CHAPTER XIII.

"I KNEW YOU WOULD BE SORRY FOR US."

"When they see her their tears will cease to flow,
Lest they should fall on this pure pale brow,
    Or the lilies the child is holding.
With symbol flowers in stainless hand,
She goes by the great white throne to stand,
    Where Jesus His lambs is folding."
                                                        Helen Marion Burnside.

As the door closed upon the bereaved parents, Queenie heard a low "Thank God" behind her, and immediately afterwards Langley crept softly away. When Queenie went back to her, she found her lying on her bed shedding tears quietly. The strained and fixed expression of her face had relaxed; the worn nerves and brain had at last found relief.

"Let me cry, it will do me good," she said, when the girl would have hushed her. "If you only knew how long it is since I have been able to shed a tear. I felt as though I were turning into stone. But now—ah, if she will only be good to him I think I could bear anything."

Queenie was obliged to modify her opinion of Mrs. Chester as she watched her during the trying hours that followed. Whatever sins Gertrude had committed against her husband and child during their brief married life she felt must be partially condoned by her present self-forgetfulness.

It may be doubted perhaps whether she had loved her child while it lived with a mother's strong passion. Certain words that little Nan had uttered in her baby language had given a contrary impression. "Mammie did say, 'Go away, Nan,'" she had observed more than once. "Mammie always so tired when Nan looks at her." Might it not have been that, absorbed in her own selfish repinings and discontent, she had refused to gather up the sweetness of that infant life into hers until it was too late? That she was suffering now, no one could doubt who looked at her. The father's heart might be broken within him, but his was the agony of bereavement. No self-reproach festered his wound; no bitterness of remorse was his. But who could measure the anguish of that unhappy mother?

Queenie watched her half fascinated as she glided softly from place to place, a graceful, dark-eyed woman. The tall figure, once so full and commanding, was attenuated and bowed as though with weakness. Bright patches of color burnt on the thin cheeks: soft streaks of gray showed in the thick coils of hair; and how low and suffering were the once sharp, querulous tones.

It was a mournful little household in Brierwood Cottage. Mr. Chester had refused to leave the place where his child was. Little Nan still lay in Emmie's room. Queenie had given up hers, and had betaken herself to Patience's little chamber. Emmie was still at Church-Stile House.

Queenie used to go out to her work, and leave Gertrude alone with her husband. On her return she would see them sitting hand in hand talking softly of their child. Nothing but his wife's presence seemed to console the unhappy father. Only she or Langley could rouse him or induce him to take food. Once when they thought they were alone Queenie saw Gertrude take her husband's head between her hands and kiss it softly, and lay it on her breast. "Harry, my poor Harry," she whispered over him, with a perfect passion of pity. Did the warning voice within her admonish her that she too must soon leave him and join her child?

Langley came and went on brief ministering errands, but she never remained long. Now and then, when all was quiet in the little room above, she would go in and kneel down beside the baby coffin. What sort of prayers ascended from that lonely heart that had missed its way so early in life? "Little Nan, I would have laid down my life to have saved yours," she whispered, pressing her lips to the wood.

One day Captain Fawcett stood there with Emmie beside him. Emmie's great blue eyes dilated and widened with awe and wonder at the sight of the tiny white face. The little coffin, the bed, the room were perfectly strewn with flowers. Great boxes of rare hot-house flowers sent from Carlisle, and directed in an unknown hand, had arrived that morning at the cottage. Gertrude was sitting weaving a cross in the room down-stairs, while her husband watched her.

"Is that Nan? it looks like a stone angel lying under a quilt of roses and lilies. It is just like a little angel that I used to see in the cathedral," whispered Emmie.

"Aye, it is Nan; it is just as my girl looked when her mother dressed her up for the last time in her flowers," returned Captain Fawcett, tremulously. A tear rolled down his grizzled moustache; but Emmie's eyes only widened and grew solemn.

"It is a pity, such pretty flowers; and they will have so many there," she continued, reflectively. "Aren't you glad that Alice has all those roses? Do you know, I often dream about your girl. She was like me, you know, only she had long hair. Last night I thought she and Nan came running to meet me; they were laughing so, and their hands were full of roses."

"Bless your pretty fancies, my darling. Well, I dream of my little maid often myself, and she always comes to me and says, 'Father.' I can feel her little hand slipping into mine. And then when I wake I am lonesome somehow. Poor little Ailie."

"You must not say poor," returned Emmie, pressing heavily against his knee; "she is not poor at all; she was very tired, you know, and now she is rested. Perhaps Nan would have been tired too if she had stayed longer."

"Ah, so she might, poor lammie," with a heavy sigh.

"The world is such a tiring place," continued Emmie, moralizing in her quaint childish way. "Some one is always crying in it. If it were not for leaving Queenie alone, I think I should like to go too, and walk about the golden streets with Alice and Nan; there are such lots of children there, and it is all bright, and nobody cries and looks sad and miserable."

"Let us go and look for blackberries: the Missus is so fond of blackberries," interposed the Captain, hurriedly, for Emmie's dilated eyes filled him with alarm. The child's sensitive nature was depressed by the sadness that surrounded her; a whole world of pathos, a strange involved meaning, lay behind those simple words.

"The world is such a tiring place; some one is always crying in it." Alas! yes, little Emmie. Out of His bright heaven God looks down on the upturned wet faces of myriads of His creatures. What seas of tears roll between the earth and His mercy! If the concentrated pain of humanity could be condensed into a single groan, the whole universe could not bear the terror of that sound, reverberating beyond the bound of the uttermost stars, silencing the very music of heaven.

Such a tiring place! True, most true, little Emmie. A place where mistakes are made and never rectified; a place where a joyous meeting is too often replaced by a sad good-bye; where hearts that cleave together are sundered; where the best loved is the soonest taken; where under the sunshine lie the shadows, and the shadows lengthen the farther we walk.

Such a tiring place! since we must work and weep, and live out the life that seems to us so imperfect; since sweet blossoms fail to bring fruit, and thorns lurk underneath the roses. Yet are the letters written up, graven and indelible, on every mutilated life: "What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter."

So one bright summer's morning, loving hands lifted little Nan and laid her in her resting-place by the lime-tree walk, and the childless parents followed hand in hand.

The churchyard was crowded with sympathizing faces. Queenie was there at the head of her scholars, and Langley stood near her, leaning heavily on her brother's arm. When the service was over the children stepped up two and two, and dropped their simple offerings of rustic wreaths and flowers into the open grave. One child had fashioned a rude cross of poppies and corn, and flung it red and gleaming at the mother's feet. Gertrude took it up and kissed it, and placed it tenderly with the rest. The child, a chubby-faced creature scarcely more than an infant, looked up at her with great black eyes.

"Oo' little gell will like my fowers," she lisped, as Gertrude burst into tears.

Queenie felt very heavy-hearted when, the next day, the Chesters left her and went back to their lonely home. Gertrude kissed her, and tried to say a few words of thanks.

"You have been a good Samaritan to me and Harry, Miss Marriott," she said, in a broken voice; "you have taken us in, and tried to bind up our wounds with oil and wine, and yet you were almost a stranger to us."

"I shall come again. I cannot keep away from there," added Mr. Chester, with a yearning look towards the place where the mortal remains of his darling were laid. "No, I cannot thank you, Miss Marriott, I never can do so."

"Oh, hush! go away, please. Would not any one have done it in my place?" cried the girl, with a little sob. She leant against the little gate, watching them until the phaeton was out of sight. Garth, who was coming down the lane, crossed over the road and joined her.

"So you have your little home to yourself again," he said, looking down at her kindly. "Ah, well, it has been a miserable week to you and to all of us. No one can help feeling for poor Chester; and as for that wife of his—"

"Well!" interrupted Queenie, fixing her strange, fathomless eyes on the young man, as he left his sentence unfinished. Every now and then they startled people with their strange haunting beauty; they startled Garth now, for he became suddenly confused.

"All I meant was, that one can plainly see that Mrs. Chester is not long for this world. Stewart says so plainly, and she must be conscious of it herself. One can tell that there is trouble in store for that poor fellow."

"Yes, and she has begun to love him too late," replied Queenie. "All these years lost, and only to understand each other at the last; there does seem such a mystery in things, Mr. Clayton."

"Not at all; he has only married the wrong woman," returned Garth, coolly; "hundreds of men do that, and have to rue their mistake. You are only a girl, you do not know the world as we do," continued the young man, a little loftily. "There are all sorts of temptations and influences. One needs all one's wisdom and strength of mind to steer clear among all the shoals and quicksands one finds in life."

"It was Mr. Chester's own fault marrying the wrong woman," persisted Queenie, with a little heat.

Garth's loftiness and burst of eloquence did not move her in the least. His cool statement of facts was rank heresy in her eyes. What was it to her that hundreds of men had made matrimonial mistakes? In her woman's creed, that code of purity and innocence, it was a simple question of right and wrong. To love one woman and marry another, however expedient in a worldly point of view, was a sin for which there was no grace of forgiveness.

"Men make their own fate; it is for them to choose. No one need make mistakes with their eyes open," continued the girl, with a little impatience and scorn of this matter-of-fact philosophy. "If they make a poor thing of their own life it is not for them to complain."

"Ah, you are hard on us. You are only a girl; you do not know," returned the young man, looking down from the altitude of his superior wisdom into Queenie's wide-open indignant eyes with exasperating calmness. "Your life compared to ours is like a mill-stream beside a rushing river: one is all movement; the strong currents draw hither and thither."

"The mill-stream is often the deeper," was the petulant answer.

Garth laughed; he was not at all discomposed by Queenie's impatient argument. He would have enjoyed having it out with her if he had had time, but, as he told himself, he had more important business in hand.

"By-the-bye, you are making me waste my precious moments as usual," he observed, good-humoredly; "and I have never given you Langley's message. She and Cathy want you to come up to our place this evening; they think the cottage must be so dull now your guests have gone."

"How kind and thoughtful of Langley!" returned Queenie; and now the brown eyes had a happy sparkle in them. There was no place so dear to her as Church-Stile House. If Garth could only have known it!

"You will be doing them a kindness by cheering them up a little, as both Ted and I will be away. Have you heard," he continued, gravely, "that they are rather in trouble at Crossgill Vicarage. I had a letter this morning from Dora, I mean Miss Cunningham," went on Garth, coloring a little bashfully over his mistake.

"Are you going there? I hope there is not much the matter," asked Queenie, in a measured voice. There was no sparkle now in her eyes. The evening was to be spent without him; and then Miss Cunningham had written to him at the first hint of trouble. She had sought him, and not Langley.

"Oh, as to that, she does not say much in her letter. Miss Cunningham is not one to make a fuss about anything. It is Florence who is ill, and she and her father mean to go over to Brussels. Stay, I have her note here," producing it from his breast-pocket. "You can judge for yourself there is not much in it; but then Miss Cunningham is one of the quiet sort."

Queenie took the note "a little reluctantly. Dora wrote a large, business-like hand. Those firm, well-formed characters had nothing irresolute in them. It was curt and concise.

"Dear Mr. Clayton," it began, "my father wishes you to know that we have had bad news from Brussels. Darling Flo is very ill. Madame Shleïfer says it is typhoid fever; but as there are no unfavorable symptoms, there is nothing serious to be apprehended. One must make allowances for Beattie's nervousness; girls of seventeen are apt to exaggerate. Still papa and I cannot help feeling anxious, and we shall start by the early train to-morrow. If you could come over this evening we shall be glad, as papa wants to consult you about a little business. The porch-room shall be got ready for you, as I know you will make an effort to come to us in our trouble."

"She does not say very much, but one can read between the lines. Florence is the youngest sister, and her favorite. I know she is terribly anxious," observed Garth, as Queenie returned the note in silence. "Well, I must be off; my trap will be round directly. You three girls will have a cosy evening without me I expect. Good-bye till to-morrow," and Garth touched his felt hat and ran down the lane.

"He might have shaken hands," thought Queenie, as she walked slowly back into the cottage.

The empty room felt very dull, but still it would have been better there than in Church-Stile House without him. On the whole, the evening was a failure. Cathy was in one of her quiet moods, and could not be roused into interest about anything. Langley looked paler than usual, and complained of head-ache, and Emmie was listless and restless. As for Queenie, she took herself to task severely for all manner of miserable fancies as she walked back to the cottage in the darkness.

"What is the use of your perpetually crying for the moon?" she said indignantly to herself. "Are you going to spoil your life and other people's with such nonsense? It is not for you to say that he is marrying the wrong woman. She is a hundred times superior to you, and I suppose he thinks so. Why is he to be blamed because he sees no beauty in your little brown face? You are nothing to him but Miss Marriott, the village school-mistress."

But that would not do, so she began again, looking at herself in the glass and crying softly. "Yes, you are a poor thing, and I pity you, but I am disappointed in you as well. You are not a bit better or more to be trusted than other girls. You know you are jealous of this Dora Cunningham; that you hate the very sound of her name, as though she had not a better right to him than you. Has she not known him all her life? and could she know him without loving him? Why," with a little sob, that sounded very pathetic in the silence, "as though any one could help it. Even Emmie loves him, and follows him about like a dog everywhere. I am not a bit ashamed of my affection for him. I would rather live lonely, as I shall live, and care about him in the way I do, receiving little daily kindnesses at his hand, than marry any other man. It is not much of a life perhaps," went on the girl, with a broken breath or two; "it does not hold as much as other people's; but such as it is, I would rather live it than go away elsewhere, and forget, and perhaps be forgotten."

Queenie was preaching a desolate little sermon to herself, but it edified and comforted her. It was only the eddying of the mill-stream when a stone had been flung into it, she told herself by-and-bye. She would be reasonable, and cease to rebel against an inevitable fate.

Garth's evening promised to be more successful. He had driven himself up to the Vicarage in the red sunset light that he loved, and Dora had come out into the porch to welcome him with her sweetest smile.

"How good of you to come! papa and I both wanted you so," putting up a white little hand to stroke the mare's glossy coat. "Poor old Bess, how hot she looks, and how fast you must have driven her; you are quite twenty minutes before the time we expected you."

"Have you been looking out for me? I am glad I was wanted," returned Garth, leaning down to take possession of the little hand. "I suppose Bess and I were both in a hurry to be here," he continued, as he looked down with kindly scrutiny at the dainty figure beside him.

Dora was a little paler than usual, and the blue eyes were a trifle heavy, but somehow her appearance had never pleased him better. She had dressed herself with even greater care than was customary with her. The soft cream-colored dress, with its graceful folds, rested the eye with a sense of fitness. One tiny rosebud gave a mere hint of color.

"I am glad you wanted me," he went on, with a little stress on the personal pronoun. "I must have been engaged indeed to have remained away at such a time."

"Yes, indeed. Poor papa, and poor dear Flo!" returned Dora, earnestly, leading him into the hall. "How could we help being very anxious and unhappy, and after Beattie's miserable letter too? But that is the worst of girls; they cannot help exaggerating things."

"I was afraid from what you said that poor Florence is very ill."

"She is ill, of course; one is always afraid of typhoid fever for a growing girl; and then papa has such a horror of German doctors. I must confess myself that I have every faith in Madame Shleïfer—such a judicious, temperate letter, and so different to poor Beattie's, who is crying herself to sleep every night, and making herself ill."

"But Madame Shleïfer does not love Florence as Beatrix does; she is liable to take alarm less easily," returned Garth, moved at this picture of the warm-hearted, impetuous girl he remembered so well.

"Beatrix's affection is not greater than ours," replied Dora, calmly. "Florence is the youngest, and I have brought her up from such a child. It is inconsiderate and a pity to write like that, and has upset papa dreadfully; but, as I told him, it was only Beatrix's way. I am afraid you will not find us very cheerful company to-night," looking up with a certain bright dewiness in her eyes—not exactly tears, but a suspicion of them.

Dora never cried, as he knew he had once heard her say that it never mended matters, and only spoiled the complexion; but as she looked up at him now with a certain unbending of the lip, and a shining mist in her blue eyes, he felt himself touched and softened.

"I cannot bear to see you in such trouble," he said, with involuntary tenderness in his tone.

"I knew you would be sorry for us," she returned simply, not moving away from him, but taking the sympathy as though it belonged to her of right. "It was so good of you to come all this distance just for papa and me."

CHAPTER XIV.

"IT MUST BE YEA, YEA, OR NAY, NAY, WITH ME."

"Silent she had been, but she raised her face;
    'And will you end,' said she, 'this half-told tale?'"
                                                                                        Jean Ingelow.

Garth felt a little excited as he went up to the porch-room to dress for dinner; to put on his war-paint as he told himself with a little grimace. Garth was a handsome man, and he never looked better than when he was in evening dress. Though he had less personal vanity than most men, he was in some measure conscious of his advantages, and on this occasion he was a little fastidious as to the set of his collar and the manipulation of his tie.

The porch-room had always been allotted to him on the rare occasions when he slept at the vicarage. The best bed-room was always apportioned to more formal guests, but Garth much preferred his old quarters. The little room with its pink and white draperies fragrant with lavender, and its lozenge-paned lattice swinging open on the roses and clematis, and other sweet-smelling creepers, always reminded him of Dora. There was a portrait of her in crayons hanging over the mantel-shelf, taken when she was many years younger, with golden hair floating round her like a halo, the round white arms half hidden under a fleecy scarf—a charming sketch half idealized, and yet true to the real Dora. Garth leant his arms against the high wooden mantelpiece and contemplated the drawing for some minutes.

"She is prettier than ever to-night," he soliloquized. "No one would think she was seven-and-twenty to look at her this evening. She is just the woman never to look her age; she is so thoroughly healthy in her tone of mind; she has none of the morbid fancies and over-strained nerves that make other women so haggard and worn. Look at Langley, for example, getting grey at thirty. Poor dear Langley! that was a bad business of hers and Chester's.

"And then Dora always dresses so perfectly; there is a good deal in that, I believe. Many pretty women are slovens or absolutely tasteless. I should hate that in my wife. I never saw Dora look otherwise than charming, this evening especially. She never wears things that rustle or fall stiffly, she and Miss Marriott are alike in that. By-the-bye, how that girl looked at me this afternoon as she handed me back Dora's letter. There was a sort of pained, beseeching expression in her eyes that I could not make out, and which haunts me rather. I have a notion that she is not quite so happy as she used to be, and yet it must be my fancy. Well, I won't think about that this evening, I am always questioning Miss Marriott's looks. I want to make up my mind if it would not be as well to say something to Dora; if things are to be it would be just as well to feel one's way a little. I have a notion this shilly-shallying may lead to some sort of mischief presently. I never knew quite how I stand with her and what is expected of me. If a thing is to be done one need not take all one's life doing it," finished Garth, pulling himself together with a quick movement as though he would shake the courage and determination into him.

"Men make their own fate, it is for them to choose; no one need make mistakes with their eyes open." Why did that speech of Queenie's suddenly recur to him? "If they make a poor thing of their own life it is not for them to complain." The little protest came to him almost painfully as the gong sounded, and he went down-stairs.

Dora looked up at him rather curiously from under her white eyelids as he came into the room, holding his head high and carrying himself as though he knew the world was before him. He returned Mr. Cunningham's affectionate greeting in a frank, off-hand way.

"Well, Garth, you are rather a stranger to the vicarage; but I am glad to see you here again, my dear fellow. How are the sisters? and how is that young scapegrace of a Ted?"

"All well, and I only wish you could say the same, Mr. Cunningham," began Garth heartily; but, as the Vicar sighed heavily, Dora shook her fair head at him.

"Poor dear Flo!" she said softly, as though speaking out her father's thought. "But papa must eat his dinner, and then he has some business on which to consult you, Mr. Clayton; troubles will always keep, and it is no good papa spoiling his digestion by dwelling on them, is it?" finished Dora with tranquil philosophy, and Garth took the hint.

There was no sad talk after that. The Vicar still shook his head lugubriously at intervals, but he did ample justice to the excellent repast before him, and even brought up some Hermitage with his own hands for Garth to taste.

The young man drank it with a little show of indifference, more assumed than real. It was not that the rarity and flavor of Mr. Cunningham's wine pleased him, but that the attention shown him made him a little dizzy. More than once some favorite dish for which he had expressed a predilection had been brought to him.

"I knew you would like this Mayonnaise. Mrs. Gilbert has made it exactly to your taste," Dora said to him with an engaging smile.

Garth, who was only human, and not yet thirty, felt the delicate flattery thrill through him like a personal compliment.

He was sorry when Dora left the room, and Mr. Cunningham drew his chair nearer and plunged into the business that required his assistance. With all his good nature and natural aptitude for these sort of things, he found it very difficult to lend his undivided attention. "Why did she prepare that pudding with the pine-apple sauce with her own hands, because Mrs. Gilbert would have spoiled it?" he thought, as he balanced his spoon idly on the edge of his coffee-cup, thereby imperilling Mr. Cunningham's favorite Wedgewood. She had never condescended to show him such honor before; no wonder he was dizzy, and turned rather a deaf ear on the Vicar's tedious explanations. His absent, fidgetty demeanor attracted the attention of his host after a time.

"I am keeping you too long with all these bothering details, you want to be in the next room," he said, with a meaning smile, over which the young man blushed hotly.

"Not until you have finished with me. Is there anything more that I can do in your absence?" he stammered, feeling a little foolish and crest-fallen.

"No, no; Beale can do the rest. Get along with you, and tell Dora to let me know when tea is ready," and the Vicar flung his cambric handkerchief over his white head and composed himself for a nap.

Garth had not quite got rid of his flush when he opened the drawing-room door. Mr. Cunningham's smile had rather daunted him, but Dora gave him a bright little glance as he entered.

"How long you and papa have been over your stupid business! I am so tired of being alone," she said, welcoming the truant with a fascinating attempt at a pout.

The shaded lamps had been lighted in the Vicarage drawing-room; there was a burnished gleam of silver and china on the little square tea-table. A wood fire had been kindled on the hearth, but the windows and the glass door of the conservatory were open. Dora sat in her low carved chair with her lap full of silks and crewels.

"I wanted to get away. I think your father saw that at last, for he set me free. I am afraid he thought me very inattentive," replied Garth, taking up his favorite position against the mantel-piece.

He was still a little flushed, more from that smile than the Hermitage, and his eyes had a quick excited gleam in them. Dora understood it all perfectly, but she was quite mistress of the situation. Woman-like, she felt a little triumph in the exercise of her power.

"If I were to yield another hair's-breadth there is no telling what the foolish fellow would do," she thought, not without a quickening of the pulse under those intent looks. The danger had a subtle sweetness even for her, though she was too self-controlled to be swayed by it.

"Do sit down; you are so tall that it quite makes me ache to look up at you," she said, with that pretty attempt at a pout; "and then I want to speak to you seriously."

Garth might be pardoned if he took that petulant command as an invitation to draw his chair rather closely. But though Dora saw her mistake she went on calmly, quite ignoring the near neighborhood of the infatuated young man.

"When one sees a thing clearly it is always best to speak of it," began Dora, busily sorting her crewels, and making believe not to notice that Garth had his elbow on the back of her chair. "Langley is too lenient, and then Miss Cosie is not one for lecturing; but still some one ought to speak."

"On what subject?" demanded Garth absently. He was wondering how he ought to begin.

"Why, on the subject of Miss Marriott's dress, of course," returned Dora briskly and with emphasis. "If no one will speak, neither Langley nor Miss Cosie, and then Cathy is such a child, it seems to me as though I ought not to keep silence."

"Miss Marriott's dress!" interrupted Garth in an astonished voice. "Why, Dora, what can you be meaning? The subject has nothing to do with us—with you and me—at all."

"Every subject has to do with me that touches on questions of right and wrong," she returned with dignity. "I consider Miss Marriott's general style of dress and appearance is perfectly unsuitable to a village school-mistress, and sets the worst possible example to the grown-up girls in Hepshaw."

"This is perfectly incomprehensible," he replied, secretly exasperated by the turn the conversation was taking, and rather resenting this undeserved attack on his protégée. "Langley and I are always praising Miss Marriott's quiet, unobtrusive style."

"One knows what to expect of a gentleman when there is a pretty face in question," retorted Dora, with a touch of scorn in her voice. "Not that I call Miss Marriott pretty. She has such singular eyes, and then I never admire a brown skin. But I must own I thought better things of Langley."

"I am completely at sea," returned Garth, lifting his eyebrows in comical perplexity.

That little speech of Dora's about Miss Marriott's eyes and brown skin amused him. Could she be jealous of the young stranger he had taken under his brotherly protection? Garth's elbow rested still more comfortably on the back of her chair as this little bit of self-flattery intruded itself.

"I always see Miss Marriott in a plain black stuff gown, with just a bit of white lace or frilling round her throat. I don't see how any one could dress more plainly."

"That shows how much you men notice things," returned Dora still more scornfully, and somewhat irate at his incredulity. Garth was never very easy to convince, "Black stuff! a fine cashmere, that cost four shillings a yard if it cost a penny, and looking as if it were made by the most finished dress-maker in Carlisle, and a Leghorn hat trimmed with an ostrich feather."

Garth looked a little sheepish at this. The feather had certainly non-plussed him. It was quite true that during the last few Sundays Miss Marriott had appeared in church in a shady hat with a long drooping feather that had suited her remarkably well.

"I cannot deny the feather," he rejoined, with a rueful smile at his defeat.

The admission mollified Dora.

"And then her boots and gloves—best Paris kid, and boots that look certainly as though they were from a French maker. Ah, you cannot deceive me! Do you think such a fine lady is likely to benefit the village girls? Why, if Miss Stapleton were to mount a feather like that papa and I would be down upon her at once."

"I should not compare Miss Marriott and Miss Stapleton," a little testily. "Miss Marriott is better born and educated. She is a country vicar's daughter. I am sure that you cannot deny that she is a perfect gentlewoman."

"I do not deny that she is a very pleasant-mannered, well-looking young woman," returned Dora, in an aggravating manner, crossing her plump hands on her lap and looking up at Garth serenely. "I take a great interest in Miss Marriott, not only for her own sake, but because she is yours and Langley's protégée. When one sees a thing is wrong it is a duty to speak, and I hope I shall always do my duty," finished Dora, virtuously.

Garth was silent. He was quite used to these sort of lectures from the young mistress of Crossgill Vicarage. It had long been an admitted fact between them that her mission extended to Hepshaw. The village school-mistresses had been perpetual thorns in her side; their dress and demeanor, their teaching and morals, had always been carefully investigated. The last Hepshaw mistress had been a weak, pale-eyed creature, with no will of her own, and no particular views,—a washed-out piece of humanity, as Garth termed her,—but highly esteemed and lamented by Miss Cunningham.

Garth could not forbear a smile of secret amusement at Dora's persevering efforts to draw Miss Marriott under her yoke. The contest between the two interested and provoked him. He had taken upon himself to lecture Queenie on her stiff-necked demeanor towards Miss Cunningham, and now he was ready to take up cudgels in her defence.

"I think you are a little hard upon her," he began at last slowly, and then he stopped.

Why should he concern himself with things so wholly feminine? most likely Dora was right, at least he had never found her wrong in anything yet. Perhaps that drooping hat and feather might be a snare to the female population of Hepshaw. It had startled even him as she had walked up the aisle that Sunday. Let them fight it out; he was not sitting there in that lamp-lit fragrant drawing-room to talk about Miss Marriott. He was Dora's guest, summoned there by her own will and behest. Mr. Cunningham did not often leave them alone like this, the opportunity was too precious to be wasted.

Garth moved a little restlessly as he pondered thus with his arm against Dora's chair. The shapely head was very close to him. For the first time he felt an irresistible impulse to touch the smooth coil of fair hair with his hand, it looked as fine and silky as a child's.

"Dora," he began, and then again he stopped. "Dora," and this time he came a little closer, almost leaning over her, but not touching her, "shall things be different between you and me?"

He had taken her by surprise, and for an instant she turned pale, but she recovered herself immediately.

"Mr. Clayton," she returned, carefully avoiding his eyes, and sorting her crewels industriously, "I thought I had broken you of that foolish habit of calling me Dora."

Garth drew back, stung by her tone.

"What does that mean?" he inquired hotly. "If I am not to call you Dora how are things to be put straight between us? I thought we understood each other, and that the time had come for me to speak. What does this mean?" continued the fiery young man, twisting his moustache in sudden excitement and wrath.

"Did you think to-night was a fitting opportunity," inquired Dora with mournful gentleness, "with poor darling Flo, and papa in such a state? How could you be so inconsiderate and selfish," looking at him with appealing blue eyes.

But Garth's feelings had been outraged, and no soft looks could mollify him. He was a well-meaning, plain-spoken young fellow, and he had brought himself with much searching of conscience to the brink of an honest resolution. Dora's coldness of rebuke had wounded his susceptibility and grazed his pride. No woman should trifle with his affections, so he told himself, and least of all his old friend Dora.

"I am sure you did not mean to be inconsiderate," she said, looking up at him with a beseeching glance.

"I do not know what you call want of consideration," returned Garth, with one of his rare frowns. "I should have thought if you cared for me that trouble would have drawn us closer together, that this was the time of all others to speak."

"If I cared for you!" with reproachful sweetness. "Oh, Mr. Clayton, how can you say such harsh things? and to me of all persons in the world! Is it my fault that darling Flo is ill, and that Beattie is so young and such a wretched manager that one dares not trust things to her for a long time yet? Can I help not being my own mistress like other women, and having so many responsibilities—poor papa, and the girls, and the school, and hundreds of things?" she finished with a little pathos.

But Garth was not to be so easily appeased. His strong will was roused by opposition, and Dora must learn that he was not a man to be trifled with. A moment before he had felt a longing to press his lips to that smooth, golden coil, but now all such desire had left him.

"This is all nonsense," he returned, almost harshly. "We have known each other all our lives, and this has been understood between us. There are no insuperable obstacles—none, or I would not have spoken. Beatrix is seventeen, and she must learn to manage as other girls do. If you mean to sacrifice your life for a mistaken sense of duty you have no right to spoil mine with all this waiting. I am not to call you Dora; I am not to be any more to you than I have been. What does all this folly mean," finished Garth, with angry excitement.

"It means that things cannot be different just now," replied Dora, with real tremulousness in her voice, and now again there came that soft mistiness in her eyes. She was not offended at her lover's plain speaking; she liked Garth all the better for that manly outburst of independence. He was a little more difficult to manage than she had thought, but she was in no fear of ultimate results; he was straining at his curb, that was all.

"You must not be angry with me because I am disappointing you," she went on, laying her hand upon his coat-sleeve. "It is not my fault that everything depends on me, and that Beattie is so helpless. Of course if one could do as one wished—" and here there was a swift downward glance, but Garth broke in upon her impatiently.

"All this is worse than nothing," observed the exasperated young man. "It must be yea, yea, or nay, nay, with me; this going backwards and forwards and holding one's faith in a leash would never do for me. How could a man answer for himself under such circumstances? If you send me away from you you will find it very hard to recall me, Dora!" with a sudden change of voice, at once injured and affectionate, and which went far to mollify the effect of his former harshness.

"You will always know I cared, and that one could not do as one wished. If we are Christians we know that duty cannot be shirked," began Dora with beautiful solemnity, and a certain brightness of earnestness in her blue eyes; but at that moment her father entered.

"Papa," she said, as Garth rose hastily, almost shaking off her hand in his excitement, "what a long nap you have been taking! Mr. Clayton and I have been talking for ever so long, and the tea is quite cold."

"I hope not, Dorrie," observed Mr. Cunningham, seating himself comfortably in his elbow-chair and warming his white hand over the blaze.

"Ah, but it is perfectly lukewarm," returned his daughter cheerfully, as she walked to the tea-table and poured out the soothing beverage. She was quite tranquil as she sat there under the shaded lamps. The danger had been met and encountered, but she had remained mistress of the situation. It was natural for him to feel a little downcast and aggrieved over his defeat. Men were such creatures of impulse.

"He is angry with me now, but he will come round by-and-bye," thought Dora, watching him with affectionate solicitude. In her breast she was very fond and proud of him, though the young mistress of Crossgill was not ready to lay down her prerogative and rights at his behests. "I am not afraid of his taking the bit between his teeth," she said to herself, with a smile of incredulity at the bare idea. How was Garth Clayton, her old friend and playmate, to prove unfaithful to her?

As for Garth, he conducted himself as most high-spirited young men do under the circumstances. He took his cup of cold tea from her hand mutely, much as though it were a dose of poison, and stood aloof, glowering at her at intervals, and talking faster than usual to Mr. Cunningham.

He did not make much of a reply when, after prayers, Dora lighted his silver candlestick as well as her father's, and hoped he would sleep well.

"Good night, Dorrie my dear," observed her father, kissing her smooth forehead just above her eyes. "Don't forget you have a long journey before you to-morrow."

"Good night, Miss Cunningham," said Garth with pointed emphasis as he just touched her hand.

He thought the coldness of his tone would have cut her to the heart, but she merely smiled in his face.

Garth went up-stairs in a tumult of vexation and excitement. The porch-chamber, with its sweet perfume of fresh lavender, no longer charmed him. The girlish reflection of Dora with its arms full of lilies angered him. He turned his back upon it and sat down by the open window.

He was bitterly mortified and disappointed. Dora had been his fate, he told himself, and now his fate had eluded him. She had drawn him on with sweet looks and half-sentences of fondness all these years, and now she had declined to yield to his first honest efforts of persuasion. Well, he was not the man to be fooled by any girl, though she had golden hair and knew how to use her eyes. She was managing him for her own purposes, but he would prove to her that he was not to be managed. He would shake off her influence much as he had done her hand on his coat-sleeve just now; all the more that such shaking off might be difficult to him. There were other women in the world, thank heaven, beside Dora—women who would be more subservient to his masculine royalty, whose wills and lives could be moulded by his.

His heart was still whole within him, though his pride was so grievously wounded. He knew that, as he turned his back upon her picture, and sat down in his sullen resentment. There was no inward bleeding, no sickness of repressed hopes driven back upon themselves, no yearning void, only the bitterness of an angry wound, against which he called out in his young man's impatience. The golden head would not come and nestle against him when he longed for it, and now he thrust it from him.

As for Dora, she went up to her room in perfect tranquillity. "Foolish fellow, how angry he was with me," she said to herself as she brushed out the long fair hair that fell round her in a halo. Her blue eyes looked through it like Undine's. "I wonder if all lovers would be so troublesome; it wanted all one's tact to keep him within bounds. I wish Flo were not so young, and that Beattie were less helpless," she went on, with a sigh. "It will be hard work keeping him in good humor the next year or two, but it would never do to engage myself to him as things are now. I have enough on my hands without that," and with another involuntary sigh, as she thought of Garth's handsome countenance, Dora Cunningham, like a right-minded young woman, put away the subject from her mind and went to sleep.

END OF VOL. II.

BUNGAY: CLAY AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS.