"Are you aware, madam, that your late husband, not two days before his death, when in all human probability he must have known himself to be a ruined man, accepted from me assistance in a matter of business, which the enclosed correspondence between my solicitor and yours will explain? This act of mine, done for the sake of an ancient friendship subsisting between my mother and Captain Rothesay, has rendered me liable for a debt so heavy, that in paying it my income is impoverished, and must continue to be so for years.

"Your husband gave me no security: I desired none. Therefore I have no legal claim for requital for this great and bitter sacrifice, which makes me daily curse my own folly in having trusted living man. But I ask of you, madam, who, secured from the effects of Captain Rothesay's insolvency, have, I understand, been left in comfort, if not affluence—I ask, is it right, in honour and in honesty, that I, a clergyman with a small stipend, should suffer the penalty of a deed wherein, with all charity to the dead, I cannot but think I was grievously injured?

"Awaiting your answer, I remain, madam, your very obedient,

"Harold Gwynne."

"Harold Gwynne!" Olive, repeating the name to herself, let the letter fall on the ground. Well was it that she stood hidden from sight by the "great picture," so that her mother could not know the pang which came over her.

The mystery, then, was solved. Now she knew why in his last agony her dying father had written the name of "Harold"—her poor father, who was here accused, by implication at least, of a wilful act of dishonesty! She regarded the letter with a sense of abhorrence—so coldly cruel it seemed to her, whose tenderness for a father's memory naturally a little belied her judgment. And the heartless charge was brought by the husband of Sara Derwent! There was bitterness in every association connected with the name of Harold Gwynne.

"Well, dear, the letter!" said Mrs. Rothesay, as they passed from the studio to their own apartment.

"It brings news that will grieve you. But never mind, mamma, darling: we will bear all our troubles together." And as briefly and as tenderly as she could she explained the letter—together with the fact hitherto unknown to Mrs. Rothesay, that her husband in his last moments had evidently wished to acknowledge the debt.

Well Olive knew the effect this would produce on her mother's mind. Tears, angry exclamations, and bitter repinings; but the daughter soothed them all.

"Now, dear mamma," she whispered, when Mrs. Rothesay was a little composed, "we must answer the letter at once. What shall we say!"

"Nothing! That cruel man deserves no reply at all."

"Mamma!" cried Olive, somewhat reproachfully. "Whatever he may be, we are evidently his debtors. Even Mr. Wyld admits this, you see. We must not forget justice and honour—my poor fathers honour."

"No—no! You are right, my child. Let us do anything, if it is for the sake of his dear memory," sobbed the widow, whose love death had sanctified, and endowed with an added tenderness. "But, Olive, you must write—I cannot!"

Olive assented. She had long taken upon herself all similar duties. At once she sat down to pen this formidable letter. It took her some time; for there was a constant struggle between the necessary formality of a business letter, and the impulse of wounded feeling, natural to her dead father's child. The finished epistle was a curious mingling of both.

"Shall I read it aloud, mamma? and then the subject will be taken from your mind," said Olive, as she came and stood by her mother's chair.

Mrs. Rothesay assented.

"Well, then, here it begins—'Reverend Sir' (I ought to address him thus, you know, because he is a clergyman, though he does seem so harsh, and so unlike what a Christian pastor ought to be)."

"He does, indeed, my child—but, go on." And Olive read:

"'Reverend Sir—I address you by my mother's desire, to say that she was quite unaware of your claim upon my late dear father. She can only reply to it, by requesting your patience for a little time, until she is able to liquidate the debt—not out of the wealth you attribute to her, but out of her present restricted means. And I, my father's only child, wishing to preserve his memory from the imputations you have cast upon it, must tell you, that his last moments were spent in endeavouring to write your name. We never understood why, until now. Oh, sir! was it right or kind of you so harshly to judge the dead? My father intended to pay you. If you have suffered, it was through his misfortune—not his crime. Have a little patience with us, and your claim shall be wholly discharged.

"'Olive Rothesay.'"

"You have said nothing of Sara. I wonder if she knows this!" said the mother, as Olive folded up her letter.

"Hush, mamma! Let me forget everything that was once. Perhaps, too, she is not to blame. I knew Charles Geddes; Sara might not like to speak of me to her husband?"

Yet, with a look of bitter pain, Olive wrote the address of her letter—"Harbury Parsonage"—Sara's home! She lingered, too, over the name of Sara's husband.

"Harold Gwynne! Oh, mamma! how different names look! I cannot bear the sight of this! I hate it."

Years after, Olive remembered these words.



CHAPTER XX.

If the old painter of Woodford Cottage was an ascetic and a misanthrope never was the "milk of human kindness" so redundant in any human heart as in that of his excellent little sister, Miss Meliora Vanbrugh. From the day of her birth, when her indigent father's anticipation of a bequeathed fortune had caused her rather eccentric Christian name, Miss Meliora began a chase after the wayward sprite Prosperity. She had hunted it during her whole lifetime, and never caught anything but its departing shadow. She had never grown rich, though she was always hoping to do so. She had never married, for no one had ever asked her. Whether she had loved—but that was another question. She had probably quite forgotten the days of her youth; at all events, she never talked about them now.

But though to herself her name had been a mockery, to others it was not so. Wherever she went, she always brought "better things"—at least in anticipation. She was the most hopeful little body in the world, and carried with her a score of consolatory proverbs, about "long lanes" that had most fortunate "turnings," and "cloudy mornings" that were sure to change into "very fine days." She had always in her heart a garden full of small budding blessings; and though they never burst into flowers, she kept on ever expecting they would do so, and was therefore quite satisfied. Poor Miss Meliora! if her hopes never blossomed, she also never had the grief of watching them die.

Her whole life had been pervaded by one grand desire—to see her brother president of the Royal Academy. When she was a school-girl and he a student, she had secretly sketched his likeness—the only one extant of his ugly, yet soul-lighted face—and had prefixed thereto his name, with the magic letters, "P. B. A." She felt sure the prophecy would be fulfilled one day, and then she would show him the portrait, and let her humble, sisterly love go down to posterity on the hem of his robe of fame.

Meliora told all this to her favourite, Olive Rothesay, one day when they were busying themselves in gardening—an occupation wherein their tastes agreed, and which contributed no little to the affection and confidence that was gradually springing up between them.

"It is a great thing to be an artist," said Olive, musingly.

"Nothing like it in the whole world, my dear. Think of all the stories of little peasant-boys who have thus risen to be the companions of kings, whereby the kings were the parties most honoured. Remember the stories of Francis I. and Titian, of Henry VII. and Hans Holbein, of Vandyck and Charles I.!"

"You seem quite learned in Art, Miss Vanbrugh. I wish you would impart to me a little of your knowledge.''

"To be sure I will, my dear," said the proud, delighted little woman. "You see, when I was a girl, I 'read up' on Art, that I might be able to talk to Michael. Somehow, he never did care to talk with me; but perhaps he may yet.".

Olive's mind seemed wandering from the conversation, and from her employment, too; for the mignonette-bed she was weeding lost quite as many flowers as weeds. At last she said—

"Miss Meliora, do people ever grow rich as artists?"

"Michael has not done so," answered her friend (at which Olive began to blush for what seemed a thoughtless question). "But Michael has peculiar notions. However, I feel sure he will be a rich man yet—like Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Sir Thomas Lawrence, and many more."

Olive began to muse again. Then she said timidly, "I wonder why, with all your love for Art, you yourself did not become an artist?"

"Bless you, my dear, I should never think of such a thing. I have no genius at all for anything—Michael always said so. I an artist!—a poor little woman like me!"

"Yet some women have been painters."

"Oh, yes, plenty. There was Angelica Kauffman, and Properzia Rossi, and Elizabetta Sirani. In our day, there is Mrs. A—— and Miss B——, and the two C——s. And if you read about the old Italian masters, you will find that many of them had wives, or daughters, or sisters, who helped them a great deal. I wish I had been such an one! Depend upon it, my dear girl," said Meliora, waxing quite oracular in her enthusiasm, "there is no profession in the world that brings fame, and riches, and happiness, like that of an artist."

Olive only half believed in the innocent optimism of her companion. Still Miss Vanbrugh's words impressed themselves strongly on her mind, wherein was now a chaos of anxious thought. From the day when Mr. Gwynne's letter came, she had positively writhed under the burden of this heavy debt, which it would take years to discharge, unless a great deduction were made from their slender income. And how could she propose that—how bear to see her delicate and often-ailing mother deprived of the small luxuries which had become necessary comforts? To their letter no answer had come—the creditor was then a patient one; but this thought the more stimulated Olive to defray the debt. Night and day it weighed her down; plan after plan she formed, chiefly in secret, for the mention of this painful circumstance was more than her mother could bear. Among other schemes, the thought of entering on that last resource of helpless womanhood, the dreary life of a daily governess; but her desultory education, she well knew, unfitted her for the duty; and no sooner did she venture to propose the plan, than Mrs. Rothesay's lamentations and entreaties rendered it impracticable.

But Miss Vanbrugh's conversation now awakened a new scheme, by which in time she might be able to redeem her father's memory, and to save her mother from any sacrifice entailed by this debt. And so—though this confession may somewhat lessen the romance of her character—it was from no yearning after fame, no genius-led ambition, but from the mere desire of earning money, that Olive Rothesay first conceived the thought of becoming an artist.

Very faint it was at first—so faint that she did not even breathe it to her mother. But it stimulated her to labour incessantly at her drawing; silently to try and gain information from Miss Meliora; to haunt the painter's studio, until she had become familiar with many of its mysteries. She had crept into Vanbrugh's good graces, and he made her useful in a thousand ways.

But labouring secretly and without encouragement, Olive found her progress in drawing—she did not venture to call these humble efforts Art—very slow indeed. One day, when Mrs. Rothesay was gone out, Meliora came in to have a chat with her young favourite, and found poor Olive sitting by herself, quietly crying. There was lying beside her an unfinished sketch, which she hastily hid, before Miss Vanbrugh could notice what had been her occupation.

"My dear, what is the matter with you—no serious trouble, I hope?" cried the painter's little sister, who always melted into anxious compassion at the sight of anybody's tears. But Olive's only flowed the faster—she being in truth extremely miserable. For this day her mother had sorrowfully alluded to Mr. Gwynne's claim, and had begun to propose many little personal sacrifices on her own part, which grieved her affectionate daughter to the heart.

Meliora made vain efforts at comforting, and then, as a last resource, she went and fetched two little kittens and laid them on Olive's lap by way of consolation; for her own delight and solace was in her household menagerie, from which she was ever evolving great future blessings. She had always either a cat so beautiful, that when sent to Edwin Landseer, it would certainly produce a revolution in the subjects of his animal-pictures—or else a terrier so bewitching, that she intended to present it to her then girlish, dog-loving Majesty, thereby causing a shower of prosperity to fall upon the household of Vanbrugh.

Olive dried her tears, and stroked the kittens—her propensity for such pets was not her lightest merit in Meliora's eyes. Then she suffered herself to be tenderly soothed into acknowledging that she was very unhappy.

"I'll not ask you why, my dear, because Michael used to tell me I had far too much of feminine curiosity. I only meant, could I comfort you in any way?"

There was something so unobtrusive in her sympathy, that Olive felt inclined to open her heart to the gentle Meliora. "I can't tell you all," said she, "I think it would be not quite right;" and, trembling and hesitating, as if even the confession indicated something of shame, she whispered her longing for that great comfort, money of her own earning.

"You, my dear, you want money!" cried Miss Meliora, who had always looked upon her new inmate, Mrs. Rothesay, as a sort of domestic gold-mine. But she had the delicacy not to press Olive further.

"I do. I can't tell you why, but it is for a good—a holy purpose—Oh, Miss Vanbrugh, if you could but show me any way of earning money for myself! Think for me—you, who know so much more of the world than I."

—Which truth did not at all disprove the fact, that innocent little Meliora was a very child in worldly wisdom. She proved it by her next sentence, delivered oracularly after some minutes of hard cogitation. "My dear, there is but one way to gain wealth and prosperity. If you had but a taste for Art!"

Olive looked up eagerly. "Ah, that is what I have been brooding over this long time; until I was ashamed of myself and my own presumption."

"Your presumption!"

"Yes; because I have sometimes thought my drawings were not so very, very bad; and I love Art so dearly, I would give anything in the world to be an artist!"

"You draw! You long to be an artist!" It was the only thing wanted to make Olive quite perfect in Meliora's eyes. She jumped up, and embraced her young favourite with the greatest enthusiasm. "I knew this was in you. All good people must have a love for Art. And you shall have your desire, for my brother shall teach you. I must go and tell him directly."

But Olive resisted, for her poor little heart began to quake. What if her long-loved girlish dreams should be quenched at once—if Mr. Vanbrugh's stern dictum should be that she had no talent, and never could become an artist at all!

"Well, then, don't be frightened, my dear girl. Let me see your sketches. I do know a little about such things, though Michael thinks I don't," said Miss Meliora.

And Olive, her cheeks tingling with that sensitive emotion which makes many a young artist, or poet, shrink in real agony, when the crude first-fruits of his genius are brought to light—Olive stood by, while the painter's kind little sister turned over a portfolio filled with a most heterogeneous mass of productions.

Their very oddity showed the spirit of Art that dictated them. There were no pretty, well-finished, young-ladyish sketches of tumble-down cottages, and trees whose species no botanist could ever define;—or smooth chalk heads, with very tiny mouths, and very crooked noses. Olive's productions were all as rough as rough could be; few even attaining to the dignity of drawing-paper. They were done on backs of letters, or any sort of scraps: and comprised numberless pen-and-ink portraits of the one beautiful face, dearest to the daughter's heart—rude studies, in charcoal, of natural objects—outlines, from memory, of pictures she had seen, among which Meliora's eye proudly discerned several of Mr. Vanbrugh's; while, scattered here and there, were original pencil designs, ludicrously voluminous, illustrating nearly every poet, living or dead.

Michael Vanbrugh's sister was not likely to be quite ignorant of Art. Indeed, she had quietly gathered up a tolerable critical knowledge of it. She went through the portfolio, making remarks here and there. At last she closed it; but with a look so beamingly encouraging, that Olive trembled for very joy.

"Let us go to Michael, let us go to Michael," was all the happy little woman said. So they went.

Unluckily, Michael was not himself; he had been "pestered with a popinjay," in the "shape of a would-be connoisseur, and he was trying to smooth his ruffled feathers, and compose himself again to solitude and "Alcestis." His "well, what d'ye want?" was a sort of suppressed bellow, softening down a little at sight of Olive.

"Brother," cried Miss Meliora, trying to gather up her crumbling enthusiasm into one courageous point—"Michael, I have found out a new genius! Look here, and say if Olive Rothesay will not make an artist!"

"Pshaw—a woman make an artist! Ridiculous!" was the answer. "Ha! don't come near my picture. The paint's wet Get away."

And he stood, flourishing his mahl-stick and palette—looking very like a gigantic warrior guarding the shrine of Art with shield and spear.

His poor little sister, quite confounded, tried to pick up the drawings which had fallen on the floor, but he thundered out—"Let them alone!" and then politely desired Meliora to quit the room.

"Very well, brother—perhaps it will be better for you to look at the sketches another time. Come, my dear."

"Stay, I want Miss Rothesay; no one else knows how to put on that purple chlamys properly, and I must work at drapery to-day. I am lit for nothing else, thanks to that puppy who is just gone; confound him! I beg your pardon, Miss Rothesay," muttered the old painter, in a slight tone of concession, which encouraged Meliora to another gentle attack.

"Then, brother, since your day is spoiled, don't you think if you were to look"——

"I'll look at nothing; get away with you, and leave Miss Rothesay here—the only one of you womenkind who is fit to enter an artist's studio."

Here Meliora slyly looked at Olive with an encouraging smile, and then, by no means despairing of her kind-hearted mission, she vanished.

Olive, humbled and disconsolate, prepared for her voluntary duty as Vanbrugh's lay-figure. If she had not so reverenced his genius, she certainly would not have altogether liked the man. But her hero-worship was so intense, and her womanly patience so all-forgiving, that she bore his occasional strange humours almost as meekly as Meliora herself. To-day, for the hundredth time she watched the painter's brow smooth, and his voice soften, as upon him grew the influence of his beautiful creation. "Alcestis," calmly smiling from the canvas, shed balm into his vexed soul.

But beneath the purple chlamys poor little Olive still trembled and grieved. Not until her hope was thus crushed, did she know how near her heart it had been. She thought of Michael Vanbrugh's scornful rebuke, and bitter shame possessed her. She stood—patient model!—her fingers stiffening over the rich drapery, her eyes weariedly fixed on the one corner of the room, in the direction of which she was obliged to turn her head. The monotonous attitude contributed to plunge her mind into that dull despair which produces immobility—Michael Vanbrugh had never had so steady a model.

As Olive was placed, he could not see her face unless he moved. When he did so, he quite startled her out of a reverie by exclaiming—

"Exquisite! Stay just as you are. Don't change your expression. That's the very face I want for the Mother of Alcestis. A little older I must make it—but the look of passive misery, the depressed eyelids and mouth. Ah, beautiful—beautiful! Do, pray, let me have that expression again, just for three minutes!" cried the eager painter.

He accomplished his end; for Olive's features, from long habit, had had good practice in that line;—and she would willingly have fixed them into all Le Bran's Passions, if necessary for artistic purposes. Delighted at his success, Mr. Vanbrugh suddenly thought of his model, not as a model, but as a human being. He wondered what had produced the look which, now faithfully transferred to the canvas, completed "a bit" that had troubled him for weeks. He then thought of the drawings, and of his roughness concerning them. Usually he hated amateurs and their productions, but perhaps these might not be so bad. He would not condescend to lift them, but fidgeting with his mahl-stick, he stirred them about once or twice—accidentally as it seemed—until he had a very good notion of what they were. Then, after half-an-hour's silent painting, he thus addressed Olive.

"Miss Rothesay, what put it into your head that you wanted to be an artist?"

Olive answered nothing. She was ashamed to speak of her girlish aspirations, such as they had been; and she could not tell the other motive—the secret about Mr. Gwynne. Besides, Vanbrugh would have scorned the bare idea of her entering on the great career of Art for money! So she was silent.

He did not seem to mind it at all, but went on talking, as he sometimes did, in a sort of declamatory monologue.

"I am not such a fool as to say that genius is of either sex; but it is an acknowledged fact that no woman ever was a great painter, poet, or musician. Genius, the mighty one, scorns to exist in weak female nature; and even if it did, custom and education would certainly stunt its growth. Look here, child,"—and, to Olive's astonishment, he snatched up one of her drawings, and began lecturing thereupon—"here you have made a design of some originality. I hate your young lady copyists of landscapes and flowers, and Jullien's paltry heads. Come, let us see this epigraph, 'Laon's Vision of Cythna,'

Upon the mountain's dizzy brink she stood.

Good! Bold enough, too!"

And the painter settled himself into a long, silent examination of the sketch. Then he said—

"Well, this is tolerable; a woman standing on a rock, a man a little distance below looking at her—both drawn with decent correctness, only overlaid with drapery to hide ignorance of anatomy. A very respectable design. But, when one compares it with the poem!" And, in his deep, sonorous voice, he repeated the stanzas from the "Revolt of Islam."

She stood alone. Above, the heavens were spread; below, the flood Was murmuring in its caves; the wind had blown Her hair apart, through which her eyes and forehead shone. A cloud was hanging o'er the western mountains; Before its blue and moveless depths were flying Grey mists, poured forth from the unresting fountains Of darkness in the north—the day was dying. Sudden the sun shone forth; its beams were lying Like boiling gold on Ocean, strange to see; And on the shattered vapours which defying The power of light in vain, tossed restlessly In the red heaven, like wrecks in a tempestuous sea.

It was a stream of living beams, whose bank On either side by the cloud's cleft was made; And where its chasms that flood of glory drank, Its waves gushed forth like fire, and, as if swayed By some mute tempest, rolled on her. The shade Of her bright image floated on the river Of liquid light, which then did end and fade. Her radiant shape upon its verge did shiver Aloft, her flowing hair like strings of flames did quiver.

"There!" cried Vanbrugh, his countenance glowing with a fierce inspiration that made it grand through all its ugliness—"there! what woman could paint that?—or rather, what man! Alas! how feeble we are—we, the boldest followers of an Art which is divine.—Truly there was but one among us who was himself above humanity, Michael the angel!"

He gazed reverently at the majestic head of Buonarotti, which loomed out from the shadowy corner of the studio.

Olive experienced—as she often did when brought into contact with this man's enthusiasm—a delight almost like terror; for it made her shudder and tremble as though within her own poor frame was that Pythian effluence, felt, not understood—the spirit of Genius.

Vanbrugh came back, and continued his painting, talking all the while.

"I said that it was impossible for a woman to become an artist—I mean a great artist. Have you ever thought what that term implies? Not only a painter, but a poet; a man of learning, of reading, of observation. A gentleman—we artists have been the friends of kings. A man of stainless virtue, or how can he reach the pure ideal? A man of iron will, indomitable daring, and passions strong, yet kept always leashed in his hand. Last and greatest, a man who, feeling within him the divine spirit, with his whole soul worships God!"

Vanbrugh lifted off his velvet cap and reverently bared his head; then he continued:

"This is what an artist should be, by nature. I have not spoken of what he has to make himself. Years of study incessant lie before him; no life of a carpet-knight, no easy play-work of scraping colours on canvas. Why, these hands of mine have wielded not only the pencil but the scalpel; these eyes have rested on scenes of horror, misery—crime, I glory in it; for it was all for Art. At times I have almost felt like Parrhasius of old, who exulted in his captive's dying throes, since upon them his hand of genius would confer immortality. But I beg your pardon—you are but a woman—a mere girl," added Vanbrugh, seeing Olive shudder. Yet he had not been unmindful of the ardent enthusiasm which had dilated her whole frame while listening. It touched him like the memory of his own youth. Some likeness, too, there seemed between himself and this young creature to whom nature had been so niggardly. She might also be one of those who, shut out from human ties, are the more free to work the glorious work of genius.

After a few minutes of thought, Michael again burst forth.

"They who embrace Art must embrace her with heart and soul, as their one only bride. And she will be a loving bride to them—she will stand in the place of all other joy. Is it not triumph for him to whom fate has denied personal beauty, that his hand—his flesh and blood hand—has power ta create it? What cares he for worldly splendour, when in dreams he can summon up a fairy-land so gorgeous that in limning it even his own rainbow-dyed pencil fails? What need has he for home, to whom the wide world is full of treasures of study—for which life itself is too short? And what to him are earthly and domestic ties? For friendship, he exchanges the world's worship, which may be his in life, must be, after death. For love"——

Here the old artist paused a moment, and there was something heavenly in the melody of his voice as he continued—

"For love—frail human love—the poison-flower of youth, which only lasts an hour, he has his own divine ideal It flits continually before him, sometimes all but clasped; it inspires his manhood with purity, and pours celestial passion into his age. His heart, though dead to all human ties, is not cold, but burning. For he worships the ideal of beauty, he loves the ideal of love."

Olive listened, her mind reeling before these impetuous words.—One moment she looked at Vanbrugh where he stood, his age transfigured into youth, his ugliness into majesty, by the radiance of the immortal fire that dwelt within him. Then she dropped almost at his feet crying.

"I, too, am one of these outcasts; give me then this inner life which atones for all! Friend, counsel me—master, teach me! Woman as I am, I will dare all things—endure all things. Let me be an artist."



CHAPTER XXI.

Olive Rothesay's desire,

Like all strongest hopes, By its own energy fulfilled itself.

She became an artist—not in a week, a month, a year—Art exacts of its votaries no less service than a lifetime. But in her girl's soul the right chord had been touched, which began to vibrate unto noble music—the true seed had been sown, which day by day grew into a goodly plant.

Vanbrugh had said truly, that genius is of no sex; and he had said likewise truly, that no woman can be an artist—that is, a great artist. The hierarchies of the soul's dominion belong only to man, and it is right they should. He it was whom God created first, let him take the preeminence. But among those stars of lesser glory, which are given to lighten the nations, among sweet-voiced poets, earnest prose writers, who, by the lofty truth that lies hid beneath legend and parable, purify the world, graceful painters and beautiful musicians, each brightening their generation—among these, let woman shine!

But her sphere is, and ever must be, bounded; because, however fine her genius may be, it always dwells in a woman's breast. Nature, which gave to man the dominion of the intellect, gave to her that of the heart and affections. These bind her with everlasting links from which she cannot free herself,—nay, she would not if she could. Herein man has the advantage. He, strong in his might of intellect, can make it his all in all, his life's sole aim and reward. A Brutus, for that ambition which is misnamed patriotism, can trample on all human ties. A Michael Angelo can stand alone with his work, and so go sternly down unto a desolate old age. But there scarcely ever lived the woman who would not rather sit meekly by her own hearth, with her husband at her side, and her children at her knee, than be the crowned Corinne of the Capitol.

Thus woman, seeking to strive with man, is made feebler by the very spirit of love which in her own sphere is her chiefest strength. But sometimes chance or circumstance or wrong, sealing up her woman's nature, converts her into a self-dependent human soul. Instead of life's sweetnesses, she has before her life's greatnesses. The struggle passed, her genius may lift itself upward, expand, and grow; though never to the stature of man's. Then, even while she walks with scarce-healed feet over the world's rough pathway, heaven's glory may rest upon her upturned brow, and she may become a light unto her generation.

Such a destiny lay open before Olive Rothesay.

She welcomed it as one who has girded himself with steadfast but mournful patience unto a long and weary journey, welcomes the faint ray that promises to guide him through the desolation. No more she uttered, as was her custom in melancholy moods, the bitter complaint, "Why was I born?" but she said to herself, "I will live so as to leave the world better when I die. Then I shall not have lived in vain."

It was long before Michael Vanbrugh could thoroughly reconcile himself to the idea of a girl's becoming a painter. But by degrees he learned to view his young pupil as a pupil, and never thought of her sex at all. Under his guidance, Olive passed from the mere prettiness of most woman-painters to the grandeur of true Art. Strengthened by her almost masculine power of mind, she learned to comprehend and to reverence the mighty masters whom Vanbrugh loved. He led her to those heights and depths which are rarely opened to a woman's ken. And she, following, applied herself to the most abstruse of Art-studies. Still, as he had said, there were bounds that she could not pass; but as far as in her lay, she sought to lift herself above her sex's weakness and want of perseverance; and by labour from which most women would have shrunk, to make herself worthy of being ranked among those painters who are "not for an age, but for all time."

That personal deformity which she thought excluded her from a woman's natural destiny, gave her freedom in her own. Brought into contact with the world, she scarcely felt like a young and timid girl, but as a being—isolated, yet strong in her isolation; who mingles, and must mingle among men, not as a woman, but as one who, like themselves, pursues her own calling, has her own aim; and can therefore step aside for no vain fear, nor sink beneath any foolish shame. And wherever she went, her own perfect innocence wrapped her round as with a shield.

Still, little quiet Olive could do many things with an independence that would have been impossible to a girl lively and beautiful Oftentimes Mrs. Rothesay trembled and murmured at days of solitary study in the British Museum, and in various picture-galleries; long lonely walks, sometimes in winter-time extending far into the dusk of evening. But Olive always answered, with a pensive smile,

"Nay, mother; I am quite safe everywhere. Remember, I am not like other girls. Who would notice me?"

But she always accompanied any painful allusion of this kind by saying how happy she was in being so free, and how fortunate it seemed that there could be nothing to hinder her from following her heart's desire. She was growing as great an optimist as Miss Meliora herself, who—cheerful little soul—was in the seventh heaven of delight whenever she heard her brother acknowledge Olive's progress.

"And don't you see, my dear Miss Rothesay," she said sometimes, "that everything always turns out for the best; and that if you had not been so unhappy, and I had not come in and found you crying, you might have gone on pining in secret, instead of growing up to be an artist."

Olive assented, and confessed it was rather strange that out of her chiefest trouble should have arisen her chiefest joy.

"It almost seems," said she to her mother, laughing, "as if that hard-hearted Mr. Harold Gwynne had held the threads of my destiny, and helped to make me an artist."

"Don't let us talk about Mr. Gwynne; it is a disagreeable subject, my child," was Mrs. Rothesay's answer.

Olive did not talk about him, but she thought the more. And—though had he known it, the pelf-despising Mr. Vanbrugh would never have forgiven such a desecration of Art—it was not her lightest spur in the attainment of excellence, to feel that as soon as her pictures were good enough to sell, she might earn money enough to discharge the claim of this harsh creditor, whose very name sent a pang to her heart.

Day by day, as her mind strengthened and her genius developed, Olive's existence seemed to brighten. Her domestic life was full of many dear ties, the chief of which was that devotion, less a sentiment than a passion, which she felt for her mother. Her intellectual fife grew more intense; while she felt the stay and solace of having a fixed pursuit to occupy her whole future. Also, it was good for her to live with the enthusiastic painter and his meek contented little sister; for she learnt thereby, that life might pass not merely in endurance, but in peace, without either of those blessings which in her early romance she deemed the chief of all—beauty and love. There was a greatness and happiness beyond them both.

The lesson was impressed more deeply by a little incident that chanced about this time.

Miss Vanbrugh sometimes took Olive with her on those little errands of charity which were not unfrequent with the gentle Meliora.

"I wish you would come with me to-day," she said once, "because, to tell the truth, I hardly like to go alone."

"Indeed!" said Olive, smiling, for the little old maid was as brave as a lion among these gloomiest of all gloomy lanes, familiar to her even in dark nights, and this was a sunny spring morning.

"I am not going to see an ordinary poor person, but that Quadroon woman—Mrs. Manners, who is one of my brother's models sometimes—you know her?"

"Scarcely; but I have seen her pass through the hall. Oh, she was a grand, beautiful woman, like an Eastern queen. You remember it was she from whom Mr. Vanbrugh painted the 'Cleopatra.' What an eye she had, and what a glorious mouth!" cried Olive, waxing enthusiastic.

"Poor thing! Her beauty is sadly wasting now," said Meliora. "She seems to be slowly dying, and I shouldn't wonder if it were of sheer starvation; those models earn so little. Yesterday she fainted as she stood—Michael is so thoughtless. He had to call me to give her some wine, and then we sent the maid home with her. She lives in a poor place, Hannah says, but quite decent and respectable. I shall surely go and see the poor creature; but she looks such a desperate sort of woman, her eyes glare quite ferociously sometimes. She might be angry—so I had rather not be alone, if you will come, Miss Rothesay?"

Olive consented at once; there was in her a certain romance which, putting all sympathy aside, quite gloried in such an adventure.

They walked for a mile or two until they reached a miserable street by the river-side; but Miss Meliora had forgotten the number. They must have returned, their quest unsatisfied, had not Olive seen a little girl leaning out of an upper window,—her ragged elbows on the sill, her elf-like black eyes watching the boats up and down the Thames.

"I know that child," Olive said; "it is the poor woman's. She left it in the hall one day at Woodford Cottage, and I noticed it from its black eyes and fair hair. I remember, too—for I asked—its singular and very pretty name, Christal."

Talking thus, they mounted the rickety staircase, and inquired for Mrs. Manners. The door of the room was flung open from without, with a noise that would have broken any torpor less deep than that into which its wretched occupant had fallen.

"Ma mie is asleep; don't wake her or she'll scold," said Christal jumping down from the window, and interposing between Miss Vanbrugh and the woman who was called Mrs. Manners.

She was indeed a very beautiful woman, though her beauty was on a grand scale. She had flung herself, half-dressed, upon what seemed a heap of straw, with a blanket thrown over. As she lay there, sleeping heavily, her arm tossed above her head, the large but perfect proportions of her form reminded Olive of the reclining figure in the group of the "Three Fates."

But there was in the prematurely old and wasted face something that told of a wrecked life. Olive, prone to romance-weaving, wondered whether nature had in a mere freak invested an ordinary low-born woman with the form of the ancient queens of the world, or whether within that grand body lay ruined an equally grand soul.

Miss Meliora did not think about anything of the sort; but merely that her brother's dinner-hour was drawing near, and that if poor Mrs. Manners did not wake, they must go back without speaking to her.

But she did wake soon—and the paroxysm of anger which seized her on discovering that she had intruding guests, caused Olive to retire almost to the staircase. But brave little Miss Vanbrugh did not so easily give up her charitable purpose.

"Indeed, my good woman, I only meant to offer you sympathy, or any help you might need in your illness."

The woman refused both. "I tell you we want for nothing."

"Ma mie, I am so hungry!" said little Christal, in a tone between complaint and effrontery. "I will have something to eat."

"You should not speak so rudely to your mother, little girl," interposed Miss Meliora.

"My mother! No, indeed; she is only ma mie. My mother was a rich lady, and my father a noble gentleman."

"Hear her, Heaven! oh, hear her!" groaned the woman on the floor.

"But I love ma mie very much—that's when she's kind to me," said Christal; "and as for my own father and mother, who cares for them, for, as ma mie says, they were drowned together in the deep sea, years ago."

"Ay, ay," was the muttered answer, as Mrs. Manners clutched the child—a little, thin-limbed, cunning-eyed girl, of eight or ten years old—and pressed her to her breast, with a strain more like the gripe of a lioness than a tender woman's clasp.

Then she fell back exhausted, and took no more notice of anybody. Meliora forgot Mr. Vanbrugh's dinner, and all things else, in making a few charitable arrangements, which resulted in a comfortable tea for little Christal and "ma mie."

Sleep had again overpowered the sick woman, who appeared to be slowly dying of that anomalous disease called decline, in which the mind is the chief agent of the body's decay. Meanwhile, Miss Vanbrugh talked in an undertone to little Christal, who, her hunger satisfied, stood, finger in mouth, watching the two ladies with her fierce black eyes—the very image of a half-tamed gipsy. Indeed, Miss Meliora seemed rather uneasy, and desirous to learn more of her companions, for she questioned the child closely.

"And is the person you call ma mie any relation to you?"

"The neighbours say she is my aunt, from the likeness. I don't know."

"And her name is Mrs. Manners—a widow, no doubt; for I remember she was in very respectable mourning when she first came to Woodford Cottage."

"Poor young creature!" she continued, sitting down beside the object of her compassion, who was, or seemed, asleep. "How hard to loose her husband so soon! and I dare say she has gone through great poverty—sold one thing after another to keep her alive. Why, I declare," added the simple and unworldly Meliora, who could make a story to fit anything, "poor soul! she has even been forced to part with her wedding-ring."

"I never had one—I scorned it!" cried the woman, leaping up with a violence that quite confounded the painter's sister. "Do you come to insult me, you smooth-tongued English lady? Ah, you shrink away. What do you know about me?"

"I don't know anything about you, indeed," said Meliora, creeping to the door; while Olive, who could not understand the cause of half she witnessed, stood simply looking on in wonder—almost in admiration,—for there was a strange beauty, like that of a Pythoness, in the woman's attitude and mien.

"You know nothing of me? Then you shall know. I come from a country where are thousands of young girls, whose mixed blood is too pure for slavery, too tainted for freedom. Lovely, accomplished, brought up delicately, they yet have no higher future than to be the white man's passing toy—cherished, wearied of, and spurned."

She paused, and Miss Vanbrugh, astonished at this sudden outburst, in language so vehement, and so above her apparent rank, had not a word to say. The woman continued:

"I but fulfilled my destiny. How could such as I hope to bear an honest man's honest name? So, when my fate came upon me, I cast all shame to the winds, and lived out my life. I followed my lover across the seas; I clung to him, faithful in my degradation; and when his child slept on my bosom, I looked at it, and was almost happy. Now what think you of me, virtuous English ladies?" cried the outcast, as she tossed back her cloud of dark crisped hair, and fixed her eyes sternly, yet mockingly, upon her visitors.

Poor Miss Vanbrugh was conscious of but one thing, that this scene was most unfit for a young girl; and that if she once could get Olive away, all future visits to the miserable woman should be paid by herself alone.

"I will see you another day, Mrs. Manners, but we cannot really stay now. Come, my dear Miss Rothesay."

And she and her charge quitted the room. Apparently, their precipitate departure still further irritated the poor creature they had come to succour; for as they descended the stairs, they heard her repeatedly shriek out Olive's surname, in tones so wild, that whether it was meant for rage or entreaty they could not tell.

Olive wanted to return.

"No, my dear, she would only insult you. Besides, I will go myself to-morrow. Poor wretch! she is plainly near her end. We must be merciful to the dying."

Olive walked home thoughtfully, not speaking much. When they passed out of the squalid, noisy streets, into the quiet lane that led to Woodford Cottage, she had never felt so keenly the blessing of a pure and peaceful home. She mounted to the pretty bedchamber which she and her mother occupied, and stood at the open window, drinking in the fresh odour of the bursting leaves. Scarcely a breath stirred the soft spring evening—the sky was like one calm blue lake, and therein floated, close to the western verge, "the new moon's silver boat."

She remembered how it had been one of her childish superstitions always "to wish at the new moon." How often, her desire seeming perversely to lift itself towards things unattainable, had she framed one sole wish that she might be beautiful and beloved!

Beautiful and beloved! She thought of the poor creature whose fierce words yet rang in her ear. Beautiful and beloved! She had been both, and what was she now?

And Olive rejoiced that her own childish longings had passed into the better wisdom of subdued and patient womanhood. Had she now a wish, it was for that pure heart and lowly mind which are more precious than beauty; for that serene peace of virtue, which is more to be desired than love.

Now her fate seemed plain before her—within her home she saw the vista of a life of filial devotion blest in

"A constant stream of love that knew no fall."

As she looked forth into the world without, there rose the hope of her Art, under shadow of which the lonely woman might go down to the grave not unhonoured in her day. Remembering all this, Olive murmured no longer at her destiny. She thanked God, for she felt that she was not unhappy.



CHAPTER XXII.

Perhaps, ere following Olive's fortunes, it may be as well to set the reader's mind at rest concerning the incident narrated in the preceding chapter. It turned out the olden tale of passion, misery, and death. No more could be made of it, even by the imaginative Miss Meliora.

A few words will comprise all that she discovered. Returning faithfully next day, the kind little woman found that the object of her charity needed it no more. In the night, suddenly, it was thought, the spirit had departed. There was no friend to arrange anything; so Miss Vanbrugh undertook it all. Her own unobtrusive benevolence prevented a pauper funeral. But in examining the few relics of the deceased, she was surprised to find papers which clearly explained the fact, that some years before there had been placed in a London bank, to the credit of Celia Manners, a sum sufficient to produce a moderate annuity. The woman had rejected it, and starved.

But she had not died without leaving a written injunction, that it should be claimed by the child Christal, since it was "her right." This was accomplished, to the great satisfaction of Miss Vanbrugh and of the honest banker, who knew that the man—what sort of man he had quite forgotten—who deposited the money, had enjoined that it should be paid whenever claimed by Celia or by Christal Manners.

Christal Manners was then the child's name. Miss Vanbrugh might have thought that this discovery implied the heritage of shame, but for the little girl's obstinate persistence in the tale respecting her unknown father and mother, who were "a noble gentleman and grand lady," and had both been drowned at sea. The circumstance was by no means improbable, and it had evidently been strongly impressed on Christal by the woman she called ma mie. Whatever relationship there was between them, it could not be the maternal one. Miss Vanbrugh could not believe in the possibility of a mother thus voluntarily renouncing her own child.

Miss Meliora put Christal to board with an old servant of hers for a few weeks. But there came such reports of the child's daring and unruly temper, that, quaking under her responsibility, she decided to send her protegee away to school The only place she could think of was an old-fashioned pension in Paris, where, during her brother's studies there, her own slender education had been acquired. Thither the little stranger was despatched, by means of a succession of contrivances which almost drove the simple Meliora crazy. For—lest her little adventure of benevolence should come to Michael's ears—she dared to take no one into her confidence, not even the Rothesays. Madame Blandin, the mistress of the pension, was furnished with no explanations; indeed there were none to give. The orphan appeared there under the character she so steadily sustained, as Miss Christal Manners, the child of illustrious parents lost at sea; and so she vanished altogether from the atmosphere of Woodford Cottage.

Olive Rothesay was now straining every nerve towards the completion of her first exhibited picture—a momentous crisis in every young artist's life. It was March: always a pleasant month in this mild, sheltered, neighbourhood, where she had made her home. There, of all the regions about London, the leaves come earliest, the larks soonest begin to sing, and the first soft spring breezes blow. But nothing could allure Olive from that corner of their large drawing-room which she had made her studio, and where she sat painting from early morning until daylight was spent. The artist herself formed no unpleasing picture—at least so her fond mother often thought—as Olive stood before her easel, the light from the half-closed-up window slanting downwards on her long curls, of that rare pale gold, the delight of the ancient painters, and now the especial admiration of Michael Vanbrugh To please her master, Olive, though now a woman grown, wore her hair still in childish fashion, falling in most artistic confusion over her neck and shoulders. It seemed that nature had bestowed on her this great beauty, in order to veil that defect which, though made far less apparent by her maturer growth, and a certain art in dress, could never be removed. Still there was an inexpressible charm in her purely-outlined features to which the complexion always accompanying pale-gold hair imparted such a delicate, spiritual colouring. Oftentimes her mother sat and looked at her, thinking she beheld the very likeness of the angel in her dream.

March was nearly passed. Olive's anxiety that the picture should be finished, and worthily finished, amounted almost to torture. At last, when there was but one week left—a week whose every hour of daylight must be spent in work, the hope and fear were at once terminated by her mother's sudden illness. Passing it was, and not dangerous; but to Olive's picture it brought a fatal interruption.

The tender mother more than once begged her to neglect everything but the picture. But Olive refused. Yet it cost her somewhat—ay, more than Mrs. Rothesay could understand, to give up a year's hopes. She felt this the more when came the Monday and Tuesday for sending in pictures to the Academy.

Heavily these days passed, for there was not now the attendance on the invalid to occupy Olive's mind. She was called hither and thither all over the house; since on these two days, for the only time in the year, there was at Woodford Cottage a levee of artists, patrons, and connoisseurs. Miss Rothesay was needed everywhere; first in the painting-room, to assist in arranging its various treasures, her taste and tact assisting Mr. Vanbrugh's artistic skill. For the thousandth time she helped to move the easel that sustained the small purchaseable picture with which Michael this year condescended to favour the Academy; and admired, to the painter's heart's content, the beloved and long-to-be-unsold "Alcestis," which extended in solitary grandeur over one whole side of the studio. Then she flitted to Miss Vanbrugh's room, to help her to dress for this important occasion. Never was there such a proud, happy little woman as Meliora Vanbrugh on the first Monday and Tuesday in April, when at least a dozen carriages usually rolled down the muddy lane, and the great surly dog, kennelled under the mulberry-tree, was never silent "from morn till dewy eve." All, thought the delighted Meliora, was an ovation to her brother. Each year she fully expected that these visiting patrons would buy up every work of Art in the studio, to say nothing of those adorning the hall—the cartoons and frescoes of Michael's long-past youth. And each year, when the carriages rolled away, and the visitants admiration remained nothing but admiration, she consoled herself with the thought that Michael Vanbrugh was "a man before his age," but that his time for appreciation would surely come. So she hoped on till the next April. Happy Meliora!

"Yes, you do seem happy, Miss Vanbrugh," said Olive, when she had coaxed the stiff grizzled hair under a neat cap of her own skilful manufacturing; and the painter's little sister was about to mount guard in the bay-window of the parlour, from whence she could see the guests walk down the garden, and be also ready to mark the expression of their faces as they came out of the studio.

"Happy! to be sure I am! Everybody must confess that this last is the best picture Michael ever painted"—(his sister had made the same observation every April for twenty years). "But, my dear Miss Rothesay, how wrong I am to talk so cheerfully to you, when your picture is not finished. Never mind, love. You have been a good, attentive daughter, and it will end all for the best."

Olive smiled faintly, and said she knew it would.

"Perhaps," continued Meliora, as a new and consolatory idea struck her, "perhaps even if you had sent in the picture, it might have been returned, or put in the octagon room, or among the miniatures, where nobody could see it; and that would have been much worse, would it not?"

"I suppose so; and, indeed, I will be quite patient and content."

Patient she was, but not content. It was scarcely possible. Nevertheless she quitted Miss Vanbrugh with smiles; and when she again sought her mother's chamber, it was with smiles too—or, at least, with that soft sweetness which was in Olive like a smile. When she had left Mrs. Rothesay to take her afternoon's sleep, she thought what she was to do to pass away the hours that, in spite of herself, dragged very wearily. This day was so different to what she had hoped. No eager delighted "last touches" to her beloved picture; no exhibiting it in its best light, in all the glory of the frame. It lay neglected below—she could not bear to look at it. The day was clear and bright—just the sort of day for painting; but Olive felt that the very sight of the poor picture would be more than she could bear. She did not go near it, but put on her bonnet and walked out.

"Courage! hope!" sang the larks to her, high up above the green lanes; but her heart was too sad to hear them. A year, a whole year, lost!—a whole year to wait for the next hope! And a year seems so long when one has scarcely counted twenty. Afterwards, how fast it flies!

"Perhaps," she said, her thoughts taking their colour from the general weariness of her spirits, "perhaps Miss Vanbrugh was right, and I might have had the picture returned. It cannot be very good, or it would not have taken such long and constant labour. Genius, they say, never toils—all comes by inspiration. It may be that I have no genius; well, then, where is the use of my labouring to excel!—indeed, where is the use of my living at all?"

"Alas! how little is known of the struggles of young, half-formed genius! struggles not only with the world, but with itself; a hopeless, miserable bearing-down; a sense of utter unworthiness and self-contempt. At times, when the inner life, the soul's lamp, burns dimly, there rises the piteous moan, 'Fool, fool! why strivest thou in vain? Thou hast deceived thyself: thou art no better than any brainless ass that plods through life.' And then the world grows so dull, and one's life seems so worthless, that one would fain blot it out at once."

Olive walked beneath this bitter cloud. She said to herself that if her picture had been a work of genius, it would have been finished long ere the time; and that if she were destined to be an artist, there would not have come this cross. No! all fates were against her. She must be patient and submit, but she felt as if she should never have courage to paint again. And now, when her work had become the chief aim and joy of her life, how hard this seemed!

She came home, drearily enough; for the sunny day had changed to rain, and she was thoroughly wet. But even this was, as Meliora would have expressed it, "for the best," since it made her feel the sweetness of having a tender mother to take off her dripping garments, and smooth her hair, and make her sit down before the bright fire. And then Olive laid her head in her mother's lap, and thought how wrong—nay, wicked—she had been. She was thinking thus, even with a few quiet tears, when Miss Meliora burst, like a stream of sunshine, into the room.

"Good news—good news!"

"What? Mr. Vanbrugh has sold his picture, as you hoped to Mr.——."

"No, not yet!" and the least possible shadow troubled the sister's face: "but perhaps he will. And, meanwhile, what think you? Something has happened quite as good; at least for somebody else. Guess!"

"Indeed, I cannot!"

"He has sold yours!"

Olive's face flushed, grew white, and then she welcomed this first success, as many another young aspirant to fame has done, by bursting into tears. So did the easily-touched Mrs. Rothesay, and so did the kind Miss Meliora, from pure sympathy. Never was good fortune hailed in a more lachrymose fashion.

But soon Miss Vanbrugh, resuming her smiles, explained how she had placed Olive's nearly-finished picture in her brother's studio, where all the visitors had admired it; and one, a good friend to Art, and to young, struggling artists, had bought it.

"My brother managed all, even to the payment. The full price you will have when you have completed the picture. And, meanwhile, look here!"

She had filled one hand with golden guineas, and now poured a Danaee-stream into Olive's lap. Then, laughing and skipping about like a child, she vanished—the beneficent little fairy!—as swiftly as Cinderella's godmother.

Olive sat mute, her eyes fixed on the "bits of shining gold," which seemed to look different to all other pieces of gold that she had ever seen. She touched them, as if half-fearing they would melt away, or, like elfin money, change into withered leaves. Then, brightly smiling, she took them up, one by one and told them into her mother's lap.

"Take them, darling—my first earnings; and kiss me: kiss your happy little girl!"

How sweet was that moment—worth whole years of after-fame! Olive Rothesay might live to bathe in the sunshine of renown, to hear behind her the murmur of a world's praise, but she never could know again the bliss of laying at her mother's feet the first-fruits of her genius, and winning, as its first and best reward, her mother's proud and happy kiss.

"You will be quite rich now, my child."

"We will be," said Olive, softly.

"And to think that such a great connoisseur as Mr.——— should choose my Olive's picture. Ah! she will be a celebrated woman some time: I always thought she would."

"I will!" said the firm voice in Olive's heart, as, roused to enthusiasm by this sweet first success, she felt stirring within her the spirit whose pulses she could not mistake—woman, nay, girl as she was. Thinking on her future, the future that, with Heaven's blessing, she would nobly work out, her eye dilated and her breast heaved. And then on that wildly-heaving bosom strayed a soft, warm hand: a tender voice whispered, "My child!"

And Olive, flinging her arms round her mother's neck, hid her face there, and was a simple, trembling child once more.

It was a very happy evening for them both, almost the happiest in their lives. The mother formed a score of plans of expending this newly-won wealth, always to the winner's benefit solely; but Olive began to look grave, and at last said, timidly:

"Mamma, indeed I want for nothing; and for this money, let us spend it in a way that will make us both most content. O mother! I can know no rest until we have paid Mr. Gwynne."

The mother sighed.

"Well, love, as you will. It is yours, you know; only, a little it pains me that my child's precious earnings should go to pay that cruel debt."

"But not that they should go to redeem my father's honour?" said Olive, still gently. She had her will.

When her picture was finished, and its price received, Olive, with a joyful heart, enclosed the sum to their long-silent creditor.

"His name does not look quite so fearful now," she said, smiling, when she was addressing the letter. "I can positively write it without trembling, and perhaps I may not have to write it many times. If I grow very rich, mamma, we shall soon pay off this debt, and then we shall never hear any more of Harold Gwynne. Oh! how happy that would be!"

The letter went, and an answer arrived in due form, not to Mrs., but to Miss Rothesay:

"Madam,—I thank you for your letter, and have pleasure in cancelling a portion of my claim. I would fain cancel the whole of it, but I must not sacrifice my own household to that of strangers.

"Allow me to express my deep respect for a child so honourably jealous over a father's memory, and to subscribe myself,

"Your very obedient,

"Harold Gwynne."

"He is not so stony-hearted after all, mamma," said Olive, smiling. "Shall I put this letter with the other; we had better keep them both?"

"Certainly, my dear."

"Look, the envelope is edged and sealed with black."

"Is it? Oh, perhaps he has lost his mother. I think I once heard your poor papa say he knew her once. She must be now an old woman; still her loss has probably been a grief to her son."

"Most likely," said Olive, hastily. She never could bear to hear of any one's mother dying; it made her feel compassionately even towards Mr. Gwynne; and then she quickly changed the subject.

The two letters were put by in her desk; and thus, for a season at least, the Harbury correspondence closed.



CHAPTER XXIII.

Seven summers more the grand old mulberry-tree at Woodford Cottage has borne leaf, flower, and fruit; the old dog that used to lie snarling under its branches, lies there still, but snarls no more. Between him and the upper air are two feet of earth, together with an elegant canine tombstone, on which Miss Rothesay, by the entreaty of the disconsolate Meliora, has modelled in clay a very good likeness of the departed.

Snap is the only individual who has passed away at Woodford Cottage; in all things else there has been an increase, not a decrease. The peaches and nectarines cover two walls instead of one, and the clematis has mounted in white virgin beauty even to the roof. Altogether, the garden is changed for the better. Trim it is not, and never would be—thanks to Olive, who, a true lover of the picturesque, hated trim gardens,—but its luxuriance is that of flowers, not weeds; and luxuriant it is, so that every day you might pull for a friend that pleasantest of all pleasant gifts, a nosegay; yea, and afterwards find, that, like charity, the more you gave the richer was your store.

Enter from the garden into the drawing-room, and you will perceive a change, too. Its dreariness has been softened by many a graceful adjunct of comfort and luxury. Half of it, by means of a crimson screen, is transformed into a painting-room. Olive would have it so; for several reasons, the chief of which was, that whether the young paintress was working or not, Mrs. Rothesay might never be out of the sound of her daughter's voice. For, alas! this same sweet love-toned voice was all the mother now knew of Olive!

Gradually there had come over Mrs. Rothesay the misfortune which she feared. She was now blind. Relating this, it may seem though we were about to picture a scene of grief and desolation: but not so. A misfortune that steals on year by year, slowly, inevitably, often comes with so light a footstep that we scarcely hear it. In this manner had come Mrs. Rothesay's blindness. Her sight faded so gradually, that its deprivation caused no despondency; and the more helpless she grew, the closer she was clasped by those supporting arms of filial love, which softened all pain, supplied all need, and were to her instead of strength, youth, eyesight!

One only bitterness did she know—that she could not see Olive's pictures. Not that she understood Art at all; but everything that Olive did must be beautiful. She missed nought else, not even her daughter's face, for she saw it continually in her heart Perhaps in the grey shadow of a form, which she said her eyes could still trace in the dim haze, she pictured the likeness of an Olive ten times fairer than the real one: an Olive whose cheek never grew pale with toil, whose brow was never crossed by that cloud of heart-weariness which all who labour in an intellectual pursuit must know at times. If so, the mother was saved from many of the pangs which visit those who see their beloved ones staggering under a burden which they themselves have no power either to bear or to take away.

And so, in spite of this affliction, the mother and daughter were happy, even quite cheerful sometimes. For cheerfulness, originally foreign to Olive's nature, had sprung up there—one of those heart-flowers which Love, passing by, sows according as they are needed, until they bloom as though indigenous to the soil. To hear Miss Rothesay laugh, as she was laughing just now, you would have thought she was the merriest creature in the world, and had been so all her life. Moreover, from this blithe laugh, as well as from her happy face, you might have taken her for a young maiden of nineteen, instead of a woman of six-and-twenty, which she really was. But with some, after youth's first sufferings are passed, life's dial seems to run backward.

"My child, how very merry you are, you and Miss Vanbrugh!" said Mrs. Rothesay, from her corner.

"Well, mamma, and how can we help it,—talking of my 'Charity,' and the lady who bought it. Would you believe, darling, she told Miss Vanbrugh that she did so because the background was like a view in their park, and the two little children resembled the two young Masters Fludyer—fortunate likeness for me!"

"Ay," said Miss Meliora, "only my brother would say you were very wrong to sell your picture to such stupid people, who know nothing about Art."

"Perhaps I was; but," she added whisperingly, "you know I have not sold my Academy picture yet, and mamma must go into the country this autumn."

"Mrs. Fludyer is a very nice chatty woman," observed the mother; "and she talked of her beautiful country-seat at Farnwood Hall. I think it would do me good to go there, Olive."

"Well, you know she asked you, dear mamma."

"Yes; but only for courtesy. She would scarcely be troubled with a guest so helpless as I," said Mrs. Rothesay, half sighing.

In a moment Olive was by her side, talking away, at first softly, and then luring her on to smiles with a merry tale,—how Mr. Fludyer, when the picture came home, wanted to have the three elder Fludyers painted in a row behind "Charity," that thus the allegorical picture might make a complete family group. "He also sent to know if I couldn't paint his horse 'Beauty,' and one or two greyhounds also, in the same picture. What a comical idea of Art this country squire must have!"

"My dear, every one is not so clever as you," said the mother. "I like Mrs. Fludyer very much, because, whenever she came to Woodford Cottage about the picture, she used to talk to me so kindly."

"And she has asked after you in all her letters since she went home. So she must be a good creature: and I, too, will like her very much indeed, because she likes my sweet mamma."

The determination was soon called into exercise; for the next half-hour, to the surprise of all parties, Mrs. Fludyer appeared.

She assigned no reason for her visit, except that being again in town, she had chosen to drive down to Woodford Cottage. She talked for half-an-hour in her mild, limpid way; and then, when the arrival of one of Olive's models broke the quiet leisure of the painting-room, she rose.

"Nay, Miss Rothesay, do not quit your easel; Miss Van-brugh will accompany me through the garden, and besides, I wish to speak to her about her clematis. We cannot make them grow in S—shire; the Hall is perhaps too cold and bleak."

"Ah, how I love a clear bracing air!" said Mrs. Rothesay, with the restlessness peculiar to all invalids—and she had been a greater invalid than usual this summer.

"Then you must come down, as I said—you and Miss Rothesay—to S—shire; our part of the country is very beautiful. I should be most happy to see you at Farnwood."

She urged the invitation with an easy grace, even cordiality, which charmed Mrs. Rothesay, to whom it brought back the faint reflex of her olden life—the life at Merivale Hall.

"I should like to go, Olive," she said, appealingly. "I feel dull, and want a change."

"You shall have a change, darling," was the soothing but evasive answer. For Olive had a tincture of the old Rothesay pride, and had formed a somewhat disagreeable idea of the position the struggling artist and her blind mother would fill as charity-guests at Farnwood Hall. So, after a little conversation with Mrs. Fludyer, she contrived that the first plan should melt into one more feasible. There was a pretty cottage, the squire's lady said, on the Farnwood estate; Miss Fludyer's daily governess had lived there; it was all fitted up. What if Miss Rothesay would bring her mother there for the summer months? It would be pleasant for all parties.

And so, very quickly, the thing was decided—decided as suddenly and unexpectedly as things are, when it seems as though not human will, but destiny held the balance.

Mrs. Fludyer seemed really pleased and interested; she talked to Miss Meliora less about her clematis than about her two inmates—a subject equally grateful to the painter's sister.

"There is something quite charming about Miss Rothesay—the air and manner of one who has always moved in good society. Do you know who she was? I should apologise for the question, but that a friend of mine, looking at her picture, was struck by the name, and desired me to inquire."

Meliora explained that she believed Olive's family was Scottish, and that her father was a Captain Angus Rothesay.

"Captain Angus Rothesay! I think that was the name mentioned by my friend."

"Shall I call Olive? Perhaps she knows your friend," observed Meliora.

"Oh no! Mrs.—that is, the lady I allude to, said they were entire strangers, and it was needless to mention her name. Do not trouble Miss Rothesay with my idle inquiry. Many thanks for the clematis; and good morning, my dear Miss Vanbrugh."

She ascended her carriage with the easy, smiling grace of one born to fortune, marrying fortune, and dwelling hand-in-hand with fortune all her life. Miss Meliora gazed in intense admiration after her departing wheels, and forthwith retired to plan out of the few words she had let fall a glorious future for her dear Miss Rothesay. There was certainly some unknown wealthy relative who would probably appear next week, and carry off Olive and her mother to affluence—in a carriage as grand as Mrs. Fludyer's.

She would have rushed at once to communicate the news to her friends, had it not been that she was stopped in the garden-walk by the apparition of her brother escorting two gentlemen from his studio—a rare courtesy with him. Meliora accounted for it when, from behind a sheltering espalier, she heard him address one of them as "my lord."

But when she told this to Olive, the young paintress was of a different opinion. She had heard the name of Lord Arundale, and recognised it as that of a nobleman on whom his love of Art and science shed more honour than his title. That was why Mr. Vanbrugh showed him respect, she knew.

"Certainly, certainly!" said Meliora, a little ashamed. "But to think that such a clever man, and a nobleman, should be so ordinary in appearance. Why, he was not half so remarkable-looking as the gentleman who accompanied him."

"What was he like?" said Olive smiling.

"You would have admired him greatly. His was just the sort of head you painted for your 'Aristides the Just'—your favourite style of beauty—dark, cold, proud, with such piercing, eagle eyes; they went right through me!"

Olive laughed merrily.

"Do you hear, mamma, how she runs on? What a bewitching young hero!"

"A hero, perhaps, but not exactly young; and as for bewitching, that he certainly might be, but it was in the fashion of a wizard or a magician. I never felt so nervous at the sight of any one in the whole course of my life." Here there was a knock at the drawing-room door.

"Come in," said Olive; and Mr. Vanbrugh entered.

For a moment he stood on the threshold without speaking; but there was a radiance in his face, a triumphant dignity in his whole carriage, which struck Olive and his sister with surprise.

"Brother—dear Michael, you are pleased with something; you have had good news."

He passed Meliora by, and walked up to Miss Rothesay.

"My pupil, rejoice with me; I have found at length appreciation, my life's aim has won success—I have sold my 'Alcestis.'"

Miss Vanbrugh rushed towards her brother. Olive Rothesay, full of delight, would have clasped her master's hand, but there was something in his look that repelled them both. His was the triumph of a man who exulted only in and for his Art, neither asking nor heeding any human sympathies. Such a look might have been on the face of the great Florentine, when he beheld the multitude gaze half in rapture, half in awe, on his work in the Sistine Chapel; then, folding his coarse garments round him, walked through the streets of Rome to his hermit dwelling, and sat himself down under the shadow of his desolate renown.

Michael Vanbrugh continued,

"Yes, I have sold my grand picture; the dream—the joy of a lifetime. Sold it, too, to a man who is worthy to possess it. I shall see it in Lord Arundale's noble gallery; I shall know that it, at least, will remain where, after my death, it will keep from oblivion the name of Michael Vanbrugh. Glorious indeed is this my triumph—yet less mine, than the triumph of high Art. Do you not rejoice, my pupil!"

"I do, indeed, my dear and noble master."

"And, brother, brother—you will be very rich. The price you asked for the 'Alcestis' was a thousand pounds," said Meliora.

He smiled bitterly.

"You women always think of money."

"But for your sake only, dear Michael," cried his sister; and her tearful eyes spoke the truth. Poor little soul! she could but go as far as her gifts went, and they extended no farther than to the thought of what comforts would this sum procure for Michael—a richer velvet gown and cap, like one of the old Italian painters—perhaps a journey to refresh his wearied eyes among lovely scenes of nature. She explained this, looking, not angry but just a little hurt.

"A journey! yes, I will take a journey—one which I have longed for these thirty years—I will go to Rome! Once again I will lie on the floor of the Sistine, and look up worshipingly to Michael the angel." (He always called him so.)

"And how long shall you stay, brother?"

"Stay?—Until my heart grows pulseless, and my brain dull. Why should I ever come back to this cold England?

"No: let me grow old, die, and be buried under the shadow of the eternal City."

"He will never come back again—never," said Miss Vanbrugh, looking at Olive with a vague bewilderment. "He will leave this pretty cottage, and me, and everything."

There was a dead silence, during which poor 'Meliora sat plaiting her white apron in fold after fold, as was her habit when in deep and perplexed thought. Then she went up to her brother.

"Michael, if you will take me, I should like to go too."

"What!" cried Mrs. Rothesay, "you, my dear Miss Vanbrugh, who are so thoroughly English—who always said you hated moving from place to place, and would live and die at Woodford Cottage!

"Hush—hush! we'll not talk about that, lest he should hear," said Meliora glancing half frightened at her brother. But he stood absorbed by the window, looking out apparently on the sky, though his eyes saw nothing—nothing! "Michael, do you quite understand—may I go with you to Rome?"

"Very well—very well, sister," he answered, in the tone of a man who is indifferent to the subject, except that consent gives less trouble than refusal. Then he turned towards Olive, and asked her to go with him to his painting-room; he wanted to consult with her as to the sort of frame that would suit the "Alcestis." Indeed, his pupil had now grown associated with all his pursuits, and had penetrated further in the depths of his inward life than any one else had been ever suffered to do. Olive gradually became to him his cherished pupil—the child of his soul, to whom he would fain transmit the mantle of his fame. He had but one regret, sometimes earnestly, and comically expressed—that she was a woman—only a woman.

They went and stood before the picture, he and Olive; Meliora stealing after her brother's footsteps, noiseless but constant as his shadow. And this ever-following, faithful love clung so closely to its object that, shadow-like, what all others beheld, by him was never seen.

Michael Vanbrugh cast on his picture a look such as no living face ever had won, or ever would win, from his cold eyes. It was the gaze of a parent on his child, a lover on his mistress, an idolator on his self-created god. Then he took his palette, and began to paint, lingeringly and lovingly, on slight portions of background or drapery—less as though he thought this needed, than as if loth to give the last, the very last, touch to a work so precious. He talked all the while, seemingly to hide the emotion which he would not show.

"Lord Arundale is an honour to his rank, a noble man indeed. One does not often meet such, Miss Rothesay. It was a pleasure to receive him in my studio. It did me good to talk with him, and with his friend."

Here Olive looked at Meliora and smiled. "Was his friend, then, as agreeable as himself?"

"Not so brilliant in conversation, but far the higher nature of the two, or I have read the human countenance in vain. He said frankly, that he was no artist, and no connoisseur, like Lord Arundale; but I saw from his eye, that, if he did not understand, he felt my picture."

"How so?" said Olive, with growing interest.

"He looked at Alcestis,—the 'Alcestis' I have painted,—sitting on her golden throne, waiting for death to call her from her kingdom and her lord; waiting solemnly, yet without fear. 'See,' said Lord Arundale to his friend, 'how love makes this feeble woman stronger than a hero! See how fearlessly a noble wife can die!'—'A wife who loves her husband,' was the answer, given so bitterly, that I turned to look at him. Oh, that I could have painted his head at that instant! It would have made a Heraclitus—a Timon!"

"And do you know his name? Will he come here again?"

"No: for he was leaving London to-day. I wish it had not been so, for I would have asked him to sit to me. That grand, iron, rigid head of his, with the close curling hair, would be a treasure indeed!"

"But who is he, brother?" inquired Meliora.

"A man of science; well known in the world, too, Lord Arundale said. He told me his name, but I forgot it. However, you may find a card somewhere about."

Meliora ran to the mantelpiece, and brought one to her brother. "Is this it?" He nodded. She ran for the light, and read aloud—

"The Reverend Harold Gwynne."



CHAPTER XXIV.

The subject of Harold Gwynne served Olive-and her mother for a full half-hour's conversation during that idle twilight season which they always devoted to pleasant talk. It was a curious coincidence which thus revived in their memories a name now almost forgotten. For, the debt once paid, Mr. Gwynne and all things connected with him had passed into complete oblivion, save that Olive carefully kept his letters.

These she had the curiosity to take from their hiding-place, and examine once more—partly for her mother's amusement, partly for her own; for it was a whim of hers to judge of character by hand-writing, and she really had been quite interested in the character which both Miss Vanbrugh and her brother had drawn.

"How strange that he should have been so near us, and we not know the fact! He seems quite to haunt us—to be our evil genius—our Daimon!"

"Hush, my dear! it is wrong to talk so. Remember, too, that he is Sara's husband."

Olive did remember it. Jestingly though she spoke, there was in her a remembrance, as mournful as a thing so long ended could be, of that early friendship, whose falseness had been her loving, heart's first blight. She had never formed another. There was a unity in her nature which made it impossible to build the shrine of a second affection on the ruins of the first. She found it so, even in life's ordinary ties. What would it have been with her had she ever known the great mystery of love?

She never had known it. She had lived all these years with a heart as virgin as mountain snows. When the one sweet dream which comes to most in early maidenhood—the dream of loving and being loved—was crushed, her heart drew back within itself, and, after a time of suffering almost as deep as if for the loss of a real object instead of a mere ideal, she prepared herself for her destiny. She went out into society, and there saw men, as they are in society—feeble, fluttering coxcombs, hard, grovelling men of business, some few men of pleasure, or of vice; and, floating around all, the race of ordinary mankind, neither good nor bad. Out of these classes, the first she merely laughed at, the second she turned from with distaste, the third she abhorred and despised, the fourth she looked upon with a calm indifference. Some good and clever men she had met occasionally, towards whom she had felt herself drawn with a friendly inclination; but they had always been drifted from her by the ever-shifting currents of society.

And these, the exceptions, were chiefly old, or at least elderly persons; men of long-acknowledged talent, wise and respected heads of families. The "new generation," the young men out of whose community her female acquaintances were continually choosing lovers and husbands, were much disliked by Olive Rothesay. Gradually, when she saw how mean was the general standard of perfection, how ineffably beneath her own ideal—the man she could have worshiped—she grew quite happy in her own certain lot. She saw her companions wedded to men who from herself would never have won a single thought. So she put aside for ever the half-sad dream of her youth, and married herself unto her Art.

She indulged in some of her sage reflections on men and women, courtship and wedlock, in general, when she sat at her mother's feet talking of Harold Gwynne and of his wife. "It could not have been a happy marriage, mamma,—if Mr. Gwynne be really the man that Miss Vanbrugh and her brother describe." And all day there recurred to Olive's fancy the words, "A wife who loved her husband." She, at least, knew too well that Sara Derwent, when she married, could not have loved hers. Wonderings as to what was Sara's present fate, occupied her mind for a long, long time. She had full opportunity for thought, as her mother, oppressed by the sultry August evening, had fallen asleep with her hand on her daughter's neck, and Olive could not stir for fear of waking her.

Slowly she watched the twilight darken into a deeper shadow—that of a gathering thunderstorm. The trees beyond the garden began to sway restlessly about, and then, with a sudden flash, and distant thunder growl, down came the rain in torrents. Mrs. Rothesay started and woke; like most timid women, she had a great dread of thunder, and it took all Olive's powers of soothing to quiet her nervous alarms. These were increased by another sound that broke through the pouring rain—a violent ringing of the garden-bell, which, in Mrs. Rothesay's excited state, seemed a warning of all sorts of horrors.

"The house is on fire—the bolt has struck it Oh Olive, Olive, save me!" she cried.

"Hush, darling! You are quite safe with me." And Olive rose up, folding her arms closely round her mother, who hid her head in her daughter's bosom. They stood—Mrs. Rothesay trembling and cowering—Olive with her pale brow lifted fearlessly, as though she would face all terror, all danger, for her mother's sake. Thus they showed, in the faint glimmer of the lightning, a beautiful picture of filial love—to the eyes of a stranger, who that moment opened the door. She was a woman, whom the storm had apparently driven in for shelter.

"Is this Miss Vanbrugh's house—is there any one here?" she asked; her accent being slightly foreign.

Olive invited her to enter.

"Thank you; forgive my intrusion, but I am frightened—half drowned. The thunder is awful; will you take me in till Miss Vanbrugh returns?"

A light was quickly procured, and Olive came to divest the stranger of her dripping garments.

"Thank you, no! I can assist myself—I always do."

And she tried to unfasten her shawl—a rich heavy fabric, and of gaudy colours, when her trembling fingers failed; she knitted her brows, and muttered some sharp exclamation in French.

"You had better let me help you," said Olive, gently, as, with a firm hand, she took hold of the shivering woman, or girl, for she did not look above seventeen, drew her to a seat, and there disrobed her of her drenched shawl.

Not until then did Miss Rothesay pause to consider further about this incognita, arrived in such a singular manner. But when, recovered from her alarm the young stranger subsided into the very unromantic occupation of drying her wet frock by the kitchen fire, Olive regarded her with no small curiosity.

She stood, a picture less of girlish grace, than of such grace as French fashion dictates. Her tall, well-rounded form struggled through a painful compression into slimness; her whole attire had that peculiar tournure which we islanders term Frenchified. Nay, there was something in the very tie of her neck-ribbon which showed it never could have been done by English fingers. She appeared, all over, "a young lady from abroad."

We have noticed her dress first, because that was most noticeable. She herself was a fine, tall, well-modelled girl, who would have been graceful had fashion allowed her. She had one beauty—a column-like neck and well-set head, which she carried very loftily. Her features were somewhat large, not pretty, and yet not plain. She had a good mouth and chin; her eyes were very dark and silken-fringed; but her hair was fair.

This peculiarity caught Olive's eye at once; so much so, that she almost fancied she had seen the face before, she could not tell where. She puzzled about the matter, until the young guest, who seemed to make herself quite at home, had dried her garments, and voluntarily proposed that they should return to the drawing-room.

They did so, the stranger leading the way, and much to Olive's surprise, seeming to thread with perfect ease the queer labyrinths of the house.

By this time the storm was over, and they found Mrs. Rothesay sitting quietly waiting for tea. The young lady again apologised in her easy, foreign manner, and asked if she might stay with them until Miss Vanbrugh's return? Of course her hostess assented, and she talked for above an hour; chiefly of Paris, which she said she had just left; of French customs; music, and literature.

In the midst of this, Miss Vanbrugh's voice was heard in the hall. The girl started, as one does at the sound of some old tune, heard in youth, and forgotten for years; her gaiety ceased; she put her hand before her eyes; but when the door opened, she was her old self again.

No child "frayed with a sprite" could have looked more alarmed than Miss Meliora at the sudden vision of this elegant young damsel, who advanced towards her. The little old maid was quite overpowered with her stylish bend; her salute, French fashion, cheek to cheek; and her anxious inquiries after Miss Vanbrugh's health.

"I am quite well, thank you, madam. A friend of Mrs. Rothesay's I suppose?" was poor Meliora's bewildered reply.

"No, indeed; I have not till now had the pleasure of hearing Mrs. Rothesay's name. My visit was to yourself," said the stranger, evidently enjoying the incognito she had kept, for her black eyes sparkled with fun.

"I am happy to see you, madam," again stammered the troubled Meliora.

"I thought you would be—I came to surprise you. My dear Miss Vanbrugh, have you really forgotten me? Then allow me to re-introduce myself. My name is Christal Manners."

Miss Meliora looked as if she could have sunk into the earth! Year after year, from the sum left in the bank, she had paid the school-bill of her self-assumed charge; but that was all. After-thoughts, and a few prudish hints given by good-natured friends, had made her feel both ashamed and frightened at having taken such a doubtful protegee. Whenever she chanced to think of Christal's growing up, and coming back a woman, she drove the subject from her mind in absolute alarm. Now the very thing she dreaded had come upon her. Here was the desolate child returned, a stylish young woman, with no home in the world but that of her sole friend and protectress.

Poor Miss Vanbrugh was quite overwhelmed. She sank on a chair, "Dear me! I am so frightened—that is, so startled. Oh, Miss Rothesay, what shall I do?" and she looked appealingly to Olive.

But between her and Miss Rothesay glided the young stranger. The bright colour paled from Christa's face—her smile passed into a frown.

"Then you are not glad to see me—you, the sole friend I have in the world, whom I have travelled a thousand miles to meet—travelled alone and unprotected—you are not glad to see me? I will turn and go back again—I will leave the house—I will—I"——

Her rapid speech ended in a burst of tears. Poor Meliora felt like a guilty thing. "Miss Manners—Christal—my poor child! I didn't mean that! Don't cry—don't cry! I am very glad to see you—so are we all—are we not, Olive?"

Olive was almost as much puzzled as herself. She had a passing recollection of the death of Mrs. Manners, and of the child's being sent to school; but since then she had heard no more of her. She could hardly believe that the elegant creature before her was the little ragged imp of a child whom she had once seen staring idly down the river. However, she asked no questions, but helped to soothe the girl, and to restore, as far as possible, peace and composure to the household.

They all spent the evening together without any reference to the past. Only once, Christal—in relating how, as soon as ever her term of education expired, she had almost compelled her governess to let her come to England, and to Miss Vanbrugh,—said, in her proud way,

"It was not to ask a maintenance—for you know my parents left me independent; but I wanted to see you because I believed that, besides taking charge of my fortune, you had been kind to me when a child. How, or in what way, I cannot clearly remember; for I think," she added, laughing, "that I must have been a very stupid little girl: all seems so dim to me until I went to school. Can you enlighten me, Miss Vanbrugh?"

"Another time, another time, my dear," said the painter's sister, growing very much confused.

"Well! I thank you all the same,'and you shall not find me ungrateful," said the young lady, kissing Miss Meliora's hand, and speaking in a tone of real feeling, which would have moved any woman. It quite overpowered Miss Van-brugh—the softest-hearted little woman in the world. She embraced her protegee, declaring that she would never part with her.

"But," she added, with a sudden thought, a thought of intense alarm, "what will Michael say?"

"Do not think of that to-night," interposed Olive. "Miss Manners is tired; let us get her to bed quickly, and we will see what morning brings."

The advice was followed, and Christal disappeared; not, however, without lavishing on Mrs. and Miss Rothesay a thousand gracious thanks and apologies, with an air and deportment that did infinite honour to the polite instruction of her pension.

Mrs. Rothesay, confused with all that had happened, did not ask many questions, but only said as she retired,

"I don't quite like her, Olive—I don't like the tone of her voice; and yet there was something that struck me in the touch of her hand—which is so different in different people."

"Hers is a very pretty hand, mamma. It is quite classic in shape—like poor papa's—which I remember so well!"

"There never was such a beautiful hand as your papa's. He said it descended in the Rothesay family. You have it, you know, my child," observed Mrs. Rothesay. She sighed, but softly; for, after all these years, the widow and the fatherless had learned to speak of their loss without pain, though with tender remembrance.

Thinking of him and of her mother, Olive thought, likewise, how much happier was her own lot than that of the orphan-girl, who, by her own confession, had never known what it was to remember the love of the dead, or to rejoice in the love of the living. And her heart was moved with the pity—nay, even tenderness, for Christal Manners.

When she had assisted her mother to bed—as she always did—Olive, in passing down stairs, moved by some feeling of interest, listened at the door of the young stranger. She was apparently walking up and down her room with a quick, hurried step. Olive knocked.

"Are you quite comfortable?—do you want anything?"

"Who's there? Oh! come in, Miss Rothesay."

Olive entered, and found, to her surprise, that the candle was extinguished.

"I thought I heard you moving about, Miss Manners."

"So I was. I felt restless and could not sleep. I am very tired with my journey, I suppose, and the room is strange to me. Come here—give me your hand."

"You are not afraid, my dear child?" said Olive, remembering that she was, indeed, little more than a child, though she looked so womanly. "You are not frightening yourself in this gloomy old house, nor thinking of ghosts and goblins?"

"No—no! I was thinking, if I must tell the truth," said the girl, with something very like a suppressed sob—"I was thinking of you and your mother, as I saw you standing when I first came in. No one ever clasped me so, or ever will! Not that I have any one to blame; my father and mother died; they could not help dying. But if they had just brought me into the world and left me, as I have heard some parents have done, then I should cry out, 'Wicked parents! if I grow up heartless, because I have no one to love me; and vile, because I have none to guide me,—my sin be upon your head!'"

She said these words with vehement passion. But Olive answered calmy, "Hush, Christal!—let me call you Christal; for I am much older than you. Lie down and rest. Be loving, and you will never want for love; be humble, and you will never want for guiding. You have good friends here, who will care for you very much, I doubt not. Be content, my poor, tired child!"

She spoke very softly; for the darkness quite obliterated the vision of that stylish damsel who had exhibited her airs and graces in the drawing-room. As she sat by Christal's bedside, Olive only felt the presence of a desolate orphan.

She said in her heart, "Please God, I will do her all the good that lies in my feeble power. Who knows but that, in some way or other, I may comfort and help this child!" So she stooped down and kissed Christal on the forehead, a tenderness that the girl passionately returned. Then Olive went and lay down by her blind mother's side, with a quiet and a happy heart.



CHAPTER XXV.

In a week's time Christal Manners was fairly domiciled at Woodford Cottage. In what capacity it would be hard to say—certainly not as Miss Vanbrugh's protegee—for she assumed toward the little old maid a most benignant air of superiority. Mr. Vanbrugh she privately christened "the old Ogre," and kept as much out of his way as possible. This was not difficult, for the artist was too much wrapped up in himself to meddle with any domestic affairs. He seemed to be under some mystification that the lively French girl was a guest of Miss Rothesay's, and his sister ventured not to break this delusion. Christal's surname created no suspicions; the very name of his former model, Celia Manners, had long since passed from his memory.