"Ah! if we can give shine we can't give substance. But I want to borrow Nag, if you have no objection."

"Borrow her! I am sure it is something she will like."

"It is in the way of business, but she will like it all the same. They want me to give a course of lectures on electricity at Bexley to the Institute and the two High Schools, and I particularly want a skilled assistant, whom I can depend upon; not masters, nor boys! Now Nag is just what I should like. We should stay at Lancelot Underwood's, a very charming place to be at."

"Isn't he some connection?"

"Connection all round. Phyllis Merrifield married his brother, banking in Ceylon, and may come home any day on a visit; and Ivinghoe's pretty wife is Lancelot's niece. He edits what is really the crack newspaper of the county, in spite of its being true blue Conservative, Church and all."

"The Pursuivant? It has such good literary articles."

"Oh, yes! Mrs. Grinstead and Canon Harewood write them. His wife is a daughter of old Dr. May—rather a peculiar person, but very jolly in her way."

"But would they like to have Agatha imposed upon them?"

"Certainly; they are just the people to like nothing better, and it will only be for a fortnight. I have settled it all with them."

At which Magdalen looked a little doubtful, but Dolores reiterated that there need be no scruple, she might ask Aunt Lily if she liked; but Lance Underwood was Mayor, and member of all the committees, and the most open-hearted man in the world besides, and it was all right.

To the further demur as to safety, Dolores answered that to light a candle or sit by the fire might be dangerous, but as long as people were careful, it was all right, and Agatha had already assisted in some experiments at Rock Quay, which had shown her to be thoroughly understanding and trustworthy, and capable of keeping off the amateur—the great bugbear.

So Magdalen consented, after rapturous desires on the part of Agatha, and assurances from General Mohun that Dolores had it in her by inheritance and by training to meddle with the lightning as safely as human being might; and Lady Merrifield owned with a sigh that she must accept as a fact that what even the heathens owned as a Divine mystery and awful attribute, had come to be treated as a commonplace business messenger and scientific toy, though (as Mrs. Gatty puts it) the mystery had only gone deeper. So much for the peril; and for the other scruple, it was set at rest by a hospitable letter from Mrs. Underwood, heartily inviting Miss Agatha Prescott, as an Oxford friend of Gillian.

So off the two electricians set, and after two days of business and sight-seeing in London, went down to Bexley. In the third-class carriage in which they travelled they were struck by the sight of a tall lady in mourning—a sort of compromise between a conventual and a secular bonnet over short fair hair, and holding on her lap a tiny little girl of about six years old, with a small, pinched, delicate face and slightly red hair, to whom she pointed out by name each spot they passed, herself wearing an earnest absorbed look of recognition as she pointed out familiar landmark after landmark till the darkness came down. Also there were two cages—one with a small pink cockatoo, and another with two budgerigars.

As the train began slackening Dolores exclaimed:

"There he is! Lance—!"

"Lance! Oh, Lance!" was echoed; and setting the child down, her companion almost fell across Agatha, and was at the window as the train stopped.

What happened in the next moment no one could quite tell; but as the door was torn open there was a mingled cry of "Angel!" and of "Lance!" and the traveller was in his arms, turning the next moment to lift out the frightened little girl, who clung tight round her neck; while Lance held out his hand with, "Dolores! Yes. This is Dolores, Angel, whom you have never seen."

Each knew who the other was in a moment, and clasped hands in greeting, as well as they could with the one, and the other receiving bird-cages, handbags, umbrellas, and rugs from Agatha, whom, however, Lance relieved of them with a courteous, "Miss Prescott! You have come in for the arrival of my Australian sister! What luggage have you?" Wherewith all was absorbed in the recognition of boxes, and therewith a word or two to an old railway official, "My sister Angela."

"Miss Angela! this is an unexpected pleasure!"

"Tom Lightfoot! is it you? You are not much altered. Mr. Dane, I should have known you anywhere!" with corresponding shakes of the hand.

"Yes, that's ours. Oh, the birds! There they are! All right! Oh! not the omnibus, Lance! Let the traps go in that! Then Lena will like to stretch her legs, and I must revel in the old street."

Dolores and Agatha felt it advisable to squeeze themselves with the bird-cages into the omnibus, and leave the brother and sister to walk down together, though the little girl still adhered closely to her protector's hand.

"Poor Field's little one? Yes, of course."

"But tell me! tell me of them all!"

"All well! all right! But how—"

"The Mozambique was out of coal and had to put in at Falmouth. You know, I came by her because they said the long sea voyage would be best for this child, and it was so long since I had heard of any one that I durst not send anywhere till I knew—and I knew Froggatt's would be in its own place. Oh! there's the new hotel! the gas looks just the same! There's the tower of St. Oswald's, all shadowy against the sky. Look, Lena! Oh! this is home! I know the lamps. I've dreamt of them! Tired, Lena, dear? cold? Shall I carry you?"

"No, no; let me!" and he lifted her up, not unwillingly on her part, though she did not speak. "You are a light weight," he said.

"I am afraid so," answered Angel. "Oh! there's the bus stopping at Mr. Pratt's door."

"Mine, now. We have annexed it."

"But let me go in by the dear old shop. The window is as of old, I see. Ernest Lamb! don't you know me?" as a respectable tradesman came forward. "And Achille, is it? You are as much changed as this old shop is transmogrified! And they are all well? Do you mean Bernard?"

"Bernard and Phyllis may come home any day to deposit a child. They lost their boy, and hope to save the elder one. But come, Angel! if you have taken in enough we must go up to those electrical girls. Dolores is come to give a lecture, with the other girl to assist, Miss Prescott."

"Dolores! Yes, poor Gerald's love! They are almost myths to me. Ah!" as Lancelot opened his office-door, "now I know where I am! And there's the old staircase! This is the real thing, and no mistake."

"Angel, Angel, come to tea!" And Gertrude, comfortable and substantial, in loving greeting threw arms round the new comers, Lance still carrying the child, who clung round his neck as he brought her into the room, full of his late fellow travellers, and also of a group of children.

"It is as if we had gone back thirty years or more," was Angela's cry, as she looked forth on what had been as little altered as possible from the old family centre; and Lance, setting down the child, spoke as the pretty little blue-eyed girls advanced to exchange kisses with their new aunt.

"Margaret, or Pearl, whom you knew as a baby; Etheldred, or Awdrey, and Dickie! Fely is at Marlborough. There, take little Lena—is that her name—to your table, and give her some tea."

"Her name is Magdalen," said Angela, removing the little black hat and smoothing the hair; but Lena backed against her, and let her hand hang limp in Pearl's patronising clasp. Nor would she amalgamate with the children, nor even eat or drink except still beside "Sister," as she called Angela. In fact, she was so thoroughly worn out and tired, as well as shy and frightened, that Angela's attention was wholly given to her and she could only be put to bed, but not in the nursery, which, as Angel said, seemed to her like a den of little wild beasts. So she was deposited in the chamber and bed hastily prepared for the unexpected guest; and even there, being wakeful and feverish from over-fatigue, there was no leaving her alone, and Gertrude, after seeing her safely installed, could only go down with the hope that she would be able to spare her slave or nurse, which was it? by dinner-time.

"Who is that child so like?" said Dolores, in their own room.

"Very like somebody, but I can't tell whom," said Agatha. "Who did you say she is?"

"I cannot say I exactly know," said Dolores. "I believe she is the daughter of Fulbert Underwood's mate, on a sheep-farm in Queensland, and that as her mother died when she was born, she has been always under the care of this Angela, living in the Sisterhood there."

"Not a Sister?"

"Not under vows, certainly. I never saw her before, but I believe she is rather a funny flighty person, and that Fulbert was afraid at one time that she would marry this child's father."

"Is he alive?"

"Which? Fulbert died four or five years ago, and I think the little girl's father must be dead, for she is in mourning."

"There's something very charming about her—Miss Underwood."

"Yes there is. They all seem to be very fond of her, and yet to laugh about her, and never to be quite sure what she will do next."

"Did I not hear of her being so useful among the Australian black women?"

"No one has ever managed those very queer gins so well; and she is an admirable nurse too, they say. I am very glad to have come in her way."

They did not, however, see much of her that evening. The head master of the Grammar School and his wife, the head mistress of the High School, and a few others had been invited to meet them; and Angela could only just appear at dinner, trusting to a slumber of her charge, but, on coming out of the dining-room, a wail summoned her upstairs at once, and she was seen no more that night.

However, with morning freshness, Lena showed herself much less farouche, and willing to accept the attentions of Mr. Underwood first, and, later, of his little daughter Pearl—a gentle, elder sisterly person, who knew how to avert the too rough advances of Dick—and made warm friends over the pink cockatoo; while Awdrey was entranced by the beauties of the budgerigars.

Robina had been informed by telegram, and came up from Minsterham with her husband, looking just like his own father, and grown very broad. He was greatly interested in the lecture, and went off to it, to consider whether it would be desirable for the Choristers' School. Lancelot had, of course, to go, and Angela declared that she must be brought up to date, and rejoiced that Lena was able to submit to be left with the other children under the protection of Mrs. Underwood, who averred that she abhorred electricity in all its forms, and that if Lance were induced to light the town, or even the shop by that means, he must begin by disposing of her by a shock.

It was an excellent lecture, only the two sisters hardly heard it. They could think of nothing but that they were once more sitting side by side in the old hall, where they had heard and shared in so many concerts, on the gala days of their home life.

The two lecturers, as well as the rest of the party, were urgently entreated to stay to tea at the High School; but when the interest of the new arrival was explained, the sisters and brother were released to go home, Canon Harewood remaining to content their hostesses.



CHAPTER XXII—ANGEL AND BEAR



"Enough of science and of art! Close up those barren leaves, Come forth, and bring with you a heart That watches and receives." - WORDSWORTH.

A telegram had been handed to Mr. Mayor, which he kept to himself, smiling over it, and he—at least—was not taken utterly by surprise at the sight of a tall handsome man, who stepped forward with something like a shout.

"Angel! Lance! Why, is it Robin, too?"

"Bear, Bear, old Bear, how did you come?"

"I couldn't stop when I heard at Clipstone that Angel was here, so I left Phyllis and the kid with her mother. Oh, Angel, Angel, to meet at Bexley after all!"

They clung together almost as they had done when they were the riotous elements of the household, while Lance opened the front door, and Robina, mindful of appearances, impelled them into the hall, Bernard exclaiming, "Pratt's room! Whose teeth is it?"

"Don't you want Wilmet to hold your hands and make you open your mouth?" said Lance, laughing.

Gertrude, who had already received the Indian arrival, met Angela, who was bounding up to see to her charge, with, "Not come in yet! She is gone out with the children quite happily, with Awdrey's doll in her arms. Come and enjoy each other in peace."

"In the office, please," said Angela. "That is home. We shall be our four old selves."

Lance opened the office door, and gave a hint to Mr. Lamb, while they looked at each other by the fire.

Bernard was by far the most altered. The others were slightly changed, but still their "old selves," while he was a grave responsible man, looking older than Lancelot, partly from the effects of climate; but Angela saw enough to make her exclaim, "Here we are! Don't you feel as if we were had down to Felix to be blown up?"

"Not a bit altered," said Bernard, looking at the desks and shelves of ledgers, with the photographs over the mantelpiece—Felix, Mr. Froggatt, the old foreman, and a print of Garofalo's Vision of St. Augustine, hung up long ago by Felix, as Lance explained, as a token of the faith to which all human science and learning should be subordinated.

"A declaration of the Pursuivant," said Angela. "How Fulbert did look out for Pur! I believe it was his only literature."

"Phyllis declares," said Bernard, "that nothing so upsets me as a failure in Pur's arrival."

"And this is Pur's heart and centre!" said Robina.

"Only," added Angela, "I miss the smell of burnt clay that used to pervade the place, and that Alda so hated."

"Happily the clay is used up," said Lance. "I could not have brought Gertrude and the children here if the ceramic art, as they call it, had not departed. Cherry was so delighted at our coming to live here. She loved the old struggling days."

"Fulbert said he never felt as if he had been at home till he came here. He never TOOK to Vale Leston."

"Clement and Cherry have settled in very happily," said Robina, "with convalescent clergy in the Vicarage."

"I say, Angel, let us have a run over there," cried Bernard, "you and I together, for a bit of mischief."

"Do, DO let us! Though this is real home, our first waking to perception and naughtiness, it is more than Vale Leston. We seem to have been up in a balloon all those five happy years."

"A balloon?" said Bernard. "Nay, it seems to me that till they were over, I never thought at all except how to get the most rollicking and the finest rowing out of life. It seems to me that I had about as much sense as a green monkey."

"Something sank in, though," said Lance; "you did not drift off like poor Edgar."

"Some one must have done so," said Angela. "I wanted to ask you, Lancey, about advertising for my little Lena's people; the Bishop said I ought."

"I say," exclaimed Bernard, "was it her father that was Fulbert's mate? I thought he was afraid of your taking up with him. You didn't?"

"No, no. Let me tell you, I want you to know. Field and a little wife came over from Melbourne prospecting for a place to sit down in. They had capital, but the poor wife was worn out and ill, and after taking them in for a night, Fulbert liked them. Field was an educated man and a gentleman, and Ful offered them to stay there in partnership. So they stayed, and by and by this child was born, and the poor mother died. The two great bearded men came galloping over to Albertstown from Carrigaboola, with this new born baby, smaller than even Theodore was, and I had the care of her from the very first, and Field used to ride over and see the little thing."

"And—?" said Bernard, in a rather teasing voice, as his eyes actually looked at Angela's left hand.

"I'll own it DID tempt me. I had had some great disappointments with my native women, running wild again, and I could not bear my child having a horrid stepmother; and there was the glorious free bush life, and the horses and the sheep! But then I thought of you all saying Angel had broken out again; and by and by Fulbert came and told me that he was sure there was some ugly mystery, and spoke to Mother Constance, and they made me promise not to take him unless it was cleared up. Then, as you know, dear Ful's horse fell with him; Field came and fetched me to their hut, and I was there to the last. Ful told each of us again that all must be plain and explained before we thought of anything in the future. He, Henry Field, said he had great hopes that he should be able to set it right. Then, as you know, there was no saving dear Fulbert, and after that Mother Constance's illness began. Oh! Bear, do you recollect her coming in and mothering us in the little sitting-room? I could not stir from her, of course, while she was with us. And after that, Harry Field came and said he had written a letter to England, and when the answer came, he would tell me all, and I should judge! But I don't think the answer ever did come, and he went to Brisbane to see if it was at the bank; and there he caught a delirious fever, and there was an end of it

At that moment something between a whine or a call of "sister" was heard. Up leapt Angela and hurried away, while Lance observed, "Well! That's averted, but I am sorry for her."

"It was not love," said Robina.

"Or only for the child," said Bernard; "and that would have been a dangerous speculation."

"The child or something else has been very good for her," said Lance; "I never saw her so gentle and quiet."

"And with the same charm about her as ever," said Bernard. "I don't wonder that all the fellows fall in love with her. I hope she won't make havoc among Clement's sick clergy."

"I suppose we ought to go up and fulfil the duties of society," said Robina, rising. "But first, Bear, tell me how is Phyllis?"

"Pretty fair," he answered. "Resting with her mother, but she has never been quite the thing of late. I almost hope Sir Ferdinand will see his way to keeping us at home, or we shall have to leave our little Lily."

Interruption occurred as a necessary summons to "Mr. Mayor," and the paternal conclave was broken up, and had to adjourn to Gertrude's tea in the old sitting-room.

"I see!" exclaimed Agatha, as she looked at the party of children at their supplementary table. "I see what the likeness is in that child. Don't you, Dolores? Is it not to Wilfred Merrifield?"

"There is very apt to be a likeness between sandy people, begging your pardon, Angel," said Gertrude.

"Yes, the carroty strain is apt to crop up in families," said Lance, "like golden tabbies, as you ladies call your stable cats."

"All the Mohuns are dark," said Dolores, "and all Aunt Lily's children, except Wilfred; and is not your Phyllis of that colour?"

"Phyllis's hair is not red, but dark auburn," said Bernard, in a tone like offence.

"I never saw Phyllis," said dark-browed Dolores, "but I have heard the aunts talk over the source of the—the fair variety, and trace it to the Merrifields. Uncle Jasper is brown, and so is Bessie; but Susan is, to put it politely, just a golden tabby, and David's baby promises to be, to her great delight, as she says he will be a real Merrifield. So much for family feeling!"

"Sister, Sister!" came in a bright tone, "may I go with Pearl and get a stick for Ben? He wants something to play with! He is eating his perch."

Ben, it appeared, was the pink cockatoo, who was biting his perch with his hooked beak. The children had finished their meal, and consent was given. "Only, Lena, come here," said Angela, fastening a silk handkerchief round her neck, and adding, "Don't let Lena go on the dew, Pearl; she is not used to early English autumn, I must get her a pair of thicker boots."

"What is her name?" asked Agatha, catching the sound.

"Magdalen Susanna. Her father made a point of it, instead of his wife's name, which, I think, was Caroline."

"I don't think I ever knew a Magdalen except my own elder sister," said Agatha, "and Susanna! Did you say Miss Merrifield had a sister Susan?"

"An excellent, sober-sided, dear old Susan! Yes, Susanna was their mother's name," said Dolores "and now that you have put it into my head, little Lena, when she is animated, puts me more in mind of Bessie than even of Wilfred, though the colouring is different. Why?"

"Did you never hear," said Agatha, "that there was one of the brothers who was a bad lot, and ran away. My sister says Wilfred is like him. I believe," she added, "that he was her romance!"

"Ha!" exclaimed Bernard, "that's queer! We had a clerk in the bank who gave his name as Meriton, and who cut and ran the very day he heard that Sir Jasper Merrifield was coming out as Commandant. Yes, he was carroty. I rarely saw Wilfred at Clipstone, but this might very well have been the fellow, afraid to face his uncle."

Angela did not look delighted. "She is not destitute, you know," she said, "I am her guardian, and she will have about two hundred a year."

"Is there a will?" asked Lance.

"Oh, yes, I have it upstairs! It is all right. It was at the bank at Brisbane, and they kept a copy. I brought her because the Bishop said it was my duty to find out whether there were any relations."

"Certainly," said Bernard. "In our own case, remember what joy Travis's letter was!"

Angela was silent, and presently said, "You shall see the will when I have unpacked it, but there is no doubt about my being guardian."

"Probably not," said Bernard, rather drily.

"If it be a valid will, signed by his proper name," said Lance.

Whereupon the two brothers fell into a discussion on points of law, not unlike the editor of the Pursuivant, as he had become known to his family, but most unlike the Bernard they had known before his departure for the East. At any rate it dissipated the emotional tone of the party; and by and by, when Bernard and Angela had agreed to make a bicycle rush to Minsterham the next day, "that is," said Angela "if Lena is happy enough to spare me," the Harewoods took leave.

When the children had gone to bed, and Angela had stayed upstairs so long that Gertrude augured that she was waiting till her charge had gone to sleep, and that they should have no more of her henceforth but "Lena's baulked stepmother," she came down, bringing a document with her, which she displayed before her brothers.

There was no question but that it was a will drawn up in due form, and very short, bequeathing his property at Carrigaboola, Queensland, to his daughter, Magdalen Susanna, and appointing Fulbert Underwood and Angela Margaret Underwood and "my brother Samuel" her guardian. It was dated the year after his daughter's birth, and was signed Henry Field, with a word interposed, which, as Lance said, might be anything, but was certainly the right length for the first syllables of Merrifield. Bernard looked at it, and declared it was, to the best of his belief, the same signature as his former clerk used to write.

"And this," he said, looking at the seal, "is the crest of the Merrifield's—the demi lion. I know it well on Sir Jasper's seal ring."

"Have you nothing else, Angel?" asked Lance.

"Here is the certificate of her baptism, but that will tell you nothing."

No more it did, it only called the child the daughter of Henry and Caroline Field, and the surname was omitted in the bequest.

"Who was the mother?" asked Lance.

"I never exactly knew. Fulbert thought she had been a person whom Field had met in America or somewhere, and married in a hurry. Fulbert said she was rather pretty, but she was a poor helpless, bewildered thing, and very poorly. He wanted to bring her to Albertstown for fit help and nursing; but she cried so much at the idea of either horse or wagon over the-no-roads, that it was put off and off and she had only his shepherd's housekeeper, so it was no wonder she did not live! Field was dreadfully cut up, and blamed himself extremely for having given way to her; but it is as likely as not the journey would have been just as fatal."

"Poor thing!"

"You never heard her surname?"

"No, it did not signify."

"He did not name his child after her?"

"No. I remember Fulbert saying he supposed she should be called Caroline; and he exclaimed, 'No, no, I always said it should be Magdalen and Susanna.'"

"My sister's name," repeated Agatha.

"And Susan Merrifield," added Dolores.

"But she is mine, mine!" cried Angela, with a tone like herself, of a sort of triumphant jealousy. "They can't take her away from me!"

"Gently, Angela, my dear," said Lance, in a tone so like Felix of old, that it almost startled her. "Tell me what arrangement is this about the property. Your share of Fulbert's has never been taken out, I think?"

"No, Macpherson, the purchaser, you know, of Fulbert's share, pays me my amount out of it, and agreed to do the same by Lena. I don't think the value is quite what it used to be. It rather went down under Field; but Macpherson is all there, and it has been a better season. I could sell it all to him, hers and mine both; but I have thought how it would be, as it is her native country, and I have not parted with my own to go out again to Carrigaboola, and bring her up there. I assure you I am up to it," she added, meeting an amused look. "I know a good deal more about sheep farming than either of you gentlemen. I can ride anything but a buckjumper, and boss the shepherds, and I do love the life, no stifling in fields and copses! I only wish you would come too, Bear; it would do you ever so much good to get a little red paint on those white banker's hands of yours."

"Well done, sister Angel!" And the brothers both burst out laughing.

"But really," proceeded Angela, "it is by far the best hope of keeping up Christianity among those hands. Fulbert had a sort of little hut for a chapel, and once a month one of the clergy from Albertstown came over there; I used to ride with him when I could, and if I were there, I could keep a good deal going till the place is more peopled, and we can get a cleric. It is a great opportunity, not to be thrown away. I can catch those cockatoos better than a parson. And there are the blacks."

The brothers had not the least doubt of it. Angela was Angela still, for better or for worse. Or was it for worse? Yet she went up to bed chanting -

"His sister she went beyond the seas, And died an old maid among black savagees."



CHAPTER XXIII—WILLOW WIDOWS



"Set your heart at rest. The fairyland buys not that child of me. - "MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM."

An expedition to Minsterham finished the visit of Dolores and her faithful "Nag," whose abilities as an assistant were highly appreciated, and who came home brilliantly happy to keep her remaining holiday with Magdalen; while Dolores repaired to Clipstone. Bernard had been obliged to go to London, to report himself to Sir Ferdinand Travis Underwood, but his wife and little girl were the reigning joy at Clipstone. Phyllis looked very white, much changed from the buxom girl who had gone out with her father two years ago. She had never recovered the loss of the little boy, and suffered the more from her husband's inability to bear expression, and it was an immense comfort to her to speak freely of her little one to her mother.

The little Lilias looked frail, but was healthy, happy, and as advanced as a well-trained companion child of six could well be, and the darling of the young aunts, who expected Dolores to echo their raptures, and declare the infinite superiority of the Ceylonese to "that little cornstalk," as Valetta said.

"There's no difficulty as to that," said Dolores, laughing. "The poor little cornstalk looks as if she had grown up under a blight."

"It is a grand romance though," said Mysie; "only I wish that Cousin Harry had had any constancy in him."

"I wonder if Magdalen will adopt her!" was Valetta's bold suggestion.

"Poor Magdalen has had quite adopting enough to do," said Mysie.

"Besides," said Dolores, "Sister Angela will never let her go. And certainly I never saw any one more TAKING than Sister Angela. She is so full of life, and of a certain unexpectedness, and one knows she has done such noble work. I want to see more of her."

"You will," said Mysie. "Mamma is going to ask her to come, for Phyllis says there is no one that Bernard cares for so much. She was his own companion sister."

"Magdalen might have the little cornstalk," said Valetta.

"Well," said Mysie, "it is rather funny to have two—what shall I say?—willow widows, and a child that is neither of theirs! How will they settle it?"

Magdalen had heard from Agatha on the first evening of the arrival of the sister, and the probability of the identification of little Lena's father with the Henry Merrifield of her former years, and she was deeply touched by the bestowal of her name—so much that Nag avoided saying more, but only kissed her and went to bed.

The Merrifields discussed the subject dispassionately.

Sir Jasper recollected what his brother had written to him of his anxieties and disappointment in his son Henry, and of his absconding from Manitoba, since which time all trace of him had been lost, except in the restoration to the two brothers in Canada. To the surprise and indignation of Sir Jasper, there had been no attempt to follow it up.

"If my poor brother Edgar had done anything of the kind," said Bernard, "none of us would have rested."

So far as they could put recollections together this act of restitution must have been made soon after the connection with Fulbert Underwood began, perhaps at the time of the wife's death. If there had been another letter, as Sister Angela thought, it was more recent, certainly within the last two years.

Captain Samuel Merrifield, of Stokesley, had been on a voyage for four years, and had not long been at home. His wife had been charged with the forwarding of the letters that she thought of immediate interest, and there was an accumulation of those that had been left for his return, as yet not looked over.

Of course, Sir Jasper impelled him to plunge into these, and by and by one came to light, which Mrs. Merrifield had taken "for only some Australian gold mines," and left to wait, especially as it was directed to his father instead of himself.

It was a letter full of repentance, and entreaties for forgiveness, describing in part poor Henry's past life, and adding that the best thing that had ever befallen him was his association with "such a fellow as Underwood."

It was to be gathered that Fulbert's uprightness of mind had led him to the first impulse of restitution, and he went on to mention his first hasty marriage and the loss of his wife, with the kindness of the Carrigaboola Sisterhood; above all, of Sister Angela, and declaring his love and admiration for her, and his sense that she was the one person who could keep him straight now that her brother was gone.

He had more than once offered to her, but he found that her brother had solemnly charged her not to accept him till he had made all his past clear before her, and could show her that he was acknowledged by his family, and had his father's forgiveness, and for this he humbly craved, as one deeply sensible of his own demerits.

It was piteous to think of the poor fellow waiting and hoping for an answer to such a letter as this, and dying without one, while all the time it was lying unread in the Captain's desk, and no one even knew of the changed life and fresh hopes. Sir Jasper was much moved by it; but Sam said, "Ay, ay! poor Harry always was a plausible fellow!" and his wife was chiefly concerned to show that the suppression was not by her fault. Sir Jasper had brought the will with him, and the certificate of the child's baptism.

Both were met with a little hesitation. So little had been said in the letter about the marriage that the Captain wanted to know more, and also whether the will had been properly proved in Australia, and whether it had force in England. In that case he was surely the right person to have the custody of his brother's child. His wife, who had been bred up in a different school, was not by any means satisfied that she should be consigned to a member of a Sisterhood.

David came to Stokesley, saw the letter, and agreed with his brother on the expediency of obtaining full proof of the validity of the will in both Queensland and England, and put in hand the writing of inquiries for the purpose, from the legal authorities at Brisbane, for which purpose Angela had to be consulted.

She had been (having left the budgerigars to the delight of Pearl and Awdrey), in the meantime, at Vale Leston, enjoying the atmosphere of peace that prevailed wherever were Clement and Geraldine, and hailed with delight by all her old village friends, as well as Lady Vanderkist and her somewhat thinned flock.

She won Adrian's heart by skating or golfing with him, and even, on one or two hunting days, joining in his pursuit of the chase, being altogether, as he said, ever so much better a fellow than even his youngest sister Joan, and entrancing them all with tales of kangaroos. Lena had really a tame kangaroo at Carrigaboola. Oh, why did they not bring it home as well as Ben, the polly? She quite pined for it, and had tears in her eyes when it was spoken of.

Indeed the joyous young Vanderkists were too much for the delicate little girl, and sorry as Angela was to leave Vale Leston, she was not ungrateful for an invitation to the Goyle, where there was more room for them than at Clipstone in the holidays, and with the Bernard Underwoods making it their headquarters.

Lena and she were much better and happier with "Sister" always at her service, and Paula and Thekla were delighted to amuse her. Paula was in a state of delight with Sister Angela, only a little puzzled by the irregularity of her course, though it was carefully explained that she had never been under any vows. To hear of her doings among the Australian women was a romance, often as there had been disappointment. "Paula is a born Sister," said Angela, "a much truer one than I have ever been, for there does not seem to be any demon of waywardness to drive her wild."

These talks with Magdalen, often prolonged hours after the young people had gone to bed, were a great solace to both the elders. Girls like Mysie Merrifield and Phyllis Devereux thought sitting up to converse a propensity peculiar to themselves, and to their own age, of new experiences and speculations; but the two "old girls," whose experiences were not new, and whose speculations had a certain material foundation, they were equally fascinating.

There were no small jealousies in either of them—"willow widows"— though Mysie's name stuck. There was nothing but comfort to Magdalen in the certainty of the ultimate "coming home" of one who had finished a delusive dream of her younger days, and been yearned after with a heartache now quenched; and Angela, who had never been the least in love with Henry Merrifield, could quite afford her interest in the scanty records of his younger days, and fill up all she knew of the measure of the latter and better days. There was another bond, for Mrs. Best's daughter was, "as distances go," a neighbour to Carrigaboola, and resorted thither on great occasions.

Angela's vision began to be, to take Magdalen and her sisters out to Carrigaboola, where a superior school for colonists' daughters was much needed, and where Paula might enter the Sisterhood. She longed all the more when she saw how much better Magdalen could deal with Lena as to teaching and restraint than she could. The child was very backward, and could hardly read words of one syllable, though she knew any amount of Scripture history and legends of Saints, and was very fairly intelligent; but though she was devoted to "Sister," always hanging on her, and never quite happy when out of sight of her, she had hardly any notion of prompt obedience or of giving up her own way.

Angela's visit to Vale Leston had been partly spoilt by the little girl's fretful worry at the elder children, and by the somewhat uncalled for fears that all the Vanderkists were hard on the poor little colonial damsel; but whether it was the air of Rock Quay, or the quiet influence of Miss Prescott, Lena certainly improved in health at the Goyle, and was much more amenable, and less rudely shy. But her guardian trembled at hearing that, pending Captain Merrifield's correspondence with Brisbane, the sisters, Susan and Elizabeth, were coming to Miss Mohun's to see their niece, there being no room for them at Clipstone.

They came—Susan, plump, comfortable and good-natured looking, as like an apricot as ever, with an air many years more than three above her sister Bessie, who as ever was brisk and bright, scarcely middle aged in face, dress or demeanour. They arrived too late for visiting, and only dined at Clipstone to be introduced to Bernard Underwood, and see their cousin Phyllis, whom they had once met when all were small children. Dolores was much amused, as she told her Aunt Jane, to see how gratified they were at the "sanguine" colouring of Phyllis and Wilfred, quite Merrifields, they said, though Phyllis with auburn eyes and hair was far handsomer than any other of the clan had ever been; and Wilfred had simply commonplace carrots and freckles.

"The fun is," said Jane, "to remember how some of us Mohuns have sighed at Lily's having any yellow children, and, till we saw Stokesley specimens, wondering where the strain came from! As if it signified!"

"It does in some degree," said Dolores; "something hereditary goes with the complexion."

"I don't know," said Jane. "I believe too much is made in these days of heredity, and by those who believe least in the Bible indications on the effect, forgetting the counteracting grace."

"Well," said Dolores, "Wilfred was always a bete noire to me—no, not noire—in my younger days, and I can't help being glad he is not of our strain! Though you know the likeness was the first step to identifying that poor little girl."

"Poor child! I am afraid she will be a bone of contention."

The two aunts were at Clipstone early; and might be satisfied with the true Merrifield tints of Magdalen Susanna, but perhaps she had been over much warned to be gracious, for the very contrary was the effect. She had been very civil to her great-aunt Lilias, and had allowed both her uncles to take her up in their arms; but she retreated upon Angela, planted an elbow on the well-known lap, turned her back, and put a skinny little finger in her mouth by way of answer to Susan's advances, advances which had hardly ever before been repelled even by the most untamable of infants.

Angela tried to coax, lift her up and turn her round; but this only led to the shoulder being the hiding-place, and it might be suspected that there was a lurking perception that these strangers asserted a closer claim than the beloved "Sister." She would not even respond to Susan's doll or Bessie's picture book; and Bessie advised leaving her alone, and turned to the window with Agatha, who was nothing loth to tell of her Bexley and Minsterham experiences.

Angela tried to talk about the voyage, or any thing that might save the child from being discussed or courted; but Susan's heart was in the subject, and she had not enough tact or knowledge of the world to turn away from it. Regret for the past was strong within her, and she could not keep from asking how much "little Magdalen" (at full length) remembered of her father, how much she had been with him, whether he had much altered, whether there were a photograph of him, and a great deal more, with tears in her eyes and a trembling in her voice which made Angela feel much for her, even while vexed at her pertinacity, for the child was by no means the baby she looked like, but perfectly well able to listen and understand, and this consciousness made her own communications much briefer and more reserved than otherwise they would have been.

Bessie, with more perception, saw the embarrassment, turned round from Agatha, went up to the cockatoo in his cage, and asked in a pleasant voice if Magdalen would show him to her, and tell her his name. Angela was glad enough to break off poor Susan's questioning, and come forward, with the child still clinging, to incite the bird to display the rose colour under his crest, put up a grey claw to shake hands, and show off his vocabulary, laughing herself and acting merriment as she did so, in hopes to inspire Lena.

"Come, Ben, tell how you were picked up under a gum tree, quite a baby, a little grey ball, and brought over in the shepherd's pocket for a present to the little Boss, and how we fed you and nursed you till you turned all rose-colour and lovely! There! put up your crest and make red revelations. Can't you speak? Fetch him a banana, Lena. That will open his mouth."

At sight of the banana, the bird put his head on one side and croaked in a hoarse whisper, "Yo ho!"

"No, you need not be afraid of any more sailors' language," said Angela. "They were as careful as possible on board. I overheard once, 'Hold hard, Tom, Polly Pink is up there, and she's a regular lady born!

Whereupon Polly indulged in a ridiculous chuckle, holding the banana cleverly in one foot, while Angela laughed and chattered more and more nervously, but only succeeded in disgusting the visitors by what Susan at least took for unbecoming flippancy.

"THAT Sister," said Susan, as they drove away, "does not seem to me at all the person to have the charge of Henry's poor little girl!"

"I wish she had not thrust herself in," said Bessie, "to prevent me from getting on with the child over the cockatoo."

"She calls herself a Sister! I don't understand it, for she seems to have been bent on marrying poor Henry."

"She never took any vows."

"Then why does she wear a ridiculous cap over all that hair?"

By and by they were met by Bernard Underwood striding along. "Holloa! have you seen Angel and her darling? She is a perfect slave to the little thing, and one only gets fragments of her."

"She seems very fond of her," said Bessie.

"Just kept her alive, you see. Poor old Angel! She is all for one thing at a time! Are you going up to Clipstone?"

"I think we shall find Phyllis at Beechcroft."

"Yes, she is driving there to lunch, and Angel is to bring the little cornstalk over to make friends with our Lily! I trust the creature goes to sleep now, and I may get a word out of Angel!" Wherewith he dashed on, and the two ladies agreed that "those Underwoods seemed to be curiously impulsive."

They were, however, much better satisfied with the Ceylonese Lily, who was a very well trained civilised specimen, conversing very prettily over one of Aunt Jane's picture books, which Bessie looked at with her, and showing herself fully able to read the titles beneath, a feat of which Lena was quite incapable, though she was less on the defensive than she had shown herself at the Goyle, and Angela was far more at her ease than when she was conscious that "Field's" original love was watching the introduction to his sisters. Besides, Bernard's presence was sunshine to her, and the two expanded into bright reminiscences and merry comparisons of their two lives, absolutely delightful to themselves, and to Phyllis and her Aunt Jane, and which would have been the same to Elizabeth, if she had not been worried at Susan's evident misunderstanding of—and displeasure at—the quips and cranks of the happy brother and sister; also she was bent on promoting an intercourse between Lily and Lena, over the doll she had brought for the former. She was a little hurt that Lena had not been accompanied by the blue-eyed article with preposterously long eyelashes that had been bestowed on her at the Goyle; but the little Australian had no opinion of dolls, and had let the one bought for her at Sydney be thrown overboard by the ship's monkey.

"That was cruel!" said Lily, fondling her black-eyed specimen.

"She could not feel," reasoned Lena, with contempt.

"I don't know," said Lily, knitting her brows. "It's not ALL make believe! I do love my Rosamunda Rowena, and she loves me, and I shall tell her not to be jealous of this dear Betsinda. For, do you know, when Rosamunda was ill in the Red Sea, father carried her up and down on deck, and made her a dear little deck chair."

"But she is not alive. She COULDN'T be," sighed Lena. "I like my Ben and my kangaroo! Oh, I do want to go back to my kangaroo!"

"And does Lily want to go back to her riki-tiki?" asked Lily's father, lifting a little girl on each knee, so that they might be vis-a-vis, when certainly his own had the advantage in beauty, as she answered, leaning against him, "Granny's better than riki-tiki!"

For which pretty speech some of the ladies gave her much credit; but her father, with a tender arm round her, said, "Ah! you are a sentimental little pussy-cat! Is anything here as good as Carrigaboola? Eh, Lena?"

But Lena resolutely shook her carrots; but kept silence, while Bernard turned over the leaves of a great book of natural history, till as a page was displayed with a large kangaroo under a blue-gum tree, with a yellow wattle tree beside him, her lips quivered, her face puckered, and she burst into an uncontrollable fit of crying; "Oh! I want to go home, home! Sister, Sister, take me home!"

Angela was in a minute beside her, took her within loving arms, and carried her off.



CHAPTER XXIV—CRUEL LAWYERS



"Tender companions of our serious days, Who colour with your kisses, smiles and tears, Life's worn web woven over wasted ways." - LOWELL.

There was a good deal of worry and anxiety for some little time, while correspondence was going on about Henry Merrifield's will, and in the meantime Angela decided to board with Miss Prescott, since her charge was certainly much better in health there; and besides, as Mrs. Bernard Merrifield was naturally at Clipstone, it became the head quarters of her husband, though he made many excursions to his own people, and on business affairs to Sir Ferdinand Travis Underwood in London.

And Clipstone suited him well for his holiday. Sir Jasper had, of course, a certain amount of intercourse with the garrison at Avoncester, and the officers stationed there at present had already some acquaintance with Bernard Underwood, who was known to be a champion in Ceylon in all athletic sports, especially polo and cricket. Tall and well made, he had been devoted to all such games in his youth, and they had kept up his health in his sedentary occupation. Now, in his leisure time, his prowess did much to efface the fame of the much younger and slighter Alexis White, and, so far as might be, Angela enjoyed the games with him, keeping well within bounds, but always feeling activity a wholesome outlet for her superfluous strength, and, above all, delighting in an interval of being a child again with her Bear of old times; and her superabundant life, energy, and fun amazed all, especially by the contrast with her poor little languid charge, who seemed, as Jane Mohun said, centuries older.

The Merrifield lads were also devoted to him. Even Fergus was somewhat distracted from his allegiance to Dolores and her experiments, and in the very few days that Christmas afforded for skating, could think of nothing else.

And as to Wilfred, his whole mind seemed to be set on sports, and marble works to be only an incident thrown in. Bernard, whom he followed assiduously, and who took him to Avoncester, and introduced him to young officers, began to have doubts whether he had done wisely. Bernard had, in his time, vexed Felix's soul by idleness and amusement, but he had been one betted upon, not himself given to betting. He loved football and cricket for their bodily excitement, not the fictitious one of a looker on, or reader of papers, and it struck him that Wilfred knew a good deal too much about this more dangerous side of races and athletics.

He said so to Angela, and she answered, "Oh, nonsense! Young men are out of it if they don't know the winning horse. Even Pur had to be up to the Derby."

And Angela had her own bitter trial in the decision of the lawyers. Not only was the signature of the will unsatisfactory, from the confusion between Field and Merrifield, but the two witnesses failed to be traced, John Shepherd and George Jones were not to be identified, and though Brisbane might accept wills easily, an English court of law required more certainty. The little daughter being the only child and natural heiress, this was not felt to be doing her any injury; but the decision deprived her of the guardian her father had chosen, and Angela was in despair. She was ready to write to the Pursuivant, to the Bishop of Albertstown, to the Lord Chancellor, with an exposition of the wicked injustice and hardness of heart of lawyers, and the inexpedience of taking the poor child from her earliest motherly friend, expressly chosen by her father. All Bernard's common sense and Magdalen's soothing were needed to make her hold her peace, when correspondence made it plain that the guardianship being assumed by the uncles, Captain Merrifield would not hear for a moment of the scheme of taking the child out to Carrigaboola. In his opinion, and his sister Susan's, the only fit thing to be done with her was to place her with the two aunts at Coalham to be educated. He came down to Rock Quay to inspect her. It was a cold, raw day, with the moors wrapped in mist, and the poor little maid looked small, peaky and pinched. He was sure that the dry winds of the north were what she needed, wanted to carry her off immediately, and looked regardless of Angela's opinion, though backed by Miss Prescott, that it would be highly dangerous to take the delicate child of a semi-tropical climate off in the depth of winter to a northerly town. Angela walked off to ask Dr. Dagger to inspect the child and give his opinion, while Captain Sam repaired to Clipstone to visit his relations and lunch with them.

He did not meet with all the sympathy he expected. Lady Merrifield said that Coalham had not agreed with her own son Harry, and that little Lena ought not to be taken there till after the cold winds of spring were over; and her daughters all chimed in with a declaration that Angela Underwood was perfectly devoted to the little one, and that no one else could make her happy.

"Petting her! spoiling her!" scoffed the Captain. "Why, Susan and Bessie were full of the contrast with your little girl."

"Health," began Phyllis.

"An Indian child too!" he went on. "Just showing what a little good sense in the training can do! No, indeed! Since I am to be her guardian, I have no notion of swerving from my duty, and letting poor Hal's child be bred up to Sisterhoods and all that flummery."

"It will just break Angela's heart," cried Valetta, with tears in her eyes, at which the Captain looked contemptuous.

"I must say," added Bernard, "that I should think it little short of murderous to take that unlucky child from the one woman who understands her up into the bleak north at this time of year."

"Decidedly!" added Sir Jasper. "Miss Underwood deserves every consideration in dealing with the child who has been always her sole charge."

Wherewith he changed the conversation by a question about Stokesley; but he held to his dictum when alone with his nephew, and as he was the only person for whose opinion Captain Sam had any respect, it had its effect, though there was a sense that he might be biassed by his son-in-law and his herd of womanfolk, and that he did not partake Mrs. Samuel Merrifield's dislike to the very name of Sister or of anything not commonplace.

Angela obtained Dr. Dagger's opinion to reinforce her own and Lady Merrifield's, and the Captain was obliged to give way so far as to consent to Magdalen, as he insisted on calling her, being allowed to remain at Arnscombe till after Easter, when her aunts were to fetch her to Coalham, there to send her to the kindergarten.

After Angela's period of raging against law and lawyers and all the Stokesley family, and being on the verge of impertinence to Captain Merrifield, she submitted to the prospect more quietly than her friends had dared to hope. Lance had almost expected her to deport her charge, parrot and all, suddenly and secretly by an Australian liner, and had advised Bernard, on a fleeting meeting at Bexley, to be on his guard if she hinted at anything so preposterous; but Bernard shook his head, and said Angel was more to be trusted than her elders thought. "Waves and storms don't go over us for nothing, I hope," he said.

And he found himself right on his return. Angela had bowed her head to the inevitable, and was quietly trying to prepare her little charge for the change, accustoming her to more discipline and less petting. When Angela proposed to walk over to Clipstone with her brother on his return, and the whine was set up, "Let me go, Sister," it was answered, "No, my dear, it is too far for you. You must stay and walk with Paula."

"I want to go with Sister."

"You must be a good child, and do as Sister tells you. No, I can't have any fretting. Paula will show you how to drive your hoop. Keep her moving fast, Paula, don't let her fret and get cold."

And Angela actually detached the clinging hand, and put it into Paulina's, and, holding up her finger, silenced the burst of weeping, though tears sprang to her own eyes as she resolutely turned away, and, after running out and shutting the back gate after her, put her arm with a clinging gesture into Bernard's.

"That's right!" he said, pressing her hand.

"Cruel," she said, "but better by and by for her. Oh, Bear, if one could but learn to lie still and say, 'Thou didst it,' when it is human agency that takes away the desire of one's eyes with a stroke."

"The desire of thine eyes!" repeated Bernard. "How often I thought of that last February."

It was the only time he had referred to the loss of his little boy. His wife had told her mother that he could not bear to mention it, and had poured out all her own feelings of sorrow and her struggle for cheerfulness and resignation alone with her or with Mysie; but he had shrunk from the least allusion to the little two year old Felix, who slept beneath a palm tree at Colombo.

Now, however, still holding his sister's hand, he drifted into all the particulars of the little ways, the baby language, the dawning understanding, and the very sudden sharp illness carrying the beautiful boy away almost before they were aware of danger; and he took out the photograph from his breast, and showed her the little face, so recalling old fond remembrances. "Forbear to cry, make no mourning for the dead," he repeated. "Yes, the boy is saved the wear and tear and heat and burthen of the day, but it is very hard to be thankful."

"Ah, and it is all the harder if you have to leave your Lily."

"If—yes; but Travis MAY so arrange that we can stay, or I make only one voyage out to settle matters and then come home for good. If you are still bent on Carrigaboola you might come as far as Frisco with me. I may have to go there about the Californian affairs."

"That would be jolly. Yes, I think it will clench the matter, for I believe I am of more good at Carriga than anywhere else, though the heart of it is taken out of it for me; but one lives on and gets on somehow without a heart, or a heart set where I suppose it ought not to be entirely at least! And, indeed, I think that little one taught me better than ever before how to love."

"That's what the creatures are sent us for," said Bernard, in a low voice. "And here are, looming in the distance, all the posse of girls to meet us."

"Ah-h!" breathed Angela, withdrawing her arm. "Well, Bear, you have given me something to look forward to, whether it comes to anything or not. It will help me to be thankful. I know they are good people, and the child will do well when once the pining and bracing are over. They are her own people, and it is right."

"Right you are, Angel!" said Bernard, with a fresh squeeze of the hand, as he resumed his own cheerful, resolute voice ere joining his sisters-in-law.

"What! Angela without her satellite!" cried Primrose.

"Too far," murmured Angela; but Mysie tried to hush her sister, perceiving the weaning process, and respecting Angela for it.

And the next moment Angela was challenging Bernard to a game at golf.



CHAPTER XXV—BEAR AS ADVISER



"Weary soul and burthened sore Labouring with thy secret load." - KEBLE.

The early spring brought a new development. Thekla, who attended classes at the High School, came home with unmistakable tokens of measles, and Primrose did the same, in common with most of their contemporaries at Rockstone. Nor was there any chance that either Lily Underwood at Clipstone or Lena Merrifield at the Goyle would escape; indeed, they both showed an amount of discomfort that made it safer to keep them where they were, than to try to escape in the sharp east wind and frost.

No one was much dismayed at what all regarded as a trifling ailment, even if dignified as German. Angela owned that she regarded it as a relief, since infection might last till the summer, and the only person who was—as he owned—trying to laugh at himself with Angela, was Bernard, who could not keep out of his mind's eye a little grave at Colombo. As he walked home, at the turning he saw a figure wearily toiling upwards, which proved to be Wilfred. "Holloa! you are at home early!"

"I had an intolerable headache!"

"Measles, eh?"

"No such thing! Once when I was a kid in Malta. But I say, Bear," he added, coming up with quickened pace, "you could do me no end of a favour if you would advance me twenty pounds."

"Whew!" Bernard whistled.

"There is Lady Day coming, and I can pay you then—most assuredly." And an asseveration or two was beginning.

"Twenty pounds don't fly promiscuously about the country," muttered Bernard, chiefly for the sake of giving himself time.

"But I tell you I shall have a quarter from the works, and a quarter from my father (with his hand to his head). That's—that's—. Awful skinflints both of them! How is a man to do, so cramped up as that?"

"Oh! and how is a man to do if he spends it all beforehand?"

"I tell you, Bernard, I must have it, or—or it will break my mother's heart! And as to my father, I'd—I'd cut my throat—I'd go to sea before he knew! Advance it to me, Bear! You know what it is to be in an awful scrape. Get me through this once and I'll never—"

Bernard did not observe that the scrape of his boyhood over the drowned Stingo had hardly been of the magnitude that besought for twenty pounds. He waived the personal appeal, and asked, "What is the scrape?"

"Why, that intolerable swindler and ruffian, Hart, deceived me about Racket, and—"

"A horse at Avoncester?" said Bernard, light beginning to dawn on him.

"I made sure it was the only way out of it all, and they said Racket was as sure as death, and now the brute has come in third. Hart swears there was foul play, but what's that to me? I'm done for unless you will help me over."

"If it is a betting debt, the only safe way is to have it out with your father, and have done with it."

"You don't know what my father is! Just made of iron. You might as well put your hand under a Nasmyth's hammer." And as he saw that his hearer was unconvinced, "Besides, it is ever so much more than what I put upon Racket! That was only the way out of it! It is all up with me if he hears of it. You might as well pitch me over the cliff at once!"

"Well, what is it then?"

Incoherently, Wilfred stammered out what Bernard understood at last to mean that he had got into the habit of betting at the billiard table, surreptitiously kept up in Ivinghoe Terrace in a house of Richard White's, not for any excessive sums, and with luck at first on his side than otherwise; but at last he had become involved for a sum not in itself very terrible to elder years, and his creditor was in great dread of pressure from his employers, and insisted on payment. Wilfred, who seemed to have a mortal terror of his father, beyond what Bernard could understand, had been unable to believe that the offence for so slight a sum might be forgiven if voluntarily confessed, had done the worst thing he could, he had paid the debt with a cheque which had, unfortunately, passed through his hands at the office, trusting in a few days to recover the amount by a bet upon the horse, in full security of success! And now!

Before the predicament was made clear, Wilfred reeled, and would have fallen if Bernard had not supported him, and he mumbled something about giddiness and dazzling, insisting at the same time that it was nothing but the miserable pickle, and that if Bernard would not see him out of it, he might as well let him lie there and have done with it.

Happily they were in the immediate neighbourhood of the house, and it was possible to get him into the hall before he entirely collapsed upon a chair; but seeming to recover fresh vigour from alarm at the sound of voices, he rushed at the stairs and dashed up rapidly the two flights to his own room, only throwing back the words, "Dead secret, mind!"

Bernard was glad to have made no promise, and, indeed, Wilfred's physical condition chiefly occupied him at the moment, for one or two of the girls were hurrying in, asking what was the matter, and at the answer, "He is gone up to his room with a bad headache," Valetta declared with satisfaction, "Then he has got it! We told him so! But he would go to the office! and, Bernard, so has Lily."

"Pleasing information!" said Bernard, nettled and amused at the tone of triumph, while Mysie, throwing behind her the words, "It may be nothing," went off to call Mrs. Halfpenny, who was in a state of importance and something very like pleasure. Bernard strode up to his wife's room, leaving Valetta half-way in her exposition that when all the family had been laid low by measles at Malta, Wilfred had been a very young infant, and it had always been doubtful whether he had been franked or not; and how he had been reproached with looking ill in the morning, but had fiercely insisted on going down to the office, which he was usually glad to avoid on any excuse.

By the time the household met at dinner, it was plain that they had to resign themselves to being an infected family, though there were not many probable victims, and they were likely only to have the disorder favourably, with the exception of Wilfred, who had evidently got a severe chill, and could only be reported as very ill, though still he vehemently resented any suspicion of being subject to such a babyish complaint. But when the break up for the night was just over, Lady Merrifield came in search of Bernard, entreating him to come to speak to Wilfred, who was more and more feverish, almost light-headed, and insisting that he must speak to Bear, "Bear had not promised," reiterating the summons, so that there was no choice but to comply with it.

He found Wilfred flushed with fever, and violently restless, starting up in bed as he entered, and crying out, "Bear, Bear, will you? will you? You did not promise!"

"I will see about it! Lie down now! There's nothing to be done to- night."

"But promise! promise! And not a word!"

All this was reiterated till Wilfred at last was exhausted for the time, and to a certain degree pacified by the reassuring voice in which Bernard soothed him and undertook to take the matter in hand, hardly knowing what he undertook, and only feeling the necessity of quieting the perilous excitement, and of helping the mother to bring a certain amount of tranquillity.

His own little girl was going on well, and quite capable of being amused in the morning by being compared to a lobster or a tiger lily; and Primrose was reported in an equally satisfactory state, ready either for sleep or continuous reading by her sisters. Only Wilfred was in the same, or a more anxious, state of fever; and as soon as Bernard had satisfied himself that there was no special use in his remaining in the house, he set out for the marble works office, having made up his mind as to one part of what he had expressed as "seeing about it."

He had hardly turned into the Cliffe road before he met Captain Henderson walking up, and they exchanged distant inquiries and answers as to whether each might be thought dangerous to the other's home; after which they forgathered, and compared notes as to invalids. The Captain had heard of Wilfred's going home ill, and was coming, he said, to inquire.

"He seems very seriously ill," was the answer. "I imagine there has been a chill, and a check. I was coming to speak to you about him."

"He has spoken to you?"

Both could now consult freely. "It is a very anxious matter—not so much for the actual amount as for the habits that it shows."

"The amount? Oh, I have made up that as regards the firm. I could not let it come before Sir Jasper, especially in the present state of things! I meant to give the young chap a desperate fright and rowing, but that will have to be deferred."

"You must let me take it!"

"No, no. Remember, Sir Jasper was my commanding officer, and I and my wife owe everything to him. I could supply the amount, so that no one would guess from the accounts that anything had been amiss."

Bernard could hardly allow himself to be thus relieved, but there was the comfort of knowing that Wilfred's name was safe, and that the unstained family honour would not have to suffer shame. Still the other debts remained, of which Captain Henderson had been only vaguely suspicious, till the two took counsel on them. Wilfred had not given up the name of the person for whom he had meant to borrow from the office; but Captain Henderson had very little doubt who it was, and it was agreed that he should receive the amount through a cheque of Bernard on Brown and Travis Underwood, from Captain Henderson's hands, with a scathing rebuke and peremptory assurance of exposure to Mr. White, and consequent dismissal, if anything more of the same kind among the younger men were detected. The man was a clever artist in his first youth, and had always been something of a favourite with the authorities, and had a highly respectable father; so Captain Henderson meant to spare him as much as possible, and endeavour to ascertain how far the mischief had gone among the young men connected with the marble works, also to consult Mr. White on the amount of stringency in the measures used to put a stop to it. All this, of course, passed out of Bernard Underwood's hands and knowledge, but a sad and anxious day was before him. All the young girls were going on well, but Wilfred was increasingly ill all day, and continually calling for Bernard. Being told, "I have settled the matter" did not satisfy him. He looked eagerly about the room to find whether his mother were present, and fancying she was absent demanded, "Does he know? Do they know?" reiterating again and again. It was necessary to tell Lady Merrifield that there was an entanglement about money matters on his mind, which had been settled; but towards evening he grew worse and more light-headed, apparently under the impression that only Bernard could guard him from something unknown, or conceal, whenever he was conscious of the presence of his mother; and on his father's entrance he hid his face in the pillows and trembled, of course to their exceeding distress and perplexity; and when he believed no one present but Bernard and Mrs. Halfpenny, he became more and more rambling, sometimes insisting that his father must not know, sometimes abusing all connected with the racing bet, and more often fancying that he was going to be arrested for robbing the firm, the enormity of the sum and of the danger increasing with the fever, and therewith his horror of his father's knowing. It was of no use for his mother to hang over him, hold his hands, and assure him that she knew (as, in fact, she did, for Bernard had been obliged to make a cursory explanation), and that nothing could hinder her loving him still; he forgot it in the next interruption, and turned from her with terror and dismay, and once he nearly flung himself out of bed, fancying that the policeman was coming.

Bernard held him on this occasion, and told him, "Nothing will do you good, Willie, but to tell your father, and he will keep all from you. Let him know, and it will be all right."

It only seemed to add to his misery and terror. Something that passed in his hearing, gave him the impression that he was in great danger, if not actually dying; but his cry was still for Bernard, who had not ventured to go to bed; but it was still, "Oh, Bear, save me! Don't let me die with this upon my name! I can't go to God!"

"There's nothing for it, Wilfred, but to tell your father. He will pardon you. Your mother has, you see. Tell him, and when he forgives, you will know that God does. It will come right. Let me call him!"

"Let me bring him, my boy, my dear boy!" entreated his mother. "You know he will."

Wilfred seemed as if he did not know, but still held fast by Bernard's strong hands, as though there were support in them; and when in a few moments Sir Jasper entered the room, there was the same clinging gesture and endeavour to hide, in spite of the gentle sweetness of the tone of, "Well, my poor boy."

It was Bernard who was obliged to say, turning the poor flushed face towards him, "Wilfred wishes to say—"

"Father," it came with a gasp at last, "I've done it. I've disgraced us all. Forgive!"

He was repeating his own exaggerated ideas of what his crime had been, and what Sir Jasper would have said to him if all had been discovered in any other way.

"Do not think of it now, my boy. I forgive you, whatever it is."

Thereupon Dr. Dagger entered. He turned every one out except Mrs. Halfpenny, and gave a draught, which silenced the patient and put him to sleep in a few minutes. While Bernard hastily satisfied the parents that a good deal was exaggerated feeling, and that an old soldier must have known of a good many worse things in his time, though not so near home.

There was a general sense of relief in the morning, for Wilfred's attack had become an ordinary, though severe one, and the other cases were going on well. But Sir Jasper, who had not been able to grasp the extent of Wilfred's delinquency, and had been persuaded by his despair that it was much more serious than it really was, called his son-in-law into council, and demanded whether the whole could have been told.

Bernard was certain that it was so, and related his transactions with Captain Henderson, much of course to the father's relief, so far as the outer world was concerned; but what principally grieved him, besides the habits thus discovered, was his son's abject terror of him, not only in the exaggeration of illness, but in his mode of speaking of him.

It had never been thus with any of his sons before.

Claude, the soldier, had always been satisfactory, so had Harry the clergyman, though often widely separated from the parents in their wandering life; but the bond of confidence had never been broken. Jasper had never teased any one but his sisters. Fergus, too, the youngest of all the sons, and of an individual, rather peculiar nature, was growing up in straight grooves of his own; but Wilfred, who from delicate health, had been the most at home, had never seemed to open to his father. The family discipline of the General seemed only to oppress and terrify him, and the irregularities and subterfuges that had from time to time been detected had been met with just anger, never received in such a manner as to call forth the tenderness of forgiveness. Each discovery of a misdemeanour had only been the prelude to fresh and worse concealments and hardening.

And experience of mankind did not give any decided hope that even the last day's agony of repentance would be the turning over of a new leaf, when convalescence should bring the same surroundings and temptations, and perhaps the like disproportionate indignation and impatience in dealing with errors and constitutional weakness. "And the example of my brother's poor son is not encouraging," he added. "He who seems to have owed everything to your brother and sister."

"Yet poor Fulbert and I were to our homes, perhaps not the black sheep, but at any rate the vagrant ones."

"And what made a difference to you, may I ask?"

"Strong infusion by character and example of principle," said Bernard thoughtfully; "then, real life, and having to be one's own safeguard, with nothing to fall back on. As my brother told me at his last, I should swim when my plank was gone."

"Yes, but, plainly, you were never weak," and as Bernard did not answer at once, "Old-fashioned severity used to be the rule with lads, but it seems only to alienate them now and make them think themselves unjustly treated. What is one to do with these boys?"

A question which Bernard could not answer, though it carried him back with a strange yearning, yet resignation, to the little figure that had curled round on his knee, and the hopes connected with the hands that had caressed his cheek.

He thought over it the more the next week, when he was called to sit by Wilfred, who was getting better and anxious to talk.

"My father is very kind," he said. "Oh, yes, very kind now; but it will be all the same when I get well. You see, Bear, how can a man be always dawdling about with a lot of girls? There's Dolores bothering with her science, and Fergus every bit as bad; and Mysie after her disgusting schoolchildren; and Val and Prim horrid little empty chatterboxes; and if one does turn to a jolly girl for a bit of fun, their tongues all go to work, so that you would think the skies were going to fall; and if one goes in for a bit of a spree, down comes the General like a sledge-hammer! I wish you would take me out with you, Bear."

The same idea had already been undeveloped in Bernard's mind, and ever on his tongue when alone with his wife; but he kept it to himself, and only committed himself to, "You would not find an office in Colombo much more enlivening."

"There would be something to see—something to do. It would not be all as dull as ditch-water—just driving one to do something to get away from the girls and their fads."

This was nearly a fortnight from the night of crisis, when Wilfred, very weak, was still in bed; when Primrose and Lily were up and about, but threatened with whooping cough. Thekla much in the same case, and very cross; and little Lena weak, caressing and dependant, but angelically good and patient, so much so that Magdalen and Angela were quite anxious about her.



CHAPTER XXVI—NEW PATHS



"I'll put a girdle round the earth In forty minutes." - SHAKESPEARE.

The visitation had not been confined to the High School. The little cheaply-built rows for workmen and fishermen had suffered much more severely, owing chiefly to the parents' callous indifference to infection. "Kismet," as they think it, said Jane Mohun, and still more to their want of care. Chills were caught, fevers and diphtheria ensued, and there was an actual mortality among the children at the works and at Arnscombe. Mr. Flight begged for help from the Nursing Sisterhood at Dearport, and, to her great joy, Sister Beata was sent down to him, with another who was of the same standing as Angela, and delighted to have a glimpse of her; though Angela thought it due to her delicate charge, and the Merrifields, not to plunge into actual nursing while Lena needed her hourly attention, and was not yet in a state for the training to do without it to continue. Paulina, however, being regarded as infection proof, was permitted to be an attendant and messenger of her dear Sister Beata, to her own great joy. She was now nineteen, and her desire to devote herself to a Sisterhood had never wavered, and intercourse with Sister Angela had only strengthened it.

"Oh, Maidie!" she said, "I do not think there can be any life so good or so happy as being really given up to our Lord and His work among the sick and poor."

"My dear, He can be served if you are in the world, provided you are not OF the world, and if you keep yourself from the evil."

"Yes; but why should I run into the world? It is not evil, I know, so far as you and all your friends can manage; but it stirs up the evil in one's self."

"And so would a Sisterhood. That is a world, too."

"I suppose it is, and that there would be temptation; but there is a great deal to help one to keep right. And, oh! to have one's work in real good to Christ's poor, or in missions, instead of in all these outside silly nonsensical diversions that one doubts about all the time. If you would only let me go back with dear Sister Beata and Sister Elfleda as a probationer!"

"You could not be any more yet," said Magdalen; "but I will think about it, and talk it over with Sister Angela. You know your friend Sister Mena, as she called herself, does not mean to be a Sister, but a governess."

"Yes; she wrote to me. She has never seen or known anything outside the Convent, and it is all new and turns her head," said Paulina, wisely. "I know she helped me to be all the more silly about Vera and poor Hubert Delrio."

Magdalen promised to talk the matter over with Sister Angela.

"I should call it a vocation," said Angela. "I have watched her ever since I have been here, and I am sure her soul is set on these best things, in a steady, earnest way."

"She has always been an exceedingly good girl ever since I have had to do with her," said Magdalen. "I have hardly had a fault to find with her, except a little exaggeration in the direction of St. Kenelm's."

"A steady, not a fitful flame," said Angela.

"But she is so young."

"If you will believe me, Magdalen, such a home as that Dearport Sisterhood is a precious thing—I have not been worthy of it. I have been a wild colt, carried about by all manner of passing excitements. Oh, dear! love of sheer fun and daring enterprise, and amusement, in shocking every one, even my very dearest, whom I loved best. I have done things too dreadful to think of, and been utterly unreasonable and unmanageable, and proud of it; but always that Sisterhood has been like a cord drawing me! I never quite got free of it, even when I sent back my medal, and fancied it had been playing at superstition. I was there for a month as almost a baby, and the atmosphere has brought peace ever since. That, and my brother, and Sister Constance, and Bishop Fulmort, have been the saving of me, if anything has. I mean, if they will have me, to spend a little time at Dearport after all this perplexity is over, and I know how it is with Lena, and I could see how it is with Paula if you liked."

Magdalen accepted the suggestion, perhaps the more readily because of a fleeting visit from Hubert Delrio, who had finished his frescoes at the American Vale Leston, and came for a day or two to Mr. Flight's. She had sometimes doubted whether the supposed love of Vera had not been a good deal diffused among the young ladies, and might not so far awaken in Paulina as to render her vocation doubtful; but there were no such symptoms. Paula was quiet and cheerful, with a friendly welcome, but no excitement; but it was Thekla, now fifteen, who was all blushes whenever Hubert looked or spoke to her, all her forwardness gone; and shyness, or decidedly awkwardness, set in, resulting chiefly in giggle.

Hubert looked more manly and substantial, and he had just had an order for an important London church, which pleased him much, and involved another journey to Italy to study some of the designs in the Lombardic churches.

Not that there was any chance of meeting Vera. Mr. and Mrs. White had spent the last summer at Baden; and Vera, who had many pretty little drawing-room talents, and was always obliging, had been very acceptable there. This winter an attack of rheumatism had made them decide on trying Algiers, with a view to the Atlas marbles, and then German baths again might claim them for the summer.

In fact, the fear of infection had rendered Rock Quay a deserted place during the Easter vacation. Fergus Merrifield might not come near Primrose and Lily, and was charmed to accept an invitation from his friend and admirer, Adrian Vanderkist, to Vale Leston, where he would be able to explore the geology of Penbeacon, to say nothing of the coast; while his sister Felicia, who had been one of the victims, remained to be disinfected with Miss Mohun. Dolores was at Vale Leston Priory, and Agatha Prescott with her, so as to have a clean bill of health for her return to Oxford for her last term.

The Holy Week was calm and grave; and the two girls, with Anna Vanderkist and her little sisters, were very happy over their primroses and anemones on Easter Eve, with the beautiful Altar Cross that no one could manage like Aunt Cherry, whose work was confined to that, and to the two crosses on the graves.

Another notion soon occupied them. There was a vague idea that a sort of convalescent or children's hospital might be established for the training of women intending to study medicine or nursing, chiefly at Miss Arthuret's expense, and Dolores was anxious to consider the possibility of placing it in the sweet mountain air, tempered by the sea breezes of Penbeacon.

It was an idea to make Mrs. Grinstead shudder; but neither she nor her niece, Anna Vanderkist, could forget Gerald's view that Penbeacon was not only to be the playground of Vale Leston, and they always felt as if Dolores had a certain widow's right to influence any decision. So she cheerfully acquiesced in what, in her secret heart, seemed only a feeble echo of the past, though, to the young generations it was a very happy hopeful present when all the youthful party, under the steerage of Mary and Anna, and the escort of Sir Adrian and Fergus, started off with ponies, donkeys, cycles and sturdy feet to picnic on Penbeacon, if possible in the March winds— well out of the way of the clay works.

How Fergus divided his cares between the strata and Dolores' kodak, how even his photography could not spoil Aunt Alda; how charming a group of sisters Dolores contrived to produce; how Adrian was the proud pioneer into a coach adorned with stalactites and antediluvian bones; how Anna collected milkwort and violets for Aunt Cherry; how a sly push sent little Joan in a headlong career down a slope that might have resulted in a terrible fall, but did only cause a tumble and great fright, and a severe reprimand from the elder sisters; how Agatha was entranced by the glorious view in the clearness of spring, how they ate their sandwiches and tried to think it was not cold; how grey east wind mist came over the distance and warned them it was time to trot down,—all this must belong to the annals of later Vale Leston; and of those years of youth which in each generation leave impressions as of sunbeams for life. And on their return, Dolores found a letter which filled her with a fresh idea. It was from her father in New Zealand, telling her that there was an opening for her to come and give a course of lectures on electricity at Canterbury, Auckland and the other towns, and proposing to her to come out with her lady assistant, when she might very probably extend her tour to Australia.

"Would you come, Naggie?" asked Dolores.

"Oh! I should like nothing half so well. If you could only wait till my turn is over, and the exam!"

"Of course! Why, we shall not have finished the correspondence till after the examination! How capital it will be! My father will like your bright face, and you will think him like Fergus grown older. Will your sister consent?"