"Very true," said Jock. "Let me ask if your informant was not the lady who coloured this photograph, Mrs. Harte?" "Yes." "And is she here?"

"No, sir," with some hesitation.

"Can you give me her address? I am her brother. This lady is her mother, and we are very anxious to find her."

The photographer was gained by the frank address and manner. "I am sorry," he said, "but the truth is that there was a monster excitement about the disappearance of the girl, and as Mrs. Harte was said to have been concerned, there was constant resort to the studio to interview her; and I cannot but think she treated me ill, sir, for she quitted me at an hour's notice."

"And left no address?" exclaimed her mother, grievously disappointed.

"Not with me, madam; but she was intimate with a young lady employed in our establishment, and she may know where to find her."

And, through a tube, the photographer issued a summons, which resulted in the appearance of a pleasant-looking girl, who, on hearing that Mrs. Harte's mother and brother were in search of her, readily responded that Mrs. Harte had written to her a month ago from Philadelphia, asking her to forward to her any letters that might come to the room she usually occupied at New York. She had found employment, and there could be no doubt that she would be heard of there.

It was very near now. There was something very soothing in the services of that Sunday of waiting, when the Church seemed a home on the other side the sea, and on the Monday they were on their way, hearing, but scarcely heeding, the talk in the cars of the terrible yellow-fever visitation then beginning at New Orleans.

They arrived too late to do anything, but in early morning they were on foot, breakfasting with the first relay of guests at the hotel, and inquiring their way along the broad tree-planted streets of the old Quaker city.

It was again at a photograph shop that they paused, but as they were looking for the number, the private door opened, and there issued from it a grey figure, with a black hat, and a bag in her hand. She stood on the step, they on the side-walk. She had a thin, worn, haggard face, a strange, grey look about it, but when the eyes met on either side there was not a moment's doubt.

There was not much demonstration. Caroline held out her hand, and Janet let hers be locked tight into it. Jock took her bag from her, and they went two or three paces together as in a dream, till Jock spoke first.

"Where are we going? Can we come back with you, Janet, or will you come to the hotel with us?"

"I was just leaving my rooms," she said. "I was on my way to the station."

"You will come with me," said Caroline under her breath; and Janet passively let herself be led along, her mother unconsciously holding her painfully fast.

So they reached the hotel, and then Jock said, "I shall go and read the papers; send a message for me if you want me. You had rather be left to yourselves."

The mother knew not how she reached her bedroom, but once there, and with the door locked, she turned with open arms. "Oh! Janet, one kiss!" and Janet slid down on the floor before her, hiding her face in her dress and sobbing, "Oh! mother, mother, I am not worthy of this!"

Then Caroline flung herself down by her, and gathered her into her arms, and Janet rested her head on her shoulder for some seconds, each sensible of little save absolute content.

"And you have come all this way for me?" whispered Janet, at last raising her head to gaze at the face.

"I did so long after you! My poor, poor child, how you have suffered," said Caroline, drawing through her fingers the thin, worn, bony, hard-worked hand.

"I deserved a thousand times more," said Janet. "But it seems all gone since I see you, mother. And if you forgive, I can hope God forgives too."

"My child, my child," and as the strong embrace, and the kiss was on her brow, Janet lay still once more in the strange rest and relief. "It is very strange," she said. "I thought the sight of you would wither me with shame, but somehow there's no room for anything but happiness."

Renewed caresses, for her mother was past speaking.

"And Lucas is with you? Not Babie?"

"No, Babie is left with Mrs. Evelyn."

"So poor little Elvira came safe home?"

"Yes, and is Mrs. Allen Brownlow. Poor child, you rescued her from a sad fate. She believed to the last you were coming with her, and she lost your note, or you would have heard from us sooner."

Janet went on asking questions about the others. Her mother dreaded to put any, and only replied. Janet asked where they had been living, and she answered:

"In the old house, while the two Johns have been studying medicine."

"Not Lucas?" cried Janet, sitting upright in her surprise.

"Yes, Lucas. The dear fellow gave up all his prospects in the army, because he thought it would be more helpful to me for him to take this line, and he has passed so well, Janet. He has got the silver medal, and his essay was the prize one."

"And-" Janet stood up and walked to the window, as she said "and you have told him-"

"Yes. But, Janet, it was too late. Some hints of your father's had been followed up, and the main discovery worked out, though not perfected."

Janet's eyes glistened for a moment as they used to do in angry excitement, and she asked, "Could he bear it?"

"He was chiefly concerned lest I should be disappointed. Then he reminded me that the benefit to mankind had come all the sooner."

"Ah!" said Janet with a gasp, "there's the difference!" She did not explain further, but said, "It has not poisoned his life!"

Then seeking in her bag, she took out a packet. "I wish you to know all about it, mother," she said. "I wrote this to send home by Elvira, but then my heart failed me. It was well, since she lost my note. I kept it, and when I did not hear from you, I thought I would leave it to be posted when all was over with me. I should like you to read it, and I will tell you anything else you like to know."

There came the interruption of the hotel luncheon, after which a room was engaged for Janet, and the use of a private parlour secured for the afternoon and evening. Jock came and went. He was very much excited about the frightful reports he heard of the ravages of yellow fever in the south, and went in search of medical papers and reports. Janet directed him where to seek them. "I was just starting to offer myself as an attendant," she said. "I shall still go, to-morrow."

"You? Oh, Janet, not now!" was her mother's first exclamation.

"You will understand when you have read," quietly said Janet.

All that afternoon, according to her manifest wish, her mother was reading that confession of hers, while she sat by replying to each question or comment, in the repose of a confidence such as had not existed for fifteen years.

"Magnum Bonum," wrote Janet. "So my father named it. Alas! it has been Magnum Malum to me. I have thought over how the evil began. I think it must have been when I brooded over the words I caught at my father's death-bed, instead of confessing to my mother that I had overheard them. It might be reserve and dread of her grief, but it was not wholly so. I did not respect her as I ought in my childish conceit. I was an old-fashioned girl. Grandmamma treated her like a petted eldest child, and I had not learnt to look up to her with any loyalty. My uncle and aunt too, even while seeming to uphold her authority, betrayed how cheaply they held her."

"No wonder," said Caroline. "I was a very foolish creature then."

"I saw you differently too late," said Janet. "Thus unchecked by any sober word, my imagination went on dwelling on those words, which represented to me an arcanum as wonderful as any elixir of life that alchemists dream of, and I was always figuring to myself the honour and glory of the discovery, and fretting that it was destined to one of my brothers rather than myself. Even then, I had some notion of excelling them, and fretted at our residence at Kenminster because I was cut off from classes and lectures. Then came the fortune, and I saw at the first glance that wealth would hinder all the others, even Robert, from attempting to fulfil the conditions, and I imagined myself persevering and winning the day. As to the concealment of the will, I can honestly say that, to my inexperienced fancy, it appeared utterly unlike my father's and grandmother's, and at the moment I hid it, I only thought of the disturbance and discomfort, which scruples of my mother's would create, and the unpleasantness it would make with Elvira, with whom I had just been quarrelling. When as I grew older, and found the validity of wills did not depend on the paper they were written upon, I had qualms which I lulled by thinking that when my education was safe, and Elvira safely married to Allen, I would look again and then bring it to light, if needful. My mother's refusal to commit the secret to me on any terms entirely alienated me, I am grieved to say. I have learnt since that she was quite right, and that she could not help it. It was only my ignorance that rebelled; but I was enraged enough to have produced the will, and perhaps should have done so, if I had not been afraid both of losing my own medical training, and of causing Robert to take up that line, in which I knew he could succeed better than anyone."

"Janet, this must be fancy!"

"No, mother. There's no poison like a blessing turned into a curse. This is the secret history of what made me such a disagreeable, morose girl.

"Then came the opportunity that enabled me to glance at the book of my father's notes. Barbara's eyes made me lock the desk in haste and confusion. It was really and truly accident that I locked the book out instead of in. As you know, Barbara hid away the davenport, and I could not restore the book, when I had pored over it half the night, and found myself quite incompetent to understand the details, though I perceived the main drift. I durst not take the book out of the house, and the loss of my keys cut me off from access to it. Meantime I studied, and came to the perception that a woman alone could never carry out the needful experiments, I must have a man to help me, but I was too much warped by this time to see how my mother was thus justified. I still looked on her as insanely depriving me of my glory, the world of the benefit for a mere narrow scruple. Then I fell in with Demetrius Hermann. How can I tell the story? How he seemed to me the wisest and acutest of human beings, the very man to assist in the discovery, and how I betrayed to him enough by my questions to make him think me a prize, both for my secret and my fortune. He says I deceived him. Perhaps I did. Any way, we are quits. No, not quite, for I loved him as I should not have thought it in me to love anyone, and the very joy and gladness of the sensation made me see with his eyes, or else be preposterously blind. I think his southern imagination made his expectations of the secret unreasonable, and I followed his bidding blindly and implicitly in my two attempts to bring off Magnum Bonum, which I had come to believe my right, unjustly withheld from me. The second attempt, as you know, ended in the general crash.

"Afterwards, all the overtures were made by my husband. I would not share in them. I was too proud and would not come as a beggar, or see him threaten and cringe as unhappily I knew he could do, nor would I be seen by my mother or brothers. I knew they would begin to pity me, and I could not brook that. My mother's assurance of exposure, if he made any use of the stolen secret, made Demetrius choose to go to America.

"He said it all came out before my military brother. Did that change Lucas's destination?" said Janet, looking up.

"Ask him?"

"No, indeed," said Jock, when he understood. "I turned doctor as the readiest way of looking after mother."

"Did you understand nothing?"

"Only that she had some memoranda of my father's, that the sc- that Hermann wanted. I never thought of them again till she told me."

Mrs. Brownlow started at the next few words.

"My child was born only two days after we landed at New York."

But a quick interrogative glance kept her silent. "She was very small and delicate, and her father was impatient both of her weakness and mine. I think that was when I began to long for my mother. He made me call her Glykera, after his mother. I had taught him to be bitter against mine."

"O mother, if you could have seen her," suddenly exclaimed Janet, "she was the dearest little thing," and she drew from her bosom a locket with a baby face on one side, and some soft hair on the other, put it into her mother's hand and hid her face on her shoulder.

"Oh! my poor Janet, you have suffered indeed! How long did you keep the little darling?"

"Two years. You will hear! I was not quite wretched while I had her. Go on, mother. There's no talking of it."

"We tried both practising and lecturing, feeling our way meantime towards the Magnum Bonum. We found, however, in the larger cities that people were quite as careful about qualifications as at home, and that we wanted recommendations. I could have got some practice among women if Demetrius would have rested long enough anywhere, but he liked lecturing best. I had been obliged to perceive that he had very little real science, and indeed I had to give him the facts and he put them in his flowery language. While as to Magnum Bonum, he had gained enough to use it in a kind of haphazard way, for everything. I trembled at what he began doing with it, when in the course of our wanderings we got out of the more established regions into the south-west. In Texas we found a new township, called Burkeville, without a resident medical man, and the fame of his lectures had gone far enough for him to be accepted. There we set up our staff, and Demetrius-it makes me sick to say so-tried to establish himself as the possessor of a new and certain cure. I was persuaded that he did not know how to manage it, I tried to make him understand that under certain conditions it might be fatal, but he thought I was jealous. He had had one or two remarkable successes, his fame was spreading, he was getting reckless, and I could not watch as carefully as I sometimes did, for my child was ill, and needed all my care. The favourite of all the parish was the minister's daughter, a beautiful, lively, delicate girl, loved and followed like a sort of queen by the young men, of whom there were many, while there were hardly any other young women, none to compare with her. Demetrius had lost some patients, it was a sickly season, and I fancy there was some mistrust and exasperation against him already, for he was incompetent, and grew more averse to consulting me when his knowledge was at fault. I need not blame him. Everyone at home knows that I do not always make myself agreeable, and I had enough to exacerbate me, with my child pining in the unhealthy climate, and my father's precious secret used with the rough ignorance of an empiric. I knew enough of the case of this Annie Field to be sure that there were features in it which would make that form of treatment dangerous. I tried to make him understand. He thought me jealous of his being called in rather than myself. Well- she died, and such a storm of vengeance arose as is possible in those lawless parts. I knew and heeded nothing of it, for my little Glykera was worse every day, and I thought of nothing else, but it seems that reports unfavourable to us had come from some one of the cities where we had tried to settle, and thus grief and rage had almost maddened one of Annie's lovers, a young man of Irish blood, a leader among the rest. On the day of her funeral all the ruffianism in the place was up in arms against us. My husband had warning, I suppose, for I never saw or heard of him since he went out that morning, leaving me with my little one moaning on my lap. She was growing worse every hour, and I knew nothing else, till my door was burst open by a little boy of eight or ten years old, crying out, 'Mrs. Hermann, Mrs. Hermann, quick, they are coming to lynch you! come away, bring the baby. If father can't stop them, there's no place safe but our house.'

"And indeed upon the air came the sound of a great, horrible, yelling roar unspeakably dreadful. It seems never to have been out of my ears since. I do not know whether an American mob would have proceeded to extremities with a lonely woman and dying child, but there was an Irish and Spanish element of ferocity at Burkeville, and the cold, hard Englishwoman was unpopular, besides that, I was supposed to share in the irregular practice that had had such fatal effects. But with that horrible sound, one did not stop to weigh probabilities. I gathered up my child in her bed-clothes, and followed the boy out at the back door, blindly. And where do you think I found myself? where but in the minister's house? His wife, whose daughter had just been carried out to her grave, rose up from weeping and praying, to take me into the innermost chamber, where none could see me, and when she saw my darling's state, to give me all the help and sympathy a good woman could. Oh! that was my first true knowledge of Christian charity.

"Mr. Field himself was striving at the very grave itself to turn away the rage of these men against those whom they held his daughter's murderers, but he was as nothing against some fifty or sixty gathered, I suppose, some by real or fancied wrongs, some from mere love of violence. Any way, when he found himself powerless against the infuriated speeches of the young Irish lover, he put his little boy over the graveyard wall, and sent him off to take me to the last place where the mob would look for me, the very room where Annie died. Those howls and yells round the empty house, perhaps, too, the shaking of my rapid run, hastened the end with my precious child. I do not believe she could have lived many hours, but the fright brought on shudderings and convulsions, and she was gone from me by nine that evening. They might have torn me to pieces then, and I would have thanked them! I cannot tell you the goodness of the Fields. It could not comfort me then, but I have wondered over it often since." (There were blistered, blotted tear marks here.) "They knew it was not safe for me to remain, for there had been wild talk of a warrant out against us for manslaughter. They would have had me leave my little darling's form to their care, but they saw I dreaded (unreasonably I now think) some insult from those ruffians for her father's sake. Mr. Field said I should lay my little one to her rest myself. They found a long basket like a cradle. We laid her there in her own night-dress, looking so sweet and lovely. Mr. Field himself went out and dug the little grave, close to Annie's, and there by moonlight we laid her, and the good man put one of the many wreaths from Annie's grave upon hers, and there we knelt and he prayed. I don't know what denomination his may be, but a Christian I know he is. Cruel as the very sight of me must have been, they kept me in bed all the next day; and the minister went to see what he could save for me. Finding no one, the mob had wreaked their vengeance on our medicine bottles and glasses, smashed everything, and made terrible havoc of all our books, clothes and furniture. Almost the only thing Mr. Field had found unhurt was mother's little Greek Testament, which I had carried about, but utterly neglected till then. Mr. Field saw my name in it, brought it to me, and kindly said he was glad to restore it; none could be utterly desolate whose study lay there. I was obliged to tell him how you had sent it after me with that entreaty, which I had utterly neglected, and you can guess how he urged it on me."

"You have gone on now," said her mother, looking up at her.

Janet's reply was to produce the little book from her handbag, showing marks of service, and then to open it at the fly leaf. There Caroline herself had written "Janet Hermann," with the reference to St. Luke xv. 20. She had not dared to write more fully, but the good minister of Burkeville had, at Janet's desire, put his own initials, and likewise written in full:

"Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears, for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord, and they shall come again from the land of the enemy. And there is hope in thine end, saith the Lord, that thy children shall come again to their own border."

"He might have written it for me," said Caroline. "My child-one at least is come to me."

"Or you have gone into her far country to seek her," said Janet.

"Can I write to this good man?" asked Caroline. "I do long to thank him."

"O yes. I wrote to him only the day before yesterday."

There was but little more of the narrative. "At night he borrowed a waggon, and drove me to a station in time to take the early train for the north-east, supplying me with means for the journey, and giving me a letter to a family relation of his, in New York State. I was most kindly sheltered there for a few days while I looked out for advertisements. I found, however, that I must change my name, for the history of the Burkeville affair was copied into all the papers, and there were warnings against the two impostors, giving my maiden name likewise, as that in which my Zurich diploma had been made out. This cut me off from all medical employment, and I had to think what else I could do, not that I cared much what became of me. Seeing a notice that an assistant was wanted to colour and finish photographs, I thought my drawing, though only schoolroom work, might serve. I applied, showed specimens, and was thought satisfactory. I sent my address to Mr. Field, who had promised to let me know in case my husband made any attempt to trace me, or if I could find my way back to him, but up to this time I have heard absolutely nothing. The few white days in my life are, however, when I get a cheering, comforting letter from him. How I should once have laughed their phraseology to scorn, but then I did not know what reality meant, and they are the only balm of my life now, except mother's little book, and what they have led me to.

"But you see why I cannot come with Elvira. Not only do I not dare to meet my mother, but it might bring down upon her one whom she could not welcome. Besides, it is clearly fit that I should strive to meet him again; I would try to be less provoking to him now."

"I see, my dear," said Caroline. "But why did you never draw on Mr. Wakefield all this time?"

"I never thought we ought to take that money," said Janet. "I could maintain myself, and that was all I wanted. Besides I was ashamed to bid him use a false name, and I durst not receive a letter under my own, nor did I know whether Demetrius might go on applying."

"He did once, saying that you were unwell, but Mr. Wakefield declined to let him be supplied with out your signature."

Janet eagerly asked the when and the where.

"I am glad," said her mother, "to find that you change of name was not in order to elude him, as feared at first."

"No," said Janet, "he never knew he was cruel, but he had made a mistake altogether in me. I was a disappointment to begin with, owing to my own bad management, you see, for if I had brought off the book, and destroyed the will, his speculation would have succeeded. And then, for his comfort, he should have married a passive, ignorant, senseless, obedient oriental, and he did not know what to do with a cold, proud thing, who looked most hard when most wretched, who had understanding enough to see his blunders, and remains of conscience enough to make her sour. Poor Demetrius! He had the worst of the bargain! And now-" She turned the leaf of the manuscript, and showed, with a date three days back:

"Mr. Field has written to me, sending a cutting of an advertisement of a month back of a spiritualist from Abville, which he thinks may be my husband's. I am sure it is, I know the Greek idiom put into English. It decides me on what I had thought of before. I shall offer my services as nurse or physician, or whatever they will let me be in that stress of need. I may find him, or if he have fled, I may, if I live, trace him. At any rate, by God's grace, I may thus endeavour to make a better use of what has never yet been used for His service.

"And in case I should add no further words to this, let me conclude by telling my dear, dear mother that my whole soul and spirit are asking her forgiveness, and by sending my love to my brothers, and sister, whom I love far better now than ever I did when I was with them. And to Elvira too-perhaps she is my sister by this time.

"Let them try henceforth to think not unkindly of "JANET HERMANN."

This had been enclosed in an envelope addressed to Mrs. Joseph Brownlow, to the care of Wakefield and Co., solicitors.

"You see I cannot go back with you, mother dear," she said, "though you have come to seek me."

"Not yet," said Caroline, handing the last page to Jock, who had come back again from one of his excursions.

"Look here, Janet," said Jock, "mother will not forbid it, I know. If you will wait another day for me to arrange for her, I will go with you. This is a place specially mentioned as in frightful need of medical attendance, and I already doubted whether I ought not to volunteer, but if you have an absolute call of duty there, that settles it. Mother, do you remember that American clergyman who dined with us? I met him just now. He begged me with all his heart to persuade you to come and stay with his family. I believe he is going to bring his wife to call. I am sure they would take care of you."

"I don't want care. Jock, Jock, why should I not go and help? Do you think I can send my children into the furnace without me?"

Jock came and sat down by her with his specially consoling caress. "Mother dear, I don't think you ought. We are trained to it, you see, and it is part of our vocation, besides, Janet has a call. But your nursing would not make much difference, and besides, you don't belong only to us-Armine and Babie need their home. And suppose poor Bobus came back. No, I am accountable to them all. They didn't send me out in charge of my Mother Carey that I should run her into the jaws of Yellow Jack. I can't do it, mother. I should mind my own business far less if I were thinking about you. It would be just like your coming after me into a general engagement."

"Lucas is quite right," said Janet. "You know, mother, this is a special kind of nursing, that one does not understand by the light of nature, and you are not strong enough or tough enough for it."

"I flattered myself I was pretty tough," said her mother, with trembling lip. "What sort of a place is it? Could not I-even if you won't let me nurse-be near enough to rest you, and feed you, and disinfect you? That is my trade, Jock will allow, as a doctor's wife and mother. And I could collect things and send them to the sick. Would not that be possible, my dears?"

Jock said he would find out. And then he told them he had found a Church with a daily service, to which they went.

And then those three had a wonderfully happy evening together.



CHAPTER XLI. GOOD OUT OF EVIL.



How the field of combat lay By the tomb's self; how he sprang from ambuscade- Captured Death, caught him in that pair of hands. Browning.

"John," said Sydney, as they were taking their last walk together as engaged people on the banks of their Avon, "There's something I think I ought to tell you."

"Well, my dearest."

"Don't they say that there ought not to be any shadow of concealment of the least little liking for any one else, when one is going to be married," quoth Sydney, not over lucidly.

"I'm sure I can safely acquit myself of any such shadow," said John, laughing. "I never had the least little liking for anybody but Mother Carey, and that wasn't a least little one at all!"

"Well, John, I'm very much ashamed of it, because he didn't care for me, as it turned out; but if he had, as I once thought, I should have liked him," said Sydney, looking down, and speaking with great confusion out of the depths of her conscience, stirred up by much 'Advice to Brides,' and Sunday novels, all turning on the lady's error in hiding her first love; and then perhaps because the effect on John was less startling than she had expected, she added with another effort, "It was Lucas Brownlow."

"Jock!" cried John. "The dear fellow!"

"Yes-I did think it, when he was in the Guards, and always about with Cecil. It was very silly of me, for he did not care one fraction."

"Why do you think so?" said John hoarsely.

"Well, I know better now, but when he made up his mind to leave the army, I fancied it was no better than being a recreant knight, and I begged and prayed him to go out with Sir Philip Cameron, and as near as I dared told him it was for my sake. But he went on all the same, and then I was quite sure he did not care, and saw what a goose I had made of myself. Oh! Johnny, it has been very hard to tell you, but I thought I ought, and I hope you'll never think of it more, for Lucas just despised my foolish forwardness, and you know you have every bit of my heart and soul. What is the matter, John? Oh! have I done harm, when I meant to do right?"

"No, no, my darling, don't be startled. But do you mean that you really thought Jock's disregard of your entreaties came from indifference?"

"It was all one mixture of pain and anger," said Sydney. "I can't define it. I thought it was one's duty to lead a man to be courageous and defend his country, and of course he thought me such a fool. Why, he has never really talked to me since!"

"And you thought it was indifference," again repeated John, with an iteration worthy of his father.

"O John, you frighten me. Wasn't it? Did you know this before?"

"No, most certainly not. I did know thus much, that in giving up the army Jock had given up his dearest hopes; but I thought it was some fine fashionable lady, whom he was well rid of, though he didn't know it. And he never said a word to betray it, even when I came home brimful and overflowing with happiness. And you know it was his doing that my way has been smoothed. Oh! Sydney, I don't know how to look at it!"

"But indeed, John dear, I couldn't help loving you best. You saved me, you know, and I feel to fit in, and understand you best. I can't be sorry as it has turned out."

"That's very well," said John, trying to laugh, "for you couldn't be transferred back to him, like a bale of goods. And I could not have helped loving you; but that I should have been a robber, Jock's worst enemy!"

"I can't be sorry you did not guess it," said Sydney. "Then I never should have had you, and somehow-"

"And you thought him wanting in courage," recurred John.

"Only when I was wild and silly, talking out of the 'Traveller's Joy.' It was hearing about his going into that dreadful place that stirred it all up in my mind, because I saw what a hero he is."

"God grant he may come safe out of it!" said John. "I'll tell you what, Sydney, though, it is a shame, when I am the gainer: I think your romance went astray; more faith and patience would have waited to see the real hero come out, and so you have missed him and got the ordinary, jog-trot, commonplace fellow instead."

"Ah! but love must be at the bottom of faith and patience," said Sydney, "and that was scared away by shame at my own forwardness and foolishness. And now it is all gone to the jog-trot! I want no better hero!"

"What a confession for the maiden of the twelfth century!"

"I'm very glad you don't feel moved to start off to the yellow fever."

"Do you know, Sydney, I do not know what I don't feel moved to sometimes, I cannot understand this silence!"

"But you said the telegram that he was mending was almost better than if he had never been ill at all."

"So I thought then; but why do we not hear, if all is well with them?"

Three weeks since, a telegram had been received by Allen, containing the words, "Janet died at 2.30 A.M. Lucas mending."

It had been resolved not to put off the wedding, as much inconvenience would have been caused, and poor Janet was only cousin to John, and had been removed from all family interests so long, even Mrs. Robert Brownlow saw no impropriety, since Barbara went to Belforest for a fortnight, returning to Mrs. Evelyn on the afternoon of the wedding-day itself to assist in her move to the Dower House. Esther, who had never professed to wish for a hero, had been so much disturbed by the recent alarms of war, that she was only anxious that her guardsman should safely sell out in the interval of peace; and he had begun to care enough about the occupations at Fordham to wish to be free to make it his chief dwelling-place.

The wedding was as quiet as possible. Sydney was disappointed of the only bridesmaid she cared much about, and Barbara felt a kind of relief in not having a second time to assist at the destruction of a brother's hopes. She was very glad to get back to Fordham, reporting that Allen and Elvira were so devotedly in love that a third person was very much de trop; though they had been very kind, and Elvira had mourned poor Janet with real gratitude and affection. Still they did not take half so much alarm at the silence as she did, and she was relieved to be with the Evelyns, who were becoming very anxious. The bridegroom and bride could not bear to go out of reach of intell- igence, and had limited their tour to the nearest place on the coast, where they could hear by half a day's post.

No news had come except that seven American papers had been forwarded to Barbara, giving brief accounts of the pestilence in the southern cities. The numbers of deaths in Abville were sensibly decreased, one of these papers said. The arrival of an English physician, Dr. Lucas Brownlow, and his sister had been noticed, and also that the sister had succumbed to the disease, but that he was recovering. These were all, however, only up to the date of the telegram, and the sole shadow of encouragement was in the assurances that any really fatal news would have been telegraphed. Mrs. Evelyn and Barbara were very loving companions during this time. Together they looked over those personal properties of Duke's which rather belonged to his mother than his heir. Mrs. Evelyn gave Barbara several which had special associations for her, and together they read over his papers and letters, laughing tenderly over those that awoke droll remembrances, and perfectly entering into one another's sympathies.

"Yet, my dear," said Mrs. Evelyn, "I do not know whether I ought to let you dwell on this: you are too young to be looking back on a grave when all life is before you."

"Nay," said Babie, "it was he that showed me how to look right on through life! You cannot tell how delightful it is to me to be brought near to him again, now I can understand him so much better than ever I did when he was here."

"Yet it was always his fear that he might sadden your life."

"Sadden? oh no! It was he who put life into my hands, as something worth using," said Babie. "Don't you know it is the great glory and quiet secret treasure of my heart, that, as Jock said that first night, I have that love not for time but eternity."

And their thoughts could not but go back to the travellers in America, and all the possibilities, for were not whole families swept off by the disease, without power of communication?

However, at last, four days after the wedding, Barbara received a letter.

"Ashton Vineyard, Virginia. September 30th.

"MY DEAREST BABIE,-I have left you too long without tidings, but I have had little time, and no heart to write, and I could not bear to send such news without details. Of the ten terrible days at Abville I may, if I can, tell you when we meet. I was in a sort of country house a little above the valley of the shadow of death, preparing supplies, and keeping beds ready for any of the exhausted workers who could snatch a rest in the air of the hill. I scarcely saw my poor Janet. She had made out that her husband had been one of the first victims, before she even guessed at his being there. She only came once to tell me this, and they would not even allow me to come down to the Church, where all the clergy, doctors and sisters who could, used to meet, every morning and evening.

"On the tenth day she brought home Jock, smitten down after incessant exertion. Everyone allows that he saved more cases than anyone, though he says it was the abatement of the disease. Janet declares that his was a slight attack. If that was slight! She attended to him for two days, then told me the crisis was past and that he would live, and almost at the same time her strength failed her. The last thing she said consciously to me was, 'Don't waste time on me. I know these symptoms. Attend to Jock. That is of use. Only forgive and pray for me.' Very soon she was insensible, and was gone before twenty-four hours were over. The sister whom they spared to help me, said she was too much worn out to struggle and suffer like most, indeed as Jock had done.

"That Sister Dorothea, a true divine gift, a sweet and fair vision of peace, is a Miss Ashton, a Virginian. She broke down, not with the disease, only fatigue, and I gave her such care as I could spare from my dear boy. When her father, General Ashton, came to take her home, he kindly insisted on likewise carrying us off to his beautiful home, on a lovely hillside, where we trusted Jock's strength would be restored quickly. But perhaps we were too impatient, for the journey was far too much for him. He fainted several times, and the last miles were passed in an unconscious state. There has come back on him the intermittent fever which often succeeds the disease; and what is more alarming is the faintness, oppression, and difficulty of breathing, which he believes to be connected with the slight affection of heart remaining from his rheumatic fever at Schwarenbach. Then it is very difficult to give him nourishment except disguised with ice, and he is altogether fearfully ill. I send such an account of the case as I can get for John or Dr. Medlicott to see. How I long for our kind home friends. This place is unhappily very far from everywhere, a lone village in the hills; the nearest doctor twelve miles off. The Ashtons think highly of him; but he is old, and I can't say that I have any confidence in his treatment. Jock allows that he should do otherwise, but he says he has no vigour or connection of ideas to be fit to treat himself consistently, and that he should only do harm by interfering with Dr. Vanbro; indeed I fear he thinks that it does not make much difference. If patience and calmness can bring him through, he would live, but my dear Babie, I greatly dread that I shall not bring him back to the home he made so bright. He seldom rouses into talking much, but lies passive and half dozing when the feverish restlessness is not on him. He told me just now to send his love to you all, especially to the Monk and Sydney, with all dear good wishes to them both. No one can be kinder than the Ashtons; they are always trying to help in the nursing, and sending for everything that can be thought of for Jock. Sister Dorothea and Primrose are as good and loving as Sydney herself could be, and there is an excellent clergyman who comes in every day, and prays for my boy in Church. Ask them to do the same at Fordham, and at our own Churches. As long as I do not telegraph, remember that while there is life there is hope. "Your loving Mother C."

This letter was sent on to John. Two days later a fly drove up to the Dower House, and Sydney walked into the drawing-room alone.

Where did she come from?

>From Liverpool. John was gone to America.

"I wanted to go too," she said, tears coming into her eyes; "but he said he could go faster without me, and he could not take me to these Ashtons, or leave me alone in New York."

"It was very noble and good in you to let him go, Sydney," cried Babie.

"It would have broken his heart for ever," said Sydney, "if he had not tried to do his utmost for Jock. He says Jock has been more than a brother to him, and that he owes all that he is, and all that he has, to him and Mother Carey, and that even-if-if he were too late, he should save her from coming home alone. You think he was right, mamma?"

"Right indeed, and I am thankful that my Sydney was unselfish, and did not try to keep him back."

"O mamma, I could never have looked him in the face again if I had hindered him! And so we went up to London, and luckily Dr. Medlicott was at home, and he was very eager that John should go. He says he does not think it will be too late, and they talked it over, and got some medicines, and then John let me come down to Liverpool with him and see him on board, and we telegraphed the last thing to Mrs. Brownlow, so that it might be too late for her to stop him."

While that message was rushing on its way beneath the Atlantic it was the early morning of the ebb tide of the fever, and the patient was resting almost doubled over with his head on pillows before him, either slumber or exhaustion, so still, that his mother had yielded to urgent persuasion, and lain down in the next room to sleep in the dreamless repose of the overworn watcher.

For over him leant a sturdy, dark-browed, dark-bearded figure, to whom she had ventured to entrust him. Some fourteen hours before, Robert had with some difficulty found them out at Ashton Vineyard, having been irresistibly drawn by Jock's telegram to spend in the States an interval of leisure in his work, caused by his appointment as principal to another Japanese college. He had gone to the bank where Jock had given an address, and his consternation had been great on hearing the state of things. All this, however, he had left unexplained, and his mother had hardly even thought of asking where he had dropped from. For Jock was in the midst of one of his cruellest attacks of the fever, and all she had been conscious of was a knock and summons to the door, where Primrose Ashton gently whispered, "Here is some one you will be glad to see," and Robert's low deep voice, almost inaudible with emotion, asked, "May I see him?"

"He will not know you," she said, with the sad composure of one who has no time to grieve. But even in the midst of the babbling moan of fevered weakness, there was half a smile as of pleased surprise, and an evident craving for the strong support of his brother's arm, and by-and-by Jock looked up with meaning and recognition in his eyes, though quite unable to speak, in that faint and exhausted state indeed that verged nearer to death after every attack.

This had passed enough for her to know there would be a respite for perhaps a good many hours, and she had yielded to the entreaty or command of Bobus, that she would lie down and sleep, trusting to him to call her at any moment.

Presently, as morning light stole in, Jock's eyes were open, gazing at him fondly, and he whispered, "Dear old Bob," then presently, "Open the window."

The sun was rising, and the wooded hillside opposite was all one gorgeous mass of autumn colouring, of every shade from purple to golden yellow, so glorious that it arrested Bobus's attention even at that instant.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" asked the feeble voice.

"Wonderful, as we always heard."

"Lift me a little. I like to see it. Not fast-or high-so."

Bobus raised the white wasted form, and rested the head against his square firm shoulder. "Dear old Bob! This is jolly! I'm not cramping you?"

"O no, but should not you have something?"

"What time is it?"

"6.30."

"Too soon yet for that misery;" then, after some silence, "I'm so glad you are come. Can you take mother home?"

"I would; but you will."

"I don't think so."

"Now, Jock, you are not getting into Armine's state of mind, giving yourself up and wishing to die?"

"Not at all. There are hosts of things I want to do first. There's that discovery of father's. With what poor Janet told me of Hermann's doings, and what I saw at Abville, if I could only get an hour of my proper wits, I could put the others up to a wrinkle that would make the whole thing comparatively plain."

"Should not you be better if you dictated it, and got it off your mind?"

"So I thought and tried, but presently I saw mother looking queer, and she said I was tired, and had gone on enough. I made her read it to me afterwards, and I had gone off into a muddle, and said something that would have been sheer murder. So I had better leave it alone. Old Vanbro mistrusts every word I say because of the Hermann connection, and indeed I may not always have talked sense to him. Those things work out in God's own time, and the Monk is on the track. I'd like to have seen him, but I've got you."

This had been said in faint slow utterances, so low that Bobus could hardly have heard a couple of feet further off, and with intervals between, and there was a gesture of tender perfect content in the contact with him that went to his heart, and, before he was aware, a great hot tear came dropping down on Jock's forehead and caused an exclamation.

"I beg your pardon," said Bobus. "Oh! Jock, you don't know what it is to find you like this. I came with so much to ask and talk of to you."

Jock looked up inquiringly.

"You were right to suppress that paper of mine," continued Bobus, "I wouldn't have written it now. I have seen better what a people are without Christianity, be the code what it may, and the civilisation, it can't produce such women as my mother, no, nor such men as you, Jockey, my boy," he muttered much lower.

"Are you coming back, dear old man?" said Jock, with eyes fixed on him.

"I don't know. Tell me one thing, old man: I always thought, when you took to using your brains and getting up physical science, that you must get beyond what satisfied you as a soldier. Now, have the two, science and religion, never clashed, or have you kept them apart?"

"They've worked in together," said Jock.

"You don't say so because you ought, and think it good for me?"

"As if I could, lying here. 'All Thy works praise Thee, O God, and Thy saints do magnify Thee.'"

Bobus was not sure whether this were a conscious reply, or only wandering, and his mother here came in, wakened by the murmur of voices.

The brothers could not bear to lose sight of one another, though Jock was too much exhausted by this conversation, and, by the sickness that followed any endeavour to take food, to speak much again. Thus, when the Rector came, Bobus asked whether he must be sent out of the room, Jock made an earnest sign to the contrary, and he stayed.

There was of course nothing to concern him, especially in the brief reading and prayer; but his mother, looking up, saw that he was finding out the passage in the little Greek Testament.

Janet's lay on a little table close by the bedside. The two copies had met again. The work of one was done. Was the work of the other doing at last?

However that might be, nothing could be gentler, tenderer, or more considerate towards his mother than was Bobus, and her kind friends felt much relieved of their fears for her, since she had such a son to take care of her.

Towards the evening, the negro servant knocked at the door, and Bobus took from him a telegram envelope. His mother opened it and read:

"Friar Brownlow to Mrs. Brownlow. I embark to-day."

A smile shone out on Jock's white weary face, and he said, "Good old Monk! If I can but hold out till he comes, I shall get home again yet. I should like to do him credit."

"Ashton Vineyard, October l2th.

"MY DEAREST CHILD,-You know the main fact by telegram, and now I can write, I must tell you all in more order. We thought our darkest hour was over when the dear John's telegram came, and the hope helped us up a little while. To Jock himself it was like a drowning man clinging to a rope with the more exertion because he knew that a boat was putting off. At least so it was at first, but as his strength faded, his brain could not grasp the notion any longer, and he generally seemed to be fancying himself on the snow with Armine, still however looking for John to come and save them, and sometimes, too, talking about Cecil, and being a true brother in arms, a faithful servant and soldier. The long severe strain of study, work, and all the rest which he has gone through, body and mind, coming on a heart already not quite sound, throughout the past year, was, John thinks, the real reason of his being unable to rally when the fever had brought him down, after the dreadful exertion at Abville. Dear fellow, he never let us guess how much his patience cost him. I think we had looked to John's arrival as if it would act like magic, and it was very sore disappointment when his treatment was producing no change for the better, but the prostration went on day after day. Poor Bobus was in utter despair, and went raging about, declaring that he had been a fool ever to expect anything from Kencroft, and at last he had to be turned out of the sick-room. For I should tell you that the one thing that kept me up was the entire calm grave composure that John preserved throughout, and which gave him the entire command. He never showed any consternation or dismay, nor uttered an augury, but he went quietly and vigilantly on, in a manner that all along gave me a strange sense of confidence and trust, that all that could be done was being done, and the issue was in higher hands. He would not let anyone really help him but Sister Dorothea, with her trained skill as a nurse. I don't think even I should have been suffered in the room, if he had not thought Jock might be more conscious than was apparent, for he had not himself received one token of recognition all those three days. Poor Bobus! the little gleam of light that Jock had let in on him seemed all gone. I do not know what would have become of him but for the good Ashtons. He had been persuaded for a time that what was so real to Jock must be true; but when Jock was no longer conscious, he had nothing to help him, and I am afraid he spoke terrible words when Primrose talked of prayer and faith. I believe he declared that to see one like his brother snatched away when just come to the perfection of his early manhood, with all his capacity and all his knowledge in vain, convinced him either that this universe was one grim, pitiless machine, grinding down humanity by mere law of necessity, or if they would have it that there was supernatural power, it could only be malevolent; and then Primrose, so strong in faith as to venture what I should have shrunk from as dangerous presumption, dared him to go on in his disbelief, if his brother were given back to prayer.

"She pitied him so much, the sweet bright girl, she had so pitied him all along, that I believe she prayed as much for him as for Jock.

"Of course I did not know all this till afterwards, for all was stillness in that room, except when at times the clergyman came in and prayed.

"The next thing I am sure of, was John's leaning over me, and his low steady voice saying, 'The pulse is better, the symptoms are mitigating.' Sister Dorothea says they had both seen it for some hours, but he made her a sign not to agitate me till he was secure that the improvement was real. Indeed there was something in that equable firm gentleness of John's that sustained me, and prevented my breaking down. Even then it was another whole day before my darling smiled at me again, and said, 'Thanks' to John, but oh! with such a look.

"When Bobus heard his brother was better, he gave a sob, such as I shall never forget, and rushed away into the pine-wood on the hillside, all alone. The next time I saw him he was walking in the garden with Primrose, and with such a quieted, subdued, gentle look upon his face, it put me in mind of the fields when a great storm has swept over them, and they are lying still in the sunshine afterwards.

"Since that day, when John said we might send off that thankworthy telegram, there has been daily progress. I have had one of my headaches. That monarch John found it out, and turned me out. I could bear to go, for I knew my boy was safe with him. He made me over to Primrose, who nursed me as tenderly as my Babie could have done, and indeed, I begin to think she will soon be as near and dear to me as my Sydney or Elvira. She has a power over Bobus that no one else ever had, and she is very lovely in expression as well as features, but how will so ardent a Christian as she is receive one still so far off as my poor Robert, though indeed I think he has at least come so far as the cry, 'Help Thou mine unbelief.'

"So now they have let me come back to my Jock, and I see visibly his improvement. He holds out his hand, and he smiles, and he speaks now and then, the dreadful oppression is gone, and all the dangerous symptoms are abating, and I cannot tell how happy and thankful we are. 'Send my love, and tell Sydney she has a blessed Monk,' he says, as he wakes, and sees me writing.

"That dear Monk says he will not go home till he can carry home his patient. When that will be I cannot tell, for he cannot sit up in bed yet. Dear Sydney, how I thank her! John says it was not his treatment, but, under Divine Providence, youthful nature that had had her rest, and begun to rally her strength. But under that blessing, it was John's steady, faithful strength and care that enabled the restoration to take place. "My dear child's loving "MOTHER CAREY."



CHAPTER XLII. DISENCHANTED.



Whatever page we turn, However much we learn, Let there be something left to dream of still. Longfellow.

It was on a very cold day of the cold spring of 1879 that three ladies descended at the Liverpool station, escorted by a military- looking gentleman. He left them standing while he made inquiries, but his servant had anticipated him. "The steamer has been signalled, my Lord. It will be in about four o'clock."

"There will be time to go to the hotel and secure rooms," said one lady.

"Oh, Reeves can do that. Pray let us come down to the docks and see them come in."

No answer till all four were seated in a fly, rattling through the street, but on the repetition of "Are we going to the docks?" his Lordship, with a resolute twirl of his long, light moustache, replied, "No, Sydney. If you think I am going to have you making a scene on deck, falling on your husband's breast, and all that sort of thing, you are much mistaken! I shall lodge you all quietly in the hotel, and you may wait there, while I go down with Reeves, and receive them like a rational being."

"Really, Cecil, that's too bad. He let me come on board!"

"Do you think I should have brought you here if I had thought you meant to make yourself ridiculous?"

"It is of no use, Sydney," said Babie; "there's no dealing with the stern and staid pere de famille. I wonder what he would have liked Essie to do, if he had had to go and leave her for nearly two months when he had only been married a week?"

"Essie is quite a different thing-I mean she has sense and self- possession."

"Mamma, won't you speak for us?" implored Sydney. "I did behave so well when he went! Nobody would have guessed we hadn't been married fifty years."

"Still I think Cecil is quite right, and that it may be better for them all to manage the landing quietly."

"Without a pack of women," said Cecil. "Here we are! I hope you will find a tolerable room for him and no stairs."

As if poor Mrs. Evelyn were not well enough used to choosing rooms for invalids!

Twilight had come, the gas had been turned on, and the three anxious ladies stood in the window gazing vainly at endless vehicles, when the door opened and they beheld sundry figures entering.

Sydney and Barbara flew, the one to her husband, the other to her mother, and presently all stood round the fire looking at one another. Mrs. Evelyn made a gesture to a very slender and somewhat pale figure to sit down in a large easy chair.

"Thank you, I'm not tired," he briskly said, standing with a caressing hand on his friend's shoulder. "Here's Cecil can't quite believe yet that I have the use of my limbs."

"Yes," said John, "no sooner did he come on board, than he made a rush at the poor sailor who had broken his leg, and was going to be carried ashore on a hammock. He was on the point of embracing him, red beard and all, when he was forcibly dragged off by Jock himself whom he nearly knocked down."

"Well," said Cecil, as Sydney fairly danced round him in revengeful glee, "there was the Monk solicitously lifting him on one side, and Mother Carey assisting with a smelling-bottle on the other, so what could I suppose?"

"All for want of us," said Sydney.

"And think of the cunning of him," added Babie; "shutting us up here that he might give way to his feelings undisturbed!"

"I promised to go and speak about that poor fellow at the hospital," cried John, with sudden recollection.

"You had better let me," said Jock.

"You will stay where you are."

"I consider him my patient."

"If that's the way you two fought over your solitary case all the way home," said Babie, "I wonder there's a fragment left of him."

"It was only three days ago," said John, "and Jock has been a new man ever since he picked the poor fellow up on deck, but I'm not going to let him stir to-night."

"Let me come with you, Johnny," entreated Sydney; "it will be so nice! Oh, no, I don't mind the cold!"

"Here," added her brother, "take the poor fellow a sovereign."

"In compensation for the sudden cooling of your affection," said Jock. "Well, if it is an excuse for an excursion with Sydney I'll not interfere, but ask him for his sister's address in London, for I promised to tell her about him."

"Oh," cried Babie, at the word 'London,' "then you have heard from Dr. Medlicott?"

"I did once," said John, "with some very useful suggestions, but that was a month ago or more."

"I meant," said Babie, "a letter he wrote for the chance of Jock's getting it before he sailed. There's the assistant lectureship vacant, and the Professor would not like anyone so much. It is his own appointment, not an election matter, and he meant to keep it open till he could get an answer from Jock."

"When was this?" asked Jock, flushing with eagerness.

"The 20th. Dr. Medlicott came down to Fordham for Sunday, to ask if it was worth while to telegraph, or if I thought you would be well enough. It is not much of a salary, but it is a step, and Dr. Medlicott knows they would put you on the staff of the hospital, and then you are open to anything."

Jock drew a long breath and looked at his mother. "The very thing I've wished," he said.

"Exactly. Must he answer at once?"

"The Professor would like a telegram, yes or no, at once."

"Then, you wedded Monk, will you add to your favours by telegraphing for me?"

"Yes. Of course it is 'Yes'. How soon should you have to begin, I wonder?"

"Oh, I'm quite cheeky enough for that sort of work. If you'll telegraph, I'll write by to-night's post."

"I'll go and do the telegraphing," said Cecil; "I don't trust those two."

"As if John ever made mistakes," cried Sydney.

"In fact, I want to send a telegram home."

"To frighten Essie. She will get a yellow envelope saying you accept a lectureship, and the Professor urgent inquiries after his baby."

"Sydney is getting too obstreperous, Monk," said Cecil. "You had better carry her off. I shall come back by the time you have written your letters, Jock."

"Those two are too happy to do anything but tease one another," said Mrs. Evelyn, as the door shut on the three. "My rival grandmother, as Babie calls her, was really quite glad to get rid of Cecil; she declared he would excite Esther into a fever."

"He did alarm Her Serenity herself," said Babie, laughing. "When she would go on about grand sponsors and ancestral names, he told her that he should carry the baby off to Church and have him christened Jock out of hand, and what a dreadful thing that would be for the peerage. I believe she thought he meant it."

"The name is to be John," said Mrs. Evelyn-"John Marmaduke. He has secured his godmother"-laying a hand affectionately on Babie-"but I must not forestall his request to his two earliest and best friends."

"Dear old fellow!" murmured Jock.

"Everybody is somewhat frantic," said Barbara.

"Jock's varieties of classes were almost distracted and besieged the door, till Susan was fain to stick the last bulletins in the window to save answering the bell; then no sooner did they hear he was better than they began getting up a testimonial. Percy Stagg wrote to me, to ask for his crest for some piece of plate, and I wrote back that I was sure Dr. Lucas Brownlow would like it best to go in something for the Mission Church; and if they wanted to give him something for his very own, suppose they got him a brass plate for the door?"

"Bravo, Infanta; that was an inspiration!"

"So they are to give an alms-dish, and Ali and Elfie give the rest of the plate. Dr. Medlicott says he never saw anything like the feeling at the hospital, or does not know what the nurses don't mean to get up by way of welcome."

"My dear Babie, you must let Jock write his letters," interposed her mother, who had tears in her eyes and saw him struggling with emotion. "In spite of your magnificent demonstrations, Jock, you must repair your charms by lying down."

She followed him into his room, which opened from the sitting-room, and he turned to her, speaking from a full heart. "Oh, mother! It seems all given to me, the old home, the very post I wished for, and all this kindness, just when I thought I had taken leave of it all." He sobbed once or twice for very joy.

"You are sure it suits you?"

"If I only can suit it equally well! Oh, I see what you mean. That is over now. I suppose the fever burnt it out of me, for it does not hurt me now to see the dear old Monk beaming on her. I am glad she came, for I can feel sure of myself now. So there's nothing at present to come between me and my Mother Carey. Thanks, mother, I'll just fire off my two notes; and establish myself luxuriously before Cecil comes back! I say, this is the best inn's best room. Poor Mrs. Evelyn must have thought herself providing for Fordham. Oh yes, I shall gladly lie down when these notes are done, but this is not a chance to be neglected. Now, Deo gratias, it will be my own fault if Magnum Bonum is not worked out to the utmost; yes, much better than if we had never gone to America. Even Bobus owns that all things have worked together for good!"

His mother, with another look at the face, so joyous though still so wasted and white, went back to the other room, with an equally happy though scarcely less worn countenance.

"I hope he is resting," said Mrs. Evelyn. "Are you quite satisfied about him?"

"Fully. He may not be strong for a year or two, and must be careful not to overtask himself, but John made him see one of the greatest physicians in New York, to whom Dr. Medlicott had sent letters of introduction-as if they were needed, he said, after Jock's work at Abville. He said, as John did, there was no lasting damage to the heart, and that the attack was the consequence of having been brought so low; but he will be as strong and healthy as ever, if he will only be careful as to exertion for a year or so. This appointment is the very thing to save him. I know his friends will look after him and keep him from doing too much. Dr. —- was quite grieved that he had no notion how ill Jock had been, or he would have come to Ashton. Any of the faculty would, he said, for one of the 'true chivalry of 1878.' And he was so excited about the Magnum Bonum."

"Do you think you and he can bear to crown our great thanksgiving feast?"

"My dear, my heart is all one thanksgiving!"

"Cecil's rejoicing is quite as much for Jock's sake as over his boy. He told me how they had been pledged as brothers in arms, and traces all that is best in himself to those days at Engelberg."

"Yes, that night on the mountain was the great starting-point, thanks to dear little Armine."

"I am writing to him and to Allen," said Barbara from a corner.

"My love a thousand times, and we will meet at home!"

"Then our joy will not feel incongruous to you?" said Mrs. Evelyn.

"No, I am too thankful for what I know of my poor Janet. She is mine now as she never was since she was a baby in my arms. I scarcely grieve, for happiness was over for her, and hers was a noble death. They have placed her name in the memorial tablet in Abville Church, to those who laid down their lives for their brethren there. I begged it might be, 'Janet Hermann, daughter of Joseph Brownlow'-for I thank God she died worthy of her father. In all ways I can say of this journey, my children were dead and are alive again, were lost and are found."

"Ah! I was sure it must be so, if such a girl as Miss Ashton could accept Robert."

"I am happier about him than I ever thought to be. I do not say that his faith is like John's or Armine's, but he is striving back through the mists, and wishing to believe, rather than being proud of disbelieving, and Primrose knows what she is doing, and is aiding him with all her power."

"As our Esther never could have done," said Mrs. Evelyn, "except by her gentle innocence."

"No. She could only have been to him a pretty white idol of his own setting up," said Babie.

"Now," added her mother, "Primrose is fairly on equal grounds as to force and intellect. She has been all over Europe, read and thought much, and can discuss deep matters, while the depth of her religious principle impresses him. They fought themselves into love, and then she was sorry for him, and so touched by his wretchedness and longing to take hold of the comfort his reason could not accept. I wish you could have seen her. This photograph shows you her fine head; but not the beautiful clear complexion, and the sweetness of those dark grey eyes!"

"I liked her letter," said Babie, "and I am glad she was such a daughter to you, mother. Allen says he is thankful she is not a Japanese with black teeth."

"He wrote very nicely to her, and so did Elfie," said her mother. "And Armine wrote a charming little note, which pleased Primrose best of all."

"Poor Armine has felt all most deeply," said Babie. "Do you remember when he thought it his mission to die and do good to Bobus? Well, he was sure that, though, as he said, his own life then was too shallow and unreal for his death to have done any good, Jock was meant to produce the effect."

"And he has-"

"Yes, but by life, not death! Armie could hardly believe it. You know he was with us at Christmas; and when he found that Bobus was to be led not by sorrow, but by this Primrose path, it was quite funny to see how surprised he was."

"Yes," said Mrs. Evelyn, "he went about moralising on the various remedies that are applied to the needs of human nature."

"It made into a poem at last, such a pretty one," said Babie. "And he says he will be wiser all his life for finding things turn out so unlike all his expectations."

"I have a strange feeling of peace about all my children," said Caroline. "I do feel as if my dream had come true, and life, true life, had wakened them all."

"Yes," said Mrs. Evelyn, "I think they all, in their degree, may be said to have learnt or be learning the way to true Magnum Bonum."

"And oh! how precious it has been to me," said the mother. "How the guarding of that secret aided me through the worst of times!"



THE END.