Colonel Mildmay sat silent for a minute considering deeply.

'Yes,' he said; 'I do not see any choice. I cannot take the London appointment—to live in reality, my dear lady, on your bounty. For that is what it would be. And even if such a position had been possible for me—and I confess I cannot conceive its being so—still less possible would it be now that you know our mind as to the ultimate disposal of things, and that we have been forced to thwart your more than generous, your unprecedented goodness to us.'

'Then you will go to Barmettle?'

Colonel Mildmay bent his head.

'Ah well,' said Lady Myrtle, 'another dream vanished!'

Mrs Mildmay started up at this.

'Oh, dear Lady Myrtle, dear, dear friend,' she said, and the tears were in her eyes, 'don't speak like that. I cannot bear it. You say there can be no sort of compromise, but surely there can be of one kind; you will not, you cannot expect us to leave off looking to you and feeling to you as our best and dearest friend?'

And she threw her arms round the old lady as Francie might have done, and was not repulsed.

'You will let me have Jacinth sometimes?' whispered Lady Myrtle.

'Of course, of course; whenever you like and as much as you like,' said Mrs Mildmay eagerly.

'I will not be unreasonable,' the old lady said with one of the half-wistful smiles that were so touching. 'Even if—if everything had been going to be as I hoped, I would never have wished or expected anything which could have interfered with her home ties and duties. And I need scarcely say I will never come upon this subject that we have been discussing, with her. I will leave it entirely to you, her parents, to tell her what you think right, though I own I should like her to realise how I have been thinking of her.'



'That she certainly shall,' exclaimed Mrs Mildmay impulsively. And though a moment afterwards she was tempted to murmur to herself 'at all costs,' she did not repent of her promise. 'It would not be fair to Lady Myrtle for Jacinth to be told nothing,' she reflected. 'And scarcely indeed fair to the child herself. For I cannot but believe she will see it all as we do.'

So that afternoon Colonel Mildmay wrote to accept the appointment offered him up at gloomy, smoky Barmettle in the dreary north country.

'I doubt if we have done much to forward the poor Harpers' cause,' said his wife as she watched him closing and sealing the big blue official envelope.

'Very possibly not,' he replied calmly. 'But we have, I hope and believe, done right. And so we must not feel over much concern for the poor Harpers' future any more than for that of our own children, my dear Eugenia.'

And though Mrs Mildmay agreed with him, she was human enough, and woman enough, to sigh a little at certain visions of what might have been, which would intrude themselves!

'But what,' she began again after a little pause, 'what are we to say to Jacinth?'

It is to be confessed that Colonel Mildmay's reply was not quite so ready this time.

'We must consider well about that,' he said. 'Of course we must tell her soon about Barmettle. It would not be treating her fairly, for she is a remarkably sensible girl, and has behaved excellently in rather difficult circumstances. Alison's little house and odd ways must have been somewhat trying after the liberal easy-going life at Stannesley. It would not be treating Jacinth as she deserves, not to take her into our confidence as to our plans.'

'And the mere mention of Barmettle will lead on to the whole,' said Mrs Mildmay. 'Frank, you must help me to put it to her wisely. I fear, though very little has been said about it, that Jassie has an intense dislike to the idea of Barmettle; and I fear still more, that in spite of Lady Myrtle's good sense and extreme wish to cause no trouble, she has somehow or other allowed some hint of her intentions to escape her.'

Colonel Mildmay looked very grave at this; graver than he had yet done.

'Jacinth is extremely quick,' he said, 'and notwithstanding her quiet undemonstrative manner I suspect that she has a very lively imagination. But surely all she has got in her head is only childish; looking forward to long visits here and a continuance of Lady Myrtle's kindness? As regards Barmettle, I have no doubt she would prefer my taking the London appointment, but she is sensible; we only need to put it to her.'

'I hope so,' said Mrs Mildmay with a sigh. 'But the whole is so complicated: she is prejudiced against the Harpers; just the opposite of Frances.'

'That is unfortunate,' said Colonel Mildmay. But after a moment's silence he spoke again more cheerfully. 'We must not spoil Jacinth,' he said. 'If she has been led to cherish any brilliant hopes, the sooner she gives them up the better. I shall be sorry for her disappointment, but I am sure she is not really selfish. If she sees that you and I are happier—infinitely happier—as things are, she will not take it to heart. And it may not be necessary to say much; not to enter into mercenary details, to a child like her.'

'I hope so,' said Mrs Mildmay again. But again her sigh somewhat belied her words.

The very next day brought the dreaded opportunity. Some little allusion was made to Colonel Mildmay's intention of running up to London again the following week.

'Shall you have any commissions for me, Lady Myrtle?' he said lightly.

The old lady shook her head, but without her usual smile.

'I think not, Colonel Mildmay, thank you,' she said. 'I had thought of asking you to see my agent about my house in Brook Street. The present tenant's lease expires nine months hence, and I must make up my mind what I am going to do.'

'I fear I am not very au fait of such matters,' he replied. 'But I could at least hear what the agent has to say more satisfactorily than by letter. So pray let me call; give me all your instructions. I should be more than delighted to be of any use, you must know,' he ended earnestly.

Lady Myrtle seemed pleased.

'Thank you,' she said. 'Well, yes then; I will tell you what I want to know.'

This conversation took place at luncheon. That afternoon Jacinth sought her mother in her own room.

'Mamma,' she said, 'are you busy? May I talk to you a little?'

Mrs Mildmay laid down her pen.

'I was writing to Marmy,' she said, 'but I have plenty of time. What is it, dear? I am glad to have a little quiet talk together. I have been wishing for it, too.'

But Jacinth scarcely seemed to listen.

'Mamma,' she began again, somewhat irrelevantly it might have seemed. 'Brook Street isn't a very grand part of London, is it? At least all the houses in it are not tremendously grand, are they? I was thinking about Lady Myrtle's house. Couldn't it be arranged for us to be her tenants? I'm sure she would like it if she thought we would. Mightn't I say something about it to her? She likes me to say whatever I think of, but I thought—for such a thing as a house, perhaps I had better ask you first.'

'But, my dearest child, we don't want any house in London,' said Mrs Mildmay with a smile which she strove to make unconstrained. 'You forget, dear, the choice was never between Barmettle and London, but between Barmettle and India again, and'——

'But mamma,' interrupted Jacinth, 'please answer my question first. Is Brook Street very grand? Would a house there be out of the question for us, even if we—if we had one there for nothing?'

'Yes; unless we had another thousand a year at least, we could not possibly live there on our income with any comfort or consistency,' Mrs Mildmay replied quietly.

The girl's face fell.

'A thousand a year! that's a good deal,' she said. 'I had thought'——

'But why worry yourself about things that can never be, dear Jassie?' said her mother. 'We were going to tell you—even your Aunt Alison does not know yet—that it is all decided, and oh, I am so thankful that the long separation is over at last. Your father wrote yesterday to accept the Barmettle appointment.'

Jacinth grew scarlet, then very, very pale.

'Mamma,' she exclaimed, and the low repression in her tone was more unnatural—more alarming, I had almost said—in one so young, than any even violent ebullition of temper. 'Mamma, it can't be true. You are saying it to tease me. You—you and papa would never have settled it without telling me, without consulting Lady Myrtle, after all her goodness?'

'No,' replied Mrs Mildmay, arming herself for the contest by a resolute determination not to lose her self-control, however it might be tried; 'no, though a little reflection would show you that you should have more trust in your parents, dear Jacinth; it was not done without consulting our kind old friend. And however she may regret it, I know she respects your father's decision.'

Jacinth looked up eagerly; a reaction of hope came over her.

'Mamma,' she said breathlessly, 'believe me, I don't mean to be either disrespectful or distrustful, but did Lady Myrtle say nothing against it? Is she perhaps going to do so when—when she has thought everything over?'

'She did say everything she could; she did use the strongest arguments she had: but she could not but see that your father's motives were right, and so she saw it must be as he said,' replied Mrs Mildmay.

A harder look crept over Jacinth's face; the eager, almost nervous, anxiety died out of it.

'There is something about all this that I do not understand,' she said. 'Unless you and papa mean to treat me as a baby, I think I have a right to know. I think Lady Myrtle would say so.'

Mrs Mildmay felt much perplexed. Any approach to diplomacy, anything but perfect candour and frankness, was so foreign to her nature, that it was difficult for her not at once to speak out and explain the whole. But then, if she did so, she might be only sowing seeds of future bitterness. It was improbable, to say the least, that Jacinth had realised in any definite way Lady Myrtle's intentions with regard to her, seeing that the old lady had not announced them to her.

'All she can know is only that Lady Myrtle meant to do something,' reflected Jacinth's mother. 'It would be for her happiness, and for that of us all, that she should never know more.'

Jacinth saw the trouble in her mother's face.

'Mamma,' she said, 'if you won't speak to me openly, I will ask Lady Myrtle herself.'

Mrs Mildmay flushed.

'Jassie,' she said quietly, 'you do not mean it, but your tone sounds almost like a threat—to me—to your mother?' And in spite of herself, her voice trembled a little.

But still Jacinth repeated coldly, 'I think I have a right to know.'

At that moment the door opened, and to Mrs Mildmay's immense relief her husband entered.

'What is the matter?' he asked quickly. 'Am I interrupting you?'

'On the contrary,' said his wife, 'I am very glad you have come. Jacinth is, as I half feared she would be, exceedingly upset by the news about Barmettle, and she seems to think we have not treated her with the confidence she deserves.'

'You cannot feel that, when I tell you that my decision was only made yesterday,' said her father to Jacinth.

'Yes. I think you might have—have consulted me a little before making it,' the girl replied. 'It is something to me personally; to have to live at a place like that now I am nearly grown up.'

She seemed to be purposely emphasising the selfish part of her dissatisfaction out of a kind of reckless defiance.

'Do you quite understand that it was a choice between this appointment and an indefinite return to India?' said Colonel Mildmay.

'I understand that you think so. But I don't see it. There was the London thing. And even if not, I would rather have had India.'

'No, no, Jassie, don't do yourself injustice,' exclaimed her mother. 'Not when you think of the risk to your father's health.'

Jacinth hesitated.

'But there was a choice,' she said; and now there was a touch of timidity in her voice.

Colonel Mildmay considered; they were approaching the crucial point, and he took his resolution.

'No, Jacinth,' he said. 'To my mind, as an honourable man, there was no choice. I should have forfeited for ever my own self-respect had I agreed to Lady Myrtle's proposal.'

And then he rapidly, but clearly, put before her the substance of their old friend's intentions and wishes, and his reasons for refusing to fall in with them.

'Lady Myrtle is too good a woman to sow discord in a family,' he said, 'between a child and her parents. And it was impossible for us to approve of the apportionment of her property she proposed, knowing that there exist at this very time those who have a claim on her, who most thoroughly deserve the restoration of what should have been theirs always; who have suffered, indeed, already only too severely for the sin and wrong-doing of another.'

Jacinth started, and the lines of her face hardened again.

'I thought it was that,' she exclaimed. 'Those people—they are at the bottom of it, then.'

'Jacinth!' said her mother.

'I beg your pardon, mamma,' said the girl quickly. 'It must sound very strange for me to speak like that; but, you don't know how I have been teased about these Harpers. And mamma, Lady Myrtle doesn't look upon them as you and papa do, so why should you expect me to do so? Do you suppose she will leave them anything she would have left us—me?'

'Very likely not,' said Colonel Mildmay.

'Then for everybody's sake, why not have left things as Lady Myrtle meant? I—we, I mean,' and Jacinth's face crimsoned, 'could have been good to them; it would have been better for them in the end.'

'Do you suppose they would have accepted help—money, to put it coarsely—from strangers?' said Colonel Mildmay. 'It is not help they should have, but actual practical restoration of what should be theirs. And even supposing our decision does them no good, can't you see, Jacinth, that anything else would be wrong?'

'No,' said Jacinth, 'I don't see it.'

'Then I am sorry for you,' said her father coldly.

'I know,' said Jacinth, 'that Lady Myrtle likes things one way or another. I suppose she will give us up altogether now. I suppose she will leave off caring anything about me. You think very badly of me, papa, I can see; you think me mercenary and selfish and everything horrid; but—it wasn't only for myself, and it isn't only because of what she was doing for us, and meant to do for us. I have got to love Lady Myrtle very much, and I shall feel dreadfully the never seeing her any more, and—and'——

Here, not altogether to her mother's distress, Jacinth broke down and began to sob bitterly. Mrs Mildmay got up from her seat, and came close to where the girl was sitting by the table.

'My poor dear child,' she said, 'we have never thought you selfish in that sort of way.'

'No,' agreed her father; 'that you may believe. You have had of late too much responsibility thrown upon you, and it has given you the feeling that the whole fortunes of your family depended upon you in some sense. Be content to be a child a little longer, my Jacinth, and to trust your parents. And there is no need for you to anticipate any change with Lady Myrtle. She will care for you, and for us all, as much as ever—more perhaps; and as much time as it will be right for you to spend away from your own home, you shall have our heartiest consent to spending with her. If you can in any way give her pleasure—and I know you can—it will be the very least we can do in return for her really wonderful goodness to us.'

'I should like to see her; to be with her sometimes,' said Jacinth, whose sobs had now calmed down into quiet crying. 'But I don't want—once we go away to that place—I don't want ever to see Robin Redbreast again. Ever since'—and here she had to stop a moment—'ever since that first day when we passed it with Uncle Marmy, I have had a sort of feeling to this house—a kind of presentiment. I can't bear to think of its going to strangers, or—or people that know nothing about Lady Myrtle. And very likely, if she leaves all she has to big hospitals or something like that, very likely this place will be sold.'

'It may be so,' said Colonel Mildmay; and he added with a smile, 'I wish for your sake I were rich enough to buy it, my poor dear child.'

So Jacinth's castles in the air were somewhat rudely destroyed. There was but one consolation to her. Lady Myrtle was even more loving than hitherto, though she said nothing about the collapse of her plans. For Mrs Mildmay gave her to understand that matters, so far as was fitting, had been explained to her elder daughter.

'Humph!' said the old lady. 'That seals my lips. For of course I cannot express disapproval of her parents to the child.'

But her tenderness and marked affection went some way to soothe the smarting of the girl's sore feelings.

'She understands me far better than papa and mamma do,' thought Jacinth. 'If they meant me to see everything through their eyes, they shouldn't have left me away from them all these years.'

Still a curious strain of pride in her father's stern honesty, in his utter disinterestedness, now and then mingled with her feelings of disappointment. She could not help feeling proud of him! Nevertheless the tears were many and bitter which Jacinth shed when the last night of their stay at Robin Redbreast came.



CHAPTER XVII.

TWO DEGREES OF HONESTY.

Barmettle is not an attractive place; though like most places in this varied world it has its interests and even no doubt its charm for many of its inhabitants—its bright and happy homes, as well as its thousands of hard, if not overworked, pale-faced artisans, men and women, of many grades and classes.

And the sun can shine there sometimes; and not so many miles from the very centre of the town, you can escape from the heavy pall of smoke-filled air, into fresh and picturesque country, whose beauties, to my thinking, strike one all the more vividly from the force of contrast with the ugliness and griminess which you cannot forget are so near.

There had been some talk—when the Mildmay family first contemplated the pitching of their tent in this unknown land—there had been some talk of a house in the neighbourhood of the town, a few miles out, where a garden and a field or two would have been possible, to reconcile the children and their mother, to some extent, to the great change from all their former experiences. But Colonel Mildmay had been obliged to give up hopes of this. There were several difficulties in the way, and the house which sometimes at such crises turns up with such undeniable advantages as to over-ride the less immediate objections, had not offered itself. So, considering the inconvenience of scanty communication between the barracks and the 'pretty' side of the outskirts, the impossibility of day-school arrangements for Eugene, and a very certain amount of loneliness and isolation, especially in the winter months, the fairly desirable house in St Wilfred's Place which did offer itself carried the day.

It was but five minutes' walk from Colonel Mildmay's official quarters, and conveniently near Eugene's school; it was very much in the minds of the teachers who now replaced the Misses Scarlett's institution as regarded the girls; it was not duller as to outlook and surroundings than had to be at Barmettle, for it faced St Wilfred's Church, one of the oldest and most interesting structures in the modern town, which had once been a pleasant straggling north-country village; and last, though not least, its rent was moderate.

And Mrs Mildmay, unspoilt by her long residence in the East—as full of energy and resources as when she arranged the drawing-rooms at Stannesley in her careless girlish days, and laughed merrily at her kind step-mother's old-fashioned notions—exerted herself to make the house as pretty as she possibly could.

'I am glad it is cheap,' she said to her husband, 'for we can afford to spend rather more in making it comfortable and nice, especially for Jassie.'

And Jacinth's room was all a girl could wish, and at night, when the outer world was shut off, and the dark square hall and wide quaint staircase, which had attracted the new tenants in their house-hunting, were lighted up, looking bright and cheerful with the crimson carpets and curtains which Barmettle smoke had not as yet had time to dull, Frances's expression of approval, 'Really it looks so nice that you might fancy it wasn't Barmettle at all,' could scarcely be contradicted.

But Frances, like her mother, was born with the happy faculty for seeing the best side of things. It was all, naturally, much harder on Jacinth. And as Jacinth stood one morning in November looking out into the dreary street, where rain had been pouring down ever since daybreak, and was still dripping monotonously, she did feel that her lines had not of late fallen in pleasant places. Yet she was not so selfish as this sounds. She had made a struggle to see things as her parents did, and in this she had not been entirely unsuccessful, and the constant love and watchful sympathy which were now a part of her daily life, unconsciously influenced her in good and gentle ways which she scarcely realised.

Some ground she had gained. She had come to see that if her father and mother felt about the Harper family as they did, they could not have acted otherwise. And her own conscience was not, it will be remembered, entirely clear. 'Of course,' she said to herself, 'if Lady Myrtle had been left to do as she wished, I should have felt it my duty to do something for the Harpers. I'm sure I should have found some way of managing it.' But no doubt there was a kind of relief in feeling it was taken out of her hands, for Jacinth was growing gradually less confident in her own powers: for the first time in her life she was realising the delight and privilege of having others wiser than herself to whom she could look up.

'Mamma,' she said, on the morning in question, 'do you think there really are places where it rains ever so much more than at others? or is it only that we notice it more at some? I really could almost think that it rains here every day.'

Mrs Mildmay smiled.

'No, dear, it really does not. I don't think the rainfall here is much greater than in London or at Thetford, but the heavy air and the grayness make us, as you say, notice it more. In many places where there actually is more rain than the average, the country is peculiarly bright and fresh. Think of the grass in Ireland.'

But Jacinth's thoughts were already wandering elsewhere.

'Mamma,' she began again, 'do you think we shall have to stay here for Christmas?'

'I suppose so,' replied Mrs Mildmay. 'Even if Lady Myrtle wished it—as indeed I am sure she does—it would hardly be worth while for us to go to her for only two or three days, which is all the leave your father could get. And there are a good many things we have to see to here.'

'Yes,' said Frances, 'there's the Christmas treat for the barracks children. It's never been properly done. And Miss Lettice Piers is going to invite us to their treat at St Wilfred's first, so that we may see. I'd like best to have our visits to Robin Redbreast in the summer, except that it must be rather dull for Lady Myrtle. She was so pleased to have us there last Christmas.'

'I wish we could have her here,' said Mrs Mildmay. 'But she would never be allowed to come up north in the winter.'

Jacinth sighed.

'It seems a good while since we heard from Lady Myrtle,' she said. 'I hope she's not ill. I did think she would have tried to get us there for Christmas.'

'I don't think she can be ill,' said Mrs Mildmay, 'for your aunt would have known it. She goes to see Lady Myrtle regularly. I shall be hearing from Alison in a day or two, however.'

'Jassie,' said Frances, a moment or two later, when their mother had left the room, 'I wish you wouldn't look so melancholy. Just think what a lot of nice things have come to us, as well as the sad ones. Just fancy how we should have been ready to jump out of our skins for joy if we had known, when we left Stannesley, how soon papa and mamma would be at home with us.'

'I know,' said Jacinth. 'I do try to think of all that. But I do so dislike this gloomy place, Francie, and I think papa looks so fagged, and we have scarcely any friends we care for; the people are all so stupid, and so'——

'So what?'

'So rich,' said Jacinth, rather at a loss apparently what crime to lay at the doors of the good folk of the manufacturing town who had incurred her displeasure.

Frances laughed.

'That's not a sin,' she said. 'Lady Myrtle's rich, and so in a way, I suppose, is Uncle Marmy.'

'I mean they seem to think of it so. Once or twice, when I've paid calls with mamma, they were so fussy and show-off. You know how I mean,' said Jacinth.

'Well, there are plenty of poor too, if that would make you like Barmettle any better. Amy Piers says there are some dreadfully poor, and she says that even the ones who get very big wages don't save at all, and then if there comes a bad time—a bad time for trade, when some of the people have to be turned off: it does come like that now and then, she says, though I don't understand why—they are really starving.'

'They should be taught to save, then,' said Jacinth. 'Why don't the Piers teach them? If I were the vicar, I'd preach sermons about it. If people are so silly, they must expect to suffer for it.'

'But think of the poor little children!' said Frances, whose sympathy was readier than her sister's. 'It isn't their fault, and they suffer the most. Amy says it's a good deal owing to the people spending so much on beer and brandy and horrid tipsifying things. I'm sure the Piers do all they possibly can, and you know how papa says that, even with all the strict rules in the army, it's awfully difficult to keep the men sober. If I were the Queen, Jass, I'd make a law against having so many public-houses; I would indeed.'

'The Queen can't make laws all by herself like that, Frances. You don't understand. If the people were taught how horrid it is to get drunk, they'd leave off wanting to buy too much beer and things like that, and then the public-houses would have to give up because they wouldn't have customers enough. That's the best way.'

'Well, I think it should be done both ways,' said Frances. 'If there weren't so many public-houses, there wouldn't be so much temptation;' and the little reformer nodded her head sagely.

Just then Mrs Mildmay re-entered the room.

'Jassie dear,' she said, 'it's Saturday morning. You have no lessons, and though it's so rainy I know you're not afraid of the weather. Frances has a cold, so she mustn't come out. Will you wrap yourself up well, and come a little way with me to help me to carry some things to Mrs Wake? She has gone to stay with her mother, you know, for a little change, but they are very poor people, and I must help them as much as I can.'

Jacinth sprang to her feet eagerly.

'Oh yes, mamma,' she exclaimed, 'I should like very much to come. I'll be ready directly. I'll put on a thick jacket and my waterproof cape over that.'

And in a few minutes the mother and daughter were making their way, each laden with some parcels as well as the unavoidable umbrella, along the muddy pavement in the direction of a poorer part of the town. Mrs Wake was the wife of one of Colonel Mildmay's soldier servants; she happened to belong to a Barmettle family, which was just now very fortunate for her, as she had had a most serious illness in the barracks, and had lately been moved for greater quiet to her own old home.

'Francie and I were just talking about the poor people here,' said Jacinth. 'Amy Piers tells her about them. I shall be very glad to see one of the homes they live in.'

'It will be rather a good specimen, though they are very poor people,' said Mrs Mildmay; 'for they are thrifty and most respectable. But for many years the father has not been able to earn full wages, as he was crippled by an accident. Indeed, but for the kindness of the head of the factory where he worked, he would have been turned off altogether on a very small pension. It was true kindness to let him stay on to do what work he could, for it kept up his spirits.'

'The master must be a good man,' said Jacinth.

'I believe he is—one of the best in Barmettle,' said Mrs Mildmay. 'But here we are, Jassie,' and as she spoke she turned down a small passage, not wide enough to be called by a more important name, leading out of the already poor and narrow street they were in, and knocked at a door a few steps on.

It was quickly opened. A rather gaunt and careworn, but clean and honest-looking, elderly woman stood before them. Her eyes were red with crying, but she welcomed Mrs Mildmay very civilly, though with a sort of reserve of manner which struck Jacinth as very different from the extremely hearty, though respectful, deference with which, as her grandmother's messenger, she used to be received by their own villagers at Stannesley.

'You'll be come to ask for my daughter,' said the woman. She had been a domestic servant, and had but little north-country accent. 'You're welcome, I'm sure, and she'll take it kindly. Take a seat,' and she led them into the little kitchen, tidy and clean, though encumbered with some pieces of treasured furniture decidedly too big for it. 'Yes, she's fairly—th' doctor's main content.'

'Oh,' said Mrs Mildmay, 'I am glad to hear it. I was afraid when I saw you'——But she stopped suddenly, for before she could say more the old woman had sunk into a chair, and, flinging her apron over her head, was giving way to bitter weeping. Jacinth felt both distressed and alarmed. Like her mother she had noticed the signs of tears on Mrs Burton's face.

'I am so sorry,' said Mrs Mildmay, getting up as she said the words, and standing beside the woman, she gently laid her hand on her arm. 'Is it some new trouble—your husband?'

'Nay, nay,' sobbed the poor thing. 'Burton is finely—for him, that's to say. But have ye not heard th' ill news?' and she raised her head in surprise. 'Th' measter,' and as she grew absorbed in what she had to tell, she fell back into the kind of talk she had accustomed herself to discard when with 'gentry.' 'He's gone!' and her sobs broke out again.

'What! good Mr Fairfield,' said Mrs Mildmay. 'No, I had not heard it. What a loss he will be! Was it very sudden?'

And Jacinth standing by, listened eagerly to all Mrs Burton told.

He had been struck by paralysis—the kind friend of so many years—only two days before, and had never rallied. And the grief was widespread and deep. It would throw many into sorrow and anxiety too, the old woman said; for though he left two sons to succeed him, it remained to be seen if they would follow in his footsteps.

'They will be very rich; they may not care to carry on the business, of course,' said Mrs Mildmay. 'No doubt Mr Fairfield has left a large fortune.'

But Mrs Burton shook her head. It was far from the case. The business was doing well, as it deserved to do, but beyond its good prospects he left but little. And then she went on to explain why it was so; thus entering into the circumstances which had so specially endeared the dead man to his workpeople. A good many years ago, she related, when Mr Fairfield had first inherited the 'works,' a terrible accident had occurred, in which, with several others, Burton had suffered. The accident, though in those days such inquiries were less searching, had revealed a certain danger in a part of the machinery recently introduced at great expense, as a wonderful improvement. The danger was remote; it was perfectly possible no damage might ever again occur from the same cause; no pressure of any kind was put upon the master, no suggestion even, of change; his own workpeople would not have blamed him had he 'let things be.' But such was not Mr Fairfield's way of viewing a master's responsibilities. He had almost all the machinery changed, for the one alteration he deemed absolutely necessary involved others. And the outlay had been something immense, especially as a run of bad years had followed it. And even when times improved again, and he began to feel his head above water, he never himself benefited by the profits as most would have done.

''Twas always summat for his people, as he called 'em, bless him. Reading-rooms, or clubs, or schools. Year in, year out, 'twas his first thought and his last. What else was he there for? he'd say, mony's the time. Ah, well; he's gone where his Master'll have good thought for him,' the old woman added quaintly, 'the master he served so faithful. For ye see, ma'am,' she went on, forgetting for the moment her grief in her earnestness, 'I take it as it's this way. There's honesty to God as well as honesty to men. None would 'a blamed Measter Fairfield if he'd let things be; no man could 'a done so. But he looked higher nor the judging o' men.'

'Yes, truly,' Mrs Mildmay heartily agreed, 'that was the secret, Mrs Burton.'

'But, oh dear, dear;' cried the poor woman, relapsing again into the tears which did her credit, 'it's mony a sore heart he'll leave behind him.'

'Mamma,' said Jacinth softly and half timidly, when a quarter of an hour or so later they were wending their way home relieved of their packages, through the muddy streets—'mamma, do you know that what she said—old Mrs Burton, I mean—about the two kinds of honesty has helped to—to make me understand better than I did before what papa felt, and you too, of course, about—about Lady Myrtle and the Harpers, you know.'

Mrs Mildmay, in spite of the rain and her umbrella, managed to give Jacinth's arm a little loving squeeze.

'I am so glad, so very glad, dear,' she said.

'Mamma,' said Jacinth, again, after a little silence, in a more assured voice this time, 'if papa had been in Mr Fairfield's place, he would have done just like him, wouldn't he?'

'I am quite sure he would,' agreed her mother.

And notwithstanding the cold and the rain and the grimness of everything, I think Jacinth felt happier that day than since they had come to Barmettle.

A day or two later another little event helped to confirm Jacinth's better and truer views of her great disappointment. This was the arrival of a letter for Frances, forwarded from Thetford by their Aunt Alison.

'A letter for me!' exclaimed the little girl, when at the breakfast-table her mother handed it to her. 'Whom can it be from? I hardly ever get any letters.' But as her eye fell on the address her face flushed and brightened.

'Oh, I do believe,' she said, 'I do believe it's from Bessie—Bessie Harper. And of course she'd have to send it to Aunt Alison's; she doesn't know we've left Thetford.'

'I'm not so sure of that,' said Mrs Mildmay. 'When I wrote to Mrs Lyle some time ago, I told her we were coming to Barmettle, but very likely she did not think of sending our address to her nieces, for they have not been in the habit of writing to you or Jacinth.'

'No,' Frances replied, rather incoherently, for she was already buried in her letter, 'that's what she says. "Aunt Flora"—is that Mrs Lyle, mamma?—"Aunt Flora told us you had gone to live up in the north. I am afraid it can't be as bright and pretty there as at Thetford, but still it must be lovely to have your father and mother with you for always now. I think I can understand far better than ever what a very great trouble it must have been to you and your sister to be without them all those years, for oh, we did so miss father and mother when they were in London for six months, and then in Germany. They took Margaret with them to Germany, and it did her such a lot of good. I have wanted to write to you ever so often, and so has Camilla, but mother wasn't quite sure how we could say what we wished. But now she has had another letter from Aunt Flora, and this has made her give me leave to write and tell you all our beautiful news. Just fancy, dear Francie, father is almost quite well. Of course he will always be lame, but he counts that nothing, and it's really not so bad nearly as it was. All he had done at the London hospital and then the German baths has turned out so well, and now to make it—the cure, I mean—quite lasting, we are all—though I write it, I can scarcely believe it—going abroad to some mild place for the winter. We have not quite fixed where; but we have let Hedge End till next May, and we shall start very soon. If you write to me, please address it to Hedge End. And now I want to say something that is rather difficult to say. What has made everything come right has been the goodness of father's aunt, Lady Myrtle Goodacre. Just when we were almost in despair, and it seemed as if nothing could save father, she sent mother a lot of money: she said it was a present, but we all count it a loan. It was enough to do everything, and more than enough, and we can never, never thank her too much. But in our hearts we all feel sure that, though you kept exactly to what mother and Camilla asked, yet some of you, somehow, have been our good fairies. Perhaps it was your sister Jacinth, perhaps it was Mrs Mildmay; and I am sure, dear Francie, that if ever you had a chance you spoke kindly of us; perhaps we shall never know exactly who did it, or how it was done, so wisely and carefully as it must have been. But oh, we do thank you; if you could see the difference in everything about us now, how we are all as happy as the day's long, you would all feel happy just to see it. Nearly every night, when we say our prayers, Margaret and I thank God for having sent you and Jacinth to be our school-fellows at Miss Scarlett's, and for the wonderful way things have come right."'

Then followed a few details more interesting to Frances than of consequence in themselves, about the lessons Bessie and Margaret had been doing, and how well Camilla managed to teach them, and hopes that 'some day' the former school-fellows might meet again; ending up with repetitions of the gratitude they felt sure they owed to somebody, and 'much love' from 'your affectionate friend, Elizabeth Vandeleur Harper.'

'"Vandeleur" was Bessie's mother's name. She's very proud of it,' said Frances, gazing admiringly at the pretty writing. Then she looked up with glistening eyes. 'Mamma, Jass, isn't it beautiful? Isn't it lovely to think they're so much happier?'

Mrs Mildmay's own face was nearly as bright as Francie's.

'I cannot tell you how glad and thankful I am,' she said. And she took hold gently of Jacinth's hand. 'Doesn't it seem to follow up what we were saying the other day after we had been at old Mrs Burton's?' she whispered.

But Jacinth's face looked pale, and her eyes had tears in them.

'Mamma,' she said, 'I suppose you thought I wouldn't have been nice about it, but I think you might have told me that you did get Lady Myrtle to do something to help the Harpers. I can see that Francie knew about it, and it is horrid to be in a way thanked by them, when—when I have really been more a sort of enemy to them than a friend.'

Mrs Mildmay had started a little at Jacinth's first words, for she had in fact forgotten, in the consciousness of increasing sympathy between her elder daughter and herself, how, at the time of her first appeal to Lady Myrtle, she had judged it wiser to say nothing about it to Jacinth. And now to her candid and naturally confiding nature this reticence gave her almost a guilty feeling. But as Jacinth went on speaking, her mother realised that she had done wisely.

'Dear Jassie,' she said quietly, 'at that time I did think it better not to tell you that I had interfered. I wanted to avoid all possibilities of irritation till you got to know me better. And I did see that you were prejudiced to some extent. But now I feel quite differently about it, and I wish I had thought of telling you lately, though you must take my not having done so as a proof of my feeling at one with you. For till this minute I thought you did know. At least I forgot you did not. I will tell you exactly how it came about.' And she did so, adding rather sadly, as she concluded, 'And after all, dear, you see I was able to do very little. Lady Myrtle will not think of them as her relations, and grateful though they are for this present help, of course it is not anything lasting; not what we would like to make sure of for their future.'

'No,' Jacinth agreed, 'I understand how you mean. Still, it is a very good thing their father is so much better. I think they have a great deal to thank you for, mamma—you, and Francie too, in her way. I think they should know I have not helped at all; it makes me feel almost—dishonest. If Francie writes to Bessie, couldn't she say something?'

'Whatever she says about the matter at all must only be very slight and vague,' said Mrs Mildmay. 'And, Jassie dear, you do feel kindly to them now?'

'I want to feel whatever's right,' Jacinth replied, and her tone was wonderfully humble.

'Then there is no need to enter into any explanations,' said Mrs Mildmay. 'It would only hurt poor Bessie if you made any sort of disclaimer of the friendliness they credit us all with. The only thing you could ever do might perhaps be'——She hesitated.

'What, mamma?' asked Jacinth.

'Some day,' said her mother, 'you may have an opportunity of saying to Lady Myrtle that you think you were a little prejudiced against them.'

'Yes,' Jacinth agreed, 'perhaps it would be right. For, you see, mamma, she thought I avoided speaking of them because I did not want to annoy her, and I think I made myself believe that too. But now I see it wasn't only that. It was partly a—I feel ashamed to think of it—a sort of horrid jealousy, I am afraid, mamma.'

And though she reddened as she made what to her was really a painful confession, Jacinth's heart felt lighter from that moment. There was now no shadow of misunderstanding between her mother and herself.



CHAPTER XVIII.

'I WILL THINK IT OVER.'

The very faint hope which the Mildmays—Jacinth especially—had cherished that, after all, the coming Christmas might 'somehow' be spent by them and Lady Myrtle together, soon faded.

There was no question of the old lady's coming north, though in one of her letters she spoke of the gladness with which she would have made the effort had it been possible; and there was even no question of their all joining her at Robin Redbreast, though but for a short visit, for in November the fiat went forth which each winter she had secretly for some years past been dreading—she must not remain in England. For her chronic bronchitis was on her again, and a premature taste of winter in the late autumn threatened for a week or two to turn this into something worse.

'For myself,' she wrote, 'I would rather stay at home and take the risk, but I suppose it would be wrong, though really at my age I have little sympathy with that excessive clinging to life one sees where one would little expect it. But there is nothing to detain me here specially, and it may be that I shall benefit by the change. I want to choose one of the winter places I was so happy at more than once long ago, with your mother, when she and I travelled together with my parents.'

For the letter was to Mrs Mildmay.

And a fortnight or so later came another, which threw great excitement into the house in St Wilfred's Place, where the children were doing their best to give something of a festive and country look to the rather dark rooms with the help of plenty of holly and mistletoe, which had come in a Christmas hamper from Robin Redbreast, by Lady Myrtle's orders, though she was no longer there. For by this time it was Christmas Eve.

This new letter was from abroad. The old lady was already settled in her winter quarters. Which of the many southern resorts she had chosen matters little, as it is no part of this simple story to describe continental towns or foreign travel. And in this particular case there would be little interest in either, seeing that these places are so well known nowadays to the mass of English folk of the well-to-do classes, that accounts of them are pretty sure to be monotonous repetitions. We will call the spot selected 'Basse.'

Lady Myrtle wrote cheerfully. She was better, and she was enjoying, as old people learn to do, the chastened pleasure of recalling happy days in the scenes she was now revisiting.

'It is all wonderfully little changed,' she wrote. 'I drive along the same roads, and walk slowly up and down the same terraces, where Lady Jacinth and I used to talk together by the hour in our light-hearted girlhood. I even fancy I recognise some of the shops we pass, for I am able to stroll about the quieter streets a little with the help of my good Clayton's arm. I have actually done a little shopping, the results of which will, I trust, please you, trifling as they are. I am sending off a little box by the Globe Express, which will, I hope, reach you by Christmas Day. And now, dear Eugenia, for the point of my letter. It is Clayton's idea; she burst out with it the other day when we were busy about this same shopping. "Oh, my lady, if only Miss Jacinth—Miss Mildmay I should say—were here it would be nice! She's just the young lady to enjoy the change and not mind the quiet life, and she would brighten you up." So will you spare her to me for the three or four months I shall be here? I hesitate to ask it; you will miss her so. But I am emboldened by the belief that it might be for the dear child's own good. She could have excellent lessons of any or every kind, and some amount of French talking, as I have a few old French friends in the neighbourhood, near enough to spend a day with now and then. Her father would bring her out, and, for my sake, I trust, not grudge the time and fatigue. The whole expenses you would surely let me defray? You cannot be hard-hearted enough to refuse this, dearest Eugenia.'

Mrs Mildmay thought it over and talked it over with her husband: then they laid it before Jacinth herself, giving her indeed the letter itself to read. Jacinth's face crimsoned with pleasure and excitement, and her eyes glistened. But in a moment or two they grew dewy.

'Oh, mamma,' she exclaimed, 'it would be delightful. But—I cannot bear to think of leaving you for so long.'

These were sweet and grateful words to the mother's ears. But, as ever, she took the cheerful and sensible view of the matter. The separation would be but a short one, and it might really be of great advantage to Jacinth. Besides which—and this argument, I think, had the most weight with them all—was it not a duty to do what they could to please their dear old friend?

So a favourable and grateful answer was sent without much delay, and before the new year was many days old, Jacinth and her father found themselves speeding across France as fast as the train de luxe could take them, to join Lady Myrtle in her winter home.

Jacinth enjoyed it all, and there was a considerable amount of freshness to her in the experience, though it was not entirely unknown ground. For, as a young child, she had spent some time in the south of France with her mother on her way to England, and she had once in later years passed a week or two in Paris with Uncle Marmy and 'Granny.' But the special place which Lady Myrtle had chosen was quite new to her, and it had its own peculiar beauties and attractions.

'Tell mamma,' she said to her father the morning before he was to leave, 'tell dear mamma and Francie that I am as happy as I can be anywhere away from them. And I will work really hard at French and music, so that I may be able to help Francie with hers. And it will please mamma, won't it, papa, to hear how glad Lady Myrtle seems to have me?'

'Yes, dear, I am sure it will,' said Colonel Mildmay cordially. 'I cannot help feeling, personally, great pleasure in having been able to do anything to gratify her. It was generous of her to give us the opportunity of doing so.'

'She is so generous,' said Jacinth warmly, 'so large hearted about everything, isn't she, papa?'

'She is indeed,' her father agreed with a little sigh, 'about everything except one thing. It is curious and sad to see how very deep down are her prepossessions on that subject. And I am the more hopeless about them, because there is really no personal vindictiveness, or even, I may say, prejudice mixed up with these convictions.'

'It is sad,' Jacinth agreed.

The next morning saw Colonel Mildmay's departure for home.

Then began for Jacinth a quiet, regular, but far from unenjoyable life. Lady Myrtle had already made inquiries about the best teachers, and such of these as undertook the special subjects the girl wished to give her time to were engaged for her. So several hours of each day were soon told off for lessons and preparation for them. As a rule, Lady Myrtle drove out in the afternoon, her young guest accompanying her, sometimes to pay calls to such of the visitors to the place as were old friends, or in some few cases new acquaintances of hers; sometimes out into the beautiful country in the neighbourhood, beautiful even in mid-winter, where the views were as varied as charming.

And as a rule, between twelve and one o'clock, sometimes too in the afternoon if the old lady were not feeling well enough for a drive, Jacinth went for a brisk walk with Clayton as her duenna.

It was during one of these walks that something most unexpected happened one day. Lady Myrtle had caught a slight cold and been forbidden to go out. It was a bright but somewhat treacherous day, for though the sunshine was warm there was a sharp, almost icy, 'under air' painfully perceptible in the shade.

'I feel roasted and frozen at once; don't you, Clayton?' said Jacinth laughingly, as they crossed the road to get into the warmth, such as it was, again.

'Yes, indeed, Miss Mildmay,' the maid agreed. 'It's a day when you need both a parasol and a muff together. For there is such a glare.'

A glare there was, truly. Snow had been falling now and then during the last day or two, and though but in light and short showers, the ground was sufficiently frozen for it to 'lie;' so that the sunshine, not powerful enough to melt it, save here and there very superficially, was reflected from the gleaming surface with extraordinary brilliancy.

'We really should have snow spectacles,' Jacinth was saying, when a sudden shock made her aware that in her dazzled state she had run foul of some one or something standing on the pathway just in front of her.

'I beg your pardon,' she exclaimed instinctively, and the stranger turning sharply—for she had been looking in the forward direction—almost at the same moment made the same apology, adding quickly, when she heard Jacinth's English voice, 'I should not be blocking up the'——But her sentence was never completed. 'Oh, can it be you? Jacinth—Jacinth Mildmay? Is Frances here? Oh, how delightful.—Camilla,' as an older girl came across the road in her direction, 'Camilla, just fancy—this is Jacinth. I can scarcely believe it,' and before Jacinth had had time to say a word, she felt two clinging arms thrown round her neck, and kisses pressed on her burning cheeks, by the sweet, loving lips of Bessie Harper.

The blood had rushed to Jacinth's face in a torrent, and for a moment she almost gasped for breath.

'Bessie, Bessie dear, you are such a whirlwind. You have startled Miss Mildmay terribly.'

'I am so sorry,' said Bessie penitently, and then at last Jacinth was able to answer the girl's inquiries, and explain how it had come about that she alone of her family was here so far from home.

'And are you all here?' she asked in return.

'Yes,' Miss Harper answered, 'all of us except my eldest brother. The two others are here temporarily; the little one who is going into the navy got his Christmas holidays, and the other has his long leave just now. And my father is so wonderfully better; you heard, you saw Bessie's letter to Frances?' and Camilla's face grew rosy in its turn.

'Oh yes,' Jacinth replied. 'We were very, very glad. Frances wrote almost at once.'

Bessie shook her head.

'I never got the letter,' she said; 'but we have missed several, I am afraid. We have been moving about so. Cannot you come to see us, Jacinth? Mother, and father too, would love to see you. We are living a little way out in the country at the village of St Remi; we have got a dear little house there. Camilla and I came in for shopping this morning. Couldn't you come back with us to luncheon? We could bring you home this afternoon, and your maid would take back word to—to Lady Myrtle Goodacre.'

'I am afraid I cannot,' said Jacinth, with some constraint in her voice. 'I never go out anywhere without asking Lady Myrtle's leave.'

'Of course not,' Camilla interposed. 'It would not do at all. You must do as you think best, Miss Mildmay, about getting permission to come to see us. I beg you to believe that, if you think it better not to ask it,' she spoke in a lowered tone, so as to be unheard by Clayton, 'we shall neither blame you nor misunderstand you. And now, perhaps, we had best not keep you waiting longer.'

She held out her hand with the same quiet friendliness as appeared in her words; not perhaps quite without a touch of dignity almost approaching to hauteur in the pose of her pretty head as she gave the unasked assurance. Jacinth thanked her—what else could she do?—feeling curiously small. There was something refreshing in the parting hug which Bessie bestowed upon her, ere they separated to follow their respective roads, but Jacinth was very silent all the way home.

'Nice young ladies,' remarked Clayton. 'They are old friends of yours, Miss Jacinth, no doubt?'

'The younger one was at school with my sister and me,' the girl replied, for Clayton's position as a very old and valued servant removed all flavour of freedom or presumingness from her observations. 'But I scarcely know the older one.'

And for the rest of the way home she was unusually silent. Her mind was hard at work. Jacinth was passing through a crisis. Should she tell Lady Myrtle of the Harpers being in the near neighbourhood, or should she not? There was no obligation upon her to do so; their name had not been alluded to, even if Clayton should mention to her mistress the meeting with the young ladies, nothing would be easier than for Jacinth to pass it off with some light remark. And with the temptation to act this negatively unfriendly part awoke again the sort of jealous irritation at the whole position, which she believed herself to have quite overcome.

'They perfectly haunt us,' she said to herself: 'why in the world should they have chosen Basse out of all the quantity of places there are? And to think'—this was a very ugly thought—'that but for mamma they wouldn't have been able to come abroad at all! Why should they spoil my little happy time with Lady Myrtle? And very likely no good would come to them of my telling her that they are here. She would be sure to refuse to see them.'

But what if it were so? Did that affect her own present duty?

'It might annoy Lady Myrtle,' whispered an insidious voice; but had not Mrs Mildmay risked far more in her outspoken appeal, when still almost a stranger to her mother's friend? Would not the concealment of so simple a circumstance as her meeting the Harper girls be more than negative unfriendliness? would it not savour of want of candour and selfish calculation, such as in after years Jacinth would blush to remember? And again there sounded in her ears the old north-country woman's quaint words: 'It do seem to me, ma'am, as there's two kinds of honesty.'

And Jacinth lifted her head and took her resolution.

That afternoon there was to be no drive, as the old lady had caught a slight cold. And after luncheon Jacinth came and sat beside her in her favourite position, a low stool beside Lady Myrtle's chair, whence she could rest one elbow on her friend's knee and look up into her kind old face with the strangely familiar dark eyes, which were dearer to Robin Redbreast's owner than even the girl herself suspected.

'I want to talk to you, dear Lady Myrtle,' she began. 'I want to tell you whom I met this morning,' and she related simply what had occurred.

The old lady started a little as Jacinth spoke the names 'Camilla and Bessie Harper.' But then she answered quietly: 'It was right of you to tell me, dear,' she said. 'And you need not fear its annoying me. It is strange that they should have chosen Basse, but really it does not matter to us in the least. I am very glad the father is so much better. Now let us talk of something else, dear.'

Now came the hard bit of Jacinth's task.

'Dear Lady Myrtle, that isn't all; it's only the first part of what I have to say,' she began tremulously. 'I want to tell you everything, more even than I told mamma, for till to-day I don't think I saw it quite so plainly. I have not been as good and true as you have thought me; nothing like Frances, or mamma, of course. And I feel now that you must know the worst of me. I shall never be happy till you do, even though it is horrible to own how mean I have been.'

Lady Myrtle sat silent, too bewildered at first to speak. What had come to Jacinth, so quiet and self-controlled as she usually was? But she held the girl's hand and said gently, 'Tell me anything that is on your mind, dear child, though I think—I cannot help thinking—that you are exaggerating whatever it is that you think you have done wrong.'

Then out it all came: the confession that many would hardly have understood—would have called morbid and fanciful, perhaps. But Lady Myrtle's perceptions were keen, her moral ideal very high, her sympathy great; and she did not make the mistake of crushing back the girl's confidence by making light of the feelings and even actions which Jacinth's own conscience told her had been wrong. One thing only she could not resist suggesting as a touch of comfort.

'I think, latterly at any rate, dear, you were influenced by the fear of troubling me. You must allow that.'

'Well, yes,' Jacinth agreed. 'But even then I should not have let even that make me uncandid and—and—almost plotting against them.'

'No, no, dear; don't say such things of yourself. And now you may put it quite out of your mind for ever. You have been only too severe on yourself. But try to understand one thing, dear; no child could be to me what you are. Even—even if these young people had been in happy relations with me, as of course, but for past miseries, might have been the case, they would not have been Jacinth.'

'No; I know it is for grandmother's sake you care for me so much more than I deserve,' said the girl, as she wiped away her tears, 'and even in that way I should not have been jealous. I did not know it was jealousy. I have never realised before that I could be jealous. But I cannot put it quite off my mind till you let me feel I have done something to make up. Lady Myrtle, dear Lady Myrtle, may I ask them to come to see you? I know they are longing to thank you. And oh, it would make me so happy!'

'I will think it over, my dear,' was all Lady Myrtle would commit herself to. But even that was something.



CHAPTER XIX.

UNCLE MARMY'S GATES.

When people really and thoroughly want to do right, and do not content themselves by saying they want to do so, I doubt if they are ever for long left in perplexity. Jacinth Mildmay had found it so. She had courageously dismissed all the specious arguments about 'troubling Lady Myrtle,' 'not going out of her way to dictate to her elders,' or 'interfering in their affairs,' and had simply and honestly done what her innermost conscience dictated. And now, as to how she was to act about and towards the Harpers, she was content to wait.

But Lady Myrtle did not keep her very long in suspense. She too had put aside every consideration but the one—what was her duty to the Harper family?—and she had found solid ground.

'My dear Jacinth,' she said, the second morning after the unexpected meeting of the former school-fellows, 'I have decided that it would be unkind and ungracious to keep Captain and Mrs Harper and their children at arm's length, if—if it would be any satisfaction to them to see me, as they like to think I have been of help to them. So I intend to drive out to St Remi to call upon them.'

Jacinth looked up with a bright smile.

'I am so glad, Lady Myrtle,' she added impulsively; 'I do think you are so very good.'

The old lady shook her head sadly.

'My dear,' she said, 'the bitterest part of approaching the end of life is the realising how terribly, how overwhelmingly other than "good" one has been, and how little time remains in which to make amends. As regards one's self the recognising this is salutary; the more one feels it, the more thankful one should be. But it is about others: it is terrible to think of the harm one has done, the good one has left undone. If I had been more patient—more pitiful—more ready to make allowance for their strange weakness of character—with—with my poor brothers'——

Her voice broke; the last words were almost inaudible: it was very wonderful for her to say so much. And a new ray of light seemed to flash on Jacinth's path as she listened. If such a thing were possible, if it could come to pass that Lady Myrtle should reinstate her nephew and his family in their natural place in her affection and regard, what happiness, what softening of past sorrows might such a change not bring to the sorely tried heart of her old friend. And a rush of unselfish enthusiasm came over the young girl.

'Anything I can do to further it, I shall do,' she determined, and at that moment died away the last fast-withering remains of jealousy in her heart that the Harpers might in any way replace her in Lady Myrtle's regard.

It seemed like an encouragement—an endorsement of this secretly registered vow—when Lady Myrtle spoke again.

'Does it make you happy, dear child, to hear what I have resolved to do? I hope so; for your feelings, your self-blame so honestly avowed, though I think you exaggerate the need of it, have helped to influence me. I know how bitter such self-blame may grow to be, and my darling Jacinth, I want to feel, when I come to die, that at least I have brought nothing but good into your young life.'

'Dear Lady Myrtle,' said Jacinth, 'what you tell me makes me happier than I can express; far, far happier than I have deserved to be.'

* * * * *

They went the next day. Lady Myrtle's cold was better, and for the season, the weather was wonderfully mild. Jacinth had hesitated about accompanying her old friend, but Lady Myrtle insisted upon her doing so.

'It will make it far easier and less constrained for me,' she said, 'and considering everything it seems to me only natural.'

They had luncheon early, and set off immediately after. Less than half an hour's drive brought them to the picturesque little village, which was in fact scarcely more than a suburb of the town of Basse.

'Villa Malmaison' was the direction, and soon the coachman drew up at a gate opening on to the road, for there was no drive up to the house. The footman was preparing to enter, but when he came round for his instructions, Lady Myrtle stopped him.

'No,' she said, 'you can wait here. We will get out at once.—I have a fancy,' she said to Jacinth, 'for going straight up to the house without being announced.'

It was a small and simple place; a balcony ran round the ground floor, and there in a long chair—a deck chair—a gentleman was half lying, half sitting, for the day was mild, and the house had a south exposure. At the sound of their slow footsteps—for Lady Myrtle was feebler than of yore—he looked up, then rose courteously, and came forward to meet them. He was a tall thin man with gray hair, and with evident traces of delicate health and suffering upon him, and he walked lame. But his smile was both bright and sweet; his keen dark eyes not unlike Lady Myrtle's own.

'Can I'——he began, for the first instant's glance revealed to him that the new-comers were English, but a sort of exclamation from Lady Myrtle arrested him.

'Jacinth,' she had just whispered, and for a second she leant so heavily on the girl's arm that Jacinth feared she was going to faint, 'it must be he—my nephew—he is so, so wonderfully like my father.'

And before Jacinth could reply, the old lady straightened herself again, and drawing her arm away from her young guide, seemed to hurry forward with a little cry.

'Are you Reginald?' she said. 'My nephew? You must be. Oh Reginald, I am your old Aunt Myrtle.'

And then—all the plans and formalities were set at naught. The two tall figures enfolded each other in an embrace like that of an aged mother and a long absent son.

'Aunt Myrtle, my dear aunt!' Jacinth heard the kind, cheery voice exclaim, though in accents broken by sudden emotion. 'You who have been so good to us, to whom I owe my life. But this—this coming yourself is the kindest of all.'

Then Jacinth turned and fled—fled down a path leading somewhere or nowhere, till she found herself at the other side of the house, and ran full tilt against Bessie, who was coming out to see what was happening. For sounds carried far in the clear frosty air, and visitors were an event at the little St Remi villa.

'Jacinth,' she exclaimed, catching hold of the flying girl, 'what is it?'

'Oh Bessie, it's everything—everything beautiful and wonderful. But we mustn't interrupt them. Take me into the house and call Camilla and your mother, and I'll explain it all.'

* * * * *

That was the beginning, but by no means the end. Far from it indeed. For even if Jacinth lives to be a very old woman, I think she will always look back upon the next few weeks at Basse—the weeks before the Harpers returned to England, which they did before the doctors considered it quite safe for Lady Myrtle to face the northern spring—as among the happiest she ever knew. There were several reasons for this. There was the great and unselfish pleasure of seeing the quiet restful content on her dear old friend's face, and knowing that in some measure she had been the means of bringing it there; there was the delight of writing home with the news of the happy state of things that had come about, and receiving her full meed of sympathy and appreciation from her father and mother and faithful little Frances; and lastly, there was the, to Jacinth, really new pleasure of thoroughly congenial companionship of her own age. For at school her habit of reserve and self-dependence had come in the way of her making friends, and she was so accustomed to taking the lead and being the elder, that she was slow to enter into the give and take on more or less equal ground that is an essential condition of pleasant and profitable intercourse between the young.

And her ideal friend—much as she learned to love and esteem hearty generous Bessie and gentle little Margaret—Jacinth's friend of friends came to be Camilla, whose two or three years' seniority seemed only to bring them closer, for Jacinth was in many ways 'old for her age.'

Yes, it was a happy time, even though now and then some twinges of self-reproach made Jacinth feel how little she had at one time merited the loving confidence with which her new friends treated her.

'But that you must bear, my dear,' said Lady Myrtle, when on one or two occasions this feeling grew so acute that she had to express it to some one. 'Take it as your punishment if you think you deserve it. For it would be cruel to distress these candid, unselfish girls by confessions of ill-will or prejudice which no longer exist. For my sake, dear Jacinth, for my sake too, try now to "let the dead past bury its dead."'

And the girl did so.

* * * * *

Some happy years followed this good beginning. Years not untouched by trouble and trials, but with an undercurrent of good. Barmettle never became a congenial home, but Jacinth as she grew older lost her extreme dislike to it, in the happiness of being all together, and knowing that not only was her father satisfied with his work, but that many opportunities for helping others were open to herself and Frances, as well as to their active unselfish mother.

And bright holidays with Lady Myrtle, when old Robin Redbreast stretched his wings in some wonderful way so as to take in his kind owner's grand-nephews and nieces as well as the Mildmay party, went far to reconcile Jacinth and Frances to the gloom and chill of their home in the north.

Perhaps Christmas was the most trying time. For a merry family party would have been something to look forward to at that season. But the dear old lady, alas! had spent her last Christmas in England that year—that first year at Thetford—when Jacinth and Frances and Eugene were her guests. For her health grew more and more fragile, and every season her time at Robin Redbreast had to be cut shorter and shorter, till at length barely six months of the twelve could be spent by her in England.

Most winters Jacinth spent some part of with her at Basse, and sometimes Camilla or Bessie replaced her. One year the whole Mildmay family joined her for two months. So there were many pleasant mitigations of her enforced banishment, though it gradually became impossible for those who had learned to love her so dearly to blind themselves to the fact that the gentle old woman was not far from the end of her chequered and at one time lonely life.

And one day in the early spring-time, when the sunshine was already warm and the sky already deeply blue in the genial south, when the snowdrops were raising their pretty timid heads in the garden at Robin Redbreast, and the birds were beginning to hope that the winter was over and gone, Lady Myrtle died. There was no one with her at the time. Captain Harper had left her but the week before, and Jacinth Mildmay was to have joined her a few days later.

'If I could but have been with her, mamma,' said the girl among her tears.

But perhaps it was better not. To some natures the sorrow of others is very hard to see, and I think Lady Myrtle was one of those. Jacinth was nineteen at the time of her old friend's death. Two years of Colonel Mildmay's time at Barmettle had yet to expire.

'We shall miss our summers at Robin Redbreast sadly, mamma, shall we not?' she said one day. 'What is to be done about it? Is it to be sold, or are the Harpers to have it? I hope so. Does papa know?'

'He has only heard about it recently,' said her mother. 'He and Captain Harper are Lady Myrtle's executors, but there has been a good deal of trouble and delay, for owing to her death having taken place abroad, some difficulties occurred about proving the will. But now I believe all is right, and your father is going to tell you about it.'

At that moment the door opened and Colonel Mildmay came in. He glanced at his wife with a half-inquiry in his eyes when he saw that she and his daughter were talking seriously.

'Yes,' replied Mrs Mildmay to his unspoken question, 'I was just saying to Jacinth that you were going to explain to her about our dear old friend's disposal of things.'

'I happened to ask mamma if the Harpers were going to live at Robin Redbreast,' said Jacinth. 'Somehow I hadn't thought about it before.'

'It must have been a "brain wave,"' said her father, 'for only this morning I decided to have a talk with you about it.'

Jacinth looked up with a slight feeling of apprehension. Colonel Mildmay's tone was very grave. But she had no reason for misgiving: she knew she had never—since her eyes had been awakened to the prejudice and jealousy she was in danger of yielding to—never felt or expressed anything but sincere esteem and affection for Lady Myrtle's relations.

'I don't want to hear anything in particular, papa,' she said gently, 'but just as you like, of course. It was only,' and her voice faltered a little, 'the associations with Robin Redbreast. We have been so happy there: I shouldn't like strangers to have it.'

'Strangers are not going to have it,' Colonel Mildmay replied. 'But it is not left to the Harpers. They did not wish it. They have no special liking for that neighbourhood, and it suits them far better to make their headquarters farther south. But I know you will be glad to hear, Jacinth, that their aunt has left them a most fair and equitable proportion of the property at her disposal. They have no cause for future anxiety at all. Captain Harper is more than satisfied; he had expected nothing of the kind, and I perfectly believe that if, as he says, "just a little token of her restored goodwill" had been all that was to come to them, he would have been content. I never met with more truly unworldly and unselfish people.'

He stopped for a moment.

'I am so glad, so very glad,' said Jacinth.

'And the Elvedons too are very grateful,' continued her father, 'for besides what they knew was to be theirs, she has left them her town house—a much better one than they have had hitherto. Then her favourite charities have no reason to complain; she has forgotten nothing and no one'——

Again he hesitated, and for some undefined reason Jacinth's heart began to beat faster.

'And Robin Redbreast, my dear child; Robin Redbreast is—is to be yours.'

'Oh, papa,' exclaimed the girl with a curious choking sensation. 'Oh, papa; is it right? Do you and mamma think it is?'

'Yes, dear. I think it is right. It is depriving no one of anything they had a claim upon. For Lady Myrtle had considerable savings: some part of those she surely had every right to leave as her own feelings prompted. Some of the land is to be sold; just enough kept to make the little place complete of its kind and not too expensive to manage. Enough money will be yours—or ours—Lady Myrtle wished it to be considered our home in the meantime, anyway, and she has managed all so that, if or when you marry, a certain separation of income can be easily made—for real comfort without extravagance or display. And some of her private charities she has left in your hands, trusting to your good judgment and unselfishness. All has been excellently thought over and wisely arranged.'

'Oh, papa; oh, mamma!' was still all that Jacinth could say. But after a moment or two she asked the question which she had so much at heart, 'Shall we all go to live there?'

'Part of the year certainly. And when my time here is out—you will be of age by then, Jass—perhaps I may feel that the day for taking it easier has come, and I may get some less onerous post nearer Thetford. But there is time enough for these details. Now run and tell Francie. I know you are longing to do so.'

So the curious prevision of the future which had come over them all at 'Uncle Marmy's gates' was actually fulfilled. And kind Uncle Marmy himself came home before very long to find it so.

There is talk of his leaving off soldiering—he has seen some active service in the East of late—and taking up his abode in his own home at Stannesley. For he has been economical to some purpose. And Jacinth, who still builds castles in the air in her quiet way, has one under construction on the completed roof of which a flag may fly some day. It is that the very nicest and most entirely delightful wife Marmaduke Denison could possibly find, were he to search all the four quarters of the globe, would be Camilla Harper.

THE END.

Edinburgh: Printed by W. & R. Chambers, Limited.