'If conquering and unhurt I came
Back from the battle-field,
It is because thy prayers have been
My safeguard and my shield.'—A. A. PROCTER.
nd meanwhile how had it been at Oakfield, little Oakfield, which had its share in the joys and sorrows of those stirring times? Angel and Betty could hardly remember afterwards exactly how they heard the news; it seemed to be all over the place directly, and no one could have said who actually told it. But it was Mr. Crayshaw who brought it—poor Mr. Crayshaw, so aged and altered and broken-down that to care for him and comfort him seemed the first thing his two young cousins had to do and to think of. And indeed with Angel it was so much more natural to think of other people first that she seemed to feel Godfrey's loss chiefly in the way in which it would affect them all—Cousin Crayshaw, who had had to meet the first shock of the news; poor old Penny; Nancy, who had been his playfellow; Betty above all, who had said she could never bear it if Godfrey died for his country. Poor Betty made such desperate efforts to be brave and unselfish, choked back her tears so manfully, faltered such bold words about their boy having died as he would have wished for King and Country. And then she would run away and sob passionately over Godfrey's toy boats, the lesson-books he had used with her, the bed he had slept in, and then would tell herself she was not worthy of him, and come back to be brave and self-controlled before the others once more. While Angel, for her part, hardly expected to be ever worthy of her boy, only went her quiet way, cried bitterly on Martha's shoulder, sat on a stool at Cousin Crayshaw's feet as if she were a little girl again, and did the work which Penny forgot, and found comfort somehow from them all. Angel could not be Betty, and Betty could not be Angel, no two people meet joy and sorrow and do their brave, unselfish deeds in just the same way; and the beautiful part is that there is room on the great list of honour for the Betties who school themselves to courage, and the Angels who are simply brave in their self-forgetfulness, and the world is the better for them both.
It was three days after the news had come—Angel and Betty unconsciously counted the time like that now, looking back to the days when they didn't know that Godfrey was dead as to something beautiful and far away.
Angel was in the garden, sitting with her work in Miss Jane's arbour. There was so much work to be done, and poor old Penny cried so bitterly over the black stuff that her damp needle and thread didn't get on very fast, and Angel took it quietly away from her and carried it out of doors. Penny had a sort of idea that there was something wrong in sewing at mourning dresses in the garden, but Angel thought it didn't matter. Betty felt as if the glory of the spring-time, the flowers in the borders and the birds' song and the vivid green of the meadows, were like a mockery of their grief, but to Angel the sunny sweetness brought a strange comfort which she did not try to understand. Martha had promised to come round and help her, but it was afternoon now and she had not come. She was very busy at home, Angel supposed, but still it was not like her not to keep an appointment when she had said she would come. Betty sat on the grass at her sister's feet. She had her work, too, but it did not get on very fast. She laid it down at last and leaned back against the stone shoulder of Demoiselle Jehanne, much as she had been used to do in the days when she was a little girl and used to come to her for comfort. There was something about the peacefulness of the still figure under the flowers which soothed Betty still, she hardly knew how. She remembered, almost with a smile, how Godfrey had always believed that Miss Jane's heart was broken by a naughty nephew, and he had been so afraid of the same thing happening to her and Angel. She had almost come to believe in the story herself, and as her fingers strayed half caressingly over the familiar broken face she wondered how Miss Jane felt when she was a living, loving, sorrowing woman here at Oakfield. Did she know about the dreary blank, the aching longing which had come to the little girls who used to play beside her? And a hundred years hence would it matter as little to any one that Godfrey lay under the tossing Channel waters as it did to-day that a sad woman's heart had broken long ago? A timid step on the path made them look up, and there stood Nancy, waiting with much less assurance than usual for them to notice her. Angel held out her hand.
'Well, Nancy dear,' she said, 'where is your mother?'
Nancy for answer began to cry.
'O Miss Angel, you won't be angry, will you?' she sobbed; 'Patty said I mustn't come, but I couldn't help it, miss.'
'We like you to come, dear,' Angel began gently; but Nancy went on between her sobs:
'It's him—the captain—he's come home, Miss Angel.'