POSSESSION.
'And while the wings of fancy still are free,
And I can view this mimic show of thee,
Time has but half succeeded in his theft—
Thyself removed, thy power to soothe me left.'
Cowper.
Though Felix had gone to town both in going to Vale Leston and coming from it, a much shorter way was feasible, only necessitating a couple of hours' delay at a junction.
This was not so entirely inconvenient, on Felix's twenty-ninth birthday, which had been fixed for the general migration to the new home, since Robina was to meet the others there from a country house of Lord de la Poer's, seven or eight miles off, and Major and Mrs. Harewood, and their two sons, would be in the down-train that was to pick the party up. Not only were they to assist in the taking possession, but they had secured lodgings for three months at the Glebe Farm. 'It will be such a good thing,' had Wilmet said, 'to settle them all in, and put Cherry and her housekeeping on the right tack.'
'My dear Wilmet, I am perfectly sensible of the admirable monarchical constitution Kit and I live under; but my principles are against annexation, and if you extend it to Cherry's house, I shall carry you off at once to Buckinghamshire, or to the Hebrides!'
'I only meant to help,' said Wilmet, with a little dignity; then changing her tone as she saw a smile twitch his moustache, 'and you shall be judge what is help!'
Clement was already at Vale Leston; and Bernard, declaring that no one should catch him again at that filthy hole, Bexley, had repaired thither as soon as his holidays began. Martha, Amelia Lightfoot, and a superior housemaid of Wilmet's selection, were gone on to make ready; also a young gardener, whose face had pleased Felix when he came to advertise: and half the Underwood family were at the station, together with Willie Harewood, Sibby, and Scamp—the latter chiefly in the service of Theodore. Sibby was useful in other ways; but she was, as ever, to have the chief charge of the boy by day, be his refuge from strangers, and attend to his meals, it being one of his peculiarities that he never could or would eat at the family table. And Scamp, though Lance's property, was so much Theodore's delight, that separation would have been cruelty; and Lance had resigned him with free good nature, and not without hopes of Scamp's brother as an inmate, for Dick Graeme himself had been articled to a surveyor, and was to live and board with Lance, his mother declaring her conviction that this was the best security both for his moral, and his rather fragile physical, health. One of the 'everlasting Lightfoots,' as Angela called them, had married a nice young wife, and was to occupy the lower rooms, and do for them.
So there were nine individuals seeking what pastime the junction afforded. The Squire—Felix's present nickname—was, to every one's amusement, seated at the table in the waiting-room, writing a leader with the rapidity and abstraction peculiar to himself. A leather couch was occupied by everybody's hand-bags, umbrellas, and parasols; a cage of doves, a basket of the more precious flower-roots, and another with a kitten, under Geraldine's protection; while she endeavoured to keep Theodore happy and not troublesome by a judicious dole of biscuits to be shared with Scamp, whom he held in a string—until, at Lance's step on the platform, the dog rushed out after him, dragging Theodore after him—Cherry limped after Theodore, Felix hurried after them all, and Lance took Theodore by the hand, and led boy and dog wherever it pleased them to go, and they could go safely, while Stella rushed to satisfy herself of the welfare of her kitten and birds.
Except for such interruptions, the public was mostly concerned to find a place whence to behold Robina's arrival. 'What will she come in!' said Stella. 'A carriage like the Centry one?'
'Rattling up in an old fly,' said Will, gruffly.
'Will is jealous of the swells that have proved so attractive!' said Angela. 'Aren't you burning with curiosity to see them?'
'Not in the least! I know quite enough of them.'
'Know them?'
'A couple of tufts at Christ Church. Not a bad oar—but a regular stuck-up fellow!'
'Which? or is the description collective?'
'Look, Angel!' cried Stella, as an open waggonette, drawn by two handsome black horses and full of a merry party of young people, came dashing up; a cockaded servant opened the door, and a youth in summer costume sprang out.
'That's him!' quoth Will.
'Lord Ernest!' responded Angela.
Then the well-known figure of their own Robin was handed out by him, and lastly one of the other damsels, whom Angel identified as Lady Grace.
'They are not coming in here!' exclaimed Bill, grimly.
Nevertheless they were; the waggonette drove off amid nods and smiles, and Robin and her two companions were the next moment in presence, and Will was forced to shake hands with Lord Ernest, while Lady Grace went through the same ceremony with Felix and Angela, indeed with every one. 'I know you all, already,' she said; 'I'm so glad to have seen you, if only to warn you not to keep her.'
'Are you going our way?' asked Cherry, feeling the bright charm of manner.
'No; we only came to see her safe into your hands. Come, Ernest!' But he was enthusiastically admiring Scamp, and inquiring how to procure the like; and it was some minutes before he shook hands with Robina, saying, 'Then you'll let Gracie know whether one is to be had for love or money?'
'I thought you were to have one of the brown setters?'
'Well, why not?'
'One can't have more than one dog of one's heart,' said Angela.
'They must compete for that honour, then. Dogs, as well as other beings, must earn their place by their qualities. Eh, Gracie?'
'You foolish boy!' was his sister's reply. 'Come along. Good-bye, my dear little Copsey. If I don't get a letter every day I shall be convinced that your sisters are putting onions in their eyes.'
'What bright creatures!' exclaimed Cherry.
'What did she call you?' said Will
'Copsey. Oh, Copse, Underwood—the children all call me so. It is my pet name.'
'Insufferable impudence!' muttered Will. 'And what were you thinking of, Lance, to talk of getting him a dog of that breed, when you know Graeme would as soon sell his children?'
'Was not he very proud of the Richborough keeper coming over after them?'
'Those weren't sold.'
'I beg your pardon. Dick told me what he got for them.'
'One may do a thing for a neighbour, that one wouldn't for a chance stranger at a station.'
'You Red Republican!' said Angela.
'It is enough to make one a republican in earnest.'
'In earnest, indeed!' mischievously echoed Angela.
'To see a shallow young tuft expecting to get whatever he chooses to ask for, and every one else encouraging him in it—even those who should have more sense!'
'Meaning me!' said Lance, putting an arm in his and walking him off to the end of the ticket-taker's little platform; but they had no sooner turned back than he exclaimed, 'There's that fellow again!'
There indeed he was, with 'Here's your parasol, Miss Underwood. Of course you know the guilty person?'
'Mine was almost exactly like Lady Caergwent's, thank you!' said Robina, comparing the plain blue sun-shade with the one she held.
'Except that hers is minus the tassel,' said Lord Ernest. 'You plainly don't understand the principle of barter and exchange.'
'What? Always to take the least scratchy slate, and longest slate pencil!' said Angel.
'That's an essentially school illustration that I should not have dared to make,' said Lord Ernest.
'Nor I,' said Angela, 'but for the blissful fact that I'm no longer a schoolgirl.'
'I envy you,' he said, with something like a sigh. 'Your wings are grown!'
But there Robina uneasily said, 'You are keeping Lady Caergwent all this time without her parasol.'
'There, you see!' he returned, in a half pathetic tone of appeal, which made Angela laugh excessively. 'But, indeed, there's no fear; she and my sisters are in Long's shop, and will spend the next two hours in debating whether print in spots or stripes best conduces to the morality of their old women. That's the next stage after leaving school is it not?' turning to Angela; 'the first use to be made of your liberty!'
'To wear stars and stripes?' she asked, with a little wilful gloss.
And so with desultory nonsense they went on; Robina more than once interfering, and trying to send Lord Ernest off, but always hovering about them, in a certain ill-at-ease condition. Felix, having posted his leader, and taken his tickets, came out on the platform, and watched the group with a shade of perplexity.
There stood Angela, the bloom of seventeen brightening her pale colouring, and her play of feature and beautiful mischievous dark grey eyes making her face full of attraction. A knowing little black Tyrolese hat, with a single peacock's feather, was tipped over her forehead; her mass of flaxen hair was in huge loops, tied with crisp streamers; and her tall figure, in the same silver-grey as all the sisters had agreed on, looked dashing, where Robina's—with the adjuncts of a shady hat and a good deal of falling black lace—was quietness itself. Robina's face, still round, honest, and rosy, had grown more womanly, and had a distressed uneasy aspect, as she stood a little aloof, not quite mingling in the conversation, but yet not separating herself from it. The youth who was talking to Angela was dark haired, with rather aquiline features, but with that peculiar whiteness of complexion which is one of the characteristics of old nobility, and though not exactly handsome, with a very pleasing countenance, and an air of birth and breeding, a decided contrast to the figure who regarded them from a little distance. William Harewood had developed into a much bigger man than his brother, but he had not the advantage of John's neatness of figure and soldierly bearing. He had his mother's odd looseness of make, as if his limbs had got together by accident, and his clothes ditto. John's hair was of the pale sandy hue; but his, including long whiskers, was of the darker, more fiery tint, which Lance, at his politest, termed cinnamon. To be sure, he had a huge massive forehead, under which his yellow green-flecked eyes could twinkle and sparkle; and his wide mouth, when grinning from ear to ear, was an engine of fascinating drollery, while a few deep thoughts or words instantly gave majesty to the whole face, and extinguished all sense of its grotesqueness; but at present, as he leant against one of the posts of the platform, a heavy ill-humour had settled upon his countenance, which made his whole look and air more befitting a surly navvy than a first-class prizeman, tutor of a distinguished college, and able to get more aristocratic pupils than he wanted for his intended reading-party on the hills of the upper Ewe.
Felix had stood for some moments, looking on, wondering what it all meant, when the bell rang, the train swept up, the doors flew open, and John Harewood sprang out among them.
'A crowded train!' he said. 'There's only room for three in there, with Wilmet; Krishnu and the nurse have been keeping the places. Here, Cherry!—Here, Robin!—What, Stella! all this live-stock?'
'Oh, yes, please, please, Robina, take the doves; I can't trust them or my pussy with any one else.'
And past various self-concentrated people, intensely aggravated at exchanging the companionship of one baby for that of two doves and a kitten, the sisters were bundled, to find Wilmet watching for them, with her elder boy asleep on her knee, a great serene good-tempered fellow, with her features and clear skin, and though with true Harewood hair, a Kit to be proud of.
'But where's Angela?'
'There—running after Lance.'
'In that hat! Angel? I saw her as the train came up, and never thought of her belonging to us. How could you let her make such a figure of herself?'
'Nature is partly accountable,' said Cherry, in an odd sort of voice. 'And—Well, she brought home the hat, and it does become her. She can be very picturesque!'
'I'm no artist,' said Wilmet, remembering her husband's caution, and abstaining; then, as the train began to move, 'Ah! Willie will be left behind! No; he made a rush! How foolish! What's the matter with him? He seemed in a brown study.'
'He is out of sorts,' said Cherry. 'I believe he is very much put out with Lance for not going to Oxford.'
Robina looked up eagerly. 'He must have wished it very much!' she said, catching gladly at this explanation of his ill-humour.
'Yes,' said Cherry; 'nothing would have so relieved him from the sense that Lance blighted his prospects in his service. He came down persuaded, I believe, that he and his big head could shove Lance through all the passes, just as he could put him over a gap.'
'Everything comes so easy to him, that he has no notion how hard it is to Lance,' said Robina. 'John says Lance is right, but I am sorry—'
'So Felix wrote,' said Wilmet, 'and one can only acquiesce. Oh, and before this good little traveller wakes, tell me all about the dinner.'
'There's more that you have not heard about,' said Cherry, triumphantly.
'The inkstand!' said Stella. 'O sister! they have given him the most splendid inkstand!'
'Who? The Bexley people?'
'Yes,' said Cherry, 'a regular testimonial. They kept it a great secret; only Mr. Lamb came blushing in one day and borrowed one of the old books with the coat-of-arms in it, so that I thought something was brewing. Half the town subscribed—all Felix's young men's class, and quantities of his old scholars; and there's a little silver knight on the top, with a frosty silver pennon with the Rood upon it.'
'The Pursuivant himself?' said Robin.
'Yes, standing on a pedestal—a match-box, I believe, with such an inscription on it that Felix is ashamed of it; and we have had such a fight about its standing in the drawing-room or being suppressed in his study, that Felix said at last that we were like Joseph's brothers in prosperity, and wanted the warning, "See that ye fall not out by the way."'
But the quarrel had not been a serious one, to judge by her happy face.
'It is very nice, very nice,' said Wilmet, 'and I am not at all surprised. I thought they must do something of the kind. Was it given at the dinner?'
'Yes; it was brought in when Mr. Postlethwayte began his speech. He is Mayor this year, and he was so kind—he came and asked us whether we should object to go with Mrs. Froggatt, to sit in the gallery. Object, indeed! I wouldn't have missed it for anything in the world; and we were just above our dear old fellow's head, where he could not see us, which was all the better for him.'
'Was he nervous?'
'No; he said there was a reality of kindness about it all that made him feel it as friend to friend. So the Minsterham reporter said too. Felix brought him in to tea, because we are to have his report for Pur. He said he had never seen such genuine feeling on all sides. He wanted to call it an ovation. And Felix puzzled him so by declaring that inapplicable, unless it had all been mutton.'
'And Mr. Bolton did send ever so much venison,' put in Stella; 'and a letter besides, because he could not come himself. Mr. Postlethwayte began by reading it.'
'Yes; that was all the right and proper thing,' said Cherry; 'all civility about his valuable supporter. As well might he say, for hasn't Pur fought for him through thick and thin—and suffered too! But it was Mr. Postlethwayte who had his heart in it. There, Stella, you can say it all off by heart like a little live page of Pur. Tell Wilmet what he said about example.'
'He said,' rehearsed Stella, 'that Felix had set a noble example of considering no means of independence derogatory, and only manifesting his birth in the high sense of honour which, in the name of his fellow-citizens, he confessed to have been no slight stimulus.'
'Well done! That was much for Mr. Postlethwayte to say.'
'Oh! everybody said everything!' answered Cherry. 'Mr. Bruce went on about the paper. Poor dear old Pur, he never had so much good said of him before, and every word true; but the real beauty of the thing was the Frogs.'
'I am so glad Mr. Froggatt could go.'
'He said he would not have missed if he had had one foot in the grave. I really was afraid, once or twice, Mrs. Froggatt would have embraced us then and there in the gallery, before all the people. How she did cry, dear old lady!'
'She was thinking of her own sons, poor dear!'
'Partly; but I do think half was pride and pleasure, and that sort of feeling that grows up of unanimity. I can't describe, but it is like a spirit mastering all. You will read in the report; but it does not give a notion of the kind of glow, and the ecstasy of the cheer, when Mr. Underwood of Vale Leston was given out—the looks of all the faces! Oh! I can't describe it—one seemed obliged to sob for gratitude! And then, in the lull at last came his voice, so clear and sweet and strong, and taking them all by surprise. Now, Stella, go on!'
'Felix stood up,' said Stella, with a pretty little tone of enthusiastic imitation in her low sweet voice, 'and said perhaps it was not regular to criticise the manner of such an honour as they had done him, but he must say that he had rather they had proposed him as Underwood of 14 High Street. For if his good friends thought they were disposing of him with a long farewell, he must tell them they would not be rid of him so soon. For he said that for the means of fulfilling his new duties he must look in great measure to his old sphere, and their unvarying friendliness. What a noise they did make then! and when he went on to thank them for their kindness in treating him as one of themselves, though without any claim of long standing. And then wasn't it nice when he went on about Mr. Froggatt!'
'Can't you see, Wilmet,' continued Geraldine, 'how being altogether moved and excited, all sorts of things came out that he never could have said in cold blood? About the gentleman he said it was all owing to—his accepting him when he was a raw friendless lad, giving him an opening for exertion—patience—kindness. You'll read it, but if you could only have seen and heard when he said he should always esteem the connecting of their names among the dearest honours of his life, as it had certainly been the proudest. He told us afterwards that he saw a face looking as if it sounded like humbug; so he added louder, "Yes, as much the proudest and dearest, as what one may hope is personal is better than what comes by the accident of birth." And he could not believe that any honour could bestow on him the pleasure he had felt when he first saw the names of Froggatt and Underwood together. Whatever he had done or hoped to do, he felt to be due not only to the first start, but to the long thorough training in diligent habits of business. As Mr. Bevan said afterwards, it was the most beautiful outpouring of gratitude without false shame. And Mr. Froggatt, who had not the least expected it, was quite past speaking. "Gentlemen, my feelings—" he said, and broke down, and every one cheered, and he tried again, but only got as far as "Gentlemen, my feelings—" and put his hand on Mr. Ryder's arm, and begged him to say it for him, something about "a thousandfold repaid." Mr. Ryder made a set speech of it, all very true and good, really the best of all, looking so in the Pursuivant, but nothing to "Gentlemen, my feelings—" and the great sob.'
'Dear old gentleman! is he more reconciled to the losing you all?'
'Yes, he is so much pleased to keep Lance, and that Felix does not throw it all up. Indeed, if we could have given up Bexley it would have been a great difficulty, for Felix feels that he took the duties of a son upon him.'
'It does to a certain degree qualify one's regret,' said Wilmet. 'As John says, one would not take the responsibility of saying a word of remonstrance; he is no fanciful lad, but a man well used to practical questions; but I still am sorry he should so cripple himself by acting on scruples Papa never entertained.'
'We can hardly be sure of that,' said Cherry. 'That old letter to Mr. Staples looked as if he were doubtful. When I told Sister Constance—I could not help it, though Felix had not given me leave—she seemed quite overcome, and then she pointed out how right it had all come, for in the ordinary course of things most likely this restitution would not have been possible. If he had been brought up as an eldest son, and we had all had an expensive education like other people, not only should we all have grown into acquiescence in an unavoidable sort of abuse, but there would have been none of the power of independence that enables him to do this; and there would have been settlements and all manner of things to tie it up. Remember, too, that dear Papa was always thankful that he did not have the trial of unmixed prosperity.'
Those were the last words before there was a slackening of speed; Wilmet resumed the one Kit, Stella the other, Robina wielded the doves, and gathered the parcels, a tall fair head under a big black hat nodded and smiled welcome, and the little station seemed to flash with greeting, as in another moment the halt was made, Clement wrenched open the door, swung out Stella, holding fast by the basket, and set her down with a kiss, next putting forth a long tender pair of arms to lift Cherry down, and then receiving his nephew and holding him while Wilmet and Robina extracted the other impedimenta, and the other two-thirds of the party hurried up, amid touching of hats and services of porters, Bernard and Angela flying upon one another, and luggage pouring out of the van.
'I hope there's room,' said Clement, surveying the numbers. 'I brought everything on wheels that I could get beasts for.'
And making Kit over to his father's hand, he conveyed Cherry to a corner of the big barouche with post-horses, and then hurried back to pack in Wilmet and her boy. He would have put in Robina and Major Harewood, but they both cried out that this was the place for Squire himself. Clement and John dragged him from some selection of boxes in a recusant but passive state, and deposited him opposite to Geraldine, as she merrily called him 'to enjoy the novel sensation of riding in one's own coach.'
'Theodore!' he remonstrated; but Wilmet's eyes grew uneasy, and Clement said, 'Better let Lance and me take him. You'll have a noisy welcome, and he had better not have the first brunt. Here, Tedo, jump up by Lance; see my big horse! Ha! I see Angel and Bear have climbed to the box. Now then, Robin, in with you! Can you make room for Stella?'
So having packed the barouche, Clement sent it off with a dash, taking John and Will Harewood as well as his two brothers in that dog-cart that fitted him so oddly, while Sibby, Krishnu, the nurse and baby, and the luggage, were disposed of in a sort of break which would hold everything, and came soberly behind with a farm-horse.
It had been well done of the brothers to relieve Felix from the charge of keeping the peace between Theodore and Kit, and leave him free to enjoy the arrival with his sisters, and to be happy in having Wilmet with him, the sharer in all his earlier exertions, and the best able to enter into his recollections, though at first she failed to recognise the old landmarks he pointed out, and Cherry sat dreamily smiling, owning that she recollected nothing in particular, but all was lovely and delicious, and not like a strange place, but as if she belonged to it.
Then came the summit of the hill, the church tower, and the river, and the rich valley stretched before them; and as there was a halt to put on the drag, up came on the breeze a clash and peal. 'The bells! the bells!' cried Stella; and Wilmet held up the finger to her boy, 'The bells, Kit, the bells for Uncle Felix! Listen!'
'Don't you ever forget,' cried Cherry, bending to kiss the wondering child; and grasping Felix's hand in irrepressible agitation, 'Oh! how often I have wondered whether we should live to see this day!'
'Thank Heaven that you share it, Sweetheart,' fervently whispered Felix; while Bernard and Angela turned round, and screamed to them to look.
And there was a big arch all across the road, all greenery, big white and orange lilies, and 'Welcome' and 'F.C.U.'s, and a flag on the church tower, and a tremendous onset of drums and trumpets, obstreperously hailing the conquering hero, who had to take off his hat and bow to the mounted array of some dozen tenants and their sons, all the cavalry of the estate turned out to meet him. 'Master Kistopher' was hardened enough to military bands not to mind this at all; but it was well that Theodore was a little behind, for the lungs of all Vale Leston Abbas, and more too, united in the cheer as the arch was reached. 'Oh! I hope they won't take out the horses!' cried Cherry, more than half frightened, while Bernard and Angel danced up and down with ecstatic cries of 'Jolly! jolly! Here's the whole place turned out! They'll draw us up to the house! Hurrah! hurrah!' bowing so graciously, that Cherry, in a counter paroxysm of diversion, called to them that they would be taken for the man and maid if they appropriated all the enthusiasm.
Happily no one was venturesome enough to meddle with the horses, but the whole population attended the carriage up to the house, making so much discordant uproar, that the reception was a very questionable pleasure to the nervous; Cherry was between laughter and sobs, and Wilmet had to spend much pains in persuading her boy that it was all excellent fun.
At last, upon the stone steps stood Felix, with Cherry on his arm, Theodore in his hand, nine altogether out of his twelve brothers and sisters round him, on this the threshold of the home of his forefathers. There he stood, bare-headed, moist-eyed, thanks to Heaven swelling his heart, thanks to man fluttering on his lip, as he heard the fresh shout of welcome, and the old men's 'There he is! God bless him!'
'Well may they say so!' whispered John Harewood to his wife. 'Here, at twenty-nine, he stands a stainless knight, with a stainless shield, as though he had not had to fight his way, and bear up all these around him!'
Felix meantime, withstanding Theodore's terrified tugs at his hand, put him into Sibby's care, to be taken as far as possible from the human greeting, and to enjoy that of the bells; Clement, with a prevision of the welcome, had provided a supply of cider, wherewith he and the other gentlemen proceeded to administer draughts to the health of the new master, who was allowed to do nothing but stand on the step to make a tableau, as Bill said, with his sisters, and return by look and gesture the tokens of welcome and the cheer, which Clement, gathering his choir, contrived to render considerably less inharmonious.
Then Felix, feeling that some words were due, and trained a little by town-council exigencies, spoke forth. 'Thanks, thanks with all our hearts, my good friends and neighbours. We did not expect so hearty a welcome, and I am sure we shall never forget it. As far as an earnest wish and purpose to do my best will carry me, I will try to deserve it; but you must bear with me if I often unavoidably disappoint you, and do not come up to the old golden age of this house. Any way, let us do our best, one and all, to live here to the glory of God, and in friendliness to one another. Then it will go hard if we are not very happy together.'
The bright smile and joyous hope in his face awoke a shout of 'Yes, yes!' and another cheer, followed by a farmer's voice proposing the health of the ladies, with the homely addition from another quarter, 'Bless their sweet faces!' and an observation which the Major delighted to overhear—'That there tall one, with the child by her side, was a right-down comely one, just such as our ladies up here did used to was.'
Health to 'Mr. Eddard' followed, surprising the new comers who had not learnt to accept the Vicar's parish name. It drained his provision of liquor, and gave him the opportunity of saying, 'Thank you sincerely, dear friends. We are old friends, you know, and I need say no more, only that now we have seen the good time coming, you had better wish the travellers good-night, and let my sisters rest. You will all be better acquainted soon.'
'Well managed, Mr. Edward,' said Felix, smiling, as Clement, for the first time able to speak to him after dismissing his flock, ran up the steps looking heated and radiant.
'There's another thing I've done, Felix,' he said, rather breathlessly. 'I've got a supper for the ringers in the long room. Martha is much displeased about it, but it is the only chance of breaking the neck of the drinking at the Rood without making you unpopular.'
'All right, Clem, thank you. Well! you look better than when I saw you last!'
'I'm quite jolly, thank you;' and indeed, the fagged air of depression had changed to hope and sunshine; he had grown quite sunburnt, and as Cherry followed up the compliment, had turned into a vigorous country parson instead of a white town-bred one. He was acting as a sort of host. 'This way, Wilmet. You must settle about the rooms, Cherry. It was all guess-work between Martha and me. There's some tea in the drawing-room by this time.'
He led them quickly through a large hall, paved with black and white lozenges, into a sort of conservatory passage, glazed on one side, and containing old orange-trees in tubs, and more recent fuchsias and geraniums, a great curtain of lilac Bougainvillia drooping at one end—making the girls shriek with ecstasy, and reproach Felix with never having told them of it.
'I am afraid I had forgotten it,' said he. 'I never went into this part of the house on my last two visits.'
'It was Jane's territory (Mrs. Fulbert),' said Clement, 'and I am afraid she has dismantled the room a good deal. The one hundred pounds you allowed her to choose as her own furniture came chiefly out of that, and the valuable things poor Fulbert had in his smoking-room. It was an odd choice, but I thought you would not mind that, and the valuation man looked sharp after her. I kept out of the way of the squabble.'
'I know where I am now,' said Wilmet. 'There's the garden-door at the end. And here is the drawing-room door. Ah! it does look empty.'
'Oh, never mind tables and chairs. The window!' cried Angela, flying forward to the eastern one, a deep bay, cushioned round, and looking out on the sloping lawn, gay with flower-beds, in pleasant evening shadow, the river sparkling beyond, and with a sidelong view of the bridge on the one hand and the church on the other. Two other windows looked to the south, also into the garden.
'At least she has left the piano,' said Lance.
'It was valued at eighty pounds, which would have made too large a hole,' said Clement. 'Also she has left a chair for you to sit on, Cherry. Are you tired?'
'I haven't time! I can't grasp it! Home! So exquisite, and all ours. Oh! the pictures! That lady, with the bent head over the rose, and the arch pensive eyes! She can't choose but be a Sir Joshua.'
'Right, Cherry,' said Lance, mounting a chair and turning to the back; '"Lady Geraldine Underwood, 1770. J. Reynolds."'
'The Irishwoman that gave you eyes and mischief. Your best possessions,' said Will.
He looked at Angela. Did he forget that neither Irish eyes nor mischief were Robina's portion?
At that moment Stella, who had gone up to the hearth, exclaimed, 'Edgar!' then checked herself, at the sound of the seldom uttered name; but Felix and Wilmet had both sprung to look.
'I remember,' said the latter.
'Is it my father?' whispered Stella.
It was one of a pair of the largest size of miniatures in Ross's most exquisite style of finish, thirty years back, just before the marriage of Edward and Mary Underwood. He, still a layman, was in a shooting-coat, with a dog by his side, and with the look of life and light, youth and sunshine, that had never left him—indeed, none but the little ones who had never really seen him could have hesitated for a moment; but it was different with the fellow-portrait. If Felix and Wilmet had not remembered 'Mamma's picture,' they would hardly have connected the bright soft smiling rose-tinted girl with the toil-worn faded image on their memories. Wilmet's tears gathered; and Felix murmured to Cherry, 'One feels that the life was killed out of her! She looks as if one would have died to save her a breath of care! Oh! to have brought her back!'
And with a wistful sigh he looked at Stella, the most like the portrait, though none of the sisters really reproduced it; indeed, the peculiar caressing and relying expression could hardly have been brought out, except by a petted shielded life, free from all care or hardness. Wilmet was on a more majestic and commanding scale; something of the darling child expression was in Geraldine, but intellect and illness had changed both the mould and colouring of the features. Robina was of the round-faced, round-eyed type, only refined; Angela like no one but Clement; and even Stella was not only too small, but too thoughtful, to recall that flower-like careless loveliness of Mary Underwood's maiden bloom.
'It was hard on you not to have had these,' said John.
'I suppose,' said Felix, 'that they were done for my uncle, and that my father thought them too valuable to take away.'
'Better so,' said Cherry, quietly.
'Yes,' said Lance; 'to have had these before one's eyes would have made one ready to fly at that man's throat,' glancing at the old squire in uniform.
'And now,' said Cherry, 'they are smiling their greeting to us.'
'You'll turn out the Squire, won't you, Felix?' added Lance. 'You won't keep him here, gloating on his victims?'
'Certainly not, if he suggests such ideas,' said Felix. 'It is Cherry's domain, though, and she must decide whether to banish him.'
'Oh! oh!' screamed Angela, who had meanwhile followed Bernard out of the room. 'Come here, all of you! Felix, we must have a ball! Nature and fate decree it.'
Felix laughed, gave Cherry his arm, and the procession moved on. 'Tripp says this conservatory was glazed for a surprise to my mother while she was on her wedding tour,' said Clement. 'You know this wing is the recent part of the house, built by my old great-uncle, when people had come to have large notions as to drawing and dining rooms. Here's the dining-room, but we shall go in there for severe tea presently. This is the middle period, the Stewart style part,' as they came back into the wainscotted hall, rising to the top of the house, with a staircase opposite to the front-door, and a handsome balustraded gallery running round the first floor.
But Angela's discovery was a great arched doorway, mantled only by a curtain, and leading into the only really ancient part of the building (except one turret). It was a very long room, with dark oak floor, six arched and cusped windows looking into as many arches of the cloister that ran along it, and black wainscot panelled walls, and oak beams, painted with coats-of-arms. So long was it, that the billiard table at one end, and at the other Clement's table laid out for the ringers' supper, made little show in it; and Angela, pouncing on Will Harewood, waltzed wildly with him up and down the shining floor, while Bernard learnedly expounded to Stella the games at billiards he had enjoyed with Mr. Somers there, and Lance went straight to the organ at the farther end.
'Ah! if you can do any good with that!' said Clement. 'I have been trying, but have only driven it and myself distracted!'
'How well I know the place!' cried Wilmet. 'Oh, if Alda could see it! I remember your driving us all in a team here, Fee!—Yes, Kit, trot, trot, all along. It is as if I saw you, Cherry, taking your first run alone there.'
'Better than now, I fear,' said Felix. 'Why, Cherry, woman, we must lay down bridges of matting for you,' as he felt her clutch his arm.
'Are all the floors so dreadful?' she sighed, as Clement next opened from the hall door into the library, with only a bit of carpet as an island in the middle. The library ranged with the drawing and dining rooms, though older. It had a window and a door into the cloister, and two windows to the east, and was surrounded with caged book-shelves. Here stood an harmonium, and the table and deep window-seats were piled with the miscellaneous parish appurtenances of the nineteenth-century pastor.
'You had better have this room, Felix,' said Clement; 'there was so much to do that I could not get my traps moved after Somers went.'
To which Felix replied by insisting that Clement should retain it. The door into the cloister, communicating with the church and churchyard, made it particularly eligible for the Vicar; and the study, on the opposite side of the hall, the Squire's favourite sitting-room, with the two south windows, would suit him and Pur,—the better that the adjoining room, where old Fulbert had slept in his infirm days, would serve as a housekeeper's room for Sibby and a retreat and home for Theodore. It opened into a passage leading to the offices.
'Never mind them now,' said Clement. 'Let Martha recover before we face her. I don't know which she resents most, the supper, or my sending in Kerenhappuch to help her. You all will be glad to find your nests, ladies,' he added, as poor Cherry surmounted each slippery shallow step, clinging hard to Felix's arm, while Angela and Stella had flown all round the upper story, and were helping Bill to laugh at the round-eyed range of ancestors in the corridor.
'Here I put you, our grand company, Mettie,' said Clement, opening the door of the handsome bedroom of the drawing-room wing; 'the nursery is up over, as I daresay you remember.'
'As if I did not!'
And up to it with one accord they all went, Cherry and all—for the stairs were close by, and of deal. At the moment of entrance, Felix, Wilmet, and Cherry, broke into a simultaneous shout of delight, as they beheld, staring at them in open-nostrilled pride, the rocking-horse of their youth. In one moment Cherry's arms were round its neck, Wilmet had her boy on the saddle, Felix was gently moving it, and patting its dappled sides with the tenderness of ancient love.
'This at least is unprofaned! I suppose no child has mounted it since we five hung rocking on it altogether that last morning!'
'I should like a ride now, dear old Gee-gee,' said Cherry, half sentimentally, as Kit insisted on being taken down to go to his Emma and his tea; and to her surprise and fright, her brothers snatched her up, and deposited her on its back, between screaming and laughing; and hardly was she lifted down, before Wilmet was on her knees, as Lance said, worshipping the doll's house over which she and Alda had broken their hearts, and setting all the the chairs and tables on their legs again.
The very cribs in the inner nursery were all in their old places; and to the great amusement of the rest, the four who had the honour of being natives, each sat down upon his or her own; and Felix and Wilmet had quite a little quarrel which owned the favoured cane-sided one, where one could poke one's fingers through.
'One's fingers—or rather two's fingers—are rather too big to decide that question now,' said Felix. 'However, you can take possession by deputy, Mettie, and some day Alda shall fill them all.'
'Ah! to meet her here!'
But there was one more sadly missed—the King Oberon of the nursery, whose star of cracked glass still marked one of the panes. Kit was the first to see it, trot up to point, and say 'Naughty!' but no one answered him, and Felix struggled back to a cheerful tone to say, 'After all, cane crib and all, I was not here to the last; I slept in Papa's dressing-room after Clem came to the fore.'
'Mamma's room was the one over the library,' said Cherry, as they descended.
'Here it is!' with transomed windows, trailed over with vine and Virginia creeper, one towards the river, and two towards the church, and Cherry's own particular boxes were in it. 'Oh! my dear Lord Chamberlain,' she cried, 'this is the place the master ought to have!'
'I had rather be on the other side, Cherry,' said Felix. 'It is better for Theodore that Clem and I should have rooms opening into one another, as he will look to him when I sleep out.'
'And I thought the dressing-room would serve for Stella,' added Clement. 'Why, she is quite pink!'
'Have I really a room to myself?'
'There are enough in the house for that, my little Star,' said Felix. 'I suppose you will hardly make a further progress now, Whiteheart?'
'Only let me show her the Prior's room,' said Clement, taking her to the floor above the billiard-room. It had been a smoking-room in the last reign; the windows were hung with heavy curtains; there was both a stove and a cheerful grate in it, a thick carpet and cushions in the windows, and a high screen, to cut off the draught from the little window into the south transept, where the Prior of old used to hear Mass, if indisposed.
'I have been purifying this room, literally and metaphorically,' said Clement, thinking of the pictures he had removed, and the air he had let in. 'It will make Cherry a capital painting-room.'
'Oh! but it is too much! You must not give me all the best rooms in the house.'
'Who should have them but our lady of the house?' cried both brothers.
'And after all, there are conveniences in not painting in the drawing-room,' said Cherry. 'May I tell, Lance?' as they both fell into a transport of laughter. 'You must know, Willie there insisted that I should do Cleomenes after the battle, when he would not go into his deserted house. He used so much moral compulsion, that though I knew that a Greek warrior was as much beyond me as an archangel, I only feebly objected the want of a model; and Lance, in a spirit of classic friendship, said he would sit. So one afternoon—there he stood, with his trousers turned up to his knees, and his shirt-sleeves up to his shoulders, no shoes or stockings—the table-cover gracefully disposed with a big shawl-brooch on one shoulder for a chlamys—leaning on Sibby's long broom-stick by way of a spear, endeavouring to compose his face as if his wife were dead, and his children in captivity, and he just beaten horse and foot, and going after them.'
'Cleomenes is no laughing matter,' sternly interposed Bill.
'Cleomenes was not, but Lance was. Well, I was just making a study of his foot, never dreaming of anybody getting in but by the street-door, when of all things in the world, up comes Miss Pearson herself—Miss Pearson, senior! and three girls! They had met a mad ox in the street, or some trifle of that sort, had bolted into the shop nearly in fits, and this unthinking Felix had popped them through the office to be still more scandalized upstairs.'
'Poor Miss Pearson!' said Lance; 'I shall never forget her gentle "Do I intrude?" going off into the wildest scream. And I couldn't escape by the other door, for Cherry had her easel up against it. She could only shriek "He's sitting!" technically, you see, like an old hen, or a schoolmaster, for I wasn't sitting at all.'
'Well, you need have no such catastrophes here,' said Felix, when the laughter began to subside; 'but your progress has been long enough; now we have landed you. You younger fry, you must shake into your rooms as you choose.'
'I secure the octagon turret-room at the end of the corridor,' cried Angela.
'And I shall hold to my room with the rum ceiling,' said Bernard. 'It is as good as the barrack at home! Come and see, Lance.'
'I ordered tea at seven,' said Clement, 'that Felix might be ready to speak to the ringers after it. You must take us in hand, now, Cherry; that is my last domestic order.'
So Cherry was left with her little sister. There was a little bustle of unpacking at first; but by the time Cherry was ready, she missed all sounds of Stella, and looking into her room, saw the child standing by the window, gazing intently out in a kind of dream, which ended in her running up to Cherry with a gasp of ecstasy, and hiding her face against her. 'O Cherry!' she said, 'I did not know it could be so—so—so exquisite!' and her bosom heaved with the struggle of new emotion—she who had seen nothing but Bexley suburbs in her little life.
'It does seem almost impossible to believe we are really always to live with these lovely sights,' said Cherry. 'It is like getting into the Promised Land! Why, my Star, it quite overcomes you!'
'Oh! if Tedo could—could—' It was a sort of moan that burst from Stella, followed by a shower of tears.
'Ah! Stella, sweet! We all of us miss somebody. It is not the Promised Land yet, for there you know there will be Ephphatha indeed!' and Cherry strangled her own sob, as her supplication went up that all might be as well there with her heart's grief as with Stella's. 'Besides,' she added, cheerfully, 'Theodore will be happier here; he will have more liberty and more pets.'
'And he likes the bells,' said Stella; but there was a wistful yearning look on the sweet face, as if the excess of pleasure increased the longing for companionship in her twin.
Cherry took her hand to encounter the dread waste of slipperiness before her; but in further proof who was the lady and the darling of the house, no sooner did her door open, than Felix hastened across from his room, Clement strode up from the library, John Harewood's head emerged from his dressing-room door; but Lance was beforehand with all, for he was close by, helping Golightly the gardener to carry the boxes as near as possible to their destinations.
He bore her off in triumph, with so much laughter, that the consequence was a slip, and a shout of warning displeasure from the elder brothers.
'No fault of his,' cried back Cherry, holding tight to him. 'Only if four brothers at once will make me so proud, I can but have a fall.'
'Aren't you prouder now?' said Lance, as they trooped into the dining-room. 'There's a table to sit down at the head of!'
What a glittering array it was of glass and silver and brightly-coloured china; and the profusion of country fare—roast fowl, green pease, yellow butter in ice, virgin combs of transparent liquid golden honey, mountains of strawberries, great jugs of milk and cream. There was no formality indeed in the Amen that responded to their chaplain's grace.
'Good creatures verily,' ejaculated Felix, as he took up carving-knife and fork.
'Is it a feast for his birthday?' whispered Stella, 'or is it to be always like this?'
'You see,' said Cherry to her neighbour, the Major, 'we remember when we used to have a quart of blue milk, and save for the babies.'
'I say, Felix,' cried Angela, 'have we got a farm, with cows, and turkey-cocks, and turnips, and all sorts of jolly things?'
'Stunning!' said Bernard; 'and an old bull with a ring in his nose, that would toss you as soon as look at you!'
'That home farm is a difficulty,' said Felix. 'I believe I ought to get rid of it, for I know nothing of farming, and have no time to learn.'
'Oh, let me manage it, if that's all!' said Angel. 'I'll get a smock-frock and big shoes, and a long whip, and get up at four in the morning.'
'Seriously, I hope you can keep it in your own hands,' said Clement. 'There's no getting milk otherwise. You might as well ask the farmers' wives for their hearts' blood. There's a child that I baptized soon after I came; the mother is sickly, and had lost two before. I found her feeding it with some mess of pounded acorns, and recommended milk, but found I might as well have talked of melted gold. Even when I offered to pay, it could not be done—would break up the cheese-making. I thought of buying a cow and some hay, and putting her in the Vicarage; but when I saw a great jug of hot milk come in with my coffee every morning, I ended by getting a mug and carrying it down every day; and really the child has lived.'
'But, Clem,' said Angel, with a sort of affectation of solemnity, 'wasn't that a difficult case of conscience? Weren't you stealing Mr. Underwood's milk?'
'No; for our old régime—not to say St. Matthew's—had taught him to go without,' said Felix, smiling, for he had seen the mug in force.
'Till the new Squire came, and I could unblushingly prey on him,' rejoined Clement.
'Whereby I propose,' said Major Harewood, 'that we drink the health of the said new Squire—with all birthday wishes—and long may he reign!'
'All birthday wishes, Felix,' responded Wilmet, who, like some of the others, had begun tea with a glass of claret. 'Do you remember this day thirteen years, when Robin did not know what a cold chicken was?'
'I remember it well,' said Felix, gravely. 'It seems to me to have been the last day that I was a boy. Thank you,' as each bright face nodded at him. 'Haven't I made speeches enough? Well, then, Ladies and Gentlemen, many thanks to you for coming here to-day. It's little good this place would be to me without you. And—' from the playfulness a sudden emotion came over and thrilled his voice—'may God grant we may still be all as happy together as we have been these thirteen years!'
'I would not have missed this for anything!' was John's very warm aside; but a little afraid of emotion, he added, 'Yes, you are worth looking at. You certainly are a right goodly family.'
'Seen in the light of prosperity,' said Cherry.
'He need not be accused of that,' said Wilmet. 'He never saw so many of us together before.'
'Except the first time,' said John, 'when I thought you would never have done coming into the room.'
'Poor John!' said Felix, 'I pity your blushes. I wonder you were not frightened away at once!'
'And it was not Robin's fault,' said Cherry. 'Do you remember, Bobbie, the agony you were in, till you grew desperate, and stopped Clem and me by speaking out?'
'Robin could have had nothing to speak about,' said Wilmet, with a resumption of her old manner that tickled the others exceedingly.
'Indeed!' quoth Lance. 'Bill remembers his confidences by the river.'
'Moonshine!' growled Bill, but scarce heeded, for John had turned to his wife with a droll injured air of condolence, saying, 'Ah! my dear, these little secrets will come out; but we must make the best of it!'
'And talking of rivers and moonshine,' cried Angela, 'we'll have a turn in the boat. Hurrah for the boat! Come, Bear—come, Bill—I want my first lesson in rowing.'
'Stay,' said Felix; 'that eddy where the Leston comes down makes the river not safe when you do not know it. Now, girls, all of you, remember once for all that I desire you will never go in the boat without some one who can swim, nor take Theodore without me.'
He seldom gave a direct command, but there was enforcement in his tone; and John added, 'Quite right. I see it is a stream not to be trusted.'
'It is just a device to hinder our going at all,' pouted Angela.
'And swimming is a mere hindrance to drowning aisy, if you are to be drownded,' added Bill.
'Do you know,' added Clement, 'that
"To Leston and Ewe
Underwood pays due,"
in every generation?'
'Where did you pick up that adage?' asked Felix.
'A prophecy, a prophecy!' cried Angela. 'What fun! I shall hold up my head more than ever, now we have a saw of our own! What fun!'
'Where did you hear it?' repeated Cherry, who as well as Stella looked discomfited.
'I did not hear it,' said Clement, 'the people were far too polite to tell me; but it was administered to Somers by way of warning, after some eccentric proceedings in the boat with Bear. They say an Underwood is drowned in every generation—I suppose since the sacrilege.'
'Prove the fact,' said Felix.
'Somers and I did try to make out,' said Clement, 'between registers and monuments. We found one Lancelot in 1750, with a note "Drowned" attached to his name, and a conglomeration of urns and water-nymphs—Leston and Ewe, I presume—scrambling about his monument in the south transept; and the old Squire had told me that the crayon young lady in a cap in the library was our old great-uncle's intended, but was drowned in crossing the ferry at Ewmouth, before the bridge was built. She is not very pretty; and I was going to have put a photograph in her place, but it seemed to me profane, when she had hung there so many years for the poor old faithful lover to look at.'
'The Ewe seems to have been in overhaste to claim its due, before she was an Underwood,' said Angela.
'Quite enough for an adage,' said John; 'one real Underwood, and one intended.'
'However, as I do not mean the rivers to get their due through any fool-hardiness,' said Felix, 'you must attend to my rule.'
'And I think it renders boating reasonably safe,' added Clement. 'There are no holes, and the only danger is when there has been a good deal of rain to make the currents strong; otherwise it is quite safe for a tolerable swimmer. I learnt at Cambridge, and Bear is a perfect cork; but I did not know you could swim, Fee.'
'I improved my opportunities at Ewmouth five years ago, when unluckily Lance could not.'
'I should try again if I were to be much here,' said Lance; but the general voice dissuaded him; and at the same time Tripp knocked at the door—the summons to the Vicar and Squire to visit the ringers at their banquet.
'You had better go to bed, Cherry,' said Felix, as he rose; 'you look like a white rag.'
'Triumphs are tiring processes, to say nothing of making tea,' said Cherry; 'but I don't want to disturb Sibby just yet.'
'I'll put you to bed, if you like,' said Wilmet 'I want to send Emma down, and keep within hearing of the children.'
'Oh, that will be most delicious of all! So like old times!' And the two sisters went off, to be happy together, and coo a little delight in their Squire and his beautiful home, mingled with a domestic consultation how the bared drawing-room could be inexpensively rendered a pleasant family gathering place.
'A little chintz will do a great deal,' said Wilmet; 'we will see about it.'
Which assurance set Cherry's mind at rest on that score, for her belief in Wilmet's notable abilities was boundless. 'But what is the matter with Robina?' she added after a few minutes, recalling the events of the day. 'She is so silent, and has a distressed anxious look I never saw about her before. I wonder whether she regrets the not coming home for good.'
'I am not sure,' said Wilmet; 'I am inclined to think she is sorry to be away from Repworth Towers.'
'O Wilmet! impossible, unnatural!'
'I never do quite understand Robin,' said Wilmet. 'She seems the simplest, soberest girl in the world; and yet I suppose that folly of Alice's put things into her head, for she has a strange propensity to think people are paying her attention. Even at Barèges I saw symptoms of it, which I put a stop to at once.'
'I can't think it of any one so honest and sensible as the Robin.'
'I know it, unfortunately; and it is the more curious that she has only moderate good looks, and no other tokens of vanity. It is particularly unlucky in her position.'
'You don't imagine there's anything going on!'
'I hope not.'
'I have a great deal too much confidence in the Robin to suspect her.'
'Not of consciously doing wrong, but of having been flattered, and now perhaps in a difficulty. However, I shall say nothing till we have seen more. She may be only tired.'
Felix—with all that was on his hands—had likewise noted the absence of the Robin's chirp, and looked for her when he came back from the ringers' supper, to which Clement and Lance had followed him. They then went off to Clement's library for a consultation about some music; and Felix, repairing to the drawing-room, found nothing there but a lonely cockchafer, knocking his head against a lonely lamp on the lonely round table in the centre—not an enlivening spectacle; but hearing steps on the gravel, he went out, and found John pacing under the wall with a cigar, and Bernard emulously following in his wake.
'Where are all the others?' he asked; 'it is not far from ten.'
'Wilmet went up to the babies,' said John; 'the others are about somewhere.'
'Larking about,' added Bernard, with superior wisdom. 'Well, John, you were saying—'
Felix was too thankful to have Bernard doing anything so sensible as to talk to John to interrupt them further, and turned away. He stood for a few minutes to enjoy the strange repose of the exquisite loveliness of the scene—the summer sunset, not yet entirely died away, but tingeing the northern sky with pure light, while the great moon, still low, silvered the river, and defined the grand outline of the church.
And this, not only a scene to be gazed at, but the home he had reached at last—the home so long withheld!
'Entering into rest,' he said to himself, for the repose of mind was great. 'And yet—
"Your rest must be no rest below."
No, home duties—higher duties, still more—forbid me to make this more than a resting-place—not rest. "There remaineth yet a rest for the people of God"—yet a home, but its shadow here is very sweet. Let it not beguile me!'
Just then Angela's laugh, a very musical and yet a very giddy one, like a rapid peal of silver bells, caught his ear; and in the moonlight in the churchyard he saw her tall light figure, and what could be none other than Will beside her. He was vexed. She was bare-headed, and the churchyard was open to the village on the other side, and had a public pathway through it. He walked quickly towards them, and called as soon as he could do so in a low voice, 'Come in directly, Angela. You know this is not private ground.'
'O Felix, we have found such a delicious ghost! Don't you see its white wings?'
'Angel thinks it is her own kin, a fossil cherub,' said Will. 'Why aren't you all out? 'tis not a scene to be wasted, especially with Angels and Ministers of Grace to defend us.'
'Minister of Grace—that's Robin,' laughed Angela.
'Hush, Angela! come in,' said Felix, severely; 'this is no place for nonsense—especially unkind nonsense,' he added in a lower voice.
She did not answer, but the church clock began its chimes—sweet, mysterious, tender—given by some musical Underwood long ago, and sounding in the dark quite unearthly, while the long deep tones of the ten o'clock that followed came with awe upon the ear. Will was heard to give a long sigh, but no one spoke as they all came back to the drawing-room, which was full enough by this time—four gentlemen, hotly discussing a cricket-match by the chimney-piece; Wilmet knitting on a stiff chair in the corner; and Robina, under the lamp, hard at work on some point-lace on a green roll.
'Putting out your eyes, Bob,' said Felix, feeling the need of saying something kind to her. 'What are you doing that for?'
'Lady de la Poer has some point de Venise that she can't use because one ruffle is wanting,' said Robina, 'and I have made out the pattern. I want to take it back with me and surprise her.'
'It is all willing sacrifice when one puts out one's eyes in a marchioness's service,' said Will's voice from the window.
Robina looked up resolutely. 'Very willing when one is grateful for a great deal of motherly kindness,' she said, steadily, and yet with a certain sadness in her voice.
'Oh yes! a handle to one's name makes a little civility go a great way.'
'You know nothing about it.' The voice was steady but indignant, and there was a flush of deep colour on the cheeks.
'It is quite true, Robina,' said John. 'It is one of the trials of life, that when we live in two different worlds, the inhabitants of the one are apt to resent and misunderstand our feelings for the other.'
They were all grateful for this generalization; and Felix now spoke of the household prayers. 'I had not begun them,' said Clement; 'I thought the real master of the house should take the initiative.'
'Set up the domestic halter, as Mrs. Shapcote says,' added Lance.
'We might make that organ available,' said Felix, 'and screen off the end part of the long room where it stands, for a permanency.'
'Yes, there's rather a nice window down there with our Rood in it—nothing incongruous,' said Clement, 'if Lance can only cure the organ.'
'Meantime, I suppose we had better have the servants in here, and use the piano.'
'They will be all dispersed, and not like to come in,' said Wilmet.
'Possibly,' said Felix, 'but I shall go and see. I have a feeling against beginning our first night in our new home without some collective commendation of ourselves.'
'If we had but an authorized form for dedicating a new home, like the Russian Church,' said Clement.
'You have not thought of anything in especial. Well, see.' And he pointed to some marks in the prayer-book he left in Clement's hand, while he left the room for a word or two, which he thought would better prepare the household than a peremptory bell.
Clement was struck, as indeed they all were, with his selection. There was the Psalm, 'Except the Lord build the house;' a short lesson (the reading of which Felix reserved to himself), namely, the words from Deuteronomy, against the presumption of prosperity; and the Collects, 'Prevent us O Lord in all our doings,' 'Charity,' 'the sundry and manifold changes of the world,' and 'things temporal and things eternal;' and then came the hymn—it was, 'Lead Thou me on.' Felix believed he had heard its echoes in his little bed that last Sunday night, and therefore wished for it, though it seemed a strange choice for the new house. How Edward and Mary must have felt that 'one step enough for me,' when they went forth with their little ones into the moor and fen! But in this hour of restoration, was it still to be a looking forth into mist and fog, led only by the kindly Light,
'Till through the dawn the Angel faces smile.'
Some who looked at those pictures felt as if they had had a foretaste of those angel faces.
'And,' said Kerenhappuch to her father, 'to see Miss Mary's sons, those dear young gentlemen, all a standing singing together like so many lambs—it was just a picture like the three chorister boys. I says to myself, "Keren, this 'ill be a blessed place. If this isn't the angels come down after all!"'