Hopes and Fears

CHAPTER XXVIII

Old isle and glorious, I have heard

Thy fame across the sea,

And know my fathers' homes are thine,

My fathers rest with thee.-A Cleveland Lore

'R. M. Fulmort to Miss Charlecote.-The carriage to meet the 6 P.M. train.'

That was all the intelligence that reached Woolstone-lane till the court-gates were opened, and Robert hurried in before the carriage. 'Much better,' he said 'only he is sadly knocked up by the journey. Do not show yourselves till he is in his room. Which is it?'

Honora and Lucilla hastened to point it out, then drew back, and waited, Honor supporting herself against the wall, pale and breathless, Lucy hanging over the balusters, fevered with suspense. She heard the tread, the quick, muttered question and answer; she saw the heavy, helpless weight carried in; and as the steps came upwards, she was pulled back into the sitting-room by Honor, at first almost by force, then with passive, dejected submission, and held tight to the back of a chair, her lip between her teeth, as though withholding herself by force from springing forward as the familiar voice, weak, weary, and uncertain, met her ear.

At length Robert beckoned; and she flew at first, then slackened her pace, awestruck. Her brother lay on the bed, with closed eyes. The form was larger, more manly and robust than what she had known, the powerful framework rendering the wreck more piteous, and the handsome dark beard and moustache, and crisp, thick curls of hair made the straight, well-cut features resemble an old picture of a cavalier; nor had the bright, sunburnt complexion lost the hue of health; so that the whole gave the idea of present suffering rather than abiding illness. He seemed to her like a stranger, till at her step he looked up, and his dark gray eyes were all himself as he held out his hand and fondly spoke her name. She hung over him, restraining her exclamations with strong force; and even in the midst of her embrace he was saying, 'Honor! Is Honor here?'

Trembling with emotion, Honor bent to kiss his brow, and felt his arm thrown about her neck, and the hairy lips kissing either cheek just as when, smooth and babyish, they had sought her motherly caress. 'May I come home?' he asked. 'They brought me without your leave!'

'And you could not feel sure of your Sweet Honey's welcome?'

He smiled his old smile of fondness, but dimmed by pain and languor; and the heavy lids sank over his eyes, but to be at once raised. 'Lucy! Home, Honor! It is all I wanted,' he said; 'you will be good to me, such as I am.'

'We will sit close to you, my dear; only you cannot talk-you must rest.'

'Yes. My head is very bad-my eyes ache,' he said, turning his head from the light, with closed eyes, and hand over them; but then he added-'One thing first-where is he?'

'Your little boy?' said Lucilla. 'Do you wish to see him? I will call him.'

'No, no, I could not;' and his brow contracted with pain. 'No! but did not I tell you all about him-your cousin, Honor? Do pull the curtain round, the light hurts me!'

Convinced that his mind was astray, there was no attempt at answering him; and all were so entirely occupied with his comforts, that Phoebe saw and heard no one until Robert came down, telling her that Owen had, in fact, improved much on the voyage, but that the long day's journey by train had brought on such severe and exhausting pain in the head, that he could scarcely speak or look up, and fatigue seemed to have confused the faculties that in the morning had been quite clear. Robert was obliged to go to his seven o'clock service, and Phoebe would fain have come with him, but he thought she might be useful at home.

'Miss Charlecote is so much absorbed in Owen,' he said, 'that I do not think she heard a word about that young Randolf. Mr. Currie is gone to spend to-morrow and Sunday with his father at Birmingham, but he let me have this young man to help to bring Owen home. Make Miss Charlecote understand that he is to sleep at my place. I will come back for him, and he is not to be in her way. He is such a nice fellow! And, Phoebe, I have no time, but there is Mrs. Murrell with the child in the study. Can you make her understand that Owen is far too ill to see them to-night? Keep them off poor Lucy, that's all.'

'Lucy, that's all!' thought Phoebe, as she moved to obey. 'In spite of all he says, Lucy will always be his first thought next to St. Matthew's; nor do I know why I should mind it, considering what a vast space there is between!'

'Now my pa is come, shan't I be a gentleman, and ride in a carriage?' were the sounds that greeted Phoebe's ears as she opened the door of the study, and beheld the small, lean child dressed in all his best; not one of the gray linen frocks that Lucilla was constantly making for him, but in a radiant tartan, of such huge pattern that his little tunic barely contained a sample of one of each portentous check, made up crosswise, so as to give a most comical, harlequin effect to his spare limbs and weird, black eyes. The disappointment that Phoebe had to inflict was severe, and unwittingly she was the messenger whom Mrs. Murrell was likely to regard with the most suspicion and dislike. 'Come home along with me, Hoing, my dear,' she said; 'you'll always find poor granny your friend, even if your pa's 'art is like the nether millstone, as it was to your poor ma, and as others may find it yet.'

'I have no doubt Mr. Sandbrook will see him when he is a little recovered after his journey,' said Phoebe.

'No doubt, ma'am. I don't make a doubt, so long as there is no one to put between them. I have 'eard how the sight of an 'opeful son was as balm to the eyes of his father; but if I could see Mr. Fulmort-'

'My brother is gone to church. It was he who sent me to you.'

Mrs. Murrell had real confidence in Robert, whose friendliness had long been proved, and it was less impossible to persuade her to leave the house when she learnt that it was by his wish; but Phoebe did not wonder at the dread with which an interview with her was universally regarded.

In returning from this mission, Phoebe encountered the stranger in the lamp-light of the hall, intently examining the balustrade of the stairs.

'This is the drawing-room,' she courteously said, seeing that he seemed not to know where to go.

'Thank you,' he said, following her. 'I was looking at the wood. What is it? We have none like it.'

'It is Irish bog oak, and much admired.'

'I suppose all English houses can scarcely be like this?' said he, looking round at the carved wainscot.

'Oh, no, this house is a curiosity. Part was built before 1500.'

'In the time of the Indians?' Then smiling, 'I had forgotten. It is hard to realize that I am where I have so long wished to be. Am I actually in a room 360 years old?'

'No; this room is less ancient. Here is the date, 1605, on the panel.'

'Then this is such a house as Milton might have grown up in. It looks on the Thames?'

'How could you tell that?'

'My father had a map of London that I knew by heart, and after we came under Temple Bar, I marked the bearings of the streets. Before that I was not clear. Perhaps there have been changes since 1830, the date of his map.'

Phoebe opened a map, and he eagerly traced his route, pronouncing the names of the historical localities with a relish that made her almost sorry for their present associations. She liked his looks. He seemed to be about two or three and twenty, tall and well-made, with somewhat of the bearing of his soldier-father, but broad-shouldered and athletic, as though his strength had been exercised in actual bodily labour. His clear, light hazel eye was candid and well opened, with that peculiar prompt vigilance acquired by living in a wild country, both steady to observe and keen to keep watch. The dark chestnut hair covered a rather square brow, very fair, though the rest of the face was browned by sun and weather; the nose was straight and sensible, the chin short and firm; the lips, though somewhat compressed when shut, had a look of good-humour and cheerful intelligence peculiarly pleasant to behold. Altogether, it was a face that inspired trust.

Presently the entrance of the tea-things obliged the map to be cleared away; and Phoebe, while measuring out the tea, said that she supposed Miss Charlecote would soon come down.

'Then are not you a Charlecote?' he asked, with a tone of disappointment.

'Oh, no! I am Phoebe Fulmort. There is no Charlecote left but herself.'

'It was my mother's name; and mine, Humfrey Charlecote Randolf. Sandbrook thought there was some connection between the families.'

Phoebe absolutely started, hurt for a moment that a stranger should presume to claim a name of such associations; yet as she met the bright, honest eyes, feeling glad that it should still be a living name, worthily borne. 'It is an old family name at Hiltonbury, and one very much honoured,' she said.

'That is well,' he said. 'It is good to have a name that calls one to live up to it! And what is more strange, I am sure Miss Charlecote once had my mother's hair.'

'Beautiful ruddy gold?'

'Yes, yes; like no one else. I was wanting to do like poor Sandbrook.' He looked up in her face, and stroked her hair as she was leaning over him, and said, 'I don't like to miss my own curls.'

'Ah!' said Phoebe, half indignantly, 'he should know when those curls were hidden away and grew silvery.'

'He told me those things in part,' said the young man. 'He has felt the return very deeply, and I think it accounts for his being so much worse to-night-worse than I have seen him since we were at Montreal.'

'Is he quite sensible?'

'Perfectly. I see the ladies do not think him so to-night; but he has been himself from the first, except that over-fatigue or extra weakness affect his memory for the time; and he cannot read or exert his mind-scarcely be read to. And he is sadly depressed in spirits.'

'And no wonder, poor man,' said Phoebe.

'But I cannot think it is as they told us at Montreal.'

'What?'

'That the brain would go on weakening, and he become more childish. Now I am sure, as he has grown stronger, he has recovered intellect and intelligence. No one could doubt it who heard him three days ago advising me what branch of mathematics to work up!'

'We shall hear to-morrow what Dr. F--says. Miss Charlecote wrote to him as soon as we had my brother's telegram. I hope you are right!'

'For you see,' continued the Canadian, eagerly, 'injury from an external cause cannot be like original organic disease. I hope and trust he may recover. He is the best friend I ever had, except Mr. Henley, our clergyman at Lakeville. You know how he saved all our lives; and he persuaded Mr. Currie to try me, and give me a chance of providing for my little brothers and their mother better than by our poor old farm.'

'Where are they?' asked Phoebe.

'She is gone to her sister at Buffalo. The price of the land will help them on for a little while there, and if I can get on in engineering, I shall be able to keep them in some comfort. I began to think the poor boys were doomed to have no education at all.'

'Did you always live at Lakeville?'

'No; I grew up in a much more civilized part of the world. We had a beautiful farm upon Lake Ontario, and raised the best crops in the neighbourhood. It was not till we got entangled in the Land Company, five years ago, that we were sold up; and we have been sinking deeper ever since-till the old cow and I had the farm all to ourselves.'

'How could you bear it?' asked Phoebe.

'Well! it was rather dreary to see one thing going after another. But somehow, after I lost my own black mare, poor Minnehaha, I never cared so much for any of the other things. Once for all, I got ashamed of my own childish selfishness. And then, you see, the worse things were, the stronger the call for exertion. That was the great help.'

'Oh, yes, I can quite imagine that-I know it,' said Phoebe, thinking how exertion had helped her through her winter of trial. 'You never were without some one to work for.'

'No; even when my father was gone'-and his voice was less clear-'there was the less time to feel the change, when the boys and their mother had nothing but me between them and want.'

'And you worked for them.'

'After a fashion,' he said, smiling. 'Spade-husbandry alone is very poor earth-scratching; and I don't really know whether, between that and my gun, we could have got through this winter.'

'What a life!' exclaimed Phoebe. 'Realities, indeed!'

'It is only what many colonists undergo,' he answered; 'if they do not prosper, it is a very hard life, and the shifting hopes render it the more trying to those who are not bred to it.'

'And to those that are?' she asked.

'To those that are there are many compensations. It is a free out-of-doors life, and the glorious sense of extent and magnificence in our woods, the sport one has there, the beauty of our autumns, and our white, grand, silent winters, make it a life well worth living.'

'And would these have made you content to be a backwoodsman all your life?'

'I cannot tell,' he said. 'They-and the boys-were my delight when I was one. And, after all, I used to recollect it was a place where there was a clear duty to do, and so, perhaps, safer than what fancy or choice would point at.'

'But you are very glad not to be still condemned to it.'

'Heartily glad not to be left to try to prop up a tumble-down log-hut with my own shoulder,' he laughed. 'This journey to England has been the great desire of my life, and I am very thankful to have had it brought about.'

The conversation was broken off by Robert's entrance. Finding that it was nearly nine o'clock, he went up-stairs to remind Miss Charlecote that tea had long been awaiting her, and presently brought her back from the silent watch by Owen's side that had hitherto seemed to be rest and comfort to all the three.

Owen had begged that his cup might be sent up by his friend, on whom he was very dependent, and it was agreed that Mr. Randolf should sleep in his room, and remain as a guest at Woolstone-lane until Mr. Currie should come to town. Indeed, Miss Charlecote relied on him for giving the physician an account of the illness which Owen, at his best, could not himself describe; and she cordially thanked him for his evidently devoted attendance, going over every particular with him, but still so completely absorbed in her patient as to regard him in no light but as an appendage necessary to her boy.

'How did you get on with the backwoodsman, Phoebe?' asked Lucilla, when she came down to tea.

'I think he is a sterling character,' said Phoebe, in a tone of grave, deep thought, not quite as if answering the question, and with an observable deepening of the red of her cheek.

'You quaint goose!' said Lucy, with a laugh that jarred upon Honor, who turned round at her with a look of reproachful surprise.

'Indeed, Honor dear,' she said, in self-vindication, 'I am not hard-hearted! I am only very much relieved! I don't think half so badly of poor Owen as I expected to do; and if we can keep Mrs. Murrell from driving him distracted, I expect to see him mend fast.'

Robert confirmed her cheerful opinion, but their younger and better prognostications fell sadly upon Honora's ear. She had been too much grieved and shocked to look for recovery, and all that she dared to expect was to tend her darling's feebleness, her best desire was that his mind might yet have power to embrace the hope of everlasting Life ere he should pass away from her. Let this be granted, and she was prepared to be thankful, be his decay never so painful to witness and attend.

She could not let Robert leave her that night without a trembling question whether he had learnt how it was with Owen on this point. He had not failed to inquire of the engineer, but he could tell her very little. Owen's conduct had been unexceptionable, but he had made scarcely any demonstration or profession, and on the few occasions when opinions were discussed, spoke not irreverently, but in a tone of one who regretted and respected the tenets that he no longer held. Since his accident, he had been too weak and confused to dwell on any subjects but those of the moment; but he had appeared to take pleasure in the unobtrusive, though decided religious habits of young Randolf.

There she must rest for the present, and trust to the influence of home, perhaps to that of the shadow of death. At least he was the child of many prayers, and had not Lucilla returned to her changed beyond her hopes? Let it be as it would, she could not but sleep in gratitude that both her children were again beneath her roof.

She was early dressed, and wishing the backwoodsman were anywhere but in Owen's room. However, to her joy, the door was open, and Owen called her in, looking so handsome as he lay partly raised by pillows, that she could hardly believe in his condition, except for his weak, subdued voice.

'Yes, I am much better this morning. I have slept off the headache, and have been enjoying the old sounds!'

'Where is your friend?'

'Rushed off to look at St. Paul's through the shaking of doormats, and pay his respects to the Thames. He has none of the colonial nil admirari spirit, but looks at England as a Greek colonist would have looked at Athens. I only regret that the reality must tame his raptures. I told him to come back by breakfast-time.'

'He will lose his way.'

'Not he! You little know the backwood's power of topography! Even I could nearly rival some of the Arab stories, and he could guide you anywhere-or after any given beast in the Newcastle district. Honor, you must know and like him. He really is the New World Charlecote whom you always held over our heads.'

'I thought you called him Randolf?'

'That is his surname, but his Christian name is Humfrey Charlecote, from his grandfather. His mother was the lady my father told you of. He saved an old Bible out of the fire, with it all in the fly-leaf. He shall show it to you, and it can be easily confirmed by writing to the places. I would have gone myself, if I had not been the poor creature I am.'

'Yes, my dear,' said Honora, 'I dare say it is so. I am very glad you found so attentive a friend. I am most thankful to him for his care of you.'

'And you accept him as a relation,' said Owen, anxiously.

'Yes, oh, yes,' said Honor. 'Would you like anything before breakfast?'

Owen answered with a little plaintiveness. Perhaps he was disappointed at this cold acquiescence; but it was not a moment at which Honor could face the thought of a colonial claimant of the Holt. With Owen helpless upon her hands, she needed both a home and ample means to provide for him and his sister and child; and the American heir, an unwelcome idea twenty years previously, when only a vague possibility, was doubly undesirable when long possession had endeared her inheritance to her, when he proved not even to be a true Charlecote, and when her own adopted children were in sore want of all that she could do for them. The evident relinquishment of poor Owen's own selfish views on the Holt made her the less willing to admit a rival, and she was sufficiently on the borders of age to be pained by having the question of heirship brought forward. And she knew, what Owen did not, that, if this youth's descent were indeed what it was said to be, he represented the elder line, and that even Humfrey had wondered what would be his duty in the present contingency.

'Nonsense!' said she to herself. 'There is no need as yet to think of it! The place is my own by every right! Humfrey told me so! I will take time to see what this youth may be, and make sure of his relationship. Then, if it be right and just, he shall come after me. But I will not raise expectations, nor notice him more than as Owen's friend and a distant kinsman. It would be fatally unsettling to do more.'

Owen urged her no farther. Either he had not energy to enforce any point for long together, or he felt that the succession might be a delicate subject, for he let her lead to his personal affairs, and he was invalid enough to find them fully engrossing.

The Canadian came in punctually, full of animation and excitement, of which Phoebe had the full benefit, till he was called to help Owen to dress. While this was going on, Robert came into the drawing-room to breathe, after the hard task of pacifying Mrs. Murrell.

'What are you going to do to-day, Phoebe?' he asked. 'Have you got through your shopping?'

'Some of it. Do you mean that you could come out with me?'

'Yes; you will never get through business otherwise.'

'Then if you have an afternoon to spare, could not we take Mr. Randolf to the Tower?'

'Why, Phoebe!'

'He has only to-day at liberty, and is so full of eagerness about all the grand old historical places, that it seems hard that he should have to find his way about alone, with no one to sympathize with him-half the day cut up, too, with nursing Owen.'

'He seems to have no difficulty in finding his way.'

'No; but I really should enjoy showing him the old armour. He was asking me about it this morning. I think he knows nearly as much of it as we do.'

'Very well. I say, Phoebe, would you object to my taking Brown and Clay-my two head boys? I owe them a treat, and they would just enter into this.'

Phoebe was perfectly willing to accept the two head boys, and the appointment had just been made when the doctor arrived. Again he brought good hope. From his own examination of Owen, and from Mr. Randolf's report, he was convinced that a considerable amelioration had taken place, and saw every reason to hope that in so young and vigorous a nature the injury to the brain might be completely repaired, and the use of the limbs might in part, at least, return, though full recovery could not be expected. He wished to observe his patient for a month or six weeks in town, that the course of treatment might be decided, after which he had better be taken to the Holt, to enjoy the pure air, and be out of doors as much as the season would permit.

To Honor this opinion was the cause of the deepest, most thankful gladness; but on coming back to Owen she found him sitting in his easy-chair, with his hand over his eyes, and his look full of inexpressible dejection and despondency. He did not, however, advert to the subject, only saying, 'Now then! let us have in the young pauper to see the old one.'

'My dear Owen, you had better rest.'

'No, no; let us do the thing. The grandmother, too!' he said impatiently.

'I will fetch little Owen; but you really are not fit for Mrs. Murrell.'

'Yes, I am; what am I good for but such things? It will make no difference, and it must be done.'

'My boy, you do not know to what you expose yourself.'

'Don't I,' said Owen, sadly.

Lucilla, even though Mr. Prendergast had just come to share her anxieties, caught her nephew on his way, and popped her last newly completed pinafore over his harlequinism, persuading him that it was most beautiful and new.

The interview passed off better than could have been hoped. The full-grown, grave-looking man was so different from the mere youth whom Mrs. Murrell had been used to scold and preach at, that her own awe seconded the lectures upon quietness that had been strenuously impressed on her; and she could not complain of his reception of his ''opeful son,' in form at least. Owen held out his hand to her, and bent to kiss his boy, signed to her to sit down, and patiently answered her inquiries and regrets, asking a few civil questions in his turn.

Then he exerted himself to say, 'I hope to do my best for him and for you, Mrs. Murrell, but I can make no promises; I am entirely dependent at present, and I do not know whether I may not be so for life.'

Whereat, and at the settled mournful look with which it was spoken, Mrs. Murrell burst out crying, and little Owen hung on her, almost crying too. Honor, who had been lying in wait for Owen's protection, came hastily in and made a clearance, Owen again reaching out his hand, which he laid on the child's head, so as to turn up the face towards him for a moment. Then releasing it almost immediately, he rested his chin on his hand, and Honor heard him mutter under his moustache, 'Flibbertigibbet!'

'When we go home, we will take little Owen with us,' said Honor, kindly. 'It is high time he was taken from Little Whittington-street. Country air will soon make a different-looking child of him.'

'Thank you,' he answered, despondingly. 'It is very good in you; but have you not troubles enough already?

'He shall not be a trouble, but a pleasure.'

'Poor little wretch! He must grow up to work, and to know that he must work while he can;' and Owen passed his hand over those useless fingers of his as though the longing to be able to work were strong on him.

Honor had agreed with Lucilla that father and son ought to be together, and that little 'Hoeing's' education ought to commence. Cilla insisted that all care of him should fall to her. She was in a vehement, passionate mood of self-devotion, more overset by hearing that her brother would be a cripple for life than by what appeared to her the less melancholy doom of an early death. She had allowed herself to hope so much from his improvement on the voyage, that what to Honor was unexpected gladness was to her grievous disappointment. Mr. Prendergast arrived to find her half captious, half desperate.

See Owen! Oh, no! he must not think of it. Owen had seen quite people enough to-day; besides, he would be letting all out to him as he had done the other day.

Poor Mr. Prendergast humbly apologized for his betrayal; but had not Owen been told of the engagement?

Oh, dear, no! He was in no state for fresh agitations. Indeed, with him, a miserable, helpless cripple, Lucy did not see how she could go on as before. She could not desert him-oh, no!-she must work for him and his child.

'Work! Why, Cilla, you have not strength for it.'

'I am quite well. I have strength for anything now I have some one to work for. Nothing hurts me but loneliness.'

'Folly, child! The same home that receives you will receive them.'

'Nonsense! As if I could throw such a dead weight on any one's hands!'

'Not on any one's,' said Mr. Prendergast. 'But I see how it is, Cilla; you have changed your mind.'

'No,' said Lucilla, with an outbreak of her old impatience; 'but you men are so selfish! Bothering me about proclaiming all this nonsense, just when my brother is come home in this wretched state! After all, he was my brother before anything else, and I have a right to consider him first!'

'Then, Cilla, you shall be bothered no more,' said Mr. Prendergast, rising. 'If you want me, well and good-you know where to find your old friend; if not, and you can't make up your mind to it, why, then we are as we were in old times. Good-bye, my dear; I won't fret you any more.'

'No,' said he to himself, as he paused in the Court, and was busy wiping from the sleeve of his coat two broad dashes of wet that had certainly not proceeded from the clouds, 'the dear child's whole heart is with her brother now she has got him back again. I'll not torment her any more. What a fool I was to think that anything but loneliness could have made her accept me-poor darling! I think I'll go out to the Bishop of Sierra Leone!'

'What can have happened to him?' thought Phoebe, as he strode past the little party on their walk to the Tower. 'Can that wretched little Cilly have been teasing him? I am glad Robert has escaped from her clutches!'

However, Phoebe had little leisure for such speculations in the entertainment of witnessing her companion's intelligent interest in all that he saw. The walk itself-for which she had begged-was full of wonder; and the Tower, which Robert's slight knowledge of one of the officials enabled them to see in perfection, received the fullest justice, both historically and loyally. The incumbent of St. Matthew's was so much occupied with explanations to his boys, that Phoebe had the stranger all to herself, and thus entered to the full into that unfashionable but most heart-stirring of London sights, 'the Towers of Julius,' from the Traitors' Gate, where Elizabeth sat in her lion-like desolation, to her effigy in her glory upon Tilbury Heath-the axe that severed her mother's 'slender neck'-the pistol-crowned stick of her father-the dark cage where her favourite Raleigh was mewed-and the whole series of the relics of the disgraces and the glories of England's royal line-well fitted, indeed, to strike the imagination of one who had grown up in the New World without antiquity.

If it were a satisfaction to be praised and thanked for this expedition, Phoebe had it; for on her return she was called into Owen's room, where his first words to her were of thanks for her good-nature to his friend.

'I am sure it was nothing but a pleasure,' she said. 'It happened that Robert had some boys whom he wanted to take.' Somehow she did not wish Owen to think she had done it on his own account.

'And you liked him?' asked Owen.

'Yes, very much indeed,' she heartily said.

'Ah! I knew you would;' and he lay back as if fatigued. Then, as Phoebe was about to leave him, he added-'I can't get my ladies to heed anything but me. You and Robert must take pity on him, if you please. Get him to Westminster Abbey, or the Temple Church, or somewhere worth seeing to-morrow. Don't let them be extortionate of his waiting on me. I must learn to do without him.'

Phoebe promised, and went.

'Phoebe is grown what one calls a fine young woman instead of a sweet girl,' said Owen to his sister, when she next came into the room; 'but she has managed to keep her innocent, half-wondering look, just as she has the freshness of her colour.'

'Well, why not, when she has not had one real experience?' said Lucilla, a little bitterly.

'None?' he asked, with a marked tone.

'None,' she answered, and he let his hand drop with a sigh; but as if repenting of any half betrayal of feeling, added, 'she has had all her brothers and sisters at sixes and sevens, has not she?'

'Do you call that a real experience?' said Lucilla, almost with disdain, and the conversation dropped.

Owen's designs for his friend's Sunday fell to the ground. The backwoodsman fenced off the proposals for his pleasure, by his wish to be useful in the sick-room; and when told of Owen's desire, was driven to confess that he did not wish for fancy church-going on his first English Sunday. There was enough novelty without that; the cathedral service was too new for him to wish to hear it for the first time when there was so much that was unsettling.

Honor, and even Robert, were a little disappointed. They thought eagerness for musical service almost necessarily went with church feeling; and Phoebe was the least in the world out of favour for the confession, that though it was well that choirs should offer the most exquisite and ornate praise, yet that her own country-bred associations with the plain unadorned service at Hiltonbury rendered her more at home where the prayers were read, and the responses congregational, not choral. To her it was more devotional, though she fully believed that the other way was the best for those who had begun with it.

So they went as usual to the full service of the parish church, where the customs were scrupulously rubrical without being ornate. The rest and calm of that Sunday were a boon, coming as they did after a bustling week.

All the ensuing days Phoebe was going about choosing curtains and carpets, or hiring servants for herself or Mervyn. She was obliged to act alone, for Miss Charlecote, on whom she had relied for aid, was engrossed in attending on Owen, and endeavouring to wile away the hours that hung heavily on one incapable of employment or even attention for more than a few minutes together. So constantly were Honor and Lucy engaged with him, that Phoebe hardly saw them morning, noon, or night; and after being out for many hours, it generally fell to her lot to entertain the young Canadian for the chief part of the evening. Mr. Currie had arrived in town on the Monday, and came at once to see Owen. His lodgings were in the City, where he would be occupied for some time in more formally mapping out and reporting on the various lines proposed for the G. O. and S. line; and finding how necessary young Randolf still was to the invalid, he willingly agreed to the proposal that while Miss Charlecote continued in London, the young man should continue to sleep and spend his evenings in Woolstone-lane.