Helen Marion Burnside.
It was with mingled feelings of pleasure and regret that Mildred saw the gray walls of the vicarage again. It was harder than she imagined to say good-bye to Roy, knowing that she would not see him again until the summer, but her position as nurse had long become a sinecure; the place was now rightfully usurped by his young betrothed. The sea-breezes had already proved so beneficial to his health, that it was judged that he might safely be permitted at the end of another month to resume work in the old studio, by which time idleness and love-making might be expected to lose their novelty, and Mildred hoped that Polly would settle down happily with the others, when her good sense should be convinced that an early marriage would be prejudicial to Roy's interest.
It was very strange to find Chriss the only welcoming home presence—Chriss in office was a highly ludicrous idea. She had taken advantage of her three days' housekeeping to introduce striking reforms in the ménage, against which Nan had stormed and threatened in vain; the housemaid looked harassed, and the parlour-maid on the eve of giving warning; the little figure with the touzled curls and holland apron, and rattling keys, depending from the steel chatelaine, looked oddly picturesque in the house porch as the travellers drove up. When Mr. Marsden came in after even-song to inquire after their well-being, and Richard insisted on his remaining to tea, Chriss looked mightily haughty and put on her eye-glasses, and presided at the head of the table in a majestic way that tried her aunt's gravity. 'The big young man,' as she still phrased Hugh Marsden, was never likely to be a favourite with Chriss; but she thawed presently under Mildred's genial influence; no one knew so well how to bend the prickles, and draw out the wholesome sweetness that lay behind. By the end of the third cup, Chriss was able to remember perfectly that Mr. Marsden did not take sugar, and could pass his cup without a glacial stare or a tendency to imitate the swelling and ruffling out of a dignified robin.
At the end of the evening, Mildred, who had by that time grown a little weary and silent, heard the footstep in the lobby for which she had been unconsciously listening for the last two hours.
'Here comes Dr. John at last,' observed Richard, in strange echo of her thought. 'I expected he would have met us at the station, but I suppose he was called away as usual.'
Dr. Heriot gave no clue to his absence. He shook hands very quietly with Mildred, and hoped that she was not tired, and then turned to Richard for news of the invalid; and when that topic was exhausted, seemed disposed to relapse into a brown study, from which Mildred curiously did not care to wake him.
She was quite content to see him sitting there in his old place, playing absently with her paper-knife, and dropping a word here and there, but oftener listening to the young men's conversation. Hugh was eagerly discussing the Bloemfontein question. He and Richard had been warmly debating the subject for the last hour. Richard was sympathetic, but he had a notion his friend was throwing himself away.
'We don't want to lose such men as you out of England, Marsden, that's the fact. I have always looked upon you as just the sort of hard worker for a parish at the East end of London. Look at our city Arabs; it strikes me there is room for missionary work there—not but what South Africa has a demand on us too.'
'When a man feels he has a call, there is nothing more to be said,' replied Hugh, striking himself energetically on his broad chest, and speaking in his most powerful bass. 'One has something to give up, of course; all colonial careers involve a degree of hardship and self-sacrifice; not that I agree with your sister in thinking either the one or the other point to the right decision. Because we may consider it our duty to undertake a pilgrimage, it does not follow we need have pebbles or peas in our shoes, or that the stoniest road is the most direct.'