Fierce-tempered woman as she was, Phillis had a heart. She rushed down after the child, but he turned screaming from her, and it was his stepmother who lifted him up and carried him into her own room.

Christian, young as she was, had had necessarily much experience with children. She soothed the boy, and felt that no limbs were broken; indeed, he complained of nothing, but he turned whiter and whiter, and shrank from the slightest touch.

"Something is certainly wrong with him. We must send for the doctor.
Whom do you have ordinarily?"

The question was put to Phillis, who, her fury all gone, stood behind the sofa almost as pale as the poor child. She answered humbly, and named Dr. Anstruther, whom Christian well knew by report; an old man, who for forty years had been the depository of the sicknesses and the sorrows of half Avonsbridge.

"Go, then, tell your master I think Barker ought to be sent for him at once; and say to Dr. Grey—only don't frighten him, for it may be a mere trifle after all—that I am afraid he will have to dine out without me today. Go quick, Phillis; there is no time to lose." For the little face was sinking back paler and paler, and there was an occasional faint moan.

Almost for the first time since her entrance into the Grey family, Phillis, against her will, actually obeyed orders and slipped away so hastily that she stumbled over Letitia, and gave her a good box on the ear; however, the little girl did not cry, but gathered herself up, as if quite used to such treatment, and crept over to the sofa.

"Will Atty die, do you think?" she whispered in much curiosity—only curiosity there was not a tear in her eyes. "Because then he would never thump me any more."

Christian's very soul recoiled, and then melted into the deepest pity. What sort of bringing up could it have been which had resulted in feelings like these?

She took no notice of what was said, but merely desired the little girl to bring pillows and a footstool, so that she could hold Arthur as easily as possible till the doctor came. And then she bade her take off the diamond bracelets and the hanging lace, and told her where to put all this finery away, which Letitia accomplished with aptitude and neatness.

"There, that will do. Thank you, my dear. You are a tidy little girl.
Will you come and give me a kiss."

Letitia obeyed, though with some hesitation, and then came and stood by her step-mother, watching her intently. At last she said,

"You are crumpling your pretty white silk dress. Won't that vex you very much?"

"Not very much—if it can not be helped."

"That is odd. I thought you liked fine clothes, and married papa that he might give you them: Phillis said so."

"Phillis was mistaken."

More than that Christian did not answer; indeed, she hardly took in what the child said, being fully engrossed with her charge.

Letitia spoke again.

"Are you really sorry for Atty? Aunt Henrietta said you did not care for any of us."

"Not care for any of you!" And almost as if it were a real mother's heart, Christian felt hers yearn over the poor pale face, growing every minute more ghastly.

"I wonder where papa can be! Letitia, go and look for him. Tell him to send Barker for the doctor at once."

And then she gave her whole attention to Arthur, forgetting everything except that she had taken upon herself toward these children all the duties and anxieties of motherhood. How many—perhaps none—would she ever win of its joys? But to women like her duty alone constitutes happiness.

She felt happier than she had done for very, very long, when at last Arthur lay soothed and quieted in her arms, which clasped round him close and warm, as finding in him something to comfort, something to love. She had almost lost sigh of danger and fear, when the door opened and Phillis entered, Dr. Grey following.

On Christian's first look at the latter, she found out one thing—which hardly so much lessened her reverence as converted it into a strange tenderness—that her husband was one of the many men who, brave enough morally, are the most utter cowards at sight of physical suffering. Completely unhinged, trembling all over, Dr. Grey knelt down by his boy's side.

"What must we do, Christian? What must we do?"

She knew at once that whatever was done she must do it; but before she had time to say a word there appeared Miss Gascoigne.

"What is wrong? Why is the doctor sent for? That child hurt? Nonsense! Hurt seriously with just a mere slip down a few stairs! I will never believe it. It is just making a fuss about nothing. Dr. Grey, we must go to the dinner-party, or what would people say? Phillis, take Arthur from Mrs. Grey and carry him up to the nursery."

But Arthur screamed, and clung with all his might to his step-mother's neck.

"He is hurt," said Christian, firmly, "and I can not have him moved. Hush, Atty! you grieve papa. Be quiet, and nobody shall touch you but papa and me."

Miss Cascoigne stood mute—then again ordered Phillis to take the child.

"I won't go! She will beat me again. Please, please;" and he clung again to his step-mother. "I'll be good—I'll be so good, if you will only take care of me."

"I will," said Christian. And the desperate instinct of protection, which some women have toward all helpless things, gleamed in her eyes as she added, "Miss Gascoigne, you must leave this child to me. I know what to do with him. Shall it be so, Dr. Grey?"

"Certainly."

With one furious glance at her brother-in-law, Miss Gascoigne turned and walked out of the room.

But there was no time to heed her, for that instant, bubbling over the boy's white lips, Christian saw a red drop or two; they made her own heart stand still.

It so happened that during her stay with the Fergusons one of the little boys had broken his collar-bone; a slight accident in itself, had not the bone pierced the lung, causing a long and severe illness. Quick as lightning Christian recollected all that had not been done, and all that the doctor said they ought to have done, in the case of little Jamie. It was useless speaking out what she feared; indeed, one look at Dr. Grey's terrified face showed her it was impossible; so she merely laid Arthur down very gently from her arms, persuaded him to let her place him on his back along the sofa, and wiped the few drops from his mouth.

"Do not be frightened, papa"—and she made an effort at a smile—"as I said, I think I know what is amiss with him."

"I am used to children. The doctor will be here soon. Suppose you were to go down stairs and see if he is coming,"

Dr. Grey obeyed mechanically. When he came back he found Letitia and the nurse sent away. Christian hardly knew how she managed it, but she did do it, for it was necessary; Arthur must be kept quiet. She was now sitting in the silent, half-dark room, with the boy lying quite still and patient now, his little hot hand clinging fast to hers.

"How content he seems with you! He does not want Phillis, I think."

"No! no! no!" cried Arthur, violently. "Phillis beats me; she always does, every day of my life. I hate her! If I die, Phillis ought to be hanged, for it was she that killed me."

"Hush! hush! no speaking," said Christian; and her soft compelling hand pressed the boy down again. She was now almost certain that the lung was injured, and her eyes were full of foreboding compassion as they rested on the poor little fellow, so unused to suffering.

"Is this all true about Phillis?" whispered Dr. Grey.

"I fear it is; but we can not talk of that just now. Ah! here is the doctor."

It was an inexpressible relief to Christian when, after his first glance at the patient, Dr. Anstruther said, in his quick, firm, cheery way,

"Now, Dr. Grey, we'll soon put your little man right. But we only want women here. The best thing you can do is to walk out of the room. This young lady?"

"Mrs. Grey—Dr. Anstruther."

"I see—I beg your pardon, madam;" and his keen eyes took in at a glance the graceful figure, the brilliant evening dress. "I was to have met you today at dinner at the vice chancellor's, but this prevented you, I suppose?"

"Yes," said Christian; and then, in a few whispered words, told about the accident, and her suspicions of what it was. The freemasonry of trust which springs up instantaneously between any honest doctor and sensible nurse made them friends in five minutes.

Mrs. Grey's fears had been only too true. Many weeks of illness and of anxious nursing lay before her and her poor boy. After all had been done that could be done, Dr. Grey was recalled, and the facts explained to him; though Dr. Anstruther, who seemed to understand him well, dwelt as lightly upon them as possible, consistent with that strict truth which was always spoken by the good doctor. Still, it was enough.

When Dr. Anstruther was gone, Dr. Grey caine and stood by the sofa, in great distress.

"An illness of weeks—delicate for months—and perhaps weakly for life.
Oh, my poor boy!"

"Hush!" said Christian; "the child might hear. Go, and sit down for a minute, and I will come to you."

She came, and, leaning over him, laid her hand tenderly on her husband's shoulder. She could do no more, even though he was her husband. She felt helpless to comfort him, for the key which unlocks all consolation was in her heart not yet found. Only there came over her, with a solemn presentiment which had its sweetness still, the conviction that whatever happiness her lot might have missed, its duties were very plain, very sure. All her life she would have, more or less, to take care of, not only these her children, but their father.

She stood beside him, holding his shaking hands between her two firm ones, till she heard Arthur call faintly.

"I must leave you now. You will go to bed; and oh, do try to sleep. Poor papa!"

"And you?"

"I shall sit up, of course. Never mind me; I have done it many a time."

"Will you have nobody with you?"

"No. It would disturb Arthur, Hush! there is no time for speaking. This once you must let me have my way. Good-night, papa."

But for all that, in the dead of the night, she heard the study-door open, and saw Dr. Grey come stealing in to where she sat watching—as she was to watch for many a weary day and night—beside his boy's pillow. He saw her likewise—a figure, the like of which, husband and father as he had been, he had never seen before. No household experience of his had ever yet shown him a woman in that light—the dearest light in which any man can behold her.

A figure, quite different from the stately lady in white splendors of six hours before, sitting, dressed in a sober, soundless, dark-colored gown, motionless by the dim lamplight, but with the soft eyes open and watchful, and the tender hands ever ready for those endless wants of sickness at night, especially sickness that may be tending unto death, or unto the awful struggle between life and death, which most women have at some time of their lives to keep ward over till danger has gone by—just the sort of figure, in short, that every man is sure to need beside him, once or more, in his journey between the cradle and the grave. Happy he over whose cradle it has bent, and who, nearing the grave, shalt have such a one upon whose bosom he may close his weary eyes.

When Christian saw her husband, she stirred, and put up a linger far silence, Dr. Grey crossed the room, trying hard to make his step light and noiseless, but piteously failing in the attempt. Still Arthur was not disturbed.

"He sleeps sound, Christian. Does he suffer very much, do you think?"

"Not now."

"Will he ever recover?"

"I hope so. Oh, please God, I trust so! Dr. Anstruther said there was no reason why he should not."

"And you—you think so too?" with a touching appeal.

"Yes, I do think so"

Dr. Grey seemed relieved. In a kind of helpless, childlike way, he stood behind her and watched all she did for the child, who waked thirsty, and cried and moaned, but by-and—by was soothed to sleep again.

His father shuddered as he gazed upon him.

"He looks as if he were dead—my poor boy!"

"You must not look at him, You must go to bed," said Christian, with a gentle authority.

"Presently. And you—are you not afraid to sit up here alone?"

"Oh no."

"You never seem to be afraid of any thing."

"Not of much—I have gone through such a deal" said Christian, with a faint smile. "But, papa, indeed you must go to bed."

Nevertheless, they stood a little longer looking down upon Arthur, whose breathing grew softer into natural sleep. Then, with a mutual impulse given by the unity of a common grief the husband and wife turned and kissed one another.

"God bless you, my darling, my poor children's mother, the first they ever—"

He stopped, and never finished the sentence.

Chapter 6

    "Love that asketh love again,
     Finds the barter naught but pain;
     Love that giveth in full store,
     Aye receives as much, and more.

    "Love, exacting nothing back,
     Never knoweth any lack;
     Love, compelling love to pay,
     Sees him bankrupt every day."

LIFE in the sick-room—most of us know what that is; how the whole world narrows itself within four walls, and every fanciful grief and morbid imagining slips off, pressed down into nothingness by the weight of daily, hourly cares, and commonplace, yet all-engrossing realities.

Christian was a born nurse—and nurses, like poets, are born, not made. You may recognize the faculty in the little girl of ten years old, as she steals into your room to bring you your breakfast, and takes the opportunity to arrange your pillow, and put your drawers in order, and do any other little helpful office which you may need; and you miss it painfully in the matron of sixty, who, with perhaps the kindest intentions, comes to nurse you, taking for granted that she is the best person you could possibly have about you; and yet you would be thankful to shut the door upon her, and struggle, suffer, die alone; as Arthur, child as he was, would rather have died than suffer near his sick-bed either of his two aunts.

Phillis too—he screamed whenever he saw her, and with a jealousy not unnatural, and which Mrs. Grey was rather sorry for than annoyed at, she came into the room continually. At last it became a question almost of life and death, for the fever ran high; and even Dr. Anstruther, cheery man as he was, began to look exceedingly grave. The child must be kept quiet, and how to do it?

For in this crisis Christian found out, what every woman has to find out soon or late, the weak points in her husband. She saw that, like many another good and brave man, he was in this matter quite paralyzed; that she could rely only upon herself, and act for herself, or else tell him what he was to do, and help him to do it, just like a child. She did not care for him the less for this—she sometimes felt she cared for him, more; but she opened her eyes calmly to the facts of the case, and to her own heavy responsibility.

She consulted with Dr. Anstruther, and left him to explain things to whomsoever he would; then locked the door, and for eight days and nights suffered no one to cross the threshold of Arthur's room except the doctor.

It was a daring expedient, but the desperation of the time and Dr. Anstruther's consent and co-operation, gave her courage; she was neither timid nor ignorant; she knew exactly what to do, and she believed, if it were God's will to save Arthur's life, He would give her strength to do it.

"My boy's life—only his life!" she prayed, more earnestly than she had ever prayed in her life before, and then prepared for the long solitary vigil, of which it was impossible to foresee the end. In its terrible suspense she forgot every thing except the present; day by day and hour by hour, as they slipped heavily along. She ceased to think of herself at all, scarcely even of her husband; her mind was wholly engrossed by her poor sick boy.

Hers, though hitherto she had never loved him; for he was not lovable at all, that rough, selfish, headstrong Arthur, the plague of his aunts, and the terror of the nursery. But now, when he lay on his sick-bed, lingering on from day to day, in total dependence on her care, with a heavy future before him, poor child!—for he seemed seriously injured—there came into his step-mother's weak, womanly heart a woman's passionate tenderness over all helpless things. She did to him not only her duty, but something more. She learned to love him.

Had any one told her a while ago that she should stand for hours watching every change in that pale face, whose common, uncomely features grew spiritualized with sickness, till she often trembled on their unearthly sweetness; that twenty times in the night she would start up from her uncomfortable sofa-bed, listening for the slightest sound; that the sight of Arthur eating his dinner (often prepared by her own hands, for the servants of the Lodge were strangely neglectful), or of Arthur trying to play a game of draughts, and faintly smiling over it, should cause her a perfect ecstasy of delight, Christian would have replied "Impossible!" But heaven sometimes converts our impossibles and inevitables into the very best blessings we have—most right, most natural, and most dear.

As to Christian herself, she was, even externally, greatly changed. Pale as she looked, and no wonder, there was a light in her eye and a firmness in her step very different from those of the weary-looking woman who used to roam listlessly about the gloomy galleries or sit silently working in the equally gloomy drawing-room with Miss Gascoigne and Miss Grey.

Poor Aunt Maria, in her regular daily visit—she dared venture no more—to the sick-room door, would sometimes say hesitatingly, "My dear, how well you look still? You are sure you are not breaking down?" And Christian, grateful for the only kindly woman's face she ever saw near her, would respond with a smile—sometimes with a kiss, which always alarmed Aunt Maria exceedingly.

As for Aunt Henrietta, she never came at all. Since the evening when she had marched out of the room in high dudgeon, she had taken not the smallest notice of the sick boy. His life or death was apparently of far less moment to her than her own offended dignity. Had he been left in her sole charge, she would doubtless have done her duty to him but to stand by and see another doing it? No! a thousand times no! That part, insignificant in itself, and yet often one of the very sweetest and most useful in life's harmonies, familiarly called "second fiddle," was a part impossible to be played by Miss Gascoigne.

What she did or said—though probably the first was little and the other a great deal—was happily unknown to Mrs. Grey. Her one duty lay clear before her, to save her poor boy's life, if any human means could do it. And sometimes, when she saw the agony and anxiety in his father's face, Christian felt a wild joy in spending herself and being spent, even to the last extremity, if by such means she could repay to her most good and tender husband that never-counted, unaccountable debt of love, which nothing ever does pay except return in kind.

Concerning Arthur himself, the matter was simple enough now. All his fractiousness, restlessness, and innumerable wants were easy to put up with; she loved the child. And he, who (except from his father) had never known any love before, took it with a wondering complacency, half funny, half pathetic. Sometimes he would say, looking at her wistfully, "Oh, it's so nice to be ill!" And once, the first time she untied his right arm, and allowed it to move freely, he slipped it around her neck, whispering, "You are very good to me, mother." Christian crept away. She dared not clasp him or cry over him, he was so weak still; but she stole aside into the oriel window, her heart full almost to bursting.

After that he always called her "mother."

The other two children she scarcely ever saw. The need for keeping Arthur quiet was so vital, that of course they were not admitted to his room, and she herself rarely left it. Dim and far away seemed all the world, and especially her own poor life, whether happy or miserable, compared with that frail existence, which hung almost upon a thread.

At last the medical opinion was given that little Arthur might, with great care and incessant watching ("which it is plain he will have, Mrs. Grey," added the old doctor, bowing and smiling), grow up to be a man yet.

When Dr. Anstruther said this, Christian felt as if the whole world had brightened.

She had no one to tell her joy to, for Dr. Grey was out, but she stood in her familiar retreat at the window—oh, what that window could have revealed of the last few weeks!—and her tears, long dried up, poured down like summer rain.

And then Dr. Grey came in, very much agitated; he had met the doctor in the street and been told glad tidings. She had to compel herself into sudden quietness, for her husband's sake, which, indeed, was a lesson now daily being learned, and growing every day sweeter in the learning.

"Christian," he said, when they had talked it all over, and settled when and where Arthur was first to go out of doors, with various other matter of fact things which she thought would soonest calm the father's emotion—"Christian, Dr. Anstruther tells me my boy could not have lived but for you and your care. I shall ever remember this—ever feel grateful."

A pang, the full meaning of which she then did not in the least understand, shot through Christian's heart. "You should not feel grateful to his mother."

"Do you mean, really, that you love him like—like a mother?"

"Of course I do."

Dr. Grey said nothing more, but his wife felt him put his arm round her. She leaned her head against him and, though she still wept—for the tears, once unsealed, seemed painfully quick to rise—still she was contented and at rest. Worn and weary a little, now the suspense was over the reaction came, but very peaceful. Unconsciously there ran through her mind one of the foolish bits of poetry she had been fond of when a girl:

"In the unruffled shelter of thy love, My bark leaped homeward from a stormy sea, And furled its sails, and, like a nested dove—"

"Mother!" called out Arthur's feeble, fretful voice, and in a minute the poetry had all gone out of her head, and she was by her boy's side, feeding him, jesting with him, and planning how the first day of his convalescence should be celebrated by a grand festival, inviting the two others to tea in his room. It was her own room, from which he had never been moved since the first night. How familiar had grown the crimson sofa, the tall mirror, the carved oaken wardrobe! The bride had regarded these splendors with a wondering half-uneasy gratitude; but now, to Arthur's nurse and "mother," they looked pleasant, home-like, and dear.

"We will pull the sofa to the fire. Help, papa, please, and place the little table before it. And we will send written invitations which papa shall deliver, with a postman's knock, at the nursery door. We won't send him one, I think?"

"Very well," said Dr. Grey, with a great pretense of wrath; "then papa will have to invite himself, like the wicked old fairy at the christening of—Who was it, Arthur?"

Arthur clapped his hands, which proceeding was instantly stopped by Christian. "It was the Sleeping Beauty, which you don't know one bit about, and I do, and ever so many more tales. She used to tell me them in the middle of the night, when I couldn't sleep, and they were so nice and so funny! She shall tell you some after tea. And we'll make her sing too. Papa, did you ever hear her sing?"

"No," said Dr. Grey.

"Oh, but I have. She'll sing for me," returned Arthur, proudly. "She said she would, though she had meant never to sing again."

Christian blushed violently, for the boy, in his unconscious way, had referred to a little episode of his illness, when, having exhausted all efforts to soothe him into drowsiness, she had tried her voice, silent for many months—silent since before she had known Dr. Grey. She had wished it so—wished to bury all relics of that time of her youth deep down, so that no chance hand could ever dig them up again.

"Do you really sing?" asked Dr. Grey, a little surprised, and turning full upon her those grave, gentle, tender eyes.

She blushed more painfully than ever, but she answered steadily, "Yes, I was supposed to have a very fine voice. My father wished it cultivated for the stage. It might have been so if things had been different."

"Would you have liked it?—the stage, I mean."

"Oh no, no!" with a visible, unmistakable shudder. "I would have resisted to the last. I hated it."

"Was that why you left off singing?"

It would have been so easy to tell a lie—a little harmless white lie but Christian could not do it. She could keep silence to any extent, but falsehood was impossible to her. She dropped her eyes; but the color once more overspread her whole face as she answered, distinctly and decisively, "No."

It surprised her somewhat afterward, not then—her heart was beating too violently for her to notice any thing much—that her husband asked her no farther question, but immediately turned the conversation to Arthur's tea-party, in the discussion of which both were so eager to amuse the invalid that the other subject dropped—naturally, it appeared; anyhow, effectually.

But when the two other children came in to see Arthur, he again recurred to her singing, which had evidently taken a strong hold upon his imagination.

"Papa, you must hear her. Mother, sing the song with pretty little twiddle-twiddles in it—far prettier than Aunt Henrietta's things—something about warbling in her breath."

"Oh no, not that," said Christian, shrinking involuntarily. What from? Was it from a ghostly vision of the last time she had sung it—that is properly, to a piano-forte accompaniment, played by fingers that had afterward caught hold of her trembling fingers, and been a living comment on the song? It was that exquisite one from Handel's "Acis and Galatea:"

    "Love in her eyes sits playing,
     And sheds delicious death;
     Love on her lips is straying,
     And warbling in her breath."

Probably never was there a melody which more perfectly illustrated that sort of love, the idealization of fancy and feeling, with just a glimmer of real passion quivering through it—the light cast in advance by the yet unrisen day.

"Not that song, Arthur. It is rather difficult besides, Papa might not care to hear it."

"Papa might if he were tried," said Dr. Grey, smiling, "Why not do to please me what you do to please the children?"

So Christian sang at once—ay, and that very song. She faced it. She determined she would, with all the ghosts of the past that hovered round it. And soon she found how, thus faced, as says that other lovely song of Handel's, which she had learned at the same time:

"The wandering shadows, ghostly pale, All troop to their infernal jail: Each fettered ghost slips to his several grave."

Her ghosts slipped one by one into the grave of the past. She had begun her song feebly and uncertainly; but when she really heard the sound of her own voice echoing through the lofty room, with a gush of melody that the old walls had not known for centuries, there came upon her an intoxication of enjoyment. It was that pure enjoyment which all true artists—be they singers, painters, poets—understand, and they only—the delight in mere creation, quite distinct from any sympathy or admiration of others; and oh how far removed from any mean vanity or love of praise.

Christian was happy—happy as a lark in the air, just to hear—and make—the sound of her own singing. Her face brightened; her figure, as she stood leaning against the mantel-piece assumed a new grace and dignity. She was beautiful—absolutely beautiful and her husband saw it.

Was it fancy if, glancing at her, Dr. Grey half sighed? Only for a moment; then he said cheerily:

"Arthur was right. Children, tell your mother that she is the best singer we ever heard in all our lives."

"That she is. She sings just like a bird in a tree. And, then, you see, papa, she is our own bird."

Christian came down from the clouds at once, and laughed heartily at the idea of being Arthur's own bird.

"Titia," said Dr. Grey, with sudden energy, as if the thought had been brewing in his mind for many minutes, "is there not a piano in the drawing-room? There used to be."

"Yes, and I practice upon it two hours every day," answered Letitia, with dignity. "But afterward Aunt Henrietta locks it up and takes the key. She says it is poor mamma's piano, and nobody is to play upon it but me."

As the child said this in a tone so like Aunt Henrietta's, her father looked—as Christian had only seen him look once or twice before, and thought that there might be circumstances under which any body displeasing him would be considerably afraid of Dr. Arnold Grey.

"Did you know of this, Christian?"

"Yes," she answered, very softly, with a glance, half warning, half entreating, round upon the children. "But we will not say anything about it I never did, and I had rather not do so now."

"I understand. We will speak of it another time?"

But he did not, neither that night, nor for several days and Christian felt only too grateful for his silence.

Sometimes, when, after ringing at intervals of five minutes for some trifling thing, Barker had sent up "Miss Gascoigne's compliments, and the servants couldn't be spared to wait up stairs;" or the cook had apologized for deficiencies in Arthur's dinner by "Miss Gascoigne wanted it for lunch;" and especially when, to her various messages to the nursery, no answer was ever returned—sometimes it had occurred to Christian—gentle as she was, and too fully engrossed to notice small things—that this was not exactly the position Dr. Grey's wife ought to hold in his—and her—own house. Still she said nothing. She trusted to time and patience. And she had such a dread of domestic war—of a family divided against itself. Besides, some change must come, for in a day or two she would have to resume her ordinary duties, to take her place at the head of her husband's table, and once more endure the long mornings, the weary evenings, to meet and pass over the sharp speeches, the unloving looks, which made the continual atmosphere of the Lodge.

"Oh!" she thought to herself, glancing round upon those four walls of the sick-chamber, which had seen, with much of anxiety, much also of love that never failed, and patience that knew no end, "I could almost say with Arthur, 'It is so nice to be ill!'"

He seemed to think the same for on the day he left it he grumbled dreadfully at being carried in Phillis's strong arms—which he had fiercely resisted at first—to the drawing-room, where he was to hold his second tea-party—of aunts.

There they sat waiting, Aunt Maria fond and tearful, Aunt Henrietta grim and severe. And shortly—nay, before Arthur was well settled on the sofa, and lay pale and silent, still clinging to his step-mother's hand, the cause of her severity came out.

"Dr. Grey, what have you been doing? Buying a new piano?"

Yes, there it was, a beautiful Erard; and Dr. Grey stood and smiled at it with an almost childish delight, as if he had done something exceedingly clever, which he certainly had.

"To buy a new piano—without consulting me! I never heard of such a thing. Mrs. Grey, this is your doing!"

"She never saw it before, or knew I meant to buy it; but, now it is bought, I hope she will like it. Try it, Christian."

His wife was deeply touched, so much so that she almost felt sorry for Aunt Henrietta, she would have given much to bring a little brightness, a little kindness, into that worn, restless, unhappy face, true reflection of the nature which itself created its own unhappiness, as well as that of all connected with it. She said, almost humbly,

"You are very good! I never had a piano of my own before. And I hope
Miss Gascoigne will enjoy it as much as I shall myself."

The soft, answer—never wasted upon fiercest wrath—threw a little oil upon Miss Gascoigne's. She spoke no more, but she resolutely turned her back upon the offending instrument. Christian struck a few chords, just to please her husband, and came away.

It was an uncomfortable tea-party—not nearly so merry as Arthur's first. After it, the boy wearily curled up on the sofa to sleep, and his father glanced round in search of his best friend—the big book.

Stop a minute, Dr. Grey; before you retire to your study, as you always seem to do whenever all your family happen to be met socially together, I have to ask you about that invitation to St. Mary's Lodge which came this morning.''

Dr. Grey paused, and listened to a long explanation, ending in the decision (to which Christian passively submitted, for what must be done had best be done quickly) that he and his bride should make their long-delayed public appearance in Avonsbridge society at an evening party shortly to be given by the Master of St. Mary's.

"It is a musical party," explained Miss Gascoigne, when, Dr. Grey having quitted the room, Christian, for want of something to converse about, began to make a few polite inquiries concerning it. "So you have got your piano just in time, and may practice all day long, to be ready for your performance. Of course you will be asked to perform, since every body knows about your father and his musical genius. By-the-by, I met lately a gentleman who said he knew Mr. Oakley, and was exceedingly surprised—at which I must confess I scarcely wondered—when he heard who it was that my brother-in-law had married."

"Oh, Henrietta!" pleaded poor Aunt Maria, with her most troubled look. But it was too late. Even Christian—quiet as her temper was, and strong her resolution to keep peace, at any price which cost nobody any thing excepting herself—was roused at last.

"Miss Gascoigne," she said, and her eyes blazed and her whole figure dilated, "when your brother married me, he did it of his own free choice. He loved me. Whatever I was, he loved me. And whatever I may be now, I at least know his dignity and my own too well to submit to be spoken to, or spoken of, in this manner. It is not of the slightest moment to me who among your acquaintances criticises myself or my marriage, only I beg to be spared the information afterward. For my father"—she gulped down a great agony, a sorrow darker than that of death—"he was my father. You had better be silent concerning him."

Miss Gascoigne was silent—for a few minutes. Perhaps she was a little startled, almost frightened—many a torturer is a great coward—by the sight of that white face, its every feature trembling with righteous indignation or, perhaps, some touch of nature in the hard woman's heart pleaded against this unwomanly persecution of one who bad never injured her. But she could not hold her peace for long.

"There is no need to be violent, Mrs. Grey. It would be a sad thing, indeed, Maria, if your brother had married a violent-tempered woman."

"I am not that. Why do you make it seem so?" said Christian, still trembling. And then, her courage breaking down under a cruel sense of wrong. "Why can not you see that I am weak and worn out, longing for a little peace, and I can not get it? I never did you any harm—it is not my fault that you hate me. Why will you hunt me down and wear my life out, while I hear it all alone, and have never told my husband one single word? It is cruel of you—cruel."

She sobbed, till Arthur's sudden waking up—he had been fast asleep on the sofa, or she might not have given way so much—compelled her to restrain herself.

Miss Gascoigne was moved—at least as much as was in her nature to be. She said hastily, "There—there—we will say no more about it;" took up her work, and busied herself therewith.

For Aunt Maria, she did as she had been doing throughout the contest—the only thing Aunt Maria ever had strength to do—she remained neutral and passive—cried and knitted—knitted and cried.

So sat together these three women—as good women in their way, who meant well, and might have lived to be a comfort to one another. Yet, as it was, they only seemed to live for one another's mutual annoyance, irritation, and pain.

A thunder-storm sometimes clears the air; and the passion of resistance into which Christian had been goaded apparently cooled the family atmosphere for a few days. But she herself felt only a dead-weight—a heavy chill—which lay on her heart long after the storm was spent.

For the "gentleman" and his rude remark—if indeed he had made it, which she more than doubted, aware how Miss Gascoigne, like all people who can only see things from the stand-point of their own individuality, was somewhat given to exaggeration—Christian heeded him not. The world might talk as it chose; she knew her husband loved her, and that he had married her for love.

And her boy loved her too, and needed her sorely, as he would need for many a long day yet. It would take a whole year, Dr. Anstruther said, before the injury to the lung was quite recovered, and all fear of Arthur's falling into continued ill health removed.

Thus duties, sweet as strong, kept continually weaving themselves about her once forlorn life; binding her fast, it is true, but in such pleasant bonds that she never wished them broken. Every day she grew safer and happier and every day, as she looked on Dr. Grey's kind, good face, which familiarity was making almost beautiful, she felt thankful that—whether she loved it or only liked it—she should have it beside her all her days.

Chapter 7.

    "And do the hours slip fast or slow,
     And are ye sad or gay?
     And is your heart with your liege lord, lady,
     Or is it far away?

    "The lady raised her calm, proud head,
     Though her tears fell one by one:
     'Life counts not hours by joys or pangs,
     But just by duties done.

    "And when I lie in the green kirk-yard,
     With the mould upon my breast,
     Say not that "She did well or ill,"
     Only, "She did her best."'"

A day or two after this, Christian, returning from her daily walk, which was now brief enough, and never beyond the college precincts, met a strange face at the Lodge door—that is, a face not exactly strange; she seemed to have seen it before, but could not recollect how or where. Then she recalled it as that of a young daily governess, her predecessor at the Fergusons', who had left them "to better herself," as she said—and decidedly to the bettering of her pupils.

Miss Susan Bennett—as Christian had soon discovered, both pupils and parents being very loquacious on the subject—was one of those governesses whom one meets in hopeless numbers among the middle-class families—girls, daughters of clerks or petty shopkeepers, above domestic service, and ashamed or afraid of any other occupation, which, indeed, is only too difficult to be found, whereby half-educated or not particularly clever young women may earn their bread. They therefore take to teaching as "genteel," and as being rather an elevation than not from the class in which they were born. Obliged to work, though they would probably rather be idle, they consider governessing the easiest kind of work, and use it only as a means to an end which, if they have pretty faces and tolerable manners, is—human nature being weak, and life only too hard, poor girls!—most probably matrimony.

But governesses, pursuing their calling on this principle, are the dead-weight which drags down their whole class. Half educated, lazy, unconscientious, with neither the working faculty of a common servant, nor the tastes and feelings of a lady, they do harm wherever they go; they neither win respect nor deserve it; and the best thing that could befall them would be to be swept down, by hundreds, a step lower in the scale of society—made to use their hands instead of their heads, or, at any rate, to learn themselves instead of attempting to teach others.

Christian—who, though chiefly self-taught, except in music, was a well-educated woman, and a most conscientious teacher—had been caused a world of trouble in undoing what her predecessor had done; and in the few times that the little Fergusons had met in the street their former instructress, who was a very good-looking and showy girl, she had not been too favorably impressed with Miss Bennett. But when she saw her coming out of the Lodge door, rather shabbier than beforetime, the March wind whistling through her thin, tawdry shawl, and making her pretty face look pinched and blue, Mrs. Grey, contrasting the comforts of her own life with that of the poor governess, felt compassionately towards her so much so, that, though wondering what could possibly be her business at the Lodge, she assumed the mistress's kindly part, and bowed to her in passing which Miss Bennett was in too great a hurry either to notice or return.

"Has that lady been calling here?" she asked of Phillis, whom she met bringing in Oliver from his afternoon walk.

"Lady!" repeated Phillis, scornfully, "she's only the governess."

"The governess!"

"Lor! didn't you know it, ma'am? And she coming to Miss Letitia every day for this week past!" and Phillis gleamed all over with malicious satisfaction that her mistress did not know it, and might naturally feel annoyed and offended thereat.

Annoyed Mrs. Grey certainly was, but she was not readily offended. Her feeling was more that of extreme vexation at the introduction here of the very last person whom she would desire to see Letitia's governess, and a vague wonder as to how much Dr. Grey knew about the matter. Of course, engrossed as she was with the charge of Arthur, it was quite possible that, to save her trouble, he and his sisters might have arranged it all. Only she wished she had been told—merely told about it.

Any little pain, however, died out when, on entering the drawing-room, she caught the warm delight of Arthur's eyes, turning to her as eagerly as if she had been absent from him a week instead of half an hour.

"Oh, mother, I am so tired! Here have I been lying on this sofa, and Titia and somebody else—a great, big, red-checked woman—Titia says she isn't a lady, and I must not call her so—have been strum-strumming on your pretty piano, and laughing and whispering between whiles. They bother me so. Please don't let them come again."

Christian promised to try and modify things a little.

But she must come and practice here, Arthur. She is Miss
Bennett—Titia's governess.

"Governess—a nice governess! Why, she hardly teaches her a bit. They were chattering the whole time; and I heard them plan to meet in Walnut-tree Court at five o'clock every evening, and go for a walk with a gentleman—a kind gentleman, who would give Titia as many sweet things as ever she could eat."

Mrs. Grey stood aghast. This was the sort of thing that had gone on—or would have gone on if not discovered—with the little Fergusons.

"Are you sure of this, Arthur? If so, I must ring for Phillis at once."

"Oh don't—please don't. Phillis will on'y fly into a passion and beat her—poor Titia! I'm very sorry I told of her. I wouldn't be a sneak if I could help it."

"My dear boy!" said Christian, fondly. "Well, I will not speak about it just yet, and certainly not to Phillis. Lie here till I see if Titia is still in the nursery. It is just five o'clock."

Yes, there the little damsel was, sitting as prim as possible over a book, looking the picture of industry and innocence.

"Miss Bennett has left for the day, has she not, Titia? You are not going out with her, or going out again at all?"

"No," said Titia, with her head bent down.

It was always Christian's belief—and practice—that to accuse a child, unproved, of telling a lie, was next to suggesting that lies should be told. She always took truth for granted until she had unequivocal evidence to the contrary.

"Very well," she said, kindly. "Is that a nice book you have? 'Arabian Nights?' Then sit and read it quietly till you go to bed. Good-night, my dear."

She kissed her, which was always a slight effort; it was hard work loving Titia, who was so cold and prim, and unchildlike, with so little responsiveness in her nature.

"I hope all is safe for today," thought Christian, anxiously, and determined to speak to Titia's father the first opportunity. He was dining in hall today, and afterward they were to go to the long-delayed entertainment at the vice chancellor's, which was to inaugurate her entrance into Avonsbridge society.

Miss Gascoigne was full of it; and during all the time that the three ladies were dining together, she talked incessantly, so that, even had she wished, Mrs. Grey could not have got in a single word of inquiry concerning Miss Bennett. She however, judged it best to wait quietly till the cloth was removed and Barker vanished.

Christian was not what is termed a "transparent" character; that is, she could "keep herself to herself," as the phrase is, better than most people. It was partly from habit, having lived so long in what was worse than loneliness, under circumstances when she was obliged to maintain the utmost and most cautious silence upon every thing, and partly because her own strong nature prevented the necessity of letting her mind and feelings bubble over on all occasions and to every body, as is the manner of weaker but yet very amiable women. But, on the other hand, though she could keep a secret sacredly, rigidly—so rigidly as to prevent people's even guessing that there was a secret to be kept, she disliked unnecessary mysteries and small deceptions exceedingly. She saw no use and no good in them. They seemed to her only the petty follies of petty minds. She had no patience with them, and would take no trouble about them.

So, as soon as the ladies were alone, she said to Miss Gascoigne outright, without showing either hesitation or annoyance.

"I met Miss Bennett in the hall to-day. Why did you not tell me that you and Aunt Maria had chosen a governess for Letitia?"

Sometimes nothing puzzles very clever people so much as a piece of direct simplicity. Aunt Henrietta actually blushed.

"Chosen a governess? Well, so we did! We were obliged to do it. And you were so much occupied with Arthur. Indeed, I must say," recovering herself from the defensive into the offensive position, "that the way you made yourself a perfect slave to that child, to the neglect of all your other duties, was—"

"Never mind that now, please. Just tell me about Miss Bennett. When did she come, and how did you hear of her?"

She spoke quite gently, in mere inquiry; she was so anxious neither to give nor to take offense, if it could possibly be avoided. She bore always in mind a sentence her husband had once quoted—and, though a clergyman, he did not often quote the Bible, he only lived it: "As much as in you lieth, live peaceably with all men." But she sometimes wondered, with a kind of sad satire, whether the same could ever, under any circumstances, be done with all women.

Alas! not with these, or rather this woman, Aunt Maria being merely the adjective of that very determined substantive, Aunt Henrietta. She braced herself to the battle immediately.

"Excuse me, Mrs. Grey; but I cannot see what right you have to question me, or I to answer. Am I not capable of the management of my own sister's children, who have been under my care ever since she died, and in whom I never supposed you would take the slightest interest?"

This after her charge of Arthur—when she had nursed the child back to life again, and knew that he still depended upon her for everything in life! But, knowing it was so, the secret truth was enough to sustain her under any heap of falsehoods—opposing falsehoods, too, directly contradicting one another; but Miss Gascoigne never paused to consider that. Lax-tongued people seldom do.

"I will not question the point of my interest in the children. If I can not prove it in other ways than words, the latter would be very useless. All I wish to say is, that I should like to have been consulted before any thing was decided as to a governess, and I am afraid Miss Bennett is not exactly the person I should have chosen."

"Indeed! And pray, why not, may I ask? She is a most respectable person—a person who knows her place. I am sure the deference with which she treats me, the attention with which she listens to all my suggestions, have given me the utmost confidence in the young woman; all the more, because, I repeat, she knows her place. She is content to be a governess; she never pretends to be a lady."

The insult was so pointed, so plain, that it could not be passed over.

Christian rose from her seat. "Miss Gascoigne, seeing that I am here at the head of my husband's table, I must request you to be a little more guarded in your conversation. I, too, have been a governess, but it never occurred to me that I was otherwise than a lady."

There was a dead silence, during which poor Aunt Maria cast imploring looks at Aunt Henrietta, who perhaps felt that she had gone too far, for she muttered some vague apology about "different people being different in their ways."

"Exactly so and what I meant to observe was, that my chief reason for doubting Miss Bennett's fitness to instruct Titia is what you yourself allow. If she is 'not a lady,' how can you expect her to make a lady of our little girl?"

"Our little girl?"

"Yes, our" the choking tears came as far as Christian's throat, and then were swallowed down again. "My little girl, if you will; for she is mine—my husband's daughter and I wish to see her grow up every thing that his daughter ought to be. I say again, I ought to have been consulted in the choice of her governess."

She stopped for, accidentally looking out of the window, where the lengthened spring twilight still lingered in the cloisters, she fancied she saw creeping from pillar to pillar a child's figure; could it possibly be Titia's? Yes, it certainly was Titia herself, stealing through two sides of the quad-rectangle and under the archway that led to Walnut-tree Court.

Without saying a word to the aunts—for she would not have accused any body, a child, or even a servant, upon anything short of absolute proof—Christian went up to her from the window of which she could see into Walnut-tree Court. There, walking round and round, in the solitude which at this hour was customary in most colleges, she distinguished, dim as the light was, three figures—a man, a woman, and a child; in all probability. Miss Bennett, her lover, and Titia, whom, with a mixture of cunning and shortsightedness, she had induced to play propriety, in case any discovery should be made.

Still, the light was too faint to make their identity sure; and to send a servant after them on mere suspicion would only bring trouble upon poor little Titia, besides disgracing, in the last manner in which any generous woman would wish to disgrace another woman, the poor friendless governess, who, after all, might only be taking an honest evening walk with her own honest lover, as every young woman has a perfect right to do.

"And love is so sweet, and life so bitter! I'll not be hard upon her, poor girl!" thought Christian, with a faint sigh. "Whatever is done I will do myself and then it can injure nobody."

So she put on shawl and bonnet, and was just slipping out at the hall door, rather thankful that Barker was absent from his post, when she met Titia creeping stealthily in, not at the front door, but at the glass door, which led to the garden behind; to which garden there was only one other entrance, a little door leading into Walnut-tree Court, and of this door Barker usually kept the key. Now, however, it hung from the little girl's hand, the poor frightened creature, who, the minute she saw her step-mother, tried to run away up stairs.

"Titia, come back! Tell me where you have been, without Phillis or any body, and when I desired you not to go out again."

"It was only to—to fetch a crocus for Atty."

"Where is the crocus?"

"I—dropped it."

"And this key. What did you want with the key?"

"I—I don't know."

The lie failed, if they were lies; but perhaps they might have been partly true; the child hung her head and began to whimper. She was not quite hardened, then.

"Come here to me," said Christian, sadly and gravely, leading her to the glass door, so that what light there was could shine upon her face; "let me look if you have been telling me the truth. Don't be afraid; if you have I will not punish you. I will not be hard upon you in any case, if you will only speak the truth. Titia, a little girl like you has no business to be creeping in and out of her papa's house like a thief. Tell at once where have you been, and who was with you?"

The child burst out crying. "I daren't tell, or Phillis will beat me. She said she would if I stirred an inch from the nursery, while she went down to have tea with cook and Barker. And I thought I might just run for ten minutes to see Miss Bennett, who wanted me so."

"You were with Miss Bennett, then? Any body else?"

"Only a gentleman," said Letitia, hanging her head and blushing with that painful precocity of consciousness so sad to see in a little girl.

"What was his name?"

"I don't know. Miss Bennett didn't tell me. She only said he was a friend of hers, who liked little girls, and that if I could come and have a walk with them, without telling Phillis or any body, she would let me off all the hardest of my French lessons. And so—and so—Oh, hide me, there's papa at the hall door, and Aunt Henrietta coming out of the dining-room. And Aunt Henrietta never believes what I say, even if I tell her the truth. Oh, let me run—let me run."

The child's terror was so uncontrollable that there was nothing for it but to yield; and she fled.

"Titia! Titia!" called out her father. "Christian, what is the matter?
What was my little girl crying for?"

There was no avoiding the domestic catastrophe, even had Christian wished to avoid it, which she did not. She felt it was a case in which concealment was impossible—wrong. Dr. Grey ought to be told, and Miss Gascoigne likewise.

"Your little girl has been very naughty, papa; but others have been more to blame than she. Come with me—will you come too, Aunt Henrietta?—and I will tell you all about it."

She did so, as briefly as she could, and in telling it she discovered one fact—which she passed over, and yet it made her glad—that Dr. Grey, like herself, had been kept wholly in the dark about the engagement of Miss Bennett as governess.

"I meant to have told you today, though, after I had given her sufficient trial," said Miss Gascoigne, sullenly; "I had with her the best of recommendations, and I do not believe one word of all this story—that is," waking up to the full meaning of what she was saying, "not without the most conclusive evidence."

"Evidence," repeated Dr. Grey. "You have my wife's word, and my daughter's."

"Your daughter is the most arrant little liar I ever knew!"

The poor father shrank back. Perhaps he knew, by sad experience, that
Aunt Henrietta's condemnation was not altogether without foundation.
His look expressed such unutterable pain that Christian came forward and
spoke out strongly, almost angrily.

"It is fear that makes a liar, even as harshness and injustice create deceit and underhandedness. Love a child and trust it, and if it does wrong, punish it neither cruelly nor unfairly, and it will never tell falsehoods. Titia will not—she shall not, as long as I am alive to keep her to the truth."

Dr. Grey looked fondly at his wile's young, glowing face and even Miss Gascoigne, the hard, worldly woman, viewing all things in her narrow, worldly way, was silenced for the time. Then she began again, pouring out a torrent of explanations and self-exculpations, which soon resolved themselves into the simple question, What was to be done? There—she ended.

"Don't ask me to do any thing. I will not. I wash my hands of the whole matter. If the story be true, and Miss Bennett can be guilty of conduct so indecorous, it would never do for me to be mixed up in such an improper proceeding and if untrue, and I accused her of it, I should find myself in a very unpleasant position. So, Mrs. Grey, since you have interfered in this matter, you must carry it out on your own responsibility. If you have taken a grudge against Miss Bennett—which I did not expect, considering your own antecedents—you must just do as you like concerning her. But, bless me! how the evening is slipping by. Come, Maria, I shall hardly have time to dress for the vice chancellor's."

So saying, Miss Gascoigne swept away, her silk skirts flowing behind her. Aunt Maria followed with one pathetic glance at "dear Arnold;" and the husband and wife were left alone.

Dr. Grey threw himself into his arm-chair, and there came across his face the weary look, which Christian had of late learned to notice, indicating that he was no more a young man, and that his life had been longer in trials than even in years.

"My dear, I wish you women-kind could settle these domestic troubles among yourselves. We men have so many outside worries to contend with. It is rather hard."

It was hard. Christian reproached herself almost as if she had been the primary cause of this, the first complaint she had ever heard him make, and which he seemed immediately to regret having allowed to escape him.

"I don't mean, my dear wife, that you should not have told me this; indeed, it was impossible to keep it from me. It all springs from Aunt Henrietta. I wish she—But she is Aunt Henrietta, and we must just make the best of her, as I have done for nearly twenty years."

"And why did you?" rose irrepressibly to Christian's lips. The sense of wild resistance to injustice and wrong, so strong in youth, was still not beaten down. It roused in her something very like fierceness—these gentle creatures can be fierce sometimes—to see a good man like Dr. Grey trodden down and domineered over by this narrow-minded, bad-tempered woman. "I often wonder at your patience, and at all you forgive."

"Seventy times seven," was the quick answer. And Christian became silenced and grave. "Still," he added, smiling, "a sin against one's self does not include a sin against another. The next time Henrietta speaks as she spoke to you just now, she and I will have a very serious quarrel."

"Oh no, no! Not for my sake. I had rather die than bring dissension into this house."

"My poor child, people can not die so easily. They have to live on and endure. But what were we talking about; for I forget: I believe I do forget things sometimes;" and he passed his hand over his forehead. "I am not so young as you, my dear; and, though my life has looked smooth enough outside; there has been a good deal of trouble in it. In truth,"—he added, "I have had some vexatious things perplexing me today, which must excuse my being so dull and disagreeable."

"Disagreeable!" echoed Christian, with a little forced sort of laugh, adding, in a strange, soft shyness, "I wish you would tell me what those vexatious things were. I know I am young, and foolish enough too; still, if I could help you—"

"Help me!" He looked at her eagerly, then shook his head and sighed. "No, my child, you can not help me. It is other people's business, which I am afraid I have no right to tell even to you. It is only that a person has come back to Avonsbridge, who, if I could suppose I had an enemy in the world—But here I am telling you."

"Never mind, you shall tell me no more," said Christian, cheerily, "especially as I do not believe that in the wide world you could have an enemy. And now give me your opinion as to this matter of Miss Bennett?"

"First, what is yours?"

Christian pondered a little. "It seems to me that the only thing is for me to speak to her myself, quite openly and plainly, when she comes tomorrow."

"And then dismiss her?"

"I fear so."

"For having a lover?" said Dr. Grey, with an amused twinkle in his eye.

"Not exactly, but for telling Titia about it, and making use of the child for her own selfish needs. Do you consider me hard? Well, it is because I know what this ends in. Miss Gascoigne does not see it, but I do. She only thinks of 'propriety.' I think of something far deeper—a girl's first notions about those sort of things. It is cruel to meddle with them before their time—to take the bloom off the peach and the scent off the rose; to put worldliness instead of innocence, and conceited folly instead of simple, solemn, awful love. I would rather die, even now—you will think I am always ready for dying—but I would rather die than live to think and feel about love like some women—ay, and not bad women either, whom I have known."

Mrs. Grey had gone on, hardly considering what she was saying or to what it referred, till she was startled to feel fixed upon her her husband's earnest eyes.

"You need not be afraid," said he smiling. "Christian, shall I tell you a little secret? Do you know why I loved you? Because you are unlike all other women—because you bring hack to me the dreams of my youth. And here," suddenly rising, as if he feared he had said too much, "we must put dreams aside, and arguments likewise, for Aunt Henrietta will never forgive us if we are late at this terrible evening party."