Here, catching sight of Miss Hilary's visitor, Elizabeth stopped short. Peter Ascott was one of her prejudices. She determined in his presence to let out no more of the family affairs.

On his part, Mr. Ascott had always treated Elizabeth as people like him usually do treat servants, afraid to lose an inch of their dignity, lest it should be an acknowledgment of equal birth and breeding with the class from which they are so terribly ashamed to have sprung. He regarded her now with a lordly air.

"Young woman—I believe you are the young woman who this afternoon told me that Mr. Leaf was out. It was a fib, of course."

Elizabeth turned round indignantly. "No, Sir; I don't tell fibs. He was out."

"Did you give him my message when he came in?"

"Yes, Sir."

"And what did he say, oh?"

"Nothing."

This was the literal fact; but there was something behind which Elizabeth had not the slightest intention of communicating. In fact, she set herself, physically and mentally, in an attitude of dogged resistance to any pumping of Mr. Ascott: for though, as she had truly said, nothing special had happened, she felt sure that he was at the bottom of something which had gone wrong in the household that afternoon.

It was this. When Ascott returned, and she told him of his godfather's visit, the young man had suddenly turned so ghastly pale that she had to fetch him a glass of water; and his Aunt Johanna—Miss Selina was out—had to tend him and soothe him for several minutes before he was right again. When at last he seemed returning to his natural self, he looked wildly up at his aunt, and clung to her in such an outburst of feeling, that Elizabeth had thought it best to slip out of the room. It was tea time, but still she waited outside for a half hour or longer, when she gently knocked, and after a minute or two Miss Leaf came out. There seemed nothing wrong, at least not much—not more than Elizabeth had noticed many and many a time after talks between Ascott and his aunts.

"I'll take the tea in myself," she said; "for I want you to start at once for Kensington to fetch Miss Hilary. Don't frighten her—mind that Elizabeth. Say I am much as usual myself; but that Mr. Leaf is not quite well, and I think she might do him good. Remember the exact words."

Elizabeth did, and would have delivered them accurately, it Mr. Ascott had not been present, and addressed her in that authoritative manner. Now, she resolutely held her tongue.

Mr. Ascott might in his time have been accustomed to cringing, frightened, or impertinent servants, but this was a phase of the species with which he was totally unfamiliar. The girl was neither sullen nor rude, yet evidently quite independent; afraid neither of her mistress, nor of himself. He was sharp enough to see that whatever he wanted to get out of Elizabeth must be got in another way.

"Come, my wench, you'd better tell; it'll be none the worse for you, and it shan't harm the young fellow, though I dare say he has paid you well for holding your tongue."

"About what, sir?"

"Oh! you know what happened when you told him I had called, eh? Servants get to know all about their master's affairs."

"Mr. Leaf isn't my master, and his affairs are nothing to me; I don't pry into 'em," replied Elizabeth. "If you want to know any thing, Sir, hadn't you better ask himself! He's at home to-night. I left him and my missus going to their tea."

"Left them at home, and at tea?"

"Yes, Miss Hilary."

It was an inexpressible relief. For the discovery must have come. Ascott must have known or guessed that Mr. Ascott had found him out; he must have confessed all to his Aunt, or Johanna would never have done two things which her sister knew she strongly disliked—sending Elizabeth wandering through London at night, and fetching Hilary home before the time. Yet they had been left sitting quietly at their tea!

Perhaps, after all, the blow had not been so dreadful. Johanna saw comfort through it all. Vague hopes arose in Hilary also; visions of the poor sinner sitting "clothed and in his right mind," contrite and humbled; comforted by them all, with the inexpressible tenderness with which we yearn over one who "was dead and is alive again, was lost, and is found;" helped by them all in the way that women—some women especially, and these were of them—seem formed to help the erring and unfortunate; for, erring as he was, he had also been unfortunate.

Many an excuse for him suggested itself. How foolish of them, ignorant women that they were, to suppose that seventeen years of the most careful bringing up could, with his temperament, stand against the countless dangers of London life; of any life where a young man is left to himself in a great town, with his temptations so many, and his power of resistance so small.

And this might not, could not be a deliberate act. It must have been committed under a sudden impulse, to be repented of for the rest of his days. Nay, in the strange way in which our sins and mistakes are made not only the whips to scourge us, but the sicknesses out of which we often come—suffering and weak indeed, but yet relieved, and fresh, and sound—who could tell but that this grave fault, this actual guilt, the climax of so many lesser errors, might not work out in the end Ascott's complete reformation?

So in the strange way in which, after a great shock, we begin to revive a little, to hope against hope, to see a slender ray breaking through the darkness, Hilary composed herself, at least so far as to enable her to bid Elizabeth go down stairs, and she would be ready directly.

"I think it is the best thing I can do—to go home at once," said she.

"Certainly, my dear." replied Mr. Ascott, rather flattered by her involuntary appeal, and by an inward consciousness of his own exceeding generosity. "And pray don't disturb yourselves. Tell your sister from me—your sister Selina, I mean—that I overlook every thing, on condition that you keep him out of my sight, that young blackguard!"

"Don't, don't!" cried Hilary, piteously.

"Well, I won't, though it's his right name—a fellow who could— Look you, Miss Hilary, when his father sent to me to beg ten pounds to bury his mother with. I did bury her, and him also, a month after, very respectably too, though he had no claim upon me, except that he came from Stowbury. And I stood godfather to the child, and I've done my duty by him. But mark my words, what's bred in the bone will come in the flesh. He was born in a prison, and he'll die in a prison."

"God forbid!" said Hilary, solemnly. And again she felt the strong conviction, that whatever his father had been, or his mother, of whom they had heard nothing till she was dead, Ascott could not have lived all these years of his childhood and early boyhood with his three aunts at Stowbury without gaining at least some good, which might counteract the hereditary evil; as such evil can be counteracted, even as hereditary disease can be gradually removed by wholesome and careful rearing in a new generation.

"Well, I'll not say any more," continued Peter Ascott: "only the sooner the young fellow takes himself off the better. He'll only plague you all. Now, can you send out for a cab for me?"

Hilary mechanically rang the bell, and gave the order.

"I'll take you to town with me if you like. It'll save you the expense of the omnibus. I suppose you always travel by omnibus?"

Hilary answered something, she hardly knew what, except that it was a declining of all these benevolent attentions. At last she got Mr. Ascott outside the street door, and returning, put her hand to her head with a moan.

"Oh, Miss Hilary, don't look like that."

"Elizabeth, do you know what has happened?"

"No."

"Then I don't want you to know. And you must never try to find it out; for it is a secret that ought to be kept strictly within the family. Are you to be trusted?"

"Yes, Miss Hilary."

"Now, get me my bonnet, and let us make haste and go home."

They walked down the gas-lit Kensington High Street, Hilary taking her servant's arm; for she felt strangely weak. As she sat in the dark corner of the omnibus she tried to look things in the face, and form some definite plan; but the noisy rumble at once dulled and confused her faculties. She felt capable of no consecutive thought, but found herself stupidly watching the two lines of faces, wondering, absently, what sort of people they were; what were their lives and histories; and whether they all had, like herself, their own personal burden of woe. Which was, alas! the one fact that never need be doubted in this world.

It was nigh upon eleven o'clock when Hilary knocked at the door of No. 15.

Miss Leaf opened it; but for the first time in her life she had no welcome for her child.

"Is it Ascott? I thought it was Ascott," she cried, peering eagerly up and down the street.

"He is gone out, then? When did he go?" asked Hilary, feeling her heart turn stone-cold.

"Just after Selina came in. She—she vexed him. But he can not be long? Is not that man he?"

And just as she was, without shawl or bonnet, Johanna stepped out into the cold, damp night, and strained her eyes into the darkness; but in vain.

"I'll walk round the Crescent once, and may be I shall find him. Only go in, Johanna."

And Hilary was away again into the dark, walking rapidly, less with the hope of finding Ascott than to get time to calm herself, so as to meet, and help her sisters to meet, this worst depth of their calamity. For something warned her that this last desperation of a weak nature is more to be dreaded than any overt obstinacy of a strong one. She had a conviction that Ascott never would come home.

After a while they gave up waiting and watching at the front door, and shut themselves up in the parlor. The first explanation past, even Selina ceased talking; and they sat together, the three women, doing nothing, attempting to do nothing, only listening; thinking every sound was a step on the pavement or a knock at the door. Alas! what would they not have given for the fiercest knock, the most impatient, angry footstep, if only it had been their boy's?

About one o'clock, Selina had to be put to bed in strong hysterics. She had lashed her nephew with her bitter tongue till he had rushed out of the house, declaring that none of them should ever see his face again. Now she reproached herself as being the cause of all, and fell into an agony of remorse, which engrossed her sisters' whole care; until her violent emotion having worn itself out, she went to sleep, the only one who did sleep in that miserable family.

For Elizabeth also, having been sent to bed hours before, was found by Miss Hilary sitting on the kitchen stairs, about four in the morning. Her mistress made no attempt at reproach, but brought her into the parlor to share the silent watch, never broken except to make up the fire or light a fresh candle; till candles burned up, and shutters were opened, and upon their great calamity stared the broad unwelcome day.



CHAPTER XIX.

"Missing"—"Lost"—"To—"—all the initials of the alphabet—we read these sort of advertisements in the newspapers; and unless there happens to be in them something intensely pathetic, comical, or horrible, we think very little about them. Only those who have undergone all that such an advertisement implies can understand its depth of misery: the sudden missing of the person out of the home circle, whether going away in anger or driven away by terror or disgrace; the hour after hour and day after day of agonized suspense; the self-reproach, real or imaginary, lest any thing might have been said or done that was not said or done—any thing prevented that was not prevented; the gnawing remorse for some cruel, or careless, or bitter word, that could so easily have been avoided.

Alas! if people could only be made to feel that every word, every action carries with it the weight of an eternity; that the merest chance may make something said or done quite unpremeditatedly, in vexation, sullenness, or spite, the last action, the last word; which may grow into an awful remembrance, rising up between them and the irredeemable past, and blackening the future for years!

Selina was quite sure her unhappy nephew had committed suicide, and that she had been the cause of it. This conviction she impressed incessantly on her two sisters as they waited upon her, or sat talking by her bedside during that long Saturday, when there was nothing else to be done.

That was the misery of it. There was nothing to be done. They had not the slightest clew to Ascott's haunts or associates. With the last fingering of honest shame, or honest respect for his aunts, he had kept all these things to himself. To search for him in wide London was altogether impossible.

Two courses suggested themselves to Hilary—one, to go and consult Miss Balquidder; the other—which came into her mind from some similar case she had heard of—to set on foot inquiries at all police stations. But the first idea was soon rejected: only at the last extremity could she make patent the family misery—the family disgrace. To the second, similar and even stronger reasons applied. There was something about the cool, matter-of-fact, business-like act of setting a detective officer to hunt out their nephew, from which these poor women recoiled. Besides, impressed as he was—he had told his Aunt Johanna so—with the relentlessness of Mr. Ascott, might not the chance of his discovering that he was hunted drive him to desperation?

Hardly to suicide. Hilary steadfastly disbelieved in that. When Selina painted horrible pictures of his throwing himself off Waterloo Bridge: or being found hanging to a tree in one of the parks; or locking himself in a hotel bed chamber and blowing out his brains, her younger sister only laughed—laughed as much as she could—if only to keep Johanna quiet.

Yet she herself had few fears. For she knew that Ascott was, in a sense, too cowardly to kill himself. He so disliked physical pain, physical unpleasantness of all kinds. She felt sure he would stop short, even with the razor or the pistol in his hand, rather than do a thing so very disagreeable.

Nevertheless, in spite of herself, while she and her sisters sat together, hour after hour, in a stillness almost like that when there is a death in the house, these morbid terrors took a double size. Hilary ceased to treat them as ridiculous impossibilities, but began to argue them out rationally. The mere act of doing so made her recoil; for it seemed an acknowledgment that she was fighting not with chimeras but realities.

"It is twenty-four hours since he went," she reasoned. "If he had done anything desperate he would have done it at once, and we should have heard of it long before now; ill news always travels fast. Besides, his name was marked on all his clothes in full. I did it myself. And his coat pockets were always stuffed with letters; he used to cram them in as soon as he got them, you know."

And at this small remembrance of one of his "ways," even though it was an unkind way, and had caused them many a pain, from the want of confidence it showed, his poor, fond aunts turned aside to hide their starting tears. The very phrase "he used to," seemed such an unconscious admission that his life with them was over and done; that he never would either please them or vex them any more.

Yet they took care that during the whole day every thing should be done as if he were expected minute by minute; that Elizabeth should lay the fourth knife and fork at dinner, the fourth cup and saucer at tea. Elizabeth, who throughout had faithfully kept her pledge; who went about silently and unobservantly, and by every means in her power put aside the curiosity of Mrs. Jones as to what could be the reason that her lodgers had sat up all night, and what on earth had become of young Mr. Leaf.

After tea, Johanna, quite worn out, consented to go to bed; and then Hilary, left to her own responsibility, set herself to consider how long this dreadful quietness was to last, whether nothing could be done. She could endure whatever was inevitable, but it was against her nature as well as her conscience to sit down tamely to endure any thing whatsoever till it did become inevitable.

In the first place, she determined on that which a certain sense of honor, as well as the fear of vexing him should he come home, had hitherto prevented the examining of Ascott's room, drawers, clothes, and papers. It was a very dreary business—almost like doing the like to a person who was dead, only without the sad sanctity that belongs to the dead, whose very errors are forgotten and forgiven, who can neither suffer nor make others suffer any more.

Many things she found, and more she guessed at—things which stabbed her to the heart, things that she never told, not even to Johanna; but she found no clew whatever to Ascott's whereabouts, intentions, or connections. One thing, however, struck her—that most of his clothes, and all his somewhat extensive stock of jewelry were gone; every thing, in short, that could be convertible into money. It was evident that his flight, sudden as it was, had been premeditated as at least a possibility.

This so far was satisfactory. It took away the one haunting fear of his committing suicide; and made it likely that he was still lingering about, hiding from justice and Mr. Ascott, or perhaps waiting for an opportunity to escape from England—from the fear that his godfather, even if not prosecuting him, had the power and doubtless the will completely to crush his future, wherever he was known.

Where could he go? His Aunt tried to think over every word he had ever let fall about America, Australia, or any other place to which the hopeless outlaws of this country fly; but she could recollect nothing to enable her to form any conclusion. One thing only she was sure of—that if once he went away, his own words would come true; they would never see his face again. The last tie, the last constraint that bound him to home and a steady, righteous life would be broken; he would go all adrift, be tossed hither and thither on every wave of circumstance—what he called circumstance—till Heaven only knew what a total wreck he might speedily become, or in what forlorn and far off seas his ruined life might go down. He, Ascott Leaf, the last of the name and family.

"It can not be; it shall not be!" cried Hilary. A sharp, bitter cry of resistance to the death; and her heart seemed to go out to the wretched boy and her hands to clutch at him, as if he were drowning, and she were the only one to save him. How could she do it?

If she could only get at him, by word or letter! But that seemed impossible, until, turning over scheme after scheme, she suddenly thought of the one which so many people had tried in similar circumstances, and which she remembered they had talked over and laughed over, they and Ascott, one Sunday evening not so very long ago. This was—a Times advertisement.

The difficulty how to word it, so as to catch his attention and yet escape publicity, was very great, especially as his initials were so common. Hundreds of "A. L.'s" might be wandering away from home, to whom all that she dared say to call Ascott back would equally apply. At last a bright thought struck her.

"A. leaf" (will a small l) "will be quite safe wherever found. Come. Saturday. 15."

As she wrote it—this wretched double-entendre—she was seized with that sudden sense of the ludicrous which sometimes intrudes in such a ghastly fashion in the very midst of great misery. She burst into uncontrollable laughter, fit after fit; so violent that Elizabeth, who came in by chance, was terrified out of her wits, and kneeling beside her mistress, implored her to be quiet. At last the paroxysm ended in complete exhaustion. The tension of the last twenty-four hours had given way, and Hilary knew her strength was gone. Yet the advertisement ought to be taken to the Times office that very night, in order to be inserted without fail on Monday morning.

There was but one person whom she could trust—Elizabeth.

She looked at the girl, who was kneeling beside the sofa, rubbing her feet, and sometimes casting a glance round, in the quiet way of one well used to nursing, who can find out how the sufferer is without "fussing" with questions. She noticed, probably because she had seen little of her of late, a curious change in Elizabeth. It must have been gradual, but yet its result had never been so apparent before. Her brusqueness had softened down, and there had come into her and shone out of her, spite of all her natural uncomeliness of person, that beautiful, intangible something, common alike to peasant and queen, as clear to see and as sad to miss in both—womanliness. Added thereto was the gentle composure of mein which almost invariably accompanied it, which instinctively makes you fell that in great things or small, whatever the woman has to do, she will do it in the womanliest, wisest, and best way.

So thought Miss Hilary as she lay watching her servant, and then explained to her the errand upon which she wished to send her.

Not much explanation, for she merely gave her the advertisement to read, and told her what she wished done with it. And Elizabeth, on her part, asked no questions, but simply listened and obeyed.

After she was gone Hilary lay on the sofa, passive and motionless. Her strength and activity seemed to have collapsed at once into that heavy quietness which comes when one has endured to the utmost limit of endurance when one feels as if to speak a word or to lift a finger would be as much as life was worth.

"Oh, if I could only go to sleep!" was all she thought.

By-and-by sleep did come, and she was taken far away out of these miseries. By the strange peculiarity of dreams that we so seldom dream about any grief that oppresses us at the time but generally of something quite different, she thought she was in some known unknown land, lovely and beautiful, with blue hills rising in the distance, and blue seas creeping and curling on to the shore. On this shore she was walking with Robert Lyon, just as he used to be, with his true face and honest voice. He did not talk to her much; but she felt him there, and knew they had but "one heart between them." A heart which had never once swerved, either from the other; a heart whole and sound, into which the least unfaith had never come—that had never known, or recognized even as a possibility, the one first doubt, the ominous —

"Little rift within the lute, That by-and-by will make the music mute, And ever widening slowly silence all."

Is it ever so in this world? Does God ever bring the faithful man to the faithful woman, and make them love one another with a righteous, holy, persistent tenderness, which dare look in His face, nor be ashamed; which sees in this life only the beginning of the life to come; and in the closest, most passionate human love something to be held with a loose hand, something frail as glass and brittle as straw, unless it is perfected and sanctified by the love divine?

Hilary at least believed so. And when at Elizabeth's knock she woke with a start, and saw—not the sweet sea-shore and Robert Lyon, but the dull parlor, and the last flicker of the fire, she thanked God that her dream was not all a dream—that, sharp as her misery was, it did not touch this—the love of her heart: she believed in Robert Lyon still.

And so she rose and spoke quite cheerfully, asking Elizabeth how she had managed, and whether the advertisement would be sure to be in on Monday morning.

"Yes, Miss Hilary; it is sure to be all right."

And then the girl hung about the room in an uneasy way, as if she had something to tell, which was the fact.

Elizabeth had had an adventure. It was a new thing in her monotonous life; it brightened her eyes, and flushed her cheeks, and made her old nervousness of manner return. More especially as she was somewhat perplexed, being divided in her mind between the wish she had to tell her mistress every thing, and the fear to trouble her, at this troublous time, with any small matter that merely concerned herself.

The matter was this. When she had given in her advertisement at the Times office, and was standing behind the counter waiting for her change and receipt, there stood beside her a young man, also waiting. She had hardly noticed him, till on his talking to the clerk about some misprint in his advertisement, apparently one of the great column of "Want Places," her ear was caught by the unmistakable Stowbury accent.

It was the first time she had heard it since she left home, and to Elizabeth's tenacious nature home in absence had gained an additional charm, had grown to be the one place in the world about which her affections clung. In these dreary wilds of London, to hear a Stowbury tongue, to catch sight of a Stowbury person, or even one who might know Stowbury, made her heart leap up with a bound of joy. She turned suddenly, and looked intently at the young man, or rather the lad, for he seemed a mere lad, small, slight, and whiskerless.

"Well, Miss. I hope you'll know me again next time." said the young fellow. At which remark Elizabeth saw that he was neither so young nor so simple as she had at first thought. She drew back, very much ashamed, and coloring deeply.

Now, if Elizabeth ever looked any thing like comely, it was when she blushed; for she had the delicate skin peculiar to the young women of her district; and when the blood rushed through it, no cheek of lady fair ever assumed a brighter rose. That, or the natural vanity of man in being noticed by woman, caught the youth's attention.

"Come now, Miss, don't be shy or offended. Perhaps I'm going your way? Would you like company home?"

"No, thank you," said Elizabeth, with great dignity.

"Well, won't you even tell a fellow your name? Mine's Tom Cliffe, and I live—"

"Cliffe! Are you little Tommy Cliffe, and do you come from Stowbury?"

And all Elizabeth's heart was in her eyes.

As has been said, she was of a specially tenacious nature. She liked few people, but those she did like she held very fast. Almost the only strong interest of her life, except Miss Hilary, had been the little boy whom she had snatched from under the horse's heels; and though he was rather a scape-grace, and cared little for her, and his mother was a decidedly objectionable woman, she had clung to them both firmly till she lost sight of them.

Now it was not to be expected that she should recognize in this London stranger the little lad whose life she had saved—a lad, too, from her beloved Stowbury—without a certain amount of emotion, at which the individual in question broadly stared.

"Bless your heart, I am Tommy Cliffe from Stowbury, sure enough. Who are you?"

"Elizabeth Hand."

Whereupon ensued a most friendly greeting. Tom declared he should have known her any where, and had never forgotten her—never! How far that was true or not, he certainly looked as if it were; and two great tears of pleasure dimmed Elizabeth's kind eyes.

"You've grown a man now, Tommy," said she, looking at him with a sort of half-maternal pride, and noticing his remarkably hand some and intelligent face, so intelligent that it would have attracted notice, though it was set upon broad, stooping shoulders, and a small, slight body. "Let me see; how old are you?"

"I'm nineteen, I think."

"And I'm two-and-twenty. How aged we are growing!" said Elizabeth, with a smile.

Then she asked after Mrs. Cliffe, but got only the brief answer, "Mother's dead," given in a tone as if no more inquiries would be welcome. His two sisters, also, had died of typhus in one week, and Tom had been "on his own hook," as he expressed it, for the last three years.

He was extremely frank and confidential; told how he had begun life as a printer's "devil," afterward become a compositor, and his health failing, had left the trade, and gone as servant to a literary gentleman.

"An uncommon clever fellow is master; keeps his carriage, and has dukes to dinner, all out of his books. Maybe you've heard of them, Elizabeth?" and he named a few, in a patronizing way; at which Elizabeth smiled, for she knew them well. But she nevertheless regarded with a certain awe the servant of so great a man, and "little Tommy Cliffe" took a new importance in her eyes.

Also, as he walked with her along the street to find an omnibus, she could not help perceiving what a sharp little fellow he had grown into; how, like many another printer's boy, he had caught the influence of the atmosphere of letters, and was educated, self-educated, of course, to a degree far beyond his position. When she looked at him, and listened to him, Elizabeth involuntarily thought of Benjamin Franklin, and of many more who had raised themselves from the ink-pot and the compositor's desk to fame and eminence, and she fancied that such might be the lot of "little Tommy Cliffe." Why not? If so, how excessively proud she should be!

For the moment she had forgotten her errand; forgotten even Miss Hilary. It was not till Tom Cliffe asked her where she lived, that she suddenly recollected her mistress might not like, under present circumstances, that their abode or any thing concerning them should be known to a Stowbury person.

It was a struggle. She would have liked to see the lad again; have liked to talk over with him Stowbury things and Stowbury people; but she felt she ought not, and she would not.

"Tell me where you live, Tom, and that will do just as well; at least till I speak to my mistress. I never had a visitor before, and my mistress might not like it."

"No followers allowed, eh?"

Elizabeth laughed. The idea of little Tommy Clifie as her "follower," seemed so very funny.

So she bade him good-by; having, thanks to his gay frankness, been made acquainted with all about him, but leaving him in perfect ignorance concerning herself and her mistress. She only smiled when he declared contemptuously, and with rather a romantic emphasis, that he would hunt her out, though it were half over London.

This was all her adventure. When she came to tell it, it seemed very little to tell, and Miss Hilary listened to it rather indifferently, trying hard to remember who Tommy Cliffe was, and to take an interest in him because he came from Stowbury. But Stowbury days were so far off now—with such a gulf or pain between.

Suddenly the same fear occurred to her that had occurred to Elizabeth.

"The lad did not see the advertisement, I hope? You did not tell him about us?"

"I told him nothing." said Elizabeth. speaking softly, and looking down. "I did not even mention any body's name."

"That was right; thank you."

But oh, the bitterness of knowing, and feeling sure Elizabeth knew too, the thing for which she thanked her; and that not to mention Ascott's name was the greatest kindness the faithful servant could show toward the family.



CHAPTER XX.

Ascott Leaf never came home.

Day after day appeared the advertisement, sometimes slightly altered, as hope or fear suggested; but no word, no letter, no answer of any kind reached the anxious women.

By-and-by, moved by their distress, or perhaps feeling that the scape-grace would be safer got rid of if found and dispatched abroad in some decent manner, Mr. Ascott himself took measures for privately continuing the search. Every outward-bound ship was examined; every hospital visited; every case of suicide investigated: but in vain. The unhappy young man had disappeared, suddenly and completely, as many another has disappeared, out of the home circle, and been never heard of more.

It is difficult to understand how a family can possibly hear such a sorrow, did we not know that many have had to bear it, and have borne it, with all its load of agonizing suspense, slowly dying hope,

"The hope that keeps alive despair," settling down into a permanent grief, compared to which the grief for loss by death is light and endurable.

The Leaf family went through all this. Was it better or worse for them that their anguish had to be secret? that there were no friends to pity, inquire, or console? that Johanna had to sit hour by hour and day by day in the solitary parlor, Selina having soon gone back to her old ways of "gadding about," and her marriage preparations; and that, hardest of all, Hilary had on the Monday morning to return to Kensington and work, work, work, as nothing were amiss?

But it was natural that all this should tell upon her; and one day Miss Balquidder said, after a long covert observation of her face, "My dear, you look ill. Is there any thing troubling you? My young people always tell me their troubles, bodily or mental. I doctor both."

"I am sure of it," said Hilary, with a sad smile, but entered into no explanation, and Miss Balquidder had the wise kindliness to inquire no further. Nevertheless, on some errand or other she came to Kensington nearly every evening and took Hilary back with her to sleep at No. 15.

"Your sister Selina must wish to have you with her as much as possible till she is married." she said, as a reason for doing this.

And Hilary acquiesced, but silently, as we often do acquiesce in what ought to be a truth, but which we know to be the saddest, most painful falsehood.

For Selina, it became plain to see, was one of the family no more. After her first burst of self-reproachful grief she took Mr. Ascott's view of her nephew's loss—that it was a good riddance; went on calmly with her bridal preparations, and seemed only afraid lest any thing should interfere to prevent her marriage.

But the danger was apparently tided over. No news of Ascott came. Even the daily inquiries for him by his creditors had ceased. His Aunt Selina was beginning to breathe freely, when, the morning before the wedding day, as they were all sitting in the midst of white finery, but as sadly and silently as if it were a funeral, a person was suddenly shown in "on business."

It was a detective officer sent to find out from Ascott Leaf's aunts whether a certain description of him, in a printed hand-bill, was correct. For his principal creditor, exasperated, had determined on thus advertising him in the public papers as having "absconded."

Had a thunder-bolt fallen in the little parlor the three aunts could not have been more utterly overwhelmed. They made no "scene"—a certain sense of pride kept these poor gentlewomen from betraying their misery to a strange man; though he was a very civil man, and having delivered himself of his errand, like an automaton, sat looking into his hat, and taking no notice of aught around him. He was accustomed to this sort of thing.

Hilary was the first to recover herself. She glanced round at her sisters, but they had not a word to say. In any crisis of family difficulty they always left her to take the helm.

Rapidly she ran over in her mind all the consequences that would arise from this new trouble—the public disgrace; Mr. Ascott's anger and annoyance, not that she cared much for this, except so far as it would affect Selina; lastly, the death-blow it was to any possible hope of reclaiming the poor prodigal. Who she did not believe was dead, but still, fondly trusted he would return one day from his wanderings and his swine's husks, to have the fatted calf killed for him and glad tears shed over him. But after being advertised as "absconded," Ascott never would, never could, come home any home.

Taking as cool and business-like a tone as she could, she returned the paper to the detective.

"This is a summary proceeding. Is there no way of avoiding it?"

"One, Miss," replied the man, very respectfully. "If the family would pay the debt."

"Do you know how much it is?"

"Eighty pounds."

"Ah!"

That hopeless sigh of Johanna's was sufficient answer, though no one spoke.

But in desperate cases some women acquire a desperate courage, or rather it is less courage than faith—the faith which is said to "remove mountains"—the belief that to the very last there must be something to be done, and, if it can be done, they will have strength to do it. True, the mountain may not be removed, but the mere act of faith, or courage sometimes teaches how to climb over it.

"Very well. Take this paper back to your employer. He must be aware that his only chance of payment is by suppressing it. If he will do that, in two days he shall hear from us, and we will make arrangements about paying the debt."

Hilary said this, to her sisters' utter astonishment; so utter that they let her say it, and let the detective go away with a civil "Good morning," before they could interfere or contradict by a word.

"Paying the debt! Hilary, what have you promised? It is an impossibility."

"Like the Frenchman's answer to his mistress—'Madame, if it had been possible it would have been done already; if it is impossible, it shall be done.' It shall, I say."

"I wonder you can jest about our misfortunes," said Selina, in her most querulous voice.

"I'm not jesting. But where is the use of sitting down to moan! I mean what I say. The thing must be done."

Her eyes glittered—her small, red lips were set tightly together.

"If it is not done, sisters—if his public disgrace is not prevented, don't you see the result? Not as regards your marriage, Selina—the man must be a coward who would refuse to marry a woman he cared for, even though her nearest kinsman had been hanged at the Old Bailey—but Ascott himself. The boy is not a bad boy, though he has done wickedly; but there is a difference between a wicked act and a wicked nature. I mean to save him if I can."

"How?"

"By saving his good name; by paying the debt."

"And where on earth shall you get the money?"

"I will go to Miss Balquidder and—"

"Borrow it?"

"No, never! I would as soon think of stealing it."

Then controlling herself, Hilary explained that she meant to ask Miss Balquidder to arrange for her with the creditor to pay the eighty pounds by certain weekly or monthly installments, to be deducted from her salary at Kensington.

"It is not a very great favor to ask of her: merely that she should say, 'This young woman is employed by me: I believe her to be honest, respectable, and so forth; also, that when she makes a promise to pay, she will to the best of her power perform it.' A character which is at present rather a novelty in the Leaf family."

"Hilary!"

"I am growing bitter, Johanna; I know I am. Why should we suffer so much! Why should we be always dragged down—down—in this way? Why should we never have had any one to cherish and take care of us, like other women! Why—"

Miss Leaf laid her finger on her child's lips—

"Because it is the will of God."

Hilary flung herself on her dear old sister's neck and burst into tears.

Selina too cried a little, and said that she should like to help in paying the debt, if Mr. Ascott had no objection. And then she turned back to her white splendors, and became absorbed in the annoyance of there being far too much clematis and far too little orange blossom in the bridal bonnet—which it was now too late to change. A little, also, she vexed herself about the risk of confiding in Miss Balquidder, lest by any chance the story might get round to Russell Square; and was urgent that at least nothing should be said or done until after to-morrow. She was determined to be married, and dreaded any slip between the cup and lip.

But Hilary was resolute. "I said that in two days the matter should be arranged, and so it must be, or the man will think we too break our promises."

"You can assure him to the contrary," said Selina, with dignity. "In fact, why can't you arrange with him without going at all to Miss Balquidder?"

Again the fierce, bitter expression returned to Hilary's face.

"You forget, Miss Balquidder's honest name is his only guarantee against the dishonesty of ours."

"Hilary, you disgrace us—disgrace me—speaking in such a way. Are we not gentle women?"

"I don't know, Selina. I don't seem to know or to feel any thing, except that I would live on bread and water in order to live peaceably and honestly. Oh, will it ever, ever be?"

She walked up and down the parlor, disarranging the white draperies which lay about, feeling unutterable contempt for them and for her sister. Angry and miserable, with every nerve quivering, she was at war with the whole world.

This feeling lasted even when, after some discussion, she gained her point and was on her way to call on Miss Balquidder. She went round and round the Square many times, trying to fix in her mind word for word what she meant to say; revealing no more of the family history than was absolutely necessary, and stating her business in the briefest, hardest, most matter-of-fact way—putting it as a transaction between employer and employed, in which there was no more favor asked or bestowed than could possibly be avoided. And as the sharp east wind blew across her at every corner, minute by minute she felt herself growing more fierce, and hard, and cold.

"This will never do. I shall be wicked by-and-by. I must go in and get it over."

Perhaps it was as well. Well for her, morally as physically, that there should have been that sudden change from the blighting weather outside to the warm, well-lighted room where the good rich woman sat at her early and solitary tea.

Very solitary it looked—the little table in the centre of that large handsome parlor, with the one cup and saucer, the one easy-chair. And as Hilary entered she noticed, amidst all this comfort and luxury, the still, grave, almost sad expression which solitary people always get to wear.

But the next minute Miss Balquidder had turned round, and risen, smiling.

"Miss Leaf, how very kind of you to come and see me! Just the day before the wedding, too, when you must be so busy! Sit down and tell me all about it. But first, my dear, how wet your boots are! Let me take them off at once."

Which she did, sending for her own big slippers, and putting them on the tiny feet with her own hands.

Hilary submitted—in truth she was too much surprised to resist.

Miss Balquidder had, like most folk, her opinions or "crotchets"—as they might be—and one of them was, to keep her business and friendly relations entirely distinct and apart. Whenever she went to Kensington or her other establishments she was always emphatically "the mistress"—a kindly and even motherly mistress, certainly, but still authoritative, decided. Moreover, it was her invariable rule to treat all her employees alike—"making no step-bairns" among them. Thus for some time it had happened that Hilary had been, and felt herself to be, just Miss Leaf, the book keeper, doing her duty to Miss Balquidder, her employer, and neither expecting nor attaining any closer relation.

But in her own house, or it might be from the sudden apparition of that young face at her lonely fireside, Miss Balquidder appeared quite different.

A small thing touches a heart that is sore with trouble. When the good woman rose up—after patting the little feet, and approving loudly of the woolen stockings—she saw that Hilary's whole face was quivering with the effort to keep back her tears.

There are some woman of whom one feels by instinct that they were, as Miss Balquidder had once jokingly said of herself, specially meant to be mothers. And though, in its strange providence, Heaven often denies the maternity, it can not and does not mean to shut up the well-spring of that maternal passion—truly a passion to such women as these, almost as strong as the passion of love—but lets the stream, which might otherwise have blessed one child or one family, flow out wide and far, blessing wherever it goes.

In a tone that somehow touched every fibre of Hilary's heart, Miss Balquidder said, placing her on a low chair beside her own.

"My dear, you are in trouble. I saw it a week or two ago, but did not like to speak. Couldn't you say it out, and let me help you? You need not be afraid. I never tell any thing, and every body tells every thing to me."

That was true. Added to this said mother-liness of hers, Miss Balquidder, possessed that faculty, which some people have in a remarkable degree, and some—very good people too—are totally deficient in, of attracting confidence. The secrets she had been trusted with, the romances she had been mixed up in, the Quixotic acts she had been called upon to perform during her long life, would have made a novel—or several novels—such as no novelist could dare to write, for the public would condemn them as impossible and unnatural. But all this experience—though happily it could never be put into a book—had given to the woman herself a view of human nature at once so large, lenient, and just, that she was the best person possible to hear the strange and pitiful story of young Ascott Leaf.

How it came out Hilary hardly knew; she seemed to have told very little, and yet Miss Balquidder guessed it all. It did not appear to surprise or shock her. She neither began to question nor preach; she only laid her hand, her large, motherly, protecting hand, on the bowed head, saying.

"How much you must have suffered, my poor bairn!"

The soft Scotch tone and word—the grave, quiet Scotch manner, implying more than it even expressed—was it wonderful if underlying as well as outside influences made Hilary completely give way?

Robert Lyon had had a mother, who died when he was seventeen, but of whom he kept the tenderest remembrance, often saying that of all the ladies he had met with in the world there was none equal to her—the strong, tender, womanly peasant woman—refined in mind and word and ways—though to the last day of her life she spoke broad Scotch, and did the work of her cottage with her own hands. It seems as if that mother—toward whom Hilary's fancy had clung, lovingly as a woman ought to cling, above all others, to the mother of the man she loves—were speaking to her now, comforting her and helping her—comfort and help that it would have been sweeter to receive from her than from any woman living.

A mere fancy; but in her state of long uncontrolled excitement it took such possession of her that Hilary fell on her knees and hid her face in Miss Balquidder's lap, sobbing aloud.

The other was a little surprised; it was not her Scotch way to yield to emotion before folk; but she was a wise woman she asked no questions, merely held the quivering hands and smoothed the throbbing head, till composure returned. Some people have a magical, mesmeric power of soothing and controlling; it was hers. When she took the poor face between her hands, and looked straight into the eyes, with, "There, you are better now," Hilary returned the gaze as steadily, nay, smilingly, and rose.

"Now, may I tell you my business?"

"Certainly, my dear. When one's friends are in trouble, the last thing one ought to do is to sit down beside them and moan. Did you come to ask my advice, or had you any definite plan of your own?"

"I had." And Hilary told it.

"A very good plan, and very generous in you to think of it. But I see two strong objections: first, whether it can be carried out; secondly, whether it ought."

Hilary shrank, sensitively.

"Not on my account, my dear, but your own. I often see people making martyrs of themselves for some worthless character on whom the sacrifice is utterly wasted. I object to this, as I would object to throwing myself or my friend into a blazing house, unless I were morally certain there was a life to be saved. Is there in this case?"

"I think there is! I trust in Heaven there is!" said Hilary, earnestly.

There was both pleasure and pity expressed in Miss Balquidder's countenance as she replied, "Be it so: that is a matter on which no one can judge except yourself. But on the other matter you ask my advice, and I must give it. To maintain two ladies and pay a debt of eighty pounds out of one hundred a year is simply impossible."

"With Johanna's income and mine it will be a hundred and twenty pounds and some odd shillings a year."

"You accurate girl! But even with this it can not be done, unless you were to live in a manner so restricted in the commonest comforts that at your sister's age she would be sure to suffer. You must look on the question from all sides, my dear. You must be just to others as well as to that young man, who seems never to— But I will leave him unjudged."

They were both silent for a minute, and then Miss Balquidder said: "I feel certain there is but one rational way of accomplishing the thing if you are bent upon doing it, if your own judgment and conscience tell you it ought to be done. Is it so?"

"Yes," said Hilary, firmly.

The old Scotswoman took her hand with a warm pressure. "Very well. I don't blame you. I might have done the same myself. Now to my plan. Miss Leaf, have you known me long enough to confer on me the benediction—one of the few that we rich folk possess 'It is more blessed to give than to receive?' "

"I don't quite understand."

"Then allow me to explain. I happen to know this creditor of your nephew's. He being a tailor and outfitter, we have had dealings together in former times, and I know him to be a hard man, an unprincipled man, such a one as no young woman should have to do with, even in business relations. To be in his power, as you would be for some years if your scheme of gradual payment were carried out, is the last thing I should desire for you. Let me suggest another way. Take me for your creditor instead of him. Pay him at once, and I will write you a check for the amount."

The thing was put so delicately, in such an ordinary manner, as if it were a mere business arrangement, that at first Hilary hardly perceived all it implied. When she did—when she found that it was in plain terms a gift or loan of eighty pounds offered by a person almost a stranger, she was at first quite bewildered. Then (ah! let us not blame her if she carried to a morbid excess that noble independence which is the foundation of all true dignity in man or woman) she shrunk back into herself, overcome with annoyance and shame. At last she forced herself to say, though the words came out rather coldly.

"You are very good, and I am exceedingly obliged to you; but I never borrowed money in my life. It is quite impossible."

"Very well; I can understand your feelings. I beg your pardon," replied Miss Balquidder, also somewhat coldly.

They sat silent and awkward, and then the elderly lady took out a pencil and began to make calculations in her memorandum book.

"I am reckoning what is the largest sum per month that you could reasonably be expected to spare, and how you may make the most of what remains. Are you aware that London lodgings are very expensive? I am thinking that if you were to exchange out of the Kensington shop into another I have at Richmond, I could offer you the first floor above it for much less rent than you pay Mrs. Jones; and you could have your sister living with you."

"Ah! that would make us both so much happier! How good you are!"

"You will see I only wish to help you to help yourself; not to put you under any obligation. Though I can not see any thing so very terrible in your being slightly indebted to an old woman, who has neither chick nor child, and is at perfect liberty to do what she likes with her own."

There was a pathos in the tone which smote Hilary into quick contrition.

"Forgive me! But I have such a horror of borrowing money—you must know why after what I have told you of our family. You must surely understand—"

"I do fully; but there are limits even to independence. A person who, for his own pleasure, is ready to take money from any body and every body, without the slightest prospect or intention of returning it, is quite different from a friend who in a case of emergency accepts help from another friend, being ready and willing to take every means of repayment, as I knew you were, and meant you to be. I meant, as you suggested, to stop out of your salary so much per month, till I had my eighty pounds sate back again."

"But suppose you never had it back? I am young and strong; still I might fall ill—I might die, and you never be repaid."

"Yes, I should," said Miss Balquidder, with a serious smile. "You forget, my dear bairn, 'Inasmuch as ye have done it to one of these little ones, ye have done it unto ME.' 'He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the LORD.' I have lent Him a good deal at different times, and He has always paid me back with usury."

There was something at once solemn and a little sad in the way the old lady spoke. Hilary forgot her own side of the subject; her pride, her humiliation.

"But do you not think, Miss Balquidder, that one ought to work on, struggle on, to the last extremity, before one accepts an obligation, most of all a money obligation?"

"I do, as a general principle. Yet money is not the greatest thing in this world, that a pecuniary debt should be the worst to bear. And sometimes one of the kindest acts you can do to a fellow-creature—one that touches and softens his heart, nay, perhaps wins it to you for life, is to accept a favor from him."

Hilary made no reply.

"I speak a little from experience. I have not had a very happy life myself; at least most people would say so if they knew it; but the Lord has made it up to me by giving me the means of bringing happiness, in money as well as other ways, to other people. Most of us have our favorite luxuries; this is mine. I like to do people good; I like, also—though maybe that is a mean weakness—to feel that I do it. If all whom I have been made instrumental in helping had said to me, as you have done, 'I will not be helped, I will not be made happy,' it would have been rather hard for me."

And a smile, half humorous, half sad, came over the hard-featured face, spiritualizing its whole expression.

Hilary wavered. She compared her own life, happy still, and hopeful, for all its cares, with that of this lonely woman, whose only blessing was her riches, except the generous heart which sanctified them, and made them such. Humbled, nay, ashamed, she took and kissed the kindly hand which has succored so many, yet which, in the inscrutable mystery of Providence, had been left to go down to the grave alone; missing all that is personal, dear, and precious to a woman's heart, and getting instead only what Hilary now gave her—the half-sweet, half-bitter payment of gratitude.

"Well, my bairn, what is to be done?"

"I will do whatever you think right," murmured Hilary.



CHAPTER XXI.

It was not a cheerful morning on which to be married. A dense, yellow, London fog, the like of which the Misses Leaf had never yet seen, penetrated into every corner of the parlor at No. 15, where they were breakfasting drearily by candle-light, all in their wedding attire. They had been up since six in morning, and Elizabeth had dressed her three mistresses one after the other, taking exceeding pleasure in the performance. For she was still little more than a girl, to whom a wedding was a wedding, and this was the first she had ever had to do with in her life.

True, it disappointed her in some things. She was a little surprised that last evening had passed off just like all other evenings. The interest and bustle of packing soon subsided—the packing consisting only of the traveling trunk, for the rest of the trousseau went straight to Russell Square, every means having been taken to ignore the very existence of No. 15; and then the three ladies had supper as usual, and went to bed at their customary hour without any special demonstrations of emotion of affection. To Elizabeth this was strange. She had not yet learned the unspeakable bitterness of a parting where no body has any grief to restrain.

On a wedding morning, of course, there is no time to be spared for sentiment. The principal business appeared to be—dressing. Mr. Ascott had insisted on doing his part in making his new connections appear "respectable" at his marriage, and for Selina's sake they had consented. Indeed, it was inevitable: they had no money whatever to clothe themselves withal. They must either have accepted Mr. Ascott's gifts—in which, to do him justice, he was both thoughtful and liberal—or they must have staid away from the wedding altogether, which they did not like to do "for the sake of the family."

So, with a sense of doing their last duty by the sister, who would be, they felt, henceforward a sister no more, Miss Leaf attired herself in her violet silk and white China shawl, and Miss Hilary put on her silver-grey poplin, with a cardinal cape, as was then in fashion, trimmed with white swan's-down. It was rather an elderly costume for a bridemaid; but she was determined to dress warmly, and not risk, in muslins and laces, the health which to her now was money, life—nay, honor.

For Ascott's creditor had been already paid: Miss Balquidder never let grass grow under her feet. When Hilary returned to her sisters that day there was no longer any fear of public exposure; she had the receipted bill in her hand, and she was Miss Balquidder's debtor to the extent of eighty pounds.

But it was no debt of disgrace or humiliation, nor did she feel it as such. She had learned the lesson which the large hearted rich can always teach the poor, that, while there is sometimes, to some people, no more galling chain, there is to others—and these are the highest natures, too—no more firm and sacred bond than gratitude. But still the debt was there; and Hilary would never feel quite easy till it was paid—in money, at least. The generosity she never wished to repay. She would rather feel it wrapping her round, like an arm that was heavy only through its exceeding tenderness, to the end of her days.

Nevertheless she had arranged that there was to be a regular monthly deduction from her salary; and how, by retrenchment, to make this monthly payment as large as she could, was a question which had occupied herself and Johanna for a good while after they had retired to rest. For there was no time to be lost. Mrs. Jones must be given notice to; and there was another notice to be given, if the Richmond plan were carried out; another sad retrenchment, foreboding which, when Elizabeth brought up supper, Miss Hilary could hardly look the girl in the face, and, when she bade her good night, had felt almost like a secret conspirator.

For she knew that, if the money to clear this debt was to be saved, they must part with Elizabeth.

No doubt the personal sacrifice would be considerable, for Hilary would have to do the work of their two rooms with her own hands, and give up a hundred little comforts in which Elizabeth, now become a most clever and efficient servant, had made herself necessary to them both. But the two ladies did not think of that at the moment; they only thought of the pain of parting with her. They thought of it sorely, even though she was but a servant, and there was a family parting close at hand. Alas! people must take what they earn. It was a melancholy fact that, of the two impending losses, the person they should miss most would be, not their sister, but Elizabeth.

Both regrets combined made them sit at the breakfast table—the last meal they should ever take together as a family—sad and sorry, speaking about little else than the subject which presented itself as easiest and uppermost, namely, clothes.

Finally, they stood all completely arrayed, even to bonnets; Hilary looking wonderfully bewitching in hers, which was the very pattern of one that may still be seen in a youthful portrait of our gracious Queen—a large round brim, with a wreath of roses inside; while Miss Leaf's was somewhat like it, only with little bunches of white ribbon: "for," she said, "my time of roses has gone by." But her sweet faded face had a peace that was not in the other two—not even in Hilary's.

But the time arrived; the carriage drew up at the door. Then nature and sisterly feeling asserted themselves for a minute. Miss Selina "gave way," not to any loud or indecorous extent, to nothing that could in the least harm her white satin, or crumple her laces and ribbons; but she did shed a tear or two—real honest tears—kissed her sisters affectionately, hoped they would be very happy at Richmond, and that they would often come to see her at Russell Square.

"You know," said she, half apologetically, "it is a great deal better for one of us at least to be married and settled. Indeed I assure you. I have done it all for the good of my family."

And for the time being she devoutly believed she had.

So it was all over. Elizabeth herself, from the aisle of St. Pancras Church, watched the beginning and ending of the show; a very fine show, with a number of handsomely dressed people, wedding guests, who seemed to stare about them a good deal and take little interest in either bride or bridegroom. The only persons Elizabeth recognized were her mistresses—Miss Leaf, who kept her veil down and never stirred; and Miss Hilary, who stood close behind the bride, listening with downcast eyes to the beautiful marriage service. It must have touched her more than on her sister's account, for a tear, gathered under each eyelash, silently rolled down the soft cheek and fell."

"Miss Hilary's an angel, and he'll be a lucky man that gets her," meditated her faithful "bower-maiden" of old; as, a little excited by the event of the morning, she stood by the mantle-piece and contemplated a letter which had come after the ladies departed; one of these regular monthly Indian letters, after which, Elizabeth was sharp enough to notice, Miss Hilary's step always grew lighter and her eye brighter for many days.

"It must be a nice thing to have somebody fond of one, and somebody to be fond of," meditated she. And "old fashioned piece of goods" as she was—according to Mrs. Jones (who now, from the use she was in the Jones's menage, patronized and confided in her extremely) some little bit of womanly craving after the woman's one hope and crown of bliss crept into the poor maid-servant's heart. But it was not for the maid-servant's usual necessity—a "sweet heart"—somebody to "keep company with;" it was rather for somebody to love, and perhaps take care of a little. People love according to their natures; and Elizabeth's was a strong nature; its principal element being a capacity for passionate devotedness, almost unlimited in extent. Such women, who love most, are not always, indeed very rarely, loved best. And so it was perhaps as well that poor Elizabeth should make up her mind, as she did very composedly, that she herself should never be married; but after that glorious wedding of Miss Hilary's to Mr. Lyon, should settle down to take care of Miss Leaf all her days.

"And if I turn out only half as good and contented as my mistress, it can't be such a dreadful thing to be an old maid after all," stoically said Elizabeth Hand.

The words were scarcely out of her mouth when her attention was caught by some one in the passage inquiring for her; yes, actually for her. She could hardly believe her eyes when she perceived it was her new-found old acquaintance, Tom Cliffe.

He was dressed very well, out of livery; indeed, he looked so extremely like a gentleman that Mrs. Jones's little girl took him for one, called him "Sir," and showed him into the parlor.

"All right. I thought this was the house. Uncommon sharp of me to hunt you out; wasn't it Elizabeth?"

But Elizabeth was a little stiff, flurried, and perplexed. Her mistresses were out; she did not know whether she ought to ask Tom in, especially as it must be into the parlor; there was no other place to take him to.

However, Tom settled the matter with a conclusive, "Oh, gammon!"—sat himself down, and made himself quite comfortable. And Elizabeth was so glad to see him—glad to have another chance of talking about dear old Stowbury. It could not be wrong; she would not say a word about, the family, not even tell him she lived with the Misses Leaf if she could help it. And Tom did not seem in the least curious.

"Now, I call this quite a coincidence. I was stopping at St. Pancras Church to look at a wedding—some old city fogy who lives in Russell Square, and is making a great splash; and there I see you, Elizabeth, standing in the crowd, and looking so nice and spicy—as fresh as an apple and as brisk as a bee. I hummed and hawed and whistled, but I couldn't catch your eye; then I missed you, and was vexed above a bit, till I saw one like you going in at this door, so I just knocked and asked; and here you are! 'Pon my life, I am very glad to see you."

"Thank you, Tom," said Elizabeth, pleased, even grateful for the trouble he had taken about her: she had so few friends; in truth, actually none.

They began to talk, and Tom Cliffe talked exceedingly well. He had added to his natural cleverness a degree of London sharpness, the result of much "knocking about" ever since childhood. Besides, his master, the literary gentleman, who had picked him out of the printing office, had taken a deal of pains with him. Tom was, for his station, a very intelligent and superior young man. Not a boy, though he was still under twenty, but a young man: that precocity of development which often accompanies a delicate constitution, making him appear, as he was indeed, in mind and character, fully six or seven years older than his real age.

He was a handsome fellow, too, though small; dark haired, dark eyed, with regular and yet sensitive and mobile features. Altogether Tom Cliffe was decidedly interesting, and Elizabeth took great pleasure in looking at him, and in thinking, with a certain half motherly, half romantic satisfaction, that but for her, and her carrying him home from under the horse's heels, he might, humanly speaking, have been long ago buried in Stowbury church yard.

"I have a 'church yard cough' at times still," said he, when speaking of this little episode of early life. "I don't think I shall ever live to be a middle-aged man." And he shook his head, and looked melancholy and poetical; nay, even showed Elizabeth some poetry that he himself had written on the subject, which was clever enough in its way.

Elizabeth's interest grew. An ordinary baker or butcher boy would not have attracted her in the least; but here was something in the shape of a hero, somebody who at once touched her sympathies and roused her admiration. For Tom was quite as well informed as she was herself; more so, indeed. He was one of the many shrewd and clever working men who were then beginning to rise up and think for themselves, and educate themselves. He attended classes at mechanics' institutions, and young men's debating societies; where every topic of the day, religion, politics, political economy, was handled freely, as the young do handle these serious things. He threw himself, heart and soul, into the new movement, which, like all revolutions, had at first its great and fatal dangers, but yet resulted in much good; clearing the political sky, and bringing all sorts of hidden abuses under the sharp eyes of that great scourge of evil-doers—public opinion.

Yet Elizabeth, reared under the wing of the conservative Misses Leaf, was a little startled when Tom Cliffe, who apparently liked talking and being listened to, gave her a long dissertation on the true principles of the Charter, and how Frost, Williams, and Jones—names all but forgotten now—were very ill-used men, actual martyrs. She was more than startled—shocked indeed—until there came a reaction of the deepest pity—when he confessed that he never went to church. He saw no use in going, he said; the parsons were all shams, paid largely to chatter about what they did not understand; the only real religion was that which a man thought out for himself, and acted out for himself. Which was true enough, though only a half truth; and innocent Elizabeth did not see the other half.

But she was touched and carried away by the earnestness and enthusiasm of the lad, wild, fierce iconoclast as he was, ready to cast down the whole fabric of Church and State; though without any personal hankering after lawless rights and low pleasures. His sole idol was, as he said, intellect, and that was his preservation.

Also, the fragile health which was betrayed in every flash of his eye, every flush of his sallow cheek, made Tom Cliffe, even in the two hours he staid with her, come very close to Elizabeth's heart. It was such a warm heart, such a liberal heart, thinking so little of itself or of its own value.

So here began to be told the old story, familiar in kitchens as parlors; but, from the higher bringing up of the two parties concerned, conducted in this case more after the fashion of the latter than the former.

Elizabeth Hand was an exceptional person, and Tom had the sense to see that at once. He paid her no coarse attentions, did not attempt to make love to her; but he liked her, and he let her see that he did. True, she was not pretty, and she was older than he; but that to a boy of nineteen is rather flattering than otherwise. Also, for there is a law even under the blind mystery of likings and fallings in love—a certain weakness in him, that weakness which generally accompanies the poetical nature, clung to the quiet, solid, practical strength of hers. He liked to talk and be listened to by those silent, admiring, gentle gray eyes; and he thought it very pleasant when, with a motherly prudence, she warned him to be careful over his cough, and gave him a flannel breast-plate to protect his chest against the cold.

When he went away Tom was so far in love that, following the free and easy ways of his class, he attempted to give Elizabeth a kiss; but she drew back so hotly that he begged her pardon, and slipped away rather confounded.

"That's an odd sort of young woman; there's something in her," said he to himself. "I'll get a kiss, though, by-and-by."

Meanwhile Elizabeth, having forgotten all about her dinner, sat thinking, actually doing nothing but thinking, until within half an hour of the time when her mistresses might be expected back. They were to go direct to the hotel, breakfast, wait till the newly-married couple had departed, and then come home. They would be sure to be weary, and want their tea.

So Elizabeth made every thing ready for them, steadily putting Tom Cliffe out of her mind. One thing she was glad of, that talking so much about his own affairs, he had forgotten to inquire concerning hers, and was still quite ignorant even of her mistresses' name. He therefore could tell no tales of the Leaf family at Stowbury. Still she determined at once to inform Miss Hilary that he had been here, but that, if she wished it, he should never come again. And it spoke well for her resolve, that while resolving she was startled to find how very sorry she should feel if Tom Cliffe never came again.

I know I am painting this young woman with a strangely tender conscience, a refinement of feeling, and a general moral sensitiveness which people say is seldom or never to be found in her rank of life. And why not? Because mistresses treat servants as servants, and not as women; because in the sharp, hard line they draw, at the outset, between themselves and their domestics, they give no chance for any womanliness to be developed. And therefore since human nature is weak, and without help from without, a long degraded class can never rise, sweet-hearts will still come crawling through back entries and down at area doors; mistresses will still have to dismiss helpless and fallen, or brazen in iniquity, many a wretched girl who once was innocent; or, if nothing actually vicious results, may have many a good, respectable servant, who left to get married, return, complaining that her "young man," whom she knew so little about, has turned out a drunken scoundrel of a husband, who drives her back to her old comfortable "place" to beg for herself and her starving babies a morsel of bread.

When, with a vivid blush that she could not repress, Elizabeth told her mistress that Tom Cliffe had been to see her, the latter replied at first carelessly, for her mind was preoccupied. Then, her attention caught by the aforesaid blush, Miss Hilary asked.

"How old is the lad?"

"Nineteen."

"That's a bad age, Elizabeth. Too old to be a pet, and rather too young for a husband."

"I never thought of such a thing," said Elizabeth, warmly—and honestly, at the time.

"Did he want to come and see you again?"

"He said so."

"Oh, well, if he is a steady, respectable lad there can be no objection. I should like to see him myself next time."

And then a sudden sharp recollection that there would likely be no next time, in their service at least, made Miss Hilary feel quite a hypocrite.

"Elizabeth," said she, "we will speak about Tom Cliffe—is not that his name?—by-and-by. Now, as soon as tea is over, my sister wants to talk to you. When you are ready, will you come up stairs?"

She spoke in an especially gentle tone, so that by no possibility could Elizabeth fancy they were displeased with her.

Now, knowing the circumstances of the family, Elizabeth's conscience had often smitten her that she must eat a great deal, that her wages, paid regularly month by month, must make a great hole in her mistress's income. She was, alack! a sad expense, and she tried to lighten her cost in every possible way. But it never struck her that they could do without her, or that any need would arise for their doing so. So she went into the parlor quite unsuspiciously, and found Miss Leaf lying on the sofa, and Miss Hilary reading aloud the letter from India. But it was laid quietly aside as she said, "Johanna, Elizabeth is here."

Then Johanna, rousing herself to say what must be said, but putting it as gently and kindly as she could, told Elizabeth, what mistresses often think it below their dignity to tell to servants, the plain truth—namely, that circumstances obliged herself and Miss Hilary to retrench their expenses as much as they possibly could. That they were going to live in two little rooms at Richmond, where they would board with the inmates of the house.

"And so, and so—" Miss Leaf faltered. It was very hard to say it with those eager eyes fixed upon her.

Hilary took up the word— "And so, Elizabeth, much as it grieves us, we shall be obliged to part with you. We cannot any longer afford to keep a servant."

No answer.

"It is not even as it was once before, when we thought you might do better for yourself. We know, if it were possible, you would rather stay with us, and we would rather keep you. It is like parting with one of our own family." And Miss Hilary's voice too failed. "However, there is no help for it; we must part."

Elizabeth, recovered from her first bewildered grief, was on the point of bursting out into entreaties that she might do like many another faithful servant, live without wages, put up with any hardships, rather than be sent away. But something in Miss Hilary's manner told her it would be useless—worse than useless, painful: and she would do any thing rather than give her mistress pain. When, utterly unable to control it, she gave vent to one loud sob, the expression of acute suffering on Miss Hilary's countenance was such that she determined to sob no more. She felt that, for some reason or other, the thing was inevitable; that she must take up her burden, as her mistress had done, even though it were the last grief of all—leaving that beloved mistress.

"That's right, Elizabeth," said Miss Hilary, softly. "All these changes are very bitter to us also, but we bear them. There is nothing lasting in this world, except doing right, and being good and faithful and helpful to one another."

She sighed. Possibly there had been sad tidings in the letter which she still held in her hand, clinging to it as we do to something which, however sorely it hurts us, we would not part with for the whole world. But there was no hopelessness or despair in her tone, and Elizabeth caught the influence of that true courageous heart.

"Perhaps you may be able to take me back again soon, Ma'am," said she, looking toward Miss Leaf. "And meantime I might get a place; Mrs. Jones has told me of several;" and she stopped, afraid lest it might be found out how often Mrs. Jones had urged her to "better herself," and she had indignantly refused. "Or," (a bright idea occurred) "I wonder if Miss Selina, that is, Mrs. Ascott, would take me in at Russell Square?"

Hilary looked hard at her.

"Would you really like that?"

"Yes, I should; for I should see and hear of you. Miss Hilary, if you please, I wish you would ask Mrs. Ascott to take me."

And Hilary, much surprised—for she was well acquainted with Elizabeth's sentiments toward both Mr. Ascott and the late Miss Selina—-promised.



CHAPTER XXII.

And now I leave Miss Hilary for a time; leave her in, if not happiness, great peace. Peace which, after these stormy months, was an actual paradise of calm to both herself and Johanna.

Their grief for Ascott had softened down. Its very hopelessness gave it resignation. There was nothing more to be done; they had done all they could, both to find him out and to save him from the public disgrace which might blight any hope of reformation. Now the result must be left in higher hands.

Only at times fits of restless trouble would come; times when a sudden knock at the door would make Johanna shake nervously for minutes afterward; when Hilary walked about every where with her mind preoccupied, and her eyes open to notice every chance passerby; nay, she had sometimes secretly followed down a whole street some figure which, in its light jaunty step and long fashionably-cut hair, reminded her of Ascott.

Otherwise they were not unhappy, she and her dearest sister. Poor as they were, they were together, and their poverty had no sting. They knew exactly how much they would receive monthly, and how much they ought to spend. Though obliged to calculate every penny, still their income and expenses were alike certain; there was no anxiety about money matters, which of itself was an indescribable relief. Also there was that best blessing—peace at home. Never in all her days had Johanna known such an easy life; sitting quietly in her parlor while Hilary was engaged in the shop below; descending to dinner, where she took the head of the table, and the young people soon learned to treat her with great respect and even affection; then waiting for the happy tea in their own room, and the walk afterward, in Richmond Park or along the Thames banks toward Twickenham. Perhaps it was partly from the contrast to that weary year in London, but never, in any spring, had the air seemed so balmy, or the trees so green. They brought back to Hilary's face the youthful bloom which she had begun to lose; and, in degree, her youthful brightness, which had also become slightly overclouded. Again she laughed and made her little domestic jokes, and regained her pretty ways of putting things, so that every thing always appeared to have a cheerful, and comical, side.

Also—for while we are made as we are, with capacity for happiness, and especially the happiness of love, it is sure to be thus—she had a little private sunbeam in her own heart, which brightened outside things. After that sad letter from India which came on Selina's wedding day, every succeeding one grew more cheerful, more demonstrative, nay, even affectionate; though still with that queer Scotch pride of his, that would ask for nothing till it could ask and have every thing, and give every thing in return—the letters were all addressed to Johanna.

"What an advantage it is to be an old woman!" Miss Leaf would sometimes say, mischievously, when she received them. But more often she said nothing, waiting in peace for events to develop themselves. She did not think much about herself, and had no mean jealousy over her child; she knew that a righteous and holy love only makes all natural affections more sacred and more dear.

And Hilary? She held her head higher and prouder; and the spring trees looked greener, and the river ran brighter in the sunshine. Ah, Heaven pity us all! it is a good thing to have love in one's life; it is a good thing, if only for a time, to be actually happy. Not merely contented, but happy!

And so I will leave her, this little woman; and nobody need mourn over her because she is working too hard, or pity her because she is obliged to work; has to wear common clothes, and live in narrow rooms, and pass on her poor weary feet the grand carriages of the Richmond gentry, who are not a bit more well-born or well-educated than she; who never take the least notice of her, except sometimes to peer curious at the desk where she sits in the shop-corner, and wonder who "that young person with the rather pretty curls" can be. No matter, she is happy.

How much happiness was there in the large house at Russell Square?

The Misses Leaf could not tell; their sister never gave them an opportunity of judging.

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

And so, most frequently, is "my sister." But not in this case. It could not be; they never expected it would.

When on here rare visits to town Hilary called at Russell Square she always found Mrs. Ascott handsomely dressed, dignified, and gracious. Not in the slightest degree uncivil or unsisterly, but gracious—perhaps a thought too gracious. Most condescendingly anxious that she should stay to luncheon, and eat and drink the best the house afforded, but never by any chance inviting her to stay to dinner. Consequently, as Mr. Ascott was always absent in the city until dinner, Hilary did not see him for months together, and her brother-in-law was, she declared, no more to her than any other man upon 'Change, or the man in the moon, or the Great Mogul.

His wife spoke little about him. After a few faint, formal questions concerning Richmond affairs, somehow her conversation always recurred to her own: the dinners she had been at, those she was going to give; her carriages, clothes, jewelry, and so on. She was altogether a very great lady, and Hilary, as she avouched laughingly—it was, in this case, better to laugh than to grieve—felt an exceedingly small person beside her.

Nevertheless Mrs. Ascott showed no unkindness—nay, among the various changes that matrimony had produced in her, her temper appeared rather to have improved than otherwise; there was now seldom any trace of that touchy sharpness which used to be called "poor Selina's way." And yet Hilary never quitted the house without saying to herself, with a sigh, the old phrase, "Poor Selina!"

Thus, in the inevitable consequences of things, her visits to Russell Square became fewer and fewer; she kept them up as a duty, not exacting any return, for she felt that was impossible, though still keeping up the ghostly shadow of sisterly intimacy. Nevertheless she knew well it was but a shadow; that the only face that looked honest, glad welcome, or that she was honestly glad to see in her brother-in-law's house was the under house-maid, Elizabeth Hand.

Contrary to all expectations, Mrs. Ascott had consented to take Elizabeth into her service. With many stipulations and warnings never to presume on past relations, never even to mention Stowbury, on pain of instant dismissal—still, she did take her, and Elizabeth staid. At every one of Miss Hilary's visits, lying in wait in the bed chamber, or on the staircase, or creeping up at the last minute to open the hall door, was sure to appear the familiar face, beaming all over. Little conversation passed between them—Mrs. Ascott evidently disliked it; still Elizabeth looked well and happy, and when Miss Hilary told her so she always silently smiled.

But this story must tell the whole truth which lay beneath that fond acquiescing smile.

Elizabeth was certainly in good health, being well fed, well housed, and leading on the whole an easy life; happy, too, when she looked at Miss Hilary. But her migration from Mrs. Jones's lodgings to this grand mansion had not been altogether the translation from Purgatory to Paradise that some would have supposed.

The author of this simple story having—unfortunately for it—never been in domestic service, especially in the great houses of London, does not pretend to describe the ins and outs of their "high life below stairs;" to repeat kitchen conversations, to paint the humors of the servants' hall—the butler and housekeeper getting tipsy together, the cook courting the policeman, and the footman making love successively to every house-maid and ladys'-maid. Some writers have depicted all this, whether faithfully or not they know best; but the present writer declines to attempt any thing of the kind. Her business is solely with one domestic, the country girl who came unexpectedly into this new world of London servant-life—a world essentially its own, and a life of which the upper classes are as ignorant as they are of what goes on in Madagascar and Otabeite.

This fact was the first which struck the unsophisticated Elizabeth. She, who had been brought up in a sort of feudal relationship to her dear mistresses, was astonished to find the domestics of Russell Square banded together into a community which, in spite of their personal bickerings and jealousies, ended in alliance offensive and defensive against the superior powers, whom they looked upon as their natural enemies. Invisible enemies, certainly; for "master" they hardly ever saw; and, excepting the ladys' maid, were mostly as ignorant of "missis." The housekeeper was the middle link between the two estates—the person with whom all business was transacted, and to whom all complaints had to be made. Beyond being sometimes talked over, generally in a quizzical, depreciatory, or condemnatory way, the heads of the establishment were no more to their domestics than the people who paid wages, and exacted in return certain duties, which most of them made as small as possible, and escaped whenever they could.

If this be an exaggerated picture of a state of things perhaps in degree inevitable—and yet it should not be, for it is the source of incalculable evil, this dividing of a house against itself—if I have in any way said what is not true, I would that some intelligent "voice from the kitchen" would rise up and tell us what is true, and whether it be possible on either side to find means of amending what so sorely needs reformation.

Elizabeth sometimes wanted Tom Cliffe to do this—to "write a book," which he, eager young malcontent, was always threatening to do, upon the evils of society, and especially the tyranny of the upper classes. Tom Cliffe was the only person to whom she imparted her troubles and perplexities: how different her life was from that she had been used to; how among her fellow-servants there was not one who did not seem to think and act in a manner totally opposed to every thing she had learned from Miss Hilary. How consequently she herself was teased, bullied, threatened, or at best "sent to Coventry," from morning till night.

"I am quite alone, Tom—I am, indeed," said she, almost crying, the first Sunday night when she met him accidentally in going to church, and, in her dreary state of mind, was exceedingly glad to see him. He consoled her, and even went to church with her, half promising to do the same next Sunday, and calling her "a good little Christian, who almost inclined him to be a Christian too."

And so, with the vague feeling that she was doing him good and keeping him out of harm—that lad who had so much that was kindly and nice about him—Elizabeth consented, not exactly to an appointment, but she told him what were her "Sundays out," and the church she usually attended, if he liked to take the chance of her being there.

Alack! she had so few pleasures; she so seldom got even a breath of outside air—it was not thought necessary for servants. The only hour she was allowed out was the church-going on alternate Sunday evenings. How pleasant it was to creep out then, and see Tom waiting for her under the opposite trees, dressed so smart and gentlemanlike, looking so handsome and so glad to see her—her, the poor countrified Elizabeth, who was quizzed incessantly by her fellow-servants on her oddness, plainness, and stupidity.

Tom did not seem to think her stupid, for he talked to her of all his doings and plannings, vague and wild as those of the young tailor in "Alton Locke," yet with a romantic energy about them that strongly interested his companion; and he read her his poetry, and addressed a few lines to herself, beginning,

"Dearest and best, my long familiar friend;"

which was rather a poetical exaggeration, since he had altogether forgotten her in the interval of their separation. But she never guessed this; and so they both clung to the early tie, making it out to be ten times stronger than it really was, as people do who are glad of any excuse for being fond of one another.

Tom really was getting fond of Elizabeth. She touched the higher half of his nature—the spiritual and imaginative half. That he had it, though only a working-man, and she too, though only a domestic servant, was most true: probably many more of their class have it than we are at all aware of. Therefore, these two being special individuals, were attracted by each other; she by him, because he was clever, and he by her, because she was so good. For he had an ideal, poor Tom Cliffe! and though it had been smothered and laid to sleep by a not too regular life, it woke up again under the kind, sincere eyes of this plain, simple-minded, honest Elizabeth Hand.

He knew she was plain, and so old-fashioned in her dress, that Tom, who was particular about such things, did not always like walking with her: but she was so interesting and true; she sympathized with him so warmly; he found her so unfailingly and unvaryingly good to him through all the little humors and pettishnesses that almost always accompany a large brain, a nervous temperament, and delicate health. Her quietness soothed him, her strength of character supported him; he at once leaned on her, and ruled over her.

As to Elizabeth's feelings toward Tom, they will hardly bear analyzing; probably hardly any strong emotion will, especially one that is not sudden but progressive. She admired him extremely, and yet she was half sorry for him. Some things in him she did not at all like, and tried heartily to amend. His nervous fancies, irritations, and vagaries she was exceedingly tender over; she looked up to him, and yet took care of him; this thought of him, and anxiety over him, became by degrees the habit of her life. People love in so many different ways; and perhaps that was the natural way in which a woman like Elizabeth would love, or creep into love without knowing it, which is either the safest or the saddest form which the passion can assume.

Thus things went on, till one dark, rainy Sunday night, walking round and round the inner circle of the square, Tom expressed his feelings. At first, in somewhat high flown and poetical phrases, then melting into the one, eternally old and eternally new, "Do you love me?" followed by a long, long kiss, given under shelter of the umbrella, and in mortal fear of the approaching policeman; who, however, never saw them, or saw them only as "pair of sweet-hearts"—too common an occurrence on his beat to excite any attention.

But to Elizabeth the whole thing was new, wonderful; a bliss so far beyond any thing that had ever befallen her simple life, and so utterly unexpected therein, that when she went to her bed that night she cried like a child over the happiness of Tom's loving her, and her exceeding unworthiness of the same.

Then difficulties arose in her mind. "No followers allowed," was one of the strict laws of the Russell Square dynasty. Like many another law of that and of much higher dynasties it was only made to be broken; for stray sweet-hearts were continually climbing down area railings, or over garden walls, or hiding themselves behind kitchen doors. Nay, to such an extent was the system carried out, each servant being, from self-interest, a safe co-conspirator, that very often when Mr. and Mrs. Ascott went out to dinner, and the old housekeeper retired to bed, there were regular symposia held below stairs—nice little supper-parties, where all the viands in the pantry and the wines in the cellar were freely used; where every domestic had his or her "young man" or "young woman," and the goings-on, though not actually discreditable, were of the most lively kind.

To be cognizant of these, and yet to feel that, as there was no actual wickedness going on, she was not justified in "blabbing," was a severe and perpetual trial to Elizabeth. To join them, or bring Tom among them as her "young man," was impossible.

"No, Tom," she said, when he begged hard to come in one evening—for it was raining fast, and he had a bad cough—

"No, Tom, I can't let you. If other folks break the laws of the house, I won't—you must go. I can only meet you out of doors."

And yet to do this surreptitiously, just as if she were ashamed of him, or as if there were something wrong in their being fond of one another, jarred upon Elizabeth's honest nature. She did not want to make a show of him, especially to her fellow-servants: she had the true woman's instinct of liking to keep her treasures all to herself; but she had also her sex's natural yearning for sympathy in the great event of a woman's life. She would have liked to have somebody unto whom she could say, "Tom has asked me to marry him," and who would have answered cordially, "It's all right: he is a good fellow: you are sure to be happy."

Not that she doubted this: but it would have been an additional comfort to have a mother's blessing, or a sister's, or even a friend's, upon this strange and sweet emotion which had come into her life. So long as it was thus kept secret there seemed a certain incompleteness and unsanctity about even their happy love.