John Tincroft, bachelor and benedict

CHAPTER XXII.

A LETTER FROM AUSTRALIA.

JOHN had not moved from his easy-chair by the study-fire, where we just now left him. His thoughts were wandering far-away, perhaps; or he might have been cogitating a new chapter in the particular work on which he had been some time engaged. Whatever the subject of his meditations, they had been so engrossing that his fire had dwindled down to a handful of embers, and he had been oblivious of the postman's horn-blast and ring.

From these meditations, he was suddenly roused by the entrance of his wife, in such a state of agitation that even he, absorbed as he was, took alarm.

"My dear love, what is the matter? What has happened?" he exclaimed, hastily looking up, and glancing first at Sarah's pale face, then at her white linen apron, and lastly at an open letter she held in the hand which bore traces of its late interesting occupation.

"John Tincroft, did I ever deceive you?" said poor Sarah, with a great sob.

"My darling, no. Who ever thought of such a thing? Who has been saying or writing anything to distress you, Sarah?"

"Did I ever have a letter from anybody, and you know nothing about it, John?" she demanded, plaintively.

"I am quite sure you never did," replied John, gallantly venturing an assertion which, undoubtedly, he had no means of confirming or proving.

"They told me, John, when I—when you—when you and I went to church together, that I was only deceiving you—at least, some of them did; and that I shouldn't be a true wife to you."

"Whoever told you so, told a great falsehood," said John, warmly. "No truer wife than you ever lived; and if I were you, I wouldn't think about such rubbish."

"But I can't help it sometimes, John, though I don't talk about it to vex you, for I know I haven't been everything that another might have been to you. I couldn't, John; but you have had the best I had to give." And here again poor Sarah moaned sadly.

"I am sure of it, Sarah; and I have never asked for more. But why do you bring this up? And why do you stand there when I am keeping my seat, like a stupid clown as I am? And, bless me, if the fire isn't all but out too! I declare forgot all about it."

So saying, John sprang from his chair, and gallantly taking his wife's unoccupied hand, gently led her to it.

"Do sit down, my dear; you do not often honour me with your presence in this dull room."

And thus gently constrained, Sarah took the seat, still holding in her hand the open letter.

Then the wakened-up husband placed a billet or two of wood on his expiring fire, and coaxed it to a cheerful blaze before he again spoke.

All this time Sarah was sobbing out her griefs—whatever they were—and declaring (a very fertile theme of complaining with her) how badly she had been treated by Uncle Matthew and her aunt, and Elizabeth, in times gone by.

"So you were, my darling," John acquiesced, as he ceased blowing the fire with the breath of his mouth, in which operation the wood smoke had puffed out into his face end half-blinded him. "So you were," said he, drawing another chair to the fireside, and seating himself. "But why do you trouble about it? That's all past and gone, years ago. Or—" and then he caught sight again of the open letter Sarah held in her hand—"or, has any one of them been writing to you?"

"No, no; worse than that, John. He has been writing to me; he, his very self. Oh, why can't he let me alone?"

"Do you mean that that letter is from your cousin in Australia, my dear?"

"Yes, that is what it is."

"Well, my pretty, I don't know why he should not write to you. He writes no harm, does he? He is a married man, you know. He does not ask you to run away from your own husband, does he, love?" asked John, gravely, but not without a gleam of humour, perhaps, on his countenance.

"How should I know what he writes?" cried Sarah, piteously.

"Have you not read the letter, then?" Tincroft asked, wonderingly.

"Read it! Read it! No, I should think not, John. You don't think I could ever be so wicked, John, as to read a letter from him, do you?"

"I am not sure it would have been wicked; indeed, I am sure it would not have been," said the husband, soothingly. "But if you have not read it, how do you know it is from your cousin?" he asked.

"As if I didn't know his writing!" said poor weeping Sarah, adding, "though it is so long since I saw any of it. But I did look at the beginning and end; and it says, 'My dear cousin Sarah' at the top, and 'Your affectionate cousin, Walter Wilson,' at the bottom; and that is how I know it. But I didn't read another word, John, indeed I didn't," said she, very earnestly. "And I have brought it for you to read, or to put in the fire, just which you please, John."

"I think we had better read it before we burn it, at all events," he gravely replied, as he held out his hand for the suspected treasonable epistle.

"Don't read it out loud, please, if there is anything in it that I shouldn't hear," said the frightened wife, as she gave it to him.

"Oh, certainly not," said the husband, smiling.

And then he commenced reading the first page of the letter, while Sarah sat with her eyes directed to his, ready, as it seemed, like a timid bird, to take wing on the first symptoms of displeasure or alarm.

But no such symptoms appeared, only that John's usually quiet and sedate countenance gradually became sorrowful, and at last his eyes had tears in them ready to start.

"Oh, John, what is it?" exclaimed Sarah, forgetting that she had not wanted to hear a word of the letter.

Before answering the question, John read on to the end, then he turned to Sarah.

"Your cousin is in great trouble," he said.

"Trouble?"

"Yes; listen. I will read the letter:"

   "'My dear cousin Sarah,—It is so long since I heard anything about you, that I am not at all sure of this reaching you, for I do not even know whether you are yet living. I never have letters from England now, since Ralph Burgess and his sister went to America, three years ago.'"

("This is the first we have heard of this," quoth John, in a parenthesis; and then he resumed reading):

   "'For I never hear from home.'"

("Which is a great pity—" in another parenthesis).

   "'Hoping, however, that you still live and are happy, I take up my pen to do what ought to have done long and long ago.'"

   "'Dear Sarah, I write first of all humbly to ask you to forgive me all the wrong I did you so many years ago. You knew partly how it was, but not all that was said. But I don't blame anybody so much as myself. I used you cruelly, shamefully, Sarah; and now I am made to feel it, now my great trouble is on me. And I ask you again for your forgiveness. Not but what it has been better for you, I make no doubt; for I know you got a good—'"

("I think I had better not read the next line or two, my dear," said John, looking up from the letter; so he skipped that part, and went on again).

   "'And I have to ask Mr. Tincroft's pardon too, which I ought to have done long ago, for the way I treated him. He didn't deserve it; but I was blinded with obstinacy and jealousy, and didn't know what I did. And I know now, and have long known—'"

("Well, never mind that part; it is only a little that he may have heard, somehow or other, about me, my dear," said John, once more looking up. All this time Sarah had silently listened; but now she sobbed quickly, "If it is anything good he writes about you, John, it can't be too strong; for you have always been a good, kind husband, I know." "As far as I have known how, I have tried to be," said John, softly; "but I would rather leave that out," and he then proceeded):

   "'I daresay'" (continued the letter) "'you have heard—but perhaps not—that after I came out here—a good bit after—I married a young person I met with. Her name was Helen; and my life from that time became a very happy one, for I loved my wife very dearly; and she gave all her love to me.'" (Here a deep sigh escaped from Sarah.) "'And we lived together all through many years, God prospering me in His providence, until—until God saw fit to take my Helen from me three months ago.'"

("Poor Walter!" whispered Sarah, softening.)

   "'This is the great trouble I mentioned; and since then my life has been a blank to me, or it would be, only I have a daughter whom I dearly love. She is about fifteen years old, and I am troubled about her. For I feel I have not long to live. The doctors out here tell me I have had a mortal disease hanging over me for years and years, and that it has laid hold of me all the sooner because of my fretting about my poor dear Helen who is gone. I am in a hopeless decline, they say; and I feel it to be true. I am worn away to a shadow of what I was; and they tell me if I want to prolong my life, even for a few months, I must have a sea-voyage, and get to my native climate.'"

   "'My dear cousin, I would not care to prolong my life, even for a single day, if it were not for my poor young Helen (for that is my daughter's name, named after her mother). If it wasn't for her, I seem as if I could have done with this world to-morrow. But I am bound to care for my poor motherless girl. And if she were left here, all alone and unprotected, it would be bad for her. So, as soon as I heard what the doctors said, I made up my mind what to do. I have sold my small property here to a person who knows how to manage it, and I mean to take passage home for my Helen and myself by next month's mail ship. It may be that I shall not live to reach England; but if I don't, I have left my affairs in proper order, so that there will not be any trouble about them. There will be enough for poor Helen after I am gone.'"

   "'Now, my dear cousin,'" John went on reading, after a little pause, "'I have done a very bold thing. I have put in my will, and the instructions to my London lawyer, that your husband, Mr. Tincroft, is to be my sole executor, and my daughter's guardian, if he will be so kind as to undertake all the trouble for one who used him, and you too, so badly as I did. I know his goodness. I know more of it than you would think, Sarah; and there isn't anybody in the world I would so soon have as Mr. Tincroft and you for my poor Helen's friend.'"

("Oh, John, does Walter Wilson say that?" said Sarah, interrupting the reading.)

"Yes; and he goes on to say that, trusting to our being willing to befriend his Helen, he intends to give directions, in case of his not living through the voyage, that notice shall be sent to us when the ship comes in, so that his daughter may have friends to take care of her and do the best for her. And he says that if he should reach England himself, he will write to us directly he gets to London. That's all, Sarah. No, not quite; for he writes down the name of the ship they are coming by. It is the Sea Bird."

"There, my wife, that is your cousin's letter," said John, when he had finished reading it. "There is no harm in it, you see, though there is a good deal of trouble."

"Poor Walter!" sobbed Sarah. "But, John, you wouldn't like that trouble put upon you—and you with all your books to write, that keep you so busy always; besides—"

"My books may go to the bottom of the Red Sea, for anything I care," quoth John, with unwonted alacrity.

"Oh, John, John! And you so fond of writing!"

"I won't write another line," said John, heroically, "while there is anything better to do. And there is something better to do now, Sarah; we must get our best rooms ready for your cousin and his dear girl; and we must look out for the Sea Bird, and go and meet them when it comes in; and we must make them come down here, and get Walter strong again if we can. And if he hasn't got money enough to set him up in a farm, why, I must help him; and there, I think that's all I have to say about it just now."

"But, John, dear John!" remonstrated Sarah.

"Why, isn't it what you would like to be done?" said he.

"But think how he used you, John, when you were trying to help him out of his troubles once," said she. "You can't have forgotten," Sarah added, "how he used you then."

"I shall never forget that I have had you to love and cherish ever since then, my dear," said John, gallantly.

And then, fairly broken down, poor Sarah, with a thrill of joy she had not felt for a long time, fairly broke out into a childlike cry,—

"Oh, John! I love you, I love you; I do love you, and only you!"

And then, in the midst of their newly-found happiness, came a sharp tap at the study door, with a—

"Please, ma'am, it is two o'clock, and there's that pie-crust on the board as you left it."

CHAPTER XXIII.

A MONTH OF WONDERS.

CHRISTMAS had come and was gone; it had been gone a month or more, and there had been an unwonted bustle in Tincroft House. The best rooms, usually shut up, had been duly put in order, and for a whole week, fires had been kept burning in them—that is to say, in the great or state parlour facing the south, on the first floor, and the chamber adjoining; and also in another pretty room on the same floor, that had a verandah in front of the French windows which opened upon it. The prospect from this window was chilly enough now, certainly; for the distant plantation on which it looked was bare of foliage, and the meadows which intervened were brown with wintry frosts where they were not white with the contains of the last snowfall; and the tastily laid-out flower garden beneath the window, with which John had taken such pains—for he was fond of flowers—was, like everything else, under the ban of winter. But it was the nicest, "sweetest, darlingest room in the house in spring and summer and autumn," said Sarah; and this one was to be Helen's room—so Sarah had decreed.

John Tincroft had kept to his word. Whatever he had done with the previous chapters of his unfinished work, whether consigned to the Red Sea or elsewhere, he had not written a line since the day when we last fell in with him. He had something better to do, he said; for he had fully determined, then and there, that Walter Wilson and his daughter, on their arrival in England, were to make Tincroft House their home as long as they liked to stay there. For that they would both arrive, he professed to be sure.

"There's nothing like a long sea-voyage," he had said to his wife, "for setting people to rights when their health gets out, of sorts. Your cousin won't die on his way home, bless you," said he, perhaps with more confidence than he really felt; but he was determined to believe in his own prognostications too. "We'll get him down here, and you shall see how soon we shall set him up again."

"You don't know that he will come down here at all, John, if he does get to England alive," said Sarah, meekly. It should be said that this dialogue took place the very day on which Walter's letter was received, when the pair were seated together after their pieless dinner.

"Ah, but he must," said John; "why, where else is he to go? And where is that dear little Helen to go? They have no other friends in England, you see—at their first landing, at least, they won't have; though we must try and make friends between them and Walter's father and mother and all the rest. But this will be a work of time. And when your cousin and his darling girl get out of the ship, they will have nowhere else to go. And that is why I say we must go to London, or wherever else it may be, and see Walter at once, so that he may know he has got a home; and not have to wait, and run the risk of getting ill again in some strange hotel."

"And, besides, Sarah—think. He writes about his small property out there—small, you observe, he distinctly writes 'small'—and of having sold it; and having enough to live upon when he gets to England, and to leave to his Helen when he dies—which, it is to be hoped, he won't do for many a long day. But I will be bound to say that it is little enough he has saved. And my private opinion is that it is not much he will have to live upon when he gets back. For there's the long voyage, and that swallows up a great deal of money. So it will never do to let your cousin sink for want of help. I wonder whether he has kept to his old profession of land-surveying. But that isn't the question now. The first thing is to make him and his Helen comfortable, and get him well again. There will be time enough then to think how we can set him on his legs once more."

This was a long speech for John to make; but he made it. And what is more than can be said of some long speeches—whether delivered at Westminster or elsewhere—the speaker believed in every word he uttered. We know better, of course. We know that Walter Wilson was a rich man. And John's friend, Tom Grigson, had also been told the same thing. But John Tincroft knew nothing about this; for, as I have said, he rarely heard news of any kind; and he had never happened to hear of Sarah's cousin, save that he was married; and he had not seen Grigson for a good many months.

So, in his former fashion (and not an uncommon one with others besides John Tincroft) of arguing upon false premises, he arrived at once at the conclusion that his old rival was coming home in forma pauperis, or something like it; and he was quite ready, you see, to "heap coals of fire upon his head," in the true New Testament fashion; and, for the matter of that, in the Old Testament fashion also.

Sarah answered this long speech of John's by saying that she was ready to do anything he thought right to be done; and that if he did not care to remember her cousin's former perverseness, it wasn't for her to put him in mind of it. And then she cried again a little, but her tears were not bitter ones; and she went over again the lesson she had so recently learnt by heart—

"Oh, John, I love you; I love you; I do love you, and only you."

And then, when these raptures were calmed down a little, they began to plan what they should do for Walter's comfort, and for poor motherless Helen's also. And that was how "the sweetest, darlingest room" in the whole house was fixed upon for Helen's room.

And the very next day—cold as it was—Sarah and John went over to Trotbury in the passenger van which passed through the village every morning, to make a call at the paperhanger's, to select a new paper for the walls. Of course John knew nothing about this sort of thing, so he left Sarah to choose, and was quite prepared to approve her taste, wherever it might lead her. And it led her to admire a most wonderful pattern, composed of trellis-work on a light ground, interwoven with climbing, twisting foliage, bearing the most impossible flowers and luscious fruits, with birds of paradise and many other either imaginable or unimaginable specimens of the animal creation nestling in, or soaring above, or disporting below the branches.

After this being settled to their mutual satisfaction, the pair proceeded to the upholsterer's and selected what furniture they had previously decided on as needful for the rooms especially set apart for the expected guests. Then they returned home, tired with their unwonted exertions, but satisfied with their day's exploit.

And then, as I have said, the month following had been occupied by them and Jane and the house-boy, with the aid of painters and paperhangers and a charwoman or two, in so furbishing up the old house (in those especial apartments, at any rate) that a report was spread abroad that a member of Parliament, at the very least, was expected to pay a long visit to Tincroft House, if not to take it off John's hands entirely.

Under all these circumstances, it is no wonder that Tincroft had to discontinue his researches into Chinese Cosmogony, or whatever else had previously bewildered his brain; nor that Sarah had, for the time, been roused into such unwonted activity of mind and body that the lines of languor and dissatisfaction which had for so long a time been half-spoiling her pretty face, were fast disappearing, so that every now and then John caught himself in a confused contemplation of that same yet altered face, in amazement, and thinking, in an odd kind of way, of the old days at High Beech so many years ago, when, without intending it, he ventured so near the maelstrom.

Of course, in all this preposterous activity, with its still inure preposterous origin and design, John was doing what you and I, reader, supposing we are extremely worldly-wise and knowing, should never have thought of doing; and we are at liberty, of course, to smile at John's simplicity, in suffering his good-nature to outrun his discretion. But then John was simple have we not said so a score of times? But then again, oh reader, there is a simplicity that is worth more than your worldly wisdom and mine put together—an uncalculating simplicity, a Christian simplicity, a wonder-working simplicity. And John's simplicity was of this nature.

It worked wonders. It always had worked wonders. It had worked wonders in the genuine respect for him which it had created and sustained in the thoughts and feelings of those who were always ashamed after having been betrayed occasionally into making an innocent joke at his expense. It had worked wonders in men with whom he had dealings—hard-headed men and not over-scrupulous perhaps, who would have prided themselves in getting the upper-hand and taking advantage of clever fellows with all their wits about them, but who would have felt many extra twinges of conscience had they at any time taken advantage, and made a gain, of John's simplicity.

It had wrought wonders with the poor children of the village, uncouth and home-neglected as they were, whom he taught from Sunday to Sunday in a large class in the Sunday school, and who looked upon him as alike a mine of erudition (though they wouldn't have used those express words) and a model of human kindness and forbearance. For though I have said little about John Tincroft from a theological and "professingly Christian" point of view, it must be once for all understood that it is not because I have nothing to say, but that this has not been quite the place in which to make a parade of it; it is not, out of place, however, to say that he was "a teacher of babes" in the school of Christ.

His simplicity had worked wonders, too, in the rough, garden-robbing neighbourhood in the midst of which he dwelt, inasmuch as though no steel-trap and spring-gun warnings were set up on his premises, the apples in his orchard generally hung secure till they were plucked by his own hands, while those of the law and fury breathing country squire and J.P. on the rising ground a quarter of a mile off, though surrounded by a high brick wall, regularly received more than one annual (or seasonal) nocturnal visit. On one occasion, truly, John's exposed orchard was robbed; but such an outcry of shame followed upon it from the whole country-side round that the daring yet easily enough executed deed was never repeated:

"For all agreed the rogues were mad,
     To rob so good a man."

Above all things, John's simplicity had worked wonders in winning the respect and esteem of the woman he had so many years before married to rescue from reproach and poverty, that he might protect and provide for her. Of course it was very simple to do this, when he might have made a much better match if he had only waited till he came into his property. Everybody who knew anything about it had said this over and over again. Richard Grigson had said this, and so had Tom Grigson; so also had Mr. Rubric, and also Mr. Roundhand. But all these loved him for it. But Sarah had not yet loved him for it. How could she love (with woman's love) a man whom she had begun by despising and laughing at, and ridiculing and making jokes about? All in a silly, flirting, coquettish sort of way, to be sure; but still she had done it. I ask, how could she love such a one, though, in desperation, she had taken him for her husband?

Well, his simplicity had not wrought this wonder yet; but it had done more, it had made her regard him with veneration.

"Because he is so good, you know," she had said to herself, over and over again, any time within those twenty years which had passed and gone; while, at the same time, she might have been—and no doubt was—vexed with him for being so learned, such a clever fool, in fact; and with herself for being such an unclever one.

But, in the month which had now passed away since that letter came to Tincroft House, a new light had broken in upon Sarah's feeble mind. How kind John was, and how forgiving! What could be the meaning of it? To think of how he had read all that letter, which she did not dare read herself when she found out who it was from; and, instead of being in a great angry rage, as most of the men would have been—so Sarah thought and believed and argued—and of visiting it home upon the weaker vessel, how he had not had a word to say that was not good and kind to her, and about Walter!

And then to think that such preparations were being made to receive her cousin! I don't know whether Sarah most longed for or dreaded the meeting with Walter. If it was the first feeling, it was not because there was one particle of guilty love in her composition. Nothing of the old ideal of her cousin Walter as her lover remained in her mind. It had not lasted long—it was not the sort of affection to last long under any circumstances, perhaps.

But seeing that they had parted, never to meet again, as they thought, and in anger with each other, and seeing that Walter had gone his way, and married a wife (not Sarah) so many years ago, and that she (Sarah) had also gone her way, and married a husband (not Walter) so many years ago, there was not any danger of harm arising, in thought or word, from their meeting. Besides, was not Walter so ill as to be doubtful whether he should live to reach England at all? All this passed, though I have no doubt in a confused sort of way, through Sarah's mind as she thought of what was to be. No doubt she would like to see Walter again, and to be friends with him.

Wasn't he her cousin before he had ever thought of being her husband, or it had been put into her little head to be his wife? And now that her resentment of his treatment of her had long since faded away, carrying with it her dreams of what might have been, but was never to be, her cousinly regard still remained. And, though she dreaded the meeting—she did not exactly know why—she should like to see him again, and was glad it would be in her power to comfort him, in her small way of comfort-giving, in his sorrow, and to nurse him in his sickness.

But it was when she thought of the young Helen that Sarah's feelings expanded to such an extent as to overflow her full heart. There was no danger in indulging these womanly out-goings of affection and sympathy for the motherless girl.

"I will be her mother, and make up to her as well as I can for what she has lost, poor dear," said she to herself.

And then she began to wonder what Helen's mother had been like, and to make an imaginary character of her, full of beauty and love and all manner of perfections. And the young Helen was to be a copy of her mother. There was a mysterious, and yet, in some ways of looking at it, a natural instinct in all this, perhaps. That which is mysterious I do not, of course, pretend to explain; but it was natural, surely, for Sarah to wish for an object on which to expend a store of love within, which had hitherto lain dormant because there had been no demand for it.

Helen was not many years younger now than her (Sarah's) little bud of mortality would have been had it pleased God to spare it to her. And, in her foolish thoughts, it was as if that little bud was coming back to her at last, in another form, and expanded into a lovely flower.

And then, from these vagaries of imagination, Sarah's more sober thoughts came back again to legitimate home; and, day after day, as she looked at her husband's patient countenance, and heard his quiet, uncomplaining words, and reflected how good he had been to her all those past years, and given her so much more, to say the least of it, than she had given him, she seemed to herself to be waking up from some distressing if not hideous dream, till she could not contain her self-reproach on the one hand, and her thankfulness on the other.

And one evening, when they were by themselves in John's gloomy-looking study, whither they had repaired after a hard day's work in putting the finishing strokes to their preparations, poor Sarah fairly gave way, and, throwing her arms around John's neck, and hiding her face on his breast, she sobbed out her penitent confession of shortcomings and her new-found love.

"I do love you now, John, dear, dearest husband. I have never loved you as I ought to have done, till now. But I love you now, dear, good, good John!"

Yes, it had come at last. John had never given up hoping for it; and now, after so long a time, it had come to him. His wife loved him.

Happy John Tincroft!

CHAPTER XXIV.

"COALS OF FIRE."

BY dint of persevering inquiries made through the agency of his once guardian, Mr. Rackstraw, John had ascertained at what time the Sea Bird was likely to arrive in port. It wanted but a few days of this date when the final touches were put to the preparation of Tincroft House. And then John announced to Sarah that the time was come for them to take their journey to London.

"It will not matter, my dear, if we should have to wait a week before the ship gets in," said he; "but it won't do to be a day too late!"

So places were taken in the Trotbury coach—for the London and Trotbury and Smashum line was not open then—and two days afterwards they were on the road. That same evening they had ensconced themselves in a private boarding-house in the City, having first of all made arrangements for extra rooms for the expected homeward-bound ones.

They had not to wait many days. The winds and waves were propitious; and as they sat at breakfast on the fourth morning after their departure from home, news came that the ship—having coming up from Gravesend on the previous day—was then in the—docks. No time was to be lost, therefore. But hurried as were their movements that morning, we must precede the Tincrofts some short space of time, and take our station on the quarter-deck of the Sea Bird.

There, pacing to and fro, with slow and feeble steps, and clad in rough but warm sea-going garments, was a tall man, of well-built and once powerful frame, viewing with a kind of languid interest the busy scene around him. He was pale, what part of his face was not concealed by the thick dark beard he wore; and he looked pensive, not to say sorrowful.

By this sick man's side, and waiting on him as it seemed with anxious watchfulness, was a tall, slight young woman, whom it was natural to suppose was his daughter. A flush of health intensified the brunette hue of her cheeks and forehead, and added to the general loveliness of her countenance as it beamed forth under the warm and closely-fitting bonnet which partly concealed her dark brown hair. But the great charm of her countenance at that time was expressed in the loving, trusting, earnest, half-sad and half-hopeful gaze she fixed on her companion.

"This is London, Helen; what do you think of it?" said the invalid, gravely.

"I don't like it, father," the girl returned, with a shudder. "But it is not all like this—ships and water, piers and warehouses—I suppose?"

"No, there are streets and churches, and public buildings—but it all amounts to much the same thing, houses and men here and there and everywhere."

The man said this wearily, as though he had seen too much of civilisation at some former time.

"But we shall not live in London, father?"

"For a time we must, perhaps. But I don't know yet what we shall do. The first thing will be to get ashore as soon as we can; and then, in a day or two, I will write to—to the gentleman I was telling you of; and if he will let us go and see him for a few days till we can find a home, well and good."

"And then you are to get well again, you know, father, and strong, and we will be happy—so happy again."

There was a great crushing and bustling on the main-deck. But I shall not stay to describe it, save only that great numbers of people were now coming on board. They were of all sorts; and among them, stepping on board from the gangway, was a bewildered-looking, well-dressed couple, whose fate seemed to be to get in everybody's way, while their immediate object was to get out of it.

"I never was so pushed about in all my life, John," said the lady. "And do you think we shall find them in this crowd?"

"We will try, Sarah," said the gentleman. "If there were anybody I could ask now, we should be all right, but I don't see—"

"Look, look, John!" cried Sarah in an excited, agitated tone. "Isn't that Walter up there? Him with the beard, I mean, and that beautiful girl! But, oh, how bad he seems!"

John looked as he was directed; and then the Tincrofts, squeezing their way, presently made good their footing on the quarter-deck. In another half minute, or less, Sarah's trembling hand was laid on the bearded man's arm.

"Walter!"

Yes, it was Walter Wilson, of course. And the recognition was mutual. It needed only to turn his eyes upon the half-frightened woman—indeed, it needed only to hear that one word, uttered by her voice, to tell the returned emigrant who it was that stood beside him.

"Sarah, dear Cousin Sarah, I did not think of this. It is very kind of you to come here to welcome me back; but I did not think of it; I couldn't have expected it."

And then, with tears in both pairs of eyes, there was a cousinly embrace.

"It was John that did it, Cousin Walter; he would have me come. He is so good; and I love him; and so will you, Cousin Walter, when you know him."

All this amid tears and sobs and hand-pressings; and then, because it was safer, perhaps, to prevent an entire breakdown by talking without exactly knowing what she said, Sarah went on:

"And you are to come to live with us, Walter, and that's John's doings; and Helen, your dear, beautiful Helen—oh, I shall love her, and—"

There is no need to write down more. The talking was, at that time, almost all done by Sarah, for Walter was struggling with too many conflicting emotions, besides being too weak and ill, to say much. Presently he turned to Tincroft, and led him to the side of the ship, leaning on his arm, while Sarah made friends with the wondering Helen.

"Mr. Tincroft," said Walter, hoarsely and feebly, "you remember when and where we saw one another before, and how we parted?"

"It is so long ago," replied John, cheerily, "that it is never worth while to try to tax the memory. All, or the best, we have to do now, is to get you down to Tincroft House, and try to make you well soon; and then will be time enough to talk about what is past and gone."

"I shall never be well again, Mr. Tincroft," rejoined the other. "It is not for long that I shall—however, I will accept your invitation and go back with you for a little while. But I must remind you of what passed when we parted. 'You will some day be sorry,' you said, Mr. Tincroft. I am sorry. I cruelly misunderstood and misinterpreted you. Forgive me!"

A good deal more passed in this strange meeting than I can write down. It is enough to say that it was late in the day when they were all four, with sundry portions of luggage, driven up to the door of John's boarding-house, where we must leave them to talk over the plans which had been mapped out, and to say as much or as little about the past as it pleased them.

Walter Wilson was deplorably ill. After a day or two in London, taking the rest rendered absolutely necessary by a state of exhaustion into which he sank on reaching the temporary lodgings provided for him—which exhaustion was probably increased by the sudden excitement caused by his meeting with John Tincroft and his cousin; and after another day or two partly spent in conferences with his lawyer—he travelled by short stages to John's home. His daughter and Tincroft were his travelling companions, Sarah having gene on before to make all needful preparations.

Tincroft House was ready to receive the visitors, therefore; and the sick man was at once installed in his state apartments, while the wondering and half-frightened little Australian bird, called Helen, had taken possession of her beautified bower.

All these arrangements were quietly submitted to, rather than actively acquiesced in and assisted, by Wilson, who was in fact, too ill to make difficulties, if he had any to make, and who was glad enough to rest his shattered frame. As to Helen, she was with her father; and if her accommodations had been far less inviting, they would have been good enough, and only too good for her, she said. Nevertheless, she was impressed with their magnificence.

"If you had only seen my poor little room in our old log-house, as I remember it at first," said she to Sarah.

By the way, Sarah's simple-heartedness had already found its way to the girl's feelings.

"She isn't like my mother, not at all," Helen said to herself; "but then, nobody could be, or ever was, like dear mother—" and here her tears began to flow; "but Mrs. Tincroft is so good to me, and does everything she can think of for poor father, that I can't help liking her."

It was quite true that Walter Wilson had received, and was receiving, all the attention from both John and Sarah that could have been shown had he been a very dear brother. His apartments were studiously and carefully kept at an equable temperature; his table was supplied with all such delicacies as would be likely to tempt a sick man's appetite, or to create it. The best medical advice in Trotbury had been invoked on his behalf, and the doctor visited him every day.

Helen was with her father the greater part of the day, reading to him if he could bear it, and silently waiting on him when his nerves were unstrung, and his distressing paroxysms of weakness came on.

The establishment at Tincroft House was enlarged now by the addition of another female domestic; and more frequent calls were made at its gates by that benevolent race who delight to supply, and even to anticipate and forestall, the animal requirements of their fellows. No doubt, the wants were even now moderate enough; but, excepting when Grigson or two, or a small flock of the species, as the case might be, had alighted on the premises for a few days—

"There had never been such goings on at Tincroft House—" as the village grocer said to the village butcher—"any time within the last twenty years."

"And that's ever since the place has been inhabited in the memory of man," responded the purveyor of beef and mutton.

There never had been such good times at Tincroft House, in John's memory, at least, as were now inaugurated. It had come at last. He had striven for it, and patiently waited for it; and it had come. And he never felt more secure in the affection and entire confidence of his Sarah than when he saw her tenderly watching over the sick man, once her lover.

And so time passed on. A long dreary winter was succeeded by the premonitions of spring. Crocuses and snowdrops and hepaticas pushed themselves out of the ground, in the flower garden beneath the young Helen's window; and, with the returning milder weather, the more distressing symptoms of Wilson's disorder somewhat abated. Not that it was believed he would recover, or even, for any length of time, rally. That he was slowly dying, he himself knew, and all around him knew it; but still his strength for a time increased. He had even ventured occasionally, when the midday sun shone out, to walk—well wrapped up—on the dry gravel paths of the flower garden, leaning his feeble frame on John's arm.

On one of these occasions the invalid halted in his slow progress, and turned to his supporter.

"In all the time I have been here, and living at your cost—I and my Helen—we have never spoken a word about money matters," said he, breathing hard.

"Really," replied John, "I don't know what there is to say, Walter." (For John had learned to call his guest by his familiar name.) "All I can say is that you are heartily welcome to the small accommodation we have been able provide for you. I only wish it had been larger."

"That is all very well, and I am sure you mean what you say, Mr. Tincroft; but we ought to be coming to an understanding. I don't want to be living at free cost. I can afford to pay for what we eat and drink, I hope."

"I have no doubt of it, my friend; but we will not discuss that question now," rejoined John; "there will be time enough for that another day. But there is something I have been thinking about. May I mention it?"

"If it is not very unpleasant," said Wilson, with a faint laugh.

"I hope it will not be, I and sure it should not be," said John; and then, after a little while, he went on:

"Do you know, Walter, what has been my greatest drawback—what I most of all regret in my life's history, looking back upon it as I do now?"

Wilson did not know—could not guess, as he looked inquiringly into his host's countenance.

"I never knew my parents," said John, speaking slowly. "My mother died when I was an infant; my father, when I was a mere child. I was thus thrown upon the tender mercies of strangers; and that made me—but I won't speak about that. What I mean is—I have been thinking, Wilson, that you have a father and mother—brothers and sister too, all living in England."

"I suppose I have," said the other, rather haughtily, as it seemed to John, who went on, nevertheless.

"You have never written to them since you came back from Australia, I think?" John continued.

"No, nor for a long time before, if the truth were known."

"I am afraid you are not quite good friends with them?" said John.

"Possibly," said Walter, curtly; "I was not over and above pleased with what they did between us two and another, years ago," he added.

"But that is past and gone. And, after all, though it was a mistake on their part, it may have turned out for the best, you know," said John, in his simplicity, which, after all, was better than some men's cunning. "If such and such events hadn't happened, others would have come to pass which would have brought their share of trouble, I daresay. And, as it was, you have enjoyed much happiness and some prosperity in life, although not in the way you first thought of."

"And am come back to die," said the other, sadly.

"And death is the portal of life—the entrance into it, if we could but see it so," rejoined Tincroft. "But I was speaking of your parents and your old home. Don't you think you ought to let bygones be bygones, and make it up with them?"

"Do you think so, Mr. Tincroft?"

"I do think so," said John. "I am quite sure that it will be one of the happiest days of your life when you can feel that you have forgiven, from your heart, the trespasses which men have trespassed against you."

"Ah! And how do you know that?" demanded Wilson, quickly.

"By having tried it, Walter," said John, meekly.

The conversation, broken and disjointed as it was, and imperfectly as it has been reported, did not terminate here; but it took another turn. But as this bore upon matters which do not immediately concern our history, it may be omitted here. It is enough to say that, a few days afterwards, Wilson renewed the former subject.

"I have been thinking over what you said, and I think I ought not to keep up my bad feelings. I mean to write home and offer to be friends."

"I am glad you do think and mean so," said John, dubiously.

"Of course, I shall expect some acknowledgment," added Wilson.

"I was afraid of that. If I were you, I wouldn't make that a condition."

"Wouldn't you, though, really?"

"No. Only think a little, Walter."

"I have thought. And all I can make of it is that they used me badly—father, mother, Elizabeth, and all. And you came in for your share of it, Mr. Tincroft, and Cousin Sarah, she did too. And it seems to me that it is only right that they should make some sort of acknowledgment, as I said a minute ago."

"I would not insist upon it, Walter," said John, and he repeated, in the same tone as before, the same words, "Only think a little."

"I have very little power of thought left," said Walter, with a heavy sigh. "You must help me. What would you have me think?" he asked.

"Think of what our dear Lord said," replied John, gently and lovingly, "when He taught us to pray, 'Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us.'"

It was in the early twilight of evening when, as the two sat together, these words were spoken, and before either spoke again the twilight had deepened into darkness.