Her kingdom

"I thought we were friends, Anstice," he said after a minute's silence.

"So we are," she responded quickly.

"Friends are not entirely indifferent to absence," he said; "at a word from you I would stay at home altogether."

The colour rose in Anstice's cheeks, then she said in her quiet aloof tone:

"I would never be the one to say that word, Justin. You must remember that in our agreement you told me that I was to look upon you as a negligible quantity; that our marriage would not affect you or touch your life. I am content to carry out that agreement, to keep your house and look after your children. More you cannot expect from me."

Justin pushed back his chair from the table, walked out of the room and banged the door violently behind him.

And Anstice surprised herself by a fit of tears.

"He must see," she told herself, "that it is not for me to beg him to stay. If he wants the conditions altered, he must say so. How can I tell him the truth, that I shall miss him beyond words? It may be propinquity, but I never thought I should get to lean upon him, and be so happy with him! And now he is angry and hurt; but how could I answer otherwise!"

Very soon every one in the house knew that the 'Squire' was off again on his travels. Justin was always a rapid packer; he was here, there and everywhere for the next two days, saying very little, quite courteous and pleasant to his wife, but nothing more. Ruffie was the only one who made open lamentation for his departure. All preparations made, Justin went off at ten o'clock in the morning. And upon the spur of the moment, rather fearing the awkwardness of bidding him farewell before the children, Anstice said she would drive to the station with him to see him off.

Her husband seemed pleased with her decision. As they were driving along in the car together, he suddenly laid his hand upon hers.

"You have made my home a very happy one," he said. "When I contrast it now with what it was before you came into it, I feel I cannot thank you enough. I shall see it in my mind's eye when I'm the other side of the ocean."

"Home is a woman's kingdom," said Anstice. "I have only done what scores of others would have done, but I'm glad you appreciate it."

He was about to say more, but the words seemed to stick in his throat, and Anstice began to talk rather nervously about the children.

Then they reached the station, and there was the usual bustle before the train went off. At the last moment, Justin made Anstice get into the first-class compartment with him where he was the only passenger.

"I won't say good-bye in public," he said. Then he put his arm round her and kissed her warmly. "Don't tell me this is not necessary according to our compact," he said; "you are my wife, and I'm inclined to let that agreement of ours go hang! Anstice, tell me, shall we make a fresh start when I come home again?"

Anstice looked at him and smiled, but her eyes were misty and Justin's keen gaze noted it.

"Shall we wait and see?" she said.

And with this, he had to be content.

He was gone, and Anstice, driving home, was conscious that her sun was dimmed, that the future, even amongst her beloved Fells, looked dreary and forlorn.

She went over to see Miss Maybrick a day or two later, and found her rather desolate in her old home. She welcomed her gladly.

"I am having it repaired and restored," she told Anstice as she took her over the newly decorated rooms; "but I am the last of my family, and I ask myself why I am spending so much money upon it! It will only be sold at my death to some Liverpool or Manchester merchant. Nobody will care for our old family treasures. I am beginning to like the Book of Ecclesiastes. It does seem to echo some of my thoughts. What is the good of anything in the world? Nothing will last."

"Love lasts," said Anstice thoughtfully.

"I have had no use for love," said Miss Maybrick sternly. "It is the source of a good deal of misery and crime."

"Not the right sort. The love that comes from God."

Miss Maybrick deliberately turned to other topics.

When Anstice came away, she felt that sometimes the desires of the heart turned to dust and ashes, when they were obtained. She asked the Rector if he would go and see Miss Maybrick as often as he could. He had at last got a rough pony which took him over the Fells to see some of his far away parishioners.

"You will know what to say to her, and she likes you. I have the greatest pity for her."

"She is not my parishioner," he replied, "now she has left her farm, but I will go as a friend. I think perhaps that God is slowly leading her towards Himself. Her goal down here has been reached, and is evidently not satisfying her."

Then one day Anstice was astounded by a visit from Louise. She appeared one morning about twelve o'clock, and Anstice kept her to lunch.

"Are you having your holiday now?" Anstice asked her.

"No," she said; "haven't you heard? Uncle is very ill and I have come home to him. He wrote and asked me to do so. And I came back last week, and do you know, I am giving up my work in town for the time, and am going to look after him and cheer him up? I never knew that he was so fond of me. His housekeeper is very good, and makes him comfortable, but he is funny and old-fashioned and won't make a friend of her, and he is pounds better since I came. He got influenza, and was not getting up his strength. He wasn't able to browse amongst his beloved books, and so got moped and thought he was going to die. His doctor thought he was, he told me so."

Louise looked and spoke like a different creature. She was tastefully dressed, had lost her discontented expression, and was quite a pretty-looking girl. Anstice was unfeignedly glad to see the change in her.

"I am afraid you will find it very dull after town life, but I do think you've done the right thing. I confess that I have not been over to see your uncle as often as I might. It is a long way, and I don't seem to get the time for these long expeditions, though I love them."

"Well," said Louise, settling back into her chair with a very contented look upon her face, "it's simply delicious to be here with you! I have longed to see you. You will be glad to know that, through absence, I have learned to love these lovely Fells of ours. As I drove along the Ramdale, I was having little happy thrills in my heart. The air, the birds, the mossy banks were all so sweet, and the lake! Ah! The ponds on Hampstead Heath and the water in the London parks have given me such a home sickness for the lakes! I never, never thought I could come back to it with such happiness."

"How long are you staying?"

"As long as uncle needs me. Do you know, the farms and the cottages have given me quite a welcome! And I'm going to set a few things going. I shall have a little gathering for the women—a Mothers' Union meeting—they want one badly. They seem out of everything out there, and I want them to be happy."

"Louise, you have soul happiness yourself!"

Anstice spoke eagerly. Louise smiled at her.

"Yes, thanks to you, and to Miss Montmorency, the principal of our school, and to our Vicar there. You three have made me long for, and seek, and find, the one thing needful. And I know that whether I am buried away in Ramdale, or in the bustle of town life, I can work and serve, and do a little to bring happiness to others. But I won't pretend I am coming back here wholly because I think it is my duty. The Fells call me back. I never knew how I loved them till I lost them. We may have bits of water in London to remind me of our lakes, but we have no lovely green sloping Fells, no mountains; and it is these I find I love. The scent and the smell of their moss and bracken, and moist pools in between the crags. Oh, there's nothing like them in the world!"

Anstice laughed at the enthusiastic girl, and marvelled at the change in her.

"And what does your uncle say at your giving up your work?"

"He looks at me with a smile and light in his eyes that I have never seen before. He tells me, he used to watch me out of his study window, and loved to see me flitting about the garden; but his silence had encrusted him so, that it was hard to break through it. He is on the couch now, but very weak and thin. Still, the doctor says he believes he will recover. Do you know Dr. Ogilvy? He has only come lately, and lives at a farm with an invalid sister. He seems very clever, and has got the liking of all our people."

"I have heard of him, but he lives too far away from us. We always have the doctor from Penrith."

They talked on together, Louise pouring out all her London experiences, and when she went, Anstice could only wonder again at the change in her since she had first come across her.

She did not lack for visitors. Since Justin's departure, a great many of her neighbours had come to see her, Mrs. Wykeham foremost amongst them.

"I did think Justin was settling down," she said to Anstice; "he seemed so much brighter and more sociable in every way! What a vagabond he is! I think you are a saint to put up with his wandering habits."

"Oh, we understand each other," Anstice said lightly. "His hobby is yachting: why should he give it up because he married me? I think it is very bad for men who have no special occupation to be continually at home. Of course, he farms and is very interested in his estate, but it isn't much of a life for any man here."

"You're a sensible woman," Mrs. Wykeham said. "I must confess that when you first arrived here, and he went off and left you, I thought it very queer indeed. And then, knowing how selfish men are, I began to put two and two together. His house was a ruin, his children were little fiends, he left you to battle with it all alone and get it straightened out, and then when you had made a thoroughly comfortable and happy home of it, back he comes to enjoy it. Don't contradict me, for you know that it is true! I have known Justin for many years, and he is not one to ride over obstacles, he simply slips round them."

"I won't hear you disparage my husband," said Anstice pleasantly, with great firmness.

And Mrs. Wykeham knew that she had gone far enough. But afterwards, when she was alone, Anstice began to think about her absent husband. She knew that the charge of selfishness was an accurate one; he had always been accustomed to take the easy path through life, and when catastrophe came to him, he could not get over it. It had made him a sour, embittered man. But lately, Anstice could bring to her mind many little actions of his which made her realize that he could be unselfish at times. He had twice given up fishing expeditions which he had planned out for himself: once to take Ruffie up the Fells on his pony, at his urgent request; once to take Anstice over to Penrith in the car for some necessary shopping.

He had gone off one day, and scoured the neighbourhood for a special fern for which Anstice had expressed a wish. She had wanted it for her fernery which she was making. He had often left his smoking-room where he was enjoying a quiet read, and had joined the children for their hour in the drawing-room. This was generally for Ruffie's sake, who had sent one of his sisters to summon him.

"No," she said to herself, "he is not an out-and-out selfish man. And I think he would not shirk disagreeables, if he felt they were necessary. I suppose we all take the easy path if we can."

Then presently she laughed at herself at her effort to defend her husband's character. "What does it matter to me? He goes his way, and I go mine, and we don't wish for anything different. We disagree very seldom, and when we do, he gives in quite as often as I do. We get on very happily together; but if I were to ask him to stay at home altogether, it would be a great mistake. He would get restless and miserable, and then he would be irritable, and we should drift into a captious couple. We have not the foundation for a happy wedded life, there is no love between us, so we have to be doubly careful as to our behaviour towards each other."

All this and more she told herself, but deep down in her heart there was more than a real liking for the handsome, self-willed man. She would not acknowledge that the tone of his voice and laugh, the sound of his quick, active feet about the house, that mischievous twinkle in his eyes which so often appeared in his talks with her and with Ruffie, brought a thrill to her soul.

Sometimes she wondered if he were still indifferent to her. She knew he appreciated her and respected her. He thanked her again and again for what she had done to the house and to his children. But there were times when he would put his hand on her shoulder, and speak to her in almost a tender tone. She always laughed such moments off, but often she felt nearer to tears. When he seemed to soften, she herself would harden, but she did it in self-defence. Never, she assured herself, would she show by word or touch or look that she craved for the love of his heart. He had warned her when they married that she must not have any expectations in that quarter. And she meant to stand by his conditions and not go one iota beyond them.

CHAPTER VIII

AN ENCOUNTER IN THE FELLS

ONE afternoon Anstice asked the little girls if they would like to ride over the Fells with her to Ramdale.

"I am going to see Louise," she said; "and it will be a lovely ride."

They were of course delighted to accompany her.

"Why can't I go too?" demanded Ruffie.

"It is rather too long for you, darling," Anstice told him. "You mustn't be unhappy at staying at home. To-morrow, if it is fine, it will be your turn. You and I will go off together, and Josie and Georgie stay at home."

"But there's always two of them, only one of me," objected Ruffie; "it isn't fair."

"I can't alter your number," Anstice reminded him.

"If only Dad was here!" sighed Ruffie. "Him and me are always happy together."

But in the end, he was comforted by Brenda saying she would take him up to Hocher's Farm on his pony, to have tea there.

Anstice and the little girls started directly after lunch. When they left the lanes, and struck across the soft springy turf, their ponies showed their signs of approval by being rather skittish, but the long uphill climb soon made them settle down into a steady walk. The keen mountain air, the sweetness of the young bracken and gorse, and the carpets of bluebells in sheltered dells, all brought a feeling of joy to Anstice. She was never happier than when riding or walking over the Fells, and she was almost sorry when Ramdale was reached. Josie and Georgie had never ceased their happy chatter, but as they came round the lovely little lake called Dameswater, and saw it set like a turquoise in a circle of emerald green, Josie exclaimed:

"I've never been here before! Is this where Louise lives? Fancy hating this!"

"Oh, but she doesn't! That was only an idea," said Anstice hastily.

As they approached the Vicarage, Louise spied them in the distance, and hastened out to meet them.

The horses were taken on by a boy who worked in the garden to the small hotel a short distance off, and then Anstice and the little girls went in and saw the Vicar, who was sitting up in his study looking very white and frail. The room was bright with flowers, and Louise showed them with pride, the garden in which she had toiled a year ago, now rewarding her with its blossoms, and early roses. Anstice sat down and talked to the old man. She had heard from Louise that his heart was weak after his illness, and that he had to be kept extremely quiet. The little girls ran out of doors to play about till tea-time. It was not till tea was over, that Anstice found an opportunity for a quiet talk with Louise.

She took her into the drawing-room, which she had improved in many ways since Anstice had seen it before. Some fresh chintz coverings and curtains, a rug or two on the drab carpet, and books and pictures scattered about, made it quite a cosy room.

"Now," said Louise, "I have such a lot to tell you that I don't know where to begin. I have made a fresh friend in Minna Ogilvy. She's the doctor's sister, and she lives with him at a farm about a mile away from us. She's such a sweet girl! She came here for her health; Dr. Ogilvy left a good practice in Liverpool for her sake. The doctors said she must live in the country, in good air. It was the only chance for her. I'm afraid she is not getting better. I don't think her brother thinks she will ever entirely recover. But you've no idea how bright and amusing she is! I have never laughed so much in my life as I do when I am with them. She is devoted to her brother, says his skill is wasted here, and that this desolate country gives no scope to him to use his talents, but that he is doing it entirely for her sake."

"I am so glad you have friends near you," said Anstice; "it must make a great difference."

"It does, an enormous difference! And I have no desire to go back to town. I couldn't leave Uncle Edgar at present. He is not able to take any services, and I have to arrange for locum tenens to come once every Sunday, and do a good deal of what uncle used to do. Then a great blow has fallen upon us. I have said nothing to uncle about it, for it may not come to pass in his lifetime, but a lot of engineers have been out here with a view to making our lake into a huge reservoir to supply one of the big northern towns with water. And to do this, they're actually going to submerge our dear little church, and the hotel, and perhaps this vicarage itself. They're going to raise the level of the lake by damming it up. I don't understand how they're going to do it, but this dear little quiet corner will be no more. I remember how I hated it, and only a year ago! It's a kind of judgment upon me, isn't it? Only of course it will take a long time to complete, and at present they're only at the discussion stage. They say the church will be moved elsewhere, but that won't be the same at all. I dare not let uncle know. He is not to be worried about anything, Dr. Ogilvy says."

Anstice was really distressed at this piece of news.

"I have never seen such an exquisite spot as this is," she said. "I felt it afresh to-day as we rode round the edge of the lake. It seems sacrilege to drown a church, and that a mediæval one. Are you sure it is true?"

"Yes, I spoke to the head engineer myself. The town corporation have bought thirty-six miles of it. Isn't it a shame? It makes me very determined to stay here as long as I can."

Their talk was interrupted by Dr. Ogilvy's appearance. He came to see the Vicar every few days, and this was one of his days. Anstice saw him before she left. He told her that the Vicar was failing rapidly, and that he doubted if he would outlive the summer. And then, before he went, Anstice noted something that sent her home much comforted as regards Louise. She could not mistake the look in the young doctor's eyes as he walked with Louise to the gate of the Vicarage, and stood there talking to her, before he took his departure. Anstice was quick to scent the budding romance, and rejoiced in her heart at the thought of happiness rewarding Louise's devotion to her uncle.

Yet a little sigh followed her pleasant musings; and she was suddenly roused from them by Josie saying:

"You're much duller, Steppie, when Dad is away than when he is home. You always seem shut up to thinking."

"Am I?" laughed Anstice. "I must open myself at once then, Josie! I don't like dull people. I never could bear them."

And after that she exerted herself, and the rest of the ride was a lively time with them all.

It was only two weeks later that Louise wrote to tell Anstice of her engagement.

   "I don't know why God has been so good to me," she wrote. "If I had stayed in London I should have missed this joy. I little thought that I would meet my fate in this most lovely backwater. But I should never have married in town. I never saw anyone there whom I cared for, and I may honestly say who would have looked at me. There are such thousands of girls there, and most of them with a certain charm and grace to which I could never attain!"

   "As for George, he's all that a girl could desire. He is good, really good, and clever, and brave and unselfish, and I'm a lucky girl to have such a husband in prospect. We are both perfectly happy, as you can imagine; and quite content in our surroundings. I do not mean to leave uncle. The sad thing is, that he may not be here much longer—George has prepared me for that. And he has his sister to look after. But nothing in the world matters when one loves! You must have felt this, and so can understand."

Anstice laughed, and sighed again, and then sat down and wrote Louise a loving letter of congratulation.

About a week later, she took Ruffie out on his pony to the lower Fells near the lake.

Josie and Georgie were having tea with Mrs. Fergusson. Her son was home for his Easter holidays, and he and the little girls were great friends.

Anstice loved having Ruffie to herself. He was full of quaint fancies about the Fells, and knew the names of all, and endowed them with separate personalities of their own. Having passed most of his small life on a couch indoors, this new freedom on the back of a pony who bore him miles away up to the heights which he had dreamed inaccessible to him, almost intoxicated him. His blue eyes blazed ecstatically, and he would frequently break out into song.

"We're getting nearer and nearer God," he announced to Anstice. "I wish I was either a lark or an airman, then I could get nearer still."

They were away in the heart of the hills now, and came out upon a carriage track which zigzagged up across a pass, through two steep ranges of Fells. And then they came upon a broken-down motor-car, and a lady, seated on a bank near, called out for their assistance. She was disappointed when she saw no man was with them.

"It is a bad break somewhere near the axle," she explained to Anstice. "My chauffeur has gone off for assistance. There is a farm we passed a mile or so off. I think it's a screw broken. Happily I am unhurt. I am trying to get through to a friend's house the other side of this pass. I would walk, but I'm suffering from gout."

She was a handsome-looking woman, with white hair and flashing dark eyes, but with an unhappy face, and she regarded Ruffie with great intensity.

"What a lovely little face! Who is he?" she asked abruptly.

Ruffie took off his cap with a gallant air.

"My name is Rufus Holme," he said. "I wish I could lend you my pony to ride, but I can't walk without him, and I'm too heavy for Steppie to carry."

She smiled at him. She had given an involuntary start when she heard his name, but quickly recovered her equanimity.

"Thank you for the wish," she said; then, turning to Anstice, she asked if there was any house within her reach where she could rest.

Anstice considered. "I think there is a small farm round the corner, about a quarter of an hour's climb from here."

"I can't do it," she said with a little impatient sigh; "I must just wait till my man comes back. You might sit down and enliven my solitude, if you can spare the time. We are strangers, but it is a lovely afternoon. It is the loneliness that I dislike so much."

Anstice was quite willing to oblige, and Ruffie's pony was only too ready to rest. She took the little boy off his pony into her lap, and he, as well as she, talked to this strange lady of the Fells which they loved so much. The stranger did not give her name, and asked no more personal questions.

But presently Anstice said:

"I really think the quickest way will be to send off some one to get a car to drive you home. Would you like me to walk on to the farm above us, or do you think your chauffeur will have sent already?"

"He is too stupid to do that," said the lady irritably; "I told him to get some men to come and mend my car. That is all he will think about. The car is the first thought in his mind, not his mistress."

"Then I will go to the farm and send some one off to the inn at Stapp. That is the nearest place where they keep cars. Do you mind taking care of this little boy? I shall not be long."

"Thank you. Perhaps that is the best thing to do."

The afternoon was warm and sunny. Anstice took the cushions out of Ruffie's basket chair, and made a "nest" for him, as she called it, upon the ground close to the stranger. Then she tethered his pony to a stout mountain ash, close by.

"Now, Ruffie, you're a little gentleman, and you must take care of this lady till I come back," she said to the child when she had settled him comfortably amongst his cushions, and wrapped a warm shawl round his legs.

Ruffie held up his head gallantly. This was after his own heart. No shyness was in his composition, and when Anstice had left them, he turned to the stranger with his most angelic smile.

"I could spare you the littlest of my cushions if you would like to lean your head against it."

She smiled at him.

"No, thank you. I wouldn't take one of your cushions for all the world. Who is that lady? Your governess?"

"Oh, no, that's Steppie. She's a kind of mother, you know. Daddy made her into one. She's a wunnerful person, most comf'able to lean your head against when it aches. And I'm tremenjously fond of her. She makes you laugh when you feel like crying, and she gives the most lovely surprises in the world. She got me my chair for the pony, and Josie and Georgie their ponies. There's nothing she can't do, but the thing we like best about her is her stories. She has bookfuls in her head, and most of them she makes up herself."

"Who are Josie and Georgie? Your brothers?"

"Oh, no, they're only girls."

Ruffie's tone was pitying.

"They've always wished they were boys, but God didn't mean them to be. Steppie says nobody can't have everything they want. They can't be boys, and I can't have my legs, and she can't be a little girl again. And—" here his face twinkled impishly—"you can't have your car to go home with!"

"I'm afraid I can't," the lady said with a grim smile. "Go on talking to take my mind off my misfortune. Is your father at home?"

"No."

Ruffie's face became dejected.

"He's always, nearly always at sea in his yacht. He's been longer at home this last time than I ever remember before, and I did hope he'd forgotten the sea. I believe, if Steppie coaxed him very hard, he'd stay at home always. She's got such a coaxing face with holes in her cheeks when she laughs, and she puts her face down next yours, she's so soft and cuddly, that it makes all your wicked thoughts go away, and you hug her, and—and do egsackly as she tells you. Dad said to me, he 'spected she was happiest when he was away, and when I asked her was she, she wouldn't answer. I wish I could think of a kind of spell like the fairies and witches make in stories, that would keep Dad from going away from us. A kind of line that we could draw round the lake, and our house, which he couldn't possibly step over."

"The only spell that could do that would be love," said the lady gravely, "and your father has only loved one person in the world, I believe, and that is himself."

Ruffie's colour rose. He looked at the lady indignantly.

"You don't know Dad; he loves me, he loves me from the very bottom of his heart, and I love him!"

"I knew your Dad when he was a little boy and he always loved himself first."

"Did you know him as a little boy? Did he know you?"

This was quite an exciting discovery to Ruffie.

"Yes, we knew each other through and through. You are rather like him in face."

"Just the top of my body," said Ruffie with pathetic pride as he placed his small hands across his waist, "is quite all right, isn't it? And with this shawl covering me up, you might think I was all right all through. But Steppie says that I'm like a treasure cupboard, where the best things are on the top shelves. She says some little boys have their legs all right, but their heads are no good to them. And so I'm glad God took extra pains with my head. I'm not very clever really, but I'm going to be a painter when I grow up, and I've got a notebook where I write down the pictures that I shall paint when I'm a man. Steppie is going to find some one to teach me drawing and painting properly. Would you like to hear a few names of my pictures?"

"Very much."

Ruffie produced out of his jacket pocket rather a dirty and well-worn little notebook. Then he began reading:

"The Fells on Fire."

"Dad being carried by Angels to Heaven when he's very old."

"An Arab Steed chasing a Tiger."

"A big War in the Air."

"A Fairies' Wedding on the Lake."

"The Garden of Eden."

"A Puppies' Tea Party."

He paused.

"I think your ambition is great," said the lady, looking at him with a smile, "but I have always heard that artists' souls soar beyond their brushes."

Ruffie would have this explained to him.

Then he said:

"I dream of pictures in the night. And then I put down the names in the morning. Did you ever play leapfrog with Dad when he was a little boy?"

"I don't remember."

"Did you go to his house, and he come to yours?"

"No," said the lady, a grim look coming over her face. "We won't talk about those times any more. Do Josie and Georgie want to paint pictures like you?"

"Oh, no, indeed." Ruffie laughed merrily. "Georgie is going to write books when she grows up. She says she'll have read all there is to read by that time, and she'll want some more, so she'll make them herself. And Josie is going to play to the King and Queen at Buckingham Palace, and have nosegays of flowers flung at her for doing it."

Conversation did not languish between the two.

When Anstice returned, she found them on a very friendly footing. She had sent a farm boy off post-haste for a car, and it actually arrived at the same time that the chauffeur appeared with a blacksmith. The lady did not wait till her car was repaired. She took the hired car, and did not pursue her journey.

"I shall be glad to get home," she said. Then she turned to Anstice very graciously: "I am glad to have met you, and as for this small Rufus, I should like to run off with him, for he's the best company I have had for many a long day."

"Where do you live?" Ruffie asked her.

"A long way off from you," she said, "and I don't think we shall meet again. It is not very probable."

"But wouldn't you like to see Dad now he's grown-up?" Ruffie asked.

She shook her head. "Not at all, thank you. Good-bye. Perhaps one day I may send over for you to come and cheer up a very lonely old lady, but it's only a possibility, not a probability."

She turned to give directions to her chauffeur, and then, as Anstice was busy putting the little fellow into his basket chair, she came over and stood beside him.

"Will you give me a kiss?" she asked suddenly.

Ruffie coloured. He was not particularly fond of kissing strangers; then he put his little arms round her neck and pressed his soft, rosy mouth against her cheek.

"I like you," he said. "I like your eyes, they make me think of Dad's. You move them about like he does."

The stranger murmured something to herself, and Anstice caught the words: "May I be preserved from being like him in any way."

And then with a flash of intuition, Anstice guessed who she might be. But she said nothing.

Farewells were said, and then Anstice and Ruffie turned homewards.

"It is too late to go on farther to-day," Anstice said. "As it is, we shall be late for tea. What did you talk to that lady about, darling?"

Ruffie told her as much of the conversation as he could remember.

Anstice was very quiet on the way home. She wondered if it would have been best to ask for the stranger's name.

"But then she might have refused to give it to me," she told herself; "she evidently did not wish us to recognize her. I am glad she has met her nephew. It may do good. I hope it will. I shall tell Justin about it when he comes home. If I write to him about it, he will ignore it, and we shall be no 'forrarder.'"

BOOK III

LOVERS

CHAPTER I

"I CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT YOU"

THE children's hour was over. Anstice sat outside on the terrace enjoying a rest. She heard their happy chatter in the rooms above her, as they were being got ready for bed. It was a lovely evening in late June. Roses were just beginning to riot in the rose-beds and over the walls of the old house. There was a sweet scent of jasmine and of stocks coming from the flower-beds by the hall door. She looked across the park, which was golden in the evening sun, to the still, dark-blue water of the lake, and to the purple Fells beyond it. Much as her soul was enjoying the peaceful beauty of the scene before her eyes, her thoughts were on a certain yacht in Norwegian fiords, and very much with the owner of it.

She and Justin had exchanged a few friendly letters, but she had not heard for a fortnight now, and could not write till she had received his fresh address. He had been gone a month. She wondered if he were on his way to America, and a certain wistfulness gathered in her eyes as for the hundredth time she began to speculate upon her future. She was so engrossed with her thoughts, and so screened by a tall myrtle tree in a tub, that she neither heard nor saw an arrival at the house.

A few minutes later, a shadow came between her and the setting sun; and looking quickly up, to her amazement she saw that it was Justin himself. He stood looking at her for a moment in silence, as she rose to her feet. His eyes were upon her with a grave, inscrutable gaze, but his words were simple and to the point.

"I could not keep away any longer," he said.

Her hand was in his, and he held it, but he did not stoop to kiss her.

The colour had risen in her cheeks. To Justin she had never appeared more beautiful. She was in a soft creamy tea-gown, with a bunch of pale pink roses at her breast. Her eyes looked into his with her soft, sweet candour, and the dimples played in her cheeks, as she smiled him a welcome. If her colour had risen, and her hand trembled ever so lightly as it lay in his, her voice was steadiness itself.

"This is a pleasant surprise. Has a letter gone astray? We did not expect you so soon."

"No. I suddenly determined to come home. I had finished what I went away to do, and so I am back."

He hesitated, then the noiseless Neale appeared.

"If you please, ma'am, the young ladies are in the hall, they and Master Ruffie have seen—"

Justin turned sharply round with an exclamation of impatience.

Anstice said with her happy laugh: "Ruffie has sent them down to bring you up, Justin. They are not in bed yet. What a state of delight he must be in! Come along!"

She led the way into the house.

Josie and Georgie in their blue dressing-gowns stood in the hall. Their notion of proprieties had prevented them straying farther.

"Oh, Dad, we're not asleep. Ruffie is having his milk and biscuits, and he wants—he wants you at once."

Justin's brow was smooth again.

He stooped and kissed them.

"I see well you're not asleep," he said, then he sped up the stairs, and the next moment had his boy in his arms. Ruffie, laying his soft cheek against his father's tanned one, whispered:

"God has answered me much quicker this time. Oh, Dad—I b'lieve I've just prayed and prayed you back, till you couldn't keep away any longer!"

"And that's just what I have said to your mother," replied Justin, pressing his lips to the red gold curls resting against his shoulder; "I couldn't keep away any longer!"

Anstice left him to his children. They met half an hour later at the dinner table, and their conversation was limited to Justin's fishing experiences in the fiords.

There was a good deal of correspondence awaiting his return, and to Anstice's surprise, he shut himself into the smoking-room with it for the rest of the evening.

He wished her good night courteously but hardly affectionately, when she came to him to say that she was going to retire. And then, as she was leaving him, he spoke:

"Anstice, to-morrow morning I want your undivided attention. I am not going to stand any interruption, so will you come out with me directly after breakfast? I see that my only chance will be to get away from both house and children. We're in for a fine spell, so we'll take our lunch in the motor launch."

Anstice hesitated.

"I promised—"

"Whatever promises you have made must be broken. I have come home to have a talk with you, and that talk must be had to-morrow."

"Very well," she said quietly. "Your claims come first. I will send a message through Brenda to the Nixons to say I will go over another day."

She left him, and went upstairs to her room, but she did not go to bed, she sat by her window looking out into the hushed moonlit garden, and her thoughts grew complicated and confused. She heard her husband come up to his room soon after midnight, and later she was conscious of his restless pacing up and down the room.

When she finally went to bed, sleep forsook her. And, as so often when she had sleepless nights, her soul rose upwards in prayer to the One in Whose care and love she was resting.

"My past," she murmured, "has been full of mistakes. Do not let me take a false step now!"

And then at last she fell asleep, and did not wake till the sun was high in the heavens.

But when Justin came to breakfast, she had done all her housekeeping, and was ready for anything that he might require. At half-past ten their luncheon basket was in the launch, and they pushed off on a still, blue lake. The children had made a great outcry when they heard that both "Dad" and "Steppie" were going to disappear for the day, but Anstice promised them that she would be back to tea; and as Justin agreed to this, they were forced to be content.

Justin was unusually grave as they crossed the lake; Anstice began giving him bits of local news to which he barely responded. She saw he was preoccupied with his own thoughts, and waited his time for unfolding them.

He landed at a most delightful little cove away in the hollow of the Fells, a veritable nest of mossy turf against a bank of bracken, overshadowed by a drooping mountain ash. They took out their rugs and luncheon basket, and settled themselves comfortably down, then Justin drew a long breath.

"Now we're alone at last, we can't have any interruptions and you won't be able to get away from me till you've heard me out."

Anstice laughed, but it was an effort to be her natural easy self.

"You are very mysterious; but, as you say, you can now have my undivided attention."

"Why do you think I have come home?" he asked her abruptly.

"I don't quite know, but I think you are getting fond of your home and children."

"I haven't come home with any thoughts of the house or the children. I have come back, wholly and entirely, because of you."

He paused. Anstice did not speak. Her hands were loosely clasped round her knees, and she was gazing out upon the lake before her. On the opposite side was their home, set at the higher end of the beautiful sloping park. Its old chimneys rose behind the big shrubbery on one side, the sun was shining full on the glass in the windows. The cattle grazing under the big trees in the park, the fresh green of the wooded heights behind, and the buttercup meadows edging the lakeside below, all formed a picture of a sweet English home.

But though Anstice's gaze was dwelling on what she loved, her heart was hammering loudly. This masterful man by her side was not the indifferent husband of a year ago. She knew a crisis was now in their lives, and she was not sure whether she was ready to meet it. She would have liked to slip on a little longer in the way that they had been going.

So she did not respond to him. She just listened to what he had to tell her.

"I went away," he said, "because the situation had become impossible for me, and I went to consider the relative values of things. As I fished in Norway, I threshed the subject out, but your figure was always before me. Looking back now, I see what a brutally selfish bargain I made with you. But my ideals of women were shattered, and I only cared for my own peace and comfort. Then, when I returned home, and saw what a good woman's presence and influence could do and how my home and children were transformed, I settled down selfishly still to bask in the sunshine, and to enjoy the fruit of your labours. But as time went on, Anstice, I began to see that such a life would not satisfy me. You yourself, not by any premeditated effort on your part—I think that would have choked me off—but by your personality, your power, your love for every one and everything needing love, in this world; your infinite patience, and may I say your delicious lapses from the divine to the most common things of this life, all this built up afresh for me the ideal womanhood as it should be. It gave me back my faith in women, and in God. I never spoke to you of my mother."

He stopped, and pulled out his watch. Opening the back of it, he held it out to her, and there was an exquisite miniature of a white-haired, dark-eyed woman, a woman with sweet, tender mouth, a determined chin and keen, purposeful eyes. Looking from her face to his, Anstice exclaimed:

"You are like her."

He shook his head.

"She was all that a mother and wife ought to be, and I expected my wife to be like her. I only tell you this to excuse myself. And having once been disillusioned, I had no use for any women afterwards. You knew this when you married me."

"Yes," said Anstice very quietly; "I knew and understood."

"Why did you marry me?" he asked her. "Knowing you now, I know that the mercenary side of it could have no weight with you, but at the time, I thought it might."

"I think it was a dream that made me," said Anstice very simply. "The thought of the poor neglected children had most weight with me. I dreamt that they were in an open boat helpless at the mercy of the waves, and calling out to me to rescue them."

"I have wronged you," said Justin; "and I ask your forgiveness."

"No," said Anstice quietly, "that is unnecessary. I have been thinking that I wronged you. I have taken different views of life since I came here, and I think that no two people ought to wed unless there is real love between them. It is binding two souls in chains; you, a man, ought to woo the wife of your choice, not be tied down by legal marriage to one for whom you have no liking, nor perhaps respect."

"Don't talk like that."

Justin's voice was almost sharp.

"I respected you from the first day I saw you. And you must know that I've had more than a liking for you. Well, the long and short of it is, that we have started our married life all wrong, and we're going, I hope, to put it right. Anstice—" he dropped his masterful tone and became almost humble—"there is only one thing that will keep a man's life straight and pure, and that is faith in a woman. I've been without it these many years, and though I've steered away from some evils through natural distaste, I've given myself over to rancour and bitterness and selfishness. You've given me that faith again, Anstice. May God help me to profit by it."

Anstice sat silent. Her eyes were misty, her hands clenched each other tightly, then after a moment she said:

"It is faith in God, not in woman, that you need, Justin. Faulty, erring woman will let you down over and over again."

"Well, all this has been simmering in my mind whilst I fished in Norway," Justin went on, "but through it and above it surged a great flood which has swept me to your feet. Right or wrong as our past has been, I can offer you all my heart's love, Anstice. I want you, not for what you have done, and are still doing for me, but for you yourself. And this, and this alone, has brought me home. I cannot live without you. I don't want to be like a polite stranger. I want to be your best beloved, as you are to me. Can you take me with all my selfishness and make a better man of me? We have been good comrades and friends; I want to be something truer and deeper. Have I taken you by surprise?"

Anstice still looked away over the lake, but she turned her head at last, and her eyes sought his in wistful appeal.

"Are you sure that your heart wants me, Justin?"

"As sure as the sun above us," said Justin fervently, and then he put his arm around her, and drew her close to himself.

"Have I really won you? Tell me with your own lips."

"I have been yours for a long time," said Anstice.

"Then why have you been so cold and cruel to me? Why did you not let me see a little of your heart?"

Anstice shook her head, and smiled into his eyes.

"How could I? A woman cannot take the first step. You impressed upon me in our first meeting that you meant to be nothing to me; that I was to have no hopes of being anything more than a caretaker and housekeeper. Why should I show you my feelings towards you, before you showed me yours?"

"I have been miserable," Justin owned. "I have almost been jealous of my own children when they gathered round you in the evening. I could not stand it any longer. I had to get away. You seemed so aloof and indifferent."

"I wasn't really. I knew you were not happy. I am quick in reading faces, and I read yours like an open book. I longed to comfort you, and yet how could I? You have been looking so lonely and so wistful, that my heart ached for you."

"I have felt like a lost soul. I was so close to you, and yet so far."

Then he stooped and kissed her passionately.

"I shall demand a great deal of comfort from you now," he said in a tone of such exquisite satisfaction that Anstice broke into a low laugh.

"You are such a boy sometimes," she said.

They had their picnic lunch in that mossy hollow, and every barrier rolled away between them. Hours sped away like moments. Justin took her over the lake again, and they talked of many things. When they eventually reached home about four in the afternoon, their faces were radiant. Josie met them in the hall, and said with her usual frankness:

"Why, Steppie, you look glorious! You must have had a topping time! And Georgie and me have been quarrelling all the afternoon. You've left us such a longtime!"

"Have I?" said Anstice. "But you mustn't depend upon me to keep the peace between you."

"We began to argue about you and Dad. Georgie said you didn't really like Dad being home. You were happier with us, when there was no one to interfere, and I said you laughed much more when he was in the house, and that you were quite miserable the first day he had left us; and then we got to who you really liked best; and then after Ruffie, I thought you liked me, and she said you liked her, and then she reminded me of all the nasty things I did and said to you, and I reminded her of her disgusting ways, and then we went on and on until we came to hate each other. And then we knocked each other down, and now she's locked herself into our room, and I can't get in. Will you come up and make her open the door?"

So Anstice was brought down from Paradise to earth, and she left Justin and went upstairs to assure the little girls, as she had often assured them before, that she liked them equally well, but that the only thing she did not like and would not have in the house was bad temper and quarrelling.

Bob Falkland came over to see Justin when he was at tea, and Anstice and he did not have any more time together till they sat out on the terrace after dinner was over.

It was a lovely evening; the lake lay like a pool of glass under the dark purple Fells. And Anstice, looking up into the bright starlight sky, suddenly put her hand very gently upon Justin's arm.

"I have been thinking, Justin, that this day will be one of the happiest in my life. And I have been thanking God for having given it to me. There is only one thing I want now; and I think I want it even more than I want your love."

"Don't say that," said Justin. "What is it?"

"I want you to know and believe in the Love of God for yourself."

Justin was silent for a moment, then he said, "You shall teach me anything you like. You have restored my faith in woman; you may teach me to have faith in God."

She said no more, for her heart was full.

Justin lit up his cigarette; then his eyes roved over the beautiful lake in front of them, but they did not stay there, they wandered to the old stone house behind them, and finally rested on his wife's sweet face.

"This is your kingdom," he said. "I only ask to be a subject in it."

Anstice protested at once. "My kingdom must have its king," she said. "We'll rule together, Justin. I in my domain, and you in yours."

"I've been an idler," he said, looking at her with a spice of mischief in his eye, "and I dare say I shall get you to be an idler too. Will you come off in the yacht with me round Scotland? I should like you to see the Scotch lochs."

"Some time I may like to do so, but you won't be off again just yet?"

"Perhaps not. You are more than enough for me. I am content at last."

He drew her to him, and they sat on in the fast deepening twilight, feeling the peace and beauty around them typical of what was in their souls.

But when Anstice was alone in her room that evening, she took her small Bible in her hand and tried to find some verses that were running in her mind and thoughts. She found them at last.

"And the woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him, for the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife . . . For what knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband."

"If any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives."

Musing upon these suggestive words, she knelt in prayer. She had a tremendous belief in its powers, and when she rose from her knees, hope—almost certain hope—was filling her heart.

"If I can't do it, God can. He will lead him to the Way, the Truth and the Life. We both began our wedded life without any religion; if I was led to the right path, Justin will be. I will trust and not be afraid."

CHAPTER II

RECONCILIATION

"ANSTICE, will you come out for a ride with me?" Justin put his head in at the nursery door one afternoon with this request.

Anstice and Brenda were both busy cutting and shaping some frocks for the little girls out of some white serge on the nursery table. Ruffie was lying on his couch by the window, very busy with pencil and paper. He hailed his father's appearance with joy.

"Come and see what I am drawing. And wouldn't you like me to come on my pony with you?"

His father came over to the couch.

"No, my boy. I want Steppie by herself. When you are with us, she is too busy talking to you to talk to me."

"I will come in ten minutes," Anstice said, looking up from her cutting-out.

"Then I'll order the horses. Ruffie, my boy, what awful tragedy are you depicting?"

"It's a car turned nearly topsy-turvy on Scawfell, and there's the lady crying, and Steppie and I coming to rescue her. It's all true, and she said she knew you as a little boy. Wasn't that funny?"

"Lots of people knew me as a boy," said his father.

He was looking at his son's picture with a mixture of admiration and amusement. Ruffie's figures were wonderfully clever, and looked alive, though technically there were many mistakes.

"She had eyes like yours, Dad."

Then the observant child looked straight into his father's face.

"But your eyes smile now, they never used to; and they seem to melt when you look at Steppie. You won't take her for a very long ride, will you, and forget all about tea, and us afterwards?"

"I'll try not to," his father assured him, and then he left the room, and twenty minutes later he and Anstice were starting for a ride amongst the Fells. He was talking to her about Ruffie's talent for drawing, and they were arranging that he should have lessons from an artist whom Anstice had heard about and who lived in Penrith, when she suddenly said:

"Do you know the name of the lady whom we met on the Fells?"

"No; one of our neighbours, I suppose."

"It was your sister."

Justin did not speak for a moment, then he said, "Did she make herself known to you?"

"No, I saw she did not wish to do so, but she seemed to be much impressed with Ruffie. Justin, cannot we be friends?"

"What would you have me do?"

"I know you have made overtures to her. You have told me so before; but won't you make another effort? Just one more. It seems so sad to me that the children should not know the only relative they have."

"She is an unforgiving woman."

Justin's voice was hard.

"A North-country woman," said Anstice with a smile; "but North-country people are as deep in their loves as in their dislikes. What can we do? How can we win her?"

"Why should you trouble yourself about her?"

"Well, ever since Miss Maybrick's death, I have been wanting you to make it up with her. That seemed such a tragedy; and now, too late, the one sister left, mourns for the one she quarrelled with. Life here isn't very long; and your sister is getting old, much older than you, isn't she?"

"Not so very much older. People say she has aged quickly. I would do anything to please you, Anstice dearest; but I really don't know what I can do in this matter. I think you are dispelling all the bitterness in my nature, for I can think of Grace now with pity. I was really more to blame than she was. I'll write to her if you like. I can but have another try."

With this promise, Anstice was content. She was so happy herself, that she longed for others to be so too. She could not forget Miss Holme's unhappy face. When they returned home, Justin shut himself into his smoking-room. And later on, when the children were safely in bed, he showed her his letter. It was very brief.

   "MY DEAR GRACE,—

   "From what I hear, you happened upon my wife and boy the other day in the Fells. Will you come over one day next week to lunch and renew your acquaintance? Let bygones be bygones. I was to blame, and ask you to forgive and forget the past.

   "We lunch at one.

"Your affec. brother,

"JUSTIN."

Anstice smiled up at her husband, then placed her hand on his shoulder caressingly.

"You'll carry a light heart now, and I believe she will respond."

The letter went its way, and two days later the answer came.

   "DEAR JUSTIN,—

   "I was impressed with your small son, and I confess should like to see more of him. We will consider the past as a sealed page. Expect me on Tuesday.

"Your affec. sister,

"GRACE."

"Ruffie wins everybody's heart," said Anstice.

"And what about you?"

"Oh, I'm a negligible quantity," said Anstice, laughing. "Now, Justin, you must explain your sister's existence to your children. You can do that better than I can."

"I will try," he said, and he went straight away and did it.

The little girls were much interested.

"Have we really an aunt? Where has she been all this time? Why has she never been to see us?"

"She doesn't live very near us," said Justin rather awkwardly.

"And she's the lady who said she knew you as a little boy," said Ruffie; "how very funny that she did not know she must be my aunt! She didn't speak nice of you, Dad; she said you only loved one person, and that was yourself, and I told her you loved me!"

"You were right to stand up for your old Dad," said Justin. "Perhaps I had better tell you straight out that, long ago, your aunt and I disagreed about something, and we thought it was best for us to live away from each other. But we're going to be friends again, and I hope you'll all be very pally and nice to her when you see her."

"Oh, Steppie will be nice to her," said Georgie. "We'll see what she's like first, before we get pally with her."

So on the following Tuesday, Miss Holme came over to lunch, and her brother greeted her in a very quiet, matter-of-fact way.

"Glad to see you, Grace. I want you to know my wife."

"We do know each other a little, don't we?" said Anstice, with her bright smile. "I have so often wondered how you fared after that motor misadventure of yours."

Miss Holme was graciousness itself to Anstice, and if she were rather stiff at first towards her brother, it soon wore off. By the time that lunch was over, she seemed thoroughly at home; and when the children appeared, she devoted herself to them.

Josie and Georgie condescended to approve of her, and frankly told her so.

"We only knew a few days ago," said Josie, "that you were an aunt of ours. Ruffie seemed to like you when he met you in the Fells, but we weren't there. Some aunts in books are horrid."

"But I'm not in a book, thank goodness," laughed her aunt.

She invited them over to spend the day with her before she left, and Justin said he would send them over in the car. Then she took hold of Anstice's arm and led her off down the garden. When they were quite alone, she said:

"What have you done to Justin? You have tamed him entirely. I never saw a man so altered. I heard about you from Myra Wykeham. You certainly have done wonders. Most awful accounts were given me of the house and children, but they now seem most desirable to me! I was tempted more than once to come over in Justin's absence; but pride forbade me. I suppose we owe our reconciliation to you. Family quarrels are a mistake. But I was treated very badly. Justin was a spoilt boy, and grew up a masterful, domineering man. He met his match in his first wife, she was an outrageous flirt, and I can tell you this house was no home after she set her foot inside it. But I could not feel sorry for him. He chose her himself, and when he tried to dominate her, she rebelled, flouted him, openly scorned him, and filled the house with her old admirers. It was a shocking state of affairs. He rued his marriage bitterly. You were a brave woman to come and tackle her children. They do you credit."

She did most of the talking. Anstice listened, she liked her; but saw that both she and Justin were too self-centred to get on amicably together. Still her visit was a complete success, though Justin heaved a sigh of relief when she had gone.

"Now," he said, turning to Anstice with a spark of humour in his eye, "I'm at peace with the whole world. The family skeleton has been taken out, and is no more!"

It was very soon after this, that Justin came to Anstice with a request.

"I don't want to insist upon it, if you're not agreeable, but I want you to discontinue playing the organ in church on Sundays."

"Why?" asked Anstice. "It would be very difficult to get anyone to supply my place."

"Oh, I'll manage that. I'll stand the salary. There must be numbers of men or women who would like a small job of that sort. I want you in my seat with me as my wife. Don't laugh! You've made me into a regular church-goer, but I like to have my family with me, and the fidgets of the small girls is more than I can stand. Ruffie suggests that he might come to church. How can I manage the lot of them? You can go to the choir practices, and play the organ as often as you like on weekdays, but I do need you on Sundays. Are you very much set upon being organist?"

"No, not at all. When you are away, it is awkward. I have only done it to help Mr. Bolland. If we can get someone, and you're able to defray the expense of it, I will willingly give it up."

Then she added: "I shall love sitting by you. We shall be able to enjoy the services together."

"I haven't got to the enjoyable stage yet," was her husband's rejoinder. "I'm interested in Bolland's sermons, he seems to make an extraordinary lot out of quite a commonplace text, and he's original and interesting; but to be frank, the service itself bores me!"

"It won't always bore you."

He shook his head sceptically, and changed the subject, but he managed to get his way. An organist was found, and Anstice enjoyed her Sundays more when she was no longer responsible for the church music. She did not entirely give up the organ. Sometimes in the week, when she passed that way, she would go into the church and have a quiet time by herself. She could always get an organ-blower from the sexton's cottage next the church, for there were boys there of different ages.

Ruffie got his wish, and was taken to church in his chair, but in the sermon, he always found his way into his father's arms. The Rector had found favour in his sight, and he expressed his opinion very quaintly after his first experience in church.

"The organ and singing are lovely, specially when I know the words and the tunes, but I get tired of the reading and muttering. I like Mr. Bolland's part most."

"What do you mean by muttering?" his father asked.

"Oh, when the people put their heads down and mutter into the floor under their seats. I s'pose it's their prayers. I used to mutter prayers into my hands. Brenda taught me to, but now Steppie says I can talk to God just as I like, and so I always have the window open and speak up into the sky."

"And you like the sermon best? So do I. Your mother would tell you worship ought to come first."

"I like it when Mr. Bolland smiles at us; he always smiles when he says something 'ticularly nice, like God and Jesus loving us."

"Don't make Ruffie too good," said Justin to Anstice a day or two later. "I don't want him to sprout wings and fly away from us. It's unnatural for a small boy to be religious. I never was, as a boy."

"You led a more active life than Ruffie. He has time and opportunity to think out things. But I don't think it's unnatural for children to be religious. They take to it like ducklings take to water. It is their natural atmosphere. 'Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.'"

"I don't want him to soar above me," persisted Justin. "He has always thought the world of his Dad. I am afraid of him learning to criticize my ideals, to find them empty and rotten, and then have a profound pity and contempt for me."

"Oh, Justin, nice children are never critics. Ruffie will never be a prig. I remember, as a child, I always thought every grown-up person was naturally good, with the exception perhaps of thieves, drunkards and murderers. Don't you think it would be possible to raise your ideals above Ruffie's head and keep them there?"

Justin looked at her with a smile. They were sitting together on the terrace, as they generally did after dinner, he smoking, she with a bit of work between her busy fingers.

"What are my ideals?" he said slowly. "I am changing them, you know, since I have known you. A year or two ago, they were to be free of all worry and responsibility, to laze in the sun in foreign climes, to be beyond the reach of civilization's claims. I think to-day my ideal is to make myself worthy of my wife. I want her to respect me, as well as love me. If I reach her standard, I shall be content."

"Oh, Justin!" Anstice's voice was almost pained, then she smiled. "And if we love, it makes all things easy. If we love the One who loves us, we shall try to reach His Standard, and do what He would have us do. We must try together to reach God's Standard."

Justin shrugged his shoulders.

"I shall never be as religious as you are," he said, "but I wouldn't have you otherwise; for you're just perfect in my eyes!"

He would seldom be drawn into religious argument; and yet there was nothing he liked better than being an unseen listener to Anstice's Sunday stories, and talks with the children.

She did not worry him with overmuch talk, but she prayed for him earnestly and continuously.

One day, she had a letter from Louise telling her of the death of her uncle. She at once went over to her, and stayed with her till after the funeral.

For the next few weeks Louise was a good deal at Butterdale. She was going to be married almost at once, and Anstice insisted that she must be married from the Manor. Justin was willing; he took a liking to the girl. Her brightness and naturalness pleased him; and he promised, if she had no nearer friend or relative, to give her away.

"I have no one," she said simply; "there are not many with so few relations as I." And then she talked to Anstice about her future prospects. "I am going to live in the farm with George and Minna. She is very ill, I'm afraid, but I shall be able to nurse her."

"My dear child, what a sad beginning to your married life!"

"Oh, no, we love each other, and George is devoted to her. I'm so glad to think we shall be all together for a little while still. I shan't have very much of our Fells and lake; for if Minna dies, George will go back to a busy doctor's life in some big town. I don't want him to stay where he is wasted. I shall go gladly with him, but I know now from experience how I shall miss our wild country when I have it no more!"

She was very busy settling a sale at the Vicarage, then on one beautiful summer day, she was married in Butterdale Church by Mr. Bolland, and took her leave of Anstice with a tearful, radiant face. She and the young doctor took no honeymoon, for poor Minna was in the last stages of decline, and, just three weeks after the wedding, passed away.

It was not very long after that, that George Ogilvy heard of an opening in Liverpool. The old doctor with whom he had worked before asked him to come back to him, as he would soon be retiring, and a younger man was wanted to take over the practice. So once again, Anstice had to part with her young friend. But she felt happy about her now. And Louise, up to the last, persisted in saying that all her happiness had come to her through Anstice.