XI

Meanwhile, Maryllia cantered home through the woods in complacent

and lively humour. The first few hours of her return to the home of

her forefathers had certainly not been lacking in interest and

excitement. She had heard and granted a village appeal,--she had

stopped an act of vandalism,--she had saved five of the noblest

trees in England,--she had conquered the hearts of several village

yokels,--she had thrust a tyrant out of office,--she had been cursed

by the said tyrant, a circumstance which was, to say the very least

of it, quite new to her experience and almost dramatic,--and,--she

had 'made eyes' at a parson! Surely this was enough adventure for

one morning, especially as it was not yet eight o'clock. The whole

day had yet to come; possibly she might be involved later on in

still more thrilling and sensational episodes,--who could tell! She

carolled a song for pure gaiety of heart, and told the rustling

leaves and opening flowers in very charmingly pronounced French that

"Votre coeur a beau se defendre De s'enflammer,--Le moment vient, il

faut se rendre, Il faut aimer!"

Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, curveted and pranced daintily at every

check imposed on her rein, as became an equine royalty,--she was

conscious of the elastic turf under her hoofs, and glad of the fresh

pure air in her nostrils,--and her mistress shared with her the

sense of freedom and buoyancy which an open country and fair

landscape must naturally inspire in those to whom life is a daily

and abounding vigorous delight, not a mere sickly brooding over the

past, or a morbid anticipation of the future. The woods surrounding

Abbot's Manor were by no means depressing,--they were not dark

silent vistas of solemn pine, leading into deeper and deeper gloom,

but cheery and picturesque clumps of elm and beech and oak, at

constant intervals with hazel-copse, hawthorn and eglantine,--true

English woods, suggestive of delicate romance and poesy, and made

magical by the songs of birds, whose silver-throated melodies are

never heard to sweeter advantage than under the leafy boughs of such

unspoilt green lanes and dells as yet remain to make the charm and

glamour of rural England. Primroses peeped out in smiling clusters

from every mossy nook, and the pale purple of a myriad violets

spread a wave of soft colour among the last year's fallen leaves,

which had served good purpose in keeping the tender buds warm till

Spring should lift them from their earth-cradles into full-grown

blossom. Maryllia's bright eyes, glancing here and there, saw and

noted a thousand beauties at every turn,--the chains of social

convention and ordinance had fallen from her soul, and a joyous

pulse of freedom quickened her blood and sent it dancing through her

veins in currents of new exhilaration and vitality. With her multi-

millionaire aunt, she had lived a life of artificial constraint,

against which, despite its worldly brilliancy, her inmost and best

instincts had always more or less rebelled;--now,--finding herself

alone, as it were, with Mother Nature, she sprang like a child to

that great maternal bosom, and nestled there with a sense of glad

refreshment and peace.

"What dear wildflowers!" she murmured now, as restraining

Cleopatra's coquettish gambols, she rode more slowly along, and

spied the bluebells standing up among tangles of green, making

exquisite contrast with the golden glow of aconites and the fragile

white of wood-anemones,--"They are ever so much prettier than the

hot-house things one gets any day in Paris and London! Big forced

roses,--great lolling, sickly-scented lilies, and orchids--oh dear!

how tired I am of orchids! Every evening a bouquet of orchids for

five weeks--Sundays NOT excepted,--shall I ever forget the

detestable 'rare specimens'!"

A little frown puckered her brow, and for a moment the lines of her

pretty mouth drooped and pouted with a quaintly petulant expression,

like that of a child going to cry.

"It was complete persecution!" she went on, crooning her complaints

to herself and patting Cleopatra's arched neck by way of

accompaniment to her thoughts--"Absolute dodging and spying round

corners after the style of a police detective. I just hate a lover

who makes his love, if it is love, into a kind of whip to flog your

poor soul with! Roxmouth here, Roxmouth there, Roxmouth everywhere!-

-he was just like the water in the Ancient Mariner 'and not a drop

to drink.' At the play, at the Opera, in the picture-galleries, at

the races, at the flower-shows, at all the 'crushes' and big

functions,--in London, in Paris, in New York, in St. Petersburg, in

Vienna,--always 'ce cher Roxmouth'--as Aunt Emily said;--money no

consideration, distance no object,--always 'ce cher Roxmouth,' stiff

as a poker, clean as fresh paint, and apparently as virtuous as an

old maid,--with all his aristocratic family looming behind him, and

a long ancestry of ghosts in the shadow of time, extending away back

to some Saxon 'nobles,' who no doubt were coarse barbarians that ate

more raw meat than was good for them, and had to be carried to bed

dead drunk on mead! It IS so absurd to boast of one's ancestry! If

we could only just see the dreadful men who began all the great

families, we should be perfectly ashamed of them! Most of them tore

up their food with their fingers. Now we Vancourts are supposed to

be descended from a warrior bold, named Robert Priaulx de

Vaignecourt, who fought in the Crusades. Poor Uncle Fred used to be

so proud of that! He was always talking about it, especially when we

were in America. He liked to try and make the Pilgrim-Father-

families jealous. Just as he used to boast that if he had only been

born three minutes before my father, instead of three minutes after,

he would have been the owner of Abbot's Manor. That three minutes'

delay and consideration he took about coming into the world made him

the youngest twin, and cut off his chances. And he told me that

Robert the Crusader had a brother named Osmond, who was believed to

have founded a monastery somewhere in this neighbourhood, and who

died, so the story goes, during a pilgrimage to the Holy Land,

though there's no authentic trace left of either Osmond or Robert

anywhere. They might, of course, have been very decent and agreeable

men,--but it's rather doubtful. If Osmond went on a pilgrimage he

would never have washed himself, to begin with,--it would have

destroyed his sanctity. And as for Robert the warrior bold, he would

have been dreadfully fierce and hairy,--and I'm quite sure I could

not possibly have asked him to dinner!"

She laughed at her own fancies, and guided her mare under a drooping

canopy of early-flowering wild acacia, just for the sheer pleasure

of springing lightly up in her saddle to pull off a tuft of scented

white blossom.

"The fact is," she continued half aloud, "there's nobody I can ask

to dinner even now as it is. Not down here. The local descriptions

of Sir Morton Pippitt do not tempt me to make his acquaintance, and

as for the parson I met just now,-why he would be impossible!--

simply impossible!" she repeated with emphasis--" I can see exactly

what he's like at a glance. One of those cold, quiet, clever men who

'quiz' women and never admire them,--I know the kind of horrid

University creature! A sort of superior, touch-me-not-person who can

barely tolerate a woman's presence in the room, and in his heart of

hearts relegates the female sex generally to the lowest class of the

animal creation. I can read it all in his face. He's rather good-

looking--not very,--his hair curls quite nicely, but it's getting

grey, and so is his moustache,--he must be at least fifty, I should

think. He has a good figure--for a clergyman;--and his eyes--no, I'm

not sure that I like his eyes--I believe they're deceitful. I must

look at them again before I make up my mind. But I know he's just as

conceited and disagreeable as most parsons--he probably thinks that

he helps to turn this world and the next round on his little

finger,--and I daresay he tells the poor village folk here that if

they don't obey him, they'll go to hell, and if they do, they'll fly

straight to heaven and put on golden crowns at once. Dear me! What a

ridiculous state of things! Fancy the dear old man in the smock who

came to see me last night, with a pair of wings and a crown!"

Laughing again, she flicked Cleopatra's neck with the reins, and

started off at an easy swinging gallop, turning out of the woods

into the carriage drive, and never checking her pace till she

reached the house.

All that day she gave marked evidence that her reign as mistress of

Abbot's Manor had begun in earnest. Changing her riding dress for a

sober little tailor-made frock of home-spun, she flitted busily over

the old house of her ancestors, visiting it in every part, peering

into shadowy corners, opening antique presses and cupboards, finding

out the secret of sliding panels in the Jacobean oak that covered

the walls, and leaving no room unsearched. The apartment in which

her father's body had lain in its coffin was solemnly unlocked and

disclosed to her view under the title of 'the Ghost Room,'--whereat

she was sorrowfully indignant,--so much so indeed that Mrs. Spruce

shivered in her shoes, pricked by the sting of a guilty conscience,

for, if the truth be told, it was to Mrs. Spruce's own too-talkative

tongue that this offending name owed its origin. Quietly entering

the peaceful chamber with its harmless and almost holy air of

beautiful, darkened calm, Maryllia drew up the blinds, threw back

the curtains, and opened the latticed windows wide, admitting a

flood of sunshine and sweet air.

"It must never be called 'the Ghost Room' again,"--she said, with a

reproachful gravity, which greatly disconcerted and overawed Mrs.

Spruce--"otherwise it will have an evil reputation which it does not

deserve. There is nothing ghostly or terrifying about it. It is a

sacred room,--sacred to the memory of one of the dearest and best of

men! It is wrong to let such a room be considered as haunted,--I

shall sleep in it myself sometimes,--and I shall make it bright and

pretty for visitors when they come. I would put a little child to

sleep in it,--for my father was a good man, and nothing evil can

ever be associated with him. Death is only dreadful to the ignorant

and the wicked."

Mrs. Spruce wisely held her peace, and dutifully followed her new

mistress to the morning-room, where she had to undergo what might be

called quite a stiff examination regarding all the household and

housekeeping matters. Armed with a fascinating little velvet-bound

notebook and pencil, Maryllia put down all the names of the

different servants, both indoor and outdoor (making a small private

mark of her own against those who had served her father in any

capacity, and those who were just new to the place), together with

the amount of wages due every month to each,--she counted over all

the fine house linen, much of which had been purchased for her

mother's home-coming and had never been used;--she examined with all

a connoisseur's admiration the almost priceless old china with which

the Manor shelves, dressers and cupboards were crowded,--and finally

after luncheon and an hour's deep cogitation by herself in the

library, she wrote out in a round clerkly hand certain 'rules and

regulations,' for the daily routine of her household, and handed the

document to Mrs. Spruce,--much to that estimable dame's perturbation

and astonishment.

"These are my hours, Spruce," she said--"And it will of course be

your business to see that the work is done punctually and with

proper method. There must be no waste or extravagance,--and you will

bring me all the accounts every week, as I won't have bills running

up longer than that period. I shall leave all the ordering in of

provisions to you,--if it ever happens that you send something to

table which I don't like, I will tell you, and the mistake need not

occur again. Now is there anything else?"--and she paused

meditatively, finger on lip, knitting her brows--"You see I've never

done any housekeeping, but I've always had notions as to how I

should do it if I ever got the chance to try, and I'm just

beginning. I believe in method,--and I like everything that HAS a

place to be in IN its place, and everything that HAS a time, to come

up to its time. It saves ever so much worry and trouble! Now let me

think!--oh yes!--I knew there was another matter. Please let the

gardeners and outdoor men generally know that if they want to speak

to me, they can always see me from ten to half-past every morning.

And, by the way, Spruce, tell the maids to go about their work

quietly,--there is nothing more objectionable than a noise and fuss

in the house just because a room is being swept and turned out. I

simply hate it! In the event of any quarrels or complaints, please

refer them to me--and--and--" Here she paused again with a smile--

"Yes! I think that's all--for the present! I haven't yet gone

through the library or the picture-gallery;--however those rooms

have nothing to do with the ordinary daily housekeeping,--if I find

anything wanting to be done there, I'll send for you again. But

that's about all now!"

Poor Mrs. Spruce curtseyed deferentially and tremulously. She was

not going to have it all her own way as she had fondly imagined when

she first saw the apparently child-like personality of her new lady.

The child-like personality was merely the rose-flesh covering of a

somewhat determined character.

"And anything I can do for you, Spruce, or for your husband,"

continued Maryllia, dropping her business-like tone for one of as

coaxing a sweetness as ever Shakespeare's Juliet practised for the

persuasion of her too tardy Nurse--"will be done with ever so much

pleasure! You know that, don't you?" And she laid her pretty little

hands on the worthy woman's portly shoulders--"You shall go out

whenever you like--after work, of course!--duty first, pleasure

second!--and you shall even grumble, if you feel like it,--and have

your little naps when the midday meal is done with,--Aunt Emily's

housekeeper in London used to have them, and she snored dreadfully!

the second footman--QUITE a nice lad--used to tickle her nose with a

straw! But I can't afford to keep a second footman--one is quite

enough,--or a coachman, or a carriage;--besides, I would always

rather ride than drive,--and my groom, Bennett, will only want a

stable-boy to help him with Cleo and Daffodil. So I hope there'll be

no one downstairs to tease you, Spruce dear, by tickling YOUR nose

with a straw! Primmins looks much too staid and respectable to think

of such a thing."

She laughed merrily,--and Mrs. Spruce for the life of her could not

help laughing too. The picture of Primmins condescending to indulge

in a game of 'nose and straw' was too grotesque to be considered

with gravity.

"Well I never, Miss!" she ejaculated--"You do put things that

funny!"

"Do I? I'm so glad!" said Maryllia demurely--"it's nice to be funny

to other people, even if you're not funny to yourself! But I want

you to understand from the first, Spruce, that everyone must feel

happy and contented in my household. So if anything goes wrong, you

must tell me, and I will try and set it right. Now I'm going for an

hour's walk with Plato, and when I come in, and have had my tea,

I'll visit the picture-gallery. I know all about it,--Uncle Fred

told me,"--she paused, and her eyes darkened with a wistful and

deepening gravity,--then she added gently--"I shall not want you

there, Spruce,--I must be quite alone."

Mrs. Spruce again curtseyed humbly, and was about to withdraw, when

Maryllia called her back.

"What about the clergyman here, Mr. Walden?"--she asked--"Is he a

nice man?--kind to the village people, I mean, and good to the

poor?"

Mrs. Spruce gave a kind of ecstatic gasp, folded her fat hands

tightly together in front of her voluminous apron, and launched

forth straightway on her favourite theme.

"Mr. Walden is jest one of the finest men God ever made, Miss," she

said, with solemnity and unction--"You may take my word for it! He's

that good, that as we often sez, if m'appen there ain't no saint in

the Sarky an' nowt but dust, we've got a real live saint walkin'

free among us as is far more 'spectable to look at in his plain coat

an' trousers than they monks an' friars in the picter-books wi'

ropes around their waistses an' bald crowns, which ain't no sign to

me o' bein' full o' grace, but rather loss of 'air,--an' which you

will presently see yourself, Miss, as 'ow Mr. Walden's done the

church beautiful, like a dream, as all the visitors sez, which there

isn't its like in all England--an' he's jest a father to the village

an' friends with every man, woman, an' child in it, an' grudges

nothink to 'elp in cases deservin', an' works like a nigger, he do,

for the school, which if he'd 'ad a wife it might a' been better an'

it might a' been worse, the Lord only knows, for no woman would a'

come up 'ere an' stood that patient watchin' me an' my work, an' I

tell you truly, Miss Maryllia, that when your boxes came an' I had

to unpack 'em an' sort the clothes in 'em, I sent for Passon Walden

jest to show 'im that I felt my 'sponsibility, an' he sez, sez he:

'You go on doin' your duty, Missis Spruce, an' your lady will be all

right'--an' though I begged 'im to stop, he wouldn't while I was a-

shakin' out your dresses with Nancy--"

Here she was interrupted by a ringing peal of laughter from

Maryllia, who, running up to her, put a little hand on her mouth.

"Stop, stop, Spruce!" she exclaimed--"Oh dear, oh dear I Do you

think I can understand all this? Did you show the parson my clothes-

-actually? You did!" For Mrs. Spruce nodded violently in the

affirmative. "Good gracious! What a perfectly dreadful thing to do!"

And she laughed again. "And what is the saint in the Sarky?" Here

she removed her hand from the mouth she was guarding. "Say it in one

word, if you can,--what is the Sarky?"

"It's in the church,"--said Mrs. Spruce, dauntlessly proceeding with

her flow of narrative, and encouraged thereto by the sparkling mirth

in her mistress's face--"We calls it Sarky for short. Josey

Letherbarrow, what reads, an' 'as larnin', calls it the Sarky Fagus,

an' my Kitty, she's studied at the school, an' SHE sez 'it's Sar-KO-

fagus, mother,' which it may be or it mayn't, for the schools don't

know more than the public-'ouses in my opinion,--leastways it's a

great long white coffin what's supposed to 'ave the body of a saint

inside it, an' Mr. Walden he discovered it when he was rebuildin'

the church, an' when the Bishop come to conskrate it, he sez 'twas a

saint in there an' that's why the village is called St. Rest--but

you'll find it all out yourself. Miss, an' as I sez an' I don't care

who 'ears me, the real saint ain't in the Sarky at all,--it's just

Mr. Walden himself,--"

Again Maryllia's hand closed her mouth.

"You really must stop, Spruce! You are the dearest old gabbler

possible--but you must stop! You'll have no breath left--and I shall

have no patience! I've heard quite enough. I met Mr. Walden this

morning, and I'm sure he isn't a saint at all! He's a very ordinary

person indeed,--most ordinary--not in the very least remarkable.

I'm. glad he's good to the people, and that they like him--that's

really all that's necessary, and it's all I want to know. Go along,

Spruce!--don't talk to me any more about saints in the Sarky or out

of the Sarky! There never was a real saint in the world--never!--not

in the shape of a man!"

With laughter still dancing in her eyes, she turned away, and Mrs.

Spruce, in full possession of restored nerve and vivacity, bustled

off on her round of household duty, the temporary awe she had felt

concerning the new written code of domestic 'Rules and Regulations'

having somewhat subsided under the influence of her mistress's gay

good-humour. And Maryllia herself, putting on her hat, called Plato

to her side, and started off for the village, resolved to make the

church her first object of interest, in order to see the wondrous

'Sarky.'

"I never was so much entertained in my life!" she declared to

herself, as she walked lightly along,--her huge dog bounding in

front of her and anon returning to kiss her hand and announce by

deep joyous barks his delight at finding himself at liberty in the

open country--"Spruce is a perfect comedy in herself,--ever so much

better than a stage play! And then the quaint funny men who came to

see me last night,--and those village boys this morning! And the

'saintly' parson! I'm sure he'll turn out to be comic too,--in a

way--he'll be the 'heavy father' of the piece! Really I never

imagined I should have so much fun!"

Here, spying a delicate pinnacle gleaming through the trees, she

rightly concluded that it belonged to the church she intended to

visit, and finding a footpath leading across the fields, she

followed it. It was the same path which Walden had for so many years

been accustomed to take in his constant walks to and from the Manor.

It soon brought her to the highroad which ran through the village,

and across this it was but a few steps to the gate of the

churchyard. Laying one hand on her dog's neck, she checked the great

creature's gambols and compelled him to walk sedately by her side,

as with hushed footsteps she entered the 'Sleepy Hollow' of death's

long repose, and went straight up to the church door which, as

usual, stood open.

"Stay here, Plato!" she whispered to her four-footed comrade, who,

understanding the mandate, lay down at once submissively in the

porch to wait her pleasure.

Entering the sacred shrine she stood still,--awed by its exquisite

beauty and impressive simplicity. The deep silence, the glamour of

the soft vari-coloured light that flowed through the lancet windows

on either side,--the open purity of the nave, without any

disfiguring pews or fixed seats to mar its clear space,--(for the

chairs which were used at service were all packed away in a remote

corner out of sight)--the fair, slender columns, springing up into

flowering capitals, like the stems of palms breaking into leaf-

coronals,--the dignified plainness of the altar, with that strange

white sarcophagus set in front of it,--all these taken together,

composed a picture of sweet sanctity and calm unlike anything she

had ever seen before. Her emotional nature responded to the

beautiful in all things, and this small perfectly designed House of

Prayer, with its unknown saintly occupant at rest within its walls,

touched her almost to tears. Stepping on tip-toe up to the altar-

rails, she instinctively dropped on her knees, while she read all

that could be seen of the worn inscription on the sarcophagus from

that side-'In Resurrectione--Sanctorum--Resurget.' The atmosphere

around her seemed surcharged with mystical suggestions,--a vague

poetic sense of the super-human and divine moved her to a faint

touch of fear, and made her heart beat more quickly than its wont.

"It is lovely--lovely!" she murmured under her breath, as she rose

from her kneeling attitude--"The whole church is a perfect gem of

architecture! I have never seen anything more beautiful in its way,-

-not even the Chapel of the Thorn at Pisa. And according to Mrs.

Spruce's account, the man I met this morning--the quizzical parson

with the grey-brown curly-locks, did it all at his own expense--he

must really be quite clever,--such an unusual thing for a country

clergyman!"

She took another observant survey of the whole building, and then

went out again into the churchyard. There she paused, her dog beside

her, shading her eyes from the sun as she looked wistfully from

right to left across the sadly suggestive little hillocks of mossy

turf besprinkled with daisies, in search of an object which was as a

landmark of disaster in her life.

She saw it at last, and moved slowly towards it,--a plain white

marble cross, rising from a smooth grassy eminence, where a rambling

rose, carefully and even artistically trained, was just beginning to

show pale creamy buds among its glossy dark green leaves. Great

tears rose to her eyes and fell unheeded, as she read the brief

inscription--'Sacred to the Memory of Robert Vancourt of Abbot's

Manor,' this being followed by the usual dates of birth and death,

and the one word 'Resting.' With tender touch Maryllia gathered one

leaf from the climbing rose foliage, and kissing it amid her tears,

turned away, unable to bear the thoughts and memories which began to

crowd thickly upon her. Almost she seemed to hear her father's deep

mellow voice which had been the music of her childhood, playfully

saying as was so often his wont:--"Well, my little girl! How goes

the world with you?" Alas, the world had gone very ill with her for

a long, long time after his death! Hers was too loving and

passionately clinging a nature to find easy consolation for such a

loss. Her uncle Frederick, though indulgent to her and always kind,

had never filled her father's place,--her uncle Frederick's American

wife, had, in spite of much conscientious tutelage and chaperonage,

altogether failed to win her affection or sympathy. The sorrowful

sense that she was an orphan, all alone as it were with herself to

face the mystery of life, never deserted her,--and it was perhaps in

the most brilliant centres of society that this consciousness of

isolation chiefly weighed upon her. She saw other girls around her

with their fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters,--but she--she,

by the very act of being born had caused her mother's death,--and

she well knew that her father's heart, quietly as he had endured his

grief to all outward appearances, had never healed of that agonising

wound.

"I think I should never have come into the world at all,"--she said

to herself with a sigh, as she returned over the fields to the

Manor--"I am no use to anybody,--I never have been of any use! Aunt

Emily says all I have to do to show my sense of proper feeling and

gratitude to her for her care of me is to marry--and marry well--

marry Lord Roxmouth, in short--he will be a duke when his father

dies, and Aunt Emily would like to have the satisfaction of leaving

her millions to enrich an English dukedom. Nothing could commend

itself more favourably to her ideas--only it just happens my ideas

won't fit in the same groove. Oh dear! Why can't I be 'amenable' and

become a future duchess, and 'build up' the fortunes of a great

family? I don't know I'm sure,--except that I don't feel like it!

Great families don't appeal to me. I shouldn't care if there were

none left. They are never interesting at the best of times,--perhaps

out of several of them may come one clever man or woman,--and all

the rest will be utter noodles. It isn't worth while to marry

Roxmouth on such dubious grounds of possibility!"

Entering the Manor, she was conscious of some fatigue and

listlessness,--a touch of depression weighed down her naturally

bright spirits. She exchanged her home-spun walking dress for a tea-

gown, and descended somewhat languidly to the morning-room where tea

was served with more ceremoniousness than on the previous day,

Primmins having taken command, with the assistance of the footman.

Both men-servants stole respectful glances at their mistress, as she

sat pensively alone at the open window, looking out on the verdant

landscape that spread away from the terrace, in undulations of lawn,

foliage and field to the last border of trees that closed in Abbot's

Manor grounds from the public highway. Both would have said had they

been asked, that she was much too pretty and delicate to be all

alone in the great old house, with no companion of her own age to

exchange ideas with by speech or glance,--and, with that masculine

self-assurance which is common to all the lords of creation, whether

they be emperors or household domestics, they would have opined that

'she ought to be married.' In which they would have entirely agreed

with Maryllia's 'dragon' Aunt Emily. But Maryllia's own mind was far

from being set on such themes as love and marriage. Her meditations

were melancholy, and not unmixed with self-reproach. She blamed

herself for having stayed away so long from her childhood's home,

and her father's grave.

"I might have visited it at least once a year!" she thought with

sharp compunction--"I never really forgot,--why did I seem to

forget?"

The sun was sinking slowly in a glory of crimson and amber cloud,

when, having resolved upon what she was going to do, she entered the

picture-gallery. Softly she trod the polished floor,--with keen

quick instinct and appreciative eyes, she noted the fine Vandyke

portraits,--the exquisite Greuze that shone out, star-like, from a

dark corner of the panelled walls,--and walking with measured pace

she went straight up to the picture of 'Mary Elia Adelgisa de

Vaignecourt'--and gazed at it with friendly and familiar eyes.

"I know YOU quite well!"--she said, addressing the painted beauty--

"I have often dreamed about you since I left home! I always admired

you and wanted to be like you. I remember when I must have been

about seven or eight years old, I ran in from a game in the garden

one summer's afternoon, and I knelt down in front of you and I said:

'Pray God make little Maryllia as pretty as big Mary Elia!' And I

think,--I really do think--though of course I'm not half or quarter

as pretty, I'm just a little like you! Just a very, very little! For

instance my hair is the same colour--almost--and my eyes--no! I'm

sure I haven't such beautiful eyes as yours--I wish I had!"

Her lovely ancestress appeared to smile,--if she could have spoken

from the canvas that held her painted image she might have said:--

"You have eyes that mirror the sunshine,--you have life, and I am

dead,--your day is still with you--mine is done! For me love and the

world's delight are ended,--and whither my phantom fairness has

fled, who knows! But you are a vital breathing essence of beauty--be

glad and rejoice in it while you may!"

Some thought of this kind would have suggested itself to an

imaginative beholder had such an one stood by to compare the picture

with its almost twin living copy. Maryllia however had a very small

stock of vanity,--she was only pleasantly aware that she possessed a

certain grace and fascination not common to the ordinary of her sex,

but beyond that, she rated her personal charms at very slight value.

The portrait of Mary Elia Adelgisa made her more seriously

discontented with herself than ever,--and after closely studying the

picturesque make of the violet velvet riding-dress which the fair

one of Charles the Second's day had worn, and deciding that she

would have one 'created' for her own adornment exactly like it, she

turned towards the other end of the gallery. There hung that

preciously guarded mysterious portrait of her dead mother, which she

herself had never gazed upon, covered close with its dark green

baize curtain,--a curtain no hand save her father's had ever dared

to raise. She remembered how often he had used to enter here all

alone and lock the doors, remaining thus in sorrow and solitude many

hours. She recalled her own childish fears when, by chance running

in to look at the pictures for her own entertainment, or to play

with her ball on a rainy day for the convenience of space and a

lofty ceiling, she was suddenly checked and held in awe by the sight

of that great gilded frame enshrining the, to her, unknown

presentment of a veiled Personality. Her father alone was familiar

with the face hidden behind that covering which he had put up with

his own hands,--fastening it by means of a spring pulley, which in

its turn was secured to the wall by lock and key. Ever since his

death Maryllia had worn that key on a gold chain hidden in her

bosom, and she drew it out now with a beating heart and many

tremours of hesitation. The trailing folds of her pretty tea-gown,

all of the filmiest old lace and ivory-hued cashmere, seemed to make

an obtrusive noise as they softly swept the floor,--she felt almost

as though she were about to commit a sacrilege and break open a

shrine,--yet--

"I must see her!" she said, whisperingly--"I shall not offend her

memory. I have never done anything very wrong in my life,--if I had,

I should have reason to be afraid--or ashamed,--and then of course

wouldn't dare to look at her. I have often been silly and frivolous

and thoughtless,--but never spiteful or malicious, or really wicked.

I could meet my father if he were here, just as frankly as if I were

still a little girl,--and I think he would wish me to see his

Dearest now! His Dearest! He always called her that!"

With the breath coming and going quickly through her parted lips,

she stepped slowly and timidly up to that corner in the wall behind

the picture, where the fastenings of the spring pulley were

concealed, and fitted the key into the padlock which guarded it. The

light of the setting sun threw a flame of glory aslant through the

windows, and filled the gallery with a warm rush of living colour

and radiance; and as she removed the padlock, and came to the front

of the picture to pull the curtain-cord, she stood, unconsciously to

herself, in a pure halo of gold, which intensified the brown and

amber shades of her hair and the creamy folds of her gown, so that

she resembled 'an angel newly drest, save wings, for heaven,' such

as one may see delineated on the illuminated page of some antique

missal. Her hand trembled, as at the first touch on the pulley the

curtain began to move,--inch by inch it ascended, showing pale

glimmerings of white and rose,--still higher it moved, giving to the

light a woman's beautiful hand, so delicately painted as to seem

almost living. The hand held a letter, and plainly on the half

unfolded scroll could be read the words:

"Thine till death, ROBERT VANCOURT."

Another touch, and the whole covering rolled up swiftly to its full

height,--while Maryllia breathless with excitement and interest

gazed with all her soul in her eyes at the exquisite, dreamy, poetic

loveliness of the face disclosed. All the beauty of girlhood with

the tenderness of womanhood,--all the visions of young romance,

united to the fulfilled passion of the heart,--all the budding

happiness of a radiant life,-all the promise of a perfect love;--

these were faithfully reflected in the purely moulded features, the

dark blue caressing eyes, and the sweet mouth, which to Maryllia's

fervid imagination appeared to tremble plaintively with a sigh of

longing for the joy of life that had been snatched away so soon.

Arrayed in simplest white, with a rose at her breast, and her

husband's letter clasped in her hand, the fair form of the young

bride that never came home gathered from the sunset-radiance an

aspect of life, and seemed to float forth from the dark canvas like

a holy spirit of beauty and blessing. Shadow and Substance--dead

mother and living child--these twain gazed on each other through

cloud-veils of impenetrable mystery,--nor is it impossible to

conceive that some intangible contact between them might, through

the transference of a thought, a longing, a prayer, have been

realised at that mystic moment. With a sudden cry of irresistible

emotion Maryllia stretched out her arms, and dropping on her knees,

broke out into a passion of tears.

"Oh mother, mother!" she sobbed--"Oh darling mother! I would have

loved you!"