Carità

That was all the length he got; he discarded the other line and a half which I have already recorded, and went about all day saying over that ‘fair face!’ to himself. It made a suggestive break in the verse which was delightful to him, and gave him a point of pleasure the more—pleasure, and piquant suggestion of other sweetness to come.

Next day he went, as he felt it his duty to do, to the hospital to inquire for the child; and in the waiting-room he found to his wonder and delight the Perugino herself, waiting meekly for news, but accompanied by a somewhat grim personage who would have been the lay-sister of a Roman Catholic sisterhood, but whom Oswald did not know (nor do I) how to classify in the spick and span new conventual system of Anglicanism. She kept apart with humility, but she kept her eye from under the poke-bonnet fixed upon the young lady whom she attended, so that Oswald was able to exchange only a few words with her. The little girl had her leg broken; which was very serious; but she had passed a good night and was going on well; which was more cheerful and restored the smiles to the young faces of the inquirers, to whom it was further intimated that on a certain day her friends might be admitted to see the little patient. ‘Oh, thanks! I will come,’ cried Agnes; and then she explained, with a blush, that poor little Emmy was an orphan and had no friends out of the ‘House.’ ‘But everybody is fond of her there,’ she added. Perhaps it was the coming in of some new feeling into his mind that made Oswald as effusive and sympathetic as his mother herself could have been. ‘Then God bless the House,’ he said, ‘for taking such care of the friendless.’ Agnes looked at him gratefully with humid eyes.

‘Then you are not one of the people who disapprove of it?’ she said. ‘Indeed, they do things there we could not do staying at home.’

‘Ah,’ said Oswald, with a smile, ‘I can see you are wanted to stay at home—and I don’t wonder.’

The girl shrank back a little. ‘I am not a Sister,’ she said, with youthful dignity. ‘I am not good enough. I only teach. We must go back now.’

He stood aside, with his hat in his hand, to let them pass, and even the lay Sister, not used to courtesies, was moved by the politeness in which her humble person had a share. ‘I never saw a more civil-spoken gentleman,’ she said as they went towards the ‘House.’ Agnes in her private heart felt that he was more than a civil-spoken gentleman. How tenderly he had carried the child, and how good it was to take the trouble of going to inquire after her; and what kind enthusiasm was in his face when he bade God bless the ‘House’ for taking care of the friendless. Ah, that was how it ought to be thought of! The bread and butter of the little orphans was somehow more noble than that bread and butter which had disgusted her at home when all her little brothers and sisters were squabbling for it, and mamma scolding the elder girls for letting them make such a noise, and the whole house filled with insubordination and confusion. Her work now was more satisfactory, and Louisa, who did not mind, and who scolded back again when there was scolding going on, was quite enough for all that was wanted; but still Agnes felt very glad that ‘the gentleman’ had set her present life before her thus anew as help to the friendless. In reality, taking the facts of the case, it was always the bread and butter, though that was noble when given to orphans and the friendless, which was but commonplace when dispensed to one’s brothers and sisters. Yet life, take it how you will, in a vulgarish common Rectory, full of children, or in a ‘House’ devoted to the help of one’s fellow-creatures, is an unheroic sort of affair at the best. There is no making up to that ideal that flies from you further and further as life goes on. Does not everything turn into commonplace as one’s hands touch it, as one executes it, the great imagination gliding ever further and further off, mocking you from the skies? So Agnes felt as she went back to the House to go on with the lessons of the little orphans, in their somewhat dingy schoolroom, all the afternoon.

As for Oswald he pursued his walk, more and more delighted with this new adventure.

Here he broke down; there was nothing fitly rhyming to ‘dream’ which would suit his subject, unless it was something about a ‘wondrous theme,’ which would be commonplace. Here accordingly he stuck, with other monosyllables rushing about hopelessly in his head, in the pleased excitement of a rhymester with a new source of inspiration. Better than staying at home! What would be better than staying at home would be to take this Perugino away to see the other Peruginos in the world, to carry her off to the loveliest places that could be thought of, to wander with her alone by riversides and in green woods and by summer seas. Italy! that would be better than staying at home, better than the ‘House’ with its orphans. Such an idea as this had never crossed Oswald’s mind before. He had thought that he had been in love—indeed, he was in love (was not he?) with Cara even now, and could not be content without her sympathy. But never before had he felt it necessary to think of the other, of the individual he was in love with, first before himself. Now, however, that it had come to him to do this, he did it in his characteristic way. How sweet it would be to carry her off from all these vulgar scenes, to show her everything that was beautiful, to show himself to her as the very source of felicity, the centre of everything! A teacher in a charity school, of course she was poor. He would like to make her rich, to clothe her beautifully, to give her the half of all his own delights. How sweet it would be! and how grateful she would be, and how those liquid brown eyes would look, full of eloquent thanks! He laughed at himself as he went on. Why, this was something new, another delight added to the pleasures of his life, a delight of generosity which he had never known before. To be sure it was all in imagination, but is not imagination the better part of life?

On the visitors’ day Oswald went back again to the hospital, and found out there exactly the length of time that the visitors were allowed to stay. She would remain to the last, he felt sure, to comfort the little patient. And his plan was successful. At the last moment, when the doors were almost closing, she came running through the great hall, apologising to the porter for being so late, the ladyhood of her light figure and soft step showing very distinctly after the crowd of good, honest, anxious women, mothers or wives of the patients, who had come out before her. Agnes was by herself, for the ‘House’ was not far off, and her dress was a sufficient protection to her. It was not a protection, however, against Oswald, who came eagerly up with a pretence of being just too late to inquire, which delighted himself as the cleverest expedient. ‘How is she?’ he asked quite anxiously, and Agnes gave her report with the greatest gravity. The little girl was making quite satisfactory progress. She was very well cared for, and quite comfortable, though she had cried when her visitor left her. ‘That was not so wonderful,’ Agnes said seriously, ‘for I was like a sight of home to her, you know.’

‘I don’t think it was at all wonderful,’ said Oswald, with equal gravity. ‘Had it been me I should have cried too.’

She looked at him suspiciously, with rising colour; but Oswald looked innocence itself. He went on quietly walking by her side as if it were the most natural thing in the world. ‘Are your pupils all orphans,’ he asked, ‘or are others received?’ with the air of a philanthropist who had troops of poor children to dispose of. This was what Agnes thought, and the ‘House’ was in want of funds, as where is the ‘House’ that is not? She answered with some eagerness:

‘I think if they have lost one parent—I know we have widows’ children; and they are very glad if kind people will send children to be paid for,’ she said. ‘But perhaps that was not what you meant?’

‘I have not got any children to send; but I should like to subscribe to such an excellent institution. Charities are often so unsatisfactory,’ he said in his most solemn tone, with a gravity which was sublime.

‘Yes. I suppose so,’ she said doubtfully. ‘I do not know very much about charities, but I am sure the Sisters would be very glad; they have more to do than they have money for, I know. They are always wanting to do more.’

‘I suppose I might send my offering,’ said Oswald clumsily, ‘to Sister Mary Jane?’ Then he paused, perceiving a further advantage. ‘If you will kindly show me where the convent is, I will see her at once.’

‘It is close by,’ said Agnes—then looked at him again, with a shade of doubt on her face. He was not like the sort of person to visit Sister Mary Jane; still if he brought subscriptions, had she any right to stop him? She went along by his side for another moment, demure and quiet. As for Oswald, between his terror of awakening her suspicions and his desire to laugh at his own dissimulation, his usual readiness quite failed him. He, too, walked by her as grave as a judge. He dared not look at her lest he should laugh, and he dared not laugh lest he should destroy his chances once and for all.

‘I have seen convents abroad,’ he said at last, ‘but none in England. Forgive my curiosity; are the same rules observed? Is there a Lady Superior, Abbess, or Prioress, or——, don’t be angry with me if I show my ignorance.’

‘I never was abroad,’ said Agnes. ‘There is a Sister Superior, that is all.’

‘Then I suppose the Abbesses exist only in books,’ he said, with an insinuating smile.

‘I have not read many books.’ Then she thought she was perhaps uncivil to a man who was coming with a subscription. ‘Papa did not approve of light books, and I have not much time for reading now.’

‘You have not been there long? Is the routine severe? Don’t think I am asking from mere curiosity,’ said Oswald; ‘indeed I have a motive in wishing to know.’

‘Oh, no, not severe; there is a great deal to do. We have to attend to all the children. If you are fond of children it is not at all hard; but what one wishes for is to be quiet sometimes,’ said Agnes, ‘That is not so easy when the place is so full.’

‘Ah! I know a girl who has too much quiet, who would like to be in a full house and hear other people’s voices.’

‘Lots are very different in this world,’ said Agnes, with gentle wisdom; ‘one cannot tell which to choose; the only safe thing is to do one’s best; to aim at something good.’

‘Or to make the best of what we have,’ said Oswald.

A flush of sudden colour came to her face. ‘It is surely best to aim at something above us,’ she said, with some confusion; ‘just to be content cannot be the highest good, if what we have by nature is nothing but what others can do just as well; is not that a reason for taking the matter into one’s own hands and trying something better?’

Special pleading! He could see in her eyes, in her every expression, that this was her own case which she was arguing with such warmth, and that indeed there was some doubt in her mind as to this highest idea which she had followed. And in the fervour of the self-argument she had forgotten that she did not know him, and that he had no right to be walking thus familiarly by her side.

‘The worst is,’ he said, ‘that when we follow an ideal, the result is sometimes disappointment. Have you not found it so?’

She blushed very deeply, and cast a wondering glance up at him, astonished at his penetration. ‘I did not say so,’ she cried. ‘I am not disappointed—only one did not think of all the details. Real things are never so beautiful as things are in your imagination, that is all.’

‘Is it always so?’ he said, stealing always a little further on. ‘For then this world would be a sadly unsatisfactory place, and life would not be worth living.’

‘Ah, everybody says so,’ cried Agnes; ‘that is what I always rebel against. Because one thing disappoints you, why should everything? They say the world is so bad, all full of delusion; but God made it—it cannot be so bad if we took pains enough to find out what is best.’

Oswald’s heart was touched; by the eagerness in her face and the beauty of its dimples—but a little by the contrast between this young creature’s abstract purpose and his own want of any purpose at all. ‘I am not good enough to keep up such an argument,’ he said ingenuously enough; ‘I am afraid I am content to get along just as it happens from day to day. You make me blush for myself.’

When he said this an overpowering blush covered the face which was turned towards him under the poke-bonnet. ‘Oh, what have I been saying?’ she cried, crimson with shame and compunction. How she had been talking to a stranger, a man, a person whose very name she did not know! What would the Sisters say, what would mamma say if she knew? Would not this heinous offence against all the proprieties prove everything they had ever said against her independent outset in the world? And he, what could he think? Agnes wished the pavement might open and swallow her up—as it had done once or twice before at very great crises of history. She could not run away from him, that would be a worse folly still, especially as the ‘House’ was already in sight. But she shrank away from him as far as the narrow pavement would permit, and did not dare to look at him again.

‘You have said nothing but what it was good to say,’ he said hurriedly. ‘Do not be angry with yourself for having spoken to me. I am not unworthy of it. It will do me good, and it cannot have harmed you. I do not even know your name’—here he made a slight pause, hoping she might tell him—‘mine is Oswald Meredith. I am not much good, but if anything could make me better it would be hearing what you have said. Life is perhaps too pleasant to me—and I don’t take thought enough of what is best; but I will think of you and try,’ said Oswald, with a little innocent, honest, natural hypocrisy. He meant it for the moment though he did not mean it. A little glow of virtuous feeling rose in his breast. Yes, to be sure, he, too, would think of what was best in life and do it—why not? it would be good and right in itself, and agreeable to her. To be sure he would do it. The resolution was very easy and gave him quite a warm glow of virtue and goodness. He had no secret wickedness to give up, or struggles with favourite vices to look forward to. He would be good, certainly, and made up his mind to it with all the bland confidence and light-hearted certainty of a child.

And then he went across the street to the ‘House’ and put down his name for such a subscription as made the heart leap within the sober bosom of Sister Mary Jane.

CHAPTER XXI.

A CONFIDENCE.

‘So it was! If I had not liked you because you were Oswald, should I ever have ventured to say that to you?’ asked Cara, with a little indignation. ‘But you may be very fond of people, and yet see that something would make them still nicer. How happy your mother will be—and Edward——’

‘Edward may go to Jericho!’ said Oswald, with some indignation. ‘What right has he to set himself up as a judge of his elder brother? I can see with the back of my head that he is watching us now, and furious because I am talking to you. You are too gentle, Cara, and have too much consideration for him. A boy like that should be kept in his place—not but that he’s a very good fellow when you don’t bring him forward too much. I wrote a little thing last night that I want to read to you. Shall you be alone at twelve to-morrow if I come in? Do something with Aunt Cherry; send her out shopping—all ladies from the country have shopping to do; or to her dentist, if that is what she has come to town for, poor dear old soul. But anyhow be alone, Cara, to-morrow. I want your opinion of my last poem. The subject is a face that I met by accident in the street—a complete Perugino, as if it had stepped out of a picture; though I don’t know which it resembles most—one of the angels in that great picture in the Louvre, or a Madonna somewhere else—but such colour and such sentiment! I want to read them to you, and to hear what you think.’

‘Yes, Oswald; but tell me about this other thing, this change in your mind.’

‘It is all the same thing; my heart is full of it. You think me mysterious; but I can’t talk freely to-night with all these people so close round us. Listen, Cara,’ he said, approaching his face close to hers, and speaking in a half-whisper of profoundest confidentialness—‘Listen, I want your sympathy. I think I have arrived at a crisis in my life.’

This little group was watched by more than one pair of eyes, and with very varied feelings. The party consisted of Mr. Beresford, Miss Cherry, and that old friend of the Meredith family, who attended all Mrs. Meredith’s receptions, Mr. Sommerville. And of all the spectators Mr. Beresford was perhaps the only one who did not cast a glance and a thought towards the two young people so distinctly isolating themselves from the rest in their corner. Mr. Sommerville looked at them with a sort of chuckle, reflecting that, as the only child of her father, Cara was no doubt well worth the trouble; and that, at this moment at least, the idle Oswald was not losing his time. Mrs. Meredith glanced at them with a soft pride and sympathetic pleasure in what she considered her son’s happiness; a pleasure unmarred by the thought that her other son was rendered anything but happy by this spectacle. But the two whose minds were absorbed by the scene, and who scarcely could even make a pretence of attending to anything else, were Miss Cherry and Edward Meredith. Poor Edward sat behind backs with a book in his hand, but he never turned over the leaf. All that he was capable of seeing for the moment was his brother’s shoulders, which were turned to him, and which almost shut out the view of Cara, who was sitting on a little sofa fitted into a corner, separated entirely from the rest of the party by Oswald, who sat in front of her, with his back turned to the others, leaning forward to talk to her. More than the habitual suppressed sense that his brother was preferred to him in everything was the feeling in Edward’s mind now. This time he was disappointed as well as wounded. Edward had been more light-hearted, more self-confident, than he had ever been known to be in his life before, since the conversation with Cara which has been recorded in this history. He had thought then that at last he had found someone who was capable of judging between Oswald and himself, and of understanding that all the good was not on one side. When Cara had spoken of the difference between those who talked of themselves, and those whose minds were open to the troubles of others, Edward’s heart had danced with sudden pleasure. She had made the unfailing comparison between them which Edward felt everybody to make, and she had not thrown herself, as most of the world did (he thought), entirely on Oswald’s side. Alas, poor Edward! what was he to think now? He sat and watched with indescribable feelings while this little scene arranged itself, feeling it intolerable, yet incapable of doing anything to prevent it. Had her feelings changed, then, or had she only spoken so to please him, not meaning it; adopting the doubtful practice—very doubtful, though St. Paul seems to recommend it—of being all things to all men? Edward suffered sometimes from seeing his mother do this; must he find the same in her too? The thought was bitter to him. With his book held, he did not know how, in his hands, he watched the pair. Oswald bent forward close to her, talking low, so that she only could hear, shutting out the rest of the people in the room, the rest of the world, how many soever and how important they might have been, appropriating her altogether to himself; and Cara yielded to it, and smiled, and showed no displeasure. Could this mean anything but one thing? Perhaps some passing lovers’ quarrel had disturbed the equilibrium of affairs between them, when she spoke to Edward as she had done, and raised his hopes. Perhaps—— But why speculate on anything so little encouraging? It threw him down, as it were, at a plunge from those airy and lovely heights of youthful possibility, where Oswald had always preceded him, gleaning everything that was most desirable. It seemed to Edward that he had never cared for anything in his life but Cara—her ‘sweet friendship,’ as the young man called it, the appreciation and understanding of him which he had read in her eyes. Surely the elder brother who had all the success and all the social happiness for his portion might have spared him this. It was the rich man and the poor man over again. Oswald was welcome to anything but Cara; and yet he had come out of his way to pluck this one flower which Edward had hoped might be for him. His heart sank as he watched them, down, down, to unimaginable depths. Oswald would not care for her as he would have done. She would but be a pleasure the more to the elder brother, whereas to Edward she would have been everything. No doubt he was talking to her now of himself, his own prowess, and what he had done or was going to do. Herself and how she was feeling would drop as things unworthy consideration; but Edward would have made them the chief, the most interesting topics—he would have forgotten himself to set her high above all others. Was this the way of the world, of which so much was written in books and sung in poetry? The book trembled in Edward’s hand, and his heart suddenly swelled and filled with a sick and bitter discontent.

As for Miss Cherry, she was at the opposite point of the compass. She forgot her terrors, forgot her troubles, in pleasure at that most consoling of sights. Her gentle soul floated in a very sea of soft reflected happiness. Never to her had come that delight of youth. Dreams had been her portion all her life; perhaps disappointment, perhaps only the visionary suspense of waiting for something which never came; but to see before her eyes her dearest child reaping the harvest of her own silent wishes! Was not that almost a better portion than being happy in her own person? Cherry forgot to talk, and made only a rambling reply when addressed, so much was her heart absorbed in the ‘young people.’ She thought that now surely Cara would tell her, and that she would take the child into her arms and cry over her, and rejoice in her. Better than happiness of her own! Her own happiness (Miss Cherry reflected), had she got it, would have been half worn out by this time—waning, perhaps faded by time. Whereas, the deferred blessedness which Cara would enjoy instead of her would be fresh as any flower, and fill all hearts with joy. She sat at the corner of the fire opposite, saying ‘God bless them,’ over and over, and working out in her mind all kinds of calculations about money, and how much they would begin on, and where they should live. For Miss Cherry was resolved that Cara should not be balked of her happiness. On that point she would be firm as a rock. If the young man had not very much, what did that matter so long as they loved each other, and Cara had plenty? And Cara should have plenty, however anyone might oppose or obstruct. God bless them! All the happiness that should have been hers, and their own in addition—that was what she wished for this happy, happy, happy pair; and so sat there, taking no share in the conversation, making answers so far from the mark that lively old Mr. Sommerville set her down as a very stupid person, and even Mrs. Meredith, who was kind in her judgment of everybody, could not help thinking that Cherry had grown duller with years.

All this happened because Oswald Meredith, having arrived, as he said, at a crisis in his life, and being one of the people to whom a confidante is needful, had chosen to elect Cara, with whom up to the time of meeting his Perugino Agnes he had been half in love, to that office—so easily are people deceived—not a soul in the room could have believed it possible that the love which he was whispering in Cara’s ear was love for somebody else; nor indeed, so limited were the communications which were possible with so many people close about them, had Cara herself any clear idea on the subject. That he had something to tell her was certain, and she had almost pledged herself to get Aunt Cherry out of the way, and see him alone next day, to receive his confidence. And no fluttering of Cara’s heart, no reluctance to give this promise, or excitement about the explanation, complicated the matter as far as she was concerned. The two who gave rise to all these speculations—to the misery in Edward’s heart, and the joy in Miss Cherry’s—were the two calmest people in the room, and the least occupied by this interview which had made them the observed of all observers. After a while, Mrs. Meredith called to Cara (with a little compunction at disturbing Oswald in his happiness; but for the moment that very evident exhibition of it had lasted long enough, the kind mother thought) and made her come out of her corner and sing. And Oswald went with her to the piano, where the lights were dim as usual, and where her sweet floating young voice rose up, not too loud nor too much in the centre of everything, the very luxury of drawing-room performances. The elder people might talk if they were so disposed without disturbing the singer, or might stop and listen when a high pure tone floated upward like a bird into the skies, and enjoy the momentary ecstasy of it without formal attention to every bar. She sang, ‘If he upbraid’ and ‘Bid me discourse,’ those twin melodies; and those flowing fragments of the divine Ariel, which seem to breathe fragrance as well as sweetness to the ear. Miss Cherry knew the songs by heart; had she not played the accompaniments till her fingers ached, and ‘practised’ them over and over, till the young voice got familiar with them to that height of delicious perfection? But she sat and listened now as if she had never heard them before—asking herself was there not a sweeter, more exquisite tone, born of love and happiness, in Cara’s voice. As for Edward, poor fellow, he never budged from his seat, and never put down his book—of which, however, he had not read a line. She was Oswald’s now and not his. He did not know why it was that this disappointment, this desertion gave him so deep a pang; for he had not been thinking about love, nor had he any experience in it. One more had gone over to Oswald’s side; but somehow the whole world on Edward’s did not feel as if it could balance that one. Why should he listen to those notes that seemed to tear his heart? He would have done all that for Cara that her song declared her ready to do—was it for Oswald?—answered her upbraiding with unresentful smiles, and thought her looks, however angry, to be like morning roses washed in dew. All that he could have done—but it was Oswald these looks were for, and not for him. Poor boy! he sat with his book before his face, paying no attention, as it seemed, but hearing and seeing everything. And at the end of every song came a little murmur of their voices as they consulted what the next was to be—the prettiest group! he stooping over her, finding her music for her—and the gleam of the candles on the piano making a spot of light about her pretty head and white dress. But Edward would not look, though he seemed to have a picture of them painted upon the blackest of backgrounds in his heart.

Miss Cherry was so led astray from the object of her special mission that she scarcely observed that her brother lingered behind them when they left, and in the flurry of finding Oswald at her side as they went down the steps of one house and up the steps of the other, no very lengthened pilgrimage—overlooked altogether the fact that Mr. Beresford had stayed behind. Her heart was beating far more tumultuously than Cara’s, which, indeed, was calm enough, as they went upstairs. The lights were out in the drawing-room, and the two went up to Miss Cherry’s room, where the fire was burning cheerfully. Cara stood before the fire with her little white cloak dropping from her shoulders, and the ruddy glow warming her whiteness, the very image and type of exquisite half-childish maidenhood to the kind eyes which saw her through such soft tears.

‘Oh, my darling!’ said Miss Cherry, ‘surely you will tell me now? I don’t want to thrust myself into your confidence, Cara. I have not said a word, though I have been thinking of nothing else; but oh, my sweet! after to-night you will surely tell me now.’

Miss Cherry had moisture in her eyes. She was breathless and panting with eagerness and with the hurry of running upstairs. The colour went and came as if she had been the heroine of the romance—and indeed she looked a great deal more like the heroine of a romance than Cara did, who turned upon her, calm but wondering, the serenity of her blue eyes.

‘Tell you what, Aunt Cherry? Of course I will tell you everything that happens; but what is there to tell?’

‘You don’t expect me to be blind,’ said Miss Cherry, almost crying in her disappointment; ‘what I see with my own eyes I can’t be deceived in. And do you think I am so stupid or so old, or, oh, Cara! so indifferent, as not to see everything that concerns my darling’s happiness? You cannot do me such injustice as that.’

‘But what is it that concerns my happiness?’ said the girl, with a tranquil smile. ‘Did anything happen that I don’t know of? I don’t know anything about it, for my part.’

Miss Cherry paused and looked at her with something like offended dignity. ‘Cara, this is not like you,’ she said. ‘Did not I see him following you about everywhere—shutting you up in the corner to talk to you? Ah, my dear, nothing can deceive anxious eyes like mine! And there is no harm in it that you should hesitate to tell me. I should be only too happy to know, and so would Aunt Charity, that you had escaped all the uncertainties of life by an early suitable marriage—a marriage of pure love.’

‘Marriage!’ Cara’s face grew crimson; and the word came forth faltering in a tremor, half of shame, half of laughter. ‘Aunt Cherry, what can you be thinking of? There is nothing, nothing of the kind—oh, would you believe that I could do such a thing? There! You were only laughing at me.’

‘Cara, I never, never laugh on such subjects. They are far, far too important and serious. A girl’s whole future might be ruined by getting frightened or laughing at the wrong time. Oh, my Cara, don’t take it too lightly! If Oswald Meredith has not asked you, it is only for want of an opportunity: perhaps he thought it too public to-night, and so it was. I should not have liked him to ask you to-night,’ said Miss Cherry, reassuring herself. ‘It was not private enough. But he will do it the first opportunity; of that I am as sure as that I’m living. Didn’t he ask you—he must have asked you—to see him to-morrow?’

‘Aunt Cherry, you are mistaken. I know you are mistaken,’ said Cara, growing as pale as she had been red. The bow drawn at a venture had flown straight to the very red. ‘Indeed, indeed,’ she faltered, ‘I assure you he doesn’t mean anything of the sort.’

‘He asked you to see him to-morrow?’ said Miss Cherry, delighted by her success.

‘He asked me, certainly, if I would be at home to-morrow; but he often does—he often comes. Aunt Cherry, do believe me. It is not that, not that at all, whatever it is.’

‘My dearest,’ said Miss Cherry, with great dignity, ‘I know how people look when that is what is in their minds. You think I have had no experience, and so many people suppose. One does not brag of such things. But, Cara, I hope you will not allow yourself to be taken by surprise as—well, as I was. I sometimes think if I had only had someone to say to me “dear”’—Miss Cherry went on, with fresh tears coming into her mild eyes—‘“you should think a great deal, and be very sure of your own feelings before you spoil a young man’s life for him.” A girl does that sometimes out of simple want of thought, and because she is startled. I could tell you of such a thing happening—and how I—she was sorry after, but never had it in her power to mend it. Oh, Cara, my darling, it is a very serious thing to spoil another’s life!’

‘Aunt Cherry! but you are wrong. I am quite sure you are wrong,’ said Cara, trembling. She could not help feeling a certain awe at the idea of this sudden power which seemed to be thrust into her hands; and yet it was too incredible to affect her profoundly. ‘Oswald is not like that,’ she said, ‘even if he meant it. He is not so serious, he does not feel so strongly.’ But then Cara herself paused, uncertain, thinking of the revolution in his thoughts of which he had told her, the crisis in his life.

‘Ah, Cara, even while you are speaking to me your view changes—you see the truth of what I say. Oh, think of it, my dear, and pray to God to direct you. It is not a thing to laugh about, as so many people do. Good-night, my darling, good-night! I must not talk any more, or I shall say more than I want to say, and it ought to be all left to your own feelings. Run away, run away, my own child, and think it over and judge for yourself.’

Cara withdrew with a little nervous shiver, drawing her cloak round her. The seriousness of this appeal overawed the girl. That she should plunge out of her almost childhood into this serious crisis, upon which so much depended, seemed incredible. She had scarcely turned away from the door when Miss Cherry put out her head again.

‘Cara, just one word. If there should be difficulties, I will stand by you. You shall not be crossed in anything that is for your happiness. We have plenty for you both. Good-night, my darling, good-night.’

This did not ease Cara’s mind as Miss Cherry intended, but only bewildered her. She stood for a moment wondering, till the door was closed again and her aunt disappeared. What did she mean? Difficulties to be surmounted which could make it comforting to know that there was plenty for both had not occurred to Cara’s mind, which indeed went not a step beyond the present dilemma. Could it be true? Awe, wonder, fright, contended in her mind with a suppressed sense of amusement which Cara thought wicked. Could Oswald feel so gravely, so deeply as Aunt Cherry thought? It did not seem possible; and could it be homely Cara who was the object of so serious a sentiment? Her little head seemed to go round and round as she tried to think. She dropped upon the hearthrug before the fire, kneeling, putting out her small hands to the warmth. Emotion is always chilly, and the effort of thinking upon such a wonderful subject made Cara shiver. She began to put things together, to remember the unusual warmth with which Mrs. Meredith embraced her, the strange look Edward gave her. When she remembered Edward’s look Cara grew colder than ever, and felt disposed to cry, she could not tell why. That, then, was what they all believed, not Aunt Cherry alone, who was romantic, but everybody—and poor Edward! Cara felt a sudden pang go through her heart. Why did Edward look at her so seriously, so pitifully? Was it only sympathy for what was going to happen—was it? But Oswald? Then she felt disposed to laugh. Could Oswald have anything so serious, anything so solemn in his thoughts? To be sure he had spoken mysteriously of a revelation, a revolution. Cara did not know what to think. She was so young that the idea of anyone being ‘in love’ with her gave a strange thrill of half-alarmed, half-wondering excitement to her being—was it possible that someone thought of a little girl like herself, as of Una, or Rosalind? A little laugh, frightened and faltering, broke from her unawares—and then she blushed crimson and was horrified with herself. Laugh! on such a subject! Her heart began to beat; her head turned round. What could she say to him, what must she do, if it was this that was in Oswald’s thoughts?

CHAPTER XXII.

MYSTIFIED.

‘Ah, Oswald, I wish you were a little more serious, especially at such a moment,’ said his mother; ‘there are so many things to think of. I wish you would try to realise that it is a very, very important moment in your life.’

‘It is a very pleasant one, at least,’ he said, smiling at her—with a smile which from the time of his baby naughtiness had always subdued his mother—and he lighted her candle, and stooped with filial grace to kiss her cheek. ‘Good-night, mother, and don’t trouble about me. I am very happy,’ he said, with a half-laugh at his own cleverness in carrying on this delusion. Oswald thought a great deal of his own cleverness. It was a pleasant subject to him. He stood for some time after his mother was gone, looking down into the waning fire, and smiling to himself. He enjoyed the idea reflected from their minds that he was an accepted lover, a happy man betrothed and enjoying the first sweetness of love. He had not said so; he had done nothing, so far as he was aware, to originate such a notion; but it rather amused and flattered him now that they had of themselves quite gratuitously started it. As for Cara herself being displeased or annoyed by it, that did not occur to him. She was only just a girl, not a person of dignity, and there could be no injury to her in such a report. Besides, it was not his doing; he was noway to blame. Poor dear little Cara! if it did come to that, a man was not much to be pitied who had Cara to fall back upon at the last.

Thus he stood musing, with that conscious smile on his face, now and then casting a glance at himself in the mirror over the mantelpiece. He was not thinking of his brother, who sat behind with the same book in his hands that he had been pretending to read all the evening. Edward rose when his mother was gone, and came up to the fire. He was no master of words befitting the occasion; he wanted to say something, and he did not know what to say. His elder brother, the most popular of the two—he who was always a little in advance of Edward in everything, admired and beloved and thought of as Edward had never been—how was the younger, less brilliant, less considered brother to say anything to him that bore the character of advice? And yet Edward’s heart ached to do so; to tell the truth, his heart ached for more than this. It had seemed to him that Cara confided in himself, believed in his affectionate sympathy more than she did in Oswald’s; and to see Oswald in the triumphant position of avowed lover, as they all thought him to be, was gall and bitterness to the poor young fellow, in whose heart for all these years a warm recollection of Cara had been smouldering. He was the poor man whose ewelamb his rich brother had taken, and the pang of surprised distress in his soul was all the bitterer for that consciousness which never quite left his mind, that Oswald was always the one preferred. But Edward, though he felt this, was not of an envious nature, and was rather sad for himself than resentful of his brother’s happiness. He went up to him, dragged by his tender heart much against the resistance of his will, feeling that he too must say something. He laid his hand, which quivered a little with suppressed agitation, on Oswald’s shoulder.

‘I don’t know what to say to you, old fellow,’ he said, with an attempt at an easy tone. ‘I needn’t wish you happiness, for you’ve got it——’

In spite of himself Oswald laughed. He had a schoolboy’s delight in mystification, and somehow a sense of Edward’s disappointment came in, and gave him a still greater perception of the joke. Not that he wished to hurt Edward, but to most men who know nothing of love there is so much of the ridiculous involved, even in a disappointment, that the one who is heart-whole may be deliberately cruel without any evil intention. ‘Oh, yes, I am happy enough,’ he said, looking round at his brother, who, for his part, could not meet his eyes.

‘I hope you won’t mind what I am going to say to you,’ said Edward. ‘I am not so light-hearted a fellow as you are, and that makes me, perhaps, notice others. Oswald, look here—she is not so light-hearted as you are, either. She wants taking care of. She is very sensitive, and feels many things that perhaps you would not feel. Don’t be vexed. I thought I would just say this once for all—and there is no good thing I don’t wish you,’ cried Edward, concluding abruptly, to cover the little break in his voice.

‘You needn’t look so glum about it, Ned,’ said his brother. ‘I don’t mean to be turned off to-morrow. We shall have time to mingle our tears on various occasions before then. Mamma and you have a way of jumping at conclusions. As for her——’

‘I don’t like slang on such a subject,’ said Edward, hotly. ‘Never mind; there are some things we should never agree upon if we talked till doomsday. Good-night.’

‘Good-night, old man, and I wish you a better temper—unless you’ll come and have another cigar first,’ said Oswald, with cheerful assurance. ‘My mind is too full for sleep.’

‘Your mind is full of——’

‘Her, of course,’ said Oswald, with a laugh; and he went downstairs whistling the air of Fortunio’s song—