I could not keep it in, and out it came.

"Please, Aunt Kezia, don't be angry, but what is become of Cecilia Osborne?"

"I dare say you will know, Cary, before I do. She went to London, I believe."

"Oh, I don't want to see her, Aunt Kezia."

"Then you are pretty sure to do it."

"But why did she not—" I was afraid to go on.

"Why did she not keep her word? You can ask her if you want to know. Don't say I wanted to know, that's all. I don't."

"But how was it, Aunt Kezia?" said I, for I was on fire with curiosity. Flora made an attempt to check me.

"You are both welcome to know all I know," said my Aunt: "and that is, that she spent one evening at the Fells with us, and the Hebblethwaites and Mr Parmenter were there: the next day we saw nothing of her, and on the evening of the third there came a little note to me—a dainty little pink three-cornered note, all over perfume—in which Miss Cecilia Osborne presented her compliments to Mrs Kezia Courtenay, and begged to say that she found herself obliged to go to London, and would have set out before the note should reach me. That is as much as I know, and more than I want to know."

"And she did not say when she was coming back?"

"Not in any hurry, I fancy," said my Aunt Kezia, grimly.

"Going to stop away altogether?"

"She's welcome," answered my Aunt, in the same tone.

"Then who will live at Fir Vale?" asked Flora.

"Don't know. The first of you may that gets married. Don't go and do it on purpose."

Annas seemed much diverted. I wanted very much to know how Father had taken Cecilia's flight, but I did not feel I could ask that.

"Any more questions, young ladies?" saith my Aunt Kezia, quizzically. "We will get them done first, if you please."

"I beg your pardon, Aunt," said I. "Only I did want to know so much."

My Aunt Kezia gave a little laugh. "My dear, curiosity is Eve's legacy to her daughters. You might reasonably feel it in this instance. I should almost have thought you unfeeling if you had not. However, that business is all over; and well over, to my mind. I am thankful it is no worse. Now for what I want to say to you. I have been turning over in my mind how I might say to you what would be likely to do you good, in such a way that you could easily bear it in mind. And I have settled to give you a few plain rules, which you will find of service if you follow them. Now don't you go saying to yourselves that Aunt Kezia is an old country woman who knows nothing of grand town folks. As I was beginning to say when you interrupted me, Cary—there, don't look abashed, child; I am not angry with you—manners change, but natures don't. Dress men and women how you will, and let them talk what language you please, and have what outside ways you like, they are men and women still. Wherever you go, you will find human nature is unchanged; and the Devil that tempts men is unchanged; and the God that saves them is unchanged. There are more senses than one, lassies, in which the things that are seen are temporal; but the things that are not seen are eternal."

My Aunt Kezia began to feel in her bag—that great print bag with the red poppies and blue cornflowers, and the big brass top, by which I should know my Aunt Kezia was near if I saw it in the American plantations, or in the moon, for that matter—and out came three little books, bound in red sheepskin. Such pretty little books! scarcely the size of my hand, and with gilded leaves.

"Now, girls," she said, "I brought you these for keepsakes. They are only blank paper, as you see, and you can put down in them what you spend, or what you see, or any good sayings you meet with, or the like— just what you please: but you will find my rules written on the first leaf, so you can't say you had not a chance to bear them in mind. Miss Annas, my dear, I hope I don't make too free, but you see I did not like to leave you out in the cold, as it were. Will you accept one of them? They are good rules for any young maid, though I say it."

"How kind of you, Mrs Kezia!" said Annas. "Indeed I will, and value it very much."

I turned at once—indeed, I think we all did—to my Aunt Kezia's rules. They were written, as she said, on the first page, in her neat, clear handwriting, which one could read almost in the dark. This is what she had written.

"Put the Lord first in everything.

"Let the approval of those who love you best come second.

"Judge none by the outside, till you have seen what is within.

"Never take compliment for earnest.

"Never put off doing a right or kind thing.

"If you doubt a thing being right, it is safe not to do it.

"If you know a thing to be right, go on with it, though the world stand in your way.

"'If sinners entice thee, consent thou not.'

"'If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father.' Never wait to confess sin and be forgiven.

"In all that is not wrong, put the comfort of others before your own.

"Think it possible you may be mistaken.

"Test everything by the Word of God.

"Remember that the world passeth away."

Flora was the first of us to speak.

"Thank you, indeed, Aunt Kezia for taking so much trouble for us. If we govern ourselves by your rules, we can hardly go far wrong."

I tried to say something of the same sort, but I am afraid I bungled it.

"I cannot tell when we shall meet again, my lassies," saith my Aunt Kezia. "Only it seems likely to be some time first. Of course, if things fall out ill, and Mrs Desborough counts it best to remove from London, or to send you elsewhere, you must be ruled by her, as you cannot refer to your father. Remember, Cary—your grandmother and uncle will stand to you in place of father and mother while you are with them. Your father sends you to them, and puts his authority into their hands. Don't go to think you know better—girls so often do. A little humility and obedience won't hurt you, and you need not be afraid there will ever be too much of them in this world."

"But, Aunt!" said I, in some alarm, "suppose Grandmamma tells me to do something which I know you would not allow?"

"Follow your rule, Cary: set the Lord always before you. If it is anything which He would not allow, then you are justified in standing out. Not otherwise."

"But how am I to know, Aunt?" It was a foolish question of mine, for I might have known what my Aunt Kezia would say.

"What do you think the Bible was made for, Cary?"

"But, Aunt, I can't go and read through the Bible every time Grandmamma gives me an order."

"You must do that first, my dear. The Bible won't jump down your throat, that is certain. You must be ready beforehand. You will learn experience, children, as the time goes on—ay, whether you choose or no. But there are two sorts of experience—sweet and bitter: and 'they that will not be ruled by the rudder must be ruled by the rock.' Be ruled by the rudder, lassies. It is the wisest plan."

My Aunt Kezia said more, but it does not come back to me as that does. And the next morning we said good-bye, and went out into the wide world.

I cannot profess to tell the whole of our journey. We slept the first night at Kendal—and a cold bleak journey it was, by Shap Fells—the second at Bolton, the third at Bakewell, the fourth at Leicester, the fifth at Bedford, and on the Saturday evening we reached London.

I believe Annas was very much diverted at some of my speeches during the journey. When I cried, after we had passed Bolton, and were going over a moor, that I did not know there was heather in the South, she said, "You have been a very short time in coming to the South, Cary."

"What do you mean, Annas?" said I.

"Only that a Midland man would think we were still in the North," said she.

"What, is this not the South?" said I. "I thought everything was South after we passed Lancaster."

"England is a little longer than that," said Annas, laughing. "No, Cary: we do not get into the Midlands on this side of Derby, nor into the South on this side of Bedford."

So I had to wait until Friday before I saw the South. When I did, I thought it very flat and very woody. I could scarcely see anything for trees; only [Note 2.] there were no hills to see. And how strange the talk sounded! They seemed to speak all their u's as if they were e's, and their a's the same. Annas laughed when I said that "take up the mat" sounded in the South like "teek ep the met." It really did, to me.

"I suppose," said Flora, "our words sound just as queer to these people."

"O Flora, they can't!" I cried.

Because we say the words right; and how can that sound queer?

It was nearly six o'clock when the chaise drew up before the door of my Uncle Charles's house in Bloomsbury Square. These poor Southerners think, I hear, that Bloomsbury Square is one of the wonders of the world. The world must be very short of wonders, and so I said.

"O Cary, you are a bundle of prejudices!" laughed Annas.

Flora—who never can bear a word of disagreement—turned the discourse by saying that Mr Cameron had told her Bloomsbury came from Blumond's bury, the town of some man called Blumond.

And just then the door opened, and I felt almost terrified of the big, grand-looking man who stood behind it. However, as it was I who was the particularly invited guest, I had to jump down from the chaise, after a boy had let down the steps, and to tell the big man who I was and whence I came: when he said, in that mincing way they have in the South, as if they must cut their words small before they could get them into their mouths, that Madam expected me, and I was to walk up-stairs. My heart went pit-a-pat, but up I marched, Annas and Flora following; and if the big man did not call out my name to another big man, just the copy of him, who stood at the top of the stairs, so loud that I should think it must have been heard over half the house. I felt quite ashamed, but I walked straight on, into a grand room all over looking-glasses and crimson, where a circle of ladies and gentlemen were sitting round the fire. We have not begun fires in the North. I do think they are a nesh [Note 3.] lot of folks who live in the South.

Grandmamma was at one end of the circle, and my Aunt Dorothea at the other. I went straight up to Grandmamma.

"How do you, Grandmamma?" said I. "This is my cousin, Flora Drummond, and this is our friend, Annas Keith. Fa—Papa, I mean, and Aunt Kezia, sent their respectful compliments, and begged that you would kindly allow them to tarry here for a night on their way to the Isle of Wight."

Grandmamma looked at me, then at Flora, then at Annas, and took a pinch of snuff.

"How dusty you are, my dear!" said she. "Pray go and shift your gown. Perkins will show you the way."

She just gave a nod to the other two, and then went back to her discourse with the gentleman next her. Those are what Grandmamma calls easy manners, I know: but I think I like the other sort better. My Aunt Kezia would have given the girls a warm grasp of the hand and a kiss, and told them they were heartily welcome, and begged them to make themselves at home. Grandmamma thinks that rough and coarse and country-bred: but I am sure it makes me feel more as if people really were pleased to see me.

I felt that I must just speak first to my Aunt Dorothea; and she did shake hands with Flora and me, and courtesied to Annas. Then we courtesied to the company, and left the room, I telling the big man that Grandmamma wished Perkins to attend us. The big man looked over the banisters, and said, "Harry, call Perkins." When Perkins came, she proved, as I expected, to be Grandmamma's waiting-maid; and she carried us off to a little chamber on the upper floor, where was hardly room for anything but two beds.

Flora, I saw, seemed to feel strange and uncomfortable, as if she were somewhere where she had no business to be; but Annas behaved like one to the manner born, and handed her gloves to Perkins with the air of a princess—I do not mean proudly, but easily, as if she knew just what to do, and did it, without any feeling of awkwardness.

We had to wait till the trunks were carried up, and Perkins had unpacked our tea-gowns; then we shifted ourselves, and had our hair dressed, and went back to the withdrawing room. Perkins is a stranger to me, and I was sorry not to see Willet, Grandmamma's old maid: but Grandmamma never keeps servants long, so I was not surprised. I don't believe Willet had been with her above six years, when I left Carlisle.

Annas sat down on an empty chair in the circle, and began to talk with the lady nearest to her. Flora, apparently in much hesitation, took a chair, but did not venture to talk. I knew what I had to do, and I felt as if my old ways would come back if I called them. I sat down near my Aunt Dorothea.

"That friend of yours, Cary, is quite a distinguished-looking girl," said my Aunt Dorothea, in a low voice. "Really presentable, for the country, you know."

I said Annas came of a high Scots family, and was related to Sir James De Lannoy, of the Isle of Wight. I saw that Annas went up directly in my Aunt Dorothea's thermometer.

"De Lannoy!" said she. "A fine old Norman line. Very well connected, then? I am glad to hear it."

Flora, I saw, was getting over her shyness—indeed, I never knew her seem shy before—and beginning to talk a little with her next neighbour. I looked round, but could not see any one I knew. I took refuge in an inquiry after my Uncle Charles.

"He is very well," said my Aunt Dorothea. "He is away somewhere—men always are. At the Court, I dare say."

How strange it did sound! I felt as if I had come into a new world.

"I hope that is not your best gown, child?" said my Aunt Dorothea.

"But it is, Aunt—my best tea-gown," I answered.

"Then you must have a better," replied she. "It is easy to see that was made in the country."

"Certainly it was, Aunt. Fanny and I made it."

My Aunt Dorothea shrugged her shoulders, gave me a glance which said plainly, "Don't tell tales out of school!" and turned to another lady in the group.

At Brocklebank we never thought of not saying such things. But I see I have forgotten many of my Carlisle habits, and I shall have to pick them up again by degrees.

When we went up to bed, I found that Grandmamma had asked Annas to stay in London. Annas replied that her father had given her leave to stay a month if she wished it and were offered the chance, and she would be very pleased: but that as Flora was her guest, the invitation would have to include both. Grandmamma glanced again at Flora, and took another pinch of snuff.

"I suppose she has some Courtenay blood in her," said she. "And Drummond is not a bad name—for a Scotswoman. She can stay, if she be not a Covenanter, and won't want to pray and preach. She must have a new gown, and then she will do, if she keep her mouth shut. She has a fine pair of shoulders, if she were only dressed decently."

"I am glad," said I, "for I know what that means. Grandmamma likes Annas, and will like Flora in time. Don't be any shyer than you can help, Flora; that will not please her."

"I do not think I am shy," said Flora; "at least, I never felt so before. But to-night—Cary, I don't know what it looked like! I could only think of a great spider's web, and we three poor little flies had to walk straight into it."

"I wonder where Duncan and Angus are to-night," said Annas; "I hope no one is playing spider there."

Flora sighed, but made no answer.

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Our new gowns had to be made in a great hurry, for Grandmamma had invited an assembly for the Thursday night, and she wished Flora and me to be decently dressed, she said. I am sure I don't know how the mantua-maker managed it, for the cloth was only bought on Monday morning; I suppose she must have had plenty of apprentices. The gowns were sacques of cherry damask, with quilted silk petticoats of black trimmed with silver lace. I find hoops are all the mode again, and very large indeed—so big that when you enter a door you have to double your hoop round in front, or lift it on one side out of the way. The cap is a little scrap of a thing, scarce bigger than a crown-piece, and a flower or pompoon is stuck at the side; stomachers are worn, and very full elbow-ruffles; velvet slippers with high heels. Grandmamma put a little grey powder in my hair, but when Flora said she was sure that her father would disapprove, she did not urge her to wear it. But she did want us both to wear red ribbons mixed with our white ones. I did not know what to do.

"I did not know Mrs Desborough was a trimmer," said Annas, in the severest tone I ever heard from her lips.

"What shall we do?" said I.

"I shall not wear them," said Flora. "Mrs Desborough is not my grandmother; nor has my father put me in her care. I do not see, therefore, that I am at all bound to obey her. For you, Cary, it is different. I think you will have to submit."

"But only think what it means!" cried I.

"It means," said Annas, "that you are indifferent in the matter of politics."

"If it meant only that," I said, "I should not think much about it. But surely it means more, much more. It means that I am disloyal; that I do not care whether the King or the Elector wins the day; or even that I do care, and am willing to hide my belief for fashion's or money's sake. This red ribbon on me is a lie; and an acted lie is no better than a spoken one."

My Aunt Dorothea came in so immediately after I had spoken that I felt sure she must have heard me.

"Dear me, what a fuss about a bit of ribbon!" said she. "Cary, don't be a little goose."

"Aunt, I only want to be true!" cried I. "It is my truth I make a fuss about, not my ribbons. I will wear a ribbon of every colour in the rainbow, if Grandmamma wish it, except just this one which tells falsehoods about me."

"My dear, it is so unbecoming in you to be thus warm!" said my Aunt Dorothea. "Enthusiasm is always in bad taste, no matter what it is about. You will not see half-a-dozen ladies in the room in white ribbons. Nobody expects the Prince to come South."

"But, Aunt, please give me leave to say that it will not alter my truthfulness, whether the Prince comes to London or goes to the North Pole!" cried I. "If the Elector himself—"

"'Sh-'sh!" said my Aunt Dorothea. "My dear, that sort of thing may be very well at Brocklebank, but it really will not do in Bloomsbury Square. You must not bring your wild, antiquated Tory notions here. Tories are among the extinct animals."

"Not while my father is alive, please, Aunt."

"My dear, we are not at Brocklebank, as I told you just now," answered my Aunt Dorothea. "It may be all very well to toast the Chevalier, and pray for him, and so forth—(I am sure I don't know whether it do him any good): but when you come to living in the world with other people, you must do as they do.—Yes, Perkins, certainly, put Miss Courtenay a red ribbon, and Miss Drummond also.—My dear girls, you must."

"Not for me, Mrs Charles, if you please," said Flora, very quietly: "I should prefer, if you will allow it, to remain in this room."

My Aunt Dorothea looked at her, and seemed puzzled what to do with her.

"Miss Keith," said she, "do you wear the red?"

"Certainly not, Madam," replied Annas.

"Well!" said my Aunt Dorothea, shrugging her shoulders, "I suppose we must say you are Scots girls, and have not learnt English customs.—You can let it alone for Miss Drummond, Perkins.—But that won't do for you, Cary; you must have one."

"Aunt Dorothea, I will wear it if you bid me," said I: "but I shall tell everybody who speaks to me that my red ribbon is a lie."

"Then you had better have none!" cried my Aunt Dorothea, petulantly. "That would be worse than wearing all white. Cary, I never knew you were so horribly obstinate."

"I suppose I am older, Aunt, and understand things better now," said I.

"Dear, I wish girls would stay girls!" said my Aunt Dorothea. "Well, Perkins, let it alone. Just do up that lace a little to the left, that the white ribbon may not show so much. There, that will do.—Cary, if your Grandmamma notices this, I must tell her it is all your fault."

Well, down-stairs we went, and found the company beginning to come. My Aunt Dorothea, I knew, never cares much about anything to last, but I was in some fear of Grandmamma. (By the way, I find this house is Grandmamma's, not my Uncle Charles's, as I thought.) There was one lady there, a Mrs Francis, who was here the other evening when we came, and she spoke kindly to us, and began to talk with Annas and Flora. I rather shrank into a corner by the window, for I did not want Grandmamma to see me. People were chattering away on all sides of me; and very droll it was to listen first to one and then to another.

I was amusing myself in this way, and laughing to myself under a grave face, when all at once I heard three words from the next window. Who said "By no means!" in that soft velvet voice, through which ran a ripple of silvery laughter? I should have known that voice in the desert of Arabia. And the next moment she moved away from the window, and I saw her face.

We stood fronting each other, Cecilia and I. That she knew me as well as I knew her, I could not doubt for an instant. For one moment she hesitated whether to speak to me, and I took advantage of it. Dropping the lowest courtesy I could make, I turned my back upon her, and walked straight away to the other end of the room. But not before I had seen that she was superbly dressed, and was leaning on the arm of Mr Parmenter. Not, also, before I caught a fiery flash gleaming at me out of the tawny eyes, and knew that I had made an enemy of the most dangerous woman in my world.

But what could I have done else? If I had accepted Cecilia's hand, and treated her as a friend, I should have felt as though I were conniving at an insult to my father.

At the other end of the room, I nearly ran against a handsome, dark-haired girl in a yellow satin slip, who to my great astonishment said to me,—

"Well played, Miss Caroline Courtenay! I have been watching the little drama, and I really compliment you on your readiness and spirit. You have taken the wind out of her Ladyship's sails."

"Hatty!" I cried, in much amazement. "Is it you?"

"Well, I fancy so," said she, in her usual mocking way. "My beloved Cary, do tell me, have you brought that delicious journal? Do let me read to-night's entry!"

"Hatty!" I cried all at once. "You—"

"Yes, Madam?"

If she had not on my best purple scarf—my lost scarf, that my Aunt Kezia could not find! But I did not go on. I felt it was of no earthly use to talk to Hatty.

"Seen it before, haven't you?" said Hatty, in her odious teasing way. "Yes, I thought I had better have it: mine is so shabby; and you are only a little Miss—it does not matter for you. Beside, you have Grandmamma to look after you. You shall have it again when I have done with it."

I had to bite my tongue terribly hard, but I did manage to hold it. I only said, "Where are you staying, Hatty?"

"At Mrs Crossland's, in Charles Street, where I shall be perfectly delighted to see my youngest sister."

"Oh! Not with the Bracewells?"

"With the Bracewells, certainly. Did you suppose they had pitch-forked me through the window into Mrs Crossland's drawing-room?"

"But who is Mrs Crossland?"

"A friend of the Bracewells," said Hatty, with an air of such studied carelessness that I began to wonder what was behind it.

"Has Mrs Crossland daughters?" I asked.

"One—a little chit, scarce in her teens."

"Is there a Mr Crossland?"

"There isn't a Papa Crossland, if you mean that. There is a young Mr Crossland."

"Oh!" said I.

"Pray, Miss Caroline, what do you mean by 'Oh'?" asked Hatty, whose eyes laughed with fun.

"Oh, nothing," I replied.

"Oh!" replied Hatty, so exactly in my tone that I could not help laughing. "Take care, her Ladyship may see you."

"Hatty, why do you call Cecilia 'her Ladyship'?"

"Well, it doesn't know anything, does it?" replied Hatty, in her teasing way. "Only just up from the country, isn't it? Madam, Mr Anthony Parmenter as was (as old Will says) is Sir Anthony Parmenter; and Miss Cecilia Osborne as was, is her Ladyship."

"Do you mean to say Cecilia has married Mr Parmenter?"

"Oh dear, no! she has married Sir Anthony."

"Then she jilted our father for a title? The snake!"

"Don't use such charming language, my sweetest; her Ladyship might not admire it. And if I were you, I would make myself scarce; she is coming this way."

"Then I will go the other," said I, and I did.

To my astonishment, as soon as I had left her, what should Hatty do but walk up and shake hands with Cecilia, and in a few minutes they and Mr Parmenter were all laughing about something. I was amazed beyond words. I had always thought Hatty pert, teasing, disagreeable; but never underhand or mean. But just then I saw a good-looking young man join them, and offer his arm to Hatty for a walk round the room; and it flashed on me directly that this was young Mr Crossland, and that he was a friend of Mr—I mean Sir Anthony—Parmenter.

When we were undressing that night, I said,—

"Annas, can a person do anything to make the world better?"

"What person?" asked she, and smiled.

"Well, say me. Can I do anything?"

"Certainly. You can be as good as you know how to be."

"But that won't make other people better."

"I do not know that. Some other people it may."

"But that will be the people who are good already. I want to mend the people who are bad."

"Then pray for them," said Annas, gravely.

Pray for Cecilia Osborne! It came upon me with a feeling of intense aversion. I could not pray for her!

Nor did I think there would be a bit of good in praying for Hatty. And yet—if she were getting drawn into Cecilia's toils—if that young Mr Crossland were not a good man—I might pray for her to be kept safe. I thought I would try it.

But when I began to pray for Hatty, it seemed unkind to leave out Fanny and Sophy. And then I got to Father and my Aunt Kezia; and then to Maria and Bessy; and then to Sam and Will; and then to old Elspie; and then to Helen Raeburn, and my Uncle Drummond, and Angus, and Mr Keith, and the Laird, and Lady Monksburn—and so on and on, till the whole world seemed full of people to be prayed for.

I suppose it is so always—if we only thought of it!

Grandmamma never noticed my ribbons—or rather my want of them.

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It really is of no use my trying to keep to dates. I have begun several times, and I cannot get on with it. That last piece, dated the 23rd, took me nearly a week to write; so that what was to-morrow when I began, was behind yesterday before I had finished. I shall just go right on without any more pother, and put a date now and then when it is very particular.

Grandmamma has an assembly every week,—Tuesday is her day [Note 1.]— and now and then an extra one on Thursday or Saturday. I do not think anything would persuade her to have an assembly, or play cards, on a Friday. But on a Sunday evening she always has her rubber, to Flora's horror. It does not startle me, because I remember it always was so when I lived with her at Carlisle: nor Annas, because she knew people did such things in the South. I find Grandmamma usually spends the winter at the Bath: but she has not quite made up her mind whether to go this year or not, on account of all the tumults in the North. If the royal army should march on London (and Annas says of course they will) we may be shut up here for a long while. But Annas says if we heard anything certain of it, she and Flora would set off at once to "the island", as she always calls the Isle of Wight.

Last Tuesday, I was sitting by a young lady whom I have talked with more than once; her name is Newton. I do not quite know how we got on to the subject, but we began to talk politics. I said I could not understand why it was, but people in the South did not seem to care for politics nearly so much as I was accustomed to see done. Half the ladies in the room appeared to be trimmers; and many more wore the red ribbon alone. Such people, with us, would never be received into a Tory family.

"We do not take things so seriously as you," said she, with a diverted look. "That with us is an opinion which with you is an enthusiasm. I suppose up there, where the sun never shines, you have to make some sort of noise and fuss to keep yourselves alive."

"'The sun never shines!'" cried I. "Now, really, Miss Newton! You don't mean to say you believe that story?"

"I am only repeating what I have been told," said she. "I never was north of Barnet."

"We are alive enough," said I. "I wonder if you are. It looks to me much more like living, to make beds and boil puddings and stitch shirts, than to sit on a sofa in a satin gown, flickering a fan and talking rubbish."

"Oh, fie!" said Miss Newton, laughing, and tapping me on the arm with her fan. "That really will not do, Miss Courtenay. You will shock everybody in the room."

"I can tell you, most whom I see here shock me," said I. "They seem to have no honour and no honesty. They think white and they wear red, or the other way about, just as it happens. If the Prince were to enter London on Monday, what colour would all these ribbons be next Tuesday night?"

"The colour of yours, undoubtedly," she said, laughing.

"And do you call that honesty?" said I. "These people could not change their opinions and feelings between Monday and Tuesday: and to change their ribbons without them would be simply falsehood."

"I told you, you take things so seriously!" she answered.

"But is it not a serious thing?" I continued. "And ought we to take serious things any way but seriously? Miss Newton, do you not see that it is a question of right—not a question of taste or convenience? Your allegiance is not a piece of jewellery, that you can give to the person you like best; it is a debt, which you can only pay to the person to whom you owe it. Do you not see that?"

"My dear Miss Courtenay," said Miss Newton, in a low voice, "excuse me, but you are a little too warm. It is not thought good taste, you know, to take up any subject so very decidedly as that."

"And is right only to be thought a matter of taste?" cried I, quite disregarding her caution. "Am I to rule my life, as I do my trimmings, by the fashion-book? We have not come to that yet in the North, I can assure you! We are a sturdy race there, Madam, and don't swallow our opinions as we do pills, of whatever the apothecary likes to put into them. We prefer to know what we are taking."

"Do excuse me," said Miss Newton, with laughter in her eyes, and laying her hand upon my arm; "but don't you see people are looking round?"

"Let them look round!" cried I. "I am not ashamed of one word that I have spoken."

"Dear Miss Courtenay, I am not objecting to your words. Every one, of course, has his opinions: yours, I suppose, are your father's."

"Not a bit of it!" cried I; "they are my own!"

"But young ladies of your age should not have strong opinions," said she. She is about five years older than I am.

"Will you tell me how to help it?" said I. "I must go through the world with my eyes shut, if I am not to form opinions."

"Oh yes, moderately," she replied.

"Shut my eyes moderately?" I asked; "or, form opinions moderately?"

"Both," answered Miss Newton, laughing.

"Your advice is worse than wasted, my dear Miss Newton," said a voice behind us. "That young person will never do anything in moderation."

"You know better, Hatty!" said I.

"And, as your elder sister, my darling, let me give you a scrap of advice. Men never like contentious, arguing women. Don't be a little goose."

I don't know whether I am a goose or a duck, but I am afraid I could have done something to Hatty just then which I should have found agreeable, and she would not. That elder-sister air of hers is so absurd, for she is not eighteen months older than I am; I can stand it well enough from Sophy, but from Hatty it really is too ridiculous. But that was nothing, compared with the insult she had offered, not so much to me, as through me to all womanhood. "Men don't like!" Does it signify three halfpence what they like? Are women to make slaves of themselves, considering what men fancy or don't fancy? Men, mark you! Not, your father, or brother, or husband: that would be right and reasonable enough: but, men!

"Hatty," I said, after doing battle with myself for a moment, "I think I had better give you no answer. If I did, and if my words and tones suited my feelings, I should scream the house down."

She burst out laughing behind her fan. I walked away at once, lest I should be tempted to reply further. I am afraid I almost ran, for I came bolt against a gentleman in the corner, and had to stop and make my apologies.

"Don't run quite over me, Cary, if it suit you," said somebody who, I thought, was in Cumberland.

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Note 1. The assemblies on a lady's visiting day required no invitations. The rooms were open to any person acquainted with members of the family.

Note 2. Southerners are respectfully informed that the use of only for but is a Northern peculiarity.

Note 3. Sensitive, delicate.



CHAPTER NINE.

DIFFICULTIES.

"And 't was na for a Popish yoke That bravest men came forth To part wi' life and dearest ties, And a' that life was worth."

JACOBITE BALLAD.

"Ephraim Hebblethwaite!" I cried out.

"I believe so," he said, laughing.

"Where did you come from?"

"From a certain place in the North, called Brocklebank."

"But what brought you to London?" I cried.

"What brought me to London?" he repeated, in quite a different tone,—so much softer. "Well, Cary, I wanted to see something."

"Have you been to see it?" I asked, more to give myself time to cool down than because I cared to know.

"Yes, I have been to see it," he said, and smiled.

"And did you find it as agreeable as you expected?"

"Quite. I had seen it before, and I wanted to know if it were spoiled."

"Oh, I hope it is not spoiled!" said I.

"Not at all," said he, his voice growing softer and softer. "No, it is not spoiled yet, Cary."

"Do you expect it will be?" I was getting cooler now.

"I don't know," he answered, very gravely for him, for Ephraim is not at all given to moroseness and long faces. "God grant it never may!"

I could not think what he meant, and I did not like to ask him. Indeed, I had not much opportunity, for he began talking about our journey, and Brocklebank, and all the people there, and I was so interested that we did not get back to what Ephraim came to see.

There is a new Vicar, he says, whose name is Mr Liversedge, and he has quite changed things in the parish. The people are divided about him; some like him, and some do not. He does not read his sermons, which is very strange, but speaks them out just as if he were talking to you; and he has begun to catechise the children in an afternoon, and to visit everybody in the parish; and he neither shoots, hunts, nor fishes. His sermons have a ring in them, says Ephraim; they wake you up, Old John Oakley complains that he can't nap nigh so comfortable as when th' old Vicar were there; and Mally Crosthwaite says she never heard such goings on—why, th' parson asked her if she were a Christian!—she that had always kept to her church, rain and shine, and never missed once! and it was hard if she were to miss the Christmas dole this year, along o' not being a Christian. She'd always thought being Church was plenty good enough—none o' your low Dissenting work: but, mercy on us, she didn't know what to say to this here parson, that she didn't! A Christian, indeed! The parson was a Christian, was he? Well, if so, she didn't make much 'count o' Christians, for all he was a parson. Didn't he tell old John he couldn't recommend him for the dole, just by reason he rapped out an oath or two when his grand-daughter let the milk-jug fall?—and if old Bet Donnerthwaite had had a sup too much one night at the ale-house, was it for a gentleman born like the parson to take note of that?

"But he has done worse things than that, Cary," said Ephraim, with grave mouth and laughing eyes.

"What? Go on," said I, for I saw something funny was coming.

"Why, would you believe it?" said Ephraim. "He called on Mr Bagnall, and asked him if he felt satisfied with the pattern he was setting his flock."

"I am very glad he did!" said I. "What did Mr Bagnall say?"

"Got into an awful rage, and told it to all the neighbourhood—as bearing against Mr Liversedge, you understand."

"Well, then, he is a greater simpleton than I took him for," said I.

"I am rather afraid," said Ephraim, in a hesitating tone, "that he will call at the Fells: and if he say anything that the Squire thinks impertinent or interfering, he will make an enemy of him."

"Oh, Father would just show him the door," said I, "without more ado."

"Yes, I fear so," replied Ephraim. "And I am sure he is a good man, Cary. A little rash and incautious, perhaps; does not take time to study character, and so forth; but I am sure he means to do right."

"It will be a pity," said I. "Ephraim, do you think the Prince will march on London?"

"I have not a doubt of it, Cary."

"Oh!" said I. I don't quite know whether I felt more glad or sorry. "But you will not stay here if he do?"

"Yes, I think I shall," said he.

"You will join the army?"

"No, not unless I am pressed."

I suppose my face asked another question, for he added with a smile, "I came to keep watch of—that. I must see that it is not spoiled."

I wonder what that is! If Ephraim would tell me, I might take some care of it too. I should not like anything he cared for to be spoiled.

As I sat in a corner afterwards, I was looking at him, and comparing him in my own mind with all the fine gentlemen in the chamber. Ephraim was quite as handsome as any of them; but his clothes certainly had a country cut, and he did not show as easy manners as they. I am afraid Grandmamma would say he had no manners. He actually put his hand out to save a tray when Grandmamma's black boy, Caesar, stumbled at the tiger-skin mat: and I am sure no other gentleman in the room would have condescended to see it. There are many little things by which it is easy to tell that Ephraim has not been used to the best society. And yet, I could not help feeling that if I were ill and wanted to be helped up-stairs, or if I were wretched and wanted comforting, it would be Ephraim to whom I should appeal, and not one of these fine gentlemen. They seemed only to be made for sunshine. He would wear, and stand rain. If Hatty's "men" were all Ephraims, there might be some sense in caring for their opinions. But these fellows—I really can't afford a better word—these "chiels with glasses in their e'en," as Sam says, who seem to have no opinions beyond the colour of their coats and paying compliments to everything they see with a petticoat on—do they expect sensible women to care what they think? Let them have a little more sense themselves first—that's what I say!

I said so, one morning as we were dressing: and to my surprise, Annas replied,—

"I fancy they have sense enough, Cary, when there are no women in the room. They think we only care for nonsense."

"Yes, I expect that is it," added Flora.

I flew out. I could not stand that. What sort of women must their mothers and sisters be?

"Card-playing snuff-takers and giddy flirts," said Annas. "Be just to them, Cary. If they never see women of any other sort, how are they to know that such are?"

"Poor wretches! do you think that possible. Annas?" said I.

"Miserably possible," she said, very seriously. "In every human heart, Cary, there is a place where the man or the woman dwells inside all the frippery and mannerism; the real creature itself, stripped of all disguises. Dig down to that place if you want to see it."

"I should think it takes a vast deal of digging!"

"Yes, in some people. But that is the thing God looks at: that is it for which Christ died, and for which Christ's servants ought to feel love and pity."

I thought it would be terribly difficult to feel love or pity for some people!

My Uncle Charles has just come in, and he says a rumour is flying that there has been a great battle near Edinburgh, and that the Prince (who was victorious) is marching on Carlisle. Flora went very white, and even Annas set her lips: but I do not see what we have to fear—at least if Angus and Mr Keith are safe.

"Charles," said Grandmamma, "where are those white cockades we used to have?"

"I haven't a notion, Mother."

Nor had my Aunt Dorothea. But when Perkins was asked, she said, "Isn't it them, Madam, as you pinned in a parcel, and laid away in the garret?"

"Oh, I dare say," said Grandmamma. "Fetch them down, and let us see if they are worth anything."

So Perkins fetched the parcel, and the cockades were looked over, and pronounced useable by torchlight, though too bad a colour for the day-time.

"Keep the packet handy, Perkins," said Grandmamma.

"Shall I give them out now, Madam?" asked Perkins.

"Oh, not yet!" said Grandmamma. "Wait till we see how things turn out. White soils so soon, too: we had much better go on with the black ones, at any rate, till the Prince has passed Bedford."

It is wicked, I suppose, to despise one's elders. But is it not sometimes very difficult to help doing it?

I have been reading over the last page or two that I writ, and I came on a line that set me thinking. Things do set me thinking of late in a way they never used to do. It was that about Ephraim's not being used to the best society. What is the best society? God and the angels; I suppose nobody could question that. Yet, if an angel had been in Grandmamma's rooms just then, would he not have cared more that Caesar should not fall and hurt himself, and most likely be scolded as well, than that he should be thought to have fine easy manners himself? And I suppose the Lord Jesus died even for Caesar, black though he be. Well, then, the next best society must be those who are going to Heaven: and Ephraim is one of them, I believe. And those who are not going must be bad society, even if they are dressed up to the latest fashion-book, and have the newest and finest breeding at the tips of their fingers. The world seems to be turned round. Ah, but what was that text Mr Whitefield quoted? "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, are not of the Father, but are of the world." Then must we turn the world round before we get things put straight? It looks like it. I have just been looking at another text, where Saint Paul gives a list of the works of the flesh; [Note: Galatians five 19 to 21.] and I find, along with some things which everybody calls wicked, a lot of others which everybody in "the world" does, and never seems to think of as wrong. "Hatred, variance, emulations, ... envyings, ... drunkenness, revellings, and such like:" and he says, "They which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." That is dreadful. I am afraid the world must be worse than I thought. I must take heed to my Aunt Kezia's rules—set the Lord always before me, and remember that this world passeth away. I suppose the world will laugh at me, if I be not one of its people. What will that matter, if it passeth away? The angels will like me all the better: and they are the best society.

And I was thinking the other night as I lay awake, what an awful thing it would be to hear the Lord Jesus, the very Man who died for me, say, "Depart from Me!" I think I could stand the world's laughter, but I am sure I could never bear that. Christ could help and comfort me if the world used me ill; but who could help me, or comfort me, when He had cast me out? There would be nothing to take refuge in—not even the world, for it would be done with then.

Oh, I do hope our Saviour will never say that to me!

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I seem bound to get into fights with Miss Newton. I do not mean quarrels, but arguments. She is a pleasant, good-humoured girl, but she has such queer ideas. I dare say she thinks I have. I do not know what my Aunt Kezia would say to her. She does not appear to see the right and wrong of things at all. It is only what people will think, and what one likes. If everybody did only what they liked,—is that proper grammar, I wonder? Oh, well, never mind!—I think it would make the world a very disagreeable place to live in, and it is not too pleasant now. And as to people thinking, what on earth does it signify what they think, if they don't think right? If one person thinking that two and two make three does not alter the fact, why should ten thousand people thinking so be held to make any difference? How many simpletons does it take to be equal to a wise man? I wonder people do not see how ridiculous such notions are.

We hear nothing at all from the North—the seat of war, as they begin to call it now. Everybody supposes that the Prince is marching southwards, and will be here some day before long. It diverts me exceedingly to sit every Tuesday in a corner of the room, and watch the red ribbons disappearing and the white ones coming instead. Grandmamma's two footmen, Morris and Dobson, have orders to take the black cockade out of their hats and clap on a white one, the minute they hear that the royal army enters Middlesex.

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November 22nd. The Prince has taken Carlisle! It is said that he is marching on Derby as fast as his troops can come. Everybody is in a flutter. I can guess where Father is, and how excited he will be. I know he would go to wait on his Royal Highness directly, and I should not wonder if a number of the officers are quartered at Brocklebank—were, I should say. I almost wish we were there! But when I said so to Ephraim, who comes every Tuesday, such a strange look of pain came into his eyes, and he said, "Don't, Cary!" so sadly. I wonder what the next thing will be!

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After I had written this, came one of Grandmamma's extra assemblies—Oh, I should have altered my date! it is so troublesome—on Thursday evening, and I looked round, and could not see one red ribbon that was not mixed with white. A great many wore plain white, and among them Miss Newton. I sat down by her.

"How do you this evening, Miss Newton?" I mischievously asked. "I am so delighted to see you become a Tory since I saw you last Tuesday."

"How do you know I was not one before?" asked she, laughing.

"Your ribbons were not," said I. "They were red on Tuesday."

"Well, you ought to compliment me on the suddenness of my conversion," said she: "for I never was a trimmer. Oh, how absurd it is to make ribbons and patches mean things! Why should one not wear red and white just as one does green and blue?"

"It would be a boon to some people, I am sure," said I.

"Perhaps we shall, some day, when the world has become sensible," said Miss Newton.

"Can you give me the date, Madam?"

It was a strange voice which asked this question. I looked up over my shoulder, and saw a man of no particular age, dressed in gown and cassock. [Note 1.] Miss Newton looked up too, laughing.

"Indeed I cannot, Mr Raymond," said she. "Can you?"

"Only by events," he answered. "I should expect it to be after the King has entered His capital."

I felt, rather than saw, what he meant.

"I am a poor hand at riddles," said Miss Newton, shaking her head. "I did not expect to see you here, Mr Raymond."

"Nor would you have seen me here," was the answer, "had I not been charged to deliver a message of grave import to one who is here."

"Not me, I hope?" said Miss Newton, looking graver.

"Not you. I trust you will thank God for it. And now, can you kindly direct me to the young lady for whom I am to look? Is there here a Miss Flora Drummond?"

I sprang up with a smothered cry of "Angus!"

"Are you Miss Drummond?" he asked, very kindly.

"Flora Drummond is my cousin," I answered. "I will take you to her. But is it about Angus?"

"It is about her brother, Lieutenant Drummond. He is not killed—let me say so at once."

We were pressing through the superb crowd, and the moment afterwards we reached Flora. She was standing by a little table, talking with Ephraim Hebblethwaite, who spoke to Mr Raymond in a way which showed that they knew each other. Flora just looked at him, and then said, quietly enough to all appearance, though she went very white—

"You have bad news for some one, and I think for me."

"Lieutenant Drummond was severely wounded at Prestonpans, and has fallen into the hands of the King's troops," said Mr Raymond, gently, as if he wished her to know the worst at once. "He is a prisoner now."

Flora clasped her hands with a long breath of pain and apprehension. "You are sure, Sir? There is no mistake?"

"I think, none," he replied. "I have the news from Colonel Keith."

"If you heard it from him, it must be true," she said. "But is he in London?"

"Yes; and he ran some risk, as you may guess, to send that message to you."

"Duncan is always good," said Flora, with tears in her eyes. "He was not hurt, I hope? Will you see him again?"

"He said he was not hurt worth mention." (I began to wonder what size of a hurt Mr Keith would think worth mention.) "Yes, I shall see him again this evening or to-morrow."

"Oh, do give him the kindest words and thanks from me," said Flora, commanding her voice with some difficulty. "I wish I could have seen him! Let me tell Annas—she may wish—" and away she went to fetch Annas, while Mr Raymond looked after her with a look which I thought half sad and half diverted.

"Will you tell me," I said, "how Mr Keith ran any risk?"

"Why, you do not suppose, young lady, that London is in the hands of the rebels?"

"The rebels!—Oh, you are a Whig; I see. But the Prince is coming, and fast. Is he not?"

"Not just yet, I think," said Mr Raymond, with an odd look in his eyes.

"Why, we hear it from all quarters," said I; "and the red ribbons are all getting white."

Mr Raymond smiled. "Rather a singular transformation, truly. But I think the ribbons will be well worn before the young Chevalier reviews his army in Hyde Park."

"I will not believe it!" cried I. "The Prince must be victorious! God defends the right!"

"God defends His own," said Mr Raymond. "Do you see in history that He always defends the cause which you account to be right?"

No; I could not say that.

"How can you be an opponent of the Cause?" I cried—I am afraid, shifting my ground.

He smiled again. "I can well understand the attraction of the Cause," said he, "to a young and enthusiastic nature. There is something very enticing in the son of an exiled Prince, come to win back what he conceives to be the inheritance of his fathers. And in truth, if the Old Pretender were really the son of King James,—well, it might be more difficult to say what a man's duty would be in that case. But that, as you know, is thought by many to be at best very doubtful."

"You do not believe he is?" cried I.

"I do not believe it," said Mr Raymond.

I wondered how he could possibly doubt it.

"Nor is that all that is to be considered," he went on. "I can tell you, young lady, if he were to succeed, we should all rue it bitterly before long. His triumph is the triumph of Rome—the triumph of persecution and martyrdom and agony for God's people."

"I know that," said I. "But right is right, for all that! The Crown is his, not the Elector's. On that principle, any man might steal money, if he meant to do good with it."

"The Crown is neither George's nor James's, as some think," said Mr Raymond, "but belongs to the people."

Who could have stood such a speech as that?

"The people!" I cried. "The mob—the rabble—the Crown is theirs! How can any man imagine such a thing?"

"You forget, methinks, young lady," said Mr Raymond, as quietly as before, "that you are one of those of whom you speak."

"I forget nothing of the kind," cried I, too angry to be civil. "Of course I know I am one of the people. What do you mean? Am I to maintain that black beetles are cherubim, because I am a black beetle? Truth is truth. The Crown is God's, not the people's. When He chose to make the present King—King James of course, not that wretched Elector— the son of his father, He distinctly told the people whom He wished them to have for their king. What right have they to dispute His ordinance?"

I was quite beyond myself. I had forgotten where I was, and to whom I was talking—forgotten Mr Raymond, and Angus, and Flora, and even Grandmamma. It seemed to me as if there were only two parties in the world, and on the one hand were God and the King, and on the other a miserable mass of silly nobodies called The People. How could such contemptible insects presume to judge for themselves, or to set their wills up in opposition to the will of him whom God had commanded them to obey?

The softest, lightest of touches fell on my shoulder. I looked up into the grave grey eyes of Annas Keith. And feeling myself excessively rude and utterly extinguished,—(and yet, after all, right)—I slipped out of the group, and made my way into the farthest corner. Mr Raymond, of course, would think me no gentlewoman. Well, it did not much matter what he thought; he was only a Whig. And when the Prince were actually come, which would be in a very few days at the furthest—then he would see which of us was right. Meantime, I could wait. And the next minute I felt as if I could not wait—no, not another instant.

"Sit down, Cary. You look tired," said Ephraim beside me.

"I am not a bit tired, thank you," said I, "but I am abominably angry."

"Nothing more tiring," said he. "What about?"

"Oh, don't make me go over it! I have been talking to a Whig."

"That means, I suppose, that the Whig has been talking to you. Which beat? I beg pardon—you did, of course."

"I was right and he was wrong, if you mean that," said I. "But whether he thinks he is beaten—"

"If he be an Englishman, he does not," said Ephraim. "Particularly if he be a North Country man."

"I don't know what country he comes from," cried I. "I should like to make mincemeat of him."

"Indigestible," suggested Ephraim, quite gravely.

"Ephraim, what are we to do for Angus?" said I, as it came back to me: and I told him the news which Mr Raymond had brought. Ephraim gave a soft whispered whistle.

"You may well ask," said he. "I am afraid, Cary, nothing can be done."

"What will they do to him?"

His face grew graver still.

"You know," he said, in a low voice, "what they did to Lord Derwentwater. Colonel Keith had better lie close."

"But that Whig knows where he is!" cried I. "He—Ephraim, do you know him?"

"Know whom, Cary?"

"Mr Raymond."

"Is he your Whig?" asked Ephraim, laughing. "Pray, don't make him into mincemeat; he is one of the best men in England."

"He need be," said I; "he is a horrid Whig! What do you, being friends with such a man?"

"He is a very good man, Cary. He was one of my tutors at school. I never knew what his politics were before to-night."

We were silent for a while; and then Grandmamma sent for me, not, as I feared, to scold me for being loud-spoken and warm, but to tell me that one of my lappets hung below the other, and I must make Perkins alter it before Tuesday. I do not know how I bore the rest of the evening.

When I went up at last to our chamber, I found it empty. Lucette, Grandmamma's French woman, who waits on her, while Perkins is rather my Aunt Dorothea's and ours, came in to tell me that Perkins was gone to bed with a headache, and hoped that we would allow her to wait on us to-night, when she was dismissed by the elder ladies.

"Oh, I want no waiting at all," said I, "if somebody will just take the pins out of my head-dress carefully. Do that, Lucette, and then I shall need nothing else, I cannot speak for the other young ladies."

Lucette threw a wrapping-cape over my shoulders, and began to remove the pins with deft fingers. Grandmamma had not yet come up-stairs.

"Mademoiselle Agnes looks charmante to-night," said she: "but then she is always charmante. But what has Mademoiselle Flore? So white, so white she is! I saw her through the door."

I told her that Flora's brother had been taken prisoner.

"Ah, this horrible war!" cried she. "Can the grands Seigneurs not leave alone the wars? or else fight out their quarrels their own selves?"

"Oh, the Prince will soon be here," said I, "and then it will all be over."

"All be over? Ah, sapristi! Mademoiselle does not know. The Prince means the priests: and the priests mean—Bon! have I not heard my grandmother tell?"

"Tell what, Lucette? I thought you were a Papist, like all Frenchwomen."

"A Catholic—I? Why then came my grandfather to this country, and my father, and all? Does Mademoiselle suppose they loved better Spitalfields than Blois? Should they then leave a country where the sun is glorious and the vines ravissantes, for this black cold place where the sun shine once a year? Vraiment! Serait-il possible?"

I laughed. "The sun shines oftener in Cumberland, Lucette. I won't defend Spitalfields. But I want to know what your grandmother told you about the priests."

"The priests have two sides, Mademoiselle. On the one is the confessional: you must go—you shall not choose. You kneel; you speak out all—every thought in your heart, every secret of your dearest friend. You may not hide one little thought. The priest hears you hesitate? The questions come:—Mademoiselle, terrible questions, questions I could not ask, nor you understand. You learn to understand them. They burn up your heart, they drag down to Hell your soul. That is one side."

"Would they see me there twice!" said I.

"Then, if not so, there is the other side. The chains, the torture-irons, the fire. You can choose, so: you tell, or you die. There is no more choice. Does Mademoiselle wonder that we came?"

"No, indeed, Lucette. How could I? But that was in France. This is England. We are a different sort of people here."

"You—yes. But the Church and the priests are the same everywhere. Everywhere! May the good God keep them from us!"

"Why, Lucette! you are praying against the Prince, if it be as you say!"

"Ah! would I then do harm to Monseigneur le Prince? Let him leave there the priests, and none shall be more glad to see him come than I. I love the right, always. But the priests! No, no."

"But if it be right, Lucette?"

"The good God knows what is right. But, Mademoiselle, can it be right to bring in the priests and the confessions?"

"Is it not God who brings them, Lucette? We only bring the King. If the King choose to bring the priests—"

"Ah! then the Lord will bring the fires. But the Lord bring the priests! The Lord shut up the preches and set up the mass? The Lord burn His poor servants, and clothe the servants of Satan in gold and scarlet? The Lord forbid His Word, and set up images? Comment, Mademoiselle! It would not be possible."

"But, Lucette, the King has the right."

"The Lord Christ has the right," said Lucette, solemnly. "Is it not He whose right it is? Mademoiselle, He stands before the King!"

We heard Grandmamma saying good-night to my Uncle Charles at the foot of the stairs, and Lucette ran off to her chamber.

I felt more plagued than ever. What is right?

Just then Annas and Flora came up; Annas grave but composed, Flora with a white face and red eyes.

"O Cary, Cary!" She came and put her arms round me. "Pray for Angus; we shall never see him again. And he is not ready—he is not ready."

"My poor Flora!" I said, and I did my best to soothe her. But Annas did better.

"The Lord can make him ready," she said. "He healed the paralytic man, dear, as some have it, entirely for the faith of them that bore him. And surely the daughter of the Canaanitish woman could have no faith herself."

"Pray for him, Annas!" sobbed Flora. "You have more faith than I."

"I am not so hard tried—yet," was the grave reply.

"You do not think Mr Keith in danger?" said I.

"I think the Lord sitteth above the water-floods, Cary; and I would rather not look lower. Not till I must, and that may be very soon."

"Annas," said I, "I wish you would tell me what right is. I do get so puzzled."

"What puzzles you, Cary? Right is what God wills."

"But would the Prince not have the right, if God did not will him to succeed?"

"The Lawgiver can always repeal His own laws. We in the crowd, Cary, can only judge when they be repealed by hearing Him decree something contrary to them. And there are no precedents in that Court. 'Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did He.' We can only wait and see. Until we do see it, we must follow our last orders."

"My Father says," added Flora, "that this question was made harder than it need have been, by the throwing out of the Exclusion Bill. The House of Commons passed it, but the Bishops and Lord Halifax threw it out; if that had been passed, making it impossible for a Papist to be King, then King James would never have come to the throne at all, and all the troubles and persecutions of his reign would not have happened. That, my Father says, was where they went wrong."

"Well," said I, "it does look like it. But how queer that the Bishops should be the people to go wrong!"

Annas laughed.

"You will find that nothing new, Cary, if you search," said she. "'They that lead thee cause thee to err' is as old a calamity as the Prophets. And where priests or would-be priests are the leaders, they very generally do go wrong."

"I wish," said I, "there were a few more 'Thou shalt nots' in the Bible."

"Have you finished obeying all there are?"

I considered that question with one sleeve off.

"Well, no, I suppose not," I said at length, pulling off the other.

Annas smiled gravely, and said no more.

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Glorious news! The Prince is at Derby. I am sure there is no more need to fear for Angus. His Royal Highness will be here in a very few days now: and then let the Whigs look to themselves!

Grandmamma has bought some more white cockades. She says Hatty has improved wonderfully; her cheeks are not so shockingly red, and she speaks better, and has more decent manners. She thinks the Crosslands have done her a great deal of good. I thought Hatty looking not at all well the last time she was here; and so grave for her—almost sad. And I am afraid the Crosslands, or somebody, have done her a great deal of bad. But somehow, Hatty is one of those people whom you cannot question unless she likes. Something inside me will not put the questions. I don't know what it is.

I wish I knew everything! If I could only understand myself, I should get on better. And how am I going to understand other people?

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Note 1. A clergyman always wore his cassock at this time. Whitefield was very severe on those worldly clergy who laid it aside, and went "disguised"—namely, in the ordinary coat—to entertainments of various kinds.



CHAPTER TEN.

SPIDERS' WEBS.

"Why does he find so many tangled threads, So many dislocated purposes, So many failures in the race of life?"

REV HORATIUS BONAR, D.D.

We had a grand time of it last night, to celebrate the Prince's entry into Derby. I did not see one red ribbon. Grandmamma is very much put out at the forbidding of French cambrics; she says nobody will be able to have a decent ruffle or a respectable handkerchief now: but what can you expect of these Hanoverians? And I am sure she looked smart enough last night. We had dancing—first, the minuet, and then a round—"Pepper's black," and then "Dull Sir John," and a country dance, "Smiling Polly." Flora would not dance, and Grandmamma excused her, because she was a minister's daughter: Grandmamma always says a clergyman when she tells people: she says minister is a low word only used by Dissenters, and she does not want people to know that any guest of hers has any connection with those creatures. "However, thank Heaven! (says she) the girl is not my grand-daughter!" I don't know what she would say if I were to turn Dissenter. I suppose she would cut me off with a shilling. Ephraim said so, and I asked him what it meant. Shillings are not very sharp, and what was I to be cut off? Ephraim seemed excessively amused.

"You are too good, Cary," said he. "Did you think the shilling was a knife to cut you off something? It means she will only leave you a shilling in her will."

"Well, that will be a shilling more than I expect," said I: and Ephraim went off laughing.

I asked Miss Newton, as she seemed to know him, who Mr Raymond was. She says he is the lecturer at Saint Helen's, and might have been a decent man if that horrid creature Mr Wesley had not got hold of him.

"Oh, do you know anything about Mr Wesley, or Mr Whitefield?" cried I. "Are they in London now?"

If I could hear them again!

"I am sure I cannot tell you," said Miss Newton, laughing. "I have heard my father speak of them with some very strong language after it— that I know. My dear Miss Courtenay, does everything rouse your enthusiasm? For how you can bring that brilliant light into your eyes for the Prince, and for Mr Wesley, is quite beyond me. I should have thought they were the two opposite ends of a pole."

"I don't know anything about Mr Wesley," I said, "and I have only heard Mr Whitefield preach once in Scotland."

"You have heard him?" she asked.

"Yes, and liked him very much," said I.

Miss Newton shrugged her shoulders in that little French way she has. "Why, some people think him the worse of the two," she said. "I don't know anything about them, I can tell you—only that Mr Wesley makes Dissenters faster than you could make tatting-stitches."

"What does he do to them?" said I.

"I don't know, and I don't want to know," said she. "If he had lived in former times, I am sure he would have been taken up for witchcraft. He is a clergyman, or they say so; but I really wonder the Bishops have not turned him out of the Church long ago."

"A clergyman, and makes people Dissenters!" cried I. "Why, Mr Whitefield quoted the Articles in his sermon."

"They said so," she replied. "I know nothing about it; I never heard the man, thank Heaven! but they say he goes about preaching to all sorts of dreadful creatures—those wild miners down in Cornwall, and coal-heavers, and any sort of mobs he can get to listen. Only fancy a clergyman—a gentleman—doing any such thing!"

I thought a moment, and some words came to my mind.

"Do you think Mr Wesley was wrong?" I said. "'The common people heard Him gladly.' And I suppose you would not say that our Lord was not a gentleman."

"Dear Miss Courtenay, forgive me, but what very odd things you say! And—excuse me—don't you know it is not thought at all good taste to quote the Bible in polite society?"

"Is the Bible worse off for that?" said I. "Or is it the polite society? The best society, I suppose, ought to be in Heaven: and I fancy they do not shut out the Bible there. What think you?"

"Are you very innocent?" she answered, laughing; "or are you only making believe? You must know, surely, that religion is not talked about except from the pulpit, and on Sundays."

"But can we all be sure of dying on a Sunday?" I answered. "We shall want religion then, shall we not?"

"Hush! we don't talk of dying either—it is too shocking!"

"But don't we do it sometimes?" I said.

Miss Newton looked as if she did not know whether to laugh or be angry— certainly very much disturbed.

"Let us talk of something more agreeable, I beg," said she. "See, Miss Bracewell is going to sing."

"Oh, she will sing nothing worth listening to," said I.

"I suppose you think only Methodist hymns worth listening to," responded Miss Newton, rather sneeringly.

I don't like to be sneered at. I suppose nobody does. But it does not make me feel timid and yield, as it seems to do many: it only makes me angry.

"Well," said I, "listen how much this is worth."

Amelia drew off her gloves with a listless air which I believe she thought exceedingly genteel. I cannot undertake to describe her song: it was one of those queer lackadaisical ditties which always remind me of those tunes which go just where you don't expect them to go, and end nowhere. I hate them. And I don't like the songs much better. Of course there was a lady wringing her hands—why do people in ballads wring their hands so much? I never saw anybody do it in my life—and a cavalier on a coal-black steed, and a silvery moon; what would become of the songwriters if there were no moon and no sea?—and "she sat and wailed," and he did something or other, I could not exactly hear what; and at last he, or she, or both of them (only that would not suit the grammar) "was at rest," and I was thankful to hear it, for Amelia stopped singing.

"How sweet and sad!" said Miss Newton.

"Do you like that kind of song? I think it is rubbish."

She laughed with that little deprecating air which she often uses to me. I looked up to see who was going to sing next: and to my extreme surprise, and almost equal pleasure, I saw Annas sit down to the harp.

"Oh, Miss Keith is going to sing!" cried I. "I should like to hear hers."

"A Scottish ballad, no doubt," replied Miss Newton.

There was a soft, low, weird-like prelude: and then came a voice like that of a thrush, at which every other in the room seemed to hush instinctively. Each word was clear.

This was Annas's song.

"She said,—'We parted for a while, But we shall meet again ere long; I work in lowly, lonely room, And he amid the foreign throng: But here I willingly abide,— Here, where I see the other side.

"'Look to those hills which reach away Beyond the sea that rolls between; Here from my casement, day by day, Their happy summits can be seen: Happy, although they us divide,— I know he sees the other side.

"'The days go on to make the year— A year we must be parted yet— I sing amid my crosses light, For on those hills mine eyes are set: You say, those hills our eyes divide? Ay, but he sees the other side!

"'So these dividing hills become Our point of meeting, every eve; Up to the hills we look and pray And love—our work so soon we leave; And then no more shall aught divide— We dwell upon the other side.'"

"Pretty!" said Miss Newton, in the tone which people use when they do not think a thing pretty, but fancy that you expect them to say so: "but not so charming as Miss Bracewell's song."

"Wait," said I; "she has not finished yet."

The harp was speaking now—in a sad low voice, rising gradually to a note of triumph. Then it sank low again, and Annas's voice continued the song.

"She said,—'We parted for a while, But we shall meet again ere long; I dwell in lonely, lowly room, And he hath joined the heavenly throng: Yet here I willingly abide, For yet I see the Other Side.

"'I look unto the hills of God Beyond the life that rolls between; Here from my work by faith each day Their blessed summits can be seen; Blessed, although they us divide,— I know he sees the Other Side.

"'The days go on, the days go on,— Through earthly life we meet not yet; I sing amid my crosses light, For on those hills mine eyes are set: 'Tis true, those hills our eyes divide— Ay, but he sees the Other Side!

"'So the eternal hills become Our point of meeting, every eve; Up to the hills I look and pray And love—soon all my work I leave: And then no more shall aught divide— We dwell upon the Other Side.'"

I turned to Miss Newton with my eyes full, as Annas rose from the harp. The expression of her face was a curious mixture of feelings.

"Was ever such a song sung in Mrs Desborough's drawing-room!" she cried. "She will think it no better than a Methodist hymn. I am afraid Miss Keith has done herself no good with her hostess."

"But Grandmamma would never—" I said, hesitatingly. "Annas Keith's connections are—"

"I advise you not to be too sure what she could never," answered Miss Newton, with a little capable nod. "Mrs Desborough would scarce be civil to the Princess herself if she sang a pious song in her drawing-room on a reception evening."

"But it was charming!" I said.

Miss Newton shrugged her shoulders. "The same things do not charm everybody," said she. "It seemed to me no better than that Methodist doggerel. The latter half, at least; the beginning promised better."

When we went up to bed, Annas came to me as I stood folding my shoulder-knots, and laid a hand on each of my shoulders from behind.

"Cary, we must say 'good-bye,' I think. I scarce expected it. But Mrs Desborough's face, when my song was ended, had 'good-bye' in it."

"O Annas!" said I. "Surely she would never be angry with you for a mere song! Your connections are so good, and Grandmamma thinks so much of connections."

"If my song had only had a few wicked words in it," replied Annas, with that slight curl of her lip which I was learning to understand, "I dare say she would have recovered it by to-morrow. And if my connections had been poor people,—or better, Whigs,—or better still, disreputable rakes—she might have got over that. But a pious song, and a sisterly connection of spirit with Mr Whitefield and the Scottish Covenanters. No, Cary, she will not survive that. I never yet knew a worldly woman forgive that one crime of crimes—Calvinism. Anything else! Don't you see why, my dear? It sets her outside. And she knows that I know she is outside. Therefore I am unforgivable. However absurd the idea may be in reality, it is to her mind equivalent to my setting her outside. She is unable to recognise that she has chosen to stay without, and I am guilty of nothing worse than unavoidably seeing that she is there. That I should be able to see it is unpardonable. I am sorry it should have happened just now; but I suppose it was to be."

"Are you going to tell her so?" I asked, wondering what Annas meant.

"I expect she will tell me before to-morrow is over," said Annas, with a peculiar smile.

"But what made you choose that song, then? I thought it so pretty."

"I chose the one I knew, to which I supposed she would object the least," replied Annas. "She asked me to sing."

When we came down to breakfast, the next morning, I felt that something was in the air. Grandmamma sat so particularly straight up, and my Aunt Dorothea looked so prim, and my Uncle Charles fidgetted about between the fire and the window, like a man who knew of something coming which he wanted to have over. My Aunt Dorothea poured the chocolate in silence. When all were served, Grandmamma took a pinch of snuff.

"Miss Keith!"

"Madam!"

"Do you think the air of the Isle of Wight wholesome at this season of the year?"

"So much so, Madam, that I am inclined to propose we should resume our journey thither."

Grandmamma took another pinch.

"I will beg you, then, to make my compliments to Sir James, and tell him how much entertained I have been by your visit, and especially by your performance on the harp. You have a fine finger, Miss Keith, and your choice of a song is unexceptionable."

"I thank you for the compliment, Madam, which I shall be happy to make to Sir James."

There was nothing but dead silence after that until breakfast was over. When we were back in our room, I broke down. To lose both Annas and Flora was too much.

"O Annas! why did you take the bull by the horns?" I cried.

She laughed. "It is always the best way, Cary, when you see him put his head down!"

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Annas and Flora are gone, and I feel like one shipwrecked. I wander about the house, and do not know what to do. I might read, but Grandmamma has no books except dreary romances in huge volumes, which date, I suppose, from the time when she was a girl at school; and my Uncle Charles has none but books about farming and etiquette. I have looked up and mended all my clothes, and cannot find any sewing to do. I wrote to Sophy only last week, and they will not expect another letter for a while. I wish something pleasant would happen. The only thing I can think of to do is to go in a chair to visit Hatty and the Bracewells, and I am afraid that would be something unpleasant. I have not spoken to Mr Crossland, but I do not like the look of him; and Mrs Crossland is a stranger, and I am tired of strangers. They so seldom seem to turn out pleasant people.

Just as I had written that, as if to complete my vexation, my Aunt Dorothea looked in and told me to put on my cherry satin this evening, for Sir Anthony and my Lady Parmenter were expected. If there be a creature I particularly wish not to see, he is sure to come! I wish I knew why things are always going wrong in this world! There are two or three people that I would give a good deal for, and I am quite sure they will not be here; and I should think Cecilia dear at three-farthings, with Sir Anthony thrown in for the penny.

I wish I were making jumballs in the kitchen at Brocklebank, and could have a good talk with my Aunt Kezia afterwards! Somehow, I never cared much about it when I could, and now that I cannot, I feel as if I would give anything for it. Are things always like that? Does nothing in this world ever happen just as one would like it in every point?

In my cherry-coloured satin, with white shoulder-knots, a blue pompoon in my hair, and my new hoop (I detest these hoops; they are horrid), I came down to the withdrawing room, and cast my eye round the chamber. Grandmamma, in brocaded black silk, sat where she always does, at the side of the fire, and my Uncle Charles—who for a wonder was at home— and my Aunt Dorothea were receiving the people as they came in. The Bracewells were there already, and Hatty, and Mr Crossland, and a middle-aged lady, who I suppose was his mother, and Miss Newton, and a few more whose faces and names I know. Sir Anthony and my Lady Parmenter came in just after I got there.

What has come over Hatty? She does not look like the same girl. Grandmamma can never talk of her glazed red cheeks now. She is whiter almost than I am, and so thin! I am quite sure she is either ill, or unhappy, or both. But I cannot ask her, for somehow we never meet each other except for a minute. Several times I have thought, and the thought grows upon me, that somebody does not want Hatty and me to have a quiet talk with each other. At first I thought it was Hatty who kept away from me herself, but I am beginning to think now that somebody else is doing it. I do not trust that young Mr Crossland, not one bit. Yet, why he should wish to keep us apart, I cannot even imagine. I made up my mind to get hold of Hatty and ask her when she were going home; I think she would be safer there than here. But it was a long, long while before I could reach her. So many people seemed to be hemming her in. I sat on an ottoman in the corner, watching my opportunity, when all at once a voice called me back to something else.

"Dear little Cary, I have been so wishing for a chat with you."

Hatty used to say that you may always know something funny is coming when you see a cat wag her tail. I had come to the conclusion that whenever one person addressed me with endearing phrases, something sinister was coming. I looked up this time: I did not courtesy and walk away, as I did on the last occasion. I wanted to avoid an open quarrel. If she had sought me out after that, I could not avoid it. But to speak to me as if nothing had happened!—how could the woman be so brazen as that?

I looked up, and saw a large gold-coloured fan, most beautifully painted with birds of all the hues of the rainbow, from over which those tawny eyes were glancing at me; and for one moment I wished that hating people were not wicked.

"For what purpose, Madam?" I replied.

"Dear child, you are angry with me," she said, and the soft, warm, gloved hand pressed mine, before I could draw it away. "It is so natural, for of course you do not understand. But it makes me very sorry, for I loved you so much."

O serpent, how beautiful you are! But you are a serpent still.

"Did you?" I said, and my voice sounded hard and cold to my own ears. "I take the liberty of doubting whether you and I give that name to the same thing."

The light gleamed and flashed, softened and darkened, then shot out again from those wonderful, beautiful eyes.

"And you won't forgive me?" she said, in a soft sad voice. How she can govern that voice, to be sure!

"Forgive you? Yes," I answered. "But trust you? No. I think never again, my Lady Parmenter."

"You will be sorry some day that you did not."

Was it a regret? was it a threat? The voice conveyed neither, and might have stood for both. I looked up again, but she had vanished, and where she had been the moment before stood Mr Raymond.

"A penny for your thoughts, Miss Courtenay."

"You shall have my past thoughts, if you please," said I, trying to speak lightly. "I would rather not sell my present ones at the price."

He smiled, and drew out a new penny. "Then let me make the less valuable purchase."

Even Mr Raymond was a welcome change from her.

"Then tell me, Mr Raymond," said I, "do things ever happen exactly as one wishes them to do?"

"Once in a thousand times, perhaps," said he. "I should imagine, though, that the occasion usually comes after long waiting and bitter pain. Generally there is something to remind us that this is not our rest."

"Why?" I said, and I heard my soul go into the word.

"Why not?" answered he, pithily. "Is the servant so much greater than his Lord that he may reasonably look for things to be otherwise? Cast your mind's eye over the life of Christ our Master, and see on how many occasions matters happened in a way which you would suppose entirely to His liking? Can you name one?"

I thought, and could not see anything, except when He did a miracle, or when He spent a night in prayer to God.

"I give you those nights of prayer," said Mr Raymond. "But I think you must yield me the miracles. Unquestionably it must have given Him pleasure to relieve pain; but see how much pain to Himself was often mixed in it!—'Looking up to Heaven, He sighed' ere He did one; He wept, just before performing another; He cried, 'How long shall I be with you, and suffer you!' ere he worked a third. No, Miss Courtenay, the miracles of our Divine Master were not all pleasure to Himself. Indeed, I should be inclined to venture further, and ask if we have no hint that they were wrought at a considerable cost to Himself. He 'took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses'; He knew when 'virtue had gone out of Him.' That may mean only that His Divine knowledge was conscious of it; but taking both passages together, is it not possible that His wonderful works were wrought at personal expense—that His human body suffered weakness, faintness, perhaps acute pain, as the natural consequence of doing them? You will understand that I merely throw out the hint. Scripture does not speak decisively; and where God does not decide, it is well for men to be cautious."