Heart and Cross

CHAPTER VII.

That evening—it was the first of her visit to Hilfont, and a perfectly natural thing, considering the long affection between us—I paid Alice a long visit in her own room. I might have done so, even if I had been conscious of nothing to inquire about, nothing to suggest. It was rather late when we all came up-stairs, and when I had seen Miss Polly safely established in her easy chair by her fire, and eluded as well as I could the story about Elinor’s (to wit, Lady Greenfield, Sir Willoughby’s wife, once Mrs. Herbert Nugent, my cousin, and Bertie’s aunt) letter—I turned back to the bright chamber near my own, which was always called Miss Harley’s room. Alice was sitting rather listlessly by the table, reading. She looked tired, and did not seem overmuch to enjoy her book. She was very glad to see me come in, and, I suspect, to be delivered from her own thoughts, which it was clear enough she could not quite exorcise by means of literature; for it was not a novel, which there is some hope in, but a wisdom-book, much esteemed by the superior classes—one of those books which, if it has any power at all, excites one into contradiction, by conclusions about human nature in general, which we can all form our own opinions upon. I suspect Alice could not keep her attention to it, hard though she tried.

When we had talked over indifferent matters for some time, my curiosity, which I might have dignified with the title of anxiety, too, roused me to closer inquiries than, perhaps, were quite justifiable. I knew that after Mr. Reredos had spoken—unless, indeed, he happened to be accepted—Alice’s lips were closed for ever on the subject, so I wickedly took advantage of my opportunities.

“Perhaps ere long I shall have to congratulate you,” said I, “and you may be sure it would be a great matter for me to have you so very near. We should make famous neighbors, Alice, don’t you think? I may well be anxious about your decision, my dear, for my own sake.”

“Mrs. Crofton, I do not understand you,” said Alice, in a little dismay, looking very curiously and wistfully in my face; then, after a little pause, a deep color suffused her cheeks, she started, and moved her hand impatiently upon the table, as if in sudden passion with herself, and then added, coldly, with an inexpressible self-restraint and subdued bitterness, which it was hard to understand: “Pray tell me what you mean?”

The contrast of her tone, so suddenly chilled and formal, with the burning color and subdued agitation of her face, struck me wonderfully. “My dear child,” said I, “I have no right to ask—I don’t want to interfere—but you are sure to have this question submitted to you, Alice, and can’t be ignorant of that now, that it has come so far. Cannot you think what I mean?”

Alice paused a moment, then she cast rather a defiant glance at me, and answered, proudly: “If any one has been forming foolish plans about me, Mrs. Crofton, the responsibility is not mine—I know I am not to blame.”

“That may be very true,” said I, “but I am not speaking of responsibility. Don’t you think, dear, that this is important enough to be taken into consideration without any impatience of personal feeling? Deciding one’s life by the ordeal of marriage is a human necessity it appears. You are a clergyman’s daughter—no way could you fill a better or more congenial place than as a clergyman’s wife. If I were you I should not conclude at once, because, perhaps, in the meantime, of your own accord, you have not quite fallen in desperate love with your lover. My dear, you think I am dreadfully common-place, but I cannot help it. Think, Alice!—you want a life for yourself—a house belonging to you, and you only—you do! Don’t say no—everybody does; think! Won’t you take all this into consideration before you decide?”

“Because I am going to have ‘an offer,’ and perhaps I never may have another—because I am not so young now as to be able to throw away my chances—and it is you who say so!” cried Alice, throwing at me an angry, bitter, scornful glance. Perhaps, if she had yielded more to my arguments, I might have found it harder than I did now.

“You humiliate me,” she cried again: “if I want a life of my own, I want to make it myself; a house of my own?—no I have no ambition for that.”

“But you falter a little when you say so,” said I, taking cruel advantage of her weakness. “Now, we are not going to discuss the disabilities of women. It is just as impossible for an unmarried man to have what I call a house of his own as it is for you; and as for the privilege of choice—good lack, good lack! much use it seems about to be to poor Mr. Reredos! My dear child, don’t be foolish—there is your brother Maurice with the most complete of educations, and no lack of power to make use of it. What is he going to do with himself? Where are the great advantages he has over his sister? I can’t see them. But no, that’s not the question. The Rector is a good man; he is young, he is well off; he is agreeable. Your dearest friend could not choose a more suitable life for you than that you would have at the Hilfont Rectory. Now, Alice, think. Are you going to make up your mind to throw away all this, and a good man’s happiness besides?”

“Oh, Mrs. Crofton! Mrs. Crofton! and it is you who say so!” said poor Alice, with looks which certainly must have consumed me had I been of combustible material—“this is from you!”

“And why not, my dear?” said I, meekly. “Am not I next to your mother, Alice?—next oldest friend?—and next interested in your welfare?”

“If you mean that you have a right to say anything you please to me,” said Alice, seizing my hand and kissing it in a quick revulsion of feeling, “it is true to the very farthest that you choose to stretch it; but that is not what you mean. Oh, dear Mrs. Crofton!” said the poor girl with a rising blush and a certain solemn indignation wonderful to me—“I can only say it again; of all persons in the world that I should have had such words from you!”

With which exclamation she suddenly cast a guilty, startled look upon me as if she had betrayed something and hid her face in her hands. How did she know what was in my heart?—how could she tell that I was arguing against my own dear and long-cherished plans, which I had made it a point of honor never to hint in the remotest manner to her? But here we approached the region where another word was impossible. She would not have uttered a syllable of explanation for her life—I dared not, if I meant to have any comfort in mine; I said nothing to her by which it was possible to infer that I understood what she meant. I absolutely slurred over the whole question—here we had reached the bound.

“Well, dear,” said I, “don’t distress yourself so very much about it—you must decide according to your own will and not to mine; only do think it over again in the fresh morning before the Rector gets an opportunity of speaking to you. Good night, Alice—don’t sit reading, but go to sleep!”

She raised her face to me, and leant her cheek a little more than was quite needful against mine as I kissed her—and so we parted without another word between us. Possibly, we women talk a great deal on most occasions; sometimes, however, we show a singular faculty for keeping silent. Next morning, Alice and I met each other as if we had never spoken a word which all the world might not hear. We interchanged no confidences, looked no looks of private understanding. Indeed, surely nothing had passed between us—all the world might have listened and been none the wiser. What had a momentary emphasis, a sudden look to do with the matter? Alice spoke nothing but her usual sentiments, and I did not say a word inconsistent with mine.

CHAPTER VIII.

The next morning was Easter Sunday. I have no doubt Mr. Reredos would have been glad enough to add a private joy of his own to the rejoicings of the festival, and might not have thought it unsuitable to declare himself even on that morning could he have had a chance. However, there was not very much time before Church hours, and to be sure the Rector ought to have been thinking of something else. It was a true Easter morning, full of sunshine and that new life of spring born out of death and darkness which to every heart must bear a certain charm. Is it something of a compensation to the sorrowful that all the wonderful silent symbols of Nature speak to them with a special force which does not belong to the happy? We were all dwelling at ease, people untroubled—our hearts were glad in the sunshine, which to us looked like a promise of permanence and peace unclouded. Only far off with an apprehension of the thoughts, and not of the heart, did the meaning of the feast which we were keeping occur to us. To Derwent and myself this was perhaps the happiest time of our lives. Perhaps to us the Resurrection was little more than an article of belief—I think we thus paid something for our happiness. At all events it did not jar upon us to perceive a certain agitation in the Rector’s tones—a certain catching of his breath in the little pleasant sermon, not without some small sentences in it specially meant for the ear of Alice, but perfectly “suited to the occasion,” which Mr. Reredos delivered. Everybody was very attentive, save Maurice Harley. Maurice had some liberal and lofty objections to the Athanasian creed; he sat down and amused himself reading the Gunpowder Plot Service with secret smiles of criticism, while his neighbors round him murmured forth with a universal rustic voice that strenuous confession of the faith—and he sketched a bracket (we were rather proud of our Church) while Mr. Reredos preached his sermon, and comported himself generally as a highly superior man, attending Church out of complacency to his friends, might be expected to do.

Next day I fear Mr. Reredos ascertained beyond question what he had to expect from Alice Harley. With a look of stormy agitation, strongly restrained, he let me know on the Monday that it was quite necessary for him to return to the Rectory. He had some sick people to attend to, who demanded his presence in his own house. I did not say that there was only half a mile of distance between the Rectory and the Hall—I acquiesced in his explanations, and accepted his apologies. Miss Reredos, however, was much more difficult to manage. I heard him tell her in a low tone that she must get ready to go; and the young lady’s answer of astonishment, and resistance, and total ignorance of any reason why her pleasure should be balked, was audible enough to everybody in the room.

“Go away! Leave Hilfont!” she exclaimed with a gasp of amazement. “Why should we go away? Mrs. Crofton was good enough to ask us for a week, and I am sure you could do your duty quite as well here as at the Rectory. Oh, please, Mrs. Crofton, listen! The only sick people I know of are that old man at the turnpike, and his blind daughter—he could visit them quite as well going from Hilfont as from the Rectory. I believe this is the nearest of the two.”

“Oh, but Mr. Williams from the little chapel goes to see old Johnnie Dunn,” interrupted little Derwie; “he was there yesterday, and Martha’s quite well now, and goes to chapel like anything. Miss Reredos, do you know Martha wasn’t always blind? she used to work and make dresses when she was young. Once she lived in Simonborough and learned her trade, and I suppose it was there she learned to go to chapel. Martha says they’re not Church-folks at all. I don’t think they want Mr. Reredos to go there.”

“You’re not very complimentary, Derwie,” said the Rector, with a slight quiver of his lip, which I recognized as a sign of the passion and deep excitement in which he was. With that wild pain and mortification tugging at his heart, it would have been a relief to him to burst out in an ebulition of rage or impatience against somebody, and I instinctively put out my hand to protect my boy. “But it is sometimes my duty to go where they don’t want me,” he added, with a laugh as significant, “and with many regrets and many thanks to Mrs. Crofton we must still go back to-day. Laura, get ready, please.”

In pity for the unfortunate Rector, who, I saw, longed to escape from the room, the inquisitive looks of Mrs. Clara, who was present, and the distinct statement from Derwie, which I knew to be impending, to the effect, that of his own certain knowledge nobody was ill in the village, I interposed, and we made a compromise—the Rector left us and his sister stayed. Miss Reredos was profoundly pleased with the arrangement. Perhaps her dear Clement did not confide to her his private reasons for so hasty a return, and I am not sure that she was not quite as well satisfied with his absence, which might have possibly spoiled her own particular sport—or interfered with it at least. So he went away with a certain impetus and haste upon him—his romance come to an effectual end, and his sensations somewhat bitter. He was not lackadaisical, but savage, as men are under their mortifications when they are no longer in their first youth. I daresay, if one could have read his thoughts, there were ferocious denunciations there against the women who beguile a man to commit himself so fatally, which would have been very unjust to poor Alice. I am afraid it is very cold-hearted of me to speak so lightly of a serious disappointment, which this certainly was to Mr. Reredos. I have no doubt he was really unhappy; but I thought it a good symptom that the unhappiness took a savage turn.

Miss Reredos left behind, pursued, as I have said, her own sport. She was prettier than I thought her at first—she had a little of that teasing wit which clever young ladies exercise upon attractive young men, and she had a strong sentimental reserve, much more in keeping with her pale complexion and black ringlets than the lighter mood. A couple of days had not passed over us before we all perceived that the poor lame boy, Johnnie Harley, was hopelessly taken in her toils. Just at first nobody had paid particular attention to the intercourse between these two. It was very kind of Miss Reredos to talk to the unfortunate young man, and interest herself about his pictures, and listen to his dreams; and so wonderful a prominence has one’s actual self to one’s own eyes, however unselfish, that I believe Alice was quite of opinion that Miss Reredos, expecting to be connected with the family by-and-by, was paying all these friendly attentions to Johnnie by way of conciliating herself. Nothing could be further from the intentions of the Rector’s sister. She was strongly of opinion that each man for himself was the most satisfactory rule, and being possessed of that spirit of conquest which some women have by nature, commenced her operations from the moment of entering the house. I do not think she could help it, poor girl—it was natural to her. There were in Hilfont only two persons accessible to her charms—Maurice, in every way an eligible victim, and poor cripple Johnnie, to whom, one could have supposed, not even a coquettish girl at a loss for a prey, would have had the heart to offer her sweet poison. But the heart, I fear, has little to do with such concerns, and almost before the suspicions of the other women of the party, from myself downward, were awakened, the mischief was done. Miss Reredos, we had no difficulty in perceiving, had set her heart upon the subjugation of Maurice, whether for any personal reason, or for sport, or as a means of retaliation, it was difficult to tell; and really I was not in the least concerned about the peace of mind of the Fellow of Exeter. But Johnnie! we all rose up together to his defence, with secret vows of self-devotion. All the women of us guarded him about, shielding his little table and his stereoscope from the approach of the enemy—even Di, tall, timid, and twelve years old, stood by the lad with a natural instinct. But we were too late. He answered Miss Polly, I fear, rather sharply, turned his back upon myself, and gave Mrs. Clara a brotherly push away from him. He wanted none of us—he wanted only the Siren who was charming the poor boy among such rocks and quicksands as his frail boat had never yet ventured upon. When Miss Reredos addressed herself to Maurice, his unfortunate brother turned savage looks upon that all-accomplished young man. In our first indignation we were all rather cold to Miss Reredos, and Johnnie, quick-sighted as his infirmities helped to make him, perceived it in a moment, and resented the neglect, which of course he attributed to our envy of her perfections. Then we tried artifice instead, and Clara, sister of the victim, got up a very warm sudden regard for the enchantress, whose opinion she sought upon everything; but this Miss Reredos speedily discovered, exposed, and exulted in; there was no help for it—the damage which was done, was done, and could not be repaired.

Meanwhile the flirtation with Maurice did not advance so satisfactorily—he was so much accustomed to admire himself, that the habit of admiring another came slowly to him; and then, as Miss Reredos took the initiative, and did not spare to be cleverly rude to the young man, he, taking advantage of his privileges, was cleverly rude to her in reply, from which fashionable mode of beginning, they advanced by degrees to closer friendship, or, at least, familiarity of address. Alice looked on at all this with the most solemn disapproval—it was amusing to see the dead gravity of her glances towards them, the tacit displeasure, and shame, and resentment on account of “her sex!” Poor Alice took the responsibility on her own shoulders; she watched the levity of the other girl, who did not resemble herself in a single particular, with a solemn sense of being involved in it, which struck me as the oddest comicality I had seen. Could anybody suppose Maurice Harley concerned about another man’s shortcomings, only because the culprit was a man, and one of his own sex? If it had not been so entirely true and sincere, it would have been absurd—this championship of Alice; only women ever dream of such an esprit de corps—but she maintained it with such absolute good faith and solemn gravity, that while one laughed one loved her the better. There she sat, severe in her youthful virtue, gravely believing herself old, and past the period of youth, but in her heart as high-flying, as obstinate, as heroical as if she were seventeen. Mrs. Clara knew nothing of that romance; perhaps there are delicate touches of feminine character, which only show themselves to perfection in the “unmarried woman”—the woman who has come to maturity without having the closer claims of husband and children to charm her out of her thoughts and theories—though it is only in a very gracious subject that such an example as Alice Harley could be produced.

CHAPTER IX.

Both the sisters drew up their shoulders a little, and communicated between each other a telegraphic glance of displeasure. Between themselves they could be hard enough upon Maurice, but, after the use of kinsfolk, could not bear the touch of a stranger.

“Really, I cannot say I should be very grateful to Maurice for such a sister-in-law,” said Clara, with a toss of her head.

“I don’t think there is very much to fear,” said Miss Polly. “Do you know what little Derwie told me yesterday? He said a poor woman in the village had three or four children ill with the hooping-cough—at least so I understood the child from the sound he made to show me what it was. Now, I really think if I were you, Clare, I would not let that child wander so much about the village. Neither Di nor Emmy has ever had hooping-cough, and I shall be almost frightened to let them go out of doors.”

“Oh, I assure you it’s nothing, Miss Polly!” cried Clara—“mine had it two years ago—even the baby—and took their walks just the same in all weathers; and they must have it one time or other, you know—and such great girls as your two nieces! Our children all got over it perfectly well. Though Hugh says I am ridiculously timid, I never was the least afraid. Their chests were rubbed every night, and they had something which Hugh said it was polite to call medicine. Oh, I assure you there’s nothing to be at all afraid of! especially at this time of the year.”

“I daresay that’s very true, my dear,” said Miss Polly, who took little Clara’s nursery instructions and assurances in very good part, “but it isn’t always so. There’s my poor little nephew, little Willoughby—dear, dear! to think what a strong man his father is, and how delicate that poor child looks! I can’t help thinking sometimes it must be his mother’s fault; though to be sure they have the best of nurses, and Lady Greenfield can’t be expected to make a slave of herself; that poor dear little soul was very ill with the hooping-cough. Clara—all children are not so fortunate as your pretty darlings; and that reminds me, Clare, that you have never seen Elinor’s letter yet; she mentions her nephew in it, as I think I told you; so, though it’s almost all about Emmy, my dear children’s mother, if you’ll wait a minute I’ll just bring it down.”

Saying which Miss Polly left the room. Alice sat rather stiffly at her work and looked very busy—so very busy that I was suspicious of some small gleam of interest on her part touching the contents of Lady Greenfield’s letter.

“Miss Polly does not love Lady Greenfield too much,” said Clara, laughing; “but,” she added, with a little flush of angry anticipation, “it’s nothing to laugh at after all. Suppose Maurice were to marry Miss Reredos! Oh, Mrs. Crofton, isn’t it shocking of you to put such dreadful thoughts in one’s head! Fancy, Alice! and to settle down hereabout—to be near us!—I am sure I could never be civil to her: and what do you suppose mamma would say?”

“Maurice has nothing but his fellowship,” said Alice.

“Well, to be sure, that is some comfort,” said Clara; “but then I daresay he might get a living if he tried, and Hugh could even”——

Here Miss Polly came in with her letter, so we did not hear at that moment what could be done by Hugh, who, in the eyes of his little wife, was happily a person all-powerful.

“My dear,” said Miss Polly, laying down the letter in her lap, and making a little preliminary lecture in explanation, “you remember that Emmy, my niece, two years ago, married again. Well, you know, one couldn’t well blame her. She was only one and twenty, poor little soul, when she was left with these two children; and I was but too glad to keep the little girls with me, so she was quite what people call without encumbrance, you see. So she married that curate whom she had met at Fenosier. Well, it’s no use disguising it—Lady Greenfield and I are perhaps not such great friends as we ought to be, and Emmy has a temper of her own, and is just the weak-minded sort of little soul that will worry herself to death over those slights and annoyances that good near neighbors can do to each other—she ought to know better, after all she’s gone through. So here’s a letter from Elinor, telling me, of course, she’s as innocent as the day, and knows nothing about it—and so sorry for poor dear little Emmy—and so good and sweet-tempered herself, that really, if I were as near to her as Emmy is, I do believe I should do her a mischief. There’s the letter, Clare; you can read that part about Bertie out aloud if you please—perhaps the girls might like to hear it.”

With which, shaking off a little heat of exasperation which had gathered about her, Miss Polly resumed her usual work and placidity. I confess it was not without a smile I read Lady Greenfield’s letter. I fortunately was under no temptations of the kind myself. If I had been, I daresay, I should have turned out exactly like my neighbors; but the spectators of a domestic squabble or successful piece of neighborly oppression and tyranny always see the ludicrous side of it, and I could understand my lady’s mild malice and certainty of not being to blame, so well. It appeared that the poor little Emmy, completely overpowered by Lady Greenfield’s neighborly attentions, had in her turn worried her curate, and that the result of their united efforts was the withdrawal of the young clergyman, who did not feel himself able to cope with my lady at the Hall and his own exasperated little wife in the cottage, which unlooked-for result Lady Greenfield took the earliest opportunity of communicating to her dear Polly, with condolences over Emmy’s want of spirit and weak propensity, poor child!—to see neglect and slight where nothing of the kind was meant. I was so long getting over this, that, having heard from him recently myself, I did not make the haste I might have done to read what Lady Greenfield had to say about Bertie. I was reminded of this by seeing suddenly over the top of the letter a slight, quick movement made by Alice. It was only the most common change of position—nothing could be more natural; but there was a certain indescribable something of impatience and suspense in it which I comprehended by a sudden instinct. I stumbled immediately down to the paragraph about Bertie:

“Pray tell Clare Crofton,” wrote Lady Greenfield, “in case she should not have heard from Bertie lately—which is very likely, for young men I know don’t always keep up their correspondences as they ought, especially with elderly female relations, like dear Clare and myself—that I had a letter from my nephew by the last mail. He has not done yet lamenting that he could not get home and go to the Crimea, but says his old brigadier is suspicious of the Native army, and prophesies that there will be some commotion among them, which Bertie thinks will be great fun, and that a thorough cutting down would do these pampered fellows all the good in the world: so he says, you know, as boys will talk—but the Company’s officers laugh at the idea. If all keeps quiet, Bertie says he is rather sick of India—he thinks he will come back and see his friends: he thinks perhaps his dear cousin Clare has somebody in her pocket whom she means him to marry. To be sure, after giving him Estcourt, it would be only right that she should have a vote in the choice of his wife. Such a great matter, you know, for a boy like Bertie, his father’s fourth son, to come into a pretty little property like Estcourt—and so good of dear Clare!—pray tell her, with my love.”

Not having taken the precaution to glance over this, as I ought to have done from my previous acquaintance with “dear” Elinor, I had stumbled into the middle of that statement about the somebody whom cousin Clare had in her pocket before I was aware; and after an awkward pause, felt constrained to proceed. I thought the malice of the epistle altogether would defeat itself, and went on accordingly to the end of the sentence. Then I folded up the letter and gave it to Miss Polly.

“I wonder does Lady Greenfield mean to make me so thoroughly uncomfortable when Bertie comes home that I shall not let him come here at all,” said I; “or to terrify me out of the possibility of introducing him to anybody, lest I should be said to be influencing his choice? But indeed she need not take the trouble. I know Bertie, and Bertie knows me much too well for the success of any such attempt. I will not have my liberty infringed upon, I assure you, Miss Polly, not by half a dozen Lady Greenfields.”

“My dear, you don’t suppose me an accessory?” said Miss Polly, with a little spirit. “Did any one ever see such a wanton mischief-maker? I think she takes quite a delight in setting people by the ears. If Bertie ever did say such a thing, Clare,” said Miss Polly, with a little vehemence, “about somebody in your pocket, you know, I could swear it was Elinor, and nobody else, who put it into his head.”

By the merest inadvertence I am sure, certainly not by any evil intention, Miss Polly, as she delivered these words, allowed her mild old glances to stray towards Alice. I at the same moment chanced to give a furtive look in the same direction. Of course, just at the instant of danger, Alice, who had been immovable hitherto, suddenly looked up and detected us both. I do not know what meanings of which they were innocent her sensitive pride discovered in our eyes, but she sprang up with an impatience and mortification quite irrestrainable, her very neck growing crimson as she turned her head out of my sight. I understood well enough that burning blush of shame, and indignation, and wounded pride; it was not the blush of a love-sick girl, and my heart quaked when it occurred to me that Lady Greenfield might possibly have done a more subtle act of mischief by her letter than even she intended. Whom was I so likely to have in my pocket as Alice Harley? Indeed, was not she aware by intuition of some such secret desire in my mind? And suppose Bertie were coming home with tender thoughts towards the friend of his boyhood, and perhaps a little tender pleasant wonder, full of suggestions, why Alice Harley, and she alone, out of her immediate companions, should remain unmarried—what good would that laudable, and much-to-be-desired frame of mind do to the poor boy now? If he came to Hilfont this very night, the most passionate lover, did not I know that Alice would reject him much more vehemently than she had rejected the Rector—scornfully, because conscious of the secret inclination towards him, which, alas! lay treacherous at the bottom of her heart? Oh, Lady Greenfield! Oh, dearest of “dear” Elinors! if you had anywhere two most sincere well-wishers, they were surely Miss Polly and myself!

CHAPTER X.

“Oh pray, Alice, don’t be so dreadfully proper!” cried Clara; “that’s what she’s coming to, Mrs. Crofton. The second week in May—to see all the exhibitions and hear an Oratorio in Exeter Hall—and make ‘mems.’ in her diary when she has got through them, like those frightful people who have their lives written! Oh dear, dear! to think our Alice should have stiffened into such a shocking old maid!”

“Well, Clara, dear, I am very glad you find your own lot so pleasant that you would like to see everybody the same as yourself,” said Alice, sententiously, and with no small amount of mild superiority; “for my part I think the rôle of old maid is quite satisfactory, especially when one has so many nephews and nieces—and why should I go to London, Mrs. Crofton? It is all very well for Clara—Clara is in circumstances, of course, that make it convenient and natural—but as for me, who have nothing at all to do with your grand life, why should I go and vex myself with my own? Perhaps I might not have strength of mind to return comfortably to the cottage, and look after the butcher’s bills, and see that there were no cobwebs in the corners—and though I am of very little importance elsewhere,” said Alice, coloring a little, and with some unnecessary fervor, “I am of consequence at home.”

“But then, you see,” said I, “Mrs. Harley has four daughters—and I have not one.”

“Ah! by-and-by,” said Alice, with a smile and a sigh, “Mrs. Harley will only have one daughter. Kate and little Mary will marry just as Clara has done. I shall be left alone with mamma and Johnnie; that is why I don’t want to do anything which shall disgust me with my quiet life—at least that is one reason,” added Alice, with a slight blush. “No, no—what would become of the world if we were all exactly alike—what a hum-drum, dull prospect it would be if everybody were just as happy, and as gay, and as much in the sun as everybody else. You don’t think, Clara, how much the gray tints of our household that is to be—mamma old, Johnnie, poor fellow, so often in trouble, and myself a stout housekeeper, will add to the picturesqueness of the landscape—much more than if our house were as gay as your own.”

“Why, Alice, you are quite a painter!” cried I, in a little surprise.

“No, indeed—I wish I were,” said Alice. “I wonder why it is that some people can do things, and some people, with all the will in the world, can only admire them when they’re done, and think—surely it’s my own fault—surely if I had tried I could have done as well! I suppose it’s one of the common troubles of women. I am sure I have looked at a picture, or read a book many a time, with the feeling that all that was in my heart if I could only have got it out. You smile, Mrs. Crofton—perhaps it’s very absurd—I daresay a woman ought to be very thankful when she can understand books, and has enough to live on without needing to work,” added this feminine misanthrope with a certain pang of natural spite and malice in her voice.

Spite and malice! I venture to use such ugly words, because it was my dear Alice, the purest, tenderest, and most lovable of women, who spoke.

“There are a great many people in this world who think it a great happiness to have enough to live on,” said I, besides women. “I don’t know if Maurice has your ambition, Alice—but, at least he’s a man, and has no special disadvantages; yet, begging your pardons, young ladies, I think Alice is good for something more than he is, as the world stands.”

“Ah, but then Maurice, you know, Mrs. Crofton—Maurice has doubts,” said Clara, with a slight pique at my boldness. “Poor Maurice! he says he must follow out his inquiries wherever they lead him, and however sad the issue may be. It is very dreadful—he may not be able to believe in anything before he is done—but then, he must not trifle with his conscience. And with such very serious things to trouble him, it is too bad he should be misunderstood.”

“Don’t, Clara! hush!” whispered Alice, looking a little ashamed of this argument.

“But why should I hush? Hugh says just the same as Mrs. Crofton—it’s very provoking—but these active people do not take into consideration the troubles of a thoughtful mind, Maurice says.”

“That is very likely,” said I, with a little complacency—“but remember this is all a digression—Alice, will you come to London or will you not?”

Alice got up and made me a very pretty curtsey. “No, please, Mrs. Crofton, I will not,” said that very unmanageable young lady. She looked so provokingly pretty, piquant, and attractive at the moment that I longed to punish her. And Bertie was coming home! and her mind was irretrievably prejudiced against him; it was almost too much for human patience—but to be sure, when a woman is seven-and-twenty, she has some sort of right to know her own mind.

At that moment little Clary Sedgwick, all in a flutter of pink ribbons, came rustling into the room, her very brief little skirt inflated with crinoline, and rustling half as much as her mamma’s—a miniature fine lady, with perfect little gloves, a miraculous little hat, and ineffable embroideries all over her; but with a child’s face so sweet, and a little princess’s air so enchanting, that one could no more find fault with her splendor than one could find fault with the still more exquisite decorations of a bird or a flower. Clary came to tell her mamma that the carriage was at the door, and little Mrs. Sedgwick swept off immediately, followed by Alice, to get ready for her drive. They were going to call upon somebody near. Clary remained with me till they came back, and Derwie was not long of finding out his playfellow. Derwie (my boy was a vulgar-minded boy, with a strong preference for things over thoughts, as I have before said) stood speechless, lost in admiration of Clary’s grandeur. Then he cast a certain glance of half-comical comparison upon his own coat, worn into unspeakable shabbiness by three weeks of holidays, and upon his brown little hands, garnished with cuts and scratches, and I am grieved to say not even so clean as they might have been. When he had a little recovered his first amazement, Derwie turned her round and round with the tips of his fingers. Clary was by no means unwilling; she exhibited her Easter splendor with all the grace of a little belle.

“Mamma, isn’t she grand?” said Derwie—“isn’t she pretty? I never saw her look so pretty before.”

“Oh, Derwie, for shame!” said Clary, holding down her head with a pretty little affectation of confusion wonderful to behold.

“For shame?—Why?—For you know you are pretty,” said my straightforward son, “whether you are dressed grand or not. Mamma, did you ever see her like this before?—I never did. I should just like to have a great big glass case and put you in, Clary, so that you might always look just as you look now.”

“Oh, Derwie!” cried Clary, again, but this time with unaffected horror, “I’d starve if you put me in there!”

“No, because I’d bring you something every day,” said Derwie—“all my own pudding, and every cake I got, and the poor women in the village would be so pleased to come and look at you, Clary. Tell me what’s the name of this thing; I’ll tell Susan Stubbs, the dressmaker, all about you. They like to see ladies in grand dresses, all the cottage people; so do I; but I like to see you best of all. Here, Clary, Clary! don’t go away! Look at her pink little gloves, mamma!—and I say, Clary, haven’t you got a parasol?”

“You silly boy! what do you suppose I want with a parasol when I’m going to drive with mamma?” cried Clary, with that indescribable little toss of her head.

At that interesting moment the mamma, of whom this delightful little beauty was a reproduction, made her appearance, buttoning pink gloves like Clary’s, and rustling in her rosy, shining, silken draperies, like a perfect rose, all dewy and fragrant, not even quite full-blown yet, in spite of the bud by her side. Alice came after her, a little demure, in her brown silk gown, very affectionate, and just a little patronizing to the pretty mother and daughter—on the whole rather superior to these lovely fooleries of theirs, on her eminence of unmarried woman. My pretty Alice! Her gravity, notwithstanding she was quite as much a child as either of them, was wonderfully amusing, though she did not know it. They went down-stairs with their pleasant feminine rustle, charming the echoes with their pleasant voices. My boy Derwie, entirely captivated by Mrs. Sedgwick’s sudden appearance on the scene—an enlarged edition of Clary—followed them to the door, vainly attempting to lay up some memoranda in his boyish mind for the benefit of Susan Stubbs. Pleased with them all, I turned to the window to see them drive away, when, lo! there suddenly emerged out of the curtains the dark and agitated face of Johnnie Harley. Had we said anything in our late conversation to wound the sensitive mind of the cripple? He had been there all the time.

CHAPTER XI.

“Oh, you think I have right feelings,” cried Johnnie, bitterly, “you think I am man enough to know what honor means? That is something, at least. I have been well brought up, haven’t I? Mrs. Crofton,” continued the unfortunate youth, “you were rather hard upon Maurice just now—I heard you, and he deserves it. If I were like Maurice, I should be ashamed to be as useless as he is. I’m not so useless now, in spite of everything; but you’ll be frank with me—why does Alice speak of keeping house with my mother and Johnnie? Why, when Kate, and even little Mary, are supposed to have homes of their own, and Maurice, of course, to be provided for—why is there to be a special establishment, all neutral colored and in the shade, for my mother, and Alice, and me?”

I sat gazing at the poor youth in the most profound confusion and amazement. What could I say to him? How, if he did not perceive it himself, could I explain the naturalness of poor Alice’s anticipations? I had not a word to say; his question took me entirely by surprise, and struck me dumb—it was unanswerable.

“You do not say anything,” said Johnnie, vehemently. “Why does Alice suppose she will have to take care of me all my life through? Why should I go to contribute that alternative of shade which makes the landscape picturesque?—picturesque!” exclaimed poor Johnnie, breathing out the words upon a long breath of wrath and indignation; “is that all I am good for? Do you suppose God has made me in a man’s form, with a man’s heart, only to add a subtle charm to another man’s happiness by the contrast of my misery? I believe in no such thing, Mrs. Crofton. Is that what Alice means?”

“I believe in no such thing either,” said I, relieved to be able to say something; “and you forget, Johnnie, that the same life which Alice assigned to you she chose for herself. She thought, I suppose, because your health is not strong, that you would choose to live at home—she thought”——

“Mrs. Crofton,” said Johnnie, “why don’t you say it out? she thought—but why say thought—she knew I was a cripple, and debarred from the joyous life of man; she thought that to such as me no heavenly help could come; it did not occur to her that perhaps there might be an angel in the spheres who would love me, succor me, give me a place among the happy—yes, even me! You think I speak like a fool,” continued the young man, the flush of his excitement brightening all his face, and the natural superlatives of youth, all the warmer and stronger for the physical infirmities which seemed to shut him out from their legitimate use, pouring to his lips, “and so I should have been, but for the divine chance that brought me here. Ah, Mrs. Crofton, you did not know what an Easter of the soul you were asking me to! I came only a boy, scarcely aware of the dreary colors in which life lay before me. Now I can look at these dreary colors only by way of Alice’s contrast—to make the reality more glorious—for I too shall have the home and the life of a man!”

He stopped, not because his words were exhausted, but because breath failed him—he stood before me, raising himself erect out of his habitual stoop of weakness, strengthened by the inspiring force of the great delusion, which gave color to his face and nerve to his hand. Looking at him so, his words did not seem such sad, bitter, heart-breaking folly as they were. Poor boy! poor Johnnie! how would he fall prostrate upon the cold, unconsolatory earth, when this spell was broken! I could have cried over him, as he stood there defying me; he had drunk that cup of Circe—but he did not know in his momentary intoxication that it was poison to him.

“My dear Johnnie,” said I, “I am very glad of anything that makes you happy—but there is surely no occasion to speak so strongly. Alice, I must remind you again, chose exactly the same life for herself that she supposed for you”——

“Alice has had her youth and her choice,” said Johnnie, with a calmer tone, and sinking, his first excitement over, into a chair; “but she does not think Maurice is likely to share that gray life of hers—Maurice, who, as you say yourself, is of no use in the world—nor Harry, whom they have all forgotten now he is in Australia, nor the children at home; only mamma when she is old, and Johnnie—well, it is of no use speaking. A man’s business is not to speak, but to work.”

“That is very true, certainly,” said I: “but tell me, will you—if it is not wrong to ask—what has made this great change in your ideas, all at once?”

“Ah, Mrs. Crofton, don’t you know?” cried Johnnie, blushing, a soft overpowering youthful blush, which would have done no discredit to Clara herself; and the poor, foolish boy looked at me with an appealing triumphant look, as if he at once entreated me to say, and defied me to deny that she was altogether an angel, and he the very happiest of boys or men.

“My dear boy,” said I, “don’t be angry with me. I’ve known you all your life, Johnnie. I don’t mean to say a word against Miss Reredos—but tell me, has there been any explanation between her and you?”

He hesitated a moment, blushing still.

“No,” he said, after a pause; “no—I have not been able to arrange my thoughts at all yet. I have thought of nothing but—but herself—and this unimaginable hope of happiness—and I am a man of honor, Mrs. Crofton. I will not speak to her till I know whether I have anything but love to offer—not because I am so base as to suppose that money could recommend a man to her, or so foolish as to think that I will ever have anything beyond income; but when I do speak, you understand, Mrs. Crofton, it is not for vague love-making, but to ask her to be my wife.”

He looked at me with his sudden air of manhood and independence, again somewhat defiant. Heaven help the poor boy! I heard myself groaning aloud in the extremity of my bewilderment and confusion; poor Johnnie, with his superb self-assumption!—he, a fortnight ago, the cheerfulest of boy invalids, the kindest of widow’s sons!—and she, five years older than he, at the lowest reckoning, an experienced young lady, with dreams of settlements and trousseaux occupying her mature mind! Alack, alack! what was to come of it? I sat silent, almost gaping with wonderment at the boy. At last I caught at the idea of asking him what his prospects or intentions were—though without an idea that he had any prospects, or knew in the least what he was talking about.

“You spoke of income, Johnnie—may I ask what you were thinking of?”

Johnnie blushed once more, though after a different fashion; he grew confidential and eager—like himself.

“I have told no one else,” he said, “but I will tell you, Mrs. Crofton, not only because you are our oldest friend, but because I have just told you something so much more important. I—I have written something—nobody knows!”

“Oh, you poor boy!” cried I, quite thankful to be able on less delicate ground to make an outcry over him; “don’t you think half the people in the country have written something?—and are you to make an income by that?”

“I beg your pardon,” said Johnnie, with dignity, “but it’s accepted, Mrs. Crofton—that makes all the difference. Half the country don’t have letters from the booksellers saying that it’s very good and they’ll publish it on the usual terms. I could show you the letter,” added my young author, blushing once more, and putting his hand to his breast-pocket—“I have it here.”

And there it was, accordingly, to my intense wonderment—and Johnnie’s hopes had, however small, an actual foundation. On the book about to be published on “the usual terms” the poor boy had built up his castle. Here he was to bring Miss Reredos to a fairy bower of love and literature—which, alas! I doubted would be very little to that young lady’s taste; but I dared not tell Johnnie so—poor, dreaming, foolish cripple-boy! Nothing afterwards, perhaps, would taste so sweet as that delusion, and though the natural idea that “it would be kindness to undeceive him” of course moved me strongly, I had not the boldness to try, knowing very well that it would do no good. He must undeceive himself, that was evident. Thank Heaven he was so young! When his eyes were opened he would be the bitterest and most miserable of misanthropes for a few months, and then, it was to be hoped, things would mend. I saw no other ending to Johnnie’s romance. But he went hobbling away from me with his stick and his stoop, as full of his momentary fallacious happiness, as if he had been the handsome young prince of the fairy tale, whom the love of Miss Reredos would charm back to his proper comeliness. Alas, poor Johnnie! If his Laura could have wrought that miracle I fear the spell was still impossible, for lack of the love—miraculous magic! the only talisman which even in a fairy tale can charm the lost beauty back.

CHAPTER XII.

The question was solved sooner than I thought. When everybody had left our pleasant breakfast-room but myself, and I, with my little basket of keys in my hand, was preparing to follow, Maurice, who had been lingering by the great window, startled me by asking for a few minutes’ conversation, “if I was quite at leisure.” I put down my basket with the utmost promptitude. Curiosity, if not courtesy, made me perfectly at leisure to hear anything he might have to say.

“I have undertaken a very foolish office,” said Maurice—“I have had the supreme conceit and presumption of supposing that I could perhaps plead with you, Mrs. Crofton, the cause of a friend.”

“I trust I shall feel sufficiently flattered,” said I, assuming the same tone. “And pray who is the friend who has the advantage of your support, Maurice? and what does he want of me?”

The young man colored and looked affronted—he was highly sensitive to ridicule, like all self-regarding men.

“Nay, pray don’t convince me so distinctly of my folly before I start,” he said; “the friend is a college friend of mine, who was so absurd as to marry before he had anything to live on; a very good fellow with—oh! don’t be afraid—perfectly sound views, I assure you, Mrs. Crofton, though he is acquainted with me.”

“I should think being acquainted with you very likely to help a sensible man to sound views,” said I, with some natural spite, thankful for the opportunity of sending a private arrow into him in passing; “and what does your friend want that I can help him in?”

“The Rector of Estcourt is an old man, and very ill,” said Maurice, after a pause of offence; “Owen, my friend, has a curacy in Simonborough. I told him I should venture—though of course aware I had not the slightest title to influence you—to name him to Mrs. Crofton, in case of anything happening.”

“Aware that you have not the slightest title to influence me—that means, does it not, Maurice?” said I, “that you rather think you have some claim upon that Rectory at Estcourt, and that you magnanimously resign it in favor of your friend? It was your father’s—it is your mother’s desire to see you in his place—you have thought of it vaguely all your life as a kind of inheritance, which you were at liberty to accept or withdraw from; now, to be sure, we are very, very old friends—is not that plainly, and without any superfluity of words, what you mean?”

Maurice made a still longer pause—he was seized with the restlessness common to men when they are rather hard tested in conversation. He got up unawares, picked up a book off the nearest table, as if he meant to answer me by means of that, and then returned to his chair. Then, after a little further struggle, he laughed, growing very red at the same time.

“You put the case strongly, but I will not say you are wrong,” he answered; “after all, I believe, if it must be put into words, that is about how the thing stands; but, of course, you know I am perfectly aware”——

“Exactly,” said I; “we both understand it, and it is not necessary to enter further into that part of the subject; but now, tell me, Maurice, supposing your rights of natural succession to be perfectly acknowledged, why is it that you substitute another person, and postpone your own settlement to his?”

“My dear Mrs. Crofton,” cried Maurice, restored to himself by the question, “what would not I give to be able to accept as mine that calm, religious life?—what would not I relinquish for a faith as entire and simple as my friend Owen’s? But that is my misfortune. I suppose my mind is not so wholesomely constituted as other people’s. I cannot believe so and so, just because I am told to believe it—I cannot shape my creed according to the received pattern. If I could, I should be but too happy; but que voulez-vous? a man cannot act against his convictions—against his nature.”

“Nay, I assure you I am a very calm spectator,” said I; “I would not have either one thing or another. I have not the least doubt that you will know better some day, and why should I concern myself about the matter?”

“Why, indeed?” echoed Maurice, faintly; but he was mortified; he expected a little honor, at the very least, as his natural due, if not a womanish attempt at proselytizing. The discomfiture of my adversary was balm to my eyes—I was, as may be perceived, in a perfectly unchristian state of mind.

“And how then about yourself?—what do you mean to do?” asked I; “you are getting towards the age when men begin to think of setting up houses and families for themselves. Do you mean to be a College Don all your life, Maurice? I fear that must be rather an unsatisfactory kind of existence; and one must take care, if that is the case, not to ask any young ladies again to meet you—some one might happen to be too captivating for your peace of mind—a Miss Reredos might outweigh a fellowship;—such things have been even with men of minds as original as your own.”

“Miss Reredos! ah, she amuses herself!” said Maurice, with a conscious smile.

“Yes, I think you are very well matched,” said I, calmly; “you will not do her much harm, nor she inflict a very deep wound on your heart, but it might have happened differently. People as wise as yourself, when their turn comes, are often the most foolish in these concerns.”

“Ah, you forget that I am past youth,” said Maurice; “you, Mrs. Crofton, have made a private agreement, I suppose, with the old enemy, but I have no such privilege—I have done with that sort of thing long ago. However, about Owen, if I may remind you, is there anything to say?”

“Somebody asked me for the living of Estcourt when your father lay dying; I was younger then, as you say—I was deeply horrified,” said I. “We must wait.”

“Ah, yes; but my father was a man in the prime of life, and this is an old man, whom even his own family cannot expect to live long,” said Maurice; “but, of course, if you do not like it, I have not another word to say.”

“Ah, Maurice,” said I, forgetting for a moment the personage who sat before me, and thinking of Dr. Harley’s death-bed, and the fatherless children there so helpless and dependent on other people’s judgment, “your father was a good man, but he had not the heart to live after he lost his fortune, and your mother is a good woman, but she had not the heart to bring you up poorly and bravely in your own home. They are my dear friends, and I dare speak of them even to you. Why did she send you to that idle uncle of yours, to be brought up in idleness?—you big, strong, indolent man! What is the good of you, though you are Fellow of Exeter? You might have been of some use in the world by this time if you had lived among your brothers and sisters, a widow’s son.”

Maurice started—rose up—made a surprised exclamation of my name—and then dropped into his chair again without saying anything. He did not answer me a word. The offence melted out of his face, but he kept his eyes down and did not look at me. I could not tell whether he was angry—I had been moved by my own feelings beyond, for the moment, thinking of his.

“Ask your friend to come and see you here,” I said, after an awkward little pause; “say, Mr. Crofton and I will be glad if he will dine with us before you go—perhaps, to-morrow, Maurice, and that will leave him time to get home on Saturday—and we will think about it, should the living of Estcourt fall vacant. Forgive me,” I continued, as I rose to go away, “I said more than I ought to have said.”

He took my hand and wrung it with an emphatic pressure; what he said I made out only with difficulty, I think it was, “No more than is true.”

And I left him with somewhat uncomfortable feelings. I had not the very least right to lecture this young man; quite the other way—for was not I a woman and an illiterate person, and he Fellow of his College? I confess I did not feel very self-complacent as I left the room. This third confidential interview, in which I had over-passed the prudent limits of friendliness, did not feel at all satisfactory. Nevertheless, I was glad to see that Maurice was magnanimous—that he was likely to forgive me—and that possibly there were elements of better things even in his regarding indolence. All which symptoms, though in a moral point of view highly gratifying, made me but feel the more strongly that I had gone beyond due limits, and exceeded the margin of truth-telling and disagreeableness which one is not allowed towards one’s guests, and in one’s own house.

CHAPTER XIII.

It may be allowed to me to confess that I watched during the remainder of that day with a little natural, but extremely absurd curiosity to see “what effect” our conversation had upon Maurice Harley. After I had got over my own unpleasant sensations, I began to flatter myself, with natural vanity, that perhaps I might have “done him good.” I had an inkling that it was absurd, but that made very little difference, and I acknowledge that I felt quite a new spur and stimulus of interest in the young man. I listened to his chance observations during the day with an attention which I had never before bestowed upon them. For the moment, instead of simple impatience of his indolence, and virtuous, gentlemanly good-for-nothingness, I began to sympathize somewhat in the lamenting admiration of his friends that so much talent should be lost to the world. Altogether, in my capacity of hostess to Maurice, I was for that day a reformed and penitent person, full of compunction for my offence. I am obliged to confess, however, that there was no corresponding change upon my guest. Maurice demeaned himself that day exactly as he had done the day before—was as superior, and critical, and indifferent, as much above the common uses of life and motives of humanity as he had ever been. Still, my penitential feelings lasted out the day, and it was not till I perceived how entirely he was laying himself out to charm and captivate Miss Reredos and make up to her for the attentions she had paid him, that I detected myself in the simple-minded vanity of expecting to have “done him good.” The flirtation that evening was so evident, and Maurice threw himself so much more warmly into it than on any former occasion, that we, the spectators, were all roused to double observation. Johnnie sat behind the little table in the corner, with the stereoscope before him, blazing the wildest rage out of his half-hidden eyes upon his brother, and sometimes quite trembling with passion. Alice moved about with a little indignant dilation of her person and elevation of her head—half out of regard to the honor of her “sex,” which Miss Reredos, she supposed, was compromising, and half out of shame and annoyance at the “infatuation” of her brother. And not quite knowing what this new fervor might portend, I took an opportunity as I passed by Maurice’s chair to speak to him quietly—

“Is Miss Reredos, then, to be more attractive than the fellowship?” I said, lingering a moment as I passed.

Maurice looked up at me with a certain gleam of boyish malice and temper in his eye.

“You know we are very well matched, and I cannot do her much harm,” he said, quoting my own words.

This was the good I had done him—this, out of a conversation which ended so seriously, was the only seed that had remained in that fertile and productive soil, the mind of Maurice Harley, and behold already its fructifications. I went back to my seat, and sat down speechless. I was inexpressibly angry and mortified for the moment. To be sure it was a little private and personal vanity which made the special sting. Yet he had been unquestionably moved by my candid opinion of him, in which very little admiration was mingled with the regret—but had I not piqued his vanity as well?

As for Johnnie, having been taken into his confidence, I was doubly alive to the feelings with which he watched his brother. Miss Reredos managed admirably well between the lover real and the lover make-believe, her vanity being of course in play even more decidedly than anybody else’s. I believe she was quite deceived by the sudden warmth of Maurice. I believe the innocent young woman fell captive in an instant, not to his fascinations, but to the delusion of believing that she had fascinated him, and that the name of the Fellow of Exeter was that evening inscribed upon her long list of victims; but, notwithstanding, she would not give up Johnnie; I suppose his youthful adoration was something new and sweet to the experienced young lady—the absoluteness of his trust in her and admiration of her was delicious to the pretty coquette, with whom warier men were on their guard. Over Johnnie she was absolute, undisputed sovereign—he was ready to defy the whole world in her behalf, and disown every friend he had at her bidding. Such homage, even from a cripple, was too sweet to be parted with. Somehow, by means of those clever eyes of hers, even while at the height of her flirtation with Maurice, she kept Johnnie in hand, propitiated, and calmed him. I don’t know how it is done—I don’t think Alice knew either; but I am not sure that a certain instinctive perception of the manner of that skilful double movement did not come natural to Clara Sedgwick, and stimulate her disgust at the proceeding. If she had not been married so early and been so happy a little wife, Clara might have been a little flirt herself—who knows? I saw that she had an intuition how it was done.

As for Miss Polly, she could do nothing but talk about the advantages of useful training for girls. “If these poor children should turn out flirts, Clare!” she cried, in dismay. To be sure, Emmy, the pretty one, was only ten and a half—but still if education could hinder such a catastrophe, there was certainly no time to be lost.

Mr. Owen came to dinner next day, according to my invitation. He was a young man, younger than Maurice, and a hundred times more agreeable. He was curate of St. Peter’s, in Simonborough, where a curate among the multitude of divines congregated about the cathedral, was as hard to find or make any note of as the famous needle in the bundle of hay. And it is very probable that he was not a brilliant preacher, or noted for any gift in particular; but I liked the honest, manful young fellow, who was not ashamed either to do his work or to talk of it when occasion called—nor afraid to marry upon his minute income, nor to tell me with a passing blush and a happy laugh, which became him, what a famous little housekeeper his wife was, and what fun they had over her economics. Maurice heard and smiled—calm, ineffable, superior—and wished he could only submit his unhappily more enlightened mind to a simple faith like Owen’s. And Owen, on his part, was respectful of the dainty disbeliever, and took off his hat to that scepticism, born of idleness and an unoccupied mind, for which I, in my secret heart, for sheer impatience and disgust, could have whipped the Fellow of Exeter. Mr. Owen was as respectful of it as if that pensive negation had been something actual and of solemn importance. He shook his head and talked to me mysteriously of poor Harley. Maurice had rather distinguished himself at college before he sank into his fellowship. His old companions who were of the same standing were a little proud of his scholarly attainments. “He could be anything if he chose,” they said to themselves; and because Maurice did not choose, his capabilities looked all the grander. Owen was quite a partisan of Harley. “What a pity it was!” the honest fellow said, “with such a mind, if he could but get right views”——

At which juncture I struck the excellent young man dumb and breathless by uttering aloud a fervent desire and prayer that by some happy chance Maurice should fall in love.

Mr. Owen looked at me for a moment thunderstruck, the words of his own former sensible sentence hanging half-formed about his lips; then, when he had recovered himself a little, he smiled and said, “You have so much confidence in a female preacher? No doubt they are irresistible—but not in matters of doctrine, perhaps.”

“No such thing,” said I, “I have no confidence in female preachers or religious courtship; but apart from the intense satisfaction which I own I should have in seeing Maurice make, as people say, a fool of himself, that is the only means I see of bringing him back to life.”

“To life!” said my new acquaintance, with a lively look of interrogation.

“Oh, I do not mean anything grand; I mean common life, with the housekeeping to be provided for,” said I smiling, “and the daily bread, and the other mouths that have to eat it. I daresay, even you yourself, who seem to stand in no such need as Maurice, have found out something in the pleasant jingle you were talking of—of Mrs. Owen’s basket of keys.”

The young man blushed once more that slight passing color of happiness, and answered gravely, yet with a smile, “It is true, I see what you mean—and it is very possible indeed—but,” he added, stopping abruptly, and looking at his friend, who was in the full tide of flirtation with Miss Reredos, “Mrs. Crofton, look there!”

I shook my head. “Nothing will come of it,” said I; “they are amusing themselves.”

Condign punishment came upon my head almost as I spoke; I had turned my head incautiously, and Johnnie and Alice had both heard me.

“Amusing themselves!” cried Johnnie, hissing the words into my ears in a whisper. “Amusing! do you suppose that it is anything but her angel-sweetness, Mrs. Crofton, that makes her so forbearing with Maurice—my brother? I adore her for it,” cried (but in a whisper) the deluded boy.

“Amusing themselves!” cried Alice, raising her head, “and you can say so, Mrs. Crofton? Oh, I am ashamed, to think a woman should forget herself so strangely; I could forgive anything—almost anything,” said Alice, correcting herself with a blush, “which really sprang from true strong feeling; but flirting—amusing themselves! Oh, Mrs. Crofton!”

“My dear child, it is not my fault,” said I, “I have no hand in the matter, either one way or the other.”

“Yes, that is true,” said Alice, with that lively impatience and disinclination to suffer a dear friend to rest in an opinion different from her own, which I have felt myself and understood perfectly,—“but you will not see how unworthy it is—how dishonoring to women! That is what wounds me.”