Modern Broods

Lord Rotherwood began by complaining of an act of piracy! After being exposed to a tempest and forced to put in for supplies, here he was captured, and called upon to distribute prizes! He perceived that it was a new act of aggression on the part of the ladies, proving to what lengths they were coming. Tyrants they had always been, but to find them wreckers to boot was a novelty. However, prizes were the natural sequence of a maritime exploit, and he was happy to distribute them to the maidens about to start on the voyage of life, hoping that these dainty logbooks would prove a stimulus and a compass to steer by even into unexplored seas, such as he believed the better-informed ladies were about to describe to them.

Rockstone was used to its Marquis's speeches, and always enjoyed them; and he handed the prize-books to the recipients with a shake of the hand, and a word or two of congratulation appropriate to each, especially when he knew their names; and then he declared that they were about to hear what education was good for, much better than from himself, from such noted examples as Miss Arthuret and Miss Merrifield, better known to them as Mesa. Wherewith he waved forward Miss Arthuret, a slight, youthful-looking lady, fashionably attired, and made his escape with rapid foot and hasty nods, almost furtively, while the audience were clapping her.

She spoke with voice and utterance notably superior to his well-known halting periods, scarcely saved by long training and use from being a stutter. The female population eagerly listened, while she painted in vivid colours the aim of education, in raising the status of women, and extending their spheres not only of influence in the occult manner which had hitherto been their way of working through others, but in an open manner, which compelled attention; and she dwelt on certain brilliant achievements of women, and of others which stood before them, and towards which their education, passing out of the old grooves, was preparing them to take their place among men, and temper their harshness and indifference to suffering with the laws of mercy and humanity, speaking with an authority and equality such as should ensure attention, no longer in home and nursery whispering alone, but with open face asserting and claiming justice for the weakest.

It was a powerful and effective speech; and Agatha's eye lighted with enthusiasm, as did those of several others of the elder scholars and younger teachers, as these high aims were unfolded to them.

Then followed Elizabeth Merrifield, not contradictory, but recognising what wide fields had been opened to womanhood, dwelling on such being the work of Christianity, which had always tended to repress the power of brute animal strength and jealousy, and to give preponderance to the force of character and the just influence of sweet homely affection. Exceptional flashes, even in heathen lands, and still more under the Divine guidance of the Israelites, showed what women were capable of; and ever since a woman had been the chosen instrument of the mystery of the Incarnation, the Church, the chosen emblem of the union of humanity with her Lord, had gradually purified and exalted the sex by training them through the duties of mercy, of wifehood and motherhood, to be capable of undertaking and fulfilling higher and more extensive tasks, always by the appointment and with the help of Him who had increased their outside powers, for the sake of the weaker ones of His flock. What might, by His will, in the government and politics of the country, be put into their hands, no one could tell; but it was right to be prepared for it, by extending their intellectual ability and knowledge of the past, as well as of the laws of physical nature-all, in short, that modern education aimed at opening young minds to pursue with growing faculties. This was what made her rejoice in the studies here followed with good success, as the prizes testified so pleasantly; and she trusted that the cultivation, which here went on so prosperously, was leading-if she might use old well-accustomed words-to the advancement of God's glory, the good of His Church, aye! and to the safety, honour, and welfare of our Sovereign and her dominions.

The words brought tears of feeling into the eyes of some; but Jane Mohun could not help observing, "Ah! I was afraid you were going to hold up to us the example of the ants and bees, where the old maids do all the working and fighting and governing! Don't make Gillian regret that she is falling away from the spinsterhood."

"Come, Aunt Jane, Bessie never did make it the praise of spinsters. I am sure married women can do as much as spinsters, and have more weight," said Gillian, facing round gallantly, and winning the approval of her aunt and of Bessie. There was no doubt but that since her engagement she had been much quieter and less opinionative.

With what different sensations the same occasion may be attended! To Bessie Merrifield, the primary object was, as ever, woman's work, especially her own, for the Church; and the actual business absorbed her. In spite of her evenings' talk to her Aunt Lilias, and the sad and painful recollections it had aroused, still her only look at Magdalen Prescott's face was one half of curiosity half of sorrow, as of the object of the brief calf-love of one of many brothers, and who had been now lost sight of, with the passing wonder whether, if the affection had survived and been encouraged, it might have led him to better things.

While Magdalen felt the poignant renewal of the one romance of a lifetime, as she caught tones, watched little gestures and recognised those indescribable hereditary similarities which more and more bore in upon her the fraternal connection of the bright earnest woman with the lively pleasant young man who had brought the attraction of a higher tone of manners and cultivation into the country town. No more had been heard of him since his promise to write, a promise that had been only once remembered, so that she had tried to take refuge in the supposition, unlikely as it was, that her stepmother had confiscated his letters. All was a blank since that last stolen kiss; and the wonder whether she could by any means discover anything further from Lady Merrifield or Gillian, so occupied her that she hardly heard the tenor of the two speeches, and did not observe Agatha's glowing cheeks and burning eyes, which might have told her that this was one of the moments which direct the current of life.

When Hubert Delrio came up in the evening he was curious to hear about the meeting. His young landlady, who had been a High School girl for a short time, thought Miss Arthuret's speech the most beautiful discourse that ever was spoken; while other reports said that Lady Flight and Miss Mohun were very much shocked, and thought it unwholesome, not to say dangerous; and he wanted to know the meaning of it. Magdalen was quite dismayed to find how entirely her attention had been absent, and how little account she could give of what had passed by her like the wind; but she need not have been at a loss, for Agatha, with sparkling eyes and clasped hands, burst out into a very able and spirited abstract of the speech, and the future it portrayed, showing perhaps more enthusiasm than the practised public speaker thought it prudent to manifest.

"I see," said Hubert with something of a smile, "you ladies are charmed with the great future opened to you."

"I'm sure," said Vera, perhaps a little nettled by attention paid so long to Agatha, "I can't see the sense of it all; I think a woman is made just to love her husband, and be his pet, without all that fuss about societies, and speeches and learning and fuss!" And she gave a little caress to Hubert's hand, which was returned, as he said, "She may well be loved, but, without publicly coming forward, she may become the more valuable to her home."

"Of course she may, at home or abroad. She ought -" began Agatha, but Vera snapped her off. "Well, it only comes to being one of a lot of horrid old maids; and you don't want me to be one of them, do you, darling? Come and look at my doves!"

"What do you think of it all, sister?" asked Paulina.

"So far as I grasp the subject," said Magdalen, to whom, of course, this was not new, "I think that if a larger scope is to be given to women, it is for the sake and under the direction of the Church that it can be rightly and safely used."

She knew she was speaking by rote, and was not surprised that Agatha said, "That is just what one has heard so often, and what Miss Merrifield harped upon! I want to breathe in a fresh atmosphere beyond the old traditions, and know which are Divine and which are only the superstructure of those who have always had the dominion and justified it in their own way!"

"Who gave them that dominion?" said Magdalen.

"Brute strength," began Agatha.

"Nag, Nag!" cried Paula. "Surely you believe-"

"I did not say-I did not mean-I only meant to think it out, and understand what is Divine and what is in the eternal fitness of things."

Here came an interruption, leaving Magdalen conscious of the want of preparation for guiding the thought of these young things, and of self-reproach too, for having let herself be so absorbed in the thought of "her broken reed of earth beneath," as not to have dwelt on what might be the deep impressions of the young sisters under her charge.

A few days later, as Agatha sat reading in the garden, two figures appeared on the drive, wheeling up their bicycles. One was Gillian, the other had a general air of the family, but much darker, and not one of the old acquaintances. Advancing to meet them, she said, "I am the only one at home. My sisters are all at lessons or in the village."

"I'll leave a message," said Gillian. "My mother wants you all to come up to picnic tea to see the foxgloves in the dell, on Monday, and to bring Mr. Delrio-"

"Oh! thank you."

"I forgot, you had not seen my cousin Dolores Mohun before. Mysie calls her a cousin-twin, if you know what that is."

Agatha thought the newcomer's great pensive dark eyes and overhanging brow under very black hair made her look older than Mysie, or indeed than Gillian herself; and when the message had been disposed of, the latter continued, "Dolores wanted to know about Miss Arthuret's lecture, being rather in that line herself. She could not get home in time for it, and I was seeing the Kittiwake party on board, and only crept in at the other end of the hall in time for Bessie's faint echoes."

"I was in the very antipodes," said Dolores, "in a haunt of ancient peace, whence they would not let me come away soon enough."

"And, Agatha, Aunt Jane says she saw you devouring Miss Arthuret with your eyes," said Gillian.

"It gave one a sense of new life," said Agatha; and she related again Miss Arthuret's speech, broken only by appreciative questions and comments from Dolores' auditor, to whom, in the true fashion of nineteen, Agatha straightway lost her heart. Dolores, who had seen much more of the outer world than her cousins, and had had besides a deeply felt inward experience which might well render her far more responsive, and able to comprehend the questions working in the girl's mind, and which found expression in, "I went to St. Robert's only wanting to get my education carried on so that I might be a better governess; but I see now there are much farther on, much greater things to aim at, than I ever thought of."

"Alps on Alps arise!" said Dolores. "Yes-till they lose themselves -and where?"

"Miss Merrifield would say in Heaven, by way of the Church."

"The all things in earth or under the earth rising up in circles of praise to the Cherubim and the Great White Throne," said Dolores, her dark eyes raised in a moment's contemplation.

"Ah! One knows. But is that thought the one to be brought home to every one, as if they could bear it always? Are not we to do something -something-for the helping people here in this life, not always going on to the other life-"

"Temporal or spiritual?" said Dolores; "or spiritual through temporal?"

"And our part in helping," said Agatha.

"There is an immense deal to be thought out," said Dolores. "I feel only at the beginning of the questions, and there is study and experience to go to them."

"You mean what one gets at Oxford?"

"Partly. Thorough-at least, as thorough as one can-of the physical and material nature of things, then of the precedent which then results, also of reasoning."

"Metaphysical, do you mean, or logical?"

"That comes in; but I was thinking of mathematical in the indirect training of the mind. It all works into needful equipment, and so does actual life."

"It takes one's breath away."

"Well, we have begun our training," said Dolores, with a sweet sad smile. "At least, I hope so."

"At St. Robert's, you mean?"

"You have, I think. But I believe my aunt will be expecting us."

"Oh! And then they talk about modesty and womanliness and retiring! What do you think about all that?"

"That we never shall do any good without it."

They were interrupted by the hasty rushing up of Paula, who had committed her bicycle to Vera, and came dashing up the steep slope, crying, "O Nag, Nag, they are going away!"

The announcement was interrupted as she perceived the presence of the visitor, and they rose to meet her, but saw that there were tears in her eyes, and she had rushed up so fast that she was panting and could hardly speak, though she gave her hand, as Agatha, after naming the two cousins, asked, "Who are going?"

"The Sisters-Sister Mena-" with another overflow of tears which made Dolores and Gillian think they had better retreat and leave her to her sister's consolation; so they took leave hastily, Agatha however, coming as far as their machines, and confiding to them, "Poor Polly, it is a great blow to her, but I believe it is very good for her."

"There's stuff in that girl," said Dolores, as soon as they were out of reach. "She has the faculty of hearkening as well as of hearing."

"You would say so if you saw her at a lecture; and she is also gaining power of expressing and reproducing," said Gillian.

"She will be a power by and by, unless some blight comes across her."

"Will me, will me, it seems as if we had to do it. Even Mamma, whose ideal was chivalry, Church and home, has to be drawn out to take a certain public part; Aunt Jane, who only wished to live to potter about among neighbours, poor and rich, must needs come out of her traditional conventions, and relate her experiences, and you-"

"Oh, I am only trying to do the work Gerald aimed at!"

"Any way we have our work before us, whether we call it for the Church or mankind."

"Charity or Altruism," said Dolores.

"May not altruism lead to charity?" said Gillian.

"Sometimes, but sometimes disappointment leads only to intolerance of those whose methods differ. Altruism will not stand without a foundation," said Dolores.

"Mysie has been impressing on me, with what she heard from Phyllis Devereux, of the work Sister Angela has been doing at Albertstown-the most utter self-abnegation, through bitter disappointment in her most promising pupils-only the charity that is rooted could endure. It is just the old difference Tennyson points out between Wisdom and Knowledge."

"And with wisdom come those feminine attributes that Agatha began asking about."

"Yes, softening, gentleness, tact. If people have not grown up to them, they must be taught as parts of wisdom."

Gillian sighed. "I wonder what Ernley Armitage will say when he comes home?"

"He won't want you to throw up everything."

"I don't think he will! But if he did-No, I think he will be a staff to guide a silly, priggish heart to the deeper wisdom."

CHAPTER XVII-FOXGLOVES AND FLIRTATIONS

"With her venturous climbings, and tumbles, and childish escapes."

TENNYSON.

Hubert Delrio, pleased and gratified, but very shy, joined the ladies from the Goyle in their walk to Clipstone, expecting perhaps a good deal of stiffness and constraint, since every one at St. Kenelm's told him what a severe and formidable person Sir Jasper Merrifield was, and that all Lady Merrifield's surroundings were "so very clever." "They did want such books ordered in the library."

Magdalen laughed, and said her only chance of seeing a book she wanted was that Lady Merrifield should have asked for it. At Clipstone, they were directed to the dell where the foxgloves were unusually fine that year, covering one of the banks of the ravine with a perfect cloud of close-grown spikes, nodding with thick clustered bells, spotted withinside, and without, of that indescribable light crimson or purple, enchanting in reality but impossible to reproduce. It was like a dream of fairy land to Hubert to wander thither with his Vera, count the tiers of bells, admire the rings of purple and the crooked stamens, measure the height of the tall ones, some almost equal to himself in stature, and recall the fairy lore and poetry connected with them, while Vera listened and thought she enjoyed, but kept herself entertained by surreptitiously popping the blossoms, and trying to wreath her hat with wild roses.

Thekla meantime admired from the opposite bank, in a state of much elevation at acquiring a dear delicious brother-in-law, and insisted on Primrose sharing her sentiments till her boasting at last provoked the exclamation, "I wouldn't be so cocky! I don't make such a fuss if my sisters do go and fall in love. I have two brothers-in-law out in India, and Gillian has a captain, an Egyptian hero, with a medal, a post captain out at sea in the Nivelle. You shall see his photograph coloured in his lovely uniform, with his sword and all! Your Flapsy's man isn't even an officer!"

"He is a poet, and that's better!"

"Better! why, if you will have it, Wilfred and Fergus always call him that 'painter cad,'" broke out Primrose, who had not outgrown her childish power of rudeness, especially out of hearing of her elders.

"Then it is very wicked of them," exclaimed Thekla, "when the Marquis of Rotherwood himself said that Hubert Delrio is a very superior young man" (each syllable triumphantly rounded off).

Primrose was equal to the occasion. "Oh, they all laugh at Cousin Rotherwood; and, besides, a superior young man does not mean a gentleman."

Thekla burst into angry tears and sobs, which brought Gillian, and a grave, dark young lady from the other side of a rock to inquire what was the matter-there was a confession on the two tongues of "she did," and "I didn't" of "painter cad, superior young man and no gentleman," but at last it cleared itself into Primrose allowing that, to take down Thekla's conceit, she had declared that a very superior young man did not mean a gentleman.

"I could not have believed that you could have been so abominably ill-mannered," said Gillian gravely; "you ought to apologise to Thekla."

"Oh, never mind," began Thekla ashamed; and at that moment a frantic barking was heard in the depths, and Valetta, Wilfred, Fergus and a dog or two darted headlong past, calling out, "Hedgehogs, hedgehogs! Run! come!" And Primrose, giving a hand to Thekla, joined in the general rush down the glade.

"A situation relieved!" said the newcomer.

"For all ran to see,

For they took him to be

An Egyptian porcupig,"

quoted Gillian. "They have wanted such a beast for some time for their menagerie; but really Primrose is getting much too old to indulge in such babyish incivility to a guest, true though the speech was, 'a superior young man,' not necessarily a gentleman."

"I am colonial enough to like him the better for the absence of a hall mark."

"Should you have missed it? He is very good looking, and has a sensible refined countenance, poor man!"

"He is a little too point device, too obviously got up for the occasion!"

"Too like the best electroplate! No; that is not fair, for it is not pretence, at least, I should think there was sound material below, and that never would brighten instead of dimming it."

"According to Mysie and Fly, there is plenty of good taste; and his principle is vouched for. Mysie is quite furious at any lady-love having gone to sleep to the sound of original verses from a lover!"

"Dear old Mysie! No, she would not. She has a practical vein in her! Would you?"

"I'm not likely to be tried!" said Gillian merrily. "Catch Ernley either practising or not minding his boat! But come! Mamma will want me, I feel only deputy daughter, with Mysie away."

The two girls rose from the mossy bank, and proceeded across the paddock to the opening of the glade.

On the turf Lady Merrifield sat enthroned; making a nucleus to the festivities and delicacies of all sorts, from sandwiches and cakes down to strawberries, cherries and Devonshire cream, were displayed before her; and the others drifted up gradually, Miss Mohun first. "I am later than I meant to be," she said, "but I was delayed by a talk with Sister Beata. I never saw a woman more knocked down than she is by that adventure of Vera's."

"I know," said Magdalen, rousing herself. "It has made her look ten years older, and she could not talk it over or let a word be said to comfort her. She says it was all her fault, and I should have thought it was that silly little Sister Mena's, if that is her name.

"She considers it her fault for objecting to strict discipline in things of which she did not see the use," said Jane Mohun, "and so getting absorbed in her own work, and having no fixed rule by which to train Mena."

"I see," said Lady Merrifield; "it reminds me of a story told in Madame de Chantal's life, how, when, par mortification, a Sister quietly ate up a rotten apple without complaint and another made signs of amusement, a rule was made that no one should raise her eyes at meals. It shows that some rules which seem unreasonable may have a foundation."

"It is an unnatural life altogether," said Dolores. "Why should the rotten apple have been swallowed? or, if it was, I should think a joke over it might have been wholesome."

"Hindering priggishness in the mortified Sister," said Gillian.

"The fact is," said Lady Merrifield, "that if you vow yourself to an unnatural life, so to speak, you must submit to the rules that have been found best to work for it."

"And poor Sister Beata did neither the one nor the other, by her own account," said Jane. "She called herself a Sister, but disliked each rule, and chose to go her own way, like any other benevolent woman, doing very admirable work herself, but letting little Mena have the prestige of a Sister, while too busy to look after her, and without rules to restrain her."

"But surely there has been no harm!" exclaimed Lady Merrifield.

"No harm, only a little incipient flirtation with the organist, nothing in any one else, but not quite like a convent maid."

"Ah! I rather suspected," said Agatha.

"I should think the best thing for Sister Mena would be to go to a good school, leave off her veil, in which she looks so pretty, and be treated like an ordinary girl," said Lady Merrifield.

"That is just what Sister Beata intends," said Miss Mohun. "She is to sink down into Miss Marian Jenkins, to wear a straw hat and blue frock, and go to school with the other girls, the pupils, while Sister Beata begins life as a probationer at Dearport."

"Poor Sister Beata!"

"She says she has experienced that it is best to learn to obey before one begins to rule. It is most touching to see how humble she is. Such a real good woman too! I doubt whether she gets a night's rest three days in a week, and she looks quite haggard with this distress," said Jane.

"She will be a great power by and by! But what will Mr. Flight and St. Kenelm's do without her?"

"He is promised relays of Sisters from Dearport, which has stood so many years that they have a supply. You see, he, like Sister Beata, tried a little too much to be original and stand aloof."

"Ah!" said Lady Merrifield, "that is the benefit of institutions. They hinder works from dying away with the original clergyman or the wonderful woman."

"But, Aunt Lily," put in Dolores, "institutions get slack?"

"They have their downs, but they also have their ups. There is something to fall back upon with public schools."

"Yes, like croquet," laughed Aunt Jane. "We saw it rise and saw it fall; and here come all the players, the revival. Well, how went the game?"

So the party collected, and the two Generals came in from some vanity of inspection to grumble a little merrily at the open air banquet, but to take their places in all good humour, and the lively meal began with all the home witticisms, yet not such as to exclude strangers. Indeed, Hubert Delrio was treated with something like distinction, and was evidently very happy, with Vera by his side. Perhaps Magdalen perceived that there was not the perfect ease of absolute equality and familiarity; but his poetical and chivalrous nature was gratified by the notice of a Crimean hero, and he infinitely admired the dignity and courtesy of Lady Merrifield, and the grace and ease of her daughters, finding himself in a new world of exquisite charm for him.

And before they broke up, Magdalen had a quiet time with Lady Merrifield, in which she was able, not without a tell-tale blush even at her years, to ascertain that there were two Henry Merrifields, and that, alas! there was nothing good known of the son of Stokesley, except that anonymous attempt at restitution which gave hopes of repentance.

CHAPTER XVIII-PALACES OR CHURCHES

"And if I leave the thing that lieth next,

To go and do the thing that is afar,

I take the very strength out of my deed."

- MACDONALD.

Those were happy days that succeeded Vera's engagement. It had made her more womanly, or at least less childish; and the intercourse with Hubert Delrio became an increasing delight to her sisters, who had never known anything so like a brother.

He was at first shy and not at ease with Magdalen, who, on her side, perceived the lack of public school and university training; but in grain he was so completely a good man, a churchman, and a gentleman, and had so much right sense as well as talent, that she liked him thoroughly and began to rely on him, as a woman with unaccustomed property is glad to do with a male relation.

And to him, the society of the Goyle was a new charm. He had been brought up to the technicalities and the business relations of art, and had a cultivated taste; but to be with a thoughtful, highly educated lady, able to enter into its higher and deeper associations, was an unspeakable delight and improvement to him. Vera was fairly satisfied as long as he sketched her in various attitudes, and held her hand while he talked; though she did grudge having so much time spent on "taste, Shakespeare and the musical glasses." Paula had various ecclesiastical interests in common with him, and began to expand and enter more into realities, while Thekla had in him a dear delightful delicious brother, who petted her, bantered her, mended her rabbit hutch, caught her hedgehog, taught her to guide her bicycle, drew picture games for her, and taught her to sketch.

Agatha had endless discussions with him on his various aspirations, in some of which Magdalen took her share, sometimes thinking with a pang of regret and self-reproach that that brief time of intercourse with Hal Merrifield had been spent in youthful nonsense that could have left no permanent influence for good.

In fact, whether through Hubert or through Agatha, a certain intellectual waft had breathed upon the Goyle. Hubert was eager for assistance in learning German and Italian, and read and discussed books of interest; and even when he had left Rockstone, and his work at St. Kenelm's being finished, the stimulus was kept up by his letters, comments and questions; and the younger girls had entirely ceased to form an opposite camp, or to view "sister" as a taskmistress, even when Agatha had returned to St. Robert's.

Mysie had come home, very brown, fuller of Scott than ever for her mother, and of Hugh Miller for Fergus, for whom she had brought so many specimens that Cousin Rotherwood declared that she would sink the Kittiwake. Over the sketches and photographs of Iona, she and Paulina became great friends, and Paula was admitted to hear accounts of the modern missions that had come from the other Harry Merrifield among the Karens in Burmah, or again through Franciska Ivinghoe, of her Aunt Angela Underwood, who was considered to have a peculiar faculty for dealing with those very unpromising natives, the Australian gins. Franciska remembered her tender nursing and bright manner in the days of fever at Vale Leston, and had a longing hope that she would take a holiday and come home; but at present she was bound to the couch of her slowly declining old friend, Sister Constance, the Mother of Dearport. It was another bond of interest with Magdalen, to whom missions to the heathens had always been a dream.

Thus had passed a year uneventful and peaceable, with visits from Hubert whenever he had a day or two to spare. They were looked forward to with delight; but if there were a drawback it was in Vera's viewing him partly as one who held her in a sort of chain, and partly as one whom it was pleasant to tease by allowing little casual civilities from Wilfred Merrifield.

For Wilfred was an embarrassment to his family. He had never been strong, his public school career had been shortened by failure in health, and headaches in the summer, and coughs in the winter made it needful to keep him at home, and trust to cramming at Rockstone, enforced by his father's stern discipline and his mother's authoritative influence.

Thus he was always within reach of the mild social gaieties in which each family indulged, and Vera was not quite so ready as were his sisters to contrast unfavourably his hatred of all self-improvement with Hubert Delrio's eagerness to pick up every crumb of information, thus deservedly getting on well in his profession.

One morning, at breakfast, Hubert opened a letter and made a sudden exclamation; and in answer to Vera's vehement inquiry said, "It seems that the great millionaire swell, Pettifer-is that his name?"

"Oh, yes, he was at Rock Quay."

"Well, he went to see St. Kenelm's, fell in love with the ceiling, and offered Pratt and Pavis any sum they like to decorate a huge new hall he is building in the same style. So they write to propose to me to come and do it, with a promise of future work, at any terms I like to ask."

"Oh! but that's jolly," cried Vera. "Can't you?"

"No," he said; "this is immediate, and I have two churches, reredos and walls, on my hands, enough to last me all the year. Nor could I throw over Eccles and Beamster."

"Is there an agreement with them?" asked Magdalen.

"Not regularly; but Mr. Eccles has been very kind to me, and promised me employment for four years to come; in fact, he has made engagements on that understanding."

"I see," said Magdalen. "You could not break with them."

"Certainly not. Nor do I entirely like the line of this other house. It is a good deal more secular."

"And you have dedicated your talents to the Church!" cried Paulina.

"Not that exactly, Paula," he said, smiling; "but I had rather work for the Church, so I am glad the matter is definitely settled for me."

To that he kept, though he had a very kind letter from Mr. Eccles, who had evidently been applied to, wishing not to stand in his light, especially as he was engaged to be married, and telling him how it might be possible to fairly compensate for the loss to the firm. Between the lines, however, it was plain that it would be a great blow, only possible because the agreement had been neglected; and Hubert was only the more determined, out of gratitude for the generosity, not to break what he felt to be an implied pledge; and all the sisters sympathised with his determination.

He adhered to it even after his return to London, though his father thought it a pity to lose the chance, if it could be accepted without discourtesy to Mr. Eccles; and he had been interviewed by various parties concerned, and there had been an attempt to dazzle him by the prospects held out to him by an enthusiastic young member of the firm. Perhaps he was too shrewd entirely to trust them, but at any rate he felt his good faith to Eccles and Beamster a bond to hold him fast from the temptation; and his heart was really set on the consecration of the higher uses of his art; so that regard to the simple rule of honour was an absolute relief to him.

So he wrote to Vera, who, if there were a secret wish on her part, did not dare to give it shape; while all her sisters, to whom she showed the letters that she scarcely comprehended, were open-mouthed in their admiration. Thekla, who had been seized with a fit of hagiology, went the length of comparing him to St. Barbara; even Paula pronounced it a far-fetched resemblance.

It was some months later that Sir Ferdinand Travis Underwood had decided on building a magnificent cathedral-like church for the population rising around him in the Rocky Mountains; and meeting Lord Rotherwood in London heard of the work at St. Kenelm's, and resorted to Eccles and Beamster as the employers of young Delrio. There would be plenty of varieties of beautiful material to be found near at hand in the mountains; but Hubert was sent first for a short journey in Italy to study the effect of the old mosaics as well as the frescoes, and then to go out to America to the work that would last a considerable time.

Vera was much excited by the notion of the Italian journey, and thought she ought to have been married at once and have shared it, including as it did a short visit to Rocca Marina. But she was scarcely eighteen, and neither her trustee nor her elder sister thought it advisable to dispense with the decision that her twenty-first birthday must be waited for, at which she pouted. Hubert came for two nights on his return, and was exceedingly full of his tour, talking over Italian scenes and churches with Magdalen, who had never seen them, but had the descriptions and the history at her fingers' ends, and listened with delight to all the impressions of a mind full of feeling and poetry. The time was only too short to discuss or look out everything, and much was left to be copied and sent after him, with many promises on Vera's part of writing everything for him, and translating the books that Magdalen would refer to. He was allowed to take Vera and Paulina to Filsted for a hurried visit to his parents. When they came home again, it soon became plain that it had not been a success. "I am glad to be at home again," said Paula, as the pony carriage turned up the steep drive, and the girls jumped out to walk. "I am quite glad to feel the stones under my feet again!"

Magdalen laughed. "A new sentiment!" she said.

"I don't like the stones," said Vera, "but I did not know Filsted was such a poky place."

"A dead flat!" added Paula. "No sea, no torrs! one wanted something to look at! and such a church!"

"Did you see Minnie Maitland?" put in Thekla.

"I saw all the Maitlands in a hurry," said Vera. "I don't remember which was which. They were all dressed alike in horrid colours. Hubert said they set his teeth on edge!"

"How was old Mrs. Delrio?"

"Just the same as ever, lean and pinched."

"But so kind!" added Paula. "She could not make enough of Flapsy."

"I should think not!" ejaculated Vera. "Enough! aye, and too much! just fancy, no dinner napkins! and Edith went away and made the scones herself!"

"Very praiseworthy," said Magdalen. "Don't you know how Hubert always tells us what a dear devoted good girl she is?"

"Well, I only hope Hubert does not expect me to live in that way," said Vera. "His mother looks like a half-starved hare, and Edith is giving lessons as a daily governess!

"Edith is very nice," said Paula; "and I never understood before how excellent old Mr. Delrio's pictures are! Do you remember his 'Country Lane'? What a pity it did not sell!"

"Poor man!" said Magdalen. "He married too soon, and that has kept him down."

"It is beautiful to see how proud they are of Hubert," said Paula, "and his pretty gentle attention and deference to them both. Mr. Delrio is really a gentleman, I am sure; but, Maidie," she said, falling back with her, while Vera and Thekla mounted faster, "it was very odd to see how different things looked to us from what they seemed when we were at Mrs. Best's. Filsted High Street has grown so small, and one could hardly breathe in Mrs. Delrio's stuffy drawing-room. And as to Waring Grange, which we used to think just perfect, it was all so pretentious and in such bad taste. Hubert saw it as much as we did, but I could see he was on thorns to hinder Flapsy from making observations."

Certainly the visit had not done much good, except in making the girls appreciate the refinement of their surroundings at the Goyle.

And when letters arrived from Hubert at the American Vale Leston, asking questions requiring some research in books, either Magdalen's or at the Rock Quay library, Vera dawdled and sighed over them; and when the more zealous Magdalen or Paula took all the trouble, and left nothing for her to do but to copy their notes, and write the letters, she grew cross. "It was for Hubert, and she did not want any one else to meddle! So stupid! If he had only taken Pratt and Pavis's offer, there would not have been all this bother!"

That, of course, she only ventured to utter before Paula and Thekla, and it made them both so furious that she declared she was only in joke, and did not mean it.

She was indulging in reflections on the general dulness of her lot, and the lack of sympathy in her sisters, as she lingered by the confectioner's window, with her eyes fixed on a gorgeous combination of coloured bonbons, when Wilfred Merrifield sauntered out. "Fresh from Paris!" he said. "Going to choose some?"

"Oh no, I haven't got any cash. M. A. keeps us horribly short."

"As usual with governors! But look here! Pocket this. Sweets to the sweet, from an old chum!"

"Oh, Will, how jolly! Such a love of a box."

"Make haste! Some of the girls are lurking about, and if there is any mischief to be made, trust Gill for doing it."

"Mischief!-" but before the words were out of her mouth, Gillian and Mysie appeared from the next shop, a bootmaker's, and Mysie stood aghast with, "What are you doing? Buying goodies! How very ridiculous!"

"The proper thing between chums, isn't it, Vera?" said Wilfred, with an indifferent air. "We aren't unlucky Sunday scholars, Mysie, to be jumped upon! Good-bye, Vera, au revoir!"

He sauntered away with his hands in his pockets; while Gillian, from her eldership of two years, and her engagement, gravely said, "Vera, perhaps you do not fully know, but I should say this is not quite the thing."

"He told you we are just chums!" exclaimed Vera. "As if there were any harm in it! You've not got a sweet tooth yourself, so you need not grudge me just a few goodies."

Gillian saw that it was of no use to prolong the dispute either for the place or the time, and she hushed Mysie, who was about to expostulate farther, and made her go away with a brief parting, such as she hoped would impress on Vera that the sisters thought very badly of her discretion and loyalty. They could not hear the reflection, "They need not be so particular and so cross. Hubert never thought of giving me anything nice like this. Why should not my chum? Such a sweet little box too, with a dear girl's head on it! Would Polly fuss about it, and set on Sister? I shall put it into my own drawer, and then if they notice it, they may think somebody at Filsted gave it! No one has any business to worry me about Hubert, and Wilfred being civil to me. He is a gentleman."

The gentleman had been overtaken by his sisters. He was walking his bicycle up the hill rather breathlessly and slowly. Mysie indignantly began, "Of all the stupid things to do, to give goodies to that girl, like a baby!"

"I have been wishing to speak to you," said Gillian. "You are going the way to get that foolish girl into a scrape."

"Oh, yes, of course. Sisters uniformly object to a little civility to a pretty girl," carelessly answered Wilfred.

"Nonsense!" returned Mysie, hotly. "We don't care! only it is not fair on Mr. Delrio."

"The painter cad! A very good thing too! The sacrifice ought to be prevented. Is not that the general sentiment?"

"Wilfred!" cried the scandalised Mysie, "when it is all the other way, and he is ever so much too good for her."

"Consummate prig! The cheek of him pretending to a lady!"

"But, Wilfred," went on downright Mysie, "is it only mischief, or do you want to marry her yourself?"

"Draw your own conclusions," responded Wilfred, mounting his machine, and spinning down the hill faster than they could follow on foot.

"What is to be done, Gill?" sighed Mysie. "Ought we to get mamma to speak to him?"

"Better not," said Gillian, with more experience. "It would only make it worse to take it seriously. Half of it is play-and half to tease you."

"And," said Mysie, with due deference to the engaged sister, "how about Mr. Delrio? Will it make him unhappy?"

"If he finds out in time what a horrid little thing it is, I should say it would be very well for him; but I don't want Will to be the means."

"Oh! when his examination is over, and he gets an appointment, he will go away, and it will be safe."

"I have not much hopes of his getting in!"

"Oh, Gill, none of us ever failed before."

On the side of the Goyle not much was known or cared about Wilfred's little attentions, which were generally out of sight of Magdalen, and did not amount to much; but Paula saw enough of them to consult Agatha on, and to observe that Flapsy was going on just as she used to at Filsted, and she thought Hubert would not like it.

"I believe Flapsy can't live without it," sighed Agatha.

"But would you speak to her? I don't think she ought to let him give her boxes of bonbons-to keep up in her room, and never give a hint to Maidie."

Agatha did speak but the effect was to set Vera into crying out at every one being so intolerably cross about such a trifle, Gillian Merrifield and all!

"Did Gillian speak to you?"

"Yes, as if she had any business to do so!"

"I am sure it is not the way she would treat Captain Armitage."

"I don't believe she cares for Captain Armitage one bit! You said yourself that all the girls at Oxford thought she cared much more for her horrid examination! I wouldn't be a dry, cold-hearted, insensible stick like her for the world."

"Perhaps she is the more quietly in earnest," said Agatha, repenting a little that she had told before Vera the college jokes over what had leaked out of Gillian's reception of Ernley Armitage when he had hastened up to Oxford as soon as his ship was paid off, and she had been called down to him in the Lady Principal's room. Report said that she had only prayed him to keep out of the way, and not to upset her brain, and that he had meekly obeyed-as one who knew what it was to have promotion depending on it.

It was a half truth, exaggerated, but it had not a happy effect on Vera. Nevertheless, the finishing push of preparation brought on such a succession of violent headaches as quite to disable the really delicate boy. Moreover, the tutor declared that there had been little chance of his success, and Dr. Dagger said that he had much better not try again. The best hope for his health, and even for his life, was to keep him at home for a few years, and give him light work.

He had never been the pleasantest element in the household; and if his parents were glad of the avoidance of the risk of a launch into the world, and his mother's love rejoiced in the power of watching over him, there were others who felt his temper a continual trial, while his career was a perplexity.

However, Captain Henderson offered a clerkship at the Marble Works, subject to Mr. White's approval; and this was gratefully accepted. Nor did Agatha come home again at the Long Vacation for more than two days, in which there was no time for consultation with her sisters on matters of uncertain import.

Miss Arthuret and Elizabeth Merrifield had arranged together to take the old roomy farmhouse on Penbeacon for three or four months, and there receive parties of young women in need of rest, fresh air, and, in some cases, of classes, or time for study. It was to be a sort of Holiday House, though not altogether of idleness; and Dolores undertook to be a kind of vice-president, with Agatha to pursue her reading under her superintendence, and to assist in helping others, governesses, students, schoolmistresses from Coalham, in whose behalf indeed the scheme had been first started, and it was extremely delightful to Agatha, among many others.

CHAPTER XIX-TWO WEDDINGS

"How happy by my mother's side

When some dear friend became a bride!

To shine beyond the rest I was

In gay embroidery drest.

Vain of my drapery's rich brocade,

I held my flowing locks to braid."

ANSTICE (from the Greek).

"Epidemics of marriage set in from time to time," said Jane Mohun. "Gillian has set the fashion."

For the Rock Quay neighbourhood was in a state of excitement over a letter from Mrs. White, of Rocca Marina, announcing the approaching marriage of Mr. White's niece, Maura, with Lord Roger Grey, a nephew of dear Emily's husband, and heir to the Dukedom. The White family were coming home for the wedding, and the interest entirely eclipsed that of Gillian Merrifield's. In fact, though that young lady somewhat justified the Oxford stories, she was in a state of much inward agitation between real love for Ernley, and pain in leaving home, so she put on an absolutely imperturbable demeanour. Her reserve and dread of comments made her so undemonstrative and repressive to her Captain that there were those who doubted whether she cared for him at all, or only looked on her wedding as a mediæval maiden might have done, as coming naturally a few years after she had grown up. Ernley Armytage knew better, and so did her parents. The wedding was hurried on by Captain Armytage's appointment to a frigate on the coast of Southern America, where he had to join at once, in lieu of a captain invalided home; and Gillian accepted the arrangements, which would take her to Rio, "as much a matter of course," said her aunt, "as if she had been a wife for ten years." Her uncle, Mr. Mohun, was anxious that the marriage of his sister Lily's daughter should take place at the family home, Beechcroft. If there had been scruples, chiefly founded on the largeness of the party, and the trouble to Mrs. Mohun, these were forgotten in the convenience of being out of the way of Rockstone gossip, as well as for other reasons.

"I should certainly have escaped," said General Mohun. "I have no notion of meeting that unmitigated scamp."

"Mr. White ought to be warned," said Jane.

"You'll do so, I suppose; and much good it will be."

"I do not imagine that it will. It will be too charming to surpass Franciska and Ivinghoe; but if neither you nor Jasper will speak to old Tom, I shall deliver my conscience to Ada."

"And be advised to mind your own business."

Nevertheless, Jane Mohun did deliver her conscience, when, on the day after the arrival, there had been loud lamentations over the intended absence of the Merrifield family. "It would have looked well to make it a double wedding, all in the family," said Mr. White.

To which Miss Mohun only answered by a silence which Mrs. White was unwilling to break, but Maura exclaimed-

"But I thought Valetta would be sure to be my bridesmaid. Such friends as we were at the High School!"

It did not strike Miss Mohun that the friendship had been very close or very beneficial; but Adeline added, "We thought she would pair so well with Vera Prescott, and then uncle will give all the dresses- white silk with cerise trimmings. We ordered them in Paris."

"Uncle Tom is so generous!" said Maura. "There is no end to his kindness. I'll go and unpack some of the patterns, that Miss Mohun may see them."

She tripped out of the room, and Jane exclaimed, "Poor child! Has Emily written to you, Ada?"

"Yes, rather stiffly. Mr. White thinks it aristocratic pride."

"Ada, you know it is not that."

"Well, I suppose the Greys are hardly gratified by the connection, though Mr. White will make it worth their while. You see the Duke leaves everything in his power to his daughters, so poor Roger will be very badly off."

"But-" There was so much expressed in that "but" that Adeline began to answer one of the sentiments she supposed it to convey. "He can do it easily-for all the rest are provided for by the Marble Works-except the two eldest brothers. Richard has gone away, and Alexis-oh, you know he has notions of his own that Mr. White does not like."

"Does Mr. White know all about Lord Roger, or why the Duke should cut him off as far as possible?"

"My dear Jane, it is not charitable to bring things up against young men's follies."

"It is a pretty considerable folly to have done what compelled him to retire. Reginald was called in at the inquiry, and knows all about it."

"But that was ages ago, and he has been quite distinguished in the Turkish army."

"Yes; and I also know that English gentlemen have associated with him as little as possible. I should call it a fatal thing to let Maura marry him. What does Captain Henderson say?"

"Mr. White thinks that it is all jealousy. And really, Jenny, I do not in the least believe that he will make her unhappy. He is old enough to have quite outgrown all his wild ways, and he has quite gentlemanly manners and ways. Besides, Maura likes him, and is quite bent upon it."

Still there was a dissatisfied look on Jane's face, and Adeline went on answering it, with tears in her eyes. "My dear Jane, I know what you would say, and what Reginald and all the rest feel, that it is not what we should like! But, my dear, don't let the whole family rise up in arms! It would be of no use, only make it painful for me. Maura is quite bent upon it, and she has arrived at turning her uncle round her finger so much that I am sometimes hardly mistress of the house! Oh, I don't tell any one, not Lily nor any one, but it will really be a relief to me when she is gone, with her Greek coaxing ways. Her uncle is wrapped up in her, and so proud of her being a Duchess that he would condone anything. Indeed, I am always afraid of her putting it into his head to suppose that her disappointment about Ivinghoe was in any way owing to my family pride."

Jane was sorry for Adeline, and able to perceive how the wifely feelings, which she had taken on herself, by choosing a man of inferior breeding and nature clashed with her hereditary character and principles.

"You are absolutely relieved that the Beechcroft wedding takes all of us out of the way naturally and without offence," she said so kindly that Ada laid her head on her sisterly shoulder, and allowed herself to shed a few tears.

"Yes, yes," she said; "I am glad to have so good a reason to mention. Only I do hope Jasper will not object to Valetta's coming back to be bridesmaid. That would really be a blow and give offence, and it would make difficulties with others-even James Henderson, who swears by Jasper. I have often wished they would have done as I advised, and have had this wedding at Rocca Marina, out of the way of everybody! I sometimes think it will be the death of me. Do come home to help me through it."

She spoke so like the Ada of old that it went to Jane's heart.

She promised that she would return in time to give the very substantial assistance in which all believed, and the more sentimental support in which nobody believed, though her distaste arose tenfold after seeing the bridegroom, who looked like an old satyr, all the more because Maura was like a Greek nymph. Mrs. Henderson was much grieved, and had tried remonstrance with her sister, but found her quite impervious.

Glad were all the Merrifields to escape to the quiet atmosphere of Beechcroft, where the relations were able to congregate between the Court, the Vicarage, and the more-distant Rotherwood; and the wedding was an ideal one in ecclesiastical beauty, and the festivities of those who had known and loved Lady Merrifield as Miss Lily in early youth, grandmothers who had been her schoolchildren, and were pleased to hear that she was a grandmother herself, and hoped in a year or two to welcome her grandchildren.

Alethea and her little Somervilles she had seen en route to Canada, and Phyllis was to come in due time when Bernard Underwood could be spared from the bank in Colombo, and they would bring their little pair.

In the matter of bridesmaids Gillian certainly had the advantage, for she was amply provided with sisters and cousins, Dolores coming for a few days for the wedding; whereas the six whom Maura had provided for beforehand in Paris were only, as Miss Jane said, "scraped up" with difficulty from former schoolfellows. Lord Roger's nieces would not hear of being present. Paulina was unwillingly pressed into the service, as well as the more willing Vera; but Mysie Merrifield was not to be persuaded to give up her visit to Lady Phyllis, and Aunt Jane could only carry home Valetta, who held the whole as "capital fun," and liked the acquisition of the white silk and lace and cerise ribbons. Dolores had negotiated that No. 6 of the Vanderkist girls should spend a year with Miss Mohun for a final polish at the High School at Rock Quay, so as to be with her brother Adrian, who was completing his term at the preparatory school before his launch at Winchester.

Wilfred also returned, father and uncle having decided that he did not merit a game licence, nor to attack the partridges of Beechcroft, and the prospect of the gaieties of Cliffe House consoled him.

Adeline had to endure her husband's mortification at other disappointments. The Ducal family was wholly unrepresented. Even Emily, the connecting link, would not venture on the journey; and the clerical nephew was not sufficiently gratified by Lord Roger's intention to se ranger to undertake to officiate; and a Bishop, who had enjoyed the hospitality of Rocca Marina, proved to have other engagements. No clergyman could be imported except Maura's brother Alexis, who had been two years at work at Coalham under Mr. Richard Burnet, and had just been appointed by the newly-chosen Bishop of Onomootka, and both were to go out with him as chaplains. In the meantime, while the Bishop was preparing, by tours in England, Alexis undertook the duties of Mr. Flight's curate, rejoicing in the opportunity of seeing his elder sister, and the old friends with whom he had never been since his unlucky troubles with Gillian Merrifield, now no more.

The delight of receiving him compensated to Kalliope Henderson for much that was distressing to both in Maura's choice. The seven years that had passed had made him into a noble-looking man, with a handsome classical countenance, lighted up by earnestness and devotion, a fine voice and much musical skill, together with a bright attractive manner that, all unconsciously on his part, had turned the heads of half the young womanhood of Coalham, and soon had the same effect at Rock Quay.

Vera and Paulina were in a state of much excitement over their white silks, in which the three other sisters took great pleasure in arraying them, and Thekla only wished that Hubert could see them. She should send him out a photograph, buying it herself with her own money.

She was, of course, to see the wedding, in her Sunday white and broad pink sash, of the appropriateness of which she was satisfied when, at Beechcroft, they met Miss Mohun's young friend, Miss Vanderkist, in the same garb. She and her brother had been put under Magdalen's protection, as Miss Mohun was too much wanted at Cliffe House to look after them; but Sir Adrian, a big boy of twelve, wanted to go his own way, and only handed her over with "Hallo, Miss Prescott! you'll look after this pussy-cat of ours while Aunt Jane is dosing Aunt Ada with salts and sal volatile. She-I'll introduce you! Miss Prescott, Miss Felicia Vanderkist! She wants to be looked after, she is a little kitten that has never seen anything! I'm off to Martin's."

The stranger did look very shy. She was a slight creature, not yet seventeen, with an abundant mass of long golden silk hair tied loosely, and a very lovely face and complexion, so small that she was a miniature edition of Lady Ivinghoe.

Her name was Wilmet Felicia, but the latter half had been always used in the family, and there was something in the kitten grace that suited the arbitrary contractions well. In fact, Jane Mohun had been rather startled to find that she had the charge of such a little beauty, when she saw how people turned around at the station to look, certainly not at Valetta, who was a dark bright damsel of no special mark.

At church, however, every one was in much too anxious a state to gaze at the coming procession to have any eyes to spare for a childish girl in a quiet white frock. St. Andrew's had never seen such a crowded congregation, for it was a wedding after Mr. White's own heart, in which nobody dared to interfere, not even his wife, whatever her good taste might think. So the church was filled, and more than filled, by all who considered a wedding as legitimate gape seed, and themselves as not bound to fit behaviour in church. On such an occasion Magdalen, being a regular attendant, and connected with the bridesmaids, was marshalled by a churchwarden into a reserved seat; but there they were dismayed by the voices and the scrambling behind them, which, in the long waiting, the Vicar from the vestry vainly tried to subdue by severe looks; and Felicia, whose notions of wedding behaviour were moulded on Vale Lecton and Beechcroft, looked as if she thought she had got into the house of Duessa, amid all Pride's procession, as in the prints in the large-volumed "Faërie Queene."

And when, on the sounds of an arrival, the bridegroom stood forth, the resemblance to Sans Foy was only too striking, while the party swept up the church, the bride in the glories of cobweb veil, white satin, &c., becomingly drooping on her uncle's arm, while he beamed forth, expansive in figure and countenance, with delight. Little Jasper Henderson, anxious and patronising to his tiny brother Alexis, both in white pages' dresses picked out with cerise, did his best to support the endless glistening train.

The bridesmaids' costumes taxed the descriptive powers of the milliners in splendour and were scarcely eclipsed by the rich brocade and lace of Mrs. White, as she sailed in on Captain Henderson's arm; but her elaborate veil and feathery bonnet hardly concealed the weary tedium of her face, though to the shame, well nigh horror, of her sister, she was rouged. "I must, I must," she said; "he would be vexed if I looked pale."

It was true that "he" loved her heartily, and that he put all the world at her service; but she had learnt where he must not be offended, and was on her guard. Hers had been the last wedding that Jane had attended in St. Andrew's. "Did she repent?" was Jane's thought. No, probably not. She had the outward luxuries she had craved for, and her husband was essentially a good man, though not of the caste to which her instincts belonged-very superior in nature and conscience to him to whom his blinded vanity was now giving his beautiful niece, a willing sacrifice.

It was over! More indecorous whispering and thronging; and the procession came down the aisle, to be greeted outside by a hail of confetti and rice; the schoolboys, profiting by the dinner interval, and headed by Adrian, had jostled themselves into the foreground, and they ran headlong to the portico of Cliffe House to renew the shower.

And there, unluckily, Mr. White recognised the boy, and, pleased to have anything with a title to show, turned him round to the bridegroom, with, "Here, Lord Roger, let me introduce a guest, Sir Adrian Vanderkist."

"Ha, I didn't know poor Van had left a son. I knew your father, my boy. Where was it I saw him last? Poor old chap!"

"You must come in to taste the cake, my boy," began Mr. White.

"Thank you, Mr. White, I must get back to Edgar's. Late already. The others are off."

"Not a holiday! For shame! He'll excuse you. I'll send a note down to say you must stay to drink the health of your father's old friend."

Those words settled the matter with Adrian. The holiday was enticing, and might have overpowered the chances of a scholarship, for which he was working; but he had begun to know that there were perplexities from which it was safer to retreat; and that he had never transgressed his Uncle Clement's warning might be read in the clear open face that showed already the benefits, not only of discipline, but of self-control. So obedience answered the question; though, as he again thanked and refused, he looked so dogged as he turned and walked off, that Ethel Varney whispered to Vera that at school he was called, "the Dutchman, if not the Boer."

Nor did he ever mention the temptation or his own resistance. Only Mr. White asked Miss Mohun to bring him to the dance which was to be given in the evening, telling her of his refusal of the invitation to wedding cake and champagne and she-mindful of her duty to her charge as hinted by Clement Underwood-had not granted the honour of his presence on the score of his school obligations.

The afternoon was spent in desultory wanderings about the gardens, Magdalen and her sisters being invited guests, and Vera in a continual state of agitated expectation. Had not Wilfred Merrifield always been a cavalier of her own? And here he was, paying no attention to her, with all the embellishment of her bridesmaid's adornments, and squiring instead that little insignificant Felicia, in a simple hat, and hair still on her shoulders; whilst she had to put up with nothing better than a young Varney, who was very shy, and had never probably mastered croquet.

She was an ill-used mortal; and why had she not Hubert to show how superior she was to them all, in having a piece of property of her own to show off?

There was Paula, too, playing animated tennis with that clerical brother of the bride, who had been talking to Magdalen about the frescoes of St. Kenelm's (as if she, Vera, had not the greatest right to know all about those frescoes!). Even little Thekla was better off, for she was reigning over a merry party of the little ones, which had been got up for the benefit of the small Hendersons, and of which Theodore White had constituted himself the leader, being a young man passionately devoted to little children.

So when the guests dispersed to eat their dinner at their homes and dress for the dance, Vera was extremely cross. Each of the other three had some delightful experiences to talk over; but whether it was Mr. Theodore's fun in acting ogre behind the great aloe, or Mr. Alexis's achievements with the croquet ball, or his information about the Red Indians and Onomootka, she was equally ungracious to all; she scolded Thekla for crumpling her skirt, and was quite sure that Paula had on the wrong fichu that was meant for her. Each bridesmaid had been presented with a bracelet, like a snake with ruby eyes; but Vera, fingering hers with fidgeting petulance, seemed to have managed to loosen the clasp, and when arranging her dress for the evening thought that her snake had escaped.

Upstairs and downstairs she rushed in hopes of finding it. The cab in which they had returned was gone home to come again, and there was the chance that it might be there or in the Cliffe House gardens; and then the others tried to console her, but they were not able to hinder a violent burst of crying, which scandalised Thekla.

"I am sure you couldn't cry more if you had lost Hubert's, and that would be something worth crying about."

Hubert's was an ingeniously worked circle of scales of Californian gold, the first ornament that Vera had ever possessed, and that all the sisters had set great store by. But with an outcry of joy Vera exclaimed, "Here's the snake all safe! I pushed the other up my arm because it looked so plain and dull, and it was that which came off."

"That is a great deal worse than losing the snake," said Thekla. "He has a nasty face, and I don't like him, with his red eyes."

"Don't be silly," returned Vera; "this is a great deal more valuable."

"Surely the value is in the giver," said Paula; to which Vera returned in the same vein, "Don't be silly and sentimental, Polly."

She was so much cheered by the recovery of the snake that they brought her off to the evening dance without a fresh fit of ill-humour, and she sprang out under the portico of Cliffe House, with her spirits raised to expectation pitch.

But disappointment was in store for her. It was not disappointment in other eyes. Paula had all the attention she expected or desired, she danced almost every time and did not reckon greatly on who might be her partner. What pleased and honoured her most was being asked to dance by Captain Henderson himself.

What was it to Vera, however, that partners came to her, young men of Rock Quay whom she knew already and did not care about? And she never once had the pleasure of saying that she was keeping the next dance for Wilfred Merrifield! To her perceptions, he was always figuring away with Felicia Vanderkist, her golden hair seemed always gleaming with him; and though this was not always the case, as the nephew of the house was one of those who had duties to guests and was not allowed by his aunts to be remiss, yet whenever he was not ordered about by them, he was sure to be found by Felicia's side.

Vera's one consolation was that Alexis White took her to supper. To be sure he was a clergyman, and had stood talking to Lady Flight half the time, and his conversation turned at once to Hubert Delrio's frescoes; but then he was very handsome, and graceful in manner, and he sympathised with her on the loss of her bracelet, and promised to have a search for it by daylight in the gardens.

CHAPTER XX-FLEETING

"And variable as the shade

By the light quivering aspen made."

- SCOTT.

The bracelet came to light in the gardens of Cliffe House the next morning, and Alexis White walked over to the Goyle to return it safely, little guessing, when he set forth to enjoy the sight of the purple moors, and to renew old recollections, what a flutter of gratified vanity would be excited in one silly little breast, though he only stayed ten minutes, and casually asked whether the sisters were coming to Lady Flight's garden party. Everybody was going there. Miss Mohun even took Felicia, as it was on a Saturday's holiday; and, unwittingly, she renewed all the agitation caused by Wilfred's admiration, and that of others, to the all-unconscious girl. Vera could no longer think herself the reigning belle of Rock Quay, though she talked of Felicia as a schoolgirl or a baby, or a horrid little forward chit! Her excitement was, however, divided between Wilfred and Mr. Alexis White, who could not look in her direction without putting her in a state of eagerness.

In this, however, she was not alone. Half the ladies were interested about him; his manners were charming, his voice in church beautiful, and his destination as chaplain to a missionary bishop made him doubly interesting; while he himself, even though his mind was set on higher things, was really enjoying his brief holiday, and his sister, Mrs. Henderson, was delighted to promote his pleasure, and garden parties and the like flourished as long as weather permitted; and as Vera was a champion player, she was sure to be asked to the tournaments, and to have to practise for them.

Inopportunely there arrived a letter from Hubert, requiring an answer about the form of ornament in the moulding of the fourteenth century! Paula dutifully went to the library, looked out and traced two or three examples, French and English. Nothing remained but for Vera to write the letter after the early dinner. However, she went to sleep in a hammock, and only roused herself to recollect that there was to be tea and lawn tennis at Carrara.

"Won't you just write to Hubert first?"

"Oh, bother, how can I now? Don't worry so!"

"But, Flapsy, he really needs it without loss of time."

"I'm sure he has no right to make me his clerk in that horrid peremptory way, as if one had nothing else to do but wait on his fads."

"Flapsy, how can you?" broke out even Thekla.

"Surely it is the greatest honour," said Paula.

"Well, do it yourself then, I'm not going to be bothered for ever."

Thekla went off, in great indignation, to beg "sister" to speak to Flapsy, and beg her not to use dear Hubert so very very badly, which of course Magdalen refused to do, and Thekla had her first lesson on the futility of interfering with engaged folk; Paula meanwhile sent off the despatch, with one line to say that Vera was too busy to write that day.

There had been two or three letters from Hubert, over which Vera had looked cross, but had said nothing; and at last she came down from her own room, and announced passionately, "There! I have done with Mr. Hubert Delrio, and have written to tell him so!"

"Vera, what have you done?"

"Written to tell him I have no notion of a man being so tiresome and dictatorial! I don't want a schoolmaster to lecture me, and expect me to drudge over his work as if I was his clerk."

"My dear," said Magdalen, "have you had a letter that vexed you? Had you not better wait a little to think it over?"

"No! Nonsense, Maidie! He has been provoking ever so long, and I won't bear it any longer!" and she flounced into a chair.

"Provoking! Hubert!" was all Paulina could utter, in her amazement and horror.

"Oh, I daresay you would like it well enough! Always at me to slave for him with stupid architectural drawings and stuff, as if I was only a sort of clerk or fag! And boring me to read great dull books, and preaching to me about them, expecting to know what I think! Dear me!"

"Those nice letters!" sighed Paula.

"Nice! As if any one that was one bit in love would write such as that! No, I don't want to marry a schoolmaster or a tyrant!"

"How can you, Flapsy?" went on Paula, so vehemently that Magdalen left the defence thus far to her; "when he only wishes for your sympathy and improvement."

The worst plea she could have used, thought the elder sister, as Vera broke out with, "Improvement, indeed! If he cared for me, he would not think I wanted any improving! But he never did! Or he would have taken Pratt and Povis' offer, and I should have been living in London and keeping my carriage! Or he would have taken me to Italy! But that horrid home of his, and his mother just like a half-starved hare! I might have seen then it was not fit for me; but I was a child, and over-persuaded among you all! But I know better now, and I know my own mind, as I didn't then. So you need not talk! I have done with him."

"Oh, Flapsy, Flapsy, how can you grieve him so? You don't know what you are throwing away!" incoherently cried Paula, collapsing in a burst of tears. "Maidie, Maidie, why don't you speak to her, and tell her how wicked it is-and-and-and-"

The rest was cut short by sobs.

"No, Paula, authority or reasoning of mine would not touch such a mood as this. We must leave it to Hubert himself. If she really cares for him, she will have recovered from her fit of temper by the time his letter can come, and it may have an effect upon her, if our tongues have not increased her spirit of opposition. I strongly advise you to say nothing."

Paula tried to take her sister's advice, and would have adhered to it, but that Vera would talk and try to make her declare the rupture to have been justified; and this produced an amount of wrangling which did good to no one. Magdalen really rejoiced when the frequent golf and tennis parties carried Vera on her bicycle out of reach of arguing, even if it took her into the alternative of flirtation.

Thekla cried bitterly, and declared that she should never speak to Flapsy again; but in half an hour's time was heard chattering about the hedgehog's meal of cockroaches. In another week the excitement was over. The Bishop of Onomootka had come and gone, after holding meetings and preaching sermons at Rock Quay and all the villages round, and had carried off Alexis White with him.

Nothing had come of the intercourse of the latter with his rich uncle, nor of the varieties of encounters with the damsels of Rock Quay, except that society was declared by more than one to have become horridly flat and slow.

Vera was one of these, and the letters received from Hubert Delrio did not stir up a fresh excitement. There were no persuasions to revoke her decision, no urgent entreaties, no declaration of being heart-broken. He acquiesced in her assurance that the engagement had been a mistake; and he wrote at more length to Magdalen, avowing that he had for some time past traced discontent in Vera's letters, and fearing that he had been too didactic and peremptory in writing to her. He relinquished the engagement with much regret, and should always regard it as having been a fair summer dream-but, though undeserving, he hoped still to retain Miss Prescott's kindness and friendship, which had been of untold value to him.

A little more zeal and distress would have been much more pleasing to Vera; and she began to be what Agatha and Thekla called cross, and Paula called drooping, and even excited alarm in her, lest Flapsy should be going into a decline. But a note came to the Goyle which Magdalen read alone, and likewise she cycled alone to Rockstone.

"Miss Mohun, can you give me a few minutes?" said she, as the trim little figure emerged from beneath the copper beeches, basket in hand.

"By all means; I shall not be due at the cutting-out meeting till three o'clock."

"I wanted to consult you about an invitation that Mrs. White has been so very kind as to give my little sister, Vera."

"Oh!" quoth Jane Mohun, in a dry sort of tone.

"I know that she had wished to take out one of her own nieces to Rocca Marina, but that Sir Jasper did not wish it, and I thought perhaps it would be easier for you than for Lady Merrifield to tell me whether there is any objection that would apply to Vera."

"I suppose Vera wishes to go?"

"She is so wild with delight that it would be a serious thing to disappoint her. Mrs. White is very kind and good, and has thought that she has flagged of late, and has supposed it might be due to poor Hubert Delrio, but, indeed, it was no fault of his."

"None at all, except for out-growing her."

"The offer was hinted at to go with Valetta even before we knew it was declined at Clipstone, and that made me anxious to know whether it would be well for me to send Vera. I suppose she would pick up pronunciation of languages, which would be a great advantage, as she will have to earn her own living, and Mrs. White is so good as to promise lessons in arts and music. I hear, too, it is quite an English colony, with a church and schools."

"Oh, yes, Mr. White is a very good and careful man about his workmen. I have been there at the Henderson's wedding, and it is a charming place, a castle fit for Mrs. Radclyffe, with English comforts, and an Italian garden and an English village on the mountain side. My sister would do all that she promises, and would look after any young girl very well; you may quite trust her."

"Then is there any fear of Italian society?-not that poor Vera has any attraction of that kind," hesitated Magdalen.

"None at all. All the society they have is of English travellers coming with introductions. I fancy it is very dull at times, and that Adeline wants a young person about her. You need have no fears. Ah! I see you still want to know why the Merrifields don't consent. It is not their way. They would not let the Rotherwoods have Mysie to bring up with Phyllis, and-and Val is just the being that needs a mother's eye over her. But I really and honestly think that your Vera may quite safely be put under Adeline's care, and that she is likely to be all the better for it."

"One thing more, added Magdalen, with a little hesitation; "is your nephew, Wilfred, likely to be one of the party?"

"None at all. His father wants to keep him under his own eye, and his mother is anxious about his health; nor do I think Mr. White wants him, having his own two nephews, who are useful, so he will remain under Captain Henderson here."

"Thank you! That settles it in my mind. I am sure the change to a fresh home will be an excellent thing for my poor Vera, and that the training of imitation of one to whom she looks up is what she most needs."

"Very true," said Miss Mohun.

And as she afterwards said to Lady Merrifield, "It was in all sincerity and honesty that I gave the advice to Magdalen, who is very sensible in the matter. In plain English, Ada can't do without a lady in waiting, and Vera probably fancies that Lords, young or old, start from every wave like the spirits of our fathers, at Rocca Marina, in which she will probably be disappointed; but Ada will be a very dragon as to her manners and discretion, and not being his own niece, old Tom White will not be deluded by his ambition and any blandishments of hers. As people go, they are very safe guardians, and Vera-Flapsy as they call her-is just of the composition to be improved, and not disimproved, by living with Ada."

"Probably, though I do not like the foolish little puss to be rewarded for throwing over young Delrio."

"He was so much too good for her that I am more inclined to reward her for doing so!"

Agatha, however, came home somewhat annoyed by the whole arrangement. She supposed the rupture with Hubert might have been inevitable; but she was very sorry for it, thinking that Vera might have grown up to him, and regretting the losing him as a brother. Nor did she like the atmosphere of the Whites and Rocca Marina for her feather-brained young sister. "Dolores had no great opinion of her Aunt Adeline," she said.

"My dear," said Magdalen, as they sat over their early fire, "I have talked it over with Lady Merrifield and Miss Mohun, and they both tell me that Mrs. White is very sensible, and sure to be discreet for any girl in her charge-probably better for Flapsy than a more intellectual woman."

"But-! Such a marriage as this one!" said Agatha.

"It was Mr. White's own niece, and taken out of Mrs. White's hands," said Magdalen. "Besides," as Agatha still looked unconvinced, "one thing that made me think the invitation desirable was that it would break off any foolishness with Wilfred Merrifield-I think it was in their minds too."

"Wilfred! Oh, there was a little nonsense."

"Less on his side, since Felicia Vanderkist has been here; but I think Vera has been all the more disposed to-to-"

"Run after him," said Agatha. "I could fancy it in Flapsy; but he is such a boy, and not half so nice-looking as the rest of them either."

"My dear Agatha, I must tell you he reminds me strangely of a young Mr. Merrifield whom I knew at Filsted when I was younger than you."

"A brother of Bessie?"

"Even so. He got into some kind of trouble at Filsted, his father came and broke it off, and sent him out to Canada, where I fear he did not do well, and nothing has been heard of him since, except-

She spoke with a catch in her voice which made Agatha look up at her, and detect a rising colour.

"Nothing!" she repeated.

"Except an anonymous parcel, returning to the brothers in Canada the sum he had taken with him. Strangely, the clue was not followed up, and he is lost sight of! But Wilfred's air, and still more his manner, is always recalling his cousin to me, and, Nag, dear, I could not bear to see Vera go through the same trial by my exposing her to the intercourse. Not that I know any harm of Wilfred, but his parents could not like anything of the kind."

"Certainly not! Yes, I suppose you are right, dear old Maidie." But Agatha pondered over those words that had slipped out, "the same trial."

CHAPTER XXI-THE ELECTRICIANS

"Thou shalt have the air

Of freedom. Follow and do me service."

- "THE TEMPEST."

"Is Agatha in?" asked Dolores Mohun, jumping off her bicycle as she saw Magdalen, on a frosty day the next Christmas vacation, in her garden.

"She is doing scientific arithmetic with Thekla; giving me a holiday, in fact! You University maidens quite take the shine out of us poor old teachers."

"Ah! if we can give shine we can't give substance. But I want to borrow Nag, if you have no objection."

"Borrow her! I am sure it is something she will like."

"It is in the way of business, but she will like it all the same. They want me to give a course of lectures on electricity at Bexley to the Institute and the two High Schools, and I particularly want a skilled assistant, whom I can depend upon; not masters, nor boys! Now Nag is just what I should like. We should stay at Lancelot Underwood's, a very charming place to be at."

"Isn't he some connection?"

"Connection all round. Phyllis Merrifield married his brother, banking in Ceylon, and may come home any day on a visit; and Ivinghoe's pretty wife is Lancelot's niece. He edits what is really the crack newspaper of the county, in spite of its being true blue Conservative, Church and all."

"The Pursuivant? It has such good literary articles."

"Oh, yes! Mrs. Grinstead and Canon Harewood write them. His wife is a daughter of old Dr. May-rather a peculiar person, but very jolly in her way."

"But would they like to have Agatha imposed upon them?"

"Certainly; they are just the people to like nothing better, and it will only be for a fortnight. I have settled it all with them."

At which Magdalen looked a little doubtful, but Dolores reiterated that there need be no scruple, she might ask Aunt Lily if she liked; but Lance Underwood was Mayor, and member of all the committees, and the most open-hearted man in the world besides, and it was all right.

To the further demur as to safety, Dolores answered that to light a candle or sit by the fire might be dangerous, but as long as people were careful, it was all right, and Agatha had already assisted in some experiments at Rock Quay, which had shown her to be thoroughly understanding and trustworthy, and capable of keeping off the amateur- the great bugbear.

So Magdalen consented, after rapturous desires on the part of Agatha, and assurances from General Mohun that Dolores had it in her by inheritance and by training to meddle with the lightning as safely as human being might; and Lady Merrifield owned with a sigh that she must accept as a fact that what even the heathens owned as a Divine mystery and awful attribute, had come to be treated as a commonplace business messenger and scientific toy, though (as Mrs. Gatty puts it) the mystery had only gone deeper. So much for the peril; and for the other scruple, it was set at rest by a hospitable letter from Mrs. Underwood, heartily inviting Miss Agatha Prescott, as an Oxford friend of Gillian.

So off the two electricians set, and after two days of business and sight-seeing in London, went down to Bexley. In the third-class carriage in which they travelled they were struck by the sight of a tall lady in mourning-a sort of compromise between a conventual and a secular bonnet over short fair hair, and holding on her lap a tiny little girl of about six years old, with a small, pinched, delicate face and slightly red hair, to whom she pointed out by name each spot they passed, herself wearing an earnest absorbed look of recognition as she pointed out familiar landmark after landmark till the darkness came down. Also there were two cages-one with a small pink cockatoo, and another with two budgerigars.

As the train began slackening Dolores exclaimed:

"There he is! Lance-!"

"Lance! Oh, Lance!" was echoed; and setting the child down, her companion almost fell across Agatha, and was at the window as the train stopped.

What happened in the next moment no one could quite tell; but as the door was torn open there was a mingled cry of "Angel!" and of "Lance!" and the traveller was in his arms, turning the next moment to lift out the frightened little girl, who clung tight round her neck; while Lance held out his hand with, "Dolores! Yes. This is Dolores, Angel, whom you have never seen."

Each knew who the other was in a moment, and clasped hands in greeting, as well as they could with the one, and the other receiving bird-cages, handbags, umbrellas, and rugs from Agatha, whom, however, Lance relieved of them with a courteous, "Miss Prescott! You have come in for the arrival of my Australian sister! What luggage have you?" Wherewith all was absorbed in the recognition of boxes, and therewith a word or two to an old railway official, "My sister Angela."

"Miss Angela! this is an unexpected pleasure!"

"Tom Lightfoot! is it you? You are not much altered. Mr. Dane, I should have known you anywhere!" with corresponding shakes of the hand.

"Yes, that's ours. Oh, the birds! There they are! All right! Oh! not the omnibus, Lance! Let the traps go in that! Then Lena will like to stretch her legs, and I must revel in the old street."

Dolores and Agatha felt it advisable to squeeze themselves with the bird-cages into the omnibus, and leave the brother and sister to walk down together, though the little girl still adhered closely to her protector's hand.

"Poor Field's little one? Yes, of course."

"But tell me! tell me of them all!"

"All well! all right! But how-"

"The Mozambique was out of coal and had to put in at Falmouth. You know, I came by her because they said the long sea voyage would be best for this child, and it was so long since I had heard of any one that I durst not send anywhere till I knew-and I knew Froggatt's would be in its own place. Oh! there's the new hotel! the gas looks just the same! There's the tower of St. Oswald's, all shadowy against the sky. Look, Lena! Oh! this is home! I know the lamps. I've dreamt of them! Tired, Lena, dear? cold? Shall I carry you?"

"No, no; let me!" and he lifted her up, not unwillingly on her part, though she did not speak. "You are a light weight," he said.

"I am afraid so," answered Angel. "Oh! there's the bus stopping at Mr. Pratt's door."

"Mine, now. We have annexed it."

"But let me go in by the dear old shop. The window is as of old, I see. Ernest Lamb! don't you know me?" as a respectable tradesman came forward. "And Achille, is it? You are as much changed as this old shop is transmogrified! And they are all well? Do you mean Bernard?"

"Bernard and Phyllis may come home any day to deposit a child. They lost their boy, and hope to save the elder one. But come, Angel! if you have taken in enough we must go up to those electrical girls. Dolores is come to give a lecture, with the other girl to assist, Miss Prescott."

"Dolores! Yes, poor Gerald's love! They are almost myths to me. Ah!" as Lancelot opened his office-door, "now I know where I am! And there's the old staircase! This is the real thing, and no mistake."

"Angel, Angel, come to tea!" And Gertrude, comfortable and substantial, in loving greeting threw arms round the new comers, Lance still carrying the child, who clung round his neck as he brought her into the room, full of his late fellow travellers, and also of a group of children.

"It is as if we had gone back thirty years or more," was Angela's cry, as she looked forth on what had been as little altered as possible from the old family centre; and Lance, setting down the child, spoke as the pretty little blue-eyed girls advanced to exchange kisses with their new aunt.

"Margaret, or Pearl, whom you knew as a baby; Etheldred, or Awdrey, and Dickie! Fely is at Marlborough. There, take little Lena-is that her name-to your table, and give her some tea."

"Her name is Magdalen," said Angela, removing the little black hat and smoothing the hair; but Lena backed against her, and let her hand hang limp in Pearl's patronising clasp. Nor would she amalgamate with the children, nor even eat or drink except still beside "Sister," as she called Angela. In fact, she was so thoroughly worn out and tired, as well as shy and frightened, that Angela's attention was wholly given to her and she could only be put to bed, but not in the nursery, which, as Angel said, seemed to her like a den of little wild beasts. So she was deposited in the chamber and bed hastily prepared for the unexpected guest; and even there, being wakeful and feverish from over-fatigue, there was no leaving her alone, and Gertrude, after seeing her safely installed, could only go down with the hope that she would be able to spare her slave or nurse, which was it? by dinner-time.

"Who is that child so like?" said Dolores, in their own room.

"Very like somebody, but I can't tell whom," said Agatha. "Who did you say she is?"

"I cannot say I exactly know," said Dolores. "I believe she is the daughter of Fulbert Underwood's mate, on a sheep-farm in Queensland, and that as her mother died when she was born, she has been always under the care of this Angela, living in the Sisterhood there."

"Not a Sister?"

"Not under vows, certainly. I never saw her before, but I believe she is rather a funny flighty person, and that Fulbert was afraid at one time that she would marry this child's father."

"Is he alive?"

"Which? Fulbert died four or five years ago, and I think the little girl's father must be dead, for she is in mourning."

"There's something very charming about her-Miss Underwood."

"Yes there is. They all seem to be very fond of her, and yet to laugh about her, and never to be quite sure what she will do next."

"Did I not hear of her being so useful among the Australian black women?"

"No one has ever managed those very queer gins so well; and she is an admirable nurse too, they say. I am very glad to have come in her way."

They did not, however, see much of her that evening. The head master of the Grammar School and his wife, the head mistress of the High School, and a few others had been invited to meet them; and Angela could only just appear at dinner, trusting to a slumber of her charge, but, on coming out of the dining-room, a wail summoned her upstairs at once, and she was seen no more that night.

However, with morning freshness, Lena showed herself much less farouche, and willing to accept the attentions of Mr. Underwood first, and, later, of his little daughter Pearl-a gentle, elder sisterly person, who knew how to avert the too rough advances of Dick- and made warm friends over the pink cockatoo; while Awdrey was entranced by the beauties of the budgerigars.

Robina had been informed by telegram, and came up from Minsterham with her husband, looking just like his own father, and grown very broad. He was greatly interested in the lecture, and went off to it, to consider whether it would be desirable for the Choristers' School. Lancelot had, of course, to go, and Angela declared that she must be brought up to date, and rejoiced that Lena was able to submit to be left with the other children under the protection of Mrs. Underwood, who averred that she abhorred electricity in all its forms, and that if Lance were induced to light the town, or even the shop by that means, he must begin by disposing of her by a shock.

It was an excellent lecture, only the two sisters hardly heard it. They could think of nothing but that they were once more sitting side by side in the old hall, where they had heard and shared in so many concerts, on the gala days of their home life.

The two lecturers, as well as the rest of the party, were urgently entreated to stay to tea at the High School; but when the interest of the new arrival was explained, the sisters and brother were released to go home, Canon Harewood remaining to content their hostesses.

CHAPTER XXII-ANGEL AND BEAR

"Enough of science and of art!

Close up those barren leaves,

Come forth, and bring with you a heart

That watches and receives."

- WORDSWORTH.

A telegram had been handed to Mr. Mayor, which he kept to himself, smiling over it, and he-at least-was not taken utterly by surprise at the sight of a tall handsome man, who stepped forward with something like a shout.

"Angel! Lance! Why, is it Robin, too?"

"Bear, Bear, old Bear, how did you come?"

"I couldn't stop when I heard at Clipstone that Angel was here, so I left Phyllis and the kid with her mother. Oh, Angel, Angel, to meet at Bexley after all!"

They clung together almost as they had done when they were the riotous elements of the household, while Lance opened the front door, and Robina, mindful of appearances, impelled them into the hall, Bernard exclaiming, "Pratt's room! Whose teeth is it?"

"Don't you want Wilmet to hold your hands and make you open your mouth?" said Lance, laughing.

Gertrude, who had already received the Indian arrival, met Angela, who was bounding up to see to her charge, with, "Not come in yet! She is gone out with the children quite happily, with Awdrey's doll in her arms. Come and enjoy each other in peace."

"In the office, please," said Angela. "That is home. We shall be our four old selves."

Lance opened the office door, and gave a hint to Mr. Lamb, while they looked at each other by the fire.

Bernard was by far the most altered. The others were slightly changed, but still their "old selves," while he was a grave responsible man, looking older than Lancelot, partly from the effects of climate; but Angela saw enough to make her exclaim, "Here we are! Don't you feel as if we were had down to Felix to be blown up?"

"Not a bit altered," said Bernard, looking at the desks and shelves of ledgers, with the photographs over the mantelpiece-Felix, Mr. Froggatt, the old foreman, and a print of Garofalo's Vision of St. Augustine, hung up long ago by Felix, as Lance explained, as a token of the faith to which all human science and learning should be subordinated.

"A declaration of the Pursuivant," said Angela. "How Fulbert did look out for Pur! I believe it was his only literature."

"Phyllis declares," said Bernard, "that nothing so upsets me as a failure in Pur's arrival."

"And this is Pur's heart and centre!" said Robina.

"Only," added Angela, "I miss the smell of burnt clay that used to pervade the place, and that Alda so hated."

"Happily the clay is used up," said Lance. "I could not have brought Gertrude and the children here if the ceramic art, as they call it, had not departed. Cherry was so delighted at our coming to live here. She loved the old struggling days."

"Fulbert said he never felt as if he had been at home till he came here. He never took to Vale Leston."

"Clement and Cherry have settled in very happily," said Robina, "with convalescent clergy in the Vicarage."

"I say, Angel, let us have a run over there," cried Bernard, "you and I together, for a bit of mischief."

"Do, do let us! Though this is real home, our first waking to perception and naughtiness, it is more than Vale Leston. We seem to have been up in a balloon all those five happy years."

"A balloon?" said Bernard. "Nay, it seems to me that till they were over, I never thought at all except how to get the most rollicking and the finest rowing out of life. It seems to me that I had about as much sense as a green monkey."

"Something sank in, though," said Lance; "you did not drift off like poor Edgar."

"Some one must have done so," said Angela. "I wanted to ask you, Lancey, about advertising for my little Lena's people; the Bishop said I ought."

"I say," exclaimed Bernard, "was it her father that was Fulbert's mate? I thought he was afraid of your taking up with him. You didn't?"

"No, no. Let me tell you, I want you to know. Field and a little wife came over from Melbourne prospecting for a place to sit down in. They had capital, but the poor wife was worn out and ill, and after taking them in for a night, Fulbert liked them. Field was an educated man and a gentleman, and Ful offered them to stay there in partnership. So they stayed, and by and by this child was born, and the poor mother died. The two great bearded men came galloping over to Albertstown from Carrigaboola, with this new born baby, smaller than even Theodore was, and I had the care of her from the very first, and Field used to ride over and see the little thing."

"And-?" said Bernard, in a rather teasing voice, as his eyes actually looked at Angela's left hand.

"I'll own it did tempt me. I had had some great disappointments with my native women, running wild again, and I could not bear my child having a horrid stepmother; and there was the glorious free bush life, and the horses and the sheep! But then I thought of you all saying Angel had broken out again; and by and by Fulbert came and told me that he was sure there was some ugly mystery, and spoke to Mother Constance, and they made me promise not to take him unless it was cleared up. Then, as you know, dear Ful's horse fell with him; Field came and fetched me to their hut, and I was there to the last. Ful told each of us again that all must be plain and explained before we thought of anything in the future. He, Henry Field, said he had great hopes that he should be able to set it right. Then, as you know, there was no saving dear Fulbert, and after that Mother Constance's illness began. Oh! Bear, do you recollect her coming in and mothering us in the little sitting-room? I could not stir from her, of course, while she was with us. And after that, Harry Field came and said he had written a letter to England, and when the answer came, he would tell me all, and I should judge! But I don't think the answer ever did come, and he went to Brisbane to see if it was at the bank; and there he caught a delirious fever, and there was an end of it

At that moment something between a whine or a call of "sister" was heard. Up leapt Angela and hurried away, while Lance observed, "Well! That's averted, but I am sorry for her."

"It was not love," said Robina.

"Or only for the child," said Bernard; "and that would have been a dangerous speculation."

"The child or something else has been very good for her," said Lance; "I never saw her so gentle and quiet."

"And with the same charm about her as ever," said Bernard. "I don't wonder that all the fellows fall in love with her. I hope she won't make havoc among Clement's sick clergy."

"I suppose we ought to go up and fulfil the duties of society," said Robina, rising. "But first, Bear, tell me how is Phyllis?"

"Pretty fair," he answered. "Resting with her mother, but she has never been quite the thing of late. I almost hope Sir Ferdinand will see his way to keeping us at home, or we shall have to leave our little Lily."

Interruption occurred as a necessary summons to "Mr. Mayor," and the paternal conclave was broken up, and had to adjourn to Gertrude's tea in the old sitting-room.

"I see!" exclaimed Agatha, as she looked at the party of children at their supplementary table. "I see what the likeness is in that child. Don't you, Dolores? Is it not to Wilfred Merrifield?"

"There is very apt to be a likeness between sandy people, begging your pardon, Angel," said Gertrude.

"Yes, the carroty strain is apt to crop up in families," said Lance, "like golden tabbies, as you ladies call your stable cats."

"All the Mohuns are dark," said Dolores, "and all Aunt Lily's children, except Wilfred; and is not your Phyllis of that colour?"

"Phyllis's hair is not red, but dark auburn," said Bernard, in a tone like offence.

"I never saw Phyllis," said dark-browed Dolores, "but I have heard the aunts talk over the source of the-the fair variety, and trace it to the Merrifields. Uncle Jasper is brown, and so is Bessie; but Susan is, to put it politely, just a golden tabby, and David's baby promises to be, to her great delight, as she says he will be a real Merrifield. So much for family feeling!"

"Sister, Sister!" came in a bright tone, "may I go with Pearl and get a stick for Ben? He wants something to play with! He is eating his perch."

Ben, it appeared, was the pink cockatoo, who was biting his perch with his hooked beak. The children had finished their meal, and consent was given. "Only, Lena, come here," said Angela, fastening a silk handkerchief round her neck, and adding, "Don't let Lena go on the dew, Pearl; she is not used to early English autumn, I must get her a pair of thicker boots."

"What is her name?" asked Agatha, catching the sound.

"Magdalen Susanna. Her father made a point of it, instead of his wife's name, which, I think, was Caroline."

"I don't think I ever knew a Magdalen except my own elder sister," said Agatha, "and Susanna! Did you say Miss Merrifield had a sister Susan?"

"An excellent, sober-sided, dear old Susan! Yes, Susanna was their mother's name," said Dolores "and now that you have put it into my head, little Lena, when she is animated, puts me more in mind of Bessie than even of Wilfred, though the colouring is different. Why?"

"Did you never hear," said Agatha, "that there was one of the brothers who was a bad lot, and ran away. My sister says Wilfred is like him. I believe," she added, "that he was her romance!"

"Ha!" exclaimed Bernard, "that's queer! We had a clerk in the bank who gave his name as Meriton, and who cut and ran the very day he heard that Sir Jasper Merrifield was coming out as Commandant. Yes, he was carroty. I rarely saw Wilfred at Clipstone, but this might very well have been the fellow, afraid to face his uncle."

Angela did not look delighted. "She is not destitute, you know," she said, "I am her guardian, and she will have about two hundred a year."

"Is there a will?" asked Lance.

"Oh, yes, I have it upstairs! It is all right. It was at the bank at Brisbane, and they kept a copy. I brought her because the Bishop said it was my duty to find out whether there were any relations."

"Certainly," said Bernard. "In our own case, remember what joy Travis's letter was!"

Angela was silent, and presently said, "You shall see the will when I have unpacked it, but there is no doubt about my being guardian."

"Probably not," said Bernard, rather drily.

"If it be a valid will, signed by his proper name," said Lance.

Whereupon the two brothers fell into a discussion on points of law, not unlike the editor of the Pursuivant, as he had become known to his family, but most unlike the Bernard they had known before his departure for the East. At any rate it dissipated the emotional tone of the party; and by and by, when Bernard and Angela had agreed to make a bicycle rush to Minsterham the next day, "that is," said Angela "if Lena is happy enough to spare me," the Harewoods took leave.

When the children had gone to bed, and Angela had stayed upstairs so long that Gertrude augured that she was waiting till her charge had gone to sleep, and that they should have no more of her henceforth but "Lena's baulked stepmother," she came down, bringing a document with her, which she displayed before her brothers.

There was no question but that it was a will drawn up in due form, and very short, bequeathing his property at Carrigaboola, Queensland, to his daughter, Magdalen Susanna, and appointing Fulbert Underwood and Angela Margaret Underwood and "my brother Samuel" her guardian. It was dated the year after his daughter's birth, and was signed Henry Field, with a word interposed, which, as Lance said, might be anything, but was certainly the right length for the first syllables of Merrifield. Bernard looked at it, and declared it was, to the best of his belief, the same signature as his former clerk used to write.

"And this," he said, looking at the seal, "is the crest of the Merrifield's-the demi lion. I know it well on Sir Jasper's seal ring."

"Have you nothing else, Angel?" asked Lance.

"Here is the certificate of her baptism, but that will tell you nothing."

No more it did, it only called the child the daughter of Henry and Caroline Field, and the surname was omitted in the bequest.

"Who was the mother?" asked Lance.

"I never exactly knew. Fulbert thought she had been a person whom Field had met in America or somewhere, and married in a hurry. Fulbert said she was rather pretty, but she was a poor helpless, bewildered thing, and very poorly. He wanted to bring her to Albertstown for fit help and nursing; but she cried so much at the idea of either horse or wagon over the-no-roads, that it was put off and off and she had only his shepherd's housekeeper, so it was no wonder she did not live! Field was dreadfully cut up, and blamed himself extremely for having given way to her; but it is as likely as not the journey would have been just as fatal."

"Poor thing!"

"You never heard her surname?"

"No, it did not signify."

"He did not name his child after her?"

"No. I remember Fulbert saying he supposed she should be called Caroline; and he exclaimed, 'No, no, I always said it should be Magdalen and Susanna.'"

"My sister's name," repeated Agatha.

"And Susan Merrifield," added Dolores.

"But she is mine, mine!" cried Angela, with a tone like herself, of a sort of triumphant jealousy. "They can't take her away from me!"

"Gently, Angela, my dear," said Lance, in a tone so like Felix of old, that it almost startled her. "Tell me what arrangement is this about the property. Your share of Fulbert's has never been taken out, I think?"

"No, Macpherson, the purchaser, you know, of Fulbert's share, pays me my amount out of it, and agreed to do the same by Lena. I don't think the value is quite what it used to be. It rather went down under Field; but Macpherson is all there, and it has been a better season. I could sell it all to him, hers and mine both; but I have thought how it would be, as it is her native country, and I have not parted with my own to go out again to Carrigaboola, and bring her up there. I assure you I am up to it," she added, meeting an amused look. "I know a good deal more about sheep farming than either of you gentlemen. I can ride anything but a buckjumper, and boss the shepherds, and I do love the life, no stifling in fields and copses! I only wish you would come too, Bear; it would do you ever so much good to get a little red paint on those white banker's hands of yours."

"Well done, sister Angel!" And the brothers both burst out laughing.

"But really," proceeded Angela, "it is by far the best hope of keeping up Christianity among those hands. Fulbert had a sort of little hut for a chapel, and once a month one of the clergy from Albertstown came over there; I used to ride with him when I could, and if I were there, I could keep a good deal going till the place is more peopled, and we can get a cleric. It is a great opportunity, not to be thrown away. I can catch those cockatoos better than a parson. And there are the blacks."

The brothers had not the least doubt of it. Angela was Angela still, for better or for worse. Or was it for worse? Yet she went up to bed chanting-

"His sister she went beyond the seas,

And died an old maid among black savagees."

CHAPTER XXIII-WILLOW WIDOWS

"Set your heart at rest.

The fairyland buys not that child of me.

- "MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM."

An expedition to Minsterham finished the visit of Dolores and her faithful "Nag," whose abilities as an assistant were highly appreciated, and who came home brilliantly happy to keep her remaining holiday with Magdalen; while Dolores repaired to Clipstone. Bernard had been obliged to go to London, to report himself to Sir Ferdinand Travis Underwood, but his wife and little girl were the reigning joy at Clipstone. Phyllis looked very white, much changed from the buxom girl who had gone out with her father two years ago. She had never recovered the loss of the little boy, and suffered the more from her husband's inability to bear expression, and it was an immense comfort to her to speak freely of her little one to her mother.

The little Lilias looked frail, but was healthy, happy, and as advanced as a well-trained companion child of six could well be, and the darling of the young aunts, who expected Dolores to echo their raptures, and declare the infinite superiority of the Ceylonese to "that little cornstalk," as Valetta said.

"There's no difficulty as to that," said Dolores, laughing. "The poor little cornstalk looks as if she had grown up under a blight."

"It is a grand romance though," said Mysie; "only I wish that Cousin Harry had had any constancy in him."

"I wonder if Magdalen will adopt her!" was Valetta's bold suggestion.

"Poor Magdalen has had quite adopting enough to do," said Mysie.

"Besides," said Dolores, "Sister Angela will never let her go. And certainly I never saw any one more taking than Sister Angela. She is so full of life, and of a certain unexpectedness, and one knows she has done such noble work. I want to see more of her."

"You will," said Mysie. "Mamma is going to ask her to come, for Phyllis says there is no one that Bernard cares for so much. She was his own companion sister."

"Magdalen might have the little cornstalk," said Valetta.

"Well," said Mysie, "it is rather funny to have two-what shall I say?-willow widows, and a child that is neither of theirs! How will they settle it?"

Magdalen had heard from Agatha on the first evening of the arrival of the sister, and the probability of the identification of little Lena's father with the Henry Merrifield of her former years, and she was deeply touched by the bestowal of her name-so much that Nag avoided saying more, but only kissed her and went to bed.

The Merrifields discussed the subject dispassionately.

Sir Jasper recollected what his brother had written to him of his anxieties and disappointment in his son Henry, and of his absconding from Manitoba, since which time all trace of him had been lost, except in the restoration to the two brothers in Canada. To the surprise and indignation of Sir Jasper, there had been no attempt to follow it up.

"If my poor brother Edgar had done anything of the kind," said Bernard, "none of us would have rested."

So far as they could put recollections together this act of restitution must have been made soon after the connection with Fulbert Underwood began, perhaps at the time of the wife's death. If there had been another letter, as Sister Angela thought, it was more recent, certainly within the last two years.

Captain Samuel Merrifield, of Stokesley, had been on a voyage for four years, and had not long been at home. His wife had been charged with the forwarding of the letters that she thought of immediate interest, and there was an accumulation of those that had been left for his return, as yet not looked over.

Of course, Sir Jasper impelled him to plunge into these, and by and by one came to light, which Mrs. Merrifield had taken "for only some Australian gold mines," and left to wait, especially as it was directed to his father instead of himself.

It was a letter full of repentance, and entreaties for forgiveness, describing in part poor Henry's past life, and adding that the best thing that had ever befallen him was his association with "such a fellow as Underwood."

It was to be gathered that Fulbert's uprightness of mind had led him to the first impulse of restitution, and he went on to mention his first hasty marriage and the loss of his wife, with the kindness of the Carrigaboola Sisterhood; above all, of Sister Angela, and declaring his love and admiration for her, and his sense that she was the one person who could keep him straight now that her brother was gone.

He had more than once offered to her, but he found that her brother had solemnly charged her not to accept him till he had made all his past clear before her, and could show her that he was acknowledged by his family, and had his father's forgiveness, and for this he humbly craved, as one deeply sensible of his own demerits.

It was piteous to think of the poor fellow waiting and hoping for an answer to such a letter as this, and dying without one, while all the time it was lying unread in the Captain's desk, and no one even knew of the changed life and fresh hopes. Sir Jasper was much moved by it; but Sam said, "Ay, ay! poor Harry always was a plausible fellow!" and his wife was chiefly concerned to show that the suppression was not by her fault. Sir Jasper had brought the will with him, and the certificate of the child's baptism.

Both were met with a little hesitation. So little had been said in the letter about the marriage that the Captain wanted to know more, and also whether the will had been properly proved in Australia, and whether it had force in England. In that case he was surely the right person to have the custody of his brother's child. His wife, who had been bred up in a different school, was not by any means satisfied that she should be consigned to a member of a Sisterhood.

David came to Stokesley, saw the letter, and agreed with his brother on the expediency of obtaining full proof of the validity of the will in both Queensland and England, and put in hand the writing of inquiries for the purpose, from the legal authorities at Brisbane, for which purpose Angela had to be consulted.

She had been (having left the budgerigars to the delight of Pearl and Awdrey), in the meantime, at Vale Leston, enjoying the atmosphere of peace that prevailed wherever were Clement and Geraldine, and hailed with delight by all her old village friends, as well as Lady Vanderkist and her somewhat thinned flock.

She won Adrian's heart by skating or golfing with him, and even, on one or two hunting days, joining in his pursuit of the chase, being altogether, as he said, ever so much better a fellow than even his youngest sister Joan, and entrancing them all with tales of kangaroos. Lena had really a tame kangaroo at Carrigaboola. Oh, why did they not bring it home as well as Ben, the polly? She quite pined for it, and had tears in her eyes when it was spoken of.

Indeed the joyous young Vanderkists were too much for the delicate little girl, and sorry as Angela was to leave Vale Leston, she was not ungrateful for an invitation to the Goyle, where there was more room for them than at Clipstone in the holidays, and with the Bernard Underwoods making it their headquarters.

Lena and she were much better and happier with "Sister" always at her service, and Paula and Thekla were delighted to amuse her. Paula was in a state of delight with Sister Angela, only a little puzzled by the irregularity of her course, though it was carefully explained that she had never been under any vows. To hear of her doings among the Australian women was a romance, often as there had been disappointment. "Paula is a born Sister," said Angela, "a much truer one than I have ever been, for there does not seem to be any demon of waywardness to drive her wild."

These talks with Magdalen, often prolonged hours after the young people had gone to bed, were a great solace to both the elders. Girls like Mysie Merrifield and Phyllis Devereux thought sitting up to converse a propensity peculiar to themselves, and to their own age, of new experiences and speculations; but the two "old girls," whose experiences were not new, and whose speculations had a certain material foundation, they were equally fascinating.

There were no small jealousies in either of them-"willow widows"- though Mysie's name stuck. There was nothing but comfort to Magdalen in the certainty of the ultimate "coming home" of one who had finished a delusive dream of her younger days, and been yearned after with a heartache now quenched; and Angela, who had never been the least in love with Henry Merrifield, could quite afford her interest in the scanty records of his younger days, and fill up all she knew of the measure of the latter and better days. There was another bond, for Mrs. Best's daughter was, "as distances go," a neighbour to Carrigaboola, and resorted thither on great occasions.

Angela's vision began to be, to take Magdalen and her sisters out to Carrigaboola, where a superior school for colonists' daughters was much needed, and where Paula might enter the Sisterhood. She longed all the more when she saw how much better Magdalen could deal with Lena as to teaching and restraint than she could. The child was very backward, and could hardly read words of one syllable, though she knew any amount of Scripture history and legends of Saints, and was very fairly intelligent; but though she was devoted to "Sister," always hanging on her, and never quite happy when out of sight of her, she had hardly any notion of prompt obedience or of giving up her own way.

Angela's visit to Vale Leston had been partly spoilt by the little girl's fretful worry at the elder children, and by the somewhat uncalled for fears that all the Vanderkists were hard on the poor little colonial damsel; but whether it was the air of Rock Quay, or the quiet influence of Miss Prescott, Lena certainly improved in health at the Goyle, and was much more amenable, and less rudely shy. But her guardian trembled at hearing that, pending Captain Merrifield's correspondence with Brisbane, the sisters, Susan and Elizabeth, were coming to Miss Mohun's to see their niece, there being no room for them at Clipstone.

They came-Susan, plump, comfortable and good-natured looking, as like an apricot as ever, with an air many years more than three above her sister Bessie, who as ever was brisk and bright, scarcely middle aged in face, dress or demeanour. They arrived too late for visiting, and only dined at Clipstone to be introduced to Bernard Underwood, and see their cousin Phyllis, whom they had once met when all were small children. Dolores was much amused, as she told her Aunt Jane, to see how gratified they were at the "sanguine" colouring of Phyllis and Wilfred, quite Merrifields, they said, though Phyllis with auburn eyes and hair was far handsomer than any other of the clan had ever been; and Wilfred had simply commonplace carrots and freckles.

"The fun is," said Jane, "to remember how some of us Mohuns have sighed at Lily's having any yellow children, and, till we saw Stokesley specimens, wondering where the strain came from! As if it signified!"

"It does in some degree," said Dolores; "something hereditary goes with the complexion."

"I don't know," said Jane. "I believe too much is made in these days of heredity, and by those who believe least in the Bible indications on the effect, forgetting the counteracting grace."

"Well," said Dolores, "Wilfred was always a bête noire to me- no, not noire-in my younger days, and I can't help being glad he is not of our strain! Though you know the likeness was the first step to identifying that poor little girl."

"Poor child! I am afraid she will be a bone of contention."

The two aunts were at Clipstone early; and might be satisfied with the true Merrifield tints of Magdalen Susanna, but perhaps she had been over much warned to be gracious, for the very contrary was the effect. She had been very civil to her great-aunt Lilias, and had allowed both her uncles to take her up in their arms; but she retreated upon Angela, planted an elbow on the well-known lap, turned her back, and put a skinny little finger in her mouth by way of answer to Susan's advances, advances which had hardly ever before been repelled even by the most untamable of infants.

Angela tried to coax, lift her up and turn her round; but this only led to the shoulder being the hiding-place, and it might be suspected that there was a lurking perception that these strangers asserted a closer claim than the beloved "Sister." She would not even respond to Susan's doll or Bessie's picture book; and Bessie advised leaving her alone, and turned to the window with Agatha, who was nothing loth to tell of her Bexley and Minsterham experiences.

Angela tried to talk about the voyage, or any thing that might save the child from being discussed or courted; but Susan's heart was in the subject, and she had not enough tact or knowledge of the world to turn away from it. Regret for the past was strong within her, and she could not keep from asking how much "little Magdalen" (at full length) remembered of her father, how much she had been with him, whether he had much altered, whether there were a photograph of him, and a great deal more, with tears in her eyes and a trembling in her voice which made Angela feel much for her, even while vexed at her pertinacity, for the child was by no means the baby she looked like, but perfectly well able to listen and understand, and this consciousness made her own communications much briefer and more reserved than otherwise they would have been.

Bessie, with more perception, saw the embarrassment, turned round from Agatha, went up to the cockatoo in his cage, and asked in a pleasant voice if Magdalen would show him to her, and tell her his name. Angela was glad enough to break off poor Susan's questioning, and come forward, with the child still clinging, to incite the bird to display the rose colour under his crest, put up a grey claw to shake hands, and show off his vocabulary, laughing herself and acting merriment as she did so, in hopes to inspire Lena.

"Come, Ben, tell how you were picked up under a gum tree, quite a baby, a little grey ball, and brought over in the shepherd's pocket for a present to the little Boss, and how we fed you and nursed you till you turned all rose-colour and lovely! There! put up your crest and make red revelations. Can't you speak? Fetch him a banana, Lena. That will open his mouth."

At sight of the banana, the bird put his head on one side and croaked in a hoarse whisper, "Yo ho!"

"No, you need not be afraid of any more sailors' language," said Angela. "They were as careful as possible on board. I overheard once, 'Hold hard, Tom, Polly Pink is up there, and she's a regular lady born!

Whereupon Polly indulged in a ridiculous chuckle, holding the banana cleverly in one foot, while Angela laughed and chattered more and more nervously, but only succeeded in disgusting the visitors by what Susan at least took for unbecoming flippancy.

"That Sister," said Susan, as they drove away, "does not seem to me at all the person to have the charge of Henry's poor little girl!"

"I wish she had not thrust herself in," said Bessie, "to prevent me from getting on with the child over the cockatoo."

"She calls herself a Sister! I don't understand it, for she seems to have been bent on marrying poor Henry."

"She never took any vows."

"Then why does she wear a ridiculous cap over all that hair?"

By and by they were met by Bernard Underwood striding along. "Holloa! have you seen Angel and her darling? She is a perfect slave to the little thing, and one only gets fragments of her."

"She seems very fond of her," said Bessie.

"Just kept her alive, you see. Poor old Angel! She is all for one thing at a time! Are you going up to Clipstone?"

"I think we shall find Phyllis at Beechcroft."

"Yes, she is driving there to lunch, and Angel is to bring the little cornstalk over to make friends with our Lily! I trust the creature goes to sleep now, and I may get a word out of Angel!" Wherewith he dashed on, and the two ladies agreed that "those Underwoods seemed to be curiously impulsive."

They were, however, much better satisfied with the Ceylonese Lily, who was a very well trained civilised specimen, conversing very prettily over one of Aunt Jane's picture books, which Bessie looked at with her, and showing herself fully able to read the titles beneath, a feat of which Lena was quite incapable, though she was less on the defensive than she had shown herself at the Goyle, and Angela was far more at her ease than when she was conscious that "Field's" original love was watching the introduction to his sisters. Besides, Bernard's presence was sunshine to her, and the two expanded into bright reminiscences and merry comparisons of their two lives, absolutely delightful to themselves, and to Phyllis and her Aunt Jane, and which would have been the same to Elizabeth, if she had not been worried at Susan's evident misunderstanding of-and displeasure at-the quips and cranks of the happy brother and sister; also she was bent on promoting an intercourse between Lily and Lena, over the doll she had brought for the former. She was a little hurt that Lena had not been accompanied by the blue-eyed article with preposterously long eyelashes that had been bestowed on her at the Goyle; but the little Australian had no opinion of dolls, and had let the one bought for her at Sydney be thrown overboard by the ship's monkey.

"That was cruel!" said Lily, fondling her black-eyed specimen.

"She could not feel," reasoned Lena, with contempt.

"I don't know," said Lily, knitting her brows. "It's not all make believe! I do love my Rosamunda Rowena, and she loves me, and I shall tell her not to be jealous of this dear Betsinda. For, do you know, when Rosamunda was ill in the Red Sea, father carried her up and down on deck, and made her a dear little deck chair."

"But she is not alive. She couldn't be," sighed Lena. "I like my Ben and my kangaroo! Oh, I do want to go back to my kangaroo!"

"And does Lily want to go back to her riki-tiki?" asked Lily's father, lifting a little girl on each knee, so that they might be vis-à-vis, when certainly his own had the advantage in beauty, as she answered, leaning against him, "Granny's better than riki-tiki!"

For which pretty speech some of the ladies gave her much credit; but her father, with a tender arm round her, said, "Ah! you are a sentimental little pussy-cat! Is anything here as good as Carrigaboola? Eh, Lena?"

But Lena resolutely shook her carrots; but kept silence, while Bernard turned over the leaves of a great book of natural history, till as a page was displayed with a large kangaroo under a blue-gum tree, with a yellow wattle tree beside him, her lips quivered, her face puckered, and she burst into an uncontrollable fit of crying; "Oh! I want to go home, home! Sister, Sister, take me home!"

Angela was in a minute beside her, took her within loving arms, and carried her off.

CHAPTER XXIV-CRUEL LAWYERS

"Tender companions of our serious days,

Who colour with your kisses, smiles and tears,

Life's worn web woven over wasted ways."

- LOWELL.

There was a good deal of worry and anxiety for some little time, while correspondence was going on about Henry Merrifield's will, and in the meantime Angela decided to board with Miss Prescott, since her charge was certainly much better in health there; and besides, as Mrs. Bernard Merrifield was naturally at Clipstone, it became the head quarters of her husband, though he made many excursions to his own people, and on business affairs to Sir Ferdinand Travis Underwood in London.

And Clipstone suited him well for his holiday. Sir Jasper had, of course, a certain amount of intercourse with the garrison at Avoncester, and the officers stationed there at present had already some acquaintance with Bernard Underwood, who was known to be a champion in Ceylon in all athletic sports, especially polo and cricket. Tall and well made, he had been devoted to all such games in his youth, and they had kept up his health in his sedentary occupation. Now, in his leisure time, his prowess did much to efface the fame of the much younger and slighter Alexis White, and, so far as might be, Angela enjoyed the games with him, keeping well within bounds, but always feeling activity a wholesome outlet for her superfluous strength, and, above all, delighting in an interval of being a child again with her Bear of old times; and her superabundant life, energy, and fun amazed all, especially by the contrast with her poor little languid charge, who seemed, as Jane Mohun said, centuries older.

The Merrifield lads were also devoted to him. Even Fergus was somewhat distracted from his allegiance to Dolores and her experiments, and in the very few days that Christmas afforded for skating, could think of nothing else.

And as to Wilfred, his whole mind seemed to be set on sports, and marble works to be only an incident thrown in. Bernard, whom he followed assiduously, and who took him to Avoncester, and introduced him to young officers, began to have doubts whether he had done wisely. Bernard had, in his time, vexed Felix's soul by idleness and amusement, but he had been one betted upon, not himself given to betting. He loved football and cricket for their bodily excitement, not the fictitious one of a looker on, or reader of papers, and it struck him that Wilfred knew a good deal too much about this more dangerous side of races and athletics.

He said so to Angela, and she answered, "Oh, nonsense! Young men are out of it if they don't know the winning horse. Even Pur had to be up to the Derby."

And Angela had her own bitter trial in the decision of the lawyers. Not only was the signature of the will unsatisfactory, from the confusion between Field and Merrifield, but the two witnesses failed to be traced, John Shepherd and George Jones were not to be identified, and though Brisbane might accept wills easily, an English court of law required more certainty. The little daughter being the only child and natural heiress, this was not felt to be doing her any injury; but the decision deprived her of the guardian her father had chosen, and Angela was in despair. She was ready to write to the Pursuivant, to the Bishop of Albertstown, to the Lord Chancellor, with an exposition of the wicked injustice and hardness of heart of lawyers, and the inexpedience of taking the poor child from her earliest motherly friend, expressly chosen by her father. All Bernard's common sense and Magdalen's soothing were needed to make her hold her peace, when correspondence made it plain that the guardianship being assumed by the uncles, Captain Merrifield would not hear for a moment of the scheme of taking the child out to Carrigaboola. In his opinion, and his sister Susan's, the only fit thing to be done with her was to place her with the two aunts at Coalham to be educated. He came down to Rock Quay to inspect her. It was a cold, raw day, with the moors wrapped in mist, and the poor little maid looked small, peaky and pinched. He was sure that the dry winds of the north were what she needed, wanted to carry her off immediately, and looked regardless of Angela's opinion, though backed by Miss Prescott, that it would be highly dangerous to take the delicate child of a semi-tropical climate off in the depth of winter to a northerly town. Angela walked off to ask Dr. Dagger to inspect the child and give his opinion, while Captain Sam repaired to Clipstone to visit his relations and lunch with them.

He did not meet with all the sympathy he expected. Lady Merrifield said that Coalham had not agreed with her own son Harry, and that little Lena ought not to be taken there till after the cold winds of spring were over; and her daughters all chimed in with a declaration that Angela Underwood was perfectly devoted to the little one, and that no one else could make her happy.

"Petting her! spoiling her!" scoffed the Captain. "Why, Susan and Bessie were full of the contrast with your little girl."

"Health," began Phyllis.

"An Indian child too!" he went on. "Just showing what a little good sense in the training can do! No, indeed! Since I am to be her guardian, I have no notion of swerving from my duty, and letting poor Hal's child be bred up to Sisterhoods and all that flummery."

"It will just break Angela's heart," cried Valetta, with tears in her eyes, at which the Captain looked contemptuous.

"I must say," added Bernard, "that I should think it little short of murderous to take that unlucky child from the one woman who understands her up into the bleak north at this time of year."

"Decidedly!" added Sir Jasper. "Miss Underwood deserves every consideration in dealing with the child who has been always her sole charge."

Wherewith he changed the conversation by a question about Stokesley; but he held to his dictum when alone with his nephew, and as he was the only person for whose opinion Captain Sam had any respect, it had its effect, though there was a sense that he might be biassed by his son-in-law and his herd of womanfolk, and that he did not partake Mrs. Samuel Merrifield's dislike to the very name of Sister or of anything not commonplace.

Angela obtained Dr. Dagger's opinion to reinforce her own and Lady Merrifield's, and the Captain was obliged to give way so far as to consent to Magdalen, as he insisted on calling her, being allowed to remain at Arnscombe till after Easter, when her aunts were to fetch her to Coalham, there to send her to the kindergarten.

After Angela's period of raging against law and lawyers and all the Stokesley family, and being on the verge of impertinence to Captain Merrifield, she submitted to the prospect more quietly than her friends had dared to hope. Lance had almost expected her to deport her charge, parrot and all, suddenly and secretly by an Australian liner, and had advised Bernard, on a fleeting meeting at Bexley, to be on his guard if she hinted at anything so preposterous; but Bernard shook his head, and said Angel was more to be trusted than her elders thought. "Waves and storms don't go over us for nothing, I hope," he said.

And he found himself right on his return. Angela had bowed her head to the inevitable, and was quietly trying to prepare her little charge for the change, accustoming her to more discipline and less petting. When Angela proposed to walk over to Clipstone with her brother on his return, and the whine was set up, "Let me go, Sister," it was answered, "No, my dear, it is too far for you. You must stay and walk with Paula."

"I want to go with Sister."

"You must be a good child, and do as Sister tells you. No, I can't have any fretting. Paula will show you how to drive your hoop. Keep her moving fast, Paula, don't let her fret and get cold."

And Angela actually detached the clinging hand, and put it into Paulina's, and, holding up her finger, silenced the burst of weeping, though tears sprang to her own eyes as she resolutely turned away, and, after running out and shutting the back gate after her, put her arm with a clinging gesture into Bernard's.

"That's right!" he said, pressing her hand.

"Cruel," she said, "but better by and by for her. Oh, Bear, if one could but learn to lie still and say, 'Thou didst it,' when it is human agency that takes away the desire of one's eyes with a stroke."

"The desire of thine eyes!" repeated Bernard. "How often I thought of that last February."

It was the only time he had referred to the loss of his little boy. His wife had told her mother that he could not bear to mention it, and had poured out all her own feelings of sorrow and her struggle for cheerfulness and resignation alone with her or with Mysie; but he had shrunk from the least allusion to the little two year old Felix, who slept beneath a palm tree at Colombo.

Now, however, still holding his sister's hand, he drifted into all the particulars of the little ways, the baby language, the dawning understanding, and the very sudden sharp illness carrying the beautiful boy away almost before they were aware of danger; and he took out the photograph from his breast, and showed her the little face, so recalling old fond remembrances. "Forbear to cry, make no mourning for the dead," he repeated. "Yes, the boy is saved the wear and tear and heat and burthen of the day, but it is very hard to be thankful."

"Ah, and it is all the harder if you have to leave your Lily."

"If-yes; but Travis may so arrange that we can stay, or I make only one voyage out to settle matters and then come home for good. If you are still bent on Carrigaboola you might come as far as Frisco with me. I may have to go there about the Californian affairs."

"That would be jolly. Yes, I think it will clench the matter, for I believe I am of more good at Carriga than anywhere else, though the heart of it is taken out of it for me; but one lives on and gets on somehow without a heart, or a heart set where I suppose it ought not to be entirely at least! And, indeed, I think that little one taught me better than ever before how to love."

"That's what the creatures are sent us for," said Bernard, in a low voice. "And here are, looming in the distance, all the posse of girls to meet us."

"Ah-h!" breathed Angela, withdrawing her arm. "Well, Bear, you have given me something to look forward to, whether it comes to anything or not. It will help me to be thankful. I know they are good people, and the child will do well when once the pining and bracing are over. They are her own people, and it is right."

"Right you are, Angel!" said Bernard, with a fresh squeeze of the hand, as he resumed his own cheerful, resolute voice ere joining his sisters-in-law.

"What! Angela without her satellite!" cried Primrose.

"Too far," murmured Angela; but Mysie tried to hush her sister, perceiving the weaning process, and respecting Angela for it.

And the next moment Angela was challenging Bernard to a game at golf.

CHAPTER XXV-BEAR AS ADVISER

"Weary soul and burthened sore

Labouring with thy secret load."

- KEBLE.

The early spring brought a new development. Thekla, who attended classes at the High School, came home with unmistakable tokens of measles, and Primrose did the same, in common with most of their contemporaries at Rockstone. Nor was there any chance that either Lily Underwood at Clipstone or Lena Merrifield at the Goyle would escape; indeed, they both showed an amount of discomfort that made it safer to keep them where they were, than to try to escape in the sharp east wind and frost.

No one was much dismayed at what all regarded as a trifling ailment, even if dignified as German. Angela owned that she regarded it as a relief, since infection might last till the summer, and the only person who was-as he owned-trying to laugh at himself with Angela, was Bernard, who could not keep out of his mind's eye a little grave at Colombo. As he walked home, at the turning he saw a figure wearily toiling upwards, which proved to be Wilfred. "Holloa! you are at home early!"

"I had an intolerable headache!"

"Measles, eh?"

"No such thing! Once when I was a kid in Malta. But I say, Bear," he added, coming up with quickened pace, "you could do me no end of a favour if you would advance me twenty pounds."

"Whew!" Bernard whistled.

"There is Lady Day coming, and I can pay you then-most assuredly." And an asseveration or two was beginning.

"Twenty pounds don't fly promiscuously about the country," muttered Bernard, chiefly for the sake of giving himself time.

"But I tell you I shall have a quarter from the works, and a quarter from my father (with his hand to his head). That's-that's-. Awful skinflints both of them! How is a man to do, so cramped up as that?"

"Oh! and how is a man to do if he spends it all beforehand?"

"I tell you, Bernard, I must have it, or-or it will break my mother's heart! And as to my father, I'd-I'd cut my throat-I'd go to sea before he knew! Advance it to me, Bear! You know what it is to be in an awful scrape. Get me through this once and I'll never-"

Bernard did not observe that the scrape of his boyhood over the drowned Stingo had hardly been of the magnitude that besought for twenty pounds. He waived the personal appeal, and asked, "What is the scrape?"

"Why, that intolerable swindler and ruffian, Hart, deceived me about Racket, and-"

"A horse at Avoncester?" said Bernard, light beginning to dawn on him.

"I made sure it was the only way out of it all, and they said Racket was as sure as death, and now the brute has come in third. Hart swears there was foul play, but what's that to me? I'm done for unless you will help me over."

"If it is a betting debt, the only safe way is to have it out with your father, and have done with it."

"You don't know what my father is! Just made of iron. You might as well put your hand under a Nasmyth's hammer." And as he saw that his hearer was unconvinced, "Besides, it is ever so much more than what I put upon Racket! That was only the way out of it! It is all up with me if he hears of it. You might as well pitch me over the cliff at once!"

"Well, what is it then?"

Incoherently, Wilfred stammered out what Bernard understood at last to mean that he had got into the habit of betting at the billiard table, surreptitiously kept up in Ivinghoe Terrace in a house of Richard White's, not for any excessive sums, and with luck at first on his side than otherwise; but at last he had become involved for a sum not in itself very terrible to elder years, and his creditor was in great dread of pressure from his employers, and insisted on payment. Wilfred, who seemed to have a mortal terror of his father, beyond what Bernard could understand, had been unable to believe that the offence for so slight a sum might be forgiven if voluntarily confessed, had done the worst thing he could, he had paid the debt with a cheque which had, unfortunately, passed through his hands at the office, trusting in a few days to recover the amount by a bet upon the horse, in full security of success! And now!

Before the predicament was made clear, Wilfred reeled, and would have fallen if Bernard had not supported him, and he mumbled something about giddiness and dazzling, insisting at the same time that it was nothing but the miserable pickle, and that if Bernard would not see him out of it, he might as well let him lie there and have done with it.

Happily they were in the immediate neighbourhood of the house, and it was possible to get him into the hall before he entirely collapsed upon a chair; but seeming to recover fresh vigour from alarm at the sound of voices, he rushed at the stairs and dashed up rapidly the two flights to his own room, only throwing back the words, "Dead secret, mind!"

Bernard was glad to have made no promise, and, indeed, Wilfred's physical condition chiefly occupied him at the moment, for one or two of the girls were hurrying in, asking what was the matter, and at the answer, "He is gone up to his room with a bad headache," Valetta declared with satisfaction, "Then he has got it! We told him so! But he would go to the office! and, Bernard, so has Lily."

"Pleasing information!" said Bernard, nettled and amused at the tone of triumph, while Mysie, throwing behind her the words, "It may be nothing," went off to call Mrs. Halfpenny, who was in a state of importance and something very like pleasure. Bernard strode up to his wife's room, leaving Valetta half-way in her exposition that when all the family had been laid low by measles at Malta, Wilfred had been a very young infant, and it had always been doubtful whether he had been franked or not; and how he had been reproached with looking ill in the morning, but had fiercely insisted on going down to the office, which he was usually glad to avoid on any excuse.

By the time the household met at dinner, it was plain that they had to resign themselves to being an infected family, though there were not many probable victims, and they were likely only to have the disorder favourably, with the exception of Wilfred, who had evidently got a severe chill, and could only be reported as very ill, though still he vehemently resented any suspicion of being subject to such a babyish complaint. But when the break up for the night was just over, Lady Merrifield came in search of Bernard, entreating him to come to speak to Wilfred, who was more and more feverish, almost light-headed, and insisting that he must speak to Bear, "Bear had not promised," reiterating the summons, so that there was no choice but to comply with it.

He found Wilfred flushed with fever, and violently restless, starting up in bed as he entered, and crying out, "Bear, Bear, will you? will you? You did not promise!"

"I will see about it! Lie down now! There's nothing to be done to-night."

"But promise! promise! And not a word!"

All this was reiterated till Wilfred at last was exhausted for the time, and to a certain degree pacified by the reassuring voice in which Bernard soothed him and undertook to take the matter in hand, hardly knowing what he undertook, and only feeling the necessity of quieting the perilous excitement, and of helping the mother to bring a certain amount of tranquillity.

His own little girl was going on well, and quite capable of being amused in the morning by being compared to a lobster or a tiger lily; and Primrose was reported in an equally satisfactory state, ready either for sleep or continuous reading by her sisters. Only Wilfred was in the same, or a more anxious, state of fever; and as soon as Bernard had satisfied himself that there was no special use in his remaining in the house, he set out for the marble works office, having made up his mind as to one part of what he had expressed as "seeing about it."

He had hardly turned into the Cliffe road before he met Captain Henderson walking up, and they exchanged distant inquiries and answers as to whether each might be thought dangerous to the other's home; after which they forgathered, and compared notes as to invalids. The Captain had heard of Wilfred's going home ill, and was coming, he said, to inquire.

"He seems very seriously ill," was the answer. "I imagine there has been a chill, and a check. I was coming to speak to you about him."

"He has spoken to you?"

Both could now consult freely. "It is a very anxious matter-not so much for the actual amount as for the habits that it shows."

"The amount? Oh, I have made up that as regards the firm. I could not let it come before Sir Jasper, especially in the present state of things! I meant to give the young chap a desperate fright and rowing, but that will have to be deferred."

"You must let me take it!"

"No, no. Remember, Sir Jasper was my commanding officer, and I and my wife owe everything to him. I could supply the amount, so that no one would guess from the accounts that anything had been amiss."

Bernard could hardly allow himself to be thus relieved, but there was the comfort of knowing that Wilfred's name was safe, and that the unstained family honour would not have to suffer shame. Still the other debts remained, of which Captain Henderson had been only vaguely suspicious, till the two took counsel on them. Wilfred had not given up the name of the person for whom he had meant to borrow from the office; but Captain Henderson had very little doubt who it was, and it was agreed that he should receive the amount through a cheque of Bernard on Brown and Travis Underwood, from Captain Henderson's hands, with a scathing rebuke and peremptory assurance of exposure to Mr. White, and consequent dismissal, if anything more of the same kind among the younger men were detected. The man was a clever artist in his first youth, and had always been something of a favourite with the authorities, and had a highly respectable father; so Captain Henderson meant to spare him as much as possible, and endeavour to ascertain how far the mischief had gone among the young men connected with the marble works, also to consult Mr. White on the amount of stringency in the measures used to put a stop to it. All this, of course, passed out of Bernard Underwood's hands and knowledge, but a sad and anxious day was before him. All the young girls were going on well, but Wilfred was increasingly ill all day, and continually calling for Bernard. Being told, "I have settled the matter" did not satisfy him. He looked eagerly about the room to find whether his mother were present, and fancying she was absent demanded, "Does he know? Do they know?" reiterating again and again. It was necessary to tell Lady Merrifield that there was an entanglement about money matters on his mind, which had been settled; but towards evening he grew worse and more light-headed, apparently under the impression that only Bernard could guard him from something unknown, or conceal, whenever he was conscious of the presence of his mother; and on his father's entrance he hid his face in the pillows and trembled, of course to their exceeding distress and perplexity; and when he believed no one present but Bernard and Mrs. Halfpenny, he became more and more rambling, sometimes insisting that his father must not know, sometimes abusing all connected with the racing bet, and more often fancying that he was going to be arrested for robbing the firm, the enormity of the sum and of the danger increasing with the fever, and therewith his horror of his father's knowing. It was of no use for his mother to hang over him, hold his hands, and assure him that she knew (as, in fact, she did, for Bernard had been obliged to make a cursory explanation), and that nothing could hinder her loving him still; he forgot it in the next interruption, and turned from her with terror and dismay, and once he nearly flung himself out of bed, fancying that the policeman was coming.

Bernard held him on this occasion, and told him, "Nothing will do you good, Willie, but to tell your father, and he will keep all from you. Let him know, and it will be all right."

It only seemed to add to his misery and terror. Something that passed in his hearing, gave him the impression that he was in great danger, if not actually dying; but his cry was still for Bernard, who had not ventured to go to bed; but it was still, "Oh, Bear, save me! Don't let me die with this upon my name! I can't go to God!"

"There's nothing for it, Wilfred, but to tell your father. He will pardon you. Your mother has, you see. Tell him, and when he forgives, you will know that God does. It will come right. Let me call him!"

"Let me bring him, my boy, my dear boy!" entreated his mother. "You know he will."

Wilfred seemed as if he did not know, but still held fast by Bernard's strong hands, as though there were support in them; and when in a few moments Sir Jasper entered the room, there was the same clinging gesture and endeavour to hide, in spite of the gentle sweetness of the tone of, "Well, my poor boy."

It was Bernard who was obliged to say, turning the poor flushed face towards him, "Wilfred wishes to say-"

"Father," it came with a gasp at last, "I've done it. I've disgraced us all. Forgive!"

He was repeating his own exaggerated ideas of what his crime had been, and what Sir Jasper would have said to him if all had been discovered in any other way.

"Do not think of it now, my boy. I forgive you, whatever it is."

Thereupon Dr. Dagger entered. He turned every one out except Mrs. Halfpenny, and gave a draught, which silenced the patient and put him to sleep in a few minutes. While Bernard hastily satisfied the parents that a good deal was exaggerated feeling, and that an old soldier must have known of a good many worse things in his time, though not so near home.

There was a general sense of relief in the morning, for Wilfred's attack had become an ordinary, though severe one, and the other cases were going on well. But Sir Jasper, who had not been able to grasp the extent of Wilfred's delinquency, and had been persuaded by his despair that it was much more serious than it really was, called his son-in-law into council, and demanded whether the whole could have been told.

Bernard was certain that it was so, and related his transactions with Captain Henderson, much of course to the father's relief, so far as the outer world was concerned; but what principally grieved him, besides the habits thus discovered, was his son's abject terror of him, not only in the exaggeration of illness, but in his mode of speaking of him.

It had never been thus with any of his sons before.

Claude, the soldier, had always been satisfactory, so had Harry the clergyman, though often widely separated from the parents in their wandering life; but the bond of confidence had never been broken. Jasper had never teased any one but his sisters. Fergus, too, the youngest of all the sons, and of an individual, rather peculiar nature, was growing up in straight grooves of his own; but Wilfred, who from delicate health, had been the most at home, had never seemed to open to his father. The family discipline of the General seemed only to oppress and terrify him, and the irregularities and subterfuges that had from time to time been detected had been met with just anger, never received in such a manner as to call forth the tenderness of forgiveness. Each discovery of a misdemeanour had only been the prelude to fresh and worse concealments and hardening.

And experience of mankind did not give any decided hope that even the last day's agony of repentance would be the turning over of a new leaf, when convalescence should bring the same surroundings and temptations, and perhaps the like disproportionate indignation and impatience in dealing with errors and constitutional weakness. "And the example of my brother's poor son is not encouraging," he added. "He who seems to have owed everything to your brother and sister."

"Yet poor Fulbert and I were to our homes, perhaps not the black sheep, but at any rate the vagrant ones."

"And what made a difference to you, may I ask?"

"Strong infusion by character and example of principle," said Bernard thoughtfully; "then, real life, and having to be one's own safeguard, with nothing to fall back on. As my brother told me at his last, I should swim when my plank was gone."

"Yes, but, plainly, you were never weak," and as Bernard did not answer at once, "Old-fashioned severity used to be the rule with lads, but it seems only to alienate them now and make them think themselves unjustly treated. What is one to do with these boys?"

A question which Bernard could not answer, though it carried him back with a strange yearning, yet resignation, to the little figure that had curled round on his knee, and the hopes connected with the hands that had caressed his cheek.

He thought over it the more the next week, when he was called to sit by Wilfred, who was getting better and anxious to talk.

"My father is very kind," he said. "Oh, yes, very kind now; but it will be all the same when I get well. You see, Bear, how can a man be always dawdling about with a lot of girls? There's Dolores bothering with her science, and Fergus every bit as bad; and Mysie after her disgusting schoolchildren; and Val and Prim horrid little empty chatterboxes; and if one does turn to a jolly girl for a bit of fun, their tongues all go to work, so that you would think the skies were going to fall; and if one goes in for a bit of a spree, down comes the General like a sledge-hammer! I wish you would take me out with you, Bear."

The same idea had already been undeveloped in Bernard's mind, and ever on his tongue when alone with his wife; but he kept it to himself, and only committed himself to, "You would not find an office in Colombo much more enlivening."

"There would be something to see-something to do. It would not be all as dull as ditch-water-just driving one to do something to get away from the girls and their fads."

This was nearly a fortnight from the night of crisis, when Wilfred, very weak, was still in bed; when Primrose and Lily were up and about, but threatened with whooping cough. Thekla much in the same case, and very cross; and little Lena weak, caressing and dependant, but angelically good and patient, so much so that Magdalen and Angela were quite anxious about her.

CHAPTER XXVI-NEW PATHS

"I'll put a girdle round the earth

In forty minutes."

- SHAKESPEARE.

The visitation had not been confined to the High School. The little cheaply-built rows for workmen and fishermen had suffered much more severely, owing chiefly to the parents' callous indifference to infection. "Kismet," as they think it, said Jane Mohun, and still more to their want of care. Chills were caught, fevers and diphtheria ensued, and there was an actual mortality among the children at the works and at Arnscombe. Mr. Flight begged for help from the Nursing Sisterhood at Dearport, and, to her great joy, Sister Beata was sent down to him, with another who was of the same standing as Angela, and delighted to have a glimpse of her; though Angela thought it due to her delicate charge, and the Merrifields, not to plunge into actual nursing while Lena needed her hourly attention, and was not yet in a state for the training to do without it to continue. Paulina, however, being regarded as infection proof, was permitted to be an attendant and messenger of her dear Sister Beata, to her own great joy. She was now nineteen, and her desire to devote herself to a Sisterhood had never wavered, and intercourse with Sister Angela had only strengthened it.

"Oh, Maidie!" she said, "I do not think there can be any life so good or so happy as being really given up to our Lord and His work among the sick and poor."

"My dear, He can be served if you are in the world, provided you are not of the world, and if you keep yourself from the evil."

"Yes; but why should I run into the world? It is not evil, I know, so far as you and all your friends can manage; but it stirs up the evil in one's self."

"And so would a Sisterhood. That is a world, too."

"I suppose it is, and that there would be temptation; but there is a great deal to help one to keep right. And, oh! to have one's work in real good to Christ's poor, or in missions, instead of in all these outside silly nonsensical diversions that one doubts about all the time. If you would only let me go back with dear Sister Beata and Sister Elfleda as a probationer!"

"You could not be any more yet," said Magdalen; "but I will think about it, and talk it over with Sister Angela. You know your friend Sister Mena, as she called herself, does not mean to be a Sister, but a governess."

"Yes; she wrote to me. She has never seen or known anything outside the Convent, and it is all new and turns her head," said Paulina, wisely. "I know she helped me to be all the more silly about Vera and poor Hubert Delrio."

Magdalen promised to talk the matter over with Sister Angela.

"I should call it a vocation," said Angela. "I have watched her ever since I have been here, and I am sure her soul is set on these best things, in a steady, earnest way."

"She has always been an exceedingly good girl ever since I have had to do with her," said Magdalen. "I have hardly had a fault to find with her, except a little exaggeration in the direction of St. Kenelm's."

"A steady, not a fitful flame," said Angela.

"But she is so young."

"If you will believe me, Magdalen, such a home as that Dearport Sisterhood is a precious thing-I have not been worthy of it. I have been a wild colt, carried about by all manner of passing excitements. Oh, dear! love of sheer fun and daring enterprise, and amusement, in shocking every one, even my very dearest, whom I loved best. I have done things too dreadful to think of, and been utterly unreasonable and unmanageable, and proud of it; but always that Sisterhood has been like a cord drawing me! I never quite got free of it, even when I sent back my medal, and fancied it had been playing at superstition. I was there for a month as almost a baby, and the atmosphere has brought peace ever since. That, and my brother, and Sister Constance, and Bishop Fulmort, have been the saving of me, if anything has. I mean, if they will have me, to spend a little time at Dearport after all this perplexity is over, and I know how it is with Lena, and I could see how it is with Paula if you liked."

Magdalen accepted the suggestion, perhaps the more readily because of a fleeting visit from Hubert Delrio, who had finished his frescoes at the American Vale Leston, and came for a day or two to Mr. Flight's. She had sometimes doubted whether the supposed love of Vera had not been a good deal diffused among the young ladies, and might not so far awaken in Paulina as to render her vocation doubtful; but there were no such symptoms. Paula was quiet and cheerful, with a friendly welcome, but no excitement; but it was Thekla, now fifteen, who was all blushes whenever Hubert looked or spoke to her, all her forwardness gone; and shyness, or decidedly awkwardness, set in, resulting chiefly in giggle.

Hubert looked more manly and substantial, and he had just had an order for an important London church, which pleased him much, and involved another journey to Italy to study some of the designs in the Lombardic churches.

Not that there was any chance of meeting Vera. Mr. and Mrs. White had spent the last summer at Baden; and Vera, who had many pretty little drawing-room talents, and was always obliging, had been very acceptable there. This winter an attack of rheumatism had made them decide on trying Algiers, with a view to the Atlas marbles, and then German baths again might claim them for the summer.

In fact, the fear of infection had rendered Rock Quay a deserted place during the Easter vacation. Fergus Merrifield might not come near Primrose and Lily, and was charmed to accept an invitation from his friend and admirer, Adrian Vanderkist, to Vale Leston, where he would be able to explore the geology of Penbeacon, to say nothing of the coast; while his sister Felicia, who had been one of the victims, remained to be disinfected with Miss Mohun. Dolores was at Vale Leston Priory, and Agatha Prescott with her, so as to have a clean bill of health for her return to Oxford for her last term.

The Holy Week was calm and grave; and the two girls, with Anna Vanderkist and her little sisters, were very happy over their primroses and anemones on Easter Eve, with the beautiful Altar Cross that no one could manage like Aunt Cherry, whose work was confined to that, and to the two crosses on the graves.

Another notion soon occupied them. There was a vague idea that a sort of convalescent or children's hospital might be established for the training of women intending to study medicine or nursing, chiefly at Miss Arthuret's expense, and Dolores was anxious to consider the possibility of placing it in the sweet mountain air, tempered by the sea breezes of Penbeacon.

It was an idea to make Mrs. Grinstead shudder; but neither she nor her niece, Anna Vanderkist, could forget Gerald's view that Penbeacon was not only to be the playground of Vale Leston, and they always felt as if Dolores had a certain widow's right to influence any decision. So she cheerfully acquiesced in what, in her secret heart, seemed only a feeble echo of the past, though, to the young generations it was a very happy hopeful present when all the youthful party, under the steerage of Mary and Anna, and the escort of Sir Adrian and Fergus, started off with ponies, donkeys, cycles and sturdy feet to picnic on Penbeacon, if possible in the March winds-well out of the way of the clay works.

How Fergus divided his cares between the strata and Dolores' kodak, how even his photography could not spoil Aunt Alda; how charming a group of sisters Dolores contrived to produce; how Adrian was the proud pioneer into a coach adorned with stalactites and antediluvian bones; how Anna collected milkwort and violets for Aunt Cherry; how a sly push sent little Joan in a headlong career down a slope that might have resulted in a terrible fall, but did only cause a tumble and great fright, and a severe reprimand from the elder sisters; how Agatha was entranced by the glorious view in the clearness of spring, how they ate their sandwiches and tried to think it was not cold; how grey east wind mist came over the distance and warned them it was time to trot down,- all this must belong to the annals of later Vale Leston; and of those years of youth which in each generation leave impressions as of sunbeams for life. And on their return, Dolores found a letter which filled her with a fresh idea. It was from her father in New Zealand, telling her that there was an opening for her to come and give a course of lectures on electricity at Canterbury, Auckland and the other towns, and proposing to her to come out with her lady assistant, when she might very probably extend her tour to Australia.

"Would you come, Naggie?" asked Dolores.

"Oh! I should like nothing half so well. If you could only wait till my turn is over, and the exam!"

"Of course! Why, we shall not have finished the correspondence till after the examination! How capital it will be! My father will like your bright face, and you will think him like Fergus grown older. Will your sister consent?"

"Oh! Magdalen will be glad enough to have me off on a career. We will write and prepare her mind. I believe I am not to go home, so as to bring a clean bill of health to St. Robert's."

"I really think," added Dolores, "that Magdalen would make an admirable head matron, or whatever you call it!"

"Dear old thing! She is very fond of her Goyle."

"True, but Sophy's engineer husband tells us that a new line is projected to Rock Quay, through the very heart of the Goyle, Act of Parliament, compulsory sale and all."

"Well! work might console her for being uprooted, and she is quite youthful enough to take to it with spirit."

"Besides that she would greatly console Clement and Cherry for the profanation of their Penbeacon. I declare I will suggest it to Arthurine!"

So the two young people resolved, not without a consciousness that what was to them a fresh and inspiring gale, to the elder generation was "winds have rent thy sheltering bowers."

CHAPTER XXVII-A SENTENCE

"What should we give for our beloved?"

- E. B. BROWNING.

No sooner had the visitors departed than the others now out of quarantine appeared at Vale Leston. Angela was anxious to spend a little time there, and likewise to have Lena overhauled by Tom May. The child had never really recovered, and was always weakly; and whereas on the journey, Lily, now in high health, was delighted with all she saw, though she could not compare Penbeacon to Adam's Peak, Lena lay back in Sister Angela's arms, almost a dead weight, hardly enduring the bustle of the train, though she tried not to whine, as long as she saw her pink Ben looking happy in his cage.

Angela was an experienced nurse, and was alarmed at some of the symptoms that others made light of. Mrs. Grinstead had thought things might be made easier to her if the Miss Merrifields came to meet her and hear the doctor's opinion; and Elizabeth accepted her invitation, arriving to see the lovely peaceful world in the sweet blossoming of an early May, the hedges spangled with primroses, and the hawthorns showing sheets of snow; while the pear trees lifted their snowy pyramids, and Lily in her white frock darted about the lawn in joyous play with her father under the tree, and the grey cloister was gay with wisteria.

Angela was sitting in the boat, safely moored, with a book in her hand, the pink cockatoo on the gunwale, nibbling at a stick, and the girl lying on a rug, partly on her lap. Phyllis and Anna, who had come out on the lawn, made Elizabeth pause.

"That's the way they go on!" said Phyllis. "All day long Angela is reading to the child either the 'Water Babies' or the history of Joseph."

"Or crooning to her the story of the Cross," said Anna; "and as soon as one is ended she begins it again, and Lena will not let her miss or alter a single word."

"They go on more than half the night," added Phyllis. "Bear sat up long over his letters and accounts, and as he went up he heard the crooning, and looked in; and the very moment Angela paused, there came the little plaintive voice, 'Go on, please.' 'Women are following'-"

"But is not that spoiling her?" asked Bessie.

A look of sad meaning passed between her two companions. Phyllis shook her head slightly, and, instead of answering, conducted Bessie on to the bank, when Angela looked up and made a sign that she could not move or speak, for the child was asleep. The yellow head was shaded by Angela's parasol, the thin hair lying ruffled on the black dress, and the small face looked more pinched than when the aunt had last seen it, nearly a year previously. She had watched the decay of aged folks, but she was unused to the illnesses of children; and she recoiled with a little shock, as she looked down at the little wasted face, with a slight flush of sleep. "Recovery from measles," she said.

Phyllis smiled a little pitifully as her own little girl, all radiant with health and joy, came skipping up, performing antics over her father's hand. "Take care, Lily, don't wake poor little Lena," was murmured quietly.

"Northern breezes-" began Bessie, but the voices had broken the light slumber; and as Angela began, "See, Lena, here is Aunt Bessie," the effect was to make her throw herself over Angela's shoulder and hide her face; and when her protector tried to turn her round and reason her into courtesy, she began to cry in a feeble manner.

"She has had a bad night," said motherly Phyllis; "let her alone."

"May not I get down into the boat?" asked Lily. "I'll be very good."

There would have been a little hesitation, but at the voice Lena looked up and called "Lily, Lily!" Bernard lifted his small daughter down, Elizabeth was not sorry to be led away for the present, and when, after a turn in the rose garden, she came back, the two children were sitting with arms round one another, holding a conversation with Ben, the cockatoo, and making him dance on one of the benches of the boat, under Angela's supervision, lest he should end by dancing overboard. The rich fair hair, shining dark blue eyes, and plump glowing cheeks of Lily were a contrast to the wan wasted colouring of her little cousin; but Lena was more herself now than when just awake, and let Lily lead her up and introduce her, as it might be called, to Cousin Bessie as Lily called her, a less formidable sound than "Aunt Elizabeth." They were both kissed, and she endured it. Angela was, as her brothers and sisters said, "very good," and scrupulously abstained from absorbing the child all the evening, letting Elizabeth show her pictures and tell her stories, to which, by Lily's example, she listened quietly enough and with interest.

When the two children went off, hand in hand, to their beds, Elizabeth said, "Really, Magdalen is improved. If you leave Lily with her, Phyllis, I think we should get on beautifully. The bracing air will do wonders for them both."

"Thank you," said poor Phyllis forbearingly; "we have not made our plans about Lily yet."

But Elizabeth thought out a beautiful scheme of discipline and study in the long light hours of the morning, and began to feel herself drawn towards her delicate little niece, feeling sure that the little thing would soon be Susan's darling, if Susan could be brought to endure the cockatoo walking loose about the house.

Early in the day Professor May appeared, and was hailed as an old friend by all the Underwoods. He rejoiced to see Clement looking well and active; and "as to this fellow," he said, looking at Bernard, "it shows what development will do."

"Not quite the young Bear of Stoneborough," said Clement, leaning affectionately on his broad shoulder; "our skittish pair are grown very sober-minded. But you have not told us of your father."

"My father is very well. He walks down every day to sit with my wife, and visits a selection of his old patients, who are getting few enough now. This is not my patient, I suppose?"

"Unless you are ready to prescribe only laughing and good Jersey cows' milk," said Bernard, pulling the long silky brown hair. "Where's mother, little one?"

"Mother sent me to say Aunt Angel is ready, if Dr. May will come up to Aunt Cherry's room. Lena is frightened, and they did not like to leave her."

It was a long visit, after Phyllis had come down; and, walking up and down the cloister with Bessie Merrifield, listened to her schemes of education for the little maidens. Lily she liked and admired, and she was convinced that Magdalen's weak health and spirits were the result of the spoiling system. Phyllis trembled a little as she heard of the knocking about, out-of-doors ways that had certainly produced fine strong healthy frames and upright characters, but she forbore to say that if her little girl had to be left, it would be to her mother and Mysie.

By and by Tom came down, and finding Geraldine alone in the drawing-room, he answered her inquiry with a very grave look. "Poor little thing! You do not think well of her! Is it as Angel feared?"

"Confirmed disease, from original want of development of heart. Measles accelerated it. I doubt her lasting six months, though it may be longer or less."

"Have you told Angel?"

"She knew it, more or less. She is ready to bear it, though one can see how her soul is wrapped up in the child, and the child in her."

"One thing, Tom, will you tell Miss Merrifield yourself, and alone, and make her feel that it is an independent opinion? It may save both the poor child and Angel a great deal."

"Are you prepared to keep her here?"

"Of course we are. It is Angel's natural home. Clement and I could think of nothing else"

"I knew you would say so. If I understand rightly there is something like a jealousy of her case in the Merrifields, prompted greatly by their wish to expiate any neglect of her father."

"That is what I gather from what Phyllis tells me."

"What a lovely countenance hers is in expression! No wonder Bernard has softened down. There is strength and solidity as well as sweetness in her face. Ah, there they are!"

"I will call Phyllis in. Bessie Merrifield has almost walked her to death by this time."

So Phyllis was called and told. What she said was, "I only hope he will make her understand that it could not be helped, and it was not Angela's fault."

Tom May had wisdom enough to make this clear in what was a greater shock to Elizabeth than it was to Angela, who had suspected enough to be prepared for the sentence, and had besides a good deal of hospital experience, which enabled her thoroughly to understand the Professor's explanations. So, indeed, did it seem to Elizabeth at the time he was speaking; but she had lived a good deal in London, and had a great idea that a London physician must be superior to a man who had lived in the country, and, moreover, whom all the household called Tom, and she asked Mrs. Grinstead if he were really so clever.

"Indeed, I think he is; and I have seen a great deal of his treatment. You may quite trust him. He lives down here at Stoneborough for his father's sake, or he would be quite at the head of his profession."

"Superior to the two Doctors Brownlow?"

"I should not say superior, but quite equal."

"The Brownlows," said Clement, looking up from his paper, "helped me through an ordinary malarial fever. John Lucas is a brilliant specialist in such cases, but certifying an affection of the heart. Tom May latterly has treated me better. As far as I understand the case of your little niece, I should say both that it was more in the line of Tom May, and likewise that it would be very hurtful to her to take her about and subject her to more examinations."

"Poor little thing! no doubt it would be a terrible distress," acquiesced Bessie; "but still, if it is bracing that she needs- northern air might make all the difference."

Clement sighed a little hopelessly over making a woman understand or give way, and returned to his newspaper; while Geraldine tried to argue that air could not make much difference, speaking in the interest of the child herself and of her sister. Elizabeth listened and agreed; but there was in the Merrifield family a fervour of almost jealous expiation of their neglect of Henry, inattention to his daughter, and desire to appropriate her, and to restore her to health, strength, and wisdom, in spite of her would-be stepmother.

"They hate me as much as if I were her stepmother!" cried Angela. "I wish I was, to have a right to protect her! No, Clem; I'll not break out, if I can help it, as long as they don't worry her; and I think Bessie does see the rights of it."

Yes; the peaceful, thoughtful atmosphere of Vale Leston, unlike the active bustle of Coalham, had an insensible influence on Elizabeth's mind; and she saw that Angela's treatment of the child, always cheerful though tender, was right, and that it would be sheer cruelty to separate them. She promised to use all her power to prevent any such step, and finally left Vale Leston, perfectly satisfied that it was impossible to take Lena with her.

But her family did not see it thus, especially Mrs. Samuel Merrifield, the child's guardian. She insisted that it was her husband's duty to bring the little one to London for advice, and to remove her from all the weakening, morbid influences of Vale Leston.

CHAPTER XXVIII-SUMMONED

"What would we give to our beloved?"

- E. B. BROWNING.

"I wish they all would not go so very fast," said little Lena, hiding her face against him from the whirl of cabs and omnibuses.

"They bewilder us savages," said Angela, smiling. "Remember we are from the wilds."

"She shall have her tea, and a good rest," said Marilda; "and then I have asked her uncle and aunts to meet you at dinner, and Fernan hopes to bring home another old friend. Whom do you think, Angel?"

"Oh! Not our Bishop?"

"Yes, the Bishop of Albertstown! He is actually in town; Fernan saw him yesterday at the Church House."

"Oh! that is joy!" cried Angela; and Lena raised her head, with, "Is it mine-mine own Bishop?"

"Mine own, mine own Bishop and godfather, my sweet!" said Angela; "more to us in our own way than any one else. Oh! it is joy! How happy Clement will be!"

It was with much feeling, almost akin to shame, that Bessie wrote to Angela this decision of her brother, that a London authority must be consulted-not Dr. Brownlow, but one whom Mrs. Sam had heard highly spoken of.

"That man!" cried Angela. "I have heard of him! He is a regular mealy-mouthed old woman of a doctor! And she is so well just now! How horrid to shake her up again! Oh, Bear! if I could only sail away with her to Queensland!"

"You would if it was ten years ago," said Bernard.

"Yes! Is it the way of the world, or learning resignation, that makes one know one must submit? Giving up an idol is a worse thing when the idol is made of flesh and blood."

Bernard wanted to see Sir Ferdinand, so made it an excuse for helping his sister on the way; and he did so effectively, for his knee and broad breast were Lena's great resting-place; and his stories of monkeys and elephants were almost as good as kangaroos. Was there not a kangaroo to be seen in London, which she apparently thought would be a place of about the size of Albertstown?

Lady Underwood had insisted on receiving the travellers from Vale Leston in her house in Kensington; and there was her broad, kindly face looking out for them at the station, and her likewise broad and kindly carriage ready to carry them from it. How natural all looked to Angela, with all her associations of being a naughty, wild, mischievous schoolgirl, the general plague and problem!

"But always a dear," said Marilda, with her habit of forgetting everybody's faults. "Why didn't you bring your wife, Bernard, and your little girl for this darling's playfellow?"

"She is her best playfellow," said Angela; "Adela's Joan is too rough, and fitter for Adrian's companion."

"She is my playfellow," said Bernard, holding her up. "Look out, Lena. Here's Father Thames to go over."

"And Fernan is so glad," added Marilda.

For Bishop Robert Fulmort had, when Vicar of St. Wulstan's, been the guide and helper of Ferdinand Travis's time of trial and disappointment, as well as the spiritual father of Clement Underwood; he had known and dealt with Angela in her wayward girlhood, and aided her bitter repentance; and in these later days in Australia had been her true fatherly friend, counsellor and comforter in the trials and perplexities that had befallen her. Bernard read, in her lifted head and brightened eye, that she felt the meeting him almost a compensation for the distress and perplexity of this journey to London.

Bernard carried the little girl up to the room and laid her down to sleep off her fatigue, while Marilda waited on her and Angela with her wonted bustling affection, extremely happy to have two of her best beloved cousins under her roof.

Bernard went off to find Sir Ferdinand at his office, and quiet prevailed till nearly dinner time, when Lena awoke and would not be denied one sight of her godfather. So Angela dressed her in her white frock, and smoothed her thin yellow hair, and took her down to the great stiff handsome room that all Emilia's efforts had never made to look liveable. Emilia Brown was there, very fashionably attired, but eager for news of Vale Leston, and the Merrifields soon arrived with, "Oh! here she is!" from the Captain, "Well! she looks better than I expected!"

"Poor little dear!" observed his wife, dressed in a low dress and thin fringe on her forehead in honour of what, to the country mind, was a grand dinner party, at which Angela's plain black dress and tight white cap were an unbecoming sight. Elizabeth was there, kissing Angela with real sympathy; and Lena, who had grown a good deal more accustomed to strange relations, endured the various embraces without discourtesy.

But when the door opened and the grey-headed Bishop came in there was a low half scream of "Oh! oh!" and with one leap she was in his arms, as he knelt on one knee, and clasped her, holding out a hand to Angela, whose eyes were full of tears of relief and trust. Marilda gave a glad welcome, but they were startled by perceiving that the joy of meeting had brought on a spasm of choking on Lena, who was gasping in a strange sort of agony. Angela took her in her arms and carried her out of the room. Marilda presently following, came back reporting that the little girl had been relieved by a shower of tears, but was still faint and agitated, and that Angela could not leave her, but begged that they would not wait dinner.

"Such sensitiveness needs anxious care," said Elizabeth.

"If it be not the effect of spoiling. Just affectation!" replied the sister-in-law in a decided voice, which made Bessie glad that the poor child's home was not to be among the rough boys at Stokesley, who were not credited with any particular feelings.

Angela's absence gave the Bishop the opportunity of telling what she had been during her years at Albertstown, what a wonderful power among the natives, though not without disappointment, and she had been still more effective among the settlers and their daughters. Carrigaboola, Fulbert's farm, had been an oasis of hope and rest to the few clergy of his scanty staff, and Fulbert himself had been a tower of strength for influence over the settlers who had fallen in his way, by his unswerving uprightness and honour, with the deeper principles of religion, little talked of but never belied. Even after his death, the power he had been told over all with whom he had come in contact.

Bernard heard it with immense pleasure, as did the faithful Ferdinand and Marilda; while Elizabeth felt more and more that Sister Angela was not to be treated, as she feared Sam and his wife were inclined to do, as a mere interloper in their family affairs, but as one to be not merely considered with gratitude, but even reverenced.

Indeed, Sam began to feel it, as he saw how the other men, both practical business men, listened, and were impressed; but it was not quite the case with his wife, who did not particularly esteem colonial Bishops, and still less Sisterhoods or devotion to missionary efforts, especially among the Australian blacks, whom her old geography book had told her were the most degraded and hopeless of natives, scarcely removed from mere animals.

When Angela appeared half through dinner time and said that Lena was safely asleep, and Marilda sat her down to be happy in exchange of Carrigaboola tidings with her Bishop, Fernando greeted her with a reverence not undeserved, though perhaps all the more from the contrast to the mischievous little sprite who used to disturb the days of his philandering with Alda.

How much shocked Mrs. Samuel was, when the magnificent Sir Ferdinand, whom she regarded with awe as a millionaire, was flippantly answered by this extraordinary Sister, "Thank you, Fernan, I should like to have a sight of the old office. I hope you have a descendant of the old cat, Betty. Didn't she come from your grandmother, Marilda? Do you remember her being found playing tricks with the nugget, just come from Victoria?"

"That was in her kitten days," said Ferdinand.

"Is that personal, Fernan?"

"A compliment, Angel," said the Bishop. "Kittens alter a good deal."

"Not much for the better," said Angela. "If you only could see Mrs. Lamb, who used to be the very moral of a kitten, scratchiness and all!"

"I thought her very much improved," said Lady Underwood gravely.

"Oh, yes; grown into a sleek and personable tabby, able to wave her tail at the tip and tuck her paws-her velvet paws-well under her; and lick her lips over the-oh, dear!-what do you call it?-your menu is quite too much for us poor savages, Marilda. A bit of damper is quite enough for us, isn't it, Bishop?"

"Varied with opossum and fern root," he said smiling; "but that's only when we have lost our way."

The talk drifted off to the history of a shepherd's child, who had strayed into the bush, and after much searching, in which the Bishop and Fulbert had been half starved, had finally been found and carried home by Angela's "crack gin," as she told it to Bernard; and as Marilda thought the poor child was in a trap, it had to be translated into "favourite pupil," though Bernard carried on the joke by asking Marilda if she thought the natives cannibals given to the snaring of mankind.

Altogether it was a thoroughly merry evening, such as comes to pass in the meeting of old friends and comrades in too large numbers for grave discourse, but with habits of close intercourse and associations of all kinds. Emilia and her husband tried in all courtesy not to let the Merrifields feel themselves neglected; and indeed Bessie was only too glad to listen and join at times in the talk; but it all went outside Mrs. Sam, who was on the whole scandalised at the laughter of a Bishop, and a Sister. Indeed, it was true that Bishop Fulmort, naturally a grave man, very much so in his early days, comported himself on this occasion as if he realised Southey's wish-

"That in mine age as cheerful I might be,

Like the green winter of the holly tree."

At any rate, that evening was long a bright remembrance. Lena slept all night, and was so fresh and well in the morning that Angela foreboded that the examination might not detect her delicacy. They met Mrs. Merrifield, and took her with them to the doctor's, Lady Underwood Travis having placed her carriages at their disposal.

It was very much as Angela had expected, knowing by hospital reputation what the doctor was supposed to be to old ladies and fanciful mothers, while perhaps he had also heard of her fracas long ago at the hospital. For he was not more courteous to her than could be helped, treating her much as if she were only the nursery maid, and hardly looking at the opinion which she had made Professor May write out for him.

To her mind, it was a very cursory examination that he made; and the upshot of his opinion, triumphantly accepted by Mrs. Merrifield, was that there was nothing seriously amiss with the child, that she only needed care, regularity and bracing, and that the stifling, gasping spasms were simply the effect of hysteria.

Hysteria! Angela felt as if she should run wild as she heard Mrs. Merrifield's complacent remarks on having always thought so, and being sure that a few weeks of good air and good management would make an immense difference. The need of not alarming or prejudicing the poor little victim was all that kept Angela in any restraint; and Mrs. Merrifield went on to say that she had promised her youngest boy, who was with her in London, to take him to the Zoological Gardens, and it would be a good opportunity for Magdalen to see them.

"Is that where there is a kangaroo?" asked Lena, so eagerly that Angela, though thinking that morning's work enough for the feeble strength, could not withstand her. Besides, if the Merrifields were to have her wholly in another day, what was the use of standing out for one afternoon? One comfort was that Elizabeth, who would really have the charge of the child, had much more good sense and knowledge of the world than her sister-in-law.

Still Angela felt the only way of bearing it was that after setting Mrs. Merrifield down, she stopped the carriage at a church she knew to have a noon-tide Litany, knelt there, with the little girl beside her, and tried to say, "Thy will be done! To Thy keeping I commit her." Her "hours" came to help her.

"Quench Thou the fires of hate and strife,

The wasting fever of the heart,

From perils guard her feeble life,

And to our souls Thy help impart."

She was able to be calm, and to utter none of her rage when they came back to luncheon; and Marilda, declaring she liked nothing so well as seeing children at the Zoo, wished to go with the party. All, save Mrs. Merrifield and her boy, had gone different ways in London, so there was plenty of room in the barouche.

The boy's mind was set on riding on the elephant, and they walked on that way, turning aside, however, to the yard where towered the kangaroo, tall, gentle, graceful and gracious. Lena sprang forward with a cry of joy, and clasped her hands; but in one moment the same spasm, at first of ecstasy then of overpowering feeling, becoming agony, came over her, and gasping and choking, Angela held her in her arms and carried her to a seat, holding her up, loosening her clothes; but still she did not come round. Her aunt tried to say, "hysteric." Some one brought water, but it was of no use-there were still the labouring gasps, and the convulsive motion. "Let us take her home," Marilda said.

"Nothing but hysterics!" repeated the aunt. "I will stay with Jackie."

Marilda found her servant and the carriage, and in the long drive, a few drops of strong stimulant at a chemist's brought a little relief though scarcely consciousness; and when Angela had carried her up to her room, there was a blueness about the lips, a coldness about the fingers, that told much. Marilda had at once sent for Dr. Brownlow as the nearest, and he was at home; but he could only look and do nothing, but attempt to revive circulation, all in vain; and with Marilda standing by, with one convulsive clutch of Angela's hand, the true mother of her orphaned life, little Lena sank to a peaceful rest from the tribulations that awaited her here.

CHAPTER XXIX-SAFE

"Rest beyond all grief and pain,

Death to thee is truest gain."

KEBLE.

Angela's nearest and best friends had anticipated that the peaceful climax of all her cares would be a relief to her; and so indeed in the long run it would be to her higher sense, and she would be thankful. But even those who knew her most thoroughly had not estimated the pangs of personal affection and deprivation of the child she had fostered with a mother's tenderness for seven years, and the absolute suffering of the sudden parting, even though it was to security of bliss, instead of doubt and uneasiness.

She was quite broken and really ill with neuralgia and exhaustion, unable to attend the funeral, which the Merrifields wished to have at Stokesley, and unfit for anything but lying still with the pink parrot on the rail below, kindly watched over by good Marilda. The strain of many disturbed nights, the perplexities, the struggle for resignation, all coming after a succession of trying events in Australia, had told heavily upon her. Indeed, no one guessed how much she had undergone, physically as well as spiritually, till Marilda would not be denied the consulting Dr. Brownlow, who questioned her closely, and extorted confessions of the long continued strain of exertion. Rest was all she needed; and Marilda took care that she had it, bringing Robina up from Minsterham to make it more effectual, and letting her have visits from her Bishop and from Bernard as they could afford the time, both being very and variously busy.

Angela had made up her mind to go out to Australia again, and to make Carrigaboola an endowment for the Sisterhood; but the means of doing this could best be arranged there, and she intended to go out when her Bishop should return in the autumn, feeling that her vocation was there, though there was a blank in all she had most cared for on earth in that home.

As soon as she had recovered, she wished to spend a fortnight at Dearport, beginning with a retreat that was held there. Remembering her old career there, and the abrupt close of her novitiate, she felt and spoke as if she was to be received as in penitence, but to the Sisters who surrounded her it was more as if they were receiving a saint.

When she came back to Vale Leston, she had recovered cheerfulness, more equable than it had ever been, and Cherry and Alda found her a charming companion. There was much going on at Vale Leston just then. Miss Arthuret and Dolores were at Penbeacon, seriously considering of the scheme of converting the old farm house into a kind of place of study for girls who wanted to work at various technicalities, and to fit themselves for usefulness or for self-maintenance. There was to be more or less of the Convalescent Home or House of Rest in combination, and it had occurred to Dolores that there could hardly be a better head of such an establishment than Magdalen Prescott.