'That's just it!' exclaimed Lance. 'I'm sure some that he calls cads are as good fellows as any going.'

'And what does your eldest brother say?'

'Felix! Oh! he does not mind, as long as one does not get into a real scrape.'

'And then?'

'Oh, then he minds so much that one can't do it, you know.'

'What, does he punish you ?'

'N—no—he never licks any of us now—but he is so horridly sorry— and it bothers him so,' said Lance. 'Here's old Froggatt's,' he concluded, stopping at the glass door. 'My eyes! what a sight of parsons!' (Lance had pretty well forgotten whom he was talking to.) 'There, that's Felix—no, no, not that one serving Mr. Burrowes, that's Redstone; Felix is out there, getting out the sermon paper for that fat one, and that's old Froggy himself, bowing away. Shall I go and call Felix? I suppose he will not mind this time.'

'No, thank you, I will go in myself. Good-bye, my little guide, and thank you.'

And Lance, when his hand came out of the Bishop's, found something in it, which proved to be a tiny Prayer-book, and moreover a half- sovereign. He would have looked up and thanked, but the Bishop and that 'fat one' were absorbed in conversation on the step; and when he turned over the leaves of the little blue morocco book, with its inlaid red cross, he found full in his face, in the first page, the words, 'Lancelot Underwood, March 15th, 1855,' and then followed an initial, and a name that utterly defeated Lance's powers, so that perceiving the shop to be far too densely full of parsons for him to have a chance there, he galloped off at full speed to Cherry, who happily could interpret the contracted Latin by the name of the See, and was not quite so much astonished as Lance, though even more gratified.

Meantime, the Bishop had made his way to the bowing Mr. Froggatt and asked to speak with him in his private room, where he mentioned his kindness to young Underwood, and was answered by a gratified disclaimer of having done anything that was not of great advantage to himself. The good man seemed divided between desire to do justice to Felix and not to stand in his light, and alarm lest he should have to lose an assistant whom he had always known to be above his mark, and who was growing more valuable every month; and he was greatly relieved and delighted when the Bishop only rejoiced at his character of Felix, and complimented the Pursuivant by being glad that a paper of such good principles should be likely to have such a youth on its staff; it had been well for the lad to meet with so good a friend. Mr. Froggatt could not be denied an eulogium on the father, for whose sake he had first noticed the son; and when the Bishop had expressed his sorrow at never having known so bright a light as all described the late Curate to have been, he courteously regretted the interruption on a busy day, but he begged just to see the young man. He had little time himself, but if he could be spared to walk up to the station—'

Mr. Froggatt bustled out with great alacrity, and taking the charge of the customer on himself, announced, for the benefit of all who might be within earshot, 'Mr. Underwood, his Lordship wishes to speak with you. He wishes you to walk up to the station with him. You had better go out by the private door.'

Felix was red up to the ears. His eight years' seniority to Lance were eight times eight more shyness and embarrassment, but he could only obey; and at his first greeting his hand was taken—'hoped to have seen you sooner,' the Bishop said; 'but you had always escaped me in the vestry.'

'I had to go to help my sister, my Lord,' said Felix.

'And your friend, said the Bishop. 'That is a good work that has been done in your house.'

Felix coloured more, not knowing what to say.

'I wish to see you,' continued the Bishop, 'partly to tell you how much I honour you for the step you have taken. I wish there were more who would understand the true uprightness and dutifulness of thinking no shame of an honest employment. I am afraid you do sometimes meet with what may be trying,' he added, no doubt remembering Lady Price's tone.

'I do not care now, not much. I did at first,' said Felix.

'No one whose approval is worth having can consider yours really a loss of position. You are in a profession every one respects, and you seem to have great means of influence likely to be open to you.'

'So my father said, when he consented,' said Felix.

'I shall always regret having just missed knowing your father. Some passages in that book of his struck me greatly. But what I wished to say was to ask whether there is any way in which I can be useful to you in the education of any of the younger ones, or—'

'Thank you, my Lord,' said Felix. 'I think you kindly voted for my brothers last year for the Clergy Orphan school. Only one got in, and if you would vote again for little Lancelot—'

'My droll little companion, who Mr. Audley tells me did so much for that poor young American.'

'Indeed he did,' said Felix. 'I doubt if any of us would have got at him but for Lance, who did not mean anything but good-nature all the time.'

'He is just the boy I want for our Cathedral school.' And then he went on to explain that a great reformation was going on. There was a foundation-school attached to the Cathedral, with exhibitions at the University, to which the Cathedral choristers had the first claim. There had been, of course, a period of decay, but an excellent Precentor had been just appointed, who would act as head master; and the singing-boys would be kept on free of expense after their voices became unavailable, provided that by such time they had passed a certain examination. Such a voice as Lance's was sure to recommend him; and besides, the Bishop said with a smile, he wanted to raise the character of the school, and he thought there was the stuff here that would do so.

Felix could only be thankful and rejoiced; but it was a pang to think of Lance being as entirely separated from home as was Clement; with no regular holidays, and always most needed at his post at the great festivals. There was something in his tone that made the Bishop say, 'You do not like to part with him?'

'No, my Lord; but I am glad it should be so. My father was not happy about—things here, and charged me to get my brothers away when I could.'

'And as to holidays, you are near at hand, and most of the choir are of our own town. I think he may generally be spared for a good term at each holiday time. The organist is very considerate in giving leave of absence, even if he should turn out to have a dangerously good voice for solos. I will let you know when to send him up for examination, which he will pass easily. Good-bye. You must write to me if there is anything for me to do for you. One month more, and your father would have been one of my clergy, remember.'

Felix went back, flushed with gratification, and yet, to a certain degree, with confusion, and not exactly liking the prospect of being interrogated as to what the Bishop had said to him: indeed, he never told the whole of it to any one but Cherry. Somehow, though Wilmet was his counsellor and mainstay, Geraldine was the sharer of all those confidences that came spontaneously out of the full but reserved heart.

Besides, Wilmet was at present in such a trance of enjoyment of her twin sister, that she seemed scarcely able to enter into anything else. She went through her duties as usual, but with an effort to shake off her absorption in the thought of having Alda at home; and every moment she was not in sight of her darling seemed a cruel diminution of her one poor fortnight. Indeed it was tete-a-tetes that her exclusive tenderness craved above all; and she was often disappointed that Alda should be willing to go and visit Fernan Travis when they might have had a quarter of an hour together alone. How much more selfish she must have grown than Alda in this last half year!

Alda's talk was indeed full of interest, and gave a much better notion of her way of life than her letters did. She seemed to have been fully adopted as a daughter of the house, and to enjoy all the same privileges as Marilda; indeed, she had a good deal more credit with all varieties of teachers, since she learnt rapidly and eagerly; and Marilda, while encouraging her successes, without a shade of jealousy, made no attempt to conquer her own clumsiness and tardiness. Even 'Aunt Mary,' as Alda called Mrs. Thomas Underwood, often had recourse to Alda for sympathy in her endeavours to be tasteful, and continually held her up as an example to Marilda.

'And poor dear good woman,' said Alda, 'she has such a respect for Underwood breeding and our education, that I believe I could persuade her into anything by telling her it was what she calls "comifo." Even when she was going to get the boudoir done with apple-green picked out with mauve, enough to set one's teeth on edge, and Marilda would do nothing but laugh, she let me persuade her into a lovely pale sea-green.'

'Is not sea-green too delicate for her?' asked Cherry.

'Why, it was very wicked of Edgar, to be sure, but he said that it was to suit the nymph reining in the porpoises. He made a sketch, and Marilda was delighted with it; she really is the most good-natured creature in the world.'

'She must be!' ejaculated Wilmet; 'but surely she ought not to like laughing at her mother.'

'Oh, everybody laughs at Aunt Mary, and she hardly ever finds it out, and when she does, she does not mind! Even old Mrs. Kedge, her mother, does nothing but laugh at her for trying to be fine. Old Granny is not a bit by way of being a lady, you know; she lives in a little house in the city with one maid, and I believe she rubs her own tables. I am sure she goes about in omnibuses, though she has lots of money; and Marilda is so fond of her, and so like her, only not so clever and shrewd.'

'But why does she live in such a small way?'

'Because she never was used to anything else, and does not like it. She hates grand servants, and never will come to Kensington Palace Gardens; but she really is good-natured. She told Clement to drop in on her whenever he likes, and bring any of his friends; and she always gives them a superb piece of plum-cake, and once she took them to the Tower, and once to the Zoological Gardens, for she thinks that she cannot do enough to make up to them for being bred up to be little monks, with cords and sandals, and everything popish.'

'You don't let her think so?'

'Well, really when she has got a thing into her head nothing will uproot it; and, after all, they do carry things very far there, and Clement goes on so that I don't wonder.'

'Goes on how?'

'Why, just fancy, the other day when Uncle Thomas fetched him in his brougham because I was coming home, there he sat at luncheon and would not eat a scrap of meat.'

'Ah! it was a Wednesday in Lent,' said Cherry.

'Only a Wednesday, you know; and there, with four or five strange people, too. One of them asked if he was a Catholic, and of course Clement looked very wise, and greatly pleased, and said, "Yes, he was;" and that brought down Aunt Mary with her heavy artillery. "Bless me, Clement, you don't say so. Is Mr. Fulmort really gone over?" "Yes," said Clem. (I know he did it on purpose.) "He is gone over to preach at St. Peter's." And then one of the gentlemen asked if Clem meant Mr. Fulmort of St. Matthew's, Whittingtonia, and when he said "Yes, he lived in the clergy house," he began regularly to play him off, asking the most absurd questions about fasts and feasts and vigils and decorations, and Clem answered them all in his prim little self-sufficient way, just as if he thought he was on the high- road to be St. Clement the Martyr, till I was ready to run away.'

'Couldn't you have given him a hint?' asked Wilmet.

'My dear, have you lived twelve years with Clem without knowing that hints are lost on him?'

'Dear Clem, he is a very good steady-hearted little fellow,' said Cherry. 'It was very nice of him.'

'Well, I only hope he'll never come to luncheon again in Lent. There are times and seasons for everything, and certainly not for display! And to make it worse, Marilda is the most literal-minded girl. Fasting was quite a new mind to her, for she never realises what she does not see; and she got Clem into a corner, where I heard him going on, nothing loth, about days of abstinence, out of Mr. Fulmort's last catechising, I should think; and ended by asking what Cousin Edward did, so that I fully expected that I should find her eating nothing, and that I should be called to account.'

'And what did you tell her then?'

'Oh, you know I could say quite truly that he did not.'

'I don't think that was quite fair,' said Wilmet gravely. 'You know it was only because he really could not.'

'You don't know how glad I was to have an answer that would hinder the horrid commotion we should have had if Marilda had taken to fasting. And, after all, you know, Papa would have said minding her mother was her first duty.'

'Why did not you tell her that?'

'I have, dozens of times; but you know there are mothers and mothers, and nobody can always mind Aunt Mary, good soul! Marilda has just made herself, with her own good rough plain sense. I wish she was a man; she would be a capital merchant like her father; but it is hard to be a great heiress, with nothing she really likes to do. She is always longing to come down to Centry, and tramp about the lanes among the cottages.'

'Oh! I wish they would!'

'I don't think Aunt Mary will ever let them, she hates the country; and though she likes to have a place for the name of the thing, she does not want to live there, especially where there are so many of us; and then, Felix's situation!'

'For shame, Alda!'

'Well, I did not say anything myself. It is only Aunt Mary—it is very foolish of people, but, you see, they will. As to Marilda, I believe she would like to stand behind the counter with him this minute.'

'Marilda is the oddest and best girl I ever heard of!'

'You may say that. And so ignorant she was! She had a great velvet- and-gold Church Service, and hardly guessed there was any Bible or Prayer-Book besides. I am sure Felix cannot have had more work to teach that youth than I have had with Marilda. Such a jumble as she had picked up! She really had only little baby prayers to say, till she saw my book.'

'What a blessing you must be to her!' said Wilmet, fondly looking at her sister.

'Well, I do hope so. You must know she was regularly struck with dear Papa. I am sure he is the first saint in her calendar, and everything is—"What did Cousin Edward say?" And when once she has made up her mind that a thing is right, she will blunder on through fire and water, but she will do it.'

'Then,' said Cherry, 'she ought to try and learn, and not to be awkward because of obedience.'

Alda burst out laughing. 'People can only do what they can. Marilda trying to be graceful would be worse than Marilda floundering her own way. But she really is the best and kindest girl living, and she gets on much better for having me to keep her out of scrapes.'

Wilmet went to bed that night thankful to have Alda's head on the pillow beside her, and most thankful for the tokens that she watched among her brothers and sisters, which showed how much her father's influence was extending beyond his short life.



CHAPTER IX

THE THIRTEEN



'They closed around the fire, And all in turn essayed to paint The rival merits of their saint; A theme that ne'er can tire A holy maid, for be it known That their saint's honour is their own.' SCOTT.

The thirteen Underwoods did not meet again in the same house for many a long day, and when they did, it was on a grey misty morning in the Christmas week of the year following; and the blinds were down, and the notes of the knell clashing out overhead, as the door was opened to Edgar, Alda, and Clement, as they arrived together, having been summoned late on the previous night by a telegram with tidings that their mother had been struck by a paralysis. They knew what to expect when Felix, with one of the little ones on his arm, came quietly down the stairs and admitted them. All they had to ask, was 'when,' and 'how,' and to hear, that the long living death had ended in peaceful insensibility at last. Then they followed him upstairs to the room where the others sat, hushed, over their pen or their books, where Wilmet, her eyes gushing with quiet tears, held Alda in her embrace, and Geraldine, after her first eager kiss, gazed wistfully at Edgar as though there must be comfort in the very sight of him, if she could only feel it; while the very little ones opened their puzzled eyes on the newcomers as strangers.

And so they were: Clement had indeed been at home in September, but Alda not for a year and three-quarters, nor Edgar since he first left it three years before. The absence of the two latter was not by their own choice, a doctor who had ordered Mrs. Thomas Underwood to spend the summer months, year after year, at Spa was partly the cause, and moreover, during the autumn and winter of 1856 Bexley had been a perfect field of epidemics. Measles and hooping-cough had run riot in the schools, and lingered in the streets and alleys of the potteries, fastening on many who thought themselves secured by former attacks, and there had been a good many deaths, in especial Clement's chief friend, Harry Lamb. Nobody, excepting the invalid mother, throughout the Underwood household, had escaped one or other disorder, and both fell to the lot of the four little ones, and likewise of Mr. Audley, who was infinitely disgusted at himself, and at the guarded childhood for which he thus paid the penalty pretty severely. When matters were at the worst, and Felix was laid up, and Wilmet found herself succumbing, she had written in desperation to Sister Constance, whose presence in the house had made the next three weeks a time of very pleasant recollections. Finally she had carried off Geraldine, Angela, and Bernard, to the convalescent rooms at St. Faith's, where their happiness had been such that the favourite sport of the little ones had ever since been the acting of Sisters of Mercy nursing sick dolls. The quarantine had been indefinitely prolonged for the proteges of Kensington Palace Gardens; for the three at school, though kept away till all infection was thought to be over, had perversely caught the maladies as soon as they came home for the summer holidays; and indeed the whole town and neighbouring villages were so full of contagion, that Mrs. Thomas Underwood had not far to seek for a plea for avoiding Centry.

All this time, from day to day, the poor mother had been growing more feeble, and it had been fully purposed that on Edgar's return at Christmas, on the completion of his studies at Louvaine, he and Alda should make some stay at home; but the brother and sister were both so useful and ornamental that their adopted home could not spare them until after a series of Christmas entertainments; and Clement had been in like manner detained until the festival services at St. Matthew's no longer required him. Indeed, when he had been at home in the autumn, he had been scarcely recognised.

For the last week, however, Mrs. Underwood had been much clearer in mind, had enjoyed the presence of her holiday children, and had for a short time even given hopes that her constitution might yet rally, and her dormant faculties revive. She had even talked to Mr. Audley and Geraldine at different times as though she had some such presentiment herself, and had made some exertions which proved much increased activity of brain. Alas! though their coming had thus been rendered very happy, the brightening had been but the symptom and precursor of a sudden attack of paralysis, whence there was no symptom of recovery, and which in a few hours ended in death.

For the present, the hopes that had been entertained gave poignancy to the sudden disappointment and grief, and the home children could not acquiesce in the dispensation with the same quiet reasonableness as those who had been so long separated from them as not to miss the gentle countenance, or the 'sweet toils, sweet cares, for ever gone.' Indeed Wilmet was physically much exhausted by her long hours of anxiety, and went about pale-cheeked and tear-stained, quietly attending to all that was needful, but with the tears continually dropping, while Geraldine was fit for nothing but to lie still, unable to think, but feeling soothed as long as she could lay her hand upon Edgar and feel that he was near.

So the whole thirteen were together again; and in the hush of the orphaned house there was a certain wonder and curiosity in their mutual examination and comparison with one another and with the beings with whom they had parted three years ago, at the period of their first separation. All were at a time of life when such an interval could not fail to make a vast alteration in externals. Even Geraldine had gained in strength, and though still white, and with features too large for her face, startlingly searching grey eyes, and brows that looked strangely thick, dark, and straight, in contrast with the pencilled arches belonging to all the rest, she was less weird and elfin-like than when she had been three inches shorter, and dressed more childishly. As Edgar said, she was less Riquet with a tuft than the good fairy godmother, and her twin sisters might have been her princess-wards, so far did they tower above her—straight as fir-trees, oval faced, regular featured, fair skinned, blue eyed, and bright haired. During those long dreary hours, Edgar often beguiled the time with sketches of them, and the outlines—whether of chiselled profiles, shapely heads, or Cupid's-bow lips—were still almost exactly similar; yet it had become impossible to mistake one twin for the other, even when Alda had dressed the tresses on Wilmet's passive head in perfect conformity with her own. Looking at their figures, Alda's air of fashion made her appear the eldest, and Wilmet might have been a girl in the schoolroom; but comparing their faces, Wilmet's placid recollected countenance, and the soberness that sat so well on her white smooth forehead and steady blue eyes, might have befitted many more years than eighteen. There were not nearly so many lights and shades in her looks as in those of Alda and Geraldine. The one had both more smiles and more frowns, the other more gleams of joy and of pain; each was more animated and sensitive, but neither gave the same sense of confidence and repose.

As usually happens when the parents are of the same family, the inventory of the features of one of the progeny served for almost all the rest. The differences were only in degree, and the prime specimens were without doubt the two elder twins and Edgar, with like promise of little Bernard and Stella.

Edgar had grown very tall, and had inherited his father's advantages of grace and elegance of figure, to which was added a certain distinguished ease of carriage, and ready graciousness, too simple to be called either conceit or presumption, but which looked as if he were used to be admired and to confer favours. Athletics had been the fashion with him and his English companions, and his complexion was embrowned by sun and wind, his form upright and vigorous: and by force of contrast it was now perceived that Felix seemed to have almost ceased growing for the last three years, and that his indoor occupations had given his broad square shoulders a kind of slouch, and kept his colouring as pink and white as that of his sisters. Like Wilmet, he had something staid and responsible about him, that, even more than his fringe of light brown whiskers, gave the appearance of full-grown manhood; so that the first impression of all the newcomers was how completely he had left the boy behind him, making it an effort of memory to believe him only nineteen and a half. But they all knew him for their head, and leant themselves against him. And in the meantime, Edgar's appearance was a perfect feast of enjoyment, not only to little loving Geraldine, but to sage Felix. They recreated themselves with gazing at him, and when left alone together would discuss his charms in low confidential murmurs, quite aware that Wilmet would think them very silly; but Edgar was the great romance of both.

Edgar observed that Clement had done all the growth for both himself and Felix, and was doing his best to be a light of the Church by resembling nothing but an altar-taper. When they all repaired to the back of the cupboard door in Mr. Audley's room to be measured, his head was found far above Edgar's mark at fourteen, and therewith he was lank and thin, not yet accustomed to the length of his own legs and arms, and seeming as if he was not meant to be seen undraped by his surplice. His features and face were of the family type, but a little smaller, and with much less of the bright rosy tinting; indeed, when not excited he was decidedly pale, and his eyes and hair were a little lighter than those of the rest. It was a refined, delicate, thoughtful face, pretty rather than handsome, and its only fault was a certain melancholy superciliousness or benignant pity for every one who did not belong to the flock of St. Matthew's.

Regular features are always what most easily lose individuality, and become those of the owner's class; and if Clement was all chorister, Fulbert and Lancelot were all schoolboy. The two little fellows were a long way apart in height, though there were only two years between them, for Lance was on a much smaller scale, but equally full of ruddy health and superabundant vigour; and while Fulbert was the more rough and independent, his countenance had not the fun and sweetness that rendered Lance's so winning. Their looks were repeated in Robina, who was much too square and sturdy for any attempt at beauty, and was comically like a boy and like her brothers, but with much frank honesty and determination in her big grey darkly-lashed eyes. Angela was one of the most altered of all; for her plump cherub cheeks had melted away under the glow of measles, and the hooping process had lengthened and narrowed her small person into a demure little thread-paper of six years old, omnivorous of books, a pet and pickle at school, and a romp at home—the sworn ally, offensive and defensive, of stout, rough-pated, unruly Bernard. Stella was the loveliest little bit of painted porcelain imaginable, quite capable of being his companion, and a perfect little fairy, for beauty, gracefulness, and quickness of all kinds. Alda was delighted with her pretty caressing ways and admiration of the wonderful new sister. She was of quieter, more docile mood than these two, though aspiring to their companionship; for it was startling to see how far she had left Theodore behind. He was still in arms, and speechless, a little pale inanimate creature, taking very little notice, and making no sound except a sort of low musical cooing of pleasure, and a sad whining moan of unhappiness, which always recurred when he was not in the arms of Sibby, Wilmet, or Felix. It was only when Felix held out his arms to take him that the sound of pleasure was heard; and once on that firm knee, with his shining head against that kind heart, he was satisfied, and Felix had accustomed himself to all sorts of occupations with his little brother in his left arm. Even at night, there was no rest for Theodore, unless Felix took him into his room. So often did the little fretting moan summon him, that soon the crib took up his regular abode beside his bed. But Felix, though of course spared from the shop, could not be dispensed with from the printing- house, where he was sub-editor; and in his absence Theodore was always less contented; and his tearless moan went to his sister's heart, for the poor little fellow had been wont to lie day and night in his mother's bosom, and she had been as uneasy without him as he now was without her. All her other babes had grown past her helpless instinctive tenderness, and Theodore's continued passiveness had been hitherto an advantage, which had always been called his 'goodness and affection.'

Alda was the first to comment on the wonderful interval between the twins, when Wilmet accounted for it by Theodore's having been quite kept back for his mother's sake, and likewise by his having been more reduced by measles and hooping-cough than Stella had been; but to fresh observers it was impossible to think that all was thus explained, and Edgar and Alda discussed it in a low voice when they found themselves alone.

'The fact is plain,' said Edgar; 'but I suppose nothing can be done, and I see no use in forcing it on poor Wilmet.'

'I don't understand such blindness.'

'Not real blindness—certainly not on Felix's part. He knows that load is on his back for life. Heigh-ho! a stout old Atlas we have in Blunderbore; I wonder how long I shall be in plucking the golden apples, and taking a share.'

'I thought it was Atlas that gathered the apples.'

'Don't spoil a good simile with superfluous exactness, Alda! It is base enough to compare the gardens of the Hesperides to a merchant's office! I wonder how many years it will take to get out of the drudgery, and have some power of enjoying life and relieving Felix. One could tear one's hair to see him tied down by this large family till all his best days are gone.'

'Some of the others may get off his hands, and help.'

'Not they! Clem is too highly spiritualised to care for anything so material as his own flesh and blood; and it is not their fault if little Lance does not follow in his wake. Then if Ful has any brains, he is not come to the use of them; he is only less obnoxious than Tina in that he is a boy and not a church candle, but boys are certainly a mistake.'

If ever the mature age of seventeen could be excused for so regarding boyhood, it was under such circumstances. All were too old for any outbreaks, such as brought Angela and Bernard to disgrace, and disturbed the hush of those four sad days; but the actual loss had been so long previous, that the pressure of present grief was not so crushing as to prevent want of employment and confinement in that small silent house from being other than most irksome and tedious.

Clement would have done very well alone; he went to church, read, told Angela stories, and discoursed to Cherry on the ways of St. Matthew's; but, unfortunately, there was something about him that always incited the other boys to sparring, nor was he always guiltless of being the aggressor, for there was no keeping him in mind that comparisons are odious.

Church music might seem a suitable subject, but the London chorister could not abstain from criticising St. Oswald's and contemning the old-fashioned practices of the Cathedral, which of course Lance considered himself bound to defend, till the very names of Gregorians and Anglicans became terrible to Cherry as the watchwords of a wrangling match. Fulbert, meantime, made no secret of his contempt for both brothers as mere choristers instead of schoolboys, and exalted himself whenever he detected their ignorance of any choice morceau of slang; while their superior knowledge on any other point was viewed as showing the new-fangled girlish nonsense of their education.

This Lance did not mind; but he was very sensitive as to the dignity of his Cathedral, and the perfections of his chosen friend, one Bill Harewood; and Fulbert was not slow to use the latter engine for 'getting a rise' out of him, while Clement as often, though with less design, offended by disparagement of his choir; nor could Edgar refuse himself the diversion of tormenting Clement by ironical questions and remarks on his standard of perfection, which mode of torture enchanted Fulbert, whenever he understood it. Thus these four brothers contrived to inflict a good amount of teasing on one another, all the more wearing and worrying because deprived of its only tolerable seasoning, mirth.

Clement had indeed a refuge in Mr. Audley's room, where he could find books, and willing ears for Mr. Fulmort's doings; but he availed himself of it less than might have been expected. Whether from inclination to his brothers' society, desire to do them good, or innate pugnacity, he was generally in the thick of the conflict; and before long he confided to Felix that he was seriously uneasy about Edgar's opinions.

'He is only chaffing you,' said Felix.

'Chaff, now!' said Clement.

'Well, Clem, you know you are enough to provoke a saint, you bore so intolerably about St. Matthew's.'

The much disgusted Clement retired into himself, but Felix was not satisfied at heart.

One was lacking on the cold misty New Year's morning, when even Geraldine could not be withheld from the Communion Feast of the living and departed. Each felt the disappointment when they found themselves only six instead of seven, but it was Clement who, as the boys were waiting for breakfast afterwards, began—

'Have not you been confirmed, Edgar?'

'How should I?'

'I am sure there are plenty of foreign Confirmations. I see them in the British Catholic.'

'Foreign parts isn't all one,' said Edgar; and the younger boys sniggled.

'If one took any trouble,' persisted Clement.

'Yes, but one,' dwelling with emphasis on the awkward impersonal, 'one may have scruples about committing an act of schism by encouraging an intruding bishop performing episcopal functions in another man's diocese. Has not your spiritual father taught you that much, Tina?'

'I—I must find out about that,' said Clement thoughtfully; 'but, at any rate, the Lent Confirmations are coming on in London, and if I were to speak to the Vicar, I have no doubt he would gladly prepare you.'

'Nor I,' answered Edgar.

'Then shall I?' eagerly asked Clement.

'Not at present, thank you.'

Clement stood blank and open mouthed, and Fulbert laughed, secure that the joke, whatever it might be, was against him.

'Of course,' burst out Lance, 'Edgar does not want you to speak for him, Clem; he has got a tongue of his own, and a clergyman too, I suppose.'

Clement proceeded to a disquisition, topographical and censorial, upon the parish and district to which Edgar might be relegated, and finally exclaimed, 'Yes, he is not much amiss. He has some notions. He dines with us sometimes. You can go to him, Edgar, and I'll get the Vicar to speak to him.'

'Thank you, I had rather be excused.'

'You cannot miss another Confirmation.'

'I can't say I am fond of pledges, especially when no one can tell how much or how little they mean.

Whether this were in earnest, or a mere thrust in return for Clement's pertinacity, was undecided, for Wilmet came in, looking so sad and depressed that the brothers felt rebuked for the tone in which they had been speaking.

Mr. Thomas Underwood soon arrived, having come to Centry the night before; and after a few words had passed between him and Edgar, the latter announced his intention of returning with him to London that evening.

'Very well,' said Felix, much disappointed at this repetition of Edgar's willingness to hurry from the house of mourning, 'but we have had very little of you; Clement must go on the day after Twelfth Day, and we shall have more room. It will be a great blow to Cherry.'

'Poor little Cherry! I'll come when I can see her in greater peace, but I must buckle to with the beginning of the year, Fee.'

There was no further disputing the point, but Edgar was always a great loss. To every one except Clement he was so gentle and considerate that it was impossible not to think that the strange things reported of him were not first evoked and then exaggerated by the zeal of the model chorister: and indeed he led Geraldine to that inference when he went to her in the sitting-room, where, as before, she had to remain at home.

'My Cherry, I find I must go back with old Tom. Don't be vexed, my Whiteheart, I am not going back to Belgium, you know: I can often run down, but my work ought to begin with the year.'

'You cannot even stay over the Epiphany!'

'Well, I would have made an effort, but I am really wanted; and then if I am long with that light of the church, Tina, he will get me into everybody's black books. Never mind, old girl. I'll be for ever running down. Is any one going to stay with you?'

'Bernard is coming presently; I must try to make him recollect something about it.'

'You don't mean that child Angel is going.'

'She wishes it, and it seems right.'

'Right to leave a black spot in her memory! If children could but believe people were sublimated away!'

'Children can believe in the Resurrection of the body as well as we,' said Cherry reverently.

'Better, too, by a long chalk,' he muttered; then perceiving her dismayed expression, he added, 'No, no—I'm not talking to Tina, only he has put me in the humour in which there is nothing he could not make me dispute—even my Cherry being the sweetest morsel in the world. There, good-bye for the present, only don't afflict that poor little Bernard and yourself into too great wretchedness, out of a sense of duty.'

'No, I do not really grieve,' said Cherry. 'Tears come for thankfulness. The real sorrow came long ago; we grew up in it, and it is over now.'

'Right, little one. The mortal coil was very heavy and painful these last years, and no one can help being relieved that the end has come. It is the conventionalities that are needlessly distressing. What earthly purpose can it serve save the amusement of the maids and children of Bexley, that nine of us should present ourselves a pitiful spectacle all the way up to the cemetery in veils and hatbands?'

'Don't talk so, Edgar; you do not know how it jars, though I know you mean no disrespect.'

'Well, it must be a blessed thing to end by drowning or blowing up, to save one's friends trouble.'

'Edgar, indeed I cannot bear this! Recollect what a treasure that dear shattered earthen vessel has held. What a wonderful life of patient silent resignation it was!'

'Indeed it was,' said Edgar, suddenly softened. 'No lips could tell what the resolution must have been that carried her through those years, never murmuring. What must she not have spared my father! Such devotion is the true woman's heritage.'

Cherry was soothed as she saw the dew on his eye-lashes, but just then Felix came in to fetch him, and, stooping down, kissed her, and said in his low and tender but strong voice, 'We leave her with him, dear child. Recollect—

'"The heart may ache, but may not burst: Heaven will not leave thee, nor forsake."'

Much as Geraldine had longed for Edgar, his words brought vague yearning and distress, while Felix's very tone gave support. How could Edgar say patient, silent, self-devotion was not to be found except in woman?

So the worn-out body that once had been bright smiling Mary Underwood was borne to the church she had not entered since she had knelt there with her husband; and then she was laid beside him in the hillside cemetery, the graves marked by the simple cross, for which there had been long anxious saving, the last contribution having been a quarter of the Bishop's gift to Lancelot. The inscription was on the edges of the steps, from which the cross rose—

UNDER WODE, UNDER RODE.

EDWARD FULBERT UNDERWOOD,

NINE YEARS CURATE of THIS PARISH,

EPIPHANY, 1855,

AGED 40.

'Thy Rod and Thy Staff comfort me.'

There was room enough for the name of Mary Wilmet, his wife, to be added at the base of the Rood, that Cross which they had borne, the one so valiantly, the other so meekly, during their 'forty years in the wilderness.'

Many persons were present out of respect not only to the former Curate, but to his hard-working son and daughter, and not only the daughter's holly-wreath, but one of camellias sent by Sister Constance, lay upon the pall. When the mourners had turned away, Mr. Audley saw a slender lad standing by, waiting till the grave was smoothed to lay on it a wreath of delicate white roses and ferns. There was no mistaking the clear olive face; and indeed Mr. Audley had kept up a regular correspondence with Ferdinand Travis, and knew that the vows made two years ago had been so far persevered in, and without molestation from father or uncle. He had written an account of Mrs. Underwood's death, but had received no answer.

'This is kind, Ferdinand,' he said, 'it will gratify them.'

'May I see any of them?' the youth asked.

'Felix and Lance will be most glad.'

'I only received your letter yesterday evening. Dr. White forwarded it to me in London, and I persuaded my father to let me come down.'

'You are with your father?'

'Yes; he came home about a fortnight ago. I was going to write to you. O Mr. Audley, if you are not in haste, can you tell me whether I can see my dear Diego's grave?'

'The Roman Catholic burial-ground is on the other side of the town. I think you will have to go to Mr. Macnamara for admittance. Come home with me first, Fernan.'

'Home!' he said warmly. 'Yes, it has always seemed so to me! I have dreamt so often of her gentle loving face and tender weak voice. She was very kind to me;' and he raised his hat reverently, as he placed the flowers upon the now completed grave. 'I saw that all were here except the little ones and Geraldine,' he added. 'How is she?'

'As well as usual. Wilmet is a good deal worn and downcast, but all are calm and cheerful. The loss cannot be like what that of their father was.'

'Will they go on as they are doing now?'

'I trust so. I am going down to the family consultation. The London cousin is there.'

'Then perhaps I had better not come in,' said Ferdinand, looking rather blank. 'Shall I go down to Mr. Macnamara first?'

'Had you rather go alone, or shall I send Lance to show you the way?'

'Dear little Lance, pray let me have him!'

'It is a longish walk. Is your lameness quite gone?'

'Oh yes, I can walk a couple of miles very well, and when I give out it is not my leg, but my back. They say it is the old jar to the spine, and that it will wear off when I have done growing, if I get plenty of air and riding. This will not be too much for me, but I must be in time for the 3.30 train, I promised my father.'

'Is he here alone?'

'Yes, my uncle is in Brazil. My father is here for a month, and is very kind; he seems very fairly satisfied with me; and he wants me to get prepared for the commission in the Life Guards.'

'The Life Guards!'

'You see he is bent on my being an English gentleman, but he has some dislike to the University, fancies it too old-world or something; and, honestly, I cannot wish it myself. I can't take much to books, and Dr. White says I have begun too late, and shall never make much of them.'

'If you went into the Guards, my brother might be a friend to you.'

'My back is not fit for the infantry,' said Ferdinand, 'but I can ride anything; I always could. I care for nothing so much as horses.'

'Then why not some other cavalry regiment?'

'Well, my father knows a man with a son in the Life Guards, who has persuaded him that it is the thing, and I don't greatly care.'

'Is he prepared for the expensiveness?'

'I fancy it is the recommendation,' said Ferdinand, smiling with a little shame; 'but if you really see reason for some other choice perhaps you would represent it to him. I think he would attend to you in person.'

'Have you positively no choice, Fernan?'

'I never like the bother of consideration,' said Ferdinand, 'and in London I might have more chance of seeing you and other friends sometimes. I do know that it is not all my father supposes, but he thinks it is all my ignorance, and I have not much right to be particular.'

'Only take care that horses do not become your temptation,' said Mr. Audley.

'I know,' gravely replied Ferdinand. 'The fact is,' he added, as they turned down the street, 'that I do not want to go counter to my father if I can help it. I have not been able to avoid vexing him, and this is of no great consequence. I can exchange, if it should not suit me.'

'I believe you are right,' said the Curate; 'but I will inquire and write to you before the application is made. Wait, and I will send out Lance. But ought you not to call at the Rectory?'

'I will do so as I return,' said Ferdinand; and as Mr. Audley entered the house, he thought that the making the Cacique into an English gentleman seemed to have been attained as far as accent, mind, and manner went, and the air and gesture had always been natural in him. His tone rather than his words were conclusive to the Curate that his heart had never swerved from the purpose with which he had stood at the Font; but the languor and indolence of the voice indicated that the tropical indifference was far from conquered, and it was an anxious question whether the life destined for him might not be exceptionally perilous to his peculiar temperament of nonchalance and excitability.

Consideration was not possible just then, for when Mr. Audley opened the door, he found that he had been impatiently waited for, and barely time was allowed to him to send Lance to Ferdinand Travis, before he was summoned to immediate conference with Thomas Underwood, who, on coming in, had assumed the management of affairs, and on calling for the will, was rather displeased with Felix's protest against doing anything without Mr. Audley, whom he knew to have been named guardian by his father. The cousin seemed unable to credit the statement; and Wilmet had just found the long envelope with the black seal, exactly as it had lain in the desk, which had never been disturbed since the business on their father's death had been finished.

There was the old will made long before, leaving whatever there was to leave unconditionally to the wife, with the sole guardianship of the children; and there was the codicil dated the 16th of October 1854, appointing Charles Somerville Audley, clerk, to the guardianship in case of the death of the mother, while they should all, or any of them, be under twenty-one, and directing that in that contingency the property should be placed in his hands as trustee, the interest to be employed for their maintenance, and the capital to be divided equally among them, each receiving his or her share on coming of age. All this was in Edward Underwood's own handwriting, and his signature was attested by the Rector and the doctor.

Thomas Underwood was more 'put out,' than the management of such an insignificant sum seemed to warrant. He was no doubt disappointed of his cousin's confidence, as well as of some liberal (if domineering) intentions; and he was only half appeased when Edgar pointed to the date, and showed that the arrangement had been made before the renewal of intercourse. 'It was hardly fair to thrust a charge upon a stranger when there was a relation to act. Poor Edward, he ought to have trusted,' he said. There was genuine kindness of heart in the desire to confer benefits, though perhaps in rather an overbearing spirit, as well as disappointment and hurt feeling that his cousin had acquiesced in his neglect without an appeal. However, after asking whether Mr. Audley meant to act, and hearing of his decided intention of doing so, he proceeded to state his own plans for them. The present state of things could not continue, and he proposed that Wilmet and Geraldine should go as half boarders to some school, to be prepared for governesses. Felix—could he write shorthand? 'Oh yes; but—' Then he knew of a capital opening for him, a few years, and he would be on the way to prosperity: the little ones might be boarded with their old nurse till fit for some clergy orphan schools; if the means would not provide for all, there need be no difficulty made on that score.

Mr. Audley saw Felix's start of dismay and glance at him, but knowing as he did that the lad was always more himself when not interfered with, and allowed to act for himself, he only said, 'It is very kind in you, sir, but I think Felix should be consulted.'

'It is impossible!' began Felix hastily.

'Impossible! It is quite impossible, I would have you to understand, that a lot of children like you should keep house together, and on such an income as that. Quite preposterous.'

'As for that,' said Felix, still unsubmissively, 'it is only what we have been doing, except for the name of the thing, for the last three years on the same means.'

'You don't mean to tell me that you have kept things going on such means without a debt?'

'Of course we have! We never let a bill run,' said Felix, slightly indignant.

'Now mind, I'm not insulting you, Felix, but I know what the women are and what they tell us. Are you sure of that? No debts—honour bright?'

'None at all!' said Felix, with an endeavour at calmness, but glowing hotly. 'I help my sister make up her books every Saturday night. We always pay ready money.'

'Humph,' said Mr. Underwood, still only half convinced. 'Living must be cheap at Bexley.'

'You had better explain a little, Felix,' said Mr. Audley.

Felix did bring himself to say, 'I am sub-editor now, and get 100 pounds a year, besides being paid for any article I write. Wilmet has 25 pounds a year and her dinner, and Angela's at school, so there are only five of us constantly dining at home, and with Mr. Audley's two guineas a week we can do very well.'

'What, you lodge here?'

'Did not you know that?' said Felix surprised.

Mr. Underwood gave a whistle, and the Curate felt his cheeks growing redder and redder, as he perceived that seven-and-twenty was not considered as so very much older than eighteen. Edgar understood and smiled, but Felix only thought he was suspected of making a good thing of his lodger, and was beginning something awkward about, 'It is all kindness,' when Mr. Audley broke in—

'Of course nothing is settled yet, but—but I believe I shall change my quarters. A smaller house would be better for them; but I think the children should keep together. Indeed, my dear friend said he chiefly appointed me that Felix might be kept at their head.'

Thereupon Mr. Underwood began to expostulate against the sacrifice of position and talent that Felix was making for the sake of bearing the burthen of a family that would have pressed heavily on a man double his age. It was what Felix already knew, much better than when at sixteen he had made his first venture. He had experienced the effects of change of station, as well as of exertion, drudgery, and of the home hardship that no one except Mr. Audley had tried to sweeten. He saw how Edgar had acquired the nameless air and style that he was losing, how even Clement viewed him as left behind; and, on the other hand, he knew that with his own trained and tested ability and application, and his kinsman's patronage, there was every reasonable chance of his regaining a gentleman's position, away from that half- jealous, half-conceited foreman, who made every day a trial to him, and looked at him with an evil eye as a supplanter in the post of confidence. But therewith he thought of his father's words, that to him he left this heavy burthen, and he thought what it would be to have no central home, no place of holiday-meeting, no rallying-point for the boys and girls, and to cast off the little ones to hired service, this alternative never seriously occurred to him, for were they not all bound to him by the cords of love, and most closely the weakest and most helpless? Yet his first reply did not convey the weight of his determination. It was only 'Geraldine is too delicate.'

'Well, well, good advice and treatment might make a change. Or, if she be fit for nothing else, would not that Sisterhood at Dearport take her on reasonable terms? Not that I can away with such nonsense, but your father had his fancies.'

'My father wished us not to break up the home.'

'That was all very well when your poor mother was alive. You have been a good son to her, but it is impossible that you and your sister, mere children as you are, should set up housekeeping by yourselves. Mr. Audley must see it cannot be suffered; it is the bounden duty of your friends to interfere.'

Mr. Audley did not speak. He knew that Felix could reckon on his support; and, moreover, that the youth would show himself to greater advantage when not interfered with. So after pausing to see whether his guardian would speak, Felix said, 'Of course we are in Mr. Audley's power, but he knows that we have made some trial, and except in name we have really stood alone for these three years. Wilmet can quite manage the house, and it would be misery for ever to us all to have no home. In short—' and Felix's face burnt, his voice choked, and his eyes brimmed over with hot indignant tears, as he concluded, 'it shall never be done with my good will.'

'And under the circumstances,' said Mr. Audley, 'I think Felix is right.'

'Very well,' said Thomas Underwood, much displeased. 'I have no power here, and if you and that lad think he can take charge of a house and a dozen children, you must have it your own way. Only, when they have all gone to rack and ruin, and he is sick of being a little tradesman in a country town, he will remember what I said.'

Felix forced back his resentful feelings, and contrived to say, 'Yes, sir, I know it is a great disadvantage, and that you only wish for our good; but I do not think anything would be so bad for the children as to be all cast about the world, with no place to go to, and becoming strangers to one another; and since there is this way of keeping them together, it seems right.'

The steadiness of his manner struck Mr. Underwood, and the reply was not unkind.

'You are a good boy at bottom, Felix, and mean well, and I am only sorry not to be able to hinder you from throwing yourself away for life by trying to do what is morally impossible, in a foolish spirit of independence. Do not interrupt. I warn you that I am not to be appealed to for getting you out of the difficulties you are plunging into; but of course your brother and sister will be mine as before; and as I promised myself to do the same by your mother as by your father—my near cousins both—here is to cover necessary expenses.'

It was a cheque for 150, pounds the same as he had given on the former occasion; and though Felix had rather not have taken it, he had little choice, and he brought himself to return cold but respectful thanks; and Mr. Underwood did not manifest any more displeasure, but showed himself very kind at the meal that was spread in Mr. Audley's sitting-room, and even invited Wilmet to accompany Alda, when she joined the family in a week's time at Brighton, so as to have sea air for the remainder of her holidays.

Nothing could be more reluctant than was Wilmet at first, but there was a chorus of persuasions and promises; and the thought of being a little longer in Alda's presence made her waver and almost consent.

Ferdinand Travis came in, but had only time for a greeting and a hasty meal, before Mr. Underwood's carriage came round; and, nothing loth, he gave a lift to the Mexican millionaire to the station with him and Edgar. So, for the last time, had all the thirteen been at home together.



CHAPTER X

THE FAMILY COBWEB ON THE MOVE



'Oh! the auld house, the auld house, What though the rooms were wee; Oh! kind hearts were dwelling there, And bairnies full of glee.' Lady Nairn.

Every one except Edgar would, it was hoped, stay at home till after the Epiphany, that most marked anniversary of birth and death.

Clement at first declared it impossible, for St. Matthew's could not dispense with him on the great day; and Fulbert grinned, and nudged Lance at his crest-fallen looks, when he received full leave of absence for the next three weeks.

But Lance was bursting with reverse troubles. The same post had brought him a note from his organist; and that 'stupid old Dean' as he irreverently called him, had maliciously demanded 'How beautiful are the feet,' with the chorus following, and nobody in the choir was available to execute the solo but Lance. He had sung it once or twice before; and if he had the music, and would practise at home, he need only come up by the earliest train on the Epiphany morning; if not, he must arrive in time for a practice on the 5th; he would be wanted at both the festival and Sunday services, but might return as early as he pleased on Monday the 9th.

Lance did not receive the summons in an exemplary spirit. It is not certain that he did not bite it. He rolled on the floor, and contorted himself in convulsions of vexation; he 'bothered' the Dean, he 'bothered' the Precentor, he 'bothered' the Organist, he 'bothered' Shapcote's sore throat, he 'bothered' Harewood's wool- gathering wits, he 'bothered' his own voice, and thereby caused Clement to rebuke him for foolish murmurs instead of joy in his gift.

'A fine gift to rejoice in, to make one be whipped off by an old fogey, when one most wants to be at home! I thank my stars I can't sing!' said Fulbert.

'I should thank mine if Bill Harewood had any sense,' said Lance, sitting up in a heap on the floor. 'He can go quite high enough when he pleases; only, unluckily, a goose of a jackdaw must needs get into the cathedral just as Bill had got to sing the solo in "As pants the hart;" and there he stood staring with his mouth wide open—and no wonder, for it was sitting on the old stone-king's head! Wasn't Miles in a rage; and didn't he vow he'd never trust a solo to Harewood again if he knew it! Oh, I say, Wilmet—Fee, I know! Do let me bring Bill back with me on Monday morning; and he could go by the six o'clock train. Oh, jolly!'

'But is he really a nice boy, Lance?' asked Wilmet, doubtfully.

'Oh, isn't he just? You'll see! His father is a Vicar-choral, you know, lives in our precincts; his private door just opposite ours, and 'tis the most delicious house you ever saw! You may make as much row as you please, and nobody minds!'

'I know who Mr. Harewood is. Librarian too, is he not?' said Felix. 'I have heard people laughing about his good-natured wife.'

'Aren't they the people who were so kind to you last year, Lance,' asked Cherry, 'when you could not come home because of the measles?'

'Of course. Do let me bring him, Fee,' entreated Lance; 'he is no end of a chap—captain of our form almost always—and such a brick at cricket! I told him I'd show him the potteries, and your press, and our organ, and everything—and it is such a chance when we are all at home! I shall get the fellows to believe now that my sisters beat all theirs to shivers.'

'Can you withstand that flattering compliment, Wilmet?' said Felix, laughing. 'I can't!'

'He is very welcome,' said Wilmet; 'only, Lance, he must not stay the night, for there really is not room for another mouse.'

The little girls had heard so much about Bill Harewood, that they were much excited; but their sympathy kindly compensated for the lack of that of the elder brothers. Fulbert pronounced that a cathedral chorister could never be any great shakes; and Clement could not forgive one who had been frivolous enough to be distracted by a jackdaw; but Lance, trusting to his friend's personal attractions to overcome all prejudice, trotted blithely off to the organist- schoolmaster, to beg the loan of the music, and received a promise of a practice in church in the evening. Meantime, he begged Clement to play the accompaniment for him on the old piano. Neither boy knew that it had been scarcely opened since their father's hand had last lingered fondly upon it. Music had been found to excite their mother to tears; Geraldine resembled Fulbert in unmusicalness, and Wilmet had depended on school, the brothers on their choir-practice, so that the sound was like a new thing in the house; nor was any one prepared either for the superiority of Clement's playing, or for the exceeding beauty and sweetness of Lance's singing. No one who appreciated the rare quality of his high notes wondered that he was indispensable; Geraldine could hardly believe that the clear exquisite proclamation, that came floating as from an angel voice, could really come from the little, slight, grubby, dusty urchin, who stood with clasped hands and uplifted face; and Clement himself—though deferring the communication till Lance was absent, lest it should make him vain— confided to Wilmet that they had no such voice at St Matthew's, and it was a shame to waste him on Anglicans.

Wilmet hardly entered into this enormity. She had made a discovery which interested her infinitely more. Little Theodore, hitherto so inanimate, had sat up, listened, looked with a dawning of expression in the eyes that had hitherto been clear and meaningless as blue porcelain, and as the music ceased, his inarticulate hummings continued the same tune. Could it be that the key to the dormant senses was found? His eyes turned to the piano, and his finger pointed to it as soon as he found himself in the room with it, and the airs he heard were continually reproduced in his murmuring sounds; that 'How beautiful!' which had first awakened the gleam—his own birthday anthem—being sure to recur at sight of Lance; while a doleful Irish croon, Sibby's regular lullaby, always served for her, and the 'Hardy Norseman' for Felix, who had sometimes whistled it to him. Wilmet spent every available moment in awaking the smile on the little waxen face that had never responded before; it seemed to be just the cheering hope she needed to revive her spirits, only she was almost ready to renounce her journey with Alda for the sake of cultivating the new-found faculty.

No one would permit this; and indeed, so far from waiting to be exhibited to Lance's friend, the two sisters received their billet de route on the very day he was expected; and there was no appeal, since a housekeeper was to travel from Centry, who would take charge of them to London, whence they would go down with Mr. Underwood. Poor Wilmet was much dismayed at leaving Geraldine to what they both regarded as the unprecedented invasion of a strange boy; indeed, the whole charge made Cherry's heart quail, though she said little of her fears, knowing the importance of Wilmet's having and enjoying her holiday; and Mr. Audley promised extra aid in keeping order among the boys.

But as they came in that evening from the practice at the church, to which Clement had insisted on their coming to hear Lance, Mr. Audley beckoned Felix to his room with the words, 'There's a thing I want to talk over with you.'

Felix recollected those ominous words to Mr. Underwood, and stood warming his hands in dread of what might be coming. It was all he feared.

'I wanted to say—I wanted to tell you—' began Mr. Audley. 'I would not have chosen this time, but that I think it may save Wilmet something to be able to tell her friends that the present arrangement is to cease.'

'Wilmet!' exclaimed Felix; then bethinking himself. 'Was that what Tom Underwood meant? But you will not trouble yourself about such rubbish.'

'Well, you see,' began the Curate, with heightening colour, 'it can't be denied that your sister has grown up, and that things are changed.'

'Mrs. Froggatt did ask me if you were going on here,' said Felix, still unconvinced; 'but can't we leave people to be stoopid without interfering with us?'

'Felix, you ought to be a better protector to your sisters. You would not like to have my Lady remonstrating—nay, maybe writing to my mother: she is quite capable of it.'

Felix's cheeks were in a flame. 'If people would mind their own business,' he said; 'but if they will have it so—'

'They are right, Felix,' said the Curate quietly; 'appearances must be carefully heeded, and by you almost more than by any one. Your slowness to understand me makes me almost doubtful about my further design.'

'Not going away altogether!'

'Not immediately; but things stand thus—Dr. White, my old tutor, you know, and Fernan's, is nearly sure of the new Bishopric in Australia, and he wants me.'

Felix hardly repressed a groan.

'Any way I should not go immediately; but when your father spoke to me about the guardianship, he made me promise not to let it stand in the way of any other call. I fancied he had mission work in his mind, and it disposes me the more to think I ought not to hold back; but while your dear mother lived, I would not have gone.'

'Yes, you have been very good to us,' was all Felix could say. 'But when?'

'Not for some time; but I am not going this moment. Three months' notice Mr. Bevan must have, and if he requires it, six; I must spend some time at home, and very like shall not be off till you are of age—certainly not if I find there is any difficulty in handing the management of things over to you. How long I remain with you must depend on circumstances. How much notice must you give before leaving this house?'

'I do not know—half a year, I fancy. You think we ought to give it up? I suppose it is too large for us now.'

'And you could take no lodger but one of the old-lady type.'

'Horrid!' said Felix. 'Well, we will see; but it will be a great stroke on poor Cherry—she can remember nothing before this house.'

'It will be very good for her to have no old associations to sit brooding over.'

'My poor little Cherry! If I saw how to cheer up her life; but without your lessons it will be more dreary for her than ever!'

'Give her all you can to do, and do not be over-careful to keep your anxieties from her knowledge. She is very much of a woman, and if you leave her too much to herself, she will grow more introspective.'

'Wilmet and I have always wanted to shelter her; she never seems fit for trouble, and she is so young!'

'Compared with you two venerable people!' said Mr. Audley, smiling. 'But her mind is not young, and to treat her as a child is the way to make her prey upon herself. I wish her talent could be more cultivated; but meantime nothing is better for her than the care of Bernard and Stella. I hope you will not be in a hurry to promote them out of her hands.'

'Very well; but she will miss you sorely.'

'I hope to see her brightened before I am really gone, and I am not going to decamp from this house till some natural break comes. To do that would be absurd!'

There was a silence; and then Felix said with a sigh, 'Yes, a smaller house, and one servant. I will speak to Wilmet.'

'Perhaps you had better, so that she may have an answer in case she is attacked.'

Wilmet was aghast at first, but a hint from Alda made her acquiesce, not with blushing consciousness, but with the perception that the way of the world was against the retention of the lodger; and sorry as she was to lose Mr. Audley, her housewifely mind was not consoled, but distracted, by calculations on the difference of expenditure. Again she tried to beg herself off from her visit, in the dread that Felix would go and take some impracticable house in her absence—some place with thin walls, no cupboards, and no coal-hole; and she was only pacified by his solemn promise to decide on no house without her. She went away in an avalanche of kisses and tears, leaving Geraldine with a basketful of written instructions for every possible contingency, at which the anxious maiden sat gazing anxiously, trying to store her mind with its onerous directions.

'Shall I give you a piece of advice, Cherry?' said the Curate, as he saw the dark eyebrows drawn together.

'Oh, do!' she earnestly said.

'Put all that in the fire!'

'Mr. Audley!'

'And go by the light of nature! You have just as many senses as Wilmet, and almost as much experience; and as to oppressing yourself with the determination to do the very, thing she would have done under all circumstances, it is a delusion. People must act according to their own nature, not some one else's.'

'Certainly,' said Geraldine, smiling. 'I could never walk stately in and say, "Now, boys!"—and much they would care for it if I did.'

'It seems to be a case for "Now, boys!" at this moment,' said Mr. Audley; 'what can all that row be?'

'Oh, it must be that dreadful strange boy, Lance's friend,' sighed Geraldine, almost turning pale. Then, trying to cheer up, 'But it is only for the day, and Lance wished it so much.'

As she spoke, the shout of 'Cherry, here's Bill!' came nearer, and the whole of the younger half of the family tumbled promiscuously into the room, introducing the visitor in the midst of them. To the elders, 'no end of a chap' appeared, as Mr. Audley said, to mean all ends of shock hair, and freckles up to the eyes; but when Fulbert and Lance had whirled him out again to see the lions of Bexley, Robina and Angela were overheard respectfully pronouncing that he was nice and spotty like the dear little frogs in the strawberry-beds at Catsacre, and that his hair was just the colour Cherry painted that of all the very best people in her 'holy pictures.'

The object of their admiration was seen no more till the middle of dinner, when all three appeared, immoderately dusty; and no wonder, for the organist had employed them to climb, sweep fashion, into the biggest organ-pipe to investigate the cause of a bronchial affection of long standing,—which turned out to be a dead bat caught in a tenacious cobweb.

Shortly after, the guest was found assisting Angela in a tableau, where a pen-wiper doll in nun's costume was enacting the exorcism of the said bat, in a cave built of wooden bricks.

Clement was undecided whether to condemn or admire; and Geraldine, to whom Edgar had lent some volumes of Ruskin, meditated on the grotesque.

Before there had been time for the fanciful sport to become rough comedy, Lance had called off his friend to see the potteries; and to poor Cherry's horror, she found that Robina had been swept off in the torrent of boyhood. Clement, pitying her despair and self-reproach, magnanimously offered to follow, and either bring the little maid back, or keep her out of harm's way; and for some time Cherry reposed in the conviction that 'Tina was as good as a girl any day.'

But at about a quarter to six, a little tap came to Mr. Audley's door, and Angela stood there, saying, with a most serious face, 'Please, Mr. Audley, Cherry wants to know whether you don't think something must have happened.' And going upstairs, he found the poor young deputy in a nervous agony of despair at the non-return of any of the party, quite certain that some catastrophe had befallen them, and divided between self-reproach and dread of the consequences.

'The very first day Wilmet had gone!' as she said.

It was almost time for Harewood's train, which made it all the more strange. Mr. Audley tried to reassure her by the probability that the whole party were convoying him to the station, and would appear when he was gone; but time confuted this pleasing hypothesis, and Cherry's misery was renewed. She even almost hinted a wish that Mr. Audley would go out and look for them.

'And then,' he said, smiling, 'in an hour's time you would be sending Felix to look for me. No, no, Cherry, these waiting times are often hard, no doubt; but, as I fear you are one of those destined to "abide by the tents" instead of going out to battle, you had better learn to do your watching composedly.'

'O Mr. Audley! how can I? I know it must be very wrong, but how can I not care?' And verily the nervous sensitive girl was quivering with suspense.

'"He will not be afraid of any evil tidings, for his heart standeth fast and believeth in the Lord,"' answered Mr. Audley. 'I see that does not tell you how not to be afraid; but I imagine that a few trusting ejaculations in the heart, and then resolute attention to something else, may be found a help.'

Cherry would have sighed that attention was the most impossible thing in the world; but before she had time to do so, Mr. Audley had begun to expound to her his Australian scheme. It excited her extremely; and as a year and a half seemed an immense period of time to her imagination, the dread of losing him was not so immediate as to damp her enthusiasm. They had discussed his plans for nearly an hour before Cherry started at the sound of the door, and then it was only Felix who entered. He was irate, but not at all alarmed; and presently the welcome clatter of steps approached, and in dashed the whole crew, mired up to the eyes, but in as towering spirits as ever.

Their delay had, it appeared, been caused by a long walk that ensued upon the visit to the potteries, and a wild venture of Will Harewood upon impracticable ice, which had made him acquainted with the depths of a horse-pond. There was none of the dignity of danger, for the depths were shallows and the water only rose to his waist; but the mud was above his ankles, and he had floundered out with some difficulty. He wanted to walk back with no more ceremony than a water-dog; but the Underwoods had made common cause against him, and had dragged him to a cottage, where he had the pleasing alternative of an old woman's blankets and petticoats while his garments were drying. He was as nearly angry as a Harewood could be, Lance observed, declaring that they should never have got him into the cottage without fighting him, if Tina had not been so tall, and if Robin had not nearly cried; while he, throwing off all responsibility, ascribed all his lateness to his friend's 'maggots.' No more trains stopped at Bexley till after midnight, but as to his absence causing any uneasiness at home, he laughed at the notion, and was corroborated by Lance in averring that they had too much sense; listening with undisguised amazement to the elaborate explanations and apologies about Robina, which Clement was scrupulously pouring forth to his brother and sister, saying that he would have brought her home at once, but that he really did not like to trust those boys alone.

Whereat Lance held up his hands with a dumb show of amazement that convulsed Fulbert, Bill Harewood, and Robina herself, with agonies of half-suppressed merriment. The boy had come in, prepared to be grave and quiet, as knowing how lately affliction had come to the family, and having been warned by Lance, that 'as to going on as we do in the precincts, why it would make Cherry jump out of her skin.'

But by some extraordinary influence—whether it were the oddity of William Harewood's face, or the novelty of his perfect insouciance in the household whither care had come only too early—some infection seized on the young Underwoods, and before the end of the evening meal, if the 'goings on' were not equal to those in the precincts, they were, at any rate, not far short of it.

Lance presently incited his friend to show 'how he had mesmerised Lucy.' Clement made a horrified protest; and Geraldine looked alarmed at her eldest brother, who began, 'Indeed, Lance, we can have nothing of that sort here.'

'But, Felix, I do assure you there is no harm.'

'Upon my word and honour, there's not a spice of anything the Archbishop of Canterbury could stick at,' added Will Harewood.

'It is impossible there should not be harm,' interposed Clement; but the boys, including Fulbert, were in such fits of laughter, that Felix began to suspect the seriousness of the performance; and when Lance sprang at him, exclaiming, 'I'll go to Mr. Audley! Fee—Cherry- —will you be satisfied if Mr. Audley says we may?' Felix and Cherry both consented; and Lance rushed off to make the appeal, and returned not only with full sanction, but with Mr. Audley himself, come to see the operation. This perfectly satisfied Felix, who even consented, on the entreaty of his brothers, to become the first subject; and Cherry knew that where the Curate and Felix had no scruples, she need have none; but, for all that, she was more than half frightened and uncomfortable—above all, when Clement, amid shouts of mirth from the three schoolboys, indignantly marched away to shut himself up in his cold bedroom.

By and by, after some unseen preparation—all the more mystifying because carried on in the kitchen, where Sibby always used to keep Theodore in a cradle till Felix was ready for him—Will Harewood caused Felix to stand exactly opposite to him and to the spectators, with a dinner-plate in his hand, and under injunctions to imitate the operator exactly. Armed with another plate, William rubbed his own finger first on the under side of the plate, and then, after some passes and flourishes, on his own forehead, entirely without effect so far as he himself was concerned; but his victim, standing meekly good-natured and unconscious, was seen by the ecstatic audience to be, at each pass, painting his own face with the soot from a flame over which his plate had been previously held. The shrieks of amusement redoubled at the perplexity they occasioned him, till they penetrated the upper rooms: and suddenly a cry of horror made all turn to the door and see a little white bare-footed figure standing there, transfixed with fright, which increased tenfold when Felix hurried towards it, not yet aware of the condition of his visage, until a universal shout warned him of it; while Lance, darting in pursuit, picked up Bernard, and by his wonderful caressing arts, and partly by his special gift of coaxing, partly as the object of the little fellow's most fervent adoration, made the scattered senses take in that it was 'all play,' and even carried back the little white bundle, heart throbbing and eyes staring, but still secure in his arms, to admire Felix all black, and then to be further relieved by beholding the restoration of the natural hue at the pump below stairs.

Then amid Sibby's scoldings and assurances that the child would catch his death of cold, Bernard was borne upstairs again by Felix, who found Clement in the nursery comforting the little girls, and preventing them from following the example of their valiant pioneer. Felix, now thoroughly entering into the spirit of the joke, entertained for a moment the hope of entrapping Clement; but of course Bernard could not be silenced from his bold and rather doubtful proclamation, that 'The funny boy made Felix black his own face, and I wasn't afraid.'

'Naughty boy!' commented Stella. 'Poor Fee!'—and she reared up to kiss him, and stroke the cheeks that had suffered such an indignity.

'What! It was only a trick?' said Clement slowly, as if half mystified.

'Of course,' said Felix; 'could not you trust to that?'

'I don't know. Cathedrals are very lax, and it had a questionable name.'

'O Clem! if it had not been in you before, I should wish you had never gone to St. Matthew's. Come down now, don't let us disturb the little ones any longer. —Good-night, Angel; good-night, little star; we'll not make a row to wake you again.'

Clement, in a severe mood, followed Felix downstairs; but some wonderful spirit of frolic was on all the young people that night—a reaction, perhaps, from the melancholy that had so long necessarily reigned in that house, for though the fun was less loud, it was quite as merry: a course of riddles was going on; and Clement, who really was used to a great deal of mirth among the staff of St. Matthew's, absolutely unbent, and gloried in showing that even more conundrums were known there than by the house of Harewood. He was not strong in guessing them; but then Will Harewood made such undaunted and extraordinary shots at everything proposed, that the spirit of repartee was fairly awakened, and Cherry's bright delicate wit began to play, so that no one knew how to believe in the lateness of the hour, and still less that this was the same house that grave Wilmet had left that morning.

'Poor dear little Cherry!' said Felix to Mr. Audley, after helping her upstairs, 'she is quite spent with laughing; indeed my jaws ache, and she is ready to cry, as if it had been unfeeling.'

'Don't let her fancy that. We certainly were surprised into it to- night; but I only wish for her sake—for all your sakes—that you could keep the house merrier.'

Felix sighed. He too felt as if he had been betrayed into unbecoming levity; and though he would not dispute, his heart had only become the heavier. However, he did not forget, and when Cherry again breathed a little sigh as to what Wilmet would think of their first day, he stoutly averred that there was no use in drooping, and no harm in liveliness, and that no one had ever been so full of joyousness as their father.

She owned it. 'But—'

And that but meant the effects of the three years that she had spent as the companion of her mother's mournful widowhood, and of the cares of life on her elder brother and sister.

It was true, as Mr. Audley said, that the associations of the rooms were not good for her spirits in her many lonely hours and confined life; and this reconciled Felix more than anything else to the proposed change. He was keeping his promise to Wilmet of not seeking a house till her return, when Mr. and Mrs. Froggatt, whose minds had been much relieved by hearing that the lodger would consult the proprieties, communicated to him their own scheme of taking up their residence at a village named Marshlands, about two miles from Bexley, where they already spent great part of the summer in a pleasant cottage and garden which they had bought and adorned. Mr. Froggatt would drive in to attend to the business every day, but the charge of the house was the difficulty, as they did not wish to let the rooms; and they now proposed that the young Underwoods should inhabit them rent-free, merely keeping a bedroom and little parlour behind the shop for Mr. Froggatt, and providing firing in them. With much more diffidence, at his wife's earnest suggestion, the kindly modest old man asked whether Miss Underwood would object to his coming in to take a piece of bread and cheese when he was there in the middle of the day.

It was an excellent offer, and Felix had no hesitation in gratefully closing with it, even without consulting Wilmet. Her reply showed that a great weight was taken off her mind; and she was only longing to be at home again, contriving for the move, which was to take place at Lady Day. She was burning to study the new rooms; nevertheless, as by kind Marilda's contrivance, she was taking lessons in German every day from a superior Fraulein who had once been her cousin's governess, and was further allowed to inspect the working of a good school, her stay was extended, by Miss Pearson's entreaty, a full fortnight beyond what had been intended. Nor had anything gone wrong in her absence. Even the overlooking of the boys' linen, which she had believed impossible without her, was safely carried on by Cherry, and all were sent off in sound condition. No catastrophe occurred; and the continual occupation and responsibility drove away all the low spirits that so often had tried the home-keeping girl. She did enjoy those tete-a-tete evenings, when Felix opened to her more than he had ever done before; and yet it was an immense relief to have the day fixed for Wilmet's return, and how much more to have her walking into the room with all the children clinging about her in incoherent ecstacy, which had not subsided enough for much comprehension when Felix came joyously in. 'Hurrah, Wilmet! Mr. Froggatt sent me home a couple of hours before time!'