The Farringdons

by Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HILLS

Shall I e'er love thee less fondly than now, dear?
Tell me if e'er my devotion can die?
Never until thou shalt cease to be thou, dear;
Never until I no longer am I.

Whether the doctors were right when they talked of the renewed desire to live producing fresh vitality, or whether the wise man knew best after all when he said that love is stronger than death, who can say? Anyway, the fact remained that Christopher responded—as he had ever responded—to Elisabeth's cry for help, and came back from the very gates of the grave at her bidding. He had never failed her yet, and he did not fail her now.

The days of his recovery were wonderful days to Elisabeth. It was so strange and new to her to be doing another person's will, and thinking another person's thoughts, and seeing life through another person's eyes; it completely altered the perspective of everything. And there was nothing strained about it, which was a good thing, as Elisabeth was too light-hearted to stand any strain for long; the old comradeship still existed between them, giving breadth to a love which the new relationship had made so deep.

And it was very wonderful to Christopher, also, to find himself in the sunshine at last after so many years of shadowland. At first the light almost dazzled him, he was so unaccustomed to it; but as he gradually became used to the new feeling of being happy, his nature responded to the atmosphere of warmth and brightness, and opened as a flower in the sun. As it was strange to Elisabeth to find herself living and moving and having her being in another's personality, so it was strange to Christopher to find another's personality merged in his. He had lived so entirely for other people that it was a great change to find another person living entirely for him; and it was a change that was wholly beneficial. As his nature deepened Elisabeth's, so her nature expanded his; and each was the better for the influence of the other, as each was the complement of the other. So after a time Christopher grew almost as light-hearted as Elisabeth, while Elisabeth grew almost as tender-hearted as Christopher. For both of them the former things had passed away, and all things were made new.

It was beautiful weather, too, which helped to increase their happiness; that still, full, green weather, which sometimes comes in the late summer, satisfying men's souls with its peaceful perfectness; when the year is too old to be disturbed by the restless hope of spring, too young to be depressed by the chilling dread of autumn, and so just touches the fringe of that eternity which has no end neither any beginning. The fine weather hastened Christopher's recovery; and, as he gained strength, he and Elisabeth spent much time in the old garden, looking toward the Welsh mountains.

"So we have come to the country on the other side of the hills at last," she said to him, as they were watching one of the wonderful Mershire sunsets and drinking in its beauty. "I always knew it was there, but sometimes I gave up all hope of ever finding it for myself."

Christopher took her hand and began playing with the capable artist-fingers. "And is it as nice a country as you expected, sweetheart?"

"As nice as I expected? I should just think it is. I knew that in the country over the hills I should find all the beautiful things I had imagined as a child and all the lovely things I had longed for as a woman; and that, if only I could reach it, all the fairy-tales would come true. But now that I have reached it, I find that the fairy-tales fell far short of the reality, and that it is a million times nicer than I ever imagined anything could be."

"Darling, I am glad you are so happy. But it beats me how such a stupid fellow as I am can make you so."

"Well, you do, and that's all that matters. Nobody can tell how they do things; they only know that they can do them. I don't know how I can paint pictures any more than you know how you can turn smoky ironworks into the country over the hills. But we can, and do; which shows what clever people we are, in spite of ourselves."

"I think the cleverness lies with you in both cases—in your wonderful powers of imagination, my dear."

"Do you? Then that shows how little you know about it."

Christopher put his arm round her. "I always was stupid, you know; you have told me so with considerable frequency."

"Oh! so you were; but you were never worse than stupid."

"That's a good thing; for stupidity is a misfortune rather than a fault."

"Now I was worse than stupid—much worse," continued Elisabeth gravely; "but I never was actually stupid."

"Weren't you? Don't be too sure of that. I don't wish to hurt your feelings, sweetheart, or to make envious rents in your panoply of wisdom; but, do you know, you struck me now and again as being a shade—we will not say stupid, but dense?"

"When I thought you didn't like me because you went to Australia, you mean?"

"That was one of the occasions when your acumen seemed to be slightly at fault. And there were others."

Elisabeth looked thoughtful. "I really did think you didn't like me then."

"Denseness, my dear Elisabeth—distinct denseness. It would be gross flattery to call it by any other name."

"But you never told me you liked me."

"If I had, and you had then thought I did not, you would have been suffering from deafness, not denseness. You are confusing terms."

"Well, then, I'll give in and say I was dense. But I was worse than that: I was positively horrid as well."

"Not horrid, Betty; you couldn't be horrid if you tried. Perhaps you were a little hard on me; but it's all over and done with now, and you needn't bother yourself any more about it."

"But I ought to bother about it if I intend to make a trustworthy step-ladder out of my dead selves to upper storeys."

"A trustworthy fire-escape, you mean; but I won't have it. You sha'n't have any dead selves, my dear, because I shall insist on keeping them all alive by artificial respiration, or restoration from drowning, or something of that kind. Not one of them shall die with my permission; remember that. I'm much too fond of them."

"You silly boy! You'll never train me and discipline me properly if you go on in this way."

"Hang it all, Betty! Who wants to train and discipline you? Certainly not I. I am wise enough to let well—or rather perfection—alone."

Elisabeth nestled up to Christopher. "But I'm not perfection, Chris; you know that as well as I do."

"Probably I shouldn't love you so much if you were; so please don't reform, dear."

"And you like me just as I am?"

"Precisely. I should break my heart if you became in any way different from what you are now."

"But you mustn't break your heart; it belongs to me, and I won't have you smashing up my property."

"I gave it to you, it is true; but the copyright is still mine. The copyright of letters that I wrote to you is mine; and I believe the law of copyright is the same with regard to hearts as to letters."

"Well, anyhow, I've written my name all over it."

"I know you have; and it was very untidy of you, my dearest. Once would have been enough to show that it belonged to you; but you weren't content with that: you scribbled all over every available space, until there was no room left even for advertisements; and now nobody else will ever be able to write another name upon it as long as I live."

"I'm glad of that; I wouldn't have anybody else's name upon it for anything. And I'm glad that you like me just as I am, and don't want me to be different."

"Heaven forbid!"

"But still I was horrid to you once, Chris, however you may try to gloss it over. My dear, my dear, I don't know how I ever could have been unkind to you; but I was."

"Never mind, sweetheart; it is ancient history now, and who bothers about ancient history? Did you ever meet anybody who fretted over the overthrow of Carthage, or made a trouble of the siege of Troy?"

"No," Elisabeth truthfully replied; "and I'm really nice to you now, whatever I may have been before. Don't you think I am?"

"I should just think you are, Betty; a thousand times nicer than I deserve, and I am becoming most horribly conceited in consequence."

"And, after all, I agree with the prophet Ezekiel that if people are nice at the end, it doesn't much matter how disagreeable they have been in the meantime. He doesn't put it quite in that way, but the sentiment is the same. I suit you down to the ground now, don't I, Chris?"

"You do, my darling; and up to the sky, and beyond." And Christopher drew her still closer to him and kissed her.

After a minute's silence Elisabeth whispered—

"When one is as divinely happy as this, isn't it difficult to realize that the earth will ever be earthy again, and the butter turnipy, and things like that? Yet they will be."

"But never quite as earthy or quite as turnipy as they were before; that's just the difference."

After playing for a few minutes with Christopher's watch-chain, Elisabeth suddenly remarked—

"You never really appreciated my pictures, Chris. You never did me justice as an artist, though you did me far more than justice as a woman. Why was that?"

"Didn't I? I'm sorry. Nevertheless, I'm not sure that you are right. I was always intensely interested in your pictures because they were yours, quite apart from their own undoubted merits."

"That was just it; you admired my pictures because they were painted by me, while you really ought to have admired me because I had painted the pictures."

A look of amusement stole over Christopher's face. "Then I fell short of your requirements, dear heart; for, as far as you and your works were concerned, I certainly never committed the sin of worshipping the creature rather than the creator."

"But there was a time when I wanted you to do so."

"As a matter of fact," said Christopher thoughtfully, "I don't believe a man who loves a woman can ever appreciate her genius properly, because love is greater than genius, and so the greater swallows up the less. In the eyes of the world, her genius is the one thing which places a woman of genius above her fellows, and the world worships it accordingly. But in the eyes of the man who loves her, she is already placed so far above her fellows that her genius makes no difference to her altitude. Thirty feet makes all the difference in the height of a weather-cock, but none at all in the distance between the earth and a fixed star."

"What a nice thing to say! I adore you when you say things like that."

Christopher continued: "You see, the man is interested in the woman's works of art simply because they are hers; just as he is interested in the rustle of her silk petticoat simply because it is hers. Possibly he is more interested in the latter, because men can paint pictures sometimes, and they can never rustle silk petticoats properly. You are right in thinking that the world adores you for the sake of your creations, while I adore your creations for the sake of you; but you must also remember that the world would cease to worship you if your genius began to decline, while I should love you just the same if you took to painting sign-posts and illustrating Christmas cards—even if you became an impressionist."

"What a dear boy you are! You really are the greatest comfort to me. I didn't always feel like this, but now you satisfy me completely, and fill up every crevice of my soul. There isn't a little space anywhere in my mind or heart or spirit that isn't simply bursting with you." And Elisabeth laughed a low laugh of perfect contentment.

"My darling, how I love you!" And Christopher also was content.

Then there was another silence, which Christopher broke at last by saying—

"What is the matter, Betty?"

"There isn't anything the matter. How should there be?"

"Oh, yes, there is. Do you think I have studied your face for over thirty years, my dear, without knowing every shade of difference in its expression? Have I said anything to vex you?"

"No, no; how could I be vexed with you, Chris, when you are so good to me? I am horrid enough, goodness knows, but not horrid enough for that."

"Then what is it? Tell me, dear, and see if I can't help?"

Elisabeth sighed. "I was thinking that there is really no going back, however much we may pretend that there is. What we have done we have done, and what we have left undone we have left undone; and there is no blotting out the story of past years. We may write new stories, perhaps, and try to write better ones, but the old ones are written beyond altering, and must stand for ever. You have been divinely good to me, Chris, and you never remind me even by a look how I hurt you and misjudged you in the old days. But the fact remains that I did both; and nothing can ever alter that."

"Silly little child, it's all over and past now! I've forgotten it, and you must forget it too."

"I can't forget it; that's just the thing. I spoiled your life for the best ten years of it; and now, though I would give everything that I possess to restore those years to you, I can't restore them, or make them up to you for the loss of them. That's what hurts so dreadfully."

Christopher looked at her with a great pity shining in his eyes. He longed to save from all suffering the woman he loved; but he could not save her from the irrevocableness of her own actions, strive as he would; which was perhaps the best thing in the world for her, and for all of us. Human love would gladly shield us from the consequences of what we have done; but Divine Love knows better. What we have written, we have written on the page of life; and neither our own tears, nor the tears of those who love us better than we love ourselves, can blot it out. For the first time in her easy, self-confident career, Elisabeth Farringdon was brought face to face with this merciless truth; and she trembled before it. It was just because Christopher was so ready to forgive her, that she found it impossible to forgive herself.

"I always belonged to you, you see, dear," Christopher said very gently, "and you had the right to do what you liked with your own. I had given you the right of my own free will."

"But you couldn't give me the right to do what was wrong. Nobody can do that. I did what was wrong, and now I must be punished for it."

"Not if I can help it, sweetheart. You shall never be punished for anything if I can bear the punishment for you."

"You can't help it, Chris; that's just the point. And I am being punished in the way that hurts most. All my life I thought of myself, and my own success, and how I was going to do this and that and the other, and be happy and clever and good. But suddenly everything has changed. I no longer care about being happy myself; I only want you to be happy; and yet I know that for ten long years I deliberately prevented you from being happy. Don't you see, dear, how terrible the punishment is? The thing I care for most in the whole world is your happiness; and the fact remains, and will always remain, that that was the thing which I destroyed with my own hands, because I was cruel and selfish and cold."

"Still, I am happy enough now, Betty—happy enough to make up for all that went before."

"But I can never give you back those ten years," said Elisabeth, with a sob in her voice—"never as long as I live. Oh! Chris, I see now how horrid I was; though all the time I thought I was being so good, that I looked down upon the women who I considered had lower ideals than I had. I built myself an altar of stone, and offered up your life upon it, and then commended myself when the incense rose up to heaven; and I never found out that the sacrifice was all yours, and that there was nothing of mine upon the altar at all."

"Never mind, darling; there isn't going to be a yours and mine any more, you know. All things are ours, and we are beginning a new life together."

Elisabeth put both arms round his neck and kissed him of her own accord. "My dearest," she whispered, "how can I ever love you enough for being so good to me?"

But while Christopher and Elisabeth were walking across enchanted ground, Cecil Farquhar was having a hard time. Elisabeth had written to tell him the actual facts of the case almost as soon as she knew them herself; and he could not forgive her for first raising his hopes and then dashing them to the ground. And there is no denying that he had somewhat against her; for she had twice played him this trick—first as regarded herself, and then as regarded her fortune. That she had not been altogether to blame—that she had deluded herself in both cases as effectually as she had deluded him—was no consolation as far as he was concerned; his egoism took no account of her motives—it only resented the results. Quenelda did all in her power to comfort him, but she found it uphill work. She gave him love in full measure; but, as it happened, money and not love was the thing he most wanted, and that was not hers to bestow. He still cared for her more than he cared for anybody (though not for anything) else in the world; it was not that he loved Cæsar less but Rome more, Cecil's being one of the natures to whom Rome would always appeal more powerfully than Cæsar. His life did consist in the things which he had; and, when these failed, nothing else could make up to him for them. Neither Christopher nor Elisabeth was capable of understanding how much mere money meant to Farquhar; they had no conception of how bitter was his disappointment on knowing that he was not, after all, the lost heir to the Farringdon property. And who would blame them for this? Does one blame a man, who takes a dirty bone away from a dog, for not entering into the dog's feelings on the matter? Nevertheless, that bone is to the dog what fame is to the poet and glory to the soldier. One can but enjoy and suffer according to one's nature.

It happened, by an odd coincidence, that the mystery of Cecil's parentage was cleared up shortly after Elisabeth's false alarm on that score; and his paternal grandfather was discovered in the shape of a retired shopkeeper at Surbiton of the name of Biggs, who had been cursed with an unsatisfactory son. When in due time this worthy man was gathered to his fathers, he left a comfortable little fortune to his long-lost grandson; whereupon Cecil married Quenelda, and continued to make art his profession, while his recreation took the form of believing—and retailing his belief to anybody who had time and patience to listen to it—that the Farringdons of Sedgehill had, by foul means, ousted him from his rightful position, and that, but for their dishonesty, he would have been one of the richest men in Mershire. And this grievance—as is the way of grievances—never failed to be a source of unlimited pleasure and comfort to Cecil Farquhar.

But in the meantime, when the shock of disappointment was still fresh, he wrote sundry scathing letters to Miss Elisabeth Farringdon, which she in turn showed to Christopher, rousing the fury of the latter thereby.

"He is a cad—a low cad!" exclaimed Christopher, after the perusal of one of these epistles; "and I should like to tell him what I think of him, and then kick him."

Elisabeth laughed; she always enjoyed making Christopher angry. "He wanted to marry me," she remarked, by way of adding fuel to the flames.

"Confounded impudence on his part!" muttered Christopher.

"But he left off when he found out that I hadn't got any money."

"Worse impudence, confound him!"

"Oh! I wish you could have seen him when I told him that the money was not really mine," continued Elisabeth, bubbling over with mirth at the recollection; "he cooled down so very quickly, and so rapidly turned his thoughts in another direction. Don't you know what it is to bite a gooseberry at the front door while it pops out at the back? Well, Cecil Farquhar's love-making was just like that. It really was a fine sight!"

"The brute!"

"Never mind about him, dear! I'm tired of him."

"But I do mind when people dare to be impertinent to you. I can't help minding," Christopher persisted.

"Then go on minding, if you want to, darling—only don't let us waste our time in talking about him. There's such a lot to talk about that is really important—why you said so-and-so, and how you felt when I said so-and-so, ten years ago; and how you feel about me to-day, and whether you like me as much this afternoon as you did this morning; and what colour my eyes are, and what colour you think my new frock should be; and heaps of really serious things like that."

"All right, Betty; where shall we begin?"

"We shall begin by making a plan. Do you know what you are going to do this afternoon?"

"Yes; whatever you tell me. I always do."

"Well, then, you are coming with me to have tea at Mrs. Bateson's, just as we used to do when we were little; and I have told her to invite Mrs. Hankey as well, to make it seem just the same as it used to be. By the way, is Mrs. Hankey as melancholy as ever, Chris?"

"Quite. Time doth not breathe on her fadeless gloom, I can assure you."

"Won't it be fun to pretend we are children again?" Elisabeth exclaimed.

"Great fun; and I don't think it will need much pretending, do you know?" replied Christopher, who saw deeper sometimes than Elisabeth did, and now realized that it was only when they two became as little children—he by ceasing to play Providence to her, and she by ceasing to play Providence to herself—that they had at last caught glimpses of the kingdom of heaven.

So they walked hand in hand to Caleb Bateson's cottage, as they had so often walked in far-off, childish days; and the cottage looked so exactly the same as it used to look, and Caleb and his wife and Mrs. Hankey were so little altered by the passage of time, that it seemed as if the shadow had indeed been put back ten degrees. And so, in a way, it was, by the new spring-time which had come to Christopher and Elisabeth. They were both among those beloved of the gods who are destined to die young—not in years but in spirit; her lover as well as herself was what Elisabeth called "a fourth-dimension person," and there is no growing old for fourth-dimension people; because it has already been given to them to behold the vision of the cloud-clad angel, who stands upon the sea and upon the earth and swears that there shall be time no longer. They see him in the far distances of the sunlit hills, in the mysteries of the unfathomed ocean, and their ears are opened to the message that he brings; for they know that in all beauty—be it of earth, or sea, or sky, or human souls—there is something indestructible, immortal, and that those who have once looked upon it shall never see death. Such of us as make our dwelling-place in the world of the three dimensions, grow weary of the sameness and the staleness of it all, and drearily echo the Preacher's Vanitas vanitatum; but such of us as have entered into the fourth dimension, and have caught glimpses of the ideal which is concealed in all reality, do not trouble ourselves over the flight of time, for we know we have eternity before us; and so we are content to wait patiently and joyfully, in sure and certain hope of that better thing which, without us, can not be made perfect.

It was with pride and pleasure that Mr. and Mrs. Bateson received their guests. The double announcement that Christopher was the lost heir of the Farringdons (for Elisabeth had insisted on his making this known), and that he was about to marry Elisabeth, had given great delight all through Sedgehill. The Osierfield people were proud of Elisabeth, but they had learned to love Christopher; they had heard of her glory from afar, but they had been eye-witnesses of the uprightness and unselfishness and nobility of his life; and, on the whole, he was more popular than she. Elisabeth was quite conscious of this; and—what was more—she was glad of it. She, who had so loved popularity and admiration, now wanted people to think more of Christopher than of her. Once she had gloried in the thought that George Farringdon's son would never fill her place in the hearts of the people of the Osierfield; now her greatest happiness lay in the fact that he filled it more completely than she could ever have done, and that at Sedgehill she would always be second to him.

"Deary me, but it's like old times to see Master Christopher and Miss Elisabeth having tea with us again," exclaimed Mrs. Bateson, after Caleb had asked a blessing; "and it seems but yesterday, Mrs. Hankey, that they were here talking over Mrs. Perkins's wedding—your niece Susan as was—with Master Christopher in knickers, and Miss Elisabeth's hair down."

Mrs. Hankey sighed her old sigh. "So it does, Mrs. Bateson—so it does; and yet Susan has just buried her ninth."

"And is she quite well?" asked Elisabeth cheerfully. "I remember all about her wedding, and how immensely interested I was."

"As well as you can expect, miss," replied Mrs. Hankey, "with eight children on earth and one in heaven, and a husband as plays the trombone of an evening. But that's the worst of marriage; you know what a man is when you marry him, but you haven't a notion what he'll be that time next year. He may take to drinking or music for all you know; and then where's your peace of mind?"

"You are not very encouraging," laughed Elisabeth, "considering that I am going to be married at once."

"Well, miss, where's the use of flattering with vain words, and crying peace where there is no peace, I should like to know? I can only say as I hope you'll be happy. Some are."

Here Christopher joined in. "You mustn't discourage Miss Farringdon in that way, or else she'll be throwing me over; and then whatever will become of me?"

Mrs. Hankey at once tried to make the amende honorable; she would not have hurt Christopher's feelings for worlds, as she—in common with most of the people at Sedgehill—had had practical experience of his kindness in times of sorrow and anxiety. "Not she, sir; Miss Elisabeth's got too much sense to go throwing anybody over—and especially at her age, when she's hardly likely to get another beau in a hurry. Don't you go troubling your mind about that, Master Christopher. You won't throw over such a nice gentleman as him, will you, miss?"

"Certainly not; though hardly on the grounds which you mention."

"Well, miss, if you're set on marriage you're in luck to have got such a pleasant-spoken gentleman as Master Christopher—or I should say, Mr. Farringdon, begging his pardon. Such a fine complexion as he's got, and never been married before, nor nothing. For my part I never thought you would get a husband—never; and I've often passed the remark to Mr. and Mrs. Bateson here. 'Mark my words,' I said, 'Miss Elisabeth Farringdon will remain Elisabeth Farringdon to the end of the chapter; she's too clever to take the fancy of the menfolk, and too pale. They want something pink and white and silly, men do."

"Some want one thing and some another," chimed in Mrs. Bateson, "and they know what they want, which is more than women-folks do. Why, bless you! girls 'll come telling you that they wouldn't marry so-and-so, not if he was to crown 'em; and the next thing you hear is that they are keeping company with him, and that no woman was ever so happy as them, and that the man is such a piece of perfection that the President of the Conference himself isn't fit to black his boots."

"You have hit upon a great mystery, Mrs. Bateson," remarked Christopher, "and one which has only of late been revealed to me. I used to think, in my masculine ignorance, that if a woman appeared to dislike a man, she would naturally refuse to marry him; but I am beginning to doubt if I was right."

Mrs. Bateson nodded significantly. "Wait till he asks her; that's what I say. It's wonderful what a difference the asking makes. Women think a sight more of a sparrow in the hand than a covey of partridges in the bush; and I don't blame them for it; it's but natural that they should."

"A poor thing but mine own," murmured Christopher.

"That's not the principle at all," Elisabeth contradicted him; "you've got hold of quite the wrong end of the stick this time."

"I always do, in order to give you the right one; as in handing you a knife I hold it by the blade. You so thoroughly enjoy getting hold of the right end of a stick, Betty, that I wouldn't for worlds mar your pleasure by seizing it myself; and your delight reaches high-water-mark when, in addition, you see me fatuously clinging on to the ferrule."

"Never mind what women-folk say about women-folk, Miss Elisabeth," said Caleb Bateson kindly; "they're no judges. But my missis has the right of it when she says that a man knows what he wants, and in general sticks to it till he gets it. And if ever a man got what he wanted in this world, that man's our Mr. Christopher."

"You're right there, Bateson," agreed the master of the Osierfield; and his eyes grew very tender as they rested upon Elisabeth.

"And if he don't have no objection to cleverness and a pale complexion, who shall gainsay him?" added Mrs. Hankey. "If he's content, surely it ain't nobody's business to interfere; even though we may none of us, Miss Elisabeth included, be as young as we was ten years ago."

"And he is quite content, thank you," Christopher hastened to say.

"I think you were right about women not knowing their own minds," Elisabeth said to her hostess; "though I am bound to confess it is a little stupid of us. But I believe the root of it is in shyness, and in a sort of fear of the depth of our own feelings."

"I daresay you're right, miss; and, when all's said and done, I'd sooner hear a woman abusing a man she really likes, than see her throwing herself at the head of a man as don't want her. That's the uptake of all things, to my mind; I can't abide it." And Mrs. Bateson shook her head in violent disapproval.

Mrs. Hankey now joined in. "I remember my sister Sarah, when she was a girl. There was a man wanted her ever so, and seemed as cut-up as never was when she said no. She didn't know what to do with him, he was that miserable; and yet she couldn't bring her mind to have him, because he'd red hair and seven in family, being a widower. So she prayed the Lord to comfort him and give him consolation. And sure enough the Lord did; for within a month from the time as Sarah refused him, he was engaged to Wilhelmina Gregg, our chapel-keeper's daughter. And then—would you believe it?—Sarah went quite touchy and offended, and couldn't enjoy her vittles, and wouldn't wear her best bonnet of a Sunday, and kept saying as the sons of men were lighter than vanity. Which I don't deny as they are, but that wasn't the occasion to mention it, Wilhelmina's marriage being more the answer to prayer, as you may say, than any extra foolishness on the man's part."

"I should greatly have admired your sister Sarah," said Christopher; "she was so delightfully feminine. And as for the red-headed swain, I have no patience with him. His fickleness was intolerable."

"Bless your heart, Master Christopher!" exclaimed Mrs. Bateson, "men are mostly like that. Why should they waste their time fretting after some young woman as hasn't got a civil word for them, when there are scores and scores as has?"

Christopher shook his head. "I can't pretend to say why; that is quite beyond me. I only know that some of them do."

"But they are only the nice exceptions that prove the rule," said Elisabeth, as she and Christopher caught each other's eye.

"No; it is she who is the nice exception," he replied. "It is only in the case of exceptionally charming young women that such a thing ever occurs; or rather, I should say, in the case of an exceptionally charming young woman."

"My wedding dress will be sent home next week," said Elisabeth to the two matrons; "would you like to come and see it?"

"Indeed, that we should!" they replied simultaneously. Then Mrs. Bateson inquired: "And what is it made of, deary?"

"White satin."

Mrs. Hankey gazed critically at the bride-elect. "White satin is a bit young, it seems to me; and trying, too, to them as haven't much colour." Then cheering second thoughts inspired her. "Still, white's the proper thing for a bride, I don't deny; and I always say 'Do what's right and proper, and never mind looks.' The Lord doesn't look on the outward appearance, as we all know; and it 'ud be a sight better for men if they didn't, like Master Christopher there; there'd be fewer unhappy marriages, mark my words. Of course, lavender isn't as trying to the complexion as pure white; no one can say as it is; but to my mind lavender always looks as if you've been married before; and it's no use for folks to look greater fools than they are, as I can see."

"Certainly not," Christopher agreed. "If there is any pretence at all, let it be in the opposite direction, and let us all try to appear wiser than we are!"

"And that's easy enough for some of us, such as Hankey, for instance," added Hankey's better half. "And there ain't as much wisdom to look at as you could put on the point of a knife even then."

So the women talked and the men listened—as is the way of men and women all the world over—until tea was finished and it was time for the guests to depart. They left amid a shower of heartfelt congratulations, and loving wishes for the future opening out before them. Just as Elisabeth passed through the doorway into the evening sunshine, which was flooding the whole land and turning even the smoke-clouds into windows of agate whereby men caught faint glimmerings of a dim glory as yet to be revealed, she turned and held out her hands once more to her friends. "It is very good to come back to you all, and to dwell among mine own people," she said, her voice thrilling with emotion; "and I am glad that Mrs. Hankey's prophecy has come true, and that Elisabeth Farringdon will be Elisabeth Farringdon to the end of the chapter."