give him an advantage. You could never expect us to let you go to a barbarous place at the other end of the world with a man of as good as no religion at all."

"He goes to church," said Essie, too simple to look beyond.

"Only here, to please his mother. My dear, you must put this out of your head. Even if he were very different, we should never let you marry a first cousin, and he knows it. It was very wrong in him to have spoken to you."

"Please don't let him do it again," said Esther, faintly.

"That's right, my dear," with a kiss of forgiveness. "I am sure you are too good a girl really to care for him."

"I wish he would not care for me," sighed poor Essie, wearily. "He always was so kind, and now they are in trouble I couldn't vex him."

"Oh, my dear, young men get over things of this sort half a dozen times in their lives."

Essie was not delighted with this mode of consolation, and when her mother tenderly smoothed back her hair, and bade her bathe her face and dress for dinner, she clung to her and said-

"Don't let me see him again."

It was a wholesome dread, which Mrs. Brownlow encouraged, for both she and her husband were annoyed and perplexed by Robert's cool reception of their refusal. He quietly declared that he could allow for their prejudices, and that it was merely a matter of time, and he was provokingly calm and secure, showing neither anger nor disappointment. He did not argue, but having once shown that his salary warranted his offer, that the climate was excellent, and that European civilisation prevailed, he treated his uncle and aunt as unreasonably prejudiced mortals, who would in time yield to his patient determination.

His mother was as much annoyed as they were, all the more because her sister-in-law could hardly credit her perfect innocence of Robert's intentions, and was vexed at her wish to ascertain Esther's feelings. This was not easy! the poor child was so unhappy and shamefaced, so shocked at her involuntary disobedience, and so grieved at the pain she had given. If Robert had been set before her with full consent of friends, she would have let her whole heart go out to him, loved him, and trusted him for ever, treating whatever opinions were unlike hers as manly idiosyncrasies beyond her power to fathom. But she was no Lydia Languish to need opposition as a stimulus. It rather gave her tender and dutiful spirit a sense of shame, terror, and disobedience; and she thankfully accepted the mandate that sent her on a visit to her married sister for as long as Bobus should remain at Belforest.

He did not show himself downcast, but was quietly assured that he should win her at last, only smiling at the useless precaution, and declaring himself willing to wait, and make a home for her.

But this matter had not tended to make his mother more at ease in her enforced stay at Belforest, which was becoming a kind of gilded prison.



CHAPTER XXXI. SLACK TIDE.



If... Thou hide thine eyes and make thy peevish moan Over some broken reed of earth beneath, Some darling of blind fancy dead and gone. Keble.

There is such a thing as slack tide in the affairs of men, when a crisis seems as if it would never come, and all things stagnate. The Law Courts had as yet not concerned themselves about the will, vacation time had come and all was at a standstill, nor could any steps be taken for Lucas's exchange till it was certain into what part of India Sir Philip Cameron was going. In the meantime his regiment had gone into camp, and he could not get away until the middle of September, and then only for a few days. Arriving very late on a Friday night, he saw nobody but his mother over his supper, and thought her looking very tired. When he met her in the morning, there was the same weary, harassed countenance, there were worn marks round the dark wistful eyes, and the hair, whitened at Schwarenbach, did not look as incongruous with the face as hitherto.

No one else except Barbara had come down to prayers, so Jock's first inquiry was for Armine.

"He is pretty well," said his mother; "but he is apt to be late. He gets overtired between his beloved parish work and his reading with Bobus."

"He is lucky to get such a coach," said Jock. "Bob taught me more mathematics in a week than I had learnt in seven years before."

"He is terribly accurate," said Babie.

"Which Armie does not appreciate?" said Jock.

"I'm afraid not," said his mother. "They do worry each other a good deal, and this Infanta most of all, I'm afraid."

"O no, mother," said Babie. "Only it is hard for poor Armie to have two taskmasters."

"What! the Reverend Petronella continues in the ascendant?"

Bobus here entered, with a face that lightened, as did everyone's, at sight of Lucas.

"Good morning. Ah! Jock! I didn't sit up, for I had had a long day out on the moors; we kept the birds nearer home for you. There are plenty, but Grimes says he has heard shots towards River Hollow, and thinks some one must have been trespassing there."

"Have you heard anything of Elvira? apropos to River Hollow," said his mother.

"Yes," said Jock. "One of our fellows has been on a moor not far from where she was astonishing the natives, conjointly with Lady Anne Macnalty. There were bets which of three men she may be engaged to."

"Pending which," said his mother, "I suppose poor Allen will continue to hover on the wings of the Petrel?"

"And send home mournful madrigals by the ream," said Bobus. "Never was petrel so tuneful a bird!"

"For shame, Bobus; I never meant you to see them!"

"'Twas quite involuntary! I have trouble enough with my own pupil's effusions. I leave him a bit of Latin composition, and what do I find but an endless doggerel ballad on What's his name?-who hid under his father's staircase as a beggar, eating the dogs' meat, while his afflicted family were searching for him in vain;-his favourite example."

"St. Alexis," said Babie; "he was asked to versify it."

"As a wholesome incentive to filial duty and industry," said Bobus. "Does the Parsoness mean to have it sung in the school?"

"It might be less dangerous than 'the fox went out one moonshiny night,'" said their mother, anxious to turn the conversation. "Mr. Parsons brought Mr. Todd of Wrexham in to see the school just as the children were singing the final catastrophe when the old farmer 'shot the old fox right through the head.' He was so horrified that he declared the schools should never have a penny of his while they taught such murder and heresy."

"Served them right," said Jock, "for spoiling that picture of domestic felicity when 'the little ones picked the bones, oh!' How many guns shall we be, Bobus?"

"Only three. My uncle has a touch of gout, the Monk has got a tutorship, Joe has gone back to his ship, but the mighty Bob has a week's leave, and does not mean a bird to survive the change of owners."

"Doesn't Armine come?"

"Not he!" said Bobus. "Says he doesn't want to acquire the taste, and he would knock up with half a day."

"But you'll all come and bring us luncheon?" entreated Jock. "You will, mother! Now, won't you? We'll eat it on a bank like old times when we lived at the Folly, and all were jolly. I beg your pardon, Bob; I didn't mean to turn into another poetical brother on your hands, but enthusiasm was too strong for me! Come, Mother Carey, do!"

"Where is it to be?" she asked, smiling.

"Out by the Long Hanger would be a good place," said Bobus, "where we found the Epipactis grandiflora."

"Or the heathery knoll where poor little mother got into a scrape for singing profane songs by moonlight," laughed Jock.

"Ah! that was when hearts were light," she said; "but at any rate we'll make a holiday of it, for Jock's sake."

"Ha! what do I see?" exclaimed Jock, who was opposite the open window. "Is that Armine, or a Jack-in-the-Green?"

"Oh!" half sighed Barbara. "It's that harvest decoration!" And Armine, casting down armfuls of great ferns, and beautiful trailing plants, made his entrance through the open window, exchanging greetings, and making a semi-apology for his late appearance as he said-

"Mother, please desire Macrae to cut me the great white orchids. He won't do it unless you tell him, and I promised them for the Altar vases."

"You know, Armie, he said cutting them would be the ruin of the plant, and I don't feel justified in destroying it."

"Macrae's fancy," muttered Armine. "It is only that he hates the whole thing."

"Unhappy Macrae! I go and condole with him sometimes," said Bobus. "I don't know which are most outraged-his Freekirk or his horticultural feelings!"

"Babie," ordered Armine, who was devouring his breakfast at double speed, "if you'll put on your things, I've the garden donkey-cart ready to take down the flowers. You won't expect us to luncheon, mother?"

Barbara, though obedient, looked blank, and her mother said-

"My dear, if I went down and helped at the Church till half past twelve, could not we all be set free? Your brothers want us to bring their luncheon to them at the Hanger."

"That's right, mother," cried Jock; "I've half a mind to come and expedite matters."

"No, no, Skipjack!" cried Bobus; "I had that twenty stone of solid flesh whom I see walking up to the house to myself all yesterday, and I can't stand another day of it unmitigated!"

Entered the tall heavy figure of Rob. He reported his father as much the same and not yet up, delivered a note to his aunt, and made no objection to devouring several slices of tongue and a cup of cocoa to recruit nature after his walk; while Bobus reclaimed the reluctant Armine from cutting scarlet geraniums in the ribbon beds to show him the scene in the Greek play which he was to prepare, and Babie tried to store up all the directions, perceiving from the pupil's roving eye that she should have to be his memory.

Jock saw that the note had brought an additional line of care to his mother's brow, and therefore still more gaily and eagerly adjured her not to fail in the Long Hanger, and as the shooting party started, he turned back to wave his cap, and shout, "Sharp two!"

Two o'clock found three hungry youths and numerous dead birds on the pleasant thymy bank beneath the edge of the beach wood, but gaze as they might through the clear September air, neither mother, brother, nor sister was visible. Presently, however, the pony-carriage appeared, and in it a hamper, but driven only by the stable-boy. He said a gentleman was at the house, and Mrs. Brownlow was very sorry that she could not come, but had sent him with the luncheon.

"I shall go and see after her," said Jock; and in spite of all remonstrance, and assurance that it was only a form of Parsonic tyranny, he took a draught of ale and a handful of sandwiches, sprang into the carriage, and drove off, hardly knowing why, but with a yearning towards his mother, and a sense that all that was unexpected boded evil. Leaving the pony at the stables, and walking up to the house, he heard sounds that caused him to look in at the open library window.

On one side of the table stood his mother, on the other Dr. Demetrius Hermann, with insinuating face, but arm upraised as if in threatening.

"Scoundrel!" burst forth Jock. Both turned, and his mother's look of relief and joy met him as he sprang to her side, exclaiming, "What does this mean? How dare you?"

"No, no!" she cried breathlessly, clinging to his arm. "He did not mean-it was only a gesture!"

"I'll have no such gestures to my mother."

"Sir, the honoured lady only does me justice. I meant nothing violent. Zat is for you English military, whose veapon is zie horse- vhip."

"As you will soon feel," said Jock, "if you attempt to bully my mother. What does it mean, mother dear?"

"He made a mistake," she said, in a quick, tremulous tone, showing how much she was shaken. "He thinks me a quack doctor's widow, whose secret is matter of bargain and sale."

"Madame! I offered most honourable terms."

"Terms, indeed! I told you the affair is no empirical secret to be bought."

"Yet madame knows that I am in possession of a portion of zie discovery, and that it is in my power to pursue it further, though, for family considerations, I offer her to take me into confidence, so that all may profit in unison," said the Greek, in his blandest manner.

"The very word profit shows your utter want of appreciation," said Mrs. Brownlow, with dignity. "Such discoveries are the property of the entire faculty, to be used for the general benefit, not for private selfish profit. I do not know how much information may have been obtained, but if any attempt be made to use it in the charlatan fashion you propose, I shall at once expose the whole transaction, and send my husband's papers to the Lancet."

Hermann shrugged his shoulders and looked at Lucas, as if considering whether more or less reason could be expected from a soldier than from a woman. It was to him that he spoke.

"Madame cannot see zie matter in zie light of business. I have offered freely to share all that I shall gain, if I may only obtain the data needful to perfect zie discovery of zie learned and venerated father. I am met wit anger I cannot comprehend."

"Nor ever will," said Caroline.

"And," pursued Dr. Hermann, "when, on zie oder hand, I explain that my wife has imparted to me sufficient to enable me to perfectionate the discovery, and if the reserve be continued, it is just to demand compensation, I am met with indignation even greater. I appeal to zie captain. Is this treatment such as my proposals merit?"

"Not quite," said Jock. "That is to be kicked out of the house, as you shortly will be, if you do not take yourself off."

"Sir, your amiable affection for madame leads you to forget, as she does, zie claim of your sister."

"No one has any claim on my mother," said Jock.

"Zie moral claim-zie claim of affection," began the Greek; but Caroline interrupted him-

"Dr. Hermann is not the person fitly to remind me of these. They have not been much thought of in Janet's case. I mean to act as justly as I can by my daughter, but I have absolutely nothing to give her at present. Till I know what my own means may prove to be I can do nothing."

"But madame holds out zie hope of some endowment. I shall be in a condition to be independent of it, but it would be sweet to my wife as a token of pardon. I could bear away a promise."

"I promise nothing," was the reply. "If I have anything to give- even then, all would depend on your conduct and the line you may take. And above all, remember, it is in my power to frustrate and expose any attempt to misuse any hints that may have been stolen from my husband's memoranda. In my power, and my duty."

"Madame might have spared me this," sighed the Athenian. "My poor Janette! She will not believe how her husband has been received."

He was gone. Caroline dropped into a chair, but the next moment she almost screamed-

"Oh, we must not let him go thus! He may revenge it on her! Go after him, get his address, tell him she shall have her share if he will behave well to her."

Jock fulfilled his mission according to his own judgment, and as he returned his mother started up.

"You have not brought him back!"

"I should rather think not!"

"Janet's husband! Oh, Jock, it is very dreadful! My poor child!"

She had been a little lioness in face of the enemy, but she was trembling so hopelessly that Jock put her on a couch and knelt with his arm round her while she laid her head on his strong young shoulder.

"Let me fetch you some wine, mother darling," he said.

"No, no-to feel you is better than anything," putting his arm closer-

"What was it all about, mother?"

"Ah! you don't know, yet you went straight to the point, my dear champion."

"He was bullying you, that was enough. I thought for a moment the brute was going to strike you."

"That was only gesticulation. I'm glad you didn't knock him down when you made in to the rescue."

She could laugh a little now.

"I should like to have done it. What did he want? Money, of course?"

"Not solely. I can't tell you all about it; but Janet saw some memoranda of your father's, and he wants to get hold of them."

"To pervert them to some quackery?"

"If not, I do him great injustice."

"Give them up to a rogue like that! I should guess not! It will be some little time before he tries again. Well done, little mother!"

"If he will not turn upon her."

"What a speculation he must have thought her."

"Don't talk of it, Jock; I can't bear to think of her in such hands."

"Janet has a spirit of her own. I should think she could get her way with her subtle Athenian. Where did he drop from?"

"He overtook me on my way back from the Church, for indeed I did not mean to break my appointment. I don't think the servants knew who was here. And Jock, if you mention it to the others, don't speak of this matter of the papers. Call it, as you may with truth, an attempt to extort money."

"Very well," he gravely said.

"It is true," she continued, "that I have valuable memoranda of your father's in my charge; but you must trust me when I say that I am not at liberty to tell you more."

"Of course I do. So the mother was really coming, like a good little Red-riding-hood, to bring her son's dinner into the forest, when she met with the wolf! Pray, has he eaten up the two kids at a mouthful?"

"No, Miss Parsons had done that already. They are making the Church so beautiful, and it did not seem possible to spare them, though I hope Armine may get home in time to get his work done for Bobus."

"Is not he worked rather hard between the two? He does not seem to thrive on it."

"Jock, I can say it to you. I don't know what to do. The poor boy's heart is in these Church matters, and he is so bitterly grieved at the failure of all his plans that I cannot bear to check him in doing all he can. It is just what I ought to have been doing all these years; I only saw my duties as they were being taken away from me, and so I deserve the way Miss Parsons treats me."

"What way?"

"You need not bristle up. She is very civil; but when I hint that Armine has study and health to consider, I see that in her eyes I am the worldly obstructive mother who serves as a trial to the hero."

"If she makes Armine think so-"

"Armie is too loyal for that. Yet it may be only too true, and only my worldliness that wishes for a little discretion. Still, I don't think a sensible woman, if she were ever so good and devoted, would encourage his fretting over the disappointment, or lead him to waste his time when so much depends on his diligence. I am sure the focus of her mind must be distorted, and she is twisting his the same way."

"And her brother follows suit?"

"I think they go in parallel grooves, and he lets her alone. It is very unlucky, for they are a constant irritation to Bobus, and he fancies them average specimens of good people. He sneers, and I can't say but that much of what he says is true, but there is the envenomed drop in it which makes his good sense shocking to Armine, and I fear Babie relishes it more than is good for her. So they make one another worse, and so they will as long as we are here. It was a great mistake to stay on, and your uncle must feel it so."

"Could you not go to Dieppe, or some cheap place?"

"I don't feel justified in any more expense. Here the house costs nothing, and our personal expenditure does not go beyond our proper means; but to pay for lodging elsewhere would soon bring me in excess of it, at least as long as Allen keeps up the yacht. Then poor Janet must have something, and I don't know what bills may be in store for me, and there's your outfit, and Bobus's."

"Never mind mine."

"My dear, that's fine talking, but you can't go like Sir Charles Napier, with one shirt and a bit of soap."

"No, but I shall get something for the exchange. Besides, my kit was costly even for the Guards, and will amply cover all that."

"And you have sold your horses?"

"And have been living on them ever since! Come, won't that encourage you to make a little jaunt, just to break the spell?"

"I wish it could, my dear, but it does not seem possible while those bills are such a dreadful uncertainty. I never know what Allen may have been ordering."

"Surely the Evelyns would be glad to have you."

"No, Jock, that can't be. Promise me that you will do nothing to lead to an invitation. You are to meet some of them, are you not?"

"Yes, on Thursday week, at Roland Hampton's wedding. Cecil and I and a whole lot of us go down in the morning to it, and Sydney is to be a bridesmaid. What are you going to do now, mother?"

"I don't quite know. I feel regularly foolish. I shall have a headache if I don't keep quiet, but I can't persuade myself to stay in the house lest that man should come back."

"What! not with me for garrison?"

"O nonsense, my dear. You must go and catch up the sportsmen."

"Not when I can get my Mother Carey all to myself. You go and lie down in the dressing-room, and I'll come as soon as I have taken off my boots and ordered some coffee for you."

He returned with the step of one treading on eggs, expecting to find her half asleep; but her eyes were glittering, and there were red spots on her cheeks, for her nerves were excited, and when he came in she began to talk. She told him, not of present troubles, but of the letters between his father and grandmother, which, in her busy, restless life, she had never before looked at, but which had come before her in her preparations for vacating Belforest. Perhaps it was only now that she had grown into appreciation of the relations between that mother and son, as she read the letters, preserved on each side, and revealing the full beauty and greatness of her husband's nature, his perfect confidence in his mother, and a guiding influence from her, which she herself had never thought of exerting. Does not many an old correspondence thus put the present generation to shame?

Jock was the first person with whom she had shared these letters, and it was good to watch his face as he read the words of the father whom he remembered chiefly as the best of playfellows. He was of an age and in a mood to enter into them with all his heart, though he uttered little more than an occasional question, or some murmured remark when anything struck him. Both he and his mother were so occupied that they never observed that the sky clouded over and rain began to fall, nor did they think of any other object till Bobus opened the door in search of them.

"Halloo, you deserter!"

"Hush! Mother has a headache."

"Not now, you have cured it."

"Well, you've missed an encounter with the most impudent rascal I ever came across."

"You didn't meet Hermann?"

"Well, perhaps I have found his match; but you shall hear. Grimes said he heard guns, and we came upon the scoundrel in Lewis Acre, two brace on his shoulder."

"The vultures are gathering to the prey," said his mother.

"I'm not arrived at lying still to be devoured!" said Bobus. "I gave him the benefit of a doubt, and sent Grimes to warn him off; but the fellow sent his card-his card forsooth, 'Mr. Gilbert Gould, R.N.,'-and information that he had Miss Menella's permission."

"Not credible," said Jock.

"Mrs. Lisette's more likely," said his mother. "I think he is her brother."

"I sent Grimes back to tell him that Miss Menella had as much power to give leave as my old pointer, and if he did not retire at once, we should gently remove his gun and send out a summons."

"Why did you not do so at once?" cried Jock.

"Because I have brains enough not to complicate matters by a personal row with the Goulds," said Bobus, "though I could wish not to have been there, when the keepers would infallibly have done so. Shall I write to George Gould, or will you, mother?"

"Oh dear," sighed Caroline, "I think Mr. Wakefield is the fittest person, if it signifies enough to have it done at all."

"Signifies!" cried Jock. "To have that rascal loafing about! I wouldn't be trampled upon while the life is in me!"

"I don't like worrying Mr. Gould. It is not his fault, except for having married such a wife, poor man."

"Having been married by her, you mean," said Bobus. "Mark me, she means to get that fellow married to that poor child, as sure as fate."

"Impossible, Bobus! His age!"

"He is a good deal younger than his sister, and a prodigious swell."

"Besides, he is her uncle," said Jock.

"No, no, only her uncle's wife's brother."

"That's just the same."

"I wish it were!" But Jock would not be satisfied without getting a Prayer-book, to look at the table of degrees.

"He is really her third cousin, I believe," said his mother, "and I'm afraid that is not prohibited."

"Is he a ship's steward?" said Jock, looking at the card with infinite disgust.

"A paymaster's assistant, I believe."

"That would be too much. Besides, there's the Scot!"

"I don't think much of that," said Jock. "The mother and sister are keen for it, but Clanmacnalty is in no haste to marry, and by all accounts the Elf carries on promiscuously with three or four at once."

"And she has no fine instinct for a gentleman," added Bobus. "It is who will spread the butter thickest!"

"A bad look out for Belforest," said Jock.

"It can't be much worse than it has been with me," said his mother.

"That's what that little ass, Armine, has been presuming to din into your ears," said Bobus; "as if the old women didn't prefer beef and blankets to your coming poking piety at the poor old parties."

"By the bye," cried Caroline, starting, "those children have never come home, and see how it rains!"

Jock volunteered to take the pony carriage and fetch them, but he had not long emerged from the park in the gathering twilight before he overtook two figures under one umbrella, and would have passed them had he not been hailed.

"You demented children! Jump in this instant."

"Don't turn!" called Armine. "We must take this," showing a parcel which he had been sheltering more carefully than himself or his sister. "It is cord and tassels for the banner. They sent wrong ones," said Barbara, "and we had to go and match it. They would not let me go alone."

"Get in, I say," cried Jock, who was making demonstrations with the "national weapon" much as if he would have liked to lay it about their shoulders.

"Then we must drive onto the Parsonage," stipulated Armine.

"Not a bit of it, you drenched and foolish morsel of humanity. You are going straight home to bed. Hand us the parcel. What will you give me not to tie this cord round the Reverend Petronella's neck?"

"Thank you, Jock, I'm so glad," said Babie, referring probably to the earlier part of his speech. "We would have come home for the pony carriage, but we thought it would be out."

"Take care of the drip," was Armine's parting cry, as Babie turned the pony's head, and Jock strode down the lane. He meant merely to have given in the parcel at the door, but Miss Parsons darted out, and not distinguishing him in the dark began, "Thank you, dear Armine; I'm so sorry, but it is in the good cause and you won't regret it. Where's your sister? Gone home? But you'll come and have a cup of tea and stay to evensong?"

"My brother and sister are gone home, thank you," said Jock, with impressive formality, and a manly voice that made her start.

"Oh, indeed. Thank you, Mr. Brownlow. I was so sorry to let them go; but it had not begun to rain, and it is such a joy to dear Armine to be employed in the service."

"Yes, he is mad enough to run any risk," said Jock.

"Oh, Mr. Brownlow, if I could only persuade you to enter into the joy of self-devotion, you would see that I could not forbid him! Won't you come in and have a cup of tea?"

"Thank you, no. Good night." And Miss Parsons was left rejoicing at having said a few words of reproof to that cynical Mr. Robert Brownlow, while Jock tramped away, grinning a sardonic smile at the lady's notions of the joys of self-sacrifice.

He came home only just in time for dinner, and found Armine enduring, with a touching resignation learnt in Miss Parsons's school, the sarcasm of Bobus for having omitted to prepare his studies. The boy could neither eat nor entirely conceal the chills that were running over him; and though he tried to silence his brother's objurgations by bringing out his books afterwards, his cheeks burnt, he emitted little grunting coughs, and at last his head went down on the lexicon, and his breath came quick and short.

The Harvest Festival day was perforce kept by him in bed, blistered and watched from hour to hour to arrest the autumn cold, which was the one thing dreaded as imperilling him in the English winter which he must face for the first time for four years.

And Miss Parsons, when impressively told, evidently thought it was the family fashion to make a great fuss about him.

Alas! why are people so one-sided and absorbed in their own concerns as never to guess what stumbling-blocks they raise in other people's paths, nor how they make their good be evil spoken of?

Babie confided her feelings to Jock when he escorted her to Church in the evening, and had detected a melancholy sound in her voice which made him ask if she thought Armine's attack of the worst sort.

"Not particularly, except that he talks so beautifully."

Jock gave a small sympathetic whistle at this dreadful symptom, and wondered to hear that he had been able to talk.

"I didn't mean only to-day, but this is only what he had made up his mind to. He never expects to leave Belforest, and he thinks-oh, Jock!-he thinks it is meant to do Bobus good."

"He doesn't go the way to edify Bobus."

"No, but don't you see? That is what is so dreadful. He only just reads with Bobus because mother ordered him; and he hates it because he thinks it is of no use, for he will never be well enough to go to college. Why, he had this cold coming yesterday, and I believe he is glad, for it would be like a book for him to be very bad indeed, bad enough to be able to speak out to Bobus without being laughed at."

"Does he always go on in this way?"

"Not to mother; but to hear him and Miss Parsons is enough to drive one wild. They went on such a dreadful way yesterday that I was furious, and so glad to get away to Kenminster; only after I had set off, he came running after me, and I knew what that would be."

"What does she do? Does she blarney him?"

"Yes, I suppose so. She means it, I believe; but she does natter him so that it would make me sick, if it didn't make me so wretched! You see he likes it, because he fancies her goodness itself; and so I suppose she is, only there is such a lot of clerical shop"-then, as Jock made a sound as if he did not like the slang in her mouth-"Ay, it sounds like Bobus; but if this goes on much longer, I shall turn to Bobus's way. He has all the sense on his side!"

"No, Babie," said Jock very gravely. "That's a much worse sort of folly!"

"And he will be gone before long," said Barbara, much struck by a tone entirely unwonted from her brother. "O Jock, I thought reverses would be rather nice and help one to be heroic, and perhaps they would, if they would only come faster, and Armine could be out of Miss Parsons's way; but I don't believe he will ever be better while he is here. I think!-I think!" and she began to sob, "that Miss Parsons will really be the death of him if she is not hindered!"

"Can't he go on board the Petrel with Allen?"

"Mother did think of that," said Babie, "but Allen said he wasn't in spirits for the charge, and that cabin No. 2 wasn't comfortable enough."

Jock was not the least surprised at this selfishness, but he said-

"We will get him away somehow, Infanta, never fear! And when you have left this place, you'll be all right. You'll have the Friar, and he is a host in himself."

"Yes," said Babie, ruefully, "but he is not a brother after all. Oh, Jock! mother says it is very wrong in me, but I can't help it."

"What is wrong, little one?"

"To feel it so dreadful that you and Bobus are going! I know it is honour and glory, and promotion, and chivalry, and Victoria crosses, and all that Sydney and I used to care for; but, oh! we never thought of those that stayed at home."

"You were a famous Spartan till the time came," said Jock, in an odd husky voice.

"I wouldn't mind so much but for mother," said poor Barbara, in an apologetic tone; "nor if there were any stuff in Allen; nor if dear Armie were well and like himself; but, oh dear! I feel as if all the manhood and comfort of the family would be gone to the other end of the world."

"What did you say about mother?"

"I beg your pardon, Jock, I didn't mean to worry you. I know it is a grand thing for you. But mother was so merry and happy when we thought we should all be snug with you in the old house, and she made such nice plans. But now she is so fagged and worn, and she can't sleep. She began to read as soon as it was light all those long summer mornings to keep from thinking; and she is teasing herself over her accounts. There were shoals of great horrid bills of things Allen ordered coming in at Midsummer, just as she thought she saw her way! Do you know, she thinks she may have to let our own house and go into lodgings."

"Is that you, Barbara?" said a voice at the Parsonage wicket. "How is our dear patient?"

"Rather better to-night, we think."

"Tell him I hope to come and see him to-morrow. And say the vases are come. I thought your mother would wish us to have the large ones, so I put them in the Church. They are 3."

Babie thought Jock's face was dazed when he came among the lights in Church, and that he moved and responded like an automaton, and she could hardly get a word out of him all the way home. There, they were sent for to Armine, who was sufficiently better to want to hear all about the services, the procession, the wheat-sheaf, the hymns, and the sermons. Jock stood the examination well till it came to evensong, when, as his sister had conjectured, he knew nothing, except one sentence, which he said had come over and over again in the sermon, and he wanted to know whence it came. It was, "Seekest thou great things for thyself."

Even Armine only knew that it was in a note in the "Christian Year," and Babie looked out the reference, and found that it was Jeremiah's rebuke to Baruch for self-seeking amid the general ruin.

"I liked Baruch," she said. "I am sorry he was selfish."

"Noble selfishness, perhaps," said Armine. "He may have aimed at saving his country and coming out a glorious hero, like Gideon or Jephthah."

"And would that have been self-seeking too, as well as the commoner thing?" said Babie.

"It is like a bit of New Testament in the midst of the Old," said Armine. "They that are great are called Benefactors-a good sort of greatness, but still not the true Christian greatness."

"And that?" said Babie.

"To be content to be faithful servant as well as faithful soldier," said Armine, thoughtfully. "But what had it to do with the harvest?"

He got no satisfaction, Babie could remember nothing but Jock's face, and Jock had taken the Bible, and was looking at the passages referred to He sat for a long time resting his head on his hand, and when at last he was roused to bid Armine goodnight, he bent over him, kissed him, and said, "In spite of all, you're the wise one of us, Armie boy. Thank you."



CHAPTER XXXII. THE COST.



O well for him who breaks his dream With the blow that ends the strife, And waking knows the peace that flows Around the noise of life. G. MacDonald.

"Jock! say this is not true!"

The wedding had been celebrated with all the splendour befitting a marriage in high life. Bridesmaids and bridesmen were wandering about the gardens waiting for the summons to the breakfast, when one of the former thus addressed one of the latter, who was standing, gazing without much speculation in his eyes, at the gold fish disporting themselves round a fountain.

"Sydney!" he exclaimed, "are not your mother and Fordham here? I can't find them."

"Did you not hear, Duke has one of his bad colds, and mamma could not leave him? But, Jock, while we have time, set my mind at rest."

"What is affecting your mind?" said Jock, knowing only too well.

"What Cecil says, that you mean to disappoint all our best hopes."

"There's no help for it, Sydney," said Jock, too heavy-hearted for fencing.

"No help. I don't understand. Why, there's going to be war, real war, out there."

"Frontier tribes!"

"What of that? It would lead to something. Besides, no one leaves a corps on active service."

"Is mine?"

"It is all the same. You were going to get into one that is."

"Curious reasoning, Sydney. I am afraid my duty lies the other way."

"Duty to one's country comes first. I can't believe Mrs. Brownlow wants to hold you back; she-a soldier's daughter!"

"It is no doing of hers," said Jock; "but I see that I must not put myself out of reach of her."

"When she has all the others! That is a mere excuse! If you were an only son, it would be bad enough."

"Come this way, and I'll tell you what convinced me."

"I can't see how any argument can prevail on you to swerve from the path of honour, the only career any one can care about," cried Sydney, the romance of her nature on fire.

"Hush, Sydney," he said, partly from the exquisite pain she inflicted, partly because her vehemence was attracting attention.

"No wonder you say Hush," said the maiden, with what she meant for noble severity, "No wonder you don't want to be reminded of all we talked of and planned. Does not it break Babie's heart?"

"She does not know."

"Then it is not too late."

But at that moment the bride's aunt, who felt herself in charge of Miss Evelyn, swooped down on them, and paired her off with an equally honourable best man, so that she found herself seated between two comparative strangers; while it seemed to her that Lucas Brownlow was keeping up an insane whirl of merriment with his neighbours.

Poor child, her hero was fallen, her influence had failed, and nothing was left her but the miserable shame of having trusted in the power of an attraction which she now felt to have been a delusion. Meanwhile the aunt, by way of being on the safe side, effectually prevented Jock from speaking to her again before the party broke up; and he could only see that she was hotly angered, and not that she was keenly hurt.

She arrived at home the next day with white cheeks and red eyes, and most indistinct accounts of the wedding. A few monosyllables were extracted with difficulty, among them a "Yes" when Fordham asked whether she had seen Lucas Brownlow.

"Did he talk of his plans?"

"Not much."

"One cannot but be sorry," said her mother; "but, as your uncle says, his motives are to be much respected."

"Mamma," cried Sydney, horrified, "you wouldn't encourage him in turning back from the defence of his country in time of war?"

"His country!" ejaculated Fordham. "Up among the hill tribes!"

"You palliating it too, Duke! Is there no sense of honour or glory left? What are you laughing at? I don't think it a laughing matter, nor Cecil either, that he should have been led to turn his back upon all that is great and glorious!"

"That's very fine," said Fordham, who was in a teasing mood. "Had you not better put it into the 'Traveller's Joy?'"

"I shall never touch the 'Traveller's Joy' again!" and Sydney's high horse suddenly breaking down, she flew away in a flood of tears.

Her mother and brother looked at one another rather aghast, and Fordham said-

"Had you any suspicion of this?"

"Not definitely. Pray don't say a word that can develop it now."

"He is all the worthier."

"Most true; but we do not know that there is any feeling on his side, and if there were, Sydney is much too young for it to be safe to interfere with conventionalities. An expressed attachment would be very bad for both of them at present."

"Should you have objected if he had still been going to India?"

"I would have prevented an engagement, and should have regretted her knowing anything about it. The wear of such waiting might be too great a strain on her."

"Possibly," said Fordham. "And should you consider this other profession an insuperable objection?"

"Certainly not, if he goes on as I think he will; but such success cannot come to him for many years, and a good deal may happen in that time."

Poor Lucas! He would have been much cheered could he have heard the above conversation instead of Cecil's wrath, which, like his sister's, worked a good deal like madness on the brain.

Mr. Evelyn chose to resent the slight to his family, and the ingratitude to his uncle, in thus running counter to their wishes, and plunging into what the young aristocrat termed low life. He did not spare the warning that it would be impossible to keep up an intimacy with one who chose to "grub his nose in hospitals and dissecting rooms."

Naturally Lucas took these as the sentiments of the whole family, and found that he was sacrificing both love and friendship. Sir James Evelyn indeed allowed that he was acting rightly according to his lights. Sir Philip Cameron told him that his duty to a widowed mother ought to come first, and his own Colonel, a good and wise man, commended his decision, and said he hoped not to lose sight of him. The opinions of these veterans, though intrinsically worth more than those of the two young Evelyns, were by no means an equivalent to poor Lucas. The "great things" he had resolved not to seek, involved what was far dearer. It was more than he had reckoned on when he made his resolution, but he had committed himself, and there was no drawing back. He was just of age, and had acted for himself, knowing that his mother would withhold her consent if she were asked for it; but he was considering how to convey the tidings to her, when he found that a card had been left for him by the Reverend David Ogilvie, with a pencilled invitation to dine with him that evening at an hotel.

Mr. Ogilvie, after several years of good service as curate at a district Church at a fashionable south coast watering place, sometimes known as the English Sorrento, had been presented to the parent Church. He had been taking his summer holiday, and on his way back had undertaken to relieve a London friend of his Sunday services. His sister's letters had made him very anxious for tidings of Mrs. Brownlow, and he had accordingly gone in quest of her son.

He ordered dinner with a half humorous respect for the supposed epicurism of a young Guardsman, backed by the desire to be doubly correct because of the fallen fortunes of the family, and he awaited with some curiosity the pupil, best known to him as a pickle.

"Mr. Brownlow."

There stood, a young man, a soldier from head to foot, slight, active, neatly limbed, and of middle height, with a clear brown cheek, dark hair and moustache, and the well-remembered frank hazel eyes, though their frolic and mischief were dimmed, and they had grown grave and steadfast, and together with the firm-set lip gave the impression of a mind resolutely bent on going through some great ordeal without flinching or murmuring. With a warm grasp of the hand Mr. Ogilvie said-

"Why, Brownlow, I should not have known you."

"I should have known you, sir, anywhere," said Jock, amazed to find the Ogre of old times no venerable seignior, but a man scarce yet middle-aged.

They talked of Mr. Ogilvie's late tour, in scenes well known to Jock, and thence they came to the whereabouts of all the family, Armine's health and Robert's appointment, till they felt intimate; and the unobtrusive sympathy of the old friend opened the youth's heart, and he made much plain that had been only half understood from Mrs. Morgan's letters. Of his eldest brother and sister, Jock said little; but there was no need to explain why his mother was straitening herself, and remaining at Belforest when it had become so irksome to her.

"And you are going out to India?" said Mr. Ogilvie.

"That's not coming off, sir."

"Indeed, I thought you were to have a staff appointment."

"It would not pay, sir; and that is a consideration."

"Then have you anything else in view?"

"The hospitals," said Jock, with a poor effort to seem diverted; "the other form of slaughter." Then as his friend looked at him with concerned and startled eyes, he added, "Unless there were some extraordinary chance of loot. You see the pagoda tree is shaken bare, and I could do no more than keep myself and have nothing for my mother, and I am afraid she will need it. It is a chance whether Allen, at his age, or Armine, with his health, can do much, and some one must stay and get remunerative work."

"Is not the training costly?"

"Her Majesty owes me something. Luckily I got my commission by purchase just in time, and I shall receive compensation enough to carry me through my studies. We shall be all together with Friar Brownlow, who takes the same line in the old house in Bloomsbury, where we were all born. That she really does look forward to."

"I should think so, with you to look after her," said Mr. Ogilvie heartily.

"Only she can't get into it till Lady Day. And I wanted to ask you, Mr. Ogilvie, do you know anything about expenses down at your place? What would tolerable lodgings be likely to come to, rent of rooms, I mean, for my mother and the two young ones. Armie has not wintered in England since that Swiss adventure of ours, and I suppose St. Cradocke's would be as good a place for him as any."

"I had a proposition to make, Brownlow. My sister and I invested in a house at St. Cradocke's when I was curate there, and she meant to retire to me when she had finished Barbara. My married curate is leaving it next week, when I go home. The single ones live in the rectory with me, and I think of making it a convalescent home; but this can't be begun for some months, as the lady who is to be at the head will not be at liberty. Do you think your mother would do me the favour to occupy it? It is furnished, and my housekeeper would see it made comfortable for her. Do you think you could make the notion acceptable to her?" he said, colouring like a lad, and stuttering in his eagerness.

"It would be a huge relief," exclaimed Jock. "Thank you, Mr. Ogilvie. Belforest has come to be like a prison to her, and it will be everything to have Armine in a warm place among reasonable people."

"Is Kenminster more unreasonable than formerly?"

"Not Kenminster, but Woodside. I say, Mr. Ogilvie, you haven't any one at St. Cradocke's who will send Armine and Babie to walk three miles and back in the rain for a bit of crimson cord and tassels?"

"I trust not," said Mr. Ogilvie, smiling. "That is the way in which good people manage to do so much harm."

"I'm glad you say so," cried Jock. "That woman is worse for him than six months of east wind. I declare I had a hard matter to get myself to go to Church there the next day."

"Who is she?"

"The sister of the Vicar of Woodside, who is making him the edifying martyr of a goody book. Ah, you know her, I see," as Mr. Ogilvie looked amused.

"A gushing lady of a certain age? Oh yes, she has been at St. Cradocke's."

"She is not coming again, I hope!" in horror.

"Not likely. They were there for a few months before her brother had the living, and I could quite fancy her influence bringing on a morbid state of mind. There is something exaggerated about her."

"You've hit her off exactly!" cried Jock, "and you'll unbewitch our poor boy before she has quite done for him! Can't you come down with me on Saturday, and propose the plan?"

"Thank you, I am pledged to Sunday."

"I forgot. But come on Monday then?"

"I had better go and prepare. I had rather you spoke for me. Somehow," and a strange dew came in David Ogilvie's eyes, "I could not bear to see her there, where we saw her installed in triumph, now that all is so changed."

"You would see her the brightest and bravest of all. Neither she nor Babie would mind the loss of fortune a bit if it were not, as Babie says, for 'other things.' But those other things are wearing her to a mere shadow. No, not a shadow-that is dark-but a mere sparkle! But to escape from Belforest will cure a great deal."

So Jock went away with the load on his heart somewhat lightened. He could not get home on Saturday till very late, when dinner had long been over. Coming softly in, through the dimly lighted drawing- rooms, over the deeply piled carpets, he heard Babie's voice reading aloud in the innermost library, and paused for a moment, looking through the heavy velvet curtains over the doorway before withdrawing one and entering. His mother's face was in full light, as she sat helping Armine to illuminate texts. She did indeed look worn and thin, and there were absolute lines on it, but they were curves such as follow smiles, rather than furrows of care; feet rather of larks than of crows, and her whole air was far more cheerful and animated than that of her youngest son. He was thin and wan, his white cheeks contrasting with his dark hair and brown eyes, which looked enormous in their weary pensiveness, as he lent back languidly, holding a brush across his lips in a long pause, while she was doing his work. Barbara's bright keen little features were something quite different as, wholly wrapped up in her book, she read-

"Oh! then Ladurlad started, As one who, in his grave, Has heard an angel's call, Yea, Mariately, thou must deign to save, Yea, goddess, it is she, Kailyal-"

"Are you learning Japanese?" asked Jock, advancing, so that Armine started like Ladurlad himself.

"Dear old Skipjack! Skipped here again!" and they were all about him. "Have you had any dinner?"

"A mouthful at the station. If there is any coffee and a bit of something cold, I'd rather eat it promiscuously here. No dining-room spread, pray. It is too jolly here," said Jock, dropping into an armchair. "Where's Bob?"

"Dining at the school-house."

"And what's that Mariolatry?"

"Mariately," said Babie. "An Indian goddess. It is the 'Curse of Kehama,' and wonderfully noble."

"Moore or Browning?"

"For shame, Jock!" cried the girl. "I thought you did know more than examination cram."

"It is the advantage of having no Mudie boxes," said his mother. "We are taking up our Southey."

"And, Armie, how are you?"

"My cough is better, thank you," was the languid answer. "Only they won't let me go beyond the terrace."

"For don't I know," said his mother, "that if once I let you out, I should find you croaking at a choir practice at Woodside?"

Then, after ordering a refection for the traveller, came the question what he had been doing.

"Dining with Mr. Ogilvie. It is quite a new sensation to find oneself on a level with the Ogre of one's youth, and prove him a human mortal after all."

"That's a sentiment worthy of Joe," said Babie. "You used to know him in private life."

"Always with a smack of the dominie. Moreover, he is so young. I thought him as ancient as Dr. Lucas, and, behold, he is a brisk youth, without a grey hair."

"He always was young-looking," said his mother. "I am glad you saw him. I wish he were not so far off."

"Well then, mother, here's an invitation from Mahomet to the mountain, which Mahomet is too shy to make in person. That house which he and his sister bought at his English Sorrento has just been vacated by his married curate, and he wants you to come and keep it warm till he begins a convalescent home there next spring."

"How very kind!"

"Oh! mother, you couldn't," burst out Armine in consternation.

"Would it be an expense or loss to him, Jock?" said his mother, considering.

"I should say not, unless he be an extremely accomplished dissembler. If it eased your mind, no doubt he would consent to your paying the rates and taxes."

"But, mother," again implored Armine, "you said you would not force me to go to Madeira, with the Evelyns!"

"Are they going to Madeira?" exclaimed Jock, thunderstruck.

"Did you not hear it from Cecil?"

"He has been away on leave for the last week. This is a sudden resolution."

"Yes, Fordham goes on coughing, and Sydney has a bad cold, caught at the wedding. Did you see her?"

"Oh yes, I saw her," he mechanically answered, while his mother continued-

"Mrs. Evelyn has been pressing me most kindly to let Armine go with them; but as Dr. Leslie assures me it is not essential, and he seems so much averse to it himself-"

"You know, mother, how I wish to hold my poor neglected Woodside to the last," cried Armine. "Why is my health always to be made the excuse for deserting it?"

"You are not the only reason," said his mother. "It is hard to keep Esther in banishment all this time, and I am in constant fear of a row about the shooting with that Gilbert Gould."

"Has he been at it again!" exclaimed Jock, fiercely.

"You are as bad as Rob," she said. "I fully expect a disturbance between them, and I had rather be no party to it. Oh, I shall be very thankful to get away, I feel like a prisoner on parole."

"And I feel," said Armine, "as if all we could do here was too little to expiate past carelessness."

"Mind, you are talking of mother!" said Jock, firing up.

"I thought she felt with me," said Armine, meekly.

"So I do, my dear; I ought to have done much better for the place, but our staying on now does no good, and only leads to perplexity and distress."

"And when can you come, mother?" said Jock. "The house is at your service instanter."

"I should like to go to-night, without telling any one or wishing any one good-bye. No, you need not be afraid, Armie. The time must depend on your brother's plans. St. Cradocke's is too far off for much running backwards and forwards. Have you any notion when you may have to leave us, Jock? You don't go with Sir Philip?"

"No, certainly not," said Jock. Then, with a little hesitation, "In fact, that's all up."

"He has not thrown you over?" said his mother; "or is there any difficulty about your exchange?"

Here Babie broke in, "Oh, that's it! That's what Sydney meant! Oh, Jock! you don't mean that you let it prey upon you-the nonsense I talked? Oh, I will never, never say anything again!"

"What did she say?" demanded Jock.

"Sydney? Oh, that it would break her heart and Cecil's if you persisted, and that she could not prevent you, and it was my duty. Mother, that was the letter I didn't show you. I could not understand it, and I thought you had enough to worry you."

"But what does it all mean?" asked their mother. "What have you been doing to the Evelyns?"

"Mother, I have gone back to our old programme," said Jock. "I have sent in my papers; I said nothing to you, for I thought you would only vex yourself."

"Oh, Jock!" she said, overpowered; "I should never have let you!"

"No, mother, dear, I knew that, so I didn't ask you."

"You undutiful person!" but she held out her arm, and as he came to her, she leant her head against him, sobbing a little sob of infinite relief, as though fortitude found it much pleasanter to have a living column.

"You've done it?" said Armine.

"You will see it gazetted in a day or two."

"Then it is all over," cried Babie, again in tears; "all our dreams of honour, and knighthood, and wounds, and glorious things!"

"You can always have the satisfaction of believing I should have got them," said Jock, but there was a quiver in his voice, and a thrill through his whole frame that showed his mother that it was very sore with him, and she hastened to let him subside into a chair while she asked if it was far to the end of the canto, and as Babie was past reading, she took the book and finished it herself. Nobody had much notion of the sense, but the cadence was soothing, and all were composed by the time the prayer-bell rang.

"Come to my dressing-room presently," she said to Lucas, as he lighted her candle for her.

Just as she had gone up stairs, the front door opened to admit Bobus.

"Oh, you are here!" was his salutation. "So you have done for yourself?"

"How do you know?"

"Your colonel wrote to my uncle. He was at the dinner, and made me come back with him to ask if I knew about it."

"How does he take it?"

"He will probably fall on you, as he did on me to-night, calling it all my fault."

"As how?"

"For looking out for myself. For my part, I had thought it praiseworthy, but he says none of the rest of us care a rush for my mother, and so the only one of us good for anything has to be the victim. But don't plume yourself. You'll be the scum of the earth when he has you before him. Poor old boy, it is a sore business to him, and it doesn't improve his temper. I believe this place is a greater loss to him than to my mother. What are your plans?"

"Rotifer, as before."

"Chacun a son gout," said Bobus, shrugging his shoulders.

"I should have thought you would respect curing more than killing."

"If there were not a whole bag of stones about your neck."

"Magnets," said Jock.

"That's just it. All the heavier."

The brothers went upstairs together, and Jock was kept waiting a little while in the dressing-room, till his mother came out, shutting the door on Barbara.

"The poor Infanta!" she said. "She is breaking her foolish little heart over something she said to you. 'As bad as the woman in the "Black Brunswicker,"' she says, only she didn't mean it. Was it so, Jock?"

"I had pretty well made up my mind before. Mother, are you vexed that I did not tell you?"

"You spared me much. Your uncle would never have consented. But oh, Jock! I'm not a Spartan mother. My heart will bound."

"My colonel said it was right," said Jock; "so did Cameron, and even Sir James, though he did not like it."

"With such an array of old soldiers on our side we may let the young ladies rage," said his mother, but she checked her mirth on seeing how far from a joke their indignation was to her son.

He turned and looked into the fire as he said-

"When did Sydney write that letter, mother?"

"Before meeting you at the wedding. She has not written since."

"I thought not," muttered Jock, his brow against the mantel-piece.

"No, but Mrs. Evelyn has written such a nice letter, just like herself, though I did not understand it then. I think she was doubtful how much I knew, for she only said how thankworthy it must be to have such a self-sacrificing spirit among my sons, moral courage, in fact, of the highest kind, and how those who were lavish of strong words in their first disappointment would be wiser by-and- by. I was puzzled then. But oh, my dear, this must have been very grievous to you!"

"I couldn't go back, but I did not know how it would be," said Jock, in a choked voice, collapsing at last, and hiding his face on his mother's lap.

"My Jock, I am so sorry! I wish it were not too late. I could not have let you give up so much," and she fondled his head. "I did not think I had been so weak as to let you see."

"No, mother. It was not that you were so weak, but that you were so brave. Besides, I ought to take the brunt of it. I ruined you all by being the prime mover with that assification, and I was the cause of Armie's illness too. I ought to take my share. If ever I can be any good to any one again," he added, in a dejected tone.

"Good!-unspeakably good! This is my first bright spot of light through the wood. If it were but bright to you! I am afraid they have been very unkind."

"Not unkind. She couldn't be that, but I've shocked and disappointed her," and his head dropped again.

"What, in not being a hero? My dear, you are a true hero in the eyes of us old mothers; but I am afraid that is poor comfort. My Jock, does it go so deep as that? Giving up all that for me! O my boy!"

"It is nonsense to talk of giving up," said Jock, rousing himself to a common-sense view. "What chance had I of her if I had gone to India ten times over?" but the wave of grief broke over him again. "She would have believed in me, and, may be, have waited."

"She will believe in you again."

"No, I'm below her."

"My poor boy, I didn't know it had come to this. Do you mean that anything had ever passed between you?"

"No, but it was all the same. Even Evelyn implied it, when he said they must give me up, if we took such different lines."

"Cecil too! Foolish fellow! Jock, don't care about such absurdity. They are not worth it."

"They've been the best of my life," said poor Jock, but he stood up, shook himself, and said, "A nice way this of helping you! I didn't think I was such a fool. But it is over now. I'll buckle to, and do my best."

"My brave boy!" and as the thought of the Magnum Bonum darted into her mind, she said, "You may have greater achievements than are marked by Victoria Crosses, and Sydney herself may own it."

And Jock went to bed, cheered in spite of himself by his mother's pleasure, and by Mrs. Evelyn's letter, which she allowed him to take away with him.

Colonel Brownlow was not so much distressed by Lucas's retirement as had been apprehended. He knew the life of a soldier with small means too well to recommend it. The staff appointment, he said, might mean anything or nothing, and could only last a short time unless Lucas had extraordinary opportunities. It might be as well, he was very like his grandfather, poor John Allen, and might have had his history over again.

The likeness was a new idea to Caroline and a great pleasure to her. Indeed, she seemed to Armine unfeelingly joyous, as she accepted Mr. Ogilvie's invitation, and hurried her preparations. There was a bare possibility of a return in the spring, which prevented final farewells, and softened partings a little. The person who showed most grief of all was Mrs. Robert Brownlow, who, glad as she must have been to be free of Bobus and able to recall her daughter, wept over her sister-in-law as if she had been going into the workhouse, with tears partly penitent for the involuntary ingratitude with which past kindness had been received. She was, as Babie said, much more sorry for Mother Carey than Mother Carey for herself.

Yet the relief was all the greater that it was plain that Esther was not happy in her banishment; and that General Hood thought her visit had lasted long enough, while the matter was complicated at home by her sister Eleanor's undisguised sympathy with her cousin Bobus, for whom she would have sent messages if her mother had not, with some difficulty exacted a promise never to allude to him in her letters.



CHAPTER XXXIII. BITTER FAREWELLS.



But he who lets his feelings run In soft luxurious flow Shrinks when hard service must be done And faints at every woe. J. H. Newman.

Welcome shone in Mr. Ogilvie's face in the gaslight on the platform as the train drew up, and the Popinjay in her cage was handed out, uttering, "Hic, haec, hoc. We're all Mother Carey's chicks."

Therewith the mother and the two youngest of her chicks were handed to their fly, and driven, through raindrops and splashes flashing in the gas, to a door where the faithful Emma awaited them, and conveyed them to a room so bright and comfortable that Babie piteously exclaimed-

"Oh, Emma, you have left me nothing to do!"

Presently came Mr. Ogilvie to make sure that the party needed nothing. He was like a child hovering near, and constantly looking to assure himself of the reality of some precious acquisition.

Later in the evening, on his way from the night-school, he was at the door again to leave a parish magazine with a list of services that ought to have rejoiced Armine's heart, if he had felt capable of enjoying anything at St. Cradocke's, and at which Babie looked with some dismay, as if fearing that they would all be inflicted on her. He was in a placid, martyr-like state. He had made up his mind that the air was of the relaxing sort that disagreed with him, and no doubt would be fatal, though as he coughed rather less than more, he could hardly hope to edify Bobus by his death-bed, unless he could expedite matters by breaking a blood-vessel in saving someone's life. On the whole, however, it was pleasanter to pity himself for vague possibilities than to apprehend the crisis as immediate. It was true that he was very forlorn. He missed the admiring petting by which Miss Parsons had fostered his morbid state; he missed the occupations she had given him, and he missed the luxurious habits of wealth far more than he knew. After his winters under genial skies, close to blue Mediterranean waves, English weather was trying; and, in contrast with southern scenery, people, and art, everything seemed ugly, homely, and vulgar in his eyes. Gorgeous Cathedrals with their High Masses and sweet Benedictions, their bannered processions and kneeling peasantry, rose in his memory as he beheld the half restored Church, the stiff, open seats, and the Philistine precision of the St. Cradocke's Old Church congregation; and Anglicanism shared his distaste, in spite of the fascinations of the district Church.

He was languid and inert, partly from being confined to the house on days of doubtful character. He would not prepare any work for Bobus, who, with Jock, was to follow in ten days, he would not second Babie's wish to get up a St. Cradocke's number of the 'Traveller's Joy,' to challenge a Madeira one; he did little but turn over a few books, say there was nothing to read, and exchange long letters with Miss Parsons.

"Armine," said Mr. Ogilvie, "I never let my friends come into my parish without getting work out of them. I have a request to make you."

"I'm afraid I am not equal to much," said Armine, not graciously.

"This is not much. We have a lame boy here for the winter, son to a cabinet maker in London. His mind is set on being a pupil-teacher, and he is a clever, bright fellow, but his chance depends on his keeping up his work. I have been looking over his Latin and French, but I have not time to do so properly, and it would be a great kindness if you would undertake it."

"Can't he go to school?" said Armine, not graciously.

"It is much too far off. Now he is only round the corner here."

"My going out is so irregular," said Armine, not by any means as he would have accepted a behest of Petronella's.

"He could often come here. Or perhaps the Infanta would fetch and carry. He is with an uncle, a fisherman, and the wife keeps a little shop. Stagg is the name. They are very respectable people, but of a lower stamp than this lad, and he is rather lost for want of companionship. The London doctors say his recovery depends on sea air for the winter, so here he is, and whatever you can do for him will be a real good work."

"What is the name?" asked Mrs. Brownlow.

"Stagg. It is over a little grocery shop. You must ask for Percy Stagg."

Perhaps Armine suspected the motive to be his own good, for he took a dislike to the idea at once.

"Percy Stagg!" he began, as soon as Mr. Ogilvie was gone. "What a detestable conjunction, just showing what the fellow must be. And to have him on my hands."

"I thought you liked teaching?" said his mother.

"As if this would be like a Woodside boy!"

"Yes," said Babie; I don't suppose he will carry onions and lollipops in his pockets, nor put cockchafers down on one's book."

"Babie, that was only Ted Stokes!"

"And I should think he might have rather cleaner hands, and not leave their traces on every book."

"He'll do worse!" said Armine. "He will be vulgarly stuck up, and excruciate me with every French word he attempts to pronounce."

"But you'll do it, Armie?" said his mother.

"Oh, yes, I will try if it be possible to make anything of him, when I am up to it."

Armine was not "up to it" the next day, nor the next. The third was very fine, and with great resignation, he sauntered down to Mrs. Stagg's.

Percy turned out to be a quiet, gentle, pale lad of fourteen, without cockney vivacity, and so shy that Armine grew shyer, did little but mark the errors in his French exercise, hear a bit of reading, and retreat, bemoaning the hopeless stupidity of his pupil.

A few days later Mr. Ogilvie asked the lame boy how he was getting on.

"Oh, sir," brightening, "the lady is so kind. She does make it so plain in me."

"The lady? Not the young gentleman?"

"The young gentleman has been here once, sir."

"And his sister comes when he is not well?"

"No, sir, it is his mother, I think. A lady with white hair-the nicest lady I ever saw."

"And she teaches you?"

"Oh yes, sir! I am preparing a fable in the Latin Delectus for her, and she gave me this French book. She does tell me such interesting facts about words, and about what she has seen abroad, sir! And she brought me this cushion for my knee."

"Percy thinks there never was such a lady," chimed in his aunt. "She is very good to him, and he is ever so much better in his spirits and his appetite since she has been coming to him. The young gentleman was haughty like, and couldn't make nothing of him; but the lady- she's so affable! She is one of a thousand!"

"I did not mean to impose a task on you," said Mr. Ogilvie, next time he could speak to Mrs. Brownlow.

"Oh! I am only acting stop-gap till Armine rallies and takes to it," she said. "The boy is delightful. It is very amusing to teach French to a mind of that age so thoroughly drilled in grammar."

"A capital thing for Percy, but I thought at least you would have deputed the Infanta."

"The Infanta was a little overdone with the style of thing at Woodside. She and Sydney Evelyn had a romance about good works, of which Miss Parsons completely disenchanted her-rather too much so, I fear."

"Let her alone; she will recover," said Mr. Ogilvie, "if only by seeing you do what I never intended."

"I like it, teacher as I am by trade."

So each day Armine imagined himself bound to the infliction of Percy Stagg, and compelled by headache, cough, or weather, to let his mother be his substitute.

"She is keeping him going on days when I am not equal to it," he said to Mr. Ogilvie.

"Having thus given you one of my tasks," said that gentleman, "let me ask whether I can help you in any of your studies?"

"I have been reading with Bobus, thank you."

"And now?"

"I have not begun again, though, if my mother desires it, I shall."

"So I should suppose; but I am sorry you do not take more interest in the matter."

"Even if I live," said Armine, "the hopes with which I once studied are over."

"What hopes?"

The boy was drawn on by his sympathy to explain his plans for the perfection of church and charities at Woodside, where he would have worked as curate, and lavished all that wealth could supply in all institutions for its good and that of Kenminster. It was the vanished castle over which he and Miss Parsons had spent so many moans, and yet at the end of it all, Armine saw a sort of incredulous smile on his friend's face.

"I don't think it was impossible or unreasonable," he said. "I could have been ordained as curate there, and my mother would have gladly given land, and means, and all."

"I was not thinking of that, my boy. What struck me was how people put their trust in riches without knowing it."

"Indeed I should have given up all wealth and luxury. I am not regretting that!" exclaimed Armine, in unconscious blindness.

"I did not say you were."

"I beg your pardon," said Armine, thinking he had not caught the words.

"I said people did not know how they put their trust in riches."

"I never thought I did."

"Only that you think nothing can be done without them."

"I don't see how it can."

"Don't you? Well, the longer I live the more cause I see to dread and distrust what is done easily by force of wealth. Of course when the money is there, and is given along with one's self (as I know you intended), it is providential, but I verily believe it intensifies difficulties and temptations. Poverty is almost as beneficial a sieve of motives and stimulus to energy as persecution itself."

"There are so many things one can't do."

"Perhaps the fit time is not come for their being done. Or you want more training for doing them. Remember that to bring one's good desires to good effect, there is a how to be taken into account. I know of a place where the mere knowledge that there are unlimited means to bestow seems to produce ingratitude and captiousness for whatever is done. On the other hand, I have seen a far smaller gift, that has cost an effort, most warmly and touchingly received. Again, the power of at once acting leads to over-haste, want of consideration, domineering, expectation of adulation, impatience of counsel or criticism."

"I suppose one does not know till one has tried," said Armine, "but I should mind nothing from Mr. or Miss Parsons."

"I did not allude to any special case, I only wanted to show you that riches do not by any means make doing good a simpler affair, but rather render it more difficult not to do an equal amount of harm."

"Of course," said Armine, "as this misfortune has happened, it is plain that we must submit, and I hope I am bowing to the disappointment."

"By endeavouring to do your best for God with what is left you?"

"I hope so, but with my health there seems nothing left for me but unmurmuring resignation."

Mr. Ogilvie was amused at Armine's notion of unmurmuring resignation, but he added only, "Which would be much assisted by a little exertion."

"I did exert myself at home, but it is all aimless now."

"I should have thought you still equally bound to learn and labour to do your duty in Him and for Him. Will you think about what I have said?"

"Yes, Mr. Ogilvie, thank you. I know you mean it kindly, and no one can be expected to enter into my feeling of the uselessness of wasting my time over classical studies when I know I shall never be able to be ordained."

"Are you sure you are not wasting it now?"

It was not possible to continue the subject. Mr. Ogilvie had failed in both his attempts to rouse Armine, and had to tell his mother, who had hoped much from this new influence. "I think," he said, "that Armine is partly feeling the change from invalidism to ordinary health. He does not know it, poor fellow; but it is rather hard to give up being interesting."

Caroline saw the truth of this when Armine showed himself absolutely nettled at his brothers, on their arrival, pronouncing that he looked much better-in fact quite jolly, an insult which he treated with Christian forgiveness.

Bobus had visited Belforest. His mother had never intended this, and still less that he should walk direct from the station to Kencroft, surprising the whole family at luncheon, and taking his seat among them quite naturally. Thereby he obtained all he had expected or hoped, for when the meal was over, he was able, though in the presence of all the family, to take Esther by both hands, and say in his resolute earnest voice, "Good-bye, my sweet and only love. You will wait for me, and by-and-by, when I have made you a home, and people see things differently, I shall come for you," and therewith he pressed on her burning, blushing, drooping brow four kisses that felt like fire.

Her mother might fret and her father might fume, but they were as powerless as the parents of young Lochinvar's bride, and the words of their protest were scarcely begun when he loosed the girl's hands, and, turning to her mother, said, "Good-bye, Aunt Ellen. When we meet again, you will see things otherwise. I ask nothing till that time comes."

This was not the part of his visit of which he told his mother, he only dwelt on a circumstance so opportune that he had almost been forgiven even by the Colonel. He had encountered Dr. Hermann, who had come down to make another attempt on the Gracious Lady, and had thus found himself in the presence of a very different person. An opening had offered itself in America, and he had come to try to obtain his wife's fortune to take them out. The opportunity of making stringent terms had seemed to Bobus so excellent that he civilly invited Demetrius to dine and sleep, and sent off a note to beg his uncle to come and assist in a family compact. Colonel Brownlow, having happily resisted his impulse to burn the letter unread as an impertinent proposal for his daughter, found that it contained so sensible a scheme that he immediately conceived a higher opinion of his namesake than he had ever had before.

Thus Dr. Hermann found himself face to face with the very last members of the family he desired to meet, and had to make the best of the situation. Of secrets of the late Joseph Brownlow he said nothing, but based his application on the offer of a practice and lectureship he said he had received from New Orleans. He had evidently never credited that Mrs. Brownlow meant to resign the whole property without giving away among her children the accumulation of ready money in hand, and as he knew himself to be worth buying off, he reckoned upon Janet's full share. He had taken Mrs. Brownlow's own statements as polite refusals, and a lady's romance until he found the uncle and nephew viewing the resignation of the whole as common honesty, and that she was actually gone. They would not give him her address, and prevented his coming in contact with the housekeeper, so that no more molestation might be possible, and meantime they offered him terms such as they thought she would ratify.

All that Joseph Brownlow had left was entirely in her power, and the amount was such that if she had died intestate, each of her six children would have been entitled to about l600, exclusive of the house in London. Janet had no right to claim anything now or at her mother's death, but the uncle and nephew knew that Mrs. Brownlow would not endure to leave her destitute, and they thought the deportation to America worth a considerable sacrifice. Therefore they proposed that on the actual bona fide departure, 500 should be paid down, the interest of the 1100 should be secured to her, and paid half-yearly through Mr. Wakefield, who was to draw up the agreement; but the final disposal of the sum was not to be promised, but to depend on Mrs. Brownlow's will.

Such a present boon as 500 had made Hermann willing to agree to anything. Bobus had seen the lawyer in London, and with him concocted the agreement for signature, making the payments pass through the Wakefield office, the receipts being signed by Janet Hermann herself.

"Why must all payments go through the office?" asked Caroline.

"Because there's no trusting that slippery Greek," said Bobus.

"I should have liked my poor Janet to have been forced to communicate with me every half-year," she sighed.

"What, when she has never chosen to write all this time?"

"Yes. It is very weak, but I can't help it. It would be something only to see her name. I have never known where to write to her, or I would have done so."

"O, very well," said Bobus, "you had better invite them both to share the menage in Collingwood Street."

"For shame, Bobus," said Jock. "You have no right to say such things."

"Only that all this might as well have been left undone if my mother is to rush on them to ask their pardon and beg them to receive her with open arms. I mean, mother," he added with a different manner, "if you give one inch to that Greek, he will make it a mile, and as to Janet, if she can't bring down her pride to write to you like a daughter, I wouldn't give a rap for her receipt, and it might lead to intolerable pestering. Now you know she can't starve on 50 a year besides her medical education. Wakefield will always know where she is, and you may be quite easy about her."

Caroline gave way to her son's reasoning, as he thought, but no sooner was she alone with Jock than she told him that he must take her to London to see Janet in her lodgings before the departure for the States.

He was at her service, and as they did not mean to sleep in town, they started at a preposterously early hour, with a certain mirth and gaiety at thus eloping together, as the mother's spirits rose at the bare idea of seeing the first-born child for whom she had famished so long. Jock was such a perfect squire of dames, and so chivalrously charmed to be her escort, that her journey was delightful, nor did she grow sad till it was over. Then, she could not eat the food he would have had her take at the station, and he saw tears standing in her eyes as he sat beside her in the omnibus. When they were set down they walked swiftly and without a word to the lodgings.

Dr. and Mrs. Hermann had "left two days ago," said the untidy girl, whose aspect, like that of the street and house, betokened that Janet was drinking of her bitter brewst.