XV

On the following Monday afternoon Cicely Bourne, to whom Walden had

so successfully telegraphed Maryllia's commands, arrived. She was

rather an odd-looking young person. Her long thin legs were much too

long for the shortness of her black cashmere frock, which was made

'en demoiselle,' after the fashion adhered to in French convents,

where girls are compelled to look as ugly as possible, in order that

they may eschew the sin of personal vanity,--her hair, of a rich

raven black, was plaited in a stiff thick braid resembling a Chinese

pigtail, and was fastened at the end with a bow of ribbon,--and a

pair of wonderfully brilliant dark eyes flashed under her arching

brows, suggesting something weird and witchlike in their roving

glances, and giving an almost uncanny expression to her small,

sallow face. But she was full of the most exuberant vitality,--she

sparkled all over with it and seemed to exhale it in the mere act of

breathing. Brimful of delight at the prospect of spending the whole

summer with her friend and patroness, to whom she owed everything,

and whom she adored with passionate admiration and gratitude, she

dashed into the old-world silence and solitude of Abbot's Manor like

a wild wave of the sea, crested with sunshine and bubbling over with

ripples of mirth. Her incessant chatter and laughter awoke the long-

hushed echoes of the ancient house to responsive gaiety,--and every

pale lingering shadow of dullness or loneliness fled away from the

exhilarating effect of her presence, which acted at once as a

stimulant and charm to Maryllia, who welcomed her arrival with

affectionate enthusiasm.

"But oh, my dear!" she exclaimed--"What a little school-guy they

have made of you! You must have grown taller, surely, since November

when I saw you last? Your frock is ever so much too short!"

"I don't think I've grown a bit,"--said Cicely, glancing down at her

own legs disparagingly--"But my frock wore shabby at the bottom, and

the nuns had a fresh hem turned up all round. That reduced its

length by a couple of inches at least. I told them as modestly as I

could that my ankles were too vastily exposed, but they said it

didn't matter, as I was only a day-boarder."

Maryllia's eyebrows went up perplexedly.

"I don't see what that has to do with it,"--she said--"Would you

have preferred to live in the Convent altogether, dear?"

"Grand merci!" and Cicely made an expressive grimace--"Not I! I

should not have had half as many lessons from Gigue, and I should

never have been able to write to you without the Mere Superieure

spying into my letters. That's why none of the girls are allowed to

have sealing wax, because all their letters are ungummed over a

basin of hot water and read before going to post. Discipline,

discipline! Torquemada's Inquisition was nothing to it! Of course I

had to tell the Mere Superieure that you had sent for me, and that I

should be away all summer. She asked heaps of questions, but she got

nothing out of me, so of course she wrote to your aunt. But that

doesn't matter, does it?"

"Not in the least,"--answered Maryllia, decisively,--"My aunt has

nothing whatever to do with me now, nor I with her. I am my own

mistress."

"And it becomes you amazingly!" declared Cicely--"I never saw you

looking prettier! You are just the sweetest thing that ever fell out

of heaven in human shape! Oh, Maryllia, what a lovely, lovely place

this is! And is it all yours?--your very, very own?"

"My very, very own!" and Maryllia, in replying to the question, felt

a thrill of legitimate pride in the beautiful old Tudor house of her

ancestors,--"I wish I had never been taken away from it! The more I

see of it, the more I feel I ought not to have left it so long."

"It is real home, sweet home!" said Cicely, and her great eyes grew

suddenly sad and wistful, as she slipped a caressing arm round her

friend's waist--"How grateful I am to you for asking me to come and

stay in it! Because, after all, I am only a poor little peasant,--

with a musical faculty!"

Maryllia kissed her affectionately.

"You are a genius, my dear!" she said--"There's is no higher

supremacy. What does Gigue say of you now?"

"Gigue is satisfied, I think. But I don't really know. He says I'm

too precocious--that my voice is a woman's before I'm a girl. It's

abnormal--and I'm abnormal too. I know I am,--and I know it's

horrid--but I can't help it! Whers'a the piano?"

"There isn't one in the house," said Maryllia, smiling; "Abbot's

Manor has always lived about a hundred and fifty years behind the

times. But I've sent for a boudoir grand--it will be here this week.

Meanwhile, won't this do?" and she pointed to a quaint little

instrument occupying a recess near the window--"It's a spinet of

Charles the Second's period---"

"Delightful!" cried Cicely, ecstatically--"There's nothing sweeter

in the whole world to sing to!"

Opening the painted lid with the greatest tenderness and care, she

passed her hands lightly over the spinet's worn and yellow ivory

keys and evoked a faint fairy-like tinkling.

"Listen! Isn't it like the wandering voice of some little ghost of

the past trying to speak to us?" she said--"And in such sweet tune,

too! Poor little ghost! Shall I sing to you? Shall I tell you that

we have a sympathy in common with you, even though you are so old

and so far, far away!"

Her lips parted, and a pure note, crystal clear, and of such silvery

softness as to seem more supernatural than human, floated upward on

the silence. Maryllia caught her breath, and listened with a quickly

beating heart,--she knew that the voice of this child whom she had

rescued from a life of misery, was a world's marvel.

"Le douce printemps fait naitre,--

Autant d'amours que de fleurs;

Tremblez, tremblez, jeunes coeurs!

Des qu'il commence a paraitre

Il faut cesser les froideurs."

Here with a sudden brilliant roulade the singer ran up the scale to

the C in alt, and there paused with a trill as delicious and full as

the warble of a nightingale.

"Mais ce qu'il a de douceurs

Vous coutera cher peut-etre!

Tremblez, tremblez jeunes coeurs,

Le douce printemps fait naitre,

Autant d'amours que de fleurs!"

She ceased. The air, broken into delicate vibrations, carried the

lovely sounds rhythmically outward, onward and into unechoing

distance.

She turned and looked at Maryllia--then smiled.

"I see you are pleased,"--she said.

"Pleased! Cicely, I don't believe anyone was ever born into the

world to sing as you sing!"

Cicely looked quaintly meditative.

"Well, I don't know about that! You see there have been several

millions of folks born into the world, and there may have been just

one naturally created singer among them!" She laughed, and touched a

chord on the spinet. "The old French song exactly suits this old

French instrument. I see it is an ancient thing of Paris. Gigue says

I have improved--but he will never admit much, as you know. He has

forbidden me to touch the C in alt, and I did it just now. I cannot

help it sometimes--it comes so easy. But you must scold me, Maryllia

darling, when you hear me taking it,--I don't want to strain the

vocal cords, and I always forget I'm only fourteen; I feel--oh! ever

so much older!--ages old, in fact!" She sighed, and stretched her

arms up above her head. "What a perfect room this is to sing in!

What a perfect house!--and what a perfect angel you are to have me

with you!"

Her eyes filled with sudden tears of emotion, but she quickly

blinked them away.

"Et ce cher Roxmouth?" she queried, suddenly, glancing

appreciatively at the rippling gold-brown lights and shades of her

friend's hair, the delicate hues of her complexion, and the grace of

her form--"Has he been to see you in this idyllic retreat?"

Maryllia gave a slight gesture of wearied impatience.

"Certainly not! How can you ask such a question, Cicely! I left my

aunt on purpose to get rid of him once and for all. And he knows

it;--yet he has written to me every two days regularly since I came

here!"

"Helas!--ce cher Roxmouth!" murmured Cicely, with a languid gesture

imitative of the 'society manner' of Mrs. Fred Vancourt,--"Parfait

gentilhomme au bout des ongles!"

Maryllia laughed.

"Yes,--Aunt Emily all over!" she said--"How tired I am of that

phrase! She knows as well as anybody that Roxmouth, for all his airs

of aristocratic propriety, is a social villain of the lowest type of

modern decadence, yet she would rather see me married to him than to

any other man she has ever met. And why? Simply because he will be a

Duke! She would like to say to all her acquaintances--'My niece is a

Duchess.' She would feel a certain fantastic satisfaction in

thinking that her millions were being used to build up the decayed

fortunes of an English nobleman's family, as well as to 'restore'

Roxmouth Castle, which is in a bad state of repair. And she would

sacrifice my heart and soul and life to such trumpery ambitions as

these!"

"Trumpery ambitions!" echoed Cicely--"My dear, they are ambitions

for which nearly all women are willing to scramble, fight and die!

To be a Duchess! To dwell in an ancient 'restored' castle of once

proud English nobles! Saint Moses! Who wouldn't sacrifice such vague

matters as heart, life and soul for the glory of being called 'Your

Grace' by obsequious footmen! My unconventional Maryllia! You are

setting yourself in rank, heretical opposition to the

conventionalities of society, and won't all the little conventional

minds hate you for it!"

"It doesn't matter if they do,"--rejoined Maryllia--"I have never

been loved since my father's death,--so I don't mind being hated."

"_I_ love you!" said Cicely, with swift ardour--"Don't say you have

never been loved!"

Maryllia caught her hand tenderly and kissed it.

"I was not thinking of you, dear!" she said--"Forgive me! I was

thinking of men. They have admired me and flirted with me,--many of

them have wanted to marry me, in order to get hold of Aunt Emily's

fortune with me,--but none of them have ever loved me. Cicely,

Cicely, I want to be loved!"

"So do I!" said Cicely, with answering light in her eyes--"But I

don't see how it's going to be done in my case! You may possibly get

your wish, but I!--why, my dear, I see myself in futur-oe as a

'prima donna assoluta' perhaps, with several painted and padded

bassi and tenori making sham love to me in opera till I get

perfectly sick of cuore and amore, and cry out for something else by

way of a change! I am quite positive that love,--love such as we

read of in poetry and romance, doesn't really exist! And I have

another fixed opinion--which is, that the people who write most

about it have never felt it. One always expresses best, even in a

song, the emotions one has never experienced."

Maryllia looked at her in a little wonder.

"Do you really think that?"

"I do! It's not one of Gigue's sayings, though I know I often echo

Gigue!"

She went to the window. "How lovely the garden is! Come out on the

lawn, Maryllia, and let us talk!" And as they sauntered across the

grass together with arms round each other's waists, she chattered

on--"People who write books and music are generally lonely,--and

they write best about love because they need it. They fancy it must

be much better than it is. But, after all, the grandest things go

unloved. Look at the sky, how clear it is and pure. Is it loved by

any other sky that we know of? And the sun up there, all alone in

its splendour,--I wonder if any other sun loves it? There are so

many lonely things in the universe! And it seems to me that the

loneliest are always the loveliest and grandest. It is only stupid

ephemera that are gregarious. Worms crawl along in masses,--mites

swarm in a cheese--flies stick in crowds on jam--and brainless

people shut themselves up all together within the walls of a city.

I'd rather be an eagle than a sparrow,--a star than one of a

thousand bonfire sparks,--and as a mere woman, I would rather ten

thousand times live a solitary life by myself till I die, than be

married to a rascal or a fool!"

"Exactly my sentiments,"--said Maryllia--"Only you put them more

poetically than I can. Do you know, Cicely, you talk very oddly

sometimes?--very much in advance of your age, I mean?"

"Do I?" And Cicely's tone expressed a mingling of surprise and

penitence--"I didn't know it. But I suppose I really can't help it,

Maryllia! I was a very miserable child--and miserable children age

rapidly. Perhaps I shall get younger as I grow older! You must

remember that at eleven years old I was scrubbing floors like any

charwoman in the Convent for two centimes an hour. I gained a lot of

worldly wisdom that way by listening to the talk of the nuns, which

is quite as spiteful and scandalous as anything one hears in outside

'wicked' society. Then I got into the Quartier Latin set with Gigue,

who picked me up because he heard me singing in the street,--and

altogether my experiences of life haven't been toys and bonbons. I

know I THINK 'old'--and I'm sure I feel old!"

"Not when you play or sing," suggested Maryllia.

"No--not then--never then! Then, all the youth of the world seems to

rush into me,--it tingles in my fingers, and throbs in my throat! I

feel as if I could reach heaven with sound!--yes! I feel that I

could sing to God Himself, if He would only listen!"

Her eyes glowed with passion,--the plainness of her features was

transformed into momentary beauty. Maryllia was silent. She knew

that the aspirations of genius pent up in this elf-like girl were

almost too strong for her, and that the very excitability and

sensitiveness of her nature were such as to need the greatest care

and tenderness in training and controlling. Tactfully she changed

the conversation to ordinary subjects, and in a little while Cicely

had learned all that Maryllia herself knew about the village of St.

Rest and its inhabitants. She was considerably interested in the

story of the rescue of the 'Five Sister' beeches, and asked with a

touch of anxiety, what had become of the dismissed agent, Oliver

Leach?

"Oh, he is still in the neighbourhood,"--said Maryllia,

indifferently--"He works for Sir Morton Pippitt, and I believe has

found a home at Badsworth. His accounts are not yet all handed in to

my solicitors. But I have a new agent now,--a Mr. Stanways--he is

just married to quite a nice young woman,--and he has already begun

work. Mr. Stanways has splendid recommendations--so that will be all

right."

"No doubt--so far as Mr. Stanways himself is concerned it will be

all right,"--rejoined Cicely, musingly--"But if, as you say, the man

Oliver Leach cursed you, it isn't pleasant to think he is hanging

around here."

"He isn't hanging round anywhere,"--declared Maryllia, easily--"He

is out of this beat altogether. He cursed me certainly,--but he was

in a temper,--and I should say that curses come naturally to him.

But, as the clergyman was present at the time, the curse couldn't

take any effect." She laughed. "You know Satan always runs away from

the Church."

"Who is the clergyman, and what is he like?" asked Cicely.

"He's not at all disagreeable"--answered Maryllia, carelessly--

"Rather stiff perhaps and old-fashioned,--but he seems to be a great

favourite with all his parishioners. His name is John Walden. He has

restored the church here, quite at his own expense, and according to

the early original design. It is really quite wonderful. When I was

a child here, I only remember it as a ruin, but now people come from

far and near to see it. It will please you immensely."

"But you don't go to it," observed Cicely, suggestively.

"No. I haven't attended a service there as yet. But I don't say I

never will attend one. That will depend on circumstances."

"I remember you always hated parsons," said Cicely, thoughtfully.

Maryllia laughed.

"Yes, I always did!"

"And you always will, I suppose?"

"Well, I expect I shall have to tolerate Mr. Walden,"--Maryllia

answered lightly,--"Because he's really my nearest neighbour. But

he's not so bad as most of his class."

"I daresay he's a better type of man than Lord Roxmouth," said

Cicely. "By the way, Maryllia, that highly distinguished nobleman

has spread about a report that you are 'peculiar,' simply because

you won't marry him? The very nuns at the Convent have heard this,

and it does make me so angry! For when people get hold of the word

'peculiar,' it is made to mean several things."

"I know!" and for a moment Maryllia's fair brows clouded with a

shadow of perplexity and annoyance--"It is a word that may pass for

madness, badness, or any form of social undesirability. But I don't

mind! I'm quite aware that Roxmouth, if he cannot marry me, will

slander me. It's a way some modern men have of covering their own

rejection and defeat. The woman in question is branded through the

'smart set' as 'peculiar,' 'difficult,' 'impossible to deal with'--

oh yes!--I know it all! But I'm prepared for it--and just to

forestall Roxmouth a little, I'm going to have a few people down

here by way of witnesses to my '-peculiar' mode of life. Then they

can go back to London and talk."

"They can, and they will,--you may be sure of that!" said Cicely,

satirically--"Is this a 'dressed' county, Maryllia?"

Maryllia gave vent to a peal of laughter.

"I should say not,--but I really don't know!" she replied,--"People

have called on me, but I have not, as yet, returned their calls.

We'll do that in this coming week. The only person I have seen, who

poses as a 'county' lady, is an elderly spinster named Tabitha

Pippitt, only daughter of Sir Morton Pippitt, who is a colonial

manufacturer, and, therefore, not actually in the 'county' at all.

Miss Tabitha was certainly not 'dressed,' she was merely covered."

"That's the very height of propriety!" declared Cicely--"For, after

all, covering alone is necessary. 'Dress,' in the full sense of the

word, implies vanity and all its attendant sins. Gigue says you can

always pick out a very dull, respectable woman by the hidecmsness

of her clothes. I expect Miss Tabitha is dull."

"She is--most unquestionably! But I'm afraid she is only a reflex of

country life generally, Cicely. Country life IS dull,--especially in

England."

"Then why do you go in for it?" queried Cicely, arching her black

brows perplexedly.

"Simply to escape something even duller,"--laughed Maryllia--"London

society and its 'Souls'!"

Cicely laughed too, and shrugged her shoulders expressively. She

understood all that was implied. And with her whole heart she

rejoiced that her friend whom she loved with an almost passionate

adoration and gratitude, had voluntarily turned her back on the

'Smart Set,' and so, of her own accord, instead of through her

godfathers and godmothers, had 'renounced the devil and all his

works, the pomps and vanity of this wicked world and all the sinful

lusts of the flesh.'

Within a very few days St. Rest became aware of Cicely's quaint

personality, for she soon succeeded in making herself familiar with

everybody in the place. She had a knack of winning friends. She

visited old Josey Letherbarrow, and made him laugh till he nearly

choked, so that Maryllia had to pat him vigorously on the back to

enable him to recover his breath--she cut jokes with Mrs. Tapple,--

chatted with the sexton, Adam Frost, and scattered 'sweeties' galore

among all his children,--and she furthermore startled the village

choir at practice by suddenly flitting into the church and asking

Miss Eden, the schoolmistress, to allow her to play the organ

accompaniment, and on Miss Eden's consenting to this proposition,

she played in such a fashion that the church seemed filled with

musical thunder and the songs of angels,--and the village

choristers, both girls and boys, became awestruck and nervous, and

huddled themselves together in a silent group, afraid to open their

mouths lest a false note should escape, and spoil the splendour of

the wonderful harmony that so mysteriously charmed their souls. And

then, calming the passion of the music down, she turned with

gentlest courtesy to Miss Eden, and asked: 'What were the children

going to sing?'--whereupon, being told that it waft a hymn called

'The Lord is my Shepherd,' she so very sweetly entreated them to

sing it with her, that none of them could refuse. And she led them

all with wondrous care and patience, giving to the very simple tune,

a tender and noble pathos such as they had never heard before, yet

which they unconsciously absorbed into their own singing, as they

lifted up their youthful voices in tremulous unison.

"The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want,

He maketh me down to lie,

In pleasant fields where the lilies grow.

And the river runneth by.

"The Lord is my Shepherd; He feedeth me

In the depth of a desert land,

And lest I should in the darkness slip,

He holdeth me by the hand.

"The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want,

My mind on Him is stayed,

And though through the Valley of Death I walk,

I shall not be afraid.

"The Lord is my Shepherd; O Shepherd sweet,

Leave me not here to stray;

But guide me safe to Thy heavenly fold,

And keep me there, I pray!"

John Walden, passing through the churchyard just at this time, heard

the rhythmic rise and fall of the quaint old melody with a strange

thrill at his heart. He had listened to the self-same hymn over and

over again,--every year the school-children re-studied and re-sang

it,--but there was something altogether new in its harmony this

time,--something appealing and pathetic which struck to the inmost

core of his sensitive nature. Noiselessly, he entered the church,

and for a moment or two stood unobserved, watching the little scene

before him. Cicely was at the organ, and her hands still rested on

the keys, but she was speaking to the members of the choir.

"That is very nicely done,"--she said, encouragingly--"But you must

try and keep more steadily together in tune, must they not, Miss

Eden?"--and she turned to the schoolmistress at her side, who, with

a smile, agreed. "You"--and she touched pretty Susie Prescott on the

arm,--"You sing delightfully! It is a little voice--but so very

sweet!"

Susie blushed deeply and curtsied. It had got about in the village

that Miss Vancourt's young friend from Paris was a musical

'prodigy,' and praise from her was something to be remembered.

"Now listen!" went on Cicely--"I'm not going to sing full voice,

because I'm not allowed to yet,--but this is how that hymn should

go!" And her pure tones floated forth pianissimo, with slow and

tender solemnity:--

"The Lord is my Shepherd; O Shepherd sweet,

Leave me not here to stray;

But guide me safe to Thy heavenly fold,

And keep me there, I pray!

Amen!"

Silence followed. The children stood wonder-struck, and Miss Eden's

eyes filled with emotional tears.

"How beautiful!" she murmured--"How very beautiful!"

Cicely rose from the organ-stool, and turned round.

"Here is Mr. Walden," she said, in quite a matter-of-fact way as she

perceived him. "It IS Mr. Walden, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is," replied John, advancing with a smile--"And very

fortunate Mr. Walden is to have heard such lovely singing!"

"Oh, that's not lovely," said Cicely, carelessly--"I was only

humming the last verse, just to put the expression right. I thought

it must be you!--though, of course, as I have not been introduced to

you, I couldn't be sure! Maryllia--Miss Vancourt--has told me all

about you,--and I know she has written twice since I've been here to

ask you up to the Manor--once to tea, and once to dinner. Why

haven't you come?" Walden was slightly embarrassed by this point-

blank question. It was perfectly true he had received two

invitations from the lady of the Manor, and had refused both. Why he

had refused, he could not himself have told.

"I suppose you didn't want to meet me!" said Cicely, showing all her

white teeth in a flashing smile--"But there's no escape for it, you

see,--here I am! I'm not such a rascal as I look, though! I've been

playing accompaniments for the children!--go on singing, please!"--

and she addressed Miss Eden and Susie Prescott, who collecting their

straying thoughts, began hesitatingly to resume the interrupted

practice--"It's a nice little organ--very full and sweet. The church

is perfectly exquisite! I come in every day to look at it except

Sundays."

"Why except Sundays?" asked Walden, amused.

She gave him a quaint side-glance.

"I'll tell you some day,--not now!"--she answered--"This is not the

fitting time or place." She moved to the altar rails, and hung over

them, looking at the alabaster sarcophagus "This thing has a

perfect fascination for me!" she went on--"I can't bear not to know

whose bones are inside! I wonder you haven't opened it."

"It was not meant to be opened by those who closed it," said Walden,

quietly.

Cicely drooped her gipsy-bright eyes.

"That's one for me!" she thought--"He's just like what Maryllia says

he is,--very certain of his own mind, and not likely to move out of

his own way."

"I think," pursued Walden--"if you knew that someone very dear to

you had been laid in that sarcophagus 'to eternal rest,' you would

resent any disturbance of even the mere dust of what was once life,-

-would you not?"

"I might;" said Cicely dubiously--"But I have never had any 'someone

very dear to me' except Maryllia Vancourt. And if she died, I should

die too!"

John was silent, but he looked at her with increased interest and

kindliness.

They walked out of the church together, and once in the open air, he

became politely conventional.

"And how is Miss Vancourt?" he enquired.

"She is very well indeed,"--replied Cicely--"But tremendously busy

just now with no end of household matters. The new agent, Mr.

Stanways, is going over every yard of the Abbot's Manor property

with her, and she is making any quantity of new rules. All the

tenants' rents are to be reduced, for one thing--I know THAT. Then

there are a lot of London people coming down to stay--big house-

parties in relays,--I've helped write all the invitations. We shall

be simply crowded at the end of June and all July. We mean to be

very gay!"

"And you will like that, of course?" queried Walden, indulgently,

while conscious of a little sense of hurt and annoyance, though he

knew not why.

"Naturally!" and Cicely shrugged her shoulders carelessly, "Doesn't

the Bible say 'the laughter of fools is like the crackling of thorns

under a pot'? I love to set the pot down and hear the thorns

crackle!"

What a weird girl she was! He looked at her in mute amaze, and she

smiled.

"Do come up to tea some afternoon!" she said coaxingly, "We should

be so glad to see you! I know Maryllia would like it--she thinks you

are rather rude, you know! I'm to be here all the summer, but I'll

try to be good and not say things to vex you. And as you're a

clergyman, I can tell you all about myself--like the confessional

secrets! And when you hear some of my experiences, you won't wonder

a bit at my queer ways. I can't be like other girls of my age,--I

really CAN'T!--my life won't let me!"

Her tone was one of light banter, but her eyes were wistful and

pathetic. Walden was conscious of a sudden sympathy with this wild

little soul of song, and taking her hand, pressed it kindly.

"Wait till I see some of your 'queer ways,' as you call them!" he

said, with a genial laugh--"I know you sing very beautifully-is that

a 'queer way'?"

Cicely shook her mop-like tresses of hair back over her shoulders

with a careless gesture.

"It is--to people who can't do it!" she said. "Surely you know that?

For example, if you preach very well--I don't know that you do,

because I've never heard you, but Maryllia's housekeeper, Mrs.

Spruce, says you've got 'a mouth of angels'--she does really!" and,

as Walden laughed, she laughed with him--"Well, as I say, if you

preach very well with a mouth of angels, there must be several

parsons round here who haven't got that mouth, and who say of you,

of course metaphorically: 'He hath a devil'! Isn't it so?"

John hesitated.

"No doubt opinions differ,"---he began.

"Oh, of course!--you can get out of it that way, if you like!" she

retorted, gaily--"You won't say uncharitable things of the rest of

your brethren if you can help it, but you know--yes, you must know

that parsons are as jealous of each other and as nasty to each other

as actors, singers, writers, or any other 'professional' persons in

the world. In fact, I believe if you were to set two spiteful

clergymen nagging at each other, they'd beat any two 'leading

ladies' on the operatic stage, for right-down malice and meanness!"

"The conversation is growing quite personal!" said Walden, a broad

smile lighting up his fine soft eyes--"Shall we finish it at the

Manor when I come up to tea?"

"But are you really coming?" queried Cicely--"And when?"

"Suppose I say this afternoon---" he began. Cicely clapped her

hands.

"Good! I'll scamper home and tell Maryllia! I'll say I have met you,

and that I've been as impudent as I possibly could be to you---"

"No, don't say that!" laughed Walden--"Say that I have found you to

be a very delightful and original young lady---"

"I'm not a young lady,"--said Cicely, decisively--"I was born a

peasant on the sea-coast of Cornwall--and I'm glad of it. A 'young

lady' nowadays means a milliner's apprentice or a draper's model. I

am neither. I am just a girl--and hope, if I live, to be a woman.

I'll take my own ideas of a suitable message from you to Maryllia--

don't YOU bother!" And she nodded sagaciously. "I won't make

ructions, I promise! Come about five!"

She waved her hand and ran off, leaving Walden in a mood between

perplexity and amusement. She was certainly an 'original,' and he

hardly knew what to make of her. There was something 'uncanny' and

goblin-like in her appearance, and yet her sallow face had a certain

charm when the smile illumined it, and the light of aspiration

burned up in the large wild eyes. In any case, she had persuaded him

in a moment, as it were, and almost involuntarily, to take tea at

the Manor that afternoon. Why he had consented to do what he had

hitherto refused, he could not imagine. Cicely's remark that Miss

Vancourt thought him 'rather rude,' worried him a little.

"Perhaps I have been rude"--he reflected, uneasily--"But I am not a

society man;--I'm altogether out of my element in the company of

ladies--and it seemed so much better that I should avoid being drawn

into any intimacy with persons who are not likely to have anything

in common with me--but of course I ought to be civil--in fact, I

suppose I ought to be neighbourly---"

Here a sudden irritation against the nature of his own thoughts

disturbed him. He was not arguing fairly with himself, and he knew

it. He was perfectly aware that ever since the day of their meeting

in the village post-office, he had wished to see Miss Vancourt

again. He had hoped she might pass the gate of the rectory, or

perhaps even look into his garden for a moment,--but his expectation

had not been realised. He had heard of Cicely Bourne's arrival,--and

he had received two charmingly-worded notes from Maryllia, inviting

him to the Manor,--which invitations, as has already been stated, he

had, with briefest courtesy, declined. Now, why,--if he indeed

wished to see her again,--had he deliberately refused the

opportunities given him of doing so? He could not answer this at all

satisfactorily to his own mind, and he was considerably annoyed with

himself to be forced to admit the existence of certain portions of

his mental composition which were apparently not to be probed by

logic, or measured by mathematics.

"Well, at any rate, as I have promised the little singer, I can go

up to tea just this once, and have done with it," he decided--"I

shall then be exonerated from 'rudeness'--and I can explain to Miss

Vancourt--quite kindly and courteously of course--that I am not a

visiting man,--that my habits are rather those of a recluse, and

then--for the future--she will understand."

Cicely Bourne, meanwhile, on her way back to the Manor through the

fields, paused many times to gather cowslips, which were blooming by

thousands in the grass at her feet, and as she recklessly pulled up

dozens of the pale-green stems, weighted with their nodding golden

honey-bells, she thought a good deal about John Walden.

"Maryllia never told me he was handsome,"--she mused; "But he is! I

wonder why she didn't mention it? So odd of her,--because really

there are very few good-looking men anywhere, and one in the shape

of a parson is a positive rarity and ought to go on exhibition! He's

clever too--and--obstinate? Yes, I should say he was obstinate! But

he has kind eyes. And he isn't married. What a comfort THAT is!

Parsons are uninteresting enough in themselves as a rule, but their

wives are the last possibility in the way of dullness. Oh, that

honeysuckle!" And she sprang over the grass to the corner of a hedge

where a long trail of the exquisitely-scented flower hung

temptingly, as it seemed within reach, but when she approached it,

she found it just too high above her to be plucked from the bough

where its tendrils twined. Looking up at it, she carolled softly:

"O Fortune capricieuse!

Comme tu es cruelle!

Pourquoi moques-tu ton esclave

Qui sert un destin immortel!"

Here a sudden rustle in the leaves on the other side of the hedge

startled her, and a curious-looking human head adorned profusely

with somewhat disordered locks of red hair perked up enquiringly.

Cicely jumped back with an exclamation.

"Saint Moses! What is it?"

"It is me! Merely me!" and Sir Morton Pippitt's quondam guest, Mr.

Julian Adderley, rose to his full lanky height, and turned his

flaccid face of more or less comic melancholy upon her--"Pray do not

be alarmed! I have been reposing under the trees,--and I was, or so

I imagine, in a brief slumber, when some dulcet warblings as of a

nightingale awoke me"--here, stooping to the ground for his hat, he

secured it, and waved it expressively--"and I have, I fear, created

some dismay in the mind of the interesting young person who, if I

mistake not, is a friend of Miss Vancourt?"

Cicely surveyed him with considerable amusement.

"Never mind who _I_ am!" she said, coolly--"Tell me who YOU are! My

faith!--you are as rough all over as a bear! What have you been

doing to yourself? Your clothes are covered with leaves!"

"Even as a Babe in the Wood!" responded Adderley, "Yes!--it is so!"

and he began to pick off delicately the various burs and scraps of

forest debris which had collected and clung to his tweed suit during

his open-air siesta--"To speak truly, I am a trespasser in these

domains,--they are the Manor woods, I know,--forbidden precincts,

and possibly guarded by spring-guns. But I heeded not the board

which speaks of prosecution. I came to gather bluebells,--innocent

bluebells!--merely that and no more, to adorn my humble cot,--I have

a cot not far from here. And as for my identity, my name is

Adderley--Julian Adderley--a poor scribbler of rhymes--a votre

service!"

He waved his hat with a grand flourish again, and smiled.

"Oh _I_ know!" said Cicely--"Maryllia has spoken of you--you've

taken a cottage here for the summer. Pick that bit of honeysuckle

for me, will you?--that long trail just hanging over you!"

"With pleasure!" and he gathered the coveted spray and handed it to

her.

"Thanks!" and she smiled appreciatively as she took it. "How did you

get into that wood? Did you jump the hedge?"

"I did!" replied Adderley.

"Could you jump it again?"

"Most assuredly!"

"Then do it!"

Whereupon Adderley clapped his hat on his head, and resting a hand

firmly on one of the rough posts which supported the close green

barrier between them, vaulted lightly over it and stood beside her.

"Not badly done,"--said Cicely, eyeing him quizzically--"for 'a poor

scribbler of rhymes' as you call yourself. Most men who moon about

and write verse are too drunken, and vicious to even see a hedge,--

much less jump over it."

"Oh, say not so!" exclaimed Adderley--"You are too young to pass

judgment on the gods!"

"The gods!" exclaimed Cicely--"Whatever are you talking about? The

gods of Greece? They were an awful lot--perfectly awful! They

wouldn't have been admitted EVEN into modern society, and that's bad

enough. I don't think the worst woman that ever dined at a Paris

restaurant with an English Cabinet Minister would have spoken to

Venus, par exemple. I'm sure she wouldn't. She'd have drawn the line

there."

"Gracious Heavens!" and Adderley stared in wonderment at his

companion, first up, then down,--at her wild hair, now loosened from

its convent form of pigtail, and scarcely restrained by the big sun-

hat which was tied on anyhow,--at her great dark eyes,--at her thin

angular figure and long scraggy legs,--legs which were still

somewhat too visible, though since her arrival at Abbot's Manor

Maryllia had made some thoughtful alterations in the dress of her

musical protegee which had considerably improved her appearance--"Is

it possible to hear such things---"

"Why, of course it is, as you've got ears and HAVE heard them!" said

Cicely, with a laugh--"Don't ask 'is it possible' to do a thing when

you've done it! That's not logical,--and men do pride themselves on

their logic, though I could never find out why. Do you like

cowslips?" And she thrust the great bunch she had gathered up

against his nose--"There's a wordless poem for you!"

Inhaling the fresh fine odour of the field blossoms, he still looked

at her in amazement, she meeting his gaze without the least touch of

embarrassment.

"You can walk home with me, if you like!"--she observed

condescendingly--"I won't promise to ask you into the Manor, because

perhaps Maryllia won't want you, and I daresay she won't approve of

my picking up a young man in the woods. But it's rather fun to talk

to a poet,--I've never met one before. They don't come out in Paris.

They live in holes and corners, drinking absinthe to keep off

hunger."

"Alas, that is so!" and Adderley began to keep pace with the thin

black-stockinged legs that were already starting off through the

long grass and flowers--"The arts are at a discount nowadays.

Poetry is the last thing people want to read."

"Then why do you write it?" and Cicely turned a sharp glance of

enquiry upon him--"What's the good?"

"There you offer me a problem Miss--er--Miss---"

"Bourne,"--finished Cicely--"Don't fight with my name--it's quite

easy--though I don't know how I got it. I ought to have been a Tre

or a Pol-I was born in Cornwall. Never mind that,--go on with the

'problem.'"

"True--go on with the problem,"--said Julian vaguely, taking off his

hat and raking his hair with his fingers as he was wont to do when

at all puzzled--"The problem is--'why do I write poetry if nobody

wants to read it'--and 'what's the good'? Now, in the first place, I

will reply that I am not sure I write 'poetry.' I try to express my

identity in rhythm and rhyme--but after all, that expression of

myself may be prose, and wholly without interest to the majority.

You see? I put it to you quite plainly. Then as to 'what's the

good?'--I would argue 'what's the bad?' So far, I live quite

harmlessly. From the unexpected demise of an uncle whom I never saw,

I have a life-income of sixty pounds a year. I am happy on that--I

desire no more than that. On that I seek to evolve myself into

SOMETHING--from a nonentity into shape and substance--and if, as is

quite possible, there can be no 'good,' there may be a certain less

of 'bad' than might otherwise chance to me. What think you?"

Cicely surveyed him scrutinisingly.

"I'm not at all sure about that"--she said--"Poets have all been

doubtful specimens of humanity at their best. You see their lives

are entirely occupied in writing what isn't true--and of course it

tells' on them in the long run. They deceive others first, and then

they deceive themselves, though in their fits of 'inspiration' as

they call it, they may, while weaving a thousand lies, accidentally

hit on one truth. But the lies chiefly predominate. Dante, for

example, was a perfectly brazen liar. He DIDN'T go to Hell, or

Purgatory, or Paradise--and he DIDN'T bother himself about Beatrice

at all. He married someone else and had a family. Nothing could be

more commonplace. He invented his Inferno in order to put his

enemies there, all roasting, boiling, baking or freezing. It was

pure personal spite--and it is the very force of his vindictiveness

that makes the Inferno the best part of hid epic. The portraits of

Dante alone are enough to show you the sort of man he was. WHAT a

creature to meet in a dark lane at midnight!"

Here she made a grimace, drawing her mouth down into the elongated

frown of the famous Florentine, with such an irresistibly comic

effect that Adderley gave way to a peal of hearty, almost boyish

laughter.

"That's right!" said Cicely approvingly--"That's YOU, you know! It's

natural to laugh at your age--you're only about six or seven-and-

twenty, aren't you?"

"I shall be twenty-seven in August,"--he said with a swift return to

solemnity--"That is, as you will admit, getting on towards thirty."

"Oh, nonsense! Everybody's getting on towards thirty, of course--or

towards sixty, or towards a hundred. I shall be fifteen in October,

but 'you will admit'"--here she mimicked his voice and accent--"that

I am getting on towards a hundred. Some folks think I've turned that

already, and that I'm entering my second century, I talk so 'old.'

But my talk is nothing to what I feel--I feel--oh!" and she gave a

kind of angular writhe to her whole figure--"like twenty Methusalehs

in one girl!"

"You are an original!"--said Julian, nodding at her with an air of

superior wisdom--"That's what you are!"

"Like you, Sir Moon-Calf"--said Cicely--"The word 'moon-calf,' you

know, stands for poet--it means a human calf that grazes on the

moon. Naturally the animal never gets fat,--nor will you; it always

looks odd--and so will you; it never does anything useful,--nor will

you; and it puts a kind of lunar crust over itself, under which

crust it writes verses. When you break through, its crust you find

something like a man, half-asleep--not knowing whether he's man or

boy, and uncertain, whether to laugh or be serious till some girl

pokes fun at him--and then---"

"And then?"--laughed Adderley, entering vivaciously into her humour-

-"What next?"

"This, next!"--and Cicely pelted him full in the face with one of

her velvety cowslip-bunches--'And this,--catch me if you can!"

Away she flew over the grass, with Adderley after her. Through tall

buttercups and field daisies they raced each other like children,--

startling astonished bees from repasts in clover-cups--and shaking

butterflies away from their amours on the starwort and celandines.

The private gate leading into Abbot's Manor garden stood open,--

Cicely rushed in, and shut it against her pursuer who reached it

almost at the same instant.

"Too bad!" he cried laughingly--"You mustn't keep me out! I'm bound

to come inside!"

"Why?" demanded Cicely, breathless with her run, but looking all the

better for the colour in her cheeks and the light in her eyes--"I

don't see the line of argument at all. Your hair is simply dreadful!

You look like Pan, heated in the pursuit of a coy nymph of Delphos.

If you only wore skins and a pair of hoofs, the resemblance would be

perfect!"

"My dear Cicely!" said a dulcet voice at this moment,--"Where HAVE

you been all the morning! How do you do, Mr. Adderley? Won't you

come in?"

Adderley took off his hat, as Maryllia came across to the gate from

the umbrageous shadow of a knot of pine-trees, looking the

embodiment of fresh daintiness, in a soft white gown trimmed with

wonderfully knotted tufts of palest rose ribbon, and wearing an

enchanting 'poke' straw hat with a careless knot of pink hyacinths

tumbling against her lovely hair. She was a perfect picture 'after

Romney,' and Adderley thought she knew it. But there he was wrong.

Maryllia knew little and cared less about her personal appearance.

"Where have you been?" she repeated, taking Cicely round the waist--

"You wild girl! Do you know it is lunch time? I had almost given you

up. Spruce said you had gone into the village--but more than that

she couldn't tell me."

"I did go to the village,"--said Cicely--"and I went into the

church, and played the organ, and helped the children sing a hymn.

And I met the parson, Mr. Walden, and had a talk with him. Then I

started home across the fields, and found this man"--and she

indicated Adderley with a careless nod of her head--"asleep in a

wood. I almost promised him some lunch--I didn't QUITE---"

"My dear Miss Vancourt,"--protested Adderley--"Pray do not think of

such a thing!--I would not intrude upon you in this unceremonious

way for the world!"

"Why not?" said Maryllia, smiling graciously--"It will be a pleasure

if you will stay to luncheon with us. Cicely has carte blanche here

you know--genius must have its way!"

"Of course it must!"--agreed Cicely--"If genius wants to etand on

its head, it must be allowed to make that exhibition of itself lest

it should explode. If genius asks the lame, halt, blind and idiotic

into the ancestral halls of Abbot's Manor, then the lame, halt,

blind and idiotic are bound to come. If genius summons the god Pan

to pipe a roundelay, pipings there shall be! Shall there not, Mr.

Pan Adderley?"

Her eyes danced with mirth and mischief, as they flashed from his

face to Maryllia's. "Genius,"--she continued--"can even call forth a

parson from the vasty deep if it chooses to do so,--Mr. Walden is

coming to tea this afternoon."

"Indeed!" And Maryllia's sweet voice was a trifle cold. "Did you

invite him, Cicely?"

"Yes. I told him that you thought it rather rude of him not to have

come before---"

"Oh Cicely!" said Maryllia reproachfully--"You should not have said

that!"

"Why not? You did think him rude,--and so did I,--to refuse two kind

invitations from you. Anyhow he seemed sorry, and said he'd make up

for it this afternoon. He's really quite good-looking."

"Quite--quite!" agreed Julian Adderley--"I considered him

exceptionally so when I first saw him in his own church, opposing a

calm front to the intrusive pomposity and appalling ignorance of our

venerable acquaintance, Sir Morton Pippitt. I decided that I had

found a Man. So new!--so fresh! That is why I took a cottage for the

summer close by, that I might be near the rare specimen!"

Maryllia laughed.

"Are you not a man yourself?" she said.

"Not altogether!" he admitted,--"I am but half-grown. I am a raw and

impleasing fruit even to my own palate. John Walden is a ripe and

mellow creature,--moreover, he seems still ripening in constant

sunshine. I go every Sunday to hear him preach, because he reminds

me of so much that I had forgotten."

Here they went into luncheon. Maryllia threw off her hat as she

seated herself at the head of the table, ruffling her hair with the

action into prettier waves of brown-gold. Her cheeks were softly

flushed,--her blue eyes radiant.

"You are a better parishioner than I am, Mr. Adderley!"--she said--

"I have not been to church once since I came home. I never go to

church."

"Naturally! I quite understand! Few people of any education or

intelligence can stand it nowadays," he replied--"The Christian myth

is well-nigh exploded. Yet one cannot help having a certain sympathy

and interest in men, who, like Mr. Walden, appear to still honestly

believe in it."

"The Christian myth!" echoed Cicely--"My word! You do lay down the

law! Where should we be without the 'myth' I wonder?"

"Pretty much where we are now,"--said Julian--"Two thousand years of

the Christian dispensation leaves the world still pagan. Self-

indulgence is still paramount. Wealth still governs both classes and

masses. Politics are still corrupt. Trade still plays its old game

of 'beggar my neighbour.' What would you! And in this day there is

no restraining influence on the laxity of social morals. Literature

is decadent,--likewise Painting;--Sculpture and Poetry are moribund.

Man's inborn monkeyishness is obtaining the upper hand and bearing

him back to his natural filth,--and the glimmerings of the Ideal as

shown forth in a few examples of heroic and noble living are like

the flash of the rainbow-arch spanning a storm-cloud,--beautiful,

but alas!--evanescent."

"I'm afraid you are right"--said Maryllia, with a little sigh; "It

is very sad and discouraging, but I fear very true."

"It's nothing of the kind!"--declared Cicely, with quick vehemence--

"It's just absolute nonsense! It is! Ah, 'never shake thy gory locks

at me,' Sir Moon-Calf!" and she made a little grimace across the

table at Julian, who responded to it with a complacent smile--"You

can talk, talk, talk--of course! every man that ever sat in clubs,

smoking and drinking, can talk one's head off--but you've got to

LIVE, as well as talk! What do you know about self-indulgence being

'paramount,' except in your own case, eh? Do you think at all of the

thousands and thousands of poor creatures everywhere, who completely

sacrifice their lives to the needs of others?"

"Of course there are such--" admitted Adderley; "But---"

"No 'buts' come into the case," went on the young girl, her eyes

darkening with the earnestness of her thoughts--"I have seen quite

enough even in my time to know how good and kind to one another even

the poorest people can be. And I have had plenty of hardships to

endure, too! But I can tell you one thing--and that is, that the

Christian 'myth' as you call it, is just the one thing that makes MY

life worth living! I don't want to talk about religion--I never do,-

-I only just say this--that the great lesson of Christianity is

exactly what we most need to learn."

"In what way?" asked Julian, smiling indulgently.

"Why,--merely that if one is honest and true, one MUST be crucified.

Therefore one is prepared,--and there's no need to cry out when the

nails are driven in. The Christian 'myth' teaches us what to expect,

how to endure, and how at last to triumph!"

A lovely light illuminated her face, and Maryllia looked at her very

tenderly. Adderley was silent.

"Nothing does one so much good as to be hurt,"--went on Cicely in a

lighter tone--"You then become aware that you are a somebody whom

other bodies envy. You never know how high you have climbed till you

feel a few dirty hands behind you trying to pull you down! When I

start my career as a singer, I shall not be satisfied till I get

anonymous letters every morning, telling me what a fraud and failure

I am. Then I shall realise that I am famous!"

"Alas!" said Julian with a comically resigned air--"I shall never be

of sufficient importance for that! No one would waste a penny stamp

on me! All I can ever hope to win is the unanimous abuse of the

press. That will at least give me an interested public!"

They laughed.

"Is Mr. Marius Longford a great friend of yours?" enquired Maryllia.

"Ah, that I cannot tell!" replied Julian--"He may be friend, or he

may be foe. He writes for a great literary paper--and is a member of

many literary clubs. He has produced three books--all monstrously

dull. But he has a Clique. Its members are sworn to praise Longford,

or die. Indeed, if they do not praise Longford, they become

mysteriously exterminated, like rats or beetles. I myself have

praised Longford, lest I also get a dose of his unfailing poison. He

will not praise me--but no matter for that. If he would only abuse

me!--but he won't! His blame is far more valuable than his eulogy.

At present he stands like a kind of neutral whipping-post--very much

in my way!"

"He knows Lord Roxmouth, he tells me,"--went on Maryllia; whereat

Cicely's sharp glance flashed at her inquisitively--"Lord Roxmouth

is by way of being a patron of the arts."

The tone of her voice, slightly contemptuous, was not lost on

Adderley. He fancied he was on dangerous ground.

"I have never met Lord Roxmouth myself"--he said--"But I have heard

Longford speak of him. Longford however rather 'makes' for society.

I do not. Longford is quite at home with dukes and duchesses---"

"Or professes to be--" put in Maryllia, with a slight smile.

"Or professes to be,--I accept the correction!" agreed Adderley.

"Personally, I know nothing of him,"--said Maryllia--"I have never

seen him at any of the functions in London, and I should imagine him

to be a man who rather over-estimated himself. So many literary men

do. That is why most of them are such terrible social bores."

"To the crime of being a literary man I plead not guilty!" and

Julian folded his hands in a kind of mock-solemn appeal--"Moreover,

I swear never to become one!"

"Good boy!" smiled Cicely--"Be a modern Pan, and run away from all

the literary cliques, kicking up the dust behind you in their faces

as you go! Roam the woods in solitude and sing!

"'The wind in the reeds and the rushes,

The bees on the bells of thyme,

The birds on the myrtle bushes,

The cicale above in the lime,

And the lizards below in the grass,

Were as silent as ever old Tinolus was,

Listening to my sweet pipings!'"

"Ah, Shelley!" cried Adderley--"Shelley the divine! And how divinely

you utter his lines! Do you know the last verse of that poem:--'I

sang of the dancing stars'?"

Cicely raised her hand, commanding attention, and went on:

"'I sang of the dancing stars,

I sang of the daedal Earth,

And of Heaven,--and the giant wars,

And Love and Death and Birth.

And then I changed my pipings,--

Singing, how down the vale of Menalus,

I pursued a maiden and clasped a reed,

Gods and men, we are all deluded thus!

It breaks in our bosom and then we bleed;

All wept, as I think both ye now would,

If envy or age had not frozen your blood,

At the sorrow of my sweet pipings!'"

"Beau-tiful!--beau-tiful!" sighed Adderley--"But so remote!--so very

remote! Alas!--who reads Shelley now!"

"I do"--said Cicely--"Maryllia does. You do. And many more. Shelley

didn't write for free-libraries and public-houses. He wrote for the

love of Art,--and he was drowned. You do the same, and perhaps

you'll be hung! It doesn't much matter how you end, so long as you

begin to be something no one else can be."

"You have certainly begun in that direction!" said Julian.

Cicely shrugged her shoulders.

"I don't know! I am myself. Most people try to be what they're not.

Such a waste of time and effort! That's why I've taken a fancy to

the parson I met this morning, Mr. Walden. He is himself and no

other. He is as much himself as old Josey Letherbarrow is. Josey is

an individuality. So is Mr. Walden. So is Maryllia. So am I. And"--

here she pointed a witch-like finger at Adderley--"so would you bes

if you didn't 'pose' as much as you do!"

"Cicely!" murmured Maryllia, warningly, though she smiled.

A slight flush swept over Adderley's face. But he took the remark

without offence, thereby showing himself to be of better mettle than

the little affectations of his outward appearance indicated.

"You think so?" he said, placidly--"That is very dear of you!--very

young! You may be right--you may be wrong,--but from one so

unsophisticated as yourself it is a proposition worth considering--

to pose, or not to pose! It is so new--so fresh!"