"They have done very well, have they not?"

"Yes, by working and living harder than any day labourer at Stokesley. Hal could not stand it, and—and I'm afraid the boys were not very merciful to him, poor fellow, and he got something to do in Winnipeg. There he fell in with a speculator called Golding, they all did in fact; he was a plausible man, whom they all liked, and used to put up at his house when they took waggons in with their produce. He had a daughter, and Johnnie got engaged to her, or thought he was. They all were persuaded to put money into a horrid building speculation,—Henry, what he had brought out, the other two what they had realised. Well, suddenly it all ended. They were all gone, Golding, daughter, Hal and all—yes, all—the money the other boys had put in the thing, off to the States, as we suppose! No trace ever found."

"Really no trace?"

"None! The poor boys lost all they had, and were obliged to begin over again."

"And has really nothing been heard of this unfortunate Hal?"

"There is one thing that does give me a hope. There did come to Stokesley a letter from a Brisbane bank, addressed to J. and G. Merrifield, to the care of Rear-Admiral Merrifield, and in it were bank bills up to the value of what the boys had been robbed of, about two hundred and fifty pounds. Poor Henry must have repented, and wished to make restitution."

"Was there no name, no clue?"

"None at all. We know no more."

"But was there no inquiry made at Brisbane?"

"It was when my father was very ill. The parcel was not opened at first. I have been always sorry he never heard of it; but after all there was no asking of forgiveness, nor anything that could be answered. The boys got it with the tidings of our dear father's death. John came home to see about things, George stayed to look after his Stokesley. They were well over their troubles by that time, and they gave the restored money to David for his churches."

"And no more was done, not even by David?" said Lady Merrifield, thinking over what she had heard from Geraldine Grinstead, and how the Underwoods would have accepted such a token from their lost sheep.

"David did write to Brisbane to the bank, but there never was any answer. There is no knowing how it might have been, if any one had gone out and done his best; but you see we were all much taken up with home duties and cares, and I am afraid we have not dwelt enough upon our poor boy, and he had much against him. The discipline from my dear father, that all the elders responded to with a sort of loyal exultation, only frightened him and made him shifty. They despised him, and I do not think any of us were as kind to him as we ought to have been; though on the whole he liked me the best, for he cared for books and quiet pursuits, such as all laughed at, except David. I wish he could have seen more of David."

"Did your mother hear of this ray of hope?"

"Susan thought it best not to tell her. We used to hear her murmuring his name among all ours in her prayers, Susie, Sam, Hal, Bessie, and so on; but she never was herself enough to understand, and they thought it might only stir her up to expect to see him. Oh, Aunt Lily, I don't think you—any of you—would have gone on so; but you are all much more affectionate and demonstrative than our branch of the family."

"Ah, my dear, I am sure there was a pang in your mother's heart that she never durst mention," said Lady Merrifield, her imagination dwelling in terror on her Wilfred, the one child in whom she could not help detecting the weakness of character of his unhappy cousin. "Depend upon it, Bessie, her prayers were hovering round him all the time, and bringing that act of restitution, though she was not allowed to hear of it."

"I had not thought of that," said Bessie, in a low tone, "though I think David has. I have heard his voice choke over an intercession for the absent."

"Think of it now, my dear, and do not let habitual reserve hinder you from speaking of it to Susan and David, though most likely they have the habit already. Who knows what united prayer may do with Him who deviseth means to bring home His banished?"

Steps returning, Bessie wiped away her tears in haste, actually the first she had shed for the lost Hal, though there was a heartache too deep for tears.



CHAPTER XVI—THE REGIMENT OF WOMEN



"And happier than the merriest games Is the joy of our new and nobler aims." F. R. HAVERGAL.

Miss Mohun and Miss Merrifield encountered Miss Prescott and Agatha among a perfect herd of cycles, making Bessie laugh over the recollections of the horror caused at Stokesley by the arrival of Arthurine Arthuret on a tricycle twelve years previously.

The place was the Town Hall, the High School having proved too small for the number of the intended audience, and Lord Rotherwood having been captured, in spite of the Kittiwake being pronounced ready to sail, and all the younger passengers being actually on board, entertaining a party from Clipstone. There he sat enthroned on the platform, with portraits of himself, his Elizabethan ancestor, and the Prince of Wales overhead, and, in propria persona on either side, the Mayor of Rockstone, Captain Henderson, and a sprinkling of the committee, Jane, of course, being one; while in the space beneath was a sea of hats, more or less beflowered and befeathered.

Lord Rotherwood began by complaining of an act of piracy! After being exposed to a tempest and forced to put in for supplies, here he was captured, and called upon to distribute prizes! He perceived that it was a new act of aggression on the part of the ladies, proving to what lengths they were coming. Tyrants they had always been, but to find them wreckers to boot was a novelty. However, prizes were the natural sequence of a maritime exploit, and he was happy to distribute them to the maidens about to start on the voyage of life, hoping that these dainty logbooks would prove a stimulus and a compass to steer by even into unexplored seas, such as he believed the better-informed ladies were about to describe to them.

Rockstone was used to its Marquis's speeches, and always enjoyed them; and he handed the prize-books to the recipients with a shake of the hand, and a word or two of congratulation appropriate to each, especially when he knew their names; and then he declared that they were about to hear what education was good for, much better than from himself, from such noted examples as Miss Arthuret and Miss Merrifield, better known to them as Mesa. Wherewith he waved forward Miss Arthuret, a slight, youthful-looking lady, fashionably attired, and made his escape with rapid foot and hasty nods, almost furtively, while the audience were clapping her.

She spoke with voice and utterance notably superior to his well-known halting periods, scarcely saved by long training and use from being a stutter. The female population eagerly listened, while she painted in vivid colours the aim of education, in raising the status of women, and extending their spheres not only of influence in the occult manner which had hitherto been their way of working through others, but in an open manner, which compelled attention; and she dwelt on certain brilliant achievements of women, and of others which stood before them, and towards which their education, passing out of the old grooves, was preparing them to take their place among men, and temper their harshness and indifference to suffering with the laws of mercy and humanity, speaking with an authority and equality such as should ensure attention, no longer in home and nursery whispering alone, but with open face asserting and claiming justice for the weakest.

It was a powerful and effective speech; and Agatha's eye lighted with enthusiasm, as did those of several others of the elder scholars and younger teachers, as these high aims were unfolded to them.

Then followed Elizabeth Merrifield, not contradictory, but recognising what wide fields had been opened to womanhood, dwelling on such being the work of Christianity, which had always tended to repress the power of brute animal strength and jealousy, and to give preponderance to the force of character and the just influence of sweet homely affection. Exceptional flashes, even in heathen lands, and still more under the Divine guidance of the Israelites, showed what women were capable of; and ever since a woman had been the chosen instrument of the mystery of the Incarnation, the Church, the chosen emblem of the union of humanity with her Lord, had gradually purified and exalted the sex by training them through the duties of mercy, of wifehood and motherhood, to be capable of undertaking and fulfilling higher and more extensive tasks, always by the appointment and with the help of Him who had increased their outside powers, for the sake of the weaker ones of His flock. What might, by His will, in the government and politics of the country, be put into their hands, no one could tell; but it was right to be prepared for it, by extending their intellectual ability and knowledge of the past, as well as of the laws of physical nature—all, in short, that modern education aimed at opening young minds to pursue with growing faculties. This was what made her rejoice in the studies here followed with good success, as the prizes testified so pleasantly; and she trusted that the cultivation, which here went on so prosperously, was leading—if she might use old well-accustomed words—to the advancement of God's glory, the good of His Church, aye! and to the safety, honour, and welfare of our Sovereign and her dominions.

The words brought tears of feeling into the eyes of some; but Jane Mohun could not help observing, "Ah! I was afraid you were going to hold up to us the example of the ants and bees, where the old maids do all the working and fighting and governing! Don't make Gillian regret that she is falling away from the spinsterhood."

"Come, Aunt Jane, Bessie never did make it the praise of spinsters. I am sure married women can do as much as spinsters, and have more weight," said Gillian, facing round gallantly, and winning the approval of her aunt and of Bessie. There was no doubt but that since her engagement she had been much quieter and less opinionative.

With what different sensations the same occasion may be attended! To Bessie Merrifield, the primary object was, as ever, woman's work, especially her own, for the Church; and the actual business absorbed her. In spite of her evenings' talk to her Aunt Lilias, and the sad and painful recollections it had aroused, still her only look at Magdalen Prescott's face was one half of curiosity half of sorrow, as of the object of the brief calf-love of one of many brothers, and who had been now lost sight of, with the passing wonder whether, if the affection had survived and been encouraged, it might have led him to better things.

While Magdalen felt the poignant renewal of the one romance of a lifetime, as she caught tones, watched little gestures and recognised those indescribable hereditary similarities which more and more bore in upon her the fraternal connection of the bright earnest woman with the lively pleasant young man who had brought the attraction of a higher tone of manners and cultivation into the country town. No more had been heard of him since his promise to write, a promise that had been only once remembered, so that she had tried to take refuge in the supposition, unlikely as it was, that her stepmother had confiscated his letters. All was a blank since that last stolen kiss; and the wonder whether she could by any means discover anything further from Lady Merrifield or Gillian, so occupied her that she hardly heard the tenor of the two speeches, and did not observe Agatha's glowing cheeks and burning eyes, which might have told her that this was one of the moments which direct the current of life.

When Hubert Delrio came up in the evening he was curious to hear about the meeting. His young landlady, who had been a High School girl for a short time, thought Miss Arthuret's speech the most beautiful discourse that ever was spoken; while other reports said that Lady Flight and Miss Mohun were very much shocked, and thought it unwholesome, not to say dangerous; and he wanted to know the meaning of it. Magdalen was quite dismayed to find how entirely her attention had been absent, and how little account she could give of what had passed by her like the wind; but she need not have been at a loss, for Agatha, with sparkling eyes and clasped hands, burst out into a very able and spirited abstract of the speech, and the future it portrayed, showing perhaps more enthusiasm than the practised public speaker thought it prudent to manifest.

"I see," said Hubert with something of a smile, "you ladies are charmed with the great future opened to you."

"I'm sure," said Vera, perhaps a little nettled by attention paid so long to Agatha, "I can't see the sense of it all; I think a woman is made just to love her husband, and be his pet, without all that fuss about societies, and speeches and learning and fuss!" And she gave a little caress to Hubert's hand, which was returned, as he said, "She may well be loved, but, without publicly coming forward, she may become the more valuable to her home."

"Of course she may, at home or abroad. She ought —" began Agatha, but Vera snapped her off. "Well, it only comes to being one of a lot of horrid old maids; and you don't want me to be one of them, do you, darling? Come and look at my doves!"

"What do you think of it all, sister?" asked Paulina.

"So far as I grasp the subject," said Magdalen, to whom, of course, this was not new, "I think that if a larger scope is to be given to women, it is for the sake and under the direction of the Church that it can be rightly and safely used."

She knew she was speaking by rote, and was not surprised that Agatha said, "That is just what one has heard so often, and what Miss Merrifield harped upon! I want to breathe in a fresh atmosphere beyond the old traditions, and know which are Divine and which are only the superstructure of those who have always had the dominion and justified it in their own way!"

"Who gave them that dominion?" said Magdalen.

"Brute strength," began Agatha.

"Nag, Nag!" cried Paula. "Surely you believe—"

"I did not say—I did not mean—I only meant to think it out, and understand what is Divine and what is in the eternal fitness of things."

Here came an interruption, leaving Magdalen conscious of the want of preparation for guiding the thought of these young things, and of self-reproach too, for having let herself be so absorbed in the thought of "her broken reed of earth beneath," as not to have dwelt on what might be the deep impressions of the young sisters under her charge.

A few days later, as Agatha sat reading in the garden, two figures appeared on the drive, wheeling up their bicycles. One was Gillian, the other had a general air of the family, but much darker, and not one of the old acquaintances. Advancing to meet them, she said, "I am the only one at home. My sisters are all at lessons or in the village."

"I'll leave a message," said Gillian. "My mother wants you all to come up to picnic tea to see the foxgloves in the dell, on Monday, and to bring Mr. Delrio—"

"Oh! thank you."

"I forgot, you had not seen my cousin Dolores Mohun before. Mysie calls her a cousin-twin, if you know what that is."

Agatha thought the newcomer's great pensive dark eyes and overhanging brow under very black hair made her look older than Mysie, or indeed than Gillian herself; and when the message had been disposed of, the latter continued, "Dolores wanted to know about Miss Arthuret's lecture, being rather in that line herself. She could not get home in time for it, and I was seeing the Kittiwake party on board, and only crept in at the other end of the hall in time for Bessie's faint echoes."

"I was in the very antipodes," said Dolores, "in a haunt of ancient peace, whence they would not let me come away soon enough."

"And, Agatha, Aunt Jane says she saw you devouring Miss Arthuret with your eyes," said Gillian.

"It gave one a sense of new life," said Agatha; and she related again Miss Arthuret's speech, broken only by appreciative questions and comments from Dolores' auditor, to whom, in the true fashion of nineteen, Agatha straightway lost her heart. Dolores, who had seen much more of the outer world than her cousins, and had had besides a deeply felt inward experience which might well render her far more responsive, and able to comprehend the questions working in the girl's mind, and which found expression in, "I went to St. Robert's only wanting to get my education carried on so that I might be a better governess; but I see now there are much farther on, much greater things to aim at, than I ever thought of."

"Alps on Alps arise!" said Dolores. "Yes—till they lose themselves- -and where?"

"Miss Merrifield would say in Heaven, by way of the Church."

"The all things in earth or under the earth rising up in circles of praise to the Cherubim and the Great White Throne," said Dolores, her dark eyes raised in a moment's contemplation.

"Ah! One knows. But is that thought the one to be brought home to every one, as if they could bear it always? Are not we to do something—something—for the helping people here in this life, not always going on to the other life—"

"Temporal or spiritual?" said Dolores; "or spiritual through temporal?"

"And our part in helping," said Agatha.

"There is an immense deal to be thought out," said Dolores. "I feel only at the beginning of the questions, and there is study and experience to go to them."

"You mean what one gets at Oxford?"

"Partly. Thorough—at least, as thorough as one can—of the physical and material nature of things, then of the precedent which then results, also of reasoning."

"Metaphysical, do you mean, or logical?"

"That comes in; but I was thinking of mathematical in the indirect training of the mind. It all works into needful equipment, and so does actual life."

"It takes one's breath away."

"Well, we have begun our training," said Dolores, with a sweet sad smile. "At least, I hope so."

"At St. Robert's, you mean?"

"You have, I think. But I believe my aunt will be expecting us."

"Oh! And then they talk about modesty and womanliness and retiring! What do you think about all that?"

"That we never shall do any good without it."

They were interrupted by the hasty rushing up of Paula, who had committed her bicycle to Vera, and came dashing up the steep slope, crying, "O Nag, Nag, they are going away!"

The announcement was interrupted as she perceived the presence of the visitor, and they rose to meet her, but saw that there were tears in her eyes, and she had rushed up so fast that she was panting and could hardly speak, though she gave her hand, as Agatha, after naming the two cousins, asked, "Who are going?"

"The Sisters—Sister Mena—" with another overflow of tears which made Dolores and Gillian think they had better retreat and leave her to her sister's consolation; so they took leave hastily, Agatha however, coming as far as their machines, and confiding to them, "Poor Polly, it is a great blow to her, but I believe it is very good for her."

"There's stuff in that girl," said Dolores, as soon as they were out of reach. "She has the faculty of hearkening as well as of hearing."

"You would say so if you saw her at a lecture; and she is also gaining power of expressing and reproducing," said Gillian.

"She will be a power by and by, unless some blight comes across her."

"Will me, will me, it seems as if we HAD to do it. Even Mamma, whose ideal was chivalry, Church and home, has to be drawn out to take a certain public part; Aunt Jane, who only wished to live to potter about among neighbours, poor and rich, must needs come out of her traditional conventions, and relate her experiences, and you—"

"Oh, I am only trying to do the work Gerald aimed at!"

"Any way we have our work before us, whether we call it for the Church or mankind."

"Charity or Altruism," said Dolores.

"May not altruism lead to charity?" said Gillian.

"Sometimes, but sometimes disappointment leads only to intolerance of those whose methods differ. Altruism will not stand without a foundation," said Dolores.

"Mysie has been impressing on me, with what she heard from Phyllis Devereux, of the work Sister Angela has been doing at Albertstown— the most utter self-abnegation, through bitter disappointment in her most promising pupils—only the charity that is rooted could endure. It is just the old difference Tennyson points out between Wisdom and Knowledge."

"And with wisdom come those feminine attributes that Agatha began asking about."

"Yes, softening, gentleness, tact. If people have not grown up to them, they must be taught as parts of wisdom."

Gillian sighed. "I wonder what Ernley Armitage will say when he comes home?"

"He won't want you to throw up everything."

"I don't think he will! But if he did—No, I think he will be a staff to guide a silly, priggish heart to the deeper wisdom."



CHAPTER XVII—FOXGLOVES AND FLIRTATIONS



"With her venturous climbings, and tumbles, and childish escapes." TENNYSON.

Hubert Delrio, pleased and gratified, but very shy, joined the ladies from the Goyle in their walk to Clipstone, expecting perhaps a good deal of stiffness and constraint, since every one at St. Kenelm's told him what a severe and formidable person Sir Jasper Merrifield was, and that all Lady Merrifield's surroundings were "so very clever." "They did want SUCH books ordered in the library."

Magdalen laughed, and said her only chance of seeing a book she wanted was that Lady Merrifield should have asked for it. At Clipstone, they were directed to the dell where the foxgloves were unusually fine that year, covering one of the banks of the ravine with a perfect cloud of close-grown spikes, nodding with thick clustered bells, spotted withinside, and without, of that indescribable light crimson or purple, enchanting in reality but impossible to reproduce. It was like a dream of fairy land to Hubert to wander thither with his Vera, count the tiers of bells, admire the rings of purple and the crooked stamens, measure the height of the tall ones, some almost equal to himself in stature, and recall the fairy lore and poetry connected with them, while Vera listened and thought she enjoyed, but kept herself entertained by surreptitiously popping the blossoms, and trying to wreath her hat with wild roses.

Thekla meantime admired from the opposite bank, in a state of much elevation at acquiring a dear delicious brother-in-law, and insisted on Primrose sharing her sentiments till her boasting at last provoked the exclamation, "I wouldn't be so cocky! I don't make such a fuss if my sisters do go and fall in love. I have two brothers-in-law out in India, and Gillian has a captain, an Egyptian hero, with a medal, a post captain out at sea in the Nivelle. You shall see his photograph coloured in his lovely uniform, with his sword and all! Your Flapsy's man isn't even an officer!"

"He is a poet, and that's better!"

"Better! why, if you WILL have it, Wilfred and Fergus always call him that 'painter cad,'" broke out Primrose, who had not outgrown her childish power of rudeness, especially out of hearing of her elders.

"Then it is very wicked of them," exclaimed Thekla, "when the Marquis of Rotherwood himself said that Hubert Delrio is a very superior young man" (each syllable triumphantly rounded off).

Primrose was equal to the occasion. "Oh, they all laugh at Cousin Rotherwood; and, besides, a superior young man does not mean a gentleman."

Thekla burst into angry tears and sobs, which brought Gillian, and a grave, dark young lady from the other side of a rock to inquire what was the matter—there was a confession on the two tongues of "she did," and "I didn't" of "painter cad, superior young man and no gentleman," but at last it cleared itself into Primrose allowing that, to take down Thekla's conceit, she had declared that a very superior young man did not mean a gentleman.

"I could not have believed that you could have been so abominably ill-mannered," said Gillian gravely; "you ought to apologise to Thekla."

"Oh, never mind," began Thekla ashamed; and at that moment a frantic barking was heard in the depths, and Valetta, Wilfred, Fergus and a dog or two darted headlong past, calling out, "Hedgehogs, hedgehogs! Run! come!" And Primrose, giving a hand to Thekla, joined in the general rush down the glade.

"A situation relieved!" said the newcomer.

"For all ran to see, For they took him to be An Egyptian porcupig,"

quoted Gillian. "They have wanted such a beast for some time for their menagerie; but really Primrose is getting much too old to indulge in such babyish incivility to a guest, true though the speech was, 'a superior young man,' not necessarily a gentleman."

"I am colonial enough to like him the better for the absence of a hall mark."

"Should you have missed it? He is very good looking, and has a sensible refined countenance, poor man!"

"He is a little too point device, too obviously got up for the occasion!"

"Too like the best electroplate! No; that is not fair, for it is not pretence, at least, I should think there was sound material below, and that never would brighten instead of dimming it."

"According to Mysie and Fly, there is plenty of good taste; and his principle is vouched for. Mysie is quite furious at any lady-love having gone to sleep to the sound of original verses from a lover!"

"Dear old Mysie! No, she would not. She has a practical vein in her! Would you?"

"I'm not likely to be tried!" said Gillian merrily. "Catch Ernley either practising or not minding his boat! But come! Mamma will want me, I feel only deputy daughter, with Mysie away."

The two girls rose from the mossy bank, and proceeded across the paddock to the opening of the glade.

On the turf Lady Merrifield sat enthroned; making a nucleus to the festivities and delicacies of all sorts, from sandwiches and cakes down to strawberries, cherries and Devonshire cream, were displayed before her; and the others drifted up gradually, Miss Mohun first. "I am later than I meant to be," she said, "but I was delayed by a talk with Sister Beata. I never saw a woman more knocked down than she is by that adventure of Vera's."

"I know," said Magdalen, rousing herself. "It has made her look ten years older, and she could not talk it over or let a word be said to comfort her. She says it was all her fault, and I should have thought it was that silly little Sister Mena's, if that is her name.

"She considers it her fault for objecting to strict discipline in things of which she did not see the use," said Jane Mohun, "and so getting absorbed in her own work, and having no fixed rule by which to train Mena."

"I see," said Lady Merrifield; "it reminds me of a story told in Madame de Chantal's life, how, when, par mortification, a Sister quietly ate up a rotten apple without complaint and another made signs of amusement, a rule was made that no one should raise her eyes at meals. It shows that some rules which seem unreasonable may have a foundation."

"It is an unnatural life altogether," said Dolores. "Why should the rotten apple have been swallowed? or, if it was, I should think a joke over it might have been wholesome."

"Hindering priggishness in the mortified Sister," said Gillian.

"The fact is," said Lady Merrifield, "that if you vow yourself to an unnatural life, so to speak, you must submit to the rules that have been found best to work for it."

"And poor Sister Beata did neither the one nor the other, by her own account," said Jane. "She called herself a Sister, but disliked each rule, and chose to go her own way, like any other benevolent woman, doing very admirable work herself, but letting little Mena have the prestige of a Sister, while too busy to look after her, and without rules to restrain her."

"But surely there has been no harm!" exclaimed Lady Merrifield.

"No harm, only a little incipient flirtation with the organist, nothing in any one else, but not quite like a convent maid."

"Ah! I rather suspected," said Agatha.

"I should think the best thing for Sister Mena would be to go to a good school, leave off her veil, in which she looks so pretty, and be treated like an ordinary girl," said Lady Merrifield.

"That is just what Sister Beata intends," said Miss Mohun. "She is to sink down into Miss Marian Jenkins, to wear a straw hat and blue frock, and go to school with the other girls, the pupils, while Sister Beata begins life as a probationer at Dearport."

"Poor Sister Beata!"

"She says she has experienced that it is best to learn to obey before one begins to rule. It is most touching to see how humble she is. Such a real good woman too! I doubt whether she gets a night's rest three days in a week, and she looks quite haggard with this distress," said Jane.

"She will be a great power by and by! But what will Mr. Flight and St. Kenelm's do without her?"

"He is promised relays of Sisters from Dearport, which has stood so many years that they have a supply. You see, he, like Sister Beata, tried a little too much to be original and stand aloof."

"Ah!" said Lady Merrifield, "that is the benefit of institutions. They hinder works from dying away with the original clergyman or the wonderful woman."

"But, Aunt Lily," put in Dolores, "institutions get slack?"

"They have their DOWNS, but they also have their ups. There is something to fall back upon with public schools."

"Yes, like croquet," laughed Aunt Jane. "We saw it rise and saw it fall; and here come all the players, the revival. Well, how went the game?"

So the party collected, and the two Generals came in from some vanity of inspection to grumble a little merrily at the open air banquet, but to take their places in all good humour, and the lively meal began with all the home witticisms, yet not such as to exclude strangers. Indeed, Hubert Delrio was treated with something like distinction, and was evidently very happy, with Vera by his side. Perhaps Magdalen perceived that there was not the perfect ease of absolute equality and familiarity; but his poetical and chivalrous nature was gratified by the notice of a Crimean hero, and he infinitely admired the dignity and courtesy of Lady Merrifield, and the grace and ease of her daughters, finding himself in a new world of exquisite charm for him.

And before they broke up, Magdalen had a quiet time with Lady Merrifield, in which she was able, not without a tell-tale blush even at her years, to ascertain that there were two Henry Merrifields, and that, alas! there was nothing good known of the son of Stokesley, except that anonymous attempt at restitution which gave hopes of repentance.



CHAPTER XVIII—PALACES OR CHURCHES



"And if I leave the thing that lieth next, To go and do the thing that is afar, I take the very strength out of my deed." - MACDONALD.

Those were happy days that succeeded Vera's engagement. It had made her more womanly, or at least less childish; and the intercourse with Hubert Delrio became an increasing delight to her sisters, who had never known anything so like a brother.

He was at first shy and not at ease with Magdalen, who, on her side, perceived the lack of public school and university training; but in grain he was so completely a good man, a churchman, and a gentleman, and had so much right sense as well as talent, that she liked him thoroughly and began to rely on him, as a woman with unaccustomed property is glad to do with a male relation.

And to him, the society of the Goyle was a new charm. He had been brought up to the technicalities and the business relations of art, and had a cultivated taste; but to be with a thoughtful, highly educated lady, able to enter into its higher and deeper associations, was an unspeakable delight and improvement to him. Vera was fairly satisfied as long as he sketched her in various attitudes, and held her hand while he talked; though she did grudge having so much time spent on "taste, Shakespeare and the musical glasses." Paula had various ecclesiastical interests in common with him, and began to expand and enter more into realities, while Thekla had in him a dear delightful delicious brother, who petted her, bantered her, mended her rabbit hutch, caught her hedgehog, taught her to guide her bicycle, drew picture games for her, and taught her to sketch.

Agatha had endless discussions with him on his various aspirations, in some of which Magdalen took her share, sometimes thinking with a pang of regret and self-reproach that that brief time of intercourse with Hal Merrifield had been spent in youthful nonsense that could have left no permanent influence for good.

In fact, whether through Hubert or through Agatha, a certain intellectual waft had breathed upon the Goyle. Hubert was eager for assistance in learning German and Italian, and read and discussed books of interest; and even when he had left Rockstone, and his work at St. Kenelm's being finished, the stimulus was kept up by his letters, comments and questions; and the younger girls had entirely ceased to form an opposite camp, or to view "sister" as a taskmistress, even when Agatha had returned to St. Robert's.

Mysie had come home, very brown, fuller of Scott than ever for her mother, and of Hugh Miller for Fergus, for whom she had brought so many specimens that Cousin Rotherwood declared that she would sink the Kittiwake. Over the sketches and photographs of Iona, she and Paulina became great friends, and Paula was admitted to hear accounts of the modern missions that had come from the other Harry Merrifield among the Karens in Burmah, or again through Franciska Ivinghoe, of her Aunt Angela Underwood, who was considered to have a peculiar faculty for dealing with those very unpromising natives, the Australian gins. Franciska remembered her tender nursing and bright manner in the days of fever at Vale Leston, and had a longing hope that she would take a holiday and come home; but at present she was bound to the couch of her slowly declining old friend, Sister Constance, the Mother of Dearport. It was another bond of interest with Magdalen, to whom missions to the heathens had always been a dream.

Thus had passed a year uneventful and peaceable, with visits from Hubert whenever he had a day or two to spare. They were looked forward to with delight; but if there were a drawback it was in Vera's viewing him partly as one who held her in a sort of chain, and partly as one whom it was pleasant to tease by allowing little casual civilities from Wilfred Merrifield.

For Wilfred was an embarrassment to his family. He had never been strong, his public school career had been shortened by failure in health, and headaches in the summer, and coughs in the winter made it needful to keep him at home, and trust to cramming at Rockstone, enforced by his father's stern discipline and his mother's authoritative influence.

Thus he was always within reach of the mild social gaieties in which each family indulged, and Vera was not quite so ready as were his sisters to contrast unfavourably his hatred of all self-improvement with Hubert Delrio's eagerness to pick up every crumb of information, thus deservedly getting on well in his profession.

One morning, at breakfast, Hubert opened a letter and made a sudden exclamation; and in answer to Vera's vehement inquiry said, "It seems that the great millionaire swell, Pettifer—is that his name?"

"Oh, yes, he was at Rock Quay."

"Well, he went to see St. Kenelm's, fell in love with the ceiling, and offered Pratt and Pavis any sum they like to decorate a huge new hall he is building in the same style. So they write to propose to me to come and do it, with a promise of future work, at any terms I like to ask."

"Oh! but that's jolly," cried Vera. "Can't you?"

"No," he said; "this is immediate, and I have two churches, reredos and walls, on my hands, enough to last me all the year. Nor could I throw over Eccles and Beamster."

"Is there an agreement with them?" asked Magdalen.

"Not regularly; but Mr. Eccles has been very kind to me, and promised me employment for four years to come; in fact, he has made engagements on that understanding."

"I see," said Magdalen. "You could not break with them."

"Certainly not. Nor do I entirely like the line of this other house. It is a good deal more secular."

"And you have dedicated your talents to the Church!" cried Paulina.

"Not that exactly, Paula," he said, smiling; "but I had rather work for the Church, so I am glad the matter is definitely settled for me."

To that he kept, though he had a very kind letter from Mr. Eccles, who had evidently been applied to, wishing not to stand in his light, especially as he was engaged to be married, and telling him how it might be possible to fairly compensate for the loss to the firm. Between the lines, however, it was plain that it would be a great blow, only possible because the agreement had been neglected; and Hubert was only the more determined, out of gratitude for the generosity, not to break what he felt to be an implied pledge; and all the sisters sympathised with his determination.

He adhered to it even after his return to London, though his father thought it a pity to lose the chance, if it could be accepted without discourtesy to Mr. Eccles; and he had been interviewed by various parties concerned, and there had been an attempt to dazzle him by the prospects held out to him by an enthusiastic young member of the firm. Perhaps he was too shrewd entirely to trust them, but at any rate he felt his good faith to Eccles and Beamster a bond to hold him fast from the temptation; and his heart was really set on the consecration of the higher uses of his art; so that regard to the simple rule of honour was an absolute relief to him.

So he wrote to Vera, who, if there were a secret wish on her part, did not dare to give it shape; while all her sisters, to whom she showed the letters that she scarcely comprehended, were open-mouthed in their admiration. Thekla, who had been seized with a fit of hagiology, went the length of comparing him to St. Barbara; even Paula pronounced it a far-fetched resemblance.

It was some months later that Sir Ferdinand Travis Underwood had decided on building a magnificent cathedral-like church for the population rising around him in the Rocky Mountains; and meeting Lord Rotherwood in London heard of the work at St. Kenelm's, and resorted to Eccles and Beamster as the employers of young Delrio. There would be plenty of varieties of beautiful material to be found near at hand in the mountains; but Hubert was sent first for a short journey in Italy to study the effect of the old mosaics as well as the frescoes, and then to go out to America to the work that would last a considerable time.

Vera was much excited by the notion of the Italian journey, and thought she ought to have been married at once and have shared it, including as it did a short visit to Rocca Marina. But she was scarcely eighteen, and neither her trustee nor her elder sister thought it advisable to dispense with the decision that her twenty- first birthday must be waited for, at which she pouted. Hubert came for two nights on his return, and was exceedingly full of his tour, talking over Italian scenes and churches with Magdalen, who had never seen them, but had the descriptions and the history at her fingers' ends, and listened with delight to all the impressions of a mind full of feeling and poetry. The time was only too short to discuss or look out everything, and much was left to be copied and sent after him, with many promises on Vera's part of writing everything for him, and translating the books that Magdalen would refer to. He was allowed to take Vera and Paulina to Filsted for a hurried visit to his parents. When they came home again, it soon became plain that it had not been a success. "I am glad to be at home again," said Paula, as the pony carriage turned up the steep drive, and the girls jumped out to walk. "I am quite glad to feel the stones under my feet again!"

Magdalen laughed. "A new sentiment!" she said.

"I don't like the stones," said Vera, "but I did not know Filsted was such a poky place."

"A dead flat!" added Paula. "No sea, no torrs! one wanted something to look at! and SUCH a church!"

"Did you see Minnie Maitland?" put in Thekla.

"I saw all the Maitlands in a hurry," said Vera. "I don't remember which was which. They were all dressed alike in horrid colours. Hubert said they set his teeth on edge!"

"How was old Mrs. Delrio?"

"Just the same as ever, lean and pinched."

"But so kind!" added Paula. "She could not make enough of Flapsy."

"I should think not!" ejaculated Vera. "Enough! aye, and too much! just fancy, no dinner napkins! and Edith went away and made the scones herself!"

"Very praiseworthy," said Magdalen. "Don't you know how Hubert always tells us what a dear devoted good girl she is?"

"Well, I only hope Hubert does not expect me to live in that way," said Vera. "His mother looks like a half-starved hare, and Edith is giving lessons as a daily governess!

"Edith is very nice," said Paula; "and I never understood before how excellent old Mr. Delrio's pictures are! Do you remember his 'Country Lane'? What a pity it did not sell!"

"Poor man!" said Magdalen. "He married too soon, and that has kept him down."

"It is beautiful to see how proud they are of Hubert," said Paula, "and his pretty gentle attention and deference to them both. Mr. Delrio is really a gentleman, I am sure; but, Maidie," she said, falling back with her, while Vera and Thekla mounted faster, "it was very odd to see how different things looked to us from what they seemed when we were at Mrs. Best's. Filsted High Street has grown so small, and one could hardly breathe in Mrs. Delrio's stuffy drawing- room. And as to Waring Grange, which we used to think just perfect, it was all so pretentious and in such bad taste. Hubert saw it as much as we did, but I could see he was on thorns to hinder Flapsy from making observations."

Certainly the visit had not done much good, except in making the girls appreciate the refinement of their surroundings at the Goyle.

And when letters arrived from Hubert at the American Vale Leston, asking questions requiring some research in books, either Magdalen's or at the Rock Quay library, Vera dawdled and sighed over them; and when the more zealous Magdalen or Paula took all the trouble, and left nothing for her to do but to copy their notes, and write the letters, she grew cross. "It was for Hubert, and she did not want any one else to meddle! So stupid! If he had only taken Pratt and Pavis's offer, there would not have been all this bother!"

That, of course, she only ventured to utter before Paula and Thekla, and it made them both so furious that she declared she was only in joke, and did not mean it.

She was indulging in reflections on the general dulness of her lot, and the lack of sympathy in her sisters, as she lingered by the confectioner's window, with her eyes fixed on a gorgeous combination of coloured bonbons, when Wilfred Merrifield sauntered out. "Fresh from Paris!" he said. "Going to choose some?"

"Oh no, I haven't got any cash. M. A. keeps us horribly short."

"As usual with governors! But look here! Pocket this. Sweets to the sweet, from an old chum!"

"Oh, Will, how jolly! Such a love of a box."

"Make haste! Some of the girls are lurking about, and if there is any mischief to be made, trust Gill for doing it."

"Mischief!—" but before the words were out of her mouth, Gillian and Mysie appeared from the next shop, a bootmaker's, and Mysie stood aghast with, "What ARE you doing? Buying goodies! How very ridiculous!"

"The proper thing between chums, isn't it, Vera?" said Wilfred, with an indifferent air. "We aren't unlucky Sunday scholars, Mysie, to be jumped upon! Good-bye, Vera, au revoir!"

He sauntered away with his hands in his pockets; while Gillian, from her eldership of two years, and her engagement, gravely said, "Vera, perhaps you do not fully know, but I should say this is not quite the thing."

"He told you we are just chums!" exclaimed Vera. "As if there were any harm in it! You've not got a sweet tooth yourself, so you need not grudge me just a few goodies."

Gillian saw that it was of no use to prolong the dispute either for the place or the time, and she hushed Mysie, who was about to expostulate farther, and made her go away with a brief parting, such as she hoped would impress on Vera that the sisters thought very badly of her discretion and loyalty. They could not hear the reflection, "They need not be so particular and so cross. Hubert never thought of giving me anything nice like this. Why should not my chum? Such a sweet little box too, with a dear girl's head on it! Would Polly fuss about it, and set on Sister? I shall put it into my own drawer, and then if they notice it, they may think somebody at Filsted gave it! No one has any business to worry me about Hubert, and Wilfred being civil to me. He IS a gentleman."

The gentleman had been overtaken by his sisters. He was walking his bicycle up the hill rather breathlessly and slowly. Mysie indignantly began, "Of all the stupid things to do, to give goodies to that girl, like a baby!"

"I have been wishing to speak to you," said Gillian. "You are going the way to get that foolish girl into a scrape."

"Oh, yes, of course. Sisters uniformly object to a little civility to a pretty girl," carelessly answered Wilfred.

"Nonsense!" returned Mysie, hotly. "We don't care! only it is not fair on Mr. Delrio."

"The painter cad! A very good thing too! The sacrifice ought to be prevented. Is not that the general sentiment?"

"Wilfred!" cried the scandalised Mysie, "when it is all the other way, and he is ever so much too good for her."

"Consummate prig! The cheek of him pretending to a lady!"

"But, Wilfred," went on downright Mysie, "is it only mischief, or do you want to marry her yourself?"

"Draw your own conclusions," responded Wilfred, mounting his machine, and spinning down the hill faster than they could follow on foot.

"What is to be done, Gill?" sighed Mysie. "Ought we to get mamma to speak to him?"

"Better not," said Gillian, with more experience. "It would only make it worse to take it seriously. Half of it is play—and half to tease you."

"And," said Mysie, with due deference to the engaged sister, "how about Mr. Delrio? Will it make him unhappy?"

"If he finds out in time what a horrid little thing it is, I should say it would be very well for him; but I don't want Will to be the means."

"Oh! when his examination is over, and he gets an appointment, he will go away, and it will be safe."

"I have not much hopes of his getting in!"

"Oh, Gill, none of us ever failed before."

On the side of the Goyle not much was known or cared about Wilfred's little attentions, which were generally out of sight of Magdalen, and did not amount to much; but Paula saw enough of them to consult Agatha on, and to observe that Flapsy was going on just as she used to at Filsted, and she thought Hubert would not like it.

"I believe Flapsy can't live without it," sighed Agatha.

"But would you speak to her? I don't think she ought to let him give her boxes of bonbons—to keep up in her room, and never give a hint to Maidie."

Agatha did speak but the effect was to set Vera into crying out at every one being so intolerably cross about such a trifle, Gillian Merrifield and all!

"Did Gillian speak to you?"

"Yes, as if she had any business to do so!"

"I am sure it is not the way she would treat Captain Armitage."

"I don't believe she cares for Captain Armitage one bit! You said yourself that all the girls at Oxford thought she cared much more for her horrid examination! I wouldn't be a dry, cold-hearted, insensible stick like her for the world."

"Perhaps she is the more quietly in earnest," said Agatha, repenting a little that she had told before Vera the college jokes over what had leaked out of Gillian's reception of Ernley Armitage when he had hastened up to Oxford as soon as his ship was paid off, and she had been called down to him in the Lady Principal's room. Report said that she had only prayed him to keep out of the way, and not to upset her brain, and that he had meekly obeyed—as one who knew what it was to have promotion depending on it.

It was a half truth, exaggerated, but it had not a happy effect on Vera. Nevertheless, the finishing push of preparation brought on such a succession of violent headaches as quite to disable the really delicate boy. Moreover, the tutor declared that there had been little chance of his success, and Dr. Dagger said that he had much better not try again. The best hope for his health, and even for his life, was to keep him at home for a few years, and give him light work.

He had never been the pleasantest element in the household; and if his parents were glad of the avoidance of the risk of a launch into the world, and his mother's love rejoiced in the power of watching over him, there were others who felt his temper a continual trial, while his career was a perplexity.

However, Captain Henderson offered a clerkship at the Marble Works, subject to Mr. White's approval; and this was gratefully accepted. Nor did Agatha come home again at the Long Vacation for more than two days, in which there was no time for consultation with her sisters on matters of uncertain import.

Miss Arthuret and Elizabeth Merrifield had arranged together to take the old roomy farmhouse on Penbeacon for three or four months, and there receive parties of young women in need of rest, fresh air, and, in some cases, of classes, or time for study. It was to be a sort of Holiday House, though not altogether of idleness; and Dolores undertook to be a kind of vice-president, with Agatha to pursue her reading under her superintendence, and to assist in helping others, governesses, students, schoolmistresses from Coalham, in whose behalf indeed the scheme had been first started, and it was extremely delightful to Agatha, among many others.



CHAPTER XIX—TWO WEDDINGS



"How happy by my mother's side When some dear friend became a bride! To shine beyond the rest I was In gay embroidery drest. Vain of my drapery's rich brocade, I held my flowing locks to braid." ANSTICE (from the Greek).

"Epidemics of marriage set in from time to time," said Jane Mohun. "Gillian has set the fashion."

For the Rock Quay neighbourhood was in a state of excitement over a letter from Mrs. White, of Rocca Marina, announcing the approaching marriage of Mr. White's niece, Maura, with Lord Roger Grey, a nephew of dear Emily's husband, and heir to the Dukedom. The White family were coming home for the wedding, and the interest entirely eclipsed that of Gillian Merrifield's. In fact, though that young lady somewhat justified the Oxford stories, she was in a state of much inward agitation between real love for Ernley, and pain in leaving home, so she put on an absolutely imperturbable demeanour. Her reserve and dread of comments made her so undemonstrative and repressive to her Captain that there were those who doubted whether she cared for him at all, or only looked on her wedding as a mediaeval maiden might have done, as coming naturally a few years after she had grown up. Ernley Armytage knew better, and so did her parents. The wedding was hurried on by Captain Armytage's appointment to a frigate on the coast of Southern America, where he had to join at once, in lieu of a captain invalided home; and Gillian accepted the arrangements, which would take her to Rio, "as much a matter of course," said her aunt, "as if she had been a wife for ten years." Her uncle, Mr. Mohun, was anxious that the marriage of his sister Lily's daughter should take place at the family home, Beechcroft. If there had been scruples, chiefly founded on the largeness of the party, and the trouble to Mrs. Mohun, these were forgotten in the convenience of being out of the way of Rockstone gossip, as well as for other reasons.

"I should certainly have escaped," said General Mohun. "I have no notion of meeting that unmitigated scamp."

"Mr. White ought to be warned," said Jane.

"You'll do so, I suppose; and much good it will be."

"I do not imagine that it will. It will be too charming to surpass Franciska and Ivinghoe; but if neither you nor Jasper will speak to old Tom, I shall deliver my conscience to Ada."

"And be advised to mind your own business."

Nevertheless, Jane Mohun did deliver her conscience, when, on the day after the arrival, there had been loud lamentations over the intended absence of the Merrifield family. "It would have looked well to make it a double wedding, all in the family," said Mr. White.

To which Miss Mohun only answered by a silence which Mrs. White was unwilling to break, but Maura exclaimed -

"But I thought Valetta would be sure to be my bridesmaid. Such friends as we were at the High School!"

It did not strike Miss Mohun that the friendship had been very close or very beneficial; but Adeline added, "We thought she would pair so well with Vera Prescott, and then uncle will give all the dresses— white silk with cerise trimmings. We ordered them in Paris."

"Uncle Tom is so generous!" said Maura. "There is no end to his kindness. I'll go and unpack some of the patterns, that Miss Mohun may see them."

She tripped out of the room, and Jane exclaimed, "Poor child! Has Emily written to you, Ada?"

"Yes, rather stiffly. Mr. White thinks it aristocratic pride."

"Ada, you know it is not that."

"Well, I suppose the Greys are hardly gratified by the connection, though Mr. White will make it worth their while. You see the Duke leaves everything in his power to his daughters, so poor Roger will be very badly off."

"But—" There was so much expressed in that "but" that Adeline began to answer one of the sentiments she supposed it to convey. "He can do it easily—for all the rest are provided for by the Marble Works— except the two eldest brothers. Richard has gone away, and Alexis— oh, you know he has notions of his own that Mr. White does not like."

"Does Mr. White know all about Lord Roger, or why the Duke should cut him off as far as possible?"

"My dear Jane, it is not charitable to bring things up against young men's follies."

"It is a pretty considerable folly to have done what compelled him to retire. Reginald was called in at the inquiry, and knows all about it."

"But that was ages ago, and he has been quite distinguished in the Turkish army."

"Yes; and I also know that English gentlemen have associated with him as little as possible. I should call it a fatal thing to let Maura marry him. What does Captain Henderson say?"

"Mr. White thinks that it is all jealousy. And really, Jenny, I do not in the least believe that he will make her unhappy. He is old enough to have quite outgrown all his wild ways, and he has quite gentlemanly manners and ways. Besides, Maura likes him, and is quite bent upon it."

Still there was a dissatisfied look on Jane's face, and Adeline went on answering it, with tears in her eyes. "My dear Jane, I know what you would say, and what Reginald and all the rest feel, that it is not what we should like! But, my dear, don't let the whole family rise up in arms! It would be of no use, only make it painful for me. Maura is quite bent upon it, and she has arrived at turning her uncle round her finger so much that I am sometimes hardly mistress of the house! Oh, I don't tell any one, not Lily nor any one, but it will really be a relief to me when she is gone, with her Greek coaxing ways. Her uncle is wrapped up in her, and so proud of her being a Duchess that he would condone anything. Indeed, I am always afraid of her putting it into his head to suppose that her disappointment about Ivinghoe was in any way owing to my family pride."

Jane was sorry for Adeline, and able to perceive how the wifely feelings, which she had taken on herself, by choosing a man of inferior breeding and nature clashed with her hereditary character and principles.

"You are absolutely relieved that the Beechcroft wedding takes all of us out of the way naturally and without offence," she said so kindly that Ada laid her head on her sisterly shoulder, and allowed herself to shed a few tears.

"Yes, yes," she said; "I am glad to have so good a reason to mention. Only I do hope Jasper will not object to Valetta's coming back to be bridesmaid. That would really be a blow and give offence, and it would make difficulties with others—even James Henderson, who swears by Jasper. I have often wished they would have done as I advised, and have had this wedding at Rocca Marina, out of the way of everybody! I sometimes think it will be the death of me. Do come home to help me through it."

She spoke so like the Ada of old that it went to Jane's heart.

She promised that she would return in time to give the very substantial assistance in which all believed, and the more sentimental support in which nobody believed, though her distaste arose tenfold after seeing the bridegroom, who looked like an old satyr, all the more because Maura was like a Greek nymph. Mrs. Henderson was much grieved, and had tried remonstrance with her sister, but found her quite impervious.

Glad were all the Merrifields to escape to the quiet atmosphere of Beechcroft, where the relations were able to congregate between the Court, the Vicarage, and the more-distant Rotherwood; and the wedding was an ideal one in ecclesiastical beauty, and the festivities of those who had known and loved Lady Merrifield as Miss Lily in early youth, grandmothers who had been her schoolchildren, and were pleased to hear that she was a grandmother herself, and hoped in a year or two to welcome her grandchildren.

Alethea and her little Somervilles she had seen en route to Canada, and Phyllis was to come in due time when Bernard Underwood could be spared from the bank in Colombo, and they would bring their little pair.

In the matter of bridesmaids Gillian certainly had the advantage, for she was amply provided with sisters and cousins, Dolores coming for a few days for the wedding; whereas the six whom Maura had provided for beforehand in Paris were only, as Miss Jane said, "scraped up" with difficulty from former schoolfellows. Lord Roger's nieces would not hear of being present. Paulina was unwillingly pressed into the service, as well as the more willing Vera; but Mysie Merrifield was not to be persuaded to give up her visit to Lady Phyllis, and Aunt Jane could only carry home Valetta, who held the whole as "capital fun," and liked the acquisition of the white silk and lace and cerise ribbons. Dolores had negotiated that No. 6 of the Vanderkist girls should spend a year with Miss Mohun for a final polish at the High School at Rock Quay, so as to be with her brother Adrian, who was completing his term at the preparatory school before his launch at Winchester.

Wilfred also returned, father and uncle having decided that he did not merit a game licence, nor to attack the partridges of Beechcroft, and the prospect of the gaieties of Cliffe House consoled him.

Adeline had to endure her husband's mortification at other disappointments. The Ducal family was wholly unrepresented. Even Emily, the connecting link, would not venture on the journey; and the clerical nephew was not sufficiently gratified by Lord Roger's intention to se ranger to undertake to officiate; and a Bishop, who had enjoyed the hospitality of Rocca Marina, proved to have other engagements. No clergyman could be imported except Maura's brother Alexis, who had been two years at work at Coalham under Mr. Richard Burnet, and had just been appointed by the newly-chosen Bishop of Onomootka, and both were to go out with him as chaplains. In the meantime, while the Bishop was preparing, by tours in England, Alexis undertook the duties of Mr. Flight's curate, rejoicing in the opportunity of seeing his elder sister, and the old friends with whom he had never been since his unlucky troubles with Gillian Merrifield, now no more.

The delight of receiving him compensated to Kalliope Henderson for much that was distressing to both in Maura's choice. The seven years that had passed had made him into a noble-looking man, with a handsome classical countenance, lighted up by earnestness and devotion, a fine voice and much musical skill, together with a bright attractive manner that, all unconsciously on his part, had turned the heads of half the young womanhood of Coalham, and soon had the same effect at Rock Quay.

Vera and Paulina were in a state of much excitement over their white silks, in which the three other sisters took great pleasure in arraying them, and Thekla only wished that Hubert could see them. She should send him out a photograph, buying it herself with her own money.

She was, of course, to see the wedding, in her Sunday white and broad pink sash, of the appropriateness of which she was satisfied when, at Beechcroft, they met Miss Mohun's young friend, Miss Vanderkist, in the same garb. She and her brother had been put under Magdalen's protection, as Miss Mohun was too much wanted at Cliffe House to look after them; but Sir Adrian, a big boy of twelve, wanted to go his own way, and only handed her over with "Hallo, Miss Prescott! you'll look after this pussy-cat of ours while Aunt Jane is dosing Aunt Ada with salts and sal volatile. She—I'll introduce you! Miss Prescott, Miss Felicia Vanderkist! She wants to be looked after, she is a little kitten that has never seen anything! I'm off to Martin's."

The stranger did look very shy. She was a slight creature, not yet seventeen, with an abundant mass of long golden silk hair tied loosely, and a very lovely face and complexion, so small that she was a miniature edition of Lady Ivinghoe.

Her name was Wilmet Felicia, but the latter half had been always used in the family, and there was something in the kitten grace that suited the arbitrary contractions well. In fact, Jane Mohun had been rather startled to find that she had the charge of such a little beauty, when she saw how people turned around at the station to look, certainly not at Valetta, who was a dark bright damsel of no special mark.

At church, however, every one was in much too anxious a state to gaze at the coming procession to have any eyes to spare for a childish girl in a quiet white frock. St. Andrew's had never seen such a crowded congregation, for it was a wedding after Mr. White's own heart, in which nobody dared to interfere, not even his wife, whatever her good taste might think. So the church was filled, and more than filled, by all who considered a wedding as legitimate gape seed, and themselves as not bound to fit behaviour in church. On such an occasion Magdalen, being a regular attendant, and connected with the bridesmaids, was marshalled by a churchwarden into a reserved seat; but there they were dismayed by the voices and the scrambling behind them, which, in the long waiting, the Vicar from the vestry vainly tried to subdue by severe looks; and Felicia, whose notions of wedding behaviour were moulded on Vale Lecton and Beechcroft, looked as if she thought she had got into the house of Duessa, amid all Pride's procession, as in the prints in the large- volumed "Faerie Queene."

And when, on the sounds of an arrival, the bridegroom stood forth, the resemblance to Sans Foy was only too striking, while the party swept up the church, the bride in the glories of cobweb veil, white satin, &c., becomingly drooping on her uncle's arm, while he beamed forth, expansive in figure and countenance, with delight. Little Jasper Henderson, anxious and patronising to his tiny brother Alexis, both in white pages' dresses picked out with cerise, did his best to support the endless glistening train.

The bridesmaids' costumes taxed the descriptive powers of the milliners in splendour and were scarcely eclipsed by the rich brocade and lace of Mrs. White, as she sailed in on Captain Henderson's arm; but her elaborate veil and feathery bonnet hardly concealed the weary tedium of her face, though to the shame, well nigh horror, of her sister, she was rouged. "I must, I must," she said; "he would be vexed if I looked pale."

It was true that "he" loved her heartily, and that he put all the world at her service; but she had learnt where he must not be offended, and was on her guard. Hers had been the last wedding that Jane had attended in St. Andrew's. "Did she repent?" was Jane's thought. No, probably not. She had the outward luxuries she had craved for, and her husband was essentially a good man, though not of the caste to which her instincts belonged—very superior in nature and conscience to him to whom his blinded vanity was now giving his beautiful niece, a willing sacrifice.

It was over! More indecorous whispering and thronging; and the procession came down the aisle, to be greeted outside by a hail of confetti and rice; the schoolboys, profiting by the dinner interval, and headed by Adrian, had jostled themselves into the foreground, and they ran headlong to the portico of Cliffe House to renew the shower.

And there, unluckily, Mr. White recognised the boy, and, pleased to have anything with a title to show, turned him round to the bridegroom, with, "Here, Lord Roger, let me introduce a guest, Sir Adrian Vanderkist."

"Ha, I didn't know poor Van had left a son. I knew your father, my boy. Where was it I saw him last? Poor old chap!"

"You must come in to taste the cake, my boy," began Mr. White.

"Thank you, Mr. White, I must get back to Edgar's. Late already. The others are off."

"Not a holiday! For shame! He'll excuse you. I'll send a note down to say you must stay to drink the health of your father's old friend."

Those words settled the matter with Adrian. The holiday was enticing, and might have overpowered the chances of a scholarship, for which he was working; but he had begun to know that there were perplexities from which it was safer to retreat; and that he had never transgressed his Uncle Clement's warning might be read in the clear open face that showed already the benefits, not only of discipline, but of self-control. So obedience answered the question; though, as he again thanked and refused, he looked so dogged as he turned and walked off, that Ethel Varney whispered to Vera that at school he was called, "the Dutchman, if not the Boer."

Nor did he ever mention the temptation or his own resistance. Only Mr. White asked Miss Mohun to bring him to the dance which was to be given in the evening, telling her of his refusal of the invitation to wedding cake and champagne and she—mindful of her duty to her charge as hinted by Clement Underwood—had not granted the honour of his presence on the score of his school obligations.

The afternoon was spent in desultory wanderings about the gardens, Magdalen and her sisters being invited guests, and Vera in a continual state of agitated expectation. Had not Wilfred Merrifield always been a cavalier of her own? And here he was, paying no attention to her, with all the embellishment of her bridesmaid's adornments, and squiring instead that little insignificant Felicia, in a simple hat, and hair still on her shoulders; whilst she had to put up with nothing better than a young Varney, who was very shy, and had never probably mastered croquet.

She was an ill-used mortal; and why had she not Hubert to show how superior she was to them all, in having a piece of property of her own to show off?

There was Paula, too, playing animated tennis with that clerical brother of the bride, who had been talking to Magdalen about the frescoes of St. Kenelm's (as if she, Vera, had not the greatest right to know all about those frescoes!). Even little Thekla was better off, for she was reigning over a merry party of the little ones, which had been got up for the benefit of the small Hendersons, and of which Theodore White had constituted himself the leader, being a young man passionately devoted to little children.

So when the guests dispersed to eat their dinner at their homes and dress for the dance, Vera was extremely cross. Each of the other three had some delightful experiences to talk over; but whether it was Mr. Theodore's fun in acting ogre behind the great aloe, or Mr. Alexis's achievements with the croquet ball, or his information about the Red Indians and Onomootka, she was equally ungracious to all; she scolded Thekla for crumpling her skirt, and was quite sure that Paula had on the wrong fichu that was meant for her. Each bridesmaid had been presented with a bracelet, like a snake with ruby eyes; but Vera, fingering hers with fidgeting petulance, seemed to have managed to loosen the clasp, and when arranging her dress for the evening thought that her snake had escaped.

Upstairs and downstairs she rushed in hopes of finding it. The cab in which they had returned was gone home to come again, and there was the chance that it might be there or in the Cliffe House gardens; and then the others tried to console her, but they were not able to hinder a violent burst of crying, which scandalised Thekla.

"I am sure you couldn't cry more if you had lost Hubert's, and that would be something worth crying about."

Hubert's was an ingeniously worked circle of scales of Californian gold, the first ornament that Vera had ever possessed, and that all the sisters had set great store by. But with an outcry of joy Vera exclaimed, "Here's the snake all safe! I pushed the other up my arm because it looked so plain and dull, and it was that which came off."

"That is a great deal worse than losing the snake," said Thekla. "He has a nasty face, and I don't like him, with his red eyes."

"Don't be silly," returned Vera; "this is a great deal more valuable."

"Surely the value is in the giver," said Paula; to which Vera returned in the same vein, "Don't be silly and sentimental, Polly."

She was so much cheered by the recovery of the snake that they brought her off to the evening dance without a fresh fit of ill- humour, and she sprang out under the portico of Cliffe House, with her spirits raised to expectation pitch.

But disappointment was in store for her. It was not disappointment in other eyes. Paula had all the attention she expected or desired, she danced almost every time and did not reckon greatly on who might be her partner. What pleased and honoured her most was being asked to dance by Captain Henderson himself.

What was it to Vera, however, that partners came to her, young men of Rock Quay whom she knew already and did not care about? And she never once had the pleasure of saying that she was keeping the next dance for Wilfred Merrifield! To her perceptions, he was always figuring away with Felicia Vanderkist, her golden hair seemed always gleaming with him; and though this was not always the case, as the nephew of the house was one of those who had duties to guests and was not allowed by his aunts to be remiss, yet whenever he was not ordered about by them, he was sure to be found by Felicia's side.

Vera's one consolation was that Alexis White took her to supper. To be sure he was a clergyman, and had stood talking to Lady Flight half the time, and his conversation turned at once to Hubert Delrio's frescoes; but then he was very handsome, and graceful in manner, and he sympathised with her on the loss of her bracelet, and promised to have a search for it by daylight in the gardens.



CHAPTER XX—FLEETING



"And variable as the shade By the light quivering aspen made." - SCOTT.

The bracelet came to light in the gardens of Cliffe House the next morning, and Alexis White walked over to the Goyle to return it safely, little guessing, when he set forth to enjoy the sight of the purple moors, and to renew old recollections, what a flutter of gratified vanity would be excited in one silly little breast, though he only stayed ten minutes, and casually asked whether the sisters were coming to Lady Flight's garden party. Everybody was going there. Miss Mohun even took Felicia, as it was on a Saturday's holiday; and, unwittingly, she renewed all the agitation caused by Wilfred's admiration, and that of others, to the all-unconscious girl. Vera could no longer think herself the reigning belle of Rock Quay, though she talked of Felicia as a schoolgirl or a baby, or a horrid little forward chit! Her excitement was, however, divided between Wilfred and Mr. Alexis White, who could not look in her direction without putting her in a state of eagerness.

In this, however, she was not alone. Half the ladies were interested about him; his manners were charming, his voice in church beautiful, and his destination as chaplain to a missionary bishop made him doubly interesting; while he himself, even though his mind was set on higher things, was really enjoying his brief holiday, and his sister, Mrs. Henderson, was delighted to promote his pleasure, and garden parties and the like flourished as long as weather permitted; and as Vera was a champion player, she was sure to be asked to the tournaments, and to have to practise for them.

Inopportunely there arrived a letter from Hubert, requiring an answer about the form of ornament in the moulding of the fourteenth century! Paula dutifully went to the library, looked out and traced two or three examples, French and English. Nothing remained but for Vera to write the letter after the early dinner. However, she went to sleep in a hammock, and only roused herself to recollect that there was to be tea and lawn tennis at Carrara.

"Won't you just write to Hubert first?"

"Oh, bother, how can I now? Don't worry so!"

"But, Flapsy, he really needs it without loss of time."

"I'm sure he has no right to make me his clerk in that horrid peremptory way, as if one had nothing else to do but wait on his fads."

"Flapsy, how can you?" broke out even Thekla.

"Surely it is the greatest honour," said Paula.

"Well, do it yourself then, I'm not going to be bothered for ever."

Thekla went off, in great indignation, to beg "sister" to speak to Flapsy, and beg her not to use dear Hubert so very very badly, which of course Magdalen refused to do, and Thekla had her first lesson on the futility of interfering with engaged folk; Paula meanwhile sent off the despatch, with one line to say that Vera was too busy to write that day.

There had been two or three letters from Hubert, over which Vera had looked cross, but had said nothing; and at last she came down from her own room, and announced passionately, "There! I have done with Mr. Hubert Delrio, and have written to tell him so!"

"Vera, what have you done?"

"Written to tell him I have no notion of a man being so tiresome and dictatorial! I don't want a schoolmaster to lecture me, and expect me to drudge over his work as if I was his clerk."

"My dear," said Magdalen, "have you had a letter that vexed you? Had you not better wait a little to think it over?"

"No! Nonsense, Maidie! He has been provoking ever so long, and I won't bear it any longer!" and she flounced into a chair.

"Provoking! Hubert!" was all Paulina could utter, in her amazement and horror.

"Oh, I daresay you would like it well enough! Always at me to slave for him with stupid architectural drawings and stuff, as if I was only a sort of clerk or fag! And boring me to read great dull books, and preaching to me about them, expecting to know what I think! Dear me!"

"Those nice letters!" sighed Paula.

"Nice! As if any one that was one bit in love would write such as that! No, I don't want to marry a schoolmaster or a tyrant!"

"How can you, Flapsy?" went on Paula, so vehemently that Magdalen left the defence thus far to her; "when he only wishes for your sympathy and improvement."

The worst plea she could have used, thought the elder sister, as Vera broke out with, "Improvement, indeed! If he cared for me, he would not think I wanted any IMPROVING! But he never did! Or he would have taken Pratt and Povis' offer, and I should have been living in London and keeping my carriage! Or he would have taken me to Italy! But that horrid home of his, and his mother just like a half-starved hare! I might have seen then it was not fit for me; but I was a child, and over-persuaded among you all! But I know better now, and I know my own mind, as I didn't then. So you need not talk! I have done with him."

"Oh, Flapsy, Flapsy, how can you grieve him so? You don't know what you are throwing away!" incoherently cried Paula, collapsing in a burst of tears. "Maidie, Maidie, why don't you speak to her, and tell her how wicked it is—and—and—and—"

The rest was cut short by sobs.

"No, Paula, authority or reasoning of mine would not touch such a mood as this. We must leave it to Hubert himself. If she really cares for him, she will have recovered from her fit of temper by the time his letter can come, and it may have an effect upon her, if our tongues have not increased her spirit of opposition. I strongly advise you to say nothing."

Paula tried to take her sister's advice, and would have adhered to it, but that Vera would talk and try to make her declare the rupture to have been justified; and this produced an amount of wrangling which did good to no one. Magdalen really rejoiced when the frequent golf and tennis parties carried Vera on her bicycle out of reach of arguing, even if it took her into the alternative of flirtation.

Thekla cried bitterly, and declared that she should never speak to Flapsy again; but in half an hour's time was heard chattering about the hedgehog's meal of cockroaches. In another week the excitement was over. The Bishop of Onomootka had come and gone, after holding meetings and preaching sermons at Rock Quay and all the villages round, and had carried off Alexis White with him.

Nothing had come of the intercourse of the latter with his rich uncle, nor of the varieties of encounters with the damsels of Rock Quay, except that society was declared by more than one to have become horridly flat and slow.

Vera was one of these, and the letters received from Hubert Delrio did not stir up a fresh excitement. There were no persuasions to revoke her decision, no urgent entreaties, no declaration of being heart-broken. He acquiesced in her assurance that the engagement had been a mistake; and he wrote at more length to Magdalen, avowing that he had for some time past traced discontent in Vera's letters, and fearing that he had been too didactic and peremptory in writing to her. He relinquished the engagement with much regret, and should always regard it as having been a fair summer dream—but, though undeserving, he hoped still to retain Miss Prescott's kindness and friendship, which had been of untold value to him.

A little more zeal and distress would have been much more pleasing to Vera; and she began to be what Agatha and Thekla called cross, and Paula called drooping, and even excited alarm in her, lest Flapsy should be going into a decline. But a note came to the Goyle which Magdalen read alone, and likewise she cycled alone to Rockstone.

"Miss Mohun, can you give me a few minutes?" said she, as the trim little figure emerged from beneath the copper beeches, basket in hand.

"By all means; I shall not be due at the cutting-out meeting till three o'clock."

"I wanted to consult you about an invitation that Mrs. White has been so very kind as to give my little sister, Vera."

"Oh!" quoth Jane Mohun, in a dry sort of tone.

"I know that she had wished to take out one of her own nieces to Rocca Marina, but that Sir Jasper did not wish it, and I thought perhaps it would be easier for you than for Lady Merrifield to tell me whether there is any objection that would apply to Vera."

"I suppose Vera wishes to go?"

"She is so wild with delight that it would be a serious thing to disappoint her. Mrs. White is very kind and good, and has thought that she has flagged of late, and has supposed it might be due to poor Hubert Delrio, but, indeed, it was no fault of his."

"None at all, except for out-growing her."

"The offer was hinted at to go with Valetta even before we knew it was declined at Clipstone, and that made me anxious to know whether it would be well for me to send Vera. I suppose she would pick up pronunciation of languages, which would be a great advantage, as she will have to earn her own living, and Mrs. White is so good as to promise lessons in arts and music. I hear, too, it is quite an English colony, with a church and schools."

"Oh, yes, Mr. White is a very good and careful man about his workmen. I have been there at the Henderson's wedding, and it is a charming place, a castle fit for Mrs. Radclyffe, with English comforts, and an Italian garden and an English village on the mountain side. My sister would do all that she promises, and would look after any young girl very well; you may quite trust her."

"Then is there any fear of Italian society?—not that poor Vera has any attraction OF THAT KIND," hesitated Magdalen.

"None at all. All the society they have is of English travellers coming with introductions. I fancy it is very dull at times, and that Adeline wants a young person about her. You need have no fears. Ah! I see you still want to know why the Merrifields don't consent. It is not their way. They would not let the Rotherwoods have Mysie to bring up with Phyllis, and—and Val is just the being that needs a mother's eye over her. But I really and honestly think that your Vera may quite safely be put under Adeline's care, and that she is likely to be all the better for it."

"One thing more, added Magdalen, with a little hesitation; "is your nephew, Wilfred, likely to be one of the party?"

"None at all. His father wants to keep him under his own eye, and his mother is anxious about his health; nor do I think Mr. White wants him, having his own two nephews, who are useful, so he will remain under Captain Henderson here."

"Thank you! That settles it in my mind. I am sure the change to a fresh home will be an excellent thing for my poor Vera, and that the training of imitation of one to whom she looks up is what she most needs."

"Very true," said Miss Mohun.

And as she afterwards said to Lady Merrifield, "It was in all sincerity and honesty that I gave the advice to Magdalen, who is very sensible in the matter. In plain English, Ada can't do without a lady in waiting, and Vera probably fancies that Lords, young or old, start from every wave like the spirits of our fathers, at Rocca Marina, in which she will probably be disappointed; but Ada will be a very dragon as to her manners and discretion, and not being his own niece, old Tom White will not be deluded by his ambition and any blandishments of hers. As people go, they are very safe guardians, and Vera—Flapsy as they call her—is just of the composition to be improved, and not disimproved, by living with Ada."

"Probably, though I do not like the foolish little puss to be rewarded for throwing over young Delrio."

"He was so much too good for her that I am more inclined to reward her for doing so!"

Agatha, however, came home somewhat annoyed by the whole arrangement. She supposed the rupture with Hubert might have been inevitable; but she was very sorry for it, thinking that Vera might have grown up to him, and regretting the losing him as a brother. Nor did she like the atmosphere of the Whites and Rocca Marina for her feather-brained young sister. "Dolores had no great opinion of her Aunt Adeline," she said.

"My dear," said Magdalen, as they sat over their early fire, "I have talked it over with Lady Merrifield and Miss Mohun, and they both tell me that Mrs. White is very sensible, and sure to be discreet for any girl in her charge—probably better for Flapsy than a more intellectual woman."

"But—! Such a marriage as this one!" said Agatha.

"It was Mr. White's own niece, and taken out of Mrs. White's hands," said Magdalen. "Besides," as Agatha still looked unconvinced, "one thing that made me think the invitation desirable was that it would break off any foolishness with Wilfred Merrifield—I think it was in their minds too."

"Wilfred! Oh, there was a little nonsense."

"Less on his side, since Felicia Vanderkist has been here; but I think Vera has been all the more disposed to—to—"

"Run after him," said Agatha. "I could fancy it in Flapsy; but he is such a boy, and not half so nice-looking as the rest of them either."

"My dear Agatha, I must tell you he reminds me strangely of a young Mr. Merrifield whom I knew at Filsted when I was younger than you."

"A brother of Bessie?"

"Even so. He got into some kind of trouble at Filsted, his father came and broke it off, and sent him out to Canada, where I fear he did not do well, and nothing has been heard of him since, except -

She spoke with a catch in her voice which made Agatha look up at her, and detect a rising colour.

"Nothing!" she repeated.

"Except an anonymous parcel, returning to the brothers in Canada the sum he had taken with him. Strangely, the clue was not followed up, and he is lost sight of! But Wilfred's air, and still more his manner, is always recalling his cousin to me, and, Nag, dear, I could not bear to see Vera go through the same trial by my exposing her to the intercourse. Not that I know any harm of Wilfred, but his parents could not like anything of the kind."

"Certainly not! Yes, I suppose you are right, dear old Maidie." But Agatha pondered over those words that had slipped out, "the same trial."



CHAPTER XXI—THE ELECTRICIANS



"Thou shalt have the air Of freedom. Follow and do me service." - "THE TEMPEST."

"Is Agatha in?" asked Dolores Mohun, jumping off her bicycle as she saw Magdalen, on a frosty day the next Christmas vacation, in her garden.

"She is doing scientific arithmetic with Thekla; giving me a holiday, in fact! You University maidens quite take the shine out of us poor old teachers."