Chapter 8.

    "Down, pale ghost!
     What doest thou here?
     The sky is cloudless overhead,
     The stream runs clear.

    "I drowned thee, ghost,
     In a river of bitter brine:
     With whatever face thou risest up,
     Meet thou not mine!

    "Back, poor ghost!
     Dead of thy own decay
     Let the dead bury their dead!
     I go my way."

While she was dressing for it, the evening party ceased to be terrible even in Christian's imagination. She kept thinking over and over the talk she had had with Dr. Grey; what he had said, and what she had said, of which she was a little ashamed that her impetuous impulse had faded. Yet why? Why should she not speak out her heart to her own husband? It began to be less difficult to do; for, though he did not answer much, he never misunderstood her, never responded with those sharp, cold, altogether wide-of-the-mark observations which, in talking with Miss Gascoigne or Miss Grey, made her feel that they and she looked at things from points of view as opposite as the poles.

"They can't help that; neither, I am sure, can I," she often thought. And yet how, thus diverse, they should all live under the same roof together for months and years to come, was more than Christian could conceive.

Besides, now, she had at times a new feeling—a wish to have her husband all to herself. She ceased to need the "shadowy third"—the invisible barricade against total dual solitude made by aunts or children. She would have been glad sometimes to send them all away, and spend a quiet evening hour, such as the last one, alone with Dr. Grey. It was so pleasant to talk to him—so comfortable. The comfort of it lasted in her heart all through her elaborate dressing, which was rather more weariness to her than to most young women of her age.

Letitia assisted thereat—poor Titia who, being sent for, had crept down to her step-mother's room, very humble and frightened, and received a few tender, serious words—not many, for the white face was sodden with crying, and there was a sullen look upon it which not all Christian's gentleness could chase away. Phillis had discovered her absence, and had punished her; not with whipping, that was forbidden, but with some of the innumerable nursery tyrannies which Phillis called government. And Titia evidently thought, with the suspiciousness of all weak, cowed creatures, that Mrs. Grey must have had some hand in it—that she had broken her promise, and betrayed her to this punishment.

She stood aloof, poor little girl, tacitly doing as she was bidden, and acquiescing in every thing, with her thin lips pressed into that hopeless line, or now and then opening to give vent to sharp, unchildlike speeches, so exceedingly like Aunt Henrietta's.

"Those are very pretty bracelets, but yours are not nearly so big as poor mamma's, and you don't wear half so many."

Was it that inherent feminine quality, tact or spite, according as it is used, which teaches women to find out, and either avoid or wound one another's sore places, which made the little girl so often refer to "poor mamma?" Or had she been taught to do it?

Christian could not tell. But it had to be borne, and she was learning how to bear it, she answered kindly.

"Probably I do wear fewer ornaments than your mamma did, for she was rich, and I was poor. Indeed, I have no ornaments to wear except what your papa has given me."

"He gives you lots of things, doesn't he? Every thing you have?"

"Yes."

"Do you like his doing it?"

"Very much indeed."

"Then was that the reason you married him? Aunt Henrietta said it was."

Christian's blood boiled. And yet Letitia only repeated what she had been told.

"My child," she said, feeling that now was the time to speak, and that the truth must be spoken even to a child, "your Aunt Henrietta makes a great mistake. She says and believes what is not true. I married your papa because I"—(oh that she could have said "loved him!")—"I thought him the best man in the world. And so he is, as we all know well. Don't we, Arthur?"

"Hurrah! Three cheers for papa! The jolliest papa that ever was!" cried Arthur from the sofa, where, by his own special desire, he lay watching the end of the toilet.

Letitia was too ladylike to commit herself to much enthusiasm, but she smiled. If there was a warm place in that poor little frigid heart, papa certainly had it, as in every heart belonging to him.

"You look quite pretty" said she, condescendingly. "Some day when you go to parties you'll dress me and make me look pretty too, and take me with you? You won't keep me shut up in the nursery till I am quite old, as Phillis says you will?"

"Did Phillis say that?" Christian answered, with a sore sinking of the heart at the utter impossibility that under such influences these children should ever learn to love her.

"Phillis is a fool," cried Arthur, angrily. "When I get well again, if ever she says one word to me of the things she used to say about mother, won't I pitch into her, that's all!"

Christian smiled—a rather sad smile, but she thought it best to take no notice, and soon Phillis came and fetched the two away.

After they were gone the young step-mother stood by her bedroom fire, thinking anxiously of these her children, turning over in her mind plan after plan as to how she should make them love her. But it seemed a very hopeless task still.

She looked into the blazing coals, and then began playing with a little chimney-piece ornament showing the day of the month—21st of March.

Could it be possible that she had been married three months? Three months since that momentous day when her solitary, self-contained life was swept out of the narrow boundaries of self forever—made full and busy, ay, and bright too? For it was not a sad face, far from it, which met her in the mirror above; it was a face radiant with youth and health, and the soft peacefulness which alone gives a kind of beauty.

Well, so best! She had not expected this, but she did not wish it otherwise.

The clock struck eight. She was, after all, ready too soon so she wrapped her white opera cloak around her, and went down to the drawing-room. To pass the time, she thought she would sing a little, as indeed she now made a point of doing daily, and would have done, whether she cared for it or not, if only out of gratitude to the love which had delighted itself in giving her pleasure.

But she did care for it. Nothing, nobody, could quench the artist nature which, the instant the heavy weight of sorrow was taken away, sprang up like a living fountain in this girl's soul. She sang, quite alone in the room, but with such a keen delight, such a perfect absorption of enjoyment, that she never noticed her husband's entrance till he had stood for some minutes behind her chair. When he touched her she started, then smiled.

"Oh, it is only you!"

"Only me. Did I trouble you?"

"Oh no; was I not troubling you?"

"How, my dear?"

Christian could not tell. Anyhow she found it impossible to explain, except that she had fancied he did not care for music.

"Perhaps I do, perhaps I don't. But I care for you. Tell me," he sat down and took her hand, "does not Arthur's 'bird' sometimes feel a little like a bird in a cage? Do you not wish you lived in the world—in London, where you could go to concerts and balls, instead of being shut up in a dull college with an old bookworm like me?"

"Dr. Grey! Papa!"

"Don't look hurt, my darling. But confess; isn't it sometimes so?"

"No! a thousand times no! Who has been putting such things into your head, for they never would come of themselves? It is wicked—wicked, and you should not heed them."

The tears burst from her eyes, to her husband's undisguised astonishment. He appeared so exceedingly grieved that she controlled herself as soon as she could, for his sake.

"I did not mean to be naughty. But you should remember I am still only a girl—a poor, helpless, half-formed girl, who never had any body to teach her any thing, who is trying so hard to be good, only they will not let me!"

"Who do you mean by they?"

No, he evidently had not the slightest idea how bitter was the daily household struggle, the petty guerilla warfare which she had to bear. And perhaps it was as well he should not. She would fight her own battles; she was strong enough now. It was a step-by-step advance, and all through an enemy's country. Still, she had advanced, and might go on to the end, if she only had strength and patience.

"Hush! I hear Miss Gascoigne at the door. Please go and speak to her.
Don't let her see I have been crying."

Of this, happily, there was little fear, Miss Gascoigne being too much absorbed in her own appearance, which really was very fine. Her black satin rustled, her black lace fell airily, and her whole figure was that of a handsome, well-preserved, middle-aged gentlewoman. So pleased was she with herself that she was pleasant to every one else; and when, half an hour after, Dr. Grey entered the reception-rooms of St. Mary's Lodge with his wife on one arm and his sister on the other, any spectator would have said, how very nice they all looked; what a fortunate man he was, and what a happy family must be the family at Saint Bede's.

And, to her own surprise, when her first bewilderment was over, Christian really did feel happy. Her artistic temperament rejoiced in the mere beauty of the scene before her—a scene to be found nowhere out of Avonsbridge—lofty, grand old rooms, resplendent with innumerable wax-lights; filled, but not too full, with an ever-moving, gorgeously-colored crowd. Quite different from that of ordinary soirées, where the coup d'oeil is that of a bed of variegated flowers, with a tribe of black emmets posed on their hind legs inserted between. Here the gentlemen made as goodly a show as the ladies, or more so, many of them being in such picturesque costumes that they might have just stepped down from the old pictures which covered the walls. In-numerable flowing gowns, of all shapes and colors, marked the college dons; then there were the gayly-clad gentlemen commoners, and two or three young noblemen, equally fine; while, painfully near the door, a few meek-looking undergraduates struggled under the high honor of the vice chancellor's hospitality.

As to the women, few were young, and none particularly lovely yet Christian enjoyed looking at them. Actually, for the first time in her life, did she behold "full dress"—the sparkle of diamonds, the delicate beauty of old point lace, the rustle of gorgeous silks and satins. She liked it—childishly liked it. It was a piece of art—a picture, in the interest of which her own part therein was utterly and satisfactorily forgotten. She was so amused with watching other people that she never thought whether other people were watching her; and when, after half an hour's disappearance among a crowd of gentlemen, her husband came up and asked her if she were enjoying herself, she answered "Oh, so much!" with an ardor that made him smile.

And she did enjoy herself, even though a good many people were brought up to her and introduced, and by their not too brilliant remarks on it somewhat tarnished the brilliancy of the scene. But also she had some pleasant conversation with people far greater and grander and cleverer than she had ever met in her life; who, nevertheless, did not awe her at all, but led her on to talk, and to feel pleasure in talking; she being utterly unaware that her simple unconsciousness was making her ten times more charming, more beautiful than before, and that round the room were passing and repassing innumerable flattering comments on the young wife of the Master of Saint Bede's.

Only she thought once or twice, with an amused wonder, which had yet some sadness in it, how little these people would have thought of her a year before—how completely they would ignore her now if she were not Dr. Grey's wife. And there came into her heart such a gush of—gratitude was it?—to that good man who had loved her just as she was—poor Christian Oakley, governess and orphan—in that saddest state of orphanage which is conscious that all the world would say she had need to be thankful for the same. She looked round for her husband several times, but missing him—and it felt a want, among all those strange faces—she sat down by Miss Gascoigne, who, taking the turn of the tide, now patronized "my sister, Mrs. Grey," in the most overwhelming manner.

It was after a whispered conference with Miss Gascoigne that the wife of the vice chancellor, herself young and handsome, and lately married, came up to ask Christian to sing.

Then, poor girl! all her fears and doubts returned. To sing to a whole roomful of people—she had never done it in her life. It would be as bad as that nightmare fancy which used to haunt her, of being dragged forward to find the ten thousand eyes of a crowded theater all focused upon her, a sensation almost as horrible as being under a burning-glass.

"Oh no! not tonight. I would much rather not. Indeed, I can not sing."

"May I beg to be allowed to deny that fact?" said the gentleman—a young gentleman upon whose arm the hostess had crossed the room—of whom she, a stranger in Avonsbridge, knew only that he was a baronet and had fifteen thousand a year.

"Well, Sir Edwin, try if you can persuade her. Mrs. Grey, let me present to you Sir Edwin Uniacke."

It was so sudden, and the compulsion of the moment so extreme, that Christian stood calm as death—stood and bowed, and he bowed too, as in response to an ordinary introduction to a perfect stranger. She was quite certain afterward that she had not betrayed herself by any emotion; that, as seemed her only course, she had risen and walked straight to the piano, her fingers just touching Sir Edwin's offered arm; that she had seated herself, and begun mechanically to take off her gloves, without one single word having been exchanged between them.

The young man took his place behind her chair. She never looked toward him—never paused to think how he had come there, or to wonder over the easy conscience of the world, which had readmitted him into the very society whence he had lately been ignominiously expelled. Her sole thought was that there was a song to be sung and she had to sing it, and go back as fast as she could into some safe hiding-place. Having accomplished this, she rose.

"Not yet, pray; one more song. Surely you know it—'Love in thine eyes.'"

As the voice behind her—a voice so horribly familiar, said this, Christian turned round. To ignore him was impossible; to betray, by the slightest sign, the quiver of fear, of indignation, which ran through all her frame, that, too, was equally impossible. One thing only presented itself to her as to be done. She lifted up her cold, clear eyes, fixed them on him, and equally cold and clear her few commonplace words fell:

"No, I thank you; I prefer not to sing any more to-night." What answer was made, or how, still touching Sir Edwin's arm, she was piloted back through the crowd to Miss Gascoigne's side, Christian had not the slightest recollection either then afterward; she only knew that she did it, and he did it, and that he then bowed politely and left her.

So it was all over. They had met, she and her sometime lover, her preux chevalier of a month—met, and she did not love him any more. Not an atom! All such feelings had been swept away, crushed out of existence by the total crushing of that respect and esteem without which no good woman can go on loving. At least no woman like Christian could.

Call her not fickle, nor deem it unnatural for love so to perish. After learning what she had learned from absolute incontrovertible evidence (it is useless to enter into the circumstances, for no one is benefited by wallowing in unnecessary mire), that she, or any virtuous maiden, should continue to love this man, would have been a thing still more unnatural—nay, wicked.

No, she did not love him any more, she was quite sure of that. She watched his tall, elegant figure—-he was as beautiful as Lucifer—moving about the rooms, and it seemed that his very face had grown ugly to her sight. She shivered to think that once—thank God, only once!—his lips had pressed hers; that she had let him say to her fond words, and write to her fond letters, and had even written back to him others, which, if not exactly love-letters, were of the sort that no girl could write except to a man in whom she wholly believed—in his goodness and in his love for herself.

What had become of those letters she had no idea; what was in them she hardly remembered; but the thought of them made her grow pale and terrible. In an agony of shame, as if all the world were pointing at her—at Dr. Grey's wife—she hid herself in a corner, behind the voluminous presence of Miss Gascoigne, and sat waiting, counting minutes like hours till her husband should appear.

He came at last, his kind face all beaming.

"Christian I have been having a long talk with—But you are very tired." His eye caught—she knew it would at once—the change in her face, "My darling," he whispered, "would you not like to go home!"

"Oh yes, home! Take me home!" Christian replied almost with a sob. She clung to his arm, and passed through the crowd with him. And whether she fully loved him or not, from the very bottom of her soul she thanked God for her husband.

Chapter 9.

    "Teach me to feel for others' woes,
     To hide the fault I see;
     The mercy I to others show,
     That mercy show to me."

Breakfast was just over on the morning following the soirée at the vice chancellor's. Christian sat with the two aunts, quietly sewing.

Ay, very quietly, even after last night. She had taken counsel with her own heart, through many wakeful hours, and grown calm and still. Neither her husband nor Miss Gascoigne had once named Sir Edwin. Probably Aunt Henrietta did not know him, and in the crowded party Dr. Grey might not have chanced to recognize him. Indeed, most likely the young man would take every means of avoiding recognition from the master of his own college, whence he had been ignominiously dismissed. His appearance at St. Mary's Lodge was strange enough, and only to be accounted for by his having been invited by the vice chancellor's young wife, who knew him only as Sir Edwin Uniacke, the rich young baronet.

But, under shadow of these advantages, no doubt he could easily get into society again, even at Avonsbridge, and would soon be met every where. She might have to meet him—she, who knew what she did know about him, and who, though there had been no absolute engagement between them, had suffered him to address her as a lover for four bright April weeks, ending in that thunderbolt of horror and pain, after which he never came again to the farm-house, and she never heard from or of him one word more.

Ought she to have told all this to her husband—was it her duty to tell him now? Again and again the question recurred to her, full of endless perplexities. She and Dr. Grey were not like two young people of equal years. Why trouble him, a man of middle age, with what he might think a silly, girlish love-story? and, above all, why wound him by what is the sharpest pain to a loving heart, the sudden discovery of things hitherto concealed, but which ought to have been told long ago? He might feel it thus—or thus—she could not tell; she did not, even yet, know him well enough to be quite sure. The misfortune of all hasty unions had been hers—she had to find out everything after marriage. The sweet familiarity of long courtship, which makes peculiarities and faults excusable, nay, dear, just because they are so familiar that the individual would not be himself or herself without them—this sacred guarantee for all wedded happiness had not been the lot of Christian Grey.

Even now, though it was the mere ghost of a dead love, or dead fancy, which she had to confess to her husband, she shrank from confessing it. She would rather let it slip to its natural Hades.

This was the conclusion she came to when cold, clear daylight put to flight all the bewilderments and perplexities which had troubled her through the dark hours; and she sat at the head of her breakfast-table with her own little circle around her—the circle which, with all its cares, became every day dearer and more satisfying, if only because it was her own.

And when she looked across to the husband and father, sitting so content, with the morning sun lighting up his broad forehead—wrinkled, it is true, but still open and clear, the honest brow of an honest man—it was with a trembling gratitude that made religious every throb of Christian's once half-heathen heart. The other man, with his bold eyes that made her shiver, the grasp of his hand from which her very soul recoiled—oh, thank God for having delivered her from him, and brought her into this haven of purity, peace and love!

As she stopped her needlework to cross to Arthur's sofa—he insisted on being carried every where beside her, her poor, spoiled, sickly boy—as she arranged his pillows and playthings, and gave him a kiss or two, taking about a dozen in return—she felt that the hardest duty, the most unrequited toil, in this her home would be preferable to that dream of Paradise in which she had once indulged, and out of which she must inevitably have wakened to find it a living hell.

The thanksgiving was still in her heart when she heard a ring at the hall bell, and remembered, with sudden compunction, that this was Miss Bennett's hour, and that she had to speak to her about the very painful matter which occurred yesterday.

She had quite forgotten it till this minute, as was not surprising. Now, with an effort, she threw off all thoughts about herself; this business was far more important, and might involve most serious consequences to the young governess if obliged to be dismissed under circumstances which, unless Miss Gascoigne's tongue could be stopped, would soon be parroted about to every lady in Avonsbridge.

"Poor girl!" thought Christian, "she may never get another situation. And yet perhaps she has done nothing actually wrong, no worse wrong than many do—than I did!"—she sighed—"in letting myself be made love to, and believing it all true, and sweet, and sacred, when it was all—But that is over now. And perhaps she has no friends any more than I had—no home to cling to, no mother to comfort her. Poor thing! I must be very tender over her—very careful what I say to her."

And following this intention, instead of sending for Miss Bennett into the dining-room, as Miss Gascoigne probably expected, for she sat in great state, determined to "come to the root of the matter," as she expressed it, Mrs. Grey went out and met her in the hall.

"You are the lady whom my sister-in-law engaged as governess?"

"Yes, ma'am. And you are Mrs. Grey?" peering at her with some curiosity; for, as every body knew every thing in Avonsbridge, no doubt Miss Bennett was perfectly well aware that Dr. Grey's young wife was the ci-devant governess at Mr. Ferguson's.

"Will you walk up into my room? I wanted a word with you before lessons."

"Certainly, Mrs. Grey. I hope you are quite satisfied with my instruction of Miss Grey. Indeed, my recommendations—as I told Miss Gascoigne—include some of the very first families—"

"I have no doubt Miss Gascoigne was satisfied," interrupted Mrs. Grey, not quite liking the flippant manner, the showy style of dress, and the air, at once subservient and forward; in truth, something which, despite her prettiness, stamped the governess as underbred, exactly what Aunt Henrietta had said—"not a lady."

"Your qualifications for teaching I have no wish to investigate; what I have to speak about is a totally different thing."

Miss Bennett looked uneasy for a minute, but Christian's manner was so studiously polite, even kindly, that she seemed to think nothing could be seriously wrong. She sat down composedly on the crimson sofa, and began investigating, with admiring, curious, and rather envious eyes, the handsome room, half boudoir, half bed-chamber.

"Oh, Mrs. Grey, what a nice room this is! How you must enjoy it! It's a hard life, teaching children."

"It is a hard life, as I know, for I was once a governess myself."

This admission, given so frankly, without the least hesitation, evidently quite surprised Miss Bennett. With still greater curiosity than the fine room, she regarded the fine lady who had once been a governess, and was not ashamed to own it.

"Well, all I can say is, you have been very lucky in your marriage, Mrs.
Grey; I only wish I might be the same."

"That is exactly—" said Christian, catching at any thing in her nervous difficulty as to how she should open such an unpleasant subject—"no, not exactly, but partly, what I wished to speak to you about. Excuse a plain, almost rude question, which you can refuse to answer if you like; but, Miss Bennett, I should be very glad to know if you are engaged?"

"Engaged by Miss Gascoigne?"

"No; engaged to be married."

Miss Bennett drew back, blushed a little, looked much annoyed, and answered sharply, apparently involuntarily, "No!"

"Then—excuse me again—I would not ask if I did not feel it absolutely my duty, in order that we may come to a right understanding—but the gentleman you were walking with yesterday, when you asked Letitia to meet you in Walnut-tree Court, was he a brother, or cousin, or what?"

Susan Bennett was altogether confounded. "How did you find it all out? Did the child tell?—the horrid little—but of course she did. And then you set on and watched me! That was a nice trick for one lady to play another."

"You are mistaken," replied Christian, gravely; "I found this out by the merest accident; and as I can not allow the child to do the same thing again, I thought it the most honest course to tell you at once of the discovery I made, and receive your explanations."

"You can't get them; I have a perfect right to walk with whom I please?"

"Most certainly; but not to take Dr. Grey's little daughter with you as a companion. Don't you see, Miss Bennett"—feeling sorry for the shame and pain she fancied she must be inflicting—"how injurious these sort of proceedings must be to a little girl, who ought to know nothing about love at all—(pardon my concluding this is a love affair)—till she comes to it seriously, earnestly, and at a fitting age? And then the deception, underhandedness—can not you see how wrong it was to make secret appointments with a child, and induce her to steal out of the house unknown to both nurse and mother?"

"You are not her own mother, Mrs. Grey, it don't affect you."

"Pardon me," returned Christian very distantly, as she perceived her delicacy was altogether wasted upon this impertinent young woman, who appeared well able to hold her own under any circumstances, "it does affect me so much that, deeply as I shall regret it, I must offer you a check for your three months' salary. Your engagement, I believe, was quarterly, and I must beg of you to consider it canceled."

Miss Bennett turned red and pale; the offensive tone sank into one pitifully weak and cringing.

"Oh, Mrs. Grey! don't be hard upon me; I'm a poor governess, doing my best, and father has a large family of us, and the shop isn't as thriving as it was. Don't turn me away, and I'll never meet the young fellow again."

There was a little natural feeling visible through the ultra-humility of the girl's manner, and when she took out a coarse but elaborately laced pocket-handkerchief, and wept upon it abundantly, Christian's heart melted.

"I am very sorry for you—very sorry indeed; but what can I do? Will you tell me candidly, are you engaged to this gentleman?"

"No, not exactly; but I am sure I shall be by-and-by."

"He is your lover, then? he ought to be, if, as Letitia says, you go walking together every evening."

"Well, and if I do, it's nobody's business but my own, I suppose; and it's very hard it should lose me my situation."

So it was. Mrs. Grey remembered her own "young days," as she now called them—remembered them with pity rather than shame; for she had done nothing wrong. She had deceived no one, only been herself deceived—in a very harmless fashion, just because, in her foolish, innocent heart, which knew nothing of the world and the world's wiles, she thought no man would ever be so mean, so cowardly, as to tell a girl he loved her unless he meant it in the true, noble, knightly way—a lover

"Who loved one woman, and who clave to her"

—clave once and forever. A vague tenderness hung about those days yet, enough to make her cast the halo of her sympathy over even commonplace Susan Bennett.

"Will you give me your confidence? Who is this friend of yours, and why does he not at once ask you for his wife? Perhaps he is poor and can not afford to marry?"

"Oh. dear me! I'm not so stupid as to think of a poor man, Bless you! he has a title and an estate too. If I get him I shall make a splendid marriage."

Christian recoiled. Her sympathy was altogether thrown away. There evidently was not a point in common between foolish Christian Oakley, taking dreamy twilight saunters under the apple-trees—not alone; looking up to her companion as something between Sir Launcelot and the Angel Gabriel—and this girl, carrying on a clandestine flirtation, which she hoped would—and was determined to make—end in a marriage, with a young man much above her own station, and just because he was so. As for loving him in the sense that Christian had understood love, Miss Bennett was utterly incapable of it. She never thought of love at all—only of matrimony.

Still, the facts of the case boded ill. A wealthy young nobleman, and a pretty, but coarse and half-educated shopkeeper's daughter—no good could come of the acquaintance—perhaps fatal harm. Once more Christian thought she would try to conquer her disgust, and win the girl to better things.

"I do not wish to intrude—no third person has a right to intrude upon these affairs; but I wish I could be of any service. You must perceive, Miss Bennett, that your proceedings are not quite right—not quite safe. Are you sure you know enough about this gentleman? How long have you been acquainted with him? He probably belongs to the University."

Miss Bennnett laughed. "Not he—at least not now. He got into a scrape and left it, and has only been back here a week; but I have found out where his estate is, and all about him. He has the prettiest property, and is perfectly independent, and a baronet likewise. Only think"—and the girl, recovering her spirits, tossed her handsome head, and spread out her showy, tawdry gown—"only think of being called 'Lady!'—Lady Uniacke."

Had Miss Bennett been less occupied in admiring herself in the mirrors she must have seen the start Mrs. Grey gave—for the moment only, however—and then she spoke.

"Sir Edwin Uniacke's character here is well known. He is a bad man. For you to keep up any acquaintance with him is positive madness."

"Not in the least; I know perfectly what I am about, and can take care of myself, thank you. He has sown his wild oats, and got a title and estate, which makes a very great difference. Besides, I hope I'm as sharp as he. I shall not let myself down, no fear. I'll make him make me Lady Uniacke."

Christian's pity changed into something very like disgust. Many a poor, seduced girl would have appeared to her less guilty, less degraded than this girl, who, knowing all a man's antecedents, which she evidently did—bad as he was, set herself deliberately to marry him—a well-planned, mercenary marriage, by which she might raise herself out of her low station into a higher, and escape from the drudgery of labor into ease and splendor.

And yet is not the same thing done every day in society by charming young ladies, aided and abetted by most prudent, respectable, and decorous fathers and mothers? Let these, who think themselves so sinless, cast the first stone at Susan Bennett.

But to Christian, who had never been in society, and did not know the ways of it, the sensation conveyed was one of absolute repulsion. She rose.

"I fear, Miss Bennett, that if we continued this conversation forever we should never agree. It only proves to me more and more the impossibility of your remaining my daughter's governess. Allow me to pay you, and then let us part at once."

But the look of actual dismay which came over the girl's face once more made her pause.

"You send me away with no recommendation—and I shall never get another situation—and I have hardly a thing to put on—and I'm in debt awfully. You are cruel to me, Mrs. Grey—you that have been a governess yourself." And she burst into a passion of hysterical crying.

"What can I do?" said Christian sadly. "I can not keep you——I dare not. And it is equally true that I dare not recommend you. If I could find any thing else—not with children—something you really could do, and which would take you away from this town—"

"I'd go any where——do any thing to get my bread, for it comes to that. If I went home and told father this—if he found out why I had lost my situation, he'd turn me out of doors. And except this check, which is owed nearly all, I haven't one halfpenny—I really haven't. Mrs. Grey. It's all very well for you to talk—you in your fine house and comfortable clothes; but you don't know what it is to be shabby, cold, miserable. You don't know what it is to be in dread of starving."

"I do," said Christian, solemnly. It was true.

The shudder which came over her at thought of these remembered days obliterated every feeling about the girl except the desire to help her, blameworthy though she was, in some way that could not possibly injure any one else.

Suddenly she recollected that Mrs. Ferguson was in great need of some one to take care of Mr. Ferguson's old blind mother, who lived forty miles distant from Avonsbridge. If she spoke to her about Miss Bennett, and explained, without any special particulars, that, though unfit to be trusted with children, she might do well enough with an old woman in a quiet village, Mrs. Ferguson, whose kind-heartedness was endless, might send her there at once.

"Will you go? and I will tell nobody my reasons for dismissing you," said Christian, as earnestly as if she had been asking instead of conferring a favor. Her kindness touched even that bold, hard nature.

"You are very good to me; and perhaps I don't deserve it."

"Try to deserve it. If I get this situation for you, will you make me one promise?"

"A dozen,"

"One is enough—that you will give up Sir Edwin Uniacke."

"How do you mean?"

"Don't meet him, don't write to him—don't hold any communication with him for three months. If he wants you, let him come and ask you like an honest man."

Miss Bennett shook her head. "He's a baronet, you know."

"No matter. An honest man and an honest woman are perfectly equal, even though one is a baronet and the other a daily governess. And, if love is worth any thing, it will last three months; if worth nothing, it had better go."

But even while she was speaking—plain truths which she believed with her whole heart—Christian felt, in this case, the bitter satire of her words.

Susan Bennett only smiled at them in a vague, uncomprehending way. "Would you have trusted your lover—that means Dr. Grey, I suppose—for three months?"

Mrs. Grey did not reply. But her heart leaped to think how well she knew the answer. No need to speak of it, though. It would be almost profanity to talk to this women, who knew about as much of it as an African fetish-worshipper knows of the Eternal—of that love which counts fidelity not by months and years; which, though it has its root in mortal life, stretches out safely and fearlessly into the life everlasting.

"Well, I'll go, and perhaps my going away will bring him to the point," was the fond resolution of Miss Susan Bennett.

Mrs. Grey, infinitely relieved, wrote the requisite letters and dismissed her, determined to call that day and explain as much of the matter to honest Mrs. Ferguson as might put the girl in a safe position, where she would have a chance of turning out well, or, at least, better than if she had remained at Avonsbridge.

Then Christian had time to think of herself. Here was Sir Edwin Uniacke—this daring, unscrupulous man, close at her very doors; meeting her at evening parties; making acquaintance with her children, for Titia had told her how kind the gentleman was, and how politely he had inquired after her "new mamma."

Of vanity, either to be wounded or flattered, Christian had absolutely none. And she had never read French novels. It no more occurred to her that Sir Edwin would come and make love to her, now she was Dr. Grey's wife, than that she herself should have any feeling—except pity—in knowing of his love-affair with Miss Bennett. She was wholly and absolutely indifferent with regard to him and all things concerning him. Even the events of last night and this morning were powerless to cast more than a momentary gravity over her countenance—gone the instant she heard her husband calling her from his open study door.

"I wanted to hear how you managed Miss Bennett, you wise woman. Is it a lover?"

"I fear so, and not a creditable one. But I am certain of one thing. She does not love him—she only wants to marry him."

"A distinction with a difference," said Dr. Grey, smiling. "And you don't agree with her, my dear?"

"I should think not!"

Again Dr. Grey smiled. "How fiercely she speaks! What a tiger this little woman of mine could be if she chose. And so she absolutely believes in the old superstition that love is an essential element of matrimony."

"You are laughing at me."

"No, my darling, God forbid. I am only—happy."

"Are you really, really happy? Do you think I can make you so—I, with all my unworthiness?"

"I am sure of it."

She looked up in his face from out of his close arms, and they talked no more.

Chapter 10.

    "Get thee behind me, Satan!
     I know no other word:
     There is a battle that must be fought,
     And fought but with the sword—
    "The clear, sharp, stainless, glittering sword
     Of purity divine:
     I'll hew my way through a host of fiends,
     If that strong sword be mine."_

"I wish Mrs. Grey, you would learn to hold yourself a little more upright, and look a little more like the master's wife—a lady in as good a position as any in Avonsbridge—and a little less like a Resignation or a Patience on a monument."

"I am sure I beg your pardon," said Christian, laughing "I have not the slightest feeling either of resignation or patience. I am afraid I was thinking over something much more worldly—that plan about Miss Bennett's new situation of which I have just been telling you"—told as briefly as she could, for it was not very safe to trust Miss Gascoigne with any thing. "Also of the people we met last night at the vice chancellor's."

"And that reminds me—why don't you go and change your dress? I hate a morning-gown, as I wish you particularly to look as respectable as you can. We are sure to have callers to-day."

"Are we? Why?"

"To inquire for our health after last night's entertainment. It is a customary attention; but, of course, you can not be expected to be acquainted with these sort of things. Besides, one gentleman especially asked my permission to call today—a man of position and wealth, whose acquaintance—"

"Oh, please tell me about him after I come back," said Christian, hopelessly, "and I will go and dress at once."

"Take that boy with you. He never was allowed to be in the drawing-room. Get up, Arthur," in the sharp tone in which the most trivial commands were always conveyed to the children, which, no doubt, Miss Gascoigne thought—as many well-meaning parents and guardians do think—is the best and safest assertion of authority. But it had made of Letitia a cringing slave, and of Arthur a confirmed rebel, as he now showed himself to be.

"I won't go, Aunt Henrietta! I like this sofa. I'll not stir an inch!"

"I command you! Obey me, sir!"

Arthur pulled an insolent face, at which his aunt rose up and boxed his ears.

This sort of scene had been familiar enough to Christian in the early days of her marriage. It always made her unhappy, but she attempted no resistance. Either she felt no right or she had no courage. Now, things were different.

She caught Miss Gascoigne's uplifted hand, and Arthur's, already raised to return the blow.

"Stop! you must not touch that child. And, Arthur, how can you be so naughty! Beg your aunt's pardon, immediately!"

But Arthur began to sob and cough—that ominous cough which was their dread and pain still. It did not touch the heart of Aunt Henrietta.

"We shall see who is mistress here. I will at once send for Dr. Grey.
Maria, ring the bell."

Poor Aunt Maria, the most subservient of women, was about to do it, when fate interfered in the shape of Barker and a visiting card, which changed the whole current of Miss Gascoigne's intentions.

"Sir Edwin Uniacke! the very gentleman I was speaking of. I shall be delighted to see him. Show him up immediately."

Which was needless, for he had followed Barker to the door. There he stood, a graceful, well-appointed, fashionable young man, with not a hair awry in his black curls, not a shadow on his handsome face, perfectly satisfied with himself and his fortunes—a little flushed, perhaps, it might be, with what he would call the "pluckiness" of coming thus to "beard the lion in his den," to visit the master of his late college. All men have some good in them, and the good in this man was, that, if a scapegrace, he was not a weak villain, not a coward.

"How kind of you! I am delighted to find a young gentleman so punctual in his engagements with an old woman," said Miss Gascoigne, with mingled dignity and empressement. "Sir Edwin Uniacke, my sister, Miss Grey; Mrs. Grey, my sister-in-law."

Certainly Aunt Henrietta's "manners" were superb.

Arthur lay crying and coughing still, but his luckless condition before visitors was covered over by these beautiful manners, and by the flow of small-talk which at once began, and in which it was difficult to say who carried off the position best, the young man or the elderly woman. Both deserved equal credit from that "world" to which they both belonged.

Presently a diversion was created by Christian's rising to carry Arthur away.

"You need not go," said Miss Gascoigne. "Ring for Phillis. The child has been ill, Sir Edwin, and Mrs. Grey has made herself a perfect slave to him."

"How very—ahem!—charming!" said Sir Edwin Uniacke.

Phillis appeared, but Arthur clung tighter than ever to his step-mother's neck. Nor did she wish to release him.

"I thank you, no. I can carry him quite easily," she replied to Sir Edwin's politely offered help, which was, indeed, the only sentence she had attempted to exchange with him. With her boy in her arms she quitted the room, and did not return thither all the afternoon.

It was impossible she could. Without any prudishness, without the slightest atom of self-distrust or fear to meet him, every womanly feeling in her kept her out of his way. Here was a young man whom she had once ignorantly suffered to make love to her, nay, loved in a foolish, girlish way; a young man whom she now knew—and he must know she knew it—no virtuous girl could or ought to have regarded with a moment's tenderness. Here was he insulting her by coming to her own house—her husband's house, without the permission of either. Had he been humble or shamefaced, she might have pitied him, for all pure hearts have such infinite pity for sinners. She would have wished him repentance, peace, and prosperity, and gone on her way, as he on his, each feeling very kindly to the other, but meeting, and desiring to meet, no more. Now, when he obtruded himself so unhesitatingly, so unblushingly, on the very scene of his misdoings and disgrace, pity was dried up in her heart, and indignation took its place.

"How dare he?" she thought, and nothing else but that. There was not one reviving touch of girlish admiration, not one thrill of self-complacent emotion, to see, what she could not help seeing, under his studiedly courteous manner, that he had forgotten, and meant her to feel he had forgotten, not a jot of the past. Whatever the episode of Susan Bennett might mean—if, indeed, such a man was not capable of carrying on a dozen such little episodes—his manner to Christian plainly showed that he admired her still; that he saw no difference between the pretty maiden Christian Oakley and the matron Christian Grey, and expressed this fact by tender tones and glances, alas! only too familiarly known by her of old. "How dared he?"

Christian was a very simple woman. She knew nothing at all of that fashionable world which, in its blasé craving for excitement, delights, both in life and in books, to tread daintily on the very confines of guilt. She was not ignorant. She knew what sin was, as set forth in the Ten Commandments, but she understood absolutely nothing of that strange leniency or laxity which now-a-days makes vice so interesting as to look like virtue, or mixes vice and virtue together in a knot of circumstances until it is difficult to distinguish right from wrong.

Christian Grey was a wife. Therefore, both as wife and as woman, it never occurred to her as the remotest possibility that she could indulge in one tender thought of any man not her husband, or allow any man to lift up the least corner of that veil of matronly dignity with which every married woman, under whatever circumstances she has married or whatever may befall her afterward, ought to enwrap herself forever. "When I am dead," says Shakspeare's Queen Katherine,

"Let me be used with honor. Strew me over With maiden flowers, that all the world may know I was a chaste wife to my grave."

But Christian thought of something beyond the world. The 'honor' lay with herself alone; or, like her marriage vow, between herself, her husband, and her God. She was conscious of no dramatic struggles of conscience, no picturesque persistence in duty: she arrived at her end without any ethical or metaphysical reasoning, and took her course just because it seemed to her impossible there could be any other course to take.

It was a very simple one—total passiveness and silence. The young man could not come to the Lodge very often, even if Miss Gascoigne invited him ever so much, and was really as charmed with him as she appeared to be. And no wonder. He was one of those men who charm every body—perhaps because he was not deliberately bad, else how could he have attracted Christian Oakley? He had that rare combination of a brilliant intellect, an esthetic fancy, strong passions, and a weak moral nature, which makes some of the most dangerous and fatal characters the world ever sees.

But, be he what he might, he could not force his presence upon Christian against her will. "No, I am not afraid," she said to herself; "how could I be—with these?"

For, all the time she sat meditating Arthur lay half asleep, near her; and little Oliver, who had returned to his old habit of creeping about her room whenever he could, sat playing with his box of bricks on the hearth-rug at her feet, every now and then lifting up eyes of such heavenly depth of innocence that she felt almost a sort of compassion for the erring man who had no such child-angels in his home—nothing and no one to make him good, or to teach him, ere it was too late, that, even in this world, the wages of sin is death, and that the only true life is that of purity and holiness.

Christian spent the whole afternoon with her children. They tried her a good deal, for Arthur was fractious, and Oliver went into one of his storms of passion, which upon him, as once upon his elder brother, were increasing day by day. It was impossible it should be otherwise under the present nursery rule.

She sat and thought over plan after plan of getting Oliver more out of Phillis's hands—not by any open revolution, for she was tender over even the exaggerated rights of such a long-faithful servant, but by the quiet influence which generally accomplishes much more than force. Besides, time would do as much as she could, and a great deal more—it always does.

Almost smiling at herself for the very practical turn which her meditations were beginning invariably to take—such a contrast to the dreamy musings of old—Christian sent the children away, and hastily dressed for dinner.

It was the first time she had taken her place at the dinner-table since Arthur's illness, and she felt glad to be there. She sat, with sweet, calm brow, and lustrous, smiling eyes, a picture such as it does any man good to gaze at from his table's foot, and know that it is his own wife, the mistress of his household, the directress of his family, in whom her husband's heart may safely trust forever.

Dr. Grey seemed to feel it, though he said no more than that "it was good to have her back again." But his satisfaction did not extend itself to the rest.

Miss Gascoigne was evidently greatly displeased at something. Angry were the looks she cast around, and grim was the silence she maintained until Barker had disappeared.

"Now." said Christian, "shall we send for the children?"

"No," said Miss Gascoigne; "at least not until I have said a word which I should be sorry to say before young people. Dr. Grey, I wish that you, who have some knowledge of the usages of society, would instruct your wife in them a little more. I do not expect much from her, but still, now that she is your wife, some knowledge of manners, or even common civility—"

"What have I done?" exclaimed Christian, half alarmed and half amused.

Miss Gascoigne took no notice, but continued addressing Dr. Grey:

"I ask you, as a gentleman, when other gentlemen come to this house to pay their respects to me—that is, to the ladies generally, ought Mrs. Grey to take the earliest opportunity of escaping from the drawing-room, nor return to it the whole time the visitors stay? No doubt she is unused to society, feels a little awkward in it, but still—"

"I understand now," interrupted Christian. "Yes, I did this afternoon exactly as she says. I am fully aware of the fact."

"And, pray, who was the gentleman to whom you were so very rude?" asked
Dr. Grey, smiling.

Christian replied without any hesitation—and oh! how thankful that she was able to do so— "It was Sir Edwin Uniacke."

But she was not prepared for the start and flash of sudden anger with which her husband heard the name.

"What! has he called at my house? That is more effrontery than I gave him credit for."

"Effrontery!" repeated Miss Gascoigne, indignantly. "It is no effrontery in a gentleman of his rank and fortune, a visitor at Avonsbridge, to pay a call at Saint Bede's Lodge. Besides, I gave him permission to do so. He was exceedingly civil to me last night, and I must say he is one of the pleasantest young men I have met for a long time. What do you know against him?"

"What do I know?" echoed the master, and stopped. Then added, "Of course you might not have heard; the dean and I keep these things private as much as we can; but he was 'rusticated' a year and a half ago."

Miss Gascoigne might have known this fact or not; anyhow, she was determined not to yield her point.

"Well, and if he were, doubtless it was for some youthful folly—debt, or the like. Now he has came into his property, he will sow his wild oats and become perfectly respectable."

"I hope so—I sincerely hope so," said Dr. Grey, not without a trace of agitation in his manner deeper than the occasion seemed to warrant. "But, in the meantime, he is not the sort of person whom I should wish the ladies of my family to have among their visiting acquaintance."

The argument had now waxed so warm that both parties forgot, or appeared to forget Christian, who sat silent, listening to it all—listening with a kind of wondering eagerness as to what her husband would say—her husband, a man in every way the very opposite of this man—Sir Edwin Uniacke. How would he feel about him? how judge him? Or how much had he known him to judge him by?

On this last head Dr. Grey was impenetrable, he parried, Or gave vague general replies to all Miss Gascoigne's questions. She gained nothing except the firm, decided answer, "I will not have Sir Edwin Uniacke visiting at the Lodge."

"But why not?" insisted Miss Gascoigne, roused by opposition into greater obstinacy. "Did we not meet him at the vice chancellor's? And he told me of two or three houses where we should be sure to meet him again next week."

"I can not help that, but in my own house I choose my own society."

"Your reasons?" insisted Miss Gascoigne, now seriously angry. "It is unfair to act so oddly—I must say so ridiculously, without giving a reason."

Dr. Grey paused a moment, and seemed to ponder before he answered.

"My reason, so far as I can state it, is, that this young man holds, and puts into open practice, opinions which I wholly condemn, and consider unworthy of a Christian, an honest man, or even a decent member of society."

"And, pray, what are they?"

"It is difficult to explain them to a woman. Do not think me hard," he added, and his eyes wandered round to his wife, though he still addressed only his sister. "A man may fail and rise again—and we know Who pitied and helped to raise all fallen sinners. But sin itself never ceases to be sin; and, while impenitent, can neither be forgiven nor blotted out. If a man or a woman—there is no difference—came to me and said, 'I have erred, but I mean to err no more,' I hope I would never shut my door against either; I would help, and comfort, and save both, in every possible way. But a man who continues in sin, hugs it, loves it, calls it by all manner of fine names, and makes excuses for it after the fashion of the world—the world may act as it chooses toward him, but there is only one way in which I can act."

"And what is that?" asked Miss Gascoigne, in astonishing meekness.

"I shut my door against him. Not injuring him, nor pharisaically condemning him, but merely showing to him, and to all others, that I consider sin to be sin and call it so. Likewise, that I will have no fellowship with it, whether it is perpetrated by the beggar in the streets or the prince on the throne. That no consideration, either of worldly advantage, or dread of what society may say, or do, or think, shall ever induce me to let cross my threshold, or bring into personal association with my family, any man who, to my knowledge, leads an unvirtuous life."

"Which most indecorous fact, as regards Sir Edwin, not only yourself, but your wife apparently, was quite aware of. Very extraordinary!"

This Parthian thrust was sharp indeed, but Dr. Grey bore it.

"If she was aware of it—which is not at all extraordinary—my wife did perfectly right in acting as she has done. It only shows, what I knew well before, that she and her husband think alike on this, as on most other subjects."

And he held out his hand to Christian. She could willingly have fallen at his feet. Oh, how small seemed all dreams of fancy, or folly of passionate youth, compared to the intense emotion—what was it, reverence or love?—that was creeping slowly and surely into every fiber of her being, for the man, her own wedded husband, who satisfied at once her conscience, her judgment, and her heart.

While these two exchanged a hand-grasp and a look—no more; but that was enough—Miss Cascoigne sat, routed, but unconquered still. She might have made one more effort at warfare but that Barker opportunely entered with the evening post-bag.

"Barker!" said Dr. Grey, as the man was closing the door.

"Yes master."

The master paused a second before speaking. "You know Sir Edwin
Uniacke?"

"To be sure, sir," with a repressed twitch of the mouth, which showed he knew only too much, as Barker was apt to do of all college affairs.

"If he should call again, say the ladies are engaged; but should he ask for me, show him at once to my study."

"Very well, master."

And Barker, as he went out of the dining-room, broke into a broad grin; but it was behind the back of the master.