The Project Gutenberg eBook of Odd made even
Title: Odd made even
Author: Amy Le Feuvre
Illustrator: Harold Copping
Release date: May 22, 2025 [eBook #76138]
Language: English
Original publication: London: The Religious Tract Society, 1902
Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.
"BUT LIFE IS NOT ALWAYS HAPPY," SAID GERALD.
STORIES
BY
AMY LE FEUVRE.
Heather's Mistress. 3s. 6d.
On the Edge of a Moor, 3s. 6d.
The Carved Cupboard. 2s. 6d.
Jill's Red Bag. 2s.
A Puzzling Pair. 2s.
Dwell Deep; or, Hilda Thorn's Life Story. 2s.
Legend Led. 2s.
Odd. 2s.
A Little Maid. 2s.
Bulbs and Blossoms. 1s. 6d.
His Little Daughter. 1s. 6d.
A Thoughtless Seven. 1s.
Probable Sons. 1s.
Teddy's Button. 1s.
Bunny's Friends. 1s.
Eric's Good News. 1s.
London:
The Religious Tract Society.
ODD MADE EVEN
BY
AMY LE FEUVRE
Author of "Heather's Mistress," "Odd,"
"Probable Sons," "Teddy's Button,"
"On the Edge of a Moor," etc.
With Full-page Illustrations
by HAROLD COPPING
THIRD IMPRESSION
London
The Religious Tract Society
4 Bouverie Street and 65 St. Paul's Churchyard
TO THE ONE
WHO MADE ME WRITE
IT.
"And your joy no man taketh from you"
PREFACE
———
I FEEL this sequel needs an apology, and to the many little ones who
have besought me by letter and voice to "make more about Betty," I
offer this apology, for I fear they will be disappointed. The story
will be above their heads.
But to their elders who have found enjoyment in the child's short
history, I venture to send her forth when a little of earth's soil has
dusted her feet.
And perhaps some of the little ones who first read "Odd," may even now
be old enough to follow with interest the older Betty.
AMY LE FEUVRE.
CONTENTS
CHAP.
XXII. "The Little White Wild Rose"
ODD MADE EVEN
————————
CHAPTER I
A Child of Moods
...Scarcely formed or moulded—
A rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded.
BYRON.
"I WISH you would not say such things, Betty!"
"What things?"
"You know. It only vexes mother; and what is the good of it?"
"What is the good of anything? I always say what I feel; I can't help myself!"
"Well, you ought not to feel like it. You are always so discontented. Other girls—"
"Oh, shut up, Molly! Don't quote 'other girls.' I hate them all. I hate everybody at this present moment. I'm sick of them; I'm sick of town; I'm—yes, I think I'm sick of life altogether!"
Betty had been poking the fire fiercely as she spoke; now she dashed down the poker and ran out of the room. Molly looked after her with a little sigh.
"Betty is so—so uneven," she said to herself. "She is always getting upset over nothing at all. She'll be back in a minute full of remorse and repentance. It would wear me out to live as she does!"
Her fair head bent over some manuscript paper on the table before her. A dreamy look took possession of her deep blue eyes.
"Now, where was I when she interrupted me? Poor Elfrida! I must make her see Roderick once again before he dies; she must have the comfort of a last farewell!"
But Molly was not to be left in peace to the woes of her heroine. A maid came into the room.
"Mrs. Stuart would like to see you, miss."
Molly rose at once.
"All right, Margaret. Has the doctor been?"
"He has just gone, miss."
Molly left the room, and made her way upstairs to her mother's bedroom.
Mrs. Stuart lay on a couch by the fire. A square table covered with papers was drawn up by her side. She was a very beautiful woman still, though threads of silver ran through her wavy brown hair, and many fine wrinkles and lines were discernible round her dark expressive eyes. She looked at her eldest daughter a little keenly.
Molly was always a fair sight to look upon—a sweet, fresh English maiden, with a sunny golden head and irreproachable features, and soft red lips that looked as if only smiles could come from them. Molly was blest with a happy, sunshiny disposition. She took life easily, and her cares and sorrows at present were bound up in the life of the heroine of her imagination. She was young enough and gay enough to like to revel in imaginary misery. She was devoted to her mother, and now bent down lovingly, and kissed her forehead.
Only Molly dared to be demonstrative with Mrs. Stuart; she was not one who liked or encouraged tokens of affection from her children.
"Are you better, mother?"
"I suppose so. I must be, after this long period of rest and convalescence. Just look at my batch of correspondence! I have been unable to touch it yet, and Dr. Forsyth actually forbade me to write a line to-day. You must give me an hour, and answer all those that are important. Where is Betty? I want her too, for I must speak to you both. Dr. Forsyth wants me to leave town at once."
Molly looked surprised.
"I will fetch Betty," she said; and, leaving her mother's room quietly, she sped up another flight of stairs, and knocked at her sister's door.
It was locked. Betty herself was standing by her window, looking down with wistful restless eyes into the dreary rain-sodden London square below her. Her heart was hot within her. Betty could not take life so easily as Molly did. It did not satisfy her; it was continually disappointing her. She looked for such great things; she had such a capacity for enjoyment; and yet the very gold seemed to turn to dust when she touched it.
Her life was in the same groove as Molly's, they shared their pleasures and friends together; yet what seemed natural and pleasant to the one, worried and irritated the other.
It was as Molly said, "over nothing at all" that Betty vexed her soul.
For three years the young girls had been enjoying London Society under their mother's wing. Their father had died when they were still in the schoolroom. They had never seen much of him, as his whole life was absorbed in politics; and it was only after their education was finished, and they had been presented at court, that mother and daughters drew nearer together. Mrs. Stuart saw that it was her duty to accompany her daughters to entertainments which otherwise would have been distasteful to her. She was herself more interested in literary clubs and soirées than in ballrooms; and philanthropic objects appealed to her more than garden-parties, regattas, and the various amusements that her daughters were supposed to require.
She conscientiously tried to attempt both lines of living. She took the girls abroad, accompanied them to Scotland every autumn, and gave them the orthodox season in town every year. In addition she followed her own pursuits with untiring and unflagging energy. A member and, in some instances, secretary of many important and influential committees, a patroness of hospitals, clubs, and other charitable institutions, Mrs. Stuart wore herself out with writing, interviewing, and visiting; and at length nature asserted its sway, and a serious breakdown in health occurred. For two months she had been unable to leave her bed, and now, on this rainy day in March, she was for the first time feeling well enough to discuss future plans with her daughters.
When Betty broke away from her sister, the girls had been discussing together a conversation held with their mother the night before. An invitation had arrived for them from an old friend of their mother's—a woman with a large family of young people. She wished them to join her house-party in an old château in Brittany, and Mrs. Stuart was willing that they should go. Molly acquiesced. Neither she nor Betty cared much for the girls, who were, as they expressed it, "silly, empty-headed creatures"; but she would not have thought of rebelling so furiously against the visit as Betty did.
"Why should we go?" she had said. "Why should we pretend to enjoy their hospitality when all the time we despise them in our hearts? Their talk makes me ashamed of being a girl, and their brothers imagine every other girl is like them! Mrs. Railley is always telling me how Reggie dotes on Molly; how much in love he is with her! Molly scorns him, and yet smiles at his mother's talk as if she liked it. I hate hypocrisy! I hate pretence! And a visit to the Railleys always makes me sick of everybody and everything. No one is real there. It is all artificiality and affectation!"
Mrs. Stuart had listened to this very quietly; then she said,—
"You can please yourselves. There is no occasion for such vehemence, Betty. If you feel yourself on such a superior level to the Railleys, you had better decline the invitation, and wait for another that satisfies your requirements. But I think it is better taste to conceal such thoughts about an old friend of mine, who has always been most kind and considerate towards you. Leave me now, for I do not feel able to discuss the matter further with you."
Betty had dropped the subject then, but she renewed it the next morning, when she and Molly were together in their own sitting-room.
"It is this continual talk of marriage that sickens me so, Molly. The Railleys can think and talk of nothing else. Mrs. Railley thinks it quite dreadful that neither you nor I are engaged yet. It makes me long to get away from men altogether. I feel I want to be free, and fill my mind with other things. The world is so big, so full, it could be so different to what all these town people make it!"
"I think," said Molly slowly, "you sound conceited. Why should you judge every one so hardly?"
Betty did not answer for a moment. Molly never could enter into all her thoughts. She viewed life so differently; she was so placidly content with all that came in her way that it was impossible to ruffle her. But Betty tried hard to defend herself from the charge of conceit, and in the end, as we have seen, she judged retirement the wisest course to pursue. Now, unlocking her door, she presented two flushed cheeks, bright eyes, and an untidy head of hair.
"Does mother want me? I'll come at once. Molly dear, I didn't mean to be cross."
Mrs. Stuart looked at her as she entered the room, much in the same way as she had looked at Molly, but there was not the same satisfaction in her eyes.
Betty was not considered a beauty. Many found her interesting, but she owed her chief charm to her expression, and that varied from moment to moment in a bewildering and thoroughly inexplicable fashion. She was tall and graceful, her quick, impulsive movements were never awkward; her little curly head and dark speaking eyes were nearly always in motion; but many wondered at the wistful curves of her sensitive lips, the sadness that seemed to peep out so unexpectedly from under her long curled eyelashes.
"An untamed soul," her mother would say, shone out of its environment.
Would fashion, love, or religion tame it?
Betty was an interesting study to her mother,—little more.
"Did you want me, mother?" she asked; and Betty was too full of her own thoughts to enquire how the invalid was. Mrs. Stuart noticed the omission.
"Yes, I want you. Sit down. Dr. Forsyth wishes me to leave town at once."
"And go abroad?" asked Molly.
"No; he wants me to have perfect quiet and seclusion; to vegetate, in fact, if I can manage to do it. And he suggests a country farmhouse out of the beaten track. I think I must let him have his way, but where to go I know not. And then I am wondering about you girls: whether to take you with me, or leave you with your Aunt Dora."
"Aunt Dora is not going to be in town this season," said Molly quickly. "She is going to Switzerland. I met her out yesterday, and she told me so."
"Of course," said Mrs. Stuart, "if you go to Mrs. Railley, she would be delighted to keep you for a couple of months; but Dr. Forsyth wants me to try six months of quiet."
"Oh, mother, let us go into the country with you!" said Betty eagerly. "It will be delicious to get away from everybody for a time."
"Of course we must go with you," said Molly more quietly. "We could not think of letting you go alone."
"I shall put my veto against a farmhouse," said Mrs. Stuart; "I could find a small furnished house, I suppose—perhaps a vicarage. Farmhouses are generally uncomfortable except in the height of summer, when one is able to spend all one's time out of doors."
"Do you remember, Molly," said Betty, turning eagerly to her sister, "that delightful farm we went to when we were quite small? Did it not belong to some of nurse's relations?"
"You mean where the Fairfaxes used to live? Of course I remember it; but mother doesn't wish for a farmhouse."
"Perhaps the Fairfaxes' house may be to let," said Betty. "Mrs. Fairfax was trying to let it before she went abroad with Grace."
"You might ask Turnbull," said Mrs. Stuart musingly; "she always corresponds with nurse. I do not mind where we go, so long as we are comfortable."
Molly left the room to make enquiries of their housekeeper, who had been with them for many years. Betty got up from her seat and began to pace the room restlessly. Then she turned and confronted her mother.
"Mother, need I go with Molly to Mrs. Thorn's 'At Home,' this afternoon?"
"Why should you not? I forget who is going to take you. Mrs. Sinclair, is she not?"
"Yes; but I shall not be missed. We have been to so many lately. I am tired of them."
"Is that your only reason?"
A rich colour dyed Betty's cheeks, making her look very handsome.
"Hugh Sinclair is going," she said, with downcast eyes; "and he bothers so."
There was silence. Mrs. Stuart's eyebrows contracted slightly.
"Some months ago you and Hugh were inseparable. Have you quarrelled?"
"Not exactly."
Betty's tone was hesitating. She always found it difficult to talk freely to her mother.
"If you cannot confide in me, I cannot help you," said Mrs. Stuart, a little stiffly.
"I did like Hugh as a—a friend," stammered Betty; "but I don't want him as a husband, and—and he won't take 'No' from me."
"When did he speak to you definitely?"
"Just when you were first taken ill. He says I don't know my own mind, and that he will wait till I change it."
"Do you know your own mind?" asked Mrs. Stuart. "Hugh must notice, as we all do, how many moods you have. Your 'friendship'—as you express it—with him, has been very marked. I do not wonder at his mistaking your feelings towards him."
Betty felt her mother's censure keenly. Then she threw up her head with a little defiance.
"It is very hard that I cannot enjoy being with one of Douglas's old schoolfellows whom I have known since he was a boy, without people talking. That is why I shall be thankful to get into the country."
"May I ask why Hugh is objectionable to you? He is a steady young fellow, with good prospects."
Betty hesitated again.
"He isn't my idea of a man," she said confusedly. "He won't think deeply on any subject; he laughs at everything, and only goes with the stream."
"You require a genius to content you," said Mrs. Stuart, with a smile that was tinged with sarcasm. "Women who go through life with ideals are seldom satisfied. They are like the dog who snapped at the shadow, and lost his bone."
"I think I could live without a bone," said Betty hotly.
"We will not discuss it any more. If you are quite certain of your own mind, stay at home this afternoon, and be more careful in future in your behaviour toward young men."
Betty slipped out of the room with burning cheeks and tearful eyes.
"I wish I could be coldly pleasant like Molly," she said to herself. "I talk too fast, and laugh too much, and then I am sorry afterwards. I shall be thankful to be away from Hugh, and everybody else. I know mother is displeased with me. I think she would like me married and done for. I never seem to please her. But I won't—oh, I won't be married to a man without a soul!"
She went into the library and seated herself at a small organ there. It had been a birthday gift to her from her great friend Nesta St. Clair, who was now in India with her husband. If there was one thing of which Betty was passionately fond, it was music. It soothed and satisfied her as nothing else did; and as Mrs. Stuart listened to the distant strains of passionate melody, now flooding the library, she gave a little sigh, saying,—
"I wish she were settled in a home of her own."
CHAPTER II
An Old Friend
I cannot but remember such things were,
That were most precious to me.
Macbeth.
BETTY stood on a green lawn surrounded by a tangled belt of shrubs and trees. It was a fresh bright spring morning. Blackbirds and thrushes were lifting up their sweet voices in song; the scent of primroses and other spring flowers was in the air, which had that intoxicating life-giving effect that a bright May morning only can give.
Betty glanced at the old vicarage which for the time had become her home. It was a low long grey stone building with casement windows and thatched roof. The walls were covered with creepers—jasmine and clematis, roses and wisteria, vied with one another in clustering round the windows; low beds of daffodils and narcissus edged the gravel walk. The lilacs and laburnums lightened a somewhat dark shrubbery. Between the sprouting chestnuts and elms at the end of the drive peeped the old church tower. Betty glanced at one window darkened by closed shutters. It was only nine o'clock. Her mother was not up. Molly and she had had an early breakfast, and Molly was now making acquaintance with store cupboards and pantries. For the next hour or two she was free; for who would stay indoors to watch their maids unpacking, when the young world outside was so entrancing? Not Betty. She danced over the lawn and down the drive with a song on her lips and in her heart.
"Oh, it is lovely! Lovely! And this is only the beginning of it!"
They had arrived the night before. It had not taken long to formulate their plans and carry them out. And, strangely enough, a vicarage had been found in the very place that Betty had proposed visiting again. The vicar had a delicate wife, and had taken her abroad, leaving his parish to the care of his curate, who lodged in the very farmhouse that the little Stuarts had visited when children.
Betty opened the little wicket-gate that led into the churchyard, pausing as a flood of memories came rushing uppermost. How little changed it was! Perhaps smaller than she remembered it, and more crowded with green graves; the rooks on the top of the old elms did not seem quite so near to heaven as they did in days gone by. When she opened the heavy oak door, and found herself inside the darkened church, it seemed a little dustier and stuffier than it used to be. But when she made her way with soft footsteps up the aisle and saw again the monument of little Violet Russell, it did not disappoint her. The pure, sweet outline of the small figure was all that could be desired, and though the afternoon sun was not streaming through the stained window above, the light seemed to gather round the beautiful bit of sculpture, and make it stand out conspicuously in its dusky surroundings.
Memory took Betty back to when she had her first vision of it, and she smiled when she thought of how much it had meant to her. She looked up at the window, and at the group of little children clustering round their Saviour's knee. A shadow passed over her sensitive face.
"I almost wish I were a child again," she said. "I was so sure then of His love."
She turned and made her way to the organ, that organ which under the influence of Nesta Fairfax's fingers had sent away a little child sobbing her heart out with unexpressed longing. To her delight she found it unlocked.
"Oh, I wish I could get a blower! I will try. I must see if I can make it sound as it used to do in my ears."
She left the church hastily, and entered the nearest cottage. A fresh-faced young woman was cleaning up her kitchen.
"A blower, miss?" she said in reply to Betty's request. "I hardly know if there's any one free. The boys and girls be to school, the lads at work. The schoolmaster plays on a Sunday, and his eldest boy do blow for him."
"Is there no old man?" asked Betty. "Is the old sexton still alive? I used to know him when I was a child."
"Bless ye, miss, old Reuben be dead this ten year. 'Tis John Smith be the sexton now, an' he be one of Farmer Gadd's hands at present. Wonder now if Mat Lubbock might oblige ye? He be quite blind from a blasting mishap, and he be a strong fellow too. He works at baskets and such like; but there be not much call for 'em, and he idles away most o' his days. He be just comin' down the road, miss. Would you like to put it to him?"
Betty stepped out into the road, and met the man described. He was a fine, strong-looking fellow, with a powerful face, but an unpleasant smile came to his lips when Betty made her request.
"Church be not much in my line, mum. It and I be as far as east from west. 'Tis all rotted foolery; an' I don't care who hears me say it!"
The fierceness with which he uttered the last sentence startled Betty. For a moment she felt inclined to give it up; then her beloved music conquered.
"I should be so grateful if you could oblige me this once," she said sweetly. "I will not keep you long."
Mat tapped his stick impatiently on the road. Then he said, in a surly tone,—
"If you be put about this mornin' for some 'un, I'll oblige ye, but never agen!"
"Thank you!" said Betty with delight. "Can you follow me? Do you know the way?"
"I should be a born fool if I didn't," was the gruff retort. "I were bell-ringer for eight year or more."
"That was before your accident?"
"You're right there! Not likely I'd give a helpin' hand after! I'd cut the cursed bells wi' pleasure if I could. Don't know which be worst, the parson's clapper or theirn! I go two mile every Sunday to get out o' hearin' o' them!"
Betty could think of nothing to say to this character. She judged that it was his trouble that had made him bitter. He followed her into church without another word, groped his way up to the organ, and began to blow with dogged energy.
Betty was soon lost in her music. She was delighted with the full sweet tone of the instrument, and woke up with a start at last, to find that she had been playing nearly an hour.
She apologised to her blower; but he cut her short, and tramped out of the church muttering as he did so,—
"I'll never do it agen!"
And Betty sauntered back to the house, a happy light shining in her eyes. She stood for a moment gazing again at the green meadows and woods in the distance, and then at the fresh foliage around her. Then her gaze went upwards to the blue sky above.
"It is 'so' beautiful!" she murmured. "I shall never feel discontented here."
Mrs. Stuart adapted herself with great ease to her quiet surroundings. She would lie on the couch in the vicarage drawing-room by the open window, with her books and correspondence by her side. Sometimes she would take a short walk round the old-fashioned garden leaning on Molly's arm. In the evenings after dinner the girls would play and sing to her, or read aloud from the current periodicals of the day. A few days after their arrival the curate called. He was a thin, nervously strung man of scholarly tastes. Mrs. Stuart found him a ready and appreciative listener; and he was fascinated and charmed by the society of a well-read, cultured woman. They gradually dropped into discursive arguments, which wearied and bored Molly, but which interested Betty. She would sit in the recess of the farthest window, and listen eagerly to the conversation.
One evening they were talking about the laws of compensation.
"I believe our joys and sorrows are pretty equally divided," said Mr. Benson. "I grant you that some appear to suffer more than others, but if their life—the inner one as well as the outer one—were to be mapped out before us, we should see they had their enjoyments in proportion. Those who have the greatest capacity for trouble have also the greatest capacity for joy. The deepest natures feel the most."
Mrs. Stuart shook her head.
"You do not see the pathos and tragedy of life in these small country villages. Your country people live in a placid happy groove. It is the starving panting struggling population of our big towns that experience the full burden and toil of life. I have cases before me of two generations reared and bred in dogged sullen misery, Ishmaels—every one's hand raised against them; hopelessness and helplessness written on the features of the tiny children, hatred of all, and bitterness against their fate, on the features of their elders."
"I have only been curate here for five years, and yet in this tiny village alone, amongst those who appear to you to live in a placid happy groove, I have buried three who literally died of broken hearts. I could count five on my fingers who carry about with them a load too heavy to speak about; and there is not a single family which has been exempt from trouble in some shape or form.
"One poor man I have on my heart at present. He was our village Hercules—as handsome a fellow as you could wish to see. He married the sweetest girl in the neighbourhood, and had a baby boy he worshipped. He was a mason, and in superintending some blasting operations one day was blinded in an explosion. His wife, in bad health at the time, received such a shock when he was carried home to her that she died within twenty-four hours from the effects of it. When he recovered his health, he devoted himself more than ever to his boy.
"One day he took him down to the river with him. The child fell in, and though the father dashed after him, he failed to rescue him, owing to his blindness. He used to be one of our bell-ringers, and a regular communicant, now I cannot get him to enter the church. He cannot see the mercy of God in his affliction. It has embittered and spoiled his life."
"Poor man!" said Mrs. Stuart. "His is a sad case. I see you believe that trouble is equally distributed."
"And joys also," Mr. Benson said, a light coming over his face.
But Betty listened no more. She slipped out of the room with unshed tears glistening in her eyes.
"Oh, poor man!" she repeated. "Poor man! How I wish I could comfort him! How I should love to be somebody's comforter! But I feel it must be the most difficult thing in the world to do. Sympathy isn't comfort, though a good many people think it is. If you cannot alter the facts of trouble—the cause of it, I suppose I mean—you cannot comfort."
Betty's heart seemed weighed down by another's sorrow as she walked in the evening sunshine along the garden paths. Life was full of perplexities to her at present. Shadows were continually crossing her sensitive little soul, but they only served to make the sunshine brighter when it came.
The next day was Sunday. Molly and she went to church together, and their fair fresh young faces attracted much attention amongst the village congregation. Betty enjoyed everything—the music, the service, the sermon, and her surroundings. There was an open window close to her, and a blackbird sang with his whole heart from a lilac-bush outside. The song and the scent of the lilac sent a throb of joy through her. If, as Molly expressed it, little things upset her, little things also delighted her, and she came out of church in radiant spirits.
At the gate Molly stopped to give a message to Mr. Benson from her mother.
Betty went out into the green lane, and began picking some budding hawthorn from the hedge. Hearing steps behind her, she looked up, and confronted a tall, grey-haired man. The colour rushed into her cheeks; though it was many years since she had seen him, his face was engraved on her memory. Impulsively she put out her hand.
"I am sure you must be Mr. Russell."
For an instant he looked astonished, as he raised his hat.
"Ah," said Betty, with a little droop in her smiling lips, "I have been forgotten. You do not remember me. I saw you in London the year after we were at the farm, and that must be quite fourteen years ago."
A light came into Mr. Russell's eyes.
"Surely you cannot be little Betty Stuart? And yet you must be. Your eyes have not changed."
He was shaking her warmly by the hand, and enquired how she came to that part again.
Betty told him briefly. He listened to her rather dreamily.
"Fourteen years seem such a little bit of my life," he said. "But it is such a big piece in yours. It seems only the other day that my sweet little child friend was here, stealing into the life of an embittered man, and softening and charming him by her quaint earnestness of sympathy and purpose. Now she is no more. She is dead and gone. A fragrant memory is all that is left me."
Betty felt rather embarrassed.
"You only liked the child," she said, somewhat wistfully; "I cannot count upon your friendship now?"
He looked at her, and a smile came to his lips.
"My mind must be readjusted," he said. "But you are a fashionable young lady now. My Betty was always in cotton frocks and sun-bonnets. It will take time for the two to merge into one."
Betty laughed merrily. Then, in her most winning way, she laid her hand on his arm.
"I am your little friend still, if you will have me; and though I have grown, I really do not feel so very different from what I did when I was here before."
"'The little odd one,'" said Mr. Russell musingly, as he looked her up and down.
"And I feel 'odd' still," asserted Betty stoutly. "Quite 'odd' enough to be very disappointed that one of my old friends is looking at me so disapprovingly."
Mr. Russell smiled again.
"You are fast stealing your way back into that old man's preserves. Is your mother well enough to receive visitors? May I come and renew my very slight acquaintance with her?"
"I am sure she will be very pleased to see you," said Betty, in a sedate tone; then, turning to Molly, who was approaching them, she said,—
"Molly, do you remember Mr. Russell when we were at Brook Farm with nurse that summer? I have had to introduce myself, for he did not know me."
"We looked for you in church," said Molly, smiling as she shook hands; "but as we were seated in the very front pew, it was difficult to see anybody. I don't think I should have recognised you; but then you were always Betty's friend, not mine."
"And what has become of your brother, the sturdy pickle? And the two roly-poly boys who always followed his lead?"
"Oh, Douglas is in the army. He is in the Artillery, and went to India last autumn. Bobby and Billy are both middies now. They are still inseparable, and have had the good fortune to get appointed to the same ship, which is cruising about the Mediterranean at present. Betty and I feel very dull without the boys. Do come and see mother, Mr. Russell! She is an invalid at present, but not too ill to see friends. We are at the vicarage. I think mother will be wondering where we are, Betty. We must go."
Molly moved away with a sweet grace, and Betty followed her a little reluctantly.
"Do you ever wish yourself a child again, Molly?" she asked, as they walked up the vicarage drive together.
"No," said Molly decidedly; "grown-up people are much more interesting. There are so many possibilities for them. Children have such a narrow outlook."
Betty did not answer. She had expected a great deal from this meeting with her old friend, and she had found it distinctly disappointing.
"I think people liked me better as a child than they do now," she mused, a little sadly. "I expect I have grown up very uninteresting. I don't seem to make half so many friends as Molly does."
Mrs. Stuart expressed herself quite willing to see Mr. Russell when he called.
"I remember him," she said; "for his sculpture was in the Academy for some years. Did he not take you as his model, Betty?"
"Yes," said Molly; "with her dog. Don't you remember, Betty? Have you been to see his grave? I wonder if it has been touched, or whether it is still at Brook Farm. We ought to go and see Mrs. Giles, ought we not?"
"I mean to go this afternoon," said Betty decidedly.
"You had better not go alone," said her mother. "I shall be lying down for an hour or two, and shall want neither of you."
So a little later the two girls walked down to the old farm, and were welcomed delightedly by Mrs. Giles.
"Us have often talked of you—John and me—but really you have grown such grand young leddies, I can hardly believe you be the fly-away children us had here so many year ago! Miss Molly, I might aknowed you, for your face be the same sweet smiling one, but Miss Betty she do look different. I mind her little dark curly head, and her mischievous ways, and the way she were wrapped up in that poor little dog of hern!—Yes, Miss Betty, his grave is still in the orchard, and 'tis a beautiful ornament. Many's the gentry that I've taken to see it, and they all do say that for a stone dog it be wonderful life-like!"
She led the way into the orchard as she spoke; and Betty was soon standing on the spot that was associated with the biggest tragedy in her child life. She looked at the rusty iron railing and the little stone monument with pathetic interest.
"How do you feel?" Molly asked, with a little mischief in her eyes. "I remember you said you were broken-hearted at the time, but it seems a very small sorrow now, doesn't it?"
"I suppose it does—comparatively," Betty admitted slowly; "but I haven't forgotten it."
She stayed there after Molly had wandered away round the flower garden with Mrs. Giles; and her thoughts went backwards with a bound.
"What a funny little thing I was! How important and grand I felt, in spite of all my broken-heartedness, when I was told it was my bit of tribulation! How near heaven I felt then! As if I were quite fit and ready to be translated at once! I don't feel half so near it now, and yet I want to be. I don't know what I want exactly, but I'm not satisfied, my life seems so empty. Molly is so entirely content. When she isn't occupied with her own love-affairs, she is quite absorbed with inventing some for her heroines. And she and mother are all in all to each other. I wonder if there is a corner for everybody in this world, for somehow I don't think I have found mine!"
She gave herself a little shake presently, which was a trick of hers, saying to herself as she ran away to find Molly,—
"I will 'not' be always thinking about myself and my feelings!"
And she chattered away to Mrs. Giles so merrily for the rest of the time that they were there, that that worthy woman remarked to her husband afterwards,—
"They be two beauties, John, but Miss Betty be as giddy as ever she were, her tongue have the same saucy turn to it, and her eyes be twinkling with mischief all the while. 'Tis Miss Molly that will take the prize, I'm thinking. Her voice and smile be just queenly!"
CHAPTER III
A Strange Encounter
Deep grief is better let alone;
Voices to it are swords.
FABER.
"MOLLY, Molly! Where are you?"
"Here—in the study. What do you want? Oh, Betty, what a noise! You will disturb mother. She is lying down."
"How can you stay in this stuffy little room when it's so lovely out of doors? I have had a little adventure, and I must tell it to some one!"
Betty had jumped in at the low window with a light bound. Her hat was at the back of her head, her curls were flying in disorder over her forehead. She looked flushed and excited, and threw herself into an easy-chair with a little sigh.
Molly was bending over her beloved story. This was her time, when her mother was resting, to pour forth on paper all the pretty thoughts and fancies of her imaginative brain.
She was not best pleased at Betty's interruption.
"I suppose you have met some one, or picked some wonderful flower. It can't be anything very exciting."
"It was dreadful!" Betty said, clasping her little hands over her face, and blushing at the remembrance of it. "Listen, Molly,—now you shall listen to me, if I have to throw your manuscript into the fire!"
Molly hastily closed her writing-case, as Betty came towards her.
"I am listening, so make haste," she said, leaning back in her chair with patient resignation.
Betty swung herself up on the table by her sister's side, and sat there with a mixture of seriousness and fun gleaming out of her eyes.
"I was taking a walk in the direction of Holly Grange, and I climbed a hill, and skirted a plantation, coming out into a sunny field overlooking such a lovely bit of country! A delightful old red manor house peeped out between some trees, the river—a silver streak of light—wound along at the foot of some blue hills."
"Oh, do stop your scenery, and get on to your adventure!" interrupted Molly.
"I am coming to it, only you have quite spoilt my description. I climbed a low hedge at the corner of the field, to get a better view; and there, lying by a sheltered bank, was the body of a man!"
Molly's eyes were open now.
"Not a dead man? I suppose he was drunk."
"He lay quite motionless, and I stood still staring at him for a minute, and then I was filled with horror, for I thought he might have shot himself by accident, or been murdered; and, without thinking, I rushed up to him, and laid my hand on his shoulder, and asked him if he was hurt."
"Well?"
For Betty had paused, and her eyes looked troubled.
"He sprang to his feet, Molly, so suddenly, that I sprang away from him. He wasn't a bit hurt."
Molly laughed.
"You must have looked sillies, both jumping away from each other! I wish I had seen you!"
"Oh, it isn't anything to laugh at! I felt so ashamed of myself, for when he looked at me I saw he was in deep trouble. I don't think I ever saw such misery on any one's face before. He looked as if he had been having an awful fight with himself. His face was knotted and lined, and his eyes full of despair."
Molly's laugh died away. She was interested now.
"Go on," she said. "What did he say?"
"He only looked in my direction for a moment, then he wheeled round, raised his hat, and walked away haughtily. I just caught his words: 'I am perfectly well, thanks!' And oh, Molly, I felt so ashamed of intruding upon him at such a time, and I do feel so sorry for him!"
"What was he like?"
"A tall, good-looking man—not very young—he was in a grey suit of clothes and brown leggings. I only saw his face for a minute—dark eyes—I think. But wouldn't you have been overwhelmed with confusion if you had been in my place?"
"I never get myself into such awkward predicaments," said Molly. "I shouldn't have dreamt of going up and taking hold of a strange man asleep on the grass!"
"But he wasn't asleep. And I thought he was hurt; I couldn't have passed him by. It would have been heartless!"
"You might have called out to him, before you went up to him. I should have asked him the way somewhere, to be sure whether he was alive or dead!"
"Oh, of course you would have done the proper thing! I never do, and—and I'm glad I don't!"
Betty dashed out of the room, slamming the door after her as she went.
Molly put her hands up to her ears.
"I wish she were not so vehement. I think this stranger must be rather interesting. I will put him into my book. A kind of Byron, perhaps. Dark and bitter and passionate, and scorned by the one he loves!"
Betty was by this time in her bedroom leaning her elbows on her window-sill, and looking out with dreamy eyes into the sunny garden below.
"I wish I knew who he was! His hands were clenched as he got up. He looked at me in that one glance as if he hated me. He must have been angry to be found like that. He looked a proud man, and I expect he came out and away from everybody, on purpose to give vent to his feelings. I wonder if he has a wife,—if he has quarrelled with her! I should know him again anywhere. Oh, dear, why is it that even in this sweet country trouble seems to come upon people? It is only the flowers and birds that are really happy, and even they—if I knew it, I expect—have their troubles. I shall go into church and play. It will take my thoughts away from disagreeable things!"
She ran lightly downstairs again, and, softly singing to herself, made her way down the village lane to look for a blower. She came to a standstill when she saw Mat Lubbock smoking his pipe and leaning over a stile.
"I will try him again," she thought; "it won't hurt me if he refuses."
So, in her pretty winning tones, she asked him if he would oblige her once again.
"There be plenty o' lads in the village without askin' of me," he said in a gruff tone.
"Yes, but I like you best. You are so strong. I am always afraid of tiring the little boys; and they sometimes blow so jerkily."
"I'll oblige ye this once," said Mat, taking his pipe out of his mouth and tapping it against the wooden bar upon which he leant; "but never agen, mind ye!"
"Not until next time," Betty murmured under her breath, with a twinkle of amusement in her eye.
Then the two walked off to the church together, and in a minute soft strains were rising and falling, and Betty's face and eyes were shining with a happy light. An hour went by, and still she sat there until the church clock striking, reminded her of the time. Then she finished by singing Gounod's "King of Love."
Mat's face in his corner worked strangely as her sweet joyous notes rang out,—
"'The King of love my Shepherd is,
Whose goodness faileth never;
I nothing lack if I am His,
And He is mine, for ever.'"
When the last words had died away, Betty, in the fulness of her heart, spoke to him,—
"Aren't those delicious words, Mat? I love them. They always cure my restless, discontented feelings. 'I nothing lack if I am His!' If I could feel that through every hour of the day! Not only when I sing them in church!"
"There be very few who be lackin' nothin'!" said Mat in his gruffest tone.
"I suppose," said Betty, with a wistful look in her eyes, "there are very few who can say those words that follow,—
"'I am His, and He is mine, for ever.'"
Mat did not reply, but tramped down the side aisle with one of his most sullen looks. Then, as Betty softly followed him, he suddenly turned round and, planting his back against the church door, delivered his mind.