THE GIRL'S OWN PAPER

Vol. XX.—No. 983.]

OCTOBER 29, 1898.

[Price One Penny.

[Transcriber's Note: This Table of Contents was not present in the original.]

[WHERE SWALLOWS BUILD.]
[OUR PUZZLE POEM REPORT: A SHORT STORY IN VERSE.]
[GIRLS AS I HAVE KNOWN THEM.]
["OUR HERO."]
[ABOUT PEGGY SAVILLE.]
[FROCKS FOR TO-MORROW.]
[TO OUR EDITOR.]
[THE RULES OF SOCIETY.]
[FROM LONDON TO DAMASCUS.]
[THE GIRL'S OWN QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS COMPETITION.]
[OUR NEW PUZZLE POEM.]
[ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.]
[OUR SUPPLEMENT STORY COMPETITIONS.]
[SPECIAL NOTICE TO OUR READERS.]

[WHERE SWALLOWS BUILD.]

By SARAH DOUDNEY.

"'OH, YOU RICH MEN!' SHE INTERRUPTED WITH A WEARY SIGH."

CHAPTER III.

The next day was Sunday. Cardigan, who had learnt from his young hostess all that she could tell of her dressmaker, looked eagerly for Alice's face in the village church. But he could not find her there. She had gone away over the hills to a smaller church, to which the Monteagles never went, and was not to be seen with the Bowers in the seat allotted to the tenants of Swallow's Nest.

He was restless, and longed to secure a little time to himself in the afternoon. Somehow, without being observed, he contrived to slip away, out of the Hall, through the gardens, and then up to that high ground from whence he had first looked down upon the old farm.

There it lay in the still sunshine, asleep in a Sunday peace. He waited there, and watched until he saw the slender, upright figure of a young woman come out of the porch. She went down the little garden-path, opened the wicket, and then sauntered slowly across the grass to the lane.

She was in a very thoughtful mood as she paced deliberately under the shade of the old oaks. The sun, now getting low, burnished the brown hair, wound so simply around her uncovered head. Once she paused to reach a spray of late honeysuckle growing on the top of the hedge, and then stood still to tuck it into the front of her dress. When she moved again and lifted her eyes, she saw Cardigan standing before her under a tree.

"Miss Harper," he said, rather awkwardly, "it is a great pleasure to see you again. You have been hidden away so long!"

"I wanted to be hidden," she answered, as she gave him her hand. "Is it not very natural that I should hide myself, Mr. Cardigan? My life was darkened; it was best to live it all alone."

"I don't know if it was best," said he, reddening to the roots of his hair with the endeavour to speak his thought. "There were those who would have helped you to live it, if you would have let them."

"Ah, but I could not." Her face softly reflected the glow on his. "But, by the way," she added more lightly, "you have come to spoil the life I am leading here. I am told that you have bought Swallow's Nest, and mean to pull the old house down. Have you, by chance, given just a passing thought to those who are living under its roof?"

He flushed again.

"I confess I didn't," he said penitently. "But——"

"Oh, you rich men!" she interrupted, with a weary sigh. "With you to see is to desire, to desire is to have, to have is to leave others lacking. Shall I tell you what you were going to do?"

"Tell me anything you please," he answered eagerly.

"It is always much easier to pull down than to build up," she went on. "The old home yonder has been years in making. More than a century ago, when it was fresh and new, a young couple began there the serious business of life. They were poor in money, but very rich in love and faith. Their prayers are built into the walls; their angels have hallowed every humble room with holy ministry; their souls passed gently from that earthly dwelling to the Father's house on high. Children and children's children have filled the places that they left vacant, living just the same simple, God-fearing life. The old house is still sound and strong; there are no cracks anywhere; it keeps out the rough weather. But a rich man has decided that it is old-fashioned and ugly, therefore it must be pulled down."

Cardigan had grown pale. Her words had gone down right to the deeps of his heart, and moved him painfully.

"It shall not be pulled down!" he cried. "Miss Harper, I have been a stupid, selfish man. But it is not too late to begin again?"

"No, it is not too late," she said, with a very bright face. "And you will really let the house stand? Well, so much the better for us and the swallows. Dear birds, they are just going away. I wonder what they would have felt if they had come back to find their old nest in ruins. Mr. Cardigan, I think it is a good thing that I met you to-day. Now I must go back quickly and set some troubled hearts at rest."

"Do not go yet," he pleaded. "No one has ever given me such a straight talking to before. My money was making a selfish brute of me very fast. Hit me as hard as you can, Miss Harper. Every blow knocks some of the evil out."

She gave a soft little laugh.

"Why, it seems that I have found a new vocation," said she.

"I wish you had found it sooner!" he cried. "Can you not leave the nest to the swallows, and take me in hand? Is it too much to ask?"

There was a silence which only lasted for a moment, and yet seemed half a lifetime. The bright look faded from her face; she was perplexed and troubled.

"Mr. Cardigan," she said gravely, "you must take yourself in hand."

"That means that a man should not ask a woman to do for him what he ought to do for himself," said he, in a saddened tone. "Well, you are right. I have not given any proof of amendment."

"You have given a very plain proof of a kind heart," she said, with an earnestness that made her eyes glisten. "I thank you for it. But I must go now and carry the good news indoors."

He did not try to detain her again; but, just as she was turning away, he made a last request.

"Miss Harper, will you let me see you once more before I go away? Will you meet me here again, in this spot, next Sunday afternoon?"

"I will," she said quietly. And there was a very sweet look on her face as she made the promise.

Robert Cardigan went back across the fields with a great hunger in his heart.

He knew now that he loved her. He had begun to love her unconsciously when she was a girl in Park Lane, looking at life with serious eyes, and talking of the things that she would do some day.

How strange it was that wealth had been taken out of her hands, and put into his. Life is full of riddles like this. Strong, tender spirits are left to work hard for a pittance, suffering the heart-thrill of those who have nothing to give but prayers and love. Lazy men and women have their hands crammed with gold, and look round constantly for some new pleasure to buy for themselves. And yet there is One who is mindful of His own.

It was a very long week. Alice, busy with her work, was conscious of a dull ache when she called up a vision of Cardigan's face. The Bowers rejoiced with a great joy. They did not ask how it was that she knew Mr. Cardigan, and they promised not to speak of the matter. But they wondered silently why she, who had brought them gladness, should be sad herself.

Quite alone, in the stillness of another golden Sunday, Alice slowly took her way to the quiet lane. She knew that she should find him waiting there; and she knew, too, the answer that she would give him. Yet, in her innermost self, there was a deep regret that she could not give a different answer. A man must work out his own salvation, she thought. He must not put the tools into a woman's hand, and say, "Shape and fashion my life according to your will."

"So you have come. It is kind of you," he said.

Her face was a little paler than it had been last Sunday, and her lips slightly quivered.

"You have made us all so happy," she said, in a soft, hurried voice. "The Bowers are good people, and the old place feels like a home to me."

"Do you want to stay there always?" he asked with an impatient sigh.

"I have not lived there long," she said evasively. "You cannot realise what a rest it is. For two years I worked hard in London, learning my business; and I used to pine for fresh air, and the sight of fields and trees, as only working girls can. It was Miss de Vigny who found this home for me."

"She would not tell me anything about you," said he. "Do you know what I feel when I hear of all your sorrows and struggles? I feel mad to think that I have got so much money. It seems as if Providence were playing with us both. Don't look shocked. I have a bad habit of saying odd things when I am wrought upon."

She stood still. Her face was beautiful, but very pale.

"But I didn't bring you here to listen to my ravings," he went on. "I want to ask if you can give me any hope? Will there ever be a time when we shall work together? Only tell me this!"

She turned her face away that he might not see the tears gathering in her eyes.

"How can I answer?" asked she, sadly. "I do not know. We have seen so little of each other. You are under the spell of strong feeling; but feeling only changes a man for a little while. It alters the surface of his nature, but leaves the inmost self untouched."

"Ah," he said bitterly, "you could not say that if you, too, were under the spell!"

"That is the truth." She looked up at him with a face that seemed to apologise for her words; it was so tender, as well as so true. "I am free from the spell. Because I am free, I would leave you so also. You think, just now, that you could do all the things and make all the sacrifices which I feel right. But, if we were together always, that mood of yours might not last."

"Does not love last?" he asked impatiently.

She shook her head, with a sad little smile.

"Miss Harper," he cried, "where did you learn this bitter wisdom? Why has God given us these feelings which you seem to mistrust?"

"I mistrust them only till I see what they will lead to," she said gently. "They are the beginnings of love, but not love itself. That which you call love is not lasting; it is a blossom that the wind blows away."

There was a silence so deep that they could hear the rustle of a falling leaf. Cardigan broke the pause with a voice full of pain.

"Once more," he said, "I ask if you will give me a hope? To-morrow I am going away. May I come back again?"

"Yes," she answered, with a sudden bright look. "Come back when the swallows build. They owe it to your kindness that they will find the old place just the same. Mr. Cardigan, I am not as hard-hearted as you suppose. But a man must put himself to the test."

The fall of the year brought a quantity of work to the industrious fingers at the farm. Miss Harper's fame was spreading far and wide. Letty Monteagle's tea-gown was the forerunner of a great many orders from her and her friends. The squire's young wife would have been more sociable if Alice had not persisted in keeping her at a distance. More than once, when Letty tried to begin a conversation she felt herself very gently, but very firmly, checked. She had never found out that Cardigan had seen Alice before he went away.

All through the short, sharp winter, and into the early spring, the busy fingers toiled on. There was a pause when Alice paid a flying visit to a famous drapery house in London. She went for patterns and goods, but found time to see Mary de Vigny.

"Have you heard that Robert Cardigan is making himself useful?" the little lady asked. "Really useful, I mean. He came to me for advice, and I gave him some. It does not do to plunge into amateur philanthropy unaided, you see. Well, my dear, the country seems to agree with you. I never saw you looking so well, and yet you are as grave as a nun."

"Oh, that is the result of constant work," Alice replied.

In June a son and heir was born at the Hall. And then Miss Harper broke through her usual reserve, and sent an exquisite cover for the baby's cradle. The young mother wrote a cordial note, so full of genuine feeling and happiness that Alice was gladdened herself, and went out into the porch to watch the swallows. They darted round and round the old house, and the sunlight shone upon the rapid wings.

"They are building," Milly said, a little later, when the sun was pouring down upon the fields. "See, they are making their nest in the old spot!"

On the evening of the same day the farmer came indoors with a grave face. There had been an accident, he said. The squire's new groom had gone to the station with the dog-cart to meet a gentleman. It was a mistake to trust a young fellow with that flighty chestnut; in Bower's opinion the groom was as bad a whip as he had ever seen. On the way back the mare had bolted; both the men were flung out, but it was the gentleman who was hurt—very badly hurt, it was feared. They had got him to bed at the Hall, and the doctor would stay with him far into the night.

A woman, pale and sorrowful, knelt alone in her room, with her face uplifted to the stars. "If it had not been for me, he would not have come back! Oh, God, spare his life," she prayed. "Spare him, and let the way be made clear for my feet!"

Days came and went—brilliant days, full of summer sweetness and bloom, but Cardigan lay crushed and helpless at the squire's house. He was a lonely man. There was neither mother nor sister to share the nurse's watch in the sick room; but when the news of the disaster came to Mary de Vigny's ears, she wrote to the Monteagles and said that she was coming. She arrived, quiet and self-possessed as ever; and with her presence came a gleam of hope and light. The patient began to rally. Very slowly, very feebly, he seemed to feel his way back into life.

One evening Mary de Vigny sent a note to Swallow's Nest. The squire himself was the bearer. He drove to the gate in his wife's pony-cart, and waited till Miss Harper was ready to go up to the Hall.

Cardigan, propped up on his pillows, motionless and pale, brightened wonderfully when she entered the room.

"Ah, I knew you would come," he said. "I could not lie here any longer without seeing you, and hearing your voice. Do you believe in me yet, Alice? Is there any more hope for me now than there was last year?"

"Hush," she said gently. "You are not well enough to talk about these things."

"I shall never get well till I have talked about them! Alice, I want to tell you that I made my will after I saw you last. I left you Swallow's Nest, and everything else besides. Perhaps I had better die, for you will know what to do with the money. A man's life, after all, is a little thing, and I never was good enough for you. If I die——"

"Hush," she said again. "If you die, I will never marry anyone else as long as I live. But you mustn't die."

She burst into tears; and then his hand stole along the coverlet until it found hers, and held it fast.

[THE END.]