Half Brothers

CHAPTER XLVI.

PUBLIC OPINION.

Andrew would not stay at Brackenburn even for the night. He could not endure the sight of his grandson again, until he had readjusted his ideas and schemes, and had reconciled himself to his terrible disappointment. Philip drove him to the station, doing his best to comfort and cheer him, but he reached Apley the next day, after a long night's journey, a broken-spirited and embittered old man.

Though this grandson of his could never be the fine English gentleman he had been dreaming about, still Andrew was resolved there should be no infringement of his birthright. Though he could never attain to even a faint resemblance of Philip and Hugh, yet he was the eldest son, the firstborn; and if the law of entail meant anything in England, it must secure the inheritance to Martin. He laid the whole case, as far as he knew the circumstances, before a firm of respectable solicitors in the nearest large town, and was assured that if the next heir was of sound mind, there was no doubt that he must succeed to Mr. Martin's entailed estates. But was he sure that he was of sound mind? That was the question. The description he gave of his grandson favored an opposite conclusion.

It was a question that Andrew could not answer satisfactorily, even to himself. Possibly the mind was there, but it was altogether undeveloped. The life Martin had passed through was that of a cruelly treated brute, cowering under cold and hunger, neglect, and oppression, and hatred. He possessed scarcely more intelligence than an intelligent dog. This, then, would be the loophole through which Sidney would escape from the net he had woven for himself. He would evade doing justice to Sophy's son by treating him as an idiot or a madman.

Day after day Andrew went about the neighborhood, for a circle of ten or twelve miles, telling the story of Sophy's wrongs with a publicity strangely at variance with his dignified and melancholy reticence in former days. He became a garrulous old man, ready to pour the history of his troubles into every ear that would listen to it. And the story was an interesting one. Many an old resident within some miles of Apley recollected the incidents connected with the mysterious disappearance of the saddler's pretty daughter, and the morose distress of her father. Now that the almost forgotten mystery was solved the solution proved to be more interesting than the secret. Andrew found no difficulty in gaining listeners.

In these days public confession and public penance are impossible. Sidney had no intention to act unjustly by his unfortunate firstborn son, but he could take no steps to make his intentions known. He had made his confession, with secret shame and grief, to his own solicitors, and to one or two of his most intimate friends. The rector, of course, had been acquainted with every detail, and had looked more deeply into his heart of hearts than any other eye, except Margaret's. But he could not defend himself from aspersions. A general election was at hand; and Andrew, maddened by the remembrance of the eager aid he had given to Sidney in former times, redoubled his efforts to prejudice his constituents against him. But on the eve of the dissolution Sidney addressed a letter to them, resigning his office as their representative, and recommending as his successor the son of a neighboring landlord. No reason was given for his resignation.

This omission Andrew seized upon. Garbled statements of the recent events in the life of their late member of Parliament appeared in the county papers taking the opposite side in politics—statements full of venom and rancor. These were among the many penalties which Sidney could not bear alone, but which fell heavily on Margaret and his sons. The romance of Sophy's life and death contained so much truth that it was not wise to enter into any contradictory or explanatory statements. The son of Sidney's first wife was described as a helpless imbecile, rendered so by the untold miseries which he had suffered with his father's knowledge. A demand was made that the guardianship of this unhappy heir should be taken out of his father's hands, and placed in those of the Lord Chancellor, as the legal protector of idiots. A commission should be immediately appointed to inquire into the present condition, both physical and mental, of Sidney Martin's heir.

This blow struck home. Not only did Sidney suffer from it, but Philip and Hugh, who were now together at Brackenburn, whither Hugh had gone for the long vacation. Rachel Goldsmith was filled with indignant anger. Andrew himself was dismayed at the storm he had raised, and the use made of his bitter complaints by the "other side," as he called those opposed to his own political views. He had not wished to play into their hands. Besides, he knew that whatever concealment Sidney might have been guilty of, or whatever subterfuges he might have been tempted to, his grandson's welfare was safe in Margaret's hands. That Margaret should swerve from the right path, however strait and narrow, was incredible to him.

There was one person, however, so deeply interested in these malicious suggestions, that she hoped they might be carried into effect, at least so far as the appointment of a commission to inquire into the physical and mental condition of Martin. Laura was filled with anxiety about Phyllis; it would never do for her to marry Philip if he was to be an almost penniless man, coming between two rich brothers. Margaret's estate went to Hugh, and if Martin was sound in mind and body, there was no chance for Philip. But in case he was really an imbecile, of course Philip would succeed. She must find out the truth.

She seized an opportunity when they were dining at the Hall with no other guests present. It was a summer's evening, and after dinner they sat out of doors on the terrace. Phyllis, in obedience to previous orders, carried Dorothy out of the way. Laura began with a little trepidation.

"We saw old Andrew this morning," she said, "and he could talk of nothing but his grandson."

Laura knew there were times when the fewest words were best, and she spoke these with an air of innocent frankness.

"Yes, Sidney," said George, "the old man is angry with himself at giving rise to these vexatious reports. Would it not be best to bring Martin here for people to see him for themselves?"

"No, no; it is impossible," answered Sidney.

"But why?" pursued George. "It is always best to face a difficulty as soon as possible. You cannot keep him out of sight forever. Is it true, then, that the poor fellow is imbecile?"

"Not at all," replied Sidney. "The simple truth is that he is a savage. He has no more idea of our modes of life and thought than a savage has. His vocabulary is that of a savage; at the most he knows less than three hundred words, and he cannot learn the English equivalents of those. His brain is almost utterly undeveloped, and his mind is almost as much closed against us as if he was only a dog. But there is no reason to suppose him imbecile, and, in time, he may yet learn a good deal."

"Is he strong in body?" asked Laura.

"As strong as a giant in some ways," said Sidney. "His hard life has made his muscles like iron. He can sleep out of doors amid snow and frost that would kill any one of us, and he can eat food that would sicken us. Yes," he added, in a tone of unfathomable regret, "my eldest son is a savage and a heathen, but he is not an idiot."

"And must he really be your heir?" asked Laura with a trembling voice.

"Certainly," he replied; "he is old enough to cut off the entail, but until he can understand what that means it cannot be done, and that is a very complex idea for a savage brain. There is no ground for dispossessing Martin. Two of our most eminent mental specialists have been to Brackenburn, and they discover no mental incapacity excepting that of an altogether undeveloped brain. They found him more dull and ignorant than the lowest type of English laborer, but they attribute it solely to neglect, not to brain weakness. He may be unfit for his position, but there is no reason why his son should be."

"Goodness!" exclaimed Laura, aghast. "You think, then, he will marry."

"Why not?" asked Margaret. "Nothing would tend to civilize him so much as a wife and children, if only we can find some good and nice village girl whom he could love, and who would consent to marry him. But no lady would become his wife."

"Of course not," assented Laura; "but what, then, is to become of poor Philip?"

"Philip wants to become a surgeon," said Margaret, smiling, "and I am willing, even glad; but Sidney hesitates. I do not want my boy drowned in commercial cares, and dealing chiefly with money all his life, as Sidney has been. I do not think money worth the sacrifice. I cannot help believing that our Lord meant what He said: 'How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!' It is true. Tell me, Sidney, is it not true? I shall be glad to have Philip out of the race for wealth. They will not be poor—Laura; my boy and your girl. They will have enough to secure everything worth having—everything that tends to health and culture and rational pleasure. They will only have to do without superfluities."

"Philip a surgeon!" exclaimed Laura; "not even a clergyman to take the family living!"

"That would be impossible," replied Margaret; "he feels no call for it, and he could not go into the Church for the sake of the family living."

"That would be a sin against God," said George; "next to the unpardonable sin, if it be not that sin itself. Let Philip become a surgeon; my Phyllis will love him as much as if he was the owner of Brackenburn."

But there were at least two persons there who doubted it, and with good reasons. A smile that had grown rare on Sidney's face lit it up for a moment, as the thought flashed across him that Philip would soon see the real nature of the wife he had chosen, and that Dorothy would also appear to him in her true light. Laura inwardly vowed that neither persuasion nor authority on her husband's part should keep Phyllis bound to a man who entered the insignificant career of a surgeon. It would have been a knotty question whether Phyllis could have married him, even if he had entered into partnership with his successful father; but she should never become the wife of a professional man.

And Martin? It was possible that Sidney and Margaret were exaggerating his deficiencies. Laura felt no doubt that they painted him worse than he was; it was Margaret's habit to overstate any opinion she formed. If he was only a boor, why could not Phyllis civilize him? She might, in any case, keep her boorish husband in the background and still enjoy the distinction of being Mrs. Martin of Brackenburn. Before she bade them good-night she had constructed for herself a tolerable image of Martin, which might be quite easily tolerated by a girl like Phyllis. She might still live to see her the wife of Sidney's eldest son.

CHAPTER XLVII.

ANDREW'S PRAYER.

Philip and Hugh, with their cousin Dick, passed the long vacation at Brackenburn. These young men did their best to make a companion of Martin; but he could not understand their friendly efforts. He was willing to accept Philip as his master, and to obey his commands; but he could not, even for his sake, accept the shackles of a civilized life. To bask all day long in the sunshine, with as little clothing on as possible, to have a large plateful of food served to him out of doors two or three times a day, and at nightfall to steal quietly into some dark outbuilding and sleep all night upon sweet-scented hay, was his ideal of well-being. Anything more was irksome to him.

Sometimes, in obedience to Philip's call, he went with them when they were shooting on the moors, shambling behind them with his awkward gait, and seeing and hearing nothing, unless a far-off speck in the sky, all but invisible to them, caught his eye, and filled him with excitement in the fancy that it was a vulture. If they came upon the track of any wild creature, a track altogether imperceptible to them, he could follow it with unerring skill till they traced it to its lair; then Martin laughed with an uncouth and cruel laugh, and with savage eagerness and incredible rapidity the animal was caught, and killed, and skinned before their eyes. At all other times his face bore an expression of deep melancholy. He was content only in Philip's close vicinity. As long as Philip was in the Hall he lounged at his ease in the sunny forecourt; but when Philip was absent, as he was occasionally for a day for two, Martin grew restless and anxious, and moped about the empty rooms vainly seeking for his master.

But this could not go on much longer. Philip's life must not be sacrificed to Martin; and it was not practicable for him to take Martin to London.

Sidney had not yet felt courage enough to see his eldest son again, and Margaret shrank from urging him to it. He was greatly changed these last few months. The air of prosperity that had been wont to sit so lightly and so becomingly upon him, the happy graciousness of his manner, his felicitous speeches, his confidence in himself, and his successful career—all these had passed away. He grew silent, and cared little for his life in town, seeking more and more, though he felt her farther from him, the constant companionship of his wife.

It was late one evening, after all the shops were closed, when Sidney and Margaret together knocked at Andrew Goldsmith's door. It was opened softly by Mary, and they stepped inside the dark shop, standing there while she stole back and knelt down at a chair just within the kitchen door. Old Andrew was at prayer, and as soon as Mary re-entered his quavering voice resumed its solemn petition.

"We beseech Thee, O Lord," he said, "to take under the shadow of Thy wings that poor child of mine, my lost girl's son, who is now in sore straits and great trouble. He has no friend save Thee; there is nothing in him to make folks love him. But nothing has been done for him, Thou knowest. The man that deserted my girl deserted his own flesh and blood. And he is no better than a heathen, worshiping stocks and stones. Let us see Thine arm stretched out to save him, and to punish that man, his father, who left him to perish, body and soul. Vengeance, O Lord; let us see Thy vengeance on him."

Sidney heard nothing more. It was a terrible thing to hear a fellow-man appealing to God against him. Margaret's heart was melted with pity toward them both. If only either of them knew the infinite love of God; if they could but realize how small a moment in their endless life the brief passage through this world was to every soul of man; if they could only understand how much closer God is to every soul he creates than we are to one another—what need would there be to pray in this manner, even for Martin?

"We are come to answer your prayer, Andrew," she said, stepping forward as soon as he had finished; "not your prayer for vengeance, but for your grandson. He is my husband's son, and mine. We all care for him. My dear boy Philip is doing all he can for him; and now we want you and Mary to help us."

"What can we do, my lady?" he asked, despondently; "the past is past. He can never be like Mr. Philip and Mr. Hugh."

"Not like them," she answered; "but do you suppose he is less precious to God than they are? God makes no difference between them. Christ died for him as truly as for them. You are too much troubled about small things, Andrew. But you can help Martin. Listen to our plans for him. It is best for him to live at Brackenburn, because that place will always be his own; and we want you and Mary to go and live there with him as master and mistress of his household. You will naturally care for him more than anyone else can do; and you know it is not possible for us to go to live at Brackenburn; it is too far from London. We think, too, of getting somebody who will be a sort of tutor to him, who will teach him all he is able to learn."

She paused a moment, but Andrew did not speak.

"You will make this sacrifice for Sophy's sake," she resumed. "Your grandson has suffered a great wrong, not altogether from my husband's fault, and we must all do what we can to set it right. My husband did not know of the existence of this son."

"Not know of him!" repeated Andrew.

"He knew only that Sophy was dead," said Margaret.

"But you knew she was dead!" he cried, turning fiercely upon Sidney; "you knew it while you were pretending to comfort me, you scoundrel! you hypocrite! You made promises to me of searching for her, and making inquiries, and all the time you knew she was in her grave. God grant I may see you punished!"

The impotent anger of the old man was painful to witness. His white head shook as if with palsy, and his trembling hands clutched the back of a chair for support. Mary ran to his side as if afraid of his falling to the floor.

"I am punished, Goldsmith," said Sidney. "Do you think it is nothing to be branded, as you have branded me, with infamy? But I have come to ask your forgiveness, and your aid in saving Martin from further consequences of my sin."

"Forgive you!" he answered. "I cannot, neither in this life nor the life to come. But I'll do what Miss Margaret asks. I'll quit my old house, and go away, and die among strangers, as my poor Sophy did; and every time you go up and down the street you'll see how desolate you've made my house. I've got a long lease of it, and it shan't be let to anybody else. We'll put up the shutters and leave it empty, and every time you see it you'll remember Sophy and my curse on you."

"Andrew!" said Margaret, "you are casting yourself away, out of the light of God's love, and all your path will be dark to you. You will cease to know him as he is; and you will find how terrible he can be in his anger."

"I repent bitterly of my sins against you," urged Sidney, "and I own how treacherous they were. But, Goldsmith, believe me when I say that I am changed, that I could not sin against you now as I did then."

"Changed!" said the old man scornfully, "changed! How can you show it to me? You've been found out; and we are changed toward you. But I can see no difference in you. You've not lost your riches and your lands. You're not punished in any way that I can see. Yes, you are a grand son-in-law for an old saddler like me."

"Let us go away," said Margaret sadly.

She took her husband's arm, and walked silently along the streets and up the long avenue, so familiar to them through many happy years. But now their hearts were heavy and cast down. The difficulty had come to Sidney which comes upon men whose outward life has been at variance with the inner. There was no mode by which he could prove to his fellow-men the reality of the change within him. He had seemed to be a Christian so long that there was no way of manifestly throwing off the cloak of hypocrisy. He must wear the livery of Judas to the end.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

A LOST LOVE.

Philip rejoiced at being set free from an irksome and almost hopeless task. He had been absent from home for many months; and though he had written often to Phyllis from Brackenburn, her replies had been growing more and more meager and unsatisfactory. Her brother Dick drew his attention to the fact that half of Phyllis's missives were written on post cards, and might be read by all the world. They came very near a quarrel; Dick's depreciatory tone in speaking of his only sister always amazed Philip.

As soon as possible after his arrival at the Hall he hurried down to the Rectory. It was usual for Phyllis to be awaiting him at the Hall; but after his long absence she probably preferred to welcome him alone. He had not seen Phyllis's father and mother since he lost his inheritance, but he did not anticipate any change in them because his circumstances were so greatly altered. The rector received him with more than usual cordiality and tenderness. He put his arm affectionately about Philip's shoulders.

"I'm pleased with you, my boy," he said; "you are fighting a good fight, and coming out the victor."

Philip grasped the rector's hand tightly. His mother had never seemed to recognize the real hardship of his position; and his father made worse of it than it actually was. The rector spoke of it as a fight in which he would win the victory, and yet suffer some loss in doing so.

"You are a man now," resumed the rector, "a man I approve of and honor with all my heart. It will be a glad day to me when I give you my richest gift—Phyllis."

"A richer gift than anything I can lose," said Philip.

Philip left the rector's study one of the happiest men in the world, and went away to the drawing room, where Phyllis and her mother were sure to be found at this hour of the night. He heard the voices of the boys in their smoke room, and congratulated himself on the chance of Phyllis being alone with her mother. It was just what he had hoped for.

But Phyllis was so entangled and encumbered with some fancywork when he opened the door, that she could not spring forward delightedly to meet him. She sat still; and he stooped over her and pressed his lips to her soft cheek, and then turned to kiss her mother, who also did not greet him with her accustomed rapture.

"How could you run away from your mother so soon after getting home?" she inquired reproachfully.

"Did you think I could keep away till to-morrow?" he rejoined. "My mother knew I was coming here, and she is not jealous of Phyllis. She knows I love Phyllis as much as herself, though differently. I do not love my mother less because Phyllis is so dear to me."

He lingered on the name Phyllis, slightly emphasizing it, with a delicate caress in the tone of his voice. The color flushed her pale and grave face, and her sight grew a little misty; but she went on with her embroidery as if she did not hear him.

"Now, Philip," said Laura, "sit down, and let us talk sensibly. Everything is so changed, so shockingly changed by this sad discovery. Your father made a false step, and cannot retrace it; but it alters all your position and your prospects."

"Yes," he assented.

"I want you to look at it as the world looks at it," pursued Laura. "After all, we are living in this world, not in the next, as your mother fancies. You are now comparatively a poor man; you are, in fact, a penniless man, for you are altogether dependent upon your father. Formerly you were the heir, and no caprice of your father's, or any failure in his business, could deprive you of the inheritance. You were quite secure of the future. But now you have not a penny, either in possession or prospect, which does not depend upon your father. And city businesses are so uncertain; you may be rolling in wealth one day and a bankrupt the next. Suppose your father failed, he would be all right for his life, and Martin would be all right, and so would Hugh. But where would you be?"

Philip made no answer. His eyes were fastened upon Phyllis, whose fingers went on busily with their work as if she had heard her mother's words over and over again.

"So far as I can see," continued Laura, "you are in a dreadfully precarious position—in such a position as would make an older man reflect seriously before he thought of marriage. What can you offer to a wife? A most uncertain prospect; possibly, even probably, absolute penury. Penury! You come to Phyllis, and say, 'Give me your love, which is most precious to me, and, in return, I will share with you my poverty and troubles.' It seems to me a strange way of showing affection."

"But am I in a different position to your sons, who have to make their own way in the world?" asked Philip in a slightly faltering voice.

He moved his seat to the sofa on which Phyllis was sitting, and took possession of her hand, which lay in his, limp and listless, making no return to its warm clasp.

"No," answered Laura; "but they know they must marry girls with money. If Phyllis had a fortune I should not say a word. But your father refused his consent to your marrying a girl without a fortune; you know that only too well, Philip. I am not quite so worldly as that. But Phyllis, poor girl, cannot marry a poor man; she is not fit to cope with poverty, as I have done. I know the rector will not be wise enough, or firm enough, to refuse you as your father rejected Phyllis. But I am her mother, and I have an equal right to a voice in the matter. I cannot see her throw herself into life long difficulties through a foolish fancy that you love one another. You are both far too young to know your own minds."

"I was wrong in saying I was in the same position as my cousins," said Philip, in growing agitation; "you know that both my father and mother are rich. It is true I am not the heir of either of them, but they have a large income; and I feel sure that if I desire it they will make me such an allowance as will provide all rational comforts and enjoyments to my wife."

"An allowance that must cease with their lives," replied Laura, "and nothing is more uncertain than life. I do not wish to alarm you, my dear Philip, but your father is much, very much shaken by this unfortunate discovery of yours. You must not count upon him living to old age. I have talked all this over with Phyllis, and she agrees with me."

"No, no," he said vehemently; "you may make her say so, but I will never believe it! Phyllis, who has been my little wife as long as I can remember; Phyllis, who has grown up for me—whom I loved as soon as I loved anyone! No; she will never forsake me. She would become my wife if I had only the poorest cottage to give to her as a home."

He clasped her hand between his own with a grasp from which she could not free it, though she made a feeble effort to do so. Then she lifted up her tear-filled eyes, and looked very sadly into his eager face.

"I never could marry a poor man," she said. "O Philip! why did your father own he was married to Sophy Goldsmith? Nobody could have proved it, and nobody would have believed it; and then, you know, there would not have been all this fuss."

"Phyllis!" he cried, "you don't know what you are saying."

He dropped her hand and turned away from her. These few words of hers were horrible to him. All that her mother said passed by him almost as if it had no meaning. Some time ago he had begun to doubt the disinterested nature of her affection for him; but he had no more doubted Phyllis than he did the rector. But at this moment her worldliness was more frank and outspoken than her mother's. There was an unabashed openness about it that staggered him, if she knew what she was saying. But she could not know; it was incredible that she could comprehend the baseness of her speech. He turned back to her again.

"Phyllis," he said earnestly, "tell me truly, do you agree to what your mother says?"

"Quite," she answered. "We have talked it over again and again, and I agree with her. We should have been very happy together, but now I can only be sorry for you."

He went away without another word, stunned and bewildered. The boys were still laughing and talking in the smoke room, and the rector was reading in his study. It seemed to Philip as if he was dreaming some vexatious and incredible dream. This was his other home, as familiar to him as his father's house. He had scarcely known any difference between Hugh and the other boys, whose merry racket was in his ears. But now a sentence of banishment had been pronounced against him. He could never come in and out again with the free, happy fellowship of former times. It was many months since he had crossed the old threshold; it would be many months before he crossed it again.

He went home and told his mother briefly, in as few words as possible; and she said little to him, for she saw his grief was too fresh for consolation. Moreover, she was not herself grieved, and she knew it would be vain to touch his sorrow with an unsympathetic hand. Sidney was more pleased than by anything which had happened since Philip's engagement to Phyllis. It was a good thing for him to discover his mistake in time.

"Let us go to London," said Margaret, "and make a home for Philip for the next three months. If we stay here either he will not come down, or he must meet Phyllis and her mother; for we could not break off all our intercourse with the rector. Dorothy has never been in London for more than a day or two, and we can find plenty to do during the winter. And, Sidney, let us go and keep Christmas at Brackenburn."

CHAPTER XLIX.

WINTER GLOOM.

Andrew and Mary Goldsmith left their old home in Apley, and went north to take charge of Sophy's son. It was a great change in the lives of people so old. Instead of their small, snug kitchen, and their shop, with its outlook on the familiar street, they dwelt in large, wainscoted rooms, separated by long, wandering passages and galleries, through which the autumn winds moaned incessantly, and from the windows they saw only the deserted moorland. The caretakers, who had been accustomed to have entire charge of the place, remained in it as gardener and cook; and a groom and housemaid had been hired for the extra work, caused, not by Martin, but by the tutor who had undertaken to teach him the bare elements of learning and the simplest customs of civilized society. Mary Goldsmith found herself at the head of this little establishment, not without some feelings of pride in the importance of her position; and Andrew was installed as master and guardian of his grandson. It was a great change from their homely life at Apley. Yet, with all the discomfort of the change, there was a lurking sense of pleasure in being the nearest of kin to the heir of the estate.

On the other hand, Martin was a source of constant anxiety and mortification to them both; but Andrew took the mortification most to heart. He loved his uncouth barbarian, who was Sophy's son, with a very deep though troubled love. There could be no interchange of ideas between them, except by gesture: for Andrew was too old to learn Martin's stammering patois, and Martin appeared quite unable to recollect the few English words his tutor tried to fix upon his memory. The tutor, who knew Italian well, though he was not versed in the patois of the frontier between Italy and Austria, soon learned Martin's very limited vocabulary, and also his narrow range of mental sensations. But between Andrew and his grandson there was no means whatever of communication by speech. The old man would sit patiently for hours watching the dull, coarse face of the clumsy peasant, whose favorite postures were lying huddled up on the ground, or squatting on his heels with his knees almost on a level with his ears. Sometimes he fancied his grandson responded to his wistful gaze with a gleam of intelligent affection in his eyes; and now and then Martin would offer him a pipe if he was not provided with one. There was a certain amount of friendliness in this act.

Martin's tutor conscientiously spent a regular number of hours in attempting to teach him; and he did his best to make him sit down to the table at meals and take his food like other people. But Martin was both obstinate and obtuse. In his childhood he had not been permitted to imitate the children about him; and the imitative faculties continued dormant in his manhood.

Occasionally, to please Philip, he had consented to sit down with him and Hugh to a meal, and tried to do what they told him, but for nobody else was it worth while to take so much trouble. He was learning, with the slow and weary progress of an adult, the difficult accomplishment of writing, his crooked and frost-bitten fingers traveling laboriously over the paper, forming characters he did not understand. He was learning, a little more easily, how to read; but here again his progress was hindered by his want of comprehension. For, wisely or not, he was being taught in English, and, as yet, English was a tongue without meaning to him.

The best time for Andrew was when Martin accompanied him on the moors. The old man was still hale and strong, and could pass all the hours of the day out of doors, provided he was not always in movement. Martin, too, was only happy in the open air, and he liked lounging about, sitting for long spells under some moss-grown rock, as he had been accustomed to do when he was tending Chiara's herds. Like savages, he was capable of prolonged and extreme muscular exertion when necessary; but necessity alone could drive him to make any effort, excepting when a wild impulse possessed him to try his great physical strength. Usually he was content to loiter about, with a pipe in his mouth and his hands in his pockets, the impersonation of sluggish laziness. For hours together these strange kinsmen—the vigorous old man, with his hot heart of indignant love beating in his time-worn frame, and his grandson, with all his faculties and affections undeveloped—strolled about the wide moorland, unable to exchange a word, and communicating with one another only by looks and gestures.

To Martin, all that had happened to him had the incoherence and marvel of a dream. Chiara's death had first broken the melancholy monotony of his life, and immediately followed this extraordinary change in his circumstances. He accepted it, but he could not comprehend it. He found himself supplied with all he wanted, without any effort of his own; he no longer worked for many long hours for coarse food in scanty quantities, nor was he roughly roused from his sleep at the first dawn of the morning. No voice spoke in angry tones to him, and no face scowled upon him. Yet he did not enjoy the dainty meals set before him at regular and stated intervals, instead of being snatched and devoured with a watchful, and anxious, and savage glee. He was called upon to submit to incomprehensible restraints upon all his actions. Moreover, he was sensible that there was a vast difference between himself and these strange people who surrounded him; a far greater difference than he had felt when living among the petty tyrants, whom he hated, but who were familiar to him. There had been a certain zest and enjoyment in hatred, which was missing in this new life, where there were no enemies or oppressors. Besides this, though he had never consciously felt the spell of the mountain peaks among which he dwelt, the broad, wide sweep of the moorland, rising gradually up to a softly undulating line against the sky, was irksome and painful to him; why, he knew not. A deep, passive dejection fell upon his spirit, and drove every thought of his slowly awakening mind inward. There was nothing in him of the child's spontaneous action of the mind outward. He had suffered from tyranny and persecution; he was now suffering from nostalgia, and utter weariness of his uncongenial life.

The first day the snow began to fall Andrew's vigilant eye detected the tears falling down the rugged cheeks of his grandson. He ran out into the forecourt and stood still for the soft flakes to fall upon his bare head, and hands stretched out as if to give them a welcome—the welcome we give to messengers from a beloved land. He looked down at the print of his feet on the white carpet, and immediately took off his boots, and trod upon it barefooted, as if with reverence of its purity. All day long he wandered about the moors, his face lit up with an expression that was almost a smile. Andrew, who did not care to accompany him into the frosty air and bitter north wind, watched him from a garret window, now taking long and rapid strides across the snow-clad uplands, and now standing motionless for many minutes, his bare head bowed down and his arms hanging listlessly by his sides, until the snowflakes had covered him from head to foot. What was he thinking of, this poor son of Sophy's? What did he remember? Was he really of sound mind; or was it true, as all the country folks were saying, that he was a poor, witless innocent? Could nothing be done to arouse him, mind and soul? Was there no way of undoing the wrong that had been done?

So the dark months of November and part of December passed by, and Rachel wrote that Mr. Martin and all the family were coming to keep Christmas at Brackenburn instead of Apley. To meet Sidney again, and stay under his roof almost like a guest, was more than Andrew could brook; so he took himself away to Apley to spend a lonely Christmas in his old home.

CHAPTER L.

FATHER AND SON.

Sidney had not seen his son since his arrival in England. There had been no necessity for doing so; and he shrank from the great pain of coming again into close contact with him. But this meeting could not be avoided forever, and Margaret, who felt a keen sympathy with her husband while recognizing his duty toward his eldest son and heir, urged her plan of spending Christmas in Yorkshire. Nearly six months had elapsed, and she hoped that Martin would be in some degree reclaimed from his almost brute condition.

For days before the arrival of the family the old Manor House was undergoing a process of cleaning and beautifying which was bewildering and irritating to Martin. Carpets were laid down on all the floors, and large fires were kept burning in every room. Flowers were blooming everywhere, and ingenious decorations of holly and ivy and mistletoe hung upon all the walls. His tutor was gone away for the holidays, and Andrew had disappeared. The small, stagnant pool of his existence was being stirred to its depths, and this fretted him. He did not know at all what it meant; and on the day when the family were expected, when everybody was ten-fold busier than before, he wandered off early in the morning, and his absence was not noticed by the occupied household.

It had been dark for an hour or two, when Martin shambled across the forecourt and into the porch on his return. The large glass doors which separated the porch from the hall were uncurtained, and he crept in without noise to look through them cautiously. The place was altogether transformed. There was a huge fire of logs and coal burning brightly on the hearth, with a many-colored square of carpet laid before it, and chairs drawn up into the light and heat. Great bunches of red holly and pots of scarlet geranium gave bright color to the hall. A woman, grander and more beautiful than he had ever seen, richly clad in purple velvet, sat in one of the high-backed chairs, and standing near to her was the English signore, who called himself his father. It seemed to his dull and troubled mind, as he stood outside in the dark, that this must be the other world, where the saints dwelt, of which the padre had sometimes spoken. Could this be the Paradiso to which Christians went after masses had been said to get them out of the Purgatorio? There was the Inferno, where his mother was, and the Purgatorio, and the Paradiso. But this place was too beautiful to be anything but the Paradiso; and these grand and beautiful beings were the inhabitants of it. He was gazing, with a vague sense of it being impossible for him to enter in, when he saw other figures descending the broad, shallow staircase slowly, side by side. The one was the gracious and radiant vision he had seen in Cortina, the other was his lost friend, his brother, his master, Philippo.

His joy was the joy of a dumb animal on seeing a beloved master suddenly reappear after a mysterious, inexplicable absence. He burst open the door impetuously, and rushed in, covered with the snowflakes that had been lodging half frozen in his hair and beard for the last hour or two. He flung himself before Philip clasping his knees with his arms, and uttering uncouth cries of delight and welcome. For the moment he had relapsed into the savage again; the heavy, clumsy frame, the ragged face, down which the melting snow was running, the bare feet and head, inarticulate cries, all seemed to show that no training, no process of civilizing, could make him other than the confirmed savage that he was.

"Margaret, I cannot bear it!" exclaimed Sidney, as if appealing to her for strength.

"It is only for the moment," she said softly; "he is excited now. And see how fond he is of Philip. That is a good thing for him. Remember how short a time six months is to undo the work of thirty years. And Mary Goldsmith tells me he has no great faults, such as he might have had. She thinks he is learning every day to be something more like other people. He is your son, Sidney—our son; speak to him."

She had not seen him since the festa at Cortina, and she regarded him now with intense interest. His face was certainly more intelligent than it was then; the scared look upon it was gone, and it bore a stronger likeness to Andrew Goldsmith. There was even a slight resemblance to Philip, by whom he was now standing, and on whose face his eyes were riveted with an expression of contentment. His hair and beard were cut short and trimmed, not hanging in matted locks, as when she saw him first. He wore a rough shooting suit, not unsuitable for Philip; and the chief points of oddity in his appearance were his bare head and feet. But Mary was right, thought Margaret; in time he would look like other people.

"Martin!" said his father in a raised voice, louder than he was himself aware of. Martin started and turned away from Philip, approaching Sidney with a cowed yet dogged air. He did not take his outstretched hand.

"Do you know who I am?" asked Sidney in Italian.

"Yes, signore," he answered, "my father."

They stood looking at one another. The one man was twenty-two years older than the other, yet they seemed almost of the same age. Martin was prematurely aged, broken down by persecution, and weatherworn by exposure and want; his father was unbent, strong, and vigorous in mind and body, still in his prime, and only during the last six months showing any sign of his fifty-two years being a burden to him. There was something so pitiful in the contrast, that Philip walked away out into the porch; and Margaret and Dorothy clasped each other's hands and looked on with tear-filled eyes.

"Oh, my father!" said Martin, speaking as if his soul had at length found an outlet in words, "this is the Paradise, and I am not fit for it. I know nothing. You are a great signore, and I am nothing. We are far away from one another. My mother is in the Inferno; Chiara and the padre said it; no masses can be said for her soul. Let me go back to the mountains. I am not fit to live with great signori. My mother calls to me here," and he laid his hand on his heart, "'Come back, Martin, come back!' and I must go. Send me back to the mountains."

Dorothy loosed Margaret's hand and stepped swiftly to Sidney's side, putting her hand fondly through his arm. He looked down on her with an expression of irretrievable sadness.

"Listen to me, my son," he said, speaking very slowly and distinctly. "I did a great wrong when I left your mother, and I did a greater wrong in not seeking to know if you lived or not. I never knew you were born. If I had known it, you would have lived with me; and now you would be as Philip is, like him in every way. Look round you. When I die this house will be yours, and you will be a rich man. Do you understand?"

"Yes, signore," he answered, with excited gestures, "I shall have much money and much land. But now I have nothing. Give me some of the money now, and let me go back and buy a farm in Ampezzo. They will be my servants now; nobody will pelt me with stones, and shout after me, and turn me out of the church. They will give me a chair there, and the padre will take off his hat to me. Perhaps they will say masses for the soul of my mother, when I am a rich man. Send me back, oh, my father!"

"Will you go away and leave your brother Philip?" asked Dorothy in hesitating accents. For though she had been diligently learning Italian for some months, she was afraid Martin would not understand her. He looked at her in amazement, and a gleam lighted up his furrowed face.

"The signora knows what I say!" he exclaimed; "these other people here know nothing. I want to speak, and they stare at me. I am a fool in their eyes. But I can speak now to the signora, and to my father, and to Philippe. It is better now."

"Martin," said Sidney, "you must stay here, in England, till you are more like an Englishman. In a year or two I will take you back to Cortina, and you shall choose where you will live. But this house and these lands are yours, and they will be your son's when you die. It is best for you to live in your own house and your own country."

"Stay with us," pleaded Dorothy, looking compassionately into his sad eyes. "Nobody loves you there, and we love you. I will teach you to be like your brother Philip. I used to live here, and I will show you places you have never seen. Stay with us, Martin."

"But my mother calls me," he answered. "They will say no masses for her soul if they do not know I am a rich man."

"I will send them money for it," replied Dorothy. "Besides, it is a mistake, Martin; your mother is not in the Inferno."

He listened to her as if she had been the Madonna he had fancied her when he first saw her. A heavy sob broke through his lips, and then a cry of exultation. The chief burden that had weighed upon his spirit slipped away and fell from him. The deepest stigma of his life was removed; and in this he was like other men, that his mother, whom he had never seen, was dwelling in the same place as the mothers of other men.

CHAPTER LI.

THE GROWTH OF A SOUL.

Dorothy gave herself up to the task of humanizing Martin with great enthusiasm. Her success was naturally greater and more rapid than that of the tutor or old Andrew. She undertook to teach him to read, and arguing it was best to teach him in Italian until he knew more of English, she began to teach him from a little book she had bought in Italy, one which was a great favorite of her own for its quaint and simple legends. It was the "Fioretti di San Francisco."

A pretty picture it was to all the other members of the household to see Dorothy seated in a high-backed oak chair on the hearth, with the fire light playing about her, while Martin, squatting on a low seat beside her, read diligently from the book on her lap, marking each word with his rude forefinger. Often she read aloud to him in hesitating accents, for the language was still strange to her; but the very slowness and difficulty of her utterance made it easier for him to comprehend. Sidney and Margaret themselves sat listening to the gentle and childlike beauty of these "Flowrets of S. Francisco," and watching the kindling intelligence of Martin's face. His soul was developing under Dorothy's tender care. On the snow-clad moors, also, Dorothy made herself his constant companion. In all weather, except when the snow was whirling in a bewildering network of closely falling flakes, she was ready to go out with him, and Philip, and Hugh, guiding them to places known only to herself. She could show them the winter dens of many a wild creature; and Martin learned from her that he was not to kill them. Once she led them to the edge of a deep, narrow dell, invisible from a little distance, and under the brow of it was a cave hewn out of the rock, a cave so similar to his place of refuge on the mountains, that Martin uttered a cry of mingled astonishment and delight. It was like a piece of home to him.

Later on, when the others had gone back to London, Dorothy persuaded Sidney to procure for him, from that far-off Austrian valley, one of the curious, quaint old crucifixes which stand at every point where crossroads meet. She had it placed near the entrance of this cave; for, she said, if it awoke a thought, or gave him a glimmer of religious light, it was right for him to have it. When he came upon it first, unexpectedly, he threw himself on his knees before it, and burst into a passion of tears. It was a symbol familiar to him from his earliest days; the only place of refuge, where, if he could reach it, he was safe from the blows of his tyrants.

So evident was Martin's rapid development, that Margaret decided to remain with Dorothy after Sidney and Philip had returned to London. She was deeply interested in this growth of a soul under her own eyes. Martin was learning to make broken sentences in English; and she marked his progress with constantly increasing pleasure in seeing him overcome difficulties.

To Martin these winter months were less wearisome than the summer and autumn had been. The snow made the moors a more familiar ground, and in these long, dark afternoons, if Dorothy was out of the way, he could creep into the kitchen, and crouch down in the chimney nook smoking a pipe, undisturbed by the servants, who were still busy at their work. Margaret and Dorothy sat chiefly in the great hall, which Martin liked next best to the kitchen; large screens were drawn round the hearth, and huge fires kept burning, and there Martin would lie on the warm bearskins, with Dorothy's dogs around him, while she read the "Fioretti di San Francisco." Most things were irksome to him still; he could never wear the shackles of civilization easily. But he was changing and developing. By and by they would reap the harvest of the seed they were sowing.

The Easter holidays brought back Philip for a few days. In his eyes the transformation was marvelous. Martin had submitted to wearing boots and a hat; at any rate, when he went out with Dorothy. He sat down with them to their meals, and could even make his wants known to the servants in intelligible words. He was learning to ride, and he was willing to sit in the carriage quietly when they drove to the nearest town. His eyes followed Dorothy, and he was obedient to her slightest sign. He watched her as if to see if he displeased her in any way. When she looked at him his dull face brightened with a rare smile, which had a strange and pathetic attraction in it, like a sudden and transient gleam of sunshine on a dreary, wintry day. The doglike allegiance he had displayed toward Philip was plainly transferred to her.

Was there any touch of jealousy in the uneasiness which Philip felt at this new phase of his brother's character? A vague, indefinable apprehension of some new danger took hold of him at the sight of this constant companionship between Martin and Dorothy. He recognized in his own mind that Martin was still a young man, and that there was a simple charm about Dorothy that few men of any rank in life could be indifferent to. Was Martin too dense a barbarian to feel it?

Though more civilized in other respects, Martin had not yet learned to sleep before he was sleepy. His hours of slumber were still as irregular as his hours of eating had been at first. Late one night, when all the rest of the household were long ago asleep, Philip found him on the hearth in the hall, sitting on his low stool beside Dorothy's chair. His deep-set eyes were glowing under his shaggy eyebrows like the embers on the hearth.

"My brother," he said, as Philip stood looking down at him, "tell me, am I now a rich English signore like the other signori?"

"Of course," answered Philip, about to sit down in Dorothy's chair; but Martin motioned him away, and drew another seat forward.

"This belongs to her, my signorina," he said; "it is not for you or for me."

"Why not?" asked Philip, half laughing. "She is only a girl like other girls."

Martin made no answer, but repeated "like other girls" under his breath, as if it was a new idea to him.

"My brother," he resumed, after a pause, "when I was poor, without a penny, long ago, there was a girl I loved. When a man loves a girl he wants her for his wife. I wanted this girl to be my wife, but she spat at me."

"I am glad you did not marry her, Martin," said Philip, thinking how far worse it would have been if he had discovered his brother with a wife and children.

"She wouldn't spit at me now," he continued proudly. "I am a rich signore now, and I should laugh at her being my wife. She is down there, in the mud. But, my brother, listen to me. You say my signorina is a girl like other girls, and I am a rich signore. Would she laugh at me if I love her and want her to be my wife, like the girl I loved long ago?"

For a minute or two anger and a strong feeling of repulsion kept Philip silent. It was too monstrous to think of patiently. This rude peasant, this scarcely reclaimed savage, to be lifting up his eyes to the sweet English girl, who had only stooped to civilize him out of the pure compassion of her heart! But the feeling died out as quickly as it had been kindled. It was possible for Martin to love her, and, if so, how much he would have to suffer!

"She would laugh at me," said Martin in tones of the deepest and saddest conviction; "she would not look at me. See, I am a dog to her. She would turn her face away from me, and never look at me again. She is so far away above me, but you are close to her. You are like her, very grand, and very beautiful, and very clever. I am down, down in the mud. I cannot learn your ways; they are too hard for me. Oh, my brother! if I was like you, my signorina would love me and be my wife."

Philip, looking down at the seared and melancholy face of his unfortunate brother, said to himself that this might have been true. If Martin had been trained and educated as he himself had been he would have been a suitable husband for Dorothy, and what would please his father and mother more than to have her for their daughter?

"She is like the Madonna to me," said Martin slowly and hesitatingly, as if searching through his brain for suitable words to express the thoughts pressing busily into it; "my Madonna. I see her all day, and at night I cannot sleep. I sit all night on the mat at her door watching, listening. I do not sleep, but I am happy."

"You must never tell her that," replied Philip; "it would make her very unhappy."

"I will never tell her, my brother," he answered submissively; "she is too high above me. She is like an angel, and I am a dog. That is true. I am nothing; only a rich man. But I will give her all my riches—this house, these lands. They shall be hers, not mine."

"But you are not a rich man till your father dies," explained Philip; "they belong to him as long as he lives, and then they will belong to you as long as you live, but you can never give them away. They will be kept for your eldest son. It would be impossible for you to give any of them to Dorothy."

"It is a lie, then," he said; "it is a lie. I am not a rich man. They are of no good to me, this house and these lands. It would be better for me to have a farm of my own in Ampezzo, and marry a woman there. I did not dare to think the signorina would be my wife; but if I could give her this house and these lands, and live near her, where I could see her every day, I could be happy, perhaps, here in this strange country, though I do not know what the people say. I am not happy in Ampezzo; they curse me and throw stones at me. I am not happy here in these clothes, and this great house, and these fine rooms. Let me be a servant; your servant, or the signorina's; then I might be happy."

"That could never be," said Philip pityingly.

"That is what I am fit for," urged Martin. "Take me away from here; make me work hard. Say to me: 'Martin, clean my horse;' 'Martin, do this;' 'Martin, do that,' like Chiara did. The days would not be long then, and I should sleep sound at night. I want to be tired out, my brother. See, I am very strong; my arms and legs are strong; and I sit all day in a chair smoking a pipe, and all they tell me to do is, 'Read a little book, signore,' or, 'Learn a little English,' or, 'Let me teach you how to write.' Only my signorina says: 'Let us go out on the moors, Martin.' But she is not big and strong like me, and I walk like a girl beside her, for fear she should grow tired. I feel like a wolf shut up in a stable and fastened by a chain. Make me work hard like a servant, or let me go back to Ampezzo."

Philip let his hand fall gently on Martin's shoulder, and he turned and kissed it—the smooth, well formed hand, strong and muscular, yet as finely molded as a woman's. Martin stretched out his own knotted and deformed hands, and looked at them, as he had never done before, in the fire light, with a half laugh and a half groan. Since Philip's arrival this time he had become more conscious of the vast difference between himself and his brother. He saw his own uncouthness and ugliness as they must appear in Dorothy's eyes. His close watchfulness of her had betrayed to him how different was the expression of her face when she was talking to him or to Philip. He had seen a happy light in her eyes when Philip was beside her, or even when she caught the sound of his voice about the house. These two, thought Martin humbly, were fit for each other. Dorothy would be Philip's wife, not his.

"Yes, my brother," he said, speaking his last thought aloud, "my signorina loves you, and she will be your wife."

"Martin," exclaimed Philip, rising hastily, "you must never say such a word as that to me again."

He left him in solitary possession of the great hall; but looking out of his own room an hour later, he saw Martin stretched like a dog across the threshold of Dorothy's door.

CHAPTER LII.

LAURA'S DOUBTS.

Philip could not sleep, so great was his agitation. This conversation, the first Martin had ever held with anyone, filled him with consternation, almost to dismay. He had spoken to Dorothy of his delight over Martin's awakening soul, the soul of a child expanding under her influence, and a lovely expression of gladness had lit up the girl's face. But it had been a man's soul that was developing, not a child's. They had none of them thought of that. Martin was a man whose natural affections, so long thwarted and disappointed, were ready to flow swiftly into the first open channel. But to love Dorothy! If it had not been for his lifelong love for Phyllis, Philip would have loved Dorothy himself. How sweet and simple she was! how true! There was a fresh and innocent, almost a rustic charm about her which contrasted strongly with Phyllis's cultivated attractiveness. Philip, in his heart-sickness at Phyllis's worldliness, was open-eyed to Dorothy's unconscious disregard to custom and fashion. She valued the world as his mother valued it. With this thought there flashed across his mind an idea that brought terror with it. So unconventional was Dorothy that outward culture would not have as much value in her sight as it had in his own. Moreover, there was a passion in her, as in his mother, for self-sacrifice, an absolute, unappeasable hunger to be of service to her fellow-creatures. Was it quite impossible that after a while Dorothy might not become Martin's wife? He vehemently assured himself that it was impossible; but the question tormented him. It was already a marvelous change that had been wrought on Martin. Yet he felt an unutterable horror at the thought, and for the first time a bitter repugnance arose in his heart against his unhappy elder brother. He might take the estate, that birthright, which had appeared to be his own through all these years. But he must not think of Dorothy. What could this repugnance mean? If he had not loved Phyllis so ardently and constantly, he would have said he was in love with Dorothy himself. But it was only a few months since all Apley, Dorothy also, were witnesses of his rejected love and bitter disappointment. Only a few months? They seemed like years! He had been deceived in Phyllis, of course; the Phyllis whom he loved was chiefly a creature of his imagination; there had never been such a being. Dorothy was nearer his ideal than Phyllis had ever been, but he could not tell her so when she knew how passionate had been his mistaken love for Phyllis.

Early in the morning he sought a private interview with his mother, letting Dorothy go off on to the moors alone with Martin. Margaret and he watched them walking side by side, Martin's bowed-down head turned attentively toward her.

"It is a wonderful change," remarked Margaret; "we have not wasted these last four months, have we, Philip?"

"Mother," he said abruptly, "suppose Martin has fallen in love with Dorothy!"

Margaret's eyes met his own for a moment, and then followed the receding figures till they were nearly lost to sight. The short silence seemed intolerable to him.

"Poor fellow!" she said in a tone of exquisite pity, "that might be, and it would be another misfortune for him. I believe his nature is a fine one, full of possibilities of nobleness. But he has had no chance hitherto; and if this is true his last hope is gone."

"Dorothy could not marry him!" exclaimed Philip.

"She would not marry him," said Margaret sadly; "if she would she could indeed do more for him than any other human being can. If he loves her that will partly account for his rapid development. There is no educator like love."

"But, mother," he cried, "Martin can never be anything but an ignorant, superstitious peasant. There can be no real culture for him. He can never be a gentleman. He will not be as well educated as our lodge keeper."

"I suppose he will always be ignorant of what we call knowledge," she answered, "but he need not remain superstitious. The light of God can shine into his heart as fully as into ours. He begins to realize that we love him; and what is our love but single drops from the unfathomable ocean of God's love? As soon as he knows that God loves him, he will be wiser than the wisest man of the world."

"Then you would not oppose Dorothy marrying him?" he asked indignantly.

"Not if she would do it," she replied. "I would heap upon Martin the best and worthiest of all the blessings of this life, if that would atone for the loss of all his childhood and youth. Think of it, my Philip. While you occupied his place, he was enduring the want of all things. We cannot do too much, or give up too much, for him. But no thought of loving him in that way is in Dorothy's mind."

"Thank God!" he said fervently.

Margaret smiled, and held out her hand to him fondly. A moment ago the thought had flashed through his brain that his mother was too high-minded and too visionary for this life. But the clear, steadfast light in her eyes, and the smile playing about her lips, were not those of a person rapt away from all earthly interests.

"No, Philip," she said, "Dorothy looks upon Martin simply as a brother, one whose sad lot she can brighten. I cannot wish it otherwise, though I am grieved for him. Tell me all you think about it."

He repeated almost verbally the conversation he had held with Martin the night before; and Margaret listened with a troubled face.

"Dorothy ought not to stay here," he said.

"It is a pity," she answered, sighing, "for it increases our difficulties a hundredfold. I was hoping the time would come when we could take Martin to London, and introduce him there to such of your father's old friends who ought to know him, and who could understand the whole story. But it will not do for Dorothy to stay here much longer; and Martin would not improve alone with me, if I could stay, as he does with her. O Philip! I could almost wish, for your father's sake, that she could care for Martin."

"Impossible!" he ejaculated.

"Yes, you wise, blind boy," she replied, "it is impossible. If Martin could be trained into a perfect gentleman, it would still be impossible."

"Mother!" he exclaimed, the color mounting to his forehead as he turned away from her smiling eyes, "it is so short a time since Phyllis jilted me."

"If I am not mistaken," said Margaret, "Dorothy loved you before that."

"Loved me!" he repeated, "why! I was nothing to her. I had no eyes for her before you came to Venice; I saw no one but Phyllis. I could never presume to tell her I loved her, when she knows how infatuated I was with Phyllis."

"I judge only by appearances," said his mother, "but your father thinks as I do; and nothing could please your father more. She is already as dear to him as his own child. He has suffered more than words can tell, and greatly on your account, but he will feel that you have not lost all if you win Dorothy as your wife. I think the estate well lost if it saved you from an unhappy marriage."

"Oh, mother," he cried, "what a fool I was!"

"To be sure," she said smiling.

"But now I could see Phyllis again to-morrow," he went on, "and not feel grieved. Let us go back to Apley; at least you and Dorothy. You left home on my account; but it is too far away here. It would be better for my father to have you at home again, or in London. Come home again, mother."

"Poor Martin!" she said, with a troubled face.

But as she thought over what Philip had told her, Margaret felt that it was time to separate Martin from Dorothy. She took Rachel Goldsmith into her confidence, and she agreed with her. It seemed a preposterous thing to Rachel that Martin should deprive Philip of his birthright, and that so much importance should be attached to his education at so late a period of his life.

"The best thing for him," she said, "would be to set him up in a little farm, and give him cows and sheep and pigs to tend; he'd be ten times happier than here. There's no common sense in the laws, if they say our Sophy's son is to take the place of your son, my lady; and to his own misery too. I'd say nothing if anybody was the better for it. But it is just the ruin of my brother Andrew. And to think of him falling in love with Miss Dorothy! when the scullery maid would think twice before she married him!"

"Poor fellow!" sighed Margaret. "Poor fellow!" she said many times to herself during the next few days, as preparations were made for their departure. Dorothy also was full of pity for him, and devoted every hour of the day to him. She visited with him all their favorite haunts, which were growing to her more beautiful with the touch of spring upon them, though to him the vanishing of winter brought regret. She read to him once more the "Fioretti di San Francisco," and heard him read over and over again the first few chapters, which he had mastered under her tuition, or perhaps learned by heart merely. But Dorothy, though grieved and troubled for him, was glad to go south. Her spirits rose high at the thought of how short a distance would separate her from Philip, and the still more pleasant thought that he was willing to make Apley his home again, shrinking no more from the sight of Phyllis. It was with a light heart, saddened for a few minutes only by Martin's face of moody melancholy, that she quitted Brackenburn.