Mr. Hogarth's Will

by Catherine Helen Spence

He had prepared himself to make a great sacrifice—to do something very generous and Quixotic—not altogether uninfluenced by the wish for personal happiness of the highest kind; but yet he believed that his chief motives for taking the resolution were the forlorn and hopeless situation of the two girls. Now they were no longer forlorn or hopeless. If this situation for Jane was obtained, and Elsie persevered in her determination to work hard at the perfecting of her taste for making caps and bonnets, they had a definite plan of life, likely to be as prosperous as that he could offer to them. And Jane would not accept of him to-day, though she would probably have done so yesterday. His plans, his ambitions, were too dear to her to be thrown away lightly, and he could see nothing but sisterly affection in her eyes. If she took the position she was entitled to at Mr. Phillips's, she was likely to meet with some society there, and Mr. Brandon, or some other Australian settler, not so shy of matrimony without a fortune on the lady's part, as the middle-class Englishman of this century is, might see some of the virtues and attractions which he had learned to love—no one could see so many of them as himself—and might win the best wife in the world, without being fully conscious of the blessing. He knew the real strength of his love, when he tried to fancy Jane the wife of any one else. He almost wished she might fail in her object, and that Mr. Phillips would decide that she would not suit. He was selfish enough to hope that she might not be happy there. They must continue to correspond as frequently and as openly as hitherto. He would watch for any turn that might offer him hope, and he must be all the more careful to disguise his real feelings, lest it might prevent her from expressing herself as frankly as she had done. When a blessing appears to be lost its value is greatly enhanced, and all the comforts, and privileges, and opportunities, of his present situation, that he had made such an effort to give up, seemed to shrink into insignificance, compared with the domestic happiness that was now eluding his grasp.

"There was great lamentation among the bairns this morning when I said something about Miss Jean maybe leaving us; but they took great comfort from the recollection that they had learned to write so well that they might send real post letters to her—not mere make-believes—and she promised to answer them. Tam says if she goes to London she must keep on the look-out for anything that is in his line, and indeed Miss Jean said she would. It is a real blessing that penny post. In my young days, to think of writing back and fore to London about anything ye wanted to know would have been out of the question for poor folk," said Peggy.

"You must write to me, too," said Francis, "about all the things and all the people you see, and how you like them, and if you tire of London or of teaching—just every mood as you feel it. I do not think it was quite fair in you always showing me the brightest side of your life. I do not mean to show you always mine."

"When you are disappointed because the workmen will not build the cottages fast enough, or because the inhabitants do not keep them as clean as your fastidious taste thinks necessary, or because the dull Scottish brain will not readily take up the Flemish or French ideas you want to engraft in them, you will write all your indignant or disgusted expressions to me, rather than lose patience with the people themselves—it is safer. I am prepared for some disappointments, but I will wait patiently and in hope for the end."

"Did you always have this large amount of public spirit, Jane? It struck me very forcibly the first evening you spent with me at my house."

"I think it lay dormant for a few months before my uncle's death," said Jane, laughing; "but it came out stronger than ever afterwards. Francis is very grave to-day. I would not trust him with your verses, Elsie; his criticisms will be far too severe in his present mood."

"But I will trust him just at this very time," said Elsie; "for if this dull morning has made him a little depressed, perhaps he may feel a little for me sitting in my cheerless room, without hope and without society. I beg your pardon, Jane, you are always good and kind, and so was Peggy, and every one; but it was so dull—so very dull. But what I mean is, that if Francis is moody and dispirited, as a great many people are at times, my verses will not seem to him such a wail as to the busy, merry world we live in. I never saw a more favourable-looking critic."

Elsie then went to her drawer, and for the first time since she had tied up her manuscript touched it without a sick pang at her heart. The very sight of the enveloping brown paper had been odious to her: but to-day she felt courage enough to untie it, and to select a few of what she considered her best pieces for her cousin's perusal.

Much depends on the mood of the reader of poetry. Francis did not find Elsie's sad views of life at all overdrawn, and he pointed out both to her and to Jane many fine passages, and what he considered to be pretty images. Here and there he found fault; but, on the whole, he said Elsie's verses were full of promise, and she only had to wait patiently for awhile—to observe as well as to reflect, and not to be quite so subjective—to attain to excellence.

At the Exhibition and at the concert in the evening, Francis had again to admire the naturally fine taste of his younger cousin, and to lament with her that none of her talents had been cultivated. According to all his preconceived fancies, he should have fallen in love with Elsie; but it was not so. She was a sweet, amiable girl, with a great deal of quickness and undeveloped talent, but she was chiefly dear to him as Jane's sister. Elsie felt for the time restored to a better opinion of herself, and was grateful to the person who thought well of what the world seemed to despise. She was disposed now to do Francis justice, and more than justice. Never had she talked with a man of finer taste or more admirable judgment. She caught another glimpse of William Dalzell, who was at the concert with the Rennies and Miss Wilson, and contrasted her old favourite with her new, very much to the disadvantage of the former.