Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II)

CHAPTER XIV. THE TRUSTEES' MEETING.

Know you not, master, to some kind of men Their graces serve them but as enemies? As You Like It.

'My Lord,' said Frampton, entering the library late one evening, in visible perturbation, and addressing himself to Fitzjocelyn, 'there is a person wishing to see you.'

'What person at this time of night?' said Louis.

'In fact, my Lord,' said the butler, hesitating, 'it is the young person at Mr. Frost's.'

'Something must be the matter!' cried Louis, starting up.

'She would explain nothing to me, she insisted on seeing your lordship; and-in fact-she was in such a state of agitation that I left her with Mrs. Bowles.'

Louis lost no time in hurrying into the hall. Charlotte must have followed Frampton without his knowledge, for she was already there; and, springing with clasped hands towards Fitzjocelyn, she cried, sobbing, 'My Lord, my Lord, come to master!'

'Is he ill? or the children?'

'No, no! but he'll be off, he'll be off like poor Tom!' exclaimed Charlotte, between her gasps; 'but I've locked it!' and she waved a door-key, and seemed about to laugh hysterically.

'Sit down, Charlotte,' said Louis, authoritatively, bringing a chair. 'If you do not explain yourself reasonably at once, I shall call Mrs. Bowles, and desire her to put you to bed.'

She made an imploring gesture, sank trembling into the chair, and, after a few incoherent efforts, managed to speak-'If you would but come to master, my Lord-I know it is something bad.'

Louis thought it wisest to despatch Frampton at once to order the carriage to be brought out immediately; and this so far pacified Charlotte, that she could speak comprehensibly on the cause of her alarm. 'He is in such a way!' she began. 'He went out to the school-examination, I believe, in his cap and gown, this morning; he was gone all day, but just at dusk I heard him slam-to the front door, fit to shake the house down, like he does when he is put out. I'd a thought nothing of that; but by-and-by I heard him stamping up nnd down the study, like one in a frenzy, and I found his cap and gown lying all of a heap in a corner of the hall. Then, Mr. Calcott came to call; and when I went into the study, master had his head down on the table, and wouldn't see no one; he fairly stamped to me to be gone, and bring him no more messages. Mr. Calcott, he looked so sorry and concerned, and sent in again. I was to say that he hoped some arrangement might be made, if Mr. Frost would only see him; but master had locked the door, and hallooed out that I was to say he was obliged, but couldn't see nobody. So Mr. Calcott was forced to go; and there was poor master. Not one morsel of dinner has he had. I knocked, but he would not open, only said he did not want for nothing. No, not even when 'twas time for Miss Catharine to come down. She thumped at the door, and called 'Papa' so pretty; but he never heeded, except to call out, 'Take her away!' Charlotte was crying so much that she could hardly proceed. 'Then I knew it must be something very melancholy indeed. But by-and-by he opens the door with a great jerk, and runs right up to the lumber-room. I saw his face, and 'twas like a corpse, my Lord; and he brings down his portmanteau into his dressing-room, and I hears him pulling out all his drawers. 'He'll be gone!' I thinks, 'he'll be off to America, too! And my poor mistress!' So I went up quietly, and in secret, unbeknown to them all, and got my bonnet; and I've run every step of the way-for you are the only one, my Lord, as can soothe his wounded spirit; and I've locked both the doors, and here's the key, so he can't be gone till you come.'

'Locked the doors!' cried Louis. 'What have you done? Suppose your mistress or Miss Clara were ill?'

'Oh, no-no, it is not that,' said Charlotte; 'or why should he flee from the face of his children? Why, I took Miss Salome up to the top of the stairs, when she was screaming and crying with all her might, and you would not have thought he was within a mile of her. No, my Lord, no one can't do nothing but you.'

'I'll come at once,' said Louis. 'You did quite right to fetch me; but it was a frightful thing to lock the door.'

Sending Charlotte to the housekeeper, he went to communicate her strange intelligence to his father, who shared his dismay so much as almost to wish to come with him to Northwold; but Louis felt he could deal better alone with James. His fears took the direction of the Italian travellers, knowing that any misfortune to them must recoil on James with double agony after such a parting.

In very brief space the carriage was at Northwold, and desiring that it should wait at the corner of the Terrace, Louis followed Charlotte, who had jumped down from the box, and hastened forward to unlock the door; and he was in time to hear the angry, though suppressed, greeting that received her. 'Pretty doings, ma'am! So I have caught you out at last, though you did think to lock me in! He shan't come in! I wonder at your impudence! The very front door!'

'Oh, cook, don't!' The poor breathless voice managed at last to be heard. 'This is Lord Fitzjocelyn.'

Cook had vanished out of sight or hearing before Louis's foot was within the threshold. The study-door was open, the fire expiring, the books and papers pushed back; and James's fierce, restless tread was heard pacing vehemently about his own room. Louis ran hastily up, and entered at once. His cousin stood staring with wild eyes, his hair was tossed and tangled, his face lividly pale, and the table was strewn with fragments of letters, begun and torn up again; his clothes lay tumbled in disorder on the floor, where his portmanteau lay open and partly packed. All Louis's worst alarm seemed fulfilled at once. 'What has happened?' he cried, catching hold of both James's hands, as if to help him to speak. 'Who is ill?-not Clara?'

'No-no one is ill,' said James, withdrawing his hands, and kneeling down by his box, with an air of feigned indifference; 'I am only going to London.'

'To London?'

'Aye, to see what is to be done,-ship-chaplaincy, curacy, literature, selling sermons at five shillings each,-what not. I am no longer master of Northwold school!' He strove to speak carelessly, but bending over his packing, thrust down the clothes with desperate blows.

Louis sat down, too much dismayed to utter a word.

'One morning's work in the conclave,' said James, with the same assumed ease. 'Here's their polite reprimand, which they expected me to put up with,-censuring all my labour, forbidding Sunday-classes, accusing me of partiality and cruelty, with a lot of nonsense about corporal punishment and dignity. I made answer, that if I were master at all, I must be at liberty to follow my own views, otherwise I would resign; and, would you believe it, they snapped at the offer- -they thought it highly desirable! There's an end of it.'

'Impossible!' cried Louis, casting his eye over the reprimand, and finding that the expressions scarcely warranted James's abstract of them. 'You must have mistaken!'

'Do you doubt _that_?' and James threw to him a sheet where, in Richardson's clerkly handwriting, the trustees of King Edward's Northwold Grammar School formally accepted the resignation of the Reverend James Roland Frost Dynevor.

'They cannot be so hasty! Did not Mr. Calcott call to gee you?'

'An old humbug!'

'I'll go and see him this instant. Something may be done.'

'No,' said James, holding him down by the shoulder, 'I will not be degraded by vain solicitations.'

'This must be that wretched Ramsbotham!' exclaimed Louis. 'Oh, Jem! I little thought he had so much power to injure you.'

'It is as well you did not,' said James. 'It would have made no difference, except in the pain it would have cost you; and the only gratification in this business is, that I suffer because neither you nor I would deny our principles. I thank you, Fitzjocelyn!' and he straightened himself in the satisfaction of persecuted rectitude.

'You have very little to thank me for,' said Louis, wringing his hand, and turning aside, as if unable yet to face the full extent of the evil.

'Never fear for us,' continued James, boldly; 'we shall struggle on. Mens conscia,-you see I can't forget to be a schoolmaster.'

'But what are you about? Where are you going?'

'To London. You spoke to a publisher about my lectures on history; they will serve for introduction. He may make me his hack-a willing one, while I advertise-apply for anything. I must be gone!'

'You do not look fit for a night journey. You would be too early at Estminster to see Isabel.'

'Don't name her!' cried James, starting round as if the word were a dart. 'Thank Heaven that she is away! I must write to her. Maybe, Lady Conway will keep her till I am settled-till I have found some lodging in London where no one will know us.'

'And where you may run up a comfortable doctor's bill.'

With a gesture-half passion, half despair-James reiterated, 'There's no staying here. I must be gone. I must be among strangers.'

'Your mens conscia would better prove that it has no cause for shame by staying here, instead of rushing out of sight into the human wilderness, and sacrificing those poor little-'

James struck his foot on the floor, as though to intercept the word; but Louis continued, apparently unmoved by his anger-'Those poor little children. If misfortune and injury be no disgrace to the injured, I call it cowardly pride to fly off by night to hide oneself, instead of living in your own house, like an honest man.'

'Live!-pray what am I to live on?' cried James, laughing hoarsely.

'You will not find out by whirling to London in your present state.'

In fact, Louis's most immediate care was to detain him for that one night. There was a look of coming illness about him, and his desperate, maddened state of mind might obscure his judgment, and urge him into some precipitate measure, such as he might afterwards rue bitterly for the sake of the wife and children, the bare thought of whom seemed at present to sting him so intolerably. Moreover, Louis had a vague hope that so harsh a proceeding would be abandoned by the trustees; his father would remonstrate, and James might be able to think and to apologize. He was hardly a rational being to- night, and probably would have driven away any other companion; but long habit, and external coolness, enabled Louis to stand his ground, and to protract matters till the clock, striking eleven, relieved him, as much as it exasperated James, by proving it so late that the last train would have already past.

He persisted in declaring that he should go by the first in the morning, and Louis persuaded him to go to bed, after Charlotte had brought them some tea, which, he said, choked him. Deciding on sleeping at No. 5, Louis sent home the carriage, with a note to his father; and Charlotte pressed her hands together in a transport of gratitude when she found that he was not going to abandon her master. She did her best to make the forlorn house comfortable; but it was but cold comfort, with all the fires gone out, and he was too sad and anxious to heed it.

She was at his door early the next morning, with a summons more alarming than surprising. She was sure that master was very ill.

There was James lying across his bed, half-dressed, turned away from the dim morning light, and more frightfully pale than ever. He started angrily at Louis's entrance, and sprang up, but fell back, insisting with all his might that nothing ailed him but a common headache, which needed only to be left quiet for an hour or two. He said it venomously.

'A very uncommon headache,' thought Louis. 'My belief is, that it is little short of brain fever! If I could only feel his pulse! But it would be very like taking a mad dog's hand. There's nothing for it but to fetch old Walby. He may have some experience of refractory patients.'

'Go home, Louis,' reiterated James, savagely, on opening his eyes and finding him not gone. 'I tell you I want nobody. I shall be in London before night.'

And starting up, he tried to draw the curtain at his feet, to shut out the tardy dawn; but too giddy to persevere, he sank back after one noisy pull.

Louis drew it completely, shaded the window, and would have settled the pillows, but was not allowed; and obtaining an impatient grunt by way of dismissal, he ran down stairs, caught up hat and stick, and set off to summon Mr. Walby from his comfortable family breakfast- table. The good old doctor was more concerned than amazed. He could hardly surmount the shock to his trustee conscience, on hearing of the consequence of yesterday's proceedings.

'I was much grieved at the time,' he said, as they walked to the Terrace together. 'You will believe me that I was no willing party, my Lord.'

'I could never believe that you would do anything hard towards any one, Mr. Walby,' said Louis, kindly; and a few more like assurances led the old man to volunteer the history of the case in confidence.

Ramsbotham had brought before the meeting of the trustees a serious mass of charges, on which he founded a motion that Mr. Frost should be requested to resign. Every one rejected such a measure, and the complaints were sifted. Some were palpably false, others exaggerated, others related to matters of principle; but deducting these, it still was proved that the Sunday attendance and evening lectures were too visibly the test of his favour, and that the boys were sometimes treated with undue severity, savouring of violent temper. 'I must confess, my Lord,' said Mr. Walby, sinking his voice, 'I am afraid Mr. Frost is too prompt with his hand. A man does not know how hard he hits, when he knocks a boy over the ears with a book. Mrs. Barker's little boy really had a gathering under the ear in consequence;-I saw it myself.'

Louis was confounded; he had nothing to say to this; he knew the force that irritation gave to James's hand too well to refuse his credence, and he could only feel shame and dismay, as if himself guilty by his misjudged patronage.

Mr. Walby proceeded to say that, under the circumstances, the trustees had decided on remonstrating by letter, after the examination; and it was easy to perceive that the reprimand, which might have been wise and moderate from the Squire, had gained a colour from every one concerned, so as to censure what was right and aggravate what was wrong. Mr. Frost's reply had been utterly unexpected; Ramsbotham and the bookseller had caught at the resignation, and so did the butcher, who hated the schoolmaster for having instilled inconveniently high principles into his son. Richardson abstained from voting; Mr. Calcott fought hard for Mr. Frost, but the grocer was ill, and only poor old Mr. Walby supported him, and even they felt that their letter had not deserved such treatment. Alas! had not Fitzjocelyn himself taught Northwold that the Squire was not a dictator? Even then, Mr. Calcott, still hoping that an apology might retrieve the day, had set forth to argue the matter with James Frost, whom he could not suppose serious in his intentions, but thought he meant to threaten the trustees into acquiescence. The doors had been closed against him, and Mr. Walby feared that now the step was known, it was too late to retract it. 'The ladies would never allow it,' he declared; 'there was no saying how virulent they were against Mr. Frost; and as to consideration for his family, that rather inflamed their dislike. They had rich relations enough! It would be only too good for so fine a lady to be brought down.' Every one had some story of her pride, neglect, or bad housewifery. 'And I can tell you,' said Mr. Walby, 'that I am not in their good books for declaring that I never saw anything from her but very pretty, affable manners.'

With these words they reached the house; and with sighs and murmurs of 'Ah! poor young man!' Mr. Walby followed Louis to the landing- place, where they both paused, looking at each other in doubt how to effect an entrance, Louis suddenly remembering that no presence would be more intolerable to the patient than that of a trustee. However, there was nothing for it but to walk in, and announce, as a matter of course, that he had thought it right to call in Mr. Walby.

The extremity of displeasure brought James to his feet, and out into the passage, saying, with grave formality, that he was much obliged, and glad to see Mr. Walby as a friend, but Lord Fitzjocelyn was mistaken in thinking him in need of his advice. Many thanks, he would trouble him no further; and affecting a laugh, he said that Fitzjocelyn seemed never to have heard of a bad headache.

'Acting does not mend matters, Jem,' said Louis. 'You had much better confess how really ill you are.'

Excessive giddiness made James stagger against his cousin, and Louis, throwing his arms round him, looked in great alarm to the doctor for help, but was answered by something very like a smile. 'Aye, aye, sir, there's nothing for it but to go to bed. If his lordship there had seen as many cases of jaundice as I have, he would not look so frightened. Very wholesome disorder! Yes, lie down, and I'll send you a thing or two to take.'

So saying, Mr. Walby helped Louis to lay their unwilling invalid on the bed without much resistance or reply, and presently departed, so infinitely relieved that he could not help indulging in a little chuckle at the young Viscount's mistake. As soon as he was gone, James revived enough to protest that it was all nonsense, doctors must needs give a name to everything; if they would only let him alone, he should be himself and off to London in two hours; and that it was Fitzjocelyn himself who was looking excessively ill, and as yellow as a guinea. He would not hear of undressing and going absolutely to bed, and fairly scolded every one out of sight. Good Miss Mercy, who had trotted in at the tidings of illness, stood at the nursery-door, telegraphing signs of commiseration in answer to Louis's looks of perplexity.

'At least,' she said, 'you had better come to breakfast with us, and hear what my sister says-Salome always knows what is best.'

He soon found himself in the snug parlour, where the small round breakfast-table, drawn close to Miss Faithfull's fireside chair, had a sort of doll's-house air of cheerful comfort, with the tiny plates, tea-cups, and the miniature loaf, and the complicated spider-legs, among which it was not easy to dispose of his own length of limb.

The meal passed in anxious consultation. There might be no danger, but the disorder was severe and increasing. James's health had long been suffering from harass of mind, want of exercise, and unwholesome diet; and the blow of the previous day had brought things to a crisis. There he lay, perfectly unmanageable, permitting neither aid nor consolation, unable to endure the sight of any one, and too much stupefied by illness to perceive the impracticability of his wild scheme of seeking employment in London.

Miss Faithfull pronounced that either Mercy or Lord Fitzjocelyn must go and fetch Mrs. James Frost home.

'I was only thinking how long we could keep her away,' said Louis. 'Pray don't be shocked, dear Miss Mercy, but I thought I could nurse poor Jem much better alone than with another dead weight on our hands.'

'They would neither of them thank you,' said Miss Faithfull, laughing. 'Depend upon it, she will know best how to deal with him.'

'Well, you see more of their household than I do, but I have never dared to think of her! Do you remember the words, 'if thou hast run with the footmen and they have wearied thee-''

'There are some people who can run with the horsemen better than with the footmen,' said Miss Salome. 'You know we are very fond of young Mrs. Frost. We cannot forget her sweetness when she lived in this house, and she has always been most kind and friendly. I do believe that to display the most admirable qualities, she only needs to be roused.'

'To live in the house with Jem, and Jem's three babies, and yet want rousing!'

'I have thought,' said Salome, diffidently, 'that he was only too gentle with her.'

'Do you know how very severe you are growing, Miss Faithfull?' said Louis, looking her in the face, in the gravity of amusement.

'I mean,' said Miss Faithfull, blushing, 'though of course I do not know, that I have fancied it might be better for both if he could have gone to the root of the matter, and set fairly before her the prime duties requisite in the mistress of such a family. He may have done so.'

'I think not,' said Louis; 'it would be awkward when a woman fancied she embraced poverty voluntarily for his sake. Poverty! It was riches compared with their present condition. Isabel on 150 pounds a- year! It may well make poor Jem ill to think about it! I only wonder it is not a brain-fever!'

'Lord Fitzjocelyn regrets that brain-fever,' said Miss Faithfull.

'Probably my ideas on the subject are derived from the prevalence of the complaint in light literature,' said Louis, smiling. 'It would be more dignified, and suit Isabel better. Poor Isabel! I hope I have done her injustice. She behaved gloriously at the barricades, and has a great soul after all; but I had begun to think heroines not calculated for moderate circumstances. May they do better in no circumstances at all! Heighho! how a heavy heart makes one talk nonsense! So I am to fetch the poor thing home, Miss Faithfull.'

This was determined on, whether with or without James's consent; Miss Mercy undertaking that she and Martha would help Charlotte, and dispose of the children in the House Beautiful; and she went back with Louis to fetch them, when little Catharine was found peeping through the bars of her prison-gate at the top of the nursery-stairs, shouting lustily for papa. She graciously accepted her godfather as a substitute, and was carried by him to her kind neighbour's house, already a supplementary home. As to her father, Louis found him more refractory than ever. His only greeting was, 'Why are not you gone home?' He scorned Mr. Walby's prescriptions, and made such confident assertions that he should be off to London in the evening, that Fitzjocelyn almost reverted to the brain-fever theory, and did not venture to hint his intention to any one but Charlotte, telling her that he should now almost think her justified in locking the doors.

Sending information to his father, he started for Estminster, very disconsolate, and full of self-reproach for the hasty proceedings which had borne such bitter fruits. The man and the situation had been an injustice to each other; a sensitive irritable person was the very last to be fit for a position requiring unusual judgment and temper, where his energy had preyed upon itself. His being placed there had been the work of Louis's own impetuous scorn of the wisdom of elder and graver heads. Such regrets derived additional poignancy from the impossibility of conferring direct assistance upon James, and from the degree of justice in the hard measure which had been dealt to him, would make it for ever difficult to recommend him, and yet the devising future schemes for his welfare was the refuge which Louis's mind most willingly sought from the present perplexity of the communication in store for poor Isabel.

As he put out his head at the Estminster station, a familiar voice shouted, 'Hollo! Fitzjocelyn, how jolly! Have you got James there? I told Isabel it would be no use; but when she did not get a letter this morning, she would have it that he was coming, and got me to walk up with her.'

'Where is she?' asked Louis, as he jumped out and shook hands with Walter.

'Walking up and down the esplanade. She would not come into the station, so I said I would run up to satisfy her. I don't know what she will say to you for not being Frost.'

'Do you mean that she is anxious!'

'It is the correct thing, isn't it, when wives get away from their husbands, and have not the fragment of a letter for twenty-four whole hours? But what do you mean, Fitzjocelyn?' asked the boy, suddenly sobering. 'Is anything really the matter?'

'Yes, Walter,' said Louis; 'we must tell your sister as best we can. James is ill, and I am come for her.'

Walter was silent for a few minutes, then drew a sigh, saying, 'Poor Isabel, I wish it had not been! These were the only comfortable holidays I have had since she chose to marry.'

Isabel here came in sight, quickening her pace as she first saw that her brother had a companion, but slackening in disappointment when she perceived that it was not her husband; then, the next moment hurrying on, and as she met them, exclaiming, 'Tell me at once! What is it?'

'Nothing serious,' said Louis. 'The children are all well, but I left James very uncomfortable, though with nothing worse than a fit of jaundice.'

The inexperienced Isabel hardly knew whether this were not as formidable as even the cherished brain-fever, and becoming very pale, she said, 'I am ready at once-Walter will let mamma know.'

'There will be no train for two hours,' said Louis. 'You will have plenty of time to prepare.'

'You should have telegraphed,' said Isabel, 'I could have come by the first train.'

Trembling, she grasped Walter's arm, and began hastening home, impatient to be doing something. 'I knew something was wrong,' she exclaimed; 'I ought to have gone home yesterday, when there was no letter.'

'Indeed, there-was nothing the matter yesterday, at least, with his health,' said Louis. 'You are alarming yourself far too much-'

'To be sure, Isabel,' chimed in Walter. 'A fellow at my tutor's had it, and did nothing but wind silkworm's silk all the time. We shall have James yet to spend Christmas with us. Everybody laughs at the jaundice, though Fitzjocelyn does look so lugubrious that he had almost frightened _me_.'

'Is this true?' said Isabel, looking from one to the other, as if she had been frightened in vain.

'Quite true, Isabel,' said Walter. 'Never mind Fitzjocelyn's long face; I wouldn't go if I were you! Don't spoil the holidays.'

'I must go, Walter dear,' said Isabel, 'but I do not think Lord Fitzjocelyn would play with my fears. Either he is very ill, or something else is wrong.'

'You have guessed it, Isabel,' said Louis. 'This illness is partly the effect of distress of mind.'

'That horrid meeting of trustees!' cried Isabel. 'I am sure they have been impertinent.'

'They objected to some of his doings; he answered by threatening to resign, and I am sorry to say that the opposition set prevailed to have his resignation accepted.'

'A very good thing too,' cried Sir Walter. 'I always thought that school a shabby concern. To be under a lot of butchers and bakers, and nothing but cads among the boys! He ought to be heartily glad to be rid of the crew.'

Isabel's indignation was checked by a sort of melancholy amusement at her brother's view, but Louis doubted whether she realized the weight of her own words as she answered-'Unfortunately, Walter, it is nearly all we have to live upon.'

'So much the better,' continued Walter. 'I'll tell you-you shall all go to Thornton Conway, and I'll come and spend my holidays there, instead of kicking my heels at these stupid places. I shan't mind your babies a bit, and Frost may call himself my tutor if he likes. I don't care if you take me away from Eton.'

'A kind scheme, Walter,' said Isabel, 'but wanting in two important points, mamma's consent and James's.'

'Oh, I'll take care of mamma!'

'I'm afraid I can't promise the same as to James.'

'Ah! I see. Delaford was quite right when he said Mr. Frost was a gentleman who never knew what was for his own advantage.'

As they arrived at the house, Isabel desired to know how soon she must be ready, and went upstairs. Walter detained his cousin-'I say, Fitzjocelyn, have they really got nothing to live on?'

'No more than will keep them from absolute want.'

'I shall take them home,' said Walter, with much satisfaction. 'I shall write to tell James that there is nothing else to be done. I cannot do without Isabel, and I'll make my mother consent.'

Fitzjocelyn was glad to be freed from the boy on any terms, and to see him go off to write his letter.

Walter was at least sincere and warm-hearted in his selfishness, and so more agreeable than his mother, whom Louis found much distressed, under the secret conviction that something might be expected of her. 'Poor Isabel! I wish she could come to me; but so many of them-and we without a settled home. If there were no children-but London houses are so small; and, indeed, it would be no true kindness to let them live in our style for a little while. They must run to expenses in dress; it would be much more economical at home, and I could send Walter to them if he is very troublesome.'

'Thank you,' said Louis. 'I think James will be able to ride out the storm independently.'

'I know that would be his wish. And I think I heard that Mr. Dynevor objected to the school. That might be one obstacle removed.'

Lady Conway comforted herself by flourishing on into predictions that all would now be right, and that poor dear Isabel would soon be a much richer woman than herself; while Louis listened to the castle- building, not thinking it worth while to make useless counter- prophecies.

The sisters were upstairs, assisting Isabel, and they all came down together. The girls were crying; but Isabel's dark, soft eyes, and noble head, had an air of calm, resolute elevation, which drove all Louis's misgivings away, and which seemed quite beyond and above the region of Lady Conway's caresses and affectionate speeches. Walter and Virginia came up to the station, and parted with their sister with fondness that was much mure refreshing, Walter reiterating that his was the only plan.

'Now, Fitzjocelyn,' said Isabel, when they were shut into a coupe, 'tell me what you said about distress of mind. It has haunted me whether you used those words.'

'Could you doubt his distress at such a state of affairs?'

'I thought there could be no distress of mind where the suffering is for the truth.'

'Ah! if he could quite feel it so!'

'What do you mean? There has been a cabal against James from the first to make him lay aside his principles, and I cannot regret his refusal to submit to improper dictation, at whatever cost to myself.'

'I am afraid he better knows than you do what that cost is likely to be.'

'Does he think I cannot bear poverty?' exclaimed Isabel.

'He had not said so-' began Louis; 'but-'

'You both think me a poor, helpless creature,' said Isabel, her eyes kindling as they had done in the midst of danger. 'I can do better than you think. I may be able myself to do something towards our maintenance.'

He could not help answering, in the tone that gave courtesy to almost any words, 'I am afraid it does not answer for the wife to be the bread-winner.'

'Then you doubt my writing being worth anything?' she asked, in a hurt tone of humility. 'Tell me candidly, for it would be the greatest kindness;' and her eye unconsciously sought the bag where lay Sir Hubert, whom all this time her imagination was exalting, as the hero who would free them from their distresses.

'Worth much pleasure to me, to the world at large,' said Louis; 'but- -you told me to speak plainly-to your home, would any remuneration be worth your own personal care?'

Isabel coloured, but did not speak.

Louis ventured another sentence-'It is a delicate subject, but you must know better than I how far James would be likely to bear that another, even you, should work for his livelihood.'

When Isabel spoke again, it was to ask further particulars; and when he had told all, she found solace in exclaiming at the folly and injustice of James's enemies, until the sense of fairness obliged him to say, 'I wish the right and the wrong ever were fairly divided in this world; and yet perhaps it is best as it is: the grain of right on either side may save the sin from being a presumptuous one.'

'It would be hard to find the one grain of right on the part of the Ramsbotham cabal.'

'Perhaps you would not think so, if you were a boy's mother.'

'Oh!' cried Isabel, with tears in her eyes, 'if he thought he had been too hasty, he always made such reparation that only cowards could help being touched. I'm sure they deserved it, and much more.'

'No doubt,' said Louis; 'but, alas! if all had their deserts-'

'Then you really think he was too severe?'

'I think his constitutional character was hardly fit for so trying a post, and that his family and school troubles reacted upon each other.'

'You mean Clara's conduct; and dear grandmamma-oh! if she could but have stayed with us! If you could have seen how haggard and grieved he came home from Cheveleigh! I do not think he has been quite the same ever since.'

'And No. 5 has never been the same,' said Louis.

'Tell me,' said Isabel, suddenly, 'are we very poor indeed?'

'I fear so, Isabel. Till James can find some employment, I fear there is a stern struggle with poverty before you.'

'Does that mean living as the Faithfulls do?'

'Yes, I think your means will be nearly the same as theirs.'

'Fitzjocelyn,' said Isabel, after a long pause, 'I see what you have been implying all this time, and I have been feeling it too. I have been absorbed in my own pursuits, and not paid attention enough to details of management, and so I have helped to fret and vex my husband. You all think my habits an additional evil in this trial.'

'James has never said a word of the kind,' cried Louis.

'I know he has not; but I ought to have opened my eyes to it long ago, and I thank you for helping me. There-will you take that manuscript, and keep it out of my way? It has been a great tempter to me. It is finished now, and it might bring in something. But I can have only one thought now-how to make James happier and more at ease.'

'Then, Isabel, I don't think your misfortunes will be misfortunes.'

'To suffer for right principles should give strength for anything,' said Isabel. 'Think what many better women than I have had to endure, when they have had to be ashamed of their husband, not proud of him! Now, I do hope and trust that God will help us, and carry us and the children through with it!'

Louis felt that in this frame she was truly fit to cheer and sustain James. How she might endure the actual struggle with penury, he dared not imagine; at present he could only be carried along by her lofty composure.

James still lay on his tossed, uncomfortable bed in the evening twilight. The long, lonely hours, when he imagined Louis to have taken him at his word and gone home, had given him a miserable sense of desertion, and as increasing sensations of illness took from him the hopes of moving on that day, he became distracted at the thought of the anxiety his silence would cause Isabel, and, after vainly attempting to write, had been lying with the door open, watching for some approaching step.

There was the familiar sound of a soft, gliding step on the stairs, then a pause, and the sweet soft voice, 'My poor James, how sadly uncomfortable you are!'

'My dear!' he cried, hastily raising himself, 'who has been frightening you?'

'No one, Fitzjocelyn was so kind as to come for me.'

'Ah! I wished you to have been spared this unpleasant business.'

'Do you think I could bear to stay away! Oh, James! have I been too useless and helpless for you even to be glad to see me?'

'It was for your own sake,' he murmured, pressing her hand. 'Has Fitzjocelyn told you?'

'Yes,' said Isabel, looking up, as she sat beside him. 'Never mind, James. It is better to suffer wrong than to do it. I do not fear but that, if we strive to do our duty, God will help us, and make it turn out for the best for our children and ourselves.'

He grasped her hand in intense emotion.

'I know you are anxious about me,' added Isabel. 'My ways have been too self-indulgent for you to think I can bear hardness. I made too many professions at first; I will make no more now, but only tell you that I trust to do my utmost, and not shrink from my duties. And now, not a word more about it till you are better.'