COLLECTION
OF
B R I T I S H A U T H O R S
TAUCHNITZ EDITION.
VOL. 1419.
FOR LOVE AND LIFE BY MRS. OLIPHANT.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. II.

TAUCHNITZ EDITION

By the same Author,

FOR LOVE AND LIFE.

BY
MRS. OLIPHANT,
AUTHOR OF
“CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD,” “OMBRA,” “MAY,” ETC.
COPYRIGHT EDITION.
I N T W O V O L U M E S.
VOL. II.
LEIPZIG
BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ
1874.
The Right of Translation is reserved.

FOR LOVE AND LIFE.

CHAPTER I.
Intoxication.

There is, perhaps, no such crisis in the life of a man as that which occurs when, for the first time, he feels the welfare and happiness of another to be involved in his own. A woman is seldom so entirely detached from ordinary ties of nature as to make this discovery suddenly, or even to be in the position when such a discovery is possible. So long as you have but yourself to think of, you may easily be pardoned for thinking very little of that self, for being careless of its advantage, and letting favourable opportunities slip through your fingers; but suppose you find out in a moment, without warning, that your interests are another’s interests, that to push your own fortune is to push some one else’s fortune, much dearer to you than yourself; and that, in short, you are no longer you at all, but the active member of a double personality—is as startling a sensation as can well be conceived. This was the idea which Edgar had received into his mind for the first time, and it was not wonderful that it excited, nay, intoxicated him, almost beyond his power of self-control. I say for the first time, though he had been on the eve of asking Gussy Thornleigh to marry him three years before, and had therefore realised, or thought he realised, what it would be to enter into such a relationship; but in those days Edgar was rich, and petted by the world, and his bride would have been only a delight and honour the more, not anything calling for sacrifice or effort on his part. He could have given her everything she desired in the world, without losing a night’s rest, or disturbing a single habit. Now the case was very different. The new-born pride which had made him, to his own surprise, so reluctant to apply to anyone for employment, and so little satisfied to dance attendance on Lord Newmarch, died at that single blow.

Dance attendance on Lord Newmarch! ask anybody, everybody for work! Yes, to be sure he would, and never think twice; for had he not now her to think of? A glow of exhilaration came over him. He had been careless, indifferent, sluggish, so long as it was himself only that had to be thought of. Thinking of himself did not suit Edgar; he got sick of the subject, and detested himself, and felt a hundred pricks of annoyance at the thought of being a suitor and applicant for patronage, bearing the scorns of office, and wanting as “patient merit” in a great man’s ante-room. But now! what did he care for those petty annoyances? Why should he object, like a pettish child, to ask for what he wanted? It was for her. He became himself again the moment that the strange and penetrating sweetness of this suggestion (which he declared to himself was incredible, yet believed with all his heart) stole into his soul. This had been what he wanted all along. To have some one to work for, some one to give him an object in life.

Lady Mary had not a notion what she was doing when she set light to the fire which was all ready for that touch—ready to blaze up, and carry with it her own schemes as well as her sister’s precautions. I suppose it was by reason of the fundamental difference between man and woman, that neither of these ladies divined how their hint would act upon Edgar. They thought his virtue (for which they half despised him—for women always have a secret sympathy for the selfish ardour of men in all questions of love) was so great that he might be trusted to restrain even Gussy herself in her “impetuosity,” as they called it, without considering that the young man was disposed to make a goddess of Gussy, to take her will for law, and compass heaven and earth to procure her a gratification. Gussy, though she held herself justified in her unswerving attachment to Edgar, by the fact that, had it not been for his misfortune, she would long ago have been his wife, would, notwithstanding this consolation, have died of shame had she known how entirely her secret had been betrayed. But the betrayal was as a new life to Edgar. His heart rose with all its natural buoyancy; he seemed to himself to spurn his lowliness, his inactivity, his depressed and dejected state from him. That evening he beguiled his hosts into numberless discussions, out of sheer lightness of heart. He laughed at Lady Mary about her educational mania, boldly putting forth its comic side, and begging to know whether German lectures and the use of the globes were so much better, as means of education, than life itself, with all its many perplexities and questions, its hard lessons, its experiences, which no one can escape.

“If a demigod from the sixth form were to come down and seat himself on a bench in a dame’s school,” cried Edgar, “why, to be sure, he might learn something; but what would you think of the wisdom of the proceeding?”

“I am not a demigod from the sixth form,” said Lady Mary.

“Pardon me, but you are. You have been among the regnant class all your life, which of itself is an enormous cultivation. You have lived familiarly with people who guide the nation; you have spoken with most of those who are known to be worth speaking to, in England at least; and you have had a good share of the problems of life submitted to you. Mr. Tottenham’s whole career, for instance, which he says you decided—”

“What is that?” said Mr. Tottenham, looking up. “Whatever it is, what you say is quite true. I don’t know if it’s anything much worth calling a career; but, such as it is, it’s all her doing. You’re right there.”

“I am backed up by indisputable testimony,” said Edgar, laughing; “and in the face of all this, you can come and tell me that you want to educate your mind by means of the feeblest of lectures! Lady Mary, are you laughing at us? or are the dry lessons of grammar and such like scaffolding, really of more use in educating the mind than the far higher lessons of life?”

“How you set yourself to discourage me,” cried Lady Mary, half angry, half laughing. “That is not what you mean, Mr. Earnshaw. You mean that it is hopeless to train women to the accuracy, the exactness of thought which men are trained to. I understand you, though you put it so much more prettily.”

“I am afraid I don’t know what accuracy means,” said Edgar, “and exactness of thought suggests only Lord Newmarch to me; and Heaven deliver us from prigs, male and female! If you find, however, that the mass of young university men are so accurate, so exact, so accomplished, so trained to think well and clearly, then I envy you your eyes and perceptions—for to me they have a very different appearance; many of them, I should say, never think at all, and know a good deal less than Phil does, of whom I am the unworthy instructor—save the mark!” he added, with a laugh. “On the whole, honours have showered on my head; I have had greatness thrust upon me like Malvolio; not only to instruct Phil, but to help to educate Lady Mary Tottenham! What a frightful impostor I should feel myself if all this was my doing, and not yours.”

Lady Mary laughed too, but not without a little flush of offence. It even crossed her mind to wonder whether the young man had taken more wine than usual? for there was an exhilaration, a boldness, an élan about him which she had never perceived before. She looked at him with mingled suspicion and indignation—but caught such a glance from his eyes, which were full of a new warmth, life, and meaning, that Lady Mary dropped hers, confused and confounded, not knowing what to make of it. Had the porter, and the footman, and the under-gardener, who had seen Edgar kiss Lady Mary’s hand, been present at that moment, they would certainly have drawn conclusions very unfavourable to Mr. Tottenham’s peace of mind. But that unsuspecting personage sat engaged in his own occupation, and took no notice. He was turning over some papers which he had brought back with him from Tottenham’s that very day.

“When you two have done sparring,” he said—“Time will wait for no man, and here we are within a few days of the entertainment at the shop. Earnshaw, I wish you would go in with me on Wednesday, and help me to help them in their arrangements. I have asked a few people for the first time, and it will be amusing to see the fine ladies, our customers, making themselves agreeable to my ‘assistants.’ By-the-way, that affair of Miss Lockwood gives me a great deal of uneasiness. I don’t like to send her away. She seemed disposed to confide in you, my dear fellow—”

“I will go and secure her confidence,” said Edgar, with that gay readiness for everything which Lady Mary, with such amaze, had remarked already in his tone. Up to this moment he had wanted confidence in himself, and carried into everything the insouciance of a man who takes up with friendliness the interests of others, but has none of his own. All this was changed. He was another man, liberated somehow from chains which she had never realised until now, when she saw they were broken. Could her conversation with him to-day have anything to do with it? Lady Mary was a very clever woman, but she groped in vain in the dark for some insight into the mind of this young man, who had seemed to her so simple. And the less she understood him, the more she respected Edgar; nay, her respect for him began to increase, from the moment when she found out that he was not so absolutely virtuous as she had taken him to be.

Next day, as soon as Phil’s lessons were over, Edgar shut himself up, and, with a flush upon his face, and a certain tremor, which seemed to him to make his hand and his writing, by some curious paradox, more firm than usual, began to write letters. He wrote to Lord Newmarch, he wrote to one or two others whom he had known in his moment of prosperity, with a boldness and freedom at which he was himself astonished. He recalled to his old acquaintances, without feeling the least hesitation in doing so, the story of his past life, about which he had been, up to this moment, so proudly silent, and appealed to them to find him something to do. He wrote, not as a humble suitor does, but as one conscious of no humiliation in asking. The last time he had asked he had been conscious of humiliation; but every shadow of that self-consciousness had blown away from him now. He wondered at himself even, while he looked at those letters closed and directed on his writing-table. What was it that had taken away from him all sense of dislike to this proceeding, all his old inclination to let things go as they would? With that curious tremor which was so full of firmness and force still vibrating through him, he went out, avoiding Phil, who was lying in wait for him, and who moaned his absence like a sheep deprived of its lamb—which, I think, was something like the parental feeling Phil experienced for his tutor—and set out for a long solitary walk across country, leaping ditches and stumbling across ploughed fields, by way of exhausting a little his own superabundant force and energy. Only a day or two since how dreary was the feeling with which he had left the house, where perhaps, for aught he knew, Gussy was at the moment thinking, with a sickening at his heart which seemed to make all nature dim, how he must never see her again, how he had pledged himself to keep out of the way, never to put himself consciously where he might have even the dreary satisfaction of a look at her. The same pledge was upon him still, and Edgar was ready to keep it to the last letter of his promise; but now it had become a simple dead letter. There was no more force, no more vital power in it, to keep the two apart, who had but one strong wish between them. He could keep it now gaily, knowing that he was in heart emancipated from it. There was nothing he could not have done on that brilliant wintry afternoon, when the sun shone upon him as if he had wanted cheering, and every pool glittered, and the sky warmed and flushed under his gaze with all the delightful sycophancy of nature for the happy. The dullest afternoon would have been just the same to Edgar. He was liberated, he was inspired, he felt himself a strong man, and with his life before him. Cold winds and dreary skies would have had no effect upon his spirits, and for this reason, I suppose, everything shone on him and flattered. To him that hath, shall be given.

He was not to get back, however, without being roused from this beatific condition to a consciousness of his humanity. As he passed through the village, chance drew Edgar’s eye to the house which Lady Mary had noted as that of the doctor, and about which Miss Annetta Baker had discoursed so largely. A cab was at the door, boxes were standing about the steps, and an animated conversation seemed to be going on between two men, one an elderly personage without a hat, who stood on the steps with the air of a man defending his door against an invader, while another and younger figure, standing in front of the cab, seemed to demand admission. “The new doctor has arrived before the old one is ready to go away,” Edgar said to himself, amused by the awkwardness of the situation. He slackened his pace, that the altercation might be over before he passed, and saw the coach man surlily putting back again the boxes upon the cab. The old doctor pointed over Edgar’s head to a cottage in the distance, where, he was aware, there was lodgings to be had; and as Edgar approached, the new doctor, as he supposed the stranger to be, turned reluctantly away, with a word to some one in the cab, which also began to turn slowly round to follow him. The stranger came along the broad sandy road which encircled the Green, towards Edgar, who, on his side, approached slowly. What was there in this slim tall figure which filled him with vague reminiscences? He got interested in spite of himself; was it some one he had known in his better days? who was it? The same fancy, I suppose, rose in the mind of the new-comer. When he turned round for the second time, after various communications with the inmates of the cab, and suddenly perceived Edgar, who was now within speaking distance, he gave a perceptible start. Either his reminiscences were less vague, or he was more prepared for the possibility of such a meeting. He hurried forward, holding out his hand, while Edgar stood still like one stunned. “Dr. Murray?” he said, at last, feeling for the moment as if he had been transported back to Loch Arroch. He was too bewildered to say more.

“You are very much surprised to see me,” said Charles Murray, with his half-frank, half-sidelong aspect; “and it is not wonderful. When we met last I had no thought of making any move. But circumstances changed, and a chance threw this in my way. Is it possible that we are so lucky as to find you a resident here?”

“For the moment,” said Edgar; “but indeed I am very much surprised. You are to be Dr. Frank’s successor? It is very odd that you should hit upon this village of all the world.”

“I hope it is a chance not disagreeable to either of us,” said the young doctor, with a glance of the suspicion which was natural to him; “but circumstances once more seem against us,” he added hurriedly, going back to the annoyance, which was then uppermost. “Here I have to go hunting through a strange place for lodgings at this hour,—my sister tired by a long journey. By the way, you have not seen Margaret; she is behind in the cab; all because the Franks forsooth, cannot go out of their house when they engaged to do so!”

“But the poor lady, I suppose, could not help it,” said Edgar, “according to what I have heard.”

“No, I suppose she couldn’t help it—on the whole,” he allowed, crossly. “Cabman, stop a moment—stop, I tell you! Margaret, here is some one you have often heard of—our cousin, who has been so good to the dear old granny—Edgar Earnshaw.”

Dr. Charles pronounced these last words with a sense of going further than he had ever gone before, in intimacy with Edgar. He had never ventured to call his cousin by his Christian name; and even now it was brought in by a side wind, as it were, and scarcely meant so much as a direct address. Edgar turned with some curiosity to the cab, to see the sister whom he had seen waiting at the station for Dr. Murray some months ago. He expected to see a pretty and graceful young woman; but he was not prepared for the beauty of the face which looked at him from the carriage-window with a soft appealing smile, such as turns men’s heads. She was tall, with a slight stoop (though that he could not see) and wore a hat with a long feather, which drooped with a graceful undulation somewhat similar, he thought, to the little bow she made him. She was pale, with very fine, refined features, a large pair of the softest, most pathetic blue eyes, and that smile which seemed to supplicate and implore for sympathy. There was much in Margaret’s history which seemed to give special meaning to the plaintive affecting character of her face; but her face was so by nature, and looked as if its owner threw herself upon your sympathies, when indeed she had no thought of anything of the sort. A little girl of six or seven hung upon her, standing up in the carriage, and leaning closely against her mother’s shoulder, in that clinging inseparable attitude, which, especially when child and mother are both exceptionally handsome, goes to the heart of the spectator. Edgar was subjugated at once; he took off his hat and went reverently to the carriage-door, as if she had been a saint.

“It is very pleasant that you should be here, and I am very glad to see you,” she said, in soft Scotch accents, in which there was a plaintive, almost a complaining tone. Edgar found himself immediately voluble in his regrets as to the annoyance of their uncomfortable reception, and, ere he knew what he was doing, had volunteered to go with Dr. Charles to the lodgings, to introduce him, and see whether they were satisfactory. He could not quite understand why he had done it, and thus associated himself with a man who did not impress him favourably, as soon as he had turned from the door of the cab, and lost sight of that beautiful face; of course he could not help it, he could not have refused his good offices to any stranger, he said to himself. He went on with his cousin to the cottage, where the landlady curtseyed most deeply to the gentleman from Tottenham’s, and was doubly anxious to serve people who were his friends; and before he left he had seen the beautiful new-comer, her little girl as always standing by her side leaning against her, seated on a sofa by a comfortable fire, and forgetting or seeming to forget, her fatigues. Dr. Charles could not smile so sweetly or look so interesting as his sister; he continued to inveigh against Dr. Franks, and his rashness in maintaining possession of the house.

“But the poor thing could not help it,” said Margaret, in her plaintive voice, but not without a gleam of fun (if that were possible without absolute desecration) in her eyes.

“They should not have stayed till the last moment; they should have made sure that nothing would happen,” the doctor said, hurrying in and out, and filling the little sitting-room with cloaks and wraps, and many small articles. Margaret made no attempt to help him, but she gave Edgar a look which seemed to say, “Forgive him! poor fellow, he is worried, and I am so sorry he has not a good temper.” Edgar did not know what to make of this angelical cousin. He walked away in the darkening, after he had seen them settled, with a curious feeling, which he could not explain to himself. Was he guilty of the meanness of being annoyed by the arrival of these relatives, who were in a position so different from that of his other friends? Was it possible that so paltry, so miserable a feeling could enter his mind—or what was it? Edgar could render no distinct account to himself of the sensation which oppressed him; but as he walked rapidly up the avenue in the quickly falling darkness, he felt that something had happened, which, somehow or other, he could not tell how, was to affect his future life.

CHAPTER II.
A youthful Solomon.

Edgar felt so strong an inclination to say nothing about the sudden arrival of his cousins, that he thought it best to communicate at once what had happened. He told his hosts at dinner, describing the brother and sister, and Margaret’s remarkable beauty, which had impressed him greatly.

“And really you did not know she was so pretty?” Lady Mary said, fixing a searching look upon him. Instant suspicion flashed up in her mind, a suspicion natural to womankind, that his evident admiration meant at least a possibility of something else. And if she had been consistent, no doubt she would have jumped at this, and felt in it an outlet for all her difficulties, and the safest of all ways of detaching Edgar from any chance of influence over her niece; but she was as inconsistent as most other people, and did not like this easy solution of the difficulty. She offered promptly to call upon the new-comers; but she did not cease to question Edgar about them with curiosity, much sharpened by suspicion. She extracted from him, in full detail, the history of the Murrays, of Margaret’s early widowhood, and the special union which existed between her and her brother. Harry Thornleigh had arrived at Tottenham’s that day, and the story interested him still more than it did Lady Mary. Poor Harry was glad enough to get away from his father’s sole companionship; but he did not anticipate very much enjoyment of the kindred seclusion here. He grasped at Edgar as a drowning man grasps at a rope.

“I say, let’s go somewhere and smoke. I have so many things to tell you, and so many things to ask you,” he cried, when Lady Mary had gone to bed, and Mr. Tottenham, too, had departed to his private retirement, and Edgar, not knowing, any more than Harry himself did, that young Thornleigh was set over him as a sentinel, to guard him from all possibility of mischief, was but too glad to find himself with an uninstructed bystander, from whom he could have those bare “news” without consciousness or under-current of meaning, which convey so much more information than the scrap of enlightenment which well-meaning friends dole out with more and more sparing hands, in proportion as the feelings of the hearer are supposed to be more or less concerned. Harry was not so ignorant as Edgar thought him. He was not bright, but he flattered himself on being a man of the world, and was far from being uninterested in Gussy’s persistent neglect of all possible “opportunities.” “A girl don’t stand out like that without some cause for it,” Harry would have said, sagaciously; but he was too knowing to let it be perceived that he knew.

“There is a deal of difference up at home now,” he said. “I don’t mean my father—but you can’t think what changes Arden has made. Do you like to hear, or don’t you like to hear? I’ll guide myself accordingly. Very well, then I’ll speak. He’s on the right side in politics, you know, which you never were, and that’s a good thing: but he’s done everything you felt yourself bound not to do. Clare don’t like it, I don’t think. You should see the lot of new villas and houses. Arden ain’t a bit like Arden; it’s a new spick and span Yankee sort of town. I say, what would the old Squire have thought? but Arthur Arden don’t care.”

“He is right enough, Harry. He was not bound to respect anyone’s prejudices.”

“Well, there was Clare,” said Thornleigh. “They may be prejudices, you know; but I wouldn’t spite my wife for money—I don’t think. To be sure, if a man wants it badly that’s an excuse; but Arden has plenty of money, thanks to you. What a softy you were, to be sure, not to say anything disagreeable! Even if I had had to give up in the end, wouldn’t I have made him pay!”

“Never mind that,” said Edgar. “Tell me some more news. He hasn’t changed the house, I suppose, and they are very happy, and that sort of thing? How is she looking”? It is three years since I left, and one likes to hear of old friends.”

“Happy?” said Harry, “meaning Mrs. Arden? She’s gone off dreadfully; oh, I suppose she’s happy enough. You know, old fellow,” the young man continued, with a superior air of wisdom, “I don’t pretend to believe in the old-fashioned idea of living happy ever after. That’s bosh! but I daresay they’re just as comfortable as most people. Clare has gone off frightfully. She’s not a bit the girl she was; and of course Arden can’t but see that, and a man can’t be always doing the lover.”

“Is it so?” cried Edgar, with flashing eyes. He got up unconsciously, as if he would have rushed to Clare’s side on the spot, to defend her from any neglect. All the old affection surged up in his heart. “My poor Clare!” he said, “and I cannot do anything for you! Don’t think me a fool, Harry. She’s my only sister, though she doesn’t belong to me; and that fellow—What do you mean by gone off? She was always pale.”

“Oh, he don’t beat her or that sort of thing,” said Thornleigh. “She’s safe enough. I wouldn’t excite myself, if I were you; Mrs. Arden can take care of herself; she’ll give as good as she gets. Well, you needn’t look so fierce. I don’t think, as far as I’ve heard, that she stood up like that for you.”

“She was very good to me,” said Edgar, “better than I deserved, for I was always a trouble to her, with my different ways of thinking; and the children,” he added, softly, with an ineffable melting of his heart over Clare’s babies, which took him by surprise. “Tell me all you can, Harry. Think how you should feel if you had not heard of your own people for so many years.”

“I don’t know that I should mind much,” said honest Harry; “there are such heaps of them, for one thing; and children ain’t much in my way. There’s two little things, I believe—little girls, which riles Arden. Helena’s got a baby, by the way—did you know?—the rummiest little customer, bald, like its father. Nell was as mad as could be when I said so. By Jove! what fun it was! with a sort of spectacled look about the eyes. If that child don’t take to lecturing as soon as it can speak, I’ll never trust my judgment again.”

Edgar did not feel in a humour to make any response to young Thornleigh’s laughter. He felt himself like an instrument which was being played upon, struck by one rude touch after another, able to do nothing but give out sounds of pain or excitement. He could do nothing to help Clare, nothing to liberate Gussy; and yet Providence had thrust him into the midst of them without any doing of his, and surrounded him once more with at least the reflection of their lives. He let Harry laugh and stop laughing without taking any notice. He began to be impatient of his own position, and to feel a longing to plunge again into the unknown, it did not matter where, and get rid of those dear visions. Excitement brought its natural reaction in a sudden fit of despondency. If he could do nothing—and it was evident he could do nothing—would it not be better to save himself the needless pain, the mingled humiliation and anguish of helplessness? So long as he was here, he could not but ask, he could not but know. Though the ink was scarcely dry upon the letters he had been writing, the cry for aid to establish himself somehow, in an independent position which he had sent forth to all who could help—a sudden revulsion of feeling struck him, brought out by his despair and sense of impotence. Far better to go away to Australia, to New Zealand, to the end of the world, and at least escape hearing of the troubles he could do nothing to relieve, than to stay here and know all, and be able to do nothing. An instrument upon which now one strain of emotion, now another, was beaten out—that was the true image. Lady Mary had played upon him the other day, eliciting all sorts of confused sounds, wound up by a sudden strain of rapture; and now Harry struck the passive cords, and brought forth vaguer murmurs of fury, groans of impotence, and pain. It would not do. He was not a reed to be thus piped upon, but a man suffering, crying out in his pain, and he must make an end of it. Thus he thought, musing moodily, while Harry laughed over his sister’s bald baby. Harry himself was a dumb Memnon, whom no one had ever woke into sound, and he did not understand anything about his companion’s state of mind.

“Have you come to an end of your questions?” he said. “You ain’t so curious as I expected. Now here goes on my side? First and foremost, in the name of all that’s wonderful, how did you come here?”

Edgar shrugged his shoulders. “You will do me a better service if you will tell me how to get out of here,” he said. “I was a fool to stay. To tell the truth, I had not woke up to any particular interest in what became of me. I had only myself to think of; but I can’t bear to remember them all, and have nothing to do with them—that’s the truth.”

“You must make up your mind to that, old fellow,” said Harry, the philosopher; “few people get just all they want. But you can’t go and run away for that. You shouldn’t have run away at the first. It’s the coming back that does it. I know. You thought it was all over and done with, and that you could begin straight off, without coming across old things and old faces. I’ve turned over about as many new leaves, and made about as many fresh starts as most people, and I can feel for you. It ain’t no manner of use; you can’t get done with one set of people and take up with another; the old ones are always cropping up again,” said Harry, oracularly. “You’ve got to make up your mind to it. But I must say,” he added, changing his tone, “that of all places in the world for getting shut of the past, to come here!”

“I was a fool,” said Edgar, with his head between his hands. Up to this moment he had thought of Harry Thornleigh as a somewhat stupid boy. Now the young man of the world had the better of him. For the first time he fully realised that he had been foolish in coming here, and had placed himself in an exceptionally difficult position by his own act, and not by the action of powers beyond his control, as he thought. In short, he had allowed himself to be passive, to drift where the current led him, to do what was suggested, to follow any one that took it upon him to lead. I suppose it is consistent with the curious vagaries of human nature that this sudden sense of his impotence to direct his fate should come just after the warm flush of self-assertion and self-confidence which had made him feel his own fate to be once more worth thinking of. Harry, elevated on his calm height of matter-of-fact philosophy, had never in his life experienced so delightful a sense of capacity to lecture another, and he did not lose the opportunity.

“Don’t be down about it,” he said, condescendingly. “Most fellows make some mistake or other when they come to again after a bad fall. The brain gets muzzy, you know; and between a stark staring madman like old Tottenham, and a mature Syren like Aunt Mary, what were you to do? I don’t blame you. And now you’ve done it, you’ll have to stick to it. As for Clare Arden, I shouldn’t vex myself about her. She knew the kind of fellow she was marrying. Besides, if a man was to put himself out for all his sisters, good Lord! what a life he’d have. I don’t know that Helena’s happy with that professor fellow. If she ain’t, it’s her own business; she would have him. And I don’t say Clare’s unhappy. She’s not the sort of person to go in for domestic bliss, and make a show of herself. Cheer up, old fellow; things might be a deal worse. And ain’t old Tottenham a joke? But, by-the-way, take my advice; don’t do too much for that little cub of his. He’ll make a slave of you, if you don’t mind. Indeed,” said Harry, lighting a fresh cigar, “they’ll all make a slave of you. Don’t you let my lady get the upper hand. You can always manage a woman if you take a little trouble, but you must never let her get the upper hand.”

“And how do you manage a woman, oh, Solomon?” said Edgar, laughing, in spite of himself.

“I’ve had a deal of experience,” said Harry, gravely; “it all depends on whether you choose to take the trouble. The regular dodge about young men having their fling, and that sort of thing, does for my mother; she’s simple, poor dear soul. Aunt Mary wants a finer hand. Now you have the ball at your feet, if you choose to play it; only make a stand upon your mind, and that sort of thing, and she’ll believe you. She wouldn’t believe me if I were to set up for a genius, ’cause why? that’s not my line. Be difficile,” said Harry, imposingly, very proud of his French word; “that’s the great thing; and the more high and mighty you are, the more she’ll respect you. That’s my advice to you. As for dear old Tottenham, you can take your choice, anything will do for him; he’s the best old fellow, and the greatest joke in the world.”

With this Harry lit his candle and marched off to bed, very well pleased with himself. He had done all that Lady Augusta had hoped for. So far as his own family were concerned, he had comported himself like a precocious Macchiavelli. He had named no names, he had made no allusions, he had renewed his old friendship as frankly as possible, without however indulging Edgar in a single excursion into the past. He had mentioned Helena, who was perfectly safe and proper to be mentioned, a sign that he talked to his old friend with perfect freedom; but with the judgment of a Solomon he had gone no further. Not in vain did Harry flatter himself on being a man of the world. He was fond of Edgar, but he would have considered his sister’s choice of him, in present circumstances, as too ludicrous to be thought of. And there can be little doubt that Harry’s demeanour had an influence upon Edgar far more satisfactory for Lady Augusta than her sister’s intervention had been. All the visionary possibilities that had revealed themselves in Lady Mary’s warning, disappeared before the blank suavity of Harry. In that friendly matter-of-fact discussion of his friend’s difficulties, he had so entirely left out the chief difficulty, so taken it for granted that nothing of the kind existed, that Edgar felt like a man before whom a blank wall has suddenly risen, where a moment before there were trees and gardens. Harry’s was the man’s point of view, not the woman’s. Those regrets and longings for what might have been, which Lady Mary could not prevent from influencing her, even when she sincerely wished that the might have been should never be, were summarily extinguished in Harry’s treatment. Of course the old must crop up, and confront the new, and of course the complication must be faced and put up with, not run away from. Such was the young man of the world’s philosophy. Edgar sat long after he was gone, once more feeling himself the instrument on which every one played, rather than a conscious actor in the imbroglio. The image got possession of his fanciful brain. Like the thrill of the chords after the hand that struck them had been withdrawn, he seemed to himself to keep on vibrating with long thrills of after sensation, even when the primary excitement was over. But words are helpless to describe the thousand successive changes of feeling of which the mind is capable at a great crisis, especially without immediate power to act one way or another. Edgar, in despair, went and shut himself into the library and read, without knowing well what he read. The passage of those long processions of words before his eyes, gave him a certain occupation, even if they conveyed but little meaning. How easy it would be to do anything; how difficult it was to bear, and go on, and wait!

All this, perhaps, might be easier to support if life were not so cruelly ironical. That morning Edgar, who felt his own position untenable, and whose future seemed to be cut off under his feet—who felt himself to be standing muffled and invisible between two suffering women, each with the strongest claim upon him, for whom he could do nothing—was carried off to assist in getting up an entertainment at Mr. Tottenham’s shop. Entertainments, in the evening—duets, pieces on the cornet, Trial Scene from Pickwick; and in the morning, lectures, the improvement of Lady Mary Tottenham’s mind, and the grand office of teaching the young ladies of Harbour Green to think! What a farce it all seemed! And what an insignificant farce all the lighter external circumstances of life always seem to the compulsory actors in them, who have, simultaneously, the tragedy or even genteel comedy of their own lives going on, and all its most critical threads running through the larger lighter foolish web which concerns only the outside of man. The actor who has to act, and the singer who has to sing, and the romancist who has to go on weaving his romance through all the personal miseries of their existence, is scarcely more to be pitied than those unprofessional sufferers who do much the same thing, without making any claim, or supposing themselves to have any right to our sympathy. Edgar was even half glad to go, to get himself out of the quiet, and out of hearing of the broken bits of talk which went on around him; but I do not think that he was disposed to look with a very favourable eye on the entertainment at Tottenham’s, or even on the benevolent whimsey of the owner of that enormous shop.

CHAPTER III.
Harry.

Harry Thornleigh was anything but content to be left alone at Tottenham’s. He proposed that he should accompany Edgar and Mr. Tottenham, but the latter personage, benevolent as he was, had the faculty of saying No, and declined his nephew’s company. Then he wandered all about the place, looked at the house, inspected the dogs, strolled about the plantations, everything a poor young man could do to abridge the time till luncheon. He took Phil with him, and Phil chattered eternally of Mr. Earnshaw.

“I wish you wouldn’t call him by that objectionable name,” said Harry.

“It’s a capital good name,” cried Phil. “I wish you could see their blazon, in Gwillim. Earnshaw says it ain’t his family; but everybody says he’s a great swell in disguise, and I feel sure he is.”

“Hallo!” said Harry, idly, “what put that into your head? It’s all the other way, my fine fellow.”

“I don’t know what you mean by the other way. His name wasn’t always Earnshaw,” said Phil, triumphantly. “They’ve got about half a hundred quarterings, real old gentry, not upstarts like us.”

“That’s admirable,” said Harry. “I suppose that’s what you study all the time you are shut up together, eh?”

“No, he don’t care for heraldry, more’s the pity,” said Phil. “I can’t get him to take any interest. It’s in other ways he’s so jolly. I say, I’ve made up a coat for us, out of my own head. Listen! First and fourth, an ellwand argent; second and third, three shawls proper—But you don’t understand, no more than Earnshaw does. I showed it to the mother, and she boxed my ears.”

“Serve you right, you little beggar. I say, Phil, what is there to do in this old place? I’m very fond of Tottenham’s in a general way, but I never was here in winter before. What are you up to, little ’un? There’s the hounds on Thursday, I know; but Thursday’s a long way off. What have you got for a fellow to do, to-day?”

“Come up to the gamekeeper’s and see the puppies,” said Phil; “it’s through the woods all the way. Earnshaw went with me the other day. They’re such jolly little mites; and if you don’t mind luncheon very much, we can take a long stretch on to the pond at Hampton, and see how it looks. It’s shallower than our pond here.”

“I don’t care for a muddy walk, thanks,” said Harry, contemplating his boots, “and I do mind luncheon. Come along, and I’ll teach you billiards, Phil. I suppose there’s a billiard table somewhere about.”

“Teach me!” cried Phil, with a great many notes of admiration; “why, I can beat Earnshaw all to sticks!”

“If you mention his name again for an hour, I’ll punch your head,” cried Harry, and strolled off dreamily to the billiard-room, Phil following with critical looks. The boy liked his cousin, but at the same time he liked to have his say, and did not choose to be snubbed.

“What a thing it is to have nothing to do!” he said, sententiously. “How often do you yawn of a morning, Harry? We’re not allowed to do that. Earnshaw—”

“You little beggar! didn’t I promise to punch your head?” cried Harry; and they had an amiable struggle at the door of the billiard-room, by which Phil’s satirical tendencies were checked for the moment.

“Ain’t you strong, just!” Phil said, after this trial, with additional respect.

But notwithstanding the attractions of the billiard-table, Harry, yawning, stalked into luncheon with an agreeable sense of variety. “When you have nothing else to do, eat,” he said, displaying his wisdom in turn, for the edification of Phil. “That’s a great idea; I learned it at Oxford where it’s very useful.”

“And not very much else, acknowledge, Harry,” said Lady Mary.

“Well, as much as I was wanted to learn. You are very hard upon a fellow, Aunt Mary. John, I allow, was intended to do some good; but me, no one expected anything from me—and why should a fellow bother his brains when he hasn’t got any, and doesn’t care, and nobody cares for him? That’s what I call unreasonable. I suppose you’ll keep poor Phil at high pressure, till something happens. It ain’t right to work the brain too much at his age.”

“What about John?” said Lady Mary, “he has gone back to Oxford and is working in earnest now, isn’t he? Your mother told me—”

“Poor dear old mother, she’s so easy taken in, it’s a shame. Yes, he’s up at old Christ Church, sure enough; but as for work! when a thing ain’t in a fellow, you can’t get it out of him,” said Harry oracularly. “I don’t say that that isn’t rather hard upon the old folks.”

“You are a saucy boy to talk about old folks.”

“Well, they ain’t young,” said Harry calmly. “Poor old souls, I’m often sorry for them. We haven’t turned out as they expected, neither me nor the rest. Ada an old maid, and Gussy a ‘Sister,’ which is another name for an old maid, and Jack ploughed, and me—well, I’m about the best if you look at it dispassionately. By the way, no, little Mary’s the best. There is one that has done her duty; but Granton has a devil of a temper though they don’t know it. On the whole, I think the people who have no children are the best off.”

“Upon what facts may that wise conclusion rest?” said Lady Mary.

“I have just given you a lot of facts; me, Jack, Ada, Gussy, and you may add, Helena. Five failures against one success; if that ain’t enough to make life miserable I don’t know what is. I am very sorry for the Governor; my mother takes it easier on the whole, though she makes a deal more fuss; but it’s deuced hard upon him, poor old man. The Thornleighs don’t make such a figure in the county now as they did in his days; for it stands to reason that eight children, with debts to pay, &c., takes a good deal out of the spending-money; and of course the old maids of the family must come upon the estate.”

“When you see the real state of the case so plainly,” said Lady Mary, “and express yourself so sensibly—don’t you think you might do something to mend matters, and make your poor father a little happier?”

“Ah, that’s different,” said Harry, “I’ve turned over so many new leaves I don’t believe in them now. Besides a fellow gets into a groove and what is he to do?”

“Phil, if you have finished your lunch, you and Molly may run away and amuse yourselves,” said Lady Mary, feeling that here was an opportunity for moral influence. The two children withdrew rather unwillingly, for like all other children they were fond of personal discussions, and liked to hear the end of everything. Harry laughed as they went away.

“You want to keep Phil out of hearing of my bad example,” he said, “and you are going to persuade me to be good, Aunt Mary; I know all you’re going to say. Don’t you know I’ve had it all said to me a hundred times? Don’t bother yourself to go over the old ground. May I have the honour of attending your ladyship anywhere this afternoon, or won’t you have me, any more than Mr. Tottenham?”

“Oh, Harry, you’re a sad boy,” said Lady Mary, shaking her head. She had thought, perhaps, that she might have put his duty more clearly before him than any previous monitor had been able to do, for we all have confidence in our own special powers in this way; but she gave up judiciously when she saw how her overture was received. “I am going to the village,” she said, “to call upon those new people, Mr. Earnshaw’s cousins.”

“Oh, the beauty!” cried Harry with animation, “come along! Sly fellow to bring her here, where he’ll be always on the spot.”

“Ah, that was my first idea; but he knew nothing of it. To tell the truth,” said Lady Mary, “I wish it were so; I should be a good deal easier in my mind, and so would your mother if I could believe he was thinking seriously of anyone—in his own rank of life.”

“Why, I thought you were a democrat, and cared nothing for rank; I thought you were of the opinion that all men are equal, not to speak of women—”

“Don’t talk nonsense, Harry; an abstract belief, one way or other, has nothing to do with one’s family arrangements. I like Mr. Earnshaw very much; he is more than my equal, for he is an educated man, and knows much more than I do, which is my standard of position; but still, at the same time, I should not like him—in his present circumstances—to enter my family—”

“Though a few years ago we should all have been very glad of him,” said Harry. “Oh, I agree with you entirely, Aunt Mary. If Gussy is such a fool she must be stopped, that’s all. I’d have no hesitation in locking her up upon bread and water rather than stand any nonsense. I’d have done the same by Helena if I’d had my way.”

“How odd,” said Lady Mary, veering round instantly, and somewhat abashed to find herself thus supported, “and yet you are young, and might be supposed to have some sort of sympathy—”

“Not a bit,” cried Harry, “I don’t mind nonsense; but as soon as it gets serious I’m serious too. If this fellow, whom you call Earnshaw, has any notions of that kind I’ll show him the difference. Oh, yes, I like him; but you may like a fellow well enough, and not give him your sister. Besides, what made him such a fool as to give up everything? He might have fought it out.”

“Harry, you are very worldly—you do not understand generous sentiments—”

“No, I don’t,” said Harry stoutly, “what’s the good of generous sentiments if all that they bring you to is tutorizing in a private family? I’d rather put my generous sentiments in my pocket and keep my independence. Hallo, here’s your pony carriage. Shall you drive, or shall I?”

Lady Mary was crushed by her nephew’s straightforward worldliness. Had she been perfectly genuine in her own generosity, I have no doubt she would have metaphorically flown at his throat; but she was subdued by the consciousness that, much as she liked Edgar, any sort of man with a good position and secure income would appear to her a preferable husband for Gussy. This sense of weakness cowed her, for Harry, though he was stupid intellectually, was more than a match for his aunt in the calm certainty of his sentiments on this point. He was a man of the world, disposed to deal coolly with the hearts and engagements of his sisters, which did not affect him personally, and quite determined as to the necessary character of any stranger entering his family, which did affect him.

“I will have no snobs or cads calling me brother-in-law,” he said. “No, he ain’t a snob nor a cad; but he’s nobody, which is just the same. It’s awfully good of you to visit these other nobodies, his relations. Oh, yes, I’ll go in with you, and see if she’s as pretty as he said.”

The lodging in which Dr. Murray had established himself and his sister, so much against his will, was a succession of low-roofed rooms in a cottage of one story, picturesque with creepers and heavy masses of ivy, but damp, and somewhat dark. The sitting-room was very dim on this wintry afternoon. It was a dull day, with grey skies and mist; the two little windows were half-obscured with waving branches of ivy, and the glimmer of the fire flickered into the dark corners of the dim green room. You could scarcely pass from the door to the fireplace without dragging the red and blue tablecloth off the table, or without stumbling against the sofa on one side, or the little chiffonier on the other. When Lady Mary went in, like a queen to visit her subjects, two figures rose simultaneously to meet her. Margaret had been seated in the recess of the window to catch the last rays of the afternoon, and she let her work drop hurriedly out of her fingers, and rose up, undecipherable, except in outline, against the light. Dr. Charles rose too in the same way against the firelight. Neither of the four could make each other out, and the strangers were embarrassed and silent, not knowing who their visitor was. Lady Mary, however, fortunately was equal to the occasion. She introduced herself, and mentioned Edgar, and introduced her nephew, all in a breath. “I am so sorry you should have had so uncomfortable a reception,” she said, “but you must not be angry with poor Mrs. Franks, for it could not be helped.”

“Oh, no, it could not be helped,” they both said, in unison, with low Scotch voices, the accent of which puzzled Lady Mary; and then Margaret added, still more softly, “I am sorry for her, poor woman, stopped at such a moment.” The voice was very soft, shy, full of self-consciousness and embarrassment. Harry stood by the window, and looked out, and felt more bored than ever. He had come to see a beauty, and he saw nothing but the little grass-plot before the cottage-door, shut in by bushes of holly and rhododendron. And Lady Mary went on talking in a sort of professional lady-of-the-manor strain, telling Dr. Murray what he had to look forward to, and wherein Dr. Franks had been deficient.

“You will find it a very good house, when you can get in to it,” she said, “and a pleasant neighbourhood;” and then in the little pause that followed these gracious intimations, Edgar’s name was introduced, and the mutual surprise with which his cousins and he had met; while the brother and sister explained, both together, now one strange soft voice breaking in, now the other, how much and how little they knew of him, Harry still stood leaning on the window, waiting, with a little impatience, till his aunt should have got through her civilities. But just then the mistress of the cottage appeared, holding in both hands a homely paraffin lamp, by no means free of smell, which she placed on the table, suddenly illuminating the dim interior. Harry had to move from the window while she proceeded to draw down the blinds, and thus of a sudden, without warning or preparation, he received the electric shock which had been preparing for him. Margaret had seated herself on the end of the little sofa close to the table. She had raised her eyes to look at him, probably with something of the same curiosity which had brought him to the cottage—Lady Mary’s nephew, a person in the best society, could not be without interest to the new-comers. Margaret looked up at him with the unconscious look of appeal which never went out of her beautiful eyes. The young man was, to use his own language, struck “all of a heap.” He thought she was asking something of him. In his hurry and agitation, he made a step towards her.

“You were asking—” cried Harry, eagerly, affected as he had never been in his life before. What was it she wanted? He did not stop to say to himself how beautiful she was. He felt only that she had asked him for something, and that if it were the moon she wanted, he would try to get it for her. His sudden movement, and the sound of his voice, startled Lady Mary too, who could not make out what he meant.

“I did not say anything,” said Margaret, in the slightly plaintive voice which was peculiar to her, with a smile, which seemed to the young man like thanks for the effort he had made. He took a chair, and drew it to the table, not knowing what he did. A sudden maze and confusion of mind came over him, in which he felt as if some quite private intercourse had gone on between this stranger and himself. She had asked him, he could not tell for what—and he had thrown his whole soul into the attempt to get it for her; and she had thanked him. Had this happened really, or was it only a look, a smile that had done it? The poor boy could not tell. He drew his chair close to the table to be near her. She was not a stranger to him; he felt at once that he could say anything to her, accept anything from her. He was dazed and stunned, yet excited and exhilarated by her mere look, he could not tell why.

And the talk went on again. Harry said nothing; he sat casting a glance at her from time to time, eager, hoping she would ask that service from him once more. Perhaps Margaret was accustomed to produce this effect on strangers. She went on in her plaintive voice, telling how little she knew of Edgar, and what he had done for his family, in an even flow of soft speech, answering all Lady Mary’s questions, not looking at the new worshipper—while Dr. Murray, in his embarrassed way, anxious to make a good impression, supplemented all his sister said. Margaret was not embarrassed; she was shy, yet frank; her eyes were cast down generally as she talked, over the work she held in her hands, but now and then she raised them to give emphasis to a sentence, looking suddenly full in the face of the person she was addressing. It was her way. She renewed her spell thus from moment to moment. Even Lady Mary, though she had all her wits about her, was impressed and attracted; and as for poor Harry, he sat drawing his chair closer and closer, trying to put himself so near as to intercept one of those glances which she raised to Lady Mary’s face.

“Our old mother brought us up,” she said. “I cannot tell how good she was to Charles and me, and what it cost us not to be rich enough to help her.”

“Margaret,” said Dr. Charles, “Lady Mary cannot care to hear all this about you and me.”

“Oh, pray go on, I am so much interested,” said Lady Mary.

“For we have never been rich, never anything but poor,” said Margaret, suddenly lifting her beautiful eyes, and thus giving double effect to the acknowledgment; while her brother fretted a little, and moved on his chair with impatience of her frankness.

“We have been able to make our way,” he said, in an under-tone.

“You see, I have always been a drag on him, I and my little girl,” she went on, with a soft sigh, “so that he was not able to help when he wanted to help. And then Mr. Earnshaw came in, and did all, and more than all, that Charles could have hoped to do. For this we can never think too highly of him, never be grateful enough.”

“It was what any fellow would have done,” interrupted Harry, putting his head forward. He did not know what he was saying. And Lady Mary, suddenly looking at him, took fright.

“Thank you so much for telling me this,” she said, rising. “I am so glad to hear another good thing of Mr. Earnshaw who is one of my first favourites. For his sake you must let me know if there is anything I can do to make you comfortable. Harry, it is time for us to go; it will be quite dark in the avenue. Pardon me, Dr. Murray, but I don’t know your sister’s name; foolishly, I never thought to ask?”

“Mrs. Smith,” said Dr. Charles, as they both got up, filling the little dark room with their tall figures. Harry did not know how he made his exit. One moment, it seemed to him he was surrounded with an atmosphere of light and sadness from those wonderful blue eyes, and the next he was driving along the darkling road, with the sound of the wheels and the ponies’ hoofs ringing all about him, and unsympathetic laughter breaking from under Lady Mary’s veil by his side.

“Mrs. Smith!” she cried; “what a prodigious anti-climax! It was all I could do to keep my gravity till I got outside. That wonderful creature with such eyes, and her pretty plaintive voice. It is too absurd. Mrs. Smith!”

“You seem to enjoy the joke!” said Harry, stiffly, feeling offended.

“Enjoy the joke! don’t you? But it was rather a shock than a joke. What a pretty woman! what a pretty voice! It reminds me of blue-bells and birch trees, and all kinds of pleasant things in Burns and Scott. But Mrs. Smith! And how that lamp smelt! My dear Harry, I wish you would be a little more cautious, or else give me the reins. I don’t want to be upset in the mud. Mrs. Smith!”

“You seem to be mightily amused,” said Harry, more gruff than ever.

“Yes, considerably; but I see you don’t share my amusement,” said Lady Mary, still more amused at this sudden outburst of temper, or propriety, or whatever it might be.

“I always thought you were very sympathetic, Aunt Mary,” said the young man, with a tone of dignified reproof. “It is one of the words you ladies use to express nothing particular, I suppose? The girls are always dinning it into my ears.”

“And you think I don’t come up to my character, Harry?”

“I don’t understand your joke, I confess,” said Harry, with the loftiest superiority, drawing up at the great hall door.

CHAPTER IV.
The Education of Women.

Mr. Tottenham came back from town that evening alone. He explained that Earnshaw had stayed behind on business. “Business partly mine, and partly his own; he’s the best fellow that ever lived,” was all the explanation he gave to his wife; and Lady Mary was unquestionably curious. They talked a great deal about Edgar at dinner that evening, and Phil made himself especially objectionable by his questions and his indignation.

“He hasn’t been here so long that he should go away,” said Phil. “Don’t he like us, papa? I am sure there is something wrong by your face.”

“So am I,” said little Molly. “You only look like that when some one has been naughty. But this time you must have made a mistake. Even you might make a mistake. To think of Mr. Earnshaw being naughty, like one of us, is ridiculous.”

“Naughty!” cried Phil. “Talk of things you understand, child. I’d like to know what Earnshaw is supposed to have done,” cried the boy, swelling with indignation and dignity, with tears rising in his eyes.

“I’ve locked him up in the dark closet in the shop till he will promise to be good,” said the father, with a laugh; “and if you will throw yourself at my feet, Molly, and promise to bear half of his punishment for him, I will, perhaps, let him out to-morrow.”

Little Molly half rose from her chair. She gave a questioning glance at her mother before she threw herself into the breach; while Phil, reddening and wondering, stood on the alert, ready to undertake he knew not what.

“Nonsense, children; sit down; your father is laughing at you. Seriously, Tom, without any absurdity, what is it?” cried Lady Mary. “I wanted him so to-morrow to hear the first lecture—and he did not mean to stay in town when he left here this morning.”

“It is business, mere business,” repeated Mr. Tottenham. “We are not all fine ladies and gentlemen, like you and Phil, Molly. Some of us have to work for our living. If it hadn’t been for Earnshaw, I should, perhaps, have stayed myself. I think we had better stay in town the night of the entertainment, Mary. It will be a long drive for you back here, and still longer for the children. They are going to have a great turn out. I have been writing invitations all day to the very finest of people. I don’t suppose Her Grace of Middlemarch ever heard anything so fine as Mr. Watson’s solo on the cornet. And, Phil, I rely on you to get an encore.”

“Oh! I like old Watson. I’ll clap for him,” cried Phil, with facile change of sentiments; though little Molly kept still eyeing her father and mother alternately, not quite reassured. And thus the conversation slid away from Edgar to the usual crotchets of the establishment.

“We have settled all about the seats, and about the refreshments,” said Mr. Tottenham, with an air of content. “You great people will sit in front, and the members of the establishment who are non-performers, on the back seats; and the grandest flunkies that ever were seen shall serve the ices. Oh! John is nothing to them. They shall be divinely tall, and powdered to their eyebrows; in new silk stockings taken from our very best boxes, for that night only. Ah, children, you don’t know what is before you! Miss Jemima Robinson is to be Serjeant Buzfuz. She is sublime in her wig. She is out of the fancy department, and is the best of saleswomen. We are too busy, we have too much to do to spend time in improving our minds, like you and your young ladies, Mary; but you shall see how much native genius Tottenham’s can produce.”

Harry Thornleigh kept very quiet during this talk. His head was still rather giddy, poor fellow; his balance was still disturbed by the face and the eyes and the look which had come to him like a revelation. It would be vain to say that he had never been in love before; he had been in love a dozen times, lightly, easily, without much trouble to himself or anyone else. But now he did not know what had happened to him. He kept thinking what she would be likely to like, what he could get for her—if, indeed, he ever was again admitted to her presence, and had that voiceless demand made upon him. Oh! what a fool he had been, Harry thought, to waste his means and forestall his allowance, and spend money for no good, when all the time there was existing in the world a being like that! I don’t know what his allowance had to do with it, and neither, I suppose, did Harry; but the thought went vaguely through his head amid a flood of other thoughts equally incoherent. He was glad of Edgar’s absence, though he could not have told why; and when Lady Mary began, in the drawing-room after dinner, to describe the new-comer to her husband, he sat listening with glaring eyes till she returned to that stale and contemptible joke about Mrs. Smith, upon which Harry retired in dudgeon, feeling deeply ashamed of her levity. He went to the smoking-room and lit his cigar, and then he strolled out, feeling a want of fresh air, and of something cool and fresh to calm him down. It was a lovely starlight night, very cold and keen. All the mists and heavy vapours had departed with the day, and the sky over Tottenham’s was ablaze with those silvery celestial lights, which woke I cannot tell how many unusual thoughts, and what vague inexplicable emotion and delicious sadness in Harry’s mind. Something was the matter with him; he could have cried, though nobody was less inclined to cry in general; the water kept coming to his eyes, and yet his soul was lost in a vague sense of happiness. How lovely the stars were; how stupid to sit indoors in a poky room, and listen to bad jokes and foolish laughter when it was possible to come out to such a heavenly silence, and to all those celestial lights. The Aurora Borealis was playing about the sky, flinging waving rosy tints here and there among the stars, and as he stood gazing, a great shadowy white arm and hand seemed to flit across the heavens, dropping something upon him. What was it? the fairy gift for which those blue eyes had asked him, those eyes which were like the stars? Harry was only roused from his star-gazing by the vigilant butler, attended by a footman with a lantern, who made a survey of the house every night, to see that all the windows and doors were shut, and that no vagrants were about the premises.

“Beg your pardon, Sir,” said that functionary, “but there’s a many tramps about, and we’re obliged to be careful.”

Harry threw away his cigar, and went indoors; but he did not attempt to return to the society of his family. Solitude had rather bored him than otherwise up to this moment; but somehow he liked it that night.

Next morning was as bright and sunshiny as the night had been clear, and Lady Mary was again bound for the village, with Phil and his sister.

“Come with us, Harry; it will do you good to see what is going on,” she said.

Harry had no expectation of getting any good, but he had nothing to do, and it seemed possible that he might see or hear of the beautiful stranger, so he graciously accompanied the little party in their walk. Lady Mary was in high spirits. She had brought all her schemes to completion, and on this day her course of lectures was to begin. Nothing could surpass her own conscientiousness in the matter. No girl graduate, or boy graduate either, for that matter, was ever more determined to work out every exercise and receive every word of teaching from the instructors she had chosen. I do not think that Lady Mary felt herself badly equipped in general for the work of life; indeed, I suppose she must have felt, as most clever persons do, a capability of doing many things better than other people, and of understanding any subject that was placed before her, with a rapidity and clearness which had been too often remarked upon to be unknown to herself. She must have been aware too, I suppose, that the education upon which she harped so much, had not done everything for its male possessors which she expected it to do for the women whose deficiencies she so much lamented. I suppose she must have known this, though she never betrayed her consciousness of it; but by whatever means it came about, it is certain that Lady Mary was a great deal more eager for instruction, and more honestly determined to take the good of it, than any one of the girls at Harbour Green for whose benefit she worked with such enthusiasm, and who acquiesced in her efforts, some of them for fun, some of them with a half fictitious reflection of her enthusiasm, and all, or almost all, because Lady Mary was the fashion in her neighbourhood, and it was the right thing to follow her in her tastes and fancies. There was quite a pretty assembly in the schoolroom when the party from Tottenham’s arrived—all the Miss Witheringtons in a row, and the young ladies from the Rectory, and many other lesser lights. Harry Thornleigh was somewhat frightened to find himself among so many ladies, though most of them were young, and many pretty.

“I’ll stay behind backs, thanks,” he said, hurriedly, and took up a position near the door, where Phil joined him, and where the two conversed in whispers.

“They’re going to do sums, fancy,” said Phil, opening large eyes, “mamma and all! though nobody can make them do it unless they like.”

“By Jove!” breathed Harry into his moustache. Amaze could go no further, and he felt words incapable of expressing his sentiments. I don’t know whether the spectacle did the young fellow good, but it stupefied and rendered him speechless with admiration or horror, I should not like to say which. “What are they doing it for?” he whispered to Phil, throwing himself in his consternation even upon that small commentator for instruction.

Phil’s eyes were screwed tightly in his head, round as two great O’s of amazement; but he only shook that organ, and made no response. I think, on the whole, Phil was the one of all the assembly (except his mother) who enjoyed it most. He was privileged to sit and look on, while others were, before his eyes, subjected to the torture from which he had temporarily escaped. Phil enjoyed it from this point of view; and Lady Mary enjoyed it in the delight of carrying out her plan, and riding high upon her favourite hobby. She listened devoutly while the earliest propositions of Euclid were being explained to her, with a proud and happy consciousness that thus, by her means, the way to think was opened to a section at least of womankind; and what was more, this very clever woman put herself quite docilely at her lecturer’s feet, and listened to every word he said with the full intention of learning how to think in her own person—notwithstanding that, apart from her hobby, she had about as much confidence in her own power of thought as most people. This curious paradox, however, is not so uncommon that I need dwell upon it. The other persons who enjoyed the lecture most, were, I think, Myra Witherington, who now and then looked across to her friend Phil, and made up her pretty face into such a delightful copy of the lecturer’s, that Phil rolled upon his seat with suppressed laughter; and Miss Annetta Baker, who—there being no possibility of croquet parties at this time of the year—enjoyed the field-day immensely, and nodded to her friends, and made notes of Lady Mary’s hat, and of the new Spring dresses in which the Rectory girls certainly appeared too early, with genuine pleasure. The other ladies present did their best to be very attentive. Sometimes a faintly smothered sigh would run through the assembly; sometimes a little cough, taken up like a fugue over the different benches, gave a slight relief to their feelings; sometimes it would be a mere rustle of dresses, indicative of a slight universal movement. The curate’s wife, unable to keep up her attention, fell to adding up her bills within herself, a much more necessary mathematical exercise in her case, but one also which did very little towards paying the same, as poor Mrs. Mildmay knew too well. Miss Franks, the old doctor’s eldest daughter, after the first solemnity of the commencement wore off, began to think of her packing, and what nonsense it was of papa to send her here when there was so much to do—especially as they were leaving Harbour Green, and Lady Mary’s favour did not matter now. There was one real student, besides Lady Mary, and that was Ellen Gregory, the daughter of the postmistress, who sat far back, and was quite unthought of by the great people, and whose object was to learn a little Euclid for an approaching examination of pupil-teachers, and not in the least the art of thinking. Ellen was quite satisfied as to her powers in that particular; but she knew the effect that a little Euclid had upon a school-inspector, and worked away with a will, with a mind as much intent as Lady Mary’s, and eyes almost as round as Phil’s.

From this it will be seen that Lady Mary’s audience was about as little prepared for abstract education as most other audiences. When it was over, there was a pleasant stir of relief, and everybody began to breathe freely. The lecturer came from behind his table, and the ladies rose from their benches, and everybody shook hands.

“Oh, it was delightful, Lady Mary!” said the eldest Miss Witherington; “how it does open up one’s mental firmament.”

“Mr. Thornleigh, will you help me to do the fourth problem?” said Myra. “I don’t understand it a bit—but of course you know all about it.”

“I!” cried Harry, recoiling in horror, “you don’t mean it, Miss Witherington? It’s a shame to drag a fellow into this sort of thing without any warning. I couldn’t do a sum to save my life!”

“Lady Mary, do you hear? is it any shame to me not to understand it, when a University man says just the same?” cried Myra, laughing. Poor Harry felt himself most cruelly assailed, as well as ill-used altogether, by being led into this extraordinary morning’s work.

“I hope there’s more use in a University than that rot,” he said. “By Jove, Aunt Mary! I’ve often heard women had nothing to do—but if you can find no better way of passing your time than doing sums and problems, and getting up Euclid at your time of life——”

“Take him away, for heaven’s sake, Myra!” whispered Lady Mary; “he is not a fool when you talk to him. He is just like other young men, good enough in his way; but I can’t be troubled with him now.”

“Ah!” cried Myra, with an unconscious imitation of Lady Mary’s own manner, which startled, and terrified, and enchanted all the bystanders, “if the higher education was only open to us poor women, if we were not persistently kept from all means of improving ourselves—we might get in time to be as intellectual as Mr. Thornleigh,” she added, laughing in her own proper voice.

Lady Mary did not hear the end of this speech; she did not see herself in the little mimic’s satire. She was too much preoccupied, and too serious to notice the fun—and the smiles upon the faces of her friends annoyed without enlightening her.

“How frivolous we all are,” she said, turning to the eldest Miss Baker, with a sigh; “off at a tangent, as soon as ever the pressure is removed. I am sure I don’t want to think it—but sometimes I despair, and feel that we must wait for a new generation before any real education is possible among women. They are all like a set of schoolboys let loose.”

“My dear Lady Mary, that is what I am always telling you; not one in a hundred is capable of any intellectual elevation,” said the only superior person in the assembly; and they drew near the lecturer, and engaged him in a tough conversation, though he, poor man, having done his duty, and being as pleased to get it over as the audience, would have much preferred the merrier crowd who were streaming—with suppressed laughter, shaking their heads and uttering admonitions to wicked Myra—out into the sunshine, through the open door.

“Don’t do that again,” cried Phil, very red. “I say, Myra, I like you and your fun, and all that; but I’ll never speak to you again, as long as I live, if you take off mamma!”

“I didn’t mean it, dear,” said Myra, penitent. “I’m so sorry, I beg your pardon, Phil. Lady Mary’s a dear, and I wouldn’t laugh at her for all the world. But don’t you ever mimic anyone, there’s a good boy; for one gets into the habit without knowing what one does.”

“Oh, that’s all very fine,” said Phil, feeling the exhortation against a sin for which he had no capability to be out of place; but he did not refuse to make up the incipient quarrel. As for Harry, he had not listened, and consequently was not aware how much share he had in the cause of the general hilarity.

“I should like to know what all the fun’s about,” he said. “Good lord! to see you all at it like girls at school! Ladies are like sheep, it seems to me—where one goes you all follow; because that good little aunt of mine has a craze about education, do you all mean to make muffs of yourselves? Well, I’m not a man that stands up for superior intellect and that sort of thing—much; but, good gracious! do you ever see men go in for that sort of nonsense?”

“That is because you are all so much cleverer, and better educated to start with, Mr. Thornleigh,” said Sissy Witherington. He looked up at her to see if she were laughing at him; but Sissy was incapable of satire, and meant what she said.

“Well, perhaps there is something in that,” said Harry, mollified, stroking his moustache.

Harry lunched with the Witheringtons at their urgent request, and thus shook himself free from Phil, who was disposed, in the absence of Earnshaw, to attach himself to his cousin. Mrs. Witherington made much of the visitor, not without a passing thought that if by any chance he should take a fancy to Myra—and of course Myra to him, though that was a secondary consideration—why, more unlikely things might come to pass. But Harry showed no dispositions that way, and stood and stared out of the window of the front drawing-room, after luncheon, towards Mrs. Smith’s lodgings, on the other side of the Green, with a pertinacity which amazed his hostesses. When he left them he walked in the same direction slowly, with his eyes still fixed on the cottage with its green shutters and dishevelled creepers. Poor Harry could not think of any excuse for a second call; he went along the road towards the cottage hoping he might meet the object of his thoughts, and stared in at the window through the matted growth of holly and rhododendrons in the little garden, equally without effect. She had been seated there on the previous evening, but she was not seated there now. He took a long walk, and came back again once more, crossing slowly under the windows, and examining the place; but still saw nothing. If Margaret had only known of it, where she sat listlessly inside feeling extremely dull, and in want of a little excitement, how much good it would have done her! and she would not have been so unkind as to refuse her admirer a glance. But she did not know, and Harry went back very unhappy, dull and depressed, and feeling as if life were worth very little indeed to him. Had that heavenly vision appeared, only to go out again, to vanish for ever, from the eyes which could never forget the one glimpse they had had of her? Harry had never known what it was to be troubled with extravagant hopes or apprehensions before.

CHAPTER V.
Mrs. Smith.

“Still no Mr. Earnshaw,” said Lady Mary. “This business of his and yours is a long affair then, Tom. I wanted to send down to those cousins of his to ask them to dinner, or something. I suppose I must write a little civil note, and tell Mrs. Smith why I delay doing so. It is best to wait till he comes back.”

“I’ll take your note, Aunt Mary,” said Harry, with alacrity. “Oh, no, it will not inconvenience me in the least. I shall be passing that way.”

“I suppose you want to see the beauty again?” said Lady Mary, smiling. “She is very pretty. But I don’t care much for the looks of the brother. He has an uncertain way, which would be most uncomfortable in illness. If he were to stand on one foot, and hesitate, and look at you like that, to see what you were thinking of him, when some one was ill! A most uncomfortable doctor. I wish we may not have been premature about poor old Dr. Franks.”

“Anyhow it was not your doing,” said Mr. Tottenham.

Lady Mary blushed slightly. She answered with some confusion: “No, I don’t suppose it was.” But at the same time she felt upon her conscience the weight of many remarks, as to country practitioners, and doctors of the old school, and men who did not advance with the progress of science even in their own profession, which she had made at various times, and which, no doubt, had gone forth with a certain influence. She had not had it in her power to influence Dr. Franks as to the person who should succeed him; but she had perhaps been a little instrumental in dethroning the old country doctor of the old school, whose want of modern science she had perceived so clearly. These remarks were made the second day after the lecture, and Edgar had not yet returned. Nobody at Tottenham’s knew where he was, or what had become of him; nobody except the master of the house, who kept his own counsel. Harry had made another unavailing promenade in front of Mrs. Smith’s lodgings on the day before, and had caught a glimpse of Margaret in a cab, driving with her brother to some patient, following the old lofty gig which was Dr. Franks’ only vehicle. He had taken off his hat, and stood at the gate of Tottenham’s, worshipping while she passed, and she had given him a smile and a look which went to his heart. This look and smile seemed the sole incidents that had happened to Harry; he could not remember anything else; and when Lady Mary spoke of the note his heart leaped into his mouth. She had, as usual, a hundred things to do that morning while he waited, interviews with the housekeeper, with the gardener, with the nurse, a hundred irrelevant matters. And then she had her letters to write, a host of letters, at which he looked on with an impatience almost beyond concealment—letters enclosing circulars, letters asking for information, letters about her lectures, about other “schemes” of popular enlightenment, letters to her friends, letters to her family. Harry counted fifteen while he waited. Good lord! did any clerk in an office work harder? “And most of them about nothing, I suppose,” Harry said cynically to himself. Luncheon interrupted her in the middle of her labours, and Harry had to wait till that meal was over before he could obtain the small envelope, with its smaller enclosure, which justified his visit. He hurried off as soon as he could leave the table, but not without a final arrangement of his locks and tie. The long avenue seemed to flee beneath his feet as he walked down, the long line of trees flew past him. His heart went quicker than his steps, and so did his pulse, both of them beating so that he grew dizzy and breathless. Why this commotion? he said to himself. He was going to visit a lady whom he had only seen once before; the loveliest woman he had ever seen in his life, to be sure; but it was only walking so quickly, he supposed, which made him so panting and excited. He lost time by his haste, for he had to pause and get command of himself, and calm down, before he could venture to go and knock at the shabby little green door.

Margaret was seated on the end of the little sofa, which was placed beside the fire. This, he said to himself, no doubt was the reason why he had not seen her at the window. She had her work-basket on the table, and was sewing, with her little girl seated on a stool at her feet. The little girl was about seven, very like her mother, seated in the same attitude, and bending her baby brows over a stocking which she was knitting. Margaret was very plainly, alas! she herself felt, much too plainly-dressed, in a dark gown of no particular colour, with nothing whatever to relieve it except a little white collar; her dark hair, which she also lamented over as quite unlike and incapable of being coaxed into, the fashionable colour of hair, was done up simply enough, piled high up upon her head. She had not even a ribbon to lend her a little colour. And she was not wise enough to know that chance had befriended her, and that her beautiful pale face looked better in this dusky colourless setting, in which there was no gleam or reflection to catch the eye, than it would have done in the most splendid attire. She raised her eyes when the door opened and rose up, her tall figure, with a slight wavering stoop, looking more and more like a flexile branch or tall drooping flower. She put out her hand quite simply, as if he had been an old friend, and looked no surprise, nor seemed to require any explanation of his visit, but seated herself again and resumed her work. So did the child, who had lifted its violet eyes also to look at him, and now bent them again on her knitting. Harry thought he had never seen anything so lovely as this group, the child a softened repetition of the mother—in the subdued greenish atmosphere with winter outside, and the still warmth within.

“I came from my aunt with this note,” said Harry, embarrassed. She looked up again as he spoke, and this way she had of looking at him only now and then gave a curious particularity to her glance. He thought, poor fellow, that his very tone must be suspicious, that her eyes went through and through him, and that she had found him out. “I mean,” he added, somewhat tremulously, “that I was very glad of—of the chance of bringing Lady Mary’s note; and asking you how you liked the place.”

“You are very kind to come,” said Margaret in her soft voice, taking the note. “It’s a little lonely, knowing nobody—and a visit is very pleasant.”

The way in which she lingered upon the “very,” seemed sweetness itself to Harry Thornleigh. Had a prejudiced Englishman written down the word, probably he would, after Margaret’s pronunciation, have spelt it “varry;” but that would be because he knew no better, and would not really represent the sound, which had a caressing, lingering superlativeness in it to the listener. She smiled as she spoke, then opened her letter, and read it over slowly. Then she raised her eyes to his again with still more brightness in them.

“Lady Mary is very kind, too,” she said, with a brightening of pleasure all over her face.

“She’s waiting for your cousin to come back—I suppose she says so—before asking you to the house; and I hope it will not be long first, for I am only a visitor here,” said Harry impulsively. Margaret gave him another soft smile, as if she understood exactly what he meant.

“You are not staying very long, perhaps?” she said.

“Oh, for some weeks, I hope; I hope long enough to improve my acquaintance with—with Dr. Murray and yourself.”

“I hope so too,” said Margaret, with another smile. “Charlie is troubled with an anxious mind. To see you so friendly will be very good for him, very good.”

“Oh, I hope you will let me be friendly!” cried Harry, with a glow of delight. “When does he go out? I suppose he is busy with the old doctor, visiting the sick people. You were with him yesterday—”

“He thinks it is good for my health to go with him; and then he thinks I am dull when he’s away,” said Margaret. “He is a real good brother; there are not many like him. Yes, he is going about with Dr. Franks nearly all the day.”

“And you are quite alone, and dull? I am so sorry. I wish you would let me show you the neighbourhood; or if you would come and walk in the park or the wood—my aunt, I am sure, would be too glad.”

“Oh, I’m not dull,” said Margaret. “I have my little girl. She is all I have in the world, except Charles; and we are great companions, are we no, Sibby?”

This was said with a change in the voice, which Harry thought, made it still more like a wood-pigeon’s note.

“Ay are we,” said the little thing, putting down her knitting, and laying back her little head, like a kitten, rubbing against her mother’s knee. Nothing could be prettier as a picture, more natural, more simple; and though the child’s jargon was scarcely comprehensible to Harry, his heart answered to this renewed appeal upon it.

“But sometimes,” he said, “you must want other companionship than that of a child.”

“Do I?” said Margaret, pressing the little head against her. “I am not sure. After all, I think I’m happiest with her, thinking of nothing else; but you, a young man, will scarcely understand that.”

“Though I am a young man, I think I can understand it,” said Harry. He seemed to himself to be learning a hundred lessons, with an ease and facility he was never conscious of before. “But if I were to come and take you both out for a walk, into the woods, or through the park, to show you the country, that would be good both for her and you.”

“Very good,” said Margaret, raising her eyes, “and very kind of you; but I think I know why you’re so very good. You know my cousin, Edgar Earnshaw, too?”

“Yes; I know him very well,” said Harry.

“He must be very good, since everybody is so kind that knows him; and fancy, I don’t know him!” said Margaret. “Charles and he are friends, but Sibby and I have only seen him once. We have scarcely a right to all the kind things that are done for his sake.”

“Oh, it isn’t for his sake,” cried Harry. “I like him very much; but there are other fellows as good as he is. I wouldn’t have you make a hero of Edgar; he is odd sometimes, as well as other folks.”

“Tell me something about him; I don’t know him, except what he did for Granny,” said Margaret. “It’s strange that, though I am his relative, you should know him so much better. Will you tell me? I would like to know.”

“Oh, there’s nothing very wonderful to tell,” said Harry, somewhat disgusted; “he’s well enough, and nice enough, but he has his faults. You must not think that I came for his sake. I came because I thought you would feel a little lonely, and might be pleased to have some one to talk to. Forgive me if I was presumptuous.”

“Presumptuous! no,” said Margaret, with a smile. “You were quite right. Would you like a cup of tea? it is just about the time. Sibby, go ben and tell Mrs. Sims we will have some tea.”

“She is very like you,” said Harry, taking this subject, which he felt would be agreeable, as a new way of reaching the young mother’s heart.

“So they tell me,” said Margaret. “She is like what I can mind of myself, but gentler, and far more good. For, you see, there were always two of us, Charlie and me.”

“You have always been inseparable?”

“We were separated, so long as I was married; but that was but two years,” said Margaret, with a sigh; and here the conversation came to a pause.

Harry was so touched by her sigh and her pause, that he did not know how to show his sympathy. He would have liked to say on the spot, “Let me make it all up to you now;” but he did not feel that this premature declaration would be prudent. And then he asked himself, what did she mean? that the time of her separation from her brother was sad? or that she was sad that it came to an end so soon? With natural instinct, he hoped it might be the former. He was looking at her intently, with interest and sympathy in every line of his face, when she looked up suddenly, as her manner was, and caught him—with so much more in his looks than he ventured to say.

Margaret was half amused, half touched, half flattered; but she did not let the amusement show. She said, gratefully, “You are very kind to take so much interest in a stranger like me.”

“I do not feel as if you were a stranger,” cried Harry eagerly; and then not knowing how to explain this warmth of expression, he added in haste, “you know I have known—we have all known your cousin for years.”

Margaret accepted the explanation with a smile, “You all? You are one of a family too—you have brothers and sisters like Charles and me?”

“Not like you. I have lots of brothers and sisters, too many to think of them in the same way. There is one of my sisters whom I am sure you would like,” said Harry, who had always the fear before his eyes that the talk would flag, and his companion get tired of him—a fear which made him catch wildly at any subject which presented itself.

“Yes?” said Margaret, “tell me her name, and why you think I would like her best.”

From this it will be seen that she too was not displeased to keep up the conversation, nor quite unskilled in the art.

“The tea’s coming,” said little Sibby, running in and taking her seat on her footstool. Perhaps Harry thought he had gone far enough in the revelation of his family, or perhaps only that this was a better subject. He held out his hand and made overtures of friendship to the little girl.

“Come and tell me your name,” he said, “shouldn’t you like to come up with me to the house, and play with my little cousins in the nursery? There are three or four of them, little things. Shouldn’t you like to come with me?”

“No without mamma,” said little Sibby, putting one hand out timidly, and with the other clinging to her mother’s dress.

“Oh, no,” said Harry, “not without mamma, she must come too; but you have not told me your name. She is shy, I suppose.”

“A silly thing,” said Margaret, stroking her child’s dark hair. “Her name is Sybilla, Sybil is prettier; but in Scotland we call it Sibby, and sometimes Bell for short. Now, dear, you must not hold me, for the gentleman will not eat you, and here is the tea.”

Harry felt himself elected into one of the family, when Mrs. Sims came in, pushing the door open before her, with the tray in her arms; upon which there was much bread and butter of which he partook, finding it delightful, with a weakness common to young men in the amiable company of the objects of their affection. He drew his chair to the table opposite to Margaret, and set Sibby up on an elevated seat at the other side, and felt a bewildering sensation come over him as if they belonged to him. It was not a very high ideal of existence to sit round a red and blue table in a cottage parlour of a winter’s afternoon, and eat bread and butter; but yet Harry felt as if nothing so delightful and so elevating had ever happened to him before in all his life.

It was a sad interruption to his pleasure, when Dr. Murray came in shortly afterwards, pushing the door open as Mrs. Sims had done, and entering with the air of a man to whom, and not to Harry, the place belonged. He had his usual doubtful air, looking, as Lady Mary said, to see what you thought of him, and not sure that his sister was not showing an injudicious confidence in thus revealing to Harry the existence of such a homely meal as tea. But he had no desire to send the visitor away, especially when Margaret, who knew her brother’s humour, propitiated him by thrusting into his hand Lady Mary’s note.

“I am sure her Ladyship is very kind,” he said, his face lighting up, “Margaret, I hope you have written a proper reply.”

“When we have had our tea, Charles—will you not have some tea?” his sister said; she always took things so easily, so much more easily than he could ever do.

“Oh, you are having tea with the child, five o’clock tea,” said the poor doctor, who was so anxious to make sure that everybody knew him to have been “brought up a gentleman;” and he smiled a bland uneasy smile, and sat down by Sibby. He would not take any bread and butter, though he was hungry after a long walk; he preferred Harry to think that he was about to dine presently, which was far from being the case. But Harry neither thought of the matter nor cared; he had no time nor attention to spare, though he was very civil to her brother, and engaged him at once in conversation, making himself agreeable with all his might.

“I suppose you are making acquaintance with quantities of people, and I hope you think you will like the place,” he said.

“Yes, a great many people,” said Dr. Charles, “and it was full time that somebody should come who knew what he was doing. Dr. Franks, I am afraid, is no better than an old wife.”

“Oh, Charlie, how rashly you speak! he always says out what he thinks,” said Margaret with an appealing look at Harry, “and it is often very far from a wise thing to do.”

“Bravo, Aunt Mary will be delighted,” cried Harry, “it is what she always said.”

“I knew Lady Mary Tottenham was very talented,” said Dr. Murray with some pomp, “and that she would see the state of affairs. I can’t tell you what a pleasure and support it is to have a discriminating person in the neighbourhood. He is just an old wife. You need not shake your head at me, Margaret, I know Mr. Thornhill is a gentleman, and that he will not repeat what is said.”

“Surely not,” said Harry, somewhat surprised to find himself thus put on his honour; “but my name is Thornleigh; never mind, it was a very simple mistake.”

The doctor blushed with annoyance, and confounded himself in excuses. Harry took his leave before these apologies were half over. He was rather glad to get away at the last, feeling that a shadow had come over his happiness; but before he had left the Green, this momentary shade disappeared, and all the bliss of recollection came back upon him. What an hour he had spent, of happiness pure and unalloyed, with so many smiles, so many looks to lay up as treasures! how lovely she was, how simple, how superior to everything he had ever seen before! Talk of fashion, Harry said to himself hotly, talk of rank and society and high birth, and high breeding! here was one who had no need of such accessories, here was a perfect creature, made in some matchless mould that the world had never seen before; and how kindly she had looked at him, how sweetly talked to him! What had he done, that he should have suddenly fallen upon such happiness?

CHAPTER VI.
In Love.

Life had become a new thing altogether for Harry Thornleigh. Up to this time his existence had been that of his immediate surroundings, an outward life so to speak. The history of the visible day in any household of which he formed a part would have been his history, not much more nor less; but this easy external existence was over for him. He began to have a double being from the moment he saw Margaret. All that he was most conscious of, was within him, a life of thought, of recollection, of musing, and imagination; and external matters affected him but vaguely through the cloud of this more intimate consciousness. Yet his faculties were at the same time quickened, and the qualities of his mind brought out—or so at least he felt. He had been very angry with Lady Mary for her mirth over Mrs. Smith’s name; but his new feelings (though they originated this anger) seemed to give him prudence and cleverness enough to make an instrument of the very jest he detested. He began to speak of Mrs. Smith the morning after his visit to her, restraining his temper admirably, and opening the subject in the most good-humoured way.

“I delivered your note, Aunt Mary,” he said; “you are right after all, about the name. It is ridiculous. Mrs. Smith! after being Miss Murray, as I suppose she was. She ought to change back again.”

“There are other ways of changing,” said Lady Mary, “and I daresay such a pretty woman could easily do it if she wished. Yes, I got a very nice little note from her, thanking me. Though I am disappointed in the brother, I must show them some civility. Did you hear when they were to get into their house?”

Harry had not heard; but he propitiated his aunt by telling her what was Dr. Murray’s opinion of his predecessor, an opinion which greatly comforted Lady Mary, and made her feel herself quite justified in the part she had taken in the matter.

“There must be more in him than I thought,” she said, in high good-humour; and then Harry felt bold to make his request.

“The sister,” he said, toning down the superlatives in which he felt disposed to speak of that peerless being, with an astuteness of which he felt half-ashamed, half-proud, “is rather lonely, I should think, in that poky little place; and she has a nice little girl about Molly’s age.” (This was a very wild shot, for Harry had about as much idea of their relative ages as he had about the distances between two stars). “They don’t know any one, and I don’t think she’s very strong. Without asking them formally, Aunt Mary, don’t you think you might have her and the child up to luncheon or something, to see the conservatories and all that? it would be a little change for them. They looked rather dismal in Mrs. Sims’ parlour, far from everything they know.”

“How considerate and kind of you, Harry!” cried Lady Mary. “I am ashamed of myself for not having thought of it. Of course, poor thing, she must be lonely—nothing to do, and probably not even any books. The Scotch all read; they are better educated a great deal than we are. To be sure, you are quite right. I might drive down to-morrow, and fetch her to lunch. But, by-the-by, I have Herr Hartstong coming to-morrow, who is to give the botany lecture—”

“An extra lady and a little girl would not hurt Herr Hartstong.”

“There is no telling,” said Lady Mary, with a laugh, “such a pretty creature as she is. But I think he has a wife already. I only meant I could not go to fetch her. But to be sure she’s a married woman, and I don’t see what harm there would be. You might do that.”

“With the greatest pleasure,” cried Harry, trying with all his might to keep down his exultation, and not let it show too much in his face and voice.

“Then we’ll settle it so. You can take the ponies, and a fur cloak to wrap her in, as she’s delicate; and Herr Hartstong must take his chance. But, by the way,” Lady Mary added, pausing, turning round and looking at him—“by the way, you are of a great deal more importance. You must take care she does not harm you.”

“Me!” said Harry, with a wild flutter at his heart, forcing to his lips a smile of contempt. “I am a likely person, don’t you think, to be harmed by anybody belonging to the country doctor? I thought, Aunt Mary, you had more knowledge of character.”

“Your class exclusivism is revolting, Harry,” cried Lady Mary, severely. “A young man with such notions is an anachronism; I can’t understand how you and I can come of the same race. But perhaps it’s just as well in this case,” she added, gliding back into her easier tone. “Your mother would go mad at the thought of any such danger for you.”

“I hope I can take care of myself by this time, without my mother’s help,” said Harry, doing his best to laugh. He was white with rage and self-restraint; and the very sound of that laugh ought to have put the heedless aunt, who was thus helping him on the way to destruction, on her guard. But Lady Mary’s mind was occupied by so many things, that she had no attention to bestow on Harry; besides the high confidence she felt in him as an unimpressionable blockhead and heart-hardened young man of the world.

To-morrow, however—this bliss was only to come to-morrow—and twenty-four hours had to be got through somehow without seeing her. Harry once more threw himself in the way persistently. He went down to the village, and called upon all his old acquaintances; he kept about the Green the whole afternoon; but Margaret did not appear. At last, when his patience would hold out no longer, he called at the cottage, saying to himself, that in case Lady Mary had forgotten to write, it would be kind to let her know what was in store for her. But, alas! she was not to be found at the cottage. How she had been able to go out without being seen, Harry could not tell, but he had to go back drearily at night without even a glimpse of her. What progress his imagination had made in three or four days! The very evening seemed darker, the stars less divine, the faint glimmers of the Aurora which kept shooting across the sky had become paltry and unmeaning. If that was all electricity could do, Harry felt it had better not make an exhibition of itself. Was it worth while to make confusion among the elements for so little? was it worth while to suffer the bondage of society, to go through luncheons and dinners, and all the common action of life without even a glance or a smile to make a man feel that he had a soul in him and a heaven above him? Thus wildly visionary had poor Harry become all in a moment, who had never of his own free will read a line of poetry in his life.

“I am so sorry to give you the trouble, Harry,” said Lady Mary, pausing for a moment in her conversation with Herr Hartstong (whose lecture was to be given next morning) to see the ponies go off.

“Oh! I don’t mind it once in a way,” said the young man, scarcely able to restrain the laughter with which, partly from sheer delight, partly from a sense of the ludicrous inappropriateness of her apology, he was bursting. He went down the avenue like an arrow, the ponies tossing their heads, and ringing their bells, the wintry sunshine gleaming on him through the long lines of naked trees. Margaret, to whom Lady Mary had written, was waiting for him with a flush of pleasure upon her pale face, and a look of soft grateful friendliness in her beautiful eyes.

“It was kind of you to come for us,” she said, looking up at him.

“I am so glad to come,” said Harry, with all his heart in his voice. He wrapt her in the warm furs, feeling somehow, with a delicious sense of calm and security, that, for the moment, she belonged to him. “The morning is so fine, and the ponies are so fresh, that I think we might take a turn round the park,” he said. “You are not afraid of them?”

“Oh no! the bonnie little beasties,” cried Margaret, leaning back with languid enjoyment. She had often harnessed the rough pony at Loch Arroch with her own hands, and driven him to the head of the loch without thinking of fear, though she looked now so dainty and delicate; but she did not feel inclined to tell Harry this, or even to recall to herself so homely a recollection. Margaret had been intended by nature for a fine lady. She lay back in the luxurious little carriage, wrapped in the furred mantle, and felt herself whisked through the sunny wintry air to the admiration of all beholders, with a profound sense of enjoyment. She liked the comfort dearly. She liked the dreamy pleasure which was half of the mind, and half of the body. She liked the curtseys of the gatekeepers, and the glances of the stray walkers, who looked after her, she thought, with envy. She felt it natural that she should thus be surrounded by things worthy, and pleasant, and comfortable. Even the supreme gratification of the young attendant by her side, whose infatuation began to shew itself so clearly in his eyes, was a climax of pleasure to Margaret, which she accepted easily without fear of the consequences.

Yes, she thought, he was falling in love with her, poor boy; and it is seldom unpleasant to be fallen in love with. Most probably his people would put a stop, to it, and as she did not mean to give him what she called “any encouragement,” there would be no harm done. Whereas, on the other hand, if his people did not interfere, there was always the chance that it might come to something. Margaret did not mean any harm—she was only disposed to take the Scriptural injunction as her rule, and to let the morrow care for the things of itself.

She lay back in the little carriage with the grey feather in her hat swaying like her slight figure, and Sibby held fast in her arms.

“I feel as if I were in a nest,” she said, when Harry asked tenderly if she felt the cold; and thus they flew round the park, where a little stir of Spring was visible in the rough buds, and where here and there one dewy primrose peeped forth in a sheltered nook—the ponies’ hoofs ringing, and their heads tossing, and their bells tinkling—Harry lost in a foolish joy beyond expression, and she wrapped in delicious comfort. He was thinking altogether of her, she almost altogether of herself—and of her child, who was another self.

“I have enjoyed it so much,” she said softly, as he helped her to get out in front of the hall door.

“I do not think I ever spent so happy a morning,” Harry said very low.

Margaret made no sign of having heard him. She walked upstairs without any reply, leaving him without ceremony. “He is going too fast,” she said to herself. And Harry was a little, just a little, mortified, but soon got over that, and went after her, and was happy once more—happy as the day was long. Indeed, the visit altogether was very successful. Margaret was full of adaptability, very ready to accept any tone which such a personage as Lady Mary chose to give to the conversation, and with, in reality, a lively and open intelligence, easily roused to interest. Besides, though an eager young admirer like Harry was pleasant enough, and might possibly become important, she never for a moment deceived herself as to the great unlikelihood that his friends would permit him to carry out his fancy; and the chance that, instead of bringing advantage, she might bring harm to herself and her brother if she gave any one a right to say that she had “encouraged” him. Whereas nothing but unmingled good could come from pleasing Lady Mary, who was, in every way, the more important person. This being the principle of Margaret’s conduct, it is almost unnecessary to say that Lady Mary found it perfect, and felt that nothing could be in better taste than the way in which the young Scotchwoman kept Harry’s attentions down, and accorded the fullest attention to her own observations. She even took her nephew aside after luncheon, to impress upon him a greater respect for their guest.

“This Mrs. Smith is evidently a very superior person,” said Lady Mary, “and I am sorry to see, Harry, that you are rather disposed to treat her simply as a very pretty young woman. I am not at all sure that you have not been trying to flirt with her during lunch.”

“I—flirt!—Aunt Mary,” stammered Harry, “you altogether mistake—”

“Oh, of course, you never did such a thing in your life,” she said mocking, “but this is not quite an ordinary young lady. The Scotch are so well educated—we can see at a glance that she has read a great deal, and thought as well—which is by no means common. If you take her round the conservatories, you must recollect that it is not a mere pretty girl you are with, Harry. She will not understand your nonsense,” said Lady Mary with a little warmth.

She, herself, had some final arrangements to make with Herr Hartstong, who was also very much interested in the graceful listener, from whom he had received such flattering attention. He made her his best bow, and hoped he should see her next day at the lecture, when Harry, doing his best to suppress all manifestations of feeling, led her away.

“It is so kind of you to let me treat you without ceremony,” said Lady Mary. “Show Mrs. Smith the orchids, Harry. Before you get to the palm tree, I shall be with you—” and then Harry was free and alone with his enchantress. He could not talk to her—he was so happy—he led her away quickly out of sight of his aunt—who had seated herself in a corner of the big drawing-room, to settle all her final arrangements with the botanist—and of Herr Hartstong’s big yellow eyes, which looked after him with suspicion. Harry was eager to get her to himself, to have her alone, out of sight of everybody; but when he had secured this isolation, he could not make much use of it. He was dumb with bliss and excitement—he took her into the fairy palace of flowers where summer reigned in the midst of winter; and instead of making use of his opportunities in this still perfumy place, where everything suited the occasion, found that he had nothing to say. He had talked, laboriously it is true, but still he had talked, when he had called on her at the cottage; he had made a few remarks while he drove her round the park; but on this, the first opportunity he had of being alone with her, he felt his tongue tied. Instead of taking her to the orchids as Lady Mary had suggested, he conducted her straight to the palm tree, and there placed her on the sofa, and stood by, gazing at her, concealing his agitation by cutting sprays of Cape jasmine, of which there happened to be a great velvety cluster in front of her seat.

“It is like something in a book,” said Margaret, with a sigh. “What a fine thing it is to be very rich! I never was in such a beautiful place.”

“Yes, it’s nice to be well off,” said Harry; “but heaps of people are well off who never could invent anything so pretty. You see Tottenham was very much in love with Aunt Mary. She’s a nice little woman,” he added, parenthetically. “A man in love will do a deal to please the woman he likes.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” said Margaret, feeling somewhat disposed to laugh; “and that makes it all the more interesting. Is Mr. Tottenham very poetical and romantic? I have not seen him yet.”

“Tottenham poetical!” cried Harry, with a laugh; “no, not exactly. And that’s an old affair now, since they’ve been married about a century; but it shows what even a dull man can do. Don’t you think love’s a very rum thing?” said the young man, cutting the Cape jasmine all to pieces; “don’t you think so? A fellow doesn’t seem to know what he is doing.”

“Does Lady Mary let you cut her plants to pieces, Mr. Thornleigh?” said Margaret, feeling her voice quaver with amusement. Upon which Harry stopped short, and looked sheepishly down at the bunch of flowers in his hand.

“I meant to get you a nosegay, and here is a great sheaf like a coachman’s bouquet on a drawing-room day,” cried Harry, half conscious of this very distinct commentary upon his words. “Never mind, I’ll tell the gardener. I suppose there are heaps more.”

“How delightful to have heaps more!” said Margaret. “I don’t think poor folk should ever be brought into such fairy places. I used to think myself so lucky with a half-a-dozen plants.”

“Then you are fond of flowers?” said Harry.

What woman, nay, what civilised person of the present age, ever made but one answer to such a question? There are a few people left in the world, and only a few, who still dare to say they are not fond of music; but fond of flowers!

“I do so wish you would let me keep you supplied,” said Harry, eagerly. “Trouble! it would be the very reverse of trouble; it would be the very greatest pleasure—and I could do it so easily—”

“Are you a cultivator, then?” said Margaret, “a great florist?” she said it with a half-consciousness of the absurdity, yet half deceived by his earnestness. Harry himself was startled for the moment by the question.

“A florist! Oh, yes, in a kind of a way,” he said, trying to restrain an abrupt momentary laugh. A florist? yes; by means of Covent Garden, or some ruinous London nurseryman. But Margaret knew little of such refinements. “It would be such a pleasure to me,” he said, anxiously. “May I do it? And then you will not be able quite to forget my very existence.”

Margaret got up, feeling the conversation had gone far enough. “May not I see the—orchids? It was the orchids I think that Lady Mary said.”

“This is the way,” said Harry, almost sullen, feeling that he had fallen from a great height. He went after her with his huge handful of velvety jasmine flowers. He did not like to offer them, he did not dare to strew them at her feet that she might walk upon them, which was what he would have liked best. He flung them aside into a corner in despite and vexation. Was he angry with her? If such a sentiment had been possible, that would have been, he felt, the feeling in his mind. But Margaret was not angry nor annoyed, though she had stopped the conversation, feeling it had gone far enough. To “give him encouragement,” she felt, was the very last thing that, in her position, she dared to do. She liked the boy, all the same, for liking her. It gave her a soothing consciousness of personal well-being. She was glad to please everybody, partly because it pleased herself, partly because she was of a kindly and amiable character. She had no objection to his admiration, to his love, if the foolish boy went so far, so long as no one had it in his power to say that she had given him encouragement; that was the one thing upon which her mind was fully made up; and then, whatever came of it, she would have nothing with which to reproach herself. If his people made a disturbance, as they probably would, and put a stop to his passion, why, then, Margaret would not be to blame; and if, on the contrary, he had strength of mind to persevere, or they, by some wonderful chance, did not oppose, why then Margaret would reap the benefit. This seems a somewhat selfish principle, looking at it from outside, but I don’t think that Margaret had what is commonly called a selfish nature. She was a perfectly sober-minded unimpassioned woman, very affectionate in her way, very kind, loving comfort and ease, but liking to partake these pleasures with those who surrounded her. If fate had decreed that she should marry Harry Thornleigh, she knew very well that she would make him an admirable wife, and she would have been quite disposed to adapt herself to the position. But in the meantime she would do nothing to commit herself, or to bring this end, however desirable it might be in itself, about.

CHAPTER VII.
No Encouragement.

“You must not take any more trouble with me,” said Margaret, “my brother will come up for me; it will be quite pleasant to walk down in the gloaming—I mean—” she added, with a slight blush over her vernacular, “in the twilight, before it is quite dark.”

“Oh! pray don’t give up those pretty Scotch words,” said Lady Mary, “gloaming is sweeter than twilight. Do you know I am so fond of Scotch, the accent as well as the words.”

Margaret replied only by a dubious smile. She would rather have been complimented on her English; and as she could not make any reply to her patroness’ enthusiasm, she continued what she was saying:

“Charles wishes to call and tell you how much he is gratified by your kindness, and the walk will be pleasant. You must not let me give you more trouble.”

“No trouble,” said Lady Mary, “but you shall have the close carriage, which will be better for you than Harry and the ponies. I hope he did not frighten you in the morning. I don’t think I could give him a character as coachman; he all but upset me the other night, when we left your house—to be sure I had been aggravating—eh, Harry?” she said, looking wickedly at him. “It was very good of you to let me have my talk out with the Professor; ladies will so seldom understand that business goes before pleasure. And I hope you will do as he asked, and come to the lecture to-morrow.”

“I am not very understanding about lectures,” said Margaret.

“Are not you? you look very understanding about everything,” said Lady Mary. She too, as well as Harry, had fallen in love with the doctor’s sister. The effect was not perhaps so sudden; but Lady Mary was a woman of warm sympathies, and sudden likings, and after a few hours in Margaret’s society she had quite yielded to her charm. She found it pleasant to look at so pretty a creature, pleasant to meet her interested look, her intelligent attention. There could not be a better listener, or a more delightful disciple; she might not perhaps know a great deal herself, but then she was so willing to adopt your views, or at least to be enlightened by them. Lady Mary sat by, and looked at her after the promenade round the conservatories, with all a woman’s admiration for beauty of the kind which women love. This, as all the world knows, is not every type; but Margaret’s drooping shadowy figure, her pathetic eyes, her soft paleness, and gentle deferential manner, were all of the kind that women admire. Lady Mary “fell in love” with the stranger. They were all three seated in the conservatory in the warm soft atmosphere, under the palm tree, and the evening was beginning to fall. The great fire in the drawing-room shone out like a red star in the distance, through all the drooping greenness of the plants, and they began half to lose sight of each other, shadowed, as this favourite spot was, by the great fan branches of the palm.

“I think there never was such delightful luxury as this,” said Margaret, softly. “Italy must be like it, or some of the warm islands in the sea.”

“In the South Sea?” said Lady Mary, smiling, “perhaps; but both the South Seas and Italy are homes of indolence, and I try all I can to keep that at arm’s length. But I assure you Herr Hartstong was not so poetical; he gave me several hints about the management of the heat. Do come to-morrow and hear him, my dear Mrs. Smith. Botany is wonderfully interesting. Many people think it a dilettante young-lady-like science; but I believe in the hands of a competent professor it is something very different. Do let me interest you in my scheme. You know, I am sure, and must feel, how little means of education there are—and as little Sibby will soon be craving for instruction like my child—”

“I suppose there is no good school for little girls here?” said Margaret, timidly; her tact told her that schools for little girls were not in question; but she did not know what else to say.

“Oh!” said Lady Mary, with momentary annoyance; “for mere reading and writing, yes, I believe there is one; but it is the higher instruction I mean,” she added, recovering herself, “probably you have not had your attention directed to it; and to be sure in Scotland the standard is so much higher, and education so much more general.”

Margaret had the good sense to make no reply. She had herself received a solid education at the parish school of Loch Arroch, along with all the ploughboys and milkmaids of the district, and had been trained into English literature and the Shorter Catechism, in what was then considered a very satisfactory way. No doubt she was so much better instructed than her patroness that Lady Mary scarcely knew what the Shorter Catechism was. But Margaret was not proud of this training, though she was aware that the parochial system had long been a credit to Scotland—and would much rather have been able to say that she was educated at Miss So-and-So’s seminary for young ladies. As she could not claim any such Alma Mater, she held her tongue, and listened devoutly, and with every mark of interest while Lady Mary’s scheme was propounded to her. Though, however, she was extremely attentive, she did not commit herself by any promise, not knowing how far her Loch Arroch scholarship would carry her in comparison with the young ladies of Harbour Green. She consented only conditionally to become one of Lady Mary’s band of disciples.

“If I have time,” she said; and then Lady Mary, questioning, drew from her a programme of her occupations, which included the housekeeping, Sibby’s lessons, and constant attendance, when he wanted her, upon her brother. “I drive with him,” said Margaret, “for he thinks it is good for my health—and then there is always a good deal of sewing.”

“But,” said Lady Mary, “that is bad political economy. You neglect your mind for the sake of the sewing, when there are many poor creatures to whom, so to speak, the sewing belongs, who have to make their livelihood by working, and whom ladies’ amateur performances throw out of bread.”

Thus the great lady discoursed the poor doctor’s sister, who but for him would probably have been one of the said poor creatures; this, however, it did not enter into Lady Mary’s mind to conceive. Margaret was overawed by the grandeur of the thought. For the first moment, she could not even laugh covertly within herself at the thought of her own useful sewing being classified as a lady’s amateur performance. She was silent, not venturing to say anything for herself, and Lady Mary resumed.

“I really must have you among my students; think how much more use you would be to Sibby, if you kept up, or even extended, your own acquirements. Of course, I say all this with diffidence, because I know that in Scotland education is so much more thought of, and is made so much more important than it is with us.”

“Oh, no!” cried Margaret. She could not but laugh now, thinking of the Loch Arroch school. And after all, the Loch Arroch school is the point in which Scotland excels England, or did excel her richer neighbour; and the idea of poor Margaret being better educated than the daughter of an English earl, moved even her tranquil spirit to laughter. “Oh, no; you would not think that if you knew,” she said, controlling herself with an effort. If it had not been for a prudent sense that it was best not to commit herself, she would have been deeply tempted to have her laugh out, and confide the joke to her companions. As it was, however, this suppressed sense of ridicule was enough to make her uncomfortable. “I will try to go,” she said gently, changing the immediate theme, “after the trouble of the flitting is over, when we have got into our house.”

Lady Mary fell into the snare. She began to ask about the house, and whether they had brought furniture, or what they meant to do, and entered into all the details with a frank kindness which went to Margaret’s heart. During all this conversation, Harry Thornleigh kept coming and going softly, gliding among the plants, restless, but happy. He could not have her to himself any longer. He could not talk to her; but yet she was there, and making her way into the heart of at least one of his family. While these domestic subjects were discussed, and as the evening gradually darkened, Harry said to himself that he had always been very fond of his aunt, and that she was very nice and sympathetic, and that to secure her for a friend would be wise in any case. It was almost night before Dr. Murray made his appearance, and he was confounded by the darkness of the place into which he was ushered, where he could see nothing but shadows among the plants and against the pale lightness of the glass roofs. I am not sure, for the moment, that he was not half offended by being received in so unceremonious a way. He stood stiffly, looking about him, till Lady Mary half rose from her seat.

“Excuse me for having brought you here,” she said; “this is our favourite spot, where none but my friends ever come.”

Lady Mary felt persuaded that she saw, even in the dark, the puffing out of the chest with which this friendly speech was received.

“For such a pleasant reason one would excuse a much worse place,” he said, with an attempt at ease, to the amusement of the great lady who was condescending to him. Excuse his introduction to her conservatory! He should never have it in his power to do so again. Dr. Charles then turned to his sister, and said, “Margaret, we must be going. You and the child have troubled her Ladyship long enough.”

“I am delighted with Mrs. Smith’s society, and Sibby has been a godsend to the children,” said Lady Mary. “Let us go into the drawing-room, where there are lights, and where we can at least see each other. I like the gloaming, your pretty Scotch word; but I daresay Dr. Murray thinks us all rather foolish, sitting like crows in the dark.”

She led the way in, taking Margaret’s arm, while Margaret, with a little thrill of annoyance, tried through the imperfect light to throw a warning look at her brother. Why did he speak so crossly, he who was never really cross; and why should he say ladyship? Margaret knew no better than he did, and yet instinct kept her from going wrong.

Dr. Murray entered the drawing-room, looking at the lady who had preceded him, to see what she thought of him, with furtive, suspicious looks. He was very anxious to please Lady Mary, and still more anxious to show himself an accomplished man of the world; but he could not so much as enter a room without this subtle sense of inferiority betraying itself. Harry, coming after him, thought the man a cad, and writhed at the thought; but he was not at all a cad. He hesitated between the most luxurious chair he could find, and the hardest, not feeling sure whether it was best to show confidence or humility. When he did decide at last, he looked round with what seemed a defiant look. “Who can say I have no right to be here?” poor fellow, was written all over his face.

“You have been making acquaintance with your patients? I hope there are no severe cases,” said Lady Mary.

“No, none at all, luckily for them—or I should not have long answered for their lives,” he said, with an unsteady smile.

“Ah! you do not like Dr. Franks’ mode of treatment? Neither do I. I have disapproved of him most highly sometimes; and I assure you,” said Lady Mary, in her most gracious tone, “I am so very glad to know that there is now some one on the spot who may be trusted, whatever happens. With one’s nursery full of children, that question becomes of the greatest importance. Many an anxious moment I have had.”