"Everything seems to be beginning there just as I go into exile!" said Mrs. Duncombe. "It seems odd that I should have to go from what I have only just learnt to prize. But you have taught mo a good deal—"

"Every one must have learnt a good deal," said Herbert wearily. "If one only has!"

"I meant you yourself, and that is what I came to thank you for. Yes, I did; even if you don't like to hear it, your sister does, and I must have it out. I shall recollect you again and again standing over all those beds, and shrinking from nothing, and I shall hold up the example to my boys."

"Do hold up something better!"

"Can you write?" she said abruptly.

"I have written a few lines to my mother."

"Do you remember what you said that night, when you had to hold that poor man in his delirium, and his wife was so wild with fright that she could not help?"

"I am not sure what you mean."

"You said it three or four times. It was only—"

"I remember," said Herbert, as she paused; "it was the only thing I could recollect in the turmoil."

"Would it tire you very much to write it for me in the flyleaf of this Prayer-Book that Mr. Charnock has given me?"

Herbert pulled himself into a sitting posture, and signed to his sister to give him the ink.

"I shall spoil your book," he said, as his hand shook.

"Never mind," she said, eagerly, "the words come back to me whenever I think of the life I have to face, and I want them written; they soothe me, as they soothed that frightened woman and raving man."

And Herbert wrote. It was only—'The Lord is a very present help in trouble.'

"Yes," she said; "thank you. Put your initials, pray. There—thank you. No, you can never tell what it was to me to hear those words, so quietly, and gravely, and strongly, in that deadly struggle. It seemed to me, for the first time in all my life, that God is a real Presence and an actual Help. There! I see Miss Bowater wants me gone; so I am off. I shall hear of you."

Herbert was exhausted with the exertion, and only exchanged a close pressure of the hand, and when Jenny came back, after seeing the lady to the door, she thought there were tears on his cheek, and bent down to kiss him.

"That was just the way, Jenny," his low, tired voice said. "I never could recollect what I wanted to say. Only just those few Psalms that you did manage to teach me before I went to school, they came back and back."

Jenny had no time to answer, for the feet of Philip were on the stairs. He had been visiting Mrs. Hornblower, and persuading her that to make a dragoon of her son was the very best thing for him— great promotion, and quite removed from the ordinary vulgar enlistment in the line—till he had wiled consent out of her. And though Philip declared it was blarney, and was inclined to think it infra dig. to have thus exerted his eloquence, it was certain that Mrs. Hornblower would console herself by mentioning to her neighbours that her son was gone in compliment to Captain Bowater, who had taken a fancy to him.

The relief to Herbert was infinite; but he was by this time too much tired to do anything but murmur his thanks, and wish himself safe back in his bed, and Philip's strong-armed aid in reaching that haven was not a little appreciated.

Julius looked in with his mother's entreaty that Philip, and if possible his sister, should come up to eat their Christmas dinner at the Hall; and Herbert, wearily declaring that sleep was all he needed, and that Cranky would be more than sufficient for him, insisted on their accepting the invitation; and Jenny was not sorry, for she did not want a tete-a-tete with Philip so close to her patient's room, that whatever he chose to hear, he might.

She had quite enough of it in the walk to the Hall. Phil, with the persistency of a person bent on doing a kind thing, returned to his York plan, viewing it as excellent relaxation for a depressed, over- worked man, and certain it would be a great treat to 'little Herb.' He still looked on the tall young man as the small brother to be patronized, and protected, and dragged out of home-petting; so he pooh-poohed all Jenny's gentler hints as to Herbert's need of care and desire to return to his work, until she was obliged to say plainly that he had entreated her to beg it might not be argued with him again, as he was resolved against amusement for the present.

Then Phil grew very angry both with Herbert and Jenny.

"Did they suppose he wanted the boy to do anything unclerical?"

"No; but you know it was by nothing positively unclerical that he was led aside before."

Phil broke out into a tirade against the folly of Jenny's speech. In his view, Herbert's conduct at Wil'sbro' had confuted the Bishop's censure, and for his own part, he only wished to amuse the boy, and give him rest, and if he did take him to a ball, or even out with the hounds, he would be on leave, and in another diocese, where the Bishop had nothing to do with him.

Jenny tried to make him understand that dread of the Bishop was the last thing in Herbert's mind. It was rather that he did not think it right to dissipate away a serious impression.

That was worse than before. She was threatened with the most serious displeasure of her father and mother, if she encouraged Herbert in the morbid ascetic notions ascribed to Dr. Easterby.

"It was always the way with the women—they never knew where to stop."

"No," said Jenny, "I did not know there was anywhere to stop in the way of Heaven."

"As if there were no way to Heaven without making a fool of oneself."

This answer made Jenny sorry for her own, as needlessly vexatious, and yet she recollected St. Paul's Christian paradoxes, and felt that poor Herbert might have laid hold of the true theory of the ministry. At any rate, she was glad that they were at that moment hailed and overtaken by the party from the Rectory, and that Phil pounced at once on Julius, to obtain his sanction to giving Herbert a little diversion at York.

Julius answered more warily, "Does he wish it?"

"No; but he is too weak yet, and is hipped and morbid."

"Well, Phil, I would not put it into his head. No doubt you would take very good care of him, but I doubt whether your father would like the Bishop to hear of him—under the circumstances—going to disport himself at the dragoon mess. Besides, I don't think he will be well enough before Lent, and then of course he could not."

This outer argument in a man's voice pacified Phil, as Julius knew it would, much better than the deeper one, and he contented himself with muttering that he should write to his father about it, which every one knew he was most likely not to do.

Who could have foretold last Christmas who would be the party at that dinner? Mrs. Poynsett at the head of her own table, and Miles in the master's place, and the three waifs from absent families would have seemed equally unlikely guests; while of last year's party—Charlie was in India, Tom De Lancey with the aunts in Ireland, Cecil at Dunstone. Mrs. Duncombe was perfectly quiet, not only from the subduing influence of all she had undergone, but because she felt herself there like an intruder, and would have refused, but that to leave her at home would have distressed her hostess. Mrs. Poynsett had never seen her before, and after all she had heard about her, was quite amazed at the sight of such an insignificant little person as she was without her dash and sparkle, and in a dress which, when no longer coquettish, verged upon the slovenly.

Poor thing, she was waiting till the Christmas visit of the elder Mrs. Duncombe's own daughter was over, so that there might be room for her, and she was thankful for the reprieve, which left her able to spend Christmas among the privileges she had only learnt to value just as she was deprived of them. She looked at Mrs. Poynsett, half in curiosity, half in compunction, as she remembered how she had helped to set Cecil against her.

"But then," as she said to Rosamond, in going home, "I had prejudices about the genus belle-mere. And mine always knew and said I should ruin her son, in which, alas! she was quite right!"

"She will be pleased now," said Rosamond.

"No, indeed, I believe she had rather I were rapidity personified than owe the change to any one of your Rector's sort. I have had a letter or two, warning me against the Sisters, or thinking there is any merit in works of mercy. Ah, well! I'll try to think her a good old woman! But if she had only not strained the cord till it snapped, how much happier Bob and I should have been!"

What a difference there is between straining the cord for one's self and for other people! So Julius could not help feeling when Herbert, in spite of all that could be said to him, about morbid haste in renunciation, sent for the village captain of the cricket- club, and delivered over to him the bat, which had hitherto been as a knightly sword to him, resigning his place in the Compton Poynsett Eleven, and replying to the dismayed entreaties and assurances of the young farmer that he would reconsider his decision, and that he would soon be quite strong again, that he had spent too much time over cricket, and liked it too well to trust himself at it again.

That was the last thing before on a New Year's Day, which was like an April day, Herbert came into church once more, and then was carried off in the Strawyers carriage, lying back half ashamed, half astonished, at the shower of strange tears which the ecstatic shouts and cheers of the village boys had called forth.



CHAPTER XXXVI Rockpier

For Love himself took part against himself To warn us off.—TENNYSON

Rosamond was to have a taste of her old vocation, and go campaigning for lodgings, the searching for which she declared to be her strongest point. Rockpier was to be the destination of the family; Eleonora Vivian, whose letters had been far fewer than had been expected of her, was known to be there with her father, and this was lure sufficient for Frank. Frank's welfare again was the lure to Mrs. Poynsett; and the benefit Rosamond was to derive from sea air, after all she had gone through, made Julius willing to give himself the holiday that everybody insisted on his having until Lent.

First, however, was sent off an advanced guard, consisting of Rosamond and Terry, who went up to London with Frank, that he might there consult an aurist, and likewise present himself to his chief, and see whether he could keep his clerkship. All this turned out well, his duties did not depend on his ears, and a month's longer leave of absence was granted to him; moreover, his deafness was pronounced to be likely to yield to treatment, and a tube restored him to somewhat easier intercourse with mankind, and he was in high spirits, when, after an evening spent with Rosamond's friends, the M'Kinnons, the trio took an early train for Rockpier, where Rosamond could not detain Frank even to come to the hotel with them and have luncheon before hurrying off to Verdure Point, the villa inhabited by Sir Harry. All he had done all the way down was to impress upon her, in the fulness of his knowledge of the place, that the only habitable houses in Rockpier were in that direction—the nearer to Verdure Point the more perfect!

Terry listened with smiling eyes, sometimes viewing the lover as a bore, sometimes as a curious study, confirming practical statements. Terry was thoroughly well, only with an insatiable appetite, and he viewed his fellow convalescent's love with double wonder when he found it caused oblivion of hunger, especially as Frank still looked gaunt and sallow, and was avowedly not returned to his usual health.

Rosamond set forth house-hunting, dropping Terry ere long at the Library, where she went to make inquiries, and find the sine qua non. When she reached the sitting-room at the hotel, she found Frank cowering over the fire in an arm-chair, the picture of despondency. Of course, he did not hear her entrance, and she darted up to him, and put her hand on his shoulder. He looked up to her with an attempt at indifference.

"Well, Frank!"

"Well, Rose! How have you sped?"

"I have got a house; but it is in Marine Terrace. I don't know what you'll say to me."

"I don't know that it signifies."

"You are shivering! What's the matter?"

"Only, it is very cold!"

(Aside. "Ring the bell, Terry, he is as cold as ice.") "Did you see her?"

"Oh yes. Did you have any luncheon?" ("Some port-wine and hot water directly, please.")

"Yes, I believe so. You are not ordering anything for me? There's nothing amiss—only it is so cold."

"It is cold, and you are not to be cold; nor are we to be cold, sir. You must go to bed early in the evening, Terry," said Rosamond, at last. "I shall make nothing of him while you are by, and an hour's more sleep will not be lost on you."

"Will you come and tell me then, Rosey? I deserve something."

"What, for sleeping there instead of here, when you've nothing to do?"

"Indeed, but I have. I want to make out this little Chaucer. I shall go down to the coffee-room and do it."

"Well, if you like poking out your eyes with the gas in the coffee- room, I have no objection, since you are too proud to go to bed. Wish him good night first, and do it naturally."

"Nature would be thrown away on him, poor fellow," said Terry, as he roused Frank with difficulty to have 'Good night' roared into his ear, and give a listless hand. He was about to deal with Rosamond in the same way, but she said—

"No, I am not going yet," and settled herself opposite to him, with her half-knitted baby's shoe in her hands, and her feet on the fender, her crape drawn up from the fire, disposed for conversation. Frank, on the other hand, fell back into the old position, looking so wretched that she could bear it no longer, picked up the tube, forced it on him, and said, "Do tell me, dear Frank. You used to tell me long ago."

He shook his head. "That's all over. You are very good, Rosamond, but you should not have forced her to come to me."

"Not!"

"My life was not worth saving."

"She has not gone back from you again?—the horrible girl!" (this last aside).

"It is not that she has gone back. She has never changed. It is I who have forfeited her."

"You!—You!—She has not cast you off?"

"You know how it was, and the resolution by which she had bound herself, and how I was maddened."

"That! I thought it was all forgiven and forgotten!" cried Rosamond.

"It is not a matter of forgiveness. She put it to me whether it was possible to begin on a broken word."

"Worse and worse! Why, when you've spoken a foolish word, it is the foolishest thing in the world to hold to it."

"If it were a foolish word!" said poor Frank. "I think I could have atoned for that day, if she could have tried me; but when she left me to judge, and those eyes of sweet, sorrowful—"

"Sweet! Sorrowful, indeed! About as sweet and sorrowful as the butcher to the lamb. Left you to judge! A refinement of cruelty! She had better have stayed away when I told her it was the only chance to save your life."

"Would that she had!" sighed Frank. "But that was your doing, Rosamond, and what she did in mere humanity can't be cast back again to bind her against her conscience."

"Plague on her conscience!" was my Lady's imprecation. "I wonder if it is all coquetry!"

"She deserves no blame," said Frank, understanding the manner, though the words were under Rosamond's breath. "Her very troubles in her own family have been the cause of her erecting a standard of what alone she could trust. Once in better days she fancied I came up to it, and when I know how far I have fallen short of it—"

"Nonsense. She had no business to make the condition without warning you."

"She knows more of me than only that," muttered poor Frank. "I was an ass in town last summer. It was the hope of seeing her that drew me; but if I had kept out of that set, all this would never have been."

"It was all for her sake." (A substratum of 'Ungrateful, ungenerous girl.')

"For her sake, I thought—not her true sake." Then there was a silence, broken by his exclaiming, "Rose, I must get away from here!"

"You can't," she called back. "Here's your mother coming. She would be perfectly miserable to find you gone."

"It is impossible I should stay here."

"Don't be so chicken-hearted, Frank. If she has a heart worth speaking of, she'll come round, if you only press hard enough. If not, you are well quit of her."

He cried out at this, and Rosamond saw that what she called faintness of heart was really reverence and sense of his own failings; but none the less did she scorn such misplaced adoration, as it seemed to her, and scold him in her own fashion, for not rushing on to conquer irresistibly; or else being cool and easy as to his rejection. He would accept neither alternative, was depressed beyond the power of comfort, bodily weariness adding to his other ills, and went off at last to bed, without retracting his intention of going away.

"Well, Terry, it is a new phase, and a most perplexing one!" said Rosamond, when her brother came back with arch curiosity in his brown eyes. "The girl has gone and turned him over, and there he lies on his back prostrate, just like Ponto, when he knows he deserves it!"

"Turned him over—you don't mean that she is off? I thought she was a perfect angel of loveliness and goodness."

"Goodness! It is enough to make one hate goodness, unless this is all mere pretence on her part. But what I am afraid of is his setting off, no one knows where, before any one is up, and leaving us to confront his mother, while he falls ill in some dog-hole of a place. He is not fit to go about by himself, and I trust to you to watch him, Terry."

"Shall I lie on the mat outside his door?" said Terry, half meaning it, and somewhat elated by the romantic situation.

"No, we are not come to quite such extremities. You need not even turn his key by mistake; only keep your ears open. He is next to you, is he not?—and go in on pretext of inquiry—if you hear him up to mischief."

Nothing was heard but the ordinary summons of Boots; and it turned out in the morning that the chill had exasperated his throat, and reduced him to a condition which took away all inclination to move, besides deafening him completely.

Rosamond had to rush about all day, providing plenishing for the lodging. Once she saw Sir Harry and his daughter in the distance, and dashed into a shop to avoid them, muttering, "I don't believe she cared for him one bit. I dare say she has taken up with Lorimer Strangeways after all! Rather worse than her sister, I declare, for she never pretended to be too good for Raymond," and then as a curate in a cassock passed—"Ah! some of them have been working on her, and persuading her that he is not good enough for her. Impertinent prig! He looks just capable of it!"

Frank was no better as to cold and deafness, though somewhat less uncomfortable the next day in the lodging, and Rosamond went up without him to the station to meet the rest of the party, and arrange for Mrs. Poynsett's conveyance. They had accomplished the journey much better than had been, hoped, but it was late and dark enough to make it expedient that Mrs. Poynsett should be carried to bed at once, after her most unwonted fatigue, and only have one glimpse and embrace of Frank, so as to stave off the knowledge of his troubles till after her night's rest. He seconded this desire, and indeed Miles and Anne only saw that he had a bad cold; but Rosamond no sooner had her husband to herself, than she raved over his wrongs to her heart's content, and implored Julius to redress them, though how, she did not well know, since she by turns declared that Frank was well quit of Lenore, and that he would never get over the loss.

Julius demurred a good deal to her wish of sending him on a mission to Eleonora. All Charnocks naturally swung back to distrust of the Vivians, and he did not like to plead with a girl who seemed only to be making an excuse to reject his brother; while, on the other hand, he knew that Raymond had not been satisfied with Frank's London habits, nor had he himself been at ease as to his religious practices, which certainly had been the minimum required to suit his mother's notions. He had been a communicant on Christmas Day, but he was so entirely out of reach that there was no knowing what difference his illness might have made in him; Eleonora might know more than his own family did, and have good and conscientious reasons for breaking with him; and, aware that his own authority had weight with her, Julius felt it almost too much responsibility to interfere till the next day, when his mother, with tears in her eyes, entreated him to go to Miss Vivian, to find out what was this dreadful misunderstanding, which perhaps might only be from his want of hearing, and implore her, in the name of an old woman, not to break her boy's heart and darken his life, as it had been with his brother.

Mrs. Poynsett was tremulous and agitated, and grief had evidently told on her high spirit, so that Julius could make no objection, but promised to do his best.

By the time it was possible to Julius to call, Sir Harry and Miss Vivian were out riding, and he had no further chance till at the gaslit Friday evening lecture, to which he had hurried after dinner. A lady became faint in the heated atmosphere, two rows of chairs before him, and as she turned to make her way out, he saw that it was Eleonora, and was appalled by seeing not only the whiteness of the present faintness, but that thinness and general alteration which had changed the beautiful face so much that he asked himself for a moment whether she could have escaped the fever. In that moment he had moved forward to her support; and she, seeming to have no one belonging to her, clung to the friendly arm, and was presently in the porch, where the cool night air revived her at once, and she begged him to return, saying nothing ailed her but gas.

"No, I shall see you home, Lena."

"Indeed, there is no need," said the trembling voice, in which he detected a sob very near at hand.

"I shall use my own judgment as to that," said Julius, kindly.

She made no more resistance, but rose from the seat in the porch, and accepted his arm. He soon felt that her steps were growing firmer, and he ventured to say, "I had been looking for you to-day."

"Yes, I saw your card."

"I had a message to you from my mother." Lenore trembled again, but did not dare to relax her hold on him. "I think you can guess what it is. She thinks poor Frank must have mistaken what you said."

"No—I wrote it," said Lena, very low.

"And you really meant that the resolution made last year is to stand between you and Frank? I am not blaming you, I do not know whether you may not be acting rightly and wisely, and whether you may not have more reason than I know of to shrink from intrusting yourself to Frank; but my mother cannot understand it, and when she sees him heartbroken, and too unwell to act for himself—"

"Oh! is he ill?"

"He has a very bad cold, and could not get up till the afternoon, and he is deafer than ever."

Lena moaned.

He proceeded: "So as he cannot act for himself, my mother begged me to come to an understanding."

"I told him to judge," said Lena faintly, but turning Julius so as to walk back along the parade instead of to her abode.

"Was not that making him his own executioner?" said Julius.

"A promise is binding," she added.

"Yet, is it quite fair?" said Julius, sure now which way her heart went, and thinking she was really longing to be absolved from a superstitious feeling; "is it fair to expect another person to be bound by a vow of which you have not told him?"

"I never thought he could," sighed she.

"And you know he was entrapped!" said Julius, roused to defend his brother.

"And by whom?" she said in accents of deep pain.

"I should have thought it just—both by your poor sister and by him— to undo the wrong then wrought," said Julius, "unless, indeed, you have some further cause for distrusting him?"

"No! no!" cried she. "Oh, Julius! I do it for his own good. Your mother knows not what she wishes, in trying to entangle him again with me."

"Lenore, will you tell me if anything in him besides that unhappy slip makes you distrust him?"

"I must tell the whole truth," gasped the poor girl, as they walked along in the sound of the sea, the dark path here and there brightened by the gas-lights, "or you will think it is his fault! Julius, I know more about my poor father than ever I did before. I was a child when I lived here before, and then Camilla took all the management. When we came to London, two months ago, I soon saw the kind of people he got round him for his comforters. I knew how he spent his evenings. It is second nature to him—he can't get put of it, I believe! I persuaded him to come down here, thinking it a haven of peace and safety. Alas! I little knew what old habits there were to resume, nor what was the real reason Camilla brought us away after paying our debts. I was a happy child then, when I only knew that papa was gone to his club. Now I know that it is a billiard-room—and that it is doing all the more harm because he is there—and I see him with people whom he does not like me to speak to. I don't know whether I could get him away, and it would be as bad anywhere else. I don't think he can help it. And he is often unwell; he can't do without me when he has the gout, and I ought not to leave him to himself. And then, if—if we did marry and he lived with us in London, think what it would be for Frank to have such a set brought about him. I don't see how he could keep them off. Or even an engagement bringing him down here—or anywhere, among papa's friends would be very bad for him. I saw it in London, even with Camilla to keep things in check." She was almost choked with suppressed agony.

"I see," said Julius, gravely and pitifully, "it would take a man of more age and weight than poor Frank to deal with the habits of a lifetime. The risk is great."

"And when I saw it," added Eleonora, "I felt I must never, never bring him into it. And how could I tell him? Your mother does not know, or she could not wish it!"

"It is plain that in the present state of things you ought not to marry, and so far you are judging nobly," said Julius; "but next comes the question—how far it is well to make that day at the races the pretext?"

"Don't call it a pretext," said Lenore, quickly. "I meant what I said a year ago, with all my soul. Perhaps it was hasty, when poor Camilla drove me into saying I did not mean only an habitual gambler, but one who had ever betted. And now, well as I know how cruelly she used that presumptuous vow of mine, and how she repented of it at last, still I feel that to fly in its face might be so wrong, that I should have no right to expect not to drag Frank down."

"Perhaps I am too much interested to judge fairly," said Julius. "I should like you to consult some one—say Dr. Easterby—but it seems to me that it is just such a vow as you may well be absolved from."

"But is it not Frank's protection?"

"Put yourself in that poor fellow's place, Lena, and see what it is to him to be cast off for such a reason. He did the wrong, I know. He knew he ought not, apart from your resolution, and he did thus prove his weakness and unfitness—"

"Oh no, no—it was not his fault."

Julius laughed a little, and added, "I am not saying he deserves you—hush!—or that it would be well to take him now, only that I think to find himself utterly rejected for so insufficient a reason, and when he was really deceived, would not only half kill him now, but do his whole nature cruel harm."

"What is to be done then?" sighed Eleonora.

"I should say, and I think my mother would put him on some probation if you like, even before you call it an engagement; but give him hope. Let him know that your attachment is as true and unselfish as ever, and do not let him brood in misery, enhanced by his deafness."

"I can't marry while poor papa is like what he is," said she, as if trying to keep hold of her purpose.

"But you can be Frank's light and hope—the prize for which he can work."

"If—your mother will have it so—then," said Eleonora, and the sigh that followed was one to relieve, not exhaust.

"May I tell her then?"

"You must, I suppose," said the poor girl; "but she can never wish it to go on!"

Julius left her at her own door and went home.

As Mrs. Poynsett said, she could expect nothing better of him. "It is quite clear," she said, "that poor Lena is right, that Frank must not set up housekeeping with him. Even if he were certain to be proof against temptation, it would be as bad a connection as could be. I never thought of his being with them; but I suppose there is nothing else to be done with him."

"Frank ought not to be exposed to the trial. The old man has a certain influence over him."

"Though I should have thought such a hoary old wreck was nothing but a warning. It has been a most unhappy affair from first to last; but Lena is a good, unselfish girl, and nothing else will give Frank a chance of happiness. Waiting will do them no harm, they are young enough, and have no great sum to marry upon, so if you can bring her to me to-morrow, Julius, I will ask her to grant my poor boy leave to wait till she can see her way to marrying."

Julius ventured to write down, 'Hope on!'

To this Frank replied with rather a fiery look, "Mind, I will not have her persuaded or worked on. It must be all her own doing. Yes," answering a look of his brother, "I see what you are about. You want to tell her it is a superstition about her vow and not using me fairly. So it may be in some points of view; but the fact remains. She thought she might trust to my good sense and principle, and it proved that she was wrong. After that it is not right to force myself on her. I don't dare to do it, Julius. I have not been shut up with myself all these weeks for nothing. I know now how unworthy I ever was to think of her as mine. If I can ever prove my repentance she might in time forgive me; but for her to be driven to take me out of either supposed justice or mercy, I will not stand! A wretched deaf being like me! It is not fitting, and I will not have it done!"

Julius wrote—"She is suffering greatly. She nearly fainted at church, and I had to take her out."

Frank's face worked, and he put his hand over it as he said, "You are all torturing her; I shall write a letter and settle it myself."

Frank did write the letter that very night, and when Julius next saw Eleonora her eyes were swollen with weeping, and she said—

"Take me to him! I must comfort him!"

"You have heard from him?"

"Yes. Such a beautiful letter. But he must not think it that."

She did show the letter, reserved though she was. She was right about it; Julius was struck with the humble sweetness, which made him think more highly of poor Frank than ever he had done before. He had decided against himself, feeling how much his fall at the race-ground had been the effect of the manner in which he had allowed himself to be led during the previous season in London, and owning how far his whole aim in life fell short of what it ought to be, asking nothing for himself, not even hope nor patience, though he could not refrain from expressing his own undying love, and his one desire that if she had not attached herself to one more worthy, he might in time be thought to have proved his repentance. In the meantime she would and could be only his beacon star.

Julius could not but take her home, and leave her with Frank, though his mother was a little annoyed not to have first seen her; but when Frank himself brought her to Mrs. Poynsett's arms, it turned out that the two ladies were quite of one mind as to the inexpediency of Sir Harry living with Frank. They said it very covertly, but each understood the other, and Eleonora went home wonderfully happier, and looking as if her fresh beauty would soon return.

There was quite enough to dazzle Miles, whose first opinion was that they were hard on Sir Harry, and that two ladies and a clergyman might be making a great deal too much of an old man's form of loitering, especially in a female paradise of ritualism, as he was pleased to call Rockpier, where all the male population seemed to be invalids.

However, it was not long before he came round to their view. He found that Sir Harry, in spite of his gentlemanly speech and bearing, was a battered old roue, who was never happy but when gambling, and whose air and title were baits to victims of a lower class than himself; young clerks and medical students who were flattered by his condescension. He did not actually fleece them himself, he had too little worldly wisdom for that; but he was the decoy of a coterie of Nyms, Pistols, and Bardolphs, who gathered up the spoil of these and any unwary youth who came to Rockpier in the wake of an invalid, or to 'see life' at a fashionable watering- place. Miles thought the old man was probably reduced to a worse style of company by the very fact of the religious atmosphere of the place, where he himself found so little to do that he longed for the opening of the Session; but he was strongly impressed with the impracticability of a menage for Frank, with the baronet as father- in-law.

Not so, Sir Harry. He was rather fond of Frank, and had been glad to be no longer bound to oppose the match, and he had benignantly made up his mind to the great sacrifice of living in his house in London, surrounding himself with all his friends, and making the young couple supply him with pocket-money whenever he had a run of ill-luck. They would grant it more easily than Camilla, and would never presume to keep him under regulation as she had done. They would be too grateful to him.

So, after a day or two, he demanded of Eleonora whether her young man had given her up, or what he meant by his coolness in not calling? Lena answered the last count by explaining how unwell he had been, and how his hearing might be lost by a renewal of his cold. She was however further pressed, and obliged to say how matters stood, namely, that they were engaged, but meant to wait.

Whereupon, Sir Harry, quite sincerely, poor old man, grew compassionate and grandly benignant. The young people were prudent, but he would come to their aid. His pittance added to theirs—even now would set all things straight. He would never stand in the way of their happiness!

Mrs. Poynsett had bidden Lena cast the whole on her shoulders. The girl was too truthful and generous to do this, fond as she still was of her father.

"No, dear papa," she said, "it is very kind in you," for she knew that so he meant it, "but I am afraid it will not quite do. You see Frank must be very careful in his situation—and I don't think so quiet a way of life would suit you."

"Nonsense, child; I'm an old man, and I want no racketing. Just house-room for myself and Victor. That fellow is worth two women in a house. You'll keep a good cook. I'll never ask for more than a few old friends to dinner, when I don't feel disposed to have them at the club."

Old friends! Yes, Lenore knew them, and her flesh crept to think of Frank's chief hearing of them constantly at his house.

"I don't think we should afford it, dear papa," she said. "We have agreed that I had better stay with you for the present, and let Frank make his way."

Then a thought occurred to Sir Harry. "Is this the Poynsetts' doing?"

"No," said Eleonora, stoutly. "It is mine. I know that—oh! papa, forgive me!—the things and people you like would not be good for Frank, and I will not leave you nor bring him into them. Never!"

Sir Harry swore—almost for the first time before her—that this was that old hag Mrs. Poynsett's doing, and that she would make his child abandon him in his old age. He would not have his daughter dragged into a long engagement. Wait—he knew what waiting meant— wait for his death; but they should have her now or not at all; and he flung away from her and her entreaties to announce his determination to the suitor's family.

He did not find this very easy to accomplish. Frank's ears were quite impervious to all his storming, and if he was to reduce his words to paper, they came less easily. Miles, to whom he tried to speak as a man of the world, would only repeat that his mother would never consent to the marriage, unless the young couple were to live alone; nay, he said, with a grain of justice, he thought that had been Sir Harry's own view in a former case. Would he like to see Mrs. Poynsett? she is quite ready.

Again Sir Harry quailed at the notion of encountering Mrs. Poynsett; but Miles, who had a great idea that his mother could deal with everybody, and was the better for doing so, would not let him off, and ushered him in, then stood behind her chair, and thoroughly enjoyed the grand and yet courteous way in which she reduced to nothing Sir Harry's grand beneficence in eking out the young folks' income with his own. She knew very well that even when the estate was sold, at the highest estimate, Eleonora would have the barest maintenance, and that he could hardly expect what the creditors now allowed him, and she made him understand that she knew this, and that she had a right to make conditions, since Frank, like her other sons, could not enter into possession of his share of his father's fortune unless he married with her consent.

And when he spoke of breaking off the engagement, she was callous, and said that he must do as he pleased, though after young people were grown up, she thought the matter ought to rest with themselves. She did not wish her son to marry till his character was more confirmed.

He went home very angry, and yet crest-fallen, sought out Eleonora, and informed her of his command, that her engagement should be broken off.

"I do not know how that can be done, papa," said Eleonora. "We have never exactly made an engagement; we do not want to marry at once, and we could not help loving each other if we tried."

"Humph! And if I laid my commands on you never to marry into that family?"

"I do not think you will do that, papa, after your promise to Camilla."

She had conquered. No further objection was made to her being as much as she pleased with the Charnocks as long as they remained at Rockpier, nor to her correspondence with Frank when he went away, not to solitary lodgings as before, but to the London house, which Miles and Anne only consented to keep on upon condition of their mother sharing it with them.



CHAPTER XXXVII The Third Autumn

A good man ther was of religion, That was a poure Persone of a toune; But rich he was of holy thought and work, He also was a learned man a clerk.—CHAUCER

Autumn came round again, and brought with it a very different September from the last.

Willansborough was in a state of commotion. That new Vicar had not only filled the place with curates, multiplied services in the iron church, and carried on the building of St. Nicholas in a style of beauty that was quite affronting to those who were never asked to contribute to it, but he gave people no peace in their easy conventional sins, pricked them in their hearts with personal individual stings, and, worse than all, protested against the races, as conducted at Wil'sbro'.

And their Member was just as bad! Captain Charnock Poynsett, instead of subscribing, as part of his duty to his constituents, had replied by sending his brother Raymond's half-finished letter to the club, with an equally strong and resolute one of his own, and had published both in all the local papers.

Great was the fury and indignation of Wil'sbro', Backsworth, and all the squires around. Of course it was a delirious fancy of poor Raymond Poynsett, and Miles had been worked upon by his puritanical wife and ritualistic brother to publish it. Newspapers teemed with abuse of superstition and pharisaism, and praise of this wholesome, moral, and 'truly English' sport. Gentlemen, and ladies too, took the remonstrance as a personal offence, and threatened to visit no more at Compton; the electors bade him look to his seat, and held meetings to invite 'Mr. Simmonds Proudfoot,' as he now called himself, to represent them; and the last week, before the races, the roughs mobbed him in Water Lane. He rode quietly through them, with his sailor face set as if against a storm, but when he was out of the place, he stopped his horse at Herbert Bowater's lodgings, that his black eye might be washed, and the streams of rotten egg removed from his coat before he presented himself at home. Not that he had much fear of startling his wife and mother. It was more from the Englishman's hatred of showing himself a hero, for Anne was perfectly happy in the persecution he had brought on himself, for she never had been so sure before that he was not of the world, worldly.

The races were exceptionally brilliant, and fully attended, but the triumph of the roughs had made them more outrageously disgraceful in their conduct than ever; and when Miles went to the quarter- sessions, rather doubting whether he should not find himself landed in Coventry, not only did the calendar of offences speak for itself, but sundry country gentlemen shook him by the hand, lamenting that railways and rowdyism had entirely altered races from what they used to be, that he was in the right, and what they had seen so recently proved that the only thing to be done was to withdraw from what respectable people could no longer keep within bounds. Such withdrawal will not prevent them, but it will hinder the demoralization from being so extensive as formerly, since no one of much character to lose will attend them.

Mr. Bowater rejoiced in Miles's triumph. None of that family had been at these same races. They had all been much too anxious about Herbert not to view Ember Week in a very different light from that in which they had thought of it before.

Lent had brought the junior curate back from Strawyers, not much more than a convalescent, but with his sister to look after him, and both Rector and senior anxious to spare him; he had gone on well till the family returned and resumed Jenny, when he was left to his own devices, namely, 'all work and no play.' He was as fixed as ever in his resolution of making this a penance year, and believed himself so entirety recovered as to be able to do without relaxations. Cricket, riding, dinners, and garden-parties alike he had given up, and divided his time entirely between church and parish work and study. Hard reading had never been congenial, and took a great deal out of him, and in fact, all his theological study had hitherto been little more than task-work, into which he had never fully entered, whereas these subjects had now assumed such a force, depth, and importance, that he did in truth feel constrained to go to the very foundation, and work through everything again, moved and affected by them in every fibre of his soul, which vibrated now at what it had merely acquiesced in before. It was a phase that had come suddenly on him, when his mind was in full vigour of development, and his frame and nerves below par, and the effect could not but be severe. He was wrapped up in these great realities, and seemed to care for no talk, except discussing them with Julius or the senior curate, and often treated things of common life like the dream that they really are.

Julius laid as little parish work on him as possible, only, indeed, what seemed actually beneficial by taking him out; but it may be feared, that in his present fervid state he was not nearly so winning to his young clients as when he was less 'terribly in earnest,' although the old women were perhaps more devoted to him, from the tender conviction 'that the poor dear young gentleman would not be here long.'

For indeed it was true that he had never advanced in strength or looks since his return, but rather lost ground, and thus every change of weather, or extra exertion, told on him, till in August he was caught in a thunder-storm, and the cold that ensued ran on into a feverish attack, which barely left him in time for the Ordination, and then with a depressed system, and nerves morbidly sensitive.

So sensible (or more than sensible) was he of his deficiencies, that he would willingly have held back, and he was hardly well enough to do himself justice; but there was no doubt that he would pass, and it was plain that three more months of the strain of preparation might leave permanent effects on his health.

As it was, the examining chaplain did not recognize the lean, pale, anxious man, for the round-faced, rosy, overgrown boy of a year ago. His scholarship and critical knowledge were fairly above the mark, in spite of a racking headache; and his written sermon, together with all that was elicited from him, revealed, all unconsciously to himself, what treasures he had brought back from the deep waters which had so nearly closed over him.

So superior had he shown himself, that he was appointed to read the Gospel, a choice that almost shocked him, knowing that what had made him excel had been an experience that the younger men had happily missed. But the mark of approval was compensation to his parents and sisters for the disappointment of the last year, and the only drawback was fear of the effect of the long ceremonial, so deeply felt.

He met them afterwards, very white-faced, with head aching, and weary almost beyond speech, but with a wonderfully calm, restful look on his face, such as reminded Jenny of those first hours of his recovery.

They took him home and put him to bed, and there he lay, hardly speaking, and generally sleeping. There he still was on the Monday, when Julius came to inquire after him, and was taken up-stairs at once by Jenny, with the greeting, "So the son and heir is come, Julius?"

"Yes, and I never saw my mother more exulting. When Rosamond ran down to tell her, she put her arms round her neck and cried. She who never had a tear through all last year. I met your father and mother half-way, and they told me I might come on."

"I think nothing short of such news would have made mamma leave this boy," said Jenny; "but she must have her jubilee with Mrs. Poynsett."

"And I'm quite well," said Herbert, who had been grasping Julius's hand, with a wonderful look in his eyes; "yes, really—the doctor said so."

"Yes, he did," said Jenny, "only he said we were to let him alone, and that he was not to get up till he felt quite rested."

"And I shall get up to dinner," said Herbert, so sleepily, that Julius doubted it. "I hope to come back before Sunday."

"What does your doctor say to that?"

"He says," replied Jenny, "that this gentleman must be rational; that he has nothing the matter with him now, but that he is low, and ripe for anything. Don't laugh, you naughty boy, he said you were ripe for anything, and that he must—yes, he must—be turned out to grass somehow or other for the winter, and do nothing at all."

"I begin to see what you are driving at, Mrs. Joan, you look so triumphant."

"Yes," said Jenny, blushing a little, and looking quite young again; "I believe poor mamma would be greatly reconciled to it, if Herbert were to see me out to Natal."

"Is that to be the way?"

"It would be very absurd to make Archie come home again for me," said Jenny. "And everything else is most happily smoothed for me, you know; Edith has come quite to take my place at home; mamma learnt to depend on her much more than on me while I was with Herbert."

"And it has made her much more of a woman," added Herbert.

"Then you know that full statement poor Mr. Moy put forth when he left the place, on his wife's death, quite removed all lingering hesitation on papa's part," added Jenny.

"It ought, I am sure!" said Julius.

"So, now, if Herbert will go out with me, it seems to me to be all right," said Jenny, colouring deeply, as she made this lame and impotent conclusion.

"My father wishes it," said Herbert. "I believe he meant to see you to-day to ask leave of absence for me. That is what he wishes; but I have made up my mind that I ought to resign the curacy—where I have never been any use to you—though, if I had been well, I meant to have worked a year with you as a priest."

"I don't like to lose you, but I think you are right. Your beginning with me was a mistake. There is not enough work for three of us; but you know Easterby would be delighted to have you at St. Nicholas. He says his most promising people talk of what you said to them when they were ill, and he asked me if you could possibly come to him."

"I think it would be better to begin in a new place, further from home," said Herbert, quietly.

And both knew what he meant, and how hard it would be to be the clergyman he had learnt to wish to be, if his mother were at hand to be distressed by all he did or did not do.

"But, any way," added Herbert, "I hope to have some time longer at Compton before I go. Next Sunday, if I only can."

His mind was evidently full of the Feast of the Sunday, and Julius answered, "Whichever Sunday you are strong enough, of course, dear fellow. You had better come with him, Jenny, and sleep at the Rectory."

"Oh! thank you. I should like nothing so much; and I think they will spare me that one day."

"You will come in for a grand gathering, that is, if poor Cecil accepts. Miles thinks she ought to be godmother."

"Oh!"

"And no one has said a word of any cloud. It is better he should know nothing."

"And oh! Julius, is it true that her father has bought Sirenwood for her?"

"Quite true. You know it was proposed at first, but the trustees doubted of the title; but when all that was cleared up, it turned out to be a better investment than Swanslea, and so they settled it, without much reference to her."

"She will let it, of course?"

"I suppose so."

"You don't think she will come to the christening?"

"I cannot tell; Rose has had one or two very sad letters from her. She wanted us very much to come to Dunstone, and was much disappointed that we were prevented. I fancy her heart has turned to us, and that it is very sore, poor thing."

Julius was right. Cecil did return an answer, whose warmth quite amazed all but Miles and Anne, who thought nothing too much for their son; and she gladly came to attend the christening of the young Raymond. Gladly—yes, she was glad to leave Dunstone. She had gone home weary and sick of her lodging and convalescence, and hoping to find relief in the home that had once been all-sufficient for her, but Dunstone was not changed, and she was. She had not been able to help outgrowing its narrow opinions and formal precisions; and when she came home, crushed with her scarcely realized grief, nothing there had power to comfort her.

There was soothing at first in her step-mother's kindness, and she really loved her father; but their petting admiration soon grew oppressive, after the more bracing air of Compton; and their idolatry of her little brother fretted and tried her all the more, because they thought he must be a comfort to her, and any slight from her might be misconstrued. Mr. Venn's obsequiousness, instead of rightful homage, seemed deprivation of support, and she saw no one, spoke to no one, without the sense of Raymond's vast superiority and her own insensibility to it, loving him a thousand times more than she had loved him in life, and mourning him with an anguish beyond what the most perfect union would have left. She had nothing to do. Self-improvement was a mere oppression, and she longed after nothing so much as the sight of Rosamond, Anne, Julius, or even Frank, and her amiable wishes prevailed to have them invited to Dunstone; but at the times specified there were hindrances. Anne had engagements at home, and Rosamond appeared to the rest of the family to be a perpetual refuge for stray De Lanceys, while Frank had to make up for his long enforced absence by a long unbroken spell of work.

Cecil therefore had seen none of the family till she arrived at Compton. She was perfectly well, she said, and had become a great walker, and so, indeed, she showed herself, for she went out directly after breakfast every morning, and never appeared again till luncheon time; and would take long rides in the afternoon. "It was her only chance of sleep," she said, when remonstrated with. She did not look ill, but there was a restless, worn air that was very distressing on her young features, and was the more piteous to her relations, that she was just as constrained as ever in her intercourse with them. She was eagerly attentive to Mrs. Poynsett, and evidently so anxious to wait on her that Anne left to her many little services, but if they were alone together, they were tongue- tied, and never went deeper than surface subjects. Mrs. Poynsett never discussed her, never criticized her, never attempted to fathom her, being probably convinced that there was nothing but hard coldness to be met with by probing. Yet there was something striking in Cecil's having made people call her Mrs. Raymond Poynsett, surrendering the Charnock, which she had once brandished in all their faces, and going by the name by which her husband had been best known.

To Anne she was passively friendly, and neither gave nor sought confidences, and Anne was so much occupied with her baby, and all the little household services that had grown on her, as well as with her busy husband, that there was little leisure for them; and though the meeting with Rosamond was at first the most effusive and affectionate of all, afterwards she seemed to avoid tetes-a-tetes with her, and was shyer with her than with Anne.

It was Miles that she got on with best. He had never so fully realized the unhappiness of his brother's married life as those who had watched it; and he simply viewed her as Raymond's loved and loving widow and sincere mourner, and treated her with all brotherly tenderness and reverence for her grief; while she responded with a cordiality and gratitude which made her, when talking to him, a pleasanter person than she had ever been seen at Compton before.

But it was not to Miles, but to Rosamond, that she brought an earnest question, walking in one autumn morning to the Rectory, amid the falling leaves of the Virginian-creeper, and amazing Rosamond, who was writing against time for the Indian mail, by asking—

"Rosamond, will you find out if Mrs. Poynsett would mind my coming to live at Sirenwood?"

"You, Cecil!"

"Yes, I'm old enough. There's no place for me at home, and though I must be miserable anywhere, it will be better where I have something to do, of some real use to somebody. I've been walking all round every day, and seeing what a state it is in—in the hands of creditors all these years."

"But you would be quite alone!"

"I am quite alone as it is."

"And would your father consent?"

"I think he would. I am a burthen to them now. They cannot feel my grief, nor comfort it, and they don't like the sight of it, though I am sure I trouble them with it as little as possible."

"Dear Cecil!" and the ready tears welled up in Rosamond's gray eyes.

"I don't want to talk of it," said Cecil. "If I felt worthy to grieve it would be less dreadful; but it all seems like hypocrisy. Rosamond, if you were to lose Julius to-morrow, you would not be as unhappy as I am."

"Don't, don't!" cried Rosamond, making a gesture of horror. "But does not coming here make it worse?"

"No, real stabs are better than dull aching; and then you—you, Rosamond, did know how it really was, and that I would—I would—"

Cecil wept now as Rosamond had longed to see her weep when she had left Compton, and Rosamond spoke from her tender heart of comfort; but the outburst did not last long, and Cecil said, recovering herself—

"After all, my most peaceful times of late have been in walking about in those woods at Sirenwood; I should like to live there. You know he always wished it to be the purchase, because it joins Compton, and I should like to get it all into perfect order and beauty, and leave it all to little Raymond."

"I should have thought the place would have been full of ghosts."

"I tried. I made the woman let me in, and I sat where poor Camilla used to talk to me, and I thought I was the better for facing it out. The question is whether Mrs. Poynsett will dislike it. She has a right to be consulted."

Perhaps Cecil could not be gracious. Certainly, Raymond would have been thankful for even this admission.

"You wish me to find out?"

"If you would be so good. I would give it up at once if she has any feeling against it, and go somewhere else—and of course she has! She never can forget what I did!"

Rosamond caressed Cecil with that sweetness which saw everything in the most consoling manner; but when the poor young widow was out of sight, there was a revulsion of feeling.

"No, Mrs Poynsett must always feel that that wretched marriage broke her son's heart, and murdered him!—murdered him!" said Rosamond to herself, clenching that soft fist of hers. "It ought not to be broached to her!"

But Julius—when she stated it to him rather less broadly, but still saying that she did not know whether she could bear the sight of Cecil, except when she was before her eyes, and how could his mother endure her at all—did not see it in the same light. He thought Sirenwood gave duties to Cecil, and that she ought not to be hindered from fulfilling them. And he said his mother was a large- minded woman, and not likely to have that personal bitterness towards Cecil that both the ladies seemed to expect, as her rival in her son's affections, and the means of his unhappiness and death.

He was right; Mrs. Poynsett was touched by finding that Cecil clung to them rather than to her sublime family, and especially by the design as to little Raymond, though she said that must never be mentioned; nothing must bind so young a creature as Cecil, who really did not know what love was at all.

"She is afraid the sight of her is distressing to you," said Rosamond.

"Poor child, why should she?" said Mrs. Poynsett. "She was the victim of an unsuccessful experiment of my dear boy's, and the unsuspecting instrument of poor Camilla's vengeance. That is all I see in her."

"Mrs. Poynsett, how can you!" cried Rosamond, impetuously. "With all I know of her sorrow, I rage at her whenever I am out of sight of her."

"I can't do that," said Mrs. Poynsett, half smiling, "any more than I could at a doll. The poor thing was in a false position, and nobody was more sorry for her than Raymond himself; but you see he had fancied that marriage must bring the one thing it would not in that short time."

"It would, if she had not been a little foolish donkey."

"Or if Camilla Tyrrell had let her alone! It is of no use to rake up these things, my dear Rosamond. Let her come to Sirenwood, and do such good as she can there, if it can comfort her. It was for my sake that the unconscious girl was brought here to have her life spoilt, and I would not stand in the way of what seems to be any relief."

"But is it no pain?" persisted Rosamond.

"No, my dear. I almost wish it was. I shall never get on with her; but I am glad she should come and be near you all; and Miles likes her."

Mr. Charnock demurred at first, and wanted to saddle Cecil with her old governess as a companion, but when he found that Mrs. Poynsett and Miles made no objection, and remembered that she would be under their wing, and would be an inestimable adviser and example to Anne, he consented; and Cecil's arrangements were made with startling rapidity, so that she was in possession before Christmas, which she insisted on spending there. Dunstone had stereotyped hospitalities, which she could not bear, and would not prevent, and now that her first year of widowhood was over, the sorrow was not respected, while it seemed to her more oppressive than ever.

So there she was in vehement activity; restless rather than religious in her beneficence still, though the lesson she had had showed itself in her constantly seeking the advice of Miles, who thought her the most sensible woman in the world, except his Nan. Whether this constant occupation, furnishing, repairing, planning, beautifying her model cottages, her school chapel, and all the rest, were lessening the heartache, no one knew, but the sharp black eyes looked as dry and hard, the lines round the mouth as weary as ever; and Rosamond sometimes thought if Sirenwood were not full of ghosts to her, she was much like a ghost herself who came

"Hovering around her ancient home, To find no refuge there."

There was another who could not help seeing her somewhat in that light, and this was Eleonora Vivian, who had come to Compton to be with Frank, when he was at last able to enjoy a well-earned holiday, and with ears restored to their natural powers, though he always declared that his eight months of deafness had done him more good than anything that had ever befallen him in his life. It had thrown him in on his real self, and broken all the unfortunate associations of his first year in London. His first few months, while he was still in need of care, had been spent with Miles and Anne, and that tender ministry to him which his sister-in-law had begun in his illness had been with him when he was tired, dispirited, or beset by the trials of a tardy convalescence. As his interpreter, too, and caterer for the pleasures his infirmity allowed, Anne had been educating herself to a degree that 'self' improvement never would have induced.

And when left alone in London, he was able to take care of himself in all ways, and had followed the real leadings of his disposition, which his misdirected courtship had interrupted for the time, returning to the intellectual pursuits which were likely to be beneficial, not only as pleasures, but in an economical point of view; and he was half shy, half proud of the profits, such as they were, of a few poems and essays which he certainly had not had it in him to write before the ordeal he had undergone.

Eleonora's elder sister, Mrs. Fanshaw, had come home from India with her husband, newly made a Major-General. Frank had gone to Rockpier early in January, to be introduced to them, and after spending a day or two there, to escort Lena to Compton. Mrs. Poynsett needed but one glance to assure her that the two were happier than their wooing had ever made them before, save in that one brief moment at Cecil's party. Eleonora looked more beautiful, and the look of wistful pain had left her brow, but it had made permanent lines there, as well had seemed likely, and though her laugh would never have the abandon of Rosamond's, still it was not so very rare, and though she was still like a beautiful night, it was a bright moonlight one.

A few private interviews made the cause of the change apparent. The sister, Mary Fanshaw, had something of Camilla's dexterity, but having been early married to a good man, she had found its use instead of its abuse; and though Lena's trust had come very slowly, she had given it at last, and saw that her elders could deal with her father as she could never do. Sir Harry respected the General enough to let himself be restrained by him, and the husband and wife were ready to take the charge—removing, however, from Rockpier, for the religious atmosphere of which they were unprepared, and which General Fanshaw thought very dull. Affairs were in course of being wound up on the sale of Sirenwood, and the General had talked to Frank, as one of the family, in a way that had proved to him his own manhood more than anything that had happened to him. Out of the wreck, nothing remained to the old man, and the portion which had been secured by the mother's marriage settlements to younger children, though hitherto out of reach, was felt by the daughters to be due to the creditors, so that only two thousand pounds apiece had been secured to each of them; and this the General consulted Frank about appropriating for Sir Harry's use during his lifetime, himself retaining the management, so as to secure the attendance of the favourite valet, the keeping of a horse, and a fair amount of menus plaisirs.

It was also made plain to Frank that Lena's filial duties and scruples need no longer stand in the way of the marriage. Mrs. Fanshaw had two girls almost come out, and perhaps she did not wish them to be overshadowed by the aunt, who, however retiring, could not help being much more beautiful. So all that remained was that Mrs. Poynsett should be willing to supplement Frank's official income with his future portion. She was all the more rejoiced, as this visit showed her for the first time what Lena really was when brought into the sunshine without dread of what she might hear or see, or of harm being done by her belongings; and her gratitude for the welcome with which she was received was most touching.

The rest of her family were in course of removing to their new home, where Mrs. Fanshaw would be mistress of the house, and so Eleonora's stay at Compton was prolonged till the general migration to London, which was put off till Easter. Just before this, Herbert Bowater came back from Natal, and walked from Strawyers with all his happy dogs, as strong and hearty and as merry as ever; his boyish outlines gone, but wholesome sunburn having taken the place of his rosiness, and his bonny smile with its old joyousness. He had married Jenny and Archie himself, and stayed a month on their ostrich farm, which he declared was a lesson on woman's rights, since Mrs. Ostrich was heedless and indifferent as to her eggs, but was regularly hunted back to the duties by her husband, who always had two wives, and regularly forced them to take turns in sitting; a system which Herbert observed would be needful if the rights of women were to work. He had brought offerings of eggs and feathers to Lady Rosamond, and pockets full of curiosities for all his village friends; also, he had been at the Cape, had seen Glen Fraser, rejoiced the inhabitants with his accounts of Anne, and brought home a delightful budget for her.

But the special cause of his radiance was a letter he brought from his father to Mr. Bindon. The family living, which had decided his own profession, had fallen vacant, and his father, wishing perhaps not to be thought cruel and unnatural by his wife, had made no appointment until Herbert's return, well knowing that he would decide against himself: and feeling that, as things stood, it would be an awkward exercise of patronage to put him in at once. Herbert had declared that nothing would have induced him to accept what he persuaded his father to let him offer to James Bindon, whom he had found to have an old mother in great need of the comfortable home, which, without interest, or any talent save for hard work, he could scarcely hope to secure to her.

"And you, Herbert," said Julius, "can I ask you to come back to me, now that we shall have a fair amount to do between us?"

Herbert smiled and shook his head, as he took out an advertisement for a curate in one of the blackest parishes of the Black Country. "I've written to answer that," he said.

Julius did not try to hinder him. What had been exaggerated had parsed away, and he was now a brave man going forth in his strength and youth to the service he had learnt to understand; able still keenly to enjoy, but only using pleasure as an incidental episode for the delight of others, and as subordinate to the true work of his life.

He asked for his fellow-worker, Mrs. Duncombe. There were tidings, but disappointing ones. She had written a long letter to Julius, full of her reasons for being received into the Roman Communion, where she rapturously declared she had for the first time found peace. Anne and Rosamond took the change most bitterly to heart, but Julius, though believing he could have saved her from the schism, by showing her the true beauty and efficiency of her own Church, could not wonder at this effect of foreign influences on one so recently and imperfectly taught, and whose ardent nature required strong forms of whatever she took up. And the letters she continued to write to Julius were rapturous in the cause of the Pope and as to all that she had once most contemned. She had taken her children with her, but her husband remained tolerant, indifferent, and so probably he would do while his health lasted.

Early in the summer Frank and Eleonora were married, and a pretty little house in the outskirts of London found for them, suiting with the grace of the one and the poetry of the other. It was a small, quiet household, but could pleasantly receive those literary friends of Frank's whom he delighted to present to his beautiful and appreciative wife, whose sweetness and brightness grew every day under the influence of affection and confidence. The other augury of poor Lady Tyrrell, that their holidays would be spent at Compton Hall, was fulfilled, but very pleasantly for both parties, for it was as much home to Lena as to Frank.

Miles's geniality made all at ease that came near him, and Anne, though never a conversational person, was a quietly kind hostess, much beloved by all who had experienced her gentleness, and she had Frank and Lena to give distinction in their different ways to her London parties, as at Compton, Rosamond never failed to give everything a charm where she assisted in planning or receiving.

Rosamond would never cease to love society. Even had she been a grandmother she would have fired at the notion of a party, enjoy, and render it enjoyable; and the mere announcement of a new face would be as stimulating to her as it was the reverse to Anne. But she had grown into such union with her husband, and had so forgotten the Rathforlane defence, as to learn that it was pleasanter to do as he liked than to try to make him like what she did, and a look of disapproval from him would open her eyes to the flaws in any scheme, however enchanting at first.

She was too necessary an element in all hospitalities of Cecil or of Anne not to get quite as much diversion as so thorough a wife and mother could find time for, since Julia did not remain by any means an only child, and besides her permanent charge of Terence, relays of De Lanceys were constantly casting up at the Rectory for mothering in some form or other.

Cecil depended on her more than on any one else for sympathy, not expressly in feeling, but in all her pursuits. In three years' time Sirenwood was in perfect order, the once desolate garden blazed with ribbons, triangles and pattipans of verbena, scarlet geranium and calceolaria, with intervals of echiverias, pronounced by Tom to be like cabbages trying to turn into copper kettles; her foliage plants got all the prizes at horticultural shows, her poultry were incomparable at their exhibitions, her cottages were models, her school machinery perfect, and if a pattern in farming apparatus were wanted, people went to Mrs. Raymond Poynsett's steward. She had people of note to stay with her every winter, went to London for the season, and was made much of, and all the time she looked as little, and pinched, and weary, and heart-hungered as ever, and never seemed to thaw or warm, clinging to no one but to Miles for counsel, and to Rosamond for the fellow-feeling it was not always easy to give—when it was apparently only about an orchid or a churn—and yet Rosamond tried, for she knew it was starvation for sympathy.

The Charnock world murmured a little when, after a succession of De Lancey visitors for four months, the Rectory was invaded by Rosamond's eldest brother, Lord Ballybrehon, always the most hair- brained of the family, and now invalided home in consequence of a concussion of the brain while pigsticking in India. He was but a year older than Rosamond, and her favourite of all, whose scrapes she had shared, befriended, defended, and scolded in turn, very handsome, very lazily daring, droll and mischievous, a sort of concentration of all the other De Lanceys. His sister loved him passionately, he fascinated the Rector, and little Julia was the adorer of Uncle Bally.

But Rosamond was rather aghast to find Bally making such love as only an Irishman could do to the prim little widow at Sirenwood, dismayed and a little bit ashamed of her unspoken conviction that Bally, after all his wild freaks and frolics, had come to have an eye to the needs of the Rathforlane property; and what were her feelings when, instead of finding the wild Irishman contemned, she perceived that he was believed in and met fully half way? The stiffness melted, the eyes softened and sparkled, the lips parted in soft agitated smiles, the cheeks learnt to blush, and Cecil was absolutely and thoroughly in love!

Yes, she had found her heart and was won—won in spite of the Dunstone dislike to the beggarly title—in spite of Miles's well- considered cautions—in spite of all her original self. And if Ballybrehon began from mere desire to try for the well-endowed widow, he had the warm loving nature that was sure to kindle and reciprocate the affection he evoked, enough to make him a kind husband.

And yet, could any one have wished Cecil Poynsett a more trying life than one of her disposition must needs have with impetuous, unpunctual, uncertain, scatter-brained, open-handed Ballybrehon, always in a scramble, always inviting guests upon guests without classification, and never remembering whom he had invited!

Rosamond herself declared she should be either in a rage or worn to fritters by a month of it. How Cecil liked it never appeared. Some thought that they squabbled and worried each other in private, but it is certain that, as Terry said, Bally had turned the block into living flesh and blood, and Lady Ballybrehon was wondrously livelier, brighter, and sweeter ever since she had been entirely conquered by the tyrant love, and had ceased to be the slave of her own way.

THE END