Young Musgrave

“Something’s to do!” cried the girl.

Miss Price made no immediate reply, but sank into a chair to get her breath.

“Oh nothing; nothing you know of,” she said at last, “nothing that need trouble you;” and then after a pause, “nothing that will warn you even, not one of you, silly things. You’d all do just the same to-morrow, though it was to cost you your lives.”

“I’ll run and get you a cup of tea,” said Sarah, which showed her to be a young woman of sense. Where lives the woman to whom this cordial, promptly and as it were accidentally administered, does not do good? Miss Price gradually recovered herself as she sipped the fragrant tea, and told her story with many sighs and lamentations, yet not without a certain melancholy pleasure.

“If girls would only think,” she said; “if they would take a warning; but ne’er a one of you will do that. You think it’s grand to marry a gentleman; but it would be far better to go through with the business like I’ve done, far better! though you’ll never think so.”

Sarah was respectfully sympathetic; she shook her head with a look of awe and melancholy acquiescence; but nevertheless she did not think so. She was only twenty, and thirty-seven was a good age. To marry a gentleman, even at the risk of dying at thirty-seven like Lily, was better than living till sixty like Miss Price; but she did not say so. She acquiesced, and even cried over the lost Lily, whom she had never seen, with the easy emotion of a girl. She herself meant sincerely to go through with the business; but anyhow Sarah was as much excited by the news as heart could desire. Miss Price was very determined that it should not be talked of, that the story should not be spread in the village. “Don’t let them say again it came from us,” she said; but however that might be, before the next morning it had spread through the parish, and beyond the parish. Such things get into the atmosphere. What can conceal a secret? It is the one thing certain to be found out, and which every one is bound to know. There was nothing else talked about in the cottages or when neighbours met, for some days. The men talked of it over their beer, even, in the public-houses. “She were a bonnie lass,” the elder ones said; and all the girls in the district felt that they individually might have been Lily, and felt sad for her. The children (who could not be hid) were followed by eager looks of curiosity when they appeared, and the resemblance of Lilias to her mother was too remarkable not to strike every one who had known her; and the entire story which had excited the district so deeply in its time, and which, with its mixture of all the sentiments which are most interesting to humanity, was almost as exciting still as ever, was retold, a hundred times over, for the benefit of the younger generation. In these lower regions, as was natural, the interest all centred in the beautiful girl, who, though “come of wild folk,” and not even an appropriate bride for a well-to-do hopeful of the village, had “the offer of” two gentlemen, one the young lord, and the other the young squire. Had such fortune ever come before to a lass from the fells? How she had been courted! not as the village lovers wooed with a sense of equality, at least, if not perhaps something more; but John Musgrave and young Lord Stanton had thought nobody in the world like her. And the young lord, poor fellow! had even broken his word for her, a sin which was but a glory the more to Lily in the eyes of the village critics—however bitterly it might have been condemned had his forsaken bride been a village maiden too. That this rivalry should have gone the length of blood, all for Lily’s sweet looks, was a thing the middle-aged narrators shook their heads over with many a moral, “You see what the like of that comes to, lasses,” they said. But the lasses only put their heads closer, and felt their hearts beat higher. To be fought for, to be died for! It was terrible, no doubt, but glorious. “Such things never happen nowadays” they said to themselves with a sigh.

And the news did not stop down below in the plain, but mounted with the winds and the clouds, and reached lone places in the fells, where it raised a wilder excitement still—at least in one melancholy and solitary place.

CHAPTER XI.

AN AFTERNOON’S WORK.

“Ah, you are a baby,” said Lilias. She stood with her dark hair shaken back, and her eyes shining, an image of visionary daring. Nothing could be more unlike than these two children. The boy had all the features of his race, blue eyes, fair hair, with a touch of gold in it, a fair complexion, browned and reddened, indeed, with his long journey and the warm sun he had been used to, but already changing into the pink and white of English childhood. But there were none of the Musgrave features in Lilias. Her dark eyes, dancing with life and energy, her warm colour, clear brown with an underlying rose tint, and a downy bloomy surface which softened every outline, and her crisp, yet shining dark hair, all belonged, not only to a different species, but to a different type of race. The Musgraves were robust and strong, but their strength was not of this buoyant kind. The cloud of anxiety which had been about her on her first appearance, that mystery of doubt with which a little human creature regards the strange and novel, in whatever form, not knowing if harm or good may be coming, had floated away, and Lilias had already taken back her natural character. She was at home in the house, every room of it, though she knew that she was hidden and thrust into corners, on account of “the old gentleman downstairs.” This did not depress or trouble her, but felt like a joke, a mystification and masquerading such as is dear to childhood. She threw herself into the spirit of it with enjoyment, instead of brooding over it with melancholy consciousness, which was what Mary, forgetting childhood, as all grown people do, had feared.

The children were in the hall, which had now grown so familiar to them that they could not understand how they had ever feared it. It was one of those exceptional days which occur now and then in the winter before the turn of the year. The whole world was full of sunshine. There was not a cloud in the sky, and the great green hill in front of them rose up in dazzling clearness of relief, like a visible way of ascent into heaven. There was not a breath stirring; the trees, without a leaf upon them, printed themselves against the blue of the sky and the green of the hill, in minute perfection of branch and twig, like a photograph. The lake was as still and as blue as the sky—everything lay in the sunshine charmed and stilled, hanging motionless as it were between earth and heaven. The sense that it was mid-winter, the natural season of storms, seemed to have got into the air, which wondered over its own stillness, and into the skies, which excelled themselves in lightness and soft blueness, snatching this moment of delight with a fearful joy. Earth took that ecstasy as one who was well aware that she could not answer for the morrow. The great doorway of the hall stood wide open; it was after mid-day, and the sun streamed in, having got to the west so much earlier than in summer. Lilias and her little brother, children of the sun, were planted in the midst of it, enjoying it with unconscious exhilaration. Martuccia sat in the open doorway, basking in it, knitting; a tranquil, almost motionless figure, with that faculty of repose which is no doubt awarded to nurses in compensation for the endless calls upon their activity. She had put a little tartan shawl—congenial garment—upon her fine shoulders, and, with her silver pins and glowing black hair all whitened by the sunshine, sat perfectly motionless except for the little rustle of her hands and click of her knitting-needles. It seemed immaterial whether it might be years or moments that the robust and comely watcher should hold that peaceful guardian place. She was paying no attention to the children, yet the lightest appeal, a querulous exclamation, a longer pause than usual, anything or nothing, would have brought her to her nurselings. It was the repose of the mother, who sees everything and feels everything, even when she does not see: and the additional security which her presence brought to them, though she sat apart and had nothing to do with their talk or their play, the strong support of the background which she made, it would be hard to tell in words. They had been playing in the spacious place, all lighted and warmed through and through with sunshine. Miss Musgrave had not yet made her appearance; either she had less time to spend in her favourite resort, or the fact that it had been appropriated to the children, as specially suitable in its size and separateness for their enjoyment, had made her relinquish its use. The great bay window in the recess gave back a reflected light from the shining of the lake, which added a colder tone to the prevailing brightness; and in the old fireplace there burned a smouldering fire, half coals half wood. Every feature of the place had grown familiar to the two little things who were once so alarmed by its dark corners—so familiar that they could not understand how they had ever been afraid. The kind old spacious silent hall sheltered them with a large passive protection not unlike that of Martuccia herself.

But the afternoon languor had stolen upon the boy and girl, notwithstanding the brightness. They, had come to a pause in their round of amusement, and though half-tired, were yet looking about with all their quick senses for some new delight. A little scuffle, a little quarrel and crying fit on Nello’s part, which had been put a stop to by the warning of Lilias already recorded, had left them free for a new start, but not with the old plays, which were worn out for the moment. They made an unconscious pause, and looked about them to find some novelty; and both pounced upon one at the same moment with a burst of sudden and unlooked-for rapture. A great broad sheet of something white lay stretched out on Mary’s table, in company with an open colour-box and brushes—a sight too tempting to be resisted by any child, especially after the exhaustion of a long day’s play. It was wonderful that they had overlooked it so long. They caught sight of it simultaneously now, and the result was a sudden rush of eager curiosity. The boy got first to the goal; perhaps he had been by a second of time the first to start. He grasped one side of the white sheet with his hot little hand, and climbing into the chair which stood before it, threw himself upon the new wonder. “It is Mary’s,” said Lilias, making a feeble effort to hold him back; but her own curiosity was much stronger than her sense of duty to Mary, who allowed them to see everything and share everything she had. They both leant over the table breathless, the mysterious whiteness crackling beneath their hands. It was a sheet of dazzling white vellum, ornamented with what they considered beautiful pictures, a puzzling, yet a tempting sight to the children. It was nothing less than a genealogical tree, their own pedigree, which Miss Musgrave, skilled in such works, was preparing for her father, ornamented with emblazoned coats of arms, some of them unfinished and inviting completion with a seductive force which made the children’s hearts beat.

“What is it?” said Nello, in a tone of awe.

“I know,” said Lilias, confidently; “it is a copy. You have had no education, you don’t know what a copy is: but me, I have done them, though never any so pretty as this. Mary is a grown-up lady, old, not like us; it must be Mary’s copy. You should not touch it, you are too little.”

“I will try,” cried Nello, with his eyes upon the brushes. Already he had rubbed against something not yet dry, and had smudged the colour, to the horror of his sister. He had both his elbows upon it and the greater part of his small person.

“Oh, what have you done, you naughty boy!” cried Lilias; “you cannot do it. Let me!”

“Yes, I will do it, I will do it!” cried Nello, seizing the crackling vellum and dashing at it with a brush full of colour. Lilias had to stand and look on, sorest of miseries, while her little brother performed badly what she felt she could have done well. There was a large shield in the centre, upon which the cherished “augmentation,” the chief ornament of the Musgrave arms, was slightly drawn. Gules on a shield argent, it ought to have been—Nello made a blurred dash of bright blue, surrounded by a sea of red. “How it is pretty!” he cried in his half-foreign speech, with a crow of triumph. Colour upon colour! and such colour! the sight would have driven Mr. Musgrave wild.

Lilias uttered a cry of horror; but the work of destruction was very captivating. Close to the vellum was the original draught of the genealogical tree, from which Mary had been copying. Lilias took possession of this, and carried it away to the table in the recess. She meant only to look at it, but the temptation was too much for her. At the bottom of the page an escutcheon void of all colour gradually caught her eye, a little white space which might be made, she thought, to resemble the others with great advantage to the whole. That this came opposite to the name of John Musgrave was nothing to the child, but the sight of it wrought her by degrees into a sort of creative frenzy. She would not spoil it as Nello was doing, but to complete what was wanting could be no harm. Lilias took a brush and filled it with fine broad vermilion, a colour about which there could be no mistake, and painted the vacant shield a strong decided gules, safe from any accident. The outline was not very firm, and there were overflowings and runs of colour outside, but at all events the hue was undeniable. She was standing looking at it with a satisfied yet agitated mind, with the brush still in her hand, when her elbow was grasped by some one behind and a hand laid on her shoulder. In the start she gave, the child’s arm made a nervous jerk of the brush over the paper, and ran a tremulous line of red over some half-dozen of the kindred names. “Mary!” she cried with a sudden perception of wrong-doing. But Lilias did not weep or excuse herself. She got quite pale, with a red spot on each cheek, and stood, not even dropping the brush, looking up at her judge, with the corners of her mouth suddenly turned downwards, and a gleam of awakened understanding in her alarmed eyes.

“Lilias! I thought I could trust you; what have you been doing?” cried Mary. “And Nello?” she added, looking round with dismay at the more important work. Nello had already been roused to that instinctive sense of harm which comes with the arrival of an aggrieved person. But he did not face his victim as Lilias did. He threw down his streaming pencil on the vellum, got down from his chair in the twinkling of an eye, and fled to take shelter with Martuccia, who, ever ready to defend, and yet unaware who was wrong, put an arm round him at once and faced Miss Musgrave with prompt defiance.

“Oh Mary!” cried Lilias, trembling, “Nello did not mean it. He is so little. Nello did not know.”

Mary was not so angelically sweet as to be indifferent to the damage done, but she had not the freedom of reproof which people exercise with children familiar to them. The little meddlers were still strangers. So she restrained herself and said nothing. She went to the parchment and began to sponge off the still wet colour. Nello kept in his refuge regarding her from afar, ready to bolt behind Martuccia if she made any hostile advances and hide himself in his nurse’s skirt. But Lilias followed Miss Musgrave closely as her shadow. She watched the sponging with the gravest anxious attention. She kept herself close against Mary’s dress, touching it, and put herself in Mary’s way, and interposed her wistful face, now quite pale and troubled, between the vellum and Mary’s eyes. At last her aunt said, perhaps somewhat peevishly, “What do you want, child? You have done harm enough for one morning. Pray go out of my way.”

“Have we done much harm?” said Lilias, with strained and anxious eyes.

“Yes; you have spoiled my week’s work, you mischievous children,” said Mary, melting a little. “I shall have to do it over again. I did not expect this, Lilias, from you.”

“It was very, very bad of me,” said the child, with perfect seriousness, her eyes slowly filling; “but Nello is such a little fellow—he did not know—— ”

“Then why did you do it, Lilias?”

The child looked up searchingly into her face. “I think it must have been the devil,” she said, with portentous gravity, drawing a heavy sigh.

An impulse of laughter came to Miss Musgrave in the midst of her annoyance; but partly she restrained it for high moral reasons, and partly she was still too much annoyed to give way to laughter. “What do you know about—the devil?” she said. “I think it was your own little mischievous hands, and your curiosity.”

“Oh, I know a great deal about him. Mr. Pennithorne told us on Sunday; and Martuccia must be of the same religion as Mr. Pen, for she worships him too,” said Lilias, aware of the advantages of digression when things were so serious as they were now.

“Worships him, Lilias! You must not use such words.”

“They are always thinking of him, and they say he does everything. They are very, very afraid of him,” said Lilias seriously, “and so am I—he can do whatever he pleases; but I cannot think he is as strong as God.”

“And it was he who made you spoil my papers——?”

“Oh, Mary, not Nello—only me. Nello is such a little fellow, he did not mean it—he did not know what he was doing—— ”

“And did you?”

Lilias pressed very close against Mary’s side. Her heart was beating loudly in her brave little bosom. Her sense of crime had not been lightened by the postponement of the punishment which must, she thought, be coming. But it was not in her to fly as her brother had done. She took a furtive hold of Mary’s gown. No hope of any forgiveness was in her serious soul; yet to whom could she cling in earth and heaven but only to this inflictor of stern justice? She kept her eyes fixed on Mary’s face, that she might see the fearful doom which was coming—that would always be a help in bearing it—and kept close to her, pressing against her. “Aie-tu peur de moi? cache-toi dans mes bras”—this was the child’s impulse in her penitence and terror.

Mary forgot her vellum and its stains. She put her arm round the child, whose eyes opened a little wider thinking the judgment was coming, but who never shrank. “You will not do it again,” she said. Lilias could not understand that it was over. She bent back a little the better to see Mary’s face.

“Will you not punish me?” said the child. Between the fear and the wonder she was breathless. This was the most wonderful of all.

“No, dear—you will never do it again.”

“Nor Nello?” She put her arms round Mary’s arm, with that soft clinging which is irresistible in a child, and leant her head against her, and began to sob as if her heart would break. Then Nello, seeing the worst was over, came out from his shelter, venturing a few steps, then a few more. Forgiveness did not touch him, as punishment would have done. He came slowly, ready to turn and fly at any hostile demonstration. Nello had, as it were, an army at his back, his ships to take refuge in; but still it was with great caution that he made his advance. This little exhibition of character, however, soon melted in a more agreeable sentiment. As soon as the contingency was over, both the children, restored to a tremulous ease of mind, were seized with a common impulse of curiosity and interest. They forgot their own culpability in watching the obliteration of the damage they had done. Fortunately the discovery had been made in time, and the process of reparation, if not so exciting, was almost as interesting to them as the delicious frenzy of mischief in which they had wrought this harm. They pressed upon Mary as she worked, one at each side. When the last trace had disappeared they gave a cry of joy. How clever Mary was! She could do everything. As for Nello, he was unmoved morally by the spectacle; it had been amusing all through, all but the moment of fear, which fortunately came to nothing. But Lilias never forgot this scene, and still less did Mary forget it, whose heart seemed to be learning a hundred sweet and subtle lessons, and to whom the child, even in her naughtiness, was like an angel, leading her to depths unsounded, nay, unthought of till now.

But when they had gone away, joyous as usual, to their “tea,” which was a meal much scorned and wondered at by Martuccia, Mary went to the other table where lay the draught of the more important document upon which Lilias had been employed when she came into the hall. At this she smiled and shuddered, with a curious mixture of feelings. The little girl’s mischief had taken a symbolical form. The blank shield which represented her mother was blurred and blood-red, and a stroke like blood ran across her father’s name; and that of her father’s father, from the little pool of red in the daubed shield. Lilias knew nothing of the lives from which her little life had sprung. It was accident, caprice, a child’s fancy for bright colour—yet it made Mary shudder even when she smiled.

Another incident, which she paid less attention to—indeed, did not think of at all—happened this same evening. She went to the door where Martuccia had been seated, her own favourite place, though now in great part given up to the children and their attendant, to look out upon the evening before she left the hall. When she had looked at the sky where the early wintry sunset was just over, leaving deep gorgeous tints of red and yellow upon a blue which was deepened by coming frost, Mary’s look came back, carelessly enough, by the lower level of the long brown road. And it was with a momentary start that she found herself almost face to face with an unthought-of spectator, who was standing at the foot of the little slope, gazing intently up to the hall door. Mary was puzzled to see that though the woman’s appearance was like that of many of the older women about, she did not know her; and at the same time she was equally perplexed by a consciousness that the face looking up at her thus eagerly was not that of a stranger. She could not associate it with any name, yet she seemed acquainted with the features, which were fine, and of an unusual cast. The stranger’s look was so intense that it struck Miss Musgrave like an audible petition. “Did you want anything?” she said with natural courtesy, making a step towards her. The woman turned sharp round on her heels with a hasty wave of her hand, and went hurriedly away towards the village without further reply. Who could she be? Mary asked herself lightly, and went in and forgot all about her. The people are independent in their ways, and not grateful for a casual address, in the north.

CHAPTER XII.

VISITORS.

“Lord Stanton!” The name seemed to hurt her, and a kind of dull fear rose in Mary’s mind. She knew, of course, who it was! the young successor of the man who, with intention or not, her brother had brought to his death. She knew well enough about Geoff. It had not been possible to hear the name at any time without interest, and in this way Mary had learned as much as strangers knew of the young lord. But what could he want here? A subdued panic seized her. She did not know what he could do, or if he could do anything; but that he should come merely as a friend did not seem probable. And how then had he come? She made a tremendous pause before she said, “Let him come in, Eastwood.” Eastwood thought Miss Musgrave was very properly impressed by the name of the young lord.

Geoff, for his part, waited outside, anxious as to how he was to be received, and very desirous in his boyish generosity to make a good impression. He had driven to Penninghame, a long way, and his horses, drawn up at the door, made a great show, when the children passed, stealing round the corner like little intruders, but so much attracted by this sight, that they almost forgot their orders never to approach the hall door. Geoff himself was standing at some distance from his phaeton, waiting for his answer; but even Lilias was old enough to know that to address commendatory remarks and friendly overtures to a horse or a dog is more easy and natural than to address a man. She said, “Oh, look, Nello, what lovely horses!” but only ventured to look up shyly into the friendly face of their owner, though she was not without an impression that he, too, was nice, and that he might give his friends a drive perhaps, with the lovely horses, a service which was not in the power of the animals themselves.

Geoff went up to them, holding out his hand. “You are the little Musgraves, I suppose?” he said.

The boy hung back, as usual, hanging by Martuccia’s skirts. “Yes,” said Lilias, looking at him intently, as she always did; and she added at once, “This is Nello,” and did her best to put her small brother in the foreground, though he resisted, holding back and close to his protector.

“Is he shy, or is he frightened? He need not be frightened of me,” said Geoff, unconsciously conscious of the facts between them which might have caused the child’s timidity had he been old enough to know. “Nello is an odd name for a boy.”

“Because you do not know where he came from,” said Lilias quickly. “Nello is born in Florence. Here you will call him John. It is not so pretty. And me, I am born in France,” she continued; “but we are English children. That does not make any difference.”

“Don’t you think so?” said simple Geoff. The little woman of twelve who thus fixed him with her great beautiful eyes, made him feel a boy in comparison with her mature childhood. She never relaxed in her watchful look. This was a habit Lilias had got, a habit born of helplessness, and of the sense of responsibility for her brother which was so strong in her mind. That intent, half-suspicious vigilance, as of one fully aware that he might mean harm, and quick to note the approach of danger, disconcerted Geoff, who meant nothing but good. “I know two little girls,” he said, trying to be conciliatory, “who would like very much to know you.”

“Ah!” said Lilias, melting a little, but shaking her head. “I have to take care of Nello; but if they would come here, and would not mind Nello,” she added, “perhaps I might play with them. I could ask—Mary—— ”

“Who is—Mary?”

“Oh! don’t you know? If you do not know Mary we should not talk to you—we only ought to talk to friends—and besides, you have no right to call her Mary if you do not know her,” said Lilias. She turned back to say this after she had gone a few steps away from him, following Nello, who, tired of the conversation, had gone on with his guardian to the Chase.

“That is quite true, and I beg your pardon,” said Geoff; “it must be Miss Musgrave you mean.”

Lilias nodded approving. She began to take an interest in this big boy. He was not strictly handsome, but had a bright, attractive countenance, and the child scarcely ever saw any male creature except Eastwood and Mr. Pen. “Have you come to see her?” she asked wistfully; “are you going to be a—friend?”

“Yes,” said Geoff with a little emotion, “if she will let me. I am waiting to know. And tell me your name?” he added, with a slight tremor in his voice, for he was young and easily touched. “I will always be a friend to you.”

“I am Lilias,” she said shyly, giving him her hand, for which he had held out his. And this was how Eastwood found them when he came bustling out to inform my lord that Miss Musgrave would see his lordship, if he would be good enough to step this way. Eastwood was much “struck” to see his lordship holding “little Miss’s” hand. It raised little Miss in the butler’s opinion. “If she had been a bit older, now!” he said to himself. Geoff was half reluctant to leave this little new acquaintance for the audience which he had come here expressly to ask. Mary was not likely to be so easily conciliated as little Lilias. And being a lord did not make him less shy. He waved his hand and took off his hat with a little sigh, as he followed Eastwood into the house; and Lilias, for her part, followed Nello slowly, with various thoughts in her small head. These it must be allowed were chiefly about the little girls who wanted to make friends with her—and of whom her lonely imagination made ecstatic pictures—and of the lovely horses who could spin her away over the broad country, if that big boy would let them. But Lilias did not think very much about the big boy himself.

Geoff went in blushing and tremulous to Miss Musgrave’s drawing-room. It was not a place so suitable to Mary as her favourite hall, being dark and somewhat low, not worthy either of her or of Penninghame Castle. She was standing, waiting to receive him, and after the bow with which he greeted her, Geoff did not know what to say to disclose his object. His object itself was vague, and he had no previous knowledge of her, as his cousin Mary had, to warrant him in addressing her. She offered him a chair, and she sat down opposite him; and then there began an embarrassing pause which she would not, and which he did not seem able to, break. At last, faltering and stammering—

“I came, Miss Musgrave,” he began, “to say—I came to tell you—I came to ask—Circumstances,” cried Geoff, impatient of his own incapacity, “seem to have made our families enemies. I don’t know why they should have done so.”

“If the story is true, Lord Stanton, it is easy enough to see how they should have done so. My brother was concerned, they say, in your brother’s death.”

“No one could prove that he did it, Miss Musgrave.”

“He did not do it with intention, I am sure,” she said. “But so much is true. It was done, and how could we be friends after? We should have been angels—you to pardon the loss you had sustained, we to pardon the wrong we had done.”

There was a gleam of agitation and pain in her eyes which might well have been taken for anger. The young man was discouraged.

“May I not say anything, then?” he said, wistfully. “My cousin Mary, Lady Stanton, whom you know, told me—but if you are set against us too, what need to say anything? I had hoped indeed, that you—— ”

“What did you hope about me? I should be glad of any approach. I grieved for your brother as if he had been mine. Oh more, I think, more! if it had been poor John who had died—— ”

“It would have been better,” said the young man. “Yes, yes, Miss Musgrave, that is what I feel; Walter had the best of it. Your brother has been more than killed. But I came to say, that so far as we are concerned, there need not be any more misery. Let him come home, Miss Musgrave, let him come home! We none of us can tell now how Walter died.”

Mary was moved beyond the power of words. She got up hastily and took his hand, and pressed it between her own.

“Thank you, I shall always thank you!” she cried, “whether he comes home or not. Oh, my dear boy, who are you that come with mercy on your lips? You are not like the rest of us!”

Mary was thinking of others, more near, whose wrongs were not as the Stantons’, but whom nothing could induce to forgive.

“I am my mother’s son,” said Geoff, his eyes brighter than usual, with a smile lighting up the moisture in them. What Mary said seemed a tribute to his mother, and this made him glad. “She does not know, but she would say so. Let him come home. I heard of the children, and that your brother—— ”

“Yes,” said Miss Musgrave, “from Mary. She told you. She always took an interest in him. Do you know,” she added in a low voice of horror, “that there is a verdict against him, a coroner’s verdict of murder?”

She shuddered at the word as she said it, and so did he.

“But not a just one. No jury would say it was—that: not now—— ”

“Heaven knows what a jury would say. It is all half forgotten now; and as for the dates, and all those trifles that tell in a trial, who knows anything about them? Even I—could I swear to the hour my brother went out that morning? I could once, and did, and it is all written down. But I don’t seem sure of anything now, not that there ever was a Walter Stanton, or that I had a brother John; and I am one of the interested; the people who were not specially interested, do you think they would have better memories? Ah, no; and he fled; God help him! I don’t know why he did it. That was against him; though I don’t think anyone believes that John Musgrave did that, now.”

“I am sure they do not, and that is why I came. Let him come home, Miss Musgrave. He would not have been convicted had he been tried. I have been reading it all up, and I have taken advice. He would be cleared. And if there is risk in it, we would all stand by him. I would stand by him,” said the young man with a generous flush of resolution, “so much as I am worth. I want you to tell him so. Tell him to come home.”

Mary shook her head. How long she had been calm about this terrible domestic tragedy, and how it all rose upon her now! She got up, in her agitation, and walked about the room.

“How could he risk it—how could he risk it—with that sentence against him?” she said; then after a while she came back to her seat, and looked at Geoff piteously with a heartrending look in her eyes. She was past crying, which would have relieved her. “That is not all,” she said in a low voice. “Alas, alas! if all was well, and he might come home when he pleased, it would matter less. I know nothing about him, Lord Stanton. I don’t know my brother any longer, nor where he is, nor how he is living now.”

“But his children have just come to you!”

“Yes, out of the unknown. No one knows anything about him; and suddenly they came out of the darkness, as I tell you. That is where he is: out in the world, in the dark, in the unknown—— ”

“There are ways of penetrating the unknown,” said Geoff, cheerfully. “There are advertisements; everybody sees the Times nowadays. It goes all over the world. Wherever there is an Englishman he sees it somehow. Let us advertise.”

“He would not see it.”

“Then a detective—let us send some one—— ”

“Oh no, no, no,—not that. I could not bear that. We must let him alone till he comes of his own accord. Let well alone,” said Mary, in her panic. She scarcely knew what she said.

“Well! do you call it well, Miss Musgrave, that your brother should be away from his home, from everything he loves—his country lost to him, his position, all his friends?”

“He has not been separated from everything he loves; he had wife and children; does a man care for anything else? What was this old house to him, and—us—in comparison? His wife is dead—that was God’s doing; and his children have come home—that is his own choice. I say, let well alone, Lord Stanton; when he wishes it he will—come—back; but not to those he loves,” Mary said in a low tone.

Geoff could not fathom her meaning, it was beyond him. The accusation under which John Musgrave lay was bad enough. It was cowardly of him (he thought) to fly and leave this stigma, uncontested, upon his own name; but that there should be any further mystery did not seem possible to the young man. Perhaps there was something wrong with the family, some incipient insanity, monomania, eccentricity. He could not understand it. But at least he had shown his goodwill, if no more.

“I must not dictate to you, Miss Musgrave,” he said; “you know best,” and he rose to go away, but stood hesitating, reluctant to consent to the failure of his generous mission. “If I can be of any use, at any time,” he added, blushing and faltering; “not that I can do much: but if you should—change your mind—if you should—think—— ”

She took his hand once more in both of hers.

“I shall always think that you have the kindest and most generous heart: and are a friend—a true friend—to John, and everybody in trouble.”

“I hope so,” said the youth, fervently; “but that is nothing;—to you, Miss Musgrave, if I can ever be of any use.”

“I will ask you, if it ever can be,” she said. “I will not forget.”

He kept hold of her hands when she loosed them, and with a confused laugh and change of tone, asked “About the children? I met them just now. Might I bring my little cousins, Lady Stanton’s children, to see them? They want to meet.”

“Sir Henry would not like it, though she might. Sir Henry is not like you.”

“I know; he is plus royalist que le roi. But the children would. And they don’t deny me anything,” said Geoff, with a little laugh.

He scarcely knew why this was—but it was so; nothing was denied to him; he was the enfant gâté of Elfdale. Miss Musgrave was not, however, quite so complacent. She gave an assent which was cold and unwilling, and which quenched Geoff’s genial enthusiasm. He went back to his phaeton quite subdued and silent. “But I will see that little thing again,” he said to himself.

In the mean time, while this conversation had been going on, Lilias had wandered forth alone into the Chase. Martuccia had gone before with Nello, while Lilias talked to the young man; and now the child followed dreamily, as she was in the habit of doing, her eyes abstracted, her whole being rapt in a separate consciousness, which surrounded her like an atmosphere of her own. She knew vaguely that the little brother and his nurse were in front of her; but the watchfulness of Lilias had relaxed, and she was not thinking of Nello. He was safe; here was no one who could interfere with him. She had taken up a branch of a tree which lay in her path and had caught her childish fancy, and with this she went on, using it like a pilgrim’s staff, and saying a kind of low chant, without words, to herself, to which the rough staff was made to keep time. What was she thinking of? everything, nothing; thought indeed was not necessary to the fresh soul in that subdued elation and speechless gladness. There was a vague sense in her mind of the brisk air, the sunshine, the blue sky, the floating clouds, all in one; but had the clouds been low upon the trees, and the air all damp instead of all exhilaration, it would have made little difference to Lilias. Her spring of unconscious blessedness was within herself. Her song was not music nor her movements harmony in any way that could be accounted for by rule; and indeed the low succession of sounds which came from her lips unawares, and to which her little steps and the stroke of the rough stick kept time, was more inartificial than even the twittering of the birds. A small, passive, embodied happiness went roaming along the rough, woodland path, with soft-glowing abstracted eyes that saw everything, yet nothing; with a little abstracted soul, all freshness and gladness, that took note of everything, yet nothing; a little pilgrim among life’s mysteries and wonders, herself the greatest wonder of all, throbbing with a soft consciousness, yet knowing nothing. Thus she went pacing on under the bare trees, and murmured her inarticulate chant, and kept time to it, a poet in being, though not in thought. Not far off the lake splashed softly upon the stones of the beach, and that north country air, which is vocal as the winds of the south, sounded a whole mystery of tones and semi-tones, deep through the fir-trees, shrill through the beeches, low and soft over the copse; and the brook, half-hidden in the overgreenness of the grass, added its tinkle; all surrounding the little figure which gave the central point of conscious intelligence to the landscape; but were all quite unnecessary to Lilias marching along in her dream to her own music, a something higher than they, a thing full of other and deeper suggestions, the wonder of the world.

Lilias woke up, however, out of this other world, all in a moment, into the conscious existence of a lively, brave, fancifully-timid child, when she found herself suddenly confronted by a stranger, who did not pass on as strangers usually did, making a mere momentary jar and pause in the visionary atmosphere, but who made a decided pause, and stopped her. A little thrill of fear sprang up in the child’s breast, and she would have hurried on, or even run away, but for the pride of honour and courage in her little venturesome spirit which made it impossible to fly. It was an old woman who stood in her path, tall but stooping, dressed in a large grey cloak, the hood of which covered her white thick muslin cap. She was a woman considerably over sixty, with handsome features and brilliant dark eyes, and, notwithstanding her stooping figure, full of vigour and power. She carried a basket on her arm under her cloak, and had a stick in her hand, and at her neck a red handkerchief just showed, which would have replaced the hood on her cap had it been less cold. Just so the fairy in the fairy-tales appears to the little maiden in the wood, the Cinderella by the kitchen-fire. Lilias was not at all sure that it was not that poetical old woman who looked at her with those shining eyes. She made a brief, instantaneous resolution to draw water for her, or pick up sticks, or do anything she might require.

“Little Miss, you belong to the Castle, don’t you now? and where may you come from?” was what the problematical fairy said, with a something wet and gleaming in her eyes such as never obscures the sight of fairies. Lilias was overawed by the tone of eager meaning, though she did not understand it, in the questioning voice, yet might not have answered but for that feeling that it was unsafe, as much experience had proved, to be less than obsequiously civil to old women with wands in their hands who could make (if you were so naughty as to give a rude answer) toads and frogs drop from your mouth.

“Yes,” she said, with a little tremble in her clear, childish voice. “We come a very, very long way—over the mountains, and then over the sea.”

“Do you know the name of the place you came from, little Miss?”

“Oh yes, I know it very well, we were so often there. It was Bagni di Lucca. It was a very, very long way. Nello—— ”

But the child paused. Why introduce Nello? who was not visible, to the knowledge of this uncertain person? who, if she was a fairy, might be a wicked one, or, if she was a woman, might be unkind, for anything Lilias knew. She stopped short nervously, and it was evident that the old woman had not taken any notice of the name.

“Little Miss, your mamma would be sorry to send you away?”

“It was papa,” said the little girl, with wondering eyes. “Poor mamma;—I was quite little when—it was when Nello was a little, little small baby. Now we have nobody but papa.”

The old woman staggered and almost fell, but supported herself by her stick for a moment, while Lilias uttered a scream of terror; then sat down with a groan upon a fallen tree. “It’s nothing new, nothing new,” she said to herself; “I felt it long ago,” and covered her face with her hands, with once more a heavy groan. Little Lilias did not know what to do. She had screamed when the old woman staggered, not knowing what was going to happen; but what was she to do now, alone with this strange companion, seated there on the fallen trunk and rocking herself to and fro, with her face hidden in her hands. It did not occur to the child to associate this sudden trouble with the information she had herself given. What could this stranger have to do with her? And poor mamma had receded far into the background of Lilias’s memory, not even now an occasion of tears. She did not, however, need to go into this reasoning, but simply supposed that the poor old fairy was ill, or that something had happened to her, and never at all connected effect and cause. She stood for a little time irresolute, then, overcoming her own fears, went up to the sufferer and stroked her compassionately on the shoulder. “Are you ill, old woman?” she said.

“Oh, call me Granny—call me Granny, my pretty dear!”

Lilias was more puzzled than ever; but she made up her mind that she would do whatever was asked of her by this disguised personage, who might turn into—anything, in a moment. “Yes, Granny,” she said, trembling, and still stroking the old woman’s shoulder. “I hope you are not ill.”

The answer she made to this was suddenly to clasp her arms round Lilias, who could scarcely suppress a cry of horror. What a strange—what a very strange old woman! Fortunately Lilias, brought up in a country where servants are friends, had no feeling of repulsion from the embrace. She was a little frightened, and did not understand it—that was all. The old woman’s breast heaved with great sobs; there could be no doubt that she was very deeply, strongly moved. She was “very sorry about something,” according to Lilias’ simple explanation. She clasped the child close, and kissed her with a tearful face, which left traces of its weeping upon the fresh cheeks. The little girl wiped them off, wondering. How could she tell why this was? Perhaps it was only to try her if she was the kind of little girl who was uncivil, or not; but she did not indeed try to account for it. It was not very pleasant, but she put up with it, partly in fear, partly in sympathy, partly because, as we have said, she had no horror of the too near approach of a poor old woman, as an English-bred child might have had. Poor old creature, how sorry she was about something! though Lilias could not imagine what it was.

“God bless you, honeysweet,” said the old woman. “You’ve got her dear face, my jewel. It isn’t that I didn’t know it years and years ago. I was told it in my sleep; I read it in the clouds and on the water. Oh, if you think I wasn’t warned! But you’ve got her bonnie face. You’ll be a beauty, a darling beauty, like the rest of us. And look you here, little Miss, my jewel. If you see me when the gentry’s with you you’ll take no notice; but if you see me by myself you’ll give me a kiss and call me Granny. That’s fixed between us, honey, and you won’t forget? Call me Granny again, to give me a little comfort, my pretty dear.”

“Yes, Granny,” said the child, trembling. The old woman kissed her again, drying her tears.

“God bless you, and God bless you!” she said. “You can’t be none the worse of your old Granny’s blessing. And mind, if you’re with the gentlefolks you’ll take no notice. Oh, my honeysweet, my darling child!”

Lilias looked after her with wondering, disturbed eyes. What a strange old woman she was! How strange that she should behave so! and yet Lilias did not attempt to inquire why. Grown-up people in her experience did a great many strange things. It was of no use trying to fathom what they meant, and this strange old person was only a little more strange than the rest, and startling to the calm little being who had grown in the midst of family troubles and mysteries without divining any of them. Strangely enough, the old woman felt equally independent of any necessity for explanation. It seemed so clear in her mind that everybody must know the past and understand her claims, whatever they were. She had no more idea of the tranquillity of innocent ignorance in Lilias’s mind than the little girl had of the mysteries of her experience. Lilias watched her going away through the high columns of the trees with great wonder yet respect, and it was not till she had disappeared that the little girl went on after Nello. Nello would have been frightened by that curious apparition. He would have cried perhaps, and struggled, and would not have said Granny. Perhaps he would have angered her. What a good thing that Nello had not been here!

PART IV.

CHAPTER XIII.

FAMILY CARES.

Lilias did not say much about the adventure in the wood, nothing at all indeed to Mary or any one in authority; nor did it dwell in her mind as a thing of much importance. The kind of things that strike a child’s mind as wonderful are not always those which would most impress an older person. There were many things at Penninghame very curious and strange to the little girl. The big chimneys of the old house, for instance, the sun-dial in the old garden, and on a lower level the way in which Cook’s cap kept on, which seemed to Lilias miraculous, no means of securing it being visible. She pondered much on these things, trying to arrive at feasible theories in respect to them, but there was no theory required about the other very natural incident. That an old woman should meet her in the woods, and kiss her, and ask to be called granny, and cry over her,—there was nothing wonderful in that; and indeed if, as she already suspected, it was no old woman at all, but a fairy, such as those in the story-books, who would probably appear again and set her tasks to do, much more difficult than calling her granny, and end by transforming herself into a beautiful lady—this would still remain quite comprehensible, not by any means unparalleled in the experience of one who had already mastered a great deal of literature treating of such subjects. She was interested but not surprised, for was it not always to a child or children by themselves in a wood that fairies did speak? She told Nello about the meeting, who was not surprised any more than she was; for though he was not very fond of reading himself, he had shared all his sister’s, having had true histories of fairies read to him almost ever since he could recollect anything. He made some cynical remarks prompted by his manhood, but it was like much manly cynicism, only from the lips, no deeper. “I thought fairies were all dead,” he said.

“Oh, Nello; when you know they are spirits and never die! they are hundreds and hundreds of years older than we are, but they never die; and it is always children that see them. I thought she would tell us to do something—— ”

“I would not do something,” said Nello; “I would say, ‘Old woman, do it yourself.’”

“And do you know what would happen then?” said Lilias, severely; “whenever you opened your mouth, a toad or a frog would drop out of it.”

“I should not mind; how funny it would be! how the people would be surprised.”

“They would be frightened—fancy! every word you said; till all round there would be things creeping and creeping and crawling all over you; slimy cold things that would make people shiver and shriek. Oh!” said Lilias recoiling and putting up her hands, as if to put him away; “the frogs! squatting and jumping all over the floor.”

At this lively realization of his problematical punishment, Nello himself grew pale, and nervously looked about him. “I would kill her!” he cried, furiously; “what right would she have to do that to me?”

“Because you did not obey her, Nello.”

“And why should I obey her?” cried the boy; “she is not papa, or Martuccia—or Mary.”

“But we must always do what the fairies tell us,” said Lilias, “not perhaps because they have a right—for certainly it is different with papa—but because they would hurt us if we didn’t; and then if you are good and pick up the sticks, or draw the water from the well, then she gives you such beautiful presents. Oh! I will do whatever she tells me.”

“What kind of presents, Lily? I want a little horse to ride—there are a great many things that I want. Do fairies give you what you want, or only what they like?”

This was a puzzling question; and on the spur of the moment Lilias did not feel able to answer such a difficulty. “If you do it for the presents, not because they ask you, they will not give you anything,” she said; “that would be all wrong if you did it for the presents.”

“But you said—— ”

“Oh, Nello; you are too little, you don’t understand,” cried the elder sister, like many another perplexed authority; “when you are older you will know what I mean. I can tell you things, but I can’t make you understand?”

“What is it he cannot understand?” said Mary, coming suddenly upon their confidential talk. The two children came apart hastily, and Lilias, who had two red spots of excitement on her cheeks, looked up startled, with lips apart. Nello laughed with a sense of mischief. He was fond of his sister, but to get her into trouble had a certain flavour of fun in it, not disagreeable to him.

“It is about the fairies,” he cried, volubly. “She says you should do what they tell you. She says they give you beautiful presents. She says, she—— ”

“Oh, about the fairies!” said Mary, calmly, with a smile, going on without any more notice. Lilias was very angry with her brother, but what was the use? And she was frightened lest she should be made to look ridiculous, a danger which is always present to the sensitive mind of a child. “I will never, never talk to you again,” she said to him under her breath; but knew she would talk to him again as soon as her mind wanted disburdening, and was not afraid.

And of how many active thoughts, and wonderful musings, and lively continued motion of two small minds and bodies, the old hall was witness in those quiet days! Mary coming and going, and the solid figure of Martuccia in the sunshine, these two older and more important persons were as shadows in comparison with that ceaseless flow of existence. The amount of living in the whole house beside, was not half equal to that which went on in the motherly calm of the old hall, which held these two small things like specks in its tranquil embrace, where so much had come to pass. There was always something going on there. Such lively counterfeitings of the older life, such deeply-laid plans, dispersed in a moment by sudden changes of purpose, such profound gravity upset by the merest chance interruption, such perpetual busyness without thought of rest. Their days went on thus without hindrance or interruption, nothing being required of them except to be amused and healthy, and competent to occupy and please themselves. Had they been dull children, or subject to the precocious ennui which is sometimes to be seen even in a nursery, no doubt measures would have been taken to bring about a better state of affairs; but as they were always busy, always gay, they were left completely to their own devices, protected, sheltered, and ignored, enjoying the freedom of a much earlier age, a freedom from all teaching and interference, such as seldom overpasses the first five years of human life. Mary had her whole métier to learn in respect to the children, and there were many agitating circumstances which pre-occupied her mind and kept her from realizing the more simple necessities of the matter. It had cost her so much to establish them there, and the tacit victory over fate, unnatural prejudice, and all the bondage of family troubles, had been so great, that the trembling satisfaction of having gained it blunted her perceptions of further necessity. It was from a humble quarter that enlightenment first came to her. Her teacher was Miss Brown, her maid, who had early melted to the children, and who by this time was their devoted vassal, and especially the admiring slave of Nello, whom, with determined English propriety, she called Master John. Miss Brown’s affection was not unalloyed by other sentiments. Her love for the children indeed was intensified by strenuous disapproval of their other guardians—Martuccia with her foreign fashions, and Miss Musgrave, who was ignorant as a baby herself, and knew nothing about “children’s ways.” Between these two incapable persons her life became a burden to Miss Brown. “I can’t get my night’s rest for thinking of it,” she said to Cook, who like herself had the interest of many years’ service in the “the family.” “I would up and speak,” said Cook. “Speak!” cried Miss Brown, “I’m always speaking; but what can a body do, when folks won’t understand?” It is the lament of the superior intelligence over all the world. However, Miss Brown finally made up her mind to speak, and did so, pointing out that Master John was eight, though he looked no more than six, and that “schooling” was indispensable. The suggestion when once made could not be disputed, and it raised a great perturbation in Mary’s breast. She sent away the maid with some haste and impatience, but she could not send away the thought.

And the more Mary thought upon this matter, the more serious it grew; she brooded over it till her head ached; and she was glad beyond measure to see Mr. Pennithorne coming slowly along the road. She could see him almost from the moment his spare figure turned the corner from the village; the outline and movement of him was so familiar to her, as he grew upon the quiet distance drawing nearer and nearer. It was seldom that she anticipated his approach with so much satisfaction. Not that Mr. Pennithorne, good man, was likely to invent an outlet out of a difficulty, but he was the only person to whom she could talk with absolute freedom upon this subject, and to put it forth in audible words, and set it thus in order to her own ear and mind, was always an advantage. How like Mr. Pen it was to come on so quietly step after step, while she was waiting impatient for him! not a step quicker than usual, no swing of more rapid motion in the droop of his long coat. Why should he quicken his steps? She laughed to herself at her own childish impatience. Ought he not to have divined that she wanted him urgently after all these years? Mary had gone into the hall, the children being absent on their daily walk. They were so much in her thoughts that she was glad to get them out of her sight for the moment and thus relieve the air which rustled and whispered with them. She went out to meet the slowly approaching counsellor. It was summer by this time, and all was green and fair, if still somewhat cold in its greenness to a southern eye. The sunshine was blazing over the lake, just approaching noon, and the sky was keenly blue, so clear that the pleasure of it was almost a pain, where the green shoulder of the hill stood against it in high relief. It was seldom that Mary was at leisure so early, and very seldom that in the morning when both were busy she should have a visit from Mr. Pen. As she made a few steps down the slope that led from the hall door, to meet him, the sunshine caught her full, streaming from behind the corner of the house. It caught in her hair, and shone in it, showing its unimpaired gloss and brightness. Mr. Pennithorne was dazzled by it as he came up, and asked himself if she was superior to time as to most things else, and, after all those years, was young as well as lovely still?

“I am very glad to see you,” she said, holding out her hand. “I just wanted you; it is some good fairy that has sent you so early to-day.”

His face brightened up with an answering gleam; or was it only the sun that had got hold of him too, and woke reflections in his middle-aged eyes? “I am very happy to have come when you wanted me,” he said, his eyelids growing moist with pleasure. He went in to the hall, where all was comparative dusk after that brilliant shining of the noon, and sat down on the stool which was Martuccia’s usual place. “Whatever you want, Miss Mary, here I am,” her faithful servant said.

Then she unfolded to him her difficulty: “Their education!” what was she to do? what could be done? Mr. Pen sat by her very sympathetically and heard everything. He was not very clever about advising, seeing that it was generally from her that he took advice, instead of giving it. But he listened, and did not see his way out of it, which of itself was a comfort to Mary. If he had been clever, and had struck out a new idea at once, it is doubtful whether she would have liked it half so well. She went into the whole question, and eased her mind at least. What was she to do? Mr. Pen shook his head. He was quite ready to take Nello, and teach him all he remembered, after a life spent in rural forgetfulness, of Latin and Greek; but Lilias! and Lilias was the most urgent as being the eldest. There was no school within reach, and a governess, as Mr. Pen suggested with a little trembling—a governess! where could Mary put her,—what could she do with her? It seemed hopeless to think of that.

“I don’t know what you will think of what I am going to say—but there is Randolph, Miss Mary; he is a family man himself. I suppose—of course—he knows about the children?”

“Randolph!” said Mary, faltering; “Mr. Pen, you know what Randolph is as well as I do.”

“People change,” said Mr. Pen, evasively. “It is not for me to say anything; but perhaps—he ought to know.”

“He has never taken any interest in the house; he has never cared to be—one of us,” said Mary. “Perhaps because he was brought up away from us. You know all about it. When he came back—when he was with you and poor John—— You know him as well as I do,” she concluded abruptly. “I don’t see what help we could have from him.”

“He is a family man himself,” said the vicar. “When children come they bring new feelings; they open the heart. He was not like you—or poor John; but he was like a great many people in this world; he would not be unkind. You write to him sometimes?”

“Once or twice a year. He writes to ask how my father is—I often wonder why. He has only been here once since—since it all happened. He would not have it known that he was one of the family which was so much talked about—that he was the brother of—— ” Mary stopped with a flash of indignation in her eyes. “He has separated himself altogether from us, as you know; but he asks from time to time how my father is, though I scarcely know why.”

“And you have told him, I suppose, about the children?”

“No, Mr. Pen; he turned his back upon poor John from the beginning. Why should I tell him? what has he to do with it? We have left our subject altogether talking of Randolph, who is quite apart from it. Let us go back to our sheep—our lambs in this case. What is to be done with them?”

“I will do what I can for them, as I did for their father,” said the vicar. “I was thinking that little Johnny must very soon—and Mary might as well—They can come to me for an hour or two every day; that would be something. But I think Randolph should be told. I think Randolph ought to know. He might be thinking, he might be calculating—— ”

“What, Mr. Pen?” Mary confronted him with head erect and flashing eyes. “Why should he think or calculate about us? He has separated himself from the family. John’s children are nothing to him.”

It was not often that Mr. Pen was worldly wise; but he had an inspiration this time. He shook his head slowly. “It is just that; John’s children might make all the difference to him,” he said.

CHAPTER XIV.

AN UNLOOKED-FOR VISITOR.

Mr. Pennithorne went home thoughtful, and Miss Musgrave remained behind, if not exactly turned in a new direction, yet confused and excited in her mental being by the introduction of a new element. Randolph Musgrave, though her brother, was less known to Mary than he was to the tutor who had travelled and lived with him in the interval during which he had made his nearest approach to friendship with his own family. He had been brought up by an uncle on the mother’s side who did not love the Musgraves, and had succeeded to the family living belonging to that race, and lived now, as he had been brought up, in an atmosphere quite different from that which belonged to his nominal home in the north. Except now and then, in a holiday visit, Randolph had scarcely spent any portion of his life at Penninghame, except the short period just before, and for a little time after, his university career, when he shared with his brother John the special instructions of Mr. Pennithorne. The two young men had worked together then, or made believe to work, and they had travelled together; but being of very different dispositions, and brought up in ways curiously unlike, they had not been made into cordial friends by this period of semi-artificial union. Randolph had been trained to entertain but a small opinion of everything at Penninghame, and when Penninghame became public property, and John and all his affairs and peculiarities were discussed in the newspapers, the younger son did something very like the Scriptural injunction—shaking the dust from off his feet as he departed. He went away after some painful scenes with his father. It was not the old Squire’s fault that his eldest son had become in the eyes of the world a criminal; but Randolph was as bitter at the ignominy brought upon his name as if it had been a family contrivance to annoy and distress him, and had gone away vowing that never again would he have anything to do with his paternal home. There had been a long gap in their relations after that, but at his marriage there had been a kind of reconciliation, enough to give a decorous aspect to his relations with his “people.” He had brought his bride to his father’s house, and since then he had written, as Mary said, now and then, once or twice in the year, to inquire after his father’s health. This was not much, but it saved appearances, and prevented the open scandal of a family quarrel. But Mary, who replied punctiliously to these questions, did not see the need of making a further intimation to him of anything that affected the family. What had he to do with John’s children? She would no more have thought of informing him of any private event in her own history, or of looking to him for sympathy, than she would have stopped a beggar on the road to communicate her good or evil fortune. But the very name of Randolph suggested new complications. She was glad to escape from the whole matter and listen to the account of the lessons when Lilias and Nello came back from one of their earliest experiences of the instruction given by Mr. Pennithorne. The children came in breathless with the story they had to tell. “Then he made me read out of all the books,” said Lilias, her dark eyes shining; “but Nello, because he was so little, one book was enough for him.”

“But it was not a girl’s book,” said Nello; “it was only for Johnnie and me.”

“And I looked in it,” said his sister; “it is all mixed with Italian—such funny Italian: instead of padre it was put payter—Mr. Pen called it so. But it would not do for Nello, when we go back, to say his Italian like that. Even Martuccia would laugh, and Martuccia is not educated.”

“It was Latin,” said Nello; “Mr. Pen said so. He said girls didn’t want Latin. Girls learn to dance and sing; but I—and Johnnie—— ”

“Will Mr. Pen teach me to dance—and sing, Mary?” said Lilias, with a grave face.

“And me, I wrote a copy,” said Nello, indifferent to the interruption; “look!” and he held up fingers covered with ink. “You cannot read it yet, but you will soon be able to read it, Mr. Pen says. And then I will write you a letter, Mary.”

“It would be better to write letters to some one far off,” said Lilias, half scornful of his want of information. “You can talk to Mary, Nello. It is to far-off people that one makes letters.”

“We have nobody that is far off,” said Nello, shaking his head with the sudden consciousness of a want not hitherto realized. “Then I need not write copies any more.”