PLANTING HIS BACK AGAINST THE CHURCH DOOR,
MAT DELIVERED HIS MIND.
"A young leddy, as you be, may well sit down and sing them pretty fancical words. Ye know nought of sin nor grief nor wrong; ye may patter on about the loving Shepherd and the pastures, an' havin' comfort through death's darkness. It be a meaningless thing to ye, arter all said and done. I tell ye, missy, if you had bin treated by the God ye sings such nice things of, as He have treated me, you wouldn't be so ready to sing His praises! A good Shepherd! A King of Love! He be a cruel Tyrant, to my thinkin'!"
"Oh, hush, hush, Mat! How can you speak so in God's house? But I've heard of your troubles, and I do feel so sorry for you."
She put her little hand on his arm, and looked up at him with tears in her eyes. Then she said,—
"When I was a little girl I used to long for trouble, for I thought that all God's people must have it; I never dreamt then that trouble would keep people away from God; I thought it must bring them closer to Him. I believe God means it to do so still. But, as you say, I have no experience, so I cannot talk to you. Only I was thinking as I was singing that verse,—
"'Perverse and foolish oft I strayed,
But yet in love He sought me,'—
"that we shall never see God's love in anything in our lives, if our backs are turned to it. We stray on away from it, and perhaps some of our troubles are our own making. If you turned right round, Mat, you would meet the love that is following you. You never will see it so long as your back is turned to it."
Mat made no reply. He opened the door and went out.
It was astonishing to Betty how easily he felt his way along with his stick. She called out a "Good afternoon" to him, but he did not answer.
As she went up the drive she sang again,—
"'I nothing lack if I am His,
And He is mine, for ever.'"
And the words reached Mat's ear, and a heavy sigh escaped him.
Tea was in the drawing-room when Betty came in, and a visitor; Mr. Russell was seated by the window talking to Mrs. Stuart.
"Ah," he said, rising and taking Betty's hand in his; "here is my little friend. I am not going to make a stranger of her, Mrs. Stuart. I am going to take up my friendship with her where I left off. And she must adopt no young lady airs and graces with me, for I will have none of them."
He spoke playfully, and Betty answered him in the same spirit.
"I promise you to put on a white sun-bonnet and holland gown the next time you call. And I am quite sure I shall enjoy a drive in your high dog-cart now as much as I used to do."
"Which means I must take you for a drive. When will you come? To-morrow?"
"If mother can spare me," said Betty demurely.
"Oh yes," Mrs. Stuart replied; "Molly will be here. It will be very kind of you, Mr. Russell."
Conversation turned on other topics. Then a certain Gerald Arundel was mentioned, whom Mrs. Stuart knew in town, and who was now living at the Red Manor near.
"I remember his maiden speech in the House," Mrs. Stuart said; "my husband thought a great deal of it, and he often dined with us. He was interested in philanthropy, and was very strong on the Temperance Question. I always thought him a particularly well-read, cultured man, and wondered that he so soon sank into obscurity."
"It was his mother's doing. She was an irascible old lady, who quarrelled with the land agents so often, that no one could be got to stay. The property became hopelessly involved, and the only thing was for Gerald to come home and turn agent himself. He gave up his seat at the following election; said he could not work both—and I think he was right. Mrs. Arundel died two years ago. But Gerald has lost his taste for London life. He always was devoted to his home, and he is still full of philanthropic schemes for his tenants. It is a large property. I have known him since he was a boy, and I admire his grip and grit of purpose. Nothing daunts him."
"Is he married?"
"No; he spends his leisure time in his library, which is a very rare unique collection. His father, if you remember, was a great bookworm, and the son inherits his tastes."
"It is a good thing to have a hobby," remarked Mrs. Stuart. "I am always telling my girls to get a purpose into their lives. Something that will interest and occupy them if their surroundings should not be congenial. Half the misery in the world is caused through lack of occupation."
"And the other half through lack of rest," said Mr. Russell musingly.
"Molly has her hobby," said Betty impulsively; "but I haven't found mine yet."
Molly blushed as she met Mr. Russell's keen searching gaze.
"And what is it?" he asked her.
"I mean to write books," she said modestly.
Mrs. Stuart smiled at her favourite daughter.
"Molly has a riotous imagination," she said. "If that were all that is necessary for successful authorship, she would succeed. But, as I tell her, imagination may amuse or distract; it cannot uplift or instruct; and, to my mind, the world will never lack amusing books. I wish her a nobler pursuit."
"I don't feel I shall ever do anything grand or noble," said Molly. "I am sure I am not made for it."
She did not look crushed by her mother's criticism.
"And Betty is lacking in this gift of imagination?" said Mr. Russell enquiringly.
Betty laughed.
"I couldn't have the patience to wade through imaginary sorrows as Molly does. She makes herself miserable sometimes. I think it is quite wicked. It's like deliberately cutting a fly in half, and crying as you do it! Douglas used to do that when he was a small boy!"
"And so you have no hobbies?"
Betty shook her small head.
"I love playing the organ," she said; "but I seem to like something different every day. And then there are days that I like nothing. Mother says I'm undisciplined."
"I shall have to take you in hand," said Mr. Russell, smiling at her.
He lingered on, unwilling to leave the old-fashioned vicarage drawing-room, with the scent of roses in the air, the two young girls in their white dresses, and their mother with her graceful beauty. His artistic soul was satisfied with its environment.
When he left at last, Betty accompanied him down the drive. Stretching out her hand to a bush of pink roses, she gathered some, and put them into her belt.
"I wish it was sunshine and roses all the year round," she said enthusiastically. "Isn't early summer delicious, Mr. Russell? And isn't the country the place to live in, if you wish to be happy and good?"
"You would like to be a lotus-eater?" said Mr. Russell, shaking his head at her. "Don't wish to shirk the stern realities of life, Betty; your character will suffer if you do. Sunshine and roses do not brace and strengthen; they too often enervate. Women, as well as men, want adverse winds to prove the grit and purpose in them."
Betty's merry smile faded, her lips took a wistful curve.
"I haven't found the purpose of my life yet," she said, stealing a shy look up at her old friend through her long lashes. "I wonder if you will help me to discover it, Mr. Russell? Only—" here dimples and smiles appeared again—"don't tell me it is to be married!"
"Is that what most people tell you?"
"They infer it."
"And is it a fate that you despise? Have you developed into one of those young women who think a married life a state of slavery?"
"I don't think I have," said Betty demurely, "for that idea has never entered my mind. But I really hear so much about the subject in town that I am quite sick of it. Now I am in the country I mean to forget all about it. I want to fill my mind with other things."
"I will try to help you."
"Yes, please do. You're a man; your head isn't full of the nonsense that a girl's is! I want—oh, I want so much to have a full and happy life. Tell me what fills yours."
Betty looked so earnest and child-like in her unconventional speech, that Mr. Russell refrained from smiling. He was touched to the heart.
"My dear little friend," he said, "you came into my life many years ago when it was an empty one. You were the means of leading me to the source of true satisfaction and fulness. I would that I could help you now. I am sorry that your life is not a full one. You have everything in this world to make you happy—youth and health and strength, and, may I hope that you have not lost, what you possessed so strongly as a child, your faith in and love of God?"
Betty flushed with deep feeling.
"No, I haven't lost that, Mr. Russell, but I am doing no good to any one; and I get moody and discontented, and sometimes I'm enchanted with everybody and everything, and then I hate them all just as heartily! And I'm not a bit good. I don't think I ever was. I always long to be, but I can never manage it. There now, I've made you my father confessor! Now what are you going to say to me?"
They were standing by the gate at the end of the drive, and Betty raised mischievous eyes to Mr. Russell's face. In spite of the fun sparkling in them, he saw they were trembling with unshed tears.
"I will keep my lecture for another day," he said lightly.
Betty dropped a little curtsey.
"Thank you, sir."
Then she gave him her hand.
"Good-bye; and next time you will see me in a white sun-bonnet!"
She tripped away singing, "'I know a bank whereon the wild thyme grows;'" and Mr. Russell walked home feeling that, in spite of years, growth, and change, Betty was Betty still, with her quick-silvery transition of mood and thought.
CHAPTER IV
Rose Songs
That music breathes all through my spirit,
As the breezes blow through a tree;
And my soul gives light as it quivers,
Like moons on a tremulous sea.
New passions are wakened within me,
New passions that have not a name
Dim truths that I knew but as phantoms
Stand up clear and bright in the flame.
And my soul is possessed with yearnings
Which make my life broaden and swell;
And I hear strange things that are soundless,
And I see the invisible.
FABER.
IT was an exquisite evening. Mrs. Stuart lay on her couch by the open window. Molly was seated on a low chair, gazing out into the dusky garden. Her hands were idly clasped in her lap, and her blue eyes were filled with dreaminess and content. Bowls of roses—pink, crimson, and white—scented the room with their fragrance. At the piano sat Betty; an old-fashioned silver lamp above her threw its soft light upon her small dark curly head, her eager sensitive face, and her slight graceful little figure. She was singing, and singing in one of her most pathetic moods. Her voice thrilled to the soul, one unseen hearer outside.
"'Where blooms, O my father, a thornless rose?'
'That can I not tell thee, my child;
Not one on the bosom of earth ever grows
But wounds whom its charms have beguiled.'
"'Would I'd a rose on my bosom to lie,
But I shrink from the piercing thorn:
I long, but I dare not its point defy;
I long, and I gaze forlorn.'
"'Not so, O my child; round the stem again
Thy resolute fingers entwine;
Forego not the joy for its sister, pain—
Let the rose, the sweet rose, be thine.'"
Steps on the gravel made themselves heard as her voice died away.
And then Mr. Russell's voice broke upon them,—
"Mrs. Stuart, may we come in? This is very unceremonious, but Arundel has been dining with me, and the night is such a lovely one that we have been tempted out for a stroll. Let me introduce him to you—but you have met before."
The two men stepped in through the open French window. Mrs. Stuart welcomed them gladly. She missed the constant intercourse with her acquaintances in town, and always enjoyed a chat with Betty's old friend.
Betty rose from the piano with a pretty flush of pleasure on her cheeks, as she shook hands with Mr. Russell.
"You are not to leave the piano," he said. "We have been enjoying your music outside. We saw a little white figure surrounded by roses in a pale light, and we stood still to watch and listen, only half believing that she was real flesh and blood. No! Please, Mrs. Stuart, do not ring for lights. May we sit in the dusk and listen to another song? And let it be about roses still, Betty, only let us forget they have thorns."
Betty turned over the leaves of her music irresolutely.
"I have not many songs about roses, Mr. Russell," she said. Then, sitting down again, she sang,—
"'It was peeping through the brambles—
That little wild white rose,
Where the hawthorn hedge was planted,
My garden to enclose.
All beyond was fern or heather
On the breezy open moor;
All within was sun and shelter
And the wealth of beauty's store.
But I did not heed the fragrance
Of floweret or of tree,
For my eyes were on that rosebud,
And it grew too high for me.'
"'In vain I strove to reach it,
Through the tangled mass of green—
It only smiled and nodded
Behind its thorny screen.
Yet through that summer morning
I lingered near the spot;
Oh I why do things look sweeter
If we possess them not?
My garden buds were blooming,
But all that I could see
Was that mocking little white rose,
Hanging—just too high for me!'"
"Thank you, Betty," said Mr. Russell, as she shut up her music and came away from the piano. "You are bent upon teaching us to-night the undesirability of taking possession of roses. We must look at them, but they are not to be ours."
"A high standard ensures a high aim," said Gerald Arundel. "An easy possession is apt to be despised."
He had a pleasant, mellow voice, and as Molly turned up a lamp in her corner, which shed its light full in his face, Betty started violently. Where had she seen him before? Surely this calm, self-assured man was not the same whom she had seen in the full violence of emotion in that quiet field corner a few days before! Yet even in that short glimpse she had had of him, his face was too riveted on her memory ever to be forgotten. She sat down by Molly, and listened to the conversation without taking part in it.
"You would not sit down contented with that singer's conclusion," said Mr. Russell, smiling—"that it is 'just too high for me'?"
Gerald's eyes looked mirthful.
"There are always ladders," he said, "to everything!"
"But forbidden fruit is best not touched," said Mrs. Stuart.
"It depends on who forbids it."
"Arundel has the fighting element in him," said Mr. Russell. "I often tell him that his blood will cool with age."
"We want combativeness," said Mrs. Stuart, smiling; "I think the sin of our age is easy indifference."
"Yes; combativeness on the side of right is good, but not combativeness with fate."
"What is fate?"
"I will not use that word, for I do not believe in it. With what Providence ordains for us."
"Our circumstances, you mean? Do you preach the gospel of resignation, Mr. Russell, to all things that befall us? I must allow that I cannot tolerate those who drift with every wind that blows. I am on Mr. Arundel's side. The greater the difficulties, the more effort I should make to overcome them. I do not like that word 'Providence.' It is made use of to excuse laziness and indifference."
"I have expressed myself badly," said Mr. Russell. "I quite agree that easy acquiescence to whatever comes to us, without any effort to remedy the evil, is cowardly and weak. But there is a crisis in men's lives sometimes, when it is useless to fight with the inevitable."
"Your argument is, to fight till you know you are conquered, and then make the best you can of your defeat?"
It was Gerald Arundel who spoke, but he spoke as a man in a dream.
"Come," said Mrs. Stuart lightly, "let us leave arguments alone. Mr. Arundel, tell me what you have been doing since I saw you last."
"That seems a long time ago. I do not think I have been idle."
He drew up a chair to her, and was soon deep in many philanthropic subjects which seemed as dear to his heart as to hers.
Mr. Russell turned to the girls.
"When are you coming over to see me?" he said. "Betty, I want you to sit for me again. Will you?"
"I don't know," she said, a little mischievously; "I have a vivid recollection of the torture I underwent when you made me lie down and pretend to be asleep. How I longed to move! And how frightened I felt if I so much as winked my eyelid! It is like an endless photo being taken. I am afraid I could not have the patience to sit still."
"But you could talk," said Mr. Russell; "and I fancy that would compensate for a good deal."
Betty laughed merrily. Gerald Arundel, catching the sound of her laugh, turned round for a minute, then went on with what he was saying.
"I chatter too much, don't I, Molly? My tongue is always getting me into hot water."
"You never think out what you're going to say before you say it," said Molly.
"Who does? Only prigs and preachers—and I hope I'm not that sort."
"Molly," said Mrs. Stuart, turning to her eldest daughter, "can you find me the last report I had of the S.P.S.H.? I want to show it to Mr. Arundel."
"What are those magic letters?" asked Mr. Russell, as Molly left the room in quest of the pamphlet.
"The Society for Promoting Self-Help," said Betty promptly.
"One of the best societies going," said Mrs. Stuart warmly. "I thoroughly approve of its principles. It is true charity to teach those in need to help themselves."
"Yes," said Gerald Arundel musingly; "but I have come across some who are absolutely helpless to help themselves."
"Are you sure? Such cases are few and far between. I want to show you how this society meets the needs of the most improbable cases. Even bedridden cripples have been taught to support themselves. And you do not feel, in supporting such a charity, that your money will be wasted or thrown away."
"I don't see that it is a charity at all, mother," said Betty, in her reckless fashion. "I would much rather help the poor in the good old-fashioned way. Every one is so dreadfully afraid nowadays of giving to the undeserving. It makes me always want to do it. I hate all these societies, made up with red-tape machinery! Feeling and sympathy and love are all wrong, they say. I'm sure the Bible doesn't tell us to help our neighbours through societies!"
"You are on the side of freedom, Miss Stuart," said Gerald Arundel, smiling. "But if you have had any experience in charity, you will know that indiscriminate almsgiving sometimes aggravates the misery that you are anxious to relieve."
"Yes, that is what mother says, and I know she must be right; but I do hate to be tied and bound down by rules and regulations, don't you?"
"Mr. Arundel has seen a little more of life than you have," said Mrs. Stuart pleasantly. "It is only a question of time, Betty; you want a wider view of life."
"But, mother, I think I take a wider view than you do."
"Of course you think so. All young people do."
Molly came in at that minute, and soon afterwards, the gentlemen took their leave.
But before they went, Gerald Arundel asked Mrs. Stuart to bring her daughters over with her to lunch with him one day.
"I should like you to see my library," he said. "I am sure you would enjoy it. It is almost a snare to me sometimes, for when I get inside it I become entirely engrossed, and forget the outside world altogether."
"Perhaps we might drive over one day when I feel a little stronger," said Mrs. Stuart. "I should like to come very much."
They went; and Betty watched them go down the drive with interest. Gerald Arundel was filling her mind and thoughts. She dwelt again on every word that she had heard him say. His tone of voice was light and pleasant; his grey-blue eyes had a frank, honest look in them, with an occasional twinkle of humour, which lightened up his naturally stern face. Nothing in his manner or conversation betrayed any secret passion or grief. Yet she could not forget the glimpse she had caught of him a short time before.
"He is not married," she said to herself. "He lives in that sweet old Red Manor House. He has everything that the world can give him. What can his trouble be? Was it only a passing feeling, I wonder? But his face looked so fiercely miserable. I wish I knew more about him. Perhaps Mr. Russell knows, and yet I would not tell any one for worlds. I shall not tell Molly that I have seen my unknown hero. She is putting him into her story already. I am sure that he did not recognise me, and that is one thing for which I am thankful!"
Down the drive, the two men were discussing their visit.
"Mrs. Stuart has changed very little since I last saw her. What a handsome woman she is!"
"Yes; and the girls take after her—only in a different style."
Gerald was silent; then he said,—
"Little Miss Betty is your favourite."
"She used to be as a child; I cannot quite get reconciled to the change in her, but she is a winsome little creature still. Molly is too sedate, too placid, to interest me much."
Another silence. Then Gerald spoke in a different tone.
"My fighting powers are at an end, Russell. I knew what you were driving at when you talked of being resigned to the inevitable. You were only continuing our conversation of a few days ago. I told you then that I was fighting what I hoped would prove a shadow, but it has turned into a very substantial foe, and I am worsted in the combat."
"I wish you would enlighten me a little."
"I can't. It is only a question of time, and then you will know fast enough."
"Then I can only assure you of my sympathy, and hope that the inevitable may prove a blessing."
Gerald gave a short hard laugh. Then he said,—
"You had better turn that into a prayer. You and I both believe in its power; but I tell you the powers of evil seem to have been let loose on my soul! I have not, I will not, lose my faith; but it has been tested to breaking point."
"Thank God it is not broken. Faith, to some, seems mere acquiescence in what they see and understand. True faith can only be tested in the dark, when sight and understanding have been swept away—when it has been strained to breaking point, and does not break!"
Gerald stood still and bared his head in the moonlight.
Mr. Russell noted his upward gaze, and the light that was reflected on his face from within seemed to match the soft chastened beams from without. It is good to watch the sunshine pour out from a human soul; it is better to see the impress of the peaceful silvery light that only comes in black darkness.
They walked on in silence; then Gerald spoke again,—
"I have been roused to-night by a quick, sweet vision of what might have been, and what can never be. Thank you for your words. They have helped me."
He began to talk of other things, and the deep earnestness that had vibrated in his tone died away. Gerald could be very good company when he chose. He struck his friend as being singularly light-hearted when they parted that night, and Mr. Russell said to himself as he turned into his lonely home,—
"He is young, and troubles will not vex him long. A good constitution, a hopeful disposition, and a firm belief in God above, will carry him through triumphantly."
But he would not have spoken so certainly if he had seen Gerald in his library that night.
Till the small hours of the morning he was pacing to and fro; his brows were knitted and his hands clenched, but his lips moved in prayer.
As the dawn broke, he flung open the window shutters, and leaning out, drew in with deep long breaths the dewy sweetness of the morning. And then a subtle fragrance stealing upwards took his thoughts back with a bound to a sweet little figure framed in roses, and a still sweeter voice.
He put his hand out of the window and plucked a small climbing rose, then a smile played about his eyes and lips, and he murmured,—
"'But all that I could see
Was that mocking little white rose,
Hanging—just too high for me!'"
CHAPTER V
The Red Manor
His home, the spot of earth supremely blest,
A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest.
J. MONTGOMERY.
ABOUT a week later, Mr. Russell drove Mrs. Stuart and the two girls to the Red Manor to lunch. Betty was very quiet, and her old friend rallied her on her loss of spirits.
But if her tongue was still, her eyes were busy. As they drove up an old chestnut drive, with long sweeps of green lawn on either side, she noted every tree and flowering shrub they passed. She felt an intense interest in the Red Manor and its master. She could not get him out of her thoughts. The house itself, with its Elizabethan turrets and gables, its casement windows, and glowing weather-beaten walls, charmed her.
Gerald was on the steps to welcome them, and by his side were two handsome deerhounds. As Betty glanced shyly at him, again she wondered if the past might have been a bad dream. He looked so strong, so self-contained, so free from anxious thought or care. He led them into a square hall which seemed abounding in antiquities, but withal had a very habitable and cosy look about it. Large pots of geraniums and hydrangeas lightened up its sombreness, and the sunshine streamed freely through an old stained window on the staircase. The drawing-room was rather stiff and decorous, but rare old china and paintings adorned its walls, and four large windows looked over an expanse of wooded park and hills.
They lunched in the dining-room, a handsome oak-panelled room, with family portraits hanging on its walls. Gerald was a delightful host, and though the conversation was carried on chiefly between Mrs. Stuart and himself, Betty and Molly enjoyed themselves thoroughly. Afterwards he took them to his library, and here Mrs. Stuart became completely absorbed in looking over the many rare and valuable works on the shelves.
"This is where I live," he said, smiling, as he turned to the girls. "If I had only this one room, I could be content for the rest of my life."
Mrs. Stuart looked up from a book of which she had taken possession.
"There is no sense of loneliness amongst books," she said.
"But it is a one-sided companionship," said impulsive Betty. "Books talk to me, but I can't talk back; that is what I should want—some one to talk to!"
"Don't you ever feel lonely here, Mr. Arundel?" asked Molly.
"I never have yet," he replied, passing his hand caressingly across some of his calf-bound favourites.
Then a shadow fell across his face.
"It is all part and parcel of my life. I have loved it too much. As a little chap at school I was a puzzle to many, because I would spend my holidays alone here, in preference to visiting some cousins of mine in London. That is one thing I shall look back to with thankfulness hereafter—that I made the best use of the opportunities that were given to me, of spending all the time I could here."
His tone vibrated with earnestness and feeling.
Again Betty wondered at his words. She wandered round the room whilst he and her mother pored over his books. One of the deerhounds followed her. She laid her hand on his head. "I wonder how much you know, or how little?" she said softly, under her breath. "Do you ever sit beside your master when he is going through a bad time? Do you stuff your nose into his hand and assure him of your love and faithfulness?"
Floy, the hound, looked at her with intelligent eyes, but only wagged his tail in response.
Then Betty walked to the window, and as she looked out upon the sweep of green turf and grand old trees, with a few cattle grazing in the distance, and then again at the comfortably furnished library within, with its lounge chairs and every convenience for writing or reading, she announced in a dreamy tone,—
"If I were the mistress of this house, I should be perfectly happy."
Mrs. Stuart looked up with a little consternation in her eyes. Gerald laughed aloud.
"And which room would you make your headquarters?" he asked.
Betty was so utterly unconscious that she had said anything at all peculiar, that she continued in the same tone, "I should use them all; but I would come in here when I wanted to think and be good."
"And would that be often?"
"Sometimes it would."
"We must not monopolise your time too much," said Mrs. Stuart, rising from her seat. "I think you said you would like to show us round the house, so shall we make a move? I cannot tell you how I envy you such a library. I think, with Betty, that I should spend a good bit of my time here, were it mine."
Gerald led them up the old staircase to the music-room.
"This is where I fancy you would be found oftenest," he said, turning to Betty, with an amused sparkle in his eyes.
"Yes—what a lovely piano! May I try it? But an organ is what I love. Ah, you have one over there!"
"It has never been touched since my mother died," said Gerald gravely. "She used to play on it. I am afraid it may be out of repair. Would you like to try it?"
Betty shrank back and shook her head.
"Oh no; it would be—be sacrilege. You must keep it from being touched by any one else. She must have been fond of music?"
"Very fond. She handed on the love of it to me, but not the power of execution."
"That is sometimes the better gift of the two," said Mrs. Stuart. "An appreciative soul has the power of bringing more happiness to others, I think, than mere talent and execution. Genius is apt to be very selfish and autocratic in its demands."
"And the world wants more sympathy and appreciation than genius," said Gerald musingly; "and that is in a beggar's power to give."
"And the moral is," broke in Betty, with twinkling eyes, "that no one need live in vain."
Gerald looked at her.
"I wish all would believe that, Miss Betty. It would save many from despair."
Betty did not reply, but a thoughtful look stole into her pretty eyes.
They soon wandered out into the grounds. Molly was busy peopling every nook and corner with her imaginary heroes and heroines. To her, Gerald was "copy,"—nothing more. His house, his lands, were interesting to her from that view alone. She lived in a land of dreams at present, which the quiet seclusion of the country vicarage only served to foster and encourage. Betty's quick eager eyes were everywhere. She loved the old-fashioned shrubs and flowers in the walled kitchen gardens, the roses on the terraces, and the quaint old summer-houses in unfrequented spots; but through it all, the master, with his hidden trouble, stood persistently forward in her thoughts. She listened to his conversation with her mother with wonder and increasing interest. How much he seemed to know! How every subject interested him! What a busy useful life he seemed to lead!
Just before the carriage came round to take them home, Betty caught sight of her organ-blower leaving the stable yard.
"Do you know Mat Lubbock?" she asked.
"Indeed I do, and feel an intense pity for him."
"But," said Betty, a little pucker settling between her eyes, "pity does him no good. Everybody pities him. I want to do more than that for him!"
Gerald looked at her with a grave smile.
Mrs. Stuart was resting on an old stone seat by the hall door. Molly was carefully wrapping a shawl round her. For a moment Betty was alone with her host.
"What do you want to do for him?" he asked.
"Oh, I want to comfort him, to make him pleased and satisfied with life."
"That can be done, but not by you or me."
Gerald spoke with a far-away look in his eyes.
"I don't think any one can do it," said Betty, with a little sigh.
'There was silence for a minute, then very slowly, almost under his breath, Gerald said,—
"'I have seen his ways, and will heal him; I will lead him also, and restore comforts unto him.'"
A light came into Betty's face. She looked up at her companion with a radiant smile, though a rush of feeling had almost brought tears to her eyes.
"That is from the Bible," she said, "but I don't remember where it comes. It is lovely. And it is true. Oh, Mr. Arundel, make him believe it!"
She turned away. The carriage was at the foot of the steps, and not another word passed between them.
When Betty went to her room that night, she took out her Bible, and began to search for the verse that Gerald had quoted to her.
With the help of her Concordance, she found it.
"I knew it would be in Isaiah," she mused. "He is always so comforting; and I am glad that Mr. Arundel is a good man, for he will know where to get comfort himself. I wonder that he has such a trouble, if he is good, or rather that he feels it so. But I suppose he wouldn't be human if he didn't feel. He would be a stoic!"
She repeated the verse over to herself.
"I shall certainly say it to Mat next time I see him. It can't do him harm, and it may do him good."
But it was some days before she saw her blower. Mrs. Stuart had one of her bad attacks, and the two girls were anxious and engrossed with her. When she rallied and came downstairs again, she was difficult to please, and though Molly never incurred her displeasure, Betty did, and was too young and impatient to realise that her mother's irritation was due to weakness of nerves and bad health.
"Can you not keep still, Betty?" Mrs. Stuart demanded sharply one afternoon, as she was wandering about the drawing-room touching things with restless fingers, and singing softly to herself.
Betty dropped into a chair at once.
"I'm sorry, mother; I wasn't thinking."
"A restless woman is my special aversion," went on Mrs. Stuart irritably. "Why cannot you have the repose of manner that Molly has? It is so ill-bred to be constantly fidgeting. I have seen you entertain visitors in the same excited jerky state."
"I can't be an exact duplicate of Molly," said Betty, a little hotly, "and I shouldn't like to be if I could. She is distinctly heavy sometimes."
"Disparaging others does not excuse yourself. It is want of occupation that is your failing. Molly is never idle; you are perpetually so."
Betty began to feel that this was unjust. She had stayed in with her mother to let Molly have a drive with Mr. Russell, who had in reality called to take her out. But Molly had been tied to the house for several days, and she persuaded her to go in her stead.
Mrs. Stuart was glad, for Molly's sake, that she had gone, but she found Betty a poor substitute.
"I haven't anything to do now," said Betty, "because I am sitting with you. You don't like me to write your letters for you, and you won't let me read to you. I have finished my work. Would you like me to play, to you?"
"No, thank you. My head is not in a fit state to stand it."
There was silence. Then Mrs. Stuart continued,—
"You are always so ready to excuse yourself, Betty, that you will never learn to remedy your faults. You are wasting your life at present. You have no pursuits, no resources. I have given you a good education, but you seem to have derived no benefit from it. When I was your age I was the secretary of an essay society, the treasurer for our local Girls' Friendly Society, and founder of a small Workmen's Club. You seem to take no interest in anything."
"I hadn't much chance in town to do anything but go to stupid 'At Homes' and evening parties," said Betty. "I want to find something to do, but I can't bear writing. I like to be out of doors always. I wish I could live my life in a gipsy camp, and have perpetual summer."
"You only think of life as it may affect yourself," said her mother severely. "It seems impossible to instil the sense of responsibility into your motives. I often wonder if any forces will make you see differently, or if you will drift into an aimless, discontented woman, who will live and die a slave to her self-indulgence and indolence."
Betty's lower lip drooped. An overwhelming sense of her own shortcomings seized her. Her mother's plain speaking always had the result of depressing her. It never stimulated her.
Mrs. Stuart continued for some minutes in the same strain, and then Molly's entrance set Betty free, and she rushed out of doors with a sore heart.
"Mother always scolds me so. She only likes Molly. I never please her. I am a dead failure, and I am good for nothing. Oh, what was I made for? And how is it I seem to have missed my vocation? I should like to leave home altogether, and go thousands of miles away to the other end of the globe, and never come back again till I had become a brilliant success. Men do that. They have been dunces at schools, and have been plucked in exams., and sent down from college; and then they go abroad, and the ne'er-do-weels turn into millionaires, or governors or presidents of some colony; and they come home in triumph, and everybody worships them. But girls can't do that kind of thing. I am one too many in our family. I always felt I was. I wonder—"
She was leaning over a stile in the meadows as she mused, and a look up into the deep blue sky formulated the thought.
"I wonder what God means me to do with my life. I wish He would show me. I do believe I am His child. In a kind of way I have always tried to serve Him, and I do love Him; but my life is full of faults, and I am always forgetting. Mother is hopeless about me. I wonder if God is!"
Betty's eyes were filling with tears.
A brisk "Good afternoon" made her start.
Gerald Arundel was behind her, waiting to pass.
She hastily brushed away her tears, and spoke in an extra cheerful tone, "Oh, good afternoon, Mr. Arundel. Where are you going? May I come with you?"
BETTY WAS LEANING OVER A STILE IN THE MEADOWS AS SHE
MUSED.
Then, as she met a surprised look in his eyes, she laughed confusedly.
"Of course, that's a thing I should not have said—at least, not to you. Mr. Russell would have understood. I want some one to talk to dreadfully."
Gerald smiled at her, and there was something in his smile that seemed to warm her heart.
"I shall be delighted to talk to you," he said. "Shall we walk down to the village? I want to see an old woman who has applied for a vacant place in my almshouses."
"Oh, have you an almshouse? How delightful! I always think I should like to end my days in one. They are so restful."
"Don't you think that depends on the inmates?"
"No; because they are always old, and they all sit by their fires with their cups of tea on the hob, and knit and nod by turns."
"I wish you would visit mine, and see if they come up to your expectation."
"Tell me where they are, and I will go at once," cried Betty enthusiastically. "I was just feeling how empty my life was, and wishing for something to do."
"I think you would find it too far to walk; it is a good three miles."
"Perhaps I had better not go to-day. Mother will wonder where I am."
Silence fell upon them as they trod the green meadow together, then Gerald broke it,—
"What has happened to take away your sunshine to-day?"
"What do you mean?"
"When I last saw you, you were the personification of sunshine; now—"
"Ah, yes," interrupted Betty; "I know I am dull and doleful. It is from thinking over my failings. I am no good to any one. I am not wanted at home, and I am not wanted away from it. And I sometimes long to be a real help to some one."
Gerald did not speak, but it was not want of sympathy that kept him silent. The wistful hesitation in her tone vibrated through him.
She added, with an attempt at playfulness,—
"So if you come across an empty corner that you think I might fill, I wish you would let me know."
Gerald gazed down upon her with a strange look in his eyes.
"And if I did, would you promise to fill it?"
Betty shook her head, and laughter came to her lips.
"It must be the right corner," she said; "a corner that would fit me, and that I could fill satisfactorily. I have always felt an odd one left out in the cold, a 'puss' trying to get in at some corner, but never succeeding."
Gerald caught the infection of her bright face, and smiled.
"I will remember," he said simply.
Silence again. Talkative as Betty usually was, she did not break it. A restfulness stole into her heart as she paced by Gerald's side. She felt small and childish beside him, but was content to have it so. His quiet strength was brought into greater prominence thereby. They had reached the village, and when Gerald turned in at a small cottage, Betty wished him good-bye.
"I wish I could offer to drive you over to the almshouses," he said, as he held her hand for a moment in his; "but I am going up to town almost immediately on business. Ask Mr. Russell to take you. My old women will be enchanted to see you, for they love visitors."
Betty's face brightened.
"I shall like to see them."
"May a comparative stranger offer you a bit of advice?"
"Of course; what is it?"
"If you are feeling that your life is empty, fill it with others' interests. We are all stewards entrusted with gifts to pass on."
"Thank you, Mr. Arundel."
Betty said no more, but walked away very soberly.
"What a good man he is! I wish I were like him! How I wonder what his secret trouble is! His face is different from most people's. He knows how to screen his soul from public view, but sometimes when he speaks, as he did just now, one gets a glimpse of it. I wonder if I am a steward. I must think it out, but I don't believe that I have any gifts to pass on."
CHAPTER VI
Altered Circumstances
(For) of Fortune's sharp adversity
The worste kinde of infortune is this,
A man to have been in prosperite
And it remember when it passed is.
CHAUCER.
"THERE, Mat, haven't I tired you out?"
"'Twould take more nor that, miss, to tire me. And a tired body can soon be put right. If there were no worse ills in life than that, us would be happy!"
"You mean that your soul and spirit are tired. Well, I can give you a text that was given me the other day. And I think it is a lovely one for you: 'I have seen his ways, and will heal him; I will lead him also, and restore comforts unto him.'"
"Nothin' but words," muttered Mat, under his breath.
"Oh, Mat, you mustn't say that, because they aren't my words, they are God's; and His words and promises are facts."
Mat began to shuffle down the aisle of the church. Betty had been playing the organ for over an hour and a half; she found now that Mat was always ready to act as her blower. His protests waxed fainter each time, and a wintry smile would pass over his face when he heard Betty's fresh young voice.
She would not let him go now, but laid her arm on his coat-sleeve.
"Listen, Mat; I long to comfort you and make you happy, but only God can do this. Listen again to what He says, for I have thought over this verse so much: 'I have seen his ways.' Your ways, that means, your troubles, and difficulties, and doubts of God's goodness; 'and will heal him,' heal your broken heart, and all your soul's aches and pains 'I will lead him also.' He won't leave you. When He comes to comfort and heal, He will stay by you, and lead you day by day, so that temptation and trial will not be too much for you, with His hand in yours. And now this is the best part of all: 'I will restore comforts unto him.' You will be like Job, who had everything taken away from him, and then had it restored fourfold. I don't think you can need more than that."
Mat cleared his throat.
"Ye be a wunnerful praycher, miss. Good afternoon."
He hurried out of the church; and Betty sighed heavily, little knowing that every word she uttered remained riveted on the blind man's memory.
Mat went to his solitary home, and sat down to his tea like a man stunned. Slowly repeating the verse over to himself, the beauty and simplicity of it seemed to strike him afresh.
"Ay!" he said at last, with a groan; "'tis more than I can expect, if He have seen my goin's on! I be in sore need of healin' an' comfort, an' as I can't get it nowhere else, I'd best let the Almighty have His dealin's with me!"
His tea remained untouched, but the frozen ground in his soul was thawing and softening rapidly. That night it yielded to the seed of life, and though it was long before the sower knew about it, the seed took root and sprang up.
When Betty left the church and retraced her steps to the vicarage, she was met in the drive by Molly and Mr. Russell.
"Oh, here she is!" cried Molly joyously. "Betty, Mr. Russell is going to carry us off to dinner with him. Mother has given her permission, and he is going to let us see a new planet through his telescope this evening."
"And as I have been waiting for your return for a full hour, I am going to lay violent hands on you, and insist upon your coming with me this very moment," said Mr. Russell.
"But," hesitated Betty, looking down at her dress, "I must—"
"You must do nothing but step into my trap, which is waiting for us at the blacksmith's. My horse has been shoed. You young ladies are always in such dainty white frocks that you do not need any extra adorning to grace a bachelor's table!"
They were a merry party driving out to the Hall. Molly and Betty vied with one another in old reminiscences, and Mr. Russell listened and laughed at them.
But as they drove up to the front door he made a comical face of dismay.
"Visitors! Now if only we had been five minutes later! It is Mrs. Fitz Hume and her sister; that means a good hour's gossip!"
"Let us go round to the stables before they see us!" cried Betty.
But it was too late. A stout lady in the act of descending the steps caught sight of them approaching, and called out gaily,—
"Ah, Mr. Russell, here you are! What a blessing! My poor horses have driven twenty-five miles to-day, and I have found no one at home."
In a few minutes they were all in the drawing-room, and tea was brought in.
Mrs. Fitz Hume's sister, a Miss Allison, was as silent as Mrs. Fitz Hume was discursive; but when she did make a remark, it was pithy and to the point; only, as Betty afterwards remarked, she viewed life through dark blue spectacles.
When Mrs. Fitz Hume had taken her second cup of tea she became impressive.
"Now, my dear Mr. Russell, have you heard the news? And can you enlighten us at all? For I assure you it was the greatest shock to me. I always have liked Gerald Arundel. My dear husband used to say that you and he were the only intellectual men in the county—men of books and thought. And I know Gerald is a great crony of yours, so I suppose he has told you all. I have heard rumours for some time that he was in some difficulty, but I never dreamt of anything like this."
Betty's breath came and went quickly. Mr. Russell quietly helped himself to another cup of tea. Not a muscle of his face moved. Mrs. Fitz Hume looked at him, then gave a little laugh.
"Oh, how stolid and unemotional you men are! Matters of life and death will not move you."
"Arundel was in good health when I saw him yesterday," Mr. Russell remarked.
"It is a wonder that he is! If any man was ever wedded to his property, he was, and now, at one blow, it is all taken from him!"
Molly opened her blue eyes in astonishment. "Is Mr. Arundel going to leave that dear old house of his?" she asked.
"It is going to be put up for sale to-morrow fortnight," said Miss Allison, in a sepulchral tone.
"And it is a marvel to me why he has kept his friends so in the dark," said Mrs. Fitz Hume.
"I actually saw a notice of the sale in the paper yesterday morning, and till then I had not the remotest idea of such a catastrophe! There are the wildest stories afloat, but none quite so interesting as the truest version, and that I have heard from Dr. Strong, who has Gerald's permission to make it public. Of course details are wanting, so I should be glad to hear your version of it, Mr. Russell. Is it true that an unknown uncle of his in Australia has been discovered, and claims the whole property as his? And that, having no love for the old place and no desire to live in it, he has written to give directions for it to be sold? How is it that he can lay claim to it? Is he senior to Gerald's father? And where has he been all this time? Why did he not come forward before? And is he so desperately mean as to make no allowance to his nephew? From what I gathered, Gerald will be absolutely penniless."
"My dear Mrs. Fitz Hume," said Mr. Russell quietly, "you require no information from me, for you have told me more than I know myself."
"Oh, poor Mr. Arundel!" said Molly. "How dreadful for him! Will he have to sell that lovely old library?"
"It is most distressing; he will have to part with all that he loves and values, and will not get a halfpenny himself! I feel inclined to open my house to him, and offer him a home, but he is so proud that I should be afraid of suggesting it."
"He is not too proud to thank you for the kindness of heart that prompts such a suggestion."
Mrs. Fitz Hume looked round startled, and was not reassured when she saw it was Gerald himself, who had entered the room unperceived. There was an awkward silence. Gerald was the only one who seemed at ease. He shook hands with Molly and Betty, bowed to Miss Allison, and took a seat near Mrs. Fitz Hume.
"Please don't mind me," he said, a little twinkle of humour stealing into the corners of his eyes. "I have had to pay three calls this afternoon, and each time found myself the absorbing topic of conversation. I came over here thinking that I could not be an interruption. But I am afraid I was mistaken."
"Now, my dear Mr. Arundel," said Mrs. Fitz Hume, with more kindness than tact, "let us be quite frank with each other. We are all friends here; and I'm most distressed at this appalling news. Have you no way out of your difficulties, except by the sale of the Red Manor? Just think, some City man may buy it, and we shall have neighbours whom none of us will care to visit! Can't you persuade this unknown uncle of yours to come over and settle here himself? It is such a pity when a sweet old family place like yours goes out of the family."
Gerald looked grave. Betty glanced at him shyly, wondering how he could stand Mrs. Fitz Hume's well-meant sympathy.
She went on, unheeding Mr. Russell's frown,—
"Do tell me, now, what you mean to do? Are you going away? And are you going to sell that valuable old library of yours?"
"I will send you a catalogue of the sale," answered Gerald imperturbably, "and then you will see all the 'goods and effects.' As for my own plans, they are not quite formulated yet; but when they are, I will let you know."
"Meanwhile, it is kindest to leave you in peace," said Miss Allison drily; then, turning to her sister, she said,—
"Marion, my dear, I don't want to take the initiative, but our drive is a long one, and it is getting late."
Mrs. Fitz Hume reluctantly took her sister's hint, and rose from her seat.
"You will come and dine with us, Mr. Arundel, one day this week? I won't take a refusal. As I was saying to Mr. Russell just now, my dear husband always had such a regard and liking for you. I don't know what he would have said, had he known—"
Mr. Russell came to Gerald's rescue; he asked Mrs. Fitz Hume to give her opinion on a picture in the hall that he had lately bought, and a few minutes after her carriage rolled away.
Gerald stayed to dinner. His family affairs were not touched upon; but both the girls wondered at his calm and cheerful composure. Betty was so full of his trouble that she could not regain her spirits; and when, after they had dined, they adjourned to the observatory, Mr. Russell rallied her on her silence.
"Are abstruse calculations filling your mind and thoughts, or have you made a resolve to practise discretion of speech, and think before you speak?"
"I always try to do that," said Betty naïvely, "except when I'm in a hurry and forget."
When, a few minutes after, Molly took up her position behind the big telescope, and Mr. Russell was instructing her in the mysteries of the planets, Betty turned to Gerald.
"Let us look up at the stars without a telescope, Mr. Arundel, like—I was going to say—God meant us to do. Will you think me very silly if I venture to criticise the telescope? Don't you think, if God had meant us to see so much, He would have given us eyes to do so?"
Gerald smiled. He opened a window, and they leant out together. It was a sweet, still June evening. The scent of mignonette and roses came upwards from the garden. The sky was studded with its diamond-like constellations; in the stillness the plaintive hoot of the owl and the croaking of the frog in the meadow stream close by were the only sounds that were heard.
"I don't think I can agree with you, Miss Betty. Every bit of science discovered, by the intelligence given to us from above, only serves to bring one great and important truth to light, and that is,—
"'O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!'"
Betty raised her eyes to the dark blue above her. Gerald added almost under his breath,—
"And His ways with us, though incomprehensible to our intelligence, are full of the same riches and wisdom."
Then Betty turned impulsively to him, and her voice was unsteady,—
"Mr. Arundel, may I say how sorry I am for you? I do feel it. I wish I could do something, but none of us can. How will you bear it?"
"Thank you for your sympathy," he said very quietly. "It is a wrench, but the bitterness, thank God, is over."
"Now, Betty, it is your turn," cried Molly.
Betty turned, but her first peep through the telescope was not a successful one, for her eyes were dim with tears.
Mr. Russell drove them home in his trap that evening, and on the way told them a little more of Gerald's trouble.
"It was his father's eldest brother who ran away, and was supposed to be dead. The property is really his, but it was only quite lately that he wrote to the family lawyer saying that he was alive, and meant to have his rights. He married a rich woman out in Australia—beneath him in station, I believe, and has one son. Lately he has lost a good bit of money, and for the first time seems to have thought of his property here. I fancy, owing to his wildness in his youth and a quarrel with his father, he believed old Mr. Arundel had disinherited him; but he had no power to do so. It has always gone to the eldest son, with no reservations. Owing to a flaw in the will, Gerald comes in for nothing, and his uncle, whose only need seems to be ready money, with his son's consent has the power of selling the whole for his own selfish gratification. It comes very hard on Gerald, as he has such a love for the place."
"What is he going to do?" asked Molly pityingly. "It is just like a story-book. He can't starve. Will he write books, and make a name in London?"
Betty gave a little impatient laugh.
"Your one idea is writing books, Molly! Too many people do that now."
"I am advising him to take a farm in this neighbourhood," said Mr. Russell. "He has farming at his finger's ends, and has always been accustomed to an outdoor life."
"But will he like seeing his own home in the hands of strangers?" said Betty dubiously.
"Oh," cried Molly enthusiastically, "I see a way out. There must be an only daughter, and he must fall in love with her, and marry; and then in the end he will live in his old home again!"
"A delightful thought," said Mr. Russell, a little drily; "you had better suggest that a stipulation should be made as to the buyer of the estate: 'Only people with a marriageable daughter need apply.'"
"As if that would ever be the same!" cried Betty scornfully. "I hate men who marry women with money; it is quite the wrong way round. Money makes you the master of everything, and a woman ought not to be the master of her husband."
"You have not advanced with the times," said Mr. Russell. "I thought all young ladies liked to rule nowadays."
"I don't," said Betty emphatically; "at least I shouldn't like to rule a man."
"No, I don't think that is your role, and I hope it never will be."
CHAPTER VII
Old Women
Each word of kindness,
Come whence it may, is welcome to the poor.
Her presence
Fell on their hearts like a ray of sun on the walls of a
prison.
LONGFELLOW.
MRS. STUART was very interested in hearing from her girls about the Red Manor and its master. Betty felt impatient at her mother's view of the case, and thought she did not show sufficient sympathy for Gerald. She heard with consternation her mother discussing with Molly the advisability of attending the sale, in order to obtain some of the treasures in the library. Mrs. Stuart was a keen lover of books, and the joy of obtaining at a moderate price some of the valuable works she had so admired when lunching there, over-balanced the pity she felt for their owner.
There was much excitement in the neighbourhood when it was known that the goods and effects of the Red Manor were to be sold by auction. Most of Gerald's friends and neighbours expressed their intention of being present; and Betty grew angry and disgusted by turns, when she heard the matter being so lightly discussed. She watched her mother and sister drive off to the sale, when the day came round with a sore heart. She was ashamed to own even to herself how much her thoughts were with Gerald Arundel.
She pictured him taking his last farewell of his old home, with a happy past behind him, and the future uncertain and dreary. She dwelt in thought over his words in the library, when she asked him if he were ever lonely,—
"The one thing I shall look back to with thankfulness hereafter is, that I have made the best use of the opportunities that have been given to me of spending all the time I could here."
Now that time was gone; and he knew, when he said those words, that perhaps it would be the last time he could show friends over his house.
Betty went out into the garden, and paced the paths dejectedly. At last her feelings got the better of her, and, sitting down on a low garden-chair under an old elm, she buried her face in her hands, and gave way to tears. She was startled by a voice close to her a few minutes later.
"What is the matter with my little friend?"
Betty looked hastily up, and confronted Mr. Russell.
"Oh!" she said, stretching out her hand to him impulsively. "It is all so miserable, Mr. Russell. Why does God let things all go wrong? Why should some people have such trouble, and others none at all?"
"Are you in trouble?"
"No; I am thinking about Mr. Arundel. He seems so brave and cheerful about it and people say such things, that he doesn't care a bit, and has no heart, and is so cold-blooded,—and it makes my blood boil to hear them! If they only knew!"
Mr. Russell's eyebrows elevated themselves very slightly.
"Don't take other people's troubles too hardly, Betty. You will have enough to bear of your own, without adding to them."
"I hate people to be unhappy!" Betty cried vehemently. "And good people oughtn't to be."
"Hush! Remember who sends trouble. You taught me that lesson long, long ago Gerald is not unhappy, he will tell you."
Betty was silent.
"The bitterness is over," he had said to her, as they looked up at the starry heaven above them. But she had seen him when it was full upon him, and she could not forget that time.
"You feel things too much," Mr. Russell continued. "Come out for a drive with me, and forget it all."
"And you call yourself his friend!" Betty said reproachfully. "I thought Mat's trouble bad enough, but I think this is almost worse."
"No, no," said Mr. Russell quickly. "Death is a worse foe than poverty. And Gerald has health and strength, and all his faculties perfect. Did you not want to go and see the Red Manor almshouses? Shall we drive there now?"
"Will those be sold too?" Betty enquired dolefully. "And why are you not at the sale? Everybody is. It is quite a gala day."
"Do not let me see that twist to your lips, my little friend! I hope you will leave sarcasm alone. It never suits a woman. I have now just come from the sale."
Betty rose a little reluctantly from her seat. She would have been better content if Mr. Russell had not roused her from her musings; but a few minutes later, when she was driving swiftly along the roads in his high dog-cart, her spirit revived.
"Isn't the world delicious?" she said, looking up at him with sparkling eyes. "And aren't those bright green fields a picture in the sun? Young wheat, is it not? And the smell of the hay is enchanting! Oh, I wish I could be always in the country! I mean to make the very most of my summer here."
For the rest of the drive Mr. Russell could not complain of Betty's dulness; she seemed to have entirely shaken off her fit of the blues. When they arrived at the almshouses, she was delighted afresh. They were picturesque, red-bricked buildings with thatched roofs, built in a row in a green meadow, with some old chestnuts standing like sentinels in front.
"Now," said Mr. Russell, as he helped her to alight, "I am going to leave you here while I drive on farther. There are six old women to visit, and you must not leave out one, or you will hurt their feelings. Will an hour be long enough for you?"
"Oh yes," Betty replied. "Perhaps I shall find they do not want me so long. Must I portion out the time equally? Ten minutes to each?"
She laughed gaily, and waved her hand to him as he drove off, then made her way to the first cottage. She was welcomed by a cheery talkative old woman, who was cleaning up her hearth, and apologised for her appearance.
"I've just bin a cookin' meself an apple pastie, me dear. Sit 'ee down, for master did tell us of a young leddy a-comin' a-visitin'. I be allays on me feet, for I be a terrible active body, an' if the place be small, it takes a brave lot o' cleanin'. Now, Mary Dunster nex' door, her be just t'other way. Her be allays groanin' an' wantin' folk to do for her, an' never a word o' thanks. Her thinketh her be of higher stock than me, because her lived in Lunnon town for a spell, an' her took in dressmakin'. Her were maid to old Mrs. Fitz Hume, an' her be allays mindin' us o' the quality her have a lived with. All said an' done, I be an independent stock; for my father were head shepherd to Farmer Watson, an' I kep' house after mother died, an' never went to service, an' me dear husband were Squire Arundel's carpenter. Ah, dearie me! What a day to see! 'Tis true what the Scripture saith, 'He putteth down one, an' setteth up another.'"
Betty fancied there was a little suppressed satisfaction in her tone, and felt indignant at once.
"I don't know what you will all do when your squire goes away. You will never get another like him."
"Maybe not. He be a well-meanin' young man, an' I hath nought to say agen he. But 'tis pitiful to see how folks taketh of him in; an' Martha Button be a proper one to do it. Her be two door off, me dear, an' were nurse to the fam'ly. You 'm be pretty well wearied wi' her lasting chatteration of the squire's sayin's and doin's, when her tongue be started. Her be allays looked to first an' foremost, an' her seeth to it that her be so!"