Griefs hidden in the mind like treasures,
Will turn with time to solemn pleasures.
On the Monday morning, the two convalescents shook hands in the
waiting-room at the station, surveying each other rather curiously;
while Ethel, trying to conquer her trepidation, gave manifold promises
to Averil of care and correspondence.
Dr. Spencer acted escort, being far more serviceable on the railway
than his untravelled friend, whose lame arm, heedless head, and
aptitude for missing trains and mistaking luggage, made him a charge
rather than an assistant. He was always happiest among his patients at
home; and the world was still ill enough to employ him so fully, that
Ethel hoped to be less missed than usual. Indeed, she believed that
her absence would be good in teaching him Mary's full-grown worth, and
Mary would be in the full glory of notability in the purification of
the house.
The change was likewise for Dr. Spencer's good. He had almost broken
down in the height of the labour, and still looked older and thinner
for it; and after one night at Coombe, he was going to refresh himself
by one of his discursive tours.
He was in high spirits, and the pink of courtesy; extremely flattered
by the charge of Ethel, and making her the ostensible object of his
attention, to the relief of the boys, who were glad to be spared the
sense of prominent invalidism. The change was delightful to them.
Aubrey was full of life and talk, and sat gazing from the window, as if
the line from Stoneborough to Whitford presented a succession of
novelties.
'What's that old place on the river there, with crow-stepped gables and
steep roofs, like a Flemish picture?'
'Don't you know?' said Leonard, 'it is the Vintry mill, where my
relative lives, that wants to make a dusty miller of me.'
'No fear of that, old fellow,' said Aubrey, regarding him in some
dismay, 'you've got better things to grind at.'
'Ay, even if I don't get the Randall next time, I shall be sure of it
another.'
'You'll have it next.'
'I don't know; here is a quarter clean gone, and the other fellows will
have got before me.'
'Oh, but most of them have had a spell of fever!'
'Yes, but they have not had it so thoroughly,' said Leonard. 'My
memory is not properly come back yet; and your father says I must not
try it too soon.'
'That's always his way,' said Aubrey. 'He would not let Ethel so much
as pack up my little Homer.'
Leonard's quick, furtive glance at Ethel was as if he suspected her of
having been barely prevented from torturing him.
'Oh, it was not her doing,' said Aubrey, 'it was I! I thought Tom
would find me gone back; and, you know, we must keep up together,
Leonard, and be entered at St. John's at the same time.'
For Aubrey devoutly believed in Tom's college at Cambridge, which had
recovered all Dr. May's allegiance.
The extra brightness was not of long duration. It was a very hot day,
such as exactly suited the salamander nature of Dr. Spencer; but the
carriage became like an oven. Aubrey curled himself up in a corner and
went to sleep, but Leonard's look of oppressed resignation grieved
Ethel, and the blue blinds made him look so livid, that she was always
fancying him fainting, and then his shyness was dreadful--it was
impossible to elicit from him anything but 'No, thank you.'
He did nearly faint when they left the train; and while Aubrey was
eagerly devouring the produce of the refreshment room, had to lie on a
bench under Dr. Spencer's charge, for Ethel's approach only brought on
a dangerous spasm of politeness. How she should get on with him for a
month, passed her imagination.
There was a fresher breeze when they drove out of the station, up a
Dorset ridge of hill, steep, high, terraced and bleak; but it was slow
climbing up, and every one was baked and wearied before the summit was
gained, and the descent commenced. Even then, Ethel, sitting
backwards, could only see height develop above height, all green, and
scattered with sheep, or here and there an unfenced turnip-field, the
road stretching behind like a long white ribbon, and now and then
descending between steep chalk cuttings in slopes, down which the
carriage slowly scrooped on its drag, leaving a broad blue-flecked
trail. Dr. Spencer was asleep, hat off, and the wind lifting his snowy
locks, and she wished the others were; but Aubrey lamented on the heat
and the length, and Leonard leant back in his corner, past lamentation.
Down, down! The cuttings were becoming precipitous cliffs, the drag
made dismal groans; Aubrey, after a great slip forward, looking
injured, anchored himself, with his feet against the seat, by Ethel;
and Dr. Spencer was effectually wakened by an involuntary forward
plunge of his opposite neighbour. 'Can this be safe?' quoth Ethel;
'should not some of us get out?'
'Much you know of hills, you level landers!' was the answer; and just
then they were met and passed by four horses dragging up a stage coach,
after the fashion of a fly on a window-pane--a stage coach! delightful
to the old-world eyes of Dr. Spencer, recalling a faint memory to
Ethel, and presenting a perfect novelty to Aubrey.
Then came a sudden turn upon flat ground, and a short cry of wonder
broke from Aubrey. Ethel was sensible of a strange salt weedy smell,
new to her nostrils, but only saw the white-plastered, gray-roofed
houses through which they were driving; but, with another turn, the
buildings were only on one side--on the other there was a wondrous
sense of openness, vastness, freshness--something level, gray, but
dazzling; and before she could look again, the horses stopped, and
close to her, under the beetling, weather-stained white cliff, was a
low fence, and within it a verandah and a door, where stood Flora's
maid, Barbara, in all her respectability.
Much wit had been expended by Aubrey on being left to the tender mercy
of cruel Barbara Allen, in whom Ethel herself anticipated a tyrant; but
at the moment she was invaluable. Every room was ready and inviting,
and nothing but the low staircase between Leonard and the white bed,
which was the only place fit for him; while for the rest, the table was
speedily covered with tea and chickens; Abbotstoke eggs, inscribed with
yesterday's date; and red mail-clad prawns, to prove to touch and taste
that this was truly sea-side. The other senses knew it well: the open
window let in the indescribable salt, fresh odour, and the entire view
from it was shore and sea, there seemed nothing to hinder the tide from
coming up the ridge of shingle, and rushing straight into the cottage;
and the ear was constantly struck by the regular roll and dash of the
waves. Aubrey, though with the appetite of recovery and sea-air
combined, could not help pausing to listen, and, when his meal was
over, leant back in his chair, listened again, and gave a sigh of
content. 'It is one constant hush, hushaby,' he said; 'it would make
one sleep pleasantly.'
His companions combined their advice to him so to use it; and in less
than half an hour Ethel went to bid him good night, in the whitest of
beds and cleanest of tiny chambers, where he looked the picture of
sleepy satisfaction, when she opened his window, and admitted the swell
and dash that fascinated his weary senses.
'My child is all right,' said Ethel, returning to Dr. Spencer; 'can you
say the same of yours?'
'He must rest himself into the power of sleeping. I must say it was a
bold experiment; but it will do very well, when he has got over the
journey. He was doing no good at home.'
'I hope he will here.'
'Depend on it he will. And now what are you intending?'
'I am thirsting to see those waves near. Would it be against the
manners and customs of sea-places for me to run down to them so late?'
'Sea-places have no manners and customs.'
Ethel tossed on her hat with a feeling of delight and freedom. 'Oh,
are you coming, Dr. Spencer? I did not mean to drag you out. You had
rather rest, and smoke.'
'This is rest,' he answered.
The next moment, the ridge of the shingle was passed, and Ethel's feet
were sinking in the depth of pebbles, her cheeks freshened by the
breeze, her lips salted by the spray tossed in by the wind from the
wave crests. At the edge of the water she stood--as all others stand
there--watching the heaving from far away come nearer, nearer, curl
over in its pride of green glassy beauty, fall into foam, and draw
back, making the pebbles crash their accompanying 'frsch.' The
repetition, the peaceful majesty, the blue expanse, the straight
horizon, so impressed her spirit as to rivet her eyes and chain her
lips; and she receded step by step before the tide, unheeding anything
else, not even perceiving her companion's eyes fixed on her, half
curiously, half sadly.
'Well, Ethel,' at last he said.
'I never guessed it!' she said, with a gasp. 'No wonder Harry cannot
bear to be away from it. Must we leave it?' as he moved back.
'Only to smooth ground,' said Dr. Spencer; 'it is too dark to stay here
among the stones and crab-pots.'
The summer twilight was closing in; lights shining in the village under
the cliffs, and looking mysterious on distant points of the coast;
stars were shining forth in the pale blue sky, and the young moon
shedding a silver rippled beam on the water.
'If papa were but here!' said Ethel, wakening from another gaze, and
recollecting that she was not making herself agreeable.
'So you like the expedition?'
'The fit answer to that would be, "It is very pretty," as the Cockney
said to Coleridge at Lodore.'
'So I have converted a Stoneborough fungus!'
'What! to say the sea is glorious? A grand conversion!'
'To find anything superior to Minster Street.'
'Ah, you are but half reclaimed! You are a living instance that there
is no content unless one has begun life as a fungus.'
She was startled by his change of tone. 'True, Ethel. Content might
have been won, if there had been resolution to begin without it.'
'I beg your pardon,' she faltered, 'I ought not to have said it. I
forgot there was such a cause.'
'Cause--you know nothing about it.'
She was silent, distressed, dismayed, fearing that she had spoken
wrongly, and had either mistaken or been misunderstood.
'Tell me, Ethel,' he presently said, 'what can you know of what made me
a wanderer?'
'Only what papa told me.'
'He--he was the last person to know.'
'He told me,' said Ethel, hurrying it out in a fright, 'that you went
away--out of generosity--not to interfere with his happiness.'
Then she felt as if she had done a shocking thing, and waited
anxiously, while Dr. Spencer deliberately made a deep hole in the
shingle with his stick. 'Well,' at last he said, 'I thought that
matter was unknown to all men--above all to Dick!'
'It was only after you were gone, that he put things together and made
it out.'
'Did--she--know?' said Dr. Spencer, with a long breath.
'I cannot tell,' said Ethel.
'And how or why did he tell you?' (rather hurt.)
'It was when first you came. I am sure no one else knows it. But he
told me because he could not help it; he was so sorry for you.'
They walked the whole length of the parade, and had turned before Dr.
Spencer spoke again; and then he said, 'It is strange! My one vision
was of walking on the sea-shore with her; and that just doing so with
you should have brought up the whole as fresh as five-and-thirty years
ago!'
'I wish I was more like her,' said Ethel.
No more was wanting to make him launch into the descriptions, dear to a
daughter's heart, of her mother in her sweet serious bloom of young
womanhood, giving new embellishments to the character already so
closely enshrined in his hearer's heart, the more valuable that the
stream of treasured recollection flowed on in partial oblivion of the
person to whom it was addressed, or, at least, that she was the child
of his rival; for, from the portrait of the quiet bright maiden, he
passed to the sufferings that his own reserved nature had undergone
from his friend's outspoken enthusiasm. The professor's visible
preference for the youth of secure prospects, had not so much
discouraged as stung him; and in a moment of irritation at the
professor's treatment, and the exulting hopes of his unconscious
friend, he had sworn to himself, that the first involuntary token of
regard from the young lady towards one or the other, should decide him
whether to win name and position for her sake, or to carry his slighted
passion to the utmost parts of the earth, and never again see her face.
'Ethel,' he said, stopping short, 'never threaten Providence--above
all, never keep the threat.'
Ethel scarcely durst speak, in her anxiety to know what cast the die,
though with all Dr. Spencer's charms, she could not but pity the
delusion that could have made him hope to be preferred to her
father--above all, by her mother. Nor could she clearly understand
from him what had dispelled his hopes. Something it was that took
place at the picnic on Arthur's Seat, of which she had previously heard
as a period of untold bliss. That something, still left in vague
mystery, had sealed the fate of the two friends.
'And so,' said Dr. Spencer, 'I took the first foreign appointment that
offered. And my poor father, who had spent his utmost on me, and had
been disappointed in all his sons, was most of all disappointed in me.
I held myself bound to abide by my rash vow; loathed tame English life
without her, and I left him to neglect in his age.'
'You could not have known or expected!' exclaimed Ethel.
'What right had I to expect anything else? It was only myself that I
thought of. I pacified him by talk of travelling, and extending my
experience, and silenced my conscience by intending to return when
ordinary life should have become tolerable to me--a time that never has
come. At last, in the height of that pestilential season in India,
came a letter, warning me that my brother's widow had got the mastery
over my poor father, and was cruelly abusing it, so that only my return
could deliver him. It was when hundreds were perishing, and I the only
medical man near; when to have left my post would have been both
disgraceful and murderous. Then I was laid low myself; and while I was
conquering the effects of cholera, came tidings that made it nothing to
me whether they or I conquered. This,' and he touched one of his white
curling locks, 'was not done by mere bodily exertion or ailment.'
'You would have been too late any way,' said Ethel.
'No, not if I had gone immediately. I might have got him out of that
woman's hands, and made his life happy for years. There was the sting,
but the crime had been long before. You know the rest. I had no
health to remain, no heart to come home; and then came vagrancy indeed.
I drifted wherever restlessness or impulse took me, till all my working
years were over, and till the day when the sight of your father's
wedding-ring showed me that I should not break my mad word by accepting
the only welcome that any creature gave me.'
'And, oh! surely you have been comforted by him?'
'Comforted! Cut to the heart would be truer. One moment, I could only
look at him as having borne off my treasure to destroy it; but then
there rose on me his loving, patient, heartbroken humility and
cheerfulness; and I saw such a character, such a course, as showed me
how much better he had deserved her, and filled me with shame at having
ever less esteemed him. And through all, there was the same dear Dick
May, that never, since the day we first met at the pump in the school
court, had I been able to help loving with all my heart--the only being
that was glad to see me again. When he begged me to stay and watch
over your sister, what could I do but remain while she lived?'
'So he bound you down! Oh, you know how we thank you! no, you can't,
nor what you have been to him, and to all of us, through the worst of
our sad days. And though it was a sacrifice, I do not think it was bad
for you.'
'No, Ethel. When you implored me to give up my Crimean notion, to
spare your father pain, I did feel for once that you at least thought
me of value to some one.'
'I cannot bear you to speak so,' cried Ethel. 'You to talk of having
been of no use!'
'No honest man of principle and education can be utterly useless; but
when, three days ago, I recollected that it was my sixtieth birthday, I
looked back, and saw nothing but desultory broken efforts, and restless
changes. Your father told me, when I thought him unaware of the
meaning of his words, that if I had missed many joys, I had missed many
sorrows; but I had taken the way to make my one sorrow a greater burden
than his many.'
'But you do not grieve for my mother still?' said Ethel, anxiously.
'Even his grief is a grave joy to him now; and one is always told that
such things, as it was with you, are but a very small part of a man's
life.'
'I am not one of the five hundred men, whom any one of five hundred
women might have equally pleased,' said Dr. Spencer; 'but it is so far
true, that the positive pain and envy wore out, and would not have
interfered with my after life, but for my own folly. No, Ethel; it was
not the loss of her that embittered and threw away my existence; it was
my own rash vow, and its headstrong fulfilment, which has left me no
right to your father's peaceful spirit.'
'How little we guessed!' said Ethel. 'So cheerful and ready as you
always are.'
'I never trouble others, he said abruptly. 'Neither man nor woman ever
heard a word of all this; and you would not have heard it now, but for
that sea; and you have got your mother's voice, and some of her ways,
since you have grown older and more sedate.'
'Oh, I am so glad!' said Ethel, who had been led to view her likeness
to her father as natural, that to her mother as acquired.
Those were the last words of the conversation; but Ethel, leaning from
her window to listen to the plash of the waves, suspected that the
slowly moving meteor she beheld, denoted that a cigar was soothing the
emotions excited by their dialogue. She mused long over that
revelation of the motives of the life that had always been noble and
generous in the midst of much that was eccentric and wayward, and
constantly the beat of the waves repeated to her the half-comprehended
words, 'Never threaten Providence.'
After superintending Aubrey's first bath, and duly installing the
vice-M. D. and her charges, Dr. Spencer departed; and Ethel was
launched on an unknown ocean, as pilot to an untried crew. She had
been told to regard Leonard's bashfulness as a rare grace; but it was
very inconvenient to have the boy wretchedly drooping, and owning
nothing amiss, apparently unacquainted with any English words, except
'Thank you' and 'No, thank you.' Indeed, she doubted whether the
shyness were genuine, for stories were afloat of behaviour at
Stoneborough parties which savoured of audacity, and she vainly
consulted Aubrey whether the cause of his discomfiture were her age or
her youth, her tutorship or her plain face. Even Aubrey could not
elicit any like or dislike, wish or complaint; and shrugging up his
shoulders, decided that it was of no use to bother about it; Leonard
would come to his senses in time. He was passive when taken out
walking, submissive when planted on a three-cornered camp-stool that
expanded from a gouty walking-stick, but seemed so inadequately
perched, and made so forlorn a spectacle, that they were forced to put
him indoors out of the glare of sea and sky, and hoping that he would
condescend to the sofa when Ethel was out of sight.
Punctilio broke down the next morning; and in the midst of breakfast,
he was forced to lie down, and allow Ethel to bathe his face with
vinegar and water; while she repented of the 'make-the-best-of-it'
letter of the yesterday, and sent Aubrey out on a secret commission of
inquiry about medical men, in case of need. Aubrey was perfectly well,
and in such a state of desultory enjoyment and sea-side active
idleness, that he was quite off her mind, only enlivening her morning
of nursing by his exits and entrances, to tell of fresh discoveries, or
incidents wonderful to the inland mind.
After dinner, which had driven Leonard to lie on his bed, Aubrey
persuaded his sister to come to see his greatest prize; a quaint old
local naturalist, a seafaring man, with a cottage crammed with pans of
live wonders of the deep in water, and shelves of extinct ones, 'done
up in stane pies,' not a creature, by sea or land, that had haunted
Coombe for a few million of ages, seemed to have escaped him. Such
sea-side sojourns as the present, are the prime moments for coquetries
with the lighter branches of natural science, and the brother and
sister had agreed to avail themselves of the geological facilities of
their position, the fascinations of Hugh Miller's autobiography having
entirely gained them during Aubrey's convalescence. Ethel tore herself
away from the discussion of localities with the old man, who was guide
as well as philosopher, boatman as well as naturalist, and returned to
her patient, whom she found less feverish, though sadly low and languid.
'I wish I knew what to do for you,' she said, sitting down by him.
'What would your sister do for you?'
'Nothing,' he wearily said, 'I mean, a great deal too much.' The tone
so recalled Norman's dejected hopelessness, that she could not help
tenderly laying her cold hands on the hot brow, and saying, 'Yes, I
know how little one can do as a sister--and the mockery it is to think
that one place can ever be taken!'
The brown eyes looked at her with moist earnestness that she could
hardly bear, but closed with a look of relief and soothing, as she held
her hand on his forehead. Presently, however, he said, 'Don't let me
keep you in.'
'I have been out, thank you. I am so glad to try to do anything for
you.'
'Thank you. What o'clock is it, please? Ah, then I ought to take that
draught! I forgot it in the morning.'
He permitted her to fetch it and pour it out, but as she recognized a
powerful tonic, she exclaimed, 'Is this what you are taking? May it
not make you feverish?'
'No doubt it does,' he said, lying down again; 'it was only Henry--'
'What! did not my father know of it?'
'Of course he does not, as it seems to be poison.'
'Not exactly that,' said Ethel; 'but I was surprised, for it was talked
of for Aubrey; but they said it wanted watching.'
'Just like Henry,' observed Leonard.
'Well,' said Ethel, repressing her indignation, 'I am glad, at least,
to find a possible cause for your bad night. We shall see you
refreshed to-morrow, and not wishing yourself at home.'
'Don't think that I wish that. Home is gone for ever.'
'Home may be gone higher--up to the real Home,' said Ethel, blushing
with the effort at the hint, and coming down to earthlier consolations,
'but even the fragments will grow into home again here, and you will
feel very differently.'
Leonard did not answer; but after a pause said, 'Miss May, is not it a
horrid pity girls should go to school?'
'I am no judge, Leonard.'
'You see,' said the boy, 'after the little girls were born, my mother
had no time for Ave, and sent her to Brighton, and there she begged to
stay on one half after another, learning all sorts of things; but only
coming home for short holidays, like company, for us to wonder at her
and show her about, thinking herself ever so much in advance of my poor
mother, and now she knows just nothing at all of her!'
'You cannot tell, Leonard, and I am sure she has been devoted to you.'
'If she had stayed at home like you, she might have known how to let
one alone. Oh, you can't think what peace it was yesterday!'
'Was it peace? I feared it was desertion.'
'It is much better to be by oneself, than always worried. To have them
always at me to get up my spirits when the house is miserable--'
'Ah,' said Ethel, 'I remember your mother rejoicing that she had not to
send you from home, and saying you were always so kind and gentle to
her.'
'Did she!' cried the boy, eagerly. 'Oh, but she forgot--' and he hid
his face, the features working with anguish.
'So pleased and proud she used to look, walking with you on Saturday
afternoons.'
'Those Saturdays! They were the only walks she ever would take; but
she would always come with me.'
More followed in the same strain, and Ethel began to gather more
distinct impressions of the Ward family. She saw that her present
charge was warm and sound-hearted, and that the strength of his
affections had been chiefly absorbed by the homely housewifely mother,
comparatively little esteemed by the modernized brother and sister. Of
the loss of his father he seemed to think less; it seemed, indeed,
rather to reconcile him to that of his mother, by the grief it spared
her; and it confirmed Ethel's notion, that Mr. Ward, a busy and dull
man, paid no great attention to his children between the plaything
period and that of full development. The mother was the home; and
Averil, though Leonard showed both love for and pride in her, had
hitherto been a poor substitute, while as to Henry, there was something
in each mention of him which gave Ethel an undefined dread of the
future of the young household, and a doubt of the result of her
father's kind schemes of patronage.
At any rate, this conversation had the happy effect of banishing
constraint, and satisfying Ethel that the let-alone system was
kindness, not neglect. She was at ease in discussing fossils, though
he contributed no word, and she let him sleep or wake as he best liked;
whilst Aubrey read to her the 'Cruise of the Betsey.'
Henry's prescription was sent to invigorate the fishes, when its
cessation was found to be followed by the recovery of sleep and
appetite, and in the cool of the evening, by a disposition to stroll on
the beach, and lie under the lee of a rock upon a railway rug, which
Ethel had substituted for the 'three-legged delusion.'
There he was left, while his companions went fossil-hunting, and stayed
so long as to excite their compunction, and quicken their steps when
they at length detached themselves from the enticing blue lias.
'What has he got there?' cried Aubrey. 'Hillo, old fellow! have you
fallen a prey to a black cat?'
'Cat!' returned Leonard, indignantly; 'don't you see it is the jolliest
little dog in the world?'
'You call that a dog?' said the other boy with redoubled contempt; 'it
is just big enough for little Margaret's Noah's Ark!'
'It really is a beauty!' said Ethel. 'I have known one of Flora's
guests bring a bigger one in her muff.'
'It is the most sensible little brute,' added Leonard. 'See; beg, my
man, beg!'
And the beauteous little black-coated King Charles erected itself on
its hind legs, displaying its rich ruddy tan waistcoat and sleeves, and
beseeching with its black diamond eyes for the biscuit, dropped and
caught in mid-air. It was the first time Leonard had looked bright.
'So you expect us to sanction your private dog stealing?' said Aubrey.
'I have been watching for his mistress to come back,' said Leonard;
'but she must have passed an hour ago, and she does not deserve to have
him, for she never looked back for him; and he had run up to me,
frisking and making much of me, as if he had found an old friend.'
'Perhaps it will run home when we move.'
No such thing; it trotted close at Leonard's heels, and entered the
house with them. Barbara was consulted, and on Leonard's deposition
that the dog's mistress was in deep mourning, opined that she could be
no other than the widow of an officer, who during his lingering illness
had been often laid upon the beach, and had there played with his
little dogs. This one, evidently very young, had probably, in the
confusion of its puppy memory, taken the invalid for its lost master.
'Stupid little thing,' said Aubrey; 'just like an undersized lady's
toy.'
'It knows its friends. These little things have twice the sense of
overgrown dogs as big and as stupid as jackasses.'
A retort from Leonard was welcome in Ethel's ears, and she quite
developed his conversational powers, in an argument on the sagacity of
all canine varieties. It was too late to send the little animal home;
and he fondled and played with it till bed-time, when he lodged it in
his own room; and the attachment was so strong, that it was with a deep
sigh, that at breakfast he accepted Aubrey's offer of conveying it home.
'There she is! he exclaimed in the midst, gazing from the window.
'And see the perfection of the animal!' added Aubrey, pointing to a
broad-backed waddling caricature of the little black fairy.
'Restitution must be made, little as she deserves you, you little
jewel,' said Leonard, picking up the object of his admiration. 'I'll
take you out.'
'No, no; I am not so infectious,' said Ethel, tying on her hat; 'I had
better do it.'
And after Leonard's parting embrace to his favourite, she received it;
and quickly overtaking the pensive steps of the lady, arrested her
progress with, 'I beg your pardon, but I think this is your dog.'
'Poor little Mab! as the dog struggled to get to her, and danced gladly
round her. 'I missed her last night, and was coming to look for her.'
'She joined one of our party,' said Ethel; 'and he was not strong
enough to follow you. Indeed, he has had scarlet fever, so perhaps it
was better not. But he has taken great care of the little dog, and
hopes it is not the worse.'
'Thank you. I wish poor Mab may always meet such kind friends,' said
the lady, sadly.
'She secured her welcome,' said Ethel. 'We were very grateful to her,
for it was the first thing that has seemed to interest him since his
illness; and he has just lost both his parents.'
'Ah! Thank you.'
Ethel wondered at herself for having been so communicative; but the
sweet sad face and look of interest had drawn her words out; and on her
return she made such a touching history of the adventure, that Leonard
listened earnestly, and Aubrey looked subdued.
When they went out Leonard refused to spread his rug in that only bed
of pulverized shingle; and Ethel respected his avoidance of it as
delicacy to her whose husband had no doubt often occupied that spot.
'He is a thorough gentleman,' said she, as she walked away with Aubrey.
'He might be an Eton fellow,' was the significant reply.
'I wonder what made him so!' said Ethel, musingly.
'Looking at Tom,' returned Aubrey, not in jest.
'Even with that advantage, I don't quite see where he learnt that
refined consideration.'
'Pshaw, Ethel! The light of nature would show that to any one but a
stupex.'
Ethel was not sorry that such were Aubrey's views of courtesy, but all
thought of that subject was soon lost in the pursuit of ammonites.
'I wonder what Leonard will have picked up now?' they speculated, as
they turned homewards with their weighty baskets, but what was their
amazement, when Leonard waved his hand, pointing to the little black
dog again at his feet!
'She is mine!' he exclaimed, 'my own! Mrs. Gisborne has given her to
me; and she is to be the happiest little mite going!'
'Given!'
'Yes. She came as soon as you were gone, and sat by me, and talked for
an hour, but she goes to-morrow to live with an old hag of an aunt.'
'Really, you seem to have been on confidential terms.'
'I mean that she must be a nuisance, because she doesn't like dogs; so
that Mrs. Gisborne can only take the old one, which she could never
part with. So she wanted to give Mab to some one who would be kind to
her; and she has come to the right shop; hasn't she, my little queen?'
'I thought she almost wished it this morning,' said Ethel, 'when she
heard how you and Mab had taken to each other: but it is a very choice
present; the creature looks to me to be of a very fine sort.'
'Now, Miss May, how could you know that?'
'Why, by her own deportment! Don't you know the aristocratic look that
all high-bred animals have--even bantams?'
Leonard looked as if this were the most convincing proof of Ethel's
wisdom, and proceeded. 'Well, she is descended from a real King
Charles, that Charles II. brought from France, and gave to Mrs. Jane
Lane; and they have kept up the breed ever since.'
'So that Mab will have the longest pedigree in Stoneborough; and we
must all respect her!' said Ethel, stroking the black head.
'I am only surprised at Leonard's forgetting his place,' said Aubrey.
'Walking before her majesty, indeed!'
'Oh, attendants do come first sometimes.'
'Then it should be backwards! I have a mind to try lying on the beach
to-morrow, looking interesting, to see what will descend upon me!'
'A great yellow mongrel,' said Ethel, 'as always befalls imitators in
the path of the hero.'
'What? You mean that it was all the work of Leonard's beaux yeux?'
Leonard gave a sort of growl, intimating that Aubrey was exciting his
displeasure; and Ethel was glad to be at home, and break off the
conversation; but in a few minutes Aubrey knocked at her door, and
edging himself in, mysteriously said, 'Such fun! So it was your beaux
yeux, not Leonard's, that made the conquest!'
'I suppose she was touched with what I said of poor Leonard's
circumstances, and the pleasure the creature gave him.'
'That is as prosy as Mary, Ethel. At any rate, the woman told Leonard
yours was the most irresistibly attractive countenance she ever saw,
short of beauty; and that's not the best of it, for he is absolutely
angry.
'No wonder,' laughed Ethel.
'No, but it's about the beauty! He can't conceive a face more
beautiful than yours.'
'Except the gargoyle on the church tower,' said Ethel, gaping into as
complete a model of that worthy as flesh and blood could perpetrate.
'But he means it,' persisted Aubrey, fixing his eyes critically on his
sister's features, but disturbed by the contortions into which she
threw them. 'Now don't, don't. I never saw any fellow with a
hundredth part of your gift for making faces,' he added, between the
unwilling paroxysms of mirth at each fresh grimace; but I want to judge
of you; and--oh! that solemn one is worse than all; it is like Julius
Caesar, if he had ever been photographed!--but really, when one comes
to think about it, you are not so very ugly after all; and are much
better looking than Flora, whom we were taught to believe in.'
'Poor Flora! You were no judge in her blooming days, before wear and
tear came.'
'And made her like our Scotch grandfather.'
'But Blanche! your own Blanche, Aubrey? She might have extended
Leonard's ideas of beauty.'
'Blanche has a pretty little visage of her own; but it's not so well
worth looking at as yours,' said Aubrey. 'One has seen to the end of
it at once; and it won't light up. Hers is just the May blossom; and
yours the--the--I know--the orchis! I have read of a woman with an
orchidaceous face!'
Teeth, tongue, lips, eyes, and nose were at once made to serve in
hitting off an indescribable likeness to an orchis blossom, which was
rapturously applauded, till Ethel, relaxing the strain and permitting
herself to laugh triumphantly at her own achievement, said, 'There! I
do pride myself on being of a high order of the grotesque.'
'It is not the grotesque that he means.' said Aubrey, 'he is very
cracked indeed. He declares that when you came and sat by him the day
before yesterday, you were perfectly lovely.'
'Oh, then I understand, and it is no matter,' said Ethel.