CHAPTER XXI.

HOW A MAN CAN DO WHAT HE LIKES WITH HIS OWN.

It was not for some days that the clerks in Mr. Brownlow’s office found out the enormity of which their employer had been guilty—which was almost unfortunate, for he gave them full credit for their disapproval all the time. As it was, Mr. Wrinkell embodied within his own person all the disapprobation on a grand scale. It was not that he disapproved of Powys’s advancement. Without being overwhelmingly clever or fascinating, the young Canadian was one of those open-hearted open-eyed souls who find favor with most good people. There was no malice nor envy nor uncharitableness about him; he was ready to acknowledge every body’s good qualities, ready to appreciate whatever kindness might be offered to him, open to see all that was noble or pleasant or of good report—which is the quality of all others most generally wanting in a limited community, from an office up to—even a University. Mr. Wrinkell was a head clerk and a Dissenter, and not a tolerant man to speak of, but he liked the more generous breadth of nature without very well knowing why; and he was glad in his heart that the young fellow had “got on.” But still, for all that, he disapproved—not of Powys, but of Mr. Brownlow. It was caprice, and caprice was not to be supported—or it was from consideration of capability, apart from all question of standing in the office, which was, it must be allowed, more insupportable still. Mr. Wrinkell reflected that he had himself been nearly forty years in the employment of the Brownlows of Masterton without once having his salary doubled. And he felt that if such a dangerous precedent were once established, the consequences might be tremendous. Such a boy, for example, if he but happened to be clever and useful, might be put over every body’s head, before any body was aware. Mr. Wrinkell, who was grand vizier, was not afraid for his own place, but he felt that it was an example to be summarily discouraged. After all, when a man is not clever it is not his fault; whereas, when he is respectable and steady, the virtue and praise is purely his own. “It’s revolutionary,” he said to his wife. “There is Brown, who has been years and years in the office—there never was a steadier fellow. I don’t remember that he ever lost a day—except when he had that fever, you know; but twenty pound a year increase was as much as ever was given to him.”

“When he had the fever they were very kind to him,” said Mrs. Wrinkell; “and, after all, Mr. Brownlow has a right to do what he likes with his own.”

“He may have a right,” said Mr. Wrinkell, doubtfully, “but it’s a thing that always makes a heart-burning, and always will.”

“Well, William, we may be thankful it can’t make any difference to us,” said his wife. This was the sum of the good woman’s philosophy, but it answered very well. It was always her conviction that there will be peace in our day.

As for Brown, when he first heard the news, he went home to the bosom of his family with bitterness in his heart. “I can’t call to mind a single day I ever missed, except that fever, and the day Billy was born,” he said to Mrs. Brown, despondingly; “and here’s this young fellow that’s been six months in the office—”

“It’s a shame,” said that injured woman; “it’s a black burning shame. A bit of a lad picked up in the streets that don’t know what money is; and you a married man with six—not to say the faithful servant you have been. I wonder for my part how Mr. Brownlow dares to look you in the face.”

“He don’t mind much about that. What he thinks is, that the money’s his own,” said poor Brown, with a sigh.

“But it ain’t his own,” said the higher spirited wife. “I would just like to know who works hardest for it, him or you. If I saw him every day as you do, I would soon give him a piece of my mind.”

“And lose my place altogether,” said the husband. But, notwithstanding, though he did not give Mr. Brownlow a piece of his mind, Brown did not hesitate to express his feelings a little in the tone of his voice, and the disapproval in his eye.

All this, however, was as nothing to the judgment which Mr. Brownlow brought upon himself on the following Sunday. The fact that his father had doubled any clerk’s salary was a matter of great indifference to Jack. He smiled in an uncomfortable sort of way when he heard it was young Powys on whom this benefit had fallen; but otherwise it did not affect him. On Sunday, however, as it happened, something occurred that brought Mr. Brownlow’s favoritism—his extraordinary forgetfulness of his position and of what was due to his children—home in the most striking way to his son. It was a thing that required all Mr. Brownlow’s courage; and it can not be said that he was quite comfortable about it. He had done what never had been done before to any clerk since the days of Brownlows began. He had invited young Powys to dinner. He had even done more than that—he had invited him to come early, to ramble about the park, as if he had been an intimate. It was not unpleasant to him to give the invitation, but there is no doubt that the thought of how he was to communicate the fact to his children, and prepare them for their visitor, did give him a little trouble. Of course it was his own house. He was free to ask any one he liked to it. The choice lay entirely with himself; but yet—He said nothing about it until the very day for which his invitation had been given—not that he had forgotten the fact, but somehow a certain constraint came over him whenever he so much as approached the subject. It was only Thursday when he asked young Powys to come, and he had it on his mind all that evening, all Friday and Saturday, and did not venture to make a clean breast of it. Even when Jack was out of the way, it seemed to the father impossible to look into Sara’s face, and tell her of the coming guest. Sunday was very bright—a midsummer day in all its green and flowery glory. Jack had come to the age when a young man is often a little uncertain about his religious duties. He did not care to go and hear Mr. Hardcastle preach. So he said; though the Rector, good man, was very merciful, and inflicted only fifteen minutes of sermon; and then he was very unhappy, and restless, and uneasy about his own concerns; and he was misanthropical for the moment, and disliked the sight and presence of his fellow-creatures. So Jack did not go to church. And Sara and her father did, walking across the beautiful summer park, under the shady trees, through the paths all flecked with sunshine. Sara’s white figure gave a centre to the landscape. She was not angelic, notwithstanding her white robes, but she was royal in her way—a young princess moving through a realm that belonged to her, used to homage, used to admiration, used to know herself the first. Though she was as sweet and as gracious as the morning, all this was written in her face; for she was still very young, and had not reached the maturer dignity of unconsciousness. Mr. Brownlow, as he went with her, was but the first subject in her kingdom. Nobody admired her as he did. Nobody set her up above every competitor with the perfect faith of her father; and to see her clinging to his arm, lifting up her fresh face to him, displaying all her philosophies and caprices for his benefit, was a pretty sight. But yet, all through that long walk to Dewsbury and back, he never ventured to disclose his secret to her. All the time it lay on his heart, but he could not bring himself to say it. It was only when they were all leaving the table, after luncheon, that Mr. Brownlow unburdened himself. “By the way,” he said suddenly, as he rose from his chair, “there is some one coming out to dinner from Masterton. Oh, not any body that makes much difference—a young fellow—”

“Some young fellows make a great deal of difference,” said Sara. “Who is it, papa?”

“Well—at present he is—only one of my clerks,” said Mr. Brownlow, with an uneasy and, to tell the truth, rather humble and deprecating smile—“one you have seen before—he was out here that day I was ill.”

“Oh, Mr. Powys,” said Sara; and in a moment, before another word was spoken, her sublime indifference changed into the brightest gleam of malice, of mischief, of curiosity, that ever shone out of two blue eyes. “I remember him perfectly well—all about him,” she said, with a touch of emphasis that was not lost on her father. “Is there any body else, papa?”

“Powys!” said Jack, turning back in amaze. He had been going out not thinking of any thing; but this intimation, coming just after the news of the office about Powys’s increase of salary, roused his curiosity, and called him back to hear.

“Yes, Powys,” said Mr. Brownlow, standing on his defense like a guilty man. “I hope you have not any objection.”

“Objection, sir?” said Jack; “I don’t know what you mean. It is your house, to ask any body you like. I never should have thought of making any objection.”

“Yes, it is my own house,” said Mr. Brownlow. It made him feel a little sore to have the plea about doing what he liked with his own thus taken, as it were, out of his very mouth.

“But I don’t remember that you ever asked any of the clerks before,” said Jack. It was not that he cared much about the invitation to the clerk; it was rather because he was disagreeable himself, and could not resist the chance of being disagreeable to others, being in a highly uncomfortable state of mind.

“I don’t regard Powys as a mere clerk—there are circumstances,” said Mr. Brownlow. “It is useless to explain at this moment; but I don’t put him on the same level with Brown and Robinson. I should be glad if you could manage to be civil to him, Jack.”

“Of course I shall be civil,” said Jack. But he said, “That beggar again!” through his clenched teeth. Between himself and Powys there was a natural antagonism, and just now he was out of sorts and out of temper. Of course it was his father’s house, not his, that he should make any pretension to control it, and of course he would be civil to his father’s guests; but he could not help repeating, “That beggar!” to himself as he went out. Was his father bewitched? He had not the slightest idea what there could be to recommend this clerk, or to distinguish him from other clerks; and as for the circumstances of difference of which Mr. Brownlow spoke, Jack did not believe in them. He would be civil, of course; but he certainly did not undertake to himself to be any thing more cordial. And he went away with the determination not to be visible again till dinner. Powys!—a pretty thing to have to sit at table and make conversation for the junior clerk.

“Never mind, papa,” said Sara. “Jack is dreadfully disagreeable just now; but you and I will entertain Mr. Powys. He is very nice. I don’t see that it matters about his being one of the clerks.”

“I was once a clerk myself,” said Mr. Brownlow. “I don’t know what difference it should make. But never mind; I have not come to that pitch that I require to consult Jack.”

“No,” said Sara, a little doubtfully. Even she, though she was a dutiful child, was not quite so clear on this subject. Mr. Brownlow had a right to do what he would with his own—but yet—Thus Sara remonstrated too. She did not give in her whole adhesion, right or wrong. She was curious and mischievous, and had no objection to see Powys again; but she was not quite clear in her mind, any more than the other people, about a man’s utter mastery over his own. Mr. Brownlow saw it, and left her with something of the same feeling of discomfort which he had in the presence of Mr. Wrinkell and Mr. Brown. Was there any thing in this world which a man could really call his own, and of which he was absolutely free to dispose? It seemed to the lawyer, thinking it over, that there was no such absolute personal possession. After all, he of the vineyard settled the matter in a quite arbitrary way; and nowadays, amid all the intricacies of extreme civilization, such a simple way of cutting the knot was impracticable. Nobody knew that Mr. Brownlow’s house, and money, and goods were not entirely and honestly his own property; and yet nobody would consent that he should administer them absolutely in his own way. He could not but smile at the thought as he went into the library, where he always felt himself so little at home. His position and relationship to every thing around him seemed to have changed in these days. He had been a just man all his life; but now it seemed to him that justice stood continually in his way. It was a rigid, unmanageable, troublesome principle, which did harm by way of doing right, and forbade the compromises which were essential in this world. Justice to Brown denied him the liberty to advance his clever junior. Justice to Jack forbade him his natural right to entertain whomsoever he pleased at his table. In fact, it was vain to use the possessive pronoun at all; nothing was his—neither his office, nor his money, nor his house—unless under the restriction of every body else’s rights, and of public opinion beyond all. So Mr. Brownlow mused as he left Sara and retired to his solitude. “Is thine eye evil because I am good?” But then in the days of the parable there were fewer complications, and a man was more confident in his own power.

As for Sara, in her reflections on the subject, it occurred to her as very probable that Mr. Powys was coming early, and she stayed in-doors accordingly. She put herself into her favorite corner, by the window—that window which was close to the Claude—and took a little pile of books with her. Sunday afternoon, especially when one is very young, is a difficult moment. One never knows exactly what one ought to read. Such at least was Sara’s experience. Novels, except under very rare and pressing circumstances, were clearly inadmissible—such circumstances, for instance, as having left your heroine in such a harrowing position that common charity required you to see her through it without delay. And real good books—those books which it is a merit to read—were out of Sara’s way. I should be afraid to tell which were the special volumes she carried with her to the window, in case it might convey to some one, differently brought up perhaps, a false impression of the soundness of her views. She had Eugenie de Guerin’s Letters in her hand, which ought to cover a multitude of sins; but she was not reading them. There was the ghost of a smile, a very ghost, appearing and disappearing, and never taking bodily shape, about her pretty mouth. What she was thinking was, who, for instance, this Mr. Powys could be? She did not believe he was a mere clerk. If he were a mere clerk, was it possible that he would be brought here and presented to her like this? That was not to be thought of for a moment. No doubt it was a prince in disguise. He might be an enchanted prince, bewitched out of his proper shape by some malignant fairy; but Sara knew better than to believe for a moment that he could be only a clerk. And he was very nice—he had nice eyes, and a nice smile. He was not exactly what you would call handsome, but he had those special gifts which are indispensable. And then poor papa was in a way about him, afraid to tell his secret, compelled to treat him as if he were only a clerk, afraid Jack should be uncivil. Jack was a bear, Sara concluded to herself, and at this moment more a bear than ever; but she should take care that the enchanted prince should not be rendered uncomfortable by his incivility. Sara’s musings were to this effect, as she sat in her corner by the window, with Eugenie de Guerin in her hand. A soft, warm, balmy, sunny afternoon, one of those days in which the very air is happiness, and into which no trouble seems capable of entering—nineteen years old—a fairy prince in disguise, coming to test her disposition under his humble incognito. Do you think the young creature could forget all that, and enter even into Mademoiselle de Guerin’s pure virginal world of pensive thoughts and world-renunciation, because it was Sunday? But Sara did all she could toward this end. She held that tender talisman in her hand; and, no doubt, if there were any ill spirits about, it kept them out of the way.

Powys for his part was walking up the avenue with a maze of very pleasant thoughts in his mind. He was not thinking particularly of Miss Brownlow. He was too sensible not to know that for him, a junior clerk just promoted to the glory of a hundred and twenty pounds a year, such an idea would have been pure madness. He was thinking, let us say, of the Claude, of how it hung, and all the little accessories round it, and of the sunshine that fell on Sara’s dress, and on her hair, and how it resembled the light upon the rippled water in the picture, and that he was about to witness all that again. This is what he was thinking of. He was country bred, and to breathe the fresh air, and see the trees waving over his head, was new life to him; and warm gratitude, and a kind of affection to the man who generously gave him this pleasure, were in his mind. And notwithstanding the horrible effect that the burden of debt had so recently had upon him, and the fact that a hundred and twenty pounds a year are far, very far, from being a fortune, there was no whiteness now visible at his seams. He was as well dressed as he could be made in Masterton, which was a commencement at which Mr. Wrinkell, or any other good economist, would have frowned. Mr. Brownlow went to join his daughter in the drawing-room as soon as he heard that his visitor had come to the door, and met him in the hall, to Powys’s great comfort and satisfaction. And they went up stairs together. The sunshine crossed Mr. Brownlow’s grizzled locks, just as it had crossed the ripply shining hair, which glistened like the water in Claude’s picture. But this time Powys did not take any notice of the effect. Sara was reading when they went in, and she rose, and half closed her book, and gave the guest a very gracious majestic welcome. It was best to be in-doors just then, while it was so hot, Sara thought. Yes, that was the Claude—did he recollect it? Most likely it was simply because he was a backwoodsman, and entirely uncivilized, that Powys conducted himself so well. He did not sit on the edge of his chair, as even Mr. Wrinkell did. He did not wipe his forehead, nor apologize for the dust, as Mr. Brown would have done. And he was grateful to Mr. Brownlow, and not in the least anxious to show that he was his equal. After a while, in short, it was the master of the house who felt that he was set at ease, as it was he who had been the most embarrassed and uncomfortable, and whose mind was much more occupied than that of his visitor was by thinking of the effect that Powys might produce.

At dinner, however, it was more difficult. Jack was present, and Jack was civil. It is at such a moment that breeding shows; any body, even the merest pretender, can be rude to an intruder, but it requires careful cultivation to be civil to him. Jack was so civil that he all but extinguished the rest of the party. He treated Mr. Powys with the most distinguished politeness. He did not unbend even to his father and sister. As for Willis, the butler, Jack behaved to him as if he had been an archbishop; and such very fine manners are troublesome when the party is a small one and disposed to be friendly and agreeable. Under any circumstances it would have been difficult to have kept up the conversation. They could not talk of their friends and ordinary doings, for Powys knew nothing about these; and though this piece of courtesy is by no means considered needful in all circles, still Mr. Brownlow was old-fashioned, and it was part of his code of manners. So they had to talk upon general subjects, which is always difficult; about books, the universal resource; and about the park, and the beauties of nature, and the difference of things in Canada; and about the music in Masterton church, and whether the new vicar was High or Low, which was a very difficult question for Powys, and one to which he did not know how to reply.

“I am sure he is High,” said Sara. “The church was all decorated with flowers on Ascension Day. I know, for two of the maids were there and saw them; and what does it matter about a sermon in comparison with that?”

“Perhaps it was his wife’s doing,” said Mr. Brownlow, “for I think the sermon the best evidence. He is Low—as Low as you could desire.”

“As I desire!” cried Sara. “Papa, you are surely forgetting yourself. As if I could be supposed to like a Low Churchman! And Mr. Powys says they have good music. That is proof positive. Don’t you think so, Jack?”

This was one of many little attempts to bring back Jack to common humanity; for Sara, womanlike, could not be contented to leave him disagreeable and alone.

“I think Mr. Powys is extremely good to furnish you with information; but I can’t say I am much interested in the question,” said Jack, which brought the talk to a sudden pause.

“Mr. Powys has not seen our church, papa,” Sara resumed. “It is such a dear old place. The chancel every body says is pure Norman, and there are some bits of real old glass in the west window. You should have gone to see it before dinner. Are you very fond of old glass?”

“I am afraid I don’t know,” said Powys, who was bright enough to see the manufactory of conversation which was being carried on, and was half amused by it and half distressed. “We have no old churches in Canada. I suppose they could scarcely be looked for in such a new world.”

“Tell me what sort of churches you have,” said Sara. “I am very fond of architecture. We can’t do any thing original nowadays, you know. It is only copying and copying. But there ought to be a new field in a new world. Do tell me what style the people there like best.”

“You strain Mr. Powys’s powers too far,” said Jack. “You can not expect him to explain every thing to you from the vicar’s principles upward—or downward. Mr. Powys is only mortal, I presume, like the rest of us. He can’t know every thing in heaven or earth.”

“I know a little of that,” said Powys. “Out there we are Jacks-of-all-trades. I once made the designs for a church myself. Miss Brownlow might think it original, but I don’t think she would admire it. We have to think less of beauty than of use.”

“As if use and beauty could not go together,” said Sara, with a little indignation. “Please don’t say those things that every body says. Then you can draw if you have made designs? and I want some cottages so much. Papa, you promised me these cottages; and now Mr. Powys will come and help me with the plans.”

“There is a certain difference between a cottage and a church,” said Mr. Brownlow; but he made no opposition to the suggestion, to the intense amazement and indignation of Jack.

“You forget that Mr. Powys’s time is otherwise engaged,” he said; “people can’t be Jacks-of-all-trades here.”

Mr. Brownlow gave his son a warning glance, and Sara, who had been very patient, could bear it no longer.

“Why are you so disagreeable, Jack?” she said; “nobody was speaking to you. It was to Mr. Powys I was speaking. He knows best whether he will help me or not.”

“Oh, it was to Mr. Powys you were speaking!” said Jack. “I am a very unimportant person, and I am sorry to have interposed.”

Then there came a very blank disagreeable pause. Powys felt that offense was meant, and his spirit rose. But at the same time it was utterly impossible to take offense; and he sat still and tried to appear unconscious, as people do before whom the veil of family courtesy is for a moment blown aside. There are few things which are more exquisitely uncomfortable. He had to look as if he did not observe any thing; and he had to volunteer to say something to cover the silence, and found it very hard to make up his mind as to what he ought to say.

Perhaps Jack was a little annoyed at himself for his freedom of speech, for he said nothing farther that was disagreeable, until he found that his father had ordered the dog-cart to take the visitor back to Masterton. When he came out in the summer twilight, and found the mare harnessed for such an ignoble purpose, his soul was hot within him. If it had been any other horse in the stable—but that his favorite mare should carry the junior clerk down to his humble dwelling-place, was bitterness to Jack. He stood and watched in a very uncomfortable sort of way, with his hands in his pockets, while Powys took his leave. The evening was as lovely as the day had been, and Sara too had come out, and stood on the steps, leaning on her father’s arm. “Shall you drive, sir?” the groom had asked, with a respect which sprang entirely from his master’s cordiality. It was merely a question of form, for the man expected nothing but a negative; but Powys’s countenance brightened up. He held out his hands for the reins with a readiness which perhaps savored more of transatlantic freedom than ought to have been the case; but then he had been deprived of all such pleasures for so long. “Good heavens!” cried Jack, “Tomkins, what do you mean? It’s the bay mare you have in harness. He can’t drive her. If she’s lamed, or if she lames you—”

And he went up to the side of the dog-cart, almost as if he would have taken the reins out of Powys’s hand. The Canadian grew very red, and grasped the whip. They were very ready for a quarrel—Jack standing pale with anger, talking with the groom; Powys red with indignation, holding his place. But it was the latter who had the most command of himself.

“I shall not lame her,” he said quietly, “nor let any one be lamed; jump up.” He was thus master of the situation. The groom took his place; the mare went off straight and swift as an arrow down the avenue. But Jack knew by the look, as he said, of the fellow’s wrist, by the glance in his eye, that he knew what he was about, though he did not at this moment confess the results of his observation. They stood all three on the steps when that fiery chariot wheeled away; and Jack, to tell the truth, did not feel very much satisfied with himself.

“Jack,” said Mr. Brownlow, calmly, “when I have any one here again, I must require of you to keep from insulting them. If you do not care for the feelings of the stranger, you may at least have some regard for yourself.”

“I had no intention of insulting any one, sir,” said Jack, with a little defiance; “if you like him to break his neck or the horse’s knees it is not my affair; but for a fellow who probably never had the reins in his hand before, to attempt with that mare—”

“He has had the reins in his hand oftener than either I or you,” said Mr. Brownlow. The fact was he said it at hazard, thinking it most likely that Powys could drive, but knowing nothing more about it, while Jack knew by sight and vision, and felt himself in his heart a snob as he strolled away from the door. He was uncomfortable, but he succeeded in making his father more uncomfortable still. The mare, too, was his own, though it was Jack’s favorite, and if he liked to have it he might. Such was the Parthian arrow which Mr. Brownlow received at the end of the day. Clearly that was a distant land—a land far removed from the present burden of civilization—a primitive and blessed state of existence, in which a man could be permitted to do what he liked with his own.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE DOWNFALL OF PHILOSOPHY.

And probably he might have been victorious in the struggle. He might have fought his way back to the high philosophical ground from which he was wont to preach to his friend Keppel. At the cost of all the first freshness of his heart, at the cost of many buds of grace that never would have bloomed again, he might have come out victor, and demonstrated to himself beyond all dispute that in such matters a strong will is every thing, and that there is no love or longing that may not be crushed on the threshold of the mind. All this Jack might have done, and lived to profit by it and smart for it, but for a chance meeting by which fate, in spite of a thousand precautions, managed to balk his philosophy. He had gone home early in the afternoon, and he had been seen by anxious eyes behind the curtains of Mrs. Swayne’s window—not Pamela’s eyes, but those of her mother—to go out again dressed, about the time when a man who is going to dinner sets out to fulfill his engagement. And Jack was going out to dinner; he was going to Ridley, where the family had just come down from town. But there had come that day a kind of crisis in his complaint, and when he was half way to his friend’s house a sudden disgust seized him. Instead of going on he jumped down from the dog-cart, and tore a leaf out of his pocket-book, on which he scribbled a hasty word of apology to Keppel. Then, while the groom went on with his note, he turned and went sauntering home along the dusty road in his evening coat. Why should he go and eat the fellow’s dinner? What did he care about it? Go and make an ass of himself, and laugh and talk when he would much rather run a tilt against all the world! And what could she mean by shutting herself up like this, and never so much as saying good-bye? It could harm nobody to say good-bye. Thus Jack mused in pure despite and contrariety, without any intention of laying a snare for the object of his thoughts. He had gone a long way on the road to Ridley before he changed his mind, and consequently it was getting late when he drew near Brownlows coming back. It was a very quiet country road, a continuation of that which led to Masterton. Here and there, was a clump of great trees making it sombre, and then a long stretch of hedgerow with the fragrant meadow on the other side of it, and the cows lowing to go home. There was nobody to be seen up or down the road except a late carter with his horse’s harness on his shoulder, and a boy and a girl driving home some cows. In the distance stood Swayne’s Cottages, half lost in the twilight, with two faint curls of smoke going up into the sky. All was full of that dead calm which chafes the spirit of youth when it is in the midst of its troubles—that calm which is so soothing and so sweet when life and we have surmounted the first battles, and come to a moment of truce. But there was no truce as yet in Jack Brownlow’s thoughts. He wanted to have his own way and he could not have it; and he knew he ought not to have it, and he would not give it up. If he could have kicked at the world, and strangled Nature and made an end of Reason, always without making a fool of himself, that would have been the course of action most in consonance with his thoughts.

And it was just then that a certain flutter round the corner of the lane which led to Dewsbury caught his eye—the flutter of the soft evening air in a black dress. It was not the “creatura bella vestita in bianca” which comes up to the ideal of a lover’s fancy. It was a little figure in a black dress, with a cloak wrapped round her, and a broad hat shading her face, all dark among the twilight shadows. Jack saw, and his heart sprang up within him with a violence which took away his breath. He made but one spring across the road. When they had parted they had not known that they were lovers; but now they had been a week apart and there was no doubt on the subject. He made but one spring, and caught her and held her fast. “Pamela!” he cried out; and though there had been neither asking nor consent, and not one word of positive love-making between them, and though no disrespectful or irreverent thought of her had ever entered his mind, poor Jack, in his ardor and joy and surprise and rage, kissed her suddenly with a kind of transport. “Now I have you at last!” he cried. And this was in the open road, where all the world might have seen them; though happily, so far as was apparent, there was nobody to see.

Pamela, too, gave a cry of surprise and fright and dismay. But she was not angry, poor child. She did not feel that it was unnatural. Her poor little heart had not been standing still all this time any more than Jack’s. They had gone over all those tender, childish, celestial preliminaries while they were apart; and now there could not be any doubt about the bond that united them. Neither the one nor the other affected to believe that farther preface was necessary—circumstances were too pressing for that. He said, “I have you at last,” with eyes that gleamed with triumph; and she said, “Oh, I thought I should never, never see you again!” in a voice which left nothing to be confessed. And for the moment they both forgot every thing—fathers, mothers, promises, wise intentions, all the secondary lumber that makes up the world.

When this instant of utter forgetfulness was over, Pamela began to cry, and Jack’s arm dropped from her waist. It was the next inevitable stage. They made two or three steps by each other’s side, separate, despairing, miserable. Then it was the woman’s turn to take the initiative. She was crying, but she could still speak—indeed, it is possible that her speech would have been less natural had it been without those breaks in the soft voice. “I am not angry,” she said, “because it is the last time. I shall never, never forget you; but oh, it was all a mistake, all from the beginning. We never—meant—to grow fond of each other,” said Pamela through her sobs; “it was all—all a mistake.”

“I was fond of you the very first minute I saw you,” said Jack; “I did not know then, but I know it now. It was no mistake;—that time when I carried you in out of the snow. I was fond of you then, just as I am now—as I shall be all my life.”

“No,” said Pamela, “oh no. It is different—every day in your life you see better people than I am. Don’t say any thing else. It is far better for me to know. I have been a—a little—contented ever since I thought of that.”

These words once more put Jack’s self-denial all to flight. “Better people than you are?” he cried. “Oh, Pamela! I never saw any body half as sweet, half as lovely, all my life.”

“Hush! hush! hush!” said Pamela; they were not so separate now, and she put her soft little hand up, as if to lay it on his lips. “You think so, but it is all—all a mistake!”

Then Jack looked into her sweet tearful eyes, nearer, far nearer than he had ever looked before—and they were eyes that could bear looking into, and the sweetness and the bitterness filled the young man’s heart. “My little love!” he cried, “it is not you who are a mistake.” And he clasped her, almost crushed her waist with his arm in his vehemence. Every thing else was a mistake—himself, his position, her position, all the circumstances; but not Pamela. This time she disengaged herself, but very softly, from his arm.

“I do not mind,” she said, looking at him with an innocent, wistful tenderness, “because it is the last time. If you had not cared, I should have been vexed. One can’t help being a little selfish. Last time, if you had said you were fond of me, I should have been frightened; but now I am glad, very glad you are fond of me. It will always be something to look back to. I shall remember every word you said, and how you looked. Mamma says life is so hard,” said Pamela, faltering a little, and looking far away beyond her lover, as if she could see into a long stretch of life. So she did; and it looked a desert, for he was not to be there.

“Don’t speak like that,” cried Jack; “life shall not be hard to you—not while I live to take care of you—not while I can work—”

“Hush, hush!” said the girl, softly. “I like you to say it, you know. One feels glad; but I know there must be nothing about that. I never thought of it when—when we used to see each other so often. I never thought of any thing. I was only pleased to see you; but mamma has been telling me a great deal—every thing, indeed: I know better now—”

“What has she been telling you?” said Jack. “She has been telling you that I would deceive you; that I was not to be trusted. It is because she does not know me, Pamela. You know me better. I never thought of any thing either,” he added, driven to simplicity by the force of his emotions, “except that I could not do without you, and that I was very happy. And Pamela, whatever it may cost, I can’t live without you now.”

“But you must,” said Pamela: “if you could but hear what mamma says! She never said you would deceive me. What she said was, that we must not have our own way. It may break our hearts, but we must give up. It appears life is like that,” said Pamela, with a deep sigh. “If you like any thing very much, you must give it up.”

“I am ready to give up every thing else,” said Jack, carried on by the tide, and forgetting all his reason; “but I will not give you up. My little darling, you are not to cry—I did not know I was so fond of you till that day. I didn’t even know it till now,” cried the young man. “You mustn’t turn away from me, Pamela—give me your hand; and whatever happens to us, we two will stand by each other all our lives.”

“Ah, no,” said Pamela, drawing away her hand; and then she laid the same hand which she had refused to give him on his shoulder and looked up into his face. “I like you to say it all,” she went on—“I do—it is no use making believe when we are just going to part. I shall remember every word you say. I shall always be able to think that when I was young I had some one to say these things to me. If your father were to come now, I should not be afraid of him; I should just tell him how it was. I am glad of every word that I can treasure up. Mamma said I was not to see you again; but I said if we were to meet we had a right to speak to each other. I never thought I should have seen you to-night. I shouldn’t mind saying to your father himself that we had a right to speak. If we should both live long and grow old, and never meet for years and years, don’t you think we shall still know each other in heaven?”

As for poor Jack, he was driven wild by this, by the sadness of her sweet eyes, by the soft tenderness of her voice, by the virginal simplicity and sincerity which breathed out of her. Pamela stood by him with the consciousness that it was the supreme moment of her existence. She might have been going to die; such was the feeling in her heart. She was going to die out of all the sweet hopes, all the dawning joys of her youth; she was going out into that black desert of life where the law was that if you liked any thing very much you must give it up. But before she went she had a right to open her heart, to hear him disclose his. Had it been possible that their love should have come to any thing, Pamela would have been shy and shamefaced; but that was not possible. But a minute was theirs, and the dark world gaped around to swallow them up from each other. Therefore the words flowed in a flood to Pamela’s lips. She had so many things to say to him—she wanted to tell him so much; and there was but this minute to include all. But her very composure—her tender solemnity—the pure little white martyr that she was, giving up what she most loved, gave to Jack a wilder thrill, a more headlong impulse. He grasped her two hands, he put his arm round her in a sudden passion. It seemed to him that he had no patience with her or any thing—that he must seize upon her and carry her away.

“Pamela,” he cried, hoarsely, “it is of no use talking—you and I are not going to part like this. I don’t know any thing about heaven, and I don’t want to know—not just now. We are not going to part, I tell you. Your mother may say what she likes, but she can’t be so cruel as to take you from a man who loves you and can take care of you—and I will take care of you, by heaven! Nobody shall ever come between us. A fellow may think and think when he doesn’t know his own mind: and it’s easy for a girl like you to talk of the last time. I tell you it is not the last time—it is the first time. I don’t care a straw for any thing else in the world—not in comparison with you. Pamela, don’t cry; we are going to be together all our life.”

“You say so because you have not thought about it,” said Pamela, with an ineffable smile; “and I have been thinking of it ever so long—ever so much. No; but I don’t say you are to go away, not yet. I want to have you as long as I can; I want to tell you so many things—every thing I have in my heart.”

“And I will hear nothing,” said Jack—“nothing except that you and I belong to each other. That’s what you have got to say. Hush, child! do you think I am a child like you? Pamela, look here—I don’t know when it is to be, nor how it is to be, but you are going to be my wife.”

“Oh, no, no,” said Pamela, shrinking from him, growing red and growing pale in the shock of this new suggestion. If this was how it was to be, her frankness, her sad openness, became a kind of crime. She had suffered his embrace before, prayed him to speak to her, thought it right to take full advantage of the last indulgence accorded to them; and now the tables were turned upon her. She shrank away from him, and stood apart in the obscure twilight. There had not been a blush on her cheek while she opened her innocent young heart to him in the solemnity of the supposed farewell, but now she was overwhelmed with sudden shame.

“I say yes, yes, yes,” said Jack vehemently, and he seized upon the hands that she had clasped together by way of safeguard. He seized upon them with a kind of violence appropriating what was his own. His mind had been made up and his fate decided in that half hour. He had been full of doubts up to this moment; but now he had found out that without Pamela it was not worth while to live—that Pamela was slipping through his fingers, ready to escape out of his reach; and after that there was no longer any possibility of a compromise. He had become utterly indifferent to what was going on around as he came to this point. He had turned his back on the road, and could not tell who was coming or going. And thus it was that the sudden intrusion which occurred to them was entirely unexpected, and took them both by surprise. All of a sudden, while neither was looking, a substantial figure was suddenly thrust in between them. It was Mrs. Swayne, who had been at Dewsbury and was going home. She did not put them aside with her hands, but she pushed her large person completely between the lovers, thrusting one to one side and the other to the other. With one of her arms she caught Pamela’s dress, holding her fast, and with the other she pushed Jack away. She was flushed with walking and haste, for she had seen the two figures a long way off, and had divined what sort of meeting it was; and the sight of her fiery countenance between them startled the two so completely that they fell back on either side and gazed at her aghast, without saying a word. Pamela, startled and overcome, hid her face in her hands, while Jack made a sudden step back, and got very hot and furious, but for the moment found himself incapable of speech.

“For shame of yourself!” said Mrs. Swayne, panting for breath; “I’ve a’most killed myself running, but I’ve come in time. What are you a persuadin’ of her to do, Mr. John? Oh for shame of yourself! Don’t tell me! I know what young gentlemen like you is. A-enticin’ her and persuadin’ her and leading her away, to bring her poor mother’s gray hairs with sorrow to the grave. Oh for shame of yourself! And her mother just as simple and innocent, as would believe any thing you liked to tell her; and nobody as can keep this poor thing straight and keep her out o’ trouble but me!”

While she panted out this address, and thrust him away with her extended hand, Jack stood by in consternation, furious but speechless. What could he do? He might order her away, but she would not obey him. He might make his declaration over again in her presence, but she would not believe him, and he did not much relish the idea; he could not struggle with this woman for the possession of his love, and at the same time his blood boiled at her suggestions. If she had been a man he might have knocked her down quietly, and been free of the obstruction, but women take a shabby advantage of the fact that they can not be knocked down. As he stood thus with all his eloquence stopped on his lips, Pamela, from across the bulky person of her champion, stretched out her little hand to him and interposed.

“Hush,” she said; “we were saying good-bye to each other, Mrs. Swayne. I told mamma we should say good-bye. Hush, oh hush, she doesn’t understand; but what does that matter? we must say good-bye all the same.”

“I shall never say good-bye,” said Jack; “you ought to know me better than that. If you must go home with this woman, go—I am not going to fight with her. It matters nothing about her understanding; but, Pamela, remember it is not good-bye. It shall never be good-bye—”

“Understand!” said Mrs. Swayne, whose indignation was furious, “and why shouldn’t I understand? Thank Providence I’m one as knows what temptation is. Go along with you home, Mr. John; and she’ll just go with this woman, she shall. Woman, indeed! And I don’t deny as I’m a woman—and so was your own mother for all so fine as you are. Don’t you think as you’ll lay your clutches on this poor lamb, as long as Swayne and me’s to the fore. I mayn’t understand, and I may be a woman, but—Miss Pamela, you’ll just come along home.”

“Yes, yes,” said Pamela; and then she held up her hand to him entreatingly. “Don’t mind what she says—don’t be angry with me; and I will never, never forget what you have said—and—good-bye,” said the girl, steadily, holding out her hand to him with a wonderful glistening smile that shone through two big tears.

As for Jack, he took her hand and gave it an angry loving grasp which hurt it, and then threw it away. “I am going to see your mother,” he said, deigning no reply. And then he turned his back on her without another word, and left her standing in the twilight in the middle of the dusty road, and went away. He left the two women standing amazed, and went off with quick determined steps that far outstripped their capabilities. It was the road to the cottage—the road to Brownlows—the road anywhere or everywhere. “He’s a-going home, and a blessed riddance,” said Mrs. Swayne, though her spirit quaked within her. But Pamela said nothing; he was not going home. The girl stood and watched his quick firm steps and worshiped him in her heart. To her mother! And was there any thing but one thing that her mother could say?

CHAPTER XXIII.

ALL FOR LOVE.

It was almost dark when Jack reached Swayne’s Cottages, and there was no light in Mrs. Preston’s window to indicate her presence. The only bit of illumination there was in the dim dewy twilight road, was a gleam from old Betty’s perennial fire, which shone out as she opened the door to watch the passage of the dog-cart just then returning from Ridley, where it ought to have carried Mr. John to dinner. The dog-cart was just returning home, in an innocent, unconscious way; but how much had happened in the interval! the thought made Jack’s head whirl a little, and made him half smile; only half smile—for such a momentous crisis is not amusing. He had not had time to think whether or not he was rapturously happy, as a young lover ought to be: on the whole, it was a very serious business. There were a thousand things to think of, such as take the laughter out of a man; yet he did smile as it occurred to him in what an ordinary commonplace sort of way the dog-cart and the mare and the groom had been jogging back along the dusty roads, while he had been so weightily engaged; and how all those people had been calmly dining at Ridley—were dining now, no doubt—and mentally criticising the dishes, and making feeble dinner table-talk, while he had been settling his fate; in less time than they could have got half through their dinner—in less time than even the bay mare could devour the way between the two houses! Jack felt slightly giddy as he thought of it, and his face grew serious again under his smile. The cottage door stood innocently open; there was nobody and nothing between him and his business; he had not even to knock, to be opened to by a curious indifferent servant, as would have been the case in another kind of house. The little passage was quite dark, but there was another gleam of fire-light from the kitchen, where Mr. Swayne sat patient with his rheumatism, and even Mrs. Preston’s door was ajar. Out of the soft darkness without, into the closer darkness within, Jack stepped with a beating heart. This was not the pleasant part of it; this was not like the sudden delight of meeting Pamela—the sudden passion of laying hold on her and claiming her as his own. He stopped in the dark passage, where he had scarcely room to turn, and drew breath a little. He felt within himself that if Mrs. Preston in her black cap and her black gown fell into his arms and saluted him as her son, that he would not be so deeply gratified as perhaps he ought to have been. Pamela was one thing, but her mother was quite another. If mothers, and fathers too for that matter, could but be done away with when their daughters are old enough to marry, what a great deal of trouble it would spare in this world! But that was not to be thought of. He had come to do it, and it had to be done. While he stood taking breath and collecting himself, Mr. Swayne feeling that the step which had crossed his threshold was not his wife’s step, called out to the intruder. “Who are you?” cried the master of the house; “you wait till my missis comes and finds you there; she don’t hold with no tramp; and I see her a-coming round the corner,” he continued, in tones in which exultation had triumphed over fright. No tramp could have been more moved by the words than was Jack. He resisted the passing impulse he had to stride into the kitchen and strangle Mr. Swayne in passing; and then, with one knock by way of preface, he went in without further introduction into the parlor where Mrs. Preston was alone.

It was almost quite dark—dark with that bewildering summer darkness which is more confusing than positive night. Something got up hastily from the sofa at the sight of him, and gave a little suppressed shriek of alarm. “Don’t be alarmed—it is only I, Mrs. Preston,” said Jack. He made a step forward and looked at her, as probably she too was looking at him; but they could not see each other, and it was no comfort to Pamela’s mother to be told by Jack Brownlow, that it was only I.

“Has any thing happened?” she cried; “what is it? what is it? oh my child!—for God’s sake, whoever you are, tell me what it is.”

“There is nothing the matter with her,” said Jack, steadily. “I am John Brownlow, and I have come to speak to you; that is what it is.”

“John Brownlow,” said Mrs. Preston, in consternation—and then her tone changed. “I am sorry I did not know you,” she said; “but if you have any business with me, sir, I can soon get a light.”

“Indeed I have the most serious business,” said Jack—it was in his mind to say that he would prefer being without a light; but there would have been something too familiar and undignified for the occasion in such a speech as that.

“Wait a moment,” said Mrs. Preston, and she hastened out, leaving him in the dark parlor by himself. Of course he knew it was only a pretext—he knew as well as if she had told him that she had gone to establish a watch for Pamela to prevent her from coming in while he was there; and this time he laughed outright. She might have done it an hour ago, fast enough; but now to keep Pamela from him was more than all the fathers and mothers in the world could do. He laughed at the vain precaution. It was not that he had lost all sense of prudence, or that he was not aware how foolish a thing in many respects he was doing; but notwithstanding, he laughed at the idea that any thing, stone walls and iron bars, or admonitions, or parental orders, could keep her from him. It might be very idiotic—and no doubt it was; but if any body dreamed for a moment that he could be made to give her up! or that she could be wrested out of his grasp now that he had possession of her—any deluded individual who might entertain such a notion could certainly know nothing of Jack.

Mrs. Preston was absent for some minutes, and before she came back there had been a soft rustle in the passage, a subdued sound of voices, in one of which, rapidly suppressed and put a stop to, Jack could discern Mrs. Swayne’s voluble tones. He smiled to himself in the darkness as he stood and waited; he knew what was going on as well as if he had been outside and had seen it all. Pamela was being smuggled into the house, being put somewhere out of his way. Probably her mother was making an attempt to conceal from her even the fact that he was there, and at this purely futile attempt Jack again laughed in his heart; then in his impatience he strode to the window, and looked out at the gates which were indistinctly visible opposite, and the gleam of Betty’s fire, which was now apparent only through her window. That was the way it would have been natural for him to go, not this—there lay his home, wealthy, luxurious, pleasant, with freedom in it, and every thing that ministered most at once to his comfort and his ambition: and yet it was not there he had gone, but into this shabby little dingy parlor, to put his life and all his pleasure in life, and his prospects and every thing for which he most cared, at the disposal, not of Pamela, but of her mother. He felt that it was hard. As for her, the little darling! to have taken her in his arms and carried her off and built a nest for her would not have been hard—but that it should all rest upon the decision of her mother! Jack felt at the moment that it was a hard thing that there should be mothers standing thus in the young people’s way. It might be very unamiable on his part, but that was unquestionably his feeling: and indeed, for one second, so terrible did the prospect appear to him, that the idea of taking offense and running away did once cross his mind. If they chose to leave him alone like this, waiting, what could they expect? He put his hand upon the handle of the door, and then withdrew it as if it had burned him. A minute after Mrs. Preston came back. She carried in her hand a candle, which threw a bright light upon her worn face, with the black eyes, black hair, black cap and black dress close round her throat which so much increased the gauntness of her general appearance. This time her eyes, though they were old, were very bright—bright with anxiety and alarm—so bright that for the moment they were like Pamela’s. She came in and set down her candle on the table, where it shed a strange little pale inquisitive light, as if, like Jack, it was looking round, half dazzled by the change out of complete darkness, at the unfamiliar place; and then she drew down the blind. When she had done this she came to the table near which Jack was standing. “Mr. Brownlow, you want to speak to me?” she said.

“Yes,” said Jack. Though his forefathers had been Brownlows of Masterton for generations, which ought to have given him self-possession if any thing could, and though he had been brought up at a public-school, which was still more to the purpose, this simple question took away the power of speech from him as completely as if he had been the merest clown. He had not felt the least difficulty about what he was going to say, but all at once to say any thing at all seemed impossible.

“Then tell me what it is,” said Mrs. Preston, sitting down in the black old-fashioned high-backed easy-chair. Her heart was melting to him more and more every moment, the sight of his confusion being sweet to her eyes, but of course he did not know this—neither, it is to be feared, would Jack have very much cared.

“Yes,” he said again; “the fact was—I—wanted to speak to you—about your daughter. I suppose this sort of thing is always an awkward business. I have seen her with—with my sister, you know—we couldn’t help seeing each other; and the fact is, we’ve—we’ve grown fond of each other without knowing it: that is about the state of the case.”

“Fond of each other?” said Mrs. Preston, faltering. “Mr. Brownlow, I don’t think that is how you ought to speak. You mean you have grown fond of Pamela. I am very, very sorry; but Heaven forbid that my poor girl—”

“I mean what I say,” said Jack, sturdily—“we’ve grown fond of each other. If you ask her she will tell you the same. We were not thinking of any thing of the kind—it came upon us unawares. I tell you the whole truth, that you may not wonder at me coming so unprepared. I don’t come to you as a fellow might that had planned it all out and turned it over in his mind, and could tell you how much he had a year, and what he could settle on his wife, and all that. I tell you frankly the truth, Mrs. Preston. We were not thinking of any thing of the kind; but now, you see, we have both of us found it out.”

“I don’t understand you,” said the astonished mother; “what have you found out?”

“We’ve found out just what I’ve been telling you,” said Jack—“that we’re fond of each other. You may say I should have told you first; but the truth was, I never had the opportunity—not that I would have been sure to have taken advantage of it if I had. We went on without knowing what we were doing, and then it came upon us all at once.”

He sat down abruptly as he said this, in an abstracted way; and he sighed. He had found it out, there could be no doubt of that; and he did not hide from himself that this discovery was a very serious one. It filled his mind with a great many thoughts. He was no longer in a position to go on amusing himself without any thought of the future. Jack was but mortal, and it is quite possible he might have done so had it been in his power. But it was not in his power, and his aspect, when he dropped into the chair, and looked into the vacant air before him and sighed, was rather that of a man looking anxiously into the future—a future that was certain—than of a lover waiting for the sentence which (metaphorically) is one of life or death; and Mrs. Preston, little experienced in such matters, and much agitated by the information so suddenly conveyed to her, did not know what to think. She bent forward and looked at him with an eagerness which he never perceived. She clasped her hands tightly together, and gazed as if she would read his heart; and then what could she say? He was not asking any thing from her—he was only intimating to her an unquestionable fact.

“But, Mr. Brownlow,” she said at last, tremulously, “I think—I hope you may be mistaken. My Pamela is very young—and so are you—very young for a man. I hope you have made a mistake. At your age it doesn’t matter so much.”

“Don’t it, though?” said Jack, with a flash in his eyes. “I can’t, say to you that’s our business, for I know, of course, that a girl ought to consult her mother. But don’t let us discuss that, please. A fact can’t be discussed, you know. It’s either true or it’s false—and we certainly are the only ones who can know.”

Then there was another pause, during which Jack strayed off again into calculations about the future—that unforeseen future which had leaped into existence for him only about an hour ago. He had sat down on the other side of the table, and was gazing into the blank hearth as if some enlightenment might have been found there. As for Mrs. Preston, her amazement and agitation were such that it cost her a great effort to compose herself and not to give way.

“Is this all you have to say to me?” she said at last, with trembling lips.

Then Jack roused himself up. Suddenly it occurred to him that the poor woman whom he had been so far from admiring was behaving to him with a generosity and delicacy very different from his conduct to her; and the blood rushed to his face at the thought.

“I beg your pardon,” he said. “I have already explained to you why it is that I come in such an unprepared way. I met her to-night. Upon my life I did not lay any trap for her. I was awfully cut up about not seeing her; but we met by accident. And the fact was, when we met we couldn’t help showing that we understood each other. After that it was my first duty,” said Jack, with a thrill of conscious grandeur, “to come to you.”

“But do you mean to say,” said Mrs. Preston, wringing her hands, “that my Pamela—? Sir, she is only a child. She could not have understood you. She may like you in a way—”

“She likes me as I like her,” said Jack, stoutly. “It’s no use struggling against it. It is no use arguing about it. You may think her a child, but she is not a child; and I can’t do without her, Mrs. Preston. I hope you haven’t any dislike to me. If you have,” said Jack, warming up, “I will do any thing a man can do to please you; but you couldn’t have the heart to make her unhappy, and come between her and me.”

“I make her unhappy?” said Mrs. Preston, with a gasp. She who had no hope or desire in the world but Pamela’s happiness! “But I don’t even see how it came about. I—I don’t understand you. I don’t even know what you want of me.”

“What I want?” said Jack, turning round upon her with wondering eyes—“What could I want but one thing? I want Pamela—that’s very clear. Good heavens, you are not going to be ill, are you? Shall I call somebody? I know it’s awfully sudden,” said the young fellow ruefully. Nobody could be more sensible of that than he was. He got up in his dismay and went to a side-table where there stood a carafe of water and brought her some. It was the first act of human fellowship, as it were, that had passed between the two, and somehow it brought them together. Mrs. Preston took the water with that strange half-sacramental feeling with which a soul in extremity receives the refreshment which brings it back to life. Was it her friend, her son, or her enemy that thus ministered to her? Oh, if she could only have seen into his heart! She had no interest in the world but Pamela, and now the matter in hand was the decision for good or for evil of Pamela’s fate.

“I am better, thank you,” she said faintly. “I am not very strong, and it startled me. Sit down, Mr. Brownlow, and let us talk it over. I knew this was what it would have come to if it had gone on; but I have been talking a great deal to my child, and keeping her under my eye—”

“Yes,” said Jack, with some indignation, “keeping her out of my way. I knew you were doing that.”

“It was the only thing I could do,” said Mrs. Preston. “I did try to find another means, but it did not succeed. When I asked you what you wanted of me, I was not doubting your honor. But things are not so easy as you young people think. Your father never will consent.”

“I don’t think things are easy,” said Jack. “I see they are as crooked and hard as possible. I don’t pretend to think it’s all plain sailing. I believe he won’t consent. It might have been all very well to consider that three months ago, but you see we never thought of it then. We must just do without his consent now.”

“And there is more than that,” said Mrs. Preston. “It would not be right for him to consent, nor for me either. If you only found it out so suddenly, how can you be sure of your own mind, Mr. John—and you so young? I don’t say any thing of my own child. I don’t mean to say in my heart that I think you too grand for her. I know if ever there was a lady born it’s—; but that’s not the question,” she continued, nervously wringing her hands again. “If she was a princess, she’s been brought up different from you. I did think once there might have been a way of getting over that; but I know better now; and you’re very young; and from what you say,” said Pamela’s mother, who, after all, was a woman, a little romantic and very proud, “I don’t think you’re one that would be content to give up every thing for love.”

Jack had been listening calmly enough, not making much in his own mind of her objections; but the last words did strike home. He started, and he felt in his heart a certain puncture, as if the needle in Mrs. Preston’s work, which lay on the table, had gone into him. This at least was true. He looked at her with a certain defiance, and yet with respect. “For love—no,” said Jack half fiercely, stirred, like a mere male creature as he was, by the prick of opposition; and then a softening came over his eyes, and a gleam came into them which, even by the light of the one pale candle, made itself apparent; “but for Pamela—yes. I’ll tell you one thing, Mrs. Preston,” he added, quickly, “I should not call it giving up. I don’t mean to give up. As for my father, I don’t see what he has to do with it. I can work for my wife as well as any other fellow could. If I were to say it didn’t matter, you might mistrust me; but when a man knows it does matter,” said Jack, again warming with his subject, “when a man sees it’s serious, and not a thing to be done without thinking, you can surely rely upon him more than if he went at it blindly? I think so at least.”

So saying, Jack stopped, feeling a little sore and incompris. If he had made a fool of himself, no doubt the woman would have believed in him; but because he saw the gravity of what he was about to do, and felt its importance, a kind of doubt was in his hearer’s heart. “They not only expect a man to be foolish, but they expect him to forget his own nature,” Jack said to himself, which certainly was hard.

“I don’t mistrust you,” said Mrs. Preston, but her voice faltered, and did not quite carry out her words; “only, you know, Mr. John, you are very young. Pamela is very young, but you are even younger than she is—I mean, you know, because you are a man; and how can you tell that you know your own mind? It was only to-day that you found it out, and to-morrow you might find something else out—”

Here she stopped half frightened, for Jack had risen up, and was looking at her over the light of the candle, looking pale and somewhat threatening. He was not in a sentimental attitude, neither was there any thing about him that breathed the tender romance for which in her heart Mrs. Preston sighed, and without which it cost her an effort to believe in his sincerity. He was standing with his hands thrust down to the bottom of his pockets, his brow a little knitted, his face pale, his expression worried and impatient. “What is the use of beginning over and over again?” said Jack. “Do you think I could have found out like this a thing that hadn’t been in existence for months and months? Why, the first time I saw you in Hobson’s cart—the time I carried her in out of the snow—” When he had got this length, he walked away to the window and stood looking out, though the blind was down, with his back turned upon her—“with her little red cloak, and her pretty hair,” said Jack, with a curious sound which would not bear classification. It might have been a laugh, or a sob, or a snort—and it was neither; anyhow, it expressed the emotion within him better than half a hundred fine speeches. “And you don’t believe in me after all that!” he said, coming back again and looking at her once more over the light of the candle. Perhaps it was something in Jack’s eyes, either light or moisture, it would be difficult to tell which, that overpowered Mrs. Preston, for the poor woman faltered and began to cry.

“I do believe in you,” she said. “I do—and I love you for saying it; but oh, Mr. John, what am I to do? I can’t let you ruin yourself with your father. I can’t encourage you when I know what it will cost you; and then, my own child—”

“That’s it,” said Jack, drawing his chair over to her side of the table, with his first attempt at diplomacy—“that’s what we’ve got to think of. It doesn’t matter for a fellow like me. If I got disappointed and cut up I should have to bear it; but as for Pamela, you know—dear little soul! You may think it strange, but,” said Jack, with a little affected laugh, full of that supreme vanity and self-satisfaction with which a man recognizes such a fact, “she is fond of me; and if she were disappointed and put out, you know—why, it might make her ill—it might do her no end of harm—it might—Seriously, you know,” said Jack, looking in Mrs. Preston’s face, and giving another and another hitch to his chair. Though her sense of humor was not lively, she dried her eyes and looked at him with a little bewilderment, wondering was he really in earnest? did he mean it? or what did he mean?