CHAPTER XLIX.

THE RIVAL OWLS.

'Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower

The moping owl doth to the moon complain

Of such as, wandering near her haunted tower,

Molest her ancient solitary reign.'

_Gray._

'Poor caterpillars, with our web broken, trying to gather it close

round us,' said Geraldine, with a sort of playful melancholy, when old

Squire Underwood's little table was produced, that so vast and sad a

tract of table-cloth might not divide the four who met at meals.

For Sister Constance and Mr. Fulmort had won back for Angela permission

to make a visit at St Faith's, certainly during Lent, and probably for

a longer time, that she might be regularly instructed in nursing. The

wild spirit craved for discipline as by a sort of instinct, and this

the orphaned family had never been able to supply, and her affections

had really been wounded enough to render nothing so welcome as shelter

and protection against herself. Fulbert's English visit soon came to

an end. Australia was his element, he was weary of the old country;

declared there was no room to move, and having been refused by Lizzie

Bruce, only wanted to get back as soon as he could. He looked Bernard

all over, and pronounced that there were too many of his sort out there

already, and he had rather help him to the University.

Bernard might in fact have been sent thither by subscription from the

family, but he surprised them all by showing Cherry his letter to

accept an under-clerkship in the house of Kedge and Underwood. It was

the consequence of a consultation with Mr. Travis on means of living,

though the lad had kept his own counsel till all was settled, and, he

added, 'I know I've been an idle dog, but I do mean to work now;' the

hitherto obstinately childish face showed manhood and self-reliance.

Felix had done quite right to knock all his supports away, and that

he knew it was shown by his acting at once instead of grumbling. The

fate of many a comrade had taught him to rejoice that his post was

not the prize of a competitive examination, and if his features and

bearing perilously reminded Spooner of his brother Edgar, the absence

of Edgar's tastes and talents exempted him from some of the same

temptations; nor did Miss Underwood show any symptoms of spoiling

him, only settling him in respectable lodgings, and making her house

no more than a friendly cousinly resort. His public school-life had

likewise given him a less dangerous set of acquaintance than Edgar's

had been, and there were wholesome opportunities of gratifying his

love of athletics. Lady Caergwent, too, on coming to town for the

Session, did not forget the solitary Vale Lestonite, but requited his

botanical exertions with friendly invitations for gay evenings and for

quiet Sundays, both of which did much to keep up what was good, both

outwardly and inwardly, in the youth.

'Kedge and Underwood' in all its branches was intensely elated at

its approaching union with the great Mr. Travis of Peter Brown and

Co., who was to take the style and arms of Underwood, well pleased to

appropriate the rood, and bear the name of those whom he had always

regarded with a true family love. The wedding was to be soon after

Easter, and the pair were then to go out and make arrangements for the

future welfare of the American property. Ferdinand had in jest asked

Gerald if he would go back, and the child had drawn back into his

aunt's arms, and answered, 'Not without Chérie.'

Wilmet had soon come downstairs again, but with the first visible signs

of departing youth, the first dimming of the freshness of complexion,

the first marring of the perfect oval contour of face, and with a

heart heavy as much for the living sister as for the dead brother, and

with the sad grieving which only mothers know for the babe whom she

had never seen. John was anxious to take her from home. The last old

Miss Oglandby had died suddenly during her recovery, and as all three

had left him half their portions, he was now a man of considerable

means, rather disproportioned to his cottage at Vale Leston. There

however he meant to remain, for the sake of attending to the estate,

but he hastened the preliminary business in order to proceed to that in

Buckinghamshire, so soon as Wilmet should be capable of the journey.

And he found the less to do, that never man had set his house in order

more thoroughly than Felix. Every paper and letter was sorted, and

so marked that there was not an instant's doubt whether it concerned

the estate or the business; every account was clearly brought down to

Christmas, and nothing left that could complicate or perplex: in many

cases, especially with regard to the farms and Blackstone Gulley, there

were notes of conversations, promises, or intentions. The executors had

little but formal work to do.

Wilmet was only once able to come to the Priory before she left home,

and she could hardly bear it, breaking down with showers of tears, as

if the grief were fresh; while Geraldine went about, calm, dry-eyed,

occupied, attending to Gerald, receiving callers, writing letters,

and consulting with her brothers, or even helping Lance with work for

the Pursuivant, but all as if the taste and flavour had gone out of

her life, and nothing could interest her, except Gerald and one other

employment.

She had copied her miniature of Felix for Stella, and the wistful

admiration of some of the others had made her volunteer to give one to

each of the family, and she spent many hours over the square open brow,

clear, fearless, stedfast, well-opened grey eyes and firm sweet mouth.

Wilmet, discovering what she was about, thought it so bad for her as to

call for a scolding to Clement and Robina for having permitted her to

undertake what must injure her eyes and feed her sorrow.

'No, don't stop me, Mettie,' said Cherry, 'I _can_ do them now, perhaps

I could not later.'

'You need not do them. Photographs would do quite as well, and save

you.'

'I don't want to be saved. It is my great pleasure.'

'A morbid pleasure, I fear, my dear. At any rate I will not be the

cause of your hurting yourself. I _will_ have a photograph.'

'Don't take it now at least,' implored Cherry as the white resolute

fingers closed on the original. 'Please! I cannot quite bear to let him

go. Besides,' with a smile of entreaty, 'I don't think you perceive.

It is not morbid. It does me good. It is like getting Clement to talk

in the evening. I go over those dear lines and curves, and every touch

brings back some look or word, so that it is living with him, and

learning him over again, and I get to giving thanks for him best that

way.'

'Well! I couldn't,' said Wilmet, not even able to look at the picture,

and cautioning Robina to interfere at the first symptom of damage to

eyes or spirits.

No one could be more tenderly cherished and watched over than

Geraldine. Clement's devotion was more genuine and less dutiful, more

loving and less compassionate than Robina had expected, for it had

that essential though involuntary quality of dependence. Never before

had his life given him the personal experience of affliction, and it

had softened him into gentleness. He had almost erected Cherry into

the place of Felix as well as her own, and leant on her for advice and

sympathy. Whatever approaches to relaxation or amusement he allowed

himself were to lure her to be pleased, and if she tried to be lured,

it was only because she thought he needed the relief.

Robina meantime was highly effective. She took Gerald's lessons, made

herself acceptable in cottages, worked hard at the schools, and got on

well with Clan Hepburn, who were unusually conformable, and thoroughly

considerate. Moreover, if Robin could not be the idol of the lads,

she took in hand the farmers' daughters. She allured them with a

German class, got up some Mission working parties--and great victory

of all--persuaded a selection not only to teach in the Sunday School

but to meet beforehand to have instruction for this purpose from the

Rector, without imputing to them the full extent of their ignorance.

Clement might well own that Lent that there were some things Robina did

better than anyone else.

He had a very youthful Curate at last, lodged at the farm, and he was

also assisted by Mr. Audley, who was still living with his brother,

frequently going up to his oculist, but devoting himself chiefly to the

care of his future district at East Ewmouth. He had accepted the offer

of the incumbency willingly, for between his private income and the

endowment he would be able to keep up such a staff of Curates as would

compensate for his defect of eyesight, and the Mission work of the

little post needed an experienced head more than good eyes.

After a few weeks it became known that on his refusal of the Bishopric

of Albertstown, the offer had been transferred to the Vicar of St.

Matthew's, Whittingtonia, probably at his suggestion, for he was very

anxious for its acceptance, and Clement listened to him with a divided

mind, for St Matthew's was still the young Rector's first love, and

he loved it a good deal more than either settlers or black fellows at

the antipodes. As he mournfully observed to Cherry, they would go and

get some married man who would not live at the clergy-house, and would

spoil the whole spirit of the place. It scarcely consoled him to be

reminded that Mr. Fulmort having founded and endowed the living, had

the patronage, and that being elected by the Synod in Australia, would

not have to leave the appointment to the Crown.

'Ah! the Vicar!' he proclaimed as he unlocked the post-bag, and

distributed the letters at the breakfast-table in the austere sunshine

of March.

Next came a sort of gasping grunt.

'Well?' said Cherry.

No answer, but to lay down the letter and begin cutting bread, but

in an absent way, going on as if instead of four he had the original

number to cut for.

The sisters saw that no more questions were to be asked in the

publicity of the breakfast-table, limited as it was. Self-contained

man! Any one of his brothers would have had it out in that gasp.

Robina, aware that the world consisted of herself and Gerald, would

have removed it quickly, but that Gerald prolonged the consumption of

his egg so unreasonably that his uncle had time to eat, drink, and look

over the letter again, open the others, and even grow impatient enough

to say, 'We can't wait for you all the morning, Gerald.' Then he said

Grace, gave an arm to Cherry, with 'Can you spare me a few minutes?'

and took her into the library.

'Does he go?'

'He says he hardly can, unless I will take St Matthew's.'

'You!'

'I can't understand it; but he says none of our old set are available.

Don't be frightened, Cherry, I am not going to do anything to overthrow

such comfort as is left you.'

'You can't mean that!'

'I do. This is not the kind of call that should disturb the claims of

what is closest to me on earth. Nor have you been forgotten, as you

will see,' as he gave her the letter.

The first thing she remarked was how differently the six years' priest

was rated from the deacon who had been hunted down to the country

parish. Mr. Fulmort reviewed the difficulty of finding a successor,

for his most trustworthy _élèves_ were all either engaged elsewhere,

or else ineligible on account of health, voice, or families. Fred

Somers was admirable as senior curate, but could not take the lead

where both familiarity with the place was needed and experience of

parsonic authority. Thus Clement Underwood, loving Whittingtonia and

beloved there, full of ardour and devotion, gifted with a fine voice,

facility of preaching, and musical talent, as well as a growing dignity

of presence and address, together with a strong and resolute temper,

powers of judgment trained under his brother, and a constitution

matured in pure country air to a considerable capacity and aptitude

for work, seemed to combine most of the requisites for a City parish.

'More especially,' wrote the Vicar, 'if your sister could be induced to

come with you. Her quickness, ready judgment, and especially her sense

of the absurd, are just what would be valuable. Mind, I don't think of

her as a worker, only as an Egeria to the clergy-house, and I can even

provide her with a grove, where my dear old friend Miss Charlecote, as

you may remember, did the like for us.'

He explained that Miss Charlecote now entirely resided at Hiltonbury

with his sister and her husband, and had made over her beautiful old

house to his disposal, not to be sold or broken up, but used as a

residence for some of the clergy or Church helpers. Was it possible

that Miss Underwood would come and live there with her brother, while

Fred Somers would act as prior to the clergy-house? Mr. Fulmort however

was most guarded in not pressing his plan, and aware of the possibility

of strong objections, marking his desire that Clement should not feel

himself bound by what must only be considered as a feeler, since his

work at Vale Leston was thoroughly valuable. Mr. Fulmort added that the

endowment of St. Matthew's, with four curates and sixteen choir boys

always in the clergy-house, was £600,[1] whereas the Rectory of Vale

Leston, needing only one assistant at the utmost, was now reckoned as

above £800.

'What do you wish, Clement?'

'Don't talk of what I wish.'

'Then what do you think right?'

'What is best for you and Gerald?' he answered, with the hardness of

tone that was only pain; 'you are my trust.'

'Never so as to fetter a priest from higher duties,' said Cherry.

'Suppose this was Albertstown.'

Somehow her odd tone of consternation was a pleasure to Clement; he

smiled and said, 'Never mind, that's not the question; though I suppose

this is a more perplexing one, as it leaves a choice, or the semblance

of one,' and he sighed.

'You know Dr. May said Gerald ought to have constant attention from a

London surgeon. Would the house be healthy for him? Do you know it?'

'O yes! We choir boys used often to be entertained there. We could play

at cricket in the garden, and thought it paradise. It is an island

of the old London before the fire, in a quiet street all warehouses;

nothing newer than Queen Anne's time; delightful to us, but I don't

know how it would seem to you after this place.'

'This place! I liked it when _he_ was here, but now it is only a vast

desolation. Everything is that indeed; but you see, I never had roots

here, like him. What should you do with it?'

'I don't see why Bill Harewood should not take the living. He is

older than I was when first I came here; he makes good way with the

people--better than I do with many--and he ought to have a parish that

would leave him a margin of leisure--besides Robina.'

Cherry clapped her hands. 'Well done, Bobbie! She has actually earned

her promotion. Even you, reluctantly as it came out, allow that she is

cut out for a clergyman's wife.'

He smiled. 'Well, I allow that she is worth the most to the parish of

all of you, and that it would be a cruel pity to take her away.'

'And Bill will be twice the man, and half the March hare, with her,

instead of without her.'

'Yes. Granting married clergy, they are the very people for it.'

'That's right! Dear Bob! Good old Will! It is enough to decide us at

once after all their patience! They would have the Rectory, but how

about this house?'

'Probably John would rent it. What?'

'Only naughtiness! A little jealousy of Kester running rampant over

poor Gerald's house as if he were master and more.'

'Gerald will find out who is master only too soon.'

'Ah! he sometimes asks who this and that belongs to, poor boy, and why

they call him the young Squire. It may be well for him not to hear too

much of that, or to begin to lord it.'

'Besides, you would bring him down in summer, and if he spends his

holidays here, he would see as much of the place as boys ever do of

home.'

'Ah!' cried Cherry eagerly. 'We can have poor Bear to live with us. How

delightful!'

'A great consideration,' said Clement 'You really think you can stand

the City?'

'As well as any place! Oh, Clem! as long as you don't want to leave us

behind I am glad.'

'I was so much afraid of your sending me away alone that I begin to

fear you are making home too dear.'

'Nay,' with a sobbing laugh, 'if your Vicar told you to bring me, you

need not mind. I do believe those dingy streets are more to you than

all that cloister and river.'

'I can't help it, Cherry. I came here solely because my brother

wanted me, and am heartily thankful for it; but, as you say, I have

not rooted. We could not have his love from old association, and

comparatively only cared for it through him. No doubt there is much

that I love and prize, and any cure of souls must be most important;

but now that East Ewmouth is to be separated and Blackstone Gulley is

in a manner tamed, I can't get rid of the sense that it is too highly

paid and too easy a life for a strong man of thirty, good for nothing

but sheer work. Nor would _he_ think it desertion. He told me on that

last day, when the Rectory was transferred, that the purpose was

fulfilled, and I need not be hindered.'

'Too little work! Yet you are often on the point of being overdone.'

'I have been, but that was from East Ewmouth and other things that are

over now. A curate there must be, because one can't be in two places

at once, but except at special times of pressure, the work is hardly

enough for two. It is just the thing for a man who has a brain and a

pen like Will's. I never saw anything more telling than his pamphlet on

godless education.'

'So we leave it to them.'

'Not so fast. I must be sure this consent is not the restlessness

of grief, Cherry. Besides, we must ascertain that John approves on

Gerald's account, and in the meantime, we had better say nothing to

Robina.'

The proposal was too advantageous to his family for John not to look

at it on all sides, indeed he would scarcely hear of it till he had

met Clement and Mr. Fulmort in Whittingtonia, and looked over the

house; but the inspection made him listen more favourably, and so did

an interview with Gerald's doctor, and a correspondence with Cherry.

Taking into account the child's incapacity for out-door sports, and

Cherry's artistic and literary tastes, he saw advantages in the

scheme. The Priory was too large for the reduced numbers, and all its

interests and enjoyments had hinged on its loving master; but Cherry's

London associations were disconnected from him, and the inducements

to cultivate her art would save it from being dropped for want of the

stimulus he had given; nor was the benefit of the family home for

Bernard to be by any means forgotten. To be sure, Wilmet believed that

Cherry could never be well or happy there, but then her rooms should

be kept intact for her return when Clement might betake himself to his

congeners in the clergy-house, and Wilmet was secular woman enough to

think £800 a year wasted on him and his subscriptions, when it might be

making Will and Robina happy.

So one spring afternoon, as Robina was trudging homewards, basket in

hand, from a distant hamlet, pausing on the topmost point of the bridge

to look at the swelling of the river, and the swirling eddies that

rushed out of sight, she heard herself hailed, and on the Ewmouth road

beheld a broad clerical undress hat, surmounting a black figure, with a

bag over his shoulder. To run down the bridge and meet in the middle of

a miry pool was the work of a very few seconds.

'Willie! How delightful! You're come for Easter?'

'I thought you were looking out for me.'

'Do you think I always am? for I didn't expect you. You said you were

going home first.'

'So I thought till yesterday evening, but I thought--here, give me

that.'

'You haven't a hand, unless you prefer it to me,' said Robina. 'No, you

can't sling it up with your bag. You aren't to be trusted. There's a

basin in it.'

'A regular goody basket. Eh, Bobbie, ain't you a born parson's wife?

You've never asked what brought me.'

'You've not heard of a school.'

'No. What do you think of a living?'

'Oh, Willie! And is it enough?'

'That's as people may think.'

'How much is it?'

'Nearly £800.'

'Bill! You don't mean it. There must be some drawback. Who offers it?'

'Oh! just a friend.'

'A Christchurch friend? A pupil?'

'The reverse. He's a Cambridge man, and has rather been my master.'

'Your master? Not the Dean of Minsterham. Didn't I hear something about

a chapter living?'

'Nothing that concerns us.'

'Do tell me, Will. You've got me on the tenterhooks. I'm sure there's

something against it. It's not St Matthew's.'

'St. Matthew's! They would about as soon give it to the Walrus and the

Carpenter.'

'I'm glad it is not that. What sort of a place is it? In the country?'

'Beautiful country, splendid church, freshly done up, tip-top schools

and all the rest of it, that a lazy dog like me might never have

hatched, but he may just manage to keep stirring.'

'Nonsense! you know better than that. What population?'

'Six hundred, or thereabouts.'

'Just the same as this. It is too good to be true. There must be some

great drawback to come. Let me hear it.'

'Well, if you will have it,' said William, with appalling gravity,

'it is much the same drawback as exists in the Russian Church, where

preferment goes by the petticoat. The fellow offers it to me on an

understanding you mayn't approve.'

'What?'

'That I should marry his sister.'

'Oh!' with equal gravity, 'did he really make that stipulation?'

'Not in so many words, but there's such a thing as an honourable

understanding.'

'And pray, what does the sister say?'

'That remains to be proved. What does she say? Come, darling Bird, had

you really no notion?'

'I knew Mr. Fulmort wanted Clement to take St Matthew's, but I did not

think he would.'

'He said he left me to tell you, but I did not think he could have kept

it so entirely back.'

'But what is to become of Cherry?'

Will told her the designs as far as they had been unfolded to him, and

her eyes glistened with tears.

'Dear Willie,' she said, 'it is not that I am not thankful and glad,

but it comes so suddenly after all these long years, and it is so like

turning them out.'

'Not if we set up in the Vicarage--Rectory--I beg its pardon. Besides,

they'll be down here pretty often, and I shall never feel like anything

but Clement's curate. It is the most wholesome thing for me, that his

mode of coming up to breathe will be running down here to take note of

my shortcomings.'

'As if you meant to short come.'

'I don't mean, but I shall--if ever man needed whipper-in. So you see

I've taken care to provide myself. Seriously, I don't think I should

ever have worked up this place as Clement has done, but having worked

under him, and with you all about me, I trust not to let it down. It is

too good for me, that's a fact; but then it is not too good for you.'

Robina was forced to hear, though she viewed her Will as far superior

to Clement, as indeed he was in intellect and largeness of mind, though

not in energy and power of work.

Earnestness and devotion were, as she well knew, deep and true in him,

though native indolence and carelessness were at continual strife with

them, and he was a man fitter for a small parish than a large one,

since study was his happiness, and he could make the results beneficial

to a wide circle, while Clement had no natural turn for books, or for

anything but downright practical ministerial labour.

The change could not be made quickly, William could not resign his

tutorship till the long vacation and Clement was to retain the

incumbency till the new church at East Ewmouth was consecrated and the

district separate, while an answer from Albertstown to Mr. Fulmort's

acceptance of the diocese must precede his resignation of St Matthew's.

So if restlessness had prompted Cherry's assent, she had time to find

it out. The outlook however seemed to lessen her sense of dreariness,

since it made her go through each sweet spring pleasure as if storing

up precious memories of him who had prized them all, and as if this

restored the power of feeling all things new. She talked freely and

affectionately of Robina's prospects, encouraging the girl who felt her

happiness rising out of the family sorrow, and grew quite shame-faced

about taking the measurements of the Rectory, which she was to have the

pleasure of furnishing out of her own savings. Little had been heard of

Lance since he had seen Fulbert off on his second voyage. Postal cards

and hurried notes kept up intercourse with Cherry and the Harewoods,

but chiefly on the Pursuivant's behoof, and when he had met John in

London, about the executorship, he was reported looking thin but well,

and intensely busy.

In effect, he had set himself to master and estimate his business,

sadly enough, but there had been hope in his brother's farewell letter,

and to patient Lance a very small spark sufficed for a long time.

He found himself fully capable of maintaining the level of the

Pursuivant. Not only did both Harewoods supply him with able writings,

but payment and circulation were such as to attract and secure other

contributors, and he, though he might not write fully up to the mark

of his more scholarly and better-read brother, had all the requisites

of an excellent editor, in trained facility, sagacity, common sense,

humour and power of arrangement. The paper showed no tokens of

declension, and the business flourished, Lance still spending part of

the day in the shop, and enjoying the intercourse with his friendly

customers all the more for the strong feeling they had shown for his

brother. His place as gentleman had long been established, and he could

always have had more society than he had time for. He was invited to

fill his brother's place in almost all his capacities as citizen of

Bexley, but to what could bind him permanently, he showed some doubt

about immediately pledging himself. Moreover, Mrs. Froggatt was anxious

to give up Marshlands to him 'whenever he should settle.'

By Lady-day he was able to make an estimate of his situation and

prospects, and having done this, he wrote to Dr. May, laying the

statement before him, and begging to be told whether there were any

insuperable objection to his presuming to declare his attachment to

Miss Gertrude May. The letter was just in the formal style for which

Felix used to laugh at himself, but as the Doctor said, when showing

it to Ethel, it was thoroughly manly and straightforward, without the

least palaver about his position.

'No, I think he feels that his brother has ennobled it, so that he

would be ashamed to apologize for it.'

'What will the child say? She has been drooping ever since poor Felix's

death.'

'Long before! She flags the moment you are out of sight. I hate to see

her without her little spirts of naughtiness, and my heart aches to

think I ever wished to see her softened.'

'Poor Daisy-bud! It says much for her that her heart should have gone

out to such a man as that. Heigh-ho! those were good old times, when

one disposed of one's daughters without so much as saying, "by your

leave, miss."'

'Should you ever have done it?'

'Well,' said the Doctor, not choosing to answer the question, 'you may

tell him to come for Easter. I suppose that is his only time. He would

have been wiser to wait a bit longer--may be till this foreign trip is

over--that is if the child goes, and I don't believe she will.'

The Mays themselves had had a winter of sorrow. That living death--for

it had long hardly been life--of poor little Margaret Rivers had come

to an end in February. It was scarcely to be mourned. The poor girl

had, since her conscience had awakened, grieved so bitterly over

every outbreak of her own unhappy temper, and had suffered so sadly

from depression of spirits, that the peace of her final decay had been

an untold blessing. Even her mother, when she thought of the dreary

lot of a sickly, suffering, almost deformed heiress, could not but

resign herself to feel that 'it was well with the child.' Her father,

however, who had been spared much realisation of the distress of body

and mind, was restlessly unhappy at the loss, and fancied he should

cure his wife's sore heart by taking her to Switzerland and the Tyrol;

and Flora, in the desire to make the journey a pleasure to somebody,

and noticing Gertrude's pale cheeks, proposed to take her. That whole

last year, ever since her Christmas at Vale Leston, Gertrude's whole

treatment of her poor little niece had been reversed; and she had

changed from the somewhat hard deportment to which young aunts are

prone, to a kindness which, being a late and unexpected boon, had been

valued by poor capricious Margaret beyond all the steady tenderness of

her grandfather and elder aunt. It had endeared Gertrude greatly to

Flora, and the benefit to the girl's spirits influenced her quite as

much as the advantage it would be to George to have some one to conduct

to the sights, which for his own part he did not care for.

Daisy herself gave no consent. 'To be lionised by George! Rather worse

than an excursion of Cook's,' she said; 'and fancy the evenings!'

'It would be a kindness to George and Flora,' said Ethel.

'You horrid creature! That's to set my conscience worrying.'

'At least, there would be the coming home again.'

'That's the way you look on travelling!' said Gertrude, laughing a

little, but returning to her weary attitude, and Ethel abstained from

persuasion. She had not sufficient experience of change of scene to

believe greatly in its advantages, and though she was in favour of the

project, it was rather with a view to the fresh start it would make

for her sister at home than with the belief that either pictures or

mountains could be enjoyed under George Rivers's lumbering escort. She

expected that poor Lancelot Underwood's attempt would precipitate the

decision, when, in answer to her brief note of invitation, he replied

that he would arrive on Easter Eve.

'That's all right,' quoth the Doctor. 'He knows better than to come

a-courting on Good Friday.'

The day was not, however, exempt from a visitor; Dr. and Mrs. Cheviot

were away for the holidays, and the Mays were the more surprised to

see Mr. Rupert Cheviot, with his dapper little umbrella, issue from

the professor's door to join them on their way to church. Except that

they would have preferred not to talk at all on such a day, there

was no fault to find with him; he was subdued and proper behaved,

and had a good deal to say about Ammergau. He had not been so much

at Stoneborough within the last few months, and Ethel suspected

that he had been warned by Tom to give his sister time to recover

from her winter's grief. To her, he was amusing, he was a candid,

lively, pleasant person, and rated her more highly than she was used

to from her sister's lovers, and seldom came in her way without

holding a lively tournament in the language of jest, but with a good

deal of earnest in it, and she saw enough stuff in him to make his

self-complacency not so obnoxious to her as it was to her juniors.

She was not sorry that Gertrude's aversion to him was so strong, but

she thought it rather instinctive than reasonable. He was a man whose

opinions and disposition would right themselves in process of time,

but the having Daisy bound to him during the process was quite another

thing.

So when Gertrude proposed walking to Abbotstoke Church in the afternoon

she readily agreed, perceiving that it was far more because Cocksmoor

was too obvious a resort than for the sake either of Flora, flowers for

decoration, or even of Dickie, who could not be refused to his uncle

for this sorrowful holiday.

And when George Rivers returned to the charge, and again promised

to show the Alps through the Mont Cenis tunnel, Gertrude

accepted--accepted definitively! Yes, she would go, and she talked fast

and eagerly of the pleasures she anticipated.

But when walking home with Ethel, she did not utter one voluntary word.

'What time did you say young Underwood was coming?' asked the Doctor at

breakfast next morning.

'He did not say the time,' said Ethel.

'Which?' asked Gertrude.

'Lancelot,' said Ethel, who had put off the announcement in hopes of

doing it naturally till she had grown absolutely nervous about it.

'Not for advice?' in a startled voice.

'Can no one come here but for advice?'

'He was ill last year.'

'Aye,' muttered the Doctor, 'and got advice that he has taken pretty

effectually.'

Whereupon Ethel, feeling horribly and ridiculously conscious, jumped up

and talked of Cocksmoor decorations. Gertrude had insisted on making

them up at Cocksmoor instead of at home. It would be a little further

out of reach of 'the enemy,' and in the parsonage the sisters and

Richard worked unmolested all the morning, but in the afternoon, while

they were putting up their wreaths, there drove up to the lych-gate

Mrs. Thomas May in her donkey chair, bringing her choice manufacture

of crosses and devices, escorted by her sister Ella Ward and Rupert

Cheviot. It was too cold and damp for her to venture into church, but

Richard hastened out to beguile her into his parlour, and refresh her

with tea, while Mr. Cheviot helped to carry in her contributions, the

very crown and glory of the whole, looking about with the critical

suggestive patronage of a man who had seen the world, and making

recommendations which Ella eagerly seconded, and Ethel did not

disapprove, but Gertrude combatted vehemently: 'It had never been so!

Richard would not like it!' and out she hurried to appeal to him and

call him to the rescue.

Rupert Cheviot moved to the door, perhaps in hopes of mitigating her,

but as she reached the lych-gate, a young man in deep black came up on

the other side, and their hands met with something in the manner that

made Mr. Cheviot turn to Ella Ward and ask, 'Who is that fellow?'

'That? Oh! one of the Underwoods. The one in the business.'

'What business?'

'Oh! he's a printer, a bookseller rather. Those Underwoods pretend to

be county people, but they are nothing _really_ but tradesmen.'

'Mr. Cheviot is not so behindhand with the world as to think that a

reproach,' said Ethel, as she caught the words, while coming forward,

and over her spectacles she gave Ella one of the repressive glances

which the young lady felt in her backbone. She was not at all a bad

sort of girl, but the ingrain likeness to her brother Henry grew with

her growth, and she had just come to the age when to get any sort of

notice from any young gentleman was the prime object of her desires.

Rupert Cheviot, of course, at Ethel's words went forward, and on being

introduced to Mr. Lancelot Underwood, shook hands with him with rather

unnecessary _empressement_.

Gertrude at once appealed to Lance's taste, 'Was it not _the thing_ to

have the festoons hanging loose and natural, not in stiff lines?'

'It is our way at St. Oswald's,' said Lance, 'but at Vale Leston

Clement holds to following the architectural lines.'

'Ah! Vale Leston. Is not that a remarkable specimen of the later Early

Pointed? I must run over some day and see it.'

'It is a very fine tower. Aren't there plenty of owls' nests in it?'

said Gertrude, with a perfectly grave voice, but which brought an odd

thrill of mingled amusement, pleasure, and pain, as the conviction

crossed him that this was the rival owl of the academy, and he

recognised the likeness to the photograph. Perhaps Gertrude was only

too strongly reminded of Cherry's sketch of himself, for between grief,

hard work, and anxiety, he was very thin-cheeked and large eyed, and

she was by no means clear that he had not come to consult her father

professionally, and that the odd answer she had received in the morning

had not been an evasion.

Richard came in with a casting vote in favour of the architectural

style, at which Gertrude shrugged her shoulders but submitted. Ere long

a messenger appeared with the candlesticks adorned by Mrs. May, and a

message that she could not stay later; and Richard, going to see after

her, brought back her urgent desire that Gertrude would return at the

same time. Tom said she had not been strong, and must not be out after

sunset.

'O, I dare say,' said Gertrude.

'There's no more than I can easily finish alone,' said Richard.

'Indeed! Look at the font!'

'The wreaths are all ready. She really ought not to stay,' he added

to Ethel; 'you know there is always a sudden chill when you come down

the hill late, and as Ave says, the child is not in health to take

liberties.'

Ethel went up to Gertrude and whispered, 'We must give in, Daisy, we

shall have a fuss if we don't.'

She had almost said she did not care, but it was in church, and she

abstained, only adding, 'You'll come too.'

Ethel assented, though it was the ruin of the quiet Easter Eventide

walk her father must have meant them to have when he sent Lance to

meet them there. All that could be done was to keep together. In

general Rupert Cheviot was content to get up a discussion with the

elder sister, but he must have scented a rival, for whether Gertrude

walked fast or slow, she still found him by her side, preventing all

the inquiries she was burning to make about Geraldine, and the reported

changes, things that could not brook discussion before a stranger. She

did manage, while Rupert was tucking in a loosened fold of Averil's

cloak, to say, 'I suppose Geraldine has no picture for the exhibition

this year. She has not finished her Academies.'

'No. They are nearly done, but she has not touched them for a long

time now. There is a very pretty little group of some of the village

children that she did last summer, but I don't think she will send it

up.'

'What became of the Maid of Lorn?'

'Of course, Lady Caergwent bought it.'

There Rupert Cheviot swooped down. 'Are you any relation of Miss

Underwood who painted that capital likeness of Lady Caergwent? Then

I congratulate you. But is it not a great pity she does not paint in

oils? There is so much more satisfaction in them.'

And no more was possible than walking five abreast, close in the rear

of the donkey chair; a desultory, almost mechanical skirmish going on

between Ethel and Rupert Cheviot, interspersed with occasional pert

remarks from Ella and tart ones from Gertrude.

When presently Rupert began to talk of some lectures which were to be

given in May, she made quick answer, 'I shan't be here. I am going

abroad with the Riverses.'

This of course started the experienced vacation tourist, an Alpine

clubbist, into all kinds of counsels and inquiries, evidently with a

view to meeting the party on their route; but though Gertrude took care

to assure him that she should be at home long before his free time, the

tidings of her intended journey were, as Ethel could hear, in his very

footsteps, reducing Lance to the brink of despair.

He had not recovered it when they came home, and was besides in the

embarrassed state of a man who had made his purpose only too well known

to the spectators; but that quality which had been audacity in his

boyish days, enabled him to revive and return free and grateful answers

to Dr. May's inquiries into the family plans and welfare.

But when the evening meals in the two houses were over there was

nothing to prevent Tom May and his friend from strolling up the garden

to the elder house, whence sounds of music were audible.

It was from the 'Messiah,' for Dr. May had asked for 'He was despised

and rejected of men,' unwitting that a Sunday evening a year and a

quarter ago it had rung on Gertrude's ears in a voice that, in such a

passage as this, Lance's reproduced with startling, thrilling exactness.

Gertrude sat in a dark corner, with streaming eyes and heaving sobs.

It was almost more than she could bear, till her tears were dried by

vexation at hearing a connoisseur kind of compliment, while Dr. May

observed, 'I did not know what an instrument it was you thought you

were losing when you asked me about it, Lance.'

'I have seldom heard it surpassed, except by first professionals!' said

Mr. Cheviot. 'May I ask what teaching you had?'

'I was a choir boy at Minsterham,' said Lance, in his straightforward

way.

'Oh! I did not know cathedrals gave such advantages. Ah! I see you have

"My Queen" here, Gertrude. May we not have it?'

It would have been an utter impossibility even if it had not been as

the Doctor said, speaking up for her. 'We do not have that style of

thing this week.'

'Quite right, sir; one forgets.'

What! was he going to patronise Dr. May? And then he began to talk of

the choruses at Ammergau.

'I do believe,' exclaimed Gertrude, as she parted with her sister at

night, 'that he has primed himself with it on purpose.'

'I think he was really impressed there, and that it has done him good.'

'I believe you have a turn for him! I should not mind if he would only

not come here bothering poor Lance. How worn he looks! Mind, Ethel,

you tell me if Papa says anything about him. I could not bear for poor

Geraldine to have any more troubles.'

'Very well,' said Ethel, 'but I do not think there is anything amiss

with his health.'

'He has with his spirits though, and spirits tell on health; his

especially. Now, Ethel, I know Rupert Cheviot always was a hero of

yours.'

'A most unjustifiable interpretation of my not hating the poor man as

much as you do,' said Ethel, much amused.

'I will say for him you are the one person he never patronizes.

But I want you to look at the contrast, Ethel, between the two

owls--simplicity and self-complacency; and when _one_ really has such a

splendid talent.'

'Yes, a double first class man,' said Ethel, in wilful mischief,

exceedingly tickled at Lance's unconscious auxiliary, though sorry for

him.

'Who cares for a first class?' exclaimed contemptuous Daisy. 'It only

makes people intolerable.'

Nevertheless Lance did not spend by any means the happy Easter Sunday

he had figured to himself, and many times felt that he would have done

better to have deferred the crisis of his hopes and anxieties till

the great feast day was at an end. For the May family were beset by

Rupert Cheviot from morning till night, and Lance was tormented at

moments when he most desired to free himself from the whole subject, by

instinctive perception of his rivalry, and sense of the small chance

that he, the half-educated tradesman, could have beside the brilliant,

successful scholar, in a gentleman's position, and rising fast.

That Gertrude was cross was plain enough, and much more so to the Owl

of the Academy than to the Owl of the Church tower; but Lance was

sufficiently aware of the wayward nature of the damsel to ascribe

her contradictoriness to the rampant coyness of inclination, and her

civility to himself to kindness to her father's guest, Felix's brother

and a manifest inferior, like the chemist at Ewmouth. Then her foreign

tour was so often mentioned that it seemed to him that her father

must have intended it as a diversion after all the agitations she had

undergone, and that his coming had only been encouraged in order to put

an end to the whole affair, and dispose of him and his presumption as

soon as possible. So that all the kindness he received from the Doctor

and Ethel only went for compassion, and he tossed about all night--true

owl as he was for sleeplessness--meditating on the coming death-blow

to his hopes, and whether it would be better to resign them in a

conference with her father, or to put his fate to the touch in person,

since he had gone so far that he could not hang back and do nothing.

The wan heavy-eyed countenance that came down in the morning moved

the Doctor to the observation to his elder daughter, 'Daisy has got a

fellow there more finely strung than most men. I hope she will comport

herself accordingly. Tantrums won't do with that sort of organization.'

Ethel most decidedly put herself out of the way that morning, resolved

not to make the holiday serve as a plea from absenting herself from the

Monday care she bestowed on sundry charities, and declining the aid

Gertrude offered, as a refuge from possible inroads from the Cheviot.

'You had better not waste your opportunities,' said Ethel; 'I dare say

Mr. Underwood would show you the way through that thing of Mozart's

that you have been despairing over.'

'O no, Ethel,' with a glance at the pale face, but it suddenly grew

vividly bright as Lance said, 'If you are so kind as to be thinking of

my headache, I do assure you it is nothing at all--just what this would

be the best cure for.'

'Are you sure?' asked Gertrude solicitously.

'Quite,' he said, smiling. 'I should make no difference at all at home.

It is the sort that is defeated by taking no notice of them; and music,

and with you----'

'Would drive such ears as yours distracted, I should think,' said

Gertrude, nevertheless consenting. 'You see I have tried to follow

your advice, but what I have never heard, and have no one to interpret,

becomes a mere wilderness to me.'

Lance knew that in his native language of melody he should, birdlike,

win courage, but hardly was his finger on the keys before Daisy leapt

up in a kind of fury. 'There's that eternal Owl coming down the garden!

Come this way,' and she rushed away, beckoning him to follow her into

the schoolroom. 'There, the windows look out the other way! It is too

intolerable to be taken in the rear! I'll not stand it any longer! The

Moss troopers in the morning indeed!'

Both were full of that odd sort of exhilaration always inspired by

hide and seek with a visitor, and Lance looked about and recognised

the room. 'I have been here before,' he said, 'when you showed me your

aquarium.'

'Ah! the Daisiana. You were the hero of that watery adventure, though

we little thought that small boy Charlie was to come forth in such

colours! What an age ago it seems! I should like to see the Kitten's

tail again.'

'Should you? I am sure Cherry would manage it! It would be----'

'Only too full of recollections,' said Gertrude, with a little shudder.

'It was the first time I ever saw----'

Instead of answering, Lance took a miniature from his breast and put

it into her hand. She drew in her breath with a gasp. 'How beautiful!'

she said, and gazed on through one of the tear mists that can almost

convert a portrait into a presence. It was a long time before she said,

'This is better than the first.'

'Each that Cherry has finished has brought out some fresh expression.

You like it?'

'O, so much!'

'Will you keep it?'

'She was only to do one for each of you.'

'Don't you remember what _he_ called you?'

Gertrude held the picture to her lips for a moment, wiped a tear from

the glass and said, 'That dear Cherry hasn't been doing it for me.'

'N-no, not exactly.'

'Then it is yours! Oh! that is not right. Only let me have a

photograph.'

'I had rather you kept this.'

'I could not! I must not! I ought not,' putting it from her like a

temptation.

'Nay, it is yours by every right. By that which makes it unspeakably

precious to me to give you my very best and dearest, and by a better

right of your own, of affection,' he said, eagerly.

She gave a little cry.

'Don't start,' he said. 'Perhaps I ought not to have said so, but when

one watches with feelings such as mine, one sees----.'

She leant back, hiding her face, and crying quietly but unreservedly.

'If he had been like most men,' said Lance, 'if he had not made his

whole life a sacrifice and had ever let himself out, I fully believe he

would have given you the right. I felt and knew he had never been so

near caring for any one.'

She looked up with glowing face, and moist eyes, and tried to say

something, but could only utter 'No! It would be too--too much to dare

to think so.'

And as she thought of that interview, she wept more than before, though

they were scarcely sad tears. Lance longed for the right to soothe her,

but only durst lay his hand on the back of her chair. 'If anything

could make you more dear to me,' he said, bending over her, 'it would

be this! Nobody else so revered that great heart. I thought I knew him

best, but every day at Bexley brings up so many tokens of what he was

that I seem to have only known him by half.'

'Tell me.'

And Lance told many an instance of the doings of Felix's right hand

unknown to his left, and she listened with all her soul. It was more

than half an hour before she said, 'Then are you all alone?'

'With Mrs. Froggatt for the present, but I have decided on nothing

permanently. My dear brother told me I need not hold on, nor do I think

I can without a ray of hope.'

'What would you do?' she said, a thrill or two having half but

indefinitely revealed to her his drift.

'I don't know yet! Nor care! Most likely, try what music in Germany or

Italy would do for me.'

'O, don't go!' cried Gertrude, 'don't!'

'Do you tell me not?'

'I don't know, but oh! my heart has ached, ached, ached, all this time,

and somehow it aches rather less when you are here!'

'Dearest!' he exclaimed.

'Stay,' she said, pushing back her hair, and looking scared. 'I don't

think it fair. You know I never could, if--if-----.'

'Of course not; I understand that,' said Lance; 'but is not that what I

love you ten thousand times more for?'

'But I shall always care most for him!'

'Yes, yes, I know you must; but now I know that some day you may care a

little for me, I can wait patiently, any time you please.'

'And not hate it all, nor go away?'

'Never, while you bid me stay.'

He broke off as steps came along the passage, and a maid's knock, and

'Mr. Rupert Cheviot is in the drawing-room, ma'am.'

'Miss May is _out_,' said Gertrude emphatically.

The maid had sentiment enough to abstain from saying he had asked for

both sisters, but the next moment she returned to say he had asked for

Miss Gertrude.

'Tell him I am particularly engaged,' she said, leaping up indignantly.

'Aye!' she exclaimed, 'I will be delivered from that prig of Tom's. He

shall never pester me more.'

'There is an effectual way of preventing that,' said Lance, with a

lurking smile.

'Well, I suppose it must come to that sooner or later, and I do trust

you not to tease and bother.'

'I will strive to make your feeling the rule, not of mine, but of my

demonstration of it,' said Lance, tingling all over with suppressed

ecstasy; 'that is, as far as I can help.'

'I can't understand your liking it! An old, dry, used-up heart!'

'But on whom? I am but too content with----'

A rapid booted tread was at the door; it was hastily opened. 'Gertrude,

what's the meaning?' said the professor. 'Oh! I beg your pardon, Mr.

Underwood.' This with withering politeness, and the door was shut

again.

'He is going to Papa,' Gertrude laughed, with her natural mischievous

triumph; then, laying her hand on Lance's arm, she exclaimed, 'Now,

whatever you do, promise me not to be bullied into giving up the shop;'

then, lowering her tone to its former tenderness, 'What he could do is

good enough for any one.'

'So I feel,' said Lance, 'though I could drop it, if you wished.

My personal share in the retail trade I mean, of course, not the

editorship, for that is my sheet-anchor.'

'The Pursuivant! I thought I never could touch it again.'

'His poor Pur,' repeated Lance. 'I must show you this note, though I

am ashamed. And he bade me give you this;' as from the depths of a

business-like pocket-book he extracted an envelope, and from it the

note and dried piece of myrtle. She greeted it with a little cry, and

fresh tears. 'Ah! he said you would remember,' said Lance.

'Remember! I should think I did! Didn't he tell you?'

'I know nothing but what he wrote here. He left this for me to have,

after it was all over.'

'I see! I see! O, I am glad you did not give it me at first. Dear, dear

thing! Now I know! That day when he came here he made me gather it for

him, and told me he had one great wish, and I was to remember it when I

saw this.'

'And that great wish?' It was an odd sort of wet-eyed smile of Lance's,

but then she had rested her head against him. 'Did you know it?'

'I don't know. It was the day I was half wild with misery and a strange

sort of gladness together, only one could not break out with his calm

eye on one--the day he came here, and Papa told him what was the matter

with him. Then he sat with me, and he said things to me that made me

feel as I had never done before. He didn't mean it, I know, for it was

all telling me how it was with him, and how, if he were well, he never

could have thought in that way of any one. It just made me feel that

his saying it to me showed----'

'Showed what might have been,' said Lance. 'Yes, it was more than

direct words would have been from any one else.'

'And he kept on mixing in things about you, and what you had been to

him, but I wouldn't see what he was driving at; for, Lance, I must

tell you now it did make me feel to love--love him really--and not be

ashamed; if he thought me worth telling _all that_--and it was so nice

to be able, however it was to end, that I did not want to do anything

else, and I couldn't bear the sound of your name then, though when I

remember that look, and that wish, and see the spray of myrtle, Lance,

I must have had you if you had been--as bad as Rupert Cheviot himself.'

But she actually did lift up her face with a look that allowed him

to bend down and kiss it, as he said, 'See, he only told me to give

it you, _when_--not on those terms. Though you are doubly precious,

because I shall ever feel you to be his gift.'

She had certainly accepted infinitely more than he could have dared to

anticipate from her outset, and now she was perhaps glad of the respite

afforded by reading the letter that he had put into her hand, and which

lasted till again came steps.

'Papa this time,' she whispered, as he opened the door, calling,

'Ethel, here's Tom in a--Hollo, I thought you were in the drawing-room.'

'Don't go,' they cried with one voice, and Gertrude, saying, 'May I? I

must!' put Felix's letter into his hand.

He pushed up his spectacles to read it, but he could not do so

dry-eyed, and Lance turned aside blushing and embarrassed.

'Dear fellow!' he exclaimed. 'Well--that's a pretty good testimonial to

bring in your hand, Lance.'

'You must not believe half of that, sir,' said Lance huskily.

'Eh, Daisy, mus'n't I? And pray what am I to say to Tom about your

shocking behaviour in denying yourself to Mary's brother-in-law? Music

lessons have been dangerous things ever since the gamut of Hortensio.'

'May I? He knows!' was Lance's eager question to Gertrude, as he took

her hand and looked up mutely, but with lustrous eyes, to the Doctor.

'So you have made it right, children. There, then, Lancelot Underwood,

you have got my youngest darling, and I can tell you I never made one

of them over with greater confidence and comfort. If we have spoilt our

most motherless one, you know what that is, and there's good stuff in

her too. Indeed, I never thought so well of the chit before.'

'I'm sure I didn't,' said the chit herself dreamily, causing them both

to smile, and Lance to mutter something inarticulately foolish and

happy, but the clang of the dinner-bell startled them, and they sprang

away to their rooms during the five minutes' law; while Ethel, coming

in from the street, met her father in the hall, smiling unutterable

things. 'No!' she exclaimed. 'You don't mean it! I didn't think she

could so soon!'

'I fancy Lance may thank Tom and his great Rupert for that.'

'He did worry her intolerably! Oh! papa, I trust it is no mistake.'

'I think not, Ethel. Once accepted, the warm living outcome of

affection cannot fail to be infinitely better than the dream she has

been brooding over so long, and as saint-worship it will hurt neither

of them. Ah well! I should have liked the other to be one of us, but

it was not to be. He was the making of our Daisy, and this one is his

equal in all but what age only can give.'

'Ah! I always wished to see Daisy in love,' said Ethel, rather as if

the wish had recoiled upon her.

'What's to be done now? There's the Grange carriage,' exclaimed the

Doctor.

Yes, Flora, George, and Dickie, all had driven in to lunch at the

early dinner, and to face those cheeks whose glow no cold water could

moderate, those eyes that shone strangely under downcast lids.

In fact, Mr. Rivers had been so much pleased by Gertrude's consent to

the Swiss expedition that he had given his wife no peace till she had

come to arrange it. Gertrude was taken aback. 'Oh dear!' she exclaimed,

'I had forgotten all about it.'

'Forgotten!' Poor Mr. Rivers looked at her with all the amazement and

reproach his lustreless black eyes could express.

'I remember now, George,' she faltered, colouring unreasonably; 'it was

very kind.'

'But you promised, Daisy,'

'We will talk it over, George,' said her father, coming to her rescue,

as in her increasing softness she looked down convicted. 'You see, _I_

have not been consulted.'

George took this in earnest, and lumbered into an apology, while Dickie

rather unrestrainedly laughed, and said, 'Grandpapa, when does Aunt

Daisy consult you?'

'When she has made up her mind,' said the Doctor, with a glance at her.

But Daisy would at that moment have been thankful enough to consult

him. True, the sentiment she had felt before had scarcely been love,

so repressed and undeveloped had it been; and the flood of bliss, the

wonderful sense of affection that had mastered her, was something

entirely unlike the slow, measured way in which, even at the first

moment of her half-consent, she had fancied yielding to Lance. In this

one half-hour he had acquired a place with her so entirely independent

of his being Felix's brother, nay, so substantially dearer than Felix

himself, that she was half ashamed of her present self, half shocked at

having called her former feelings by the name of love, and wholly and

foolishly in despair at the notion of a six weeks' tour away from Lance.

Thus Ethel found her, when, on the break up of the dinner, she stole a

few moments of consultation with the two young lovers before following

her father and the Riverses to the drawing-room.

'Oh! Ethel, what shall I do?' Daisy was saying with tears in her eyes.

'Isn't it a judgment on me for ever saying I would go! I only did it

because that Rupert baited me so, and I was so miserable I was ready to

go anywhere out of his way.'

'But is it not a pity you should not go?' said Lance.

'What, you?'

'You know I cannot be much away from Bexley, so it would not make much

difference that way,' he said, blushing; 'and I am afraid you will have

to lead a very humdrum life; so had you not better see a little of the

world?'

'I shall hate it all. Oh! Ethel, get me off! Things like this are acts

of oblivion, you know.'

'I certainly would if it were for your pleasure,' said Ethel,

thoughtfully; 'but you see this is the first thing that has seemed to

do poor George Rivers any good.'

'And,' said Lance, affectionately, 'surely, dearest, it can do our

happiness no harm to try to lend a little of it to others.'

'Ethel!' she cried out, 'I do believe he is going to make me good.

There! I give in; I'll go, and not be more a victim than I can help.'

'Lance,' said Ethel, 'by-the-by, I've never congratulated you. Just

tell me--suppose you were asked to go too, could you?'

He considered a moment, shutting his eyes as the brightened face looked

up to him. 'I don't like to say no,' he answered; 'it is an immense

temptation, but there is nobody to take my place on the spur of the

moment, and at this time of year too. Indeed, if I went now, besides

upsetting everything, it might hinder me from getting a holiday later,

when we might want it more,' he added, crimsoning.

'I see,' said Ethel. 'Do you know, Daisy, I've a great mind to go

instead of you.'

'O you old darling duck of an Ethel! I should as soon have thought of

asking the gate-post. But if you would! Oh! wouldn't I take good care

of Papa.'

'Yes, I think you would, Daisy, and it is my last chance, you see. I

believe I shall do as well for George to lionize.'

'And be a dozen times better for Flora--and write such letters!'

'So here goes.'

'Now, Lancelot, if you don't delight in that Ethel of mine beyond

every other creature--I suppose, for human nature's sake, I must let

Cherry come first, but if I thought you would snub her like Charles,

or patronise her like George, or even be hail fellow well met with her

like Hector, I'd never let you into the family! Now--' as signs of

clearing the dinner became evident--'I'll get my hat: there's no place

to sit in in the house.'

Ethel's proposition was received with rapture.

George and Flora had just been informed by the Doctor how the case

stood. They had been far too much absorbed in their own sorrows to mark

the course of Daisy's feelings, but Flora had seen enough at luncheon

to be prepared for the disclosure. Nobody could like his position,

and she did not pretend to do so; but she saw it was of no use to

expostulate, and abstained from letting her husband perceive, as she

did, how entirely that of a tradesman it was.

'I am sorry it was not Rupert Cheviot,' was all she said, 'and very

sorry not to take Daisy with us; but it is no use to coerce her, even

if one could. She would be no good now.'

So Ethel was the more warmly accepted. Even the Doctor was happier

that Flora should have her sister with her, and liked the notion of a

_tête-à-tête_ with his Daisy ere she was transplanted; and as to Flora,

her gratitude on her own and her husband's account knew no bounds.

'Dear, dear old Ethel!' she said; 'such a life-long sister as you,

bearing with one, and forgiving one through all, is as sweet and

precious a relationship as almost any the world has to give!'

[Footnote 1: To this it had been raised from the original 250_l._

partly by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and partly by Mr. Fulmort's

brother and Miss Charlecote. (_author_)]

CONCLUSION.

'Now for the double wedding!' said Mother Constance, as one September

evening the Reverend Charles Audley entered the Superior's room in the

temporary daughter-house at East Ewmouth.

'What should an old blind Australian know of gay weddings?'

'Don't you know that to hear of mundane festivities is the delight of

convents?'

'The festivities were to no great extent.'

'Of course not, but you must begin at the beginning, for I lost all

knowledge of everybody and thing that had not got small-pox.'

For the malady had been raging in a town at the other end of England,

and the special hospital where she and her staff had done service had

only just closed, and quarantine was over, so that she could return.

'Which is the beginning?'

'Mine are only confused lights since Lance brought his Daisy to see me

on their way to the sands by St. Kitt's Head. What a fresh pleasant

face it is! and with a spice of originality in it, too.'

'Commend me to the elder sister's. Leonard Ward had prepared me for it,

when I met him circulating among the unhappy deported Melanesians in

Queensland. I believe she was the making of him, and a noble work he

is.'

'Come, I can't let you go back to the Antipodes. Miss May was abroad

at that time, and plans were not in the least fixed, only that Lance

should not give up the retail business.'

'No, he said very justly, that if he did so, Mrs. Lamb would never

be contented without her husband doing the same, and that would be

destruction. When I went down to the S.P.G. meeting at Bexley, I saw

a good deal how the land lay, and found that all the neighbours were

quite ready to visit Lance's wife, and she will live at Marshlands in a

very different style from the old times we remember. I am afraid Mrs.

Lamb will be a trial, but she is prepared for that.'

'It was an excellent plan to have the weddings together at

Stoneborough. They could hardly have borne another here.'

'No. There was a proposal that Will and Robina should be married at

Minsterham, but they rather shrank from that, and the De la Poers wrote

urgently to persuade her to have the wedding at Repworth, but she saw

he disliked it, and then Miss May came forward and undertook to manage

it all, "being inured to such affairs," as she put it; but there was

an old promise in an unguarded moment that all their young Ladyships

should be bridesmaids, and they held to it: so Lord and Lady De la Poer

brought a bevy of daughters to the Swan at Stoneborough, and you had

better be prepared, for they are coming to see Vale Leston to-morrow,

and probably will come on here. Nice people, exceedingly fond of

Robina. I never saw such loads of wedding presents. Lady Caergwent

gives a great Russian samovar, labelled for "school feasts."'

'I suppose Fernan--I beg his pardon, Mr. Travis Underwood--did not give

another diamond bouquet.'

'No. The common sense keeping he has got into showed itself in the

choice of all the household plate, just the same, for each of the

couples.'

'And Angela was not there, I know. Our Mother wrote to me that the poor

child was so distressed at the notion of going that as they did not

make a point of it, she thought it better not to send her. I think she

will soon be allowed to become a postulant. It seems evidently the life

she needs. But who were Miss May's bridesmaids?'

'She set her face against any but her sister and Geraldine--would hear

of no one else, though Cherry had always avoided it before. They called

themselves the elderly bridesmaids. What! does the conventual mind

require to know what they wore? Not the same as Robina's, who had white

and blue ribbons; but they were in--what do you call it?--a Frenchified

name for some kind of purple.'

'Mauve?'

'Yes, mauve with white fixings; very becoming to Cherry.'

'Who married them?'

'It was a joint performance of Mr. Wilmot, Richard May, and myself, but

we had a characteristic hitch. They gave my couple the first turn, and

when I held out the book for the ring, my bridegroom began fumbling in

his pocket and reddening up to the roots of his red hair, while poor

Robina's eyes grew rounder and rounder under her veil, and Clement rose

taller and taller behind her, looking as if just cause or impediment

had arisen, and he only wished he had not been commanded to hold his

peace.'

'Did you marry them with the key of the door?'

'Not exactly--Lance's long hand came in between with the ring in his

palm.'

'Only one between the two couples?'

'No, Bill had asked Lance to get both together, and had never claimed

his own. It was a fine incident to tease him about, but he says he has

his memory made fast to him now for ever. After all, Lance gave him the

wrong one, and the brides had to change afterwards.'

'So they were married with each other's rings?'

'Yes, and I don't think they much regret it.'

'Where are they gone?'

'To see little Stella in her glory, and the other two are bound to a

great Rhenish musical festival, and to hear the Freiburg and Lucerne

organs. They went off together in the same railway carriage, and were

only to part in London. The whole affair was as quiet as possible. I

am glad it was at Stoneborough. Dr. May filled the place that neither

Clement nor Harewood could have borne to take.'

'And you have not told me of Cherry or Clement.'

'You will see them to-morrow, and I think you will be satisfied about

Cherry. The wrench last July was dreadful; both she and Clement say

that they could never have made up their minds to it if they had known

the grief it would cause in the village, and the partings they would

undergo, but it has certainly been good for her. She looks well, and

she says that though a little while ago she felt as if she had nothing

to hope or fear, a month of Whittingtonia has shown her enough to

engross a hundred lifetimes.'

'And little Gerald?'

'He walks better, and he is exceedingly happy at Stoneborough. Dickie

May, the Archdeacon's son, you know, a fine fellow of fourteen, is so

kind to him, teaches him to make models, and I fancy has secured that

admiration little boys pay to big ones. They say the poor little fellow

will probably outgrow his weakness and do well in the end, but that he

must be kept at home for a good many years.'

'At which I suppose Cherry cannot repine.'

'No; he is her delight; and with Bernard to give the element of manhood

and spirit, I don't think he will be spoilt, for Clement is sure to

be strict enough. I never saw any one more improved than Bernard,

by-the-by; he is grown into a reasonable being, and as devoted and

attentive to Cherry as they all are. I am sure she is happier even now

than she ever thought to be again! There was as much smile as tear when

she told me that she was coming to see Felix and Theodore to-morrow,

and to admire Wilmet in the Priory. She is carrying on a gleam from the

past sunshine of her life.'

'She is learning to _pleurer son Albert gaîment_,' said Mother

Constance. 'So we must when the pillars of our joy are taken from us

here. And sooner or later we can do so, if we can believe of them that

they have become pillars that shall never be removed, with the new Name

written upon them, in the House of the Lord above.'