The Athelings; or, the Three Gifts. Complete

CHAPTER XIII.

THE OLD WOOD LODGE.

It stood upon the verge of a wood, and the side of a hill, looking down into what was not so much a valley as a low amphitheatre, watered by a maze of rivers, and centred in a famous and wonderful old town. The trees behind the little house had burning spots of autumn colour here and there among the masses of green—colour which scarcely bore its due weight and distinction in the tremulous pale atmosphere which waited for the storm; and the leaves cowered and shivered together, and one terrified bird flew wildly in among them, seeking refuge. Under the shadow of three trees stood the low house of two stories, half stone and half timber, with one quaint projecting window in the roof, and a luxuriant little garden round it. But it was impossible to pause, as the new proprietors intended to have done, to note all the external features of their little inheritance. They hurried in, eager to be under shelter before the thunder; and as Mrs Atheling, somewhat timid of it, hurried over the threshold, the first big drops fell heavily among the late roses which covered the front of the house. They were all awed by the coming storm; and they were not acquainted any of them with the louder crash and fiercer blaze of a thunderstorm in the country. They came hastily into Miss Bridget’s little parlour, scarcely seeing what like it was, as the ominous still darkness gathered in the sky, and sat down, very silently, in corners, all except Mr Atheling, whose duty it was to be courageous, and who was neither so timid as his wife, nor so sensitive as his daughters. Then came the storm in earnest—wild lightning rending the black sky in sheets and streams of flames—fearful cannonades of thunder, nature’s grand forces besieging some rebellious city in the skies. Then gleams of light shone wild and ghastly in all the pallid rivers, and lighted up with an eerie illumination the spires and pinnacles of the picturesque old town; and the succeeding darkness pressed down like a positive weight upon the Old Wood Lodge and its new inmates, who scarcely perceived yet the old furniture of the old sitting-room, or the trim old maid of Miss Bridget Atheling curtsying at the door.

“A strange welcome!” said Papa, hastily retreating from the window, where he had just been met and half blinded by a sudden flash; and Mamma gathered her babies under her wings, and called to the girls to come closer to her, in that one safe corner which was neither near the window, the fireplace, nor the door.

Yes, it was a strange welcome—and the mind of Agnes, imaginative and rapid, threw an eager glance into the future out of that corner of safety and darkness. A thunderstorm, a convulsion of nature! was there any fitness in this beginning? They were as innocent a household as ever came into a countryside; but who could tell what should happen to them there?

Some one else seemed to share the natural thought. “I wonder, mamma, if this is all for us,” whispered Marian, half frightened, half jesting. “Are we to make a great revolution in Winterbourne? It looks like it, to see this storm.”

But Mrs Atheling, who thought it profane to show any levity during a thunderstorm, checked her pretty daughter with a peremptory “Hush, child!” and drew her babies closer into her arms. Mrs Atheling’s thoughts had no leisure to stray to Winterbourne; save for Charlie—and it was not to be supposed that this same thunder threatened Bellevue—all her anxieties were here.

But as the din out of doors calmed down, and even as the girls became accustomed to it, and were able to share in Papa’s calculations as to the gradual retreat of the thunder as it rolled farther and farther away, they began to find out and notice the room within which they had crowded. It had only one window, and was somewhat dark, the small panes being over-hung and half obscured by a wild forest of clematis, and sundry stray branches, still bristling with buds, of that pale monthly rose with evergreen leaves, which covered half the front of the house. The fireplace had a rather fantastic grate of clear steel, with bright brass ornaments, so clear and so resplendent as it only could be made by the labour of years, and was filled, instead of a fire, with soft green moss, daintily ornamented with the yellow everlasting flowers. Hannah did not know that these were immortelles, and consecrated to the memory of the dead. It was only her rural and old-maidenly fashion of decoration, for the same little rustling posies, dry and unfading, were in the little flower-glasses on the high mantel-shelf, before the little old dark-complexioned mirror, with little black-and-white transparencies set in the slender gilding of its frame, which reflected nothing but a slope of the roof, and one dark portrait hanging as high up as itself upon the opposite wall. It put the room oddly out of proportion, this mirror, attracting the eye to its high strip of light, and deluding the unwary to many a stumble; and Agnes already sat fixedly looking at it, and at the dark and wrinkled portrait reflected from the other wall.

Before the fireplace, where there was no fire, stood a large old-fashioned easy-chair, with no one in it. Are you very sure there is no one in it?—for Papa himself has a certain awe of that strangely-placed seat, which seems to have stood before that same fireplace for many a year. In the twilight, Agnes, if you were alone—you, who of all the family are most inclined to a little visionary superstition, you would find it very hard to keep from trembling, or to persuade yourself that Miss Bridget was not there, where she had spent half a lifetime, sitting in that heavy old easy-chair.

The carpet was a faded but rich and soft old Turkey carpet, the furniture was slender and spider-legged, made of old bright mahogany, as black and as polished as ebony. There was an old cabinet in one corner, with brass rings and ornaments; and in another an old musical instrument, of which the girls were not learned enough to know the precise species, though it belonged to the genus piano. The one small square table in the middle of the room was covered with a table-cover, richly embroidered, but the silk was faded, and the bits of gold were black and dull; and there were other little tables, round and square, with spiral legs and a tripod of feet, one holding a china jar, one a big book, and one a case of stuffed birds. On the whole, the room had somewhat the look of a rather refined and very prim old lady. The things in it were all of a delicate kind and antique fashion. It was not in the slightest degree like these fair and fresh young girls, but on the whole it was a place of which people like those, with a wholesome love of ancestry, had very good occasion to be proud.

And at the door stood Hannah, in a black gown and great white apron, smoothing down the same with her hands, and bobbing a kindly curtsy. Hannah’s eyes were running over with delight and anxiety to get at Bell and Beau. She passed over all the rest of the family to yearn over the little ones. “Eh, bless us!” cried Hannah, as, the thunder over, Mrs Atheling began to bestir herself—“children in the house!” It was something almost too ecstatic for her elderly imagination. She volunteered to carry them both up-stairs with the most eager attention. “I ain’t so much used to childer,” said Hannah, “but, bless ye, ma’am, I love ’um all the same;” and with an instinctive knowledge of this love, Beau condescended to grasp Hannah’s spotless white apron, and Bell to mount into her arms. Then the whole family procession went up-stairs to look at the bedrooms—the voices of the girls and the sweet chorus of the babies making the strangest echoes in the lonely house. Hannah acknowledged afterwards, that, half with grief for Miss Bridget, and half for joy of this new life beginning, it would have been a great relief to her to sit down upon the attic stairs and have “a good cry.”

CHAPTER XIV.

WITHIN AND WITHOUT.

The upper floor of the Old Wood Lodge consisted of three rooms; one as large as the parlour down stairs, one smaller, and one, looking to the back, very small indeed. The little one was a lumber-room, and quite unfurnished; the other two were in perfect accordance with the sitting-room. The best bedroom contained a bed of state, with very slender fluted pillars of the same black ebony-like wood, lifting on high a solemn canopy of that ponderous substance called moreen, and still to be found in country inns and seaside lodgings—the colour dark green, with a binding of faded violet. Hangings of the same darkened the low broad lattice window, and chairs of the same were ranged like ghosts along the wall. It was rather a funereal apartment, and the eager investigators were somewhat relieved to find an old-fashioned “tent,” with hangings of old chintz, gay with gigantic flowers, in the next room. But the windows!—the broad plain lying low down at their feet, twinkling to the first faint sun-ray which ventured out after the storm—the cluster of spires and towers over which the light brightened and strengthened, striking bold upon the heavy dome which gave a ponderous central point to the landscape, and splintering into a million rays from the pinnacles of Magdalen and St Mary’s noble spire, all wet and gleaming with the thunder rain. What a scene it was!—how the passing light kindled all the wan waters, and singled out, for a momentary illumination, one after another of the lesser landmarks of that world unknown. These gazers were not skilled to distinguish between Gothic sham and Gothic real, nor knew much of the distinguishing differences of noble and ignoble architecture. After all, at this distance, it did not much matter—for one by one, as the sunshine found them out, they rose up from the gleaming mist, picturesque and various, like the fairy towers and distant splendours of a morning dream.

“I told you it was pretty, Agnes,” said Mr Atheling, who felt himself the exhibitor of the whole scene, and looked on with delight at the success of his private view. Papa, who was to the manner born, felt himself applauded in the admiration of his daughters, and carried Beau upon his shoulder down the creaking narrow staircase, with a certain pride and exultation, calling the reluctant girls to follow him. For lo! upon Miss Bridget’s centre table was laid out “such a tea!” as Hannah in all her remembrance had never produced before. Fresh home-made cakes, fresh little pats of butter from the nearest farm—cream! and to crown all, a great china dish full of the last of the strawberries, blushing behind their fresh wet leaves. Hannah, when she had lingered as long as her punctilious good-breeding would permit, and long enough to be very wrathful with Mrs Atheling for intercepting a shower of strawberries from the plates of Bell and Beau, retired to her kitchen slowly, and drawing a chair before the fire, though the evening still was sultry, threw her white apron over her head, and had her deferred and relieving “cry.” “Bless you, I’ll love ’um all,” said Hannah, with a succession of sobs, addressing either herself or some unseen familiar, with whom she was in the habit of holding long conversations. “But it ain’t Miss Bridget—that’s the truth!”

The ground was wet, the trees were damp, everything had been deluged with the shower of the thunderstorm, and Mrs Atheling did not at all think it prudent that her daughters should go out, though she yielded to them. They went first through the fertile garden, where Marian thought “everything” grew—but were obliged to pause in their researches and somewhat ignorant guesses what everything was, by the unknown charm of that sweet rural atmosphere “after the rain.” Though it was very near sunset, the birds were all a-twitter in the neighbouring trees, and everywhere around them rose such a breath of fragrance—open-air fragrance, fresh and cool and sweet, as different from the incense of Mrs Edgerley’s conservatory as it was from anything in Bellevue. Running waters trickled somewhere out of sight—it was only the “running of the paths after rain;” and yonder, like a queen, sitting low in a sweet humility, was the silent town, with all its crowning towers. The sunshine, which still lingered on Hannah’s projecting window in the roof, had left Oxford half an hour ago—and down over the black dome, the heaven-y-piercing spire and lofty cupola, came soft and grey the shadow of the night.

But behind them, through a thick network of foliage, there were gleams and sparkles of gold, touching tenderly some favourite leaves with a green like the green of spring, and throwing the rest into a shadowy blackness against the half-smothered light. Marian ran into the house to call Hannah, begging her to guide them up into the wood. Agnes, less curious, stood with her hand upon the gate, looking down over this wonderful valley, and wondering if she had not seen it some time in a dream.

“Bless you, miss, if it was to the world’s end!” cried Hannah; “but it ain’t fit for walking, no more nor a desert; the roads is woeful by Badgeley; look you here!—nought in this wide world but mud and clay.”

Marian looked in dismay at the muddy road. “It will not be dry for a week,” said the disappointed beauty; “but, Hannah, come here, now that I have got you out, and tell us what every place is—Agnes, here’s Hannah—and, if you please, which is the village, and which is the Hall, and where is the Old Wood House?”

“Do you see them white chimneys—and smokes?” said Hannah; “they’re a-cooking their dinner just, though tea-time’s past—that’s the Rector’s. But, bless your heart, you ain’t likely to see the Hall from here. There’s all the park and all the trees atween us and my lord’s.”

“Do the people like him, Hannah?” asked Agnes abruptly, thinking of her friend.

Hannah paused with a look of alarm. “The people—don’t mind nothink about him,” said Hannah slowly. “Bless us, miss, you gave me such a turn!”

Agnes looked curiously in the old woman’s face, to see what the occasion of this “turn” might be. Marian, paying no such attention, leaned over the low mossy gate, looking in the direction of the Old Wood House. They were quite disposed to enjoy the freedom of the “country,” and were neither shawled nor bonneted, though the fresh dewy air began to feel the chill of night. Marian leaned out over the gate, with her little hand thrust up under her hair, looking into the distance with her beautiful smiling eyes. The road which passed this gate was a grassy and almost terraced path, used by very few people, and disappearing abruptly in an angle just after it had passed the Lodge. Suddenly emerging from this angle, with a step which fell noiselessly on the wet grass, meeting the startled gaze of Marian in an instantaneous and ghostlike appearance, came forth what she could see only as, against the light, the figure of a man hastening towards the high-road. He also seemed to start as he perceived the young unknown figures in the garden, but his course was too rapid to permit any interchange of curiosity. Marian did not think he looked at her at all as she withdrew hastily from the gate, and he certainly did not pause an instant in his rapid walk; but as he passed he lifted his hat—a singular gesture of courtesy, addressed to no one, like the salutation of a young king—and disappeared in another moment as suddenly as he came. Agnes, attracted by her sister’s low unconscious exclamation, saw him as well as Marian—and saw him as little—for neither knew anything at all of his appearance, save so far as a vague idea of height, rapidity—and the noble small head, for an instant uncovered, impressed their imagination. Both paused with a breathless impulse of respect, and a slight apprehensiveness, till they were sure he must be out of hearing, and then both turned to Hannah, standing in the shadow and the twilight, and growing gradually indistinct all but her white apron, with one unanimous exclamation, “Who is that?”

Hannah smoothed down her apron once more, and made another bob of a curtsy, apparently intended for the stranger. “Miss,” said Hannah, gravely, “that’s Mr Louis—bless his heart!”

Then the old woman turned and went in, leaving the girls by themselves in the garden. They were a little timid of the great calm and silence; they almost fancied they were “by themselves,”—not in the garden only, but in this whole apparent noiseless world.

CHAPTER XV.

THE PARLOUR.

But, after all, to be very much excited, to hasten in to tell one’s father and mother, with the heart beating faster than usual against one’s breast, and to have one’s story calmly received with an “Indeed, my dear!” is rather damping to youthful enthusiasm; and really, to tell the truth, there was nothing at all extraordinary in the fact of Louis passing by a door so near the great house which was his own distasteful home. It was not at all a marvellous circumstance; and as for his salutation, though that was remarkable, and caught their imagination, Marian whispered that she had no doubt it was Louis’s “way.”

They began, accordingly, to look at the slender row of books in one small open shelf above the little cabinet. The books were in old rich bindings, and were of a kind of reading quite unknown to Agnes and Marian. There were two (odd) volumes of the Spectator, Rasselas, the Poems of Shenstone, the Sermons of Blair; besides these, a French copy of Thomas-à-Kempis, the Holy Living and Dying of Jeremy Taylor, and one of the quaint little books of Sir Thomas Browne. Thrust in hastily beside these ancient and well-attired volumes were two which looked surreptitious, and which were consequently examined with the greatest eagerness. One turned out, somewhat disappointingly, to be a volume of Italian exercises, an old, old school-book, inscribed, in a small, pretty, but somewhat faltering feminine handwriting—handwriting of the last century—with the name of Anastasia Rivers, with a B. A. beneath, which doubtless stood for Bridget Atheling, though it seemed to imply, with a kindly sort of blundering comicality sad enough now, that Anastasia Rivers, though she was no great hand at her exercises, had taken a degree. The other volume was of more immediate interest. It was one of those good and exemplary novels, ameliorated Pamelas, which virtuous old ladies were wont to put into the hands of virtuous young ones, and which was calculated to “instruct as well as to amuse” the unfortunate mind of youth. Marian seized upon this Fatherless Fanny with an instant appropriation, and in ten minutes was deep in its endless perplexities. Agnes, who would have been very glad of the novel, languidly took down the Spectator instead. Yes, we are obliged to confess—languidly; for, with an excited mind upon a lovely summer night, with all the stars shining without, and only two pale candles within, and Mamma visibly dropping to sleep in the easy-chair—who, we demand, would not prefer, even to Steele and Addison, the mazy mysteries of the Minerva Press?

And Agnes did not get on with her reading; she saw visibly before her eyes Marian skimming with an eager interest the pages of her novel. She heard Papa rustling his newspaper, watched the faint flicker of the candles, and was aware of the very gentle nod by which Mamma gave evidence of the condition of her thoughts. Agnes’s imagination, never averse to wandering, strayed off into speculations concerning the old lady and her old pupil, and all the life, unknown and unrecorded, which had happed within these quiet walls. Altogether it was somewhat hard to understand the connection between the Athelings and the Riverses—whether some secret of family history lay involved in it, or if it was only the familiar bond formed a generation ago between teacher and child. And this Louis!—his sudden appearance and disappearance—his princely recognition as of new subjects. Agnes made nothing whatever of her Spectator—her mind was possessed and restless—and by-and-by, curious, impatient, and a little excited, she left the room with an idea of hastening up-stairs to the chamber window, and looking out upon the night. But the door of the kitchen stood invitingly open, and Hannah, who had been waiting, slightly expectant of some visit, was to be seen within, rising up hastily with old-fashioned respect and a little wistfulness. Agnes, though she was a young lady of literary tastes, and liked to look out upon moon and stars with the vague sentiment of youth, had, notwithstanding, a wholesome relish for gossip, and was more pleased with talk of other people than we are disposed to confess; so she had small hesitation in changing her course and joining Hannah—that homely Hannah bobbing her odd little curtsy, and smoothing down her bright white apron, in the full glow of the kitchen-fire.

The kitchen was indeed the only really bright room in the Old Wood Lodge, having one strip of carpet only on its white and sanded floor, a large deal table, white and spotless, and wooden chairs hard and clear as Hannah’s own toil-worn but most kindly hands. There was an old-fashioned settle by the chimney corner, a small bit of looking-glass hanging up by the window, and gleams of ruddy copper, and homely covers of white metal, polished as bright as silver, ornamenting the walls. Hannah wiped a chair which needed no wiping, and set it directly in front of the fire for “Miss,” but would not on any account be so “unmannerly” as to sit down herself in the young lady’s presence. Agnes wisely contented herself with leaning on the chair, and smiled with a little embarrassment at Hannah’s courtesy; it was not at all disagreeable, but it was somewhat different from Susan at home.

“I’ve been looking at ’um, miss,” said Hannah, “sleeping like angels; there ain’t no difference that I can see; they look, as nigh as can be, both of an age.”

“They are twins,” said Agnes, finding out, with a smile, that Hannah’s thoughts were taken up, not about Louis and Rachel, but Bell and Beau.

At this information Hannah brightened into positive delight. “Childer’s ne’er been in this house,” said Hannah, “till this day; and twins is a double blessing. There ain’t no more, miss? But bless us all, the time between them darlins and you!”

“We have one brother, besides—and a great many little brothers and sisters in heaven,” said Agnes, growing very grave, as they all did when they spoke of the dead.

Hannah drew closer with a sympathetic curiosity. “If that ain’t a heart-break, there’s none in this world,” said Hannah. “Bless their dear hearts, it’s best for them. Was it a fever then, miss, or a catching sickness? Dear, dear, it’s all one, when they’re gone, what it was.”

“Hannah, you must never speak of it to mamma,” said Agnes; “we used to be so sad—so sad! till God sent Bell and Beau. Do you know Miss Rachel at the Hall? her brother and she are twins too.”

“Yes, miss,” said Hannah, with a slight curtsy, and becoming at once very laconic.

“And we know her,” said Agnes, a little confused by the old woman’s sudden quietness. “I suppose that was her brother who passed to-night.”

“Ay, poor lad!” Hannah’s heart seemed once more a little moved. “They say miss is to be a play-actress, and I can’t abide her for giving in to it; but Mr Louis, bless him! he ought to be a king.”

“You like him, then?” asked Agnes eagerly.

“Ay, poor boy!” Hannah went away hastily to the table, where, in a china basin, in their cool crisp green, lay the homely salads of the garden, about to be arranged for supper. A tray covered with a snow-white cloth, and a small pile of eggs, waited in hospitable preparation for the same meal. Hannah, who had been so long in possession, felt like a humble mistress of the house, exercising the utmost bounties of her hospitality towards her new guests. “Least said’s best about them, dear,” said Hannah, growing more familiar as she grew a little excited—“but, Lord bless us, it’s enough to craze a poor body to see the likes of him, with such a spirit, kept out o’ his rights.”

“What are his rights, Hannah?” cried Agnes, with new and anxious interest: this threw quite a new light upon the subject.

Hannah turned round a little perplexed. “Tell the truth, I dun know no more nor a baby,” said Hannah; “but Miss Bridget, she was well acquaint in all the ways of them, and she ever upheld, when his name was named, that my lord kep’ him out of his rights.”

“And what did he say?” asked Agnes.

“Nay, child,” said the old woman, “it ain’t no business of mine to tell tales; and Miss Bridget had more sense nor all the men of larning I ever heard tell of. She knew better than to put wickedness into his mind. He’s a handsome lad and a kind, is Mr Louis; but I wouldn’t be my lord, no, not for all Banburyshire, if I’d done that boy a wrong.”

“Then, do you think Lord Winterbourne has not done him a wrong?” said Agnes, thoroughly bewildered.

Hannah turned round upon her suddenly, with a handful of herbs and a knife in her other hand. “Miss, he’s an unlawful child!” said Hannah, with the most melodramatic effectiveness. Agnes involuntarily drew back a step, and felt the blood rush to her face. When she had delivered herself of this startling whisper, Hannah returned to her homely occupation, talking in an under-tone all the while.

“Ay, poor lad, there’s none can mend that,” said Hannah; “he’s kep’ out of his rights, and never a man can help him. If it ain’t enough to put him wild, I dun know.”

“And are you quite sure of that? Does everybody think him a son of Lord Winterbourne’s?” said Agnes.

“Well, miss, my lord’s not like to own to it—to shame hisself,” said Hannah; “but they’re none so full of charity at the Hall as to bother with other folkses children. My lord’s kep’ him since they were babies, and sent the lawyer hisself to fetch him when Mr Louis ran away. Bless you, no; there ain’t no doubt about it. Whose son else could he be?”

“But if that was true, he would have no rights. And what did Miss Bridget mean by rights?” asked Agnes, in a very low tone, blushing, and half ashamed to speak of such a subject at all.

Hannah, however, who did not share in all the opinions of respectability, but had a leaning rather, in the servant view of the question, to the pariah of the great old house, took up somewhat sharply this unguarded opinion. “Miss,” said Hannah, “you’ll not tell me that there ain’t no rights belonging Mr Louis. The queen on the throne would be glad of the likes of him for a prince and an heir; and Miss Bridget was well acquaint in all the ways of the Riverses, and was as fine to hear as a printed book: for the matter of that,” added Hannah, solemnly, “Miss Taesie, though she would not go through the park-gates to save her life, had a leaning to Mr Louis too.”

“And who is Miss Taesie?” said Agnes.

“Miss,” said Hannah, in a very grave and reproving tone, “you’re little acquaint with our ways; it ain’t my business to go into stories—you ask your papa.”

“So I will, Hannah; but who is Miss Taesie?” asked Agnes again, with a smile.

Hannah answered only by placing her salad on the tray, and carrying it solemnly to the parlour. Amused and interested, Agnes stood by the kitchen fireside thinking over what she had heard, and smiling as she mused; for Miss Taesie, no doubt, was the Honourable Anastasia Rivers, beneath whose name, in the old exercise-book, stood that odd B. A.

CHAPTER XVI.

WINTERBOURNE.

The next day the family walked forth in a body, to make acquaintance with the “new neighbourhood.” There was Papa and Mamma first of all, Mrs Atheling extremely well dressed, and in all the cheerful excitement of an unaccustomed holiday; and then came Agnes and Marian, pleased and curious—and, wild with delight, little Bell and Beau. Hannah, who was very near as much delighted as the children, stood at the door looking after them as they turned the angle of the grassy path. When they were quite out of sight, Hannah returned to her kitchen with a brisk step, to compound the most delicious of possible puddings for their early dinner. It was worth while now to exercise those half-forgotten gifts of cookery which had been lost upon Miss Bridget; and when everything was ready, Hannah, instead of her black ribbon, put new white bows in her cap. At sight of the young people, and, above all, the children, and in the strange delightful bustle of “a full house,” hard-featured Hannah, kind and homely, renewed her youth.

The father and mother sent their children on before them, and made progress slowly, recalling and remembering everything. As for Agnes and Marian, they hastened forward with irregular and fluctuating curiosity—loitering one moment, and running another, but, after their different fashion, taking note of all they saw. And between the vanguard and the rearguard a most unsteady main body, fluttering over the grass like two butterflies, as they ran back and forward from Agnes and Marian to Papa and Mamma “with flichterin’ noise and glee,” came Bell and Beau. These small people, with handfuls of buttercups and clovertops always running through their rosy little fingers, were to be traced along their devious and uncertain path by the droppings of these humble posies, and were in a state of perfect and unalloyed ecstasy. The little family procession came past the Old Wood House, which was a large white square building, a great deal loftier, larger, and more pretending than their own; in fact, a great house in comparison with their cottage. Round two sides of it appeared the prettiest of trim gardens—a little world of velvet lawn, clipped yews, and glowing flower-beds. The windows were entirely obscured with close Venetian blinds, partially excused by the sunshine, but turning a most jealous and inscrutable blankness to the eyes of the new inhabitants; and close behind the house clustered the trees of the park. As they passed, looking earnestly at the house, some one came out—a very young man, unmistakably clerical, with a stiff white band under his monkish chin, a waistcoat which was very High Church, and the blandest of habitual smiles. He looked at the strangers urbanely, with a half intention of addressing them. The girls were not learned in Church politics, yet they recognised the priestly appearance of the smiling young clergyman; and Agnes, for her part, contemplated him with a secret disappointment and dismay. Mr Rivers himself was said to be High Church. Could this be Mr Rivers? He passed, however, and left them to guess vainly; and Papa and Mamma, whose slow and steady pace threatened every now and then to outstrip these irregular, rapid young footsteps, came up and pressed them onward. “How strange!” Marian exclaimed involuntarily: “if that is he, I am disappointed; but how funny to meet them both!”

And then Marian blushed, and laughed aloud, half ashamed to be detected in this evident allusion to Rachel’s castles in the air. Her laugh attracted the attention of a countrywoman who just then came out to the door of a little wayside cottage. She made them a little bob of a curtsy, like Hannah’s, and asked if they wanted to see the church, “’cause I don’t think the gentlemen would mind,” said the clerk’s wife, the privileged bearer of the ecclesiastical keys; and Mr Atheling, hearing the question, answered over the heads of his daughters, “Yes, certainly they would go.” So they all went after her dutifully over the stile, and along a field-path by a rustling growth of wheat, spotted with red poppies, for which Bell and Beau sighed and cried in vain, and came at last to a pretty small church, of the architectural style and period of which this benighted family were most entirely ignorant. Mr Atheling, indeed, had a vague idea that it was “Gothic,” but would not have liked to commit himself even to that general principle—for the days of religious architecture and church restorations were all since Mr Atheling’s time.

They went in accordingly under a low round-arched doorway, solemn and ponderous, entirely unconscious of the “tressured ornament” which antiquaries came far to see; and, looking with a certain awe at the heavy and solemn arches of the little old Saxon church, were rather more personally attracted, we are pained to confess, by a group of gentlemen within the sacred verge of the chancel, discussing something with solemnity and earnestness, as if it were a question of life and death. Foremost in this group, but occupying, as it seemed, rather an explanatory and apologetic place, and listening with evident anxiety to the deliverance of the others, was a young man of commanding appearance, extremely tall, with a little of the look of ascetic abstraction which belongs to the loftier members of the very high High Church. As the Athelings approached rather timidly under the escort of their humble guide, this gentleman eyed them, with a mixture of observation and haughtiness, as they might have been eyed by the proprietor of the domain. Then he recognised Mr Atheling with such a recognition as the same reigning lord and master might bestow upon an intruder who was only mistaken and not presumptuous. The father of the family rose to the occasion, his colour increased; he drew himself up, and made a formal but really dignified bow to the young clergyman. The little group of advisers did not pause a minute in their discussion; and odd words, which they were not in the habit of hearing, fell upon the ears of Agnes and Marian. “Bad in an archaic point of view—extremely bad; and I never can forgive errors of detail; the best examples are so accessible,” said one gentleman. “I do not agree with you. I remember an instance at Amiens,” interrupted another. “Amiens, my dear sir!—exactly what I mean to say,” cried the first speaker; “behind the date of Winterbourne a couple of hundred years—late work—a debased style. In a church of this period everything ought to be severe.”

And accordingly there were severe Apostles in the painted windows—those slender lancet “lights” which at this moment dazzled the eyes of Agnes and Marian; and the new saints in the new little niches were, so far as austerity went, a great deal more correct and true to their “period” than even the old saints, without noses, and sorely worn with weather and irreverence, who were as genuine early English as the stout old walls. But Marian Atheling had no comprehension of this kind of severity. She shrunk away from the altar in its religious gloom—the altar with its tall candlesticks, and its cloth, which was stiff with embroidery—marvelling in her innocent imagination over some vague terror of punishments and penances in a church where “everything ought to be severe.” Marian took care to be on the other side of her father and mother, as they passed again the academic group discussing the newly restored sedilia, which was not quite true in point of “detail,” and drew a long breath of relief when she was safely outside these dangerous walls. “The Rector! that was the Rector. Oh Agnes!” cried Marian, as Papa announced the dreadful intelligence; and the younger sister, horror-stricken, and with great pity, looked sympathetically in Agnes’s face. Agnes herself was moved to look back at the tall central figure, using for a dais the elevation of that chancel. She smiled, but she was a little startled—and the girls went on to the village, and to glance through the trees at the great park surrounding the Hall, with not nearly so much conversation as at the beginning of their enterprise. But it was with a sigh instead of a laugh that Marian repeated, when they went home to dinner and Hannah’s magnificent pudding—“So, Agnes, we have seen them both.”

CHAPTER XVII.

THE CLERGY.

Several weeks after this passed very quietly over the Old Wood Lodge and its new inhabitants. They saw “Mr Louis,” always a rapid and sudden apparition, pass now and then before their windows, and sometimes received again that slight passing courtesy which nobody could return, as it was addressed to nobody, and only disclosed a certain careless yet courteous knowledge on the part of the young prince that they were there; and they saw the Rector on the quiet country Sabbath-days in his ancient little church, with its old heavy arches, and its new and dainty restorations, “intoning” after the loftiest fashion, and preaching strange little sermons of subdued yet often vehement and impatient eloquence—addresses which came from a caged and fiery spirit, and had no business there. The Winterbourne villagers gaped at his Reverence as he flung his thunderbolts over their heads, and his Reverence came down now and then from a wild uncertain voyage heavenward, down, down, with a sudden dreary plunge, to look at all the blank rustical faces, slumberous or wondering, and chafe himself with fiery attempts to come down to their level, and do his duty to his rural flock. With a certain vague understanding of some great strife and tumult in this dissatisfied and troubled spirit, Agnes Atheling followed him in the sudden outbursts of his natural oratory, and in the painful curb and drawing-up by which he seemed to awake and come to himself. Though she was no student of character, this young genius could not restrain a throb of sympathy for the imprisoned and uncertain intellect beating its wings before her very eyes. Intellect of the very highest order was, without question, errant in that humble pulpit—errant, eager, disquieted—an eagle flying at the sun. The simpler soul of genius vaguely comprehended it, and rose with half-respectful, half-compassionating sympathy, to mark the conflict. The family mother was not half satisfied with these preachings, and greatly lamented that the only church within their reach should be so painfully “high,” and so decidedly objectionable. Mrs Atheling’s soul was grieved within her at the tall candlesticks, and even the “severe” Apostles in the windows were somewhat appalling to this excellent Protestant. She listened with a certain dignified disapproval to the sermons, not much remarking their special features, but contenting herself with a general censure. Marian too, who did not pretend to be intellectual, wondered a little like the other people, and though she could not resist the excitement of this unusual eloquence, gazed blankly at the preacher after it was over, not at all sure if it was right, and marvelling what he could mean. Agnes alone, who could by no means have told you what he meant—who did not even understand, and certainly could not have explained in words her own interest in the irregular prelection—vaguely followed him nevertheless with an intuitive and unexplainable comprehension. They had never exchanged words, and the lofty and self-absorbed Rector knew nothing of the tenants of the Old Wood Lodge; yet he began to look towards the corner whence that intelligent and watching face flashed upon his maze of vehement and uncertain thought. He began to look, as a relief, for the upward glance of those awed yet pitying eyes, which followed him, yet somehow, in their simplicity, were always before him, steadfastly shining in the calm and deep assurance of a higher world than his. It was not by any means, at this moment, a young man and a young woman looking at each other with the mutual sympathy and mutual difference of nature; it was Genius, sweet, human, and universal, tender in the dews of youth—and Intellect, nervous, fiery, impatient, straining like a Hercules after the Divine gift, which came to the other sleeping, as God gives it to His beloved.

The Curate of Winterbourne was the most admirable foil to his reverend principal. This young and fervent churchman would gladly have sat in the lower seat of the restored sedilia, stone-cold and cushionless, at any risk of rheumatism, had not his reverence the Rector put a decided interdict upon so extreme an example of rigid Anglicanism. As it was, his bland and satisfied youthful face in the reading-desk made the strangest contrast in the world to that dark, impetuous, and troubled countenance, lowering in handsome gloom from the pulpit. The common people, who held the Rector in awe, took comfort in the presence of the Curate, who knew all the names of all the children, and was rather pleased than troubled when they made so bold as to speak to him about a place for Sally, or a ’prenticeship for John. His own proper place in the world had fallen happily to this urbane and satisfied young gentleman. He was a parish priest born and intended, and accordingly there was not a better parish priest in all Banburyshire than the Reverend Eustace Mead. While the Rector only played and fretted over these pretty toys of revived Anglicanism, with which he was not able to occupy his rapid and impetuous intellect, they sufficed to make a pleasant reserve of interest in the life of the Curate, who was by no means an impersonation of intellect, though he had an acute and practical little mind of his own, much more at his command than the mind of Mr Rivers was at his. And the Curate preached devout little sermons, which the rustical people did not gape at; while the Rector, out of all question, and to the perception of everybody, was, in the most emphatic sense of the words, the wrong man in the wrong place.

So far as time had yet gone, the only intercourse with their neighbours held by the Athelings was at church, and their nearest neighbours were those clerical people who occupied the Old Wood House. Mr Rivers was said to have a sister living with him, but she was “a great invalid,” and never visible; and on no occasion, since his new parishioners arrived, had the close Venetian blinds been raised, or the house opened its eyes. There it stood in the sunshine, in that most verdant of trim old gardens, which no one ever walked in, nor, according to appearances, ever saw, with its three rows of closed windows, blankly green, secluded and forbidding, which no one within ever seemed tempted to open to the sweetest of morning breezes, or the fragrant coolness of the night. Agnes, taking the privilege of her craft, was much disposed to suspect some wonderful secret or mystery in this monkish and ascetic habitation; but it was not difficult to guess the secret of the Rector, and there was not a morsel of mystery in the bland countenance of smiling Mr Mead.

By this time Mrs Atheling and her children were alone. Papa had exhausted his holiday, and with a mixture of pleasure and unwillingness returned to his office duties; and Mamma, though she had so much enjoyment of the country, which was “so good for the children,” began to sigh a little for her other household, to marvel much how Susan used her supremacy, and to be seized with great compunctions now and then as to the cruelty “of leaving your father and Charlie by themselves so long.” The only thing which really reconciled the good wife to this desertion, was the fact that Charlie himself, without any solicitation, and in fact rather against his will, was to have a week’s holiday at Michaelmas, and of course looked forward in his turn to the Old Wood Lodge. Mrs Atheling had made up her mind to return with her son, and was at present in a state of considerable doubt and perplexity touching Agnes and Marian, Bell and Beau. The roses on the cheeks of the little people had blossomed so sweetly since they came to the country, Mrs Atheling almost thought she could trust her darlings to Hannah, and that “another month would do them no harm.”

CHAPTER XVIII.

A NEW FRIEND.

September had begun, but my lord and his expected guests had not yet arrived at the Hall. Much talk and great preparations were reported in the village, and came in little rivulets of intelligence, through Hannah and the humble merchants at the place, to the Old Wood Lodge; but Agnes and Marian, who had not contrived to write to her, knew nothing whatever of Rachel, and vainly peeped in at the great gates of the park, early and late, for the small rapid figure which had made so great an impression upon their youthful fancy. Then came the question, should they speak to Louis, who was to be seen sometimes with a gun and a gamekeeper, deep in the gorse and ferns of Badgeley Wood. Hannah said this act of rebellious freedom had been met by a threat on the part of my lord to “have him up” for poaching, which threat only quickened the haughty boy in his love of sport. “You may say what you like, children, but it is very wrong and very sinful,” said Mrs Atheling, shaking her head with serious disapproval, “and especially if he brings in some poor gamekeeper, and risks his children’s bread;” and Mamma was scarcely to be satisfied with Hannah’s voluble and eager disclaimer—Mr Louis would put no man in peril. This excellent mother held her prejudices almost as firmly as her principles, and compassionately added that it was no wonder—poor boy, considering—for she could not understand how Louis could be virtuous and illegitimate, and stood out with a repugnance, scarcely to be overcome, against any friendship between her own children and these unfortunate orphans at the Hall.

One of these bright afternoons, the girls were in the garden discussing eagerly this difficult question; for it would be very sad to bring Rachel to the house, full of kind and warm expectations, and find her met by the averted looks of Mamma. Her two daughters, however, though they were grieved, did not find it at all in their way to criticise the opinions of their mother; they concerted little loving attacks against them, but thought of nothing more.

And these two found great occupation in the garden, where Bell and Beau played all the day long, and which Mrs Atheling commanded as she sat by the parlour window with her work-basket. This afternoon the family group was fated to interruption. One of the vehicles ascending the high-road, which was not far from the house, drew up suddenly at sight of these young figures in old Miss Bridget’s garden. Even at this distance a rather rough and very peremptory voice was audible ordering the groom, and then a singular-looking personage appeared on the grassy path. This was a very tall woman, dressed in an old-fashioned brown cloth pelisse and tippet, with an odd bonnet on her head which seemed an original design, contrived for mere comfort, and owning no fashion at all. She was not young certainly, but she was not so old either, as the archæological “detail” of her costume might have warranted a stranger in supposing. Fifty at the very utmost, perhaps only forty-five, with a fresh cheek, a bright eye, and all the demeanour of a country gentleman, this lady advanced upon the curious and timid girls. That her errand was with them was sufficiently apparent from the moment they saw her, and they stood together very conscious, under the steady gaze of their approaching visitor, continuing to occupy themselves a little with the children, yet scarcely able to turn from this unknown friend. She came along steadily, without a pause, holding still in her hand the small riding-whip which had been the sceptre of her sway over the two stout grey ponies waiting in the high-road—came along steadily to the door, pushed open the gate, entered upon them without either compliment or salutation, and only, when she was close upon the girls, paused for an instant to make the brusque and sudden inquiry, “Well, young people, who are you?”

They did not answer for the moment, being surprised in no small degree by such a question; upon which the stranger repeated it rather more peremptorily. “We are called Atheling,” said Agnes, with a mixture of pride and amusement. The lady laid her hand heavily upon the girl’s shoulder, and turned her half round to the light. “What relation?” said this singular inquisitor; but while she spoke, there became evident a little moistening and relaxation of her heavy grey eyelid, as if it was with a certain emotion she recalled the old owner of the old lodge, whom she did not name.

“My father was Miss Bridget’s nephew; she left the house to him,” said Agnes; and Marian too drew near in wondering regard and sympathy, as two big drops, like the thunder-rain, fell suddenly and quietly over this old lady’s cheeks.

“So! you are Will Atheling’s daughters,” said their visitor, a little more roughly than before, as if from some shame of her emotion; “and that is your mother at the window. Where’s Hannah? for I suppose you don’t know me.”

“No,” said Agnes, feeling rather guilty; it seemed very evident that this lady was a person universally known.

“Will Atheling married—married—whom did he marry?” said the visitor, making her way to the house, and followed by the girls. “Eh! don’t you know, children, what was your mother’s name? Franklin? yes, to be sure, I remember her a timid pretty sort of creature; ah! just like Will.”

By this time they were at the door of the parlour, which she opened with an unhesitating hand. Mrs Atheling, who had seen her from the window, was evidently prepared to receive the stranger, and stood up to greet her with a little colour rising on her cheek, and, as the girls were astonished to perceive, water in her eyes.

This abrupt and big intruder into the family room showed more courtesy to the mother than she had done to the girls; she made a sudden curtsy, which expression of respect seemed to fill up all the requirements of politeness in her eyes, and addressed Mrs Atheling at once, without any prelude. “Do you remember me?”

“I think so—Miss Rivers?” said Mrs Atheling with considerable nervousness.

“Just so—Anastasia Rivers—once not any older than yourself. So—so—and here are you and all your children in my old professor’s room.”

“We have made no change in it; everything is left as it was,” said Mrs Atheling.

“The more’s the pity,” answered the abrupt and unscrupulous caller. “Why, it’s not like them—not a bit; as well dress them in her old gowns, dear old soul! Ay well, it was a long life—no excuse for grieving; but at the last, you see, at the last, it’s come to its end.”

“We did not see her,” said Mrs Atheling, with an implied apology for “want of feeling,” “for more than twenty years. Some one, for some reason, we cannot tell what, prejudiced her mind against William and me.”

“Some one!” said Miss Rivers, with an emphatic toss of her head. “You don’t know of course who it was. I do: do you wish me to tell you?”

Mrs Atheling made no answer. She looked down with some confusion, and began to trifle with the work which all this time had lain idly on her knee.

“If there’s any ill turn he can do you now,” said Miss Rivers pointedly, “he will not miss the chance, take my word for it; and in case he tries it, let me know. Will Atheling and I are old friends, and I like the look of the children. Good girls, are they? And is this all your family?”

“All I have alive but one boy,” said Mrs Atheling.

“Ah!” said her visitor, looking up quickly. “Lost some?—never mind, child, you’ll find them again; and here am I, in earth and heaven a dry tree!”

After a moment’s pause she began to speak again, in an entirely different tone. “These young ones must come to see me,” said their new friend—“I like the look of them. You are very pretty, my dear, you are quite as good as a picture; but I like your sister just as well as you. Come here, child. Have you had a good education? Are you clever? Nonsense! Why do you blush? People can’t have brains without knowing of it. Are you clever, I say?”

“I don’t think so,” said Agnes, unable to restrain a smile; “but mamma does, and so does Marian.” Here she came to an abrupt conclusion, blushing at herself. Miss Rivers rose up from her seat, and stood before her, looking down into the shy eyes of the young genius with all the penetrating steadiness of her own.

“I like an honest girl,” said the Honourable Anastasia, patting Agnes’s shoulder rather heavily with her strong hand. “Marian—is she called Marian? That’s not an Atheling name. Why didn’t you call her Bride?”

“She is named for me,” said Mrs Atheling with some dignity. And then she added, faltering, “We had a Bridget too; but——”

“Never mind,” said Miss Rivers, lifting her hand quickly—“never mind, you’ll find them again. She’s very pretty—prettier than any one I know about Banburyshire; but for heaven’s sake, child, mind what you’re about, and don’t let any one put nonsense in your head. Your mother could tell you what comes of such folly, and so could I. By the by, children, you are much of an age. Do you know anything of those poor children at the Hall?”

“We know Rachel,” said Agnes eagerly. “We met her at Richmond, and were very fond of her; and I suppose she is coming here.”

“Rachel!” said Miss Rivers, with a little contempt. “I mean the boy. Has Will Atheling seen the boy?”

“My husband met him once when he came here first,” said Mrs Atheling; “and he fancied—fancied—imagined—he was like——”

“My father!” The words were uttered with an earnestness and energy which brought a deep colour over those unyouthful cheeks. “Yes, to be sure—every one says the same. I’d give half my fortune to know the true story of that boy!”

“Rachel says,” interposed Agnes, eagerly taking advantage of anything which could be of service to her friend, “that Louis will not believe that they belong to Lord Winterbourne.”

The eyes of the Honourable Anastasia flashed positive lightning; then a shadow came over her face. “That’s nothing,” she said abruptly. “No one who could help it would be content to belong to him. Now, I’ll send some day for the children: send them over to see me, will you? Ah, where’s Hannah—does she suit you? She was very good to her, dear old soul!”

“And she is very good to the children,” said Mrs Atheling, as she followed her visitor punctiliously to the door. When they reached it, Miss Rivers turned suddenly round upon her—

“You are not rich, are you? Don’t be offended; but, if you are able, change all this. I’m glad to see you in the house; but this, you know, this is like her gowns and her turbans—make a change.”

Here Hannah appeared from her kitchen, curtsying deeply to Miss Taesie, who held a conversation with her at the gate; and finally went away, with her steady step and her riding-whip, having first plucked one of the late pale roses from the wall. Mrs Atheling came in with a degree of agitation not at all usual to the family mother. “The first time I ever saw her,” said Mrs Atheling, “when I was a young girl newly married, and she a proud young beauty just on the eve of the same. I remember her, in her hat and her riding-habit, pulling a rose from Aunt Bridget’s porch—and there it is again.”

“Ma’am,” said Hannah, coming in to spread the table, “Miss Taesie never comes here, late or early, but she gathers a rose.”

CHAPTER XIX.

GOSSIP.

“Well, my dears,” said Mrs Atheling, with a little reluctance, “somehow we seem to be brought into the very midst of it again, though we have scarcely heard their names for twenty years. This lady, though she is almost as old as he is, is niece to Lord Winterbourne. The old lord was only his stepbrother, and a great deal older than he—and Miss Anastasia was the only child of the old lord. You may suppose how disappointed he was, with all his great estates entailed, and the title—and nothing but a daughter; and everybody said, when the old lady died, that he would marry again.”

“Did he marry again?” said Marian, as Mamma came to a sudden and unexpected pause.

“No, my dear; for then trouble came,” said Mrs Atheling. “Miss Anastasia was a beautiful young lady, always very proud, and very wise and sensible, but a great beauty for all that; and she was to be married to a young gentleman, a baronet and a very great man, out of Warwickshire. The present lord was then the Honourable Reginald Rivers, and dreadful wild. Somehow, I cannot tell how it was, he and Sir Frederick quarrelled, and then they fought; and after his wound that fine young gentleman fell into a wasting and a consumption, and died at twenty-five; and that is the reason why Miss Anastasia has never been married, and I am afraid, though it is so very wrong to say so, hates Lord Winterbourne.”

“Oh, mamma! I am sure I should, if I had been like her!” cried Marian, almost moved to tears.

“No, my darling, not to hate him,” said Mrs Atheling, shaking her head, “or you would forget all you have been taught since you were a child.”

“I do not understand him, mamma,” said Agnes: “does everybody hate him—has he done wrong to every one?”

Mrs Atheling sighed. “My dears, if I tell you, you must forget it again, and never mention it to any one. Papa had a pretty young sister, little Bride, as they all called her, the sweetest girl I ever saw. Mr Reginald come courting her a long time, but at last she found out—oh girls! oh, children!—that what he meant was not true love, but something that it would be a shame and a sin so much as to name; and it broke her dear heart, and she died. Her grave is at Winterbourne; that was what papa and I went to see the first day.”

“Mamma,” cried Agnes, starting up in great excitement and agitation, “why did you suffer us to know any one belonging to such a man?”

“Well, my dear,” said Mrs Atheling, a little discomposed by this appeal. “I thought it was for the best. Coming here, we were sure to be thrown into their way—and perhaps he may have repented. And then Mrs Edgerley was very kind to you, and I did not think it right, for the father’s sake, to judge harshly of the child.”

Marian, who had covered her face with her hands, looked up now with abashed and glistening eyes. “Is that why papa dislikes him so?” said Marian, very low, and still sheltering with her raised hands her dismayed and blushing face.

Mrs Atheling hesitated a moment. “Yes,” she said doubtfully, after a pause of consideration—“yes; that and other things.”

But the inquiry of the girls could not elicit from Mamma what were the other things which were sufficient to share with this as motives of Mr Atheling’s dislike. They were inexpressibly shocked and troubled by the story, as people are who, contemplating evil at a visionary distance, and having only a visionary belief in it, suddenly find a visible gulf yawning at their own feet; and Agnes could not help thinking, with horror and disgust, of being in the same room with this man of guilt, and of that polluting kiss of his, from which Rachel shrank as from the touch of pestilence. “Such a man ought to be marked and singled out,” cried Agnes, with unreasoning youthful eloquence: “no one should dare to bring him into the same atmosphere with pure-minded people; everybody ought to be warned of who and what he was.”

“Nay; God has not done so,” said Mrs Atheling with a sigh. “He has offended God more than he ever could offend man, but God bears with him. I often say so to your father when we speak of the past. Ought we, who are so sinful ourselves, to have less patience than God?”

After this the girls were very silent, saying nothing, and much absorbed with their own thoughts. Marian, who perhaps for the moment found a certain analogy between her father’s pretty sister and herself, was wrapt in breathless horror of the whole catastrophe. Her mind glanced back upon Sir Langham—her fancy started forward into the future; but though the young beauty for the moment was greatly appalled and startled, she could not believe in the possibility of anything at all like this “happening to me!” Agnes, for her part, took quite a different view of the matter. The first suggestion of her eager fancy was, what could be done for Louis and Rachel, to deliver them from the presence and control of such a man? Innocently and instinctively her thoughts turned upon her own gift, and the certain modest amount of power it gave her. Louis might get a situation like Charlie, and be helped until he was able for the full weight of his own life; and Rachel, another sister, could come home to Bellevue. So Agnes, who at this present moment was writing in little bits, much interrupted and broken in upon, her second story, rose into a delightful anticipatory triumph, not of its fame or success, though these things did glance laughingly across her innocent imagination, but of its mere ignoble coined recompense, and of all the great things for these two poor orphans which might be done in Bellevue.

And while the mother and the daughters sat at work in the shady little parlour, where the sunshine did not enter, but where a sidelong reflection of one waving bough of clematis, dusty with blossom, waved across the little sloping mirror, high on the wall, Hannah sat outside the open door, watching with visible delight, and sometimes joining for an instant with awkward kindliness, the sports of Bell and Beau. They rolled about on the soft grass, ran about on the garden paths, tumbled over each other and over everything in their way, but, with the happy immunity of children in the country, “took no harm.” Hannah had some work in her great white apron, but did not so much as look at it. She had no eye for a rare passenger upon the grassy byway, and scarcely heard the salutation of the Rector’s man. All Hannah’s soul and thoughts were wrapt up in the “blessed babies,” who made her old life blossom and rejoice; and it was without any intervention of their generally punctilious attendant that a light and rapid step came gliding over the threshold of the Lodge, and a quiet little knock sounded lightly on the parlour door. “May I come in, please?” said a voice which seemed to Agnes to be speaking out of her dream; and Mrs Atheling had not time to buckle on her armour of objection when the door opened, and the same little light rapid figure came bounding into the arms of her daughters. Once there, it was not very difficult to reach to the good mother’s kindly heart.