"If you would only tell me, Ellen."

"It seems," said Ellen, with much regret and commiseration, "that all this was from poor little Armine using such shocking language that Rob, as a senior boy, you know, put him under the pump at last to put a stop to it."

Before Caroline's fierce, incredulous indignation had found a word, Jessie had exclaimed "Mamma!" in a tone of strong remonstrance; then, "Never mind, Aunt Carey, I know it is only Mrs. Coffinkey, and Johnny promised he would tell the whole story if any one brought that horrid nonsense to you about poor little Armine."

Kind, gentle Jessie seemed quite transported out of herself, as she flew to the door and called Johnny, leaving the two mothers looking at each other, and Ellen, somewhat startled, saying "I'm sure, if it is not true, I'm very sorry, Caroline, but it came from-"

She broke off, for Johnny was scuffling across the hall, calling out "Holloa, Jessie, what's up?"

"Johnny, she's done it!" said Jessie. "You said if the wrong one was accused you would tell the whole story!"

"And what do they say?" asked John, who was by this time in the room.

"Mamma has been telling Aunt Carey that Rob put poor little Armine under the pump for using bad language."

"I say!" exclaimed John; "if that is not a cram!"

"You said you knew nothing of it," said his mother.

"I said I didn't do it. No more I did," said John.

"No more did Rob, I am sure," said his mother.

But Johnny, though using no word of denial, made it evident that she was mistaken, as he answered in an odd tone of excuse, "Armie was cheeky."

"But he didn't use bad words!" said Caroline, and she met a look of comfortable response.

"Let us hear, John," said his mother, now the most agitated. "I can't believe that Rob would so ill-treat a little fellow like Armie, even if he did lose his temper for a moment. Was Armine impertinent?"

"Well, rather," said John. "He wouldn't do Rob's French exercise." And then-as the ladies cried out, he added-"O yes, he knows ever so much more French than Rob, and now Bobus is gone Rob could not get anyone else."

"Bobus?"

"O yes, Bobus would do anybody's exercises at a penny for Latin, two for French, and three for Greek," said John, not aware of the shock he gave.

"And Armine would not?" said his mother. "Was that it?"

"Not only that," said John; "but the little beggar must needs up and say he would not help to act a falsehood, and you know nobody could stand that."

Caroline understood the gravity of such an offence better than Ellen did, for that good lady had never had much in common with her boys after they outgrew the nursery. She answered, "Armine was quite right."

"So much the worse for him, I fear," said Caroline.

"Yes," said John, "it would have been all very well to give him a cuff and tell him to mind his own business."

"All very well!" ejaculated his mother.

"But you know," continued Johnny to his aunt, "the seniors are always mad at a junior being like that; and there was another fellow who dragged him to the great school pump, and put him in the trough, and they said they would duck him till he swore to do whatever Rob ordered."

"Swore!" exclaimed his mother. "You don't mean that, Johnny?"

"Yes, I do, mamma," said John. "I would tell you the words, only you wouldn't like them. And Armine said it would be breaking the Third Commandment, which was the very way to aggravate them most. So they pumped on his head, and tried if he would say it. 'No,' he said. 'You may kill me like the forty martyrs, but I won't,' and of course that set them on to pump the more."

"But, Johnny, did you see it all?" cried Caroline. "How could you?"

"I couldn't help it, Aunt Carey."

"Yes, Aunt Carey," again broke in Jessie, "he was held down. That horrid—well, I won't say whom, Johnny—held him, and his arm was so twisted and grazed that he was obliged to come to me to put some lily-leaves on it, and if he would but show it, it is all black and yellow still."

Carey, much moved, went over and kissed both her boy's champions, while Ellen said, with tears in her eyes, "Oh, Johnny, I'm glad you were at least not so bad. What ended it?"

"The school-bell," said Johnny. "I say, please don't let Rob know I told, or I shall catch it."

"Your father-"

"Mamma! You aren't going to tell him!" cried Jessie and Johnny, both in horror, interrupting her.

"Yes, children, I certainly shall. Do you think such wickedness as that ought to be kept from him? Nearly killing a fatherless child like that, because he was not as bad as they were, and telling falsehoods about it too! I never could have believed it of Rob. Oh! what school does to one's boys!" She was agitated and overcome to a degree that startled Carey, who began to try to comfort her.

"Perhaps Rob did not understand what he was about, and you see he was led on. Armine will soon be all right again, and though he is a dear, good little fellow, maybe the lesson may have been good for him."

"How can you treat it so lightly?" cried poor Ellen, in her agitated indignation. "It was a mercy that the child did not catch his death; and as to Rob-! And when Mr. Ogilvie always said the boys were so improved, and that there was no bullying! It just shows how much he knows about it! To think what they have made of my poor Rob! His father will be so grieved! I should not wonder if he had a fit of the gout!"

The shock was far greater to her than to one who had never kept her boys at a distance, and who understood their ways, characters, and code of honour; and besides Rob was her eldest, and she had credited him with every sterling virtue. Jessie and Johnny stood aghast. They had only meant to defend their little cousin, and had never expected either that she would be so much overcome, or that she would insist on their father knowing all, as she did with increasing anger and grief at each of their attempts at persuading her to the contrary. Caroline thought he ought to know. Her children's father would have known long ago, but then his wrath would have been a different thing from what seemed to be apprehended from his brother; and she understood the distress of Jessie and John, though her pity for Rob was but small. Whatever she tried to say in the way of generous mediation or soothing only made it worse; and poor Ellen, far from being her Serene Highness, was, between scolding and crying, in an almost hysterical state, so that Caroline durst not leave her or the frightened Jessie, and was relieved at last to hear the Colonel coming into the house, when, thinking her presence would do more harm than good, and longing to return to her little son, she slipped away, and was joined at the door by her own John, who asked-

"What's up, mother?"

"Did you know all about this dreadful business, Jock?"

"Afterwards, of course, but I was shut up in school, writing three hundred disgusting lines of Virgil, or I'd have got the brutes off some way."

"And so little Armie is the brave one of all!"

"Well, so he is," said Jock; "but I say, mother, don't go making him cockier. You know he's only fit to be stitched up in one of Jessie's little red Sunday books, and he must learn to keep a civil tongue in his head, and not be an insufferable little donkey."

"You would not have had him give in and do it! Never, Jock!"

"Why no, but he could have got off with a little chaff instead of coming out with his testimony like that, and so I've been telling him. So don't you set him up again to think himself forty martyrs all in one, or there will be no living with him."

"If all boys were like him."

Jock made a sound of horror and disgust that made her laugh.

"He's all very well," added he in excuse; "but to think of all being like that. The world would be only one big muff."

"But, Jock, what's this about Bobus being paid for doing people's exercises?"

"Bobus is a cute one," said Jock.

"I thought he had more uprightness," she sighed. "And you, Jock?"

"I should think not!" he laughed. "Nobody would trust me."

"Is that the only reason?" she said, sadly, and he looked up in her face, squeezed her hand, and muttered-

"One mayn't like dirt without making such a row."

"That's like father's boy," she said, and he wrung her hand again.

They found Armine coiled up before the fire with a book, and Jock greeted him with-

"Well, you little donkey, there's such a shindy at the Croft as you never heard."

"Mother, you know!" cried Armine, running into her outstretched arms and being covered with her kisses. "But who told?" he asked.

"John and Jessie," said Jock. "They always said they would if anyone said anything against you to mother or Uncle Robert."

"Against me?" said Armine.

"Yes," said Jock. "Didn't you know it got about through some of the juniors or their sisters that it was Brownlow maximus gently chastising you for bad language, and of course Mrs. Coffinkey told Aunt Ellen."

"Oh, but Jock," cried Armine, turning round in consternation, "I hope Rob does not know."

And on further pressing it was extracted that Rob, when sent home with him, had threatened him with the great black vaulted cellars of Kencroft if he divulged the truth. When Jock left them the relief of pouring out the whole history to the mother was evidently great.

"You know, mother, I couldn't," he cried, as if there had been a physical impossibility.

"Why, dear child. How did you bear their horrid cruelty?"

"I thought it could not be so bad as it was for the forty soldiers on the Lake. Dear grandmamma read us the story out of a little red book one Sunday evening when you were gone to Church. They froze, you know, and it was only cold and nasty for me."

"So the thought of them carried you through?"

"God carried me through," said the child reverently. "I asked Him not to let me break His Commandment."

Just then the Colonel's heavy tread was heard, and with him came Mr. Ogilvie, whom he had met on the road and informed. The good man was indeed terribly grieved, and his first words were, "Caroline, I cannot tell you how much shocked and concerned I am;" and then he laid his hand on Armine's shoulder saying-"My little boy, I am exceedingly sorry for what you have suffered. One day Robert will be so too. You have been a noble little fellow, and if anything could console me for the part Robert has played it would be the seeing one of my dear brother's sons so like his father."

He gave the downcast brow a fatherly kiss, so really like those of days gone by that the boy's overstrained spirits gushed forth in sobs and tears, of which he was so much ashamed that he rushed out of the room, leaving his mother greatly overcome, his uncle distressed and annoyed, and his master not much less so, at the revelation of so much evil, so hard either to reach or to understand.

"I would have brought Robert to apologise," said the Colonel, "if he had been as yet in a mood to do so properly."

"Oh! that would have been dreadful for us all," ejaculated Caroline, under her breath.

"But I can make nothing of him," continued he, "He is perfectly stolid and seems incapable of feeling anything, though I have talked to him as I never thought to have to speak to any son of mine; but he is deaf to all."

The Colonel, in his wrath, even while addressing only Caroline and Mr. Ogilvie, had raised his voice as if he were shouting words of command, so that both shrank a little, and Carey said-

"I don't think he knew it was so bad."

"What? Cheating his masters and torturing a helpless child for not yielding to his tyranny?"

"People don't always give things their right names even to themselves," said Mr. Ogilvie. "I should try to see it from the boy's point of view."

"I have no notion of extenuating ill-conduct or making excuses! That's the modern way! So principles get lowered! I tell you, sir, there are excuses for everything. What makes the difference is only the listening to them or not."

"Yes," ventured Caroline, "but is there not a difference between finding excuses for oneself and for other people?"

"All alike, lowering the principle," said the Colonel, with something of the same slowness of comprehension as his son. "If excuses are to be made for everything, I don't wonder that there is no teaching one's boys truth or common honesty and humanity."

"But, Robert," said Caroline, roused to defence; "do you really mean that in your time nobody bullied or cribbed?"

"There was some shame about it if they did," said the Colonel. "Now, I suppose, I am to be told that it is an ordinary custom to be connived at."

"Certainly not by me," said Mr. Ogilvie. "I had hoped that the standard of honour had been raised, but it is very hard to mete the exact level of the schoolboy code from the outside."

"And your John and mine have never given in to it," added Caroline.

"What do you propose to do, Mr. Ogilvie?" said the Colonel. "I shall do my part with my boy as a father. What will you do with him and the other bully, who I find was Cripps."

"I shall see Cripps's father first. I think it might be well if we both saw him before deciding on the form of discipline. We have to think not only of justice but of the effect on their characters."

"That's the modern system," said the Colonel indignantly. "Fine work it would make in the army. I know when punishment is deserved. I don't set up to be Providence, to know exactly what work it is to do. I leave that to my Maker and do my duty."

He was cut short by his son Joe rushing in headlong, exclaiming-

"Papa, papa, please come! Rob has knocked Johnny down and he doesn't come round."

Colonel Brownlow hurried off, Caroline trying to make him hear her offer to follow if she could be useful, and sending Jock to see whether there was any opening for her. Unless the emergency were very great indeed she knew her absence would be preferred, and so she and Mr. Ogilvie remained, talking the matter over, with more pity for the delinquent than his own family would have thought natural.

"It really is a terrible thing to be stupid," she said. "I don't imagine that unlucky boy ever entered into his father's idea of truth and honour, which really is fine in its way."

"Very fine, and proved to have made many fine fellows in its time. I dare say the lad will grow up to it, but just now he simply feels cruelly injured by interference with a senior's claim to absolute submission."

"Which he sees as singly as his father sees the simple duty of justice."

"It would be comfortable if we poor moderns could deal out our measures with that straightforward military simplicity. I cannot help seeing in that unfortunate boy the victim of examinations for commissions. Boys must be subjected to high pressure before they can thoroughly enter into the importance of the issues that depend upon it; and when a sluggish, dull intellect is forced beyond endurance, there is an absolute instinct of escape, impelling to shifts and underhand ways of eluding work. Of course the wrong is great, but the responsibility rests with the taskmaster in the same manner as the thefts of a starved slave might on his owner."

"The taskmaster being the country?"

"Exactly so. Happy those boys who have available brains, like yours."

"Ah! I am very sorry about Bobus; what ought I to do?"

"Hardly more than write a few words of warning, since the change may probably have put an end to the practice."

Jock presently brought back tidings that his namesake was all right, except for a black eye, and was growling like ten bears at having been sent to bed.

"Uncle Robert was more angry than ever, in a white heat, quiet and terrible," said Jock, in an awe-struck voice. "He has locked Rob up in his study, and here's Joe, for Aunt Ellen is quite knocked up, and they want the house to be very quiet."

No tragical consequences, however, ensued. Mother and sons both appeared the next morning, and were reported as "all right" by the first inquirer from the Folly; but Jessie came to her lessons with swollen eyelids as if she had cried half the night; and when her aunt thanked her for defending Armine, she began to cry again, and Essie imparted to Barbara that Rob was "just like a downright savage with her."

"No; hush, Essie, it is not that," said Jessie; "but papa is so dreadfully angry with him, and he is to be sent away, and it is all my fault."

"But Jessie, dear, surely it is better for Rob to be stopped from those deceitful ways."

"O yes, I know. But that I should have turned against him!" And Jessie was so thoroughly unhappy that none of her lessons prospered and her German exercise had three great tear blots on it.

Rob's second misdemeanour had simplified matters by deciding his father on sending him from home at once into the hands of a professed coach, who would not let him elude study, and whose pupils were too big to be bullied. To the last he maintained his sullen dogged air of indifference, though there might be more truth than the Folly was disposed to allow in his sister's allegations that it was because he did feel it so very much, especially mamma's looking so ill and worried.

Ellen did in truth look thoroughly unhinged, though no one saw her give way. She felt her boy's conduct sorely, and grieved at the first parting in her family. Besides, there was anxiety for the future. Rob's manner of conducting his studies was no hopeful augury of his success, and the expenses of sending him to a tutor fell the more heavily because unexpectedly. A horse and man were given up, and Jessie had to resign the hope of her music lessons. These were the first retrenchments, and the diminution of dignity was felt.

The Colonel showed his trouble and anxiety by speaking and tramping louder than ever, ruling his gardener with severe precision, and thundering at his boys whenever he saw them idle. Both he and his wife were so elaborately kind and polite that Caroline believed that it was an act of magnanimous forgiveness for the ill luck that she and her boys had brought them. At last the Colonel had the threatened fit of the gout, which restored his equilibrium, and brought him back to his usual condition of kindly, if somewhat ponderous, good sense.

He had not long recovered before Number Nine made his appearance at Kencroft, and thus his mother had unusual facilities for inquiries of Dr. Leslie respecting the master of Belforest.

The old man really seemed to be in a dying state. A hospital nurse had taken charge of him, but there was not a dependent about the place, from Mr. Richards downwards, who was not under notice to quit, and most were staying on without his knowledge on the advice of the London solicitor, to whom the agent had written. There was even more excitement on the intelligence that Mr. Barnes had sent for Farmer Gould.

On this there was no doubt, for Mr. Gould, always delicately honourable towards Mrs. Brownlow, came himself to tell her about the interview. It seemed to have been the outcome of a yearning of the dying man towards the sole survivor of the companions of his early days. He had talked in a feeble wandering way of old times, but had said nothing about the child, and was plainly incapable of sustained attention.

He had asked Mr. Gould to come again, but on this second visit he was too far gone for recognition, and had returned to his moody instinctive aversion to visitors, and in three days more he was dead.



CHAPTER XV. THE BELFOREST MAGNUM BONUM.



Where is his golden heap? Divine Breathings.

Mrs. Robert Brownlow was churched with all the expedition possible, in order that she might not lose the sight of the funeral procession, which would be fully visible from the studio in the top of the tower.

The excitement was increased by invitations to attend the funeral being sent to the Colonel and to his two eldest nephews, who were just come home for the holidays, also to their mother to be present at the subsequent reading of the will.

A carriage was sent for her, and she entered it, not knowing or caring to find out what she wished, and haunted by the line, "Die and endow a college or a cat."

Allen met her at the front door, whispering-"Did you see, mother, he has still got his ears?" And the thought crossed her-"Will those ears cost us dear?"

She was the only woman present in the library-a large room, but with an atmosphere as if the open air had not been admitted for thirty years, and with an enormous fire, close to which was the arm-chair whither she was marshalled, being introduced to the two solicitors, Mr. Rowse and Mr. Wakefield, who, with Farmer Gould, the agent, Richards, the Colonel, and the two boys, made up the audience.

The lawyers explained that the will had been sent home ten years ago from Yucatan, and had ever since been in their hands. Search had been made for a later one, but none had been found, nor did they believe that one could exist.

It was very short. The executors were Charles Rowse and Peter Ball, and the whole property was devised to them, and to Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Brownlow, as trustees for the testator's great-niece, Mrs. Caroline Otway Brownlow, daughter of John and Caroline Allen, and wife of Joseph Brownlow, Esq., M.D., F.R.C.S., the income and use thereof to be enjoyed by her during her lifetime; and the property, after her death, to be divided among her children in such proportions as she should direct.

That was all; there was no legacy, no further directions.

"Allow me to congratulate-" began the elder lawyer.

"No-no-oh, stay a bit," cried she, in breathless dismay and bewilderment. "It can't be! It can't mean only me. There must be something about Elvira de Menella."

"I fear there is not," said Mr. Rowse; "I could wish my late client had attended more to the claims of justice, and had divided the property, which could well have borne it; but unfortunately it is not so."

"It is exactly as he led us to expect," said Mr. Gould. "We have no right to complain, and very likely the child will be much happier without it. You have a fine family growing up to enjoy it, Mrs. Brownlow, and I am sure no one congratulates you more heartily than I."

"Don't; it can't be," cried the heiress, nearly crying, and wringing the old farmer's hand. "He must have meant Elvira. You know he sent for you. Has everything been hunted over? There must be a later will."

"Indeed, Mrs. Brownlow," said the solicitor, "you may rest assured that full search has been made. Mr. Richards had the same impression, and we have been searching every imaginable receptacle."

"Besides," added Colonel Brownlow, "if he had made another will there would have been witnesses."

"Yes," said Mr. Richards; "but to make matters certain, I wrote to several of the servants to ask whether they remembered any attestation, but no one did; and indeed I doubt whether, after his arrival here, poor Mr. Barnes ever had sustained power enough to have drawn up and executed a will without my assistance, or that of any legal gentleman."

"It is too hard and unjust," cried Caroline; "it cannot be. I must halve it with the child, as if there had been no will at all. Robert! you know that is what your brother would have done."

"That would be just as well as generous, indeed, if it were practicable," said Mr. Rowse; "but unfortunately Colonel Brownlow and myself (for Mr. Ball is dead) are in trust to prevent any such proceeding. All that is in your power is to divide the property among your own family by will, in such proportion as you may think fit."

"Quite true, my dear sister," said the Colonel, meeting her despairing appealing look, "as regards the principal, but the ready money at the bank and the income are entirely at your own disposal, and you can, without difficulty, secure a very sufficient compensation to the little girl out of them."

"No doubt," said Mr. Rowse.

"You'll let me-you'll let me, Mr. Gould," implored Caroline; "you'll let me keep her, and do all I can to make up to her. You see the Colonel thinks it is only justice; don't you, Robert?"

"Mrs. Brownlow is quite right," said the Colonel, seeing that her vehemence was a little distrusted; "it will be only an act of justice to make provision for your granddaughter."

"I am sure, Colonel Brownlow, nothing can be handsomer than your conduct and Mrs. Brownlow's," said the old man; "but I should not like to take advantage of what she is good enough to say on the spur of the moment, till she has had more time to think it over."

Therewith he took leave, while Caroline exclaimed-

"I always say there is no truer gentleman in the county than old Mr. Gould. I shall not be satisfied about that will till I have turned everything over and the partners have been written to."

Again she was assured that she might set her mind at rest, and then the lawyers began to read a statement of the property which made Allen utter, under his breath, an emphatic "I say!" but his mother hardly took it in. The heated room had affected her from the first, and the bewilderment of the tidings seemed almost to crush her; her heart and temples throbbed, her head ached violently, and while the final words respecting arrangements were passing between the Colonel and the lawyers, she was conscious only of a sickening sense of oppression, and a fear of committing the absurdity of fainting.

However, at last her brother-in-law put her into the brougham, desiring the boys to walk home, which they did very willingly, and with a wonderful air of lordship and possession.

"Well, Caroline," said the Colonel, "I congratulate you on being the richest proprietor in the county."

"O Robert, don't! If-if," said a suffocated voice, so miserable that he turned and took her hand kindly, saying-

"My dear sister, this feeling is very-it becomes you well. This is a fearful responsibility."

She could not answer. She only leant back in the carriage, with closed eyes, and moaned-

"Oh! Joe! Joe!"

"Indeed," said his brother, greatly touched, "we want him more than ever."

He did not try to talk any more to her, and when they reached the Pagoda, all she could do was to hurry up stairs, and, throwing off her bonnet, bury her face in the pillow.

Janet and her aunt both followed, the latter with kind and tender solicitude; but Caroline could bear nothing, and begged only to be left alone.

"Dear Ellen, it is very kind, but nothing does any good to these headaches. Please don't-please leave me alone."

They saw it was the only true kindness, and left her, after all attempts at bathing her forehead, or giving her sal volatile, proved only to molest her. She lay on her bed, not able to think, and feeling nothing but the pain of her headache and a general weight and loneliness.

The first break was from Allen, who came in tenderly with a cup of coffee, saying that they thought her time was come for being ready for it. His manner always did her good, and she sat up, pushed back her hair, smiled, took the cup, and thanked him lovingly.

"Uncle Robert is waiting to hear if you are better," he said.

"Oh yes," she said; "thank him; I am sorry I was so silly."

"He wants me to dine there to-night, mother, to meet Mr. Rowse and Mr. Wakefield," said Allen, with a certain importance suited to a lad of fifteen, who had just become "somebody."

"Very well," she said, in weary acquiescence, as she lay down again, just enough refreshed by the coffee to become sleepy.

"And mother," said Allen, lingering in the dark, "don't trouble about Elfie. I shall marry her as soon as I am of age, and that will make all straight."

Her stunned sleepiness was scarcely alive to this magnanimous announcement, and she dreamily said-

"Time enough to think of such things."

"I know," said Allen; "but I thought you ought to know this."

He looked wistfully for another word on this great avowal, but she was really too much stupefied to enter into the purport of the boy's words, and soon after he left her she fell sound asleep. She had a curious dream, which she remembered long after. She seemed to have identified herself with King Midas, and to be touching all her children, who turned into hard, cold, solid golden statues fixed on pedestals in the Belforest gardens, where she wandered about, vainly calling them. Then her husband's voice, sad and reproachful, seemed to say, "Magnum Bonum! Magnum Bonum!" and she fancied it the elixir which alone could restore them, and would have climbed a mountain in search of it, as in the Arabian tale; but her feet were cold, heavy, and immovable, and she found that they too had become gold, and that the chill was creeping upwards. With a scream of "Save the children, Joe," she awoke.

No wonder she had dreamt of cold golden limbs, for her feet were really chilly as ice, and the room as dark as at midnight. However it was not yet seven o'clock; and presently Janet brought a light, and persuaded her to come downstairs and warm herself. She was not yet capable of going into the dining-room to the family tea, but crept down to lie on the sofa in the drawing-room; and there, after taking the small refreshment which was all she could yet endure, she lay with closed eyes, while the children came in from the meal. Armine and Babie were the first. She knew they were looking at her, but was too weary to exert herself to speak to them.

"Asleep," they whispered. "Poor Mother Carey."

"Armie," said Babie, "is mother unhappy because she has got rich?"

Armine hesitated. His brief experience of school had made him less unsophisticated, and he seldom talked in his own peculiar fashion even to his little sister, and she added-

"Must people get wicked when they are rich?"

"Mother is always good," said faithful little Armine.

"The rich people in the Bible were all bad," pondered Babie. "There was Dives, and the man with the barns."

"Yes," said Armine; "but there were good ones too-Abraham and Solomon."

"Solomon was not always good," said Babie; "and Uncle Robert told Allen it was a fearful responsibility. What is a responsibility, Armie? I am sure Ali didn't like it."

"Something to answer for!" said Armine.

"To who?" asked the little girl.

"To God," said the boy reverently. "It's like the talent in the parable. One has got to do something for God with it, and then it won't turn to harm."

"Like the man's treasure that changed into slate stones when he made a bad use of it," said Babie. "Oh! Armie, what shall we do? Shall we give plum-puddings to the little thin girls down the lane?"

"And I should like to give something good to the little grey workhouse boys," said Armine. "I should so hate always walking out along a straight road as they do."

"And oh! Armie, then don't you think we may get a nice book to write out Jotapata in?"

"Yes, a real jolly one. For you know, Babie, it will take lots of room, even if I write my very smallest."

"Please let it be ruled, Armie. And where shall we begin?"

"Oh! at the beginning, I think, just when Sir Engelbert first heard about the Crusade."

"It will take lots of books then."

"Never mind, we can buy them all now. And do you know, Bab, I think Adelmar and Ermelind might find a nice lot of natural petroleum and frighten Mustafa ever so much with it!"

For be it known that Armine and Barbara's most cherished delight was in one continued running invention of a defence of Jotapata by a crusading family, which went on from generation to generation with unabated energy, though they were very apt to be reduced to two young children who held out their fortress against frightful odds of Saracens, and sometimes conquered, sometimes converted their enemies. Nobody but themselves was fully kept au courant with this wonderful siege, which had hitherto been recorded in interlined copy-books, or little paper books pasted together, and very remarkably illustrated.

The door began to creak with an elaborate noisiness intended for perfect silence, and Jock's voice was heard.

"Bother the door! Did it wake mother? No? That's right;" and he squatted down between the little ones while Bobus seated himself at the table with a book.

"Well! what colour shall our ponies be?" began Jock, in an attempt at a whisper.

"Oh! shall we have ponies?" cried the little ones.

"Zebras if we like," said Jock. "We'll have a team."

"Can't," growled Bobus.

"Why not? They can be bought!"

"Not tamed. They've tried it at the Jardin d'Acclimatisation."

"Oh, that was only Frenchmen. A zebra is too jolly to let himself be tamed by a Frenchman. I'll break one in myself and go out with the hounds upon him."

"Jack-ass on striped-ass-or off him," muttered Bobus.

"Oh! don't, Jock," implored Babie, "you'll get thrown."

"No such thing. You'll come to the meet yourself, Babie, on your Arab."

"Not she," said Bobus, in his teasing voice. "She'll be governessed up and kept to lessons all day."

"Mother always teaches us," said Babie.

"She'll have no time, she'll be a great lady, and you'll have three governesses-one for French, and one for German, and one for deportment, to make you turn out your toes, and hold up your head, and never sit on the rug."

"Never mind, Babie," said Jock. "We'll bother them out of their lives if they do."

"You'll be at school," said Bobus, "and they'll all three go out walking with Babie, and if she goes out of a straight line one will say 'Fi donc, Mademoiselle Barbe,' and the other will say, 'Schamen sie sich, Fraulein Barbara,' and the third will call for the stocks."

"For shame, Robert," cried his mother, hearing something like a sob; "how can you tease her so!"

"Mother, must I have three governesses?" asked poor little Barbara.

"Not one cross one, my sweet, if I can help it!"

"Oh! mother, if it might be Miss Ogilvie?" said Babie.

"Yes, mother, do let it be Miss Ogilvie," chimed in Armine. "She tells such jolly stories!"

"She ain't a very nasty one," quoted Jock from Newman Noggs, and as Janet appeared he received her with-"Moved by Barbara, seconded by Armine, that Miss Ogilvie become bear-leader to lick you all into shape."

"What do you think of it, Janet?" said her mother.

"It will not make much difference to me," said Janet. "I shall depend on classes and lectures when we go back to London. I should have thought a German better for the children, but I suppose the chief point is to find some one who can manage Elfie if we are still to keep her."

"By the bye, where is she, poor little thing?" asked Caroline.

"Aunt Ellen took her home," said Janet. "She said she would send her back at bed-time, but she thought we should be more comfortable alone to-night."

"Real kindness," said Caroline; "but remember, children, all of you, that Elfie is altogether one of us, on perfectly equal terms, so don't let any difference be made now or ever."

"Shall I have a great many more lessons, mother?" asked Babie.

"Don't be as silly as Essie, Babie," said Janet. "She expects us all to have velvet frocks and gold-fringed sashes, and Jessie's first thought was 'Now, Janet, you'll have a ladies' maid.'"

"No wonder she rejoiced to be relieved of trying to make you presentable," said Bobus.

"Shall we live at Belforest?" asked Armine.

"Part of the year," said Janet, who was in a wonderfully expansive and genial state; "but we shall get back to London for the season, and know what it is to enjoy life and rationality again, and then we must all go abroad. Mother, how soon can we go abroad?"

"It won't make a bit of difference for a year. We shan't get it for ever so long," said Bobus.

"Oh!"

"Fact. I know a man whose uncle left him a hundred pounds last year, and the lawyers haven't let him touch a penny of it."

"Perhaps he is not of age," said Janet.

"At any rate," said Jock, "we can have our fun at Belforest."

"O yes, Jock, only think," cried Babie, "all the dear tadpoles belong to mother!"

"And all the dragon-flies," said Armine.

"And all the herons," said Jock.

"We can open the gates again," said Armine.

"Oh! the flowers!" cried Babie in an ecstasy.

"Yes," said Janet. "I suppose we shall spend the early spring in the country, but we must have the best part of the season in London now that we can get out of banishment, and enjoy rational conversation once more."

"Rational fiddlestick," muttered Bobus.

"That's what any girl who wasn't such a prig as Janet would look for," said Jock.

"Well, of course," said Janet. "I mean to have my balls like other people; I shall see life thoroughly. That's just what I value this for."

Bobus made a scoffing noise.

"What's up, Bobus?" asked Jock.

"Nothing, only you keep up such a row, one can't read."

"I'm sure this is better and more wonderful than any book!" said Jock.

"It makes no odds to me," returned Bobus, over his book.

"Oh! now!" cried Janet, "if it were only the pleasure of being free from patronage it would be something."

"Gratitude!" said Bobus.

"I'll show my gratitude," said Janet; "we'll give all of them at Kencroft all the fine clothes and jewels and amusements that ever they care for, more than ever they gave us; only it is we that shall give and they that will take, don't you see?"

"Sweet charity," quoth Bobus.

Those two were a great contrast; Janet had never been so radiant, feeling her sentence of banishment revoked, and realising more vividly than anyone else was doing, the pleasures of wealth. The cloud under which she had been ever since the coming to the Pagoda seemed to have rolled away, in the sense of triumph and anticipation; while Bobus seemed to have fallen into a mood of sarcastic ill- temper. His mother saw, and it added to her sense of worry, though her bright sweet nature would scarcely have fathomed the cause, even had she been in a state to think actively rather than to feel passively. Bobus, only a year younger than Allen, and endowed with more force and application, if not with more quickness, had always been on a level with his brother, and felt superior, despising Allen's Eton airs and graces, and other characteristics which most people thought amiable. And now Allen had become son and heir, and was treated by everyone as the only person of importance. Bobus did not know what his own claims might be, but at any rate his brother's would transcend them, and his temper was thoroughly upset.

Poor Caroline! She did not wholly omit to pray "In all time of our tribulation, in all time of our wealth, deliver us!" but if she had known all that was in her children's hearts, her own would have trembled more.

And as to Ellen, the utmost she allowed herself to say was, "Well, I hope she will make a good use of it!"

While the Colonel, as trustee and adviser, had really a very considerable amount of direct importance and enjoyment before him, which might indeed be-to use his own useful phrase-"a fearful responsibility," but was no small boon to a man with too much time on his hands.



CHAPTER XVI. POSSESSION.



Vain glorious Elf, said he, dost thou not weete That money can thy wants at will supply; Shields, steeds and armes, and all things for thee meet, It can purvey in twinkling of an eye. Spenser.

Bobus's opinion that it would be long before anything came of this accession of wealth was for a few days verified in the eyes of the impatient family, for Christmas interfered with some of the necessary formalities; and their mother, still thinking that another will might be discovered, declared that they were not to go within the gates of Belforest till they were summoned.

At last, after Colonel Brownlow had spent a day in London, he made his appearance with a cheque-book in his hand, and the information that he and his fellow-trustee had so arranged that the heiress could open an account, and begin to enter on the fruition of the property. There were other arrangements to be made, those about the out-door servants and keepers could be settled with Richards, but she ought to remove her two sons from the foundation of the two colleges, though of course they would continue there as pupils.

"And Robert," she said, colouring exceedingly, "if you will let me, there is a thing I wish very much-to send your John to Eton with mine. He is my godson, you know, and it would be such a pleasure to me."

"Thank you, Caroline," said the Colonel, after a moment's hesitation, "Johnny is to stand at the Eton election, and I should prefer his owing his education to his own exertions rather than to any kindness."

"Yes, yes; I understand that," said Caroline; "but I do want you to let me do anything for any of them. I should be so grateful," she added, imploringly, with a good deal of agitation; "please-please think of it, as if your brother were still here. You would never mind how much he did for them."

"Yes, I should," said the Colonel, decidedly, but pausing to collect his next sentence. "I should not accept from him what might teach my sons dependence. You see that, Caroline."

"Yes," she humbly said. "He would be wise about it! I don't want to be disagreeable and oppressive, Robert; I will never try to force things on you; but please let me do all that is possible to you to allow."

There was something touching in her incoherent earnestness, which made the Colonel smile, yet wink away some moisture from his eyes, as he again thanked her without either acceptance or refusal. Then he said he was going to Belforest, and asked whether she would not like to come and look over the place. He would go back and call for her with the pony carriage.

"But would not Ellen like to go?" she said. "I will walk with the boys."

The Colonel demurred a little, but knowing that his wife really longed to go, and could not well be squeezed into the back seat, he gave a sort of half assent; and as he left the house, Mother Carey gave a summoning cry to gather her brood, rushed upstairs, put on what Babie called her "most every dayest old black hat;" and when Colonel and Mrs. Brownlow, with Jessie behind, drove into the park, it was to see her careering along by the short cut over the hoar- frosty grass, in the midst of seven boys, three girls, and two dogs, all in a most frisky mood of exhilaration.

Distressed at appearing to drive up like the lady of the house, her Serene Highness insisted on stopping at the iron gates of the stately approach. There she alighted, and waited to make the best setting to rights she could of the heiress's wind-tossed hat and cloak, and would have put her into the carriage, but that no power could persuade her to mount that triumphal car, and all that could be obtained was that she should walk in the forefront of the procession with the Colonel.

There was nobody to receive them but Richards, for the servants had been paid off, and only a keeper and his wife were living in the kitchen in charge. There was a fire in the library, where the Colonel had business to transact with Richards, while the ladies and children proceeded with their explorations. It was rather awful at first in the twilight gloom of the great hall, with a painted mythological ceiling, and cold white pavement, varied by long perspective lines of black lozenges, on which every footfall echoed. The first door that they opened led into a vast and dreary dining- room, with a carpet, forming a crimson roll at one end, and long ranks of faded leathern chairs sitting in each other's laps. At one end hung a huge picture by Snyders, of a bear hugging one dog in his forepaws and tearing open the ribs of another with his hind ones. Opposite was a wild boar impaling a hound with his tusk, and the other walls were occupied by Herodias smiling at the contents of her charger, Judith dropping the gory head into her bag, a brown St. Sebastian writhing among the arrows; and Juno extracting the painfully flesh and blood eyes of Argus to set them in her peacock's tail.

"I object to eating my dinner in a butcher's shop," observed Allen.

"Yes, we must get them out of this place," said his mother.

"They are very valuable paintings," interposed Ellen. "I know they are in the county history. They were collected by Sir Francis Bradford, from whom the place was bought, and he was a great connoisseur."

"Yes, they are just the horrid things great connoisseurs of the last century liked, by way of giving themselves an appetite," said Caroline.

"Are not fine pictures always horrid?" asked Jessie, in all simplicity.

The drawing-rooms, a whole suite-antechamber, saloon, music-room, and card-room, were all swathed up in brown holland, hanging even from the picture rods along the wall. Even in the days of the most liberal housekeeper, Ellen had never done more than peep beneath. So she revelled in investigations of gilding and yellow satin, ormolu and marble, big mirrors and Sevres clocks, a three-piled carpet, and a dazzling prismatic chandelier, though all was pervaded with such a chill of unused dampness and odour of fustiness, that Caroline's first impression was that it was a perilous place for one so lately recovered. However, Ellen believed in no danger till she came on two monstrous stains of damp on the walls, with a whole crop of curious fungi in one corner, and discovered that all the holland was flabby, and all the damask clammy! Then she enforced the instant lighting of fires, and shivered so decidedly, that Caroline and Jessie begged her to return to the fire in the library, while Jessie went in search of Rob to drive her home.

All the rest of the younger population had deserted the state apartments, and were to be heard in the distance, clattering along the passages, banging doors, bawling and shouting to each other, with freaks of such laughter as had never awakened those echoes during the Barnes' tenure, but Jessie returned not; and her aunt, going in quest of her up a broad flight of shallow stairs, found herself in a grand gallery, with doors leading to various corridors and stairs. She called, and the tramp of the boots of youth began to descend on her, with shouts of "All right!" and downstairs flowed the troop, beginning with Jock, and ending with Armine and Babie, each with some breathless exclamation, all jumbled together-

Jock. "Oh, mother! Stunning! Lots of bats fast asleep."

Johnny. "Rats! rats!"

Rob. "A billiard-table."

Joe. "Mother Carey, may Pincher kill your rats?"

Armine. "One wants a clue of thread to find one's way."

Janet. "I've counted five-and-thirty bedrooms already, and that's not all."

Babie. "And there's a little copper tea-kettle in each. May my dolls have one?"

Bobus. "There's nothing else in most of them; and, my eyes! how musty they smell."

Elvira. "I will have the room with the big red bed, with a gold crown at the top."

Allen. "Mother, it will be a magnificent place, but it must have a vast deal done to it."

But Mother Carey was only looking for Jessie. No one had seen her. Janet suggested that she had taken a rat for a ghost, and they began to look and call in all quarters, till at last she appeared, looking rather white and scared at having lost herself, being bewildered by the voices and steps echoing here, there, and everywhere. The barrenness and uniformity did make it very easy to get lost, for even while they were talking, Joe was heard roaring to know where they were, nor would he stand still till they came up with him, but confused them and himself by running to meet them by some deluding stair.

"We've not got a house, but a Cretan labyrinth," said Babie.

"Or the bewitched castle mother told us of," said Allen, "where everybody was always running round after everybody."

"You've only to have a grain of sense," said Bobus, who had at last recovered Joe, and proceeded to give them a lecture on the two main arteries, and the passages communicating with them, so that they might always be able to recover their bearings.

They were more sober after that. Rob drove his mother home, and the Colonel made the round to inspect the dilapidations, and estimate what was wanting. The great house had never been thoroughly furnished since the Bradfords had sold it, and it was, besides, in manifest need of repair. Damp corners, and piles of crumbled plaster told their own tale. A builder must be sent to survey it, and on the most sanguine computation, it could hardly be made habitable till the end of the autumn.

Meantime, Caroline must remain a tenant of the Pagoda, though, as she told the eager Janet, this did not prevent a stay in London for the sake of the classes and the society, of whom she was always talking, only there must be time to see their way.

The next proposition gave universal satisfaction, Mother Carey would take her whole brood to London for a day, to make purchases, the three elder children each with five pounds, the younger with two pounds a-piece. She actually wanted to take two-thirds of those from Kencroft also, with the same bounty in their pockets, but to this their parents absolutely refused consent. To go about London with a train of seven was bad enough; but that was her own affair, and they could not prevent it; and they absolutely would not swell the number to thirteen. It would be ridiculous; she would want an omnibus to go about in.

"I did not mean all to go about together. The elder boys will go their own way."

But, as the Colonel observed, that was all very well for boys, whose home had always been in London, but she would find his country lads much in her way. She then reduced her demand by a third, for she really wished for Johnny; but the Colonel's principles would not allow him to accept so great an indulgence for Rob.

That unlucky fellow had, of course, failed in his examination, and this had renewed the Colonel's resentment at his laziness and shuffling. He was, however, improved by contact with strangers, looked and behaved less bearishly, and had acquired a will to do better. Still, it was not possible to regret his absence, except because it involved that of his brother; and, with a great effort, and many assurances of her being really needed, Jessie's company was secured.

Never was the taste of wealth sweeter than in that over-filled railway carriage, before it was light on the winter morning, with a vista of endless possibilities contained in those crackling notes and round gold pieces, Jessie being, of course, as well off as the rest, and feeling the novelty and wonder even more.

Mrs. Acton's house was to be the place of rendezvous, and she would take charge of the girls for part of the day, the boys wished to shift for themselves; and Allen and Bobus had friends of their own with whom they meant to lunch.

Clara met her friend with an agitated manner, half-laughing, half- crying, as she said-

"Well, Mother Carey dear, you haven't quite soared above us yet?"

"Petrels never take high flights," said Carey; "I hope and trust that it may prove impossible to make a fine lady of me. I am caught late, you see."

"Your daughters are not. You won't like to have them making excuses for mamma's friends."

"Janet's exclusiveness will not be of that sort, and for warm-hearted little Babie, trust her. Do you know where the Ogilvies can be written to, Clara? Are they at Rome, or Florence?"

"They were to be at Florence by the l4th. Mary has learnt to be such a traveller, that she always drags her brother abroad for however short a time St. Kenelm may give her."

"I hope I shall catch her in time. We want her for our governess."

"Now, really, Carey, you are a woman for old friends! But do you think you will get on? You know she won't spare you."

"That's the very reason I want her."

"It is very generous of you! You always were the best little thing in the world, with a strong turn for being under the lash; so you're going to keep the slave in the back of your triumphal chariot, like the Roman general."

"I see, you're afraid she will teach me to be too proper behaved for you."

"Precisely so, after her experience of Russian countesses. I don't know whether she will let you be mistress of your own house."

"She will make me mistress all the more," said Caroline; "for she will make me all the more 'queen o'er myself.'"

Then began the shopping, such shopping extraordinary as none of the family had ever enjoyed except in dreams; and when it was the object of everybody to conceal their purchases from everybody else. Caroline contrived to make time for a quiet luncheon with Dr. and Mrs. Lucas, to which she took her two youngest boys, since Jock was the godson of the house, and had moreover been shaken off by his two elder brothers. Happily he was too good-tempered to grumble at being thrown over, and his mind was in a beatific state of contemplation of his newly-purchased treasures, a small pistol, a fifteen-bladed knife, and a box of miscellaneous sweets, although his mother had so far succumbed to the weakness of her sex as to prevent the weapon from being accompanied by any ammunition.

As to Armine, she wanted to consult Dr. Lucas about the fragile looks and liability to cold that had alarmed her ever since Rob's exploit. Besides, he was so unlike the others! Had she not seen him quietly make his way into the drawing-room, where Mrs. Lucas kept a box for the Children's Hospital, and drop into it two bright florins, one of which she had seen Babie hand over to him?

"I do think it is not canny," she said, as if it had been one of his symptoms.

"Do you want me to prescribe for it?"

"I did try one prescription for having too big a soul; I turned my poor little boy loose into school, and there they half killed him for me, and made the original complaint worse."

"Happily no prescription, 'neither life, nor death, nor any other creature,' can cure that complaint," said the good old doctor, "though, alas! it is only too apt to dry up from within."

"Still I can't help feeling it rather awful to have to do with a being so spiritual as that, and it appears to me to increase on him, so that he never seems quite to belong to me. And precocity is a dangerous sign, is it not?"

"I see," said the doctor, smiling; "you are going to be a treasure to the faculty, and indulge in anxieties and consultations."

"Now, Dr. Lucas, you know that we were always anxious about Armine. You remember his father said he needed more care than the rest."

Dr. Lucas allowed that this was true; but he only recommended flannel, pale ale, moderation in study, and time to recover the effects of the pump.

Both the good old friends were very kind and full of tender congratulation, mingled with a little anxiety, though they were pleased with her good taste and simplicity and absence of all elation. But then she had hardly realised the new position, and seemed to look neither behind nor before. Her only scheme seemed to be to take a house in London for a few months, and then perhaps to go abroad, but of this she could not talk in those old scenes which vividly brought back that castle in the air, never fulfilled, of a holiday in Switzerland with Joe.

On leaving the Lucases, she sent her boys on before her to the nearest bazaar, and was soon at her old home. Kind Mrs. Drake effaced herself as much as possible, and let her roam about the house alone, but furniture had altered every room, so that no responsive chord was touched till she came to the study, which was little changed. There she shut herself in and strove to recall the touch of the hand that was gone, the sound of the voice that was still. She stood, where she had been wont to stand over her husband, when he had been busy at his table and she had run down with some inquiry, and with a yearning ache of heart she clasped her hands, and almost breathed out the words, "O Joe, Joe, dear father! Oh! for one moment of you to tell me what to do, and how to keep true to the charge you gave me-your Magnum Bonum!"

So absolutely had she asked the question, that she waited, almost expecting a reply, but there was no voice and none to answer her; and she was turning away with a sickening sense of mockery at her own folly in seeking the empty shrine whence the oracle of her life had departed, when her eye fell on the engraving over the mantel-piece. It was the one thing for which Mr. Drake had begged as a memorial of Joe Brownlow, and it still hung in its old place. It was of the Great Physician, consoling and healing all around-the sick, the captive, the self-tormenting genius, the fatherless, the widow.

Was this the answer? Something darted through her mind like a pang followed by a strange throb-"Give yourself up to Him. Seek the true good first. The other may lie on its way."

But it was only a pang. The only too-natural recoil came the next minute. Was not she as religious as there was any need to be, or at least as she could be without alienating her children or affecting more than she felt? Give herself to Him? How? Did that mean a great deal of church-going, sermon-reading, cottage visiting, prayers, meditations, and avoidance of pleasure? That would never do; the boys would not bear it, and Janet would be alienated; besides, it would be hypocrisy in one who could not sit still and think, or attend to anything lengthy and wearisome.

So, as a kind of compromise, she looked at the photograph which hung below, and to it she almost spoke out her answer. "Yes, I'll be very good, and give away lots of things. Mary Ogilvie shall come and keep me in order, and she won't let me be naughty, if I ever want to be naughty when I get away from Ellen. Then Magnum Bonum shall have its turn too. Don't be afraid, dearest. If Allen does not take to it now, I am sure Bobus will be a great chemical discoverer, able to give all his time and spare no expense, and then we will fit up this dear old house for a hospital for very poor people. That's what you would have done if you had been here! Oh, if this money had only come in time! But here are these horrid tears! If I once begin crying I shall be good for nothing. If I don't go at once, there's no saying what Jock mayn't have bought."

She was just in time to find Jock asking the price of all the animals in the Pantheon Bazaar, and expecting her to supply the cost of a vicious-looking monkey. The whole flock collected in due time at the station, and so did their parcels. Allen brought with him his chief purchase, the most lovely toy-terrier in the world, whom he presented on the spot to Elvira, and who divided the journey between licking himself and devouring the fragments of biscuit with which Jock supplied him. Allen had also bought a beautiful statuette for himself, and a set of studs. Janet had set herself up with a case of mathematical instruments and various books; Bobus's purchases were divers chemical appliances and a pocket microscope, also what he thrust into Jessie's lap and she presently proclaimed to be a lovely little work-case; Jessie herself was hugging a parcel, which turned out to contain warm pelisses for the two nursery boys just above the baby. For the adaptation of their seniors' last year's garments had not proved so successful as not to have much grieved the good girl and her mother.

Elvira's money had all gone into an accordion, and a necklace of large blue beads.

"Didn't you get anything for your grandfather or your cousins?" said Caroline.

"I wanted it all," said Elfie; "and you only gave me two sovereigns, or I would have had the bracelets too."

"Never mind, Elfie," cried Babie, "I've got something for Mr. Gould and for Kate and Mary."

"Have you, Babie? So have I," returned Armine; and the two, who had been wedged into one seat, began a whispering conversation, by which the listeners might have learnt that there was a friendly rivalry as to which had made the two pounds provide the largest possible number of presents. Neither had bought anything for self, for the chest of drawers, bath, and broom were for Babie's precious dolls, not for herself. Mother Carey, uncle and aunt, brothers, sisters, cousins, servants, Mr. Gould, the gardener's grandson, the old apple-woman, "the little thin girls," had all been provided for at that wonderful German Bazaar, and the only regret was that gifts for Mr. Ogilvie and Alfred Richards could not be brought within the powers of even two pounds. What had Mother Carey bought? Ah! Nobody was to know till Twelfth-day, and then the first tree cut at Belforest would be a Christmas-tree. Then came a few regrets that everybody had proclaimed their purchases, and therewith people began to grow weary and drop asleep. It was by gaslight that they arrived at home and bundled into the flys that awaited them, and then in the hall at home came Elvira's cry-

"Where's my doggie, my Chico?"

"Here; I took him out," said Jock.

"That's not Chico; that's a nasty, horrid, yellow cur. Chico was black. You naughty boy, Jock, you've been and changed my dog."

"Has Midas changed him to gold?" cried Babie.

"Ah," said Bobus, meaningly.

"You've done it then, Bobus! You've put something to him."

"I haven't," said Bobus, "but he's been licking himself all the way home. Well, we all know green is the sacred colour of the Grand Turk."

"No! You don't mean it!" said Allen, catching up the dog and holding him to the lamp, while Janet observed that he was a sort of chameleon, for his body, which had been black, was now yellow, and his chops which had been tan, had become black.

Elvira began to cry angrily, still uncomprehending, and fancying Bobus and Jock had played her a trick and changed her dog; Allen abused the horrid little brute, and the more horrid man who had deceived him; and Armine began pitying and caressing him, seriously distressed lest the poor little beast should have poisoned himself. Caroline herself expected to have heard that he was dead the next morning, and would have felt more compassion than regret; but, to her surprise and Allen's chagrin, Chico made his appearance, very rhubarb-coloured and perfectly well.

"I think," said Elvira, "I will give Chico to grandpapa, for a nice London present."

Everybody burst out laughing at this piece of generosity, and though the young lady never quite understood what amused them, and Allen heartily wished Chico among the army of dogs at River Hollow, he did somehow or other remain at the Folly, and, after the fashion of dogs, adopted Jock as the special object of his devotion.

Ellen came in, expecting to regale her eyes with the newest fashions. Or were they all coming down from the dressmaker?

"I had no time to be worried with dressmakers," said Caroline.

"I thought you went there while the girls were going about with Mrs. Acton."

"Indeed no. I had just got my new bonnet for the winter."

"But!"

"And indeed, I have not inherited any more heads."

Ellen sighed at the impracticability of her sister-in-law and the blindness of fortune. But nobody could sigh long in the face of that Twelfth-day Christmas-tree. What need be said of it but that each member of the house of Brownlow, and each of its dependents, obtained the very thing that the bright-eyed fairy of the family had guessed would be most acceptable.



CHAPTER XVII. POPINJAY PARLOUR.



Happiest of all, in that her gentle spirit Commits itself to yours to be directed. Merchant of Venice.

"It is our melancholy duty to record the demise of James Barnes, Esq., which took place at his residence at Belforest Park, near Kenminster, on the 20th of December. The lamented gentleman had long been in failing health, and an attack of paralysis, which took place on the 19th, terminated fatally. The vast property which the deceased had accumulated, chiefly by steamboat and railway speculations in the West Indies, rendered him one of the richest proprietors in the county. We understand that the entire fortune is bequeathed solely to his grand-niece, Mrs. Caroline Otway Brownlow, widow of the late Joseph Brownlow, Esq., and at present resident in the Pagoda, Kenminster Hill. Her eldest son, Allen Brownlow, Esq., is being educated at Eton."

That was the paragraph which David Ogilvie placed before the eyes of his sister in a newspaper lent to him in the train by a courteous fellow-traveller.

"Poor Caroline!" said Mary.

They said no more till the next day, when, after the English service at Florence, they were strolling together towards San Miniato, and feeling themselves entirely alone.

"I wonder whether this is true," began Mary at last.

"Why not true?"

"I thought Mr. Barnes had threatened the boys that they should remember the Midas escapade."

"It must have been only a threat. It could only lie between her and the Spanish child; and, if report be true, even the half would be an enormous fortune."

"Will it be fortune or misfortune, I wonder?"

"At any rate, it puts an end to my chances of being of any service to her. Be it the half or the whole, she is equally beyond my reach."

"As she was before."

"Don't misinterpret me, Mary. I mean out of reach of helping her in any way. I was of little use to her before. I could not save little Armine from those brutal bullies, and never suspected the abuse that engulphed Bobus. I am not fit for a schoolmaster."

"To tell the truth, I doubt whether you have enough high spirits or geniality."

"That's the very thing! I can't get into the boys, or prevent their thinking me a Don. I had hoped there was improvement, but the revelations of the half-year have convinced me that I knew just nothing at all about it."

"Have you thought what you will do?"

"As soon as I get home, I shall send in my notice of resignation at Midsummer. That will see out her last boy, if he stays even so long."

"And then?"

"I shall go for a year to a theological college, and test my fitness to offer myself for Holy Orders."

A look of satisfaction on his sister's part made him add, "Perhaps you were disappointed that I was not ordained on my fellowship seven years ago."

"Certainly I was; but I was in Russia, and I thought you knew best, so I said nothing."

"You were right. You would only have heard what would have made you anxious. Not that there was much to alarm you, but it is not good for any one to be left so entirely without home influences as I was all the time you spent abroad. I fell among a set of daring talkers, who thought themselves daring thinkers; and though the foundations were never disturbed with me, I was not disposed to bind myself more closely to what might not bear investigation, and I did not like the aspect of clerical squabbles on minutiae. There was a tide against the life that carried me along with it, half from sound, half from unsound, motives, and I shrank from the restraint, outward and inward."

"Very likely it was wise, and the best thing in the end. But what has brought you to it?"

"I hope not as the resource of a shelved schoolmaster."

"Oh, no; you are not shelved. See how you have improved the school. Look at the numbers."

"That is no test of my real influence over the boys. I teach them, I keep them in external order, but I do not get into them. The religious life is at a low ebb."

"No wonder, with that vicar; but you have done your best."

"Even if my attempts are a layman's best, they always get quenched by the cold water of the Rigby element. It is hard for boys to feel the reality of what is treated with such business-like indifference, and set forth so feebly, not to say absurdly."

"I know. It is a terrible disadvantage."

"Listening to Rigby, has, I must say, done a good deal to bring about my present intention."

"By force of contradiction."

"If that means of longing to be in his place and put the thing as it ought to be put."

"It is a contradiction in which I most sincerely rejoice, David," she said; "one of the wishes of my heart fulfilled when I had given it up."

"You do not know that it will be fulfilled."

"I think it will, though you are right to take time, in case the decision should be partly due to disappointment."

"If there can be disappointment where hope has never existed. But if a man finds he can't have his great good, it may make him look for the greater."

Mary sighed a mute and thankful acquiescence.

"The worst of it is about you, Mary. It is throwing you over just as you were coming to make me a home."

"Never mind, Davie. It is only deferred, and at any rate we can keep together till Midsummer. Then I can go out again for a year or two, and perhaps you will settle somewhere where the curate's sister could get a daily engagement."

The next day they found the following letter at the post office:-

"The Folly, Jan. 3rd.

"My Dear Mary,-I suppose you may have attained the blessed realms that lie beyond the borders of Gossip, and may not have heard the nine days' wonder that Belforest had descended on the Folly, and that poor old Mr. Barnes has left his whole property to me. My dear, it would be something awful even if he had done his duty and halved it between Elvira and me, and he has ingeniously tied it up with trustees so as to make restitution impossible. As it is, my income will be not less than forty thousand pounds a year, and when divided among the children they will all be richer than perhaps is good for them.

"And now, my dear old dragon, will you come and keep me in order under the title of governess to Barbara and Elvira? For, of course, the child will go on living with us, and will have it made up to her as far as possible. You know that I shall do all manner of foolish things, but I think they will be rather fewer if you will only come and take me in hand. My trustees are the Colonel and an old solicitor, and will both look after the estate; but as for the rest, all that the Colonel can say is, that it is a frightful respons- ibility, and her Serene Highness is awe-struck. I could not have conceived that such a thing could have made so much difference in so really good a woman. Now I don't think you will be subject to gold dust in the eyes, and, I believe, you will still see the same little wild goose, or stormy petrel, that you used to bully at Bath, and will be even more willing to perform the process. As I should have begun by saying, on the very first evening Babie showed her sense by proposing you as governess, and you were unanimously elected in full and free parliament. It really was the child's own thought and proposal, and what I want is to have those two children made wiser and better than I can make them, as well as that you should be the dear comrade and friend I need more than ever. You will see more of your brother than you could otherwise, for Belforest will be our chief home, and I need not say how welcome he will always be there. It is not habitable at present, so I mean to stay on in the Folly till Easter, and then give Janet the London lectures and classes she has been raving for these two years, and take Jessie also for music lessons, if she can be spared.

I'm afraid it is a come down for a finisher like you to condescend to my little Babie, but she is really worth teaching, and I would say, make your own terms, but that I am afraid you would not ask enough. Please let it be one hundred and fifty pounds, there's a good Mary! I think you would come if you knew what a relief it would be. Ever since that terrible August, two years and a half ago, I have felt as if I were drifting in an endless mist, with all the children depending on me, and nobody to take my hand and lead me. You are one of the straws I grasp at. Not very complimentary after all, but when I thought of the strong, warm, guiding hands that are gone, I could not put it otherwise. Do, Mary, come, I do need you so.

"Your affectionate "C. O. BROWNLOW."

"May I see it?" asked David.

"If you will; but I don't think it will do you any good. My poor Carey!"

"Few women would have written such a letter in all the first flush of wealth."

"No; there's great sweetness and humility and generosity in it, dear child."

"It changes the face of affairs."

"I'm engaged to you."

"Nonsense! As if that would stand in the way. Besides, she will be at Kenminster till Easter. You are not hesitating, Mary?"

"I don't think I am, and yet I believe I ought to do so."

"You are not imagining that I-"

"I was not thinking of you; but I am not certain that it would not be better for our old friendship if I did not accept the part poor Carey proposes to me. I might make myself more disagreeable than could be endured by forty thousand a year."

"You do yourself and her equal injustice."

"I shall settle nothing till I have seen her."

"Then you will be fixed," he said, in a tone of conviction.

So she expected, though believing that it would be the ruin of her pleasant old friendship. Her nineteen years of governess-ship had shown her more of the shady side of high life than was known to her brother or her friend. She knew that, whatever the owner may be at the outset, it is the tendency of wealth and power to lead to arbitrariness and impatience of contradiction and censure, and to exact approval and adulation. Even if Caroline Brownlow's own nature should, at five-and-thirty, be too much confirmed in sweetness and generosity to succumb to such temptation, her children would only too probably resent any counter-influence, and set themselves against their mother's friend, and guide, under the title of governess. Moreover, Mary was too clear-sighted not to feel that there was a lack in the Brownlow household of what alone could give her confidence in the charming qualities of its mistress. Yet she knew that her brother would never forgive her for refusing, and that she should hardly forgive herself for following-not so much her better, as her more prudent, judgment. For she was infinitely touched and attracted by that warmhearted letter, and could not bear to meet it with a refusal. She hoped, for a time at least, to be a comfort, and to make suggestions, with some chance of being attended to. Such aid seemed due from the old friendship at whatever peril thereto, and she would leave her final answer till she should see whether her friend's letter had been written only on the impulse of the moment, and half retracted immediately after.

The brother and sister crossed the Channel at night, and arrived at Kenminster at noon, on a miserably wet day. At the station they were met by Jock and a little yellow dog. His salutation, as he capped his master, was-

"Please, mother sent me up to see if you were come by this train, because if you'd come to early dinner, she would be glad, because there's a builder or somebody coming with Uncle Robert about the repairs afterwards. Mother sent the carriage because of the rain. I say, isn't it jolly cats and dogs?"

Mary was an old traveller, who could sleep anywhere, and had made her toilet on landing, so as to be fresh and ready; but David was yellow and languid enough to add force to his virtuous resolution to take no advantage of the invitation, but leave his sister to settle her affairs her own way, thinking perhaps she might trust his future discretion the more for his present abstinence, so he went off in the omnibus. Jock, with the unfailing courtesy of the Brood, handed Miss Ogilvie into a large closed waggonette, explaining, "We have this for the present, and a couple of job horses; but Uncle Robert is looking out for some real good ones, and ponies for all of us. I am going over with him to Woolmarston to-morrow to try some."

It was said rather magnificently, and Mary answered, "You must be glad to get back into the Belforest grounds."

"Ain't we? It was just in time for the skating," said Jock. "Only the worst of it is, everybody will come to the lake, and so mother won't learn to skate. We thought we had found a jolly little place in the wood, where we could have had some fun with her, but they found it out, though we halloed as loud as ever we could to keep them off."

"Can your mother skate?"

"No, you see she never had a chance at home. Father was so busy, and we were so little; but she'd learn. Mother Carey can learn anything, if one could hinder her Serene Highness from pitching into her. I say, Miss Ogilvie, you'll give her leave to skate, won't you?" he asked in an insinuating tone.

"I give her leave!"

"She always says she'll ask you when we want her to be jolly and not mind her Serene Highness."

Mary avoided pledging herself, and Jock's attention was diverted to the dog, who was rising on his hind legs, vainly trying to look out of the window; and his history, told with great gusto by Jock, lasted till they reached home.

The drawing-room was full of girls about their lessons as usual- sums, exercises, music, and grammar all going on at once! but Caroline put an end to them, and sent the Kencroft party home at once in the carriage.

"So you have not dropped the old trade?" said Mary.

"I couldn't. Ellen is not strong enough yet to have the children on her hands all day. I said I'd be responsible for them till Easter, and I dare say you won't mind helping me through it as the beginning of everything. Will you condescend? You know I want to be your pupil too."

"You can be no one's pupil but your own, my dear! no one's on earth, I mean."

"Oh, don't! I know that, Mary. I'm trying and trying to be their pupil still. Indeed I am! It makes me patient of Robert, and his fearful responsibility, and his good little sister, to know that my husband always thought him right, and meant him to look after me. But as one lives on, those dear voices seem to get farther and farther away, as if one was drifting more out of reach in the fog. I do hate myself for it, but I can't help it."

"Is there not a voice that can never go out of reach, and that brings you nearer to them?"

"You dear old Piety, Prudence, and Charity all in one! That is if you have the charity to come and infuse a little of your piety and prudence into me. You know you could always make me mind you, and you'll make me-what is it that Mrs. Coffinkey says?-a credit to my position before you've done. I've had your room got ready; won't you come and take off your things?"

"I think, if you don't object, I had better sleep at the schoolhouse, and come up here after David's breakfast."

"Very well; I won't try to rob him of you more than can be helped. Though you know he would be welcome here every evening if he liked."

"Thank you very much, I can help him more at home; but I'll come for the whole day, for I am sure you must have a great deal on your hands."

"Well! I've almost as many classes as pupils, and then there are so many interruptions. The Colonel is always bringing something to be signed, and then people will come and offer themselves, though I'm sure I never asked them. Yesterday there was a stupendous butler and house-steward who could also act as courier, and would do himself the honour of arranging my household in a truly ducal style. Just as I got rid of him, came a man with a future history of the landed gentry in quest of my coat of arms and genealogy, also three wine merchants, a landscape gardener, and a woman with a pitcher of goldfish. Emma is so soft she thinks everybody is a gentleman. I am trying to get the good old man-servant we had in our old home to come and defend me; not that he is old, for he was a boy whom Joe trained. Oh Mary, the bewilderment of it!" and she pushed back the little stray curly rings of hair on her forehead, while a peal at the bell was heard and a card was brought in. "Oh! Emma! don't bring me any more! Is it a gentleman?"

"Y-es, ma'am. Leastways it is a clergyman."

The clergyman turned out to be a Dissenting minister seeking subscriptions, and he was sent off with a sovereign.

"I know it was very weak," she said; "but it was the only way to stop his mouth, and I must have time to talk to you, so don't begin your mission by scolding me."

Terms were settled; Mary would remain at the schoolhouse, but daily come to the Pagoda till the removal to London, when her residence was to begin in earnest.

She took up her line from the first as governess, dropping her friend's Christian name, and causing her pupils to address herself as Miss Ogilvie, a formality which was evidently approved by Mrs. Robert Brownlow, and likewise by Janet.

That young lady was wonderfully improved by prosperity. She had lost her caustic manner and air of defiance, so that her cleverness and originality made her amusing instead of disagreeable. She piqued herself on taking her good fortune sensibly, and, though fully seventeen, professed not to know or care whether she was out or not, but threw herself into hard study, with a view to her classes, and gladly availed herself of Miss Ogilvie's knowledge of foreign languages.

Mrs. Coffinkey supposed that she would be presented at court with her dear mamma; but she laughed at courts and ceremonies, and her mother said that the first presentation in the family would be of Allen's wife when he was a member of parliament. But Janet was no longer at war with Kenminster. She laughed good-humouredly, and was not always struggling for self-assertion, since the humiliations of going about as the poor, plain cousin of the pretty Miss Brownlow were over. Now that she was the rich Miss Brownlow, she was not likely to feel that she was the plain one.

The sense of exile was over when the house in London was taken, and so Janet could afford to be kind to Kenminster; and she was like the Janet of old times, without her slough of captious disdain. Even then there was a sense that the girl was not fathomed; she never seemed to pour out her inner self, but only to talk from the surface, and certainly not to have any full confidence with her mother-nay, rather to hold her cheap.

Mary Ogilvie detected this disloyal spirit, and was at a loss whether to ascribe it to modern hatred of control, to the fact that Caroline had been in her old home more like the favourite child than the mother, or to her own eager naturalness of demeanour, and total lack of assumption. She was anything but weak, yet she could not be dignified, and was quite ready to laugh at herself with her children. Janet could hardly be overawed by a mother who had been challenged by her own gamekeeper creeping down a ditch, with the two Johns, to see a wild duck on her nest, and with her hat half off, and her hair disordered by the bushes.

The "Folly" laughed till its sides ached at the adventure, and Caroline asked Mary if she were not longing to scold her.

"No, I think you will soon grow more cautious about getting into ridiculous positions."

"Isn't laughing a wholesome pastime?"

"Not when it is at those who ought to be looked up to."

"Oh! I'm not made to be looked up to. I'm not going to be a hero to my valet de chambre, or to anybody else, my dear, if that's what you want of me!"

Mary secretly hoped that a little more dignity would come in the London life, and was relieved when the time came for the move. The new abode was a charming house, with the park behind it, and the space between nearly all glass. Great ferns, tall citrons, fragrant shrubs, brilliant flowers, grew there; a stone-lined pool, with water-lilies above, gold-fish below, and a cool, sparkling, babbling fountain in the middle. There was an open space round it, with low chairs and tables, and the parrot on her perch. Indeed, Popinjay Parlour was the family title of this delightful abode; but it might almost as well have been called Mother Carey's bower. Here, after an audience with the housekeeper, who was even more overpowering than her Serene Highness, would Caroline retreat to write notes, keep accounts, and hear Armine's lessons, secure before luncheon from all unnecessary interruption; and here was her special afternoon and evening court.

This first summer she was free to take her own course as to society, for Janet cared for the Cambridge examination far more than for gaiety, and thus she had no call, and no heart for "going out," even if she had as yet been more known. Some morning calls were exchanged, but she sent refusals on mourning cards to invitations to evening parties, though she took her young people to plays, concerts, and operas, and all that was pleasant. Her young people included Jessie. Colonel and Mrs. Brownlow made her a visit as soon as she was settled, and were so much edified by the absence of display and extravagance, that they did not scruple to trust their daughter to her for the long-desired music-lessons.

Caroline had indeed made no attempt to win her way into the great world; but she had brought together as much as possible of the old society of her former home. On two evenings in the week, the habitues of Joe Brownlow's house were secure of finding her either in the drawing-room or conservatory; beautiful things, and new books and papers on the tables, good music on the piano, sometimes acted charades, or paper games, according to the humour or taste of the party. If she had been a beautiful duchess, Popinjay Parlour would have been a sort of salon bleu; but it was really a kind of paradise to a good many clever, hardworked men and women. Those of the upper world, such as Kenminster county folks, old acquaintances of her husband, or natural adherents of Midas, who found their way to these receptions, either thought them odd but charming, or else regretted that Mrs. Brownlow should get such queer people together, and turn Hyde Corner House into another Folly.

Mary Ogilvie enjoyed, but not without misgivings. It was delightful, and yet, what with Joe Brownlow and his mother had been guarded, might become less safe with no leader older or of more weight than Carey, who could easily be carried along by what they would have checked. The older and more intimate friends always acted as a wholesome restraint; but when they were not present there was sometimes a tone that jarred on the reverent ear, or dealt with life and its mysteries in a sneering, mocking style. This was chiefly among new-comers, introduced by former acquaintances, and it never went far; but Mary was distressed by seeing Janet's relish for such conversation. Nita Ray was the chief female offender in this way, and this was the more unfortunate as Sunday was her only free day.

Those Sundays vexed Mary's secret soul. No one interfered with her way of spending them; but that was the very cause of misgiving. Everybody went to Church in the morning, but just where, and as, they pleased, meeting at luncheon, with odd anecdotes of their adventures, and criticisms of music or of sermons. It was an easy-going meal, lasting long, and haunted by many acquaintances, for whose sake the table was always at its full length, and spread with varieties of delicacies that would endure waiting.

People dropped in, helped themselves, ate and drank, and then adjourned to Popinjay Parlour, where the afternoon was spent in an easy-going, loitering way, more like a foreign than an English Sunday. Miss Ogilvie used to go to the Litany at one of the Churches near; Armine always came with her, and often brought Babie, and Jessie came too, as soon as that good girl had swallowed the fact that the Litany could stand alone.

Janet was apt to be walking with Nita, or else in some eager and amusing conversation in the conservatory; and as to Elvira, she was the prettiest, most amusing plaything that Mrs. Brownlow's house afforded, a great favourite, and a continual study to the artist friends. Mary used to find her chattering, coquetting, and romping on coming in to the afternoon tea, which she would fain have herself missed; but that her absence gave pain, and as much offence as one so kind as Mrs. Brownlow could take.

Carey argued that most of her guests were people who seldom had leisure to enjoy rest, conversation, and variety of pretty things, and that it would be mere Puritan crabbedness to deny them the pleasures of Popinjay Parlour on the only day they could be happy there. It was not easy to answer the argument, though the strong feeling remained that it was not keeping Sunday as the true Lord's Day. While abstinence from such enjoyments created mere negative dulness, there must be something wrong.

Otherwise, Mary was on the happiest terms, made her own laws and duties, and was treated like a sister by Caroline, while the children were heartily fond of her, all except Elvira, who made a fierce struggle against her authority, and then, finding that it was all in vain, conformed as far as her innate idleness and excitability permitted.

She behaved better to Miss Ogilvie than to Janet, with whom she kept up a perpetual petty warfare, sometimes, Mary thought, with the pertinacity of a spiteful elf, making a noise when Janet wanted quiet, losing no opportunity of upsetting her books or papers, and laughing boisterously at any little mishap that befell her. The only reason she ever gave when pushed hard, was that "Janet was so ugly, she could not help it," a reason so utterly ridiculous, that there was no going any further.

Janet, on the whole, behaved much better under the annoyance than could have been expected. She entered enough into the state of affairs to see that the troublesome child could hardly be expelled, and she was too happy and too much amused to care much about the annoyance. There was magnanimity enough about her not to mind midge bites, and certainly this summer was exceptionally delightful with all the pleasures of wealth, and very few of its drawbacks.

By the time the holidays were coming round, Belforest was not half habitable, and they had to return to the Pagoda. A tenant had been found for it, and such of the old furniture as was too precious to be parted with was to be removed to Belforest. Things were sufficiently advanced there for the rooms to be chosen, and orders given as to the decoration and furniture, and then, gathering up her sons, Caroline meant to start for the Rhine, Switzerland, and Italy. Old nurse was settled in a small pair of rooms, with Emma to wait on her, and promises from Jessie to attend to her comforts; but the old woman had failed so much in their absence, and had fretted so much after "Mrs. Joseph" and the children, that it was hard to leave her again.

Everything that good taste and wealth could do to make a place delightful was at work. The "butcher's shop" was relegated to a dim corner of the gallery, and its place supplied from the brushes of the artists whom Caroline viewed with loving respect; the drawing-room was renovated, a forlorn old library resuscitated into vigorous life, a museum fitted with shelves, drawers, and glass cases which Caroline said would be as dangerous to the vigorous spirit of natural history as new clothes to a Brownie, and a billiard and gun room were ceded to the representations of Allen, who comported himself as befitted the son and heir.

Caroline would not part with her room-mate, little Barbara, and was to have for herself a charming bedroom and dressing-room, with a balcony and parapet overlooking the garden and park, and a tiny room besides, for Babie to call her own.

Janet chose the apartments which had been Mr. Barnes', and which being in the oldest part of the house, and wainscoted with dark oak, she could take possession of at once. There was one room down stairs with very ugly caryatides, supporting the wooden mantelpiece, and dividing the panels, one of which had a secret door leading by an odd little stair to the bedroom above-that in which Mr. Barnes had died.

It had of course another door opening into the corridor, and it was on these rooms that Janet set her affections. To the general surprise, Elvira declared that this was the very room she had chosen, with the red velvet curtains and gold crown, the day they went over the house, and that Mother Carey had promised it to her, and she would have it.

No one could remember any such promise, and the curtains of crimson moreen did not answer Elfie's description; but she would not be denied, and actually put all her possessions into the room.

Janet, without a word, quietly turned them out into the passage, and Elfie flew into one of those furious kicking and screaming passions which always ended in her being sent to bed. Caroline felt quite shaken by it, but stood firm, though, as she said, it went to her heart to deny the child who ought to have had equal shares with herself, and she would have been thankful if Janet would have given way.

Of this, however, Janet had no thoughts, strong in the conviction that the child could not make the same reasonable use of the fittings of the room as she could herself, and by no means disposed not "to seek her own."

She had numerous papers, notes of lectures, returned essays from her society, and the like to dispose of, and she rejoiced in placing them in the compartments of the great bureau, in the lower room. The lawyers had cleared all before her, and the space was delightful. All personals must have been carried off by the servants as perquisites, for she found no traces of the former occupant till she came to a little bed-side table. The drawer was not locked, but did not open without difficulty, being choked with notes and letters in envelopes, directed to J. Barnes, Esquire. This perhaps accounted for the drawer not having been observed and emptied. Janet shook the contents out into a basket, and was going to take them to her uncle, but thought it could do no harm first to see whether there were anything curious or interesting in them.

Several were receipted bills; but then she came to her mother's handwriting, and read her conciliatory note, which whetted her curiosity; and looking further she got some amusement out of the polite notes and offers of service, claims to old family friendship, and congratulations which had greeted Mr. Barnes, and he had treated with grim disregard.

Presently, thrust into an envelope with another letter, and written on a piece of note-paper, was something that made her start as if at the sting of a viper. No! it could not be a will! She knew what wills were like. They were sheets of foolscap, written by lawyers, while this was only an old man's cramped and crooked writing. Perhaps, when he was in a rage, he had so far carried out his threat, that Allen should remember King Midas as to make a rough draft of a will, leaving everything to Elvira de Menella, for there at the top was the date, plainly visible, the very April when the confession had been made. But no doubt he had never carried out his purpose so far as to get it legally drawn out and attested. As Mr. Richards had said, he had never been in health to take any active measures, and probably he had rested satisfied with this relief to his feelings.

Should she show it to her mother and uncle, and let them know their narrow escape? No. Mother Carey and Allen made quite fuss enough already about that little vixen, and if they discovered how nearly she had been the sole heiress, they would be far worse. Besides, her mother might have misgivings, as to this unhappy document being morally though not legally, binding. Suppose she were seized with a fit of generosity, and gave all up! or even half. Elfie, the little shrew, to have equal rights! The sweets of wealth only just tasted to be resigned, and the child, overweening enough already, to be set in their newly-gained place!

The sagacity of seventeen decided that mother had better not be worried about it for her own sake, and that of everyone else. So what was to be done. No means of burning it were at hand, and to ask for them might excite suspicion. The safest way was to place it in one of the drawers of the bureau, lock it up, and keep the key.



CHAPTER XVIII. AN OFFER FOR MAGNUM BONUM.



They had gold and gold and gold without end, Gold to lay by and gold to spend, Gold to give and gold to lend, And reversions of gold in futuro. In gold his family revelled and rolled, Himself and his wife and his sons so bold, And his daughters who sang to their harps of gold O bella eta dell' oro.

Four years of wealth had not made much external alteration in Mrs. Joseph Brownlow. As she descended the staircase of her beautiful London house, one Monday morning, late in April, between flower- stands filled with lovely ferns and graceful statues, she had still the same eager girlish look. It was true that her little cap was of the most costly lace, her hair manipulated by skilful hands, and her thin black summer dress was of material and make such as a scientific eye alone could have valued in their simplicity. But dignity still was wanting. Silks and brocades that would stand alone, and velvets richly piled only crushed and suffocated the little light swift figure, and the crisp curly hair was so much too wilful for the maid, that she had been even told that madame's style would be to cut it short, and wear it a l'ingenue, which she viewed as insulting; and altogether her general air was precisely what it had been when her dress cost a twentieth part of what it did at present.

Her face looked no older. It was thin, eager, bright, and sunny, yet with an indescribable wistfulness in the sparkling eyes, and something worn in the expression, and, as usual, she moved with a quiet nimbleness peculiar to herself.

The breakfast-table, sparkling with silver and glass, around a magnificent orchid in the centre, and a rose by every plate, was spread in the dining-room, sweet sounds and scents coming in through the widely-opened glass doors of the conservatory, while a bright wood fire, still pleasant to look at, shone in the grate.

As she rang the bell, Bobus came in from the conservatory, book in hand, to receive the morning kiss, for which he had to bend to his little mother. He was not tall, but he had attained his full height, and had a well-knit sturdy figure which, together with his heavy brow and deep-set eyes, made him appear older than his real age-nineteen. His hair and upper lip were dark, and his eyes keen with a sense of ready power and strong will.

"Good morning, Bobus; I didn't see you all day yesterday," said his mother.

"No, I couldn't find you before you went out on Saturday night, to tell you I was going to run down to Belforest with Bauerson. I wanted to enlighten his mind as to wild hyacinths. They are in splendid bloom all over the copses, and I thought he would have gone down on his knees to them, like Linnaeus to the gorse."