"I wish I felt as you do," was the half-envious answer; "there is nothing little about you, Queenie, Garth said so last night."
"Did he? you should not have told me that, Cath."
"Why not pray. I just asked him how he liked you; I wanted to get at his opinion, you see, and he answered, just as gravely as though he were mentor, that he thought I had chosen my friend wisely, that you seemed a thoroughly healthy-minded girl."
"I think we will go into the church now," interrupted Queenie, somewhat irrelevantly. There was a little flush of pleasure in her cheek. She was glad he had said that; it was just the sort of praise she most coveted. She wanted Cathy's people to think well of her; if the truth must be known, she hungered for their appreciation as a half-starved child might have done. Crumbs would not satisfy her; condescension or kindness would not feed her thoroughly; she must have their full commendation, their equal friendship. She had known them so long, she had seen them all so perfectly with her inner vision, that she could not feel as a stranger amongst them.
"I am so at home with them already," she had said to her friend the previous night. "There are no hard beginnings; we are friends to start with; there is no thawing, because there is no ice," she had said, with a certain vague enthusiasm, which, nevertheless, had been perfectly understood by Cathy. "One has so much hard up-hill work with most people," she had continued, talking out her thoughts half to herself. "Don't you know exactly how common-place people make acquaintance, how laboriously they try to find out one's tastes! They do it about as gracefully as though they were breaking stones on the highway, or hammering flints as boys do to elicit sparks, and all the time looking as though they knew you had nothing in you worth coming to light. Oh, it is terribly fatiguing. I once heard a very clever man liken modern society to the mummy-room of the British Museum. He said, 'Human beings were so swathed and bound up in conventionality that there was no getting at the real thing at all.'"
"I like Langley's way of knowing people," Cathy had answered; "she just knows them at once, takes it for granted, I mean, that all that interests her interests them. We had such an argument about it one day, when I would have it that she had bored some one about the soup-kitchen. 'I was so full of it myself that I knew that I should not talk so well on any other subject,' was her sole apology. And then she told me I was quite wrong, 'that people, after all, liked to be treated as reasonable beings, and not like children pleased with sugar-plums. "Give, and it shall be given you," was just as true in social intercourse as it was in the sense first intended. If you sow tares you will reap tares, child; always remember that,' she had finished. I prefer scattering precious grain. You have no idea how often one reaps a rich harvest. It is the real thing, you see, and people like that."
Queenie and Cathy were largely given to conversations such as these. It was just talking out their thoughts, as they called it. They aired all manner of quaint subjects in this way, these two honest-hearted girls. Both were a little vague at times; most women are. Cathy always amused her friend mightily. She had a habit at certain times, in her "goody moods," as she termed them, of taking herself to pieces to examine her moral mechanism, just as though she were examining the works of a new watch, as Queenie would tell her, clogging the wheels and stopping progress all the time. "If you are always taking yourself up by the roots to see how you grow you won't grow at all," she assured her in her droll way. "You ought not always to be looking at your defects and blemishes in the glass. People freckle from the sun sometimes; but I don't believe over-much sunshine hurts any one. Keep tight hold of the reins, never let go, and then try and forget everything but the road you are travelling. Forget nothing but yourself; mamma always said that."
There was something very fresh and sweet in this girlish intercourse, devoid as it was of vanity and selfishness; they were tolerably equal in capacity; neither could teach the other much, but they could learn together. It was as though they were two young gleaners following the reapers: now one gathered a stray sheaf and tossed it into the lap of the other; everything—an idea, a thought—was just a golden ear to be winnowed into grain. At times their content would have filled a granary.
Happy season of youth! when everything is delightful because everything is new; when harvests are more bountiful; when the mildew and the blight and the canker-worm are unknown; when the sky and earth meet and touch softly; when beautiful thoughts steal like strange birds in the twilight; when the glimmer of a star will provoke a reverie; when a hand-clasp will wake a world of dreams; when the whole universe is not too big a setting for one small beating heart; when one believes in one's guardian angel, and heaven is so near—so near.
It is not always so. Alas! alas! for the anointed eyes purged from their youthful blindness, made wise with the serpent-knowledge of evil and good. Tread softly here, ye worldlings, with lifted sandals and bated breath; for here, as in all real lovely things fresh from the Maker's hand, is indeed holy ground.
Queenie was moderate in her praises of Hepshaw church; nevertheless, it pleased her with a certain sense of fitness. There was no beauty of architecture, no tastefulness of detail; it was just a village church, adapted to the needs of a rustic population.
But there was something grateful in its simplicity. Through the open door the fresh sweet winds blew straight from heaven; the shadows of the sycamores swept without the porch; some leaves rustled on the threshold. Queenie walked down the narrow aisle, turning over the well-worn books on the desks. A smile crossed her face when she saw the font; the mean little stone stoup struck her as incongruous. "It seems a pity to see that," she said very simply, "I can almost cover it with the palm of my hand; it ought to be so wide and massive, filled to the brim with purifying and regenerating water, lavishly given and lavishly bestowed, not doled in drops."
"Hush! here comes Mr. Miles," answered Cathy; "he is the boys' schoolmaster. We have no schoolmistress, you know; the old one is married and is going away with her husband. He has come to practise on the organ; he is organist, choirmaster, and I don't know what besides."
"Is he nice?" whispered Queenie. She just caught sight of the pale, serious-looking young man, dressed in shabby black like a Methodist parson of the old school, who came limping up the aisle on one crutch.
"Hum! truth lies sometimes at the bottom of a deep well," was Cathy's ambiguous reply. "Yes, Garth says he is nice; he pities him. Somehow I can't make him out; I don't know why, but I always think of Eugene Aram, or the school-master in the 'Mutual Friend,' when I see him. I am sure he has got a history. I don't like a young man with a history; from a child I never could bear riddles. Ted is quite fond of him, though. I believe half my dislike comes from his persisting in dressing like a broken-down undertaker; he only wants a white tie to make him complete." They were happily in the lane by this time, and Queenie could enjoy her laugh without scruple of conscience.
"Is this the vicarage, Cathy? but of course it is; I knew it from your description. You are a perfect word-painter; all your portraits are true to life."
"That means caricature."
"Well, I suppose so; but, all the same, your likenesses are thoroughly spirited."
"Only I never miss out the moles and the freckles. This is not the ideal vicarage, is it, ma chère? though I could show you one not many miles from here. Crossgill Vicarage is lovely; I must take you to see it some day, as nurse used to say; it is the dearest, most picturesque place. A little river flows through the village just in the middle of the road; and the church is beautiful; and the vicarage a quaint old house with gable ends embosomed in creepers, with the loveliest garden always blazing with flowers."
"That sounds nice."
"When we drive over there we have tea in the hall; it is wainscoted with oak, and there is a lattice window, and an old oak staircase and gallery, all tiny, but so quaint, and the old nurse, nearly eighty, waits upon us; I do love the place so."
"This is bare prose after that," returned Queenie, as they walked up the steep narrow garden, between rows of cabbages and bushes of pale pink and white roses. All sorts of homely old-fashioned flowers bloomed amongst the beans and peas and other vegetables, red and orange nasturtiums, tall spikes of lavender, blue larkspur, and masses of sweet mignonette. "No, not all bare prose," correcting herself and pointing to a bed of pansies, looking in the sunshine like a cluster of gold and violet butterflies poised on motionless velvet wings; "there is a bit of floral painting for you; there is a whole allegory in that."
"An allegory! why, Queenie, you are actually becoming poetical. If Mr. Logan were here he would tell us that that is a species of violet—Viola tricolor—called also pansy."
"Believe me, there is a higher meaning in that still, butterfly life. Look at this one with glorious violet wings and just one golden eye; does it not look as though it ought to fly instead of remaining so humbly on its green stalk?"
"Well, my 'Queen of Sheba,'" half impatiently and half amused, "what do you make of that? I am not a Solomon, to answer all your hard questions."
"I think," returned Queenie, hesitating, "that it means to teach us that the true heart's-ease remains content in its own place; it has wings, but they are not ready for flight, they just carry the dew and the sunshine, that is all. Brave little golden hearts, always radiant and smiling," she continued, lightly brushing the bloom with her finger tip.
"Mr. Logan!" ejaculated Cathy, elevating her eyebrows in a sort of comic despair, "will you suggest some appropriate answer in return for this poetical dissertation," and Queenie, blushing hotly, dropped the flowers and turned round.
"My dear young lady, I am afraid I startled you," said Mr. Logan benevolently; "but I did not like to play the eavesdropper any longer, though Miss Catherine was mischievous enough to try and keep me in the background. As it is, I have stolen a very pretty fancy, which I know will delight Charlotte."
"Miss Marriott, Mr. Logan," returned Cathy, with much solemnity. "I know what a stickler you are for conventionalities and etiquette, Mr. Logan, and I could not suffer you to utter another sentence without due introduction."
"Is not that a slight deviation from the truth, my dear Miss Catherine, when you know, at least every one must know, my little failings in that respect? still I was not aware of your friend's name, and I dare say she was equally ignorant of mine."
"No, indeed," returned Queenie, trying to maintain her gravity. Cathy's eyes were dancing with fun, like a mischievous kitten; the wicked little creature knew how difficult it was for her friend not to laugh outright.
Mr. Logan certainly presented a curious appearance to a stranger's eyes. The good man was clad in a brown dressing-gown, patched neatly at the elbows with parti-coloured cloth, and his spectacles were pushed up his forehead, showing a pair of near-sighted blue eyes.
He was a tall spare man, with the plainest face, Queenie thought, she had ever seen, the features were so rugged and irregular; the spectacles and grey hair gave him an elderly appearance. Queenie heard afterwards that he was only in his fortieth year, and that Miss Cosie was quite ten years older.
The eyes were the only redeeming features. Either seen with or without the spectacles they were mild and yet keen; they could beam softly, as they did now at the two girls, with hearty benevolence, or dart searching glances that seemed to quiver like an arrow-point in the recesses of one's conscience. "They look through and through you," Cathy said once; "it is just like throwing a torch into a dark place, it brings all sorts of hidden things to light,—cobwebs and little foolishnesses, and odds and ends of rubbish."
"I like eyes that talk," was Queenie's answer to this. She liked Mr. Logan's face, in spite of its plainness; his voice too was so pleasant. She conceived a warm respect for the Vicar of Hepshaw on this first visit. In spite of his somewhat worn and homely appearance, the innate dignity of the man made itself felt as he walked beside them in his old threadbare garment.
"Charlotte; where are you, Charlotte?" he exclaimed, raising his voice as they stood in what was termed the best sitting-room, a somewhat humble apartment with one small window.
"Here, Christopher, my dear," responded a small chirping voice from the inner recesses of the house, and a tiny woman tripped softly after it.
Miss Cosie! who could help giving her the name, she was so small and so compact, with such a comfortable pincushion-like compactness; a little grey mouse of a woman, with, her grey dress, and grey Shetland shawl crossed over her shoulders, and the two large glossy curls pinned up on either side of the small head, which she was always patting with her little fat hands.
Why her very voice had a cosy sound in it. "My dear" seemed to drop perpetually out of it; it was a caressing, petting sort of voice, with a continual hush in it. "Hush! there, there, my dear," was her panacea for every one, from a crying child to a widowed virago. "There, there, my dear, we can't have him back, but I dare say he is better off," or "there, there, my good man, go home to your poor wife," to a six-foot piece of drunken ruffianism she met staggering through the village and vociferating oaths in the darkness. "There, there, poor thing, he has lost himself, and is just daft; hush! we won't listen; the devil is schoolmaster to-night, and is teaching him a little bit of his own language."
Cosie! why the name was an inspiration; it fitted her to a nicety. Charlotte was simply a badinage, something for which her godmother was to blame, not she; no one but her brother would ever call her by such a term; it was almost crushing—but Miss Cosie!
Queenie called her by it at once, after the little woman had tripped up to her and lightly kissed her on the cheek, and then patted her with her white dimpled hand.
"There, there, my dear, I knew we should be friends; take off your bonnet and stay, and you shall taste my ginger wine."
This was always Miss Cosie's first speech to strangers. It was true no one ever wore bonnets in Hepshaw; but it was one of her ways to lament their disuse among the younger generation, as a falling-off of the good old times.
"Such fly-away, foolish things, my dear; now," as she would say, "a bonnet is so much more comfortable and becoming, and a pretty face looks so well in it. Shady! nonsense, my love, you can always wear an ugly if you are afraid of your complexion; but bonnets were bonnets in those days, one did not carry a nosegay tied up in straw then."
Miss Cosie's one idea in life, next to petting people, was her brother. No one, in her opinion, could come up to him; he was simply perfect.
"Such a mind, such a genius, and yet as simple as a child," she would exclaim. Her love and pride in him fairly bubbled over at times. Christopher, or Kit, as she sometimes called him, was the object of her sisterly idolatry. It was odd and yet touching to see her protecting tenderness; perhaps her ten years' seniority had given the motherly element to her affections. "You see, Kit is still a boy to me," she would say sometimes; "when he was a little fellow I used to put him to bed and sing him to sleep. I never can forget that somehow; and, dear me, my dear, he is still so helpless,—these clever men are, you know,—he never can remember even to put on a warm flannel or take a clean handkerchief out of his drawer; I just have to go in and put everything ready to his hand."
"Why, when the bishop came once," continued Miss Cosie, lifting her hands and eyes, "he was actually going to the station in that brown dressing-gown of his, if I had not run down the lane after him. Think what his lordship would have said at seeing one of his clergy dressed out in that ragged-robin fashion!"
"I have found out what flower Miss Cosie most resembles," said Queenie, when, after an hour's chat, they had left the vicarage. "Guess, Cathy."
"Little eyebright, I should say, or the ox-eyed daisy."
"No; the pansy of course. Cathy, how can you be so dense! why she looks and talks and breathes of nothing but heart's-ease."
"Children, ay, forsooth,
They bring their own love with them when they come,
But if they come not there is peace and rest;
The pretty lambs! and yet she cries for more:
Why, the world's full of them, and so is heaven—
They are not rare."—Jean Ingelow.
The girls had lingered so long at the vicarage that Cathy postponed their intended walk until after luncheon; but as soon as it was over they sallied forth again, this time with Emmie.
They went through the length and breadth of the village, peeped into the schools, visited one or two of the cottages, crossing Langley more than once on their path; and Queenie was again struck with the bright cheerfulness and cleanliness of the whole place. She took an especial fancy to the post-office—a pretty rustic-looking cottage, with a long garden full of sweet old-fashioned flowers.
"Cathy, I have fallen in love with this place," she said at last. "I think life would go on peacefully and well here; look, Emmie, at this empty cottage; is not this just the one you always wanted to live in with Caleb?"
They had just passed the turning that led to Church-Stile House; beyond were a cluster of new-built villas. Emmie clapped her hands and ran breathlessly across the road.
"It has a board up 'to let.' Oh, Queen, do let us go over it, just for fun; it is such a dear, sweet little house; and what a long garden!—look."
"We can go in if you like," returned Cathy, smiling at the child's eagerness. "I know the woman who takes care of it; it is rather a pretty place, though ill-kept and desolate. I heard Garth say it would let for a mere song."
Queenie did not answer; a strange thought had been agitating her all the morning, a possibility and a probability that had taken tremendous hold of her mind. An odd feeling came over her as she followed Cathy through the little gate—one of those weird over-shadowings or pre-visions that baffle metaphysicians. The place somehow seemed familiar to her; had she seen it in a dream? A dim sense that it belonged to her, that she had trodden that path before, and peeped through the lattice windows, oppressed her with a giddy unreality. Had she conjured it up among the shadows of the old garret? or had she seen a place so nearly approximate that its similarity deceived her? She gave Emmie's hand an involuntary squeeze as they stood in the little porch.
It was certainly a pretty place, in spite of the air of neglect and disuse that pervaded everything. A long narrow lawn in front ran down to the road; opposite was the smart grocer's shop, and the lane that led to the church and vicarage.
Some laburnums and lilacs grew near the house; there was a little border for flowers under the windows: only a ragged-looking Sweet-William and some weeds grew there now. Behind, an ill-kept lawn sloped down to the house, running on to the back door, giving it a waste, barren look, and imparting an air of dampness to the whole place.
The inside was a little less dreary: the low lattice window, odd-shaped and diamond-paned, gave a picturesque finish to the rooms; the little square hall was pleasant. There were two sitting-rooms, one much smaller than the other, with a front view that was sufficiently cheerful; and a large bare-looking apartment, with two windows looking out on the steep green waste behind. Nettles and docks and festoons of coarse-looking ivy climbed about the window ledges. The kitchen was small and dull. Upstairs, three rooms in different stages of dampness opened out on the dark landing. Some of the paper was torn off, and hung in moist curling lengths. A scurry and patter of tiny feet sounded beside them; they were evidently tenanted by families of mice.
"It is a miserable place after all," observed Cathy. "Take care, one of those boards are rotten, Emmie; my foot nearly went through just now."
"I don't know," returned Queenie, hesitatingly, "I think I have taken a fancy to it; it might be made very pretty with fresh papers and a little paint. To whom does it belong?"
"To Captain Fawcett. We are going there directly; Langley has given me a message for Mrs. Fawcett. Oh! do come to the window a moment, Queen; there is Mrs. Morris stopping at the corner to speak to the three Miss Palmers. Look at the dear old creatures, dressed just alike. There you have all the aristocracy of Hepshaw, with the exception of Church-Stile House and the vicarage people."
"Do you mean that constitutes your society?" inquired Queenie, pressing closer to the dirty panes, and trying to inspect critically the flock of womanhood gathered round Greyson's smart window.
"What would you ask more?" returned her companion drily; "we don't have balls and concerts in Hepshaw. To dine with the Fawcetts and drink tea with Mrs. Morris and the Miss Palmers are our sole dissipation. Ted finds so much tea a little intoxicating, and prefers sometimes staying at home; but Langley and Garth always do their duty manfully."
"I like the look of Mrs. Morris, she is tall and graceful-looking; but I cannot see her face under that brown mushroom. Is she nice, Cath?"
"Hum! there are widows and widows. She is not the 'widow indeed' St. Paul talks about; but I won't tell tales. She has a pretty home, and seven little hopes, more or less red-haired, like the deceased and ever-lamented Major Morris—the dear Edmund to whose loss she owes her present blighted and remarkably healthy existence."
"Cathy, how can you take off people so! I tell you I like the look of her."
"So do I. She has white teeth and bright eyes, which she knows how to use. Do you see the direction they are taking now? 'why tarry the wheels of his chariot!' Isn't that our waggonette coming up from Warstdale? Never mind my nonsense, Queenie; we must talk gossip sometimes in this dreary place. Mrs. Morris is very good-natured and very clever, and the seven little hopes are clean, wholesome children."
"Look! your brother is stopping to speak to them."
"Of course; as though he would pass the Palmers! You have no idea how fond the dear old ladies are of him. They pet him, and knit endless mittens and comforters for him; he has a drawer full, I believe. Look at them now, wagging their old heads and fluttering round him like a flock of grey pigeons; that is Miss Faith, his favorite, near him now."
"Faith; what a curious name!"
"Oh, they are all a cardinal virtue; they must have had devout parents. The eldest is Hope, then comes Prudence and Charity, and lastly, Faith. Faith is much the nicest and the prettiest; she is comparatively young too."
"I should like to go and see them."
"Then you shall, but not this afternoon; we shall only have time for the Fawcetts. Their house is full of curious odds and ends, and though they dress alike they have separate rooms, which they have furnished after their own taste. I must coax them to let you see them; it will give you an insight into their characters."
"And they have none of them married," exclaimed Queenie, with a girl's involuntary pity for the monotonous existence of single blessedness.
"How could they!" returned Cathy, with a puzzled elevation of her eyebrows. "They have lived in Hepshaw all their lives; they could not have possibly seen any gentleman except the Vicar, and I dare say he was married. You would not have a clergyman's daughter commit the unpardonable crime of entering into a mésalliance with the inn-keeper or the chemist!" continued Cathy, drawing down her lips at the corner, and speaking in a "prunes-and-prism" voice. "That is Miss Hope; and so the poor cardinal virtues have wasted all their sweetness on the desert air."
"How very sad," began Queenie; but Cathy suddenly cut her short.
"Not at all," was the somewhat stormy rejoinder; "people are just as well without marrying. For my part, I think men are a mistake. I am sick to death of school-girl rubbish; half the girls at Miss Titheridge's pretended to be in love, and with such creatures too! any masculine face approaching to the ideal of a barber's block was pronounced handsome, fascinating. You know how you hated it all, Queenie."
"As I hate all sham."
"Faugh! the thought of all the three-volume trash I swallowed gives me moral dyspepsia even now. I recollect it was the fashion one term to have a cœur serré; every one had an experience or a disappointment. I know half the school was in love with Garth. Well, we have flattened our faces long enough against this bottle-green glass; now we must go on to Elderberry Lodge."
"Is that Captain Fawcett's?"
"Yes; Mrs. Morris's, next door, is the Sycamores, and the Miss Palmers' is the Evergreens. Now I have talked myself hoarse for your benefit; it is your ladyship's turn now. There is the Captain himself working in his front garden; is he not a fine-looking man, Queenie?"
Queenie acquiesced, as the tall soldierly figure walked down to the gate to greet them. She liked the brown weather-beaten face, with its grizzled moustache and closely-cropped head, looking as though it were covered with grey bristles.
"Good afternoon, ladies. I saw Miss Clayton just now, and she told me you were coming. Fine weather for the crops; I was just pottering among my geraniums. Sit down, both of you, while I go into the house and find my little woman; she's palavering with the maids somewhere."
"Please don't hurry her, Captain Fawcett; we shall be very comfortable out here under this awning. Isn't this a delicious little garden? look at those roses and bee-hives. Bless you, the Captain's garden is his hobby; he spends the greater part of his time working here, and in his kitchen-garden. He has the greatest show of flowers for miles round."
"Have they no children?"
"They had one, a girl, but she died. I almost wish we had not brought Emmie; I think Alice was just twelve when she caught the fever. It is eight or nine years ago, but they have never got over it. Ah, there comes the Captain with his 'little woman.'"
Queenie stifled an exclamation as she rose from her seat. Mrs. Fawcett was as tall as her husband,—a thin, long-necked woman, fully six feet high, and gaunt almost to scragginess.
She had a worn, anxious-looking face; it was difficult to imagine it had ever been young or good-looking. The prominent teeth, high cheekbones, and scanty grey hair, told no tale of past beauty. It was a plain face, grown plainer with age. She looked like a caricature of her husband's taste beside his handsome old face and grand figure.
Her hand-shake was almost masculine in its grasp, and her voice was harsh, but not ungentle; but both face and voice softened strangely at the first sight of Emmie. The husband and wife exchanged looks.
"Do you see, Captain?"
"Aye, aye, missus, I see."
"Is this your little sister, Miss Marriott? Come to me, darling; how old are you?"
"Twelve," repeated Emmie, looking up in her face with solemn blue eyes. Emmie rarely smiled with strangers.
"Twelve; do you hear that, Joshua?"
"Aye, aye, I hear it, little woman."
"Just her age," repeated the wife hurriedly, laying her hand on his arm, while her eyes filled with tears.
"Twelve years and three months," he repeated involuntarily.
"And she has Alice's blue eyes too,—your own color, Captain."
The girls had listened with silent sympathy to this brief interchange of sorrowful questioning; but now Emmie interrupted them. She drew closer to Mrs. Fawcett, and laid a hand confidingly on her lap.
"Was Alice the name of your little girl? Cathy said you had one."
"Hush, Emmie; come here to me, love;" but Emmie hung back from her friend's extended hand.
"Yes; her name was Alice; she is still my little girl," returned the poor mother, speaking with her pure maternal faith, and unconsciously verifying the eternity of love; "the treasure once given never really lost, only lent to safe keeping."
"Of course she is your little girl," was Emmie's answer. "You mean to see her again some day, only she is not keeping house with you now; perhaps she would have got tired. God would know all about that; He does not like children to be tired; He was very nearly taking me away for the same reason, only I got rested somehow."
"Captain, do you hear that?"
"Aye, poor bairn; too big a mind for so small a body."
"Am I like her?" persisted Emmie curiously, looking up into the plain face, now softened into motherly comeliness, the beautifier, love, smoothing out irregularities and roughnesses even on Mrs. Fawcett's unloving visage.
Queenie heard afterwards that she had never been handsome even in her youth, but that she had been loved, as some plain women are by men, with a constancy and devotion which many a spoiled beauty fails to win. "He must have seen the real goodness shining behind her plainness," Cathy said afterwards, when Queenie and she talked the matter over.
"Are you like her, darling?" answered Mrs. Fawcett, mournfully. "You have her large blue eyes; but, until she fell ill, she had rosy cheeks and long dark curls. She was the very image of her father, the dear angel."
"My hair has been cut off," returned Emmie, pointing to the soft little rings just peeping under her cap; "it means to curl too some day. I have always longed for curls; so the angels always have them in pictures."
"Come with me, my little maid, and look at my roses," interrupted the Captain, reading his wife's troubled countenance aright. The tears streamed over the thin face as Emmie trotted happily away with him.
"That is just the way they walked hand in hand every morning to look at the roses," sobbed the poor mother. "'Father's roses' were the last words Alice ever said; 'I should like one of father's roses'; and when he went out to pick her one she put her head down on my shoulder and then she was gone."
Queenie's long eye-lashes glittered with sympathizing tears. She could enter into all; she had so nearly lost Emmie. She thought of the father going down to his garden to pick red and white roses for the little dead hand that could not open to receive them. "My beloved is gone down into his garden to the beds of spices, to feed in the gardens, and to gather lilies": those beautiful words of the Canticles came into her mind. What if in Paradise, while parents wept below for them that are not, the children they had lost went in bright bands after One who died for them, "when He went down into His garden to gather lilies!"
The girls were rather subdued when they bade good-bye to the good Captain and his wife, and turned into the little lane. Cathy pushed her hat restlessly from her forehead; some thought or discontent wrinkled it.
"What lots of good people there are in the world after all," she half grumbled.
"There are two there," returned her friend, with a gesture of her hands towards Elderberry Lodge. "My visit there has made me sad, and yet it has done me good. I am so glad we went, Cathy."
"Good people seem to agree with you; they never make you discontented, as they do me."
"No; I like standing on tiptoe till my neck aches. I love size, bigness, grand moral structure; it does one good to breathe the same air with some people; it is like resting on a hill-top and enjoying a wide beautiful view. I don't mind at all being a pigmy among giants. If I had been Gulliver I should have had small sympathy with the Lilliputians. Littleness of mind is abhorrent to me."
"There you go," grumbled Cathy; "you sensible people are enough to drive one crazy. Over-much goodness makes me vixenish; I feel inclined to fly in the face of it."
"You foolish child."
"Mr. Logan is often too much for me, and so is Miss Cosie; I run away from them both sometimes. I'll own, if you like, the disease is infectious to those predisposed to it. If you stay long enough in their vicinity you might catch it, you know. Prevention is better than cure; so, for fear I get too good, I just run away," finished Cathy in her droll manner.
In the front court they came upon Garth digging up a little flower-border under the hall window. He threw down his spade when he saw them.
"Well, I've settled about the picnic in the granite quarry. We go to-morrow."
"Garth, you are a brick; I mean a dear old fellow. Oh," folding her hands pathetically, "don't tell of me, the word only slipped out just by accident. Have you really arranged it?"
"Yes; I have had a talk with Langley. She says we must not lose the fine weather. It is not to be a grand affair, mind. Only the Logans, and Fawcetts, and Miss Faith; yes, and Harry Chester."
"King Karl! Oh, I am so glad. Why, when did you see him?"
"He and Nanette are in there," pointing to the drawing-room. "Don't let me keep you if you want to introduce him to Miss Marriott," as Cathy looked eager and irresolute. "He is a very old friend of ours, and a great favorite with the whole family," he continued, speaking to Queenie; "in fact, Harry is a favorite with every one."
"Let her judge for herself," returned his sister, impatiently. "Come, Queenie, let us go in; I have set my heart on being the first to introduce you to the King of Karldale."
"But still she found, or rather thought she found,
Her own worth wanting, others to abound;
Ascribed above their due to every one,
Unjust and scanty to herself alone."—Dryden.
"Queen, this is our old friend Mr. Chester, commonly known in the district as the King of Karldale; he plays Damon to Garth's Pythias, and is a sort of useful Family Friend to us all."
Cathy's entrance as usual effected a sort of whirlwind; her swift movements and flowing draperies swept breezelike through the quiet room. Langley's low-toned "hush" was no check on her volubility. A look of amusement crossed Mr. Chester's face as he stood up and greeted the new-comers.
"Irrepressible as usual, Cathy," was his only comment, as he reseated himself beside Langley, and took up his little daughter, a solemn-faced child of four, on his knee.
Queenie regarded the pair critically. On the whole the survey contented her.
The King of Karldale was a tall, powerfully-built man, with a florid handsome face, half hidden by a light curly beard, a countenance marked more by good nature than intellect, but bearing the stamp of plain honest common-sense.
Queenie wondered if it were her fancy, that a vague uneasiness pervaded the man's gait at times. In spite of his cheerfulness and hearty laugh there were hints of past or present troubles in the worn lines round the kindly eyes; even in the midst of their pleasant talk a shadow now and then crossed his face, as though some unwelcome remembrance obtruded itself.
Strange to say, there was little or no resemblance between the child and him.
Nan was evidently a character.
She sat perched on her father's knee in her little white pelisse and sun-bonnet, with a large woolly lamb in her arms, staring at Queenie with great dark eyes.
Queenie noticed that now and then one small hand would furtively touch her father's coat-sleeve, and she would stroke the rough grey tweed with a look of infinite contentment, but showed no impatience or weariness during the long discussion that followed the girls' entrance.
"Is my little mouse tired? is not Nan very tired?" said Mr. Chester, at last stooping to peep under the sun-bonnet.
Queenie caught the look, and then she said to herself, "That little bright-eyed child is his idol."
"Nan is not so very tired, father," pronounced the little creature with a slight lisp, and a stress on the word, very; "a little, only a very little."
"Then we will go, my pet; say good-bye to Langley," and Nan obediently slid down from her father's knee, and trotted with sturdy compactness across the room.
Queenie stood with the sisters in the porch and watched them cross the tiny moat under the dark sycamores, Nan wrapt up in a grey rug, and seated comfortably in her little chair-saddle on the back of an old white pony, her white lamb still hugged in her arms, her father holding the reins, and mounted on a handsome brown mare. "Nan has found her voice now; do you hear how she is chattering to him, Langley?" observed Cathy in an amused voice. "How those two dote on each other! No wonder Gertrude is jealous, the child cares nothing for her mother; but then Gertrude is too selfish to make a fuss over any one but herself."
"Hush, my dear; what a terribly sweeping assertion! Gertrude is an undemonstrative woman, one cannot tell how deeply she feels."
"And Harry is a demonstrative man, and ought to have a wife who understands and makes much of him, instead of one who frets and teases him from morning to night. It is no good talking to me," continued Cathy, with a burst of vindictiveness rather surprising from its suddenness, "I detest that woman, with her slim figure and dark eyes, and little would-be elegancies. She to be Harry's wife and the mother of Nan! Why I would not trust a pet dog to her tender mercies and small tempers."
"Cathy, all this is highly unnecessary," remonstrated her sister in a pained tone. Her face looked a little paler and sadder as she went back into the house after uttering her little protest. A child's white woollen glove lay on the carpet beside a stray sunbeam. Queenie, following her, saw as she stooped to pick it up that she touched it lightly with her lips before laying it aside in her work-basket.
The next day was warm and bright, "regular Queen's weather," as Cathy chose to call it; and at the time appointed a merry little party assembled at the door of the Deer-hound, and filled the two little waggonettes.
Garth had gone over to the Quarry, and left his brother as his deputy, and a playful dispute ensued between him and Captain Fawcett concerning the selection of the occupants of each waggonette. "The difficulty of suiting folk was truly awful," as Ted expressed it feelingly.
Captain Fawcett had secured Langley and Miss Faith Palmer, and his wife and Miss Cosie had tucked in Emmie between them, just as Ted had slyly beckoned to the girls to favor him.
Mr. Logan and Mr. Chester had followed, and Nan was carefully lifted in and placed beside her father.
"Do you mean to say that mite of a child is going with us to the Quarry?" interposed Mrs. Fawcett, in genuine dismay. "What can her mother be thinking about?"
"Hush! her father takes her everywhere with him," replied Langley softly; "she is out with him all day on the farm; she is never tired. I know he has often carried her for miles, or walked beside her pony."
"Dear, dear! what a mistake," ejaculated Miss Cosie, straightening her brown "ugly," in the depths of which the gentle little mouse face was almost buried from view, and trying to pat the big curls. "A child of that tender age ought to be with her mother. It reminds one of the child in Kings—or was it in Samuel?—who got sunstroke, or something of the kind, and cried, 'My head, my head,' and they carried him to his mother. Think if something of that kind happened to that dear child! her father would never forgive himself; but there, there, he does it for the best, poor dear."
"The child frets after him, and is never happy away from him," replied Langley in a low voice, for Mrs. Fawcett's eyes had filled with tears, and she had taken Emmie's hand in hers. "Mrs. Chester is a nervous invalid; and one cannot judge in these cases," finished Langley in a deprecating voice.
"True, my dear, true; but I am such an advocate of mother's right, as I often tell Kit; there is something so especially sacred in the claims of maternity. Bless you, I know all about their feelings as much as if I had a dozen children," continued the little woman, brightly. "Didn't I have a dear old mother myself, and Kit her very image, poor soul; and didn't she often say, 'Charlotte, my dear, you will know one day, please God, what a mother's feelings are'! And so I do, my dear; and so does every woman, married and single," finished Miss Cosie with a little burst, "as long as there are young things in the world needing our care."
"You are right," returned Langley in a stifled voice; and just then the other waggonette passed, Ted cracking his whip and gesticulating boyishly. Nan was on her father's knee as usual, the little white sun-bonnet rested on his shoulder, the quiet dark eyes and rosy face full of a child's contentment.
Garth received his guests at the entrance to the works, and did the honors of the place with great dignity. "Is not the dear old fellow just in his element," whispered Ted to Cathy, as they stood behind the others. Queenie caught the whisper and smiled to herself.
"He looks just what he is, a ruler among men; one who ought to be a leader, who expects obedience as a right," she thought, as she watched the tall athletic figure moving through the sheds crowded with workmen. "The old grey coat and felt hat just suited him," she thought. Though he carried his head so high he had a pleasant word or look for the men.
"My fellows are such splendid workmen," he said once, with a little conscious pride in his manner. The words, "My men," "my boys," were perpetually on his lips. Here, on his own domain, among his subjects, he felt and moved as a sort of king. "Rival monarchs, my dear," observed Cathy mischievously—"King Karl and the King of Warstdale."
To Queenie the whole scene was strangely picturesque—the blue sky; the open sheds full of noisy workers; the whirr of machinery; the great blocks of rough-hewn granite, grey, fresh from the quarries; then the smooth polished slabs, shining with soft-mingled tints. The process, the amount of hard, patient labour, astonished the girl. She could have stood for a long; time watching; the masons chiselling; and fine-boring the hard stone. Piles of grey and pink granite lay in the centre, carved and shaped into headstones.
Mr. Logan inspected them thoughtfully.
"White marble is more beautiful, especially for the graves of women and children," she heard him say to Captain Fawcett; "but then granite is more impervious to weather. In cemeteries, for instance, where there are trees the constant dropping and damp stains and defaces the beauty of the marble; but nothing spoils the granite."
"Nothing, to my mind, beats Warstdale granite," replied the Captain meditatively. "Marble is too white and chilly for our English cemeteries; we want Italian sun to light it up. Look at these warm tints; here is coloring, durability, everything we want. Can anything be finer than this polish?"
Queenie was listening to them with interest when Garth came up and claimed her attention.
"While they are getting the quarry engine ready I want to show you the workmen's cottages, and the room where Langley and I have our classes," said the young man a little condescendingly. He looked grey-eyed, eager, rather flushed with playing the part of host and cicerone to so many ladies. His white teeth gleamed with a bright happy smile under his dark moustache: but for all that his tone had a slight accent of condescension that made Queenie smile as she followed him.
"You are master here—Garth Clayton of Warstdale—and I am a poor little school-teacher, a nobody," thought the girl, with just a faint touch of rebellion, growing hot all at once.
"Stay, this is rough walking; let me give you some help," and he turned back and held out his hand. For a moment Queenie hesitated; it was her nature to be independent, and walk alone. She never willingly owned to any small feminine weakness. "If she fell she could pick herself up," she always said; but a glance at the kind bright face changed her resolution. She took the offered hand without any demur, and let herself be guided through the intricacies of the path as meekly as Nan, who followed them, holding tightly to her father's sleeve. She stood quietly beside him, an appreciative and most sympathizing listener, as he explained, with not unpardonable egotism, all his little schemes and plans for the comfort of his workmen. "My boys deserve all that I can do for them, they are such good fellows, and clever, too, some of them. Why, there is Daniel Armstrong;" and here followed a string of anecdotes bearing on the cleverness of this man, the gratitude and good feeling of another, the sad troubles of a third, until Ted came down on them in a whirlwind of indignation, to know what Garth meant by keeping them all waiting?
"All right, Ted; go on with Miss Marriott," returned his brother good-humoredly, breaking in upon the lad's wrath. "I am going to carry Nan;" and, as the little lady looked dubious, and clung close to her father, he caught her up and seated her lightly on his shoulder and marched off with her, a smile breaking over Nan's face as her father clapped his hands after her.
The little engine was already waiting for them; and the trucks were furnished with boxes and hampers, which formed seats for the ladies. Emmie crept up to her sister to whisper her ecstasies. "She had never been so happy in her life; everyone was so good to her, that kind Mrs. Fawcett especially; and Miss Cosie and Miss Faith Palmer; she was sure she would love Miss Faith dearly; and did not Queenie think she was very pretty?"
"She certainly had been," Queenie thought, "though no longer young." It was a very sweet, loveable face still, though with a certain sadness of repression on it—the shadowing of an over-quiet life. Coloring would still have lent it beauty; but, as it was, the pallid neutral tints harmonized with the grey Quaker-like costume and little close bonnet. The voice was very sweet, but lacked enthusiasm; it touched one like some plaintive minor chord; it was the face and voice that one meets behind the gratings of nunneries, or in the hushed wards of a hospital, where youth finds no place, and the bustle of life is shut out.
She placed herself by Queenie as the engine steamed off, somewhat slowly, and the work-sheds receded from their view.
"You must come and see my sisters. One of them, Charity, is an invalid, and the sight of a fresh face is such a treat to her. Her world is bounded by four walls, and she lives in her books. She knows far more about it than I do, who was never a reader," said the quiet woman with a little sigh.
Queenie fell in love with Miss Faith on the spot, as she told Cathy afterwards. Young as she was, she knew far more of the world than this woman of thirty-five. The unsophisticated freshness of the simple woman, her tender voice, her old-fashioned ways, and little quaint pedanteries, charmed the young governess, grown bitter with the hard edge of life. Before the day was out she learnt a good deal about "the Sisterhood," as Garth and Cathy always called the Evergreens, where the Palmers lived. The eldest sister, Hope, was cosmopolitan in her charities,—knitted woollen jugs and socks for the missionary boxes of half the neighbourhood, was a strong advocate of the temperance movement, and was a little shaky in her church principles, having, as her sisters well knew, a decided leaning to the society of the Plymouth Sisters.
The second sister, Prudence, managed the household, and divided her time between her store-room and her district. "I am not as clever as the others; but I wait on Charity," said Miss Faith, with an unconscious pathos in her voice.
"'Faith waiting on Charity.' Poor cardinal virtues," thought the girl, with a little smile of amusement over the odd play of words. "I suppose Faith has plenty of waiting and looking up in this world. To judge by some women's lives, some must wait for ever," soliloquized the young philosopher with a sigh.
She speculated for a short time on this Charity, who had been handsomer than any of them, and had met with an accident in her youth, whose view was bounded by four walls, and who lived in her books.
"My dear Miss Marriott, Cara is so clever. You should hear her talk. She and Mr. Logan have such interesting conversation; it is quite wonderful to hear them. What a blessing it is to have a well-stored mind; no empty space for discontent to creep in, as Cara says. I often wish I were clever," continued the simple woman, "and then one would not need to perplex one's self so about the meanings of things. Life never seems such a puzzle to Cara as it does to me."
But here Cathy, who had overheard the last sentences, interrupted her scornfully.
"Do you call it life?" curling her lip scornfully. "Are such meagre existences really life? Life pre-supposes movement, animation, sensation, coloring, plenty of work, but above all, movement; not sitting in a close room, putting in patches and listening to chapters of Physical Geography. Every one knows you are a saint, Miss Faith," continued Cathy, enthusiastically. "I know Garth thinks so. But, all the same, life means a little more than patches and dissertations on the Gulf Stream."
"You young things are so impetuous," returned poor Miss Faith with a tremulous smile; "perhaps at your age one may have felt the same. There is a sort of fever in young blood, I think. I remember how we used to feel in the spring-time; it made one's pulses beat faster only to hear the birds singing in their little new nests."
"You thought of something else besides patching then," persisted Cathy, rebelliously.
"My dear, I love sewing; and then what else can one do when one is not clever. I used to wish I could find work in some children's hospital; nursing is my forte, you know. I think I could have been quite happy if I had some young creatures round me. I tried for a little while, you remember; and then Cara wanted me, and I came home."
"And I have never forgiven Cara to this day," was the angry response. "You looked like a different woman when you came home from Carlisle, Miss Faith,—years younger and brighter, and—"
"Hush, my dear, hush! I am not very clever, but I have learned one thing,—never to leave a certain duty for an uncertain one. It is a safe rule; you will find it so, Cathy. I often think of my children, and long to be back with them; but nothing would induce me to leave Cara while she wants me."
There was a slight lull in the conversation, and Miss Faith's voice dropped to a whisper. A fresh wind blew over the wide moor. Some black-faced mountain sheep browsed among the heather; one of them had strayed on to the line, and the little engine slackened speed. The wild, somewhat barren scenery, the novel mode of traffic, the sweet moorland air, charmed and exhilarated Queenie; she squeezed Emmie's hand as she whispered to her, "Don't you love Miss Faith?" "Faith waiting on Charity," she said to herself with a little sigh.
The quarry was in sight by this time. Trucks of the blasted stones were being shunted hither and thither; then came the work-sheds and ponderous machinery. Queenie followed the others, as Garth led them from one point to another. She listened as breathlessly as Emmie to his description of the blasting; she tried to imagine the vast report echoing over those lonely moors, the terrified sheep huddled far away in heaps, the masses of fallen rocks, and then started a little as she found Garth looking down at her with earnest eyes.
"All this is new to you, a fresh experience. You have not hewn lessons out of rocks all your life long, as I have," observed the young man sententiously.
"No," she answered a little timidly; "but then I am only a governess."
"That means a bookworm. Are you very learned, Miss Marriott? I wonder you have not frightened Langley. Rocks and men have been my books," continued Garth, waving his hand at the rough cliff half torn down, but wearing graceful fronds of ferns in its crevices. "There are hard durable lessons to be learnt here: how to overcome difficulties, how to war with opposition. I would rather be here among my quarrymen than on the benches of the House of Commons."
Queenie gave a swift upward glance, but did not answer. "A king among men," she was saying to herself softly.
"You cannot think how I pity business men in cities," Garth went on, as he walked beside her. "Boys fresh from school chained for the best part of their lives to the desk; cramped up in a close atmosphere, bringing all their best energies, their choicest talents, down to the level of dull routine,—money-getting, money-loving,—-narrowed to a perfect machinery of existence."
"I think you are a little unjust and prejudiced there," replied Queenie, with some spirit; "you may love your life best, and I dare say you are right. You have freedom and rule, two very good things."
"And plenty of fresh air," put in Garth, baring his head as he spoke to the sweet moorland wind that met them.
"Yes, and that too. But these men are to be honored, because they make the best of their life. Many of them do not like it; a few rebel; others get cramped and narrowed, as you say. But to do one's work in the world, and to do it worthily,—how distasteful and full of drudgery and routine as it may be,—is to be a man in the truest sense of the word," finished Queenie, with a sudden sparkle in her brown eyes.
"Very properly put. Do you think I do not agree with you? I am only comparing my lot with others, a little to their disparagement. There is Ted, there, that brother of mine,—would you believe it, Miss Marriott!—I think you must take him in hand, and preach contentment,—he vows this place is a howling desert; no society; not a thing to do. It must be owned," continued Garth, candidly, "that for a fellow without resources Hepshaw may be a trifle dull, especially in the winter."
"Do you never find it so, Mr. Clayton?" asked Queenie, with a little natural surprise. It still seemed strange to her that this man, so young and distinguished-looking, should own himself contented with a position where he had few equals and no superiors.
"Dull! do you mean to compare me to Ted, who is lazy, and has no resources?" returned the young man, slightly discomfited. "What is there that my life lacks? I have a good home, sisters, a plague of a brother. It is my own fault, I suppose, if I have no closer ties," continued Garth, with a little laugh, and coloring slightly; "but there is plenty of time for that. I have more work than I know how to do; and then there is cricket and foot-ball; and lectures and the chess-club for winter's evening. I sometimes wish my days were double their length. That does not look like dulness," finished Garth, in a chafed tone, as though something in her words had offended him.
Queenie held her ground a little obstinately; she was on the brink of a discovery. What was the one jarring element in this honest sweet nature? Was it pride? or—
"You may have all this, and yet you may miss a great deal of what your despised city men call life," she went on, with an old-fashioned sagacity that surprised the young man, who was simple enough in his way. "You miss contact with other minds. Here you can have no opportunity of gleaning new ideas. There must be a certain amount of stagnation here. Cathy knows what I mean; she and I have often talked of it." She finished with slight abruptness, somewhat provoked by the incredulous smile that rose to his lips.
"Stagnation here!" How Queenie wished he would not repeat her words. "You are hard on us and Hepshaw. Of course we are simple country folk; we do not aspire to be anything else; but a peaceful and independent existence does not necessarily mean stagnation."
"Mr. Clayton, why will you persist in misunderstanding me?" returned Queenie, in a vexed voice. They were standing at the extreme edge of a jutting piece of rock; the others had turned back, and were watching some machinery at work; below them lay the wide moor. Some peewits were flitting hither and thither; a bank of white clouds sailed slowly away westward. "I am not hard on Hepshaw; I feel already that I love it dearly. I only thought that you, being a man, must sometimes long for a little more society."
"Because I am like Ted, and have no resources, I suppose?" but this time there was a mollified gleam in his eyes. "I think I am one of the quiet sort; a few friends content me. Mr. Logan is a host in himself, with sufficient information to stock half-a-dozen ordinary men, not to mention Captain Fawcett, who has travelled and seen the world; and then we have Harry Chester at Karldale, and Mr. Ray, the Vicar of Karlsmere, and the Sowerbys of Blandale Grange,—very sensible good people,—and the Cunninghams, Dora and her father at Crossgill Vicarage. My sisters must take you over there, Miss Marriott. One can have friends enough for the asking," continued Garth, loftily. "I always disliked crowds of acquaintances; I am not like Ted."
Queenie gave him an understanding glance, but her closed lips offered no response. The shrewd little observer of human nature was saying to herself, "I have found you out, Mr. Clayton; you are good, but you are not perfect. Cathy is right. It is better, so you think, to be the leading man in Hepshaw, and king in Warstdale, than to be simply Mr. Clayton in London or Carlisle; to lord it over inferior minds than to mix with superior intelligences;" and, as she recognized this trait, something like a pang of disappointment crossed her mind.
Was he not a sort of hero to her? and ought not heroes to be perfect?
"It strikes me that I have been very egotistical, and that you must be very tired," he said at last, rousing her from her reverie, and turning his bright face full on her with such a kindly look that her brief disdain died from that moment. "Let us come and see how Ted has managed the luncheon; he always acts as my steward on these occasions."
"I wonder who Dora is," thought Queenie, as they walked leisurely back behind some laden trucks. "I wonder if Cathy has ever mentioned her. Dora Cunningham and her father at Crossgill Vicarage!"
"Thou cam'st not to thy place by accident,—
It is the very place God meant for thee;
And should'st thou there small scope for action see
Do not for this give room to discontent."—Trench.
Ted had proved himself an able steward, and a sufficiently luxurious luncheon had been conjured up for their refreshment.
Queenie had never in her life been present at a stranger picnic,—a table had been set at the base of a jutting cliff, and boxes and emptied hampers formed rude seats for the party. The brothers presided, and Ted's boyish face beamed with innocent satisfaction at the result of his successful management. "Isn't this first-rate," he whispered to Queenie who sat beside him. "Not a drop of rain to spoil enjoyment, and only enough wind to blow the table-cloth off once. We broke one bottle of cream, but that's nothing; you must have some champagne. Garth always does things handsomely for the ladies. Miss Cosie," persuasively, "you will have just half a glass to drink Garth's health?"
"My dear, not a drop; what an idea, and I a total abstainer!" and Miss Cosie's big curls quite shook with excitement. "I wish you and your dear brother would think with me on this subject. If only more of his men would sign the pledge; fancy Hepshaw without a single public-house! why it would be paradise over again," continued the little woman, patting his coatsleeve in her energy; "but there, there, my dear, we can't expect old heads on young shoulders."
After luncheon the party broke up into twos and threes. Garth had half-an-hour's business to transact; Ted volunteered to help Miss Faith and Cathy in their search for ferns; Langley and Miss Cosie superintended the repacking of hampers; while Captain Fawcett strolled with Mr. Chester across the moor, leaving his wife in delighted guard over the two children. Queenie had declined to join in the fern scramble, and she and Mr. Logan seated themselves on some granite boulders; there Garth found them on his return. More than an hour had elapsed, the rest of the party had disappeared. Nan and Emmie were playing at fortifications among the rocks. A merry voice from the cliff above called to Mr. Logan; he pushed his spectacles off his forehead in a perplexed way as he rose slowly in obedience to the summons.
"You and I will talk about this again, my dear young lady, we have plenty of time; nothing need be settled in a hurry. I confess you have taken me somewhat by surprise, but I will promise you that I will think well over it, and let you know."
"What are you and the Vicar prosing about?" asked Garth with good-humored curiosity, as he threw himself down on an old shepherd's plaid beside her, and stretched himself luxuriously. "Has the dear old pedant been treating you to the results of some of his antiquarian researches? You look tired and grave, Miss Marriott."
"Because I am discussing a grave subject," she returned, rather nervously, pulling at some grasses that grew between the stones, and splitting the thin stalks of the weeds as she spoke. "I was asking Mr. Logan's advice about something; most likely he will speak to you; at least he said he recommended me to speak myself," faltered Queenie, growing pale all at once with the difficulty of imparting her plans to a stranger.
"You are in some uncertainty; you want advice, assistance, and you do not like to trust such new acquaintances," he replied quietly, with such thorough comprehension of her unusual diffidence, and with such evident intention of breaking through it, that Queenie's uncomfortable timidity yielded a little.
"I am only a stranger among you, and I have no right to trouble you with my affairs; only Mr. Logan said—" but he interrupted her with good-humored peremptoriness.
"You shall tell me by-and-bye what Mr. Logan said. Let us settle this little piece of business first. I like to be troubled with other people's affairs, it is a hobby of mine, and makes me feel of more consequence;" and then, a little gravely, "I do not look upon my sister's intimate friends as strangers.'
"You are very kind," hesitating.
"We mean to be, if you will allow us such a privilege, Miss Marriott. I hope you mean to tell us how we can be of service to you and your little sister. You want advice, you say? I am not as clever as Mr. Logan; but then, every one knows business men are more practical than the clergy. Supposing you tell me all about it, your plan and everything," finished Garth, in a comfortable, matter-of-fact tone, as he stretched himself again on the shepherd's plaid, but at the same time he shot a keen anxious glance at the young face above him; and, indeed, the sadness in Queenie's brown eyes might have touched a harder heart than Garth's.
"There is little to say," she replied, with a quick flush. It was one thing telling her troubles to Mr. Logan, who was kind and fatherly, and who looked about fifty, whatever his age might be; but to tell them to this young man, who spoke to her with such pleasant peremptoriness, who was at once gentle and yet masterful, who never let her forget for a moment that he was Garth Clayton of Warstdale, well, it was different. And yet he might be able to help her and Emmie.
"Oh, it is so painful to have to trouble you with such things," she said with a little impatience and quiver of suppressed annoyance in her voice; "that is the worst of being a woman, that one must be helpless, and trouble people."
"I rather enjoy this sort of trouble," he replied coolly; "I like to be of use, and to give advice. We are only wasting time, and the others will be back. Supposing you tell me all about it," continued Garth, with a bright persuasive smile, quite comprehending her difficulty, but making light of it in his masculine way. "I am years younger than the Vicar, but you will find that we business men are just as much to be trusted."
"Yes; I know. I think men have the best of it in everything," continued poor Queenie, ashamed of her irritation, and yet conscious of feeling it all the time. "They are independent, they can carve out their own lot in life; it is women only who are so helpless. After all, there is little to tell. I am not ashamed of being poor; I never was in my life. I want to work for myself and Emmie, and I think I have found something that will suit me in Hepshaw."
"In Hepshaw!" Garth raised himself on his elbow, and gazed at her in unfeigned astonishment.
"Yes; it is humble, but I know it will suit me; and then Emmie will have country air, and we shall not be separated. You look surprised, Mr. Clayton; surely you guess what I mean! Cathy tells me that you are going to lose your girls' school-mistress, and I want Mr. Logan to elect me in her stead."
"And what did he say?" asked Garth in a tone of such utter bewilderment that Queenie nearly laughed.
"He seemed almost as astonished as you are, and tried by every means in his power to dissuade me. He said it was absurd to throw away myself and my talents on a village school, that—"
"He was right, of course," returned Garth, interrupting her; "we must do better for you than this, Miss Marriott; the scheme cannot be entertained for a moment. Why our school-mistress has only forty pounds a-year! We might make it fifty, perhaps; but for a lady— He is right; it is too absurd."
"Hush! please do not make up your mind that it is impossible. I have set my heart upon this, ever since I came; and Cathy told me the school-mistress was gone. I want it for Emmie's sake, because she must have country air, and we cannot be separated. We would rather starve on a crust together than be separated," continued Queenie, speaking with feverish energy, and the tears springing to her eyes.
"But, Miss Marriott—"
"But, Mr. Clayton, you must listen to me, please. I have no such grand prospects before me; a junior teacher in a school cannot command a high salary. If I went back to Carlisle it would only be drudgery over again, with no Emmie. No; you must hear me," silencing him as he attempted to speak: "this is a wiser plan than you think. I have forty pounds a-year of my own, it is nothing very great, but it all helps; and then I might give French lessons to Mrs. Morris's children in the evening. Cathy says Mrs. Morris is so anxious for them to have lessons; she and I were awake half the night planning it, and Cathy said—"
"Well, what did she say?" as Queenie paused.
"That I must speak to you and Mr. Logan, and that you would be sure to help me. There is that little cottage of Captain Fawcett's to be let; we were looking at it yesterday. Do you think it would be very dear?" asked Queenie anxiously. "It would do so nicely for Emmie and me, if the rent were not too high."
"Do you mean that ramshackle wilderness of a cottage just fronting the lane?"
"Yes; it would be very pretty if it were only freshened up a little, and the garden put in order."
"Well, it might not be so bad," returned Garth reluctantly. "Rents are not very high here; I dare say Fawcett would let you have it for about fifteen pounds a-year, and do it up properly besides. Let me see, there was some furniture belonging to it, that will go for a mere song."
"I forgot about the furniture," owned Queenie candidly. "We must be content with very little at first, just a table and a few chairs or so. I have only a few pounds to spare, but Caleb would advance me the rest. Fifteen pounds a-year! do you really think that Captain Fawcett will let the cottage to us for that?"
"I can answer for it, certainly he will. You can leave that part to me; you need not distress yourself about that little matter of detail; as far as that goes I can promise to secure your election to-morrow. All I want to know is, if you be serious in this matter?"
"Mr. Clayton, how can you ask me such a question?"
"I call it a monstrous notion."
"Then we will not argue about it at all."
"Impracticable and absurd to the last degree. Good heavens, Miss Marriott!" flinging back his head with a gesture of mingled excitement and wrath, "have you no friend or relative to stand by you, and prevent you from throwing yourself away on this miserable pittance?"
"I have one very good friend, but he is poor," returned the girl, and then she sighed. Something in Garth's manner—his assumed roughness, his suppressed wrath, the sudden break and softening of his voice as he uttered his short remonstrance—touched and yet pained her. What would it be to have a brother to work for her when she needed support, a strong arm that could protect her in times of emergency!