The Pillars of the House, V1

CHAPTER XVI. THE WINTER OF DISCONTENT

'Peace, brother, be not exquisite,

To cast the fashion of uncertain evils;

For, grant they be so, while they rest unknown,

What need a man forestall his date of grief?'

MILTON.

Wilmet was so devoted to Alda and her hopes and fears, that she let Felix escape with less reproof than usual, for the cold that sat heavily upon him after the last day's chill. He did not give way to it. There might have been some temptation to sit over the fire if Geraldine had been alone there; but Alda, when Wilmet was out of reach, engrossed Cherry's ears with descriptions of her feelings, and cravings for sympathy in her suspense, treating every other subject as futile, and the interruption of the children's lessons as an insult. No one might talk of anybody but Ferdinand; and Cherry did not wonder that Felix looked wearied and harassed, and always betrayed some anxiety to come first into possession of the morning post. One day, nearly a fortnight after his visit to London, he called Wilmet away from the breakfast table into the sitting-room: 'Wilmet,' he said, 'I must go and see Miss Pearson before school hours.'

'You! Is there anything the matter with Alice?' asked Wilmet, startled at his tone.

'Had they-had you-any notion of anything between her and Edgar?'

'No! Miss Pearson has taken to saying, "My dear, your brothers are quite grown into young men," and I thought she did not like the play.'

'Ah! that play! It threw them together!'

'Is it really so? I suppose nothing is too foolish and provoking for Edgar!'

'The fact of admiration is not wonderful,' said Felix, rather in a tone of defence; 'but the worst of it is, that he has been trying to communicate with her through those poor girls at school.'

Wilmet's horror was surpassing; and when she found that he had known it all this fortnight, she was so indignant, that to his reply that it was not fair to leave both parties the chance of acting honourably, she replied with scorn for his weakness in expecting anything from Edgar, and exposing the children to the chance of expulsion, which might be a lasting blight, such as merely in thought put her into a perfect agony. Nevertheless, angry and excited as she was, she flew at him when he gave her the letters, and was off to Miss Pearson's-'Go there without breakfast, in the sleet, sitting and still with that bad cold not half gone!' and she dragged him back reluctantly to the other room, where, ignominiously ordering off Bernard and Stella to finish their stir-about elsewhere, she insisted on his breakfasting while she told the story. She was far too loyal to blame him except tete-a-tete, but she burst on him now and then.

'You are not eating, Felix!'

'A cup of tea, then, please, Cherry. No one can swallow stir-about in hot haste but Wilmet herself.' He spoke good-humouredly, but with a force upon himself that Cherry detected, and she further saw that he took nothing but that one cup and a fragment of bread, and then hurried off, saying that he must catch Miss Pearson for the little girls' sake.

The letters he had left were Robina's and another enfolding it containing these words:

Dear Sir-According to my promise, I have refrained from opening this letter, though I own that the discovery of the purpose for which free correspondence was asked, has been no small amazement to me. In the first shock, I will not trust myself to say more, until after consultation with my brother; but you shall hear from me again respecting your sisters.-I remain, your obedient servant,

R. M. FULMORT.

The letter within was-

MY DEAR FELIX-It has all come out. There is a dreadful uproar, and nobody will believe me. If only Miss Lyveson was here! This was the way. Edgar came yesterday and took us for a long walk in Kensington Gardens, and afterwards I saw Angela going towards Alice Knevett's room; and as we are not allowed to run into other people's bedrooms, I stopped her and put her in mind of what you said; but she began to cry and struggle with me, and Alice came out, and made a fuss to get the note Angel had for her, till I got into a passion, and spoke so loud that Miss Fennimore came out upon us. Angel did not know what she was about by that time, and cried, saying that I was unkind, and was hurting her; and Alice took her part, accusing me of tyrannising and being jealous, so that I faced round and told all on the spot. Miss Fennimore took us all straight down to Miss Fulmort, and it was a dreadful business. They are frightfully angry with us all, and me the most, for having told you instead of them. They cannot understand the difference between you and any common brother. They think I have not told the whole truth, and it is very hard. Nobody ever distrusted me before. We are just living on sufferance till Mr. Fulmort comes to see about it, and then I think we shall be sent away. I hope so, for I know my own dear Miss Lyveson will believe me and take me back to justice and confidence. Here the girls are as angry with me for telling as the ladies are for not telling; they have no idea of such loyalty and love as we had at Catsacre. There is a report that Miss Pearson has been sent for. If we are sent home with her, it will be a horrid shame and injustice; but I shall not be able to be sorry one bit, for I know you will stand by me.-Dear, dear brother Felix, your affectionate sister, BOBBIE.

When the three sisters had made out all that could be understood, Geraldine owned herself less amazed than Wilmet; and Alda laughed at both for not being aware that Edgar was a universal flirt. All that surprised her was his having let it proceed to such dangerous extremities; but of course that was the girl's own fault-he would give it up when it came to the point.

'Why should you expect Edgar to be more inconstant than Ferdinand?' asked Cherry.

Both twins turned on her, and told her she was a child and knew nothing about it-their favourite way of annihilating her; and then Alda, in her excitement, walked with Wilmet to the school, leaving Cherry, as usual, to wash up the breakfast things. She felt a conviction that all this accounted for the weary oppressed look, broken by occasional starts of vivacity, which ever since Felix's day in London had been laid to the score of the cold he had brought home.

She was glad she was still alone, when Felix looked in for a moment to say, 'Miss Maria goes up by the 11.30 train. I am going to send a letter by her, and I think she will save Robin. Angel is so mere a child, that it matters less.'

'How can they all be so unjust?'

'They have not had time to know the child.'

'I did not mean Robina, but you.'

'I don't mind that,' he said, with a smile, 'though I am glad there is one lady who does not scold me;' and he bent down to kiss her.

'Did the Miss Pearsons?'

'They allowed that I meant to act for the best, and you know what that means. However,' he added,' they are earnest to save the little girls, which is more to the purpose. Wilmet or I would have gone up, but Miss Maria thinks she can do better than either, and I believe they are more likely to trust an old schoolmistress, who is the injured party besides. I must write my letter. Shall I help you into the other room?'

'No, thank you; I have the lessons here, for they tease Alda. If you would only send Theodore to me as you go.'

'Does Alda never help you?'

'Only by criticising my French pronunciation. She is much too restless. O Felix, what a cough! You have made your throat worse.'

'It is only this black east wind.'

'You ought to stay upstairs and be taken care of. Can't you, and let Redstone call if you are wanted?'

'I am wanted. It is quite as warm in the office as here, when the door is shut. What I want is, only to be twenty years older. Good-bye.

Cherry's ponderings were divided between that sigh and the possible sighs of the wind if that door were not shut, until her own door was opened by Felix's hand, to admit a little figure still in petticoats, with the loose flaxen curls, tottering feet, limp white fingers, and vacant blue eyes, whom she daily put through a few exercises to train his almost useless fingers and tongue. The sight of this, Alda declared, made her ill; though the little boy was as docile as he was helpless; but it was quite true that to nerves and ears not inured from the first, Theodore's humming and his concertina were a trial from their perpetuity.

Late that evening came a message to beg Mr. and Miss Underwood would step up; and they stepped, though the east wind was blacker than ever. They found that in great tribulation Miss Maria had brought Alice Knevett home, and sent her to bed all tears and exhaustion, but that Robina and Angela were forgiven-a word so offensive to Felix as relating to the former, that he sorely lamented that prudence forbade their removal, but was somewhat consoled by a letter that Miss Maria brought him from the Vicar of St. Matthew's, who had had a private investigation of the whole subject. He wrote to Felix that his sister was new to the management of the girls, and was a good deal annoyed at the secrecy observed towards herself, not making full allowance for Robina's exceptional circumstances; but that, for his own part, he was convinced of the girl's genuine uprightness and unselfish forbearance; and though he feared her position must be unpleasant just now, he thought it would be for the good of all if she had the patience to live it down, and earn the good opinion he was sure she deserved. Miss Maria reported that Miss Fennimore had been brought round by his opinion, though Miss Fulmort remained persuaded that Robina had 'come over him' in some way; and while yielding to his stringent desire that, as he said, 'one of the worthiest of her girls should not be unjustly expelled,' only let the child herself know that she was tolerated in consideration of her youth, her orphanhood, and her relationship to Clement. Poor Robin! No one could help grieving for the tempest that had fallen on her guiltless head, and hope that all would result in her final good; but the sorrows of an absent school-girl could hardly occupy even her dearest friends, in the full and present crisis of two love affairs.

For Edgar and Major Knevett both arrived, the lover as dispassionate as the father was the reverse. Edgar did, however, as he had undertaken, rise to the position. He joked at it a little in private, to the annoyance and perplexity of Cherry, and, even of Felix; but he was perfectly steady in maintaining his perfect right to address Miss Knevett, in avowing his engagement, and in standing by it.

To Major Knevett, the affair appeared outrageous impudence on the part of a beggarly young painter out of a country bookseller's shop, encouraged by the egregious folly of the aunts. What was said of clergyman's sons and good old family went for absolutely nothing; and Edgar's quiet assurance of success in his profession was scoffed at with incredulity not altogether unpardonable. In the encounter that Felix had the misfortune to witness, since it took place in his own office-parlour, he could not help thinking that Edgar, with his perfect temper, unfailing courtesy, calm self-respect, and steady sense of honour towards the young lady, showed himself the true gentleman in contrast with the swaggering little Major, who seemed to expect that he could bluster the young man out of his presumption, and was quite unprepared for Edgar's cool analysis of his threats. But instead of, like Tom Underwood, cooling down into moderation and kindness so soon as his bolt was shot, the finding it fall short only chafed him the more, and rendered him the more inveterate against all conciliation.

There was an appeal all round to Felix, but he was not so practicable as the universal compliments to his good sense showed to be expected. He had expressed his opinion that it was a rash engagement, hitherto improperly carried on; but he could not be brought to advise his brother to break it off on his side while the lady held to it on hers. It might be best to give it up by mutual consent; but as long as one party was bound, so was the other; and he thoroughly sided with Edgar in not being threatened out of it whilst Alice persisted. Still more flatly did he refuse Miss Pearson's entreaty that he would see the wilful girl, and persuade her how hopeless was her resistance, and how little prospect of the attachment being prosperous. Nothing but despair and perplexity could have prompted the good aunts to try such a resource, but they were at their wits' end. They really loved their niece, and they dreaded the tender mercies of her father, who had indeed petted Alice as a young child, but had made her mother suffer greatly from his temper. If she would yield, they hoped to procure for her a home at York, with their brother's widow, and to save her from a residence in Jersey with the step-mother; but Alice, upheld by a secret commerce of notes ingeniously conveyed, felt herself a heroine of constancy, and kept up her spirits by little irritations to whoever tried to deal with her. She could deftly insinuate, on the one hand, that her aunts had always preached up the Underwood perfections; and on the other, hint to her father that if her home had still remained what it was, she should never have looked out of it; and whenever he flew into a rage, or used violent language, she would look up under her eyelids and whisper something about 'real gentlemen.' Those thorns and claws that had figured in the scale of her transmigration were giving a good many little scratches, which did her feelings some good, but her cause none at all, by the vexation they produced. 'If she could only be made to understand,' said poor Miss Pearson, 'how little she gains by irritating her father, and that he is really a very dreadful person when he is thoroughly offended! Poor child! my heart aches for her.'

So Wilmet was turned in upon her, and before she could utter a word was hugged and kissed all over because she was the very image of darling Edgar, and his dear violet eyes were exactly the same colour.

Unsentimental Wilmet extricated herself, saying, 'Eyes can't be violet coloured. Don't let us go into that silly talk, Alice; things are too serious now.'

'You are come to help me and be a dear!' cried Alice, clasping her hands. 'How does he look? the dear boy!'

'The same as usual,' said Wilmet, coolly. 'But, Alice, if you think that I am come to-'

'Does he-really and truly? I saw him out of the little passage window, and I thought he looked quite thin! And Lizzie Bruce said Mrs. Hartley asked who that handsome young man was who looked so delicate.'

'He is particularly strong and healthy. Alice, I want to set it all before you as a reasonable being-'

'Only do tell me; has he got his appetite? For you know he is used to live where everything is recherche, and when one's out of spirits things do make a difference-'

Was that the claw in the velvet paw?

'He eats three times as much as Felix any day,' said Wilmet, with a certain remembrance of the startling nudity of the bone of yesterday's leg of mutton. 'He is doing very well. You need not be afraid for him; but it seems to me that you should consider whether it can be right-'

'Come, Wilmet, you were my first friend; you can't help being kind to me.'

'I want to show you true kindness.'

'True kindness means something horridly cross! Now don't, Wilmet. I get ever so much kindness as it is! I know what you are going to say. It is very naughty of people to like each other when neither of them has got a sixpence; but if they can't help it, what then? Must they leave off liking, eh?'

'They ought to try to prevent their liking from leading to disobedience and concealment.'

'Ah! but if they can't?'

'People always can.'

'Were you ever tried?' asked Alice, slyly, for all the simplicity.

'I hope never to be, if deceiving my friends and making others deceive is to be the consequence.'

'Well, luckily there isn't much chance,' crept out of the demure lips. It was intended as the thorn beneath the mayflower, but it was no such thing. Wilmet was quite ready to accept the improbability as very fortunate.

'That has nothing to do with it,' she said. 'The question is, what it is right to do now. It seems hard for me to say so, being your friend and his sister-'

'Oh, never mind that. People's sisters never do like the girls they are fond of.'

Decidedly Wilmet could not get on. Her mouth was stopped either by a little rapture about Edgar, or a little velvet-pawed scratch to herself, whenever she tried in earnest to set the matter before Alice; and when, being a determined person, she at last talked on through all that Alice tried to thrust in, and delivered her mind of the remonstrance she had carefully thought over, and balanced between kindness, prudence, and duty, and all the time with the conviction that not one word was heeded! If it was not English malice it was French malice that pointed the replies and sent Wilmet away as much provoked as pitying, and not at all inclined to be examined by Edgar on her interview, and let him gather that she had not had the best of it. Poor Alice! what were these little triumphs of a sharp tongue in comparison with the harm she did herself by exacerbating whoever tried to argue with her? There was one person she did profess to wish to see, namely, Geraldine; but the flying rheumatic pains, excited by the black east wind with sleet upon its blast, could not be trifled with; and Major Knevett's wrath put an effectual stop to Alice's entering the house during the Saturday and Sunday of his stay at Bexley. Perhaps Cherry was not sorry. She could not have pleaded against Edgar, in spite of her disapprobation of both; and moreover, the thought at the bottom of her heart was, 'How could any one who had been the object of such tones of the one brother's voice be won by the showy graces of the other? Edgar could easily have thrown off a disappointment; but Felix came first-and oh! can he shake it off in the same light way?'

She had not the comfort of talking it over. Felix made no sign, and Edgar's line was to treat the whole complication as a matter of pleasantry, pretending that he had only gone into it to please Felix! and yet, as came to their knowledge, privately exchanging billets and catch-words with Alice, while he openly declared his engagement and resolution to work his way up and lay his laurels at her feet.

He went away the very same morning as Major Knevett carried off his daughter to Jersey, audaciously following them to the station, where he exchanged a grasp of the hand with her in the very sight of the 'grey tyrant father,' who actually gnashed his teeth, in his inability either to knock him down or give him in charge.

There was no time to breathe between the departure of this pair of lovers and the arrival of Alda's splendid Life Guardsman, who, horses and all, took up his abode at the Fortinbras Arms, and spent his days in felicity with Alda. A very demonstrative pair they were. To Geraldine, often unwillingly en tiers, they seemed to spend their time chiefly in sitting hand in hand, playing with one another's rings and dangles, of which each seemed to possess an inexhaustible variety. Ferdinand's dressing-case and its contents were exquisite in their way, and were something between an amusement and a horror to Wilmet, who could not understand Felix's regard for so extravagant and wasteful a person, who gave away sovereigns where half-crowns would have been more wholesome, half-crowns instead of shillings, shillings instead of pence, and who moreover was devoted to horse- flesh. His own favourite steed, Brown Murad, had been secured at a fabulous price; and the possession of him seemed to be the crowning triumph over a certain millionaire baronet in the same corps, evidently his rival. What was even more alarming was that every detail about races and horses in training was at his fingers' ends, so that he put Felix up to a good deal of knowledge useful to the racing articles in the Pursuivant; but he declared that he never betted. His was a perilous position, homeless and friendless as he stood; and this rendered him doubly grateful for the brotherly welcome he received. Yet the days would have been long to any but lovers, in spite of the rides and walks, one even to Minsterham to see Lance. Ferdinand liked to recur to the old remembrances of his convalescence; but in these Alda had no part, and they seemed to jar on her. She might sometimes seem half fretted by his impetuous southern love, but she could not bear a particle of his attention to be bestowed on aught save herself; and when Geraldine would have utilised his fine straight profile as an artistic study, the monopoly was so unpleasing that the portrait had to be dropped. The odd thing was that Alda should have a lover whose most congenial spirit was Clement. He was a great frequenter of St. Matthew's, and had no interest save in kindred subjects. Felix always found them alike difficult to converse with, from a want of any breadth of sympathy with subjects past or present, such as would have occupied him even without the exigencies of his profession. They seemed to talk, not church, but shop, as if they did not look beyond proximate ecclesiastical details, which they discussed in technical terms startling to the uninitiated; and yet Felix trusted that Clement's soul was a good deal deeper and wider than his tongue, and that Ferdinand's, if narrow, was thoroughly resolute, finding in his enthusiasm for these details a counterpoise for the temptations of his position.

His seemed to be a nature that would alternate between apathetic indolence and strong craving for excitement. He could go on for days with a patient, almost silent, round of mechanical occupations performed well, nigh in his sleep, and then, when once stirred up became possessed with a vehement restlessness, as if there were still a little about him of the panther of the wilderness.

At first he awaited his letter from his uncle much more philosophically than did Alda, but when it tarried still, he became so eager that he made two journeys to London to meet the mail, and pestered every one with calculations as to time and space.

The letter came, and was all that every one else had expected. Alfred Travis had always detested the family into which his nephew had been thrown by his accident, and the tidings that the heiress had been rejected for the sake of one of these designing girls could not be welcome. So he gave notice that nothing more could be expected from him if his nephew stooped thus low. This, however, did not much concern Ferdinand. He curled his black moustache, and quietly said his uncle would not find that game answer. The affairs of the brothers had always been mixed together, and Ferdinand had been content to leave the whole in his uncle's hands, only drawing for his own handsome allowance; but the foundation had been his mother's fortune, and he had only to claim his own share of the capital, and disentangle it from the rest, either to bring his uncle to terms at once, or to be able to dispense with his consent. The delay was vexatious, but it could be but brief; and in the meantime Bexley was felicity. Yes, in spite of the warning he received at the Rectory, which my Lady followed up by a remonstrance to Felix-over the counter, for in vain he tried to get her into the office. He could only tell her that he much regretted Edgar's conduct, but as to Alda, there was no disobedience, and the young man's character was high. He was just as impracticably courteous as his father and Lady Price shrugged her shoulders and hoped. 'For, Felix Underwood,' she said, 'I am convinced that after all you are a very well-meaning young man.'

This was her farewell, for Mr. Bevan had been more ailing than usual, and had obtained permission to leave his parish for a year, to be spent partly in the south of France, partly at the German baths.

Well was it for those who could get away! Never had the spring been sourer; Easter came so early as itself to seem untimely, and the Wednesday of its week was bleakness itself, as Lance and Robina stood on the top of the viaduct over the railway, looking over the parapet at the long perspective of rails and electric wires their faces screwed up, and reddened in unnatural places by the bitter blast. Felix had asked at breakfast if any one would be the bearer of a note to Marshlands; Lance had not very willingly volunteered, because no one else would; then Robina joined him, and they had proceeded through the town without a syllable from either of the usually lively tongues, till as they stood from force of habit watching for a train, the following colloquy took place, Robina being the first speaker.

'What is it?'

'What is what?'

'What is the matter?'

'What is the matter with what?'

'With it all?'

There came a laugh, but Robina returned to the charge. 'Well, but what is it? Is it east wind?'

'Something detestable-whatever it is,' grunted Lance.

'You've found it so too,' said Robina; for Lance had only come home after evening cathedral the day before.

'Haven't I, though!'

He said no more, being a boy of much reserve as to his private troubles; and Robina presently said,-

'I say, Lance, did Alda use to be nice, or is it love?'

'Never nice, like Wilmet or Cherry.'

'I am sure,' proceeded the girl, 'I thought love was the most beautiful and romantic thing-too nice to be talked about, for fear it should turn one's head, but here it seems to be really nothing but plague and bother and crossness.'

'Poor Bob!' said Lance, 'you got the worst of it up at Brompton.'

'I got it every way,' said Robina. 'There was Edgar treating me like a little contemptible baby, and Alice sometimes coaxing me and sometimes spiting me, and Angel poisoned against me; and when I thought I must be acting for the best in telling Felix, somehow that turned out altogether horrid.'

'I suppose a girl must be telling some one,' said Lance; 'and if it was to be done, Felix was the right one.'

'So I made sure,' said poor Robin; 'but Miss Fulmort and Miss Fennimore seemed to think it no better than if I had told you. They say I am forgiven, but I hate their forgiveness. I've done nothing wrong, and yet they don't like or trust me; and they seem to grudge me all my marks and prizes. "For proficiency, not for conduct," they say, in that hard cold voice. And then the girls nod and whisper. Angel and all, think me a nasty spiteful marplot. Alice set half of them against me before she went!'

'Poor Bob. And you can't have a good set to, and punch their heads all round! That's the way to have it out, and get comfortable and friendly.'

'For choir boys? O Lance!'

'Choir boys ain't girls, I thank my stars.'

'Well,' continued Robina, glad to pour out her troubles, even for such counsel as this, 'when I came home last week, I did think it would be made up.'

'Well,' said Lance, as Robin grew rather choky, and drew the back of a woolly glove across her eyes, not much to their benefit.

'Clem looks black, because he says his sisters were meant to raise the tone of the school.'

'Confound the tone of the school! I know what that is! But who cares for Tina?'

'Then Wilmet says I ought to have asked leave to write to her, and she could have managed it quietly, and kept everybody out of a scrape.'

'Whew-w-w-' whistled Lance; but at the melancholy tone, he absolutely took his red hand out of its comfortable nest in his pocket, to draw his sister's arm into his. It was well, for her voice was far more trembling now. 'I could bear it all if it were not for Felix himself. I know he is angry with me, but he won't talk, nor tell me how; he only said, "We both meant to act for the best; but it is a painful affair, and we had better not discuss it," and then he began to whistle to Theodore. If any one did know how I hate being told I meant to act for the best!'

'Something is come over Felix,' said Lance. 'I never knew him give such a jaw as he has to me. To be sure, he was set on to it.'

'Set on?'

'Yes, by Wilmet for one! You should have seen the way she was in-as if I hadn't a right to do what I please with my own money.'

'What?'

'My violin! Ferdinand Travis tipped me when he rode over to the Cathedral, and by good luck it was the day before the auction at old Spicer's. Bill and I went in to see the fun, and by all that is lucky, there was a violin routed out of an old cupboard. Nobody bid against me but Godwin, the broker, and it was knocked down to me for twenty-two and six. Bill lent me the half-crown; and Poulter, our lay vicar, who is at a music-shop, says 'tis a real bargain, he's mad to have missed it himself, but he showed me how to put my fingers on it, and I can play Mendelssohn's "Hirtenlied." You shall hear by and by, Robin. Well; Wilmet comes on it when she was unpacking my shirts. I'm sure I wish she'd let me unpack them myself, instead of poking her nose there; and if she wasn't in a way! Wasting my money, when I ought to be saving it up to buy a watch; and wasting my time and all the rest of it-till one would think 'twas old Scratch himself I'd brought home!'

'Oh don't, Lance. And did she set on Felix?'

'Ay; and then, you know, our new Precentor, Beccles, isn't one quarter the man Nixon was; and he has been and written a letter to Fee that any schoolmaster in creation should be licked for writing, to go and pison a poor chap's home-all about those cards.'

'What cards?'

'The pack Jones found in the middle of the north transept ten days ago.'

'Of the Cathedral! How shocking! But why should he write to Felix?'

'Because the big-wigs make sure some one out of the Bailey must have dropped them, getting into the town through the Cathedral at night'

'But they don't suspect you?'

'No; but Beccles got into an awful way, and swears-'

'You don't mean really swears!'

'No, no-stuff-vows-that unless he gets to the bottom of it, not one of us shall have the good-conduct prize. Now I did think I might have had that-though I'm not a church candle like Tina-for I never was had up for anything; and it is precious hard lines! Such a beauty, Robin, the Bishop gives it-all the Cathedral music, bound in red morocco; and this beggar hinders us all this very last chance! And then, he is dirty enough to write and tell Felix to get out of me who has been getting out through the Cathedral, and dropping the cards.'

'Do you know?'

'Hold your tongue; I thought you had a little sense! Felix had that; he saw I could not tell him, and said it must be as I pleased about that; but then he rowed me, as he never did before, for wasting time, and not mugging for the exhibition-as if that was any use.'

'Why shouldn't t you get the exhibition?'

'Put that out of your head,' said Lance, angrily; 'Harewood is sure of that! A fellow that construes by nature-looks at a sentence, and spots the nominative in a moment-makes verses-rale, superior, iligant articles.'

'But I thought he wasn't always accurate. Can't you catch him out? O Lance, don't look so fierce! I only said so because he can't want the exhibition as much as you. He can go to some other school, or be paid for.'

'Not conveniently,' said Lance, 'they are not at all well off, and Jack helps them. Besides, I wouldn't get the thing in a sneaking way; and besides, Bill could no more make a mull in construing out of carelessness than I could a false note-it's against nature. I can't beat him, except in arithmetic. My birthday comes at such an unlucky time. I should get another year if I'd only been born in July instead of June! I might be second, for Shapcote is only dogged by his father; but that's no good for the exhibition: and then there's an end of Cathedral and all!'

'What should you do then, Lance?'

'Whatever costs least! I'd as lief work my way out to Fulbert, if this is to go on.'

'Oh, don't! don't do that, whatever you do!' cried Robina, clinging to his arm.

'I don't see why not, if everybody is to be as savage as a bear when one comes home. One always trusted to Felix to see sense, if nobody else did; but what with his jawing one about the exhibition, and Wilmet about the tin and every spot on one's clothes, and Alda growling at whatever one does in the parlour, I'm sure I wish I'd stayed at Bexley.'

The boy and girl had never before been tried by want of sympathy, and what seemed to them injustice, when they had thus descended into the perturbed atmosphere of what they were used to regard as a happy home. There was a long mutual communication of grievances-irritable speeches-inattention from their elders-fancies and complaints of Alda's enforced peremptorily by Wilmet-appeals to Felix either quashed or unheeded; the strange thing was, in how short a time so much had managed to go wrong with them, except that they added the vexations of the last quarter to the present discomfort, real or fancied; and though they were both good children, each had the strong feeling that there was not as much encouragement as usual to goodness, and that it could not have been much worse if they had been seriously to blame. One had expected to be caressed for her endurance in a good cause; the other had not expected to be severely rebuked for what he scarcely viewed as faults. It was the first time this younger half of the family had ever suffered anything approaching to neglect or injustice from their seniors, and the moment was perilous. The discussion was forming their discontents into a dangerously avowed state, if it had the beneficial effect of raising their spirits by force of sympathy. At any rate, they were in no gloomy mood when they reached the tidy little villa, with its beds of open- hearted crocuses defying the cold wind, and admitting the sun to the utmost depths of their purple and golden bosoms, as they laughed their cheery greeting.

No less cheerful was the welcome from kind old Mrs. Froggatt, who met them at the door. 'Master Lancelot, Miss Robina, this is an unlooked-for pleasure, to be sure! My dear Miss Robina!' as the girl gave her hearty embrace.

They were the prime favourites next to Felix, and were the more gladly hailed that Mr. Froggatt was anxious about the business on which they came, and had been trying to get leave from his wife to peril his rheumatics by coming in to Bexley about it. They must stay to luncheon; and while Mr. Froggatt went off to answer his note, they were made much of over the fire, in the way that had of late become so abhorrent to Bernard, with difficulty avoiding a pre-luncheon or nooning of cake and wine within an hour of the meal of the day.

'And how is Mr. Underwood?' asked Mrs. Froggatt, when Robina had been divested of her wraps, placed close to the fire, screened and footstooled, and when Lance had transferred the big white cat from the arm-chair to his own knee.

'Oh, very well, thank you,' said Robina, rather surprised that the lengthy catechism on the family health did not as usual start from 'poor dear Miss Geraldine.'

'He was looking so thin, and had such a cough, I was quite concerned when he walked out here on Good Friday afternoon,' continued Mrs. Froggatt. 'I hope he is taking care.'

'Wilmet is always at him about it,' said Lance.

'That is right. And I hope he minds to keep the office-door shut. It is such a draughty place! Does he wear flannel, do you know, my dear?'

'I think so,' said Robina. 'Sister Constance told Wilmet he ought, when he had that long cough after the measles.'

'Ay. You know-you'll excuse me, my dears, a cough is not to be trifled with in your dear family.'

'You should write to the clerk of the weather-office, Mrs. Froggatt,' said Lance, rather gruffly.

And as Mrs. Froggatt was not good at understanding jokes, but was always ready to accept Mr. Lance's, she thought he meant Admiral Fitzroy; and much explanation and banter followed, which the children made the louder from dread of the subject. Mrs. Froggatt was by no means the cultivated person her husband was; but, being of a good old plain farmer stock, she was quite as unassuming, and her manners with the young Underwoods were a good deal like those of a superior old housekeeper, only perhaps less authoritative and familiar; but she was not to be kept away from the subject of her real anxiety. 'I wish I could see your sister, and speak to her; he ought to have some advice rather than let it run on in this way. I'm sure Mr. Froggatt would be willing to do anything. It has been a great concern to him to have to leave such a heavy charge to him this spring, and with all the family cares on his head too, at his age. Miss Alda's wedding put off too-is it? And is the young gentleman here still?'

'No; his leave was over last Monday,' said Robina, 'a week after I came home.'

'I should like to have seen him! Your brother says he is grown up such a fine-looking young man, and quite got over his lameness. A handsome couple they will be! I did see them ride through the place, but Miss Alda didn't see me.'

'You saw his horse?' broke in Lance, who considered Brown Murad as a superior specimen to either of the lovers, and Mrs. Froggatt, whose father had bred horses, and whose son was much more addicted to them than was for his good, was a much more intelligent auditor of the perfections now dilated on than could have been expected.

Yet nothing could keep off the dreaded subject, and even at table, Lance's disappointing deficiency in schoolboy voracity became the cause of a lamentation over his brother's small appetite, and an examination of Robina, resulting in her allowing that Felix seldom gave himself time to do more than snatch a crust of bread in the middle of the day, and did not always make up for it at tea-time. Mr. Froggatt shook his head and looked distressed, and his good lady went on discoursing about the basin of soup she always used to keep prepared for him, evidently longing, though not quite daring, to send a lecture to Wilmet on taking care of her brother. But what made more impression on both the children was, that after they had been into Mr. Froggatt's little conservatory with him, and had received into their charge a basket of camellias, violets, and calycanthus, with a pot of jonquils in the middle for Geraldine, the old gentleman said, as he bade them good-bye, 'Tell your sister, that if she thinks a day or two of laying by would be good for your brother, I should be ready and glad to change places with him. A little change might take away his cough; and I don't like his looks-no, I don t. He ought to be careful;' this to himself, with a long sigh.

Then the children got out into the garden, and with the natural impatience of the evil omen, exclaimed at the same moment-

'Croak, croak, croak, went the frogs,'

and

'Were there ever such a pair of good old coddles?'

But then they walked on for a full quarter of a mile before either said another word; and then it was, 'You don't think Felix looking ill, do you, Lance?'

'I never thought about his looks at all,' said Lance.

'No more did I,' said Robina, 'but he does cough; I hear him through the wall in the morning. Do you think there is anything in it, Lance?'

'How long has it been going on?'

'Ever since he came up to London. He got a chill in our garden when I was telling him about-' said Robina, stopping short of what she hated to mention.

'Then that's it!' said Lance, turning round with a face of one who had made a great discovery.

'It? What is the matter with him?'

'Yes,' said Lance. 'Hold your tongue, Robina; but Cherry and I thought long ago that he fancied that little Knevett himself. Then I made sure it was all a mistake; but now, depend upon it, that's what he is so cut up about''

It carried conviction to the hearer, perhaps because it fitted in with a girl's love of romance. 'Then that's why he won't talk to me!'

'Of course!'

And then they began putting together all the tokens of inclination which their small experience and large imagination could suggest, till they had pretty well decided the point in their own belief, and had amused themselves considerably; but the anxiety came back again.

'Do people get over such things, Lance? There was Ophelia, and there was Wilfred in Rokeby-only she was a woman, and he was pipy. Did you ever know of anybody really and truly?'

Lance meditated, but his experience reached no farther than the surgeon's assistant at Minsterham, who was reported to be continually in love, but who did not look greatly the worse for it.

And then Robina suggested that she did not remember that either Wilfred or Ophelia had a cough.

'But my father had,' said Lance in the depths of his throat. 'Don't you know, Robin, it was hard work and trouble and poverty that-did it?'

'Was it?' awe-struck, for she had been so young as to have no clear ideas.

'I've heard it told often enough. My Lady cut off the third curate; and that-and all the rest of it-helped to bring on the decline.'

'But, Lance! At least, that wasn't-love.'

'Nonsense, Robin! Don't you see, whatever takes the heart and spirit out of a man, makes him ready for illness to get hold of?' Lance plucked desperately at the hazels in the hedge, and his eyes were full of tears.

'O Lance, Lance, what can we do?'

'I don't know! I'd let him pitch into me from morning till night if that would do him any good!'

'I'm sure I am very sorry I grumbled. We'll give Wilmet Mr. Froggatt's message, and see what she thinks.'

Poor children! their consternation was such, that they must judge by their own eyes of Felix without loss of time; so they both marched into the shop with Mr. Froggatt's note, and there felt half baffled to see Felix looking much as usual, very busy trying to content a lady with nursery literature, and casting a glance at Robin as if she had no business there.

Wilmet received Mr. Froggatt's message without excitement. She thought it would be a very good thing, but she did not believe Felix would consent; and Alda broke out, 'Then we should have Mr. Froggatt inflicted on us all the evening!'

Nor did Felix consent. He said it was very kind, but his cold was almost gone, and he did not need it. Moreover he had his private doubts whether Alda would be decently gracious to Mr. Froggatt; and Wilmet, whose one object in life was to keep her sister contented and happy at home, could press nothing so disagreeable to her. Altogether, the reception of their hints at home was so prosaically placid, that they were both rather ashamed of the alarm into which they had worked themselves up. Even when Robina privately asked Cherry whether she thought Felix looking well, the answer was eager.

'Oh, very-very well! He looked pulled down when his cold was bad, but he is quite well now.'

'Mrs. Froggatt thought-'

'Oh, you've been talking to Mrs. Froggatt! She thinks nothing so kind as to say one is looking poorly. I said, "How well you are looking, Mrs. Froggatt," one day, and I assure you she only swallowed it by an act of Christian forgiveness. She is fondest of Felix, so of course he looks the worst.'

Robina got no more out of Geraldine, whose fears at that moment were in the form of utterly denying themselves. Commonplace life greatly reassured the two young things, and of the alarm there chiefly remained a certain shame at their own former discontent, and doubly tender feeling towards their fatherly elder brother. Now that they guessed something to be amiss with him, they had no irritation for him-and indeed he gave them no cause for any; the discomfort was partly indeed occasioned by the lack of his usual quiet mirth, but far more by Alda's fastidiousness, and Wilmet's vigilance lest she should be annoyed. This caused restrictions that weighed more heavily on the younger ones than on Lance and Robina, and had the effect of making Angela and Bernard rebellious. They had neither the principle nor the consideration of their two seniors; to them every one seemed simply 'cross,' and against this crossness there was a constant struggle, either of disobedience or of grumble.

Both were at rather an insubordinate age. Angela, having begun school life with getting into a scrape greater than she understood, had acquired a naughty-girl reputation, of the kind that tempts the young mind to live up to it; and her high spirits, boisterous nature, and 'don't care' system made her irrepressible by any one but Wilmet, whose resolute hand might be murmured at, but was never relaxed. While Bernard, hitherto very fairly amenable to Cherry, and a capital little scholar, became infected with the spirit of riot and insubordination. Whatever fastidiousness the children took for fine- ladyism in Alda they treated unmercifully, and resented in their own fashion her complaints, and Wilmet's enforcement of regard to her tastes: nor was Lance always blameless in the tricks played upon her.

It was strange to see the difference made by one incongruous element. A few sneers at Cherry's pronunciation, an injudicious laugh when she was rebuking, and a general habit of making light of her, on Alda's part, upset all Bernard's habits of deference to the sister who had taught him all he knew. His lessons grew into daily battles-miseries to himself and far greater miseries to his teacher, and sufficient misery to the spectator to induce her to do that which the other sisters could scarcely have brought themselves to do on any provocation, namely to complain to Felix, and by and by make a representation, for the general good, she said, that it was a mere farce to leave the boy under Cherry's management.

Cherry, with bitter tears, was forced to own that she could no longer keep him in order nor make him learn, and there was no alternative but to send him to Mr. Ryder's. He had no voice nor ear, so that he could not follow in Lance's steps; and for the present, Bexley was the only resource.

Of course Cherry charged the whole of this upon her poor little self; and some amount of the trouble certainly was due to her incapacity not to show in voice and manner when she was under fret, anxiety, or depression; and now, poor child! all three at once had come upon her. Whether Alda's conversation or the children's naughtiness fretted her most, it would be hard to tell; she was in a continual state of unuttered, vague, and therefore most wearing anxiety on Felix's account, and the physical discomfort of the ungenial spring told on her whole frame and spirits. Alda's talk, when good-humoured, opened such vistas of brightness, amusement, conversation, and above all of beautiful scenes, that they awoke longings and cravings that Cherry had hardly known before. The weariness of the grinding monotony of home seemed to have infected her. She knew it for discontent, and was the more miserable over her want of power to control it, because of the terror that hung over her lest repinings might bring on them all the judicial punishment of a terrible break-up of the home she loved, even while the tedium of the daily round oppressed her. Alternate plaintiveness and weary sharpness of course aggravated both Alda and Bernard, and they knew nothing of the repentant wretchedness that rather weakened than strengthened her.

Little Stella's unfailing docility and sweetness were her great solace. Even Alda was exceedingly fond of Stella, and would have spoilt her if the child had not been singularly firm in her intense love and loyalty to the heads of the family. Angel and Bear were too rough for her, and alarmed her sense of duty; but Lance was her hero; and the happiest moments of those holidays were spent in a certain loft above a warehouse in the court of the printing-office, only attainable by a long ladder. Here, secure that none but favoured ears could hear, Lance practised on his beloved violin, at every hour he could steal, emulating too often Mother Hubbard's dog 'fiddling to mice,' but his audience often including his three younger sisters. He had had scarcely any hints, but his was the nature that could pick music out of anything; and Angela, much more than Robin, was ecstatic in all that concerned the sixth sense, and watched and criticised with rapture, wanted to learn, and pouted at being told that it was not fit for a woman. Among those stacks of paper in the dusty loft, with the stamp and thud of the press close at hand, it was possible to forget, in creating sounds and longing to fulfil the dream of the spirit, that Alda was exacting and trying, Wilmet blind to the annoyances she caused, Cherry striving hard, and not always successfully, with the fretfulness of anxiety, and Felix-they durst not think in what state. That loft and that violin made their fairy- land, and one that rendered it most unusually hard for Lance to learn his holiday task.

'I'll tell you what, Lance,' said Robina at last, when he had vainly been trying to repeat it to her, with his eye on a sheet of music all the time, 'you can't do two things at once. If I were you, I would lock up that violin till the summer examination is over.'

He turned on her quite angrily. 'Very fine talking! Lock up all the pleasure I have in life! Thank you!'

'I'm quite sure you'll never get the exhibition if you have your head in this.'

'I shan't get the exhibition any way.'

'But if you do your utmost for it?'

'I shall do my utmost!'

'You can't if you have these tunes always running in your head, and are always wild to be picking them out.'

'Well, Robin, I sometimes think I should do more good with music than anything else.'

'Maybe,' said Robina, a sensible little woman; 'but you'll do no good by half and half. If you don't do well in the examination, Felix will be horribly vexed, and you'll always hate the thought of it.'

'I tell you I shall be as dull as ditch-water, and as stupid as Shapcote, if I don't have any pleasure.'

'I only don't want you to be stupider.'

Lance chucked up a pen-wiper and caught it.

'The fact is,' said Robina, 'all we've got to do is our best. If we don't, it is wrong in us, and it makes us more a weight on Felix; and I think it is our real duty to keep everything out of the way that hinders us, if it is ever so nice.'

'Is that Cock Robin, or Parson Rook with his little book?' said Lance, throwing the pen-wiper in her face.

But the week after, when Robina was at school again, she was called to receive a letter which had something hard in it.

'Did you leave a key behind you?' she was asked a little suspiciously, for there was nothing about it in the brief note.

'No, Miss Fennimore; but my brother has sent it to me to keep for him. It is the key of his violin-case, and he is not going to touch it till he is past his examination.'

From that time Miss Fennimore entertained a better opinion of Robina Underwood; but little recked Robina. She only felt secure that after this act of heroism Lance could not but gain the exhibition.