WHEN
THE BIRDS
BEGIN TO SING.

A Novel

BY

WINIFRED GRAHAM,

AUTHOR OF
"ON THE DOWN GRADE," &c., &c.

WITH SIXTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS
BY HAROLD PIFFARD.

LONDON:
C. ARTHUR PEARSON LTD.,
HENRIETTA STREET, W.C.
1897

CONTENTS.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

WHEN THE BIRDS BEGIN TO SING.

CHAPTER I.

AND WHEN LOVE SPEAKS.

She was certainly very pretty, and just then she looked prettier than usual, for the sharp run had brought a more vivid colour to the cheek, and an added sparkle to the eye. She was laughing, too—the rogue—as well she might, for had she not brought her right hand swiftly down upon his left ear when he had chased her, caught her, and deliberately and maliciously kissed her, and did he not now look red and foolish, and apparently repentant?

But let me start from the beginning, and tell you how it all came about.

Eleanor, the daughter of a neighbouring farmer, is as fresh and beautiful in the eyes of Philip Roche as the field flowers whose heads fall fading beneath his tread while he follows her through the long grass. He has watched her playing with the innocent school children—little more than a child herself—and then, with the calm assurance that to him is second nature, joins the merry throng unasked. The children greet him eagerly, after scrambling for a handful of silver from the stranger's pocket, for is it not the great, grand treat of all the year?

"Come and play wif us," lisps a little maiden of five summers, whom Philip tosses on his shoulder with good-natured ease. He has a way of winning the confidence of children.

"What is the game?"

"Kiss in the ring!" cries a small boyish voice at his elbow.

The stranger's eyes twinkle as he watches the lovely unknown Eleanor arranging a circle. Placing his tiny friend again on her feet, and taking her brother's grimy hand, Philip Roche joins the hilarious pastime.

Eleanor glances across the ring well-pleasedly, guessing that her dainty figure and deep-fringed eyes have attracted him thither.

A moment later she trips lightly round the chain of children, her heart beating higher as her feet approach the man's tall figure. Shall she? Shall she? No time to consider, as the handkerchief falls from her hand upon Philip's shoulder.

Quick as lightning she flies away—faster—faster—through the buttercups, while he pursues, nearer—nearer—and then the strong arms arrest her career, and the inevitable kiss occurs.

Eleanor, her cheeks aflame, frees herself from his audacious caress, and half laughing, half indignant, walks hastily away. But after their unconventional introduction Philip is not easily to be foiled.

"You are offended," he cries penitently. "It was only the game; won't you forgive me, Miss——?"

"Grebby," raising her eyes and pausing. "Eleanor Grebby," she continues with a prim little air that is quite unnatural, then laughing spontaneously:

"You see, I was rather taken aback at first, Mr.——"

"Roche—Philip Roche, at your service."

"So now we know each other," holding out her hand.

He grasps it eagerly—such a warm slim hand!

"It was rather a nice introduction, wasn't it?"

Philip thinks how amazingly pretty Eleanor is, as she assents with deepening colour.

"There! I knew it would come!" she cries, with a thought for her new poppy-bedizened hat.

"What?" asks Philip, still feasting his eyes on the girl's fair physique, and unobservant of the gathering darkness overhead.

"Why, the rain, of course. We shall get wet."

"Only a summer shower."

"Yes, but as disastrous in its effects as any other downpour. I shall make for that barn in the next field; the children have all mysteriously vanished."

"I am dreadfully afraid of the wet," declares Philip, pretending to shiver. "May I accompany you?"

He is still retaining her hand as they run together towards the haven of "shelter.

"How nice of it to rain!" he gasps, applauding the accommodating skies. "Let me make you comfortable," heaping together a pile of hay for her to sit upon. "Now tell me all about yourself."

Eleanor sinks down on the soft couch, looking somewhat wistfully through the open door of the barn.

"I am easily explained. I live here always. My father is a farmer, and I feed the chickens, dust the house, and teach in the Sunday-school. Only fancy what an exciting life, Mr. Roche. Doesn't it take your breath away?"

At the thought of her own humdrum existence Eleanor laughs again with a return of that superabundant vitality which is hers by nature.

"Then once or perhaps twice a year I am invited to tea at the Vicarage, and I sit up straight in a high-backed chair and say 'Yes' and 'No' when I am spoken to, and answer prettily—like a schoolgirl. The vicar's wife would have a fit if I lounged like this," flinging herself back with an air of abandon on the hay. "Once she asked me to sing (I play the harmonium in church). My cousin Joe had brought me a comic song from town, and I couldn't help, for the life of me, getting up and giving her a verse."

"Of course it was wrong, and she looked frightfully shocked. I have certainly never been invited to tea since. Oh, how I should like to sing at concerts and halls—I mean the sort of places where you have an eyeglass, and walk round with a hat and stick!"

Her face beamed as she delivered this sentence—involuntarily the little hands clasped themselves together in excitement.

"Be thankful that such an ambition is ungratified," declares Philip, speaking seriously for the first time. "You do not know the fate that you are coveting. Best contented, child, to remain your own sweet self. Your country life is ideal compared with—that!"

Eleanor shakes her head.

"It doesn't seem like it," she declares.

"No, I dare say not. Duty is sometimes heroism in its noblest form."

"Then are all the people wicked that go to London, and sing, act, and enjoy themselves?"

"Indeed I trust not. We should have a pretty bad time of it if they were. Yet I don't know that you're far wrong. Few are guileless. But why talk of it? Time enough to warn you of the pitfalls when you are on your road to the great city."

"What is your life?" asks Eleanor curiously, drawing the long ends of hay through her teeth with a meditative smile.

"Scarcely less monotonous than yours, Miss Grebby"—an amused look in his eyes. "Instead of feeding chickens I feed my friends—lunches, dinners, midnight suppers—all of which pall terribly after a time. Instead of dusting my house I leave it to accumulate dust, while I wander abroad. A home is a dull place for one man."

"You have no wife or mother?"

"No."

"But you must have lots of money. Why, only think of all the silver you threw to the children this afternoon! I do not believe they had ever seen so many shillings and sixpences before."

"Money will not buy a mother or——" He was going to say "a wife," but checked himself. Philip Roche was an accurate man.

"Poor Mr. Roche, it must be very lonely," says Eleanor, with genuine sympathy in her tone.

He smiles enigmatically. It is strange to him to be pitied by the little farmer's daughter when so many have envied his happy-go-lucky existence ere now.

"The rain clouds are dispersing," he murmurs, as a stray ray of sunlight wanders through the barn door to mingle its glory with Eleanor's hair. How gold those tender silken threads appear under its burnishing hand!

"What a pity! It has been such a refreshing shower!"

"I feel quite young again," he declares, "young enough to play with the children for hours. What do you say to kiss in the ring again?"

He presses her hand gently.

She lifts her eyes to his with a slow shake of her head.

"There is the vicar's wife to be considered."

"Good gracious!" he laughs. "You don't mean I should have to kiss her?"

Eleanor's face dimples all over in delightful smiles.

"What an absurd idea!" she gasps gleefully. "I should just like to see you!"

"I don't think it has quite stopped," murmurs Philip, holding up his hands to the sky, and pretending the drops from the barn are rain themselves.

"How silly you are!" cries Eleanor, mockingly, gathering up her skirts and revealing a well-turned ankle. "But, oh, isn't the grass soaking?" as Philip takes her arm and guides her to a narrow path. "The children will ruin their boots, and all go home with colds. Look, they are tearing about like mad things. How they will sleep to-night!"

"I wonder what will become of them all in the years to follow, and why they have any existence whatsoever beneath the glimpses of the moon?"

"One will reap," replies Eleanor, wisely, "and another will sow. Some may slay oxen and wring the fowls' necks, and perhaps for all we know murder each other. It is a horrible thought, isn't it? They look so thoroughly innocent, these country children. Do you see that little boy crying because he was knocked down in the three-legged steeplechase. His life race is only just beginning. His father is in gaol for theft, his mother incurable in a Samaritan infirmary, yet he is only crying because he grazed his knee and did not win a packet of bull's-eyes."

Eleanor's voice is low and expressive as her deep sapphire eyes—fascinating the man by their changeful beauty—one moment light and dancing like the sunbeams in the branches, the next overflowing with pity for a pauper child.

The little ones gather round, clinging to her skirts. She is tender and kind to all, though her gaze rests chiefly on the tall, sunburnt stranger making himself popular with the youngsters in her class.

"Look, teacher," cries the same wee maiden who is responsible for Philip's first appearance in their games. "I won 'er, 'opping along o' Margery in the big race," holding aloft a doll with great staring glass eyes and brilliantly rouged cheeks. "Ain't she beautiful?"

"What will you name her?" asks the Sunday-school teacher sweetly.

"Don't know," sighs the child perplexedly.

"Eleanor," suggests Philip.

"We 'ad a little sister named Eleanor, but she 'adn't got enough blood in her, so she died."

"Then you must call your doll by another name," says Miss Grebby decidedly.

But the small girl shakes her head, and announces with precision:

"I'll call 'er Eleanor!" and marches away well satisfied, to re-open a half-closed wound in her mother's breast.

"I hit on an unfortunate suggestion," whispers Philip, while the ever energetic Miss Grebby initiates him into the mysteries of "Nuts in May," "Poor Mary sits a-weeping," and "I have a little dog."

The soft twilight gradually creeps over this summer world, and the great red sun sinks down in its sea of fire behind the trees.

The birds chirp a good-night song, till their piping is drowned by the hearty cheers of the happy children ringing out stirringly on the still damp air.

"And now—home!" sighs Eleanor, with a little grimace, as Philip bends down to fasten a spray of wild honeysuckle in her belt.

"May I see you back?" he asks eagerly, noting the bright smile that flits across her lips at the suggestion.

"Could you walk a mile?" questions Eleanor in mock astonishment. "I thought London people always drove. The vicar's wife had some friends from South Kensington who were positively lame if they went any distance on foot. They said our country roads were a disgrace—no asphalte, no hansom cabs."

"Come along," murmurs Philip, whose long strides are not easy to keep pace with. They walk more slowly when out of sight. Oh, the delightful dawdle back through the vague shadows of evening in sweetly scented lanes! How merrily she prattles with charming ingenuousness, while he watches her expressive features, a new strange thrill at his heart.

What if on this summer holiday, among the clover and the daisies, he has discovered the one spotless soul of his life—a fresh, unsophisticated creature of Nature's noblest and purest art!

At last they are in sight of the old farmhouse which Eleanor calls home. It is a picturesque spot, and Philip stops admiringly to take in the beauty of the rural scene.

"So you live there in that quiet abode?" he said thoughtfully.

"Yes. I am sorry to-day is over. It has not only been a holiday for the children, but half the village. The labourers are to have a dinner to-night and——"

She paused. The labourers and the children are so far from her mind at this moment.

"I shall see you again," he whispers.

"Where and when?" asks Eleanor, feigning surprise.

"To-morrow in this cornfield on our left. I shall walk past."

"Like Boaz, and Ruth will be gleaning," she replies coyly.

"What will Boaz do?" he murmurs.

Eleanor lowers her eyes, and interlaces her fingers.

"I know," she replies confidently.

In the dim light Philip fancies that Eleanor is weaving some strange witchcraft. He is drawn involuntarily nearer and snatching her hand detains it a moment in both his. She is more beautiful than ever now in the dim solitude of the deserted road. The simplicity of her daily routine in the country farmhouse appeals to this man of the world, who yearns for something different, something better in his aimless, empty life—aimless because he has no one to work for, empty because there is no one to love.

Eleanor's gentle presence in the gathering gloom quickens his imagination. A picture wonderful and hitherto undreamed rises like a sudden mirage before Philip's eyes.

He seems lost in contemplation.

"I have found her at last," he says, speaking his thoughts aloud.

"Who?" asks Eleanor under her breath.

"The Ideal Woman!" he replies.

The girl looks perplexed—she does not understand the phrase. New Women and rational costumes have not yet penetrated to the depths of Copthorne, so their counter-poising ideal is to her an unknown quantity.

Eleanor's ignorance of modernity constitutes a special charm in his eyes. How sweet a privilege to build up this uncultured soul, to mould her impressionable spirit! Philip is enamoured of the idea, he sees such vast possibilities stretching out before him. Eleanor differed so widely from the women of his set. Perhaps the weaker sex are made variously that the mind of desultory man, studious of change, and pleased with novelty, may be indulged.

"How long have we known each other?" he asks.

"About three hours," she answers promptly.

"How deep can one go below the surface in one hundred and eighty minutes?"

Eleanor seems bewildered; she is at a loss for words.

"Have I only been with you so short a time?" he says incredulously. "Can it be possible?"

"Does it seem long?" she asks looking down shyly. "Have I wearied you, Mr. Roche?"

His smile reassures her.

"It does not seem long, only full to the brim. To every second a fresh thought, an inch deeper into the unknown."

"I have never met anyone before," she declares frankly, "who spoke to me like that."

Then with a swift "Good night" Eleanor breaks away and vanishes among the shadows.

"A wife," says Philip to himself, "is something between a hindrance and a help. Is this the turn of the tide?"

A nightingale broke into song. "Yes!" it cried; "yes—yes—yes!"

CHAPTER II.

"IMPARADIS'D IN ONE ANOTHER'S ARMS."—Milton.

Eleanor is busy in the morning sunlight, brightening the pewter dinner service, the pride of the Grebby family, passed down from generation to generation, and priceless in her eyes. She can hear the preparations without for an early start to the neighbouring market. Her mother is loading a cart of vegetables, while her father "shoos" the cackling geese into wicker pens, and harnesses "Black Bess" the steady old mare, who is almost one of themselves. And Eleanor is glad that the market (a weekly centre of attraction to the old village) will leave her in peaceful solitude.

She breaks out into a glad song, which mingles with the twittering of birds:

"There was a jolly miller once,
Lived on the River Dee."

"Eleanor, Eleanor, give me a hand with these vegetables," cries her mother's voice. There is a thud, and a whole sack of potatoes fall pell-mell into the yard, still muddy from yesterday's rain.

Eleanor gathers them up, indulging the same tuneful mood:

"He worked and sang from morn till night.
No lark more blithe than he!"

She has a strong, sweet-toned voice, and "Black Bess" turns her head sleepily at the sound, whisking the tiresome flies with her tail. So often Eleanor's tread at the door of her shed has meant apples and carrots and sugar.

She wipes the potatoes clean with her apron, replacing them carefully at the back of the cart.

Mrs. Grebby takes the reins, while Mr. Grebby follows on foot, driving a few specially honoured sheep, who frequently serve him for conversation throughout an entire evening spent smoking with neighbouring farmers.

Eleanor watches them out of sight, her hand over her brow to shade the dazzling sunlight from her eyes. A group of chickens congregate around her with mute inquiry in their beaky faces. She fetches a handful of grain from the barn, flings it into their midst, and returns singing to her pewter polishing:

"And this the burden of his song
For ever used to be:

"How dull this soup tureen is, to be sure!" pausing in her verse to rub it with extra vigour:

"I care for nobody, no not I,
If no one cares for me!"

The delinquencies of the dimmed soup tureen are forgotten as these last words ring out in the quiet parlour. "Surely," thinks Eleanor, "there is hidden pathos in the Jolly Miller of Dee's reckless assertion! To care for nobody! What a horrible thought—a whole life's tragedy lies in the closing verse. If no one cares for me!"

Eleanor sighs and leans her chin on her hands, kneeling before the wooden table on which the dinner service is spread. What if nobody cared for her! How vast and miserable a wilderness this world would be! Why, even the dumb animals love her.

The little goat she called Nelly, who fell ill the week before, and gasped out its breath in her arms on a dry heap of hay, gave all the love of its disputed soul to Eleanor. Of course, it had a soul; she made up her mind long ago on this point. How can a creature with such mysteriously human eyes as Nelly possessed be less human than the great plodding, loose-mouthed ploughboy, who only gapes when he is spoken to, and contains what Mr. Grebby is pleased to call, "only half a intellec'!"

Eleanor glances at the old-fashioned clock in the corner, decorated by grotesque pottery dogs and four-legged creatures with horns, and faces resembling tigers or cats. She has been up since five, for besides market day it is churning morning, and she and her mother have worked for hours in the dairy.

"It is time," she says at last, washing her small hands under the scullery tap, and then reaching for a hat hanging on the kitchen dresser.

"I wish I had something pretty to wear," she sighs, glancing at her reflection in a cracked glass. "Laces and ribbons, beautiful blue ribbons with pink spots, like the Squire's nieces wore last Sunday. The tall girl was dreadfully plain, and I should have looked so well in her silk gown, with the shorter sister's chiffon fichu."

Eleanor's face brightens at the recollection of those costumes in the Manor House pew, which appeared so lovely in her eyes while she played the Magnificat. Dreams of dainty dresses are dear to her heart as the occasional thoughts of love which steal over her at times. "If the two could be combined," she thinks, "love and wealth."

It is amazing this new and sudden desire for something better, which all but stops the beating of Eleanor's heart.

"If he loved me," she gasps "if—" she staggers back against the half-closed door, her fingers clenched and pressed to her temples, throbbing with intense excitement. All the thoughts that crowd to her brain are offsprings of that improbable "if," each moment growing more dazzling!

She hastens with light footsteps to an old cupboard in which her mother has treasured some hand-made lace left in her aunt's will to the Grebbys of Copthorne Farm.

She turns down her collar to reveal a shapely throat, pearly white, and hidden usually from the sun's scorching power, round which the soft folds of lace fall entrancingly.

What would Eleanor's mother say could she see her precious heirloom donned hastily on this busy market morning, to adorn her daughter's neck for a stroll through the fields! It is sacrilege surely, but the prize!

The girl closes the cupboard noiselessly, creeping away like a criminal out into the glaring day. Her eyes dance, her cheeks are flushed, and her hair escaping (as if by accident) from its neat braids, waves in dainty tendrils round her ears.

"I am beautiful," she murmurs to herself, "why not? Stranger things have happened—Eleanor Roche, the wife of a rich man—oh!"

The last is a gasp of hitherto unexpressed surprise at the audacity of her day dreams.

Philip is waiting by the barley field, watching for her. As she sees him she slackens her steps, not wishing to appear over anxious for the rendezvous. He advances eagerly, grasps her hands, and devours her with his eyes.

"So we meet again, Eleanor," he whispers. "I must call you Eleanor; you don't mind?"

A bold answer that inwardly makes her tremble enters the girl's head. Why not place herself on an equality with him at once? She nerves herself to reply:

"Not if I may call you Philip?"

A look of amused surprise flits over Mr. Roche's features. What a naïve, childlike manner Eleanor possesses!

"Of course," he replies, pulling the small hand through his arm, and turning out of the public thoroughfare.

"I wonder what you think of me?" asks Eleanor unhesitatingly.

The great sparkling eyes are raised to his with genuine curiosity in their depths. She is not seeking a compliment; far from it, she really wants to know, and is waiting for the truth.

He looks from the blue eyes of the girl to the little blue bird's-eye growing on a bank of clover. She pauses while he stoops to gather the tiny flower.

"You see this," he says.

"Yes."

"It is only a field blossom blooming unnoticed in this sweet country atmosphere, yet to me a thousand times fairer than the exotics and hot-house plants which naturally demand admiration. I love this little flower," pressing the tender blue to his lips, "because it is wild and untrained. It appeals to me. It is like you, Eleanor!"

A flush of offence arises to her cheeks.

"Wild!" "Untrained!" the words sting Miss Grebby's pride.

"I did not think you would compare me to a weed!" she retorts, tossing her head proudly.

But Philip will not see he has offended, and continues in the same strain.

"Don't despise the weeds, Eleanor; they were placed in their uncultivated beds by Nature's hand, and have as much right to be called beautiful as any other creation."

He speaks to her authoritatively, and she looks at his strong, masterful expression with a gradual sense of awe.

"I should not have thought you would care for flowers."

"Why not? Does it seem childish in your eyes to soliloquise over a wayside 'weed,' as you call it?"

His questions perplex her. She is silent.

"You do not appreciate your beautiful country," he continues, "from living in it always. Wait till you have tasted the deadly dust of the town before you curl your lip at a blue bird's-eye, or pass judgment on the unbroken quiet of sinless Copthorne. Since I came here for rest and holiday leisure I seem to have grasped the whole history and charm of the place. It contains endless interest in its Godlike simplicity to the recluse or the reader. Look what fields for the naturalist or botanist! Think, too, of an artist here for the first time—what sketches to be made at sunrise and sunset! You may call your little world dull, monotonous, uneventful, since, reared in the green landscape with farmlands and woods around, you are bound through custom to neglect the pleasures of imagination, and see it only without observing."

"I am glad you are so enthusiastic over Copthorne," replies Eleanor, catching at the meadow-sweet, and crumbling it between her fingers. "I suppose you have been living a very different life in London?"

"It is a great change," he replies, "from the bustle of fashion to the unbroken quiet. But I must own I didn't enjoy so completely all the beauty of this glad country scene till you came, Eleanor, happy in the rich possession of youth and lightheartedness."

Now his conversation grows interesting, the perfect smile with which she is naturally blessed creeps through her lips to her eyes, illuminating her whole countenance. In the distance the regular click of a reaping machine falls on the breeze.

"You must see more of our life," she says impetuously. "Next week all our labourers will be reaping, and our barns are ready for the first loads of harvest. Do not go till it is gathered in!"

"Shall I promise? Would it give you pleasure?"

"Yes."

A pause, during which an old horse puts his nose over the gate of an adjacent field, regarding Philip and Eleanor complacently.

"Then it's a bargain! If you will be pleased, I will stay; but not unless."

A little gasp escapes her lips.

"Can you doubt it, Philip?" she murmurs.

He is satisfied by the earnest tone, gratified by her humility and undisguised devotion.

"Would you like to see my home?" she asks, for their steps are nearing the quaint farmhouse.

"Indeed, I should."

She takes him from the sloping cornfield, topped by a windmill, to where the path joins a kitchen garden—a perfect holiday ground for bees. The vegetables seem in perfect harmony with yellow marigolds and calceolaria. The house is divided from the road by palings richly covered by Virginia creepers, and as they approach Philip pauses to lean on the wicket gate and view the peaceful homestead silently. The drone of bees and busy presence of insect toil is soothing and melodious. He takes Eleanor's hand and kisses it in the full glare of the mid-day sun under the heavily laden fruit trees. Then they pass by the brilliant flower-beds to the rustic porch, through which is visible the Grebbys' twelve o'clock repast spread on a clean white linen cloth, a vase of wild flowers for simple decoration. There are bright-coloured texts on the walls, and an old Family Bible under a glass case.

"My mother will be back from the market directly," says Eleanor; "would you do us the honour of stopping to dinner?"

The tone became a supplication, mingled with smiles.

"You are too kind," declares Philip, touched by the unostentatious hospitality of his newly found friend. "I shall be most delighted."

"Come and let us watch for the return of Black Bess," she cries, leading the way out into the garden again. Philip thinks he has never spent a more delightful morning.

To have missed it would have been to lose one of the sweetest episodes of his life. The intense restfulness of Copthorne Farm, the fragrance of the air, the softness of the carpet beneath his feet, the cattle browsing in verdant pastures, and the murmur of those winged and drowsy honey-laden workers from the meadows, make a picture which will never pass from his mind. For the moment, while basking in the harvest sun, a scene which must some day be only a faded pleasure left to recollection, is Paradise!

Then the Grebbys' return from their marketing, to welcome the stranger whom Eleanor proudly introduces. Hospitality is a creed with them, and renewing their daughter's invitation, they place the choicest their home affords before the unexpected guest. Thus it is that Philip Roche finds himself in Eleanor's family circle, discussing the crops and weather with her father, a rubicund, hale old man, whose life is centred in bucolic pursuits.

The harvest is over, the wheat and barley are garnered, but still Philip lingers, chained by that mysterious agent the world calls—Love!

He sees the embodiment of all he most admires in Eleanor, the sweet domesticated country maiden, pure as the health-laden breezes sighing through the trees. His love ennobles his being, he is surprised at this inexplicable and unfathomable passion.

"Eleanor," he says, "I am going away—I want to take you with me. Will you be my wife?"

It is more a command than a question. He cannot do without her. She must consent.

The girl's breath comes and goes swiftly; for a moment he fears she will faint.

The future dances before her swimming brain, the alluring prospect of money, position, pleasure, whisper like fiends in Eleanor's ears. Love is forgotten; she only remembers the vague unsatisfied ambitions of her young dreams. She lets him kiss her lips again and again, she is clasped in his arms, yet feels them not; her mind fixed on the dazzling picture of "what is to be!"

"Your answer, Eleanor, darling—love!" he gasps, watching the glorious colour mount to her face, the marvellous radiance fill her eyes.

"Yes, Philip, your wife always!" Her head is on his shoulder, he has gathered her hands about his neck. The brief midday hours fly as she yields to the tender wooing.

"Soon," he whispers, "autumn's fingers of decay will creep over Copthorne, while leaves must fall damp and dead in the country lanes. Marry me, Eleanor, now the summer is here."

She starts back, a deadly fear knocking at her heart. She laughs, apparently frivolous and light-hearted.

"Yes, in the summer, sometime next year."

"Next year!" his face falling. "But when? Next year has three hundred and sixty-five long days!"

She smiles entrancingly, shrugging her shoulders.

"Oh! well—when the birds begin to sing."

"No," he cries, drawing her to him, "before they are silent, Eleanor, before the light of summer goes out of the heavens, and the blue sky fades to grey!"

Her eyes droop, her cheek is pale.