CHAPTER IV.

THE KING OF KARLDALE.

"I ask thee for a thoughtful love,
    Through constant watching wise,
To meet the glad with joyful smiles,
    And wipe the weeping eyes;
And a heart at leisure from itself,
    To soothe and sympathize." L. Waring.

A few days after Miss Cunningham's visit Langley came into the room where the girls were sitting as usual, chatting merrily over their work.

"Cathy, do you think you could spare Queenie to us for a few hours?"

"That depends upon circumstances, my dear, was the cool response.

"Because Garth and I want her. I have just had a letter from Gertrude, and she and Harry wish us to go over there to-morrow; she is very unwell, I fear, and Garth thinks it would be such a good opportunity to show Queenie the beauties of Karlsmere."

"Why should we not all go? Do go and coax him, Langley."

"Indeed I cannot," replied Langley earnestly. "Gertrude is such an invalid that we cannot fatigue her with numbers. No, it is no use teasing him," as Cathy made an impetuous movement to the door; "he has quite decided that he will only take Queenie and me. I thought it was very nice of him proposing it," with a deprecating glance at her sister's disappointed face; "it will be a treat for Queenie; and you know in another week or so she will have to begin work in earnest."

"You and Garth never care for me to go over to Karldale," began Cathy a little crossly, but Langley stopped her rather hurriedly. She was a trifle moved from her ordinary composure; her face looked more worn and anxious than usual; a nervous flush glowed in her thin cheeks.

"My dear, you never will believe in Gertrude's ill-health. I am sadly troubled about her, and so is Garth."

"I have small sympathy for people who are always calling 'wolf,'" replied Cathy, taking up her work again. "I believe Gertrude's temper is most in fault."

"Then we will not argue about it," returned her sister, with a little sigh. She was very patient, but Cathy's mood evidently jarred on her. Cathy threw down her work again with such impatience that her needle broke as her sister left the room.

"Why will she give in to that woman's whims as she does! I can't understand it. Gertrude makes a perfect slave of her when she goes there, and actually Langley seems to like it. She is always going over there now; and she comes back tired out and fit for nothing."

"Do you know, I think it vexes Langley dreadfully when, you depreciate Mrs. Chester; I have noticed it more than once," observed Queenie, in her shrewd way.

"I know it does, and my wretched temper makes me do it all the more; but Langley is such a patient old dear that I hate to see her domineered over and victimized by a woman like Gertrude. When I see her with that worried look in her face I am always ten times more bitter; and then I am so fond of Harry, and Karlsmere would be so delicious this weather, and I own I was cross," continued Cathy, with the frankness that made her so lovable; "but of course you must go to please them, and Emmie and I will spend the day with Miss Cosie."

Queenie was thankful that the matter was so amicably settled; but since her friend was not to join in her pleasure she would not dwell on her own anticipations, delightful as they were; but in her heart she thought how good it was of Mr. Clayton to include her in their little trip. Since that day in the granite quarry his manner had insensibly changed to her; always kind and gentle, it was now tinged with stronger interest. A pleasant cordiality marked their intercourse; he was always thoughtful for her comfort and pleasure. Unconsciously, Queenie was beginning to depend for much of her present happiness upon this friendship with Garth Clayton. "It is almost as good as having a brother of my own," she said once to Cathy. Queenie's hard-working life, with its stern, morbid realities, had left her scant leisure for the ordinary dreams of girlhood. She had never mapped out any bright future for herself; possible lovers had not stolen across the sad margin of her thoughts. "Those things were not for her," she had said to herself. "Other women had a strong arm to lean upon, other women had fathers and brothers or husbands to work for them, and shield them in the battle of life; she had to work for herself and her helpless little sister, that was all. And so she took up her burthen bravely, neither repining that such things were, nor wasting her best energies with fruitless regrets for impossibilities. No vague sentimentalities preyed on her healthy young nature; no bitterness for her joyless youth marred her sweet serenity. Everything will be made up to us there, I am sure of it," she would say to herself, with tender, old-fashioned wisdom. "One day I shall get old, and not care so much about these things; perhaps Emmie will marry, and I shall be aunt Queenie, and take care of her and her children."

And so, with the courage of perfect innocence, and with a simplicity that was perfectly free from self-consciousness, Queenie gave herself up to the delight of this new friendship. There was no one to warn her of danger; no one to bid the brave young heart shield itself with greater reserve and prudence, to question her of the meaning of this strange happiness that seemed to flood her whole being with brightness.

"Every one is so good to me, and I am so happy," she said almost daily. When alone her thoughts were a perpetual thanksgiving. An insensible change had passed over her thoughts with respect to Garth, she was less critical; the defects and flaws of character she had at first noticed in him became less apparent; his slight arbitrariness, his condescension, his masterful assumption of power, even his lack of deep intellect were all unnoticed. If he spoke, Queenie was as ready to obey his behests as ever Langley or Cathy were. If his want of ambition, his perfect content with himself and his surroundings, sometimes surprised her, she began to credit him with greatness of mind; or if she were too shrewd for that, to own to herself that even his very faults were more lovable than other people's virtues.

"He is a sort of Bayard; he is as courteous to me as though I were the greatest lady in the laud, instead of a village school-mistress," said the girl once with tears in her eyes, "And see how good he is to those old ladies at The Sycamores: he let Miss Hope talk to him for a whole hour about her Temperance Society, though I could see he was dreadfully bored by her. He never hurts people's feelings by letting them see that they trouble him."

"My dear, Garth is perfection, and I am glad you have found it out," was Cathy's reply.

Queenie found vent for her feelings in a grateful little speech when she next saw Garth. He came in at the drawing-room door, throwing his head back in his usual fashion, and shook himself like a rough terrier.

"What a dirty fellow I look, to be sure; the roads have quite powdered me. I hope we shall have rain before to-morrow."

"Oh, Mr. Clayton, I have been wanting to thank you ever since I heard it. It will be so delightful—to-morrow I mean."

"That remains to be proved; we shall enjoy it all the more for having you with us," was the pleasant answer. "I have been waiting for an opportunity to drive you over to Karlsmere ever since you came. The lake is charming, and you will get quantities of parsley fern for your cottage garden. By-the-bye, I have been in there this morning, and the workmen are getting on famously; all the holes are stopped, and there's another coat of paint on. I hardly knew the place. We shall be losing you in another fortnight, I am afraid;" for Queenie had obstinately refused to burthen her friends with their presence a day longer than was necessary.

She tried to look pleased at this announcement; but a pang crossed her in spite of herself at the thought of leaving Church-Stile House. The cottage seemed dull by comparison. True, she should often see them, and Cathy would be in and out perpetually; but she would no longer be his guest, sharing in the pleasant every-day life of the family, making one in their plans, a party to their little jokes and pleasantries. "It is time for me to go, I am getting spoiled amongst you all. I feel I have been idle long enough," she said to her friend afterwards; but somehow she sighed as she said it.

The day at Karlsmere proved as delightful in reality as it was in anticipation. Garth was in one of his boyish, frolicsome moods. He and Queenie hunted for ferns, and gathered wild flowers, while Langley walked thoughtfully beside the margin of the beautiful lake. It was a golden day in Queenie's memory. How often she recalled that walk afterwards. The blue shimmering lake, so still and silent in the sunlight; the winding roads; the steep woody height on the farther bank; the pretty vicarage with its trim garden and the tiny church, reminding her of a small ill-furnished room. The tall athletic figure in the grey suit, vaulting lightly over the crisp bracken high above them; the handful of wild flowers tossed laughingly at her feet; Langley standing on a smooth white boulder, looking with grave unsmiling eyes at the baby waves lapping to her feet. How well she recalled it all.

"There's Harry coming to meet us," shouted Garth; but Langley did not hear him. She stood in that strange, self-absorbed attitude, motionless and oblivious, till Nan ran up to her and pulled her dress; and then the color rushed over her pale face with surprise, and she stooped and pressed the child closely to her.

"Little Nan, my dear little Nan," she whispered.

"I am father's Nan," lisped the child. "I am nobody's Nan but father's. Father's up there," pointing with her fore-finger to the rocks above them. "He and Jeb are both there. I carried Jeb, but he was heavy, and my arms did ache."

"Yes, you are father's Nan," repeated Langley dreamily; "father's little comforter;" and as she kissed the little face a sudden mist rose before her eyes.

"Why are your eyes wet when you kiss me?" questioned Nan curiously, "and why do you always kiss me so close, so close? Mammie never does; but only father, only father and you."

"Hush, Nan; I love you. Do you hear me, Nan? I love you dearly, dearly." Langley spoke in a strange, stifled voice, but the child only gazed at her in surprise.

"You need not cry about it. You know father loves me too, but he never cries over me. Mammie does; but then she pushes me away."

"Ah, poor mother is ill, you know."

Nan reflected a moment gravely. "Yes; her head did ache. She said 'Go away, Nan, you tire me; go to father and Jeb;' and I did go. Mammie does not love Nan much."

"Oh, hush, my darling, hush! poor mother!"

"She did often say 'Go away, Nan; Nan is naughty.' But Nan is good, always good; father says so."

"What are you talking to Langley about, you little chatter-box? Here is Jeb whining his heart out for you," called out Mr. Chester from the bank above them. "Stay where you are, pet, and father will come and carry you."

"Father's coming," echoed Nan placidly. She stood quite quiet and patiently while he talked to Langley; but when he lifted her in his arms she seemed to nestle into them with a little coo of content. Once or twice during their walk her father stooped over her and peered into the white sun-bonnet rather anxiously.

"She is not quite as strong as she was, and seems to tire sooner," he said to Langley. "Gertrude tells me I am wrong to let the child go about so much in the heat. But what am I to do? When I leave her at home she makes herself ill with fretting. Naughty Nan," in a tone of infinite tenderness.

"Nan always good," was the somewhat drowsy answer.

"God bless her, so she is, my little white angel. Look at her, Langley; this is just what she does: she always falls asleep in my arms like this. Sometimes she is so heavy that I am obliged to put her down. I wonder how I should feel if I were a poor man on the tramp, with my child in my arms, and the world before me. I wonder, too, what mammie would do without us," as Nan opened her dark eyes, roused by the suppressed vehemence of her father's voice.

"Mammy did say 'Go away, Nan; Nan makes mammy's head to ache.'"

"I am afraid mammy says that far too often," was the somewhat bitter reply. "It seems hard for a mother never to be able to bear her child's presence."

"Hush! Miss Marriott will hear you, Harry!" interposed Langley, gently. Mr. Chester looked round and shook his head.

"No; they are too far behind, and seem engrossed with each other's conversation. Look here, Langley, we are old friends, and you know all our troubles, and I tell you truly, things are getting worse every day."

Langley's pale face turned paler, but she made no answer.

"Sometimes I think if I could only see Gertrude happy and contented I should not mind what became of me; I wear out my heart to please her. I do not think she has ever heard a harsh word from me since I married her; can any husband do more?"

"No, indeed; you are good, very good, to her," was the almost inaudible reply.

"And yet it has come to this, that I have no wife and no home, for without sympathy how can one be said to possess either. If she would only greet me with a smile sometimes; if she had a kind word for me or this child; but you heard what she said just now. She is a sensitive little creature, and I fully believe her mother's indifference pains her."

"Harry, indeed, indeed, you must not be hard upon Gertrude; if you only knew how she suffers."

"Do I not know it? She will not be long with us, my poor Gertie, I am sure of that; she is wasting every day, Langley; Dr. Marshall says so. That is what makes it so bitter to think there can be no peace now. If I could only make her happy; if I could be sure that she has not repented of marrying me; but sometimes I think that if I had left her amongst her own people she would not be pining herself to death as she is now."

A look of intense pain crossed Langley's face.

"You must not think that."

"But how am I to help it, when I see her drooping and wasting before my eyes, my own wife, whom I have sworn to cherish? Sometimes I dread that she will tell me so; and then, how am I to bear it?"

"Gertrude will never tell you so;" but Mr. Chester shook his head. "She will never tell you so," repeated Langley in a steadier voice. "In spite of her unhappy nature Gertrude is a good woman. Harry, you always listen to me as if—as if I were your sister; do try and believe what I say this once."

"What am I to believe?"

"That it is not your fault. Gertrude says you are goodness itself to her and the child; sometimes she speaks of you both so tenderly. Why will you not go on bearing things as you have done, so patiently, so nobly, and trust that Providence will bring good out of all this evil?"

"Then you think that there is nothing that I can do for her. I half hoped that you would find out something that she wanted, some wish that she might express."

"Then I will let you know," replied Langley, with assumed cheerfulness. In reality her heart was as heavy as lead, the talk had oppressed her. Ever ready with her sympathy she had yet found it hard to comfort him. What comfort could there be in such a home—a hasty, ill-assorted marriage, defective sympathy, inequalities of temper, physical sufferings impatiently borne, the daily burthen of sickness without ameliorating circumstances, and all this patiently, nay, heroically endured. What was she to say but that he was blameless? Whose fault was it that all this had come upon him? that he was walking by her side, groaning aloud for once in the very heaviness of his spirit? What could her words be to him but meaningless truisms, that must fall flatly on his ear? Had she any comfort at all to offer him? was not such comfort placed beyond his reach and hers for ever?

Unconsciously she slackened her pace as such thoughts came to her, and in a few minutes the others joined them, and the conversation became general.

Queenie was delighted with the look of the Grange, as Mr. Chester's house was called. It was a rambling grey stone house, standing just at the head of the lake; a picturesque old archway embosomed with ivy admitted them into a place half garden, half orchard, with a low fence dividing it from the crofts; the large square hall was used as a summer sitting-room. From the inner room a tall dark-eyed woman advanced languidly to meet them, wrapped up, in spite of the summer day, in a costly Indian shawl.

"Well, Gertie, I have brought your friends," exclaimed her husband, cheerfully; "I met them half way down the lake. I hope you have not been expecting us before."

"You must have dawdled on your way then," returned Mrs. Chester fretfully, "for I have been waiting for at least an hour, until I thought I should have been too nervous to receive them; but that is the way when you get with Langley, Harry, you never remember poor me."

"I am sure we walked here straight enough," replied Mr. Chester hastily; but Langley, with a sweet look, stopped him.

"We have ventured to bring our friend, Miss Marriott, Gertrude; Garth wanted to show her Karlsmere. She knows what an invalid you are, and will not make any demands on your strength. Now you must go and establish yourself comfortably on your couch, while Queenie and I get rid of some of our dust, and Harry puts dear little Nan in her crib."

"I tell Harry that he is killing that child, by dragging her about in the sun," rejoined Mrs. Chester, with a shrug of her shoulders. "He will not listen to me. One would think he had a dozen children, and could afford to lose one or two; but there, it is no use my talking to him."

"Why, Gertie, I thought you said that your head was bad, and that Nan was worrying you," observed her husband in a deprecating voice.

"Well, but she might be playing up-stairs with her Noah's Ark. Of course I am only a mother, and don't understand children; but look how flushed her face is, Langley."

"She is only rosy with sleep," interrupted Garth, stooping to kiss her. "What a pretty little face it is! She is more like you than Harry," continued the artful young diplomatist; "she has got your eyes and eyelashes, Mrs. Chester."

"Yes; she is very like you, Gertie," replied her husband eagerly. "Garth is right; I never saw it so plainly before."

"Other people have always seen it," was the somewhat pointed answer.

"Oh, Langley, I don't like her at all," exclaimed Queenie, when she found herself alone with Langley in the large pleasant room overlooking the crofts. "I always thought Cathy was prejudiced; but I think her so—so disagreeable."

"She has been waiting for us, you see, and that always makes her nervous; one must make allowance for an invalid's humor."

"Some invalids are quite pleasant," returned Queenie stoutly. "There is a fretful chord in her voice that jars somehow. She is very slim and elegant, and I suppose some people would call her handsome; but I don't like her gloomy dark eyes, and her mouth goes down at the corners. I always distrust people's tempers when I see that."

"I did not know that you were such an observer, my dear."

"I know when people's faces please me, and when I shall get to love them," was the oracular rejoinder. "I could never love Mrs. Chester, Langley, though I might get to pity her in time," and Langley attempted no further defence.

Queenie found her first impressions only deepened as the day went on. There was a carping fretfulness in Mrs. Chester's manner to her husband that must have provoked a less sweet temper, but at times he scarcely seemed to notice it. When the child was in the room she seemed to engross all his attention; when she was absent he appeared restless and ill-at-ease. "She can be pleasant to every one but to him," Queenie thought to herself. "Cathy was right when she said that she detested that woman."

But even Queenie and Cathy might have found some pity in their youthful intolerance if they had overheard the brief fragments of a conversation that passed between Mrs. Chester and Langley.

"Oh, Gertrude, I know it is hard; but if you would only try, for his and the child's sake, to control yourself a little; you do not know how unhappy you are making him."

"Does he complain of me to you?" she demanded fiercely; "that would be manly and generous on his part."

"Do you want me to leave off talking to you?" replied Langley in a tone of genuine grief. "Oh, Gertrude, Gertrude, what will you say next? Do you wish to know what he did really say? He asked me if there was nothing he could do for you. He begged me to find out if there was any wish that he could gratify; he—but I cannot repeat it. If you had only heard what he said!"

Mrs. Chester rose feverishly from her couch and caught hold of Langley's dress.

"There it is. No, don't turn from me, don't look so shocked; you know it is his very goodness that makes me worse. Why is he so good to me when I try him so? Sometimes I think that I am possessed with some sort of evil spirit; I can't help tormenting him. Oh, Langley, why did he insist on my marrying him? why did he not leave me in my old home when he knew, when I told him, that I could not ever care for him as I could for that other? when—" but Langley stopped her with a face of horror.

"Hush! don't mention his name! Harry's wife can have no remembrance of that sort. You are a good woman, Gertrude; I have always said so."

"No, no," she returned, bursting into tears; "don't judge me out of your merciful heart, Langley. I have never been a good wife to Harry, and I never shall. I try to forget, but the effort is killing me. Oh, why did he not leave me in my old home, and not have doomed us both to this misery?"

"Hush! you are not yourself to-day! I cannot hear you talk any more in this way;" and Langley rose, pale and resolute. "Put yourself and your unhappiness aside, it is too late to talk of such things now; think only of the duty you owe to Harry and your little child."

"Yes, my little child, who will so soon be without a mother," she returned, weeping passionately; but Langley only stooped over her with sad dry eyes, and, kissing her, bade God bless her, and turned away.

CHAPTER V.

A GOLDEN HARVEST.

"Yes; keep me calm, though loud and rude
    The sounds my ears that greet;
Calm in the closet's solitude,
    Calm in the bustling street;
Calm in the hour of buoyant health,
    Calm in my hour of pain;
Calm in my poverty or wealth,
    Calm in my loss or gain."—Bonar.

It had been arranged that Queenie should return to Carlisle for a day or two before entering on her new duties, leaving Emmie behind her at Church-Stile House. She must bid good-bye to her old friend, Caleb Runciman, and redeem her promise of seeing Mr. Calcott again. A brisk correspondence had been kept up between her and Caleb. The old man had expressed himself well satisfied with her plans, though many and sore were his regrets at losing her and his little favorite. "I told Mr. Calcott your intention, as you wished me, my dear," wrote Caleb, in his cramped neat hand. "He received the news in silence, but after a while he muttered, 'Well, well, it will do for a time; but it seems strange. Frank Marriott's daughter a village school-mistress!' and then he asked, querulously, if the girl were coming back? I think he misses you, my dear, though not more than I do; and what we shall do without you and the precious lamb is more than Molly and I can tell; but she has got your old room ready, and has baked a first-rate cake; and there's a warm welcome waiting for you, Miss Queenie, my dear; so no more at present, from your attached friend, Caleb Runciman."

The day after their return from Karlsmere, as they were sitting at breakfast, Garth looked up rather suddenly from the paper he was reading. "Miss Marriott, I am afraid you have lost a friend," he said, rather abruptly. "Andrew Calcott of Carlisle is dead!"

"Uncle Andrew! Oh, poor Uncle Andrew!" exclaimed Emmie, mournfully; but Queenie only started and turned pale.

"By some mistake the announcement has been postponed; he died three days ago. Ah, there is the postman coming up the walk. I should not be surprised if you have another letter from your old friend, Mr. Runciman."

Garth was right; but Queenie rose from the table and carried off the letter to read in the privacy of her own room. Cathy found her quietly crying over it when she went up some time afterwards.

"I did not think I should have minded it so much," she said, drying her eyes as Cathy entered; "but it seems so dreadful, his dying alone in the night, with no one near him. Perhaps Caleb was right, and he may have passed away in his sleep."

"Is that all they know about it?"

"Yes; they just went up in the morning, and found him lying there quite cold, with a smile on his face. He never would let any one stay in his room; that was one of his peculiarities. Caleb knew this would happen one night, but he seems dreadfully down about it. I am to go over next Thursday, you know, and he says this need not make any difference."

"You will be sorry that you have not seen him again."

"Yes; it is that that troubles me. I cannot bear to think that I have been enjoying myself all this time, and that he has been missing me. I remember now, that he seemed to think that it was good-bye."

Queenie's bright spirits were quenched for the remainder of the day. Her tender heart was grieved by the thought of the lonely death-bed. Garth found her looking still pale and depressed when he came back from the works. To distract her thoughts he took her and Cathy for a long country walk, from which they did not return until late in the evening. He had never been more gentle to her, Queenie remembered afterwards. He and Cathy had restrained their high spirits, and had only talked to her of what roused and interested her—of the school, the cottage, and plans for her new life. Walking back in the moonlight, their conversation flowed in graver channels. He and Cathy talked of their mother; and Queenie for the first time had a clue to the passionate devotion with which Garth regarded her memory.

She bade good-bye to her friends rather sadly when the day arrived for her to go back to Carlisle. She was only to be absent three days, and yet the separation caused her an effort. Why had the place grown so suddenly dear to her that it cost her a pang only to turn her back upon it?

Garth and Cathy accompanied her to the station.

"I do not know what I shall do without you, Queen," exclaimed her friend, disconsolately.

"We shall all miss you, Miss Marriott," echoed Garth, brightly. "Take care of yourself, and come back to us as soon as you can." And the pleasant words lingered long in her memory.

But, in spite of herself, her journey was a dull one. Mr. Calcott's sudden death still oppressed her. The day was sultry and sunless; heavy thunder-clouds brooded on the edge of the horizon; the air was surcharged with electricity; a storm seemed impending. It broke upon her long before she arrived at her destination. Queenie sat quietly in her place and watched the fierce play of the elements, half fascinated and half bewildered; a vague excitement seemed roused in her, a strange disturbance and sense of change oppressed her.

"I am just the same, and yet I feel different," she said to herself; "I suppose this storm excites me. I wonder if he meant it when he said he would miss me, or if it was only his way; he must always say something pleasant. I wonder if he would be very sorry if I were never to come back. Would it make any difference to him, really? They are all going to the Abbey this evening; how I wish I could be with them; but this is unkind to my poor Caleb. I am ashamed to think how selfish I am getting. I will try not to think of Hepshaw or Church-Stile House until Monday;" but, in spite of her good resolutions, her thoughts had travelled there again before another half-hour had elapsed.

The storm had ceased, but the rain was still pouring steadily down as Queenie plodded through the streets of Carlisle. She had to pass Granite Lodge on her way to Caleb's; but the sight of the grim portico made her shiver and avert her eyes. She gave quite a sigh of relief when she found herself in the dark entry of Caleb's house, with Molly's bright face smiling at her.

"Ay, the master's in there. Master, master, here's our young lady come an hour before her time," vociferated the good woman, dropping curtseys profusely in her excitement.

"Why, Molly, my dear creature, you need, not to be so ceremonious," exclaimed Queenie, pressing the hard hand between both her own; "it is only Miss Queenie; surely you have not forgotten me in this little time."

"No; but I must not forget my manners to my betters," returned Molly, coloring and dropping another hurried curtsey. "But go in there, my dear young lady. I think he is a bit dazed with his sleep, or something, or he would have come out to meet you."

Caleb rose from his chair rather feebly as she entered; his blue eyes had certainly a dazed look in them.

"Miss Queenie, my dear," he said, rather tremulously, "I am not so young as I was, and things sadly upset me. Molly is a good creature, but her intelligence is limited. I have wanted you badly the last few days, you and the precious lamb."

"Dear Caleb, if I had known that I would certainly have brought Emmie."

"No, no need; it is only an old man's whim; she is better off where she is. I have been trying to write to you the last day or two, Miss Queenie, my dear; but I got so flurried and made such poor beginnings that I was obliged to give it up, not being so young as I was, my dear, and soon upset by what's over and gone."

"I am afraid it has been a sad shock to you," observed Queenie, gravely. Caleb's wrinkled hand was quite cold and shaking, and Queenie rubbed it in a soft, caressing way as she spoke.

"You might have knocked me over with a feather," returned Caleb, reverting to his favorite expression. "It was not so much the shock of his death, though I have worked for him, boy and man, just fifty-five years last Michaelmas, nor the manner of it, for he slept away as peaceful as an infant; it is what came after, the mysterious dealings of Providence; but I must have my pipe, saving your presence, Miss Queenie dear. And you must have something to eat and drink to keep up your strength; and then you and me will have a deal of comfortable talk together, when we are both more composed;" and Queenie, seeing how agitated the old man really was, yielded with her usual sweet unselfishness, and went up to the little room, with the big brown bed, where she and Emmie had slept, with the window overlooking the stone-mason's yard, with the great slabs and blocks of stone.

The rain was dripping on the sheds and the white, unfinished monuments. Queenie stood for a long time listening to the soft patter on the leaves, until she found she was in the Warstdale granite-quarry, sitting amongst the grey stones, with Garth stretched on his plaid beside her, and roused herself with difficulty.

She went down after that, and poured out tea for herself from the little black teapot, and did justice to Molly's cake; and looked at the grate, wreathed with sprays of silvery honesty, and wondered if the rain had cleared up at Hepshaw, and whether they would go after all to the abbey; and then scolded herself for being so stupid and abstracted.

Caleb was rather quiet also, and sat regarding her solemnly through his puffs of smoke; now and then he seemed about to speak, but checked himself. He cleared his throat rather nervously when Queenie had ended her little repast and took a seat beside him.

"Now, dear old friend, I am refreshed, and we can have our talk," she said cheerfully. "Fill your pipe again; you never talk so well without it, you know. I want to tell you about Emmie, and the cottage, and the school, and the dear people at Church-Stile House; if I do not begin now I shall never get through it all in three days."

"Ay, ay; but there is something we must talk about before that; the cottage and the school were all very well once, but now things are different. As I said before, I am not so young as I was, Miss Queenie, dear; and you will not flurry me and make me nervous if I tell you a few of my thoughts?"

"Now, Caleb, you are not going to speak against my little scheme," cried the girl reproachfully. "It is all settled; nothing in the world could shake my purpose. I would rather be the school-mistress at Hepshaw, and earn my daily bread, than be the richest lady in Carlisle."

The old man adjusted his pipe with trembling fingers.

"Do you hear me, Caleb?"

"I hear you, Miss Queenie, my dear."

"Do you believe what I say? When I lie down at night I am so happy that I cannot sleep; I can hardly say my prayers sometimes, I want to sing them instead. Think of Emmie and I having our wish, and living in our own cottage! Will you come and see us there, dear, you and Molly?"

"No, Miss Queenie; I hope not. Listen to me, my dearie. There, my pipe is out, but never mind; somehow I can't smoke it to-night. Supposing you were rich, very rich, Miss Queenie, how about the cottage then?"

"Suppose that you were talking nonsense," she returned, laughing. "Do you know, I have learnt to make bread, and to cook, and to mend, and to iron, and to do all sorts of useful things. I mean my cottage to be the cleanest and the prettiest in Hepshaw. There is quite a large garden, only it was grown over with rank grass; but Captain Fawcett and Mr. Clayton have had it dug up. We mean to plant beans and peas, and all kinds of vegetables; but I shall have roses and mignonette under the windows."

"My dear, you must listen to me; never mind about the cottage just now. What did I say to you, dearie, about the mysterious dealings of Providence? Things happen sometimes that we never expected. What were you saying, my dearie, about being the richest woman in Carlisle?"

The old man's manner was so singular that the girl gazed at him in astonishment.

"Supposing something strange had happened, Miss Queenie," he continued nervously, "and you were to wake up one morning—this morning, say—and find yourself a rich lady, what should you say to that, my dearie?"

"I—I should be sorry, I think. Oh, Caleb! what do you mean?" she implored, roused at last by his agitation.

"No, no; don't say that, Miss Queenie, dear; it is tempting the good Providence that has turned his hard heart, and made him restore to you and that precious lamb fourfold of what was due to you. 'I was sick and ye visited me.' There it is, my dearie; and the blessing has come back to you again when you least expected it."

"Caleb, I cannot bear this," exclaimed the girl, turning suddenly very pale. "Do you see how you are trying me? Is there something I ought to know, and that you are trying to prepare me to hear, something about Mr. Calcott and Emmie?"

"Nay, nay; not about Emmie."

"About myself, then?"

"Ay," patting her hand tremulously, "about yourself, Miss Queenie, dear. You have woke up this morning a rich woman. Mr. Calcott has left you all his money."

"Oh, Caleb! no,"—Queenie's voice rose almost to a cry—"not to me, surely, surely! You must mean Emmie! Emmie is his niece, not I; I am nothing to him."

"Ah! but you ministered to him like a daughter; you were not turned from him by his hard words."

"But I was cruel, and left him alone in his sufferings; I never came back even to wish him good-bye. I have been thinking of myself, not him, all this time. Caleb, I can never take his money, it belongs to Emmie; I can never defraud Emmie," and Queenie leaned her head on her old friend's shoulder and burst into a perfect passion of tears.

Caleb stroked her hair gently. "Hush, my pretty; there is something like five thousand a year, all in safe investments. But the lawyer will be round here presently, and tell you all about that. He has left me an annuity of three hundred a-year in return for fifty-five years of faithful services. Think of that, Miss Queenie! You might have knocked me down with a feather when I heard that."

"Yes; but Emmie," she sobbed. "I cannot defraud Emmie."

"Bless you, Miss Queenie, dear, you are not defrauding the poor innocent. If the money had not come to you it would have gone to some hospital. Have you forgotten his vow, that his sister and her child should never inherit a farthing of his money? No doubt he repents these rash words of his, and he means you to take care of Emmie, and give her the benefit of his wealth."

"Are you sure, quite sure, that he meant that?"

"Positive and certain, my pretty."

"And you do not think I shall be wrong to accept his bounty for her sake?"

"Surely not. It would be quarrelling with the dispensations of Providence."

"I feel so oppressed," cried the girl, laying her hand on her bosom; "there is a weight here as though I were sorry and not glad. If he had given me a little I could have taken it and have been thankful, but so much crushes me somehow."

"How about the cottage now?" interposed Caleb jocosely, trying to rally her, but she stopped him with quivering lips.

"Hush! I can bear no more, not to-night. Did you say the lawyer was coming? Let me go away for a little, I feel sick and giddy, and I want to understand it all."

"Then run away, my dearie, and I will send for you when he comes; there's a bit of a letter or a paper that he wants to give you."

"She is as cold and white as a bit of marble; I wonder what's come to the pretty creature," he muttered when he was left alone. "She is not heart glad, I can see that. She has a scared look in her face, as though she has lost her foothold somehow."

Queenie had regained her calmness by the time the lawyer made his appearance. She listened to his explanations and instructions silently but with composure, only her compressed lips and closely-locked hands showed the intense strain of feeling under the quietude of her manner.

"Five thousand a-year; you are sure that is the sum mentioned," she said, when he paused once.

"Yes; house property, and investments in the funds, consols, and various securities will yield about that sum, I should think. The furniture is to be sold, but the plate and valuables are yours. There are various legacies to old servants, and a pension or two; but to-morrow we can go over particularly into details."

"And it is all for my own use and benefit?"

"Exactly so; the terms of the will are binding. There is to be no partition or deed of gift to any other person during your lifetime. There is a small sealed paper addressed to you, which Mr. Calcott gave into my hand, and which you had better read at once, it may throw some light on his conduct."

Queenie took the paper. It was written in a feeble, almost illegible, hand, and was not easy to decipher; the beginning was strangely abrupt.

"I have told you that I have no niece; I must wash my hands of the child. When a man has taken an oath upon his lips it is too late then to talk of repentance. But I can trust her to Frank Marriott's daughter. Mind, girl; I say that I can trust you, and a dead man's trust is sacred.

"My money is my own to do with it as I will. I have no relation in the world, for the child is nothing to me. Do you remember telling me that you were sorry for me, that no one would shed tears over my grave? I can recal your words now. 'It must be so dreadful not to want love, to be able to do without it.' Child, child, what possessed you to say such words to me?

"Well, you are wrong; Caleb will be sorry for me, the poor fellow has a faithful heart; and, if I mistake not, you will shed a tear or two when you hear that I have gone. Do you recollect how you reproached me the first time I saw you? 'Though you were dying of hunger,' you said, 'you would not crave my bounty.' You told me that I had given you hard, sneering words; that I was refusing to help you in your bitter strait; that I was leaving you, young and single-handed, to fight in this cruel world. Girl, those were hard words to haunt a dying man's pillow. Well, well, I am dying, and I know you have forgiven me, though I have a wish to hear you say it once; but I know you forgave me when you gave me that kiss. Ah, I have not forgotten that. I am leaving you all my money, think of that! to Frank Marriott's daughter! It has been a curse to me, mind you turn it into a blessing. Remember, I trust the child to you. Perhaps in the many mansions,—but there, Emily was a saint, and I am a poor miserable sinner. The child is like her mother, so take care of her. If Emily and I meet—but there's no knowing—I should like to tell her the child has suffered no wrong,—the many mansions—there may be room for Andrew Calcott; who knows? There, God bless you; God bless you both. I am getting drowsy and must sleep;" but here the letter broke off abruptly.

"I found him exhausted with the effect of writing," observed Mr. Duncan, turning his head away that he might not see Queenie's agitated face; "he made me seal it up in his presence, and then begged us all to leave him. In the morning the nurse found him lying as you have heard, with his face to the light; he had been dead some hours. I was quite struck with the change in him when I went up; he looked years younger. There was a smile on his face, and all the lines seemed smoothed away. He had been a great sufferer all his life, and that made him something of a misanthrope."

"Yes, yes; no one understood him, and even I was hard upon him," returned Queenie, bursting into tears again. Ah, why had she forgotten him? Did she know that the dead hand would have been stretched out to her with a blessing in it for her and the child?

CHAPTER VI.

QUEENIE'S WHIM.

"She knew not what was lacking,
    Knew not until it came;
She gave it the name of friendship,
    But that was not its name.
And the truth could not be hidden
    From her own clear-seeing eyes.
When the name her own heart whispered,
    And whispered too, 'Be wise.'"—Isa Craig-Knox.

The storm had wholly ceased, but a few snatches of summer lightning still played on the ragged edge of the clouds when Queenie at last bade her old friend good night, and went up to her little room, to think over the bewildering events of the day. The air was still oppressed and sultry. The white slabs of stone in the mason's yard shone dimly in the darkness; the wet ivy scattered a shower of drops on the girl's uncovered head as she leaned out, as though gasping for air. A faint perfume of saturated roses and drowned lavender pervaded everything. A blue-grey moth trailed his draggled wings feebly across the sill. The dark-scented air seemed full of mystery and silence.

Queenie leant her head upon her hands and tried to think, but in reality she was too numb and bewildered. "What has happened to me? why am I more sorry than glad about it all? how have I deserved it? and what am I to do with all this wealth that has come to me?" she kept saying to herself over and over again.

A few hundreds would have sent her back rejoicing and triumphant. A modest competency, an assured income, would have lightened the whole burthen of her responsibility, and made her young heart happy; but all this wealth! It would not be too much to say that for the time she was simply crushed by it.

"Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient to me." Queenie, as well as Garth Clayton, had ever loved that prayer of the wise Agar. If she could have chosen her lot in life it would have been in some such words as these. To have sufficient, but not too much, was the very sum and substance of her wishes.

Now a strange sense of trouble and loss oppressed her. Her plans for the future were strangely disturbed; a moral earthquake had shattered her airy castles, and she was looking mournfully at their wrecks. Her cottage and her work, must she relinquish both? Was Emmie's childish notion of happiness to be frustrated also? "I would rather be the school-mistress at Hepshaw than the richest lady in Carlisle." How passionately she had said those words, and yet she had meant them from her very heart.

And then, with a sudden sharp pang, she remembered that it was one of Garth Clayton's peculiarities to dislike riches for women. A certain conversation that had passed between him and his brother occurred to her with painful vividness.

One of Garth's school friends had just married a wealthy widow.

"What a lucky fellow young Musgrave is," Ted had grumbled. "He was never a fellow for work, and now he need not do another stroke of business for the remainder of his life. See if I don't pick up a rich wife for myself one of these days."

"What! you would consent to live on your wife's money!" returned his brother, with a face of disgust. "You would help yourself out of her pocket, in order that you might eat the bread of idleness! a nice manly notion that."

"Why should a man be bound to work for both if he does not choose?" replied Ted, sulkily. "I thought this was an enlightened age, and that the rights of women would entitle them to the honor of helping to be bread-winner. Don't pull such a long face, Garth; I wouldn't marry any girl if she were weighted in gold unless I liked her, only I mean to invest my affections prudently."

"I don't think I could ever fall in love with a rich woman," was Garth's emphatic answer. "I believe I am peculiar on this point. If I ever marry, my wife must be dependent on me, not I on her. Why one of the chief pleasures of matrimony must be to bully your wife sometimes, just to see how nicely she takes it; but if she has all the pounds, shillings, and pence on her side, she might turn round and bully me."

"Garth, how can you be so absurd," broke in Cathy.

"You see, a husband ought to have all the power," he continued, in his droll, half-serious way. "The threat of withholding a new dress would reduce any woman to a state of abject submission. I should like my wife, provided I ever have one, which is not likely if you are going to be so extravagant, Cathy, I should like her to coax and wheedle me out of all her ribbons and fineries; but if she could demand a cheque for a new silk dress whenever she liked-'I should thank you to remember, Mr. Clayton, who it is who brought you all that money'—why what a fool I should feel."

"Langley, do hear him; when he pays all our bills without looking at a single item."

"Ah, but you are not my wife, my dear, that makes all the difference. The immaculate creature whom I honor with my regard must be made aware that she is marrying a man with a hobby. Why," finished Garth, with a sudden glow of strong feeling on his face, "it must destroy the very nature and meaning of things not to feel that your wife is dependent upon you for everything."

How well Queenie recalled this conversation. How truly it spoke of the nature of the man—his sturdy independence, his pride and love of authority, and also of the tenderness that loved to shield and protect.

Garth always cared most for what was dependent on him; feminine self-reliance seldom pleased him. Queenie's independence was simply owing to circumstances; she was strong-minded and yet not self-asserting; her force of will seldom came to the surface. In every-day life, amongst those who loved her, she was singularly submissive and yielding, and from the first she had placed implicit trust in Garth Clayton, in a way that had touched him to the heart.

A bitter reflection crossed her mind now—Garth was good to her; he had in a way taken her under his protection, and was showing her much brotherly kindness; would he not lose interest in her now she was rich? Queenie remembered how coldly he had talked of a certain school friend of Langley's, a young heiress, who had lately settled some miles from Hepshaw. Langley had once or twice proposed driving over to see her, but Garth had always negatived the notion.

"Caroline is such a good creature," Langley would say; "she is not pretty, but thoroughly nice, and so bright."

"Then go over, by all means, and see her, my dear; but I must ask you to excuse me from accompanying you." And when Cathy had pressed him, he had seemed put out, and had muttered, "that he had something better to do than to run after girls all day, especially when they were heiresses."

Queenie thought of all this with a certain dismay and sinking of heart. She was an heiress herself, and he disliked heiresses. Perhaps, when he knew that, his manner would change; it would become cooler and more distant. How could she ever bring herself to bear that?

The thought of the cottage became every moment dearer. He was furnishing it for her now. He and Langley had been up to the sale, but the whole business had been kept a secret from her.

"You know you are to leave all these details to me," he had remarked casually on his return. Queenie was quite aware how often Cathy and Langley were closeted with him in his study. Cathy would come out from these interviews very round-eyed and mysterious, and with an air of importance that amused Queenie. She had a notion once or twice that the pile of new towels and dusters in Langley's basket were not for the use of the inhabitants of Church-Stile House; but she dared not inquire the truth.

Was this pleasant surprise they were planning to be in vain? And then again, was she not bound by her work? The Vicar and church-wardens had elected her as mistress of the Hepshaw girls' school, was she not bound to fulfil her duties until the vacancy could be filled?

Queenie's young head and heart were in a whirl; regret, pride, pleasure, and yet pain, each in turn predominated. "What shall I do? what ought I to do?" she kept repeating; and then all at once a look of amusement, almost of glee, crossed her face. "I have it! but will it do? will it be right? Oh! what will Caleb say? And then if he, if Mr. Clayton, found out would he not think it childish and whimsical to the last degree; but I can't help it, I must have breathing time and a little happiness first."

When Queenie had reached this conclusion she laid her head on the pillow, but it was not easy to still her throbbing pulses; for almost the first time in her healthy young life sleep entirely forsook her. The morning sun was flooding the little chamber, the birds were twittering and pluming themselves amongst the ivy, before a brief forgetfulness sealed her senses; a confused dream followed. She thought she was standing on a lonely sand-bank, when suddenly it changed to shifting gold beneath her feet; she felt herself sinking, and cried out to some one to save her; and woke to find Molly's homely face bending over her, with a great bunch of roses in her hand.

"I have been out to the market, and I bought these of a poor decent-looking body. The master's been down nigh upon an hour, but he would not let me disturb you before this," cried Molly, dropping one of her old-fashioned curtseys.

Queenie laid her hot cheek against the cool crimson hearts of the roses. "Oh, Molly! you dear, kind creature, how delicious; and how thankful I am that you woke me. Do you know, you have saved me from a horrible death. I was drowning in gold, sinking in it; it was all hard and glittering, and seemed to strangle me. How sweet the roses and the sunshine are after it. Oh!" with a little whimsical shudder, "I wish I had not woke up such a very rich woman, Molly."

Queenie was in a curious mood all breakfast-time; she would not talk sensibly, and she would persist in turning a deaf ear to all Caleb's scraps of advice and wisdom. When their frugal meal was finished she dragged Caleb's great elbow-chair to the open window, and placed herself on the low window-seat beside it. "Now, Caleb, I want to talk to you," she said coaxingly.

"But, Miss Queenie dear, it is getting late, and you have over-slept yourself, you know; and there is the office, and Mr. Duncan; he will be expecting us."

"What is the good of being an heiress if one cannot do as one likes, and keep lawyers and those sort of people waiting?" returned Queenie, coolly. "I am a different person to what I was yesterday; so different that I have to pinch myself now and then to be sure that I am really Queenie Marriott, and not some one else. I feel like that man in the 'Arabian Nights' Entertainment,' only I forget his name."

"But, my dear young lady," pleaded Caleb, helplessly.

"Now, Caleb, you are to be good, and listen to me. I am quite serious, quite in earnest; and if you give me any trouble I shall just take the next train back to Hepshaw, and leave you and Mr. Duncan to do as you like with all this dreadful money."

Caleb held up his hands in amazement. "Dreadful money!" he gasped.

"It is very rude to repeat people's words," replied the girl, with a little stamp of her foot. "It is dreadful to me; it has been suffocating and strangling me all night. I can't be rich all at once like this, it takes my breath away. Do you hear me, Caleb? I don't mean to be rich for another twelvemonth."

"Aye, what? I am not as young as I was, and maybe I am a little hard of hearing, my dearie;" and Caleb looked at her rather vacantly.

"Listen to me, dear," she repeated, more gently, laying her hand on his sleeve to enforce attention. "I have been awake all night; the thought of all this money coming to me unearned and undeserved oppressed and made me quite unhappy. I do not want it," hesitating, and reddening slightly over her words; "it has interfered with my plans, and turned everything in my life topsy-turvy. It is not that I am ungrateful, or that I may not want it some day, but I must be free, free to do my own work, free to live my own humble life, free as a gipsy or Bohemian, for one twelvemonth longer."

"Miss Queenie, dear, I call this tempting Providence," began the old man, solemnly. "These riches are yours, and you must use them. Why bless your dear heart, they are earned and deserved over and over again, and every one who knows you will say so."

"These riches are mine, and I suppose I ought to say thank God for them, and I think I do in my heart, for Emmie's sake," she replied, solemnly; "but, Caleb, I am determined for another year I will not use them. I will take a little, perhaps; you and Mr. Duncan shall give me enough for present use; but for a year I will be the school-mistress at Hepshaw, and nothing else."

"The school-mistress at Hepshaw!—five thousand a-year! Heaven bless us and save us! I am getting dazed, Miss Queenie. The school-mistress at Hepshaw!"

"Yes; I am bound to my work, and I do not mean to shrink from it. I mean to hide up my riches, to keep them a grand secret even from Emmie; to live in my little cottage among my kind friends, and work and be free and happy for a whole year. Only one year, Caleb," caressing him, for tears of disappointment stood in his eyes; "only one little year out of my whole life."

"And what then, Miss Queenie?"

"Then I must be brave, and buckle on my golden harness. Don't be afraid, dear old friend, I do not mean to shrink from my responsibilities; I would not if they were really and truly to crush me," with a smile, followed by a sigh. "I only want to have time to get used to the thought. I must teach and fit myself to be a rich woman before I am one. Now you must promise to keep my secret, you and Molly, and Mr. Duncan. No one knows me; no one need concern themselves about my business. I was Miss Titheridge's under-teacher, and now I am the school-mistress at Hepshaw."

"But, Miss Queenie—"

"Caleb, you must promise me. Hush," kneeling down before him, and bringing her bright face on a level with his; "I will not hear another word. It is a whim, dear; just Queenie's whim, and that is all."

"I saw it was a bit of girl's nonsense, but I couldn't gainsay her coaxing ways," as Caleb said to Mr. Duncan afterwards. "She always had a will of her own, had Miss Queenie; but in the main she is right and sensible, and has an old head on young shoulders. It is just a sort of play-acting. She has set her heart on this school and cottage of hers, and nothing will do for her but to go back to it."

"Marie Antoinette at Trianon! I have a notion that there is more in this than meets the eye," argued the lawyer shrewdly, with a shrug of his shoulders. "Well, well, Mr. Runciman, it is none of our business; the girl is absolute mistress of her own fortune. Morton and I are only joint executors, and bound to see things are right and fair; she might spend it all on that charity school of hers, and we should have no right to interfere."

"But, all the same, it is a bit of pure nonsense," returned Caleb, distrustful for the first time of his favorite's good sense.

"Don't trouble your head about it, Runciman," was the good-humored reply; "the best of women have their crazy fits sometimes. Mark my words, before six months are over she will have changed her tune. Either the truth will have leaked out, or she will be impatient to try her heiress-ship; there's no knowing what will happen. She has asked me for fifty pounds; in another month it will be a hundred. Bless you, when her fingers have got used to the feel of bank-notes they will slip through them pretty readily."

Queenie had got her way, but she found it somewhat difficult to pacify her old friend. She had just been out to buy some simple unexpensive mourning for herself and Emmie, and was standing by the table fingering the stuffs as he entered.

"Silk and crape, that is what you ought to have worn, Miss Queenie," grumbled Caleb, with a dissatisfied face; but the girl only shook her head.

"Crape is such dusty, inconvenient wear in the country, and Emmie is such a child," she returned; "these simple stuffs will be far more suitable. Fancy my wearing silk dresses in that little old barn of a school-room, or in our tiny cottage!"

"This is all of a piece with your fantastical scheme. Cambric! why Molly could wear that," continued Caleb, with the same rueful visage. "Dear, dear, what a tempting of Providence, hoarding and hiding in this miserly way, Miss Queenie. Why, as I said to Molly, our young lady can take one of those big new houses they are building near us, and have her carriage and her riding-horse; and no doubt she will visit at the Deanery, and at Rose Castle, and be an out-and-out fine lady; but I never thought it would come to this," dropping his hands on his knees in a low-spirited way.

Queenie laughed, but she could not help an involuntary shudder at Caleb's picture of her future greatness. A house at Carlisle, a carriage, even prospective visits at the Deanery would be poor compensation if she must resign her friends at Hepshaw. Would not her fortune be productive of greater happiness, of more enduring pleasures than those Caleb offered her? "If I must be rich I will be rich in my own way," thought the girl, a little rebelliously; and all through that day and the next a thousand schemes and fancies flitted before her, as unsubstantial and impracticable as such airy castles generally prove themselves.

A new and perfectly strange feeling of timidity came over her as the time drew near for her return to Hepshaw. Some complicated business arrangements had compelled her to lengthen her three days' visit into a week. Cathy had written to scold her for her delay; and Queenie had to ransack her brain to discover plausible excuses.

"Garth has just come in from the works, and he bids me tell you that you must positively return on Saturday evening, as the school is to re-open on Monday," wrote Cathy. "They are getting on so nicely at the cottage that it will be quite ready for occupation in another ten days; and Langley has discovered a little jewel of a maid, who will just exactly suit you. Do you remember her—Patience Atkinson, the rosy-faced girl who lived next door to the wheelwright's?"

Cathy's letter, with its girlish overflow of spirits and affectionate nonsense, caused Queenie a few moments' uneasiness. "I shall seem to be what I am not. I wonder if I am doing wrong to deceive them," she thought, with a sudden throb of startled honesty. "No; after all, it is my own business. I may spend, or hoard, or fling it all to the winds, and no one would have a right to complain of me."

But, nevertheless, there was a guilty consciousness that made her for the first time shrink from meeting Garth Clayton's eye.

It was evening when she arrived at Church-Stile House. Ted had met her at the station; Cathy and Emmie had come flying down the lane to meet them, and had greeted her rapturously. As she came across the moat, with the girls hanging on either arm, she saw Garth at the hall-door watching them.

"Why, what a truant you have been," he said, in his pleasant way. "We thought our new school-mistress had given us the slip. Cathy had got all sorts of notions in her head. One was that Mr. Calcott had left you a legacy. She narrated wonderful dreams to us one morning, of how you had a great fortune, and were going to marry a marquis."

"Cathy is an inveterate dreamer," returned Queenie, avoiding Mr. Clayton's eyes as she spoke. How constrained her voice was; she was hot and cold in a moment. How strange that he should address her in this manner. Was it a presentiment or something?

"You are pale and tired; your visit to Carlisle has not agreed with you," he returned, following her into the drawing-room, where Langley was waiting for them. "It has brought back unpleasant memories, eh?" with an abruptness, not unkindly, but which made Queenie still more nervous.

"Yes; and I believe I am tired," she stammered. "Mr. Runciman was very good to me, but he found it hard to let me go; that worried me rather; that and other things,"—the truth reluctantly drawn from her by those clear grey eyes.

"I saw that at once," was the prompt reply, and then he left her to his sister's care. But later on in the evening, when she was rested and refreshed, he returned again to the charge.

"I suppose Mr. Calcott has left a great deal of money? I did not read in the paper at what amount his property was valued, but I suppose it was pretty considerable."

"Yes; I believe so," returned Queenie faintly. They were sitting round the open window; the lamp on the centre table cast only a dim light on their faces. Langley had been playing to them, and just now the music had ceased.

"Have you any idea how he has disposed of it? Every one thought there would be a new wing added to the hospital. He had not a relative in the world belonging to him, except your little sister Emmie."