My heart's in the Highlands

by Amy Le Feuvre

BOOK II

[CHAPTER I]

AT THE GREEN COTTAGE

"All are not taken! There are left behind
Living Beloved's tender looks to bring,
And make the daylight still a happy thing,
And tender voices to make soft the wind."
E. Browning.

"ROWENA, I hope you mean to be kind to him. Remember he has taken all the trouble to travel down from Yorkshire to see us."

"But we did not invite him."

"Well, on board ship I gave him a kind of general invitation, seeing how smitten he was with you."

Rowena's brows contracted. She was silent.

Mrs. Arbuthnot looked at her a little anxiously.

"You know how desolate I and the chicks would be without you. Don't think for a moment that I want to lose you, but I do want you not to miss the happiness of married life, and dear Ted often used to say to me how he hoped you would marry. We thought when your letters were so full of Hugh Macdonald's child, that you would marry him; personally I never found him attractive. He had no sense of humour. And Ted said he couldn't see you tied up with him somehow." A heavy sigh followed, then impulsively Mrs. Arbuthnot turned to her sister-in-law.

"Oh, Rowena, I can't get accustomed to being without Ted! I can't believe he is silent for ever! I think it is cruel taking men so suddenly away; one day in full enjoyment of health and mental powers, the next struck down, and buried before one realizes they are dead! I wish—I wish we had never gone to India, I wish he had never taken that trip into the cholera-infected region! Nothing will ever comfort me! Men and women ought not to die till they lose their individuality. It is cruel, unreasonable. I never shall understand the reason for it."

"Poor Geraldine! It is difficult for you, but let me pass on a sentence a very nice woman gave me long ago. I have never forgotten it: 'Nothing is a puzzle, nothing is a mystery, if you have enough love and trust.'"

"Love and trust in whom?"

"In the One Who holds our lives in His keeping. Ted is not going to be silent for ever. I never felt so certain as I do now that he has stepped into the Kingdom of Heaven. Just before he went on that trip I had such a nice talk with him."

"Oh, I know, I know! He used to tell me that he believed in what you believed, because of your life. And you aren't a long-faced mute, I will say that for you. You comfort me when you talk so, but I'm a worldling. Don't let us talk of our sorrow, let us return to Major Cunliffe. Don't you like him? Oh, I wish you would, for your own sake! He is an old friend of Ted's, and has such a lovely old house in Yorkshire! We stayed there once when his mother was alive."

"He's a nice man," said Rowena slowly; "but I don't think he will ever be anything more than that to me."

"Don't you ever mean to marry?"

Rowena laughed.

"Nobody axed me, sir," she said.

"Now that's a fib. You had three out in India who were your devoted admirers."

"I feel like a kitchen-maid when you talk so," said Rowena.

She was sitting over the fire with her sister-in-law in a small house in a Surrey village. They had not long returned from India. Colonel Arbuthnot had been carried off by an epidemic of cholera about five months after Rowena had joined them out there. As soon as she was able, his widow returned to England, and Rowena accompanied her. An old friend of Colonel Arbuthnot's, Sir Henry Hazelwood, had offered her a pretty cottage in the village of which he was squire; for young Mrs. Arbuthnot had found it necessary to economize as much as possible. Her husband before his death was finding himself in difficulties, and had arranged to give up his Scotch lodge, much to his sister's regret. They had now just settled in the cottage, and the young widow was striving to take up life again for the sake of her little ones.

Rowena, of course, was the mainstay in the house. Her cheery personality kept them all going, and she was ready to turn her hand to anything, from painting a gate to repairing a lock; she had just started poultry, and they were thinking of having a little rough pony and trap, for the market town was a good three miles away.

It was a cold afternoon in March. Outside it was cheerless and grey. Inside, though simplicity reigned throughout the cottage, the little drawing-room was a picture of cheery comfort. Mrs. Arbuthnot was seated on a comfortable Chesterfield couch by the fire, her sewing in her hand.

Rowena was in a lounge chair opposite her, knitting away at a boy's sock.

"I suppose I must feel snubbed," said Mrs. Arbuthnot with rather a sad little smile. "I will drop the subject. And I am sure, as I said before, it would be my own loss if you left me. Aren't you afraid we shall find this place most painfully dull?"

"No," said Rowena brightly; "why should we? It's a lovely part of the world. Think of the woods and meadows for your pale-faced children. How many picnics we shall have this summer! And Sir Henry and his wife are always wanting us to join their social gatherings. Of course, you don't feel inclined to do so yet, but you will by and by. Ted would not like you to shut yourself up. And I think we're very lucky in our parson. I like him extremely. I have a great admiration for his eldest daughter, mothering the parish as she does, in addition to mothering her small brothers."

"Oh, Mr. Waring is all right enough! He's a gentleman and a scholar, and you and he have a good deal in common. I suppose India spoils one, and nothing will ever be the same to me without Ted—I hate a house without a man! It is like a cart without the horse, a train without an engine."

"Well, now turn your attention upon Major Cunliffe. I see him walking up the path."

A moment after, a tall handsome man was shaking hands with them both. But it was easy to see which of the women was the object of his visit.

Rowena leant back in her chair with easy friendliness. Not a blush on her cheek, or quiver of her eyelash, told that she was in the least impressed by his personality.

"We heard you were coming to the Hall," she said, looking at him with the usual twinkle in her eyes; "but we did not expect to see you quite so soon. You only arrived yesterday evening, did you not? Sir Henry called here just before he drove to the station to meet you."

"My inclination was to come round immediately after breakfast," Major Cunliffe replied promptly; "but Lady Hazelwood insisted upon inspecting her pet rock-garden, and she kept me there the greater part of the morning. I do not like people with hobbies. They ride them so hard."

"I think if a woman has no children it's a good thing to have a hobby," said Mrs. Arbuthnot, "especially in the country. The Hazelwoods are hardly ever in town. He's a born farmer. Don't you remember how he used to yarn in India about his shorthorns and pigs?"

"By Jove, yes. And we called him 'Mangels' in the mess. What a ripping little house you have here. How are the youngsters?"

"You remind me of my duties," said Mrs. Arbuthnot. "I promised to go up to them to-day when nursery tea was on. I shan't be long."

She slipped quietly out of the room.

Instinctively Major Cunliffe drew his chair a little nearer Rowena.

She looked up at him with her frank smile.

"Geraldine's hobby is her children, and they have comforted her a lot."

"Poor Mrs. Arbuthnot, she must be feeling rotten. But she's awfully sensible—she knew I wanted to see you alone, so she's bolted. Now, please don't put on that careless bored expression. I mean to have it out with you, and now is my chance. You kept me from speaking on board ship—circumstances always seemed to favour you. I shan't forget that ass of a Captain in a hurry, but you must listen now. I beseech you to be kind. You know I just adore you, and can't live without you."

"I don't know anything of the sort," Rowena replied very calmly and sweetly. "I know you were a most kind friend to us on board, and I always had a liking for you, because you were so fond of—my poor brother." Her voice faltered. He broke in quickly:

"Yes—I felt you had a liking for me—one can tell it—and now I want something more. Don't say you can't give it to me."

She looked at him gravely, and shook her head.

"I'm afraid it is no use, Major Cunliffe. I hate to give pain. You can never say I have encouraged you. I honestly think I shall never marry."

"It will be a sinful shame if you don't," said the Major hotly; "and I'm positive you and I would pull together A 1. Do just think of it—I'll wait a bit longer if you like. Why on earth should you be so detached? I suppose I'm not up to your level."

"Oh, please, please don't make me out such a brute."

There was real feeling in Rowena's voice. She went on a little unsteadily:

"I tried to make you see on board that I could never be anything but a friend. I was afraid of this. You would make anyone a good husband, Major Cunliffe; you are so unselfish, so tender as far as women and children are concerned. But I will be frank with you. My heart is not mine to give away. We women are foolish creatures; and I am the most foolish of my sex—I can say no more."

"You love some one else."

He murmured the words, but blank dismay was in his eyes—Rowena was absolutely, silent, then she put out her hand.

"Shake hands, and bear me no ill will. I shall live and die a single woman. Of that I feel sure, but life is full of interest to single women, and we do value friendship. May I think that I can still have yours, even if our paths in life lie apart. I wish I could give you the answer you want, but I cannot."

Major Cunliffe looked at her in a dazed sort of way. Then he wheeled round towards the window, and stood looking out with his back to her trying to bear his disappointment courageously.

Rowena sat with clasped hands and dejected mien. She was very tender-hearted, and could not bear to give pain. In a few minutes he turned to her.

"Well—you seem sure of your own mind. I will say no more. It's no good prolonging our interview. Say good-bye to Mrs. Arbuthnot. I feel I can't face her—and if ever you do happen to think differently, I hope you'll let me know."

He wrung her hand, and stumbled out of the room. Rowena watched him striding down the little path to the gate with tears in her eyes.

"I hope we shall not be meeting any more of them here," she murmured to herself. "And now I shall have to smooth down Geraldine's ruffled feathers." That was soon done. Mrs. Arbuthnot was too truly fond of her sister-in-law to wish her to marry a man she did not care for; but she was disappointed, and it needed all Rowena's brightness to bring smiles to her face again.

Fortunately another visitor called that afternoon.

Mrs. Arbuthnot loved society, and for the time she forgot Major Cunliffe's dismissal.

This visitor was a wealthy widow who lived alone in a big house about three miles off.

Her husband belonged to the county, and had died many years previously.

Mrs. Burke was very popular with her neighbours, but the Hazelwoods had told Rowena that she was a little too rapid and go ahead for them.

"She is never quiet; the life she leads would wear me out in a month," gentle Lady Hazelwood said. "She has a house in Park Lane, and is hospitality itself, and very kindhearted. Young people adore her, for she gives them such a good time. Even in this quiet place, she keeps the ball of gaiety rolling. She has plenty of money, and spends it on amusements for herself and her guests."

Mrs. Burke was a handsome woman about fifty. As Rowena watched her talking to her sister-in-law, she felt a sudden liking for her.

"Oh, you mustn't be dull or unhappy," she was saying; "you will have nice neighbours, and I always have house-parties during the summer. There will be plenty going on soon. Come over and see me before my visitors arrive, if you like. I am alone now, and it would be a charity to take pity on me. The only time I get the blues is when I have nobody to talk to."

"Have you a dog?" asked Rowena. "I had a winter of solitude up in the Highlands and found my little 'Shags' a great comfort when I wanted to deliver my soul!"

Mrs. Burke turned quickly to her.

"I never make friends with my dogs. I have no time. It takes me all my time to live. I tried companions, but oh! how they bored me! They were either a mild echo of myself, or tried to manage me. Will you waive ceremony and come to lunch with me next Wednesday? Do—I have quite a good cook, and she does hate wasting her dainties on me. I never know or care what I eat when I'm alone."

Mrs. Arbuthnot accepted the invitation, but when the day came, her little girl was not well, and she would not leave her. She insisted upon Rowena going, and begged her to enjoy herself.

"There is so little going on here, that I am quite glad of a sociable neighbour, and I shall look forward to your account of her when you return. You always see the amusing side of everybody!"

Rowena walked off. She thought nothing of the three miles, and enjoyed every step of her way. She found that Mrs. Burke was not alone; two girls, by name Violet and Diana Dunstan, were lunching with her, and the talk was chiefly on hunting, and the last meet which was taking place the following week. The girls went off directly after lunch, but Mrs. Burke pressed Rowena to stay, and took her into a very cosy little morning-room.

"I'm very fond of Vi and Di, as they are called, but one soon gets to the end of them, and I haven't got to the beginning of you yet."

"I shan't take much knowing," said Rowena easily. "I am pretty well what I look. An ordinary sort of every-day person."

"You are neither one nor the other," replied Mrs. Burke promptly. "Now I have powers of observation, and you're a reader; that I know from the way you scanned my bookshelves when you came in here."

"Well, yes, I am. My truant eyes betrayed me."

"You'll find nothing but novels, and books of travel and adventure," said Mrs. Burke. "I cannot understand poetry, and history is most unsatisfactory. Theology and all the other ologies are too stiff and dry. I have no time for thinking. Like the Americans, I like to make things hum. And people interest me more than anything else in the world. Would you like to hear about your neighbours?"

"Very much," was Rowena's response.

"Well, to begin with, Vi and Di, they live with their brother, who only came into his property two years ago. It came to him through an uncle. They lived up in the north, and are thorough sportswomen—up to any larks, and make the hair of old-fashioned folk about here stand on end at their pranks. Their brother Bob is a good sort, but a little rough. You know the Hazelwoods, they're a model squire and wife, and are nothing if not correct. Eight miles distant are the Easterbrooks: he's a new-made peer, and everything about them is new—their house, their garments, their furniture, and their manners. There are two old Miss Humbers of whom I'm rather fond, they pretend they are old-fashioned and out of date, but they love to be shocked, and I and my friends do it pretty often. They have one of the loveliest gardens in the country, and of course their gardener is an autocratic tyrant. Then there is a bachelor establishment about four miles off. Two brothers, both been in the army and retired—one a general, the other a colonel. They live together; one hunts and shoots, the other gardens, and has a pet aviary. Their name is Sheringham. The parsons and doctors never interest me in the least, nor do their families, and most of my friends come down to me from town. I may as well tell you that I was a parson's daughter myself and lived in the Cotswolds before I married. I know too much about parsons and their kind to have much to do with them now."

She compressed her lips rather bitterly, then laughed. "My motto is 'keep the world rolling with smiles'; nobody can say I do otherwise. But, oh dear, I have times when I long for a secretary or companion to take some of my duties from me. Just look here!" She opened a bureau, which seemed almost bursting with letters and papers. "That's a week's correspondence, and I haven't touched it yet. I sometimes want to burn the contents of my postbag before I look it through. I get such thousands of begging letters, and my friends are always worrying me with their wants!"

"That is one of the penalties of wealth," said Rowena. "You can't escape its responsibilities."

"Don't you hate that word responsibility? I try to be as irresponsible as I can. And if you're clever, you can always shift your burdens on to other's shoulders. Now I've talked about myself enough. Tell me what your line is. You're neither a prude, nor a rollicker."

"I don't think I have ever set to work to dissect myself," said Rowena, amused. "I'm interested at present in my sister-in-law and her family, and in making two shillings go as far as five. We have never been used to economy before, at least she has not, and it takes a bit of doing. And just now I'm on the look-out for a rough pony and trap in which we can jog about the lanes, and enjoy the country."

"I know the very thing for you. A farmer wants to sell one: his wife used to drive about in it, for she was lame, and now she is dead, poor thing!"

In discussing a possible bargain, personal topics were dropped. Rowena returned home well pleased with her neighbour, but she said to her sister-in-law:

"She's a jolly easy-going soul, and kindness and good nature personified, but she's hiding away from something in spite of all her careless abandon of talk: I should like to know her better."

In a short time Mrs. Arbuthnot had contentedly settled down to their quiet life. Rowena got her trap and pony, and trundled about the sweet-smelling lanes with the children inside it.

Before long they were on pleasant terms of intimacy with their neighbours, but to Rowena Mrs. Burke was the most interesting personality of them all.

She was always entertaining; and as the summer drew on, private theatricals, tennis parties, and picnics followed each other in quick succession. Her friends from town were not always liked by the county. She had a good many Bohemians, and stray geniuses, who contributed towards the general gaiety with their freakish talent.

Once she arrived at the Green Cottage early in the morning, and besought Rowena to return with her at once.

"I want you to take the place of a girl whose father has just died. So tiresome of him to choose this week to do it in! She's simply unique in running my musical programme for the village concert coming off; she keeps every one in good temper, and plays all the accompaniments. I know you'll do that all right, and I'm sure you'll help to keep the peace. My dear Italian Countess is nearly tearing out the eyes of my best tenor because he said she sang sharp in the duet they have together. To sing sharp is a more deadly crime than to sing flat, I find. Come along just as you are, we must have a rehearsal this morning, for we're all going off to the sea in cars this afternoon, and you know it is only fifteen miles away?"

Rowena went off obligingly. She returned about three in the afternoon, tired, but very interested.

"Oh, Geraldine, she reminds me of those men with a happy family in a cage! Her elements of humanity do not harmonize. Aristocrats and violent radicals, oldish women who have been beauties, and young intolerant girls who laugh at them. I admire her wonderful adaptability, and good temper in dealing with them all. But I wouldn't have such guests in a house of mine for all the wealth in the world! And yet she hasn't a wrinkle on her face, and her energy in 'rolling the ball,' as she expresses it, is superhuman!"

"She's a very tiring old woman," said Mrs. Arbuthnot; "she ought to be content with a quiet life at her age."

Rowena laughed.

"She does not consider she is a day older than she feels, and that is about twenty-three, I should say! But I hope she is not going to come upon me to make up all her guests' deficiencies. I like the simple life, and a little of hers goes a long way!"

"Sometimes," said Mrs. Arbuthnot slowly, "I think that year of solitude in the Highlands was bad for you, Rowena. You ought to love gadding round at your age."

"My age, madam, is past that of giddy youth!" And then Rowena quitted the room, singing as she went:

"I have a smiling face, she said
I have a gist for all I meet,
I have a garland for my head,
And all its flowers are sweet—"

[CHAPTER II]

A NEW FRIEND

"Is not making others happy the best happiness?"
Amiel.

"MY dear Geraldine, what is the matter? Your face is a yard long. Have you had bad news?"

Mrs. Arbuthnot looked up from her letters and sighed.

She and Rowena were at breakfast. It was a lovely morning in June. The windows were open, a sweet brier bush outside was scenting the room with its fragrance.

"Madge is going to be married almost immediately."

"Three cheers for Madge! If I had a sister, and a sister who has been engaged for five years, I should be overjoyed at the event."

"Oh, I am glad for her sake, of course; but I have had four sheets from her showing me how impossible it is for mother to live alone, and imploring me to take the children and make Whitecroft my home."

"A most sensible arrangement. It is a roomy old house, and nearer town than this is. You will be very happy there, my dear!"

"I like a house of my own. I have always had it."

"Yes, but your mother is a dear, gentle, old lady. Madge always ran the house, and you can do the same."

Geraldine sighed again.

"I hate changes, and Madge is going to be married in a fortnight and going straight out to the Cape with Frank, and she wants me to pack up my things and go to mother the end of this month."

"Sir Arthur will let you off the rent of this, and nowadays he will have no trouble in getting another tenant. I would take it on myself if I had enough money."

"But you will be with us, of course."

Mrs. Arbuthnot raised a startled face to her sister-in-law.

Rowena swung herself up on the low window-ledge, and sat there with her hands in her pockets, and her feet swinging to and fro. She whistled softly to herself, but did not speak for a minute, and Mrs. Arbuthnot repeated her words:

"You will come with us? I am not going to part with you."

"My dear Geraldine, leave me out of the question. Your first thought is your mother, and being what she is, and having no other children to look after her, I consider it is your bounden duty to go to her. Make up your mind to it. Whitecroft is a sweet home, and it is your mother's own, and too big for her to live in alone. That point is quite clear, and now when is the wedding, and what are you going to wear?"

The question of clothes brought a smile to Mrs. Arbuthnot's lips. She began to see sunshine again; and after she was thoroughly reconciled to her duty which lay before her, Rowena left her to write her letters, and went off out of the house and along the lanes with swift light steps.

Once she knitted her brows, and murmured:

"It's a game of see-saw. Geraldine will go up, as far as comfort in her surroundings go, and I shall go down. What a darling Ted was to leave me enough to stave off starvation! But it won't give me a home. And I must have a roof over my head. And to think that only a few weeks ago I scoffed in my heart at Mrs. Burke's offer. The bread of dependence is not palatable, but it must be munched and eaten by you, my dear Rowena, and the sooner you settle it the better."

The three miles to Minley Court seemed of no account to Rowena. She was a good walker, and was too deep in thought to notice any details by the way. She found Mrs. Burke in her morning-room, and it was a propitious moment for her request. The impatient lady was seated at her writing-desk; letters and papers were fluttering all round her, and as she turned to greet Rowena, she swept a packet of papers upon the carpet with her elbow.

"Thank goodness, somebody has arrived to distract me from this chaos! Come out upon the terrace, and I will enjoy a cigarette if you will not join me. I have the car coming round in half an hour, I am going to the Fletchers. May I take you with me? They're charming people, and you ought to know them. He's a retired admiral, and she's a daughter of Lord Gallway."

"I'm afraid I must return home quickly. I have come on business this time, and will get to it at once. Do you remember you were good enough to ask me the other day if I would be your companion-secretary, and I told you how impossible it was for me to leave my sister-in-law and her children? Well, circumstances are changed. She is giving up her house and going to live with her mother in Berkshire, and I am not going with her. I couldn't: a mixed household is a mistake, so I am on my own, and able to do what I like. If your offer still holds good, I would like to accept it."

"You will? My dear girl, that's the best bit of news I have had for a long time! I shall be enchanted to have you. I feel inclined to plant you at my desk now, and start you at that infernal—well, we'll say unpleasant—mass of letters and bills. It's an accumulation of a couple of months. I never can overtake it. Why is the art of begging, and dunning, and boring, made so easy to all of us? When will you come to me? To-morrow?"

"Indeed no, but in another week or two."

"I suppose I shall have to wait your time. Now we must settle your salary. Will two hundred pounds suffice? Remember, it will be an arduous post, for I drive every one about me they say. My days are overfull, and I shall expect you to be at my beck and call for a good many hours I am afraid."

Rowena laughed.

"Your salary is munificent, and I am not afraid of work. I shall get a little quiet time to myself in and out. Thank you very much. Then it is settled. I should love to tidy up your papers to-day, but I must be getting back. Will you expect me this day fortnight?"

"You're too good for the post," said Mrs. Burke, putting her hand on her shoulder affectionately. "I shall pretend you're a sort of daughter, but daughters nowadays wouldn't do their mother's dirty work, would they? Oh, I'm delighted to have you. There's something so restful and dependable in your face, and you do enjoy a joke! I hate these stuffy solid folk who open their eyes widely, and think one a lunatic if one indulges in a bit of fun. Good-bye, if you must go, and I'll give you the second best spare room; it's sunny, and bright, like yourself."

Rowena marched home feeling she had burnt her boats, and wondering why she had such pride of heart as to mentally squirm at the thought of her future.

"An empty purse and high head don't harmonize," she said to herself. "I must consider that I'm benefiting one of my fellow-creatures by becoming one of her dependants, and I shall have a chance of getting beneath her outer crust. There's something I don't understand in her composition. She's too sensible to be so frivolous."

When Mrs. Arbuthnot was informed of Rowena's plans, she was very perturbed and vexed.

"I have a great mind to refuse to go to mother. What shall I do without you? It's cruel of you! You're like a bit of Ted left to me—and the house is big enough for you, and mother would be charmed to have you."

"It can't be done," said Rowena firmly. "Ask me to pay you a visit sometimes."

"Oh, if Mrs. Burke gets you into her clutches, she will never let you go! I wish you had never met her. She's like an octopus for drawing all the best into her nets. I cannot see her attractiveness. To me she's thorough bad style, and you'll lead a most rackety life, and will never be able to call a moment your own!"

Rowena could not comfort her. Happily, there was so much to do and arrange that it took away her thoughts from their parting. She arranged to go to her mother before the wedding, and the little house was dismantled and bare within the prescribed fortnight. Rowena was the last to leave it, and when she eventually drove off to Minley Court in the car sent for her with her luggage packed up behind, she felt as if this second rooting up of her life was a very black and gloomy performance. But she arrived at her new home with a cheerful countenance. She found Di and Vi Dunstan with Mrs. Burke.

"We feel so deadly when the hunting is off," said Vi. "Mrs. Burke is our only cheer. We are trying to concoct a few new games for her next garden-party. Come and help us with your wit!"

"You're going to have diggings here, aren't you?" questioned Di. "Good for you. I'd like the job myself."

"Miss Arbuthnot's job is not going to be an easy one," said Mrs. Burke with her jolly laugh. "She's going to supply all my deficiencies, and run me and my household in a more orthodox fashion."

"Oh, dash orthodoxy!" cried Vi. "How I loathe the word, as bad as conventionality and propriety, and all the rest of the prudisms and prisms!"

Rowena had to sit down then and there and discuss seriously whether a game of hare and hounds, in which the hare was to trail the contents of scent sachets or scent bottles behind him, could take place in the grounds of Minley Court.

"We'll have six hares, all men, and ladies must be the hounds, and one might use pepper as his scent, and another onions; and another might scatter rose-leaves behind him—nothing like variety! It will be topping!"

It was difficult for Rowena to show much interest in their childishness, but Mrs. Burke took pity on her. "Come on up to your room, and we'll leave you in peace till tea comes. Vi and Di are quite equal to organizing their own schemes."

So Rowena followed Mrs. Burke up the old staircase along a very broad corridor, until they came to the room prepared for her.

It was, as Mrs. Burke had told her, one of the brightest rooms in the house, and looked, in its dainty dimity coverings, very cool and sweet.

Rowena glanced at the comfortable chairs and couch, and at the charming writing-table in one window.

"My dear Mrs. Burke," she said gaily, "how can I thank you for indulging me so? I hope this luxury will not unfit me for my duties."

"Duty is never mentioned in my house," said Mrs. Burke, putting her hands on both her shoulders and suddenly stooping and giving her a quick warm kiss on her cheek. "We slip along as we like, and pick up what fragments of necessary work we can, just to prevent the house tumbling to pieces. You'll work, and I'll continue to play, but I shan't work you hard, and I warn you that you must suffer gladly continual interruption. To-day you are to be my guest; to-morrow you can tackle my correspondence."

"Thank you, then I'll take this hour before tea to settle my belongings, and congratulate myself upon such a role!"

Mrs. Burke left her. When she joined her young friends again, she said:

"I'm in luck's way at last. I can't think why she has not married!"

"There's time yet," said Di laconically; "there's a reaction set in, now there are no more embryo heroes to be wed. There aren't many sound able men just now, plenty of boys, but they'll keep."

"You always go for a fresh pal like hot bricks!" said Vi. "She isn't a bad sort, this Miss Arbuthnot, but she's hardly one of us. I see something more solid in her face than her first appearance would warrant. Her eyes make you think she's out for larks, but there's a twist to her lips that shows she's a quizzer!"

"I like her," Mrs. Burke asserted stoutly, "and you'll like her too when you know her better."

Rowena was relieved when she came down to tea to find that the Miss Dunstans had taken their departure. She and Mrs. Burke were alone, and they had tea under the rose pergola at the end of the terrace.

"There's one thing I want to ask you," said Rowena presently; "and that is if I may have Sunday to myself? I don't care how hard I work in the week, but I should like to feel free on Sunday."

Mrs. Burke looked at her rather curiously.

"Oh, well," she said, after a minute's silence, "I shan't want you to do any secretarial work on Sunday, but socially it's a day that hangs a bit heavy, and I may want your help with my guests. I have a good many week-end parties, you know."

"Yes. I don't want to sound disobliging, but I still want that day for myself."

"I wish you would explain. Do you want to go right away, or is it a question of principles? Are you a Sabbatarian? Nothing so out of date, I am sure. I go to church occasionally, when it's not too hot, and when I'm not too tired. Very often I keep to my bed till lunch. If my guests bore me I invariably do so."

"I like a quiet Sunday," said Rowena, looking at her with her frank smile. "I suppose I have always been indulged in that way. In India my brother and his wife always went down to the Club, but I retired to my room for the afternoon; they never minded. And of course I shall go to church, I always have done so."

"Oh, you can go to church all day long if you want to," Mrs. Burke said with impatience in her tone; "only don't dictate to me as to how I should keep the Sabbath. I had enough of that when I was young!"

Rowena looked at her sympathetically.

"I expect you were driven with too tight a curb, weren't you? Isn't it a pity when children are made by force of circumstances to hate what should have been their joy?"

"I don't think you will find children look upon church-going as a joy," said Mrs. Burke, with bitterness in her tone. "In one case I have a vivid remembrance of sitting up in church with aching head and back, and with a positive loathing for the unutterably weary prayers, and lengthy sermon. My father was a parson, and when I grew older I had to be at early service at 7.30, Sunday school at ten, service again at eleven, school at three. Evening service at 6.30, and sometimes a choir practice afterwards. I would come into supper after our day of devotion was over, sick in body and soul of it all!"

"If your heart wasn't in it, it must have been torture, I've always had a lax bringing up as regards church, but somehow from a child I enjoyed it. About eighteen months ago I had an accident in the hunting field, and was laid up on my back for a year. I went to my brother's house in the Highlands, and used to hear the church bells across the loch as I lay on my couch and longed that I could go. After a year's privation from church-going, I went out to India, and there we only got a service about once a month when we were in the hills—at other times a church parade lasting about half an hour. Now since we have been back in England I'm thoroughly enjoying my church. I learnt a lot of things when I was lying on my back, and it is a matter of principle with me to have a quiet day on Sunday; I hope you don't like me the less for it."

"I didn't think you were that sort," Mrs. Burke said. Her tone was almost sulky.

"Have we made a mistake? Shall I throw it up, and go away with my sister?"

"Good heavens, no! You shall have your Sundays, but don't let me feel you're carping at us if we can't live up to your level."

"My dear Mrs. Burke, if you saw into my mind you would know that it's the last thing I would do. I'm such a stumbling sort of creature myself, that I feel at the very lowest level of all. One day, when I'm more at home with you, perhaps you'll let me tell you of a bit of my Highland experience. Till then believe me, that I shall never be your critic. I have come here to give you my help, and I honestly will try to do my best in your service."

Mrs. Burke's face cleared.

"All serene then! And now we'll talk of other things. Do you know the Fortescue Bakers? I hear they have just taken a farm house near here. They've bought it, and mean to turn it into a lovely little house. He is an artist you know, and bound to make everything beautiful that lies across his path."

Rowena listened to the local gossip, and pleased Mrs. Burke by her interest and sympathy.

For a wonder Mrs. Burke was alone. She was expecting visitors the next day. After dinner they strolled through the beautifully kept grounds, and Mrs. Burke told Rowena the details of her past life.

"I was, as I told you this afternoon, a parson's daughter, and my father was of the strict evangelical school. We were supposed to live apart from all worldly gaieties. Never allowed to dance, or go to a play, or enjoy ourselves with any young people who did so. And strange to say I was content and even happy in those days. I was the youngest. Two of my sisters married neighbouring curates. One is now a missionary with her husband in China; the other is in Liverpool. I have lost touch with her; we did correspond before my husband's death, but she and her husband thoroughly disapprove of me. My third sister was the one who kept everything going at home, but a bad time came. Our mother, who was always delicate, went down with 'the Flu.' It raged round us. One of my brothers had it with the complication of double pneumonia, and both he and my mother died. Then my sister got it and went into a decline. She was overworked and could not battle with it. I was just seventeen then, so had to take command and run the house and parish. There was never a question of recreation or rest for a parson's daughter. We were wretchedly poor, and the struggle to keep up appearances was awful. My remaining brother was at college, and we fought hard to keep him there. I often wish he had earned his bread in a humbler sort of way, for three years afterwards he died in London—a question of underfeeding and overwork—the same as my poor sister. I can tell you the record of those years sent the iron into my soul. There is no tragedy so great as some of these parsons' lives! Well, to make a long story short, my father died when I was twenty-three, and I was left penniless and homeless."

"My sister in Liverpool said I must come to her till I got some sort of employment. Now romance steps in. In spite of my training, and discipline and poverty, I was a bright pretty girl then. I thoroughly believed in my father's steadfast creed that all things worked together for good to those who love God, and that belief served to keep my head above water. Whilst the contents of the Parsonage were being sold, our Squire's wife, Lady Mary Crosby, took pity on me, and insisted that I should come up to the Hall till things were settled. It was there I met my husband. He was Lady Mary's nephew and young and handsome: there were no other girls for him to take notice of, and we fell headlong in love with each other. Lady Mary treated it as a boy and girl flirtation; she never gave Alfred credit for anything serious. When I eventually went to my sister, I considered myself engaged to him. She was horrified. Everyone at the Hall had always been considered 'worldly'; and she tried to show me how impossible and wicked such a union would be. But they say a worm will turn at last. I had had enough of the hard penurious life of the godly. I was young, and felt the blood rising and beating in my veins. Before me was a life of pleasure and luxury. I looked at my sister with her thin cheeks and prematurely wrinkled face, I noted her children, seven in number, were all growing up, and requiring food and clothing which could not be given them. I saw her husband too weak in body to be strong in soul. His preaching was a failure: He was a dispirited disappointed man; an irritable husband and father, a gloomy narrow-minded parson. Oh, I know you think me hard, but looking back, I don't wonder that my youth rebelled against such a fate as my sister's! I felt secure of Alfred's affection, and determined to stick to him. To make a long story short, we wrote to each other and in spite of much opposition from both his family and mine, we finally married, and I have not regretted doing so!"

There was something almost defiant in Mrs. Burke's tone. Rowena was deeply interested.

"How well I seem to see it all!" she said. "But did you discard religion as an old glove when you married?"

"I did. I was nothing, if not sincere in those days. I knew my husband was out to enjoy life, and I meant to enjoy it with him. It had to be one thing or the other with me. I felt that a certain part of me had always been starved, my sister assuring me that it was the worst part of me. But I meant to have my fill of what the world could give me. I threw my ultra-fastidious conscience to the winds. I determined to live as the greater part of the young world lives, for pleasure and amusement, and I have done so ever since. My motto is to have a good time and to help everyone else to have the same."

"And when your husband died?"

"Ah, don't remind me of the black blots in my life! I have had two. I lost our darling little only child at two years old, and then my husband, after only five years of happy married life. He was killed out hunting. But these times come to us all. I forget them or try to do so."

Rowena remembered that only two years previously she had been living the same life as Mrs. Burke; and felt that she could not judge her.

There was a little silence, then Mrs. Burke said with an effort:

"They say every one has a skeleton in the cupboard. Do you know what mine is? It's a certain verse from the Bible that haunts me, and turns up at times to disturb my tranquillity. You see I know my Bible well. We were too much nourished on it ever to forget it, and the verse was a favourite one of my father's; he used to preach on it:

"'Cast not away therefore your confidence which hath great
recompense of reward!'"

"That comes up at intervals. Of course I have cast my confidence away. I have none in God or Heaven or in any of the unseen things which good people say we ought to have even down here. I have made my choice and must abide by it. There now! To no living being have I ever confessed so much before. What is it about you that makes me talk so?"

"I don't know," said Rowena with her sunshiny smile, "but I know now why you have attracted me. I felt there was something beautiful deep down out of reach."

"Beautiful! Deep down! What do you mean? Haven't I just shown you, as parsons would say, the depravity of the human heart?"

Rowena did not speak for a moment; she was looking away dreamily as if into space. They were pacing up and down an old box-bordered walk, and now for a moment paused at the end of it. The sun was sinking slowly behind a belt of pines silhouetted against the line of the blue distant hills.

"I remember about a year ago," said Rowena slowly, "talking to my brother's Scotch gardener about a certain part of the shrubbery where things grew in the most wonderful thriving way. He said that long ago that bit of ground had been a vegetable plot, and had been well worked. Later on a summer-house had been built upon it, then it had fallen into ruins and the shrubbery planted. He said that deep down under the rubbish cleared away of the summer-house, there was real good soil, and it was making itself felt in spite of the time that had elapsed since it had been worked."

"Now what on earth are you doing? Giving me a parable to read. There's no good soil left in my soul, let me tell you! Come along in, and don't for goodness' sake set my skeleton walking! He is shut up and locked away as a rule."

Rowena said no more.

When "good night" was being said, Mrs. Burke remarked with her jolly laugh:

"One day I shall demand an account of your depths, and you will have to give it to me. But I warn you in my house, you will have to frivol whether you like it or not."

[CHAPTER III]

CHASING SHADOWS

"Heart buried in the rubbish of the world—
The world—that gulf of Souls—immortal Souls."
Young.

IT was a strange life into which Rowena had slipped. Anyone else who held the same views that she did would have found it impossible. But Rowena had always a wonderful adaptability to her circumstances. And she had a supreme faith and hope in the best of people, which is often hidden from those who only look on the surface. Those in her company were strangely conscious of this. They knew that if she did not agree with them, she would not harshly judge them, and that she always believed in the best of them, not the worst. Vi and Di in their reckless youth were inclined to look upon her with hostility at first. Before long she was in their full confidence. Vi confided in her continual and varied love affairs, Di, confessed her many debts and her subterfuges for escaping payment. They turned to her when Mrs. Burke did not please them. More than once she had to act as peacemaker, for she soon discovered that there were certain days and occasions when Mrs. Burke's spirits collapsed, and she was irritable and captious with all around her.

Rowena tackled her sheaves of unanswered letters, and all her business with indomitable patience. As a rule she never left the library from breakfast to luncheon. In the afternoons she was at Mrs. Burke's disposal, and that lady had generally need of her, but her Sundays were her own. Rowena appeared at meal times, but often in the afternoons would take some biscuits in her pocket, and her small tea kettle, and would go out into the woods with her books, have her tea there, and not come in till evening service. She rarely missed the morning and evening services in the little country church. In the morning, she took a class at the Sunday School. Her Sundays refreshed and strengthened her for the week. Minley Court had not a restful atmosphere.

There was a continual stream of visitors, and perpetual entertainments for them.

There were a certain number of steady Bridge players, but Mrs. Burke herself would not play much.

"I hate sitting still," she said. "I like to be on the move."

There were moonlight picnics on the river, and at the sea; there were tournaments of croquet, tennis, bowls, and archery, and any other game that was in vogue. There were impromptu plays and charades, and any amount of childish games and romps in which the elders took part quite as enthusiastically as the younger ones. Rowena played accompaniments, organized the games, looked after the comfort of all, and was her easy humorous self amongst a set of people whom she might have condemned and despised. She was soon a general favourite. One poor lady's maid departed suddenly owing to the death of her mother. Rowena met the tearful lady in the corridor bewailing her fate, and went straight into her room, and helped her dress for dinner, even dressing her hair. It was little acts like this that made her popular, and somehow or other Rowena got many an opportunity, which she was eager to seize, of a word upon the human world, and upon the high destiny of each soul that is born.

She never preached; she simply dropped a seed here, and a seed there; and prayed that it might be nurtured and brought to fruitfulness. And as she never spoke of these things in public, the guests were willing to talk to her in the privacy of their bedrooms, or when taking a solitary walk with her. They told her frankly of their troubles and difficulties, and she told them frankly of an infallible remedy for all.

One girl who was thinking of taking up the stage as a profession said to Rowena after they had had a long serious talk together in her bedroom one evening: "You know I've never heard of these things. I've never come across good people. They always keep away from us, and I get my ideas of religion through the Churches which I hardly ever attend. And it never entered my head that I, as an individual unit, shall be held responsible for my influence and life. I don't like the idea at all; but somehow you have made me believe in it. It's most upsetting."

She left after a week's visit, but persisted in starting a correspondence with Rowena, and some time later, told her she was giving up the idea of the stage, as she did not think it would be satisfying.

One day Mrs. Burke and Rowena were driving out when they met the rector and his daughter Maude. He wanted to speak to Mrs. Burke about some parochial matter, and whilst he was speaking to her, Rowena and Maude chatted together. The girl was devoted to Rowena, and carried on a very animated conversation with her. Mrs. Burke glanced at her in surprise, and suddenly turned to her and asked her to come to tennis the following afternoon.

After a little hesitation on the part of her father the invitation was accepted, and they drove on.

"Why that girl is quite pretty," Mrs. Burke said. "I thought she was a little stiff prig. I have only seen her in church, and hurrying in and out of the cottages. I wonder if I should be allowed to give her a good time? Remembering my own poverty-stricken youth, I always pity these parsons' daughters."

"Maude is a very happy girl," said Rowena; "and you can't look upon her father as a tyrant. He gives her all the pleasures he can."

Mrs. Burke nodded her head knowingly:

"We'll see. I shall cultivate her acquaintance."

"Don't bewitch her," Rowena said, laughing: "don't try to make her discontented with her lot."

"Leave me alone, and don't spoil sport."

Rowena had reason to fear Mrs. Burke's influence. She had a way with her of captivating all young girls, and Maude fell an easy prey to her. When she went home from the tennis party, she told her father that Mrs. Burke had been adorable to her, and wanted her to come to dine the following Saturday, when she would have a house-party. "Do let me go, Dad. You like Miss Arbuthnot and she will be there."

"No, my child, not on Saturday. I know the style of Mrs. Burke's week-end parties, and don't want a daughter of mine mixed up in them."

"Oh, I shall be so disappointed. You might let me this once."

The Rector was immovable, and for the first time his bright little daughter left his study with a cloud upon her face, and a feeling of resentment in her heart against her father's will.

Rowena watched with anxiety Mrs. Burke's efforts to capture the girl's affection. She saw how much she loved her popularity, and how she tried to attract the young. Always fearless, Rowena spoke to her one day about it: "Do you really think you will put fresh happiness into Maude's life by making her discontented with her home, and giving her a taste for things out of her sphere?"

"I love to see the young thoughtless. They ought to be."

"It's the crackling of the thorns under the pot," said Rowena. "I often wonder how you can keep it up; you are worthy of higher things!"

"Stuff! Don't lecture me! My life is my own. If I fritter it away, I have only myself to blame."

She continued to waylay Maude. She sent her presents, she took her drives, and the girl's head was becoming turned. Then Rowena determined to interfere. She met Maude in the village one day, on her way to visit a sick woman at a distant farm, and she volunteered to accompany her.

Maude was delighted, but her conversation was entirely upon Minley Court. She asked Rowena who the next guests were going to be, what entertainments were going to be given to them, and said in her enthusiastic way:

"I do think Mrs. Burke so delightful, she's so unselfish, always trying to make people happy! I don't know why Dad does not like her. I suppose it is because she comes to church so seldom. I envy you living with her, the whole house is so jolly, every one seems so happy!"

"My dear child, if you were to ask my opinion, I should say the atmosphere at the Rectory was far happier. Clowns laugh, you know, with breaking hearts. Laughter and noise are no true test of happiness. Don't barter away your substance for a shadow, Maude. Minley Court is a place of shadows and unrealities of paint and camouflage, and Mrs. Burke, for all her jolly gaiety, would give a good deal I believe to have your father's outlook instead of her own. You see I am taking you into my confidence when I talk like this. I am very fond of Mrs. Burke and I'm deeply sorry for her. For she is chasing shadows, and trying to persuade herself that they are the substance."

"She had an unhappy girlhood," said Maude, unconvinced. "She told me all about it."

"Well, you haven't had that, have you?"

"No—no—but sometimes—lately—I feel as if Father is rather strict about some things."

"Of course you would think so, and being much at Minley Court will make you think so—"

"Now, Miss Arbuthnot, you speak as if you disapprove of Minley Court, and yet you are there yourself in the middle of it all, and you seem almost the centre of it. You laugh and talk with every one and seem quite fond of them. Why should it be good for you to be there and bad for me?"

Maude ended her speech by blushing hotly, afraid that she had been too outspoken, but Rowena smiled upon her reassuringly.

"I dare say I may seem inconsistent to you, but I am there for a purpose—and I want to help Mrs. Burke all I can. I know her better than you do, and know that her empty forlorn time will come, when she will see that this time has been all froth and bubble. I want to be with her then, for she will need help. And I do want you not to make the mistake she did when she was a young girl. She threw away her confidence—she knew she did it—she threw away all her hopes and ideals, for the kind of life she is leading now. You can't have both, Maude dear, and what you throw away is sometimes very difficult to get back again. Don't you do as she did, for those who are with her most, know she isn't a happy woman. And I shall never rest till I see her with her discarded treasures once again."

Maude was visibly impressed. She slipped her hand into Rowena's, and squeezed it.

"You are so good. I oughtn't to have spoken so. I see that people like you, and of course you do them good, just as you do me. I always want to be good after leaving you."

"My dear Maude, don't set me up on a pedestal. Do you know that two years ago I was a godless heathen? and then gradually I began to see beauty in things I had scorned before. I don't know how I did it, but I was gently and surely drawn into quite another environment. It sounds mystical, doesn't it? I came to see what a wonderful creed we have as Christians, and I came to know the Founder of our creed. You have grown up in that atmosphere. Don't try to leave it, I beseech you. Now I'm not going to preach any more, tell me about this sick woman."

After this little talk, Maude's wave of discontent vanished. She did not very often come up to the Court, and when she did, she saw things at a truer value.

The summer wore away. Mrs. Burke's liking for Rowena did not lessen, and she more than once had serious talks with her. If Rowena expressed disapproval of certain things, she was not angry with her, only pursued her way, laughing at her "squeamishness." But occasionally she modified her schemes to Rowena's requirements.

One afternoon in late September, she and Rowena were enjoying their tea together over a good fire in the big drawing-room. The last of her guests had left the house about an hour before, and Mrs. Burke leant back in her comfortable easy-chair with a sense of relief.

"The last of my visitors," she said. "I shall have a quiet week or two, before we move up to town. I hate a winter in the country, but I always come down here for Christmas. It seems the thing to do."

"I am sure that reason does not weigh with you," said Rowena laughing.

"No, perhaps it does not. I hate conventions."

"Will you want me to come up to town with you?"

"Why, of course I do. How should I get on without you?"

"I could stay down here and caretake for you, and do most of your correspondence without you. You leave me such a free and independent hand in your affairs, that I believe I could carry on, with an occasional inquiry by post."

"You are my companion as well as my secretary. Of course I shall want you in town. Don't tell me you would rather vegetate down here, instead of being in the middle of it all."

"Oh, I would much rather stay here," said Rowena frankly; "but of course I shall be ready to accompany you."

"You are an extraordinary creature—a regular hermit; you seem to care for nothing. And as to money! well, it is a good thing you are not wealthy. It would be wasted upon you."

"Oh would it? I don't think so."

Rowena's expressive eyes glowed as she gazed into the fire.

"Wealth can do so much—I have your command laid upon me that I am not to relieve any of the appeals that come to you by post. I know you have your charity list and it is a big one, but you don't know how I ache sometimes to slip a pound note into an envelope and send it off. There are so many private cases of want and misery that never come before the public at all, and therefore never get relieved."

"It's the worst class that begs through the post," said Mrs. Burke indifferently.

"Some are humbugs, of course; but I would have a shot or two. I often think of your early days. They have a strange fascination for me. If I were you, I think I would go round to the country villages and ferret out for myself some of the real deserving cases amongst the poor clergy."

Mrs. Burke looked at her meditatively.

"There might be some sense in that," she said, then added hurriedly, "but you would want a millionaire's income to give away in that style."

"No," said Rowena, still gazing dreamily before her, "you would only have to set apart a few hundreds for the purpose. You could do a lot, say, if you were to spare £500 out of your income for the poor clergy every year; you would never miss it. Think what it would do for them."

"It would be but a drop in the ocean," said Mrs. Burke. "Take up Crockford's, and see the incomes of the married clergy. I always do say it is iniquitous! I know my father was heavily in debt all his life, and though he could not clothe and feed his family in a decent manner, he was supposed to relieve all the bad cases of poverty in his parish, and keep a rotten old dilapidated church in perfect repair. If you have no rich people in your parish, and the Squire is close fisted, all the expenses fall on the poor parson's shoulders. But don't let us talk of such dismal subjects. I did not tell you that I heard from my sister yesterday. I think we have not written to each other for five years. Her husband is ill, and of course wants to be nursed and nourished and sent to a warmer clime the doctors say. It's one of his lungs. She must be pretty low down to turn to me. There was a time when she refused to touch a farthing of my money."

"Poor thing! How awful not to be able to do what is best for him."

"She shouldn't have married a poor curate. I suppose I shall have to send her a cheque. You must see to it for me. I am wondering what she will do, whether she will take him away herself. There is one blessing, all her children are grown-up and doing for themselves I believe. But she seems to have some of her grandchildren dependent on her. Talks of her darling Nester's boy and girls, who are such a comfort to her. I believe Nester was the girl who married a very hard-worked doctor, and he and she both succumbed to some epidemic raging round them. I did hear about it. Send a cheque for a hundred pounds. That will help."

"I will do it to-morrow morning."

"You look as pleased as if you are going to have it for yourself. Don't you think all my charity cheques will go on the credit side of my life's history? I may be frivolous, but I do feed the hungry and clothe the naked—sometimes."

"Yes, you do," said Rowena gravely.

"I know you size me up in your own mind and judge me. Not in the same pharisaical manner as my sister judges me! My heart prompts me to tell her to send along these grandchildren of hers, and I'll look after them whilst she goes away with her husband. But she would only snub me, and say she wouldn't have them contaminated by my society. Do you think I would do them harm? I know you thought I was spoiling little Maude Waring."

"I wish you would let me go and pay them a visit," said Rowena suddenly. "A hundred pounds will not help them much at a time like this. I could find out just how things were, and then we would talk it over together. If your sister will let you help her, you would like to do it I expect."

"She must be quite elderly by this time," said Mrs. Burke musingly; "she is five years older than I am. Oh, I can't spare you at present. Not till we are thoroughly settled down in town."

Rowena said no more. She felt a strange interest in this sister of Mrs. Burke's, and longed that the two sisters should come closer together.

They went up to town, and some very busy crowded weeks followed. From the first Rowena kept out of the incessant round of gaiety. Mrs. Burke turned night into day, and thought nothing of attending three or four reception and supper parties the same night, sometimes cramming in a theatre as well. To these Rowena did not go. She helped Mrs. Burke when she entertained at home; beyond that she begged to be excused. There were charity entertainments, and bazaars in the afternoon, to which she was dragged. People used Mrs. Burke's house like an hotel, but she never complained; and the younger and giddier the company was, the better she enjoyed herself.

The cheque was sent off to her sister, and Mrs. Burke received a letter of grateful thanks; but it was not till a month later that she allowed Rowena to go up north, and see what further help was required.

She came back and gave Mrs. Burke her report. "I was only just in time to see your sister. What a sweet woman she is!"

"She used to be pretty. I suppose she slanged me pretty thoroughly."

"May I be quite frank and tell you her attitude towards you?"

"Oh yes—don't spare my feelings. I have a thick skin and can bear it."

"She said she realized that she had been hard towards you in those early days; but now that you were getting on in years, she felt sure you must be becoming tired of a life of pleasure, and she would like to be friends with you."

"Afraid of losing my money should I die!" snapped Mrs. Burke. "I am much obliged to her. I hope you stood up for me."

Rowena laughed. "I told her how good you were to me and everybody, and then we talked about the grandchildren. She is taking her husband to Bournemouth. It is too late to save his life I am afraid. He has not the strength for a journey abroad even if the means were forthcoming. She has a daughter living at home now. She is a governess, but is out of a situation and has been helping her mother since her father has been so ill. The grandchildren consist of two girls and a boy. The boy is a handsome little fellow of fifteen, the girls are sixteen and twelve. They ought to be all at school. The elder girl teaches the younger one, and the boy goes to the Grammar School. She is leaving them for the present at home with her daughter. I think you would lose your heart to the trio, they are so bright and so good-looking, but are delicate—want of good food I should say."

"Did you suggest they should come to me?"

"No. How could you have them here in London? I said something about the holidays, but you must write to your sister about it."

"We'll have them down for Christmas, and give them a good time. I'll write at once, and if the boy is worth placing at a good school, I'll do it."

"That will be splendid. Oh dear, I do envy you your opportunities!"

"It is you pegging away at me, that makes me seize them." And it was true. Slowly, but surely Mrs. Burke was finding out the delights of sharing some of her wealth with those in need. Before Rowena had come, she made her banker her almoner; now she began to take interest in many individual cases, whom Rowena discovered. Sometimes when her spirits flagged, she would say: "I dare say I shall end my days in some secluded country cottage; I am sure you will gradually get all my wealth from me for your 'deserving poor'!"

And Rowena would reply with a glow in her eyes, "You might do many worse things than that."

[CHAPTER IV]

AN OLD FRIEND

"And I perceived no touch of change"
. . . . . . . .
"But found him all in all the same."
Tennyson.

"MY dear girl, you must come with me to Lady Graeme's At Home this afternoon."

"Oh, why?" asked Rowena, looking up from her desk with a wrinkle between her brows.

"Well, she made a special point of your accompanying me. She lost her heart to you the other afternoon when she was here. Now I let you off a good many places, but not this one. Will you be ready about half-past four?"

"If you wish."

And so it came to pass that Rowena found herself, on a foggy November afternoon, in a crowded drawing-room in Palace Gate. She knew many of the young people assembled there, for Lady Graeme, like Mrs. Burke, though old herself, loved to surround herself with the young. It was not a very staid gathering. There was a distinctly rowdy element in it. Every one smoked, and voices were loud and voluble. Rowena got as near the door as she could. She hoped she could slip out into an emptier ante-room, but first one and then another detained her. Lady Graeme's second son, Alan by name, was a special crony of hers. He had stayed at Minley Court on several occasions, and was a fresh frank young fellow in the Scots Guards. He now slipped into a seat close to her.

"Thanks be, that you are here, at any rate," he said. "I do loathe the mater's crushes so. I hardly see you anywhere in town. Don't you go about?"

"I'm not a gadder by choice," said Rowena cheerfully.

"You don't look it! Did you ever see such a set of women as are here this afternoon? I'm getting fed up with it. I should like to go off game hunting in Somaliland or in the Rockies."

"Why don't you do it when you get your leave? I agree with you, one does get fed up with all this. So much energy wasted."

"Oh, I know what you think of us. You and I have had some straight talks. Why don't you sober your giddy old friend over there. My word! she might be just eighteen!"

Mrs. Burke was the centre of a noisy group—the other end of the room. One of the men was taking off a well-known parliamentary character, and his audience was convulsed with laughter.

Rowena looked across at her and sighed; then she turned to her young companion and smiled.

"Well, you see what life does to those who grow old in this atmosphere! Get your own soul into fresher and clearer air, and do something before you die. Isn't it Young that says:

"Time wasted is existence—us'd is life."

"You ought to have lived in the mediæval days," laughed young Alan. "How you would have buckled on your man's sword and thrust him forth! Do you seriously think running down a tiger is more soul inspiring than dancing the Tango?"

"Your soul would get a chance of breathing. Life without a pause is so paralysing."

"We always get into metaphysics—you and I! Hulloo, here is Macdonald by all that's wonderful! The mater has beguiled him here under false pretences; he'll never stand this. Take a good look at him. He saved my life out in France—ought to have got a V.C. for it. He's a cousin of ours."

Rowena took one look at the tall figure coming in at the door, and a faint flush rose to her cheeks, a breath of Highland air seemed to accompany him. He looked irreproachable in his London clothes, and yet there was some indescribable stamp about him that set him apart from the men around him.

"Let me introduce him," said her young companion.

"But I know him," said Rowena.

Alan Graeme started forward and shook hands warmly with the General.

"Awfully good of you to come! The mater's just gone into the tea room; here's some one who knows you."

General Macdonald met Rowena's bright friendly eyes, with grave pleasure in his own.

He held out his hand to her.

"It seems a long time since we met," he said. "I have brought Mysie to town for a week or two."

Alan was seized hold of by a young girl in a startling dress of black and white striped velvet, very open at the neck and back; very short in the skirt.

"Oh, you slacker!" she exclaimed, putting her hand on his shoulder. "Don't you know that two lady loves await you in that further corner. They have sent me to fetch you. You promised to sing for one, and—"

They moved off.

General Macdonald's look of disgust made Rowena smile.

"Are you at home in this company?" he asked abruptly; "it somehow does not seem to fit you."

Then before she had time to reply he went on:

"I am told I am old-fashioned and censorious; but a scene like this repels me. Are these the mothers of our future generation? May God help me to keep Mysie out of fashionable society."

"Amen," breathed Rowena.

"Give me news of the Highlands," she said.

He did not respond, but looked at her in puzzled bewilderment.

"Do you often attend these functions? I feel like a fish out of water. Is there nowhere we can get away from this smoke and heat? I came to see my cousin."

"Shall we go into the tea room? I believe she is there." But the tea room was overcrowded, and they stood for a moment in the corridor outside. He told her he had brought Mysie up for a fortnight and they were staying with an old cousin of his in Eton Place. Then he asked her about herself, and Rowena pointed out Mrs. Burke to him.

"I live with her, as a companion-secretary."

General Macdonald looked at Mrs. Burke with her golden wig and rather loud style of dress. He noted the noisy circle in which she was, and he said shortly and sternly, "I am sorry to hear it."

Rowena's eyes first twinkled, then softened:

"I do like you," she said audaciously, "when you act the stern friend."

He did not smile.

"Mysie will be wild to get hold of you. Can you come round and see us?"

"I think I might perhaps to-morrow, darling Mysie! I expect she is grown."

He was silent. Rowena was conscious that she was the subject of his close scrutiny.

"You have been through trouble since we met. I did not know your address or would have written you a line of sympathy. Your brother was a great friend of mine."

"I know. Thank you. My sister-in-law has gone to live with her mother, so I am on my own."

"And you can do no better than this?"

"You are judging me hardly."

Rowena's tone was rather proud, though her heart was beating and her pulses throbbing strangely. She rather resented the effect that this tall grave friend of hers had upon her.

He smiled, and his smile warmed her heart.

"Perhaps I am. You must tell me all about yourself."

At this moment Lady Graeme came up, and whilst she was greeting her cousin, Mrs. Burke seized hold of Rowena.

"I am off. Come along. I have promised to go to the Ford Curries. If you don't want to come with me, you can go home."

So Rowena left the house with her, and when she got home felt strangely dispirited.

"He will never understand. How can I explain? How can I tell him that I am trying to dig out from the mud a treasure which has been lost. It's like the woman in the Bible. But he only sees the racket and the dust: he doesn't know the silver bit is there."

The next day she asked permission from Mrs. Burke for an afternoon to herself, and set off for Eton Place.

She was shown upstairs into a rather gloomy drawing-room, but in a moment Mysie flashed into the room, and in her old impulsive way flung herself upon her.

"Oh, you darling! I can't believe it's you. I yelled when Dad told me, and Cousin Bel asked if I was trying to do the Highland Fling. Cousin Bel has a cold and is in bed, and Dad and I sit downstairs in the smoking-room. There's no fire up here. Come along down."

Rowena found that Mysie was growing into a very handsome girl. She had developed in many ways, and it was pretty to see her with her father; there was absolute confidence and understanding between them.

"He has got younger, and she has got older," was Rowena's conviction. She took Rowena downstairs, and General Macdonald rose to greet her with a bright smile of welcome.

He pulled an easy-chair before the fire for her, and Mysie squatted down on the hearthrug and leant her brown curly head against her knees.

"Isn't this comfy, just us three! Dad and I often wanted you when the days got dark after you left us. And do you know I've got a new name for you. I used to call you the prisoner—now I call you Miss Mignon. I learn French now, so I know a lot of fresh words!"

Rowena laughed.

"Oh, Flora, it is nice to hear you talk again! Tell me all you have been doing."

Mysie was only too delighted to chatter away. She appealed to her father very often, and he sat for the most part listening to his small daughter, but sometimes putting in a word himself.

"Dad says you live with an old lady now. Couldn't you leave her, and come and stay with us for a nice long visit? Dad and I thought you were still in India; we would have come to see you long ago, wouldn't we, Dad, if we had known you were in London."

"I'm sorry to tell you that young Macintosh is leaving us," said General Macdonald. "He has been offered a Church in Edinburgh. That is one of the causes which has brought us to town. We are going to try another governess, but we have decided that she must be quite old; somebody who will be content to sit at home over the schoolroom fire whilst Mysie and I tramp the country together."

"I hope you will find her," said Rowena gaily. "But I am sorry the Macintoshes are leaving. I liked them so much."

Then she turned to General Macdonald.

"Are you more at home now? Perhaps you have finished your work?"

"It finished me unfortunately. I had a breakdown, and was ordered back to my native air. A quiet life is the only thing I'm fit for."

"Oh, I'm sorry, and yet I know Mysie must be glad—and your tenants!"

"That's a fact!" said Mysie, nodding her head.

"And how are the Kelpies and the fairies?" Rowena inquired.

Mysie began to tell her a fresh story she had heard from an old Highland woman of the fairies' existence.

"How is your Highland book?" asked General Macdonald.

"Oh," said Rowena with a little sigh, "I have never got any forrarder. I took it out to India with me, meaning to complete it there; but somehow I couldn't get on with it. The atmosphere was lacking, and then poor Ted died, and I haven't had the heart to touch it since."

"You must finish it."

"Perhaps I will. You have stirred me up afresh."

Presently Mysie slipped away.

"I'm going to hurry up tea," she said importantly. "Dad and I think Cousin Bel's old servants all go to bed in the afternoon. None of them can be found anywhere till tea-time, and sometimes we don't have it till half-past five!"

When she had gone, General Macdonald turned to Rowena. "Why did you not answer that letter of mine?"

"What letter? I remember your saying just before I left Abertarlie, that you would either come over again, or write, but you did neither."

"I most certainly wrote. Did you never receive it?"

He got up from his chair and paced the floor in agitation, and Rowena felt breathless, as if she were on the point of a crisis in her life.

"Never. Letters sometimes go astray, and I am afraid poor Sandy was addicted to the bottle."

"I wrote, and took it for granted from your silence that—"

He broke off suddenly, and looked at her strangely. "Don't think me interfering. I can't beat about the bush. But I cannot bear to think of you with that painted woman and in her noisy set. I know her well by name. My young friend Graeme has talked of her. If you value the things you once did, how can you live with her? I do ask you as a personal favour to leave her."

Rowena was astounded and dismayed by this sudden turn to their talk. She was proud, and she seemed to General Macdonald to stiffen from head to foot.

"I have my reasons for staying with her," she said coldly. "You may doubt and misunderstand my motives, but at present I have no intention of changing my life."

"I am sorry," he said simply, and at this unfortunate juncture Mysie danced back into the room.

"Tea is coming. I coaxed and coaxed old stiff Mary till she said she would bring it at once. And I'm going to pour out, Dad, and we can just imagine we are home in Abertarlie."

But conversation was dead. Mysie chattered away apparently unconscious of the effort it was to her elders to respond to her. And very soon Rowena rose to go. She felt bitterly hurt by General Macdonald's words, and was not inclined to justify herself in his eyes.

As she walked home alone, she said to herself: "Oh what a touchy fool I am! He saw me at that rowdy party, and did not know it was quite an exception, my being there. He thought it was my habit, my life! How can I tell him why I'm not going to leave Mrs. Burke yet! I hardly dare put it into words, but I've prayed so hard, that I will not despair. No, if he misjudges me he must. Oh, how I wish I knew what was in that letter! In any case he is cautious, and canny like a Scot! I hate his cold calculating mood. I almost feel as if I never want to see him again!"

But if Rowena persuaded herself that she did not want to see him again, he most certainly wanted to see her. For the next morning at twelve o'clock he called at the house and asked for her. Mrs. Burke had not left her room yet, but Rowena was hard at work in the library. She gave a little sigh when she heard who was in the drawing-room waiting to see her. She had had a sleepless night, wondering about the contents of the missing letter, regretting the way she had spoken to her old friend, turning over in her own mind if she had been right or wrong in electing to live with Mrs. Burke, and now hardly knowing in what frame of mind to meet him.

But the moment she entered the room, General Macdonald advanced in his most courteous and kindly manner.

"I have come round to apologize for the way I spoke to you yesterday afternoon. I had no right to dictate to you as to your choice in life. May I say in extenuation, it was only my extreme interest in you, my regard for your real welfare that made me so anxious and captious about your present surroundings."

Then Rowena smiled her old sunny smile.

"You treated me as a true friend should. I felt sorry that I had not an explanation I could give you. Perhaps one day I may be able to vindicate myself."

"Meanwhile, whilst we are in town will you give me the benefit of your counsel and advice? My cousin is old. She says, 'Send the child to school.' I tried that, as you know, with disastrous results. Could you—is it too much to ask of you? Could you interview some of these governesses for me? A man is at a disadvantage. I had one afternoon of it last week, and I can tell you I have been in tight corners in my life, and have had to face a good deal, but nothing equal to the horrors of that room behind the registry office, when one undesirable young woman appeared after the other in quick succession, and they all wanted so desperately to come!"

Rowena laughed outright. She pictured the scene.

"You poor man! Of course I will help you if I can. I wish I knew of some one suitable. I wonder—"

She stopped short. The remembrance of her visit to the North came to her.

"It is only a chance, but I do know of a nice woman—a governess. She is a niece of Mrs. Burke's."

"Oh, I hardly think she would suit me," said General Macdonald hastily.

Rowena smiled. "Please don't be so prejudiced. Mrs. Burke's father was a very saintly clergyman. Her sister is a most sweet woman, wife of a hard-worked vicar in Durham, and this woman is her daughter. She has the same sweet face and manners as her mother, but with more character I should say. She is at present looking after her nephew and niece, but she wants a situation as governess. She is certificated."

"Miss Falconer had very sweet manners."

"She is as different to Miss Falconer as chalk is to cheese. She is a real good woman. I know a genuine person when I see her. Couldn't you stop in Durham and interview her, on your return to Scotland? Let me write to her first."

"I wanted to have it all settled up before we leave."

"Well, if you would rather I went to a Registry for you, I will do so."

"Thank you very much. What do you think of Mysie?"

"She has grown and developed wonderfully."

"She is most intelligent—able to talk with me on any subject, and a most interesting companion. But she has a very strong will of her own."

"Like her father," said Rowena mischievously.

"Yes, but women are not required to have as strong wills as men."

"Oh, you old-fashioned person! If a strong will is a good thing why should we not share it? A weak woman very often makes a bad man! Don't try to eradicate the strength in Mysie's character."

"I don't agree with you. The weakness in woman awakens all the chivalry in man's nature. These strong-minded females are abhorrent to me. One of these would-be teachers of my child asked me if I did not believe in the emancipation of the female sex—now what did she mean by that? Mere clap-trap or real immorality!"

Then he checked himself.

"We won't discuss these questions. You and I always slipped into an argument, didn't we, in the old days? I shall be deeply grateful if you can help me. Mysie is to me now a cherished possession and I always consider I have to thank you for bringing me to my senses about her. Now before I go, we propose paying a visit to the Zoo to-morrow afternoon. Could you come with us?"

"I am afraid not," said Rowena regretfully. "It is Mrs. Burke's 'At Home' day to-morrow, and I must be here to help her."

"Mysie will be bitterly disappointed. Where do you go on Sunday?"

Rowena mentioned a certain Church not very far off.

"Canon Villars is a most earnest preacher," she said. "Have you ever heard him?"

"No, I'll bring Mysie round there!"

He got up to go.

"I must not transgress again; but if only you were with one of these philanthropic useful women of the day, how much happier you would be."

"You don't know Mrs. Burke," Rowena said gravely. "You only judge by outer appearances."

He looked at her with a flicker of a smile in his eyes.

"A tree is known by its fruits."

"Good-bye," said Rowena very sweetly. "I will let you have the last word, though it is a woman's prerogative."

At lunch, she told Mrs. Burke about the General's visit, and to her surprise that lady became quite enthusiastic.

"We'll send for Marion at once. I'll pay her fare! She can easily leave those young people for a day or two. It is too great a chance for her to miss. I should like to help her, poor thing, and that handsome General Macdonald must be a nice man to deal with. Let us ask him to dinner; we must get her here first. Nothing like striking whilst the iron is hot. Write directly after lunch, will you, and you had better enclose a cheque for travelling expenses. Don't you think you had better wire?"

"No," said Rowena, laughing, "the poor creature would be thoroughly mystified. You would like it all settled up by this time to-morrow now, wouldn't you?"

"You know how I hate to let the grass grow under my feet."

Rowena wrote the letter. She had been much impressed by Marion's personality and capability, and felt sure that if she agreed to go to Abertarlie, she would not be a failure there. "And oh," she thought with a little grimace of disgust at her own longing for the Highlands, "why did he not offer me the job, instead of wishing to relegate me to these useful philanthropical ladies of his acquaintance!"

[CHAPTER V]

A SATISFACTORY INTERVIEW

"The character of a generation is moulded by personal character."
Westcott.

ON the following Sunday Rowena met Mysie and her father at the doors of the church which she attended. It was a quiet old-fashioned service, and the congregation was not a fashionable one, but the preacher had an arresting, quickening power of delivery, and he took the Bible alone for his authority.

General Macdonald said when he came out:

"I don't as a rule feel at home in London churches, but that man has the power of raising one from earth altogether."

"Oh, Dad!" expostulated Mysie. "I didn't feel that. I felt I was wedged between the two people I love best in the world, and I longed to hug you both!"

Rowena laughed at Mysie, but replied to the General:

"Yes, Canon Villars always takes me right away with him. He is a wonderful mixture of practical common sense and mysticism."

"And do you never get your—your friend to come and hear him?"

"Once I did."

A shadow came over Rowena's face as she spoke. She had taken Mrs. Burke there soon after they came to town, and the Canon had preached a very scathing sermon on worldliness, and the unprofitableness of it. Mrs. Burke had come away furiously indignant with him, and had refused to set her foot inside the door ever again.

"Didn't she profit by it?"

"I am afraid not. His text was, 'Hear now then, thou that art given to pleasures,' and he was very severe and convincing. But with some people, most I should think, it is absolutely useless to tell them they should give up all that they have; empty their hearts, before they know how to fill them! Love draws, severity drives!"

"I don't quite agree," said General Macdonald. "In these days there is too much laxity and forbearance with sin. But you must remember I have centuries of Scotch training behind me."

"But in vulgar words, the 'proof of the pudding is in the eating.' That sermon has kept Mrs. Burke from going to church ever since she heard it."

"I wish you would leave her," said the General emphatically.

Rowena shook her head and changed the subject.

She began to tell him of Mrs. Burke's niece, and of the letters that had been sent to her, and asked him if he would be willing to interview her, if she would be able to come to town.

"And if Mrs. Burke asks you to dinner to meet her, will you come? I hope you will."

"If I can meet her in a quiet way I shall be glad to do so."

"Now that is nice and friendly of you. I assure you that you will not be shocked in any way."

Then with a little laugh she added:

"We want to see some good people sometimes, you know. They bring a different atmosphere with them."

They took a turn together in the Park before Rowena went home. As they parted he said:

"I hope you have a quiet Sunday. But it seems to be the fashion to receive visitors all the afternoon. Even my old cousin does it."

"You will have to run away as I do if you want to be quiet," said Rowena cheerfully.

She walked home with a little amusement as well as pity at the General's inadaptability to his circumstances. "He is a man in one groove," she said to herself. "I am sure he is much concerned at my atmosphere surroundings; but after all, my business is not his, and he has no right to try to manage my life."

The next day Mrs. Burke heard from her niece. "She is actually coming," she told Rowena, "but only for a couple of nights, as she is in charge whilst her mother is away. My dear, I am frightened of her, and feel I should like to run away and leave her to you. I shall scandalize her every minute of the day, I know; her very letter reeks of righteousness!"

"Oh, don't!" expostulated Rowena in a pained tone. "You really do respect sincerity and goodness in the bottom of your heart. Don't mock at it."

"Well, I respect you. But you're not what I call sanctimonious. Now write off to that good-looking old Scotchie, and ask him to dinner. Who shall we have besides? Some one to frivol with me, I think."

"No, let us be alone for once."

"My dear, I shall be bored to tears. I shall go off to the theatre then, and leave you to entertain them."

"That you can please yourself about. But I don't think it will be very polite."

"Then I shall be as cross as two sticks—unless we can manage to shake a little fun out of our guests. I haven't seen Marion since she was a child in pinafores, but I can imagine she will be a repetition of her mother."

Marion arrived in two days' time. Rowena was glad that Mrs. Burke was dining out, for she had her to herself, and told her all she knew about Mysie and her father.

Marion was a good-looking woman. Her clothes were shabby, but she had a sweet face and a quantity of soft brown hair coiled round a shapely little head. Rowena was satisfied that she would find favour in General Macdonald's sight. They sat over the drawing-room fire and talked, and Marion at last began to ask questions about her aunt.

"I don't feel at home in all this luxury," she said, "and yet I must confess I like it. I cannot understand why my parents were so averse to be helped in any way by Aunt Caroline. You say you are fond of her. She cannot be wholly bad!"

"No," said Rowena, "she is not. She is one of the most kindhearted creatures that I have ever come across, and—remember—she has known what is good and right, and still keeps memories of her young days packed away in her heart. She always tries to appear more empty-headed and frivolous than she really is. And I believe that one day she will search and find again what she has so carelessly thrown away. Bear this in mind when you hear her talking."

Marion was tired with her journey and went early to bed. She did not see her aunt till noon the next day. Her heart sank when she saw Mrs. Burke's smart attire, and noted the powder and rouge on her smiling good-natured face.

"Well, my dear, glad to see you! Rowena has made you welcome, and you will see more of her than you will do of me, for I have a good many engagements in town. Are you ready to go off to this immaculate Highland lair? According to Rowena, the child is a perfect child, and the father everything that an ordinary man is not. He is coming to dinner with us to-night, and I advise you to take stock of him. Now tell me about your father. How is he?"

"Not much better. The doctor says it is now only a question of weeks!"

"Dear me! How sad! But doctors are often mistaken. Now, my dear Marion, have you a decent dinner dress? As my niece I like to see you nicely dressed, and if you don't possess one, I will get Rowena to run you round to the shops. There are wonderful ready-made little gowns at Dalton & Lane's, and I think a nice dark velvet would suit you. Don't trouble about the price. I have an account there and it will be booked to me. And if you do come to terms, and agree to go off to Scotland, you must have a suitable outfit. Rowena will see to it for me, I know."

Marion looked very uncomfortable. She tried to thank her aunt, but Rowena saw that gentle though she was, she possessed a certain amount of pride.

"A governess is always very quietly dressed, Aunt Caroline," she said, "and I have been a resident governess before in quite good families. I shall be able to get what I require."

"Well, I mean to give you a very quiet but handsome gown for dinner parties. Rowena, take her out directly after luncheon."

And so it came to pass that when General Macdonald arrived that evening he was introduced to a very sweet-looking, dignified woman in a brown velvet gown which matched her brown eyes and hair. He came early, and had an interview with her in Mrs. Burke's back drawing-room. There was a light in his eyes, as he joined Rowena just before dinner, and had the opportunity of speaking to her alone. "She'll do," he said. "I like her extremely. A woman with religion and principle. She's willing to come, but not just yet, I'm afraid—says she must wait till her mother returns home. And she does not seem to know when that will be. She has shown me any amount of certificates and references, but I know a good woman when I see her, and I place that first; education comes afterwards."

Dinner was a difficult time. Mrs. Burke was in her usual high spirits, and rattled away in an astonishing fashion it seemed to her niece. General Macdonald was courteous, but rather stiff, and Rowena strove to bridge over awkward pauses and water down some of Mrs. Burke's rash statements.

"I'm sure my niece is one of your sort," she informed the General. "You Scotch people always take life seriously, and she has been brought up in the old-fashioned orthodox style. Her family never has approved of me."

"Why is it old-fashioned to take life seriously?" said General Macdonald gravely. "Isn't life with all of us a very wonderful and mysterious thing?"

"Oh, I have learnt to take things as I find them," said Mrs. Burke, deliberately giving a slow wink to Rowena. "I'm not good at theology, or at any of the other 'ologies. But I remember a maxim of Solomon's—or one of the Bible sages: 'A man hath no better thing under the sun than to eat and to drink and to be merry.' And I practise that every day of my life."

"Oh, Aunt Caroline!" protested her niece.

"We have the story of one who practised that too in the Bible," said General Macdonald, fixing a stern eye upon his hostess. "And his summons to meet his God came like a thunderbolt to him."

"Yes, I think I used to be terrorized by that story when I was a child," said Mrs. Burke with smiling indifference.

Rowena felt so nervous that she almost laughed, a habit which sometimes overcame her against her will.

General Macdonald looked at her in pained surprise.

"I want you to tell Miss Panton about Abertarlie," she said, hurriedly turning to him. "She has never been in Scotland before, and has no idea of the solitude of some parts of the Highlands. Didn't you find an eagle's nest on the crags above your house when you were a boy? Mysie was telling me about it one day."

A smile came to the General's face at the memory of a very bright day in his childhood; he began describing his home to Marion, and Rowena turned to Mrs. Burke and talked nonsense with her for the rest of the meal.

Things did not go much better in the drawing-room afterwards. Mrs. Burke lit up her cigarette, offered the General one, which he declined, and asked him if he would like a game of bridge. Then she told a society scandal, and finally went to the piano and began trying over some topical music-hall songs. Rowena saw that she was determined to show her worst side to her guests, and General Macdonald's stern face had the effect of egging her on.

She sat down by him presently and began talking to him about his child.

"What does a man know about a girl child!" she exclaimed. "Let me give you a piece of sound advice. Give her her head whilst she is young, don't blacken all earth's beauties and pleasures to her. If you tie her up and confine her to one tiny rut, if you make her an obedient follower of all your prejudices and vagrant fancies, she will break away from you when she is older. It's like bottling up steam. Let the young enjoy themselves, nature will have it so. I know what I'm talking about, and I've seen many girls and boys come to utter grief because their parents tried to make them into long-faced canting Puritans."

Then the General had his say:

"Madam, there are two classes in this world. Those who train their children for Heaven, and those who train them for the Prince of this world. I seek to train my child for her heavenly inheritance, and want no advice from anyone but God Himself."

Mrs. Burke had nothing to say. She was strangely subdued for the rest of the evening. She and General Macdonald parted from each other courteously but coldly, and when he had gone she took hold of Rowena and made her come upstairs to her room with her.

"Do you really like that stiff-starched Pharisee, Rowena? Don't tell me that he is your ideal of a gentleman and a father! He's a strong man, I admit. His eyes blazed when he turned upon me. I almost admired him then. But, oh, I wouldn't be Marion for a hundred—a thousand pounds! To be shut away in a lonely Scotch glen with a man of such views would be purgatory to me. How did you stand it when you were ill? But of course I feel he is disgusted and horrified by my ways. And with you he is tenderly sympathetic and protective. My dear, his eyes never left you. He watches for you to speak, and when you do, his eyes glisten and soften as a lover's would do. Has he ever made love to you, eh? I suppose he lives too close to heaven to have anything to do with earthly love. Oh, how I hate your good people! How righteously superior and complacently smug they all are! All except you! And why are you so different? Why have you such love for such poor sinners as I and my friends are? I do believe you have a sneaking love for me even when I am outraging your sense of decency and delicacy, now haven't you? Confess it!"

"I have more than a sneaking love for you," said Rowena warmly. "But you annoy me most dreadfully when you set yourself to disgust and alienate those who would be good friends to you if you would allow them to be. You don't believe or mean half you say. Why do you delight in making yourself out such an utterly worthless and empty-headed woman?"

"Because that is what I am, and no one knows it better than I do myself. I am utterly worthless, Rowena, and one night I shall be summoned to meet my Judge like the man who admonished his soul to eat, drink, and be merry. You see I know all the Bible stories as well as your pious friend does. I wish I didn't remember the Bible so well. We were taught so much of it, and learnt so much of it by rote, that I even now find whole passages and chapters coming into my mind."

"Then you will be comforted by it when you come to the deep waters," said Rowena.

"What do you mean?"

"Why, you surely remember all the lovely promises in it, don't you?"

"They are not for me."

Rowena was silent. Mrs. Burke's face was pathetic, as it sometimes was when a mood of despondency seized her. Rowena bent over and kissed her with one of her warm, sweet kisses.

"I am praying every day for you," she said softly; "now good night, and may you have pleasant dreams."

Mrs. Burke seized hold of Rowena by both hands. "I won't have you pray for me. I forbid it. I won't be made uncomfortable. I want to be left alone in peace. I believe you think you are going to bring me over to your side. I like you, but I hate good people, and I've taken a real dislike to that old General!"

"Good night," repeated Rowena, as she left the room.

Sometimes Mrs. Burke reminded her of a spoilt pettish child. She had to be humoured and left alone.

The next day there was quite a consultation about Marion's future. Mrs. Burke said that she ought to be ready to go to Scotland after the Christmas holidays. "And if your mother has not returned by that time, send me your nephew and nieces. I will look after them, and you can shut the house up, or hand it over to the locum tenens. You can't keep that old tartar waiting. I'm sorry for you to be housed with such a cantankerous saint, but you'll suit him, and he'll suit you. Write and tell him you'll be ready by the middle or end of January."

"Circumstances permitting," put in Rowena.

So Marion meekly did as she was told, writing at the same time to her parents and telling them what she was doing. She left her aunt the next day. Rowena felt she was relieved to go, and Mrs. Burke made no pretence of her feelings.

"Oil and water will not mix. She opens her eyes in fright whenever I begin to speak, and when I smoke she simply turns her head away as if she cannot bear the sight of me. I have done my duty by her, and I get no thanks for it. I hope she will never come here again!"

It was only two weeks afterwards that Mrs. Burke heard from her sister. Her husband had died suddenly, and she was returning home after the funeral.

"And I suppose she is left without a penny," was Mrs. Burke's comment. "Well, it is none of my business. I shall wait and see what she does."

Rowena knew that help would be ready for the poor widow when she would need it.

One afternoon General Macdonald came round to see her. Mrs. Burke was out. Rowena was not very well. She had had a heavy cold, and was only just out of her room. She was sitting over the fire in the drawing-room, and a book was upon her lap.

"I am afraid this is a 'good-bye' visit," said the General. "Mysie will run round to see you to-morrow, but I have business to do in the City, and we leave by the night train to-morrow evening."

"I am sorry you are going," Rowena said frankly; "but you will be glad, I know, for you don't like town."

"I think London is now as frivolous as Paris," said the General gravely. "It is no pleasure to be in it."

"There are many circles," said Rowena thoughtfully. "In every big city there is a certain section who are taking their pleasures madly, but there is a great deal of good going on in a quiet way."

"You see good in every one," said the General with a smile; "even in your giddy old friend with whom you live."

"Now, we won't talk about her. I feel so glad that you are going to have Marion Panton. I am sure she will prove a success. She is devoted to children and wins their love wherever she goes. I have seen letters from some of her old pupils. They were most attached to her."

"Yes, I am grateful to you for the trouble you have taken."

He paused, and Rowena bent forward, a glint of laughter in her bright, soft eyes:

"And don't frighten her too much by giving her your views of a child's training! You sound so very alarming when you talk, and you are so delightfully different when you act! Let yourself go sometimes, and show her that you are human like the rest of us! Am I not impudent in talking like this?"

For a moment the General's eyes held a gleam of corresponding amusement in them, then he stood up, his back to the fire and his whole face full of softened emotion:

"I really came to talk to you about something very important," he said. "Will you give me a hearing?"

[CHAPTER VI]

THE LAIRD SPEAKS

"I held her hand, the pledge of bliss,
Her hand that trembled and withdrew;
She bent her head before my kiss,
My heart was sure that hers was true."
Landor.

ROWENA drew a long breath, then she said very quietly: "Of course I will. I am all attention!"

"I want to refer again to that letter which I sent you before you went to India, and which you never received. In it I asked you if you would write regularly to me as a friend, and I felt then I had no right to ask you if you could link your life to mine, because of my delicate health, and because—I could not offer you the gift you deserve—the offer of a first fresh love! I told you in the letter that if I did not hear from you in response I should conclude you did not want our acquaintance to deepen into warm friendship; and, not hearing, I concluded you felt we must remain merely acquaintances. I have tried to put you out of my thoughts. It is quite impossible. I know I am years older than you, that I am a quiet humdrum sort of creature, who has no attractive qualities for a bright young woman like yourself; but I cannot help that. My child loves you, and I—well, you have been in my heart and life from the first day I ever saw you, and I want your love if you can give it to me. I want to take you away from this life you are leading, back to Abertarlie. Will you give me the right to do it?"

Rowena's eyes were downcast. She did not speak for a moment. The rush of happiness that came to her heart almost overcame her self-control. She had striven for many a long day to put this friend out of her thoughts. She had taken herself to task for thrilling all over when he spoke or looked at her. She had schooled herself to consider that he and she would always remain pleasant friends, but would never get nearer each other. And now he cared—he had always cared!

He waited patiently; and then she looked up. Tears were glistening in her eyes. She stretched out her hands to him.

"Here I am," she said simply; "to belong to you will be bliss, for you have had my love for a long time."

"Really?"

He seemed as if he could not quite believe it. His humble diffidence was most touching. Then he took her in his arms, and no further speech was needed.

"If you had had that letter," he said presently, "you would never have gone to live with Mrs. Burke. Rowena dearest, you must leave her at once. I cannot bear to think of you continuing to live with her."

Rowena looked at him with her old sunny smile.

"Hugh,—you see your name comes quite easily to my lips; I am afraid I have often called you by it in my heart before—if you love me, you must trust me. Look me in the eyes, and tell me if you can."

"Who would not?" was his emphatic response.

"Then don't overpower me with your protecting love and care. I am not a weak young girl. I have had to stand alone, and be a prop to others, and think of their faltering steps before my own. And at present Mrs. Burke is my mission in life. Your love won't shatter that to pieces."

"But you cannot enjoy her society."

"I am fond of her; and I want to help her back to the old paths in which her feet once were. It is slow work, but she is beginning to hanker after them. Her present life satisfies her less and less. You must not tear me away from her just yet."

"I feel I want you at once; and I don't and I can't approve of your home here."

"No; and it is difficult to make you understand. But we won't mar this best hour in my life by talking of disagreeables. Do you know, I am just a wee bit afraid of you? Am I to give up my own individuality and freedom of soul if I link my life to yours? Am I to look-out upon the world only through your eyes, and not through my own?"

"Never!" said the General fervently. "Your individuality is what has drawn me to you. You have always done me good by your wise counsel. I should have lost my child's affection had I not listened to you. No, Rowena, I want you to be your own true dear fearless self always. But—well, we will not discuss it now. You have made me too happy for words. I feel as if I am beginning life again, as if I have been walking under a forest of dark gloomy impenetrable trees, and have just emerged into glorious sunshine!"

"I believe tea is coming in," said Rowena demurely. "It's a pity we still have to eat and drink. Will you stay to tea, General Macdonald?"

The butler was in the room. The General looked as if he wished him farther, but his time alone with Rowena was over. Mrs. Burke returned home, bringing two young men and a girl with her, and General Macdonald promptly took his leave. As his hand touched Rowena's he said:

"When shall we see you? I won't send Mysie round now. May I call to-morrow, after I have done my business, and will you come to lunch with us? I will bring an invitation from my old cousin when I come."

She nodded to him brightly, then turned to help entertain Mrs. Burke's visitors. But she was rather dreamy and silent, and Mrs. Burke's quick eyes perceived it.

When they were alone together later she said:

"What has that old fusty friend of yours been saying to you? Something unpleasant about me I don't doubt."

"No; indeed he has not. We hardly mentioned you."

Rowena felt she could not announce her engagement till she had had some quiet time to herself. She was longing to get away into the solitude of her own room, but Mrs. Burke went on talking. If she had no visitors she liked to chat with Rowena over the fire between tea and dinner. She enjoyed talking over all her doings of the day, and making fresh plans for the morrow.

"I shall be quite glad when that man takes his departure. I think I feel jealous of him. I don't like him hanging round you as he does. Is he going to-morrow?"

"Yes—to-morrow evening."

Rowena stared into the fire as she spoke. Mrs. Burke looked at her sharply; then went on:

"I think we must leave town next week. It is getting near Christmas, and I mean to have a big house-party this year. You will be glad, I know. How you hate town, don't you?"

"It is always such a rush," Rowena said. "You make me breathless. I cannot keep pace with you. And I don't feel so young as you do. I get so tired."

"I'm rather tired myself," Mrs. Burke admitted; "but I'm only tired when I'm doing nothing. Now, to-morrow morning I'm going to drive the Carlton Hughes down to Richmond in a car—we shall lunch there. But I've promised to go to the matinée at Chelsea for the Poor Actors' Fund, so I must be back early. Would you like to come with me?"

"Not unless you really want me."

"I can do without you. I've asked Lady Goring and her brother to dinner, and the Yates, and I think Mr. Wales is coming in afterwards with his violin—I've asked him professionally. Lady Goring is mad on music, and so is her brother. He has just returned from India, rather a nice man. You'll see to the table decorations, won't you? The new parlour maid is such a fool—she's no ideas in the floral line."

"Oh, I'll see to the dinner; and I shall have a quiet day to myself," said Rowena contentedly. "Don't you think we had better write and let Mrs. Gates know we are returning to the Court so soon? She will want to get things ready."

"Yes; write to her to-morrow."

The talk went on. At last the dressing-bell rang, and Rowena was free. She went up to her room and sank into a chair before her fire. She could hardly believe, even now, how her whole future life would become altered by the event of the afternoon.

She realized that responsibilities and cares would mingle with the vista of sunshine and joy that lay before her. She wondered how Mysie would take the news.

"She loves me now; but she is also most devoted to her father. Will she think that I shall step in between them? I hope not. I hope that she will be willing to have me as a stepmother. Perhaps it is a good thing that she is still so young. A few years later, and it would be very difficult with a grown-up daughter. I don't think I should have the courage to go through it! And yet I don't know; with Hugh at my side I feel I would do and dare anything. It is wonderful to have got his love. He has always seemed a little unapproachable. I must make him unbend. I will—I must, for his own sake, get him to be less stern and autocratic. I dare say I shall have a few pitched battles with him. But it is his strength and determination that I love so. I wonder if we shall quarrel over Mrs. Burke? I will not be rushed into a hasty marriage; he must wait my time." Then she remembered that she had not mentioned the invitation to lunch which was coming for her. "I must tell her to-night, and get it over. It is of no use to hide it."

So after dinner Rowena said:

"I forgot to tell you that General Macdonald wants me to go round to lunch with them to-morrow. He may call here himself in the morning."

"Ah! This is your quiet day! Rowena, is there anything between you?"

Rowena sat in her low chair with her hands clasped loosely round her knees. She turned towards Mrs. Burke with a glow upon her cheeks as she said:

"I hope you won't be vexed if I tell you that there is."

"I knew it! It is my fate! Oh, I wish I had never brought you to town, and then you would never have met him! I felt from the first he was determined to take you from me!" Mrs. Burke got up from her chair and paced the floor furiously. "I hate him!" she burst forth. "A narrow-minded bigot! He condemns every one who doesn't think alike with him. He will rule you and keep you under his thumb, and be a despotic tyrant. How can you be such a fool as to marry him? Don't you value your liberty and independence? Is it all settled?"

"We have loved each other for a long time," said Rowena. "You must remember I knew him before I met you."

Mrs. Burke came back to her seat.

"I feel inclined to blubber like a baby. I can't let you go, Rowena. Are you going to leave me at once?"

"No; indeed I am not."

"I believe if you had stayed with me you could have done anything with me," said Mrs. Burke helplessly. "I don't know how it is, but I have said to myself more than once, 'It is no good for you to resist, Rowena means to drag you after her into heaven itself.' And I've been wretched. I confess to you I have. You've never preached to me; but just a word here and a word there—it's been like the dropping of water upon a stone. I've stifled my conscience and gone desperately on; but the honest truth is that I am getting old and tired, and would give worlds to have the peace and rest of soul which you have. Now I don't care! If you leave me I shall plunge along in the old way. I never thought I could get so fond of anyone as I have of you. I feel I could kill that gaunt grey man who has come here making love to you behind my back. I know his sort. He has an iron will, and can make you do anything he chooses. And I beg you to count the cost, and consider calmly while you have your senses in your own possession, whether this contemplated marriage of yours will be a success. I know men better than you do, and I know this Scotchman. I knew him by repute. He did not make his first wife very happy. He ignored and neglected his child, till he was shamed into doing something for her. She was being brought up as a little savage; his cousin, Mrs. Graeme, told me all about it. And he'll crush your spirit and lead you the life of the condemned. Let him marry Marion. She's the sort for him. The kind of woman who would black his boots and lie down for him to tread upon her. But you have character and a will of your own. You will never be happy with him. Do, I beseech you, reconsider it, and tell him you can't marry him!"

Mrs. Burke paused for breath.

Rowena leant towards her and took her hand in hers.

"My dear Mrs. Burke, I can't help being grateful to you for your affection. But you really don't know Hugh Macdonald, as I do, or as my brother did. You must remember he is an old friend of my family's. I won't discuss his character with you. You are doing him great injustice, and he would make any woman happy—of that I am assured."

"Not me!" put in Mrs. Burke emphatically.

Rowena laughed; she could not help it.

"No; I cannot fancy you and him pulling together. But I shall be more than content. Don't let us talk any more of my engagement. I am not leaving you at present. We will go down to Minley and have a nice Christmas together. Don't let us look on too far into the future. You have made me very happy to-night."

"How?" asked Mrs. Burke in a bewildered tone.

"Oh, it was something you said. You are turning round with wistful eyes to the old road on which your feet once travelled. And you will soon be back there again. Now forgive me, but I'm going to quote a prophet's words: 'Stand in the ways, and see and ask for the old paths, where is the good way and walk them, and ye shall find rest for your souls.' You are standing now and seeing. The rest will follow."

"Ridiculous girl!" Mrs. Burke moved restlessly in her seat as she spoke. Then she said: "You have a way of getting confessions out of me, and then you turn and rend me with your Bible verses. People don't believe in the Bible nowadays. It is only a collection of Eastern sages' sayings."

"I used not to believe in it, until I began to read it. You have only to read it, and read it, and read it by itself, without any commentaries or other books which justify its divinity, to be certain that it is inspired. It begins to feed and nourish your soul at once in the most wonderful way. I have proved it."

"And now your sermon is ended," said Mrs. Burke, with a forced laugh, "and we will go to bed edified by it. And to-morrow you will have to hear more of my opinions concerning your Scotch General. I am glad to hear you do not intend leaving me at present. Perhaps the fates will intervene, and he may meet with some accident or illness which will take him to the sphere for which he is fitted. He is certainly not fitted for this one."

Rowena felt it useless to protest. She knew and understood Mrs. Burke too well to be hurt or offended by her words, and she realized that she was talking recklessly to hide her feelings. She kissed her affectionately when she wished her good night, and Mrs. Burke had the grace to be ashamed of herself.

"You will have to go over to your sister-in-law to tell her the news. She will give you the sympathy you ought to have. You can't expect me to like it, if it means that you are going to leave me."

By mutual instinct they both avoided the subject of her engagement the next day. Mrs. Burke went down to Richmond, and about twelve o'clock General Macdonald appeared, his cousin's note in his hand.

Rowena was ready for him. In her dark green cloth coat and skirt, with sable furs, a present from the generous Mrs. Burke, and a green velvet picture hat, she looked very handsome and dignified. But her radiantly happy face as she turned towards him made him exclaim as he greeted her:

"Oh, Rowena, I hope I shall be worthy of you!"

"Now, I must make a stipulation that I have no more speeches of that sort," she said, laughing. "Let us both consider ourselves the best of human beings. It will give us such a nice satisfied, comfortable sort of feeling. Have you told Mysie?"

"In a kind of way."

"How did she take it?"

"She was of course overjoyed at the prospect. You don't think she would object?"

"She might. Stepmothers are not popular with children."

"Oh, I didn't go into details. Have you told your old lady?"

"Yes. She is not very pleased."

"I can understand that. Don't you think you and I could walk into some quiet church here and have the marriage service to ourselves? I don't want to hurry you, but Mysie is expecting you at Abertarlie for Christmas."

A flush came into Rowena's cheeks. That prospect seemed so alluring; but she shook her head.

"I cannot leave Mrs. Burke so soon. I am spending Christmas with her at her country house. We must wait a little longer."

General Macdonald looked disappointed. He called a taxi, and they drove off to Eton Place. Mysie had been watching out for them at the drawing-room window, and came dancing out into the hall. Rowena kissed her very lovingly.

"Oh," the little girl exclaimed as she hugged her tight, "Dad says you're coming to stay with us. What does it mean? Are you going to be my governess? Cousin Bel seems so mysterious about it, and Dad wouldn't tell me properly."

She was taking Rowena up to the drawing-room now, which was empty. For a moment they were alone, as General Macdonald had stopped to take some letters from the old butler.

Rowena put her hand under Mysie's chin and turned her face upwards.

"Now you and I are going to be quite fair and square, Flora. How would you like me to come and live with you and Dad for always?"

Mysie's blue eyes gleamed.

"But why haven't you done it before? I've always been telling Dad that you ought to. And then cousin Bel said the other day that it would not be proper. Such ridic'lous nonsense!"

"I could only do it one way," said Rowena softly, "and that would be by marrying your Dad. He wants me to do it. What do you say?"

Mysie gave a delighted yell.

"Then you'd belong to us for ever and ever! Oh, Mignon, it would be heavenly! And you and I would go and see the fairies' hills; and we'd tell each other stories by the fire when Dad was out; and—oh, I think I could scream for joy at the thought of it! You'd always be there when I wanted you, and you'd help me and love me always. Why didn't Dad tell me the whole of it, not just a little bit? I thought you were only coming for a visit."

Rowena's heart felt as light as a feather. She could say no more, for General Macdonald appeared, leading in his old cousin, Mrs. Peale, who greeted her very warmly.

"Very glad to see you, my dear. Your name is quite familiar to me; and now I have seen you I quite understand why I have heard so much about you. Hugh is to be congratulated."

"And I think I am, too," said Rowena, smiling.

They had a pleasant lunch together. Mysie was in the greatest delight, and chattered incessantly about all that Rowena would have to do and see at Abertarlie. Mrs. Peale checked her at last.

"My dear child, we don't want to hear any more about that wonderful Highland home of yours. I shall advise Miss Arbuthnot to live half the year in London—certainly the greater part of the winter she ought to be here."

"But she loves the Highlands; don't you, Mignon?"

"I adore them, Flora. Sometimes a bit of bracken or the smell of a wood fire will give me a whiff of the sweet Highland air, and then I forget everything and everybody, for my soul flies over there at once, and my body sits with a daft smile, deaf to every one till my soul comes back again."

Mysie clapped her hands.

"Yes, and now you'll belong to us altogether."

When lunch was over Mrs. Peale insisted upon Mysie going upstairs to the drawing-room with her, leaving the General and Rowena alone.

And they had a delightful hour together.

"It will be the first time that I return home regretfully," General Macdonald said; "but if you are leaving town at once, I should not have seen much more of you."

"No; we must just be patient. When the New Year comes perhaps we can make plans. Do you expect to hear from me?"

"Need you ask?"

"I am not very good at writing letters, but I shall write to you in my quiet times."

General Macdonald was standing looking down upon her. How he loved her low mellow voice and her happy laugh. As she raised her glowing mischievous eyes to him now, he just stooped and enclosed her face between his two hands.

"Rowena, I feel as if I cannot part from you. I don't think you know how impatience has seized my soul, and I do want to get you out of Mrs. Burke's clutches. How long are you going to keep me waiting?"

"Until I can provide her with a nice substitute. I want to get a great-niece of hers to come and live with her. If I am successful, I shall not mind leaving her. I promise to write and tell you everything that is going on, even how many At Homes and parties I attend in the week." Then he gently released herself. "I won't tease you," she said. "I assure you I live a very normal life when we are in the country. Very much the sort of life that you do at Abertarlie."

"Oh," he said, drawing a long breath, "what a lot of things we shall have to discuss together when you come down there, and how you will help me in some of my plans for the good of the people round!"

Time slipped away only too soon. Rowena had to return to Mrs. Burke's early, and the General and Mysie both accompanied her to the door. She wished them good-bye there; and after they had left her, she felt a sudden depression of spirit seize her.

"I could have gone to Geraldine for Christmas, got my things ready and married him in the New Year. Why do I cling on to Mrs. Burke so? I shall have to leave her sooner or later. I suppose it is my lack of courage in tackling anything disagreeable. But I do feel awfully sorry for her. She is like a child who has always had her own way."

[CHAPTER VII]

AN ACCIDENT

"We cannot well forget the hand that holds
And pierces us and will not let us go,
However much we strive from under it.
The heavy pressure of a constant pain ...
Is it not God's own very finger-tips
Laid on thee in a tender steadfastness?"
Hamilton King.

"MY dear Mrs. Burke, you are never going out this afternoon?"

Rowena looked up from a newspaper which she was reading. She was toasting her feet over a roaring wood fire in Mrs. Burke's pleasant morning-room at Minley Court. It was three o'clock in the afternoon. Outside the house, a storm of wind and rain was raging. For three days the weather had been so bad that they had been confined to the house. The rain was not quite so violent now, but after luncheon Mrs. Burke had told Rowena she was going to lie down in her room, with a novel, till tea-time.

"There is nothing else to do," she had mournfully complained.

Now she burst open the door attired in an old tweed hat and in her fur coat.

"Yes; I'm going out," she said. "I couldn't stand my book, and I couldn't sleep; so I thought I'd go over to Vi and Di. I haven't seen them yet; and I've ordered out the car. And I may go on and look up the Sheringhams. I want the Colonel for my theatricals, on Boxing night."

"I don't expect Vale likes the prospect of driving in this storm," said Rowena, looking at her friend with some dismay in her eyes. "Are you wise in going? You have a slight cold."

"I shall be under cover, so will Vale."

"It will soon be dark, remember."

"What of that? We have lamps."

"I wish I was better at amusing you," said Rowena, with a twinkle of humour. "You are the sort that would appreciate a house fool, like the royalties used to have. He would keep you in the house an afternoon like this, by sitting at your feet and by amusing you with stories and songs and clever wit. I am too dull for you, and that's the fact. If I had only known you were bored with your book, I would have rummaged through Mudie's box and brought you another."

"Oh, you're all right," said Mrs. Burke, patting her shoulder affectionately. "When I come in, I want to look through my gowns for a suitable one for me in the character of Lady Teazle. Your taste is so good that you will help me in that. Don't wait tea for me. I may be late."

Rowena came to the front door to see her off. The wind made a determined onslaught upon them directly the door was opened. The butler helped Mrs. Burke down the steps, holding an umbrella over her to keep off the driving rain. She waved her hand airily to Rowena when she was in the car, and Rowena went back to her comfortable seat by the fire. Her idle time was over; she had an hour's work before her, finishing Mrs. Burke's correspondence for the day. But she was writing letters now of great interest to her. One was to Mrs. Panton, Mrs. Burke's sister, to enclose a Christmas cheque, and to ask her to let her grandchildren come to Minley Court for part of their holidays. Also to suggest to her to come down to the South of England, where schools were cheap, and where she could sometimes be seen by her sister. They were selling their furniture at the Vicarage, and Marion was going to Scotland the last week in January.

When Rowena had finished her work for Mrs. Burke, she began writing letters for herself.

She had seen her sister-in-law before leaving town, and she was, of course, delighted with her engagement. Now she wrote to her telling her she hoped to come to her for a week after the New Year to talk over her coming marriage; and lastly she wrote her letter to General Macdonald. They kept up a brisk correspondence with each other, and his letters revealed more of his real self than did any of his conversation. He possessed the Scotch reserve, in talking, which disappeared in his letters.

Rowena wrote to him with gladness in her eyes and smile.

"MY DEAREST,—"
"Your letter is before me. It arrived in a howling, blustering storm, when outside all was cheerless and grey; and it warmed my heart, as your letters always do, and made me feel as if the sun was shining out upon a gloriously happy world. Dear Hugh! May I prove worthy of such love as yours. Only don't, I beseech you, place me on a high pedestal. I assuredly shall have a tumble if you do; and I want to keep my feet, for Mysie's sake as well as your own. As you are greedy for all details in my daily life I will proceed to describe my day—"

She had only got this far when Dodge, the butler, appeared, ostensibly to close up for the night, as it was getting dark, and to bring in tea; but he moved about so uneasily that at last Rowena looked up.

"The storm seems getting worse again," she remarked.

"It does, ma'am; and I wish the mistress were back. The postman says the bridge across Minley Weir is getting shaky. He thinks it unsafe. The river is terribly high."

"They'll have to go round by Tanbury if they can't pass it," said Rowena.

He said no more; but when her tea was brought in, and she heard the howling wind and the torrents of rain which were falling, she grew anxious. It was a pitch-dark night. Supposing that Vale, the chauffeur, was not told about the unsafe condition of the bridge? She knew he was a fast driver, and Mrs. Burke had more than once remarked that he was not cautious enough. If they dashed over the bridge and it gave way, there would be an awful accident, and the weir was only ten minutes' walk from there.

Rowena shuddered. She began to long that Mrs. Burke was home; then she wished that she had accompanied her. Time went on, an hour passed, then two; and then Rowena expressed her fears to Dodge.

"Couldn't some of the men in the stables go down to the bridge and see if it is all right? I wish we had thought of it before. They could at least have hung up a warning light."

"Webster did go off half an hour ago, ma'am; and he took the two stable lads with him."

"Oh, I am glad. Of course, Mrs. Burke may have stayed with the Miss Dunstans. They have sometimes kept her for the night; but she would have sent a message to us, and we ought to have had it by this time."

There was a slight bustle in the hall. Dodge hastened out, and Rowena followed him. There at the door was Mrs. Burke, streaming wet, the footman and Webster, her coachman, were supporting her in their arms. She was blue with cold, but looked up at Rowena with a glimmer of a smile, though her teeth chattered in her head as she spoke.

"I've had a ducking, and I'm frozen through. Get me to bed."

They did not take very long to do that. Rowena asked no questions, she rolled her up in hot blankets, gave her brandy-and-water, put hot bottles to her feet, and she and her maid rubbed her all over to restore her circulation. Then, when she was thoroughly comfortable, Rowena sat down by her, and Mrs. Burke began to talk.

"Don't stop me, I feel I must speak. People tell me luck is always with me. Why I am not lying drowned under the weir at this moment is the marvel. That fool of a man drove right into the river: part of the bridge had been washed away; and over we went, and the awful part was I couldn't get out. The car plunged its nose downwards, but stuck between some bits of timber, and there I was pinned. I clung to my seat, and the water came in right up to my shoulder, but not over my head. I yelled, but no one came to, my rescue, and it seemed to me I was there hours, and at last I heard footsteps and voices, and I think I must have done a little faint, for I remember nothing more till I was being carried up the steps here. Where is Vale?"

"He is safe," said Rowena. "They say he jumped off, but was lying unconscious on the bank when Webster found him. He struck his head against one of the posts of the bridge, they think."

"He'd better have the doctor."

"Webster will see to him. Lie still. You have had a marvellous escape. We must thank God for it."

But Mrs. Burke would not lie still. She seemed feverish and excited.

"My dear Rowena, I've been in purgatory. I really have. Now I know what it is to be left alone with your sins, and death staring you in the face. It was like a torture trick, to be bottled up in that car, slowly drowning in the dark, and not being able to get out of it. The water was rushing and whirling outside at such a rate that I dare say it was as well I could not get out—I should only have been carried over the weir. Well, you tell me I never give myself time to think; I've had the time to-day; and I was dumb, Rowena, and stupefied. An awful Bible verse came into my mind and stuck there. 'What wilt thou say when He shall punish thee?' What could I say? Nothing—I had cast away my confidence. And I knew I might be in the other world at any moment. I felt the car being gradually sucked down."

She shivered. Rowena looked a little anxiously at her bright eyes and flushed cheeks.

"Don't think any more about it now, but try to sleep," she said soothingly.

"I can't sleep. Why was I left to hang between life and death for so long?"

Rowena was silent, then she bent over her.

"I am sure you ought to sleep. Let me give you a verse for you to sleep on: I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely.'"

Mrs. Burke gave a little impatient snort.

Rowena added—

"I am going to send Phillips to watch by you whilst I go and see how Vale is. Do try to sleep, dear. Are you warm now?"

"I have been badly scared and shaken," said Mrs. Burke, trying to speak indifferently; "but I shall be myself to-morrow."

Rowena bent down and kissed her, then slipped out of the room.

She found that Vale was recovering, but she wrote a note to the doctor, for she did not like the look of Mrs. Burke, and she asked him to come over early the next morning.

When the next day arrived, Mrs. Burke was tossing on her bed in agony, and before very long, she was in the throes of rheumatic fever. It was so severe that she had to be wrapped in cotton wool from head to foot, and two nurses were brought in by the doctor to attend to her.

Rowena spent most of her time in the sick-room. All the Christmas festivities had to be postponed. At one time the doctor thought his patient would not pull through. He told Rowena that her heart would not bear the strain of the attack. But she rallied wonderfully, and her constant cry through both her conscious and unconscious times was that Rowena should be close to her.

"Keep death away from me, if you can," she whispered once. "Pray. You will be heard. I sha'n't."

Rowena never left off praying that her life might be spared. On Christmas Day she lay very weak, but perfectly conscious.

"What a Christmas you are having, poor child!" she murmured, looking up into Rowena's face with a flicker of a smile. "Have my sister's young people arrived?"

"No," said Rowena; "I put them off. The doctor said I had better do so."

"That's a pity; but it would be dull for them. Does the doctor think I'm on the mend?"

"Oh, yes—decidedly."

"It's going to be a long business, eh?"

"I am afraid so."

"How is the General? I thought of him when I was in the river. I made sure my summons had come. 'Soul, this night—' You know how it goes on. But it didn't come."

"No," said Rowena softly; "God wanted you here."

"I shall be no good to anyone. I wonder why I was given a fresh lease of life?"

"To live to His glory," said Rowena quickly.

She said no more, for she knew that Mrs. Burke must be kept absolutely quiet and not excited in any way. The sick woman moved her head restlessly on her pillow.

"If He would only put me out of pain. I can't think, when red-hot wires are pulling me in every direction!"

It was long before she was able to leave her bed. Rowena was horrified to see how twisted and swollen her joints were, and she spoke to the doctor about it. He looked grave.

"My dear Miss Arbuthnot, I'm afraid she will never be the same woman again. For a long time she has overtaxed her strength, and lived too fast for health; and now this rheumatism has come to stay, and her heart is much affected by it."

"Yet you have told her she will recover."

"I think she may live many years yet; but she must be content with a quiet invalid's life. She will, I fear, always be crippled."

"Oh, how dreadful! She has been such an active woman. How will she bear it?"

"As many others have borne it. Pluck is not lacking in her composition."

"She is always asking when she will be well again. You must break it to her."

"I would rather leave it to you," said the doctor, with a little rueful smile. "You manage her better than we do."

And so it came to pass that, two or three weeks later, Rowena got her chance; and when Mrs. Burke said impatiently that, if the doctor could not cure her quicker she would go up to town for special treatment, she answered her.

"I wonder if you realize how very, very ill you have been?"

"I should think I do. They say I never do things by halves; and I've never been ill in my life before, so I have done the job pretty thoroughly now!"

"Rheumatic fever generally leaves its effects behind," Rowena went on. "I am afraid you will be no exception to the rule."

"What do you mean?"

Real fright showed itself in Mrs. Burke's eyes.

Rowena leant forward and took one of her poor swollen hands in hers.

"You have never shirked difficulties, or even danger, have you? Can you be brave if I tell you what every doctor would fear in your case?"

"Go on. For goodness' sake don't beat about the bush."

"The fear is that you may never wholly get the use of your limbs again. You are getting better, and you will be able to walk soon, I hope, with the help of a stick; but you must make up your mind to lead a quiet life and be more or less of an invalid."

"Rubbish! I won't make up my mind to it. I will resist with all the power that is in my body against such a verdict. I shall go to Harrogate. I have seen cripples cured there. I shall go abroad to the baths. I will travel all over the world before I'll lie down under such an infamous assertion."

"You see, you cannot do the cures because of the weakness of your heart."

Mrs. Burke laughed scornfully.

"So this old molly of a doctor says. Now make arrangements for the best specialist on rheumatism to come down and see me. I will make him tell me a different tale to that. Write at once, Rowena; don't lose a post."

"But," said Rowena, with a little helpless laugh, "whom can I write to? I must ask Dr. Hole to give me the name of one."

"Telephone to the little wretch at once, then."

Rowena went to the telephone in the hall. She came back presently with the name of a specialist, and as Mrs. Burke happened to know of him, he was summoned at once.

In two days' time he arrived. But he could not give her much hope.

"If you were ten years younger, madam, you would have a better chance. As it is, time may be kind to you, and you may to a great extent get the better of the disease. I should hope for it, if I were you; and you will find that you can still enjoy life quietly and peacefully."

"My good man, I hate quiet and peace! I loathe a quiet life! There, say no more, I never did think much of doctors; and if they can't manage to make a cure of a strong healthy woman like myself, well, they're not of any account at all."

She was so furiously angry that she brought on a heart attack, and lay like a frightened exhausted child an hour later. But when she recovered she said no more on the subject, and for several days was very quiet and subdued.

Then, one sunny afternoon towards the end of February, as she lay on her couch by her bedroom window looking down upon the spring bulbs in the beds below, she called Rowena to her.

"I want to have a real good talk with you. Come and sit down and give me your whole undivided attention. I'm thankful to have got rid of those nurses at last. They were always coming in and interrupting if I happened to get you to myself for a moment or two. And you're rather an elusive sort of creature sometimes, Rowena. You've had such splendid chances of preaching to me on the vanity of life, and the iniquities of my past, and the judgment that has descended upon me, and you've never taken them."

"I'm not good at preaching," said Rowena; "but I have prayed for you hard."

"I know you have. But now I want a thorough good sermon from you. I'm ready and waiting for it. Begin." Rowena smiled.

"What is it you want to be told? You know your Bible as well as I do."

"I want to be told," said Mrs. Burke very slowly and impressively, "how my present life can be made bearable. You tried to take away my zest for the life I loved when you first came to me. Now I want you to give me zest for this changed life of mine. Can you do it?"

"I don't think I can," said Rowena slowly and thoughtfully; "but I can tell you how to get it. Why should your life be emptier now than it has been? On the contrary, you can make it much fuller."

"My dear, when a woman of my age becomes a hopeless, helpless invalid she drops out of everything. Her friends will write letters of condolence. As you know, I have had a good many already, and some of them will come over and see me for a week or two, then they will go their way and forget all about me. Their lives are too much in a rush to remember me. I remember a very young woman. I was very fond of her—struck down by a kind of paralysis. I saw her once after the illness, but never again. It was too painful, and I was too busy. That is how I shall be treated now by my most intimate friends. You see I am looking the thing in the face. Now, what is going to sustain me through this lean time? How can I get through it cheerfully and happily, when everything that I live for has been swept away from me at one fell swoop?"

"You'll never do it. It is an impossibility," said Rowena soberly; "if you still persist in living your life apart from God."

"Ah! now here comes the sermon. Proceed. Do you think I am going to creep to the feet of the Almighty because I am in trouble?"

"It is your proper rightful place," said Rowena firmly. "You used to be happy in His service—you have acknowledged it. You have tried, like the Prodigal, to feed your soul on husks, and you have been brought very low. There is nothing for it but for you to come home with that cry on your lips, 'Father, I have sinned.'"

There was silence in the room, then Mrs. Burke said in a strangely gentle tone for her:

"I told you in town that I was getting old and tired, didn't I? That I envied you the comfort you get out of your religion. Now I lie on my couch here and I think and think and think until I nearly go mad. Do you honestly think, having cast away my confidence, that I can ever get it again? There's an awful verse—I looked it up on the sly this morning when I was alone—it's in Hebrews. It says it's impossible for those who've once had the real thing and have fallen away to come back again—to renew them again unto repentance. What do you say to that?"

"What do you make of the parable of the lost sheep?" Rowena said. "Our Saviour told that Himself, and He gave two other instances in the same chapter. There were the lost sheep, the lost bit of money, and the lost son. Dear Mrs. Burke, if you want to return to your rightful Owner, do you think He will refuse to take you? Don't you remember this verse spoken to the people who had forsaken God for idolatry: 'Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the Lord, and I will not cause Mine anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, saith the Lord, and I will not keep anger for ever. Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the Lord thy God.'"

"How can you remember so much of the Bible?"

"I love it," said Rowena simply. "I am always reading it. If you started to read it, you would find it would tell you all you want to know."

"I suppose I may as well tell you that when I was seeing death so close to me out of the car windows, when we stuck in the river, that I was in such a funk that I vowed a vow—I really did. I promised to alter my life, if it was spared. I suppose I shall have to do it."

"Then if you have made up your mind to do that, you'll end by being a very happy woman," said Rowena. "And you don't want any more sermons from me, for you know what will bring peace to your soul."

They sat very silent then for some time. This was only one of the many serious talks they had together. Rowena marvelled at the gentle childishness which Mrs. Burke showed in these conversations, and then one day she told Rowena that she had begun to pray again.

"I find it much more difficult than I used to do, so many doubts come into my head. But I just go on, and I feel better, after a bit. I want to make my peace with God. If He'll be willing to take just these last failing years of my life, I'm willing to hand myself over to His care."

Rowena at times could hardly believe that this was Mrs. Burke who was speaking. She had never thought the change in her life could come so quietly and gently.

But it was the fact, and before very long Mrs. Burke was able to say, with a happy shining face, that she believed she was forgiven and received back within the fold.

Rowena loved this quiet time of convalescence. She devoted herself to the invalid, and though her thoughts were often in the Highlands, she was content and happy to be where she was.

She knew that the purpose of her stay with Mrs. Burke had now been most wonderfully fulfilled.

[CHAPTER VIII]

AN ALTERED OUTLOOK

"In any repentance I have joy—such joy
That I could almost sin to seek for it."
Clough.

"WELL, I've come over at last! I heard that Mrs. Burke was receiving visitors."

It was Vi Dunstan who spoke, and Rowena replied: "She has only seen the rector as yet, but I'm sure she will be glad to see you."

"What an awful thing it is! Di and I have been quite upset over her; but we hate sickness in any shape or form, and always keep away from it. We hear the poor thing will never be the same again. Is it true?"

"That is quite true. But you will find her very cheery. Come along. It does her good to see visitors. She will know then that you haven't quite forgotten her!"

"We think it's partly our fault for not keeping her for the night that awful day. It was such a ghastly accident."

Rowena led the way upstairs. It was March now, but Mrs. Burke had not yet left her rooms. A room adjoining her bedroom had been furnished as a sitting-room, and she was carried in there every morning, where she lay on her couch, as she was still unable to walk.

Vi greeted her affectionately, and Rowena left them alone. Mrs. Burke had often wondered that neither of the girls had been over to see her.

"You look better than I expected," Vi said, after she had expressed her sympathy. "I don't believe anything would ever upset your serenity. You look jollier than ever. You must hurry up and get well. Di and I were saying that this part stagnates unless you are down here to stir us up and keep us going!"

"I shan't be able to do that any more," said Mrs. Burke gravely.

"Never say die! Rheumatism is a thing that comes and goes, doesn't it?"

"It won't leave me, I am afraid. I wonder how much you care about me, Vi? I don't expect you'll understand, but an accident like mine makes one think. I've stared death in the face, and it has altered my life. I see now that this world isn't enough. I want another."

Vi gave an embarrassed laugh.

"I can't fancy your taking to Pi jaw! How you've always mocked at such things!"

"And now I'm going to love them and uphold them," said Mrs. Burke with emphasis. "If you give me a wide berth because of it, I shall understand, but I hope you won't. I shan't preach to you; I shall only try to live out my religion. The fact is, Vi, I used to believe in these things once, and then I gave it all up, and it made me extra bitter and reckless against the people who believed in it still. Of course, you'll say I've taken to religion, because I've had to give up all my gaieties. It does seem mean, on the face of it. But I only know that I am twice as happy as I ever was before."

"You look A 1," said Vi.

She seemed slightly uncomfortable at this talk.

"Of course, I know who's talked you over," she said, after a minute's silence. "It's Miss Arbuthnot; she nearly talked me into it once. At least, she didn't talk much, but she suddenly hit the nail on the head fair and square, and left me to think it out. Well, I'm glad you've something to cheer you! We're a pretty dismal house at present. Have you heard the news? Bob is going to be married."

"Oh, my dear, I'm sorry for you!"

"Isn't it rotten? And it's to that Dolly Duccombe of the Gaiety. She's an awful little bounder. Di and I are pretty sick! Out of the house we have to go before next June. I mean to take on old Colonel Sheringham. He's proposed to me five or six times, so I shall still be in the neighbourhood. What Di means to do I don't know."

"Are you really going to marry Tom Sheringham? My congratulations. He's a nice man. I always liked him; but what will the General do?"

"He'll have to go; so that will be another turn out. The house is the Colonel's, not his. It's pretty dreary for us all; and now the hunting is stopping! We're always like bears with sore heads when that's off. When is Miss Arbuthnot going to be married?"

"Oh, don't ask! It's awfully good of her staying on with me. But I know that I shall have to lose her soon."

Vi chatted away for a good half-hour. When she left, she said:

"I'll tell Di to come and see you. And she might be the better for a preach on her iniquities. She's knee-deep in debt, and doesn't know how to pay her bills. Ta, ta!"

Mrs. Burke was relieved when the visit was over. She had rather been dreading it, but her warm heart still went out to the two girls, especially now when they were experiencing, for the first time in their lives, what it was to lose their home.

They were the only ones of her old friends who still stuck to her. The rector and his daughter Maude came round very often. The days were long and monotonous to Mrs. Burke. She had never worked, and got tired of reading. Sometimes Rowena found it hard work to keep her cheerful.

Easter was coming round, and then Mrs. Burke called Rowena to her one morning.

"I mean to have an Easter party. I am well enough to enjoy young people. Will you write to my sister and tell her to bring her grandchildren here? And then, after they are settled in, wouldn't you like to go to your people?"

"I should, very much," said Rowena frankly; "but I can wait."

"And is your Scotch General content to wait? How he must hate me! I'm a selfish woman, Rowena, and the habits of a lifetime can't easily be discarded. I am selfish still. It will be a black day for me when you leave me."

Rowena wrote to Mrs. Panton; she was still in the North, but had been in constant correspondence with her sister; and she gratefully accepted the invitation to stay at Minley Court.

The little party arrived at the close of a bright spring day. Mrs. Burke received them upstairs in her room. There were tears in her sister's eyes as she embraced her. And Mrs. Burke remarked in her cheery way:

"There's nothing left of me to be afraid of. I'm just an old rheumatic cripple, and there will be nothing in my house now to shock or distress you. Now introduce me to my great-nephew and nieces."

George Holt was a handsome boy, slight in make but very upright. The elder girl Bertha was fair, with a sweet, sunny face. The young one, Milly, was a bright little tomboy. Her short curly hair and piquant mischievous face attracted Mrs. Burke at once.

Before very long the young people were chatting to her as if they had known her all her life, and she was, in her genial happy way, promising them all kinds of joys through the holidays—ponies to ride, expeditions to the sea, and boating on the river. Their delight in their new surroundings amused and pleased her.

"We never knew you had such a lovely house," said Milly. "Why it seems like a palace to us! You should just see our lodgings that we have left. Granny was miserable in them—they were so dirty."

"You must all make yourselves at home," Mrs. Burke told them. "Don't ask what you may do, but just do it, if you want to."

It brought much enjoyment to her hearing the young voices about the house. Rowena found her gazing out of the window one day following, with real enjoyment, the antics of George and Milly as they chased each other over and round the flower-beds, a couple of dogs yelling at their heels.

"It keeps me young to have them here, Rowena," she said rather pathetically. "Couldn't I keep them altogether? Must they go away to school?"

"George ought to, of course," said Rowena. "I don't know what your plans are. But you might have a resident governess for the girls and keep them with you, if you would like them."

Mrs. Burke laughed.

"That ridiculous child Bertha tells me she has finished her education. Finished at sixteen! And her French is too awful for words. And her general knowledge hopelessly deficient. But her music is delightful. She has inherited that from her grandmother. Would a governess drive me wild, I wonder?"

"Have over a daily governess from Crossington," suggested Rowena. "It's a big town, and must contain some teachers. She could come in by train, and you would get rid of her between four and five in the afternoon."

"That would be a good idea. I feel inclined to deluge these children with luxuries—they have had to go without so much. And my sister Helen too—she's a mere shadow. I believe the whole batch of them have been at starvation point these last two or three difficult winters. I want to make it up to them now."

"Happy woman!" murmured Rowena, half under her breath, but Mrs. Burke caught the words.

"Well, I am happy," she said; "a good deal happier than I have ever been before. But why do you make that ejaculation at this present moment?"

"Because you have the means and power to give such happiness to others," replied Rowena quickly. "Only don't err on the side of spoiling them. Their grandmother told me she was afraid of it."

"Oh, Helen is a born Spartan; thinks it wrong to have anything comfortable, rejoices in cold baths and open windows all through the winter. But she and I understand one another. I shall make her have a home with me. She has really no money to start one herself."

For a moment Rowena wondered whether the gentle Mrs. Panton would be happy in her sister's house, but later on she had a talk with her. Everybody confided in Rowena, and she found that the sorrowing widow had no desire to start another home.

"It would be no home to me now that he has gone. I am only waiting till I can join him; and if I can be of any use to poor Caroline, I will gladly stay with her. It is very generous of her to offer us all a home. Do you think my noisy young people will be too much for her?"

"I think they will be the greatest comfort and cheer to her. She has always loved the young; and I should let her have her way with them. She won't do them any harm by giving them as much pleasure as she can. You know I must leave her before long. If I can feel you are settled in here, I shall go much more happily."

"She won't let me help her by writing her letters, and you do that for her. Who will do it when you go?"

"I am trying to get her to tackle her correspondence herself. She will have the time now, and it will give her occupation. But I think, when I am gone, that you will find she will be glad of your help."

Rowena had a busy time before she went to her sister-in-law. She managed to find a suitable daily governess who would come over from the nearest town, and teach the two girls. At first gentle Bertha ventured to remonstrate.

"Am I to do lessons with Milly when I have been teaching her for the past year?" she asked her grandmother.

"My dear, accept your aunt's offer gratefully. You are old enough now to realize how little you know. I have not been able to educate you properly. You will not be learning the same things as Milly, and you will be thankful, later on, to have had this chance of improving yourself."

Milly, of course, was delighted. She was a quick, clever child, and had been rather too much for her sister.

"It's so ripping staying on here," she informed Mrs. Burke. "I was so afraid I would be packed off to school. I pinch myself, sometimes, to make sure it is true. Do you think we shall tire you out if we stay on?"

"I don't think so," said Mrs. Burke, with her old jolly laugh. "You'll keep me young, Milly. I've always hated a house full of middle-aged sober people who are past making jokes and playing the fool."

Milly hugged her on the spot.

"You are a delicious great-aunt. George says you might be only twenty, to hear you talk."

And, of course, Mrs. Burke was human enough to be delighted with such a compliment.

The day came when Rowena went down to Sussex to her sister-in-law's home. Geraldine welcomed her warmly, and her gentle old mother received her with old-fashioned sweetness and courtesy. The children were grown almost beyond recognition, but the little boys, Buttons and Bertie, remembered her, and flung themselves into her arms.

"You are looking thin and worn," commented Geraldine. "Mother, we must feed her up, and treat her like an invalid. She must not go to her bridegroom a bag of bones."

Rowena put her hands up to her cheeks, with her happy laugh.

"Spare my blushes; I am not going to be married yet."

"How long are you going to keep him waiting? Now come and sit down and let me talk to you for your good. You have a most unhappy trait of attaching yourself like a vice to any people you meet or places in which you may find yourself. Look at your year in that God-forsaken place, Abertarlie. Who but you would ever stick out a whole winter there?"

Rowena's face grew very soft and grave.

"Not 'God-forsaken,' Geraldine, for I found Him there!"

"My dear, I know; it was the desolation of it drove you to seek consolation in religion. Now you have attached yourself to this old freak Mrs. Burke. I never approved of it from the first. If I had not known she was treating you well, I would have moved heaven and earth to get you away. You have forsaken us for her. You are even making Hugh Macdonald step aside and take the second place. He must be a saint to wait so patiently."

"My dear Geraldine, we have only been engaged four or five months. He is not a young man, nor am I a very young woman. There is no occasion for us to rush into marriage so precipitously."

"The fact that he is not a boy is in favour of a speedy marriage, I consider. You are both quite old enough to be certain of your own minds. He has been too long alone, and that nice child of his wants a woman to look after her."

"She is very happy with her governess."

"Don't go on making excuses for yourself, but tell me if you have fixed the day. The sooner you leave that old woman the better. You are simply a nurse-attendant to her. It isn't good enough. She has her sister now, and doesn't want you."

"I am conceited enough to fear that she will always want me," said Rowena, with a little sigh. "I am really fond of her, Geraldine, and so is she of me."

"Yes, I know all that; I believe if you were shut up with criminals of the deepest dye you would tell me that you were becoming most attached to them, and felt that you could not live with anyone else. It is your fatal adaptability to your environment. There! With that big word, I've finished."

"Well, listen to me then. Hugh wants me to come to him in June. We mean to have no honeymoon, except that perhaps we may stay a few days in Edinburgh on our way down. And you and I must fix the date. Somewhere in the middle of the month."

"That's something; now I see light. And what kind of wedding do you mean to have?"

"A very quiet one. No friends asked at all. Neither of us wishes it. If you will have me here, I would like to walk into your little village church early one morning, with only you in attendance, and he would like it, too."

Geraldine only looked half-satisfied, but Rowena had her way.

She spent a very pleasant fortnight with her sister-in-law, and in that time got a simple trousseau together. Mrs. Burke had given her a most generous cheque for a wedding present, but she displeased her sister-in-law by the modesty of her requirements. In her worldly wisdom Geraldine said:

"My dear Rowena, you must be handsomely dressed as Hugh's wife. He has one of the biggest properties in that part of the Highlands, and you must not shame him, by going to him in gowns that a minister's wife would choose. He will only have to supplement your trousseau afterwards, if you don't go to him with a thoroughly good outfit, and that is most galling to a woman's self-respect, I always think."

"Yes, I see your point," said Rowena humbly, "and I will get all that will be suitable; but as for taking fashionable ball gowns down to Abertarlie, it's ridiculous!"

"Don't you intend to be sociable? For two or three months in the year at least you will be in the habit of meeting your neighbours. Do you know that the Arnold Rashleighs have taken Ted's old lodge?"

"No, I had not heard it. I don't know them. Who are they?"

"She was a McTaggart of Loch Filley. She has two daughters, and a son in the Blues. His mother lives in this part. Quite nice, they are, but not Hugh's sort. Thoroughly up-to-date, and the girls rather strenuous. Think women ought to be in Parliament, and that sort of thing."

"Oh dear, I was looking forward to stealing over there, and having a chat with old Granny Mactavish. But I suppose the lodge is empty most of the year."

"Of course; and I hope you'll bring Hugh to town for the winter. Don't bury yourselves down there all the year round. You've served an apprenticeship with Mrs. Burke in gadding about, so you'll know how to make him sociable. He used to be a very nice fellow before he married. That marriage soured him. I still think he's not quite good enough for you."

Rowena let her sister-in-law ramble on. She and Geraldine were sincerely fond of each other, but held very different views on most subjects, and she did not take the trouble to defend herself from many of the charges that were brought up against her.

She returned to Mrs. Burke when the fortnight was over, and found, to her great delight, that her household was working very smoothly. Mrs. Burke still kept the house-keeping in her own hands, but she was allowing her sister to take over many of Rowena's duties.

George had just been sent to a good public school, and the governess, Miss Cummings by name, had started lessons with the girls. Mrs. Burke herself was getting stronger, and could now hobble up and down the garden paths with the help of two sticks. She was extraordinarily patient and content. Rowena marvelled at it.

"My dear, I never was a discontented woman," Mrs. Burke said to her one day. "I had one phase of it just before my marriage, but that did not last. You know I am one who seizes with both hands all the good that can be got out of life. I have had some years of the world's best, and though I seized as much of it as I could hold, and carried a smiling front to all outside, I was gradually made aware that there was something better still. After you came to me, I saw that I had seized the shadow and lost the substance. And then, as you know, in the most wonderful way I have got hold of the substance again. I have seized it with both hands and, please God, I will never let it go. Of course, I am happy and content; I'm permeated with content now, and don't miss my old life in the least little bit. I'm only-sorry for the shadow-seekers—Vi and Di especially. Di was over when you were away, and she is perfectly miserable at leaving her home. Can see no comfort anywhere. Vi is engaged to her colonel, so is not to be pitied, but Di was badly hit some years ago over a worthless and inconstant lover, and I don't think she will marry. They will be very badly off, I fear, from what they tell me. They have very little, independent of their brother."

"Have her over as much as possible," advised Rowena, "and show her that life is a much grander thing than she has ever thought it yet."

And Mrs. Burke promised to do so.

Time slipped by, and then came the last day of Rowena's stay with her old friend. It was necessarily rather a sad one, and yet, when Rowena looked back and thought of the difference in her friend's outlook when she first knew her, she could not but feel deeply thankful for her present happiness.

"I will write to you," she said, as she was wishing her good-bye; "and you will write to me when your poor hands permit it. And one day you will come and stay at Abertarlie with us, and I will show you the beauties of our glen and lochs."

Mrs. Burke smiled ruefully.

"Well, if your good general bears me no malice for my rude behaviour to him in town, I will come. I think I would really enjoy his conversation now. How different the whole world has become to me!"

As Rowena sat in the express train to town, her soul was full of thankfulness for this bit of her way, and she murmured to herself:

"I always liked her from the first. I knew that sooner or later she would be led back to her old faith, and it has strengthened my own to see her so happy and whole-hearted now. I never, to my dying day, shall regret my time with her."