CHAPTER XI.

THE OLD HOUSE.

John was not convinced, though he was a little discouraged, by Mrs. Egerton’s speech. To say that none of his people belonged there when the two, the only two who had trained and loved him, were lying side by side, unalterable inhabitants; and when all the associations of his boyhood, all he knew of home, was in this place! He was a little aggrieved, wounded and troubled by that phrase. They had always been so kind. It had never been made known to him in any way that he did not belong—that is, that he was not one of the known and accredited families who alone were on the same level as the Spencers. He knew indeed that he was not on the same level with them—he could remember, now he thought of it, the gratitude of his grandparents and their gratification at his adoption into the circle of the rectory. And there was nothing unkind in what Mrs. Egerton had said; perhaps she meant nothing at all; and, if she did mean anything, it was the kindest, mildest suggestion that he had perhaps no particular right to assume a place as one of the village aristocracy.

If she did mean that, John said to himself that he was not going to be discouraged by such a small matter. He was not, as a point of fact, connected with any great family like the Spencers. He was perhaps nobody, going to be the architect of his own fortunes; but why should he have less love for the scene of his early associations because of that? He went away a little earlier than he might otherwise have done, after the luncheon to which Mr. Cattley came with Percy, though he had said he should not. It was a very pleasant luncheon; nothing could have been brighter than the table, and the looks of the two ladies at least. There was a little too much clerical talk, talk about the parish; but then perhaps that was natural in a clerical house, and under the stimulus of a brand-new curate, just in harness, and much enamoured of his new position and power.

Percy was a little overpowering, all-pervasive, bringing back the conversation if it ever strayed for a moment from the regulation subjects, and Mr. Cattley was a little subdued, saying little, evidently feeling the oppression of this novelty, as well as the deepening influence of his approaching departure. John himself, sitting opposite to Elly, not able to avoid looking at her, getting accustomed to her new aspect, was not capable of a very lively part in the conversation. But yet it was all pleasant, and everybody was kind. He walked away alone afterwards down the village street, saying this to himself. Nobody could be more kind. John had no other friends to receive him in that way. When he had been in America and other places far from home, holding an important place in ‘the works,’ he had been thus entertained on various occasions; but at home he knew nobody, and lived in his own rooms in a very recluse fashion. To be so familiar at any family table, to be called by his Christian name—(though Percy said nothing but Sandford) was an unaccustomed pleasure, and one that he could enjoy only here. But, nevertheless, a cloud had come—even since the morning, since his first welcome. Then there had not been any cloud—now it was only to be divined from austere movements of Mrs. Egerton’s eyelids and tones of her voice: and yet John felt that it was there. ‘A little place quite out of the way, with which you have no real family connection.’ That was true enough: he understood what she meant, though he had never thought of it, or been moved by it before. The Sandfords were not established in the county, like the Spencers—they were nobodies, most likely: grandfather and grandmother had not been on the same level as the rector and Mrs. Egerton. It was quite true. It was only a cloud like a man’s hand, not so much. But still it was enough to spread a cold chill through that warm, sunshiny, delightful air of May.

With this in his mind, John walked down the street to see the old house. Notwithstanding the chill, he had not in the least degree changed his mind. If it was a silly thing, he would still do it. He did not pretend to be wise. He would please himself, whatever Mrs. Egerton might say; indeed, what she had said had confirmed him in this his intention, as sensible opposition so often does confirm us in the silly things which our hearts desire. And, when he got to the house, he found, to his surprise, that it would not be so difficult as he had supposed. It appeared that a good deal of the simple, old furniture had not been sold. And he felt as if it might have been a cleaning-day, such as some he recollected, and that grandmamma might be in some of the other rooms, taking refuge from the tubs and the charwoman, who had always been called in to help Sarah on such occasions. His heart and his eyes filled as he went over the house. The recollections of his childhood took possession of him, both sad and pleasant. All the happy past of his life had been spent there. He had known no vexation or misery there; nothing but hallowing grief, which is the one painfullest thing upon which the heart can go back without bitterness. He thought of them going away one after the other, and of his own desolation and the emptiness of the house; but how sweet these recollections were in comparison with what followed: and how much sweeter, tenderer, more delightful the happiness then, than even that buoyancy of well-being and self-satisfaction with which he had come back!

John retraced his steps after that survey with a subdued and softened heart; and he met Elly in the middle of the village street. She was walking quickly when he perceived her first, with her head turned towards his house, and every appearance of having a distinct aim and purpose in her walk. But, when she saw him, her intention seemed to change. Her aim suddenly failed her, her pace slackened, and an embarrassed look of not knowing where she was going came into her face. John did not understand this at first, until it suddenly flashed upon him that she might be going to meet him there. No doubt she perceived the chill that had come over him, and had hastened to console him. He hurried on to meet her, but, when he did so, found that she was turning off in another direction, with a look which was full of embarrassment.

‘I thought perhaps you were coming to take another look at the poor old place,’ he said.

‘Oh, no,’ cried Elly, but her face contradicted her words.

‘I have just been going over it: the garden looks the same as ever: they have changed nothing; and the rooms could very easily be restored; they were never very much, never anything fine.’

‘They always seemed delightful to me,’ said Elly, simply.

‘I was very presuming to ask that of you about the chairs,’ he said. ‘I don’t know that I ever fully understood it before to-day. I am sure you will consider how young I was, Miss Spencer, only a boy——’

‘Miss Spencer!’ she cried. ‘Jack, is that my name?’

‘I suppose it must be,’ he said. ‘To come back and find you—as you are: after being so silly as to hope that we should meet just the same as ever, and that I should find you a child still——’

‘Then you were disappointed in me, Jack?’ she said, in a low tone.

‘Disappointed!’ he cried. Then, after a pause: ‘Of course, it comes to the same thing. You are a young lady now; you’re not my old schoolfellow. I daren’t speak to you as I used, or think of you as I used. Many a dreary time, when I’d nothing else to be a little comfort, I’ve thought of what you said, that you would learn your algebra under the pear-tree and think of me.’

John was sad enough, for all the differences rushed upon his mind, and seemed to push him away from her side; and yet he could not but smile, thinking of the algebra which Elly never could learn. She understood him, for she smiled too.

‘I gave up the algebra a long time ago,’ she said, ‘almost as soon as you went away—for how could I learn it without you to help me? But I still kept going to the pear-tree all the same, and—thinking of you.’

‘That was very good of you, Elly.’

‘Ah, come, that’s something like,’ she cried. ‘Do you think, Mr. Sandford, whatever happened, I should ever call you anything but Jack?’

‘That’s another thing—that’s natural; what could I be else? You may call me Jack, Jack, like a dog, if you please; but that doesn’t mean that I should be wanting in any respect to you.’

She gave him a look, half entreating, half upbraiding, and then she said, quietly,

‘Were you going to the—churchyard, Jack?’

‘Yes.’

‘May I go, too?’

‘Oh, will you, Elly?’

That was the best way to dispel the prudery that had taken hold upon him. He could not be anything but natural beside their graves. This was what Elly said to herself, knowing very well, all the while, that his prudery, as she called it, was the most natural of all, and that he and she sedately walking along together to make that sacred visit, were boy and girl no longer, and could not be Elly and Jack to each other again, save in a spasmodic and artificial way. Did not she know this as well, better than he?—for, naturally, the subject was one which presented itself in a stronger light to Elly than it could to John. But, nevertheless, it was agreeable to her to meet him in this way, and get over the dangerous barrier, if not permanently, at least for a little while. They went to the grave, all covered with May flowers, and kept in careful order, as John could see, and where Elly busied herself in picking out imaginary weeds and faded blooms leaving the young man free to think or pray, as he pleased.

It is to be feared that John thought more of her than of them. He gave them a momentary thought in their stillness and calmness, so long ago delivered out of all commotion and trouble, and then his mind fled to matters more urgent, to the young creature bending over them, who was so familiar yet so unfamiliar, who woke so many bewildering, new sensations in his heart. John felt that it was intended to take Elly from him, and did not know how to oppose this, yet was determined to oppose it. It would not be Elly’s fault if she was separated from him. What was he to do to keep hold of her, to prevent the severance? He was grieved at himself that this was the foremost subject in his mind at his grandparents’ grave. But how could he help it? and they, if they were permitted to see, if they knew anything about it, they would understand; John felt that if they perceived him standing thus over their last resting-place, as we instinctively feel that those whom we have lost must do, that they would not resent the perturbation of his mind or think that it meant neglect or forgetfulness, but would understand entirely and without mistake; for have they not ‘larger, other eyes than ours?’ After a while, he went away and took a little turn among the graves by himself, Elly all this time stooping over the spot, and picking off every leaf that marred the perfection of the flowers. When he returned he put his hand softly upon her arm, and called her to come away.

‘Elly,’ he said, ‘I have something more on my mind than these graves. They are not there. They would not like me to give myself up to it as if they were there.’

‘No, Jack,’ she said.

‘Therefore they would not blame me, and you shouldn’t, for what I am going to say. It was you I was thinking of, Elly. It is you that mean home to me, it appears, and all that I care for. Elly, there are other ways of thinking at the rectory: they will not let it be if they can help it.’

She trembled a little, and asked, softly, ‘What will they not let be, Jack?’

‘Oh, Elly, that I should look to you so for sympathy; that you should be my dear friend; that you should be Elly to me. You allow me to say it, but they wouldn’t. And what am I to do without you?’ he said, in full sincerity and alarm. He did not at all think of her in the matter, which perhaps was natural enough.

‘Don’t think of that, Jack. Call me what you have always called me, and think of me as you have always thought. If you give it up as if you were frightened, that may put what you say into their heads.’

‘But I see the justice of it,’ said John. ‘You are not a little girl, but a beautiful young lady. What right has a fellow like me, without any recommendations, with nothing in his favour except being very fond of you, what right have I to call you Elly? My judgment agrees with theirs, though I think it will break my heart.’

‘I see no occasion for any judgment on the matter,’ said Elly, raising her head with a certain pride. ‘If you think so, I can’t help it. But I’ve always been allowed to have an opinion of my own: and since I choose to be your friend as we have been all our lives, and to call you Jack—and be Elly to you—let them, if they have any objections, make them to me.’

‘How sweet you are and how you look! like a guardian angel,’ cried poor John, ‘but they will not let that be, either. For they will say I have no right to appeal to you at all, that I ought to know better; that I am a man and have been about the world, and you are only a girl——’

‘If you think I am only a girl,’ cried Elly, with great offence, ‘it can’t be any matter to you whether I stand by you or not, a thing of so little account!’

‘You know that is not what I mean,’ said the boy, with a long-drawn breath that was almost a sob. He, who was so much older than his age, felt now what a young, helpless, impotent being he was before all that force of opposition and good sense and fact. ‘I wish,’ he cried, looking at her with a certain fond impatience, ‘that you were only a girl as you used to be, with your hair waving upon your shoulders—I wish you had put off growing up for a few years, Elly! You are a woman now, and as good as a queen. And it is right they should keep everything from you that is not the best. I understand it quite well, and I agree with it, though it is against myself.’

Elly flushed and grew pale again while he was making this speech: and matters had grown very serious, for there was no telling what in his excited condition he might say next. She looked at him for a moment doubtfully, and then she put her hand on his arm in a way she had often done when they were boy and girl together, not to lean upon him, you may be sure, which was not at all Elly’s way, but to push him on before her on the way which she had determined was that he ought to go.

‘I don’t know what is the good of talking like this,’ she said, ‘making yourself unhappy and me too. Wait till somebody objects. What is the good of going and meeting bother before it comes? It is time enough to stand on the defensive when somebody attacks us. You were always fond of making sure that something was going to happen: and generally nothing happened. Do you remember the time when we upset the ink bottle over Mr. Cattley’s sermon—when you expected for a whole week we should get into disgrace, and he only laughed to Aunt Mary about it, and did nothing to us at all?’

‘I remember about the sermon and the ink-bottle,’ said John, too young, even in the excited state of his feelings, not to be moved in the first place to self-defence, ‘but I thought it was——’

‘Oh, never mind what you thought—it came all right,’ cried Elly, with a little impatience. But, as a matter of fact, John could not forget, though she puzzled him for a moment by that sudden imputation of causeless forebodings that it was Elly who had been afraid.

CHAPTER XII.

SUSIE.

Susie arrived a few days later, having left John time, as she believed, to resume his relations with his old friends, and get himself received upon such foundations as were practicable in the change of circumstances. It was a subject which she and her mother had talked over often with different opinions. For it was apparent to both that the question was very doubtful as to how John going back, no longer a boy, but a man, no longer an equal in the school-work which had united him to these friends of youth, but divorced from all their ways and traditions in the path of practical life, would be received by them. Mrs. Sandford had been of opinion that the bland and patronising woman who had attempted to fathom her own circumstances in a ten-minutes’ interview, would summarily drop the young man, who was the son of a matron in a hospital, and had no standing of any kind which could place him on a level with her family. So would the young clergyman. ‘Clergymen are never indifferent to social inequalities,’ she said. And it was her severe opinion that the only way to demonstrate to John the fact of his practical severance from all those boyish ties was to let him return to Edgeley and see for himself that kindness shown to a boy was a very different thing from friendship accorded to a man.

‘Mother, you are sending him there to be wounded and trampled on,’ Susie had said: to which Mrs. Sandford had replied with a smile, ‘Not if you are right, Susie.’

But, nevertheless, this was most likely what the stern woman meant, to prove to him of how little worth was the friendship upon which he had built, that sort of amateur motherhood and sisterhood of the ladies at Edgeley, who had beguiled his heart in his youth into a faith in them which his real mother did not believe they would ever justify. She was not aware, perhaps, of any taint of jealousy in her own mind, any remnant of the inevitable wound which she had shown so little, but which she had still felt, in the days when he had hotly resisted her influence, and told her she was Emily. Mrs. Sandford had been very magnanimous. She had not punished John in any way, not even by a taunt, for that cruel utterance of his youthful despair; but perhaps there had lingered in her heart a tone of vindictiveness towards the lady who had been so kind to him—so strangely kind, the mother thought, but whose regard was no doubt so artificial, so little likely to survive the pressure of years. She was willing that he should find this out, that he should be undeceived. The blow might be a keen one, but it was necessary, she said to herself.

Susie was indignant at this intention. She saw in it a still more cold-blooded aspect than that which it really bore, and John had no sooner gone than she felt herself a sort of accomplice exposing him to a terrible ordeal for no rational end: for to Susie’s softer nature the dispelling of John’s dream, if it should be dispelled, was in itself an evil, not, as his mother thought, an advantage. The two days which she had arranged to stay behind him seemed long to her, a lingering delay, in which harm that she might have prevented was perhaps being done. She was eager to start, to go to the succour of the poor boy whose castles in the air were perhaps cast down by this time, and his trust betrayed. And why should his dream-castles have been demolished? They did nobody any harm, and they kept his heart warm. Susie said to herself that she would like to have somebody to believe in, of whom she could always be sure that they liked and remembered her. Even if they should never do her any good, if they did not like her enough for any practical advantage, still to believe in them as poor John had done in his Edgeley friends, would be a pleasant thing. Susie’s life had not been gay. She was neither discontented nor did she complain: neither the one nor other were in her nature; but she said to herself that if she had friends like John’s friends she would take good care not to put their devotion to any severe test. She would not try them whether they were true or not, but would believe they were true, and cling to that faith as long as they took no steps to convince her of the contrary. Some people think it is best to know the truth at all hazards. She had no such disastrous curiosity. She would have been content to believe.

Susie was very anxious for her brother’s first look, which she thought would tell her more than he was at all likely to tell in words. If she found him depressed and subdued she would know what had happened—that his mother’s policy had been successful, that he was disenchanted, and his fond illusions gone. But this was not John’s aspect when she sprang out to meet him as the train arrived, and saw him waiting on the little platform in the twilight of the soft evening. How silent it was, how quiet when the train went shrieking on into the night, and the brief bustle was over! The air, almost dark, seemed infinite, stretching away into the unseen across the common, full of the breadth and freshness of the sky, and space unbroken for miles by any obstacle. She felt the charm of the wide atmosphere, the soft enlargement of the darkening world about, and the freshness and dewy look of John’s eyes, with a sensation of refreshment and relief. He was not disenchanted at least, whatever had happened to him. He took her home, not saying very much, feeling the excitement and surprise of the home-coming in a way which Susie, who knew nothing about it, and to whom any house in the village was the same as any other, could not possibly feel it. John had been very busy re-establishing the little old house which had been so dear. The two old chairs had been brought from the rectory, Elly herself accompanying them, and he and she together had reverently put them back in their old place. It looked exactly as it had done when the old people left it, as John led his sister over the threshold. Elly and he had gone over this little scene in anticipation with great feeling.

‘Jack, you will say to her, “Welcome home:” and when she looks round and sees everything as it always was——’

‘But she never knew it in the old time,’ John felt bound to say against his will.

‘Her heart will tell her,’ said Elly, with high conviction: and they looked round together and felt for Susie—so much more than it was possible Susie could feel.

He carried out this little programme quite simply and fully with the greatest faithfulness. He kissed her as he led her in, and said,

‘Susie dear, welcome home.’

‘Home,’ she said, with a little start, ‘is this where you used to live?’

‘It is where we all used to live. It is our home, where we always were. These are grandfather’s and grandmother’s chairs on each side of the fire. Most of the things here belonged to them. We have got no home to speak of anywhere else. Susie, I am always going to keep it, as I intended. It shall always be home to come back to when we please.’

Susie looked round with astonished eyes—not with so much emotion as they had hoped, but with much astonishment and some pleasure, and perhaps at the bottom of her heart a little amusement at the impressive way in which she was introduced into the little parlour, which did not look anything very remarkable. But presently her eye was caught by something she, too, remembered; some old article which had belonged to the old people even in her time, which brought a flood of associations to her heart: and she suddenly sat down in one of the old chairs and cried a little, thinking of things that were further back than any clear memory John had. How Elly had divined, he said to himself! Her heart had told her, as Elly said! To find how right Elly was, gave John almost more pleasure than to feel that Susie appreciated what he had done.

They had taken their first meal together, and she had gone upstairs to arrange her ‘things,’ that first necessity for a woman who has not a maid to do it for her, leaving John sitting in grave but wistful satisfaction in his familiar place. He had been very busy for two days past and was glad to sit still and rest—and he was happy, yet sad in a luxurious delicious melancholy such as is the atmosphere and background of life at a certain stage. He felt a little pang as he looked at the two old chairs, and half regretted for them that they had been brought away out of Elly’s room, and felt for himself that they had a charm, a sort of perfume hanging about them from being so long there, and wished for Elly to tell this to—not Susie, though she was the heroine of the evening. He felt that he wanted to say it to Elly. He wanted to talk to Elly, to have her there—which was impossible. He was very fond of his sister; but it was Elly he wished to communicate his thought to, and whom he longed to see coming in, sitting down—which, as has been said, was impossible. She had been a great deal with him during these preparations of his, helping him with everything, suggesting various little improvements, remembering even he took pleasure in thinking, almost better than he did, how all the things had been. He was sorry those busy days were over—and that she would come no more. But the melancholy of this thought was tempered by the certainty that she must come to see Susie, that Susie being here he would have chances of seeing her continually more easily and sweetly than if he had been himself going to the rectory, where Percy for one was not very cordial. All this was going through his mind when he heard the outer door, an innocent village door which opened from outside, pushed open, and some one enter. Then Percy’s voice said, ‘May I come in?’ with a certain solemnity, John was chilled a little in the fulness of his satisfaction by Percy’s voice.

‘So you really got in, and got everything done in time,’ said Percy, ‘and has Miss Sandford come? It was clever of you to get it done in time. How you managed with the tradespeople, I don’t know.’

‘I was my own tradespeople,’ said John, with a laugh. ‘We have got the use of our hands, we engineers: and Elly,’ he added, unguardedly, in the warmth of the moment, ‘helped me so much: it is more credit to Elly than to me.’

Before John had ended this speech he had seen how injudicious it was, and accordingly the second time stammered a little and hesitated upon Elly’s name.

‘Really,’ said Percy, with a darkening brow. And then he added, ‘Sandford, I hope you won’t take it amiss: but that was just what I wanted to speak to you about.’

‘To speak to me about?’ said John, with an air of astonishment: but as a matter of fact he was not surprised. He had been sure all the time, even when most happy and at his ease, that this would come.

‘Yes: you know,’ said Percy, evidently not finding his errand an easy one, now he had plunged into it: ‘we were all children together, Jack.’

‘Yes, indeed. I am not likely to forget that; I shall have forgotten everything before I forget that,’ cried John.

‘And we’ve always been very good friends—I am sure not one of us wishes anything different—the best of friends.’

‘You have all been the best of friends to me,’ said John, with warmth, ‘up to this time I haven’t had much in my power: but if there should ever come a day——’ The earnestness with which he spoke made John’s eyes glisten. He felt his heart swell and glow with affection and every kindly feeling. And yet he knew very well that he was going to receive a blow.

‘No need to think of that,’ said Percy, with a little wave of his hand, ‘though indeed with the church and the gentry going down as they seem to be in these advancing times, and the people coming up——’

John was vaguely wounded by this. To be called of the people is not delightful to anyone who feels himself at all above the general crowd. Some visionaries may like it, but better in their own mouths than in those of others. Our young man was no democrat; and he felt himself a better man than Percy, notwithstanding his long coat.

‘You may be able to save all our lives one time or other. You may save us from the violence of the mob, like the French Revolution, don’t you know?’

‘I am not a Radical,’ said John. ‘I might require to be saved from the mob as well as you.’

‘Oh, not with the same reason,’ said the curate, with an air that was insufferable. John felt that presently he might be moved to pitch the friend of his youth out of window, notwithstanding Elly and notwithstanding the clerical coat. ‘Let us cling at least to the idea that you would save us. But, I say, look here—don’t you know——’

It had become very embarrassing indeed, and difficult to carry out, while John sat and looked at him seriously and attentively, not giving any assistance whatever.

‘Oh, I say,’ Percy repeated, ‘don’t you know? though we all think so highly of you, and wish you every success—oh, yes, we do, all of us, as much as anyone can. But, Jack, now don’t be offended. Just call your good sense to your aid, and you will see the reason in it. It is about Elly. Most likely you know beforehand what I want to say.’

‘No, not I,’ said John, all the meaning having arbitrarily disappeared from his face: and for a moment Percy, who was not so hard-hearted as he made himself appear, sat before him, a very awkward mortal, endeavouring to clear his throat and say what he had come to say.

In the midst of this, quite suddenly the door opened and a miracle happened, one of those that go on happening every day, and which will continue to happen to the end of time. It was a miracle, yet it was a very simple fact. The door opened, and light-footed in her slippers, which she had gone to get, and a pretty dress, which it had seemed to her expedient to put on at the same time, in honour of John and his new-old house, Susie suddenly appeared, She was twenty-six, but she looked much younger, she looked any age that may be supposed the perfect age. Her pretty complexion was as sweet and fresh as eighteen; but in her eyes there was something more, a sweetness of understanding and gentle thought to which eighteen rarely attains. Her fair hair was not so carefully arranged as usual, and frisked a little about her temples. She came in with that air of perfect health, perfect content and harmony, which made her very appearance in the hospital so healing and tranquillising, her eyes very clear and kind, always with a smile latent in them, even when her mouth was grave. She came in with the air of having something to say, something that was upon her lips, but made an instant’s pause at the unexpected sight of a stranger whom she had never seen before.

That stranger, all embarrassed, startled beyond measure, feeling as if an angel had suddenly come in to recall him to a sense of the unfriendliness, the untenderness of what he was doing, gasped and rose from his chair and stood before her, in every line of his person and every feature of his face submissively asking pardon, though he could not understand how, and she had not the slightest idea why. Had Susie been indeed that angel passing by, coming in to ask what unseemly words were these that were about to be said, the young man could not have been more confounded. He stood for a moment like a culprit at the bar, while she paused with a slightly startled look, which brought just a little colour, and then a smile.

‘I beg your pardon,’ she said. ‘I thought there was no one here.’ And ‘I beg your pardon,’ cried he, with far more emphasis and meaning. There was indeed so much emphasis in it that Susie’s smile ran into a little laugh, and she said to her brother: ‘Shall I go away?’

‘No,’ said John, putting a chair for her. He was a little stern, thinking still of the words that had not been said.

‘Jack,’ said Percy, ‘won’t you introduce me to your sister?’ There was nothing but humility and submission in his tone, a change which was almost ludicrous in its completeness. But he had the clerical habit of explaining himself, of making amiable advances, which stood him in stead in the present emergency. ‘I am one of his oldest friends,’ he said, ‘and I hope you’ve heard of me, Miss Sandford. I’m Percy. If Jack hasn’t been a traitor to the old days, I make bold to believe that you must have heard of me.’

‘I have heard of you, often,’ said Susie, a little puzzled. She perceived now that the conversation which she had interrupted had not been of so affectionate a kind as might have been inferred from this address; and she felt that the character of it had been entirely changed by her appearance—a suggestion which was not unpleasant. ‘I have heard so much of everything at Edgeley,’ she continued, ‘that I feel as if, though I have never been here before, I was coming home.’

‘I hope,’ said Percy, ‘that we shall succeed in strengthening the impression. I am very sure we shall try our best.’ And with that he sat down again with all the mild persistence of his profession, as if he meant to remain there for the rest of his life.

CHAPTER XIII.

A NEW INFLUENCE.

‘I suppose so,’ said Percy, ‘but I didn’t, that is all that can be said.’

‘Your courage failed you at the last? Well, I don’t wonder: indeed I like you better for it,’ said Mrs. Egerton. ‘I did you injustice, my dear boy. I thought you rather liked the commission. That just proves how wrong we are in forming hasty judgments.’ Percy accepted this conclusion without wincing, and, after a moment of reflection, his aunt added, ‘I am afraid it will have to be done, though, and who is to do it? Your father is no good, and, as for me, I cannot trust myself. I wonder if Mr. Cattley—— but then Mr. Cattley is very fond of Jack.’

‘He is much fonder of you, Aunt Mary.’

‘Don’t put it in that ridiculous way. He has a very strong friendship for me. Poor Mr. Cattley! I am very glad he is going: and yet if I were to ask him to do such a thing——’

‘Of course he would do it. He has always done everything you told him.’

‘You always go so much too far in everything, you boys. I am sure he would try to do it, but it would be very hard upon him. Percy, don’t you think you might get up your courage for another time?’

‘It isn’t the courage,’ he said. And then after a moment:—‘After all, what’s the use? He’s not going to stay here all his life, and nothing can happen in a fortnight or so. Can’t you let it swing?’

‘Nothing can happen in a fortnight or so! Why, it is just the time in which everything may happen. If he were settled here it would not be half so dangerous, there would seem no hurry then: whereas in a fortnight! we may have Elly engaged to him before we know where we are.’

‘Come now, Aunt Mary. Poor Jack is nobody: that is not his fault: but he’s an honourable fellow, nobody can say anything against his honour. He couldn’t behave in an ungentlemanly way.’

‘What has that to do with it?’ said Mrs. Egerton, exasperated. ‘Honourable! why, in ten years, with a good profession and getting on so well, he may be a great match.’

‘Then why, in the name of heaven—— Oh, I’m speaking from your point of view. To me it would be horrid, anyhow—that fellow!—but if you think so——’

‘I don’t want Elly to wait ten years,’ said Mrs. Egerton. ‘The longer a girl like Elly waits, the more fastidious she grows. If she does not marry till thirty, she will probably never marry at all.’

‘She will probably not have the chance,’ Percy remarked.

‘That is all you know. You are all brutal on that question, you men. As if to have a chance was all that was necessary, and every woman was on the watch to obtain such an honour and glory.’ Having freed her mind in this way, Mrs. Egerton resumed:—‘What is the sister like? Is she common? Is she of the hospital-nurse or of the shop-girl type? Does he seem fond of her? Her appearance might do Elly good, perhaps.’

‘Shop-girl!’ said Percy to himself. He grew pale with a sort of holy horror. ‘You women are dreadful,’ he said. ‘Talk of being brutal! I don’t know any angels myself, but I should think she would be more like that type.’

‘Indeed!’ Mrs. Egerton said, and stopped and stared at him, a proceeding of which Percy showed his dislike by turning, if not his back, which would have been uncivil, at least the side of his clerical coat, and shaven cheek, to his relation’s eye. This made the gaze of scrutiny which she directed towards him innocuous, but raised her suspicions all the more. ‘Dear me,’ she said, ‘this is a sudden enthusiasm. I was not at all prepared for it. The mother was a striking-looking woman. What do you take for the angelic type, Percy, if I may ask?’

‘The type of Miss Sandford,’ said Percy: ‘I don’t mean anything silly.’ He spoke with an impatience which was not unhabitual, for Percy was one of those who think it the fault of the other people when he is not immediately understood. ‘You had better go and see her for yourself—indeed, good manners demand that you should do so, and show yourself civil, you and Elly too.’

Mrs. Egerton looked at him for a moment, not sure whether she ought to be angry: but policy and good humour won the day, and she laughed.

‘You lay down my duty for me very distinctly,’ she said. ‘You forget that my manners were formed before you were born. But I shall certainly go and see Miss Sandford—brought up among sick people and in hospital duties as she has been, a little change must be important for her.’

Women perhaps have the gift of showing a muffled claw like this better than men. Percy was exasperated to have the stranger spoken of as a hospital nurse, but he had not an opening to say a word.

‘Poor thing,’ Mrs. Egerton added, ‘it must be a trying life. I daresay the mere sight of people who have nothing the matter with them will do her good. Certainly I shall go. Oh, Mr. Cattley,’ said she, as the curate opened the door, ‘you have just come in time. I gave Percy a commission last night which he has not been able to carry out. Perhaps I might ask you——’

‘You know,’ said Mr. Cattley, ‘that what you wish is a law to me.’

‘Not that,’ she said, with a faint, rising colour, ‘but this is a very delicate matter, out of the ordinary. It is to prevent further unhappiness: it is for the real good of two young creatures, who are almost as dear to you, I believe, as they are to me.’

‘What is it?’ he said. Mr. Cattley was a little grey by nature, with no perceptible colour, but he warmed slightly with the interest of this mysterious office which was about to be conferred upon him.

‘It is about John and Elly,’ Mrs. Egerton said.

‘What,’ cried the curate, ‘have they——?’ with a gleam of animation, which faded, however, when he saw that his oracle shook her head; but it was very evident which way Mr. Cattley’s sympathies went.

‘I don’t know if I can trust you, after all. Mr. Cattley, you know Jack—though he is a charming boy, and was almost like one of ourselves as long as he was living here—still he is not in the same position, is he? Not perhaps quite so well educated and all that—not—a gentleman, as people say.’

‘Yes, I am sure he is a gentleman,’ said Mr. Cattley, quietly.

‘In heart and in manners, oh, yes. He is very nice; he is full of good impulses, and his manners, for his position, are very nice. But, Mr. Cattley, there is something more—really, you must acknowledge something more is necessary.’

‘For what?’ he said.

At this Mrs. Egerton’s middle-aged countenance was touched with a little colour, for perhaps in consequence of the curate’s boundless admiration for her, she stood a little in awe of him, and doubtless avoided in his presence the expression of all sentiments that might seem to him unworthy. She hesitated for a moment.

‘Mr. Cattley,’ she said. ‘I must first explain. These two are at a dangerous age to be such great friends. With boy and girl that sort of sentiment is so apt to glide into—a warmer feeling.’

‘Yes, I know; and not only with boy and girl.’

‘Well, some people condemn all friendship between men and women on that account; but of course at their age it is doubly—— Now, Mr. Cattley, you understand. With the greatest regard for John Sandford, one would not, you know, wish that Elly—— Her father would never give his consent.’

‘I see,’ said the curate. ‘It would not be a very fine match for her, indeed. I should prefer a young duke.’

‘Don’t laugh at me. I should not prefer a young duke: but I should prefer some one a little above, to some one a little below. Don’t you see? I think in the present circumstances you must feel there is something reasonable in that.’

‘Quite reasonable,’ said Mr. Cattley. ‘I should like Elly to be rich and great—happy, too.’

‘Yes, yes; there is no question of her happiness. If that were involved, of course I should not say another word. But at present we have not to take that into consideration. The only danger is that both of them might get to think—they are full of poetry and stories, Elly as full as possible. They might get to think they were made for each other, without any sufficient cause even in themselves, and everything against it—everything! in the circumstances.’

‘I see,’ Mr. Cattley said again. ‘But what do you suppose I can do?’

‘If you would but speak to Jack! There is no one he respects so much. Warn him that it is not wise for him to see so much of Elly, that their old familiarity was only possible when they were children, that for him to call her—— as he does—I am sure you would know exactly what to say. Percy was to have done it last night: but he was entirely routed by the appearance of Jack’s sister whom he took for——’ Mrs. Egerton laughed, but continued with mingled prudence and temerity, for Percy looked daggers at her, ‘who seems to have been something in the guardian angel way.’

Mr. Cattley did not take any notice of this, but he said, meditatively,

‘It will be a curious thing for me to do. And yet perhaps I am the most natural agent. But I don’t know what I shall say to him. It may be—have you considered that?—putting an idea into his head which was not there.’

‘Oh, I fear the idea is in his head,’ said Mrs. Egerton. ‘That idea never fails to get into their heads. If it was an arrangement everybody approved, and that we were moving heaven and earth to bring about, then indeed—but the moment it becomes undesirable, a trouble, an annoyance! I am sure when you see him, that you will easily find what it is best to say. And I shall be so grateful,’ she cried, giving him an affectionate glance, ‘for, Mr. Cattley, I know you will be very considerate; you will say nothing to wound his feelings.’

‘Nothing more than is necessary. You don’t suppose things like this can be said without hurting the feelings,’ said the curate. ‘Poor boy,’ he added, after a moment, ‘I would do a great deal to get him his wishes. It seems hard that I should be the one to say he’s not to have them.’

‘But you approve? You see there is nothing else to be done: you agree with me that it would be impossible to let it go on? I am sure, whoever else may misconceive my meaning, you understand,’ Mrs. Egerton said, with a sudden little pressure of her hand upon his arm.

He looked at her with a kind of appeal in his eyes.

‘I think I understand,’ he said, ‘and I approve, too, in a kind of way. But you will be kind? You will not push it too far?’

‘I hope I am not unkind,’ Mrs. Egerton said.

Thus it was that Mr. Cattley went, in the afternoon of the day following Susie’s arrival, to the old house of the Sandfords. He went somewhat against the grain; but yet there was sufficient justice in the commission given him. He thought with a little sigh how entirely natural and appropriate it would be that John should love Elly, and Elly John. If it was so, they would be delivered at once, in the happiness and harmony of nature, from all the constraints which distracted life. He himself had loved, if he had ever ventured to think so, amiss. He had given his affections to a woman entirely out of his sphere, of a different development, almost of a different generation. Any idea of marrying her, of a house made bright by her love, had never been possible. Many moments of a happiness very sweet, though always subdued, he had no doubt possessed. She had been if impossible as a wife, yet his dearest friend, his frequent companion, and his years had passed very sweetly by her side. But if it had chanced to him in his youth, like John, to love somebody of his own age, somebody within his reach! If she had been young, like Elly, and fancy-free when he was as John! He sighed to think how many embarrassments, how many self-denials those two young creatures would escape in the love which had no complications in it. And then he recollected, with a shock, that he was going to put a stop to this love, that he was going as the accepted messenger of family pride and importance, of the difference between the rector’s daughter and an obscure young man whose pedigree would not bear examination. Mr. Cattley shook his head a little and rubbed his eyes; was it possible that this was the errand upon which he was going? He then began to think of the matter from the other point of view. It was indeed very natural that it should be thought undesirable for Elly, who might, as people say, marry anybody, to have her affections surprised before she knew anything of the world, or had seen anyone, by a young man of obscure origin and uncertain prospects. They were quite justified in thinking so, quite right, indeed, and in trying to save her from a connection which was almost too natural, into which she might be drawn by the mere force of circumstances, by the habit of liking John, and the impossibility of understanding the difference between liking and love. Yes, he said to himself, Elly must be saved. She must not be drawn inadvertently into a union which was too natural, which seemed inevitable, the expedient of a story. No, no! Elly, and John, too, must be saved from drifting into that.

He carried on this controversy, which was not really a controversy, for his heart first took one side and then the other, and he was the partisan of both, as he went down the street, mechanically returning all the salutations made to him. He said to himself that it was a strange world, that wherever one turned there was trouble, things not going right in the battle of life, all for want of being put in the right way at the beginning. His sense of all these contradictions was possibly deepened by the consciousness which never left him that he was going away. He was to leave all these people whom he knew, and whose troubles he understood, and to leave the way of life to which he had become accustomed, and the sweetness of the friendship which was his, that sweetness in his life which replaced the wife and children of other men. Mr. Cattley’s heart rebelled a little in spite of himself. Why had he to go away? Not by his own wish entirely. He would have gone on for ever if they would let him, and nobody would have been the worse. He was going away to better himself, so they all said, because at his age it was right he should be independent and have a living of his own and settle down.

Settle down! How was he ever to settle down? He thought drearily of the new rectory in which he had already spent a dreary month or two. And now he had come back to initiate Percy into his duties, and to take leave of all he was most used to, and cared for most. John! That he should have to interfere with Jack,—to whom everything was possible,—he, in his middle-aged desolation! What should he himself do? The worst thing would be if he were ever forced by stress of circumstances to marry some innocent woman who might be put in his way, and do her grievous wrong, marrying for convenience because it would not be possible for him to live alone. It was John who ought to interfere, who should take his old tutor by the shoulders and say to him— What do you mean by it? What right have you to yield to external pressure in this way and tear yourself from all you care for in life? If the tables were turned on him, either by John or Elly, Mr. Cattley felt it would be only just: but nevertheless, holding to his consigne to the last moment, he went on—to do her bidding dutifully, and her business, and make an end of any dream that might be stealing into John’s imagination. Poor John!

Mr. Cattley walked into the parlour which he knew so well, and where he could not help feeling the old people must be sitting, waiting to upbraid him, for conspiring—he who had always professed to be so proud of the boy—against Jack’s happiness. He did not pay any attention to what the maid said in answer to his inquiry for Mr. Sandford, but went in straight, as he had been accustomed to do, without announcement or preliminary. And then there occurred to Mr. Cattley something of the same miraculous effect which on the evening before had paralysed Percy. There rose up as he entered, meeting him with the honest, modest look of a pair of eyes sincere and sweet, and that tranquil air of home-dwelling and content which makes an ordinary room into a sort of palace of the soul—Susie, not John. He looked at her in great surprise: for, though he knew that John’s sister had come, he had not realised nor thought of her, and for the first moment did not even comprehend that this was she.

‘My brother is out,’ said Susie. ‘If you will sit down, I am sure he will not be long. He has gone up to the rectory, I think, with some books.’

‘To the rectory?’ said Mr. Cattley, with a prevision, which—for the reason that it agreed with all his wishes, yet went against all his instructions—made his heart beat—‘I must have met him on the way had he gone there.’

‘I am sure he has gone there,’ said Susie, ‘for he took some books Miss Spencer had asked for. He may have gone round some other way.’

‘Yes, he may have gone round,’ said Mr. Cattley, his face growing long, yet his heart stirring with a sharp, acute sympathy which was almost painful. And then he said, ‘You must pardon me, Miss Sandford, for I am sure I am speaking to Jack’s sister. I should like to wait for him if you will let me stay.’

‘Surely,’ she said, with that smile in her eyes which was always there, resuming her seat: and the curate sat down by her, with a pleasure in this novelty, in the old associations turned into new ones, in the unknown gentle friend who did not know anything about his perplexities or his position, but met him on fresh ground with her pleasant welcoming eyes and tranquillising presence. He would wait for Jack: and probably some new light as to how to treat this matter might spring up by the way.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE VITA NUOVA.

John had gone out for no particular reason. He had nothing to do, which was unusual to him, and his mind was perturbed and restless. He was altogether out of son assiette, as the French say, out of his natural atmosphere, exposed to thoughts, temptations of all kinds, with which naturally he had nothing to do. A holiday is not always so very good a thing. When the mind is busy with a delicate piece of engineering, or with specifications or even estimates, it has not time to get into mischief. But fancy when suddenly left blank of all those occupations, deprived of all preservatives, and left to face the most supreme of youthful impulses without any defence at all, is in a bad way. John did what of course is the very worst thing he could possibly have done. He wandered about all day, taking long walks, and turning over and over in his bewildered brain the same subject—and that subject was Elly. What else? the only thing that he ought not to have thought about.

He should not have done so—that was too certain. When he felt it coming on, when she jumped into his mind like that, without rhyme or reason, he ought to have shut the door sternly against her, he ought to have betaken himself to some matter of professional difficulty of the hardest possible sort; he should have devoted himself to the Euphrates Canal or the St. Gothard Tunnel. Or if he had wanted something nearer home there was the great subject which had already occupied him for years, and which we may call the drainage of the Thames valley—which is a thing waiting to be done, and by which some engineer, and perhaps John, might yet distinguish himself. He was aware that he ought to do this, but he did not. Instead of engaging in a course of thought which would have been both laudable and useful, he thought of Elly and nothing else—nothing but Elly, as he walked for hours across the common and to every village in the neighbourhood. Susie, who had not fathomed his difficulties, thought these long walks very good for him. She could not herself walk so far, but she had always heard that exercise was the first necessity for a man, so that, instead of opposing, as she ought to have done, she encouraged him for the good of his health, and because his holidays would soon be over, to walk and think—of Elly—though she did not know anything of this latter exercise.

Percy’s interrupted remonstrances of the previous night, which he had understood well enough, as he had foreseen all the time that they were coming, quickened to an almost incalculable extent the current of John’s thoughts. It gave them a swing and energy which they had never had before. He had known very well it was coming! From the beginning he had been aware that things could not go on on this present footing, that some change there must be; he had foreseen it dimly when Percy said ‘my sister,’ that the familiar name, the child’s name, might not be given over to John’s lips. How well he had perceived that! He had even, as he now remembered, made an effort to obey. He had tried to set things straight, to call her Miss Spencer, to treat the old childish intimacy as a thing of the past, if Elly would have allowed it to be so. But she had not allowed it; she would not suffer it; and now? What was to be done? for something would have to be done. Even if there were no Percy in the world, no watchful aunt, all this would have to be altered somehow. The course of their history could not go on as it was going now. His thoughts quickened as he pushed on and on for many a flying mile. He walked, not seeing where he went, the landscape spinning past him as if he were travelling in an express train. Things could not go on as they were going now. Either all this whirling world of passion and excitement must go back and be stilled and relapse into the former calm, the easy boy and girl friendship, that relation which was entirely of the past: or else—what else? What was the alternative? There was an alternative; but even to himself it was difficult to put it into words.

This was what passed while Susie thought that he was taking exercise for his health and to take advantage of being in the country. When he came in he brought the scent of the fresh air with him, and a glow as of vigour and wholesome exertion on his face, the rapidity of his movements, and the contact of the keen, sweet air keeping him from all appearance of being sicklied o’er with thought—though no philosopher could have thought more deeply or sought more diligently a solution of any problem. This was how he had been engaged on the day when Mr. Cattley came to set matters right. He had, indeed, taken with him the books which Elly wanted, which he had to carry to the rectory for her, but he carried them first for miles along the country roads, always busy with that problem which he had to solve; and in all likelihood would have left them at the rectory as he returned home without so much as a glimpse of Elly. For, as a matter of fact, at the time when her relatives were most alarmed, and when the course of events seemed to be most whirling and rapid, John had seen less and less of Elly. They had both taken fright at the same moment—a mutual terror had seized upon them; they had begun to avoid instead of seeking each other—he walking miles about on his way to the rectory to leave those books for her, she restricting herself to the most limited circuit that she might not encounter him.

Mrs. Egerton was seated in her room, which commanded the gate of the rectory, and in fact of the village street, waiting for Mr. Cattley to come back, and tell her how he had sped; and Mr. Cattley in John Sandford’s house was sitting with a sort of vague solace and consolation in the company of the gentle young woman who knew nothing about him, except that he was her brother’s friend, waiting for John. The afternoon was a little heavy, as afternoons in the summer often are. It had been raining all the morning, and the air was warm and damp, and the atmosphere oppressive. Elly, who had spent the day chiefly at home, taking her walk round and round the garden, lingering for a long time under the old pear-tree, had been seized at last by one of those fits of impatience which so often come upon us in a moment, nullifying the precautions of many days. She felt as if there was no air, and that a run across the common to the cottage of one of her pensioners would deliver her from the stifling of this oppressed and breathless state. She knew a way amongst the gorse, a wild little track over the moor and heather, which nobody but herself and the village children ever used. And she would not, she said to herself, be half-an-hour gone. She seized upon her little basket, which stood on the hall table, all nicely packed with certain little matters which made her a welcome visitor; and so went out, nobody seeing her, if anybody had thought of remarking. But, indeed, it was not for Elly, but Mr. Cattley that Mrs. Egerton was on the watch, and no one else took any notice of the goings and comings of the daughter of the house. She skimmed along as light as a bird, until she got among the gorse bushes, half ablaze with their yellow blossoms, filling the numerous bees with a sweet intoxication and the air with a honeyed balm; and there Elly lingered, her basket hanging from her hand, her head drooping, her mind full of thought, which was half troublous and half sweet. She felt the crisis, too, in every vein, but not as John felt it. The fears, the tribulations, the doubts of that moment were not for her. Her honour could never be called in question. No one could think of her as having betrayed any trust placed in her. Her brain was thrilling with a suppressed excitement and wonder as to the next step in this wonderful little drama of which she was the heroine. And she was aware that there would be blame: she was aware that there would be a struggle; but she was in no ways afraid of either one or the other. The commotion of the great new thing, the revolution which seemed to be imminent, the mingled reluctance and eagerness, the hesitation and the longing, made disturbance enough in her girlish breast.

The mossy undergrowth, so luxurious and soft, was wet with the morning’s rain, and yielded in all its velvet inequalities and cushions of brilliant verdure, to her feet, which made no sound. Neither did that of the other, who was threading the same maze, coming towards her with the books under his arm, making his way ten miles round to the rectory, unconscious how near he was to the object of his thoughts. When they came suddenly in sight of each other round the great headland of the furze bush, one of the giants of the common, all keen prickles and honey flowers, Elly nearly dropped her basket and John let fall his books. He had to stoop to gather them up as he took off his hat: but before even this their looks had leaped to each other and met and made all clear—the fright, the panic, the heavenly content and delight flashed from one to the other. What more could words say? And then, when the books were collected and the basket held fast, there was a pause.

‘I didn’t know you would be passing here,’ said Elly, with an unconscious excuse to herself, as if something within had suddenly accused her of coming on purpose to meet one who—was it not so?—she was a little anxious to avoid.

‘No—and I didn’t mean it,’ said John. He added, after a moment, ‘I think it must be fate.’

‘What must be fate? I am going to Betty Mirfield’s cottage, where I go always every week.’

‘I know,’ said John, humbly; ‘you are always going about doing good, whereas I never think of anyone but myself.’

This gave Elly strength to laugh, which she had been too much agitated (which was so ridiculous!) to be capable of before. ‘If you call it doing good to take old Betty her tea and sugar! You never used to call things by such fine names.’

‘I never understood what anything meant in those old days,’ said John, with an air of preternatural seriousness. As a matter of fact, he was in such a condition of emotion and excitement that he could scarcely speak.

‘Oh, Jack! How can you say such things? I think you understood far better than you do now. You look almost,’ said Elly, giving him a succession of furtive glances, ‘as if you were—afraid—of me. How can you be afraid—of me? or make fine speeches about doing good and that, Jack, to me!’

‘Elly,’ he said all at once, very tremulously, ‘I am dreadfully unhappy: if I seem strange that is the cause.’

‘Unhappy!’ she exclaimed, with a little cry of distress. ‘Oh, Jack, why? Tell me!’ And throwing down her basket she caught his arm with her hands, and looked up anxiously into his face, her eyes all set in curves and puckers of sympathy and disquietude. She forgot even for the moment all the heart-breakings of this critical moment and thought only what could be the matter. What could she do to comfort him? Unhappy was a word of dreadful meaning to Elly’s ear.

The books tumbled once more out of John’s hold: they lay upon the mossy grass amicably in company with the overturned basket, where old Betty’s little packets of tea and sugar peeped out as if to inquire what was the cause of all this commotion. John stooped over the hands that had caught his arm, putting down his head upon them. His heart was going like one of the clanging engines with which he was so familiar. He half forgot that Elly was the cause, in the necessity he felt to tell her of his trouble, and be comforted by her sympathy. And they were so close that Elly felt the vibration in him and was half frightened by it, yet anxious only to soothe him.

‘Oh, what is it? Tell me, tell me!’ she said.

‘Elly, do you remember what I said to you the first day? It is all changed between us, though you thought it need not be. I felt it then, the first day. I had no right—— Do they think I don’t know that as well as they do? I have no right. And yet I can’t give you up, and go away, and hear of you marrying some one else, and having nothing more to do with me. It’s not possible, it’s not possible!—I can’t, Elly, let you go and give you up, and be nothing more to you, nor you to me. Elly! don’t say you want me to do that.’

He was half leaning his weight upon her, quite unconsciously making her slight figure sway and tremble.

‘Jack,’ she said, her voice trembling too. ‘Is there nothing else that makes you unhappy but only about you and me?’

‘Isn’t that enough?’ he said, with something of the petulance of passionate feeling, raising his head to look her indignantly in her face.

‘Enough for trouble,’ said Elly, shaking her head; ‘but unhappy is a dreadful word.’

‘Not so dreadful,’ said he, looking at her, not as if she were the arbiter of fate, but with that intense desire for her sympathy which seemed now his first feeling. ‘Not half so dreadful as if I have to give up and go away?’

‘And who is there,’ said Elly, on her side, with a little glow of indignation too, ‘that can make you give up and go away?’

Then they stood for a moment and looked at each other, far too much in earnest and too serious to think of confusion, or blushes, or any of the commonplaces of love-making. At last he said, taking her hands,

‘No one, Elly, if you don’t——’

‘You know,’ she said, still indignantly, ‘that I shan’t. Why should you give up and go away?’

‘Because I am not good enough for you, Elly. That’s all quite true, not half good enough.’

‘Of course,’ she said, ‘you have not any money, Jack. But what does that matter? You will have some, some day. We can wait. That is nothing to be unhappy about, anyhow.’

‘There is to me, and there is to them. I’d like you to have everything, Elly; do you think I could live to bring you to poverty? It wrings my heart to think of it; that you, who are a lady born, and are too good for a prince, should come to poverty through me.’

‘Jack,’ said Elly, in that mature and elder-sisterly way with which she had always taken the charge of him; ‘if you can’t bear to leave me and go away, and yet can’t bear to keep me and bring me to poverty, what is to be done? You will have to bear either one or the other, so far as I can see.’

It was not perhaps the right moment to laugh: but it is difficult to regulate that sense of the ridiculous, which is one comfort in all our troubles. Something in the sight of John’s solemn face, so troubled and serious in the clutch of this dilemma, overcame Elly in her nervous excitement and she burst into a wild peal of laughter—which rang over all the damp, sweet wilderness that had become the Garden of Eden of this primitive natural pair.

By-and-by, they gathered up the basket and the books, and took the tea and sugar to Betty Mirfield, who had been grumbling that Miss Elly was so late, and did not hesitate to tell her so. And then they went back again, lingering across the common, winding their devious way among the great furze-bushes which caught at them as they passed with prickles that left marks of dew and a breath of honey; and so very slowly walked back again to Edgeley, the rectory and the world, from which heaven knows they had gone far enough afield. They had of course a thousand things to say, a thousand, and a thousand more; and lost themselves in that fairyland which by times is near to all of us at every age, but nearest of all at the age of Elly and John. But when no further delay was possible, the sun sinking in the skies, signs of home-going and evening rest penetrating even to their charmed senses, they reached at last the edge of the common, and saw before them the everyday existence which they had forgotten, they both awoke from their dream, and standing still for one awful moment looked each other in the face. Oh, it was all easy enough between themselves, delightfully easy, needing no troublous explanations, the very course of nature. But beyond that enchanted common, and the gorse bushes with their prickles! They stood and faltered, and Elly, who had been the bravest, felt now for the first time her heart sink to her shoes. John’s face set into that sternness which belongs to a forlorn hope. He caught Elly’s hand and drew it through his arm.