Carità

He was delighted with the mistake which mystified everybody, and awakened envies, and regrets, and congratulations, which were all in their different ways tributes to his importance. And no doubt the mistake might be turned into reality at any moment should he decide that this would be desirable. He had only to ask Cara, he felt, and she would be as pleased as the others; and, indeed, under the influence of a suggestion which made him feel his own importance so delightfully, Oswald was not at all sure that this was not the best thing, and the evident conclusion of the whole. But in the meantime he let his mind float away upon other fancies. Her! how little they knew who She was whom they thus ignorantly discussed. When he had got into the sanctuary of smoke, at which Mrs. Meredith shook her head, but which she had carefully prepared for her boys all the same, Oswald lit the other cigar which he had invited his brother to accompany, and sat down with that smile still upon his face, to enjoy it and his fancies. He laid his hand indolently upon a book, but his own musings were at the moment more amusing, more pleasantly exciting than any novel. The situation pleased and stimulated his fancy in every way. The demure little school procession, the meek young conventual beauty, so subdued and soft, yet with sparkles responsive to be struck out of her, half-frightened, yet at the same time elevated above all the temptations that might have assailed other girls—it was scarcely possible to realise anything more captivating to the imagination. He sat and dreamed over it all till the small hours after midnight sounded one by one, and his fire went out, and he began to feel chilly; upon which argument Oswald, still smiling to himself, went to bed, well pleased with his fancies as with everything else belonging to him; and all the better pleased that he felt conscious of having roused a considerable deal of excitement and emotion, and of having, without any decided intention on his own part, delightfully taken in everybody, which delighted the schoolboy part of his nature. To be so clever as he was conscious of being, and a poet, and a great many other fine things, it was astonishing how much of the schoolboy was still in him. But yet he had no compunction as he went up the long staircase: he had not finished, nor indeed made the least advance with his poem.

This beginning was what he liked best.

Edward was moved in a very different way. He would have been magnanimous and given up Cara—that is, having no real right to Cara, he might have given up the youthful imagination of her which had always been his favourite fancy, to his brother, with some wringing of the heart, but with that compensation which youth has in the sublime sense of self-sacrifice. But there is no bitterness greater in this world, either for young or old, than that of giving up painfully to another something which that other holds with levity and treats with indifference. To hear Cara, the sacred young princess of his own fancy, spoken of lightly, and the supreme moment of possible union with her characterised as ‘turning off,’ was a downfall which made Edward half-frantic with pain and shame, and indignation and impatience. She would be to Oswald only a commonplace little wife, to be petted when he was in the humour, standing very much lower than himself in his own good graces; whereas, to Edward she would have been——! but it was Oswald, not Edward, whom she had chosen. How strange they are! all those wonderful confusions of humanity which depress the wisest, the blind jumps at fate, the foolish choices, the passing over of the best to take the worst, which form the ordinary course of existence everywhere, the poor young fellow thought, in this first encounter with adverse events; and this was mingled with that strange wonder of the tender heart to find itself uncomprehended and rejected, while gifts much less precious than those it offers are accepted, which is one of the most poignant pangs of nature:—and these feelings surging dimly through Edward’s mind, filled him with a despondency and pain beyond words. Indeed, he could not have told all the bitterness of the vague heavy blackness which swallowed up the fair world and everything lovely before him. It was not only that Cara had (he thought) chosen Oswald instead of himself, but also that the lesser love was preferred to the greater, and that the thing one man would have worshipped was thrown to the careless keeping of another, as if it were a thing of no price. The personal question and the abstract one twisted and twined into one, as is general in the first trials of youth. He himself unconsciously became to himself the symbol of true love misjudged, of gold thrown away for pinchbeck—and Cara the symbol of that terrible perennial mistake which is always going on from chapter to chapter of the world’s history. Even, for he was generous in the very pangs of that visionary envy, it added another pang of suffering to Edward’s mind, that he could not but consider his brother as the pinchbeck, so far as Cara at least was considered. While Oswald sat smiling to himself through the fumes of his cigar, Edward threw his window open and gazed out into the chill darkness of the winter night, feeling the cold wind, which made him shiver, to be more in consonance with his feelings than the warmth of the comfortable room inside.

Thus the whole little world was turned upside down by Oswald’s light-hearted preference of his own gratification to anything other people might think. He had half-forgotten the appointment he had so anxiously made with Cara when the morning came, having got into full swing with his verses—which was still a more captivating way of expressing his sentiments than confession of them to Cara—

He could not content himself with the last line—‘Accept my lay,’ or ‘my humble lay,’ was the easiest termination, but it was prosaic and affected. The consideration of this occupied him to the entire exclusion of Cara, and he only recollected with what anxiety he had begged her to get rid of her aunt and see him alone at a quarter past twelve, having appointed to meet her at noon. He thrust the bit of paper on which he had been scribbling into his pocket, when he remembered, and went off languidly to pay his visit; he had meant to have completed the poem, and read it over to her, but it was clear that this must be postponed to another day.

Meanwhile good Miss Cherry, full of anxieties, had got up much earlier than was necessary, and had spent a long day before twelve o’clock. By way of giving to her withdrawal at that fated hour an air of perfect naturalness and spontaneity, she invented a great many little household occupations, going here and there over the different rooms with Nurse, looking over Cara’s things to see what was wanted, and making a great many notes of household necessities. The one most serious occupation which she had in her mind she postponed until the moment when the lover, or supposed lover, should appear. This was her real object in coming to London, the interview which she had determined to have with her brother. With a heart beating more loudly than it had beaten for years, she waited till Oswald Meredith’s appearance gave the signal for this assault, which it was her duty to make, but which she attempted with so much trembling. By the time Oswald did appear her breath had almost forsaken her with agitation and excitement, and she had become almost too much absorbed in her own enterprise to wonder that at such a moment the young man should be late. She was already in the library when Oswald went upstairs. Two interviews so solemn going on together! the comfort of both father and daughter hanging in the balance. Miss Cherry knocked so softly as to be unheard, and had to repeat the summons before that ‘Come in’ sounded through the closed door, which was to her as the trump of doom.

She went in. Mr. Beresford was seated as usual at his writing-table, with all his books about him. He was busy, according to his gentle idea of being busy, and looked up with some surprise at his sister when she entered. Miss Cherry came noiselessly forward in her grey gown, with her soft steps. He held his pen suspended in his fingers, thinking perhaps it was some passing question which she meant to ask, then laid it down with the slightest shadow of impatience, covered immediately by a pretended readiness to know what she wanted, and a slight sigh over his wasted time. Those who have their bread to work for take interruptions far more easily than those whose labours are of importance to nobody, and Macaulay writing his History would not have breathed half so deep a sigh as did James Beresford over the half-hour he was about to lose.

‘You want something?’ he said, with the smile of a conscious martyr.

‘Only to speak to you, James,’ said Miss Cherry, breathless. Then she looked up at him with a deprecating, wistful smile. ‘It is not very often that we meet now, or have any opportunity for a little talk,’ she said.

‘Yes, Cherry, that is true enough. I have been so much away.’

‘And people drift apart; that is true too. I know I can’t follow you in all your deep studies, James; but my heart is always the same. I think of you more than of anyone, and of Cara. I hope she will live to be the dearest comfort to you as she always was to us. The light went away from the Hill, I think, when she went away.’

‘You have been very good to her, I am sure,’ he said, with due gratefulness, ‘and most kind. You have brought her up very wisely, Cherry. I have no fault to find with her. She is a good little girl.’

Miss Cherry, to hear her small goddess thus described, felt a sudden shock and thrill of horror; but she subdued herself. ‘I wanted to speak to you, James,’ she said, ‘of that:’ then, with a slight pant and heave of her frightened bosom—‘oh, James! do you not think you could give her a little more of your society—learn to know her better? You would find it worth your while!’

‘Know her better! My dear Cherry, I know her very well, poor child. She is a good little girl, always obedient and dutiful. There cannot be very much fellowship between a man of my occupations and a quiet simple girl such as Cara is, I am glad to say; but I am very fond of her. You must not think I don’t appreciate my child.’

‘It is not quite that,’ said poor Cherry. ‘Oh, James, if you only knew it, our Cara is a great deal more than merely a good little girl. I would not for a moment think of finding fault with you; but if you would see her a little more in the evening—if you would not go out quite so much——’

‘Go out!—I really go out very seldom. I think you are making a mistake, Cherry, my dear.’

‘Oh, no, James; since I have come it has been my great thought. I know you don’t mean to be unkind; but when you are out every evening——’

‘Really, Cherry, I had no idea that my liberty was to be infringed, and my habits criticised.’

Miss Cherry came up to him with an anxious face and wet eyes. ‘Oh, James, don’t be angry! That is not what I mean. It is not to criticise you. But if you would stay with your child in the evening sometimes. She is so sweet and young. It would give you pleasure if you were to try—and—it would be better, far better in other ways too.’

‘I don’t understand what you mean,’ he said, hurriedly.

‘No, no. I was sure, quite sure, you never thought, nor meant anything. But the world is a strange world. It is always misconceiving innocent people—and, James, I am certain, nay, I know, it would be so much better: for every one—in every way.’

‘You seem to have made up your mind to be mysterious, Cherry,’ he said. ‘I don’t see to whom it can be of importance how I pass my time. To Cara you think? I don’t suppose she cares so much for my society. You are an old-fashioned woman, my poor Cherry, and think as you were brought up to think. But, my dear, it is not necessary to salvation that a man should be always in his own house, and between a man of fifty and a girl of seventeen there is not really so much in common.’

‘When they are father and daughter, James——’

‘That does not make very much difference that I can see. But if you think Cara is dull, we must hit upon something better than my society. Young friends, perhaps—if there is any other girl she likes particularly, let her invite her friend by all means. I don’t want my little girl to be dull.’

‘It is not that, James. She never complains; but, oh, if you would try to make friends with the child! She would interest you, she would be a pleasant companion. She would make you like your home again: and, oh! pardon me, James, would not that be better than finding your happiness elsewhere?’

At this moment the door was opened, and John appeared ushering in a scientific visitor, whose very name was enough to frighten any humble person like Miss Cherry. She withdrew precipitately, not sorry to be saved from further discussion, and wondering at herself how she could have had the audacity to speak so to James. Nothing but her anxiety could have given her such boldness. It was presumption, she felt, even in her secret soul, to criticise, as he said, a man like her brother, older and so much wiser than herself; but sometimes a little point of custom or regard to appearances might be overlooked by a clever man in the very greatness of his thoughts. This was how kind Miss Cherry put it—and in that way the mouse might help the lion, and the elderly, old-fashioned sister be of use to a wise and learned man, though he was a member of all the societies. And how kindly he had listened to her, and received her bold animadversions! When there is anything to admire in the behaviour of those they look up to, kind women, like Miss Cherry, can always find some humble plea like this at least, for a little adoration. Such a clever man, had he not a right to be furious, brutal if he pleased, when a simple little woman dared to find fault with him? But, on the contrary, how well he took it—what a man he was!

Miss Cherry, hurrying upstairs, met Cara coming down, and her other excitement came back to her in a moment. She took the girl’s hands in hers, though it was in no more retired place than the landing on the stairs. ‘Well, my darling,’ she said, anxiously.

‘Well, Aunt Cherry!’ said Cara, and laughed. ‘I was coming to look for you, to ask you to come out and get some ribbon——’

‘But Cara——’

‘Come!’ cried the girl, running upstairs again to get her hat; and what had really happened that morning Miss Cherry never knew. So that both her excitements came to nothing, and the day turned out uneventful like other common days.

CHAPTER XXIII.

A REMONSTRANCE.

Mr. Beresford was seated in his library, as usual, in the morning; he had breakfasted and glanced over his newspaper, and now had settled down to ‘work,’ that is, to what he called work. He would not have been much the worse had he idled, nor would his finances or anybody’s comfort have suffered; probably that was one reason why he was so industrious. His writing-table was arranged with the most perfect order: here his blotting-book, his pens, his paper of all sizes, from ponderous foolscap to the lightest accidental note; there his books of reference; in the centre, the volume he was studying. John, by long practice, had learned to know exactly where to place all his master’s paraphernalia. He sat in front of the fire, which crackled merrily and made light pétillements, in the sound of which alone there was genial company. The ruddy sunshine of the winter morning entered in a side-long gleam; everything was comfortable, warm, and luxurious round him; the room was lined almost as high as the ceiling with books, and the square table near the further window was covered with magazines and newspapers. He spared nothing in that way, though for himself he did not read half the literature that was placed there ready for him. He took his place at his table, opened his book, put down the letters which he had brought with him from the breakfast-table, and prepared to write—or rather to work—for his object was to write a review of the serious book he was reading; his letters were about this and other important matters—a meeting of the Imperial Society—the arrangements to be made for a series of lectures—the choice of a new member. He put down all these momentous epistles on his table, and turned over a page of the book in respect to which he was prepared to give to the world some new ideas of his own on the relations between mind and matter, or rather, upon some of those strange processes by which the human brain, which is as purely matter as the human leg, pranks itself up in the appearance of a spiritual entity. He was fond of philosophical questions. But when he had made all these preparations he stopped suddenly short and began to think. What process was it that brought across him, like a sudden breath of summer air with the scent of flowers in it, that sudden flood of recollections? In a moment, invading his breast and his mind with thoughts of the past, he felt as people do to whom an old friend appears suddenly, bringing with him a hundred forgotten associations. Had someone come into the warm and pleasant room and laid a hand upon his shoulder and looked him in the face? If James Beresford had been a superstitious man he would have thought so. His wife had been dead for more than five years—and long and weary and painful these years had been. Lately, however, his heart had been lulled to rest by sweet friendliness and sympathy and help; he had felt strong enough to take up his ordinary life again and return into the world—not unfaithful, but consoled and soothed. Nothing had happened to him to break this sensation of rest from trouble, and what happened now was not painful. It was only the sudden return of thoughts which had been in abeyance. She seemed to come and stand by him, as she used to do, looking over his shoulder, asking after his work. ‘What are you doing?’ he seemed to hear her say—leaning over him with that familiar proprietorship of him and all his works and ways which was so sweet. Why had this visitation come to him to-day? Of course it must have been some impression on his nerves which thus reflected itself through his being. Some chance contact had stirred one of those strings which move what we call feelings in the strange machinery of our puppet nature. He thought somehow that when he had said this it explained the mystery. All at once, like a gale of spring, like a sudden thaw—or like someone coming into the room; though the last metaphor was not so fine as the others, it was the most true. Few of our mental processes (he would have allowed) are pure thought—this was not thought at all; he felt as if she stood by him—she whom he had lost: as if their life came back as it used to be. His grief for her, he knew, had been lulled to rest, and it was not any revival of the sharpness and bitterness of that grief which moved him: it was a return for a few minutes of the life they had lived together, of the conditions which life had borne before.

Perhaps it was simply because his sister was there, and the sound of the two feminine voices, hers and Cara’s, at the breakfast-table, had brought back memories of the old times. He leant his elbows on his open book and his chin in the hollow of his hands. What a different life it had been! What were his societies now, his articles, all his ‘work,’ to the first spontaneous living of those days that were dead? How she would come in familiar, sure of her right to be wherever he was—not timid, like Cara, who never knew whether her father would be pleased or not pleased to see her, nor reverential, like good Cherry, who admired and wondered at his books and his writing. He knew how these two would look at any moment if need or business brought them knocking to his door. But he never could tell how she would look, so various were her aspects, never the same—two women sometimes in one moment, turning to tears or to sunshine in the twinkling of an eye, cheering him, provoking him, stimulating him. Ah, what a change! life might have its soothings now, its consolations, little makings up and props, to give it the appearance of being the same life as before, but nothing could ever make it what it had been. He had not died of it, neither would he die of it—the grief that kills is rare; but whatever might happen to him in the world, so much was certain, that the delight of life was over, the glory gone out of it. And he did not wish it to be otherwise, he said to himself. There are things which a man can have but once. Some men are so happy as to retain those best things of life till old age—but he was not one of those blessed men——. And he was no longer wretched and a wanderer on the face of the earth. Time had brought him a softening quiet, a dim pleasantness of tranquillity and friends—good, tender, soothing, kindest friends.

Someone coming in broke suddenly this strange revival of memory—and of all people in the world it was the doctor, Maxwell, whose name was so linked to the recollections of the old life, but who, Beresford felt, had never been the same to him since Annie died. His mind had been so preoccupied that he had never inquired what was the cause of this estrangement. What did it matter to him if all the world was estranged? He had felt vaguely; and if he thought upon the subject at all, supposed that in the anguish of his mind he had said something or done something to vex his old friend. But what did it matter? His life had been too much shipwrecked at first to leave his mind at liberty to care what might happen. And now the estrangement was a fait accompli. But his heart was touched and soft that morning. The thought of Annie had come back to him, and here was someone deeply associated with Annie. In the little start with which he got up from his chair at the sound of Maxwell’s name, a rush of resolution ran through his veins with a rapidity such as leaves words hopelessly behind. ‘I will get to the bottom of it whatever it is. I will know the cause, and make it up with Maxwell.’ These words would have taken some definite atom of time to think and say, but the thought rushed through his mind instantaneously as he rose holding out his hand. ‘Maxwell! you are an unusual visitor now-a-days. I am very glad to see you,’ he said. That he should have come just now of all times in the world!

‘Yes; I have ceased to be about the house as I used to be,’ the doctor said, with a slight confusion, grasping the hand offered to him. And then they sat down on two chairs opposite to each other, and there was a pause. They were both embarrassed a little. This kind of coolness between two friends is more difficult to get over than an actual quarrel. Maxwell was not at his ease. How many recollections this room brought back to him! That strange visitor who had stood by James Beresford’s side a minute before stood by his now. He seemed to see her standing against the light, shaking her finger at them in reproof. How often she had done so, the light catching her dress, making a kind of halo round her! Was it possible she was gone—gone, disappeared from before their eyes, making no sign? And yet how clearly she seemed to stand there, looking at the two whose talk she had so often interrupted, broken off, made an end of, with capricious sweet impertinences. Maxwell, like her husband, felt the reality of her so strong that his mind rejected with a strange vertigo the idea of her absolute severance from this house and this life. The vertigo grew still greater, and his head seemed to turn round and round when he remembered why he had come.

‘Why is it?’ said Beresford. ‘Something seems to have come between us—I can’t tell what. Is it accidental, or does it mean anything? I have had a distracted life, as you know, and I may have done something amiss—— ’

‘No, no,’ said the other, hurriedly; ‘let us say nothing about that. I meant nothing. Beresford, if you have this feeling now, what will you think when you hear that I have undertaken a disagreeable, intrusive mission?’

‘Intrusive?’ He smiled. ‘I don’t see what you could be intrusive about. You used to know all my affairs—and if you don’t know them now, it is not my fault.’

‘Good heavens!’ cried the doctor, involuntarily, ‘how am I to do it? Look here, Beresford; I said I would come, thinking that I, who knew you so well, would annoy you less than a stranger—but I don’t feel so sure about that now.’

‘What is this gunpowder plot?’ said Beresford, with a laugh. ‘Have I been guilty of high treason without knowing it, and must I fly for my life?’

The doctor cleared his throat; he grew red in the face; finally he jumped up from his chair and went to the big fireplace, where he stood with his back to the fire, and his face a little out of his friend’s sight.

‘Beresford, have you ever thought what a strange position Mrs. Meredith is in?’

‘Mrs. Meredith!’ He said this with such unfeigned surprise that his visitor felt more awkward than ever. ‘What can she have to do with any disunion between you and me?’

‘By Jove!’ cried the doctor, ‘we are all a pack of fools;’ and from the fire he walked to the window in the perturbation of his thoughts.

Beresford laughed. ‘One can never say anything civil to a speech like that—especially as, forgive me! I have not a notion what you are being fools about.’

Maxwell looked out into the square to pluck up courage. He coughed as men do when they are utterly at a loss—when it is worth while to gain even a moment. ‘Don’t be angry with me,’ he said, with sudden humility. ‘I should not have taken it in hand, especially as you have that feeling—but—look here, I have taken it in hand, and I must speak. Beresford, old Sommerville came to me yesterday. He’s Meredith’s friend, with a general commission to look after the family.’

‘Has anything happened to Meredith?’ said Mr. Beresford, with concern. ‘This is the second time you have mentioned them. I scarcely know him—but if there is anything wrong, I shall be very sorry for her sake.’

‘There is nothing wrong, unless it is of your doing,’ said the doctor, with abrupt determination. ‘To tell the truth, Meredith has heard, or somebody has told him, or a gossiping has been got up—I don’t know what—about your visits. You go there too often, they say—every night——’

‘Maxwell!’ cried James Beresford, springing to his feet.

‘There! I told you,’ said the doctor. ‘I said you would be angry—as if it were my fault. I am only the mouthpiece. Old Sommerville would have come to you himself—but I was sure it could be nothing but inadvertence, and undertook the office, knowing you too well—much too well—to think for a moment——’

‘Inadvertence! Knowing me too well to think! In the name of heaven, what is there to think? What have I been inadvertent about? Angry! Of course I am angry. What have I done to be gossiped about? One of us must be out of his senses surely, either you or I——’

‘No, it isn’t that. Gossip does not spare anyone. And, pardon me,’ said the doctor, growing bolder now that the worst was over, ‘if you had ever thought on the subject, you must have seen that such frequent visits—to a woman who is married, whose husband is at the other end of the world——’

‘Stop—stop, I tell you! I will not have her discussed or her name introduced.’

‘That is quite right, Beresford. I knew you would feel so. Is it right then that the tenderest heart on the face of the earth should be worried and bullied because of you?’

‘Good God!’ cried the bewildered man, ‘has she been worried and bullied? What do you mean? Who has presumed to find fault? She is—— I am not going to say what she is.’

‘It is not necessary. I know that as well as anyone.’

Beresford made a half-conscious pause, and looked at his reprover with a sudden involuntary raising of his eyebrows. Knew that as well as anyone! Did he? Vain boaster! Who but himself knew all the consoling sweetness, all the soft wealth of sympathy in this friend of friends? He felt more angry with Maxwell for this false pretension than for all his other sins. ‘I am at a loss to know,’ he said, coldly, ‘by what right anyone attempts to interfere with my liberty of action. I am not a man whose visits to any house can be considered suspicious. I should have thought that my character and my antecedents were enough to preserve me from injurious comment and the gossip you speak of.’

‘Beresford,’ said the other, hastily, ‘who thinks of you? No amount of gossip could do you any real harm. You must see that. The question is about her.’

It was Beresford’s turn now to be excited. He began to pace about the room in deep annoyance and agitation. Of course this was true. What was nothing to a man might be everything to a woman; and no man worthy the name would expose a woman to comment. He took refuge, first, in furious abuse of gossip. What had anyone to do with his proceedings? A man is always more shocked and angry to find himself the object of remark than a woman is. It seemed incredible to him that he, of all people in the world, he should be the object of impertinent remark. The idea was intolerable to Beresford. The doctor wisely said nothing, but let him have his ravings out, withdrawing himself to a chair by the table, where he sat writing out imaginary prescriptions with the worn stump of a pen which he found there, and keeping as far out of the passionate stream of monologue as possible. This was wise treatment, the best he could have adopted, and after a while the subject of the operation calmed down. He flung himself at last into his chair, and there was a stormy pause.

‘I suppose,’ said Beresford, with a long-drawn breath of mingled pain and anger, ‘this was what Cherry meant. I could not make her out. She is in it too. Have you all laid your heads together and consulted what was the thing that would pain me most—the most susceptible point left?’

Maxwell made no direct reply. ‘If Miss Cherry has spoken to you, Beresford, you know your sister,’ he said. ‘She would not hurt a fly—much less you, whom she holds in such high respect; and she would not think evil readily—would she, now? If she has spoken, you must understand that there is something in it. Listen, my dear fellow. There are things that must be done and left undone in this world for the sake of the fools in it merely. You know that as well as I do. Say the fools ought to be defied and crushed if you like, but in reality we have all to consider them. The people of bad imaginations and low minds and mean views really make the laws for the rest of the world. We can’t help it. For ourselves it might not matter; but for those who are dear to us—for those who are less independent than we——’

Again there was a pause. Beresford sat with his elbows on the table and bit his nails savagely. In this painful amusement there seemed a certain relief. He stared straight before him, seeing nothing. At last he turned round sharply upon the doctor, who, with his head bent down, still sat scribbling without any ink with the old stump of the pen in his hand. ‘What do you want me to do?’ he said.

‘Beresford, I did not come here to dictate to you. I came simply to call your attention——’

‘Oh, let us not quibble about words! Dictation! yes, and something more than dictation. Of course I am helpless before the plea you bring up. Of course I have nothing to do but submit, if there is any question of annoyance to—— Low minds and bad imaginations, indeed! That anyone should suggest the most distant possibility, the shadow of a reproach!’

‘We suggest nothing of the sort, Beresford. We suggest only a most simple precaution—a rule ordinarily observed.’

He made a gesture of impatience, stopping further explanation, and again for two minutes, which looked like an hour, the two men sat silent together, not, it may be supposed, with any increase of friendliness towards each other in their thoughts. Perhaps, however, it was only on the side of the reproved that this feeling was really strong. The reprover was compunctious and eager to do anything he could to conciliate. He kept a furtive watch upon his victim as he scribbled. Beresford had retreated within that most invulnerable of all fortresses—silence, and sat, still biting his nails, staring into the vacant air, neither by word nor look making any communication of his thoughts. Nothing is more difficult than to maintain a silence like this; the least absorbed of the two engaged in the passage of arms comes to feel after a time that he must speak or die—and what to say? More upon the same subject might lessen the impression already made, and to introduce another subject would be impossible. When the pause had lasted as long as possibility permitted, Maxwell got up, put the pen slowly back in the tray from which it had strayed, tossed the piece of paper he had been scribbling upon into the waste-basket, gathered up his gloves, his stick, his hat. Nothing could be more slow and hesitating than all these preparations for departure, which were somewhat ostentatious at the same time, by way of calling the attention of Beresford, and perhaps drawing forth something more. ‘I must be going,’ he said at last, holding out his hand. ‘I hope you won’t think me—unfriendly, Beresford, in anything I have said.’

‘Good morning,’ said the other, sullenly; then he made a visible effort to command himself and rose up, but slowly, putting out his hand. ‘Very likely not,’ he said. ‘I don’t say it was unfriendly. You would not have taken such a disagreeable office on yourself if you had meant unkindness, No; I suppose I should thank you, but it is rather hard to do it. Good-by.’

There was no more said. Maxwell went away, not feeling very victorious or proud of himself. Was not he a fool to have undertaken it in order to prevent scandal, he said to himself, in order to save a woman from annoyance, in order to help James Beresford out of trouble—a man whom he had liked, and from whom he had been estranged? What business had he to meddle with other people’s business? This, I fear, was his reflection, as it has been the reflection of so many who have strained a point to aid a friend, and whose self-denial has not been appreciated. ‘Catch me doing such a foolish thing again,’ he said to himself.

As for Beresford, he resumed his seat and his thoughts when the other was gone. Those thoughts were hot within him, and full of pain. He who, even when this messenger of evil arrived, had been thinking with faithful love of his wife; he whose life had been made a desert by her dying, whose whole existence was changed, who had not cared for years what became of him, because of that loss—to be met by this unjust and insane reproval as soon as he had screwed his courage to the sticking-place, and resumed his natural position in his own house. It had been a hard thing to do; at every corner he had expected to meet her—in the silence he had fancied he heard her calling him—the whole house was full of her, echoing with her steps and her voice. Yet he had schooled himself to come back, to resume so much as remained to him of life under his own roof—so much as remained, not thinking of years, but of value and merit. He was not of very much use to anyone, nor had he been much missed, perhaps, except in the working of the societies, and there were so many people who could do that. But he had been patient and come back, and established himself ‘at home,’ because it was his duty. He had not shrunk from his duty. And this was his reward. His one source of soft consolation—the one gentle friend on whose constant sympathy he could reckon—who made this life of endurance supportable to him, and kept him up by kind words, by understanding his wants and troubles—she was to be taken from him. He got up, and walked up and down his room, and then went to the window and looked blankly out. Almost without knowing what it was, he saw a brougham come to the next door, and old Mr. Sommerville step out of it, and enter Mrs. Meredith’s house. He had gone to warn her, to disturb the sweet composure of her mind, to embitter all her thoughts. Beresford turned round, and began to walk up and down more and more hotly. Could anything in the world be more innocent? He asked, nay, he wanted, nothing more of her. To go and sit by her now and then (this was how he characterized his long and daily visits), what was there in that to justify this insulting demand upon him? He lashed himself up into a fury when he thought of it. He, the truest of mourners, and she, the least frivolous of women. If ever there was a true friendship, full of support and mutual comfort, this was the one. And now, at the pleasure of a set of wretched gossips, ill-minded men, disagreeable women, was this gentle makeshift and substitute for domestic happiness to be torn from him? And how—good heavens, how?

That was the question. It was easy to talk, and say that such a thing must cease; but how was it to be done? Was he supposed capable of telling her that he must resign her friendship? Was Sommerville, perhaps, making the communication at this very moment—telling her that it must not be; suggesting thoughts that would distress her mind, and disturb the whole tenor of her life? For to give pain would be worse than misfortune to her, and she could not so cast him off without giving pain and feeling it. He thought—it was an imagination—that he heard voices high in discussion on the other side of the wall that separated the two houses. Was that old meddler taking it upon him to lecture her now?

CHAPTER XXIV.

ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WALL.

Old Mr. Sommerville got out of his little brougham at Mrs. Meredith’s door. He was a wealthy old man, of whom nobody knew very much, except that he had made his money in India, and that he lived in cosy bachelor chambers, with everything extremely comfortable about him, and knew everybody, and was fond of good things, the pleasures of the table, as old-fashioned people said, and indeed all other pleasures within the reach of a respectable old person of sixty-five. He kept a neat little brougham, and occasionally mounted a strong, steady cob, with a coat like satin, looking much better fed than his master did, who was always a meagre old gentleman, notwithstanding his good living. Mr. Sommerville was the confidential friend of the absent Mr. Meredith, whom nobody, not even his own children, knew. As he had advanced in prosperity, it was through old Sommerville’s hands that his family were allowed to share the advantage of his increasing income, and the boys had learned to know that it was he who reported concerning them to their father, and received communications from their tutors. The unknown Mr. Meredith did nothing to discredit his wife; but he kept this constant check over her. It had often been galling enough to her; but she was a sweet-tempered woman, used to accepting the evil with the good, and she had wisely put up with the curb. She disarmed Mr. Sommerville by her gentleness and sweetness, by throwing her house open to him, and inviting the scrutiny which she might have defied, had she been of a different disposition. Sommerville had not been unworthy of the confidence placed in him. He had kept up a certain appearance of investigation. All their lives long the boys had been accustomed to connect his appearance with a lecture of more than usual seriousness from their mother; but she had the good sense never to say anything to connect the old man’s name with the reprimand or warning. All that she said was, ‘Your father will not like to hear that you are idle, disobedient, unruly,’ as the case might be; therefore, it was not from her they learned that Sommerville meant special scrutiny and fault-finding. But since they had been grown up, Oswald and Edward had themselves supplied the thread of connection. Even this, however, had not made them dislike their old friend. At one moment of especial wickedness Oswald, indeed, had designated their father’s deputy as the Spy; but this was simply a spark of malicious boyhood, struck out in a moment of resentment, and did not permanently affect their minds, though the title lasted. The Spy was, on the whole, friendly and indulgent—sometimes even he got them out of small scrapes, and it was he who persuaded the mother that furtive cigars and other precocious masculinities were not criminal. So that altogether, notwithstanding his ominous name, he was not unpopular in the house. It was but lately that he had taken to coming to those almost daily receptions, which was so principal a feature in Mrs. Meredith’s existence. There he would sit and watch her proceedings, her sympathetic talks, the audiences she gave, and all the little acts of adoration performed before her, with not unkindly eyes. She was a kind of gentle impostor, a natural humbug, to old Sommerville; but he laughed softly to himself as he thus characterised her, and did not like her less. Never, during all these years, amid all this popularity, had she given him occasion for a word of serious warning. Amid all the admiration and semi-worship she had received, the kind but watchful Spy had found no harm in her; but now, at last, here was something which called for his interference. To see him arrive at that hour in the morning was alarming in itself to Mrs. Meredith. She met him with her usual kind smile, but with an earnest look of inquiry.

‘Is anything the matter?’ she said.

‘Send the boy away,’ said Mr. Sommerville, in an undertone.

It was Edward who was in the room, and his mother found a commission for him with tremulous haste; for the distant Meredith was not always reasonable in his requirements, and of late had written impatiently about the coming out of one of his sons—a calamity which their mother with all her might was endeavouring to stave off and postpone. She thought her husband’s friend must bring still more urgent orders, and her heart began to beat.

‘I wish you would go and tell Cara that I hope she will come to the Sympsons with me this afternoon, Edward,’ she said.

And Edward, full of the thought of his brother’s happiness, and loth yet eager to see if Cara was happy in this new development of affairs, obeyed reluctantly, but still with a secret alacrity. She was left alone with the mentor, who had so often brought her advice or semi-reproof.

‘You have something to tell me? Oh, Mr. Sommerville, what is it?’ she cried.

‘It is nothing very bad. You must not be alarmed—there is no ill news,’ he said.

The anxious mother looked at him with a wistful entreaty in her eyes. Ill news was not what she feared. When a woman has had neither companionship nor help from her husband for a dozen years or so, naturally her sensitiveness of anxiety about him gets modified, and it is to be feared that she would have taken information of Mr. Meredith’s serious illness, for instance, more easily than the summons which she feared for one of her boys. She watched every movement of her visitor’s face with anxious interest.

‘Edward cannot go till the settled time. You know that,’ she said, instinctively following the leading of her own thoughts.

‘It is not Edward that I have come to speak of; it is neither of the boys.’

‘Ah!’ said Mrs. Meredith, with a sigh of involuntary relief; and she turned to him with cheerful ease and interest, delivered from her chief fear. This evident ignorance of any other cause for animadversion moved the old Spy in spite of himself.

‘What I am going to say to you, my dear lady, is not exactly from Meredith—though he has heard of the subject, and wishes me to say something. I hope you will believe there is no harm meant, and that what I do, I do from the best feeling.’

‘I have never doubted your kind feeling, Mr. Sommerville; but you half frighten me,’ she said, with a smile. ‘If it is not the boys, what can there be to be so grave about? Tell me quickly, please.’

Mr. Sommerville cleared his throat. He put his hat upon the head of his cane, and twirled it about. It did not often happen to the old Scotch nabob to be embarrassed; but he was so now.

‘You’ll understand, my dear lady, that in what I say I’m solely actuated by the thought of your good.’

‘How you alarm me!’ said Mrs. Meredith. ‘It is something, then, very disagreeable?’

‘Oh, yes. I’ve no doubt it will be disagreeable. Medicines are seldom sweet to the palate. Mrs. Meredith, I will out with it at once, not to keep you in suspense.’

Here, however, he paused to take out his handkerchief, and blew his nose with a very resounding utterance. After he had finished this operation he resumed:

‘I don’t presume to teach a lady of your sense what is her duty; and I don’t need to tell you that the world exercises a great supervision over women who, from whatever cause, are left alone.’

‘What have I done?’ cried Mrs. Meredith, half frightened, half laughing. ‘I must have made some mistake, or you would not speak so.’

‘I doubt if it could be called a mistake; perhaps it would be better to say a misapprehension. Mrs. Meredith, there is one of your friends who pays you a visit every day.’

‘Several,’ she said, relieved. ‘You know how kind people are to me. Instead of supervision, as you say, I get a great deal of sympathy——’

Mr. Sommerville waved his hand, as if to ward off her explanation. ‘I am speaking of one person,’ he said: ‘a man—who is here every evening of his life, or I’m mistaken—your neighbour, Mr. Beresford, next door.’

‘Mr. Beresford!’ she said, with a thrill of disagreeable surprise; and there came to her instantaneously one of those sudden realisations of things that might be thought or said, such as sometimes overwhelm the unsuspecting soul at the most inappropriate moment; her colour rose in spite of herself.

‘Just Mr. Beresford. He means no harm and you mean no harm; but he should be put a stop to, my dear lady. You gave me your word you would not be angry. But, madam, you’re a married lady, and your husband is at a distance. It’s not for your credit or his good that he should visit you every night.’

‘Mr. Sommerville! stop, please! I cannot let you talk so—or anyone.’

‘But you must, my dear lady, unless you want everybody to talk, and in a very different spirit. The world is a wicked world, and takes many things into its head. You’re a very attractive woman still, though you’re no longer in your first youth——’

‘Mr. Sommerville, what you say is very disagreeable to me,’ said Mrs. Meredith, offended. ‘Poor Mr. Beresford! since he lost his wife he has been miserable. Nobody ever mourned more truly; and now, when he is trying to learn a little resignation, a little patience——’

‘He should not learn those virtues, madam, at your expense.’

‘At my expense!’ she said, with sparkling eyes; ‘at what expense to me? I allow him to come and sit with me when he has no one at home to bear him company. I allow him——’

‘I thought his daughter had come to keep him company.’

‘Poor Cara! she is a sweet child; but, at seventeen, what can she know of his troubles?’

‘Softly, softly,’ said Mr. Sommerville; ‘one plea is enough at a time. If Mr. Beresford is without a companion, it does not matter that his daughter is only seventeen; and whatever her age may be, if she is there he cannot be without companionship. My dear lady, be reasonable. If he has a child grown up, or nearly so, he should stay at home. A great many of us have not even that inducement,’ said the old man, who was an old bachelor; ‘but no kind lady opens her doors to us.’ He looked at her sharply with his keen eyes; and she felt, with intense annoyance, that she was getting agitated and excited in spite of herself.

‘Mr. Sommerville,’ she said, with some dignity, ‘if anyone has been misrepresenting my friendship for Mr. Beresford, I cannot help that. It is wicked as well as unkind; for I think I have been of use to him. I think I have helped him to see that he cannot abandon his life. I don’t mean to defend myself. I have not done anything to be found fault with; friendship——’

‘Is a delusion,’ said the old man. ‘Friendship between a man and a woman! There is no sense in it. I don’t believe a word of it. Meaning no harm to you, my dear lady. You don’t mean any harm; but if you talk to me of friendship!’

‘Then I had better say nothing,’ she answered quickly. ‘My husband’s representative—if you call yourself so—has no right to treat me with rudeness. I have nothing more to say.’

‘My dear lady,’ said old Mr. Sommerville, ‘if I have appeared rude I am unpardonable. But you’ll forgive me? I mean nothing but your good. And all I want is a little prudence—the ordinary precautions.’

‘I will none of them!’ she said, with a flush of indignation. ‘I have nothing to be afraid of, and I will not pretend to be prudent, as you call it. Let the world think or say what it pleases—it is nothing to me.’

Then there was a pause, and Mrs. Meredith betook herself to her work—a woman’s safety-valve, and laboured as if for a wager, while the old plenipotentiary sat opposite to her, confounded and abashed, as she thought. But Mr. Sommerville was too old and experienced to be much abashed by anything. He sat silent, collecting his forces for a renewed attack. That was all. He had a sincere friendship for her in his way, and was as anxious to prevent scandal as any father could have been; and now it occurred to him that he had begun at the wrong end, as he said. Women were kittle cattle. He had failed when he dwelt upon the danger to herself. Perhaps he might succeed better if he represented the danger to him.

‘I have made a mistake,’ said the hypocritical old man. ‘It can do no harm to you, all that has come and gone. I was thinking of my own selfish kind that give most weight to what affects themselves, and I am rightly punished. A lady sans reproche like yourself may well be sans peur. But that is not the whole question, my dear madam. There is the man to be considered.’

When he said this she raised her eyes, which had been fixed on her work, and looked at him with some anxiety, which was so much gained.

‘You will not doubt my word when I say there’s a great difference between men and women,’ said the old diplomatist. ‘What is innocent for one is often very dangerous for the other, and vice versâ: you will not deny that.’

Then he made a pause, and looking at her for reply, received a sign of assent to his vague proposition, which indeed was safe enough.

‘How can you tell that Mr. Beresford receives as pure benevolence all the kindness you show him? It is very unusual kindness. You are kind to everybody, madam, above the ordinary level; and human creatures are curious—they think it is their merit that makes you good to them, not your own bounty.’

She did not make any reply, but continued to look at him. Her attention at least was secured.

‘If I were to tell you the instances of this that have come under my own observation! I have known a poor creature who got much kindness in a house on account of his defects and deficiencies, and because everybody was sorry for him; who gave it out, if you’ll believe me, and really thought, that what his kind friends wanted was to marry him to the daughter of the house! It’s not uncommon, and I dare say, without going further, that you can remember things—which perhaps you have laughed at——’

‘All this has nothing to do with Mr. Beresford,’ she said, quietly, but with a flush of rising offence.

‘No, no.’ He made a hesitating answer and looked at her. Mrs. Meredith fell into the snare.

‘If he has misunderstood my sympathy for his troubles, if he has ventured to suppose——’

‘Cara has gone out with her aunt,’ said Edward, coming in hastily; ‘but there is surely something wrong in the house. Mr. Beresford called me into his room, looking very much distressed. He told me to tell you that he thought of leaving home directly; then changed his mind, and said I was not to tell you.’

‘Why do you tell me then?’ cried his mother, with impatience. ‘What is it to me where he is going? Am I always to be worried with other people’s troubles? I think I have plenty of my own without that.’

Edward looked at her with great surprise. Such outbreaks of impatience from his gentle mother were almost unknown to him. ‘He looks very ill,’ he said: ‘very much disturbed: something must have happened. Why should not I tell you? Are you not interested in our old friend? Then something very extraordinary has happened, I suppose?’

‘Oh, my boy,’ cried Mrs. Meredith, in her excitement, ‘that is what Mr. Sommerville has come about. He says poor James Beresford comes too often here. He says I am too kind to him, and that people will talk, and he himself thinks—— Ah!’ she cried suddenly, ‘what am I saying to the boy?’

Edward went up to her hurriedly and put his arm round her, and thus standing looked round defiant at the meddler. Oswald, too, entered the room at this moment. The hour for luncheon approached, and naturally called these young men, still in the first bloom of their fine natural appetites, from all corners of the house. ‘What’s the matter?’ he said. But he had another verse of his poem in his head which he was in great haste to write down, and he crossed over to the writing-table in the back drawing-room, and did not wait for any reply. Edward, on the contrary, put the white shield of his own youthfulness at once in front of his mother, and indignant met the foe.

‘People have talked a long time, I suppose,’ said Edward, ‘that there was nobody so kind as my mother; and I suppose because you have trained us, mamma, we don’t understand what it means to be too kind. You do, sir?’ cried the young man with generous impertinence; ‘you think it is possible to be too innocent—too good?’

‘Yes, you young idiot!’ cried the old man, jumping up in a momentary fury. Then he cooled down and reseated himself with a laugh. ‘There is the bell for lunch,’ he said; ‘and I don’t mean to be cheated out of the luncheon, which, of course, you will give me, by the freaks of these puppies of yours, madam. But Oswald is a philosopher; he takes it easy,’ he added, looking keenly at the placid indifference of the elder son.

‘Oswald takes everything easy,’ said Mrs. Meredith, with a sigh. And they went downstairs to luncheon, and no man could have been more cheerful, more agreeable than the old Indian. He told them a hundred stories, and paid Mrs. Meredith at least a score of compliments. ‘This indulgence will put it out of my power to be at your levée this afternoon,’ he said; ‘but there will be plenty of worshippers without me. I think the neglected women in this town—and no doubt there’s many—should bring a prosecution against ladies like you, Mrs. Meredith, that charm more than your share; and both sexes alike, men and women. I hear but one chorus, “There’s nobody so delightful as Mrs. Meredith,” wherever I go.’

‘We are all proud of your approbation,’ said Oswald, with much solemnity: he was always light-hearted, and had no desire to inquire particularly into the commotion of which he had been a witness. But Edward kept his eyes upon his mother, who was pale with the excitement she had come through. What that excitement meant the young man had very little idea. Something had disturbed her, which was enough for her son; and, curiously enough, something had disturbed the neighbours too, whom Edward accepted without criticism as we accept people whom we have known all our lives. He was curious, and rather anxious, wondering what it might be.

But as for Mrs. Meredith, the idea of communicating to her sons even the suggestion that she could be spoken of with levity, or criticised as a woman, appalled her when she thought of it. She had cried out, appealing to the boys in her agitation, but the moment after felt that she could bear anything rather than make them aware that anyone had ventured upon a word to her on such subjects. She exerted herself to be as vivacious as her visitor; and as vivacity was not in her way, the little forced gaiety of her manner attracted the attention of her sons more than the greatest seriousness would have done. Even Oswald was roused to observe this curious change. ‘What has happened?’ he said to his brother. He thought the Spy had been finding fault with the expenditure of the household, and thought with alarm of his own bills, which had a way of coming upon him as a surprise when he least expected them. It was almost the only thing that could have roused him to interest, for Oswald felt the things that affected Oswald to be of more importance than anything else could be. As for Edward, he awaited somewhat tremulously the disclosure which he expected after Mr. Sommerville’s departure. But Mrs. Meredith avoided both of them in the commotion of her feelings. She shut herself up in her own room to ponder the question, and, as was natural, her proud impulse of resistance yielded to reflection. Her heart ached a good deal for poor Beresford, a little for herself. She, too, would miss something. Something would be gone out of her life which was good and pleasant. Her heart gave a little sob, a sudden ache came into her being. Was there harm in it? she asked herself, aghast. Altogether the day was not a pleasant one for Mrs. Meredith. It seemed to plunge her back into those agitations of youth from which surely middle age ought to deliver a woman. It wronged her in her own eyes, making even her generous temper a shame to her. Had she been too good: as he said—too kind? an accusation which is hurtful, and means something like insult to a woman, though to no other creature. Too kind! No expression of contempt, no insinuated slander can be more stinging than this imputation of having been too kind. Had she been too kind to her sorrowful neighbour? had she led him to believe that her kindness was something more than kindness? She, whose special distinction it was to be kind, whose daily court was established on no other foundation, whose kindness was the breath of her nostrils; was this quality, of which she had come to be modestly conscious, and of which, perhaps, she was a little proud, to be the instrument of her humiliation? She was not a happy wife, nor indeed a wife at all, except in distant and not very pleasant recollection, and in the fact that she had a watchful husband, at the end of the world, keeping guard over her. Was it possible that she had given occasion for his interference, laid herself open to his scorn? It seemed to the poor woman as if heaven and earth had leagued against her. Too kind; suspected by the jealous man who watched her, despised by the ungrateful man by whom her tender generosity had been misinterpreted! She sent down a message to Cara that she was not going out. She sent word to her visitors that she had a headache. She saw nobody all day long. Too kind! The accusation stung in the tenderest point, and was more than she could bear.

CHAPTER XXV.

AN IDEALIST.

When Agnes Burchell encountered Oswald Meredith, as has been recorded, she had but recently taken up her abode at the ‘House.’ She had gone there much against the will of her family, actuated by that discontent which many generations may have felt, but only the present generation has confessed and justified. Agnes was the eldest daughter of a very prosaic pair, born in a very prosaic household, and how it was that the ideal had caught her in its tenacious grip nobody knew. In the Rectory at the foot of the hill, noisy with children, greasy with bread and butter, between a fat father who prosed and a stout mother who grumbled, the girl had set her heart, from the very beginning of conscious sentiment in her, upon some more excellent way. How this was to be reached she had not been able to divine for years, and many pious struggles had poor Agnes against her own better desires, many attempts to subdue herself and to represent to herself that the things she had to do were her duty and the best things for her. Between exhortations to the service of God in its most spiritual sense, and exhortations to be contented ‘in that condition of life to which God had called her,’ her heart was rent and her life distracted. Was there, indeed, nothing better in the world than to cut the bread and butter, like Werther’s Charlotte, to darn the stockings, to listen to parish gossip and her mother’s standing grievance, which was that Cherry Beresford, an old maid, should be well off and drive about in her carriage, while she, the Rector’s wife, went painfully afoot—and her father’s twaddle about the plague of Dissenters and the wickedness of curates? Agnes tried very hard to accommodate herself to these circumstances of her lot. She tried to change the tone of the family talk, making herself extremely disagreeable to everybody in so doing. She tried to reduce the children to obedience and to bring order into the unruly house, and in so doing got herself soundly rated by everybody. Who was she that she should take upon her to be superior to her neighbours—to set them all right? The rest of the Burchells were very comfortable in their state of hugger-mugger, and that she should pretend a dislike to it aggravated them all deeply—while all the time she was informed, both in sermons and in good books, that to do the duty nearest to your hand was the most heroic Christian duty. Poor Agnes could not see her way to do any duty at all. There were three sisters over sixteen, more than could be employed upon the stockings and the bread and butter. Then she tried the parish, but found with humiliation that with neither soup, nor puddings, nor little bottles of wine, nor even tracts to carry about, her visits were but little prized. Louisa, her next sister, answered better in every way than she did: when Louisa was scolded she scolded back again in a filial manner, having the last word always. She boxed the children’s ears, and pushed them about, and read a novel—when she could get one—in an untidy room, with unkempt brothers and sisters round, and took no notice; neither the disobedience, nor the untidiness, nor even unjust reproof when it came her way having any particular effect upon her. Louisa did what she was obliged to do, and knew nothing about the ideal. But Agnes did not know what to make of herself. She was called by absurd nicknames of mock respect by the others—the ‘princess’ and ‘your royal highness,’ and so forth; and Mrs. Burchell seldom lost an opportunity of saying, ‘Agnes thinks she knows better, of course; but my old-fashioned ways are good enough for the rest of us.’ Thus year after year went over her young head, each one increasing her inappropriateness—the want of any fit place for her where she was. It was against the pride of the family that she should go out as a governess, and, indeed, she was not sufficiently educated herself to teach anyone else. She was at the very height of discomfort when there dawned upon her the prospect of doing something better in the ‘House,’ serving the poor, teaching the untaught. The Rectory was very full at the time, and her room was much wanted for an uncle who was coming to pay a visit; but yet, notwithstanding this great immediate convenience, there was much resistance made. Mr. Burchell’s Church politics were undecided. He was only entering upon the path of Ritualism, starting mildly under the guidance of a curate, with Saint’s-day services, and the beginning of a choir; and the name of a Sisterhood frightened him. As for Mrs. Burchell, her indignation knew no bounds. ‘Your duty is at home, you ungrateful girl, where your father and I have stinted ourselves to let you have everything that is comfortable. And now you go and leave me to work night and day among the children. I who have no strength for it——’ ‘There is Louisa, mamma,’ said Agnes; upon which Louisa cried with indignation, and asked if everything was to be left upon her—and all the little boys and girls looked on from the corners with demure delight to watch the progress of the ‘shindy’ between Agnes and mamma. At last, however, after many scenes of this kind, Agnes was allowed to go free. She went to London, and set herself up with a modified uniform, and was as glad and triumphant as if it was the noblest vocation in the world which she had thus struggled into. Alas! it was not very long before the bonds of the prosaic earth again galled her, and the ideal seemed as far off as ever. Ignoble breakfasts and dinners and teas are as ignoble in a charitable ‘House’ as in an overcrowded Rectory; and here, too, there was gossip and unruliness, and want of discipline, and very poor success in the elevation of life out of its beggarly elements. To teach children their A B C is not an inspiriting occupation, even when the children are destitute and orphans. It was so hard to realise that they were so. The poor little wretches were just as tiresome and insubordinate as if they had been her own brothers and sisters: nothing of the sentiment of their position hung about them. And the Sisters were extremely business-like, and did their duty without a tinge of romance, as if they had been hired to do it. The awakening had been sharp for Agnes, but she had already got beyond the first stage, and was now fighting with her disappointment and arguing herself back into satisfaction. It was impossible to tell what a help to her was the breaking of little Emmy’s leg. It is an ill wind that blows nobody good. She would have liked to nurse her altogether, but at least to go to her to the hospital, to cheer her, and whisper consolation—that was something; and when the child’s face brightened at her coming, Agnes, with a sudden throb of her heart, felt that at least for the moment here was the ideal for which she had sighed. Here was some real good of her. But for her nobody would have visited little Emmy: they would have been content to hear that she was doing well: that smile of half-celestial happiness upon the poor little sick face would never have reflected heaven but for Agnes. It was the first approach to contentment in her own occupation which she had ever felt. And she had to work all the harder to get herself this pleasure, which made her satisfaction still more warm.

But—whether it was right to talk to the stranger who was so very much interested in poor little Emmy afterwards!—was that a part of the ideal, too? To be sure he had a right to inquire—he had been present at the accident, and had carried the child in his arms to the hospital—how very kindly!—and talked with what understanding! and an enthusiasm which was balm to Agnes, and partially rekindled her own. That he should ask was quite natural; that he should walk with her back to the ‘House’ had seemed very natural, too. Quite natural—he did not look as if he thought it a thing even to apologize about, but went on, with quiet simplicity, going the same way as she did. Agnes felt that, as a young lady at home, it would have appeared perhaps a little odd that a stranger should have done this; but she reflected with a thrill, half of pleasure, half of annoyance, that the uniform of a Sister had its disadvantages as well as its advantages, and that while it protected her from all rudeness, it at the same time broke the ceremonial bonds of politeness, and left her open to be addressed with frank simplicity by all classes of people. She had thought it right to let him know that she was not a Sister, but only a teacher, but it had made no difference in him. Perhaps (she explained to herself) it was the fact that there were nothing but women at the ‘House,’ which gave a certain piquancy to this conversation with a man; for the clergy, in their cassocks, were but a kind of half and half, and talked just in the same tone as Sister Mary Jane about the business of the ‘House,’ and subscriptions, and the balance-sheet, and what the Vicar thought, which was the final test of everything. Why did she like this stranger so much better than the clergy? It was because his tone and his looks and what he said were a little variety, and breathed of the outside world and the wider horizon. To be sure, it had seemed to her a little while ago that everything noblest and highest was to be had within the ‘House,’ where so many consecrated souls were giving themselves up to the service of God and the poor. But being inside had modified the views with which she had contemplated the ‘House’ from without. The world itself, the wicked and foolish world, though no less foolish and wicked, had gained a certain interest. There was variety in it: it was perhaps more amusing than the ‘House.’ These thoughts filled the mind of Agnes as the door, which was always kept locked, was closed upon her. The horizon grew narrower as she came in—that was a natural effect, for of course four straight walls must cut out a great deal of sky—but the effect seemed greater than usual that day. She felt shut in; nothing could be easier than to unlock the door, though it looked so heavy—but there was a feeling of confinement somehow in the air. Agnes had to go into the severe Gothic room, with windows high in the wall, where the children were coming in to tea, while Mr. Oswald Meredith walked away in the free air as he pleased, holding his head high. She breathed a soft sigh unawares. Where was the ideal now? There came upon her a vision of the woods and the Hill, and the winding paths that led to it, and of the four winds that were always blowing there, and the leaves that answered to every breath. What a thing it would be to thread through the woods, as she had done so often, with the wind fresh in her face, chill but vigorous, breathing life and exhilaration! How one’s ideal shifts and changes about when one is twenty! The ‘House’ looked poor indeed in the weariful afternoon about the darkening, full of the odour of weak tea.

Things grew very serious, however, next week, when, exactly as it happened before, just as she came out of the hospital from her visit to Emmy, Mr. Oswald Meredith once more appeared. He was both sorry and glad in a breath—sorry to be too late for personal inquiries, glad to have been so fortunate as just to find her—the best authority about the child.