CHAPTER I

This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler.

[Picture: Frontispiece]

HOPES AND FEARS

OR

SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF A SPINSTER

BY

CHARLOTTE M. YONGE

[Picture: Title picture]

_ILLUSTRATED BY HERBERT GANDY_

London

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

1899

_All rights reserved_

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

"She felt, rather than saw him watching her all _Frontispiece_

the way from the garden-gate to the wood."

"I find I can't spare you, Honora; you had better _Page_ 11

stay at the Holt for good."

"He drew the paper before him. Lucilla started _Page_ 296

to her feet."

PART I

CHAPTER I

Who ought to go then and who ought to stay!

Where do you draw an obvious border line?

_Cecil and Mary_

Among the numerous steeples counted from the waters of the Thames, in the

heart of the City, and grudged by modern economy as cumberers of the soil

of Mammon, may be remarked an abortive little dingy cupola, surmounting

two large round eyes which have evidently stared over the adjacent roofs

ever since the Fire that began at Pie-corner and ended in Pudding-lane.

Strange that the like should have been esteemed the highest walk of

architecture, and yet Honora Charlecote well remembered the days when St.

Wulstan's was her boast, so large, so clean, so light, so Grecian, so far

surpassing damp old Hiltonbury Church. That was at an age when her

enthusiasm found indiscriminate food in whatever had a hold upon her

affections, the nearer her heart being of course the more admirable in

itself, and it would be difficult to say which she loved the most

ardently, her city home in Woolstone-lane, or Hiltonbury Holt, the old

family seat, where her father was a welcome guest whenever his

constitution required relaxation from the severe toils of a London

rector.

Woolstone-lane was a locality that sorely tried the coachmen of Mrs.

Charlecote's West End connections, situate as it was on the very banks of

the Thames, and containing little save offices and warehouses, in the

midst of which stood Honora's home. It was not the rectory, but had been

inherited from City relations, and it antedated the Fire, so that it was

one of the most perfect remnants of the glories of the merchant princes

of ancient London. It had a court to itself, shut in by high walls, and

paved with round-headed stones, with gangways of flags in mercy to the

feet; the front was faced with hewn squares after the pattern of Somerset

House, with the like ponderous sashes, and on a smaller scale, the Louis

XIV. pediment, apparently designed for the nesting-place of swallows and

sparrows. Within was a hall, panelled with fragrant softly-tinted cedar

wood, festooned with exquisite garlands of fruit and flowers, carved by

Gibbons himself, with all his peculiarities of rounded form and delicate

edge. The staircase and floor were of white stone, tinted on sunny days

with reflections from the windows' three medallions of yellow and white

glass, where Solomon, in golden mantle and crowned turban, commanded the

division of a stout lusty child hanging by one leg; superintended the

erection of a Temple worthy of Haarlem; or graciously welcomed a

recoiling stumpy Vrow of a Queen of Sheba, with golden hair all down her

back.

The river aspect of the house had come to perfection at the Elizabethan

period, and was sculptured in every available nook with the chevron and

three arrows of the Fletchers' Company, and a merchant's mark, like a

figure of four with a curly tail. Here were the oriel windows of the

best rooms, looking out on a grassplat, small enough in country eyes, but

most extensive for the situation, with straight gravelled walks, and low

lilac and laburnum trees, that came into profuse blossom long before

their country cousins, but which, like the crocuses and snowdrops of the

flower borders, had better be looked at than touched by such as dreaded

sooty fingers. These shrubs veiled the garden from the great river

thoroughfare, to which it sloped down, still showing traces of the

handsome stone steps and balustrade that once had formed the access of

the gold-chained alderman to his sumptuous barge.

Along those paths paced, book in hand, a tall, well-grown maiden, of good

straight features, and clear, pale skin, with eyes and rich luxuriant

hair of the same colour, a peculiarly bright shade of auburn, such as

painters of old had loved, and Owen Sandbrook called golden, while

Humfrey Charlecote would declare he was always glad to see Honor's

carrots.

More than thirty years ago, personal teaching at a London parish school

or personal visiting of the poor was less common than at present, but

Honora had been bred up to be helpful, and she had newly come in from a

diligent afternoon of looking at the needlework, and hearing Crossman's

Catechism and Sellon's Abridgment from a demurely dressed race of little

girls in tall white caps, bibs and tuckers, and very stout indigo-blue

frocks. She had been working hard at the endeavour to make the little

Cockneys, who had never seen a single ear of wheat, enter into Joseph's

dreams, and was rather weary of their town sharpness coupled with their

indifference and want of imagination, where any nature, save human

nature, was concerned. 'I will bring an ear of Hiltonbury wheat home

with me--some of the best girls shall see me sow it, and I will take them

to watch it growing up--the blade, the ear, the full corn in the

ear--poor dears, if they only had a Hiltonbury to give them some tastes

that are not all for this hot, busy, eager world! If I could only see

one with her lap full of bluebells; but though in this land of Cockaigne

of ours, one does not actually pick up gold and silver, I am afraid they

are our flowers, and the only ones we esteem worth the picking; and like

old Mr. Sandbrook, we neither understand nor esteem those whose aims are

otherwise! Oh! Owen, Owen, may you only not be withheld from your

glorious career! May you show this hard, money-getting world that you do

really, as well as only in word, esteem one soul to be reclaimed above

all the wealth that can be laid at your feet! The nephew and heir of the

great Firm voluntarily surrendering consideration, ease, riches,

unbounded luxury for the sake of the heathen--choosing a wigwam instead

of a West End palace; parched maize rather than the banquet; the

backwoods instead of the luxurious park; the Red Indian rather than the

club and the theatre; to be a despised minister rather than a magnate of

this great city; nay, or to take his place among the influential men of

the land. What has this worn, weary old civilization to offer like the

joy of sitting beneath one of the glorious aspiring pines of America,

gazing out on the blue waters of her limpid inland seas, in her fresh

pure air, with the simple children of the forest round him, their

princely forms in attitudes of attention, their dark soft liquid eyes

fixed upon him, as he tells them "Your Great Spirit, Him whom ye

ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you," and then, some glorious old

chief bows his stately head, and throws aside his marks of superstition.

"I believe," he says, and the hearts of all bend with him; and Owen leads

them to the lake, and baptizes them, and it is another St. Sacrament!

Oh! that is what it is to have nobleness enough truly to overcome the

world, truly to turn one's back upon pleasures and honours--what are they

to such as this?'

So mused Honora Charlecote, and then ran indoors, with bounding step, to

her Schiller, and her hero-worship of Max Piccolomini, to write notes for

her mother, and practise for her father the song that was to refresh him

for the evening.

Nothing remarkable! No; there was nothing remarkable in Honor, she was

neither more nor less than an average woman of the higher type.

Refinement and gentleness, a strong appreciation of excellence, and a

love of duty, had all been brought out by an admirable education, and by

a home devoted to unselfish exertion, varied by intellectual pleasures.

Other influences--decidedly traceable in her musings--had shaped her

principles and enthusiasms on those of an ardent Oxonian of the early

years of William IV.; and so bred up, so led by circumstances, Honora,

with her abilities, high cultivation, and tolerable sense, was a fair

specimen of what any young lady might be, appearing perhaps somewhat in

advance of her contemporaries, but rather from her training than from

intrinsic force of character. The qualities of womanhood well developed,

were so entirely the staple of her composition, that there is little to

describe in her. Was not she one made to learn; to lean; to admire; to

support; to enhance every joy; to soften every sorrow of the object of

her devotion?

* * * * *

Another picture from Honora Charlecote's life. It is about half after

six, on a bright autumnal morning; and, rising nearly due east, out of a

dark pine-crowned hill, the sun casts his slanting beams over an

undulating country, clothed in gray mist of tints differing with the

distance, the farther hills confounded with the sky, the nearer dimly

traced in purple, and the valleys between indicated by the whiter,

woollier vapours that rise from their streams, a goodly land of fertile

field and rich wood, cradled on the bosoms of those soft hills.

Nestled among the woods, clothing its hollows on almost every side, rises

a low hill, with a species of table land on the top, scattered over with

large thorns and scraggy oaks that cast their shadows over the pale buff

bents of the short soft grass of the gravelly soil. Looking southward is

a low, irregular, old-fashioned house, with two tall gable ends like

eyebrows, and the lesser gable of a porch between them, all covered with

large chequers of black timber, filled up with cream-coloured cement. A

straight path leads from the porch between beds of scarlet geraniums,

their luxuriant horse-shoe leaves weighed down with wet, and china

asters, a drop in every quilling, to an old-fashioned sun-dial, and

beside that dial stands Honora Charlecote, gazing joyously out on the

bright morning, and trying for the hundredth time to make the shadow of

that green old finger point to the same figure as the hand of her watch.

'Oh! down, down, there's a good dog, Fly; you'll knock me down! Vixen,

poor little doggie, pray! Look at your paws,' as a blue greyhound and

rough black terrier came springing joyously upon her, brushing away the

silver dew from the shaven lawn.

'Down, down, lie down, dogs!' and with an obstreperous bound, Fly flew to

the new-comer, a young man in the robust strength of eight-and-twenty, of

stalwart frame, very broad in the chest and shoulders, careless, homely,

though perfectly gentleman-like bearing, and hale, hearty, sunburnt face.

It was such a look and such an arm as would win the most timid to his

side in certainty of tenderness and protection, and the fond voice gave

the same sense of power and of kindness, as he called out, 'Holloa,

Honor, there you are! Not given up the old fashion?'

'Not till you give me up, Humfrey,' she said, as she eagerly laid her

neatly gloved fingers in the grasp of the great, broad, horny palm, 'or

at least till you take your gun.'

'So you are not grown wiser?'

'Nor ever will be.'

'Every woman ought to learn to saddle a horse and fire off a gun.'

'Yes, against the civil war squires are always expecting. You shall

teach me when the time comes.'

'You'll never see that time, nor any other, if you go out in those thin

boots. I'll fetch Sarah's clogs; I suppose you have not a reasonable

pair in the world.'

'My boots are quite thick, thank you.'

'Brown paper!' And indeed they were a contrast to his mighty nailed

soles, and long, untanned buskins, nor did they greatly resemble the

heavy, country-made galoshes which, with an elder brother's authority, he

forced her to put on, observing that nothing so completely evinced the

Londoner as her obstinacy in never having a pair of shoes that could keep

anything out.

'And where are you going?'

'To Hayward's farm. Is that too far for you? He wants an abatement of

his rent for some improvements, and I want to judge what they may be

worth.'

'Hayward's--oh, not a bit too far!' and holding up her skirts, she picked

her way as daintily as her weighty _chaussure_ would permit, along the

narrow green footway that crossed the expanse of dewy turf in which the

dogs careered, getting their noses covered with flakes of thick gossamer,

cemented together by dew. Fly scraped it off with a delicate forepaw,

Vixen rolled over, and doubly entangled it in her rugged coat. Humfrey

Charlecote strode on before his companion with his hands in his pockets,

and beginning to whistle, but pausing to observe, over his shoulder, 'A

sweet day for getting up the roots! You're not getting wet, I hope?'

'I couldn't through this rhinoceros hide, thank you. How exquisitely the

mist is curling up, and showing the church-spire in the valley.'

'And I suppose you have been reading all manner of books?'

'I think the best was a great history of France.'

'France!' he repeated in a contemptuous John Bull tone.

'Ay, don't be disdainful; France was the centre of chivalry in the old

time.'

'Better have been the centre of honesty.'

'And so it was in the time of St. Louis and his crusade. Do you know it,

Humfrey?'

'Eh?'

That was full permission. Ever since Honora had been able to combine a

narration, Humfrey had been the recipient, though she seldom knew whether

he attended, and from her babyhood upwards had been quite contented with

trotting in the wake of his long strides, pouring out her ardent fancies,

now and then getting an answer, but more often going on like a little

singing bird, through the midst of his avocations, and quite complacent

under his interruptions of calls to his dogs, directions to his

labourers, and warnings to her to mind her feet and not her chatter. In

the full stream of crusaders, he led her down one of the multitude of

by-paths cleared out in the hazel coppice for sporting; here leading up a

rising ground whence the tops of the trees might be overlooked, some

flecked with gold, some blushing into crimson, and beyond them the needle

point of the village spire, the vane flashing back the sun; there bending

into a ravine, marshy at the bottom, and nourishing the lady fern, then

again crossing glades, where the rabbits darted across the path, and the

battle of Damietta was broken into by stern orders to Fly to come to

heel, and the eating of the nuts which Humfrey pulled down from the

branches, and held up to his cousin with superior good nature.

'A Mameluke rushed in with a scimitar streaming with blood, and--'

'Take care; do you want help over this fence?'

'Not I, thank you--And said he had just murdered the king--'

'Vic! ah! take your nose out of that. Here was a crop, Nora.'

'What was it?'

'You don't mean that you don't know wheat stubble?'

'I remember it was to be wheat.'

'Red wheat, the finest we ever had in this land; not a bit beaten down,

and the colour perfectly beautiful before harvest; it used to put me in

mind of your hair. A load to the acre; a fair specimen of the effect of

drainage. Do you remember what a swamp it was?'

'I remember the beautiful loose-strifes that used to grow in that

corner.'

'Ah! we have made an end of that trumpery.'

'You savage old Humfrey--beauties that they were.'

'What had they to do with my cornfields? A place for everything and

everything in its place--French kings and all. What was this one doing

wool-gathering in Egypt?'

'Don't you understand, it had become the point for the blow at the

Saracen power. Where was I? Oh, the Mameluke justified the murder, and

wanted St. Louis to be king, but--'

'Ha! a fine covey, I only miss two out of them. These carrots, how their

leaves are turned--that ought not to be.'

Honora could not believe that anything ought not to be that was as

beautiful as the varied rosy tints of the hectic beauty of the

exquisitely shaped and delicately pinked foliage of the field carrots,

and with her cousin's assistance she soon had a large bouquet where no

two leaves were alike, their hues ranging from the deepest purple or

crimson to the palest yellow, or clear scarlet, like seaweed, through

every intermediate variety of purple edged with green, green picked out

with red or yellow, or _vice versa_, in never-ending brilliancy, such as

Humfrey almost seemed to appreciate, as he said, 'Well, you have

something as pretty as your weeds, eh, Honor?'

'I can't quite give up mourning for my dear long purples.'

'All very well by the river, but there's no beauty in things out of

place, like your Louis in Egypt--well, what was the end of this

predicament?'

So Humfrey had really heard and been interested! With such

encouragement, Honora proceeded swimmingly, and had nearly arrived at her

hero's ransom, through nearly a mile of field paths, only occasionally

interrupted by grunts from her auditor at farming not like his own, when

crossing a narrow foot-bridge across a clear stream, they stood before a

farmhouse, timbered and chimneyed much like the Holt, but with new sashes

displacing the old lattice.

'Oh! Humfrey, how could you bring me to see such havoc? I never

suspected you would allow it.'

'It was without asking leave; an attention to his bride; and now they

want an abatement for improvements! Whew!'

'You should fine him for the damage he has done!'

'I can't be hard on him, he is more or less of an ass, and a good sort of

fellow, very good to his labourers; he drove Jem Hurd to the infirmary

himself when he broke his arm. No, he is not a man to be hard upon.'

'You can't be hard on any one. Now that window really irritates my

mind.'

'Now Sarah walked down to call on the bride, and came home full of

admiration at the place being so lightsome and cheerful. Which of you

two ladies am I to believe?'

'You ought to make it a duty to improve the general taste! Why don't you

build a model farm-house, and let me make the design?'

'Ay, when I want one that nobody can live in. Come, it will be breakfast

time.'

'Are not you going to have an interview?'

'No, I only wanted to take a survey of the alterations; two windows,

smart door, iron fence, pulled down old barn, talks of another. Hm!'

'So he will get his reduction?'

'If he builds the barn. I shall try to see his wife; she has not been

brought up to farming, and whether they get on or not, all depends on the

way she may take it up. What are you looking at?'

'That lovely wreath of Traveller's Joy.'

'Do you want it?'

'No, thank you, it is too beautiful where it is.'

'There is a piece, going from tree to tree, by the Hiltonbury Gate, as

thick as my arm; I just saved it when West was going to cut it down with

the copsewood.'

'Well, you really are improving at last!'

'I thought you would never let me hear the last of it; besides, there was

a thrush's nest in it.'

By and by the cousins arrived at a field where Humfrey's portly

shorthorns were coming forth after their milking, under the pilotage of

an old white-headed man, bent nearly double, uncovering his head as the

squire touched his hat in response, and shouted, 'Good morning.'

'If you please, sir,' said the old man, trying to erect himself, 'I

wanted to speak to you.'

'Well.'

'If you please, sir, chimney smokes so as a body can scarce bide in the

house, and the blacks come down terrible.'

'Wants sweeping,' roared Humfrey, into his deaf ears.

'Have swep it, sir; old woman's been up with her broom.'

'Old woman hasn't been high enough. Send Jack up outside with a rope and

a bunch o' furze, and let her stand at bottom.'

'That's it, sir!' cried the old man, with a triumphant snap of the

fingers over his shoulder. 'Thank ye!'

'Here's Miss Honor, John;' and Honora came forward, her gravity somewhat

shaken by the domestic offices of the old woman.

'I'm glad to see you still able to bring out the cows, John. Here's my

favourite Daisy as tame as ever.'

'Ay! ay!' and he looked at his master for explanation from the stronger

and more familiar voice. 'I be deaf, you see, ma'am.'

'Miss Honor is glad to see Daisy as tame as ever,' shouted Humfrey.

'Ay! ay!' maundered on the old man; 'she ain't done no good of late, and

Mr. West and I--us wanted to have fatted her this winter, but the squire,

he wouldn't hear on it, because Miss Honor was such a terrible one for

her. Says I, when I hears 'em say so, we shall have another dinner on

the la-an, and the last was when the old squire was married, thirty-five

years ago come Michaelmas.'

Honora was much disposed to laugh at this freak of the old man's fancy,

but to her surprise Humfrey coloured up, and looked so much out of

countenance that a question darted through her mind whether he could have

any such step in contemplation, and she began to review the young ladies

of the neighbourhood, and to decide on each in turn that it would be

intolerable to see her as Humfrey's wife; more at home at the Holt than

herself. She had ample time for contemplation, for he had become very

silent, and once or twice the presumptuous idea crossed her that he might

be actually about to make her some confidence, but when he at length

spoke, very near the house, it was only to say, 'Honor, I wanted to ask

you if you think your father would wish me to ask young Sandbrook here?'

'Oh! thank you, I am sure he would be glad. You know poor Owen has

nowhere to go, since his uncle has behaved so shamefully.'

'It must have been a great mortification--'

'To Owen? Of course it was, to be so cast off for his noble purpose.'

'I was thinking of old Mr. Sandbrook--'

'Old wretch! I've no patience with him!'

'Just as he has brought this nephew up and hopes to make him useful and

rest some of his cares upon him in his old age, to find him flying off

upon this fresh course, and disappointing all his hopes.'

'But it is such a high and grand course, he ought to have rejoiced in it,

and Owen is not his son.'

'A man of his age, brought up as he has been, can hardly be expected to

enter into Owen's views.'

'Of course not. It is all sordid and mean, he cannot even understand the

missionary spirit of resigning all. As Owen says, half the Scripture

must be hyperbole to him, and so he is beginning Owen's persecution

already.'

It was one of Humfrey's provoking qualities that no amount of eloquence

would ever draw a word of condemnation from him; he would praise readily

enough, but censure was very rare with him, and extenuation was always

his first impulse, so the more Honora railed at Mr. Sandbrook's

interference with his nephew's plans, the less satisfaction she received

from him. She seemed to think that in order to admire Owen as he

deserved, his uncle must be proportionably reviled, and though Humfrey

did not imply a word save in commendation of the young missionary's

devotion, she went indoors feeling almost injured at his not

understanding it; but Honora's petulance was a very bright, sunny

piquancy, and she only appeared the more glowing and animated for it when

she presented herself at the breakfast-table, with a preposterous country

appetite.

Afterwards she filled a vase very tastefully with her varieties of

leaves, and enjoyed taking in her cousin Sarah, who admired the leaves

greatly while she thought they came from Mrs. Mervyn's hothouse; but when

she found they were the product of her own furrows, voted them coarse,

ugly, withered things, such as only the simplicity of a Londoner could

bring into civilized society. So Honora stood over her gorgeous feathery

bouquet, not knowing whether to laugh or to be scornful, till Humfrey,

taking up the vase, inquired, 'May I have it for my study?'

'Oh! yes, and welcome,' said Honora, laughing, and shaking her glowing

tresses at him; 'I am thankful to any one who stands up for carrots.'

Good-natured Humfrey, thought she, it is all that I may not be mortified;

but after all it is not those very good-natured people who best

appreciate lofty actions. He is inviting Owen Sandbrook more because he

thinks it would please papa, and because he compassionates him in his

solitary lodgings, than because he feels the force of his glorious

self-sacrifice.

* * * * *

The northern slope of the Holt was clothed with fir plantations,

intersected with narrow paths, which gave admission to the depths of

their lonely woodland palace, supported on rudely straight columns, dark

save for the snowy exuding gum, roofed in by aspiring beam-like arms,

bearing aloft their long tufts of dark blue green foliage, floored by the

smooth, slippery, russet needle leaves as they fell, and perfumed by the

peculiar fresh smell of turpentine. It was a still and lonely place, the

very sounds making the silence more audible (if such an expression may be

used), the wind whispering like the rippling waves of the sea in the tops

of the pines, here and there the cry of a bird, or far, far away, the

tinkle of the sheep-bell, or the tone of the church clock; and of

movement there was almost as little, only the huge horse ants soberly

wending along their highway to their tall hillock thatched with pine

leaves, or the squirrel in the ruddy, russet livery of the scene, racing

from tree to tree, or sitting up with his feathery tail erect to extract

with his delicate paws the seed from the base of the fir-cone scale.

Squirrels there lived to a good old age, till their plumy tails had

turned white, for the squire's one fault in the eyes of keepers and

gardeners was that he was soft-hearted towards 'the varmint.'

A Canadian forest on a small scale, an extremely miniature scale indeed,

but still Canadian forests are of pine, and the Holt plantation was fir,

and firs were pines, and it was a lonely musing place, and so on one of

the stillest, clearest days of 'St. Luke's little summer,' the last

afternoon of her visit at the Holt, there stood Honora, leaning against a

tree stem, deep, very deep in a vision of the primeval woodlands of the

West, their red inhabitants, and the white man who should carry the true,

glad tidings westward, westward, ever from east to west. Did she know

how completely her whole spirit and soul were surrendered to the worship

of that devotion? Worship? Yes, the word is advisedly used; Honora had

once given her spirit in homage to Schiller's self-sacrificing Max; the

same heart-whole veneration was now rendered to the young missionary,

multiplied tenfold by the hero being in a tangible, visible shape, and

not by any means inclined to thwart or disdain the allegiance of the

golden-haired girl. Nay, as family connections frequently meeting, they

had acted upon each other's minds more than either knew, even when the

hour of parting had come, and words had been spoken which gave Honora

something more to cherish in the image of Owen Sandbrook than even the

hero and saint. There then she stood and dreamt, pensive and saddened

indeed, but with a melancholy trenching very nearly on happiness in the

intensity of its admiration, and the vague ennobling future of devoted

usefulness in which her heart already claimed to share, as her person

might in some far away period on which she could not dwell.

[Picture: I find I can't spare you, Honora]

A sound approached, a firm footstep, falling with strong elasticity and

such regular cadences, that it seemed to chime in with the pine-tree

music, and did not startle her till it came so near that there was

distinctive character to be discerned in the tread, and then with a

strange, new shyness, she would have slipped away, but she had been seen,

and Humfrey, with his timber race in his hand, appeared on the path,

exclaiming, 'Ah, Honor, is it you come out to meet me, like old times?

You have been so much taken up with your friend Master Owen that I have

scarcely seen you of late.'

Honor did not move away, but she blushed deeply as she said, 'I am afraid

I did not come to meet you, Humfrey.'

'No? What, you came for the sake of a brown study? I wish I had known

you were not busy, for I have been round all the woods marking timber.'

'Ah!' said she, rousing herself with some effort, 'I wonder how many

trees I should have saved from the slaughter. Did you go and condemn any

of my pets?'

'Not that I know of,' said Humfrey. 'I have touched nothing near the

house.'

'Not even the old beech that was scathed with lightning? You know papa

says that is the touchstone of influence; Sarah and Mr. West both against

me,' laughed Honora, quite restored to her natural manner and confiding

ease.

'The beech is likely to stand as long as you wish it,' said Humfrey, with

an unaccustomed sort of matter-of-fact gravity, which surprised and

startled her, so as to make her bethink herself whether she could have

behaved ill about it, been saucy to Sarah, or the like.

'Thank you,' she said; 'have I made a fuss--?'

'No, Honor,' he said, with deliberate kindness, shutting up his knife,

and putting it into his pocket; 'only I believe it is time we should come

to an understanding.'

More than ever did she expect one of his kind remonstrances, and she

looked up at him in expectation, and ready for defence, but his broad,

sunburnt countenance looked marvellously heated, and he paused ere he

spoke.

'I find I can't spare you, Honora; you had better stay at the Holt for

good.' Her cheeks flamed, and her heart galloped, but she could not let

herself understand.

'Honor, you are old enough now, and I do not think you need fear. It is

almost your home already, and I believe I can make you happy, with the

blessing of God--' He paused, but as she could not frame an answer in

her consternation, continued, 'Perhaps I should not have spoken so

suddenly, but I thought you would not mind me; I should like to have had

one word from my little Honor before I go to your father, but don't if

you had rather not.'

'Oh, don't go to papa, please don't,' she cried, 'it would only make him

sorry.'

Humfrey stood as if under an unexpected shock.

'Oh! how came you to think of it?' she said in her distress; 'I never

did, and it can never be--I am so sorry!'

'Very well, my dear, do not grieve about it,' said Humfrey, only bent on

soothing her; 'I dare say you are quite right, you are used to people in

London much more suitable to you than a stupid homely fellow like me, and

it was a foolish fancy to think it might be otherwise. Don't cry, Honor

dear, I can't bear that!'

'Oh, Humfrey, only understand, please! You are the very dearest person

in the world to me after papa and mamma; and as to fine London people, oh

no, indeed! But--'

'It is Owen Sandbrook; I understand,' said Humfrey, gravely.

She made no denial.

'But, Honor,' he anxiously exclaimed, 'you are not going out in this wild

way among the backwoods, it would break your mother's heart; and he is

not fit to take care of you. I mean he cannot think of it now.'

'O no, no, I could not leave papa and mamma; but some time or other--'

'Is this arranged? Does your father know it?'

'Oh, Humfrey, of course!'

'Then it is an engagement?'

'No,' said Honora, sadly; 'papa said I was too young, and he wished I had

heard nothing about it. We are to go on as if nothing had happened, and

I know they think we shall forget all about it! As if we could! Not

that I wish it to be different. I know it would be wicked to desert papa

and mamma while she is so unwell. The truth is, Humfrey,' and her voice

sank, 'that it cannot be while they live.'

'My poor little Honor!' he said, in a tone of the most unselfish

compassion.

She had entirely forgotten his novel aspect, and only thought of him as

the kindest friend to whom she could open her heart.

'Don't pity me,' she said in exultation; 'think what it is to be his

choice. Would I have him give up his aims, and settle down in the

loveliest village in England? No, indeed, for then it would not be Owen!

I am happier in the thought of him than I could be with everything

present to enjoy.'

'I hope you will continue to find it so,' he said, repressing a sigh.

'I should be ashamed of myself if I did not,' she continued with

glistening eyes. 'Should not I have patience to wait while he is at his

real glorious labour? And as to home, that's not altered, only better

and brighter for the definite hope and aim that will go through

everything, and make me feel all I do a preparation.'

'Yes, you know him well,' said Humfrey; 'you saw him constantly when he

was at Westminster.'

'O yes, and always! Why, Humfrey, it is my great glory and pleasure to

feel that he formed me! When he went to Oxford, he brought me home all

the thoughts that have been my better life. All my dearest books we read

together, and what used to look dry and cold, gained light and life after

he touched it.'

'Yes, I see.'

His tone reminded her of what had passed, and she said, timidly, 'I

forgot! I ought not! I have vexed you, Humfrey.'

'No,' he said, in his full tender voice; 'I see that it was vain to think

of competing with one of so much higher claims. If he goes on in the

course he has chosen, yours will have been a noble choice, Honor; and I

believe,' he added, with a sweetness of smile that almost made her

forgive the _if_, 'that you are one to be better pleased _so_ than with

more ordinary happiness. I have no doubt it is all right.'

'Dear Humfrey, you are so good!' she said, struck with his kind

resignation, and utter absence of acerbity in his disappointment.

'Forget this, Honora,' he said, as they were coming to the end of the

pine wood; 'let us be as we were before.'

Honora gladly promised, and excepting for her wonder at such a step on

the part of the cousin whose plaything and pet she had hitherto been, she

had no temptation to change her manner. She loved him as much as ever,

but only as a kind elder brother, and she was glad that he was wise

enough to see his immeasurable inferiority to the young missionary. It

was a wonderful thing, and she was sorry for his disappointment; but

after all, he took it so quietly that she did not think it could have

hurt him much. It was only that he wanted to keep his pet in the

country. He was not capable of love like Owen Sandbrook's.

* * * * *

Years passed on. Rumour had bestowed Mr. Charlecote of Hiltonbury on

every lady within twenty miles, but still in vain. His mother was dead,

his sister married to an old college fellow, who had waited half a

lifetime for a living, but still he kept house alone.

And open house it was, with a dinner-table ever expanding for chance

guests, strawberry or syllabub feasts half the summer, and Christmas

feasts extending wide on either side of the twelve days. Every one who

wanted a holiday was free of the Holt; young sportsmen tried their

inexperienced guns under the squire's patient eye; and mammas disposed of

their children for weeks together, to enjoy the run of the house and

garden, and rides according to age, on pony, donkey, or Mr. Charlecote.

No festivity in the neighbourhood was complete without his sunshiny

presence; he was wanted wherever there was any family event; and was

godfather, guardian, friend, and adviser of all. Every one looked on him

as a sort of exclusive property, yet he had room in his heart for all.

As a magistrate, he was equally indispensable in county government, and a

charity must be undeserving indeed that had not Humfrey Charlecote, Esq.,

on the committee. In his own parish he was a beneficent monarch; on his

own estate a mighty farmer, owning that his relaxation and delight were

his turnips, his bullocks, and machines; and so content with them, and

with his guests, that Honora never recollected that walk in the pine

woods without deciding that to have monopolized him would have been an

injury to the public, and perhaps less for his happiness than this free,

open-hearted bachelor life. Seldom did she recall that scene to mind,

for she had never been by it rendered less able to trust to him as her

friend and protector, and she stood in need of his services and his

comfort, when her father's death had left him the nearest relative who

could advise or transact business for her and her mother. Then, indeed,

she leant on him as on the kindest and most helpful of brothers.

Mrs. Charlecote was too much acclimatized to the city to be willing to

give up her old residence, and Honor not only loved it fondly, but could

not bear to withdraw from the local charities where her tasks had

hitherto lain; and Woolstone-lane, therefore, continued their home,

though the summer and autumn usually took them out of London.

Such was the change in Honora's outward life. How was it with that

inmost shrine where dwelt her heart and soul? A copious letter writer,

Owen Sandbrook's correspondence never failed to find its way to her,

though they did not stand on such terms as to write to one another; and

in those letters she lived, doing her day's work with cheerful

brightness, and seldom seeming preoccupied, but imagination, heart, and

soul were with his mission.

Very indignant was she when the authorities, instead of sending him to

the interesting children of the forests, thought proper to waste him on

mere colonists, some of them Yankee, some Presbyterian Scots. He was

asked insolent, nasal questions, his goods were coolly treated as common

property, and it was intimated to him on all hands that as Englishman he

was little in their eyes, as clergyman less, as gentleman least of all.

Was this what he had sacrificed everything for?

By dint of strong complaints and entreaties, after he had quarrelled with

most of his flock, he accomplished an exchange into a district where red

men formed the chief of his charge; and Honora was happy, and watched for

histories of noble braves, gallant hunters, and meek-eyed squaws.

Slowly, slowly she gathered that the picturesque deer-skins had become

dirty blankets, and that the diseased, filthy, sophisticated savages were

among the worst of the pitiable specimens of the effect of contact with

the most evil side of civilization. To them, as Owen wrote, a missionary

was only a white man who gave no brandy, and the rest of his parishioners

were their obdurate, greedy, trading tempters! It had been a shame to

send him to such a hopeless set, when there were others on whom his toils

would not be thrown away. However, he should do his best.

And Honor went on expecting the wonders his best would work, only the

more struck with admiration by hearing that the locality was a swamp of

luxuriant vegetation, and equally luxuriant fever and ague; and the

letter he wrote thence to her mother on the news of their loss did her

more good than all Humfrey's considerate kindness.

Next, he had had the ague, and had gone to Toronto for change of air.

Report spoke of Mr. Sandbrook as the most popular preacher who had

appeared in Toronto for years, attracting numbers to his pulpit, and

sending them away enraptured by his power of language. How beautiful

that a man of such talents, always so much stimulated by appreciation,

should give up all this most congenial scene, and devote himself to his

obscure mission!

Report said more, but Honora gave it no credit till old Mr. Sandbrook

called one morning in Woolstone-lane, by his nephew's desire, to announce

to his friends that he had formed an engagement with Miss Charteris, the

daughter of a general officer there in command.

Honor sat out all the conversation; and Mrs. Charlecote did not betray

herself; though, burning with a mother's wrath, she did nothing worse

than hope they would be happy.

Yet Honor had not dethroned the monarch of her imagination. She

reiterated to herself and to her mother that she had no ground of

complaint, that it had been understood that the past was to be forgotten,

and that Owen was far more worthily employed than in dwelling on them.

No blame could attach to him, and it was wise to choose one accustomed to

the country and able to carry out his plans. The personal feeling might

go, but veneration survived.

Mrs. Charlecote never rested till she had learnt all the particulars. It

was a dashing, fashionable family, and Miss Charteris had been the gayest

of the gay, till she had been impressed by Mr. Sandbrook's ministrations.

From pope to lover, Honor knew how easy was the transition; but she

zealously nursed her admiration for the beauty, who was exchanging her

gaieties for the forest missions; she made her mother write cordially,

and send out a pretty gift, and treated as a personal affront all reports

of the Charteris disapprobation, and of the self-will of the young

people. They were married, and the next news that Honora heard was, that

the old general had had a fit from passion; thirdly, came tidings that

the eldest son, a prosperous M.P., had not only effected a

reconciliation, but had obtained a capital living for Mr. Sandbrook, not

far from the family seat.

Mrs. Charlecote declared that her daughter should not stay in town to

meet the young couple, and Honora's resistance was not so much dignity,

as a feverish spirit of opposition, which succumbed to her sense of duty,

but not without such wear and tear of strained cheerfulness and

suppressed misery, that when at length her mother had brought her away,

the fatigue of the journey completed the work, and she was prostrated for

weeks by low fever. The blow had fallen. He had put his hand to the

plough and looked back. Faithlessness towards herself had been passed

over unrecognized, faithlessness towards his self-consecration was quite

otherwise. That which had absorbed her affections and adoration had

proved an unstable, excitable being! Alas! would that long ago she had

opened her eyes to the fact that it was her own lofty spirit, not his

steadfastness, which had first kept it out of the question that the

mission should be set aside for human love. The crash of her idolatry

was the greater because it had been so highly pitched, so closely

intermingled with the true worship. She was long ill, the past series of

disappointments telling when her strength was reduced; and for many a

week she would lie still and dreamy, but fretted and wearied, so as to

control herself with difficulty when in the slightest degree disturbed,

or called upon to move or think. When her strength returned under her

mother's tender nursing the sense of duty revived. She thought her youth

utterly gone with the thinning of her hair and the wasting of her cheeks,

but her mother must be the object of her care and solicitude, and she

would exert herself for her sake, to save her grief, and hide the wound

left by the rending away of the jewel of her heart. So she set herself

to seem to like whatever her mother proposed, and she acted her interest

so well that insensibly it became real. After all, she was but

four-and-twenty, and the fever had served as an expression of the feeling

that would have its way: she had had a long rest, which had relieved the

sense of pent-up and restrained suffering, and vigour and buoyancy were a

part of her character; her tone and manner resumed their cheerfulness,

her spirits came back, though still with the dreary feeling that the hope

and aim of life were gone, when she was left to her own musings; she was

little changed, and went on with daily life, contented and lively over

the details, and returning to her interest in reading, in art, poetry,

and in all good works, while her looks resumed their brightness, and her

mother congratulated herself once more on the rounded cheek and profuse

curls.

At the year's end Humfrey Charlecote renewed his proposal. It was no

small shock to find herself guilty of his having thus long remained

single, and she was touched by his kind forbearance, but there was no

bringing herself either to love him, or to believe that he loved her,

with such love as had been her vision. The image around which she had

bound her heart-strings came between him and her, and again she begged

his pardon, and told him she liked him too well as he was to think of him

in any other light. Again he, with the most tender patience and

humility, asked her to forgive him for having harassed her, and betrayed

so little chagrin that she ascribed his offer to generous compassion at

her desertion.

CHAPTER II

He who lets his feelings run

In soft luxurious flow,

Shrinks when hard service must be done,

And faints at every woe.

Seven years more, and Honora was in mourning for her mother. She was

alone in the world, without any near or precious claim, those clinging

tendrils of her heart rent from their oldest, surest earthly stay, and

her time left vacant from her dearest, most constant occupation. Her

impulse was to devote herself and her fortune at once to the good work

which most engaged her imagination, but Humfrey Charlecote, her sole

relation, since heart complaint had carried off his sister Sarah,

interfered with the authority he had always exercised over her, and

insisted on her waiting one full year before pledging herself to

anything. At one-and-thirty, with her golden hair and light figure, her

delicate skin and elastic step, she was still too young to keep house in

solitude, and she invited to her home a friendless old governess of her

own, sick at heart with standing for the Governess's Institution,

promising her a daughter's care and attendance on her old age. Gentle

old Miss Wells was but too happy in her new quarters, though she

constantly averred that she knew she should not continue there; treated

as injuries to herself all Honor's assertions of the dignity of age and

old maidishness, and remained convinced that she should soon see her

married.

Honora had not seen Mr. Sandbrook since his return from Canada, though

his living was not thirty miles from the City. There had been exchanges

of calls when he had been in London, but these had only resulted in the

leaving of cards; and from various causes she had been unable to meet him

at dinner. She heard of him, however, from their mutual connection, old

Mrs. Sandbrook, who had made a visit at Wrapworth, and came home stored

with anecdotes of the style in which he lived, the charms of Mrs.

Sandbrook, and the beauty of the children. As far as Honora could

gather, and very unwillingly she did so, he was leading the life of an

easy-going, well-beneficed clergyman, not neglecting the parish,

according to the requirements of the day, indeed slightly exceeding them,

very popular, good-natured, and charitable, and in great request in a

numerous, demi-suburban neighbourhood, for all sorts of not unclerical

gaieties. The Rev. O. Sandbrook was often to be met with in the papers,

preaching everywhere and for everything, and whispers went about of his

speedy promotion to a situation of greater note. In the seventh year of

his marriage, his wife died, and Honora was told of his overwhelming

grief, how he utterly refused all comfort or alleviation, and threw

himself with all his soul into his parish and his children. People spoke

of him as going about among the poor from morning to night, with his

little ones by his side, shrinking from all other society, teaching them

and nursing them himself, and endeavouring to the utmost to be as both

parents in one. The youngest, a delicate infant, soon followed her

mother to the grave, and old Mrs. Sandbrook proved herself to have no

parent's heart by being provoked with his agonizing grief for the 'poor

little sickly thing,' while it was not in Honora's nature not to feel the

more tenderly towards the idol of her girlish days, because he was in

trouble.

It was autumn, the period when leaves fall off and grow damp, and London

birds of passage fly home to their smoky nests. Honora, who had gone to

Weymouth chiefly because she saw Miss Wells would be disappointed if she

did otherwise; when there, had grown happily at home with the waves, and

in talking to the old fishermen; but had come back because Miss Wells

thought it chilly and dreary, and pined for London warmth and snugness.

The noonday sun had found the way in at the oriel window of the

drawing-room, and traced the reflection of the merchant's mark upon the

upper pane in distorted outline on the wainscoted wall; it smiled on the

glowing tints of Honora's hair, but seemed to die away against the

blackness of her dress, as she sat by the table, writing letters, while

opposite, in the brightness of the fire, sat the pale, placid Miss Wells

with her morning nest of sermon books and needlework around her.

Honor yawned; Miss Wells looked up with kind anxiety. She knew such a

yawn was equivalent to a sigh, and that it was dreary work to settle in

at home again this first time without the mother.

Then Honor smiled, and played with her pen-wiper. 'Well,' she said, 'it

is comfortable to be at home again!'

'I hope you will soon be able to feel so, my dear,' said the kind old

governess.

'I mean it,' said Honor cheerfully; then sighing, 'But do you know, Mr.

Askew wishes his curates to visit at the asylum instead of ladies.'

Miss Wells burst out into all the indignation that was in her mild

nature. Honor not to visit at the asylum founded chiefly by her own

father!

'It is a parish affair now,' said Honor; 'and I believe those Miss Stones

and their set have been very troublesome. Besides I think he means to

change its character.'

'It is very inconsiderate of him,' said Miss Wells; 'he ought to have

consulted you.'

'Every one loves his own charity the best,' said Honora; 'Humfrey says

endowments are generally a mistake, each generation had better do its own

work to the utmost. I wish Mr. Askew had not begun now, it was the work

I specially looked to, but I let it alone while--and he cannot be

expected--'

'I should have expected it of him though!' exclaimed Miss Wells, 'and he

ought to know better! How have you heard it?'

'I have a note from him this morning,' said Honora; 'he asks me Humfrey

Charlecote's address; you know he and Mr. Sandbrook are trustees,' and

her voice grew the sadder.

'If I am not much mistaken, Mr. Charlecote will represent to him his want

of consideration.'

'I think not,' said Honora; 'I should be sorry to make the clergyman's

hard task here any harder for the sake of my feelings. Late incumbent's

daughters are proverbially inconvenient. No, I would not stand in the

way, but it makes me feel as if my work in St. Wulstan's were done,' and

the tears dropped fast.

'Dear, dear Honora!' began the old lady, eagerly, but her words and

Honora's tears were both checked by the sound of a bell, that bell within

the court, to which none but intimates found access.

'Strange! It is the thought of old times, I suppose,' said Honor,

smiling, 'but I could have said that was Owen Sandbrook's ring.'

The words were scarcely spoken, ere Mr. Sandbrook and Captain Charteris

were announced; and there entered a clergyman leading a little child in

each hand. How changed from the handsome, hopeful youth from whom she

had parted! Thin, slightly bowed, grief-stricken, and worn, she would

scarcely have known him, and as if to hide how much she felt, she bent

quickly, after shaking hands with him, to kiss the two children,

flaxen-curled creatures in white, with black ribbons. They both shrank

closer to their father. 'Cilly, my love, Owen, my man, speak to Miss

Charlecote,' he said; 'she is a very old friend of mine. This is my

bonny little housekeeper,' he added, 'and here's a sturdy fellow for four

years old, is not he?'

The girl, a delicate fairy of six, barely accepted an embrace, and clung

the faster to her father, with a gesture as though to repel all advance.

The boy took a good stare out of a pair of resolute gray eyes, with one

foot in advance, and offered both hands. Honora would have taken him on

her knee, but he retreated, and both leant against their father as he

sat, an arm round each, after shaking hands with Miss Wells, whom he

recollected at once, and presenting his brother-in-law, whose broad,

open, sailor countenance, hardy and weather-stained, was a great contrast

to his pale, hollow, furrowed cheeks and heavy eyes.

'Will you tell me your name, my dear?' said Honora, feeling the children

the easiest to talk to; but the little girl's pretty lips pouted, and she

nestled nearer to her father.

'Her name is Lucilla,' he answered with a sigh, recalling that it had

been his wife's name. 'We are all somewhat of little savages,' he added,

in excuse for the child's silence. 'We have seen few strangers at

Wrapworth of late.'

'I did not know you were in London.'

'It was a sudden measure--all my brother's doing,' he said; 'I am quite

taken out of my own guidance.'

'I went down to Wrapworth and found him very unwell, quite out of order,

and neglecting himself,' said the captain; 'so I have brought him up for

advice, as I could not make him hear reason.'

'I was afraid you were looking very ill,' said Honora, hardly daring to

glance at his changed face.

'Can't help being ill,' returned Captain Charteris, 'running about the

village in all weathers in a coat like that, and sitting down to play

with the children in his wet things. I saw what it would come to, last

time.'

Mr. Sandbrook could not repress a cough, which told plainly what it was

come to.

Miss Wells asked whom he intended to consult, and there was some talk on

physicians, but the subject was turned off by Mr. Sandbrook bending down

to point out to little Owen a beautiful carving of a brooding dove on her

nest, which formed the central bracket of the fine old mantelpiece.

'There, my man, that pretty bird has been sitting there ever since I can

remember. How like it all looks to old times! I could imagine myself

running in from Westminster on a saint's day.'

'It is little altered in some things,' said Honor. The last great change

was too fresh!

'Yes,' said Mr. Sandbrook, raising his eyes towards her with the look

that used to go so deep of old, 'we have both gone through what makes the

unchangeableness of these impassive things the more striking.'

'I can't see,' said the little girl, pulling his hand.

'Let me lift you up, my dear,' said Honora; but the child turned her back

on her, and said, 'Father.'

He rose, and was bending, at the little imperious voice, though evidently

too weak for the exertion, but the sailor made one step forward, and

pouncing on Miss Lucilla, held her up in his arms close to the carving.

The two little feet made signs of kicking, and she said in anything but a

grateful voice, 'Put me down, Uncle Kit.'

Uncle Kit complied, and she retreated under her papa's wing, pouting, but

without another word of being lifted, though she had been far too much

occupied with struggling to look at the dove. Meantime her brother had

followed up her request by saying 'me,' and he fairly put out his arms to

be lifted by Miss Charlecote, and made most friendly acquaintance with

all the curiosities of the carving. The rest of the visit was chiefly

occupied by the children, to whom their father was eager to show all that

he had admired when little older than they were, thus displaying a

perfect and minute recollection and affection for the place, which much

gratified Honora. The little girl began to thaw somewhat under the

influence of amusement, but there was still a curious ungraciousness

towards all attentions. She required those of her father as a right, but

shook off all others in a manner which might be either shyness or

independence; but as she was a pretty and naturally graceful child, it

had a somewhat engaging air of caprice. They took leave, Mr. Sandbrook

telling the children to thank Miss Charlecote for being so kind to them,

which neither would do, and telling her, as he pressed her hand, that he

hoped to see her again. Honora felt as if an old page in her history had

been reopened, but it was not the page of her idolatry, it was that of

the fall of her idol! She did not see in him the champion of the truth,

but his presence palpably showed her the excitable weakness which she had

taken for inspiration, while the sweetness and sympathy warmed her heart

towards him, and made her feel that she had underrated his

attractiveness. His implications that he knew she sympathized with him

had touched her greatly, and then he looked so ill!

A note from old Mrs. Sandbrook begged her to meet him at dinner the next

day, and she was glad of the opportunity of learning the doctor's verdict

upon him, though all the time she knew the meeting would be but pain,

bringing before her the disappointment not _of_ him, but _in_ him.

No one was in the drawing-room but Captain Charteris, who came and shook

hands with her as if they were old friends; but she was somewhat amazed

at missing Mrs. Sandbrook, whose formality would be shocked by leaving

her guests in the lurch.

'Some disturbance in the nursery department, I fancy,' said the captain;

'those children have never been from home, and they are rather exacting,

poor things.'

'Poor little things!' echoed Honora; then, anxious to profit by the

_tete-a-tete_, 'has Mr. Sandbrook seen Dr. L.?'

'Yes, it is just as I apprehended. Lungs very much affected, right one

nearly gone. Nothing for it but the Mediterranean.'

'Indeed!'

'It is no wonder. Since my poor sister died he has never taken the most

moderate care of his health, perfectly revelled in dreariness and

desolateness, I believe! He has had this cough about him ever since the

winter, when he walked up and down whole nights with that poor child, and

never would hear of any advice till I brought him up here almost by

force.'

'I am sure it was time.'

'May it be in time, that's all.'

'Italy does so much! But what will become of the children?'

'They must go to my brother's of course. I have told him I will see him

there, but I will not have the children! There's not the least chance of

his mending, if they are to be always lugging him about--'

The captain was interrupted by the entrance of Mrs. Sandbrook, who looked

a good deal worried, though she tried to put it aside, but on the captain

saying, 'I'm afraid that you have troublesome guests, ma'am,' out it all

came, how it had been discovered late in the day that Master Owen _must_

sleep in his papa's room, in a crib to himself, and how she had been

obliged to send out to hire the necessary articles, subject to his

nurse's approval; and the captain's sympathy having opened her heart, she

further informed them of the inconvenient rout the said nurse had made

about getting new milk for them, for which Honor could have found it in

her heart to justify her; 'and poor Owen is just as bad,' quoth the old

lady; 'I declare those children are wearing his very life out, and yet he

will not hear of leaving them behind.'

She was interrupted by his appearance at that moment, as usual, with a

child in either hand, and a very sad picture it was, so mournful and

spiritless was his countenance, with the hectic tint of decay evident on

each thin cheek, and those two fair healthful creatures clinging to him,

thoughtless of their past loss, unconscious of that which impended.

Little Owen, after one good stare, evidently recognized a friend in Miss

Charlecote, and let her seat him upon her knee, listening to her very

complacently, but gazing very hard all the time at her, till at last,

with an experimental air, he stretched one hand and stroked the broad

golden ringlet that hung near him, evidently to satisfy himself whether

it really was hair. Then he found his way to her watch, a pretty little

one from Geneva, with enamelled flowers at the back, which so struck his

fancy that he called out, 'Cilly, look!' The temptation drew the little

girl nearer, but with her hands behind her back, as if bent on making no

advance to the stranger.

Honora thought her the prettiest child she had ever seen. Small and

lightly formed, there was more symmetry in her little fairy figure than

usual at her age, and the skin was exquisitely fine and white, tinted

with a soft eglantine pink, deepening into roses on the cheeks; the hair

was in long flaxen curls, and the eyelashes, so long and fair that at

times they caught a glossy light, shaded eyes of that deep blue upon that

limpid white, which is like nothing but the clear tints of old porcelain.

The features were as yet unformed, but small and delicate, and the

upright Napoleon gesture had something peculiarly quaint and pretty in

such a soft-looking little creature. The boy was a handsome fellow, with

more solidity and sturdiness, and Honora could scarcely continue to amuse

him, as she thought of the father's pain in parting with two such

beings--his sole objects of affection. A moment's wish flashed across

her, but was dismissed the next moment as a mere childish romance.

Old Mr. Sandbrook came in, and various other guests arrived, old

acquaintance to whom Owen must be re-introduced, and he looked fagged and

worn by the time all the greetings had been exchanged and all the remarks

made on his children. When dinner was announced, he remained to the last

with them, and did not appear in the dining-room till his uncle had had

time to look round for him, and mutter something discontentedly about

'those brats.' The vacant chair was beside Honora, and he was soon

seated in it, but at first he did not seem inclined to talk, and leant

back, so white and exhausted, that she thought it kinder to leave him to

himself.

When, somewhat recruited, he said in a low voice something of his hopes

that his little Cilly, as he called her, would be less shy another time,

and Honora responding heartily, he quickly fell into the parental strain

of anecdotes of the children's sayings and doings, whence Honora

collected that in his estimation Lucilla's forte was decision and Owen's

was sweetness, and that he was completely devoted to them, nursing and

teaching them himself, and finding his whole solace in them. Tender pity

moved her strongly towards him, as she listened to the evidences of the

desolateness of his home and his heavy sorrow; and yet it was pity alone,

admiration would not revive, and indeed, in spite of herself, her

judgment _would_ now and then respond 'unwise,' or 'weak,' or 'why permit

this?' at details of Lucilla's _mutinerie_. Presently she found that his

intentions were quite at variance with those of his brother. His purpose

was fixed to take the children with him.

'They are very young,' said Honora.

'Yes; but their nurse is a most valuable person, and can arrange

perfectly for them, and they will always be under my eye.'

'That was just what Captain Charteris seemed to dread.'

'He little knows,' began Mr. Sandbrook, with a sigh. 'Yes, I know he is

most averse to it, and he is one who always carries his point, but he

will not do so here; he imagines that they may go to their aunt's

nursery, but,' with an added air of confidence, 'that will never do!'

Honora's eyes asked more.

'In fact,' he said, as the flush of pain rose on his cheeks, 'the

Charteris children are not brought up as I should wish to see mine.

There are influences at work there not suited for those whose home must

be a country parsonage, if-- Little Cilly has come in for more

admiration there already than is good for her.'

'It cannot be easy for her not to meet with that.'

'Why, no,' said the gratified father, smiling sadly; 'but Castle Blanch

training might make the mischief more serious. It is a gay household,

and I cannot believe with Kit Charteris that the children are too young

to feel the blight of worldly influence. Do not you think with me,

Nora?' he concluded in so exactly the old words and manner as to stir the

very depths of her heart, but woe worth the change from the hopes of

youth to this premature fading into despondency, and the implied

farewell! She did think with him completely, and felt the more for him,

as she believed that these Charterises had led him and his wife into the

gaieties, which since her death he had forsworn and abhorred as

temptations. She thought it hard that he should not have his children

with him, and talked of all the various facilities for taking them that

she could think of, till his face brightened under the grateful sense of

sympathy.

She did not hold the same opinion all the evening. The two children made

their appearance at dessert, and there began by insisting on both sitting

on his knees; Owen consented to come to her, but Lucilla would not stir,

though she put on some pretty little coquettish airs, and made herself

extremely amiable to the gentleman who sat on her father's other hand,

making smart replies, that were repeated round the table with much

amusement.

But the ordinance of departure with the ladies was one of which the

sprite had no idea; Honor held out her hand for her; Aunt Sandbrook

called her; her father put her down; she shook her curls, and said she

should not leave father; it was stupid up in the drawing-room, and she

hated ladies, which confession set every one laughing, so as quite to

annihilate the effect of Mr. Sandbrook's 'Yes, go, my dear.'

Finally, he took the two up-stairs himself--the stairs which, as he had

told Honora that evening, were his greatest enemies, and he remained a

long time in their nursery, not coming down till tea was in progress.

Mrs. Sandbrook always made it herself at the great silver urn, which had

been a testimonial to her husband, and it was not at first that she had a

cup ready for him. He looked even worse than at dinner, and Honora was

anxious to see him resting comfortably; but he had hardly sat down on the

sofa, and taken the cup in his hand, before a dismal childish wail was

heard from above, and at once he started up, so hastily as to cough

violently. Captain Charteris, breaking off a conversation, came rapidly

across the room just as he was moving to the door. 'You're not going to

those imps--'

Owen moved his head, and stepped forward.

'I'll settle them.'

Renewed cries met his ears. 'No--a strange place--' he said. 'I must--'

He put his brother-in-law back with his hand, and was gone. The captain

could not contain his vexation, 'That's the way those brats serve him

every night!' he exclaimed; 'they will not attempt to go to sleep without

him! Why, I've found him writing his sermon with the boy wrapped up in

blankets in his lap; there's no sense in it.'

After about ten minutes, during which Mr. Sandbrook did not reappear,

Captain Charteris muttered something about going to see about him, and

stayed away a good while. When he came down, he came and sat down by

Honora, and said, 'He is going to bed, quite done for.'

'That must be better for him than talking here.'

'Why, what do you think I found? Those intolerable brats would not stop

crying unless he told them a story, and there was he with his voice quite

gone, coughing every two minutes, and romancing on with some allegory

about children marching on their little paths, and playing on their

little fiddles. So I told Miss Cilly that if she cared a farthing for

her father, she would hold her tongue, and I packed her up, and put her

into her nursery. She'll mind me when she sees I will be minded; and as

for little Owen, nothing would satisfy him but his promising not to go

away. I saw that chap asleep before I came down, so there's no fear of

the yarn beginning again; but you see what chance there is of his mending

while those children are at him day and night.'

'Poor things! they little know.'

'One does not expect them to know, but one does expect them to show a

little rationality. It puts one out of all patience to see him so weak.

If he is encouraged to take them abroad, he may do so, but I wash my

hands of him. I won't be responsible for him--let them go alone!'

Honora saw this was a reproach to her for the favour with which she had

regarded the project. She saw that the father's weakness quite altered

the case, and her former vision flashed across her again, but she

resolutely put it aside for consideration, and only made the unmeaning

answer, 'It is very sad and perplexing.'

'A perplexity of his own making. As for their not going to Castle

Blanch, they were always there in my poor sister's time a great deal more

than was good for any of them, or his parish either, as I told him then;

and now, if he finds out that it is a worldly household, as he calls it,

why, what harm is that to do to a couple of babies like those? If Mrs.

Charteris does not trouble herself much about the children, there are

governesses and nurses enough for a score!'

'I must own,' said Honora, 'that I think he is right. Children are never

too young for impressions.'

'I'll tell you what, Miss Charlecote, the way he is going on is enough to

ruin the best children in the world. That little Cilly is the most

arrant little flirt I ever came across; it is like a comedy to see the

absurd little puss going on with the curate, ay, and with every parson

that comes to Wrapworth; and she sees nothing else. Impressions! All

she wants is to be safe shut up with a good governess, and other

children. It would do her a dozen times more good than all his stories

of good children and their rocky paths, and boats that never sailed on

any reasonable principle.'

'Poor child,' said Honora, smiling, 'she is a little witch.'

'And,' continued the uncle, 'if he thinks it so bad for them, he had

better take the only way of saving them from it for the future, or they

will be there for life. If he gets through this winter, it will only be

by the utmost care.'

Honora kept her project back with the less difficulty, because she

doubted how it would be received by the rough captain; but it won more

and more upon her, as she rattled home through the gas-lights, and though

she knew she should learn to love the children only to have the pang of

losing them, she gladly cast this foreboding aside as selfish, and

applied herself impartially as she hoped to weigh the duty, but trembling

were the hands that adjusted the balance. Alone as she stood, without a

tie, was not she marked out to take such an office of mere pity and

charity? Could she see the friend of her childhood forced either to

peril his life by his care of his motherless children, or else to leave

them to the influences he so justly dreaded? Did not the case cry out to

her to follow the promptings of her heart? Ay, but might not, said

caution, her assumption of the charge lead their father to look on her as

willing to become their mother? Oh, fie on such selfish prudery imputing

such a thought to yonder broken-hearted, sinking widower! He had as

little room for such folly as she had inclination to find herself on the

old terms. The hero of her imagination he could never be again, but it

would be weak consciousness to scruple at offering so obvious an act of

compassion. She would not trust herself, she would go by what Miss Wells

said. Nevertheless she composed her letter to Owen Sandbrook between

waking and sleeping all night, and dreamed of little creatures nestling

in her lap, and small hands playing with her hair. How coolly she strove

to speak as she described the dilemma to the old lady, and how her heart

leapt when Miss Wells, her mind moving in the grooves traced out by

sympathy with her pupil, exclaimed, 'Poor little dears, what a pity they

should not be with you, my dear, they would be a nice interest for you!'

Perhaps Miss Wells thought chiefly of the brightening in her child's

manner, and the alert vivacity of eye and voice such as she had not seen

in her since she had lost her mother; but be that as it might, her words

were the very sanction so much longed for, and ere long Honora had her

writing-case before her, cogitating over the opening address, as if her

whole meaning were implied in them.

'My dear Owen' came so naturally that it was too like an attempt to recur

to the old familiarity. 'My dear Mr. Sandbrook?' So formal as to be

conscious! 'Dear Owen?' Yes that was the cousinly medium, and in

diffident phrases of restrained eagerness, now seeming too affectionate,

now too cold she offered to devote herself to his little ones, to take a

house on the coast, and endeavour to follow out his wishes with regard to

them, her good old friend supplying her lack of experience.

With a beating heart she awaited the reply. It was but few lines, but

all Owen was in them.

'MY DEAR NORA--You always were an angel of goodness. I feel your

kindness more than I can express. If my darlings were to be left at

all, it should be with you, but I cannot contemplate it. Bless you

for the thought!

'Yours ever, O. SANDBROOK.'

She heard no more for a week, during which a dread of pressing herself on

him prevented her from calling on old Mrs. Sandbrook. At last, to her

surprise, she received a visit from Captain Charteris, the person whom

she looked on as least propitious, and most inclined to regard her as an

enthusiastic silly young lady. He was very gruff, and gave a bad account

of his patient. The little boy had been unwell, and the exertion of

nursing him had been very injurious; the captain was very angry with

illness, child, and father.

'However,' he said, 'there's one good thing, L. has forbidden the

children's perpetually hanging on him, sleeping in his room, and so

forth. With the constitutions to which they have every right, poor

things, he could not find a better way of giving them the seeds of

consumption. That settles it. Poor fellow, he has not the heart to

hinder their always pawing him, so there's nothing for it but to separate

them from him.'

'And may I have them?' asked Honor, too anxious to pick her words.

'Why, I told him I would come and see whether you were in earnest in your

kind offer. You would find them no sinecure.'

'It would be a great happiness,' said she, struggling with tears that

might prevent the captain from depending on her good sense, and speaking

calmly and sadly; 'I have no other claims, nothing to tie me to any

place. I am a good deal older than I look, and my friend, Miss Wells,

has been a governess. _She_ is really a very wise, judicious person, to

whom he may quite trust. Owen and I were children together, and I know

nothing that I should like better than to be useful to him.'

'Humph!' said the captain, more touched than he liked to betray; 'well,

it seems the only thing to which he can bear to turn!'

'Oh!' she said, breaking off, but emotion and earnestness looked

glistening and trembling through every feature.

'Very well,' said Captain Charteris, 'I'm glad, at least, that there is

some one to have pity on the poor things! There's my brother's wife, she

doesn't say no, but she talks of convenience and spoilt

children--Sandbrook was quite right after all; I would not tell him how

she answered me! Spoilt children to be sure they are, poor things, but

she might recollect they have no mother--such a fuss as she used to make

with poor Lucilla too. Poor Lucilla, she would never have believed that

"dear Caroline" would have no better welcome for her little ones! Spoilt

indeed! A precious deal pleasanter children they are than any of the lot

at Castle Blanch, and better brought up too.'

The good captain's indignation had made away with his consistency, but

Honora did not owe him a grudge for revealing that she was his _pis

aller_, she was prone to respect a man who showed that he despised her,

and she only cared to arrange the details. He was anxious to carry away

his charge at once, since every day of this wear and tear of feeling was

doing incalculable harm, and she undertook to receive the children and

nurse at any time. She would write at once for a house at some warm

watering-place, and take them there as soon as possible, and she offered

to call that afternoon to settle all with Owen.

'Why,' said Captain Charteris, 'I hardly know. One reason I came alone

was, that I believe that little elf of a Cilly has some notion of what is

plotting against her. You can't speak a word but that child catches up,

and she will not let her father out of her sight for a moment.'

'Then what is to be done? I would propose his coming here; but the poor

child would not let him go.'

'That is the only chance. He has been forbidden the walking with them in

his arms to put them to sleep, and we've got the boy into the nursery,

and he'd better be out of the house than hear them roaring for him. So

if you have no objection, and he is tolerable this evening, I would bring

him as soon as they are gone to bed.'

Poor Owen was evidently falling under the management of stronger hands

than his own, and it could only be hoped that it was not too late. His

keeper brought him at a little after eight that evening. There was a

look about him as if, after the last stroke that had befallen him, he

could feel no more, the bitterness of death was past, his very hands

looked woe-begone and astray, without the little fingers pressing them.

He could not talk at first; he shook Honor's hand as if he could not bear

to be grateful to her, and only the hardest hearts could have endured to

enter on the intended discussion. The captain was very gentle towards

him, and talk was made on other topics but gradually something of the

influence of the familiar scene where his brightest days had been passed,

began to prevail. All was like old times--the quaint old silver kettle

and lamp, the pattern of the china cups, the ruddy play of the fire on

the polished panels of the room--and he began to revive and join the

conversation. They spoke of Delaroche's beautiful Madonnas, one of which

was at the time to be seen at a print-shop--'Yes,' said Mr. Sandbrook,

'and little Owen cried out as soon as he saw it, "That lady, the lady

with the flowery watch."'

Honora smiled. It was an allusion to the old jests upon her auburn

locks, 'a greater compliment to her than to Delaroche,' she said; 'I saw

that he was extremely curious to ascertain what my carrots were made of.'

'Do you know, Nora, I never saw more than one person with such hair as

yours,' said Owen, with more animation, 'and oddly enough her name turned

out to be Charlecote.'

'Impossible! Humfrey and I are the only Charlecotes left that I know of!

Where could it have been?'

'It was at Toronto. I must confess that I was struck by the brilliant

hair in chapel. Afterwards I met her once or twice. She was a Canadian

born, and had just married a settler, whose name I can't remember, but

her maiden name had certainly been Charlecote; I remembered it because of

the coincidence.'

'Very curious; I did not know there had been any Charlecotes but

ourselves.'

'And Humfrey Charlecote has never married?'

'Never.'

What made Owen raise his eyes at that moment, just so that she met them?

and why did that dreadful uncontrollable crimson heat come mounting up

over cheeks and temples, tingling and spreading into her very neck, just

because it was the most hateful thing that could happen? And he saw it.

She knew he did so, for he dropped his eyes at once, and there was an

absolute silence, which she broke in desperation, by an incoherent

attempt to say something, and that ended by blundering into the tender

subject--the children; she found she had been talking about the place to

which she thought of taking them, a quiet spot on the northern coast of

Somersetshire.

He could bear the pang a little better now, and assented, and the ice

once broken, there were so many details and injunctions that lay near his

heart that the conversation never flagged. He had great reliance on

their nurse, and they were healthy children, so that there was not much

instruction as regarded the care of their little persons; but he had a

great deal to say about the books they were to be taught from, the hymns

they were to learn, and the exact management required by Lucilla's

peculiar temper and decided will. The theory was so perfect and so

beautifully wise that Honora sat by in reverence, fearing her power of

carrying it out; and Captain Charteris listened with a shade of satire on

his face, and at last broke out with a very odd grunt, as if he did not

think this quite what he had seen at Wrapworth parsonage.

Mr. Sandbrook coloured, and checked himself. Then after a pause, he said

in a very different tone, 'Perhaps so, Kit. It is only too easy to talk.

Nora knows that there is a long way between my intentions and my

practice.'

The humble dejection of that tone touched her more than she had been

touched since he had wrung her hand, long, long ago.

'Well,' said the captain, perceiving only that he had given pain, 'I will

say this for your monkeys, they do _know_ what is right at least; they

have heard the articles of war, which I don't fancy the other lot ever

did. As to the discipline, humph! It is much of a muchness, and I'm not

sure but it is not the best at the castle.'

'The children are different at home,' said Owen, quietly; 'but,' he

added, with the same sad humility, 'I dare say they will be much the

better for the change; I know--'

But he broke off, and put his hand before his eyes.

Honora hoped she should not be left alone with him, but somehow it did

happen. The captain went to bring the carriage into the court, and get

all imaginable wraps before trusting him out in the air, and Miss Wells

disappeared, probably intending kindness. Of course neither spoke, till

the captain was almost come back. Then Owen rose from where he had been

sitting listlessly, leaning back, and slowly said, 'Nora, we did not

think it would end thus when I put my hand to the plough. I am glad to

have been here again. I had not remembered what I used to be. I do not

ask you to forgive me. You are doing so, returning me good for--shall I

say evil?'

Honor could not speak or look, she drooped her head, and her hair veiled

her; she held out her hand as the captain came in, and felt it pressed

with a feverish, eager grasp, and a murmured blessing.

Honora did not see Mr. Sandbrook again, but Captain Charteris made an

incursion on her the next day to ask if she could receive the children on

the ensuing morning. He had arranged to set off before daybreak,

embarking for Ostend before the children were up, so as to spare the

actual parting, and Honora undertook to fetch them home in the course of

the day. He had hoped to avoid their knowing of the impending separation

but he could only prevail so far as to extract a promise that they should

not know when it was to take place. Their father had told them of their

destination and his own as they sat on his bed in the morning before he

rose, and apparently it had gone off better than could have been

expected; little Owen did not seem to understand, and his sister was a

child who never shed tears.

The day came, and Honora awoke to some awe at the responsibility, but

with a yearning supplied, a vacancy filled up. For at least six months

she should be as a mother, and a parent's prayers could hardly have been

more earnest.

She had not long been dressed, when a hasty peal was heard at the bell,

and no sooner was the door opened than in hurried Captain Charteris,

breathless, and bearing a large plaid bundle with tangled flaxen locks

drooping at one end, and at the other rigid white legs, socks trodden

down, one shoe wanting.

He deposited it, and there stood the eldest child, her chin buried in her

neck, her fingers digging fast into their own palms, her eyes gleaming

fiercely at him under the pent-house she had made of her brows.

'There's an introduction!' he said, panting for breath. 'Found her in

time--the Strand--laid flat on back seat, under all the plaids and

bags--her father put up his feet and found her--we drove to the lane--I

ran down with her--not a moment--can't stay, good-bye, little Cilly

goose, to think she could go that figure!'

He advanced to kiss her, but she lifted up her shoulder between him and

her face, much as a pugnacious pigeon flap its wings, and he retreated.

'Wiser not, maybe! Look here,' as Honora hurried after him into the hall

to ask after the patient; 'if you have a bit of sticking-plaster, he had

better not see this.'

Lucilla had made her little pearls of teeth meet in the fleshy part of

his palm.

Honora recoiled, shocked, producing the plaster from her pocket in an

instant.

'Little vixen,' he said, half laughing; 'but I was thankful to her for

neither kicking nor struggling!'

'Poor child!' said Honora, 'perhaps it was as much agony as passion!'

He shrugged his shoulders as he held out his hand for her operations,

then hastily thanking her and wishing her good-bye, rushed off again, as

the astonished Miss Wells appeared on the stairs. Honor shrank from

telling her what wounds had been received, she thought the gentle lady

would never get over such a proceeding, and, in fact, she herself felt

somewhat as if she had undertaken the charge of a little wild cat, and

quite uncertain what the young lady might do next. On entering the

breakfast-room, they found her sunk down all in a heap, where her uncle

had set her down, her elbows on a low footstool, and her head leaning on

them, the eyes still gazing askance from under the brows, but all the

energy and life gone from the little dejected figure.

'Poor child! Dear little thing--won't you come to me?' She stirred not.

Miss Wells advanced, but the child's only motion was to shake her frock

at her, as if to keep her off; Honora, really afraid of the consequences

of touching her, whispered that they would leave her to herself a little.

The silver kettle came in, and tea was made.

'Lucilla, my dear, the servants are coming in to prayers.'

She did not offer to move, and still Honora let her alone, and she

remained in the same attitude while the psalm was read, but afterwards

there was a little approximation to kneeling in her position.

'Lucilla, dear child, you had better come to breakfast--' Only another

defying glance.

Miss Wells, with what Honor thought defective judgment, made pointed

commendations of the tea, the butter and honey, but they had no effect;

Honora, though her heart ached for the wrench the poor child had

undergone, thought it best to affect indifference, gave a hint of the

kind, and scrupulously avoided looking round at her, till breakfast was

finished. When she did so, she no longer met the wary defiant gleam of

the blue eyes, they were fast shut, the head had sunk on the arms, and

the long breathings of sleep heaved the little frame. 'Poor little

dear!' as Miss Wells might well exclaim, she had kept herself wakeful the

whole night that her father might not go without her knowledge. And how

pretty she looked in that little black frock, so ill and hastily put on,

one round white shoulder quite out of it, and the long flaxen locks

showing their silky fineness as they hung dispersed and tangled, the

pinky flush of sleep upon the little face pillowed on the rosy pair of

arms, and with a white unstockinged leg doubled under her. Poor child,

there was more of the angel than the tiger-cat in her aspect now, and

they had tears in their eyes, and moved softly lest they should startle

her from her rest.

But wakened she must be. Honora was afraid of displeasing her domestic

vizier, and rendering him for ever unpropitious to her little guests if

she deferred his removal of the breakfast things beyond a reasonable

hour. How was the awaking to be managed? Fright, tears, passion, what

change would come when the poor little maid must awake to her grief!

Honora would never have expected so poetical a flight from her good old

governess as the suggestion, 'Play to her;' but she took it eagerly, and

going to the disused piano which stood in the room began a low, soft air.

The little sleeper stirred, presently raised her head, shook her hair off

her ears, and after a moment, to their surprise, her first word was

'Mamma!' Honora was pausing, but the child said, 'Go on,' and sat for a

few moments as though recovering herself, then rose and came forward

slowly standing at last close to Honora. There was a pause, and she

said, 'Mamma did that.'

Never was a sound more welcome! Honora dared to do what she had longed

for so much, put an arm round the little creature and draw her nearer,

nor did Lucilla resist, she only said, 'Won't you go on?'

'I can make prettier music in the other room, my dear; we will go there,

only you've had no breakfast. You must be very hungry.'

Lucilla turned round, saw a nice little roll cut into slices, and

remembered that she _was_ hungry; and presently she was consuming it so

prosperously under Miss Wells's superintendence that Honor ventured out

to endeavour to retard Jones's desire to 'take away,' by giving him

orders about the carriage, and then to attend to her other household

affairs. By the time they were ended she found that Miss Wells had

brought the child into the drawing-room, where she had at once detected

the piano, and looking up at Honora said eagerly 'Now then!' And Honora

fulfilled her promise, while the child stood by softened and gratified,

until it was time to propose fetching little Owen, 'your little

brother--you will like to have him here.'

'I want my father,' said Lucilla in a determined voice, as if nothing

else were to satisfy her.

'Poor child, I know you do; I am so sorry for you, my dear little woman,

but you see the doctors think papa is more likely to get better if he has

not you to take care of!'

'I did not want my father to take care of _me_,' said the little lady,

proudly; 'I take care of father, I always make his tea and warm his

slippers, and bring him his coffee in the morning. And Uncle Kit never

_will_ put his gloves for him and warm his handkerchief! Oh! what will

he do? I can't bear it.'

The violent grief so long kept back was coming now, but not freely; the

little girl threw herself on the floor, and in a tumult of despair and

passion went on, hurrying out her words, 'It's very hard! It's all Uncle

Kit's doing! I hate him! Yes, I do.' And she rolled over and over in

her frenzy of feeling.

'My dear! my dear!' cried Honora, kneeling by her, 'this will never do!

Papa would be very much grieved to see his little girl so naughty. Don't

you know how your uncle only wants to do him good, and to make him get

well?'

'Then why didn't he take me?' said Lucilla, gathering herself up, and

speaking sullenly.

'Perhaps he thought you gave papa trouble, and tired him.'

'Yes, that's it, and it's not fair,' cried the poor child again; 'why

couldn't he tell me? I didn't know papa was ill! he never told me so,

nor Mr. Pendy either; or, how I would have nursed him! I wanted to do so

much for him; I wouldn't have asked him to tell me stories, nor nothing!

No! And now they won't let me take care of him;' and she cried bitterly.

'Yes,' said good, gentle Miss Wells, thinking more of present comfort

than of the too possible future; 'but you will go back to take care of

him some day, my dear. When the spring comes papa will come back to his

little girl.'

Spring! It was a long way off to a mind of six years old, but it made

Lucilla look more amiably at Miss Wells.

'And suppose,' proceeded that good lady, 'you were to learn to be as good

and helpful a little girl as can be while he is gone, and then nobody

will wish to keep you from him. How surprised he would be!'

'And then shall we go home?' said Lucilla.

Miss Wells uttered a somewhat rash assurance to that effect, and the

child came near her, pacified and satisfied by the scheme of delightful

goodness and progress to be made in order to please her father--as she

always called him. Honor looked on, thankful for the management that was

subduing and consoling the poor little maid, and yet unable to

participate in it, for though the kind old lady spoke in all sincerity,

it was impossible to Honora to stifle a lurking fear that the hopes built

on the prospect of his return had but a hollow foundation.

However it attracted Lucilla to Miss Wells, so that Honora did not fear

leaving her on going to bring home little Owen. The carriage which had

conveyed the travellers, had brought back news of his sister's discovery

and capture, and Honora found Mrs. Sandbrook much shocked at the enormity

of the proceeding, and inclined to pity Honora for having charge of the

most outrageous children she had ever seen. A very long letter had been

left for her by their father, rehearsing all he had before given of

directions, and dwelling still more on some others, but then apparently

repenting of laying down the law, he ended by entreating her to use her

own judgment, believe in his perfect confidence, and gratitude beyond

expression for most unmerited kindness.

Little Owen, she heard, had made the house resound with cries when his

father was nowhere to be found, but his nurse had quieted him, and he

came running to Honora with an open, confiding face. 'Are you the lady?

And will you take me to Cilly and the sea? And may I have a whale?'

Though Honora did not venture on promising him a tame whale in the

Bristol Channel, she had him clinging to her in a moment, eager to set

off, to go to Cilly, and the dove he had seen at her house. 'It's a

nasty house here--I want to come away,' he said, running backwards and

forwards between her and the window to look at the horses, while nurse's

interminable boxes were being carried down.

The troubles really seemed quite forgotten; the boy sat on her knee and

chattered all the way to Woolstone-lane, and there he and Lucilla flew

upon each other with very pretty childish joy; the sister doing the

honours of the house in right of having been a little longer an inmate.

Nurse caught her and dressed and combed her, shoed her and sashed her, so

that she came down to dinner less picturesque, but more respectable than

at her first appearance that morning, and except for the wonderful

daintiness of both children, dinner went off very well.

All did go well till night, and then Owen's woes began. Oh what a

piteous sobbing lamentation was it! 'Daddy, daddy!' not to be consoled,

not to be soothed, awakening his sister to the same sad cry, stilled only

by exhaustion and sleepiness.

Poor little fellow! Night after night it was the same. Morning found

him a happy, bright child, full of engaging ways and innocent sayings,

and quite satisfied with 'Cousin Honor,' but bed-time always brought back

the same wailing. Nurse, a tidy, brisk personage, with a sensible,

deferential tone to her superiors, and a caressing one to the children,

tried in vain assurances of papa's soon coming back; nay, it might be

feared that she held out that going to sleep would bring the morrow when

he was to come; but even this delusive promise failed; the present was

all; and Cousin Honor herself was only not daddy, though she nursed him,

and rocked him in her arms, and fondled him, and told stories or sung his

lullaby with nightly tenderness, till the last sobs had quivered into the

smooth heavings of sleep.

Might only sea air and exercise act as a soporific! That was a better

chance than the new promise which Honora was vexed to find nurse holding

out to poor little Owen, that if he would be a good boy, he was going to

papa. She was puzzled how to act towards a person not exactly under her

authority, but she took courage to speak about these false promises, and

found the remonstrance received in good part; indeed nurse used to talk

at much length of the children in a manner that implied great affection

for them, coupled with a sense that it would be an excellent thing for

them to be in such judicious hands. Honor always came away from nurse in

good humour with herself.

The locality she had chosen was a sheltered village on the north coast of

Somerset, just where Exmoor began to give grandeur to the outline in the

rear, and in front the Welsh hills wore different tints of purple or

gray, according to the promise of weather, Lundy Isle and the two lesser

ones serving as the most prominent objects, as they rose from--Well,

well! Honor counted herself as a Somersetshire woman, and could not brook

hearing much about the hue of the Bristol Channel. At any rate, just

here it had been so kind as to wash up a small strip of pure white sand,

fit for any amount of digging for her children; and though Sandbeach was

watering-place enough to have the lodging-houses, butchers and bakers, so

indispensable to the London mind, it was not so much in vogue as to be

overrun by fine ladies, spoiling the children by admiring their beauty.

So said Miss Charlecote in her prudence--but was not she just as jealous

as nurse that people should turn round a second time to look at those

lovely little faces?

That was a very happy charge to her and her good old governess, with some

drawbacks, indeed, but not such as to distress her over much. The chief

was at first Owen's nightly sorrows, his daily idleness over lessons,

Lucilla's pride, and the exceeding daintiness of both children, which

made their meals a constant vexation and trouble. But what was this

compared with the charm of their dependence on her, and of hearing that

newly-invented pet name, 'Sweet Honey,' invoked in every little concern

that touched them?

It was little Owen's name for her. He was her special favourite--there

was no concealing it. Lucilla did not need her as much, and was of a

vigorous, independent nature, that would stand alone to the utmost. Owen

gave his affection spontaneously; if Lucilla's was won, it must be at

unawares. She was living in and for her absent father now, and had

nothing to spare for any one else, or if she had, Miss Wells, who had the

less claim on her was preferred to Cousin Honor. 'Father' was almost her

religion; though well taught, and unusually forward in religious

knowledge, as far as Honora dared to augur, no motive save her love for

him had a substantive existence, as touching her feelings or ruling her

actions. For him she said her prayers and learnt her hymns; for him she

consented to learn to hem handkerchiefs; for him were those crooked

letters for ever being written; nay, at the thought of his displeasure

alone could her tears be made to flow when she was naughty; and for him

she endeavoured to be less fanciful at dinner, as soon as her mind had

grasped the perception that her not eating what was set before her might

really hinder him from always having her with him. She was fairly

manageable, with very high spirits, and not at all a silly or helpless

child; but though she obeyed Miss Charlecote, it was only as obeying her

father through her, and his constant letters kept up the strong

influence. In her most gracious moods, she was always telling her little

brother histories of what they should do when they got home to father and

Mr. Prendergast; but to Owen, absence made a much greater difference.

Though he still cried at night, his 'Sweet Honey' was what he wanted, and

with her caressing him, he only dreaded her leaving him. He lavished his

pretty endearments upon her, and missed no one when he held her hand or

sat in her lap, stroking her curls, and exchanging a good deal of

fondling. He liked his hymns, and enjoyed Scripture stories, making

remarks that caused her to reverence him; and though backward, idle, and

sometimes very passionate, his was exactly the legitimate character for a

child, such as she could deal with and love. She was as complete a slave

to the two little ones as their father could have been; all her habits

were made to conform to their welfare and pleasure, and very happy she

was, but the discipline was more decided than they had been used to;

there were habits to be formed, and others to be broken, and she was not

weak enough not to act up to her duty in this respect, even though her

heart was winding round that sunny-faced boy as fast as it had ever clung

to his father. The new Owen Sandbrook, with his innocent earnestness,

and the spiritual light in his eyes, should fulfil all her dreams!

Christmas had passed; Mr. Sandbrook had begun to write to his children

about seeing them soon; Lucilla's slow hemming was stimulated by the hope

of soon making her present; and Honora was marvelling at her own

selfishness in dreading the moment when the little ones would be no

longer hers; when a hurried note of preparation came from Captain

Charteris. A slight imprudence had renewed all the mischief, and his

patient was lying speechless under a violent attack of inflammation.

Another letter, and all was over.

A shock indeed! but in Honora's eyes, Owen Sandbrook had become chiefly

the children's father, and their future was what concerned her most. How

should she bear to part with his darlings for ever, and to know them

brought up in the way that was not good, and which their father dreaded,

and when their orphanhood made her doubly tender over them?

To little Owen it was chiefly that papa was gone 'up there' whither all

his hymns and allegories pointed, and at his age, all that he did not

actually see was much on a par; the hope of meeting had been too distant

for the extinction of it to affect him very nearly, and he only

understood enough to prompt the prettiest and most touching sayings,

wondering about the doings of papa, mamma, and little baby among the

angels, with as much reality as he had formerly talked of papa among the

French.

Lucilla heard with more comprehension, but her gay temper seemed to

revolt against having sorrow forced on her. She would not listen and

would not think; her spirits seemed higher than ever, and Honora almost

concluded that either she did not feel at all, or that the moment of

separation had exhausted all. Her character made Honora especially

regret her destiny; it was one only too congenial to the weeds that were

more likely to be implanted, than plucked up, at Castle Blanch. Captain

Charteris had written to say that he, and probably his brother, should

come to Sandbeach to relieve Miss Charlecote from the care of the

children, and she prized each day while she still had those dear little

voices about the house.

'Sweet Honey,' said Lucilla, who had been standing by the window,

apparently watching the rain, 'do Uncle Charteris and Uncle Kit want us

to go away from you?'

'I am very much afraid they do, my dear.'

'Nurse said, if you would ask them, we might stay,' said Lucilla, tracing

the course of a drop with her finger.

'If asking would do any good, my dear,' sighed Honor; 'but I don't think

nurse knows. You see, you belong to your uncles now.'

'I won't belong to Uncle Charteris!' cried Lucilla, passionately. 'I

won't go to Castle Blanch! They were all cross to me; Ratia teased me,

and father said it was all their fault I was naughty, and he would never

take me there again! Don't let Uncle Kit go and take me there!' and she

clung to her friend, as if the recollection of Uncle Kit's victory by

main force hung about her still.

'I won't, I won't, my child, if I can help it; but it will all be as your

dear father may have fixed it, and whatever he wishes I know that his

little girl will do.'

Many a dim hope did Honora revolve, and more than ever did she feel as if

a piece of her heart would be taken away, for the orphans fastened

themselves upon her, and little Owen stroked her face, and said naughty

Uncle Kit should not take them away. She found from the children and

nurse that about a year ago, just after the loss of the baby, there had

been a most unsuccessful visit at Castle Blanch; father and little ones

had been equally miserable there in the separation of the large

establishment, and Lucilla had been domineeringly petted by her youngest

cousin, Horatia, who chose to regard her as a baby, and coerced her by

bodily force, such as was intolerable to so high-spirited a child, who

was a little woman at home. She had resisted, and fallen into dire

disgrace, and it was almost with horror that she regarded the place and

the cousinhood. Nurse appeared to have some private disgust of her own,

as well as to have much resented her children's being convicted of

naughtiness, and she spoke strongly in confidence to Honora of the

ungodly ways of the whole household, declaring that after the advantages

she had enjoyed with her dear master, she could not bear to live there,

though she might--yes, she _must_ be with the dear children just at

first, and she ventured to express strong wishes for their remaining in

their present home, where they had been so much improved.

The captain came alone. He walked in from the inn just before luncheon,

with a wearied, sad look about him, as if he had suffered a good deal; he

spoke quietly and slowly, and when the children came in, he took them up

in his arms and kissed them very tenderly. Lucilla submitted more

placably than Honor expected, but the moment they were set down they

sprang to their friend, and held by her dress. Then came the meal, which

passed off with small efforts at making talk, but with nothing memorable

except the captain's exclamation at the end--'Well, that's the first time

I ever dined with you children without a fuss about the meat. Why,

Cilly, I hardly know you.'

'I think the appetites are better for the sea air,' said Honor, not that

she did not think it a great achievement.

'I'm afraid it has been a troublesome charge,' said the captain, laying

his hand on his niece's shoulder, which she at once removed, as

disavowing his right in her.

'Oh! it has made me so happy,' said Honor, hardly trusting her voice; 'I

don't know how to yield it up.'

Those understanding eyes of Lucilla's were drinking in each word, but

Uncle Kit ruthlessly said--'There, it's your walking time, children; you

go out now.'

Honora followed up his words with her orders, and Lucille obeyed, only

casting another wistful look, as if she knew her fate hung in the scales.

It was showing tact such as could hardly have been expected from the

little impetuous termagant, and was the best pleading for her cause, for

her uncle's first observation was--'A wonder! Six months back, there

would have been an explosion!'

'I am glad you think them improved.'

'Civilized beings, not plagues. You have been very good to them;' and as

she intimated her own pleasure in them, he continued--'It will be better

for them at Castle Blanch to have been a little broken in; the change

from his indulgence would have been terrible.'

'If it were possible to leave them with me, I should be so happy,' at

length gasped Honora, meeting an inquiring dart from the captain's eyes,

as he only made an interrogative sound as though to give himself time to

think, and she proceeded it broken sentences--'If their uncle and aunt

did not so very much wish for them--perhaps--I could--'

'Well,' said Captain Charteris, apparently so little aided by his

thoughts as to see no hope of overcoming his perplexity without

expressing it, 'the truth is that, though I had not meant to say anything

of it, for I think relations should come first, I believe poor Sandbrook

would have preferred it.' And while her colour deepened, and she locked

her trembling fingers together to keep them still, he went on. 'Yes! you

can't think how often I called myself a dozen fools for having parted him

from his children! Never held up his head again! I could get him to

take interest in nothing--every child he saw he was only comparing to one

or other of them. After the year turned, and he talked of coming home,

he was more cheerful; but strangely enough, for those last days at

Hyeres, though he seemed better, his spirits sank unaccountably, and he

_would_ talk more of the poor little thing that he lost than of these!

Then he had a letter from you which set him sighing, and wishing they

could always have such care! Altogether, I thought to divert him by

taking him on that expedition, but-- Well, I've been provoked with him

many a time, but there was more of the _real thing_ in him than in the

rest of us, and I feel as if the best part of our family were gone.'

'And this was all? He was too ill to say much afterwards?'

'Couldn't speak when he rang in the morning! Was gone by that time next

day. Now,' added the captain, after a silence, 'I tell you candidly that

my feeling is that the ordinary course is right. I think Charles ought

to take the children, and the children ought to be with Charles.'

'If you think so,' began Honor, with failing hopes.

'At the same time,' continued he, 'I don't think they'll be so happy or

so well cared for as by you, and knowing poor Owen's wishes, I should not

feel justified in taking them away, since you are so good as to offer to

keep them.'

Honor eagerly declared herself much obliged, then thought it sounded

ironical.

'Unless,' he proceeded, 'Charles should strongly feel it his duty to take

them home, in which case--'

'Oh, of course I could say nothing.'

'Very well, then we'll leave it to his decision.'

So it remained, and in trembling Honora awaited the answer.

It was in her favour that he was appointed to a ship, since he was thus

excluded from exercising any supervision over them at Castle Blanch, and

shortly after, letters arrived gratefully acceding to her request.

Family arrangements and an intended journey made her proposal doubly

welcome, for the present at least, and Mrs. Charteris was full of polite

thanks.

Poor little waifs and strays! No one else wanted them, but with her at

least they had a haven of refuge, and she loved them the more ardently

for their forlorn condition. Her own as they had never before been! and

if the tenure were uncertain, she prized it doubly, even though, by a

strange fatality, she had never had so much trouble and vexation with

them as arose at once on their being made over to her! When all was

settled, doubt over, and the routine life begun, Lucilla evidently felt

the blank of her vanished hopes, and became fretful and captious, weary

of things in general, and without sufficient motive to control her

natural taste for the variety of naughtiness! Honor had not undertaken

the easiest of tasks, but she neither shrank from her enterprise nor

ceased to love the fiery little flighty sprite, the pleasing torment of

her life--she loved her only less than that model of childish sweetness,

her little Owen.

* * * * *

'Lucy, dear child, don't take your brother there. Owen dear, come back,

don't you see the mud? you'll sink in.'

'I'm only getting a dear little crab, Sweet Honey,' and the four little

feet went deeper and deeper into the black mud.

'I can't have it done! come back, children, I desire, directly.'

The boy would have turned, but his sister had hold of his hand. 'Owen,

there he is! I'll have him,' and as the crab scuttled sidelong after the

retreating tide, on plunged the children.

'Lucy, come here!' cried the unfortunate old hen, as her ducklings took

to the black amphibious mass, but not a whit did Lucilla heed. In the

ardour of the chase, on she went, unheeding, leaving her brother sticking

half way, where having once stopped, he began to find it difficult to

withdraw his feet, and fairly screamed to 'Sweet Honey' for help. His

progress was not beyond what a few long vigorous steps of hers could come

up with, but deeply and blackly did she sink, and when she had lifted her

truant out of his two holes, the increased weight made her go ankle deep

at the first tread, and just at the same moment a loud shriek proclaimed

that Lucilla, in hey final assault on the crab, had fallen flat on a

yielding surface, where each effort to rise sank her deeper, and Honora

almost was expecting in her distress to see her disappear altogether, ere

the treacherous mud would allow her to come to the rescue. But in that

instant of utmost need, ere she could set down the little boy, a

gentleman, with long-legged strides, had crossed the intervening space,

and was bearing back the young lady from her mud bath. She raised her

eyes to thank him. 'Humfrey!' she exclaimed.

'Honor! so it was you, was it? I'd no notion of it!' as he placed on her

feet the little maiden, encrusted with mud from head to foot, while the

rest of the party were all apparently cased in dark buskins of the same.

'Come to see me and my children?' she said. 'I am ashamed you should

find us under such circumstances! though I don't know what would have

become of us otherwise. No, Lucy, you are too disobedient for any one to

take notice of you yet--you must go straight home, and be cleaned, and

not speak to Mr. Charlecote till you are quite good. Little Owen, here

he is--he was quite led into it. But how good of you to come, Humfrey:

where are you?'

'At the hotel--I had a mind to come and see how you were getting on, and

I'd had rather more than usual to do of late, so I thought I would take a

holiday.'

They walked on talking for some seconds, when presently as the squire's

hand hung down, a little soft one stole into it, and made him exclaim

with a start, 'I thought it was Ponto's nose!'

But though very fond of children, he took up his hand, and did not make

the slightest response to the sly overture of the small coquette, the

effect as Honor well knew of opposition quite as much as of her strong

turn for gentlemen. She pouted a little, and then marched on with 'don't

care' determination, while Humfrey and Honora began to talk over

Hiltonbury affairs, but were soon interrupted by Owen, who, accustomed to

all her attention, did not understand her being occupied by any one else.

'Honey, Honeypots,' and a pull at her hand when she did not immediately

attend, 'why don't the little crabs get black legs like mine?'

'Because they only go where they ought,' was the extremely moral reply of

the squire. 'Little boys aren't meant to walk in black mud.'

'The shrimp boys do go in the mud,' shrewdly pleaded Owen, setting Honor

off laughing at Humfrey's discomfited look of diversion.

'It won't do to generalize,' she said, merrily. 'Owen must be content to

regard crabs and shrimp boys as privileged individuals.'

Owen demanded whether when he was big he might be a shrimp boy, and a

good deal of fraternization had taken place between him and Mr.

Charlecote before the cottage was reached.

It was a very happy day to Honora; there was a repose and trust to be

felt in Humfrey's company, such as she had not experienced since she had

lost her parents, and the home sense of kindred was very precious. Only

women whose chief prop is gone, can tell the value of one who is still

near enough to disapprove without ceremony.

The anxiety that Honor felt to prove to her cousin that it was not a bit

of romantic folly to have assumed her present charge, was worth more than

all the freedom of action in the world. How much she wanted the children

to show off to advantage! how desirous she was that he should not think

her injudicious! yes, and how eager to see him pleased with their pretty

looks!

Lucilla came down cleaned, curled, and pardoned, and certainly a heart

must have been much less tender than Humfrey Charlecote's not to be

touched by the aspect of those two little fair waxen-looking beings in

the deepest mourning of orphanhood. He was not slow in making advances

towards them, but the maiden had been affronted, and chose to be slyly

shy and retiring, retreating to the other side of Miss Wells, and there

becoming intent upon her story-book, though many a gleam through her

eyelashes betrayed furtive glances at the stranger whom Owen was

monopolizing. And then she let herself be drawn out, with the drollest

mixture of arch demureness and gracious caprice. Honora had never before

seen her with a gentleman, and to be courted was evidently as congenial

an element to her as to a reigning beauty. She was perfectly

irresistible to manhood, and there was no doubt, ere the evening was

over, that Humfrey thought her one of the prettiest little girls he had

ever seen.

He remained a week at Sandbeach, lodging at the inn, but spending most of

his time with Honor. He owned that he had been unwell, and there

certainly was a degree of lassitude about him, though Honor suspected

that his real motive in coming was brotherly kindness and desire to see

whether she were suffering much from the death of Owen Sandbrook. Having

come, he seemed not to know how to go away. He was too fond of children

to become weary of their petty exactions, and they both had a sort of

passion for him; he built castles for them on the beach, presided over

their rides, took them out boating, and made them fabulously happy.

Lucilla had not been so good for weeks, and the least symptom of an

outbreak was at once put down by his good-natured 'No, no!' The evenings

at the cottage with Honora and Miss Wells, music and bright talk, were

evidently very refreshing to him, and he put off his departure from day

to day, till an inexorable matter of county business forced him off.

Not till the day was imminent, did the cousins quit the easy surface of

holiday leisure talk. They had been together to the late evening

service, and were walking home, when Honora began abruptly, 'Humfrey, I

wish you would not object to the children giving me pet names.'

'I did not know that I had shown any objection.'

'As if you did not impressively say Miss Charlecote on every occasion

when you mention me to them.'

'Well, and is not it more respectful?'

'That's not what I want. Where the natural tie is wanting, one should do

everything to make up for it.'

'And you hope to do so by letting yourself be called Honey-pots!'

'More likely than by sitting up distant and awful to be _Miss

Charlecoted_!'

'Whatever you might be called must become an endearment,' said Humfrey,

uttering unawares one of the highest compliments she had ever received,

'and I own I do not like to hear those little chits make so free with

your name.'

'For my sake, or theirs?'

'For both. There is an old saying about familiarity, and I think you

should recollect that, for the children's own good, it is quite as

needful to strengthen respect as affection.'

'And you think I can do that by fortifying myself with Miss Charlecote?

Perhaps I had better make it Mrs. Honora Charlecote at once, and get a

high cap, a rod, and a pair of spectacles, eh? No! if they won't respect

me out of a buckram suit, depend upon it they would find out it was a

hollow one.'

Humfrey smiled. From her youth up, Honor could generally come off in

apparent triumph from an argument with him, but the victory was not

always where the triumph was.

'Well, Humfrey,' she said, after some pause, 'do you think I am fit to be

trusted with my two poor children?'

There was a huskiness in his tone as he said, 'I am sincerely glad you

have the pleasure and comfort of them.'

'I suspect there's a reservation there. But really, Humfrey, I don't

think I went out searching for the responsibility in the way that makes

it dangerous. One uncle did not want them, and the other could not have

them, and it would have been mere barbarity in me not to offer. Besides,

their father wished--' and her voice faltered with tears.

'No, indeed,' said Humfrey, eagerly, 'I did not in the least mean that it

is not the kindest, most generous requital,' and there he broke off,

embarrassed by the sincere word that he had uttered, but before she had

spoken an eager negative--to what she knew not--he went on. 'And of

course I don't mean that you are not one to manage them very well, and

all that--only I hope there may not be pain in store--I should not like

those people to use you for their nursery governess, and then take the

children away just as you had set your heart upon them. Don't do that,

Honor,' he added, with an almost sad earnestness.

'Do what? Set my heart on them? Do you think I can help loving the

creatures?' she said, with mournful playfulness, 'or that my uncertain

tenure does not make them the greater darlings?'

'There are ways of loving without setting one's heart,' was the somewhat

grave reply.

He seemed to be taking these words as equivalent to transgressing the

command that requires all our heart, and she began quickly, 'Oh! but I

didn't mean--' then a sudden thrill crossed her whether there might not

be some truth in the accusation. Where had erst the image of Owen

Sandbrook stood? First or second? Where was now the image of the boy?

She turned her words into 'Do you think I am doing so--in a wrong way?'

'Honor dear, I could not think of wrong where you are concerned,' he

said. 'I was only afraid of your kindness bringing you pain, if you rest

your happiness very much upon those children.'

'I see,' said Honor, smiling, relieved. 'Thank you, Humfrey; but you see

I can't weigh out my affection in that fashion. They will get it, the

rogues!'

'I'm not afraid, as far as the girl is concerned,' said Humfrey. 'You

are strict enough with her.'

'But how am I to be strict when poor little Owen never does anything

wrong?'

'Yes, he is a particularly sweet child.'

'And not at all wanting in manliness,' cried Honor, eagerly. 'So full of

spirit, and yet so gentle. Oh! he is a child whom it is a privilege to

train, and I don't think I have spoilt him yet, do you?'

'No, I don't think you have. He is very obedient in general.'

'Oh! if he could be only brought up as I wish. And I do think his

innocence is too perfect a thing not to be guarded. What a perfect

clergyman he would make! Just fancy him devoting himself to some parish

like poor dear old St. Wulstan's--carrying his bright sweetness into the

midst of all that black Babel, and spreading light round him! he always

says he will be a clergyman like his papa, and I am sure he must be

marked out for it. He likes to look at the sheep on the moors, and talk

about the shepherd leading them, and I am sure the meaning goes very deep

with him.'

She was not going quite the way to show Humfrey that her heart was not

set on the boy, and she was checked by hearing him sigh. Perhaps it was

for the disappointment he foresaw, so she said, 'Whether I bring him up

or not, don't you believe there will be a special care over such a

child?'

'There is a special care over every Christian child, I suppose,' he said;

'and I hope it may all turn out so as to make you happy. Here is your

door; good night, and good-bye.'

'Why, are not you coming in?'

'I think not; I have my things to put up; I must go early to-morrow.

Thank you for a very happy week. Good-bye, Honor.' There was a shade of

disappointment about his tone that she could not quite account for. Dear

old Humfrey! Could he be ageing? Could he be unwell? Did he feel

himself lonely? Could she have mortified him, or displeased him? Honor

was not a woman of personal vanity, or a solution would sooner have

occurred to her. She knew, upon reflection, that it must have been for

her sake that Humfrey had continued single, but it was so inconvenient to

think of him in the light of an admirer, when she so much needed him as a

brother, that it had hardly ever occurred to her to do so; but at last it

did strike her whether, having patiently waited so long, this might not

have been a visit of experiment, and whether he might not be disappointed

to find her wrapped up in new interests--slightly jealous, in fact, of

little Owen. How good he had been! Where was the heart that could fail

of being touched by so long a course of forbearance and consideration?

Besides Honor had been a solitary woman long enough to know what it was

to stand alone. And then how well he would stand in a father's place

towards the orphans. He would never decree her parting with them, and

Captain Charteris himself must trust him. Yet what a shame it would be

to give such a devoted heart nothing better than one worn out, with the

power of love such as he deserved, exhausted for ever. And yet--and

yet--something very odd bounded up within her, and told her between shame

and exultation, that faithful old Humfrey would not be discontented even

with what she had to give. Another time--a little, a very little

encouragement, and the pine wood scene would come back again, and

then--her heart fainted a little--there should be no concealment--but if

she could only have been six months married all at once!

Time went on, and Honora more than once blushed at finding how strong a

hold this possibility had taken of her heart, when once she had begun to

think of resting upon one so kind, so good, so strong. Every perplexity,

every care, every transaction that made her feel her position as a single

woman, brought round the yearning to lay them all down upon him, who

would only be grateful to her for them. Every time she wanted some one

to consult, hope showed her his face beaming sweetly on her, and home

seemed to be again opening to her, that home which might have been hers

at any time these twelve years. She quite longed to see how glad the

dear, kind fellow would be.

Perhaps maidenly shame would have belied her feelings in his actual

presence, perhaps she would not have shrunk from him, and been more cold

than in her unconsciousness, but he came not; and his absence fanned the

spark so tardily kindled. What if she had delayed till too late? He was

a man whose duty it was to marry! he had waited till he was some years

past forty--perhaps this had been his last attempt, and he was carrying

his addresses elsewhere.

Well! Honora believed she had tried to act rightly, and that must be her

comfort--and extremely ashamed of herself she was, to find herself

applying such a word to her own sensations in such a case--and very much

disliking the notion of any possible lady at Hiltonbury Holt.

CHAPTER III

There is a reaper, his name is Death,

And with his sickle keen,

He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,

And the flowers that grow between.--LONGFELLOW

A letter from Humfrey! how Honor's heart fluttered. Would it announce an

engagement, or would it promise a visit on which her fate would turn, or

would it be only a business letter on her money matters?

Angry at her own trepidation, she opened it. It was none of all these.

It told her that Mr. Saville, his brother-in-law, was staying at the Holt

with his second wife, and that he begged her to take advantage of this

opportunity to come to visit the old place, adding, that he had not been

well, and he wished much to see her, if she could spare a few days to him

from her children.

Little doubt had she as to the acceptance. The mere words 'going to

Hiltonbury,' had power by force of association to make her heart bound.

She was a little disappointed that he had not included the children; she

feared that it looked as if he were really ill; but it might be on

account of the Savilles, or maybe he had that to say to her which--oh,

nonsense! Were that the case, Humfrey would not reverse the order of

things, and make her come to him. At any rate, the children should be

her first condition. And then she concentrated her anxieties on his most

unusual confession of having been unwell.

Humfrey's substantial person was ready to meet her at the station, and

the first glance dispelled her nervous tremors, and calmed the tossings

of her mind in the habitual sense of trust and reliance. He thanked her

for coming, handed her into the carriage, looked after her goods, and

seated himself beside her in so completely his ordinary fashion of taking

care of her, that she forgot all her intentions of rendering their

meeting momentous. Her first inquiry was for his health, but he put it

aside with something about feeling very well now, and he looked so

healthy, only perhaps a little more hearty and burly, that she did not

think any more of the matter, and only talked in happy desultory scraps,

now dwelling on her little Owen's charms, now joyfully recognizing

familiar objects, or commenting upon the slight changes that had taken

place. One thing, however, she observed; Humfrey did not stop the horse

at the foot of the steep hill where walking had been a matter of course,

when he had been a less solid weight than now. 'Yes, Honor,' he said,

smiling, 'one grows less merciful as one grows old and short-breathed.'

'You growing old! you whom I've never left off thinking of as a promising

lad, as poor old Mrs. Mervyn used to call you.'

He turned his face towards her as if about to say something very

seriously, but apparently changing his intention, he said, 'Poor old Mrs.

Mervyn, I wonder how she would like the changes at Beauchamp.'

'Are the Fulmorts doing a great deal?'

'They have quite modernized the house, and laid out the garden--what I

should call very prettily, if it were not for my love of the old Dutch

one. They see a great deal of company, and go on in grand style.'

'How do you get on with them?'

'Oh! very well; I have dined there two or three times. He is a

good-natured fellow enough, and there are some nice children, whom I like

to meet with their nurses in the woods. I stood proxy for the last one's

sponsor; I could not undertake the office myself.'

'Good-natured!' exclaimed Nora. 'Why, you know how he behaved at St.

Wulstan's. No more than 5 pounds a year would he ever give to any

charity, though he was making thousands by those gin-shops.'

'Probably he thought he was doing very liberally.'

'Ay, there is no hope for St. Wulstan's till people have left off

thinking a guinea their duty, and five very handsome! and that Augusta

Mervyn should have gone and married our _bete noire_--our lord of

gin-palaces--I do think it must be on purpose for you to melt him. I

shall set you at him, Humfrey, next time Mr. Askew writes to me in

despair, that something won't go on for lack of means. Only I must be

quite sure that you won't give the money yourself, to spare the trouble

of dunning.'

'It is not fair to take other people's duties on oneself; besides, as

you'll find, Honor, the Holt purse is not bottomless.'

As she would find! This was a very odd way of making sure of her

beforehand, but she was not certain that she did not like it. It was

comfortable, and would save much preliminary.

The woods were bursting into spring: delicate, deeply creased leaves were

joyously emerging to the light on the birches, not yet devoid of the

silvery wool where they had been packed, the hazels were fluttering their

goslings, the palms were honey sweet with yellow tufts, the primroses

peeped out in the banks of moss.

'Oh! Humfrey, this is the great desire of my life fulfilled, to see the

Holt in the flush of spring!'

'I have always said you cared for the place more than any one,' said

Humfrey, evidently gratified, but with an expression which she did not

understand.

'As if I did not! But how strangely differently from my vision my wish

has been fulfilled.'

'How strangely!' he repeated, with even greater seriousness than had been

in her voice.

The meadow was bright with spring grass, the cattle grazing serenely as

in old times, the garden--ah! not quite so gay--either it was better in

autumn than in spring, or it wanted poor Sarah's hand; the dogs, not the

same individuals, but with much the same manners, dancing round their

master--all like, all home. Nothing wanting, but, alas! the

good-natured, narrow-minded old mistress of the house to fret her, and

notable Sarah to make her comfortable, and wonder at her eccentric

tastes. Ah! and how much more was wanting the gentle mother who did all

the civility and listening, and the father, so happy to look at green

woods, read poetry, and unbend his weary brow! How much more precious

was the sight of the one living remnant of those days!

They had a cheerful evening. Mr. Saville had a great deal of

old-fashioned Oxford agreeableness; he was very courtly, but a sensible

man, with some native fun and many college stories. After many years of

donship, his remote parish was somewhat of a solitude to him, and

intercourse with a cultivated mind was as pleasant to him now as the

sight of a lady had been in his college days. Honor liked conversation

too; and Miss Wells, Lucilla, and Owen had been rather barren in that

respect, so there was a great deal of liveliness, in which Humfrey took

his full share; while good Mrs. Saville looked like what she was, her

husband's admiring housekeeper.

'Do you take early walks still, Humfrey?' asked Honor, as she bade him

good night. 'If you do, I shall be quite ready to confront the dew;' and

therewith came a revulsion of the consciousness within. Was this

courting him? and to her great provocation there arose an uncomfortable

blush.

'Thank you,' he said, with something of a mournful tone, 'I'm afraid I'm

past that, Honor. To-morrow, after breakfast--good night.'

Honor was a little alarmed by all this, and designed a conference with

the old housekeeper, Mrs. Stubbs, to inquire into her master's health,

but this was not attainable that night, and she could only go to bed in

the friendly old wainscoted room, whose white and gold carved monsters on

the mantelpiece were well-nigh as familiar as the dove in Woolstone-lane;

but, oh! how it made her long for the mother whom she used to kiss there.

Humfrey was brisk and cheerful as ever at breakfast, devising what his

guests would like to do for the day, and talking of some friends whom he

had asked to meet Mr. Saville, so that all the anxieties with which

Honora had risen were dissipated, and she took her part gaily in the

talk. There was something therefore freshly startling to her, when, on

rising, Humfrey gravely said, 'Honor, will you come into my study for a

little while?'

The study had always been more of a place for guns and fishing-tackle

than for books. It was Humfrey's usual living room when alone, and was

of course full besides of justice books, agricultural reports, acts of

parliament, piles of papers, little bags of samples of wheat, all in the

orderly disorder congenial to the male kind. All this was as usual, but

the change that struck her was, that the large red leather lounging

chair, hitherto a receptacle for the overflowings of the table, was now

wheeled beside the fire, and near it stood a little table with a large

print Bible on it, which she well remembered as his mother's. Humfrey

set a chair for her by the fire, and seated himself in the easy one,

leaning back a little. She had not spoken. Something in his grave

preparation somewhat awed her, and she sat upright, watching him.

'It was very kind of you to come, Honor,' he began; 'more kind than you

know.'

'I am sure it could be no other than a treat--'

He continued, before she could go farther, 'I wished particularly to

speak to you. I thought it might perhaps spare you a shock.'

She looked at him with a terrified eye.

'Don't be frightened, my dear,' he said, leaning forward, 'there is no

occasion. Such things must come sooner or later, and it is only that I

wished to tell you that I have been having advice for a good many

uncomfortable feelings that have troubled me lately.'

'Well?' she asked, breathlessly.

'And Dixon tells me that it is aneurism.'

Quick and fast came Honora's breath; her hands were clasped together; her

eyes cast about with such a piteous, despairing expression, that he

started to his feet in a moment, exclaiming--'Honor! Honor dear! don't!

there's no need. I did not think you would feel it in this way!'

'Feel! what should I feel if not for you? Oh! Humfrey! don't say it! you

are all that is left me--you cannot be spared!' and as he came towards

her, she grasped his hand and clung to him, needing the support which he

gave in fear of her fainting.

'Dear Honor, do not take it thus. I am very well now--I dare say I shall

be so to the last, and there is nothing terrible to the imagination. I

am very thankful for both the preparation and the absence of suffering.

Will not you be the same?'

'Yes, you,' said Honora, sitting up again, and looking up into his

sincere, serene face; 'I cannot doubt that even this is well for you, but

it is all selfishness--just as I was beginning to feel what you are to

me.'

Humfrey's face lighted up suddenly. 'Then, Honor,' he said, evidently

putting strong restraint upon his voice, 'you could have listened to me

now!'

She bowed her head--the tears were dropping very fast.

'Thank God!' he said, as again he leant back in his chair; and when she

raised her eyes again, he sat with his hands clasped, and a look of

heavenly felicity on his face, raised upwards.

'Oh! Humfrey! how thoughtlessly I have trifled away all that might have

been the happiness of your life!'

'You never trifled with me,' he said; 'you have always dealt honestly and

straightforwardly, and it is best as it is. Had we been together all

this time, the parting might have been much harder. I am glad there are

so few near ties to break.'

'Don't say so! you, loved by every one, the tower of strength to all that

is good!'

'Hush, hush! nonsense, Honor!' said he, kindly. 'I think I have tried,'

he went on, gravely, 'not to fall behind the duties of my station; but

that would be a bad dependence, were there not something else to look to.

As to missing me, the world did very well without me before I was born;

it will do as well when I am gone; and as to you, my poor Honor, we have

been very little together of late.'

'I had you to lean on.'

'Lean on something stronger,' he said; and as she could not govern her

bitter weeping, he went on--'Ah! I am the selfish one now, to be glad of

what must make it the worse for you; but if one thing were wanting to

make me happy, it was to know that at last you cared for me.'

'I should be a wretch not to do so. So many years of patience and

forbearance!--Nobody could be like you.'

'I don't see that,' said Humfrey, simply. 'While you continued the same,

I could not well turn my mind to any one else, and I always knew I was

much too loutish for you.'

'Now, Humfrey!--'

'Yes, there is no use in dwelling on this,' he said, quietly. 'The

reason I asked you to be kind enough to come here, is that I do not think

it well to be far from home under the circumstances. There, don't look

frightened--they say it may very possibly not come for several months or

a year. I hope to have time to put things a little in order for you, and

that is one reason I wished to see you; I thought I could make the

beginning easier to you.'

But Honora was far too much shaken for such a turn to the conversation;

she would not mortify him, but she could neither listen nor understand.

He, who was so full of stalwart force, a doomed man, yet calm and happy

under his sentence; he, only discovered to be so fondly loved in time to

give poignancy to the parting, and yet rejoicing himself in the poor,

tardy affection that had answered his manly constancy too late! His very

calmness and stillness cut her to the heart, and after some ineffectual

attempts to recover herself, she was forced to take refuge in her own

room. Weeping, praying, walking restlessly about, she remained there

till luncheon time, when Humfrey himself came up to knock at her door.

'Honor dear!' he said, 'come down--try to throw it off--Saville does not

wish his wife to be made aware of it while she is here, lest she should

be nervous. You must not betray me--and indeed there is no reason for

being overcome. Nothing vexes me but seeing you so. Let us enjoy your

visit, pray.'

To be commanded to bear up by a strong, manly character so much loved and

trusted was perhaps the chief support she could receive; she felt that

she must act composure, and coming down in obedience to her cousin, she

found the power of doing so. Nay, as she saw him so completely the

bright, hospitable host, talking to Mrs. Saville about her poultry, and

carrying on quiet jokes with Mr. Saville, she found herself drawn away

from the morning's conversation, or remembering it like a dream that had

passed away.

Then all went out together, and he was apparently as much interested in

his young wheat as ever, and even more anxious to make her look at and

appreciate crops and cattle, speaking about them in his hearty, simple

way, as if his pleasure in them was not flagging, perhaps because it had

never been excessive. He had always sat loose to them, and thus they

could please and occupy him even when the touch of the iron hand had made

itself felt.

And again she saw him engrossed in arranging some petty matter of

business for one of the poor people; and when they had wandered down to

the gate, pelting the turn-out of the boys' school with a pocket full of

apples that he said he had taken up while in conference with the

housekeeper, laughing and speaking merrily as the varlets touched their

caps to him, and always turning to her for sympathy in his pleasures of

success or of good nature, as though her visit were thorough enjoyment to

him. And so it almost was to her. The influence of the dear old scenes

was something, and his cheeriness was a great deal more; the peaceful

present was not harassed or disturbed, and the foreboding, on which she

might not dwell, made it the more precious. That slow wandering about

the farm and village, and the desultory remarks, the old pleasant

reminiscences, the inquiries and replies about the villagers and

neighbours had a quiet charm about them, as free and happy as when, youth

and child, they had frisked through the same paths; nay, the old scenes

so brought back the old habits that she found herself discoursing to him

in her former eager fashion upon the last historical character who had

bitten her fancy.

'My old way,' she said, catching herself up; 'dinning all this into your

ears as usual, when you don't care.'

'Don't I?' said Humfrey, with his sincere face turned on her in all its

sweetness. 'Perhaps I never showed you how much, Honor; and I beg your

pardon, but I would not have been without it!'

The Savilles came up, while Honor's heart was brimful at this compliment,

and then it was all commonplace again, except for that sunset light, that

rich radiance of the declining day, that seemed unconsciously to pervade

all Humfrey's cheerfulness, and to give his mirth and playfulness a solid

happiness.

Some mutual friends of long standing came to dinner, and the evening was

not unlike the last, quite as free from gloom, and Mr. Charlecote as

bright as ever, evidently taking his full share in county business, and

giving his mind to it. Only Honor noted that he quietly avoided an

invitation to a very gay party which was proposed; and his great ally,

Sir John Raymond, seemed rather vexed with him for not taking part in

some new and expensive experiment in farming, and asked incredulously

whether it were true that he wished to let a farm that he had kept for

several years in his own hands. Humfrey agreed that it was so, and said

something farther of wishing to come to terms quickly. She guessed that

this was for her sake, when she thought all this over in her bedroom.

Such was the effect of his calmness that it had not been a day of

agitation. There was more peace than tumult in her mind as she lay down

to rest, sad, but not analyzing her sadness, and lulled by the present

into putting aside the future. So she slept quietly, and awoke with a

weight at her heart, but softened and sustained by reverent awe and

obedience towards her cousin.

When they met, he scanned her looks with a bright, tender glance, and

smiled commendation when he detected no air of sleeplessness. He talked

and moved as though his secret were one of untold bliss, and this was not

far from the truth; for when, after breakfast, he asked her for another

interview in the study, they were no sooner alone than he rubbed his

hands together with satisfaction, saying--'So, Honor, you could have had

me after all!' looking at her with a broad, undisguised, exulting smile.

'Oh! Humfrey!'

'Don't say it if you don't like it; but you can't guess the pleasure it

gives me. I could hardly tell at first what was making me so happy when

I awoke this morning.'

'I can't see how it should,' said Honor, her eyes swimming with tears,

'never to have met with any gratitude for--I have used you too ill--never

valued, scarcely even believed in what you lavished on poor silly me--and

now, when all is too late, you are glad--'

'Glad! of course I am,' returned Humfrey; 'I never wished to obtrude my

feelings on you after I knew how it stood with you. It would have been a

shame. Your choice went far above me. For the rest, if to find you

disposed towards me at the last makes me so happy,' and he looked at her

again with beaming affection, 'how could I have borne to leave you if all

had been as I wished? No, no, it is best as it is. You lose nothing in

position, and you are free to begin the world again, not knocked down or

crushed.'

'Don't talk so, Humfrey! It is breaking my heart to think that I might

have been making you happy all this time.'

'Heaven did not will it so,' said Humfrey, reverently, 'and it might not

have proved what we fancy. You might not have found such a clodhopper

all you wanted, and my stupidity might have vexed you, though now you

fancy otherwise. And I have had a very happy life--indeed I have, Honor;

I never knew the time when I could not say with all my heart, "The lot is

fallen unto me in a fair ground, yea, I have a goodly heritage."

Everybody and everything, you and all the rest, have been very kind and

friendly, and I have never wanted for happiness. It has been all right.

You could fulfil your duty as a daughter undividedly, and now I trust

those children will be your object and comfort--only, Honor, not your

idols. Perhaps it was jealousy, but I have sometimes fancied that your

tendency with their father--'

'Oh! how often I must have given you pain.'

'I did not mean _that_, but, as I say, perhaps I was no fair judge. One

thing is well, the relations will be much less likely to take them from

you when you are living here.'

She held up her hands in deprecation.

'Honor dear,' he said pleadingly, yet with authority, 'pray let me talk

to you. There are things which I wish very much to say; indeed, without

which I could hardly have asked for this indulgence. It is for your own

sake, and that of the place and people.'

'Poor place, poor people.'

He sighed, but then turned his smiling countenance towards her again.

'No one else can care for it or them as you do, Honor. Our "goodly

heritage"--it was so when I had it from my father, and I don't think it

has got worse under my charge, and I want you to do your duty by it,

Honor, and hand it on the same, whoever may come after.'

'For your sake, Humfrey--even if I did not love it. But--'

'Yes, it is a duty,' proceeded Humfrey, gravely. 'It may seem but a bit

of earth after all, but the owner of a property has a duty to let it do

its share in producing food, or maybe in not lessening the number of

pleasant things here below. I mean it is as much my office to keep my

trees and woods fair to look at, as it is not to let my land lie waste.'

She had recovered a good deal while he was moralizing, and became

interested. 'I did not suspect you of the poetical view, Humfrey,' she

said.

'It is plain sense, I think,' he said, 'that to grub up a fine tree, or a

pretty bit of copse without fair reason, only out of eagerness for gain,

is a bit of selfishness. But mind, Honor, you must not go and be

romantic. You _must_ have the timber marked when the trees are injuring

each other.'

'Ah! I've often done it with you.'

'I wish you would come out with me to-day. I'm going to the out-wood, I

could show you.'

She agreed readily, almost forgetting the wherefore.

'And above all, Honor, you must not be romantic about wages! It is not

right by other proprietors, nor by the people themselves. No one is ever

the better for a fancy price for his labour.'

She could almost have smiled; he was at once so well pleased that she and

his 'goodly heritage' should belong to each other, so confident in her

love and good intentions towards it, and so doubtful of her discretion

and management. She promised with all her heart to do her utmost to

fulfil his wishes.

'After all,' he said, thoughtfully, 'the best thing for the place--ay,

and for you and every one, would be for you to marry; but there's little

chance of that, I suppose, and it is of no use to distress you by

mentioning it. I've been trying to put out of my hands things that I

don't think you will be able to manage, but I should like you to keep up

the home farm, and you may pretty well trust to Brooks. I dare say he

will take his own way, but if you keep a reasonable check on him, he will

do very well by you. He is as honest as the day, and very intelligent.

I don't know that any one could do better for you.'

'Oh, yes; I will mind all he tells me.'

'Don't show that you mind him. That is the way to spoil him. Poor

fellow, he has been a good servant to me, and so have they all. It is a

thing to be very thankful for to have had such a set of good servants.'

Honora thought, but did not say, that they could not help being good with

such a master.

He went on to tell her that he had made Mr. Saville his executor. Mr.

Saville had been for many years before leaving Oxford bursar of his

college, and was a thorough man of business whom Humfrey had fixed upon

as the person best qualified to be an adviser and assistant to Honora,

and he only wished to know whether she wished for any other selection,

but this was nearly overpowering her again, for since her father's death

she had leant on no one but Humfrey himself.

One thing more he had to say. 'You know, Honor, this place will be

entirely your own. You and I seem to be the last of the Charlecotes, and

even if we were not, there is no entail. You may found orphan asylums

with it, or leave it to poor Sandbrook's children, just as you please.'

'Oh, I could not do that,' cried Honor, with a sudden revulsion. Love

them as she might, Owen Sandbrook's children must not step into Humfrey

Charlecote's place. 'And, besides,' she added, 'I want my little Owen to

be a clergyman; I think he can be what his father missed.'

'Well, you can do exactly as you think fit. Only what I wanted to tell

you is, that there may be another branch, elder than our own. Not that

this need make the least difference, for the Holt is legally ours. It

seems that our great grandfather had an elder son--a wild sort of

fellow--the old people used to tell stories of him. He went on, in

short, till he was disinherited, and went off to America. What became of

him afterwards I never could make out; but I have sometimes questioned

how I should receive any of his heirs if they should turn up some day.

Mind you, you need not have the slightest scruple in holding your own.

It was made over to my grandfather by will, as I have made it sure for

you; but I do think that when you come to think how to dispose of it, the

possibility of the existence of these Charlecotes might be taken into

consideration.'

'Yankee Charlecotes!' she said.

'Never mind; most likely nothing of the kind will ever come in your way,

and they have not the slightest claim on you. I only threw it out,

because I thought it right just to speak of it.'

After this commencement, Humfrey, on this and the ensuing days, made it

his business to make his cousin acquainted with the details of the

management of the estate. He took such pleasure in doing so, and was so

anxious she should comprehend, that she was forced to give her whole

attention; and, putting all else aside, was tranquilly happy in thus

gratifying him. Those orderly ranges of conscientious accounts were no

small testimony to the steady, earnest manner in which Humfrey had set

himself to his duty from his early youth, and to a degree they were his

honest pride too--he liked to show how good years had made up for bad

years, and there was a tenderness in the way he patted their red leather

backs to make them even on their shelves, as if they had been good

friends to him. No, they must not run into confusion.

The farms and the cottages--the friendly terms of his intercourse, and

his large-handed but well-judging almsgiving--all revealed to her more of

his solid worth; and the simplicity that regarded all as the merest duty

touched her more than all. Many a time did she think of the royal

Norwegian brothers, one of whom went to tie a knot in the willows on the

banks of the Jordan, while the other remained at home to be the blessing

of his people, and from her broken idol wanderer she turned to worship

her steadfast worker at home, as far as his humility and homeliness made

it possible, and valued each hour with him as if each moment were of

diamond price. And he was so calmly happy, that there was no grieving in

his presence. It had been a serene life of simple fulfilment of duty,

going ever higher, and branching wider, as a good man's standard

gradually rises the longer he lives; the one great disappointment had

been borne without sourness or repining, and the affections, deprived of

the home channel, had spread in a beneficent flood, and blessed all

around. So, though, like every sinful son of man, sensible of many an

error, many an infirmity, still the open loving spirit was childlike

enough for that blessed sense; for that feeling which St. John expresses

as 'if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence towards God;'

confidence in the infinite Merits that atone for the errors of weakness,

and occasional wanderings of will; confidence that made the hope a sure

and steadfast one, and these sentenced weeks a land of Beulah, where

Honora's tardy response to his constant love could be greeted and valued

as the precious fulfilment of long-cherished wishes, not dashed aside as

giving bitterness to his departure.

The parting was broken by a promise that Honora should again meet the

Savilles at the Holt in the autumn. She assured herself that there was

no danger before that time, and Humfrey spoke cheerfully of looking

forward to it, and seemed to have so much to do, and to be so well equal

to doing it, that he would not let them be concerned at leaving him

alone.

To worship Humfrey was an easier thing at a distance than when beside

him. Honora came back to Sandbeach thoroughly restless and wretched,

reproaching herself with having wasted such constant, priceless

affection, haunted by the constant dread of each morning's post, and

longing fervently to be on the spot. She had self-command enough not to

visit her dejection on the children, but they missed both her spirits and

her vigilance, and were more left to their nurse; and her chief solace

was in long solitary walks, or in evening talks with Miss Wells. Kind

Miss Wells perhaps guessed how matters stood between the two last

Charlecotes, but she hinted not her suspicions, and was the unwearied

recipient of all Honora's histories, of his symptoms, of his

cheerfulness, and his solicitude for her. Those talks did her good, they

set the real Humfrey before her, and braced her to strive against

weakness and despondence.

And then the thought grew on her, why, since they were so thoroughly each

other's, why should they not marry, and be together to the last? Why

should he be left to his solitude for this final year? why should their

meetings be so prudentially chaperoned? Suppose the disease should be

lingering, how hard it was that she should be absent, and he left to

servants! She could well imagine why he had not proposed it; he was too

unselfish to think of exposing her to the shock, or making her a widow,

but how came she never to have thought of it? She stood beyond all

ordinary rules--she had nothing worldly to gain nor to lose by being his

wife for these few remaining months--it surely was her part, after the

way she had treated him, to meet him more than half way--she alone could

make the proposal--she would--she must. And oh! if the doctors should be

mistaken! So spoke the midnight dream--oh! how many times. But what

said cool morning? Propriety had risen up, grave decorum objecting to

what would shock Humfrey, ay, and was making Honor's cheeks tingle. Yes,

and there came the question whether he would not be more distressed than

gratified--he who wished to detach himself from all earthly ties--whether

he might not be pained and displeased at her thus clinging to him--nay,

were he even gratified, might not emotion and agitation be fatal?

Many, many times was all this tossed over in Honor's mind. Often the

desperate resolution was definitely taken, and she had seen herself

quietly meeting him at dear old Hiltonbury Church, with his grave sweet

eyes resting satisfied upon her as his darling. As often had the fear of

offending him, and the instinct of woman's dignity turned her away when

her heart was beating high. That autumn visit--then she would decide.

One look as if he wished to retain her, the least air of feebleness or

depression, and she would be determined, even if she had to waive all

feminine reserves, and set the matter in hand herself. She thought Mr.

Saville would highly approve and assist; and having settled into this

period for her project, she set herself in some degree at rest, and moved

and spoke with so much more of her natural ease, that Miss Wells was

consoled about her, and knew not how entirely heart and soul were at

Hiltonbury, with such devotion as had never even gone to the backwoods.

To meet the Savilles at Hiltonbury in the autumn! Yes--Honor met Mr.

Saville, but not as she had intended. By that time the stroke had

fallen, just as she had become habituated to the expectation, just as her

promised visit had assumed a degree of proximity, and her heart was

beating at the prospect of the results.

Humfrey had been scarcely ailing all the summer, he had gone about his

occupations with his usual cheerfulness, and had taken part in all the

village festivals as genially as ever. Only close observers could have

noticed a slackness towards new undertakings, a gradual putting off of

old ones, a training of those, dependent on his counsel, to go alone, a

preference for being alone in the evening, a greater habit of stillness

and contemplation.

September had come, and he had merrily sent off two happy boy-sportsmen

with the keeper, seeing them over the first field himself, and leaning

against the gate, as he sent them away in convulsions of laughing at his

droll auguries. The second was a Sunday, a lovely day of clear deep blue

sky, and rich sunshine laughing upon the full wealth of harvest

fields--part fallen before the hand of the reaper, part waving in their

ripe glowing beauty, to which he loved to liken Honora's hair--part in

noble redundant shocks of corn in full season. Brooks used afterwards to

tell how he overtook the squire slowly strolling to church on that

beauteous autumnal morning, and how he paused to remark on the glory of

the harvest, and to add, 'Keep the big barn clear, Brooks--let us have

all the women and children in for the supper this time--and I say--send

the spotted heifer down to-morrow to old Boycotts, instead of his cow

that died. With such a crop as this, one can stand something. And,'

said Brooks, 'Thank God for it! was as plain written on his face as ever

I saw!'

It was the first Sunday in the month, and there was full service.

Hiltonbury Church had one of those old-fashioned altar-rails which form

three sides of a square, and where it was the custom that at the words

'Draw near with faith,' the earliest communicants should advance to the

rail and remain till their place was wanted by others, and that the last

should not return to their seats till the service was concluded. Mr.

Charlecote had for many years been always the first parishioner to walk

slowly up the matted aisle, and kneel beside the wall, under the cumbrous

old tables of Commandments. There, on this day, he knelt as usual, and

harvest labours tending to thin the number of communicants, the same who

came up first remained to the end, joined their voices in the Eucharistic

Lord's Prayer and Angelic Hymn, and bowed their heads at the blessing of

the peace that passeth all understanding.

It was not till the rest were moving away, that the vicar and his clerk

remarked that the squire had not risen. Another look, and it was plain

that he had sunk somewhat forward on his folded arms, and was only

supported by the rail and the wall. The vicar hastily summoned the

village doctor, who had not yet left the church. They lifted him, and

laid him along on the cushioned step where he had been kneeling, but

motion and breath were gone, the strong arms were helpless, and the

colour had left the open face. Taken at once from the heavenly Feast on

earth to the glory above, could this be called sudden death?

There he lay on the altar step, with hands crossed on his breast, and

perfectly blessed repose on his manly countenance, sweetened and ennobled

in its stillness, and in every lineament bearing the impress of that Holy

Spirit of love who had made it a meet temple.

What an unpremeditated lying in state was that! as by ones and twos,

beneath the clergyman's eye, the villagers stole in with slowly, heavily

falling tread to gaze in silent awe on their best friend, some sobbing

and weeping beyond control, others with grave, almost stolid

tranquillity, or the murmured 'He _was_ a gentleman,' which, in a poor

man's mouth, means 'he was a just man and patient, the friend of the weak

and poor.' His farmers and his own labourers put their shoulders to bear

him once more to his own house, through his half-gathered crops--

The hand of the reaper

Takes the ears that are hoary,

But the voice of the weeper

Wails manhood in glory.

No, bewail him not. It was glory, indeed, but the glory of early autumn,

the garnering of the shock of corn in full season. It was well done of

the vicar that a few long, full-grained ears of wheat were all that was

laid upon his breast in his coffin.

There Honora saw them. The vicar, Mr. Henderson, had written to her at

once, as Humfrey had long ago charged him to do, enclosing a letter that

he had left with him for the purpose, a tender, soothing farewell, and an

avowal such as he could never have spoken of the blessing that his

attachment to her had been, in drawing his mind from the narrowness to

which he might have been liable, and in elevating the tone of his views

and opinions.

She knew what he meant--it was what he had caught from her youthful

enthusiasm, second-hand from Owen Sandbrook. Oh! what vivid, vigorous

truth not to have been weakened in the transit through two such natures,

but to have done its work in the strong, practical mind able and candid

enough to adopt it even thus filtered!

There were a few words of affectionate commendation of his people and his

land into her keeping, and a parting blessing, and, lastly, written as a

postscript--with a blot as if it had been written with

hesitation--'Little children, keep yourselves from idols!'

It was not bitter weeping. It was rather the sense of utter vacancy and

hopelessness, with but one fixed purpose--that she would see his face

again, and be the nearest to him when he was laid in the grave. She

hastily wrote to the housekeeper and to the clergyman that she was

coming, and Miss Wells's kind opposition only gave her just wilfulness

and determination enough to keep her spirit from sinking.

So she travelled alone, and came to Hiltonbury in the sunset, as the

'last long wains' were slowly bearing their loads of wheat into the

farmyard, the waggoners walking dejectedly beside them. Mr. Saville had

come before her, and was at the door to receive her. She could not very

well bear the presence of any one, nor the talk of cold-blooded

arrangements. It seemed to keep away the dreamy living with Humfrey, and

was far more dreary than the feeling of desolateness, and when they

treated her as mistress of the house that was too intolerable. And yet

it was worth something, too, to be the one to authorize that harvest

supper in the big barn, in the confidence that it would be anything but

revelry. Every one felt that the day was indeed a Harvest Home.

The funeral, according to his expressed wishes, was like those of the

farmers of the parish; the coffin borne by his own labourers in their

white round frocks; and the labourers were the expected guests for whom

provision was made; but far and wide from all the country round, though

harvest was at the height, came farmers and squires, poor men and rich,

from the peer and county member down to the poor travelling hawker--all

had met the sunny sympathy of that smile, all had been aided and

befriended, all felt as if a prop, a castle of strength were gone.

Charlecotes innumerable rested in the chancel, and the last heir of the

line was laid beneath the same flag where he had been placed on that last

Sunday, the spot where Honor might kneel for many more, meeting him in

spirit at the feast, and looking to the time when the cry should be, 'Put

ye in the sickle, for the harvest is come.'

But ere she could look in thorough hope for that time, another page of

Honor's life must be turned, and an alloy, as yet unknown to herself,

must be purged from her heart. The last gleam of her youthful sunshine

had faded with Humfrey; but youth is but a fraction of human existence,

and there were further phases to be gone through and lessons to be

learnt; although she was feeling as if all were over with her in this

world, and neither hope, love, nor protection were left her, nor any

interest save cherishing Humfrey Charlecote's memory, as she sat

designing the brass tablet which was to record his name and age in old

English illuminated letters, surrounded by a border of ears of corn and

grapes.

CHAPTER IV

The glittering grass, with dewstars bright,

Is all astir with twinkling light;

What pity that such fair array

In one brief hour should melt away.--REV. T. WHYTEHEAD

'This is a stroke of good luck!' said Mr. Charteris. 'We must not, on

any account, remove the Sandbrook children from Miss Charlecote; she has

no relations, and will certainly make the boy her heir.'

'She will marry!' said his wife. 'Some fashionable preacher will swallow

her red hair. She is just at the age for it!'

'Less likely when she has the children to occupy her.'

'Well, you'll have them thrown on your hands yet!'

'The chance is worth trying for, though! I would not interfere with her

on any account.'

'Oh, no, nor I! but I pity the children.'

* * * * *

'There, Master Owen, be a good boy, and don't worry. Don't you see, I'm

putting up your things to go home.'

'Home!' the light glittered in Lucilla's eyes. 'Is it Wrapworth,

nursey?'

'Dear me, miss, not Wrapworth. That's given away, you know; but it's to

Hiltonbury you are going--such a grand place, which if Master Owen is

only a dear good boy, will all belong to him one of these days.'

'Will there be a pony to ride on?' asked Owen.

'Oh, yes--if you'll only let those stockings alone--there'll be ponies,

and carriages, and horses, and everything a gentleman can have, and all

for my own dear little Master Owen!'

'I don't want to go to Hiltonbury,' said Lucilla; 'I want to go home to

the river and the boat, and see Mr. Prendergast and the black cow.'

'I'll give you a black cow, Cilly,' said Owen, strutting about. 'Is

Hiltonbury bigger than the castle?'

'Oh, ever so big, Master Owen; such acres of wood, Mr. Jones says, and

all your dear cousin's, and sure to be your own in time. What a great

gentleman you will be, to be sure, dining thirty gentlefolks twice a

week, as they say poor Mr. Charlecote did, and driving four fine horses

to your carriage like a gentleman. And then you won't forget poor old

nursey-pursey.'

'Oh, no, nurse; I'll give you a ride in my carriage!'

Honora in her listless state had let Mr. Saville think for her, and

passively obeyed him when he sent her back to Sandbeach to wind up her

affairs there, while he finished off the valuations and other painful

business at the Holt, in which she could be of little use, since all she

desired was to keep everything as it was. She was anxious to return as

soon as possible, so as to take up the reins before there had been time

for the relaxation to be felt, the only chance she felt of her being able

to fulfil his charge. The removal, the bustle, the talking things over

with Miss Wells, and the sight of the children did much to restore her,

and her old friend rejoiced to see that necessary occupation was tending

to make her time pass more cheerfully than she perhaps knew.

As to the dear old City dwelling, it might have fetched an immense price,

but only to become a warehouse, a measure that would have seemed to Honor

little short of sacrilege. To let it, in such a locality, was

impossible, so it must remain unavailable capital, and Honora decided on

leaving her old housekeeper therein, with a respectable married niece,

who would inhabit the lower regions, and keep the other rooms in order,

for an occasional stay in London. She would have been sorry to cut

herself off from a month of London in the spring, and the house might

farther be useful to friends who did not object to the situation; or

could be lent now and then to a curate; and she could well afford to keep

it up, so she thought herself justified in following her inclination, and

went up for three mournful days of settling matters there, and packing

books and ornaments till the rooms looked so dismantled that she could

not think how to face them again.

It was the beginning of October when she met Miss Wells, children, and

luggage at the station, and fairly was on her way to her home. She tried

to call it so, as a duty to Humfrey, but it gave her a pang every time,

and in effect she felt far less at home than when he and Sarah had stood

in the doorway to greet the arrivals. She had purposely fixed an hour

when it would be dark, so that she might receive no painful welcome; she

wished no one to greet her, she had rather they were mourning for their

master. She had more than once shocked Miss Wells by declaring heiresses

to be a mistake; and yet, as she always owned, she could not have borne

for any one else to have had the Holt.

Fortunately for her, the children were sleepy, and were rather in a mazy

state when lifted out and set on their legs in the wainscoted hall, and

she sent them at once with nurse to the cheerful room that Humfrey's

little visitors had saved from becoming disused. Miss Wells's fond

vigilance was a little oppressive, but she gently freed herself from it,

and opened the study door. She had begged that as little change as

possible might be made; and there stood, as she had last seen them, the

large leathern chair, the little table, the big Bible, and in it the

little faded marker she had herself constructed for his twenty-first

birthday, when her powers of making presents had not equalled her will.

Yet what costly gift could have fulfilled its mission like that one? She

opened the heavy book at the place. It was at the first lesson for the

last day of his life, the end of the prophet Hosea, and the first words

her eyes fell upon were the glorious prophecy--'I will redeem them from

death, I will ransom them from the power of the grave.' Her heart beat

high, and she stood half musing, half reading: 'They that dwell under His

shadow shall return; they shall revive as the corn, and grow as the

vine.' How gentle and refreshing the cadence! A longing rose up in her

to apply those latter words more closely, by placing them on his tablet;

she did not think they would shock his humility, a consideration which

had withheld her from choosing other passages of which she always thought

in connection with him. Another verse, and she read: 'Ephraim shall say,

What have I to do any more with idols?'

It brought back the postscript. Kind Humfrey must have seen strong cause

before he gave any reproof, least of all to her, and she could take his

word that the fault had been there. She felt certain of it when she

thought of her early devotion to Owen Sandbrook, and the utter blank

caused by his defection. Nay, she believed she had begun to idolize

Humfrey himself, but now, at her age, chastened, desponding, with nothing

before her save the lonely life of an heiress old maid, counting no tie

of blood with any being, what had she to engross her affections from the

true Object? Alas! Honora's heart was not feeling that Object

sufficient! Conscientious, earnest, truly loving goodness, and all

connected with it; striving as a faithful, dutiful woman to walk rightly,

still the personal love and trust were not yet come. Spent as they had

been upon props of earth, when these were taken away the tendrils hung

down drearily, unemployed, not fastening on the true support.

Not that she did not kneel beside that little table, as in a shrine, and

entreat earnestly for strength and judgment to do her duty faithfully in

her new station, so that Humfrey's charge might be fulfilled, and his

people might not suffer; and this done, and her homage paid to his empty

throne, she was better able to satisfy her motherly friend by her

deportment for the remainder of the evening, and to reply to the welcome

of the weeping Mrs. Stubbs. By one of Humfrey's wise acts of foresight,

his faithful servant, Reeves, had been provided for as the master of the

Union, whither it was certain he would carry the same milk of human

kindness as had been so plentiful at Hiltonbury, and the Holt was thus

left free for Honora's Mr. Jones, without fear of clashing, though he was

divided between pride in his young lady's ownership of a 'landed estate,'

and his own dislike to a country residence.

Honora did not sleep soundly. The place was too new, and yet too

familiar, and the rattling of the windows, the roaring of the wind in the

chimney, and the creaking of the vane, without absolutely wakening her,

kept her hearing alive continually, weaving the noises into some

harassing dream that Humfrey's voice was calling to her, and hindrances

always keeping her from him; and then of Lucilla and Owen in some

imminent peril, whence she shrieked to him to save them, and then

remembered he would stretch out his hand no more.

Sounder sleep came at last, towards morning, and far later than her usual

hour she was wakened by a drumming upon her door, and the boy and girl

dashed in, radiant with excitement at the novelty of the place. 'Sweet

Honey! Sweet Honey dear, do get up and see. There's a rocking-horse at

the end of the passage.' 'And there's a real pony out in the field.'

'There are cows.' 'There's a goat and a little kid, and I want to play

with it, and I may, for it is all mine and yours.'

'All yours! Owen, boy,' repeated Honora, sitting up in surprise.

'Nursey said it was all to be Owen's,' said Lucilla.

'And she said I should be as grand a gentleman as poor Mr. Charlecote or

Uncle Charteris,' proceeded Owen, 'and that I should go out hunting in a

red coat, on a beautiful horse; but I want to have the kid now, please,

Sweet Honey.'

'Nurse does not know anything about it,' said Honora, much annoyed that

such an idea should have been suggested in such a manner. 'I thought my

little Owen wished for better things--I thought he was to be like his

papa, and try to be a good shepherd, praising God and helping people to

do right.'

'But can't I wear a red coat too?' said Owen, wistfully.

'No, my dear; clergymen don't go out hunting; or how could they teach the

poor little children?'

'Then I won't be a clergyman.'

This was an inconvenient and most undesirable turn; but Honor's first

object must be to put the right of heirship out of the little head, and

she at once began--'Nurse must have made a mistake, my dear; this place

is your home, and will be always so, I hope, while it is mine, but it

must not be your own, and you must not think it will. My little boy must

work for himself and other people, and that's better than having houses

and lands given to him.'

Those words touched the pride in Lucilla's composition, and she

exclaimed--'I'll work too;' but the self-consequence of proprietorship

had affected her brother more strongly, and he repeated, meditatively,

'Jones said, not mine while she was alive. Jones was cross.'

There might not be much in the words, child as he was, but there was

something in his manner of eyeing her which gave her acute unbearable

pain--a look as if she stood in his way and crossed his importance. It

was but a baby fit of temper, but she was in no frame to regard it

calmly, and with an alteration of countenance that went to his heart, she

exclaimed--'Can that be my little Owen, talking as if he wanted his

Cousin Honor dead and out of the way? We had better never have come here

if you are to leave off loving me.'

Quick to be infected by emotion, the child's arms were at once round her

neck, and he was sobbing out that he loved his Sweet Honey better than

anything; nurse was naughty; Jones was naughty; he wouldn't hunt, he

wouldn't wear a red coat, he would teach little children just like lambs,

he would be like dear papa; anything the poor little fellow could think

of he poured out with kisses and entreaties to know if he were naughty

still; while his sister, after her usual fashion on such occasions, began

to race up and down the room with paroxysms, sometimes of stamping,

sometimes of something like laughter.

Some minutes passed before Honora could compose herself, or soothe the

boy, by her assurances that he was not to blame, only those who put

things in his head that he could not understand; and it was not till

after much tender fondling that she had calmed him enough for his morning

devotions. No sooner were these over than he looked up and said, while

the tears still glazed his cheeks, 'Sweet Honey, I'll tell nurse and Mr.

Jones that I'm on pilgrimage to the Eastern land, and I'll not turn into

by-ways after red coats and little kids to vex you.'

Whether Owen quite separated fact from allegory might have been doubtful

to a more prosaic mind than Honora's, but he had brought this dreamy

strain with him from his father, and she thought it one of his great

charms. She had been obliged to leave him to himself much more than

usual of late, and she fervently resolved to devote herself with double

energy to watching over him, and eradicating any weeds that might have

been sown during her temporary inattention. He clung so fast to her

hand, and was so much delighted to have her with him again, so often

repeating that she must not go away again, that the genuineness of his

affection could not be doubted, and probably he would only retain an

impression of having been led to say something very shocking, and the

alarm to his sensitive conscience would hinder him from ever even trying

to remember what it was.

She spoke, however, to nurse, telling her that the subject must never be

mentioned to the children, since it was by no means desirable for them,

and besides, she had no intention of the kind. She wished it to be

distinctly understood that Master Owen was not to be looked upon as her

heir.

'Very true, ma'am, it is too soon to be talking of such things yet, and I

must say, I was as sorry as possible to find that the child had had it

named to him. People will talk, you see, Miss Charlecote, though I am

sure so young a lady as you are . . . '

'That has nothing to do with it,' said Honora; 'I consider nothing so bad

for a child as to be brought up to expectations to which he has no right,

when he is sure to have to provide for himself. I beg that if you hear

the subject entered on again, in the children's presence, you will put a

stop to it.'

'Certainly, ma'am; their poor dear papa never would have wished them to

be occupied with earthly things of that sort. As I often said, there

never was such an unworldly gentleman; he never would have known if there

were a sixpence in the house, nor a joint in the larder, if there had not

been cook and me to care for him. I often said to cook--"Well for him

that he has honest people about him."'

Honora likewise spoke to Jones, her private retainer. He smiled scorn of

the accusation, and answered her as the child he had known in frocks.

'Yes, ma'am, I did tell the young gentleman to hold his tongue, for it

never would be his in your lifetime, nor after, in my judgment.'

'Why, certainly, it does seem early days to speak of such a matter,' said

Honora, sadly.

'It is unaccountable what people will not put in children's heads,' said

Jones, sagely; 'not but what he is a nice quiet young gentleman, and

gives very little trouble, but they might let _that_ alone. Miss Honora,

when will it be convenient to you to take my account of the plate?'

She felt pretty well convinced that Jones had only resented the whole on

her account, and that it was not he who had put the notion into the boy's

head. As to nurse, she was far from equally clear. Doubts of nurse's

sincerity had long been growing upon her, and she was in the

uncomfortable position of being able to bear neither to think of the

children's intercourse with any one tainted with falsehood, nor to

dismiss a person implicitly trusted by their father. She could only

decide that the first detected act of untruth should be the

turning-point.

Meantime, painful as was many an association, Honor did not find her

position so dreary or so oppressive as she had anticipated. She had a

great deal to do, and the tracks had been duly made out for her by her

cousin. Mr. Saville, or Humfrey's old friend, Sir John Raymond, were

always ready to help her in great matters, and Brooks was an excellent

dictatorial deputy in small ones. Her real love for country life, for

live animals, and, above all, the power of doing good, all found scope.

Humfrey's charge gave her a sense of a fulfilled duty; and mournful and

broken-spirited as she believed herself, if Humfrey could have looked at

her as she scrupulously made entries in his book, rode out with the

children to try to look knowing at the crops, or sat by the fire in the

evening with his dogs at her feet, telling stories to the children, he

would not have feared too much for his Honor. Living or dead, the love

of Humfrey could hardly help being a spring of peace and happiness; and

the consciousness of it had been too brief, and the tie never close

enough, to lead to a state of crushed spirits. The many little tender

observances that she paid to him were a source of mournful sweetness

rather than of heart-rending.

It was a quietly but fully occupied life, with a certain severity towards

her own comforts, and liberality towards those of other people, which had

always been a part of her character, ever since Owen Sandbrook had read

sermons with her on self-denial. If Miss Wells had a fire in her bedroom

forced upon her, Miss Charlecote had none, and hurried down in the bleak

winter morning in shawl and gloves to Humfrey's great Bible, and then to

his account books and her business letters. She was fresh with cold when

she met the children for their early reading. And then--but it was not

soon that she learnt to bear that, though she had gone through the like

before, she had to read the household devotions, where every petition

seemed to be lacking the manly tone to give it fulness and force.

Breakfast followed, the silver kettle making it home-like, the children

chattering, Miss Wells smiling, letters coming in to perplex or to clear

up perplexities, amuse or cheer. The children were then turned out for

an hour's hoop-driving on the gravel drive, horse-chestnut picking, or

whatever might not be mischief, while Honora was conferring with Jones or

with Brooks, and receiving her orders for the day. Next followed

letter-writing, then lessons in general, a real enjoyment, unless Lucilla

happened to have picked up a fit of perverseness--some reading to them,

or rationalizing of play--the early dinner--the subsequent expedition

with them, either walking or riding--for Brooks had soon found ponies for

them, and they were gallant little riders. Honor would not give up the

old pony, long since trained for her by Humfrey, though, maybe, that was

her most undutiful proceeding towards him, as he would certainly have

told her that the creature was shaky on the legs. So at last it tumbled

down with her, but without any damage, save a hole in her skirt, and a

dreadful crying fit of little Owen, who was frightened out of his wits.

She owned that it must be degraded to light cart work, and mounted an

animal which Hiltonbury agreed to be more worthy of her. Coming in, the

children played; she either did her business or found leisure for

reading; then came tea-time, then the reading of a story book to the

children, and when they were disposed of, of something mildly moral and

instructive to suit Miss Wells's taste.

The neighbourhood all mourned Mr. Charlecote as a personal loss, and

could hardly help regarding any successor as their enemy. Miss

Charlecote had been just enough known in her girlish days not to make her

popular in a commonplace neighbourhood; the ladies had criticised her

hair and her genius, and the gentlemen had been puzzled by her searching

questions into their county antiquities, and obliged to own themselves

unaware of a Roman milestone propping their bailiff's pigstye, or of the

spur of a champion of one of the Roses being hung over their family pew.

But when Mr. Henderson and the Raymonds reported pleasantly of her, and

when once or twice she had been seen cantering down the lanes, or

shopping in Elverslope, and had exchanged a bow with a familiar face, the

gentlemen took to declaring that the heiress was an uncommonly fine woman

after all, and the ladies became possessed with the perception that it

was high time to call upon Miss Charlecote--what could she be doing with

those two children?

So there were calls, which Honor duly returned, and then came

invitations, but to Miss Wells's great annoyance, Honor decided against

these. It was not self-denial, but she thought it suitable. She did not

love the round of county gaieties, and in her position she did not think

them a duty. Retirement seemed to befit the widowhood, which she felt so

entirely that when Miss Wells once drove her into disclaiming all

possibility of marrying, she called it 'marrying again.' When Miss Wells

urged the inexpedience of absolute seclusion, she said she would continue

to make morning calls, and she hoped in time to have friends of her own

to stay with her; she might ask the Raymonds, or some of the quiet,

clerical families (the real _elite_, be it observed) to spend a day or

drink tea, but the dinner and ball life was too utterly incongruous for

an elderly heiress. When it came to the elderly heiress poor Miss Wells

was always shut up in utter despair--she who thought her bright-locked

darling only grew handsomer each day of her pride of womanhood.

The brass which Honora had chosen for her cousin's memorial was slow in

being executed, and summer days had come in before it was sent to

Hiltonbury. She walked down, a good deal agitated, to ascertain whether

it were being rightly managed, but, to her great annoyance, found that

the church having been left open, so many idle people were standing about

that she could not bear to mingle with them. Had it been only the Holt

vassalage, either their feeling would have been one with her own, or they

would have made way for her, but there were some pert nursery maids

gaping about with the children from Beauchamp, whence the heads of the

family had been absent all the winter and spring, leaving various nurses

and governesses in charge. Honora could not encounter their eyes, and

went to the vicarage to send Mr. Henderson, and finding him absent,

walked over sundry fields in a vain search for Brooks. Rain came on so

violently as to wet her considerably, and to her exceeding mortification,

she was obliged to relinquish her superintendence, either in person or by

deputy.

However, when she awoke early and saw the sun laughing through the

shining drops, she decided on going down ere the curious world was astir,

to see what had been done. It was not far from six, when she let herself

out at the porch, and very like a morning with Humfrey, with the

tremulous glistening of every spray, and the steamy fragrance rising

wherever the sun touched the grass, that seemed almost to grow visibly.

The woods were ringing with the song of birds, circle beyond circle, and

there was something in the exuberant merriment of those blackbirds and

thrushes that would not let her be sad, though they had been Humfrey's

special glory. The thought of such pleasures did not seem out of

keeping. The lane was overhung with bushes; the banks, a whole wealth of

ferns, climbing plants, tall grasses, and nettles, had not yet felt the

sun and were dank and dreary, so she hurried on, and arriving at the

clerk's door, knocked and opened. He was gone to his work, and sounds

above showed the wife to be engaged on the toilette of the younger

branches. She called out that she had come for the keys of the church,

and seeing them on the dresser, abstracted them, bidding the good woman

give herself no trouble.

She paused under the porch, and ere fitting the heavy key to the lock,

felt that strange pressure and emotion of the heart that even if it be

sorrow is also an exquisite sensation. If it were mournful that the one

last office she could render to Humfrey was over, it was precious to her

to be the only one who had a right to pay it, the one whom he had loved

best upon earth, round whom she liked to believe that he still might be

often hovering--whom he might welcome by and by. Here was the place for

communion with him, the spot which had, indeed, been to him none other

than the gate of Heaven.

Yet, will it be believed? Not one look did Honora cast at Humfrey

Charlecote's monument that morning.

With both hands she turned the reluctant bolts of the lock, and pushed

open the nail-studded door. She slowly advanced along the uneven floor

of the aisle, and had just reached the chancel arch, when something

suddenly stirred, making her start violently. It was still, and after a

pause she again advanced, but her heart gave a sudden throb, and a

strange chill of awe rushed over her as she beheld a little white face

over the altar rail, the chin resting on a pair of folded hands, the dark

eyes fixed in a strange, dreamy, spiritual expression of awe.

The shock was but for a moment, the next the blood rallied to her heart,

and she told herself that Humfrey would say, that either the state of her

spirits had produced an illusion, or else that some child had been left

here by accident. She advanced, but as she did so the two hands were

stretched out and locked together as in an agony, and the childish,

feeble voice cried out, 'Oh! if you're an angel, please don't frighten

me; I'll be very good.'

Honora was in a pale, soft, gray dress, that caught the light in a rosy

glow from the east window, and her golden hair was hanging in radiant

masses beneath her straw bonnet, but she could not appreciate the angelic

impression she made on the child, who had been tried so long by such a

captivity. 'My poor child,' she said, 'I am no angel; I am only Miss

Charlecote. I'm afraid you have been shut up here;' and, coming nearer,

she perceived that it was a boy of about seven years old, well dressed,

though his garments were disordered. He stood up as she came near, but

he was trembling all over, and as she drew him into her bosom, and put

her arms round him, she found him quivering with icy cold.

'Poor little fellow,' she said, rocking him, as she sat on the step and

folded her shawl round him, 'have you been here all night? How cold you

are; I must take you home, my dear. What is your name?'

'I'm Robert Mervyn Fulmort,' said the little boy, clinging to her. 'We

came in to see Mr. Charlecote's monument put up, and I suppose they

forgot me. I waked up, and everybody was gone, and the door was locked.

Oh! please,' he gasped, 'take me out. I don't want to cry.'

She thought it best to take him at once into the cheerful sunlight, but

it did not yet yield the warmth that he needed; and all her soothing

words could not check the nervous tremor, though he held her so tight

that it seemed as if he would never let her go.

'You shall come home with me, my dear little boy; you shall have some

breakfast, and then I will take you safe home to Beauchamp.'

'Oh, if you please!' said the boy, gratefully.

Exercise was thawing his numbed limbs, and his eyes brightened.

'Whom were you with?' she asked. 'Who could have forgotten you?'

'I came with Lieschen and nurse and the babies. The others went out with

Mademoiselle.'

'And you went to sleep?'

'Yes; I liked to see the mason go chip, chip, and I wanted to see them

fit the thing in. I got into that great pew, to see better; and I made

myself a nest, but at last they were all gone.'

'And what did you do, then? Were you afraid?'

'I didn't know what to do. I ran all about to see if I could look out at

a window, but I couldn't.'

'Did you try to call?'

'Wouldn't it have been naughty?' said the boy; and then with an impulse

of honest truthfulness, 'I did try once; but do you know, there was

another voice came back again, and I thought that _die Geistern wachten

sich auf_.'

'The what?'

'_Die Geistern das Lieschen sagt in die Gewolben wohnen_,' said little

Robert, evidently quite unconscious whether he spoke German or English.

'So you could not call for the echo. Well, did you not think of the

bells?'

'Yes; but, oh! the door was shut; and then, I'll tell you--but don't tell

Mervyn--I did cry.'

'Indeed, I don't wonder. It must have been very lonely.'

'I didn't like it,' said Robert, shivering; and getting to his German

again, he described '_das Gewitter_' beating on the panes, with wind and

whirling leaves, and the unearthly noises of the creaking vane. The

terror of the lonely, supperless child was dreadful to think of; and she

begged to know what he could have done as it grew dark.

'I got to Mr. Charlecote,' said Robert--an answer that thrilled her all

over. 'I said I'd be always very good, if he would take care of me, and

not let them frighten me. And so I did go to sleep.'

'I'm sure Mr. Charlecote would, my dear little man,' began Honora, then

checked by remembering what he would have said. 'But didn't you think of

One more sure to take care of you than Mr. Charlecote?'

'Lieschen talks of _der Lieber Gott_,' said the little boy. 'We said our

prayers in the nursery, but Mervyn says only babies do.'

'Mervyn is terribly wrong, then,' said Honora, shuddering. 'Oh! Robert,

Mr. Charlecote never got up nor went to bed without asking the good God

to take care of him, and make him good.'

'Was that why he was so good?' asked Robert.

'Indeed it was,' said she, fervently; 'nobody can be good without it. I

hope my little friend will never miss his prayers again, for they are the

only way to be manly and afraid of nothing but doing wrong, as he was.'

'I won't miss them,' said Robert, eagerly; then, with a sudden, puzzled

look--'Did he send you?'

'Who?'

'Mr. Charlecote.'

'Why--how should . . . ? What made you think so?'

'I--why, once in the night I woke up; and oh! it was so dark, and there

were such noises, such rattlings and roarings; and then it came all

white--white light--all the window-bars and all so plain upon the wall;

and then came--bending, bending over--a great gray darkness--oh! so

horrible!--and went away, and came back.'

'The shadow of the trees, swaying in the moonlight.'

'Was it? I thought it was the _Nebel Wittwen neckten mir_, and then the

_Erlkonung-tochter_. _Wissen sie_--and oh! I did scream once; and then,

somehow, it grew quietly darker; and I thought Mr. Charlecote had me

folded up so warm on his horse's back, and that we rode ever so far; and

they stretched out their long white arms, and could not get me; but

somehow he set me down on a cold stone, and said, "Wait here, Robin, and

I'll send her to lead you." And then came a creaking, and there were

you.'

'Well, little Robin, he did not quite send me; but it was to see his

tablet that I came down this morning; so he brought me after all. He was

my very dear Cousin Humfrey, and I like you for having been his little

friend. Will you be mine, too, and let me help you, if I can? and if

your papa and mamma give leave, come and see me, and play with the little

girl and boy who live with me?'

'Oh, yes!' cried Robert; 'I like you.'

The alliance was sealed with a hearty kiss.

'But,' said Robert, 'you must ask Mademoiselle; papa and mamma are away!'

'And how was it no one ever missed you?'

Robert was far less surprised at this than she was; for, like all

children, to be left behind appeared to him a contingency rather probable

than otherwise.

He was a fine-looking boy, with dark gray, thoughtful eyes, and a

pleasant countenance; but his nerves had been so much shaken that he

started, and seemed ready to catch hold of her at every sound.

'What's that?' he cried, as a trampling came along the alley as they

entered the garden.

'Only my two little cousins,' said Honora, smiling. 'I hope you will be

good friends, though perhaps Owen is too young a playfellow. Here, Lucy,

Owen--here is a little friend for you--Robert Fulmort.'

The children came eagerly up, and Lucilla, taking her hand, raised her

face to kiss the stranger; but Robert did not approve of the proceeding,

and held up his head. Lucilla rose on tiptoe; Robin did the same. As he

had the advantage of a whole year's height, he fully succeeded in keeping

out of her reach; and very comical was the effect. She gave it up at

last, and contented herself with asking, 'And where do you come from?'

'Out of the church,' was Robin's reply.

'Then you are very good and holy, indeed,' said Owen, looking at him

earnestly, with clasped hands.

'No!' said Robert, gruffly.

'Poor little man! he was left behind, and shut up in the church all

night, without any supper,' said Honora.

'Shut up in the church like Goody Two-shoes!' cried Lucilla dancing

about. 'Oh, what fun!'

'Did the angels come and sing to you?' asked Owen.

'Don't ask such stupid questions,' cried his sister. 'Oh, I know what

I'd have done! Didn't you get up into the pulpit?'

'No!'

'And I do so want to know if the lady and gentleman on the monument have

their ruffs the same on the inside, towards the wall, as outside; and,

oh! I do so want to get all the dust out of the folds of the lady's ruff:

I wish they'd lock me into the church, and I'd soon get out when I was

tired.'

Lucilla and Owen decidedly thought Robin had not profited by his

opportunities, but he figured better in an examination on his brothers

and sisters. There were seven, of whom he was the fourth--Augusta,

Juliana, and Mervyn being his elders; Phoebe, Maria, and Bertha, his

juniors. The three seniors were under the rule of Mademoiselle, the

little ones under that of nurse and Lieschen, and Robert stood on neutral

ground, doing lessons with Mademoiselle, whom, he said, in unpicked

language which astounded little Owen, 'he morally hated,' and at the same

time free of the nursery, where, it appeared, that 'Phoebe was the

jolliest little fellow in the world,' and Lieschen was the only

'good-natured body going,' and knew no end of _Mahrchen_. The boy spoke

a very odd mixture of Lieschen's German and of English, pervaded by

stable slang, and was altogether a curious study of the effects of

absentee parents; nevertheless Honora and Lucilla both took a

considerable fancy to him, the latter patronizing him to such a degree

that she hardly allowed him to eat the much-needed breakfast, which

recalled colour to his cheek and substance to his voice.

After much thought, Owen delivered himself of the sentiment that

'people's papas and mammas were very funny,' doubtless philosophizing on

the inconsistency of the class in being, some so willing, some so

reluctant, to leave their children behind them. Honor fully agreed with

him, but did not think the discussion profitable for Robin, whom she now

proposed to take home in the pony-carriage. Lucilla, always eager for

novelty, and ardent for her new friendship, begged to accompany her.

Owen was afraid of the strangers, and preferred Miss Wells.

Even as they set out, they found that Robert's disappearance had created

some sensation, for the clerk's wife was hurrying up to ask if Miss

Charlecote had the keys, that she might satisfy the man from Beauchamp

that Master Fulmort was not in the church. At the lodge the woman threw

up her hands with joy at the sight of the child; and some way off, on the

sward, stood a bigger boy, who, with a loud hurrah, scoured away towards

the house as the carriage appeared.

'That's Mervyn,' said Robert; 'he is gone to tell them.'

Beauchamp was many degrees grander since Honor had last visited it. The

approach was entirely new. Two fresh wings had been added, and the front

was all over scaffolds and cement, in all stages of colour, from rich

brown to permanent white. Robert explained that nothing was so nice as

to watch the workmen, and showed Lucilla a plasterer on the topmost stage

of the scaffolding, who, he said, was the nicest man he knew, and could

sing all manner of songs.

Rather nervously Honora drove under the poles to the hall-door, where two

girls were seen in the rear of a Frenchwoman; and Honor felt as if Robin

might have grounds for his 'moral hatred' when her voluble transports of

gratitude and affection broke forth, and the desolation in which the loss

had left them was described. Robert edged back from her at once, and

flew to another party at the bottom of the stairs--a very stout nurse and

an uncapped, flaxen-haired madchen, who clasped him in her arms, and

cried, and sobbed over him. As soon as he could release himself, he

caught hold of a fat little bundle, which had been coaxing one of his

legs all through Lieschen's embrace, and dragging it forwards, cried,

'Here she is--here's Phoebe!' Phoebe, however, was shy, and cried and

fought her way back to hide her face in Lieschen's apron; and meantime a

very odd scene took place. School-room and nursery were evidently at

most direful war. Each wanted to justify itself lest the lady should

write to the parents; each tried to be too grand to seem to care, and

threw all the blame on the other. On the whole, Honor gathered that

Mademoiselle believed the boy _enfantin_ enough to be in the nursery, the

nurses that he was in the school-room, and he had not been really missed

till bed-time, when each party recriminated instead of seeking him, and

neither would allow itself to be responsible for him. Lieschen, who

alone had her suspicions where he might be, abstained from naming them in

sheer terror of _Kobolden_, _Geistern_, corpse-candles, and what not, and

had lain conjuring up his miseries till morning. Honora did not much

care how they settled it amongst them, but tried to make friends with the

young people, who seemed to take their brother's restoration rather

coolly, and to be chiefly occupied by staring at Lucilla. Augusta and

Juliana were self-possessed, and rather _manierees_, acquitting

themselves evidently to the satisfaction of the French governess, and

Honor, perceiving her to be a necessary infliction, invited her and her

pupils, especially Robin, to spend a day in the next week at the Holt.

The proposal was graciously accepted, and Lucilla spent the intervening

time in a tumult of excitement.

Nor was the day entirely unsuccessful; Mademoiselle behaved herself with

French tact, and Miss Wells took her off Honora's hands a good deal,

leaving them free for the children. Lucilla, always aspiring, began a

grand whispering friendship with the two girls, and set her little cap

strongly at Mervyn, but that young gentleman was contemptuous and bored

when he found no entertainment in Miss Charlecote's stud, and was only to

be kept placable by the bagatelle-board and the strawberry-bed. Robert

followed his lead more than was satisfactory, but with visible

predilections for the Holt ladies, old and young. Honor talked to him

about little Phoebe, and he lighted up and began to detail her

accomplishments, and to be very communicative about his home vexations

and pleasures, and finally, when the children were wishing good night, he

bluntly said, 'It would be better fun to bring Lieschen and Phoebe.'

Honor thought so too, and proposed giving the invitation.

'Don't,' said Robert, 'she'd be cross; I'll bring them.'

And so he did. Two days after, the broad German face and the flaxen head

appeared, leading that fat ball, Phoebe, and Robin frisking in triumph

beside her. Henceforth a great friendship arose between the children.

Phoebe soon lost all dread of those who petted her, and favoured them

with broad smiles and an incomprehensible patois. Owen made very much of

her, and pursued and imitated Robert with the devotion of a small boy to

a larger one. Lucilla devoted herself to him for want of better game,

and moreover he plainly told her that she was the prettiest little girl

he ever saw, and laid all manner of remarkable treasures at her feet.

Miss Charlecote believed that he made some curious confidences to her,

for once Owen said, 'I want to know why Robin hasn't a Sweet Honey to

make him good?'

'Robin has a papa and mamma, and a governess.'

'Robin was telling Lucy he wanted some one to teach him to be good, and

she said she would, but I think she is not old enough.'

'Any one who is good is teaching others, my Owen,' said Honor. 'We will

ask in our prayers that poor little Robin may be helped.'

When Mr. and Mrs. Fulmort came home, there was an interchange of calls,

many thanks for her kindness to the children, and sanction of future

intercourse. Mr. Fulmort was a great distiller, who had married a county

heiress, and endeavoured to take his place among the country squires,

whom he far exceeded in display; and his wife, a meek, sickly person,

lived a life of slavery to the supposed exigencies of fashion. She had

always had, in her maiden days, a species of awe of the Charlecotes'

London cousin, and was now disposed to be rather gratified by her notice

of her children. Mervyn had been disposed of at a tutor's, and Robert

was adrift for many hours of the day. As soon as he had discovered the

possibility of getting to the Holt alone, he was frequently there,

following Honora about in her gardening and farming, as much at home as

the little Sandbrooks, sharing in their sports, and often listening to

the little books that she read aloud to them. He was very far from being

such an angelic little mortal as Owen, with whom indeed his sympathies

were few. Once some words were caught from him by both children, which

startled Honor exceedingly, and obliged her to tell him that if ever she

found him to have repeated the like, she should forbid his coming near

them. He looked excessively sullen, and did not come for a week, during

which Lucilla was intolerably naughty, and was twice severely punished

for using the identical expressions in defiance.

Then he came again, and behaved as if nothing had happened, but the

offence never recurred. Some time after, when he boasted of having come

away with a lesson unlearnt, in flat disobedience to Mademoiselle, Honor

sent him straight home, though Lucilla stamped and danced at her in a

frenzy. Another time Owen rushed up to her in great agony at some

torture that Robin was inflicting upon a live mouse. Upon this, Honor,

full of the spirit of indignation, fairly struck the offender sharply on

the fingers with her riding-whip. He scowled at her, but it was only for

a moment. She held him tightly by the hand, while she sent the gardener

to put his victim out of its misery, and then she talked to him, not

sentimentally, her feelings were too strongly stirred, but with all her

horror of cruelty. He muttered that Mervyn and the grooms always did it;

but he did not hold out long--Lucilla was holding aloof, too much

horrified to come near--and finally he burst into tears, and owned that

he had never thought!

Every now and then, such outbreaks made Honor wonder why she let him

come, perhaps to tempt her children; but she remembered that he and

Humfrey had been fond of one another, and she felt drawn towards him,

though in all prudence she resolved to lessen the attractions of the Holt

by being very strict with all, and rather ungracious to him. Yet,

strange to say, the more regulations she made, and the more she flashed

out at his faults, the more constant was her visitor, the Robin who

seemed to thrive upon the veriest crumbs of good-nature.

Positively, Honora was sometimes amazed to find what a dragon she could

be upon occasion. Since she had been brought into subordination at six

or eight years old, she had never had occasion to find out that she had a

spirit of her own, till she found herself astonishing Jones and Brooks

for taking the liberty of having a deadly feud; making Brooks understand

that cows were not to be sold, nor promises made to tenants, without

reference to her; or showing a determined marauder that Humfrey's wood

was not to be preyed upon any more than in his own time. They were very

feminine explosions to be sure, but they had their effect, and Miss

Charlecote's was a real government.

The uproar with nurse came at last, through a chance discovery that she

had taken Owen to a certain forbidden house of gossip, where he had been

bribed to secrecy with bread and treacle.

Honora wrote to Mrs. Charteris for permission to dismiss the mischievous

woman, and obtained full consent, and the most complete expression of

confidence and gratitude. So there ensued a month, when every visit to

the nursery seemed to be spent in tears. Nurse was really very fond of

the children, and cried over them incessantly, only consoling herself by

auguring a brilliant future for them, when Master Owen should reign over

Hiltonbury, like the gentleman he was.

'But, nurse, Cousin Honor says I never shall--I'm to be a clergyman, like

papa. She says . . . '

Nurse winked knowingly at the housemaid. 'Yes, yes, my darling, no one

likes to hear who is to come after them. Don't you say nothing about it;

ain't becoming; but, by and by, see if it don't come so, and if my boy

ain't master here.'

'I wish I was, and then nursey would never go.'

However, nurse did go, and after some tears Owen was consoled by

promotion to the habits of an older boy.

Lucilla was very angry, and revenged herself by every variety of

opposition in her power, all which were put down by the strong hand. It

was a matter of necessity to keep a tight grasp on this little wilful

sprite, the most fiery morsel of engaging caprice and naughtiness that a

quiet spinster could well have lit upon. It really sometimes seemed to

Honora as if there were scarcely a fault in the range of possibilities

that she had not committed; and indeed a bit of good advice generally

seemed to act by contraries, and served to suggest mischief. Softness

and warmth of feeling seemed to have been lost with her father; she did

not show any particular affection towards her brother or Honora. Perhaps

she liked Miss Wells, but that might be only opposition; nay, Honor would

have been almost thankful if she had melted at the departure of the

undesirable nurse, but she appeared only hard and cross. If she liked

any one it was Robert Fulmort, but that was too much in the way of

flirtation.

Vanity was an extremely traceable spring of action. When nurse went,

Miss Lucilla gave the household no peace, because no one could rightly

curl the long flaxen tresses upon her shoulders, until the worry became

so intolerable that Honora, partly as penance, partly because she thought

the present mode neither conducive to tidiness nor comfort, took her

scissors and trimmed all the ringlets behind, bowl-dish fashion, as her

own carrots had figured all the days of her childhood.

Lucilla was held by Mrs. Stubbs during the operation. She did not cry or

scream after she felt herself conquered by main strength, but her blue

eyes gleamed with a strange, wild light; she would not speak to Miss

Charlecote all the rest of the day, and Honora doubted whether she were

ever forgiven.

Another offence was the cutting down her name into Lucy. Honor had

avoided Cilly from the first; Silly Sandbrook would be too dreadful a

sobriquet to be allowed to attach to any one, but Lucilla resented the

change more deeply than she showed. Lucy was a housemaid's name, she

said, and Honor reproved her for vanity, and called her so all the more.

She did not love Miss Charlecote well enough to say that Cilly had been

her father's name for her, and that he had loved to wind the flaxen curls

round his fingers.

Every new study, every new injunction cost a warfare, disobedience, and

passionate defiance and resistance on the one hand, and steady,

good-tempered firmness on the other, gradually growing a little stern.

The waves became weary of beating on the rock at last. The fiery child

was growing into a girl, and the calm will had the mastery of her; she

succumbed insensibly; and owing all her pleasures to Cousin Honor, she

grew to depend upon her, and mind, manners, and opinions were taking

their mould from her.

CHAPTER V

Too soon the happy child

His nook of heavenward thought must change

For life's seducing wild.--_Christian Year_

The summer sun peeped through the Venetian blinds greenly shading the

breakfast-table.

Only three sides were occupied. For more than two years past good Miss

Wells had been lying under the shade of Hiltonbury Church, taking with

her Honora Charlecote's last semblance of the dependence and deference of

her young ladyhood. The kind governess had been fondly mourned, but she

had not left her child to loneliness, for the brother and sister sat on

either side, each with a particular pet--Lucilla's, a large pointer, who

kept his nose on her knee; Owen's, a white fan-tailed pigeon, seldom long

absent from his shoulder, where it sat quivering and bending backwards

its graceful head.

Lucilla, now nearly fourteen, looked younger from the unusual smallness

of her stature, and the exceeding delicacy of her features and

complexion, and she would never have been imagined to be two years the

senior of the handsome-faced, large-limbed young Saxon who had so far

outstripped her in height; and yet there was something in those deep blue

eyes, that on a second glance proclaimed a keen intelligence as much

above her age as her appearance was below it.

'What's the matter?' said she, rather suddenly.

'Yes, sweetest Honey,' added the boy, 'you look bothered. Is that rascal

not paying his rent?'

'No!' she said, 'it is a different matter entirely. What do you think of

an invitation to Castle Blanch?'

'For us all?' asked Owen.

'Yes, all, to meet your Uncle Christopher, the last week in August.'

'Why can't he come here?' asked Lucilla.

'I believe we must go,' said Honora. 'You ought to know both your

uncles, and they should be consulted before Owen goes to school.'

'I wonder if they will examine me,' said Owen. 'How they will stare to

find Sweet Honey's teaching as good as all their preparatory schools.'

'Conceited boy.'

'I'm not conceited--only in my teacher. Mr. Henderson said I should take

as good a place as Robert Fulmort did at Winchester, after four years in

that humbugging place at Elverslope.'

'We can't go!' cried Lucilla. 'It's the last week of Robin's holidays!'

'Well done, Lucy!' and both Honor and Owen laughed heartily.

'It is nothing to me,' said she, tossing her head, 'only I thought Cousin

Honor thought it good for him.'

'You may stay at home to do him good,' laughed Owen; 'I'm sure I don't

want him. You are very welcome, such a bore as he is.'

'Now, Owen.'

'Honey dear, I do take my solemn affidavit that I have tried my utmost to

be friends with him,' said Owen; 'but he is such a fellow--never has the

least notion beyond Winchester routine--Latin and Greek, cricket and

football.'

'You'll soon be a schoolboy yourself,' said Lucilla.

'Then I shan't make such an ass of myself,' returned Owen.

'Robin is a very good boy, I believe,' said Honor.

'That's the worst of him!' cried Lucilla, running away and clapping the

door after her as she went.

'Well, I don't know,' said Owen, very seriously, 'he says he does not

care about the Saints' days because he has no one to get him leave out.'

'I remember,' said Honor, with a sweet smile of tender memory, 'when to

me the merit of Saints' days was that they were your father's holidays.'

'Yes, you'll send me to Westminster, and be always coming to

Woolstone-lane,' said Owen.

'Your uncles must decide,' she said, half mournfully, half proudly; 'you

are getting to be a big boy--past me, Oney.'

It brought her a roughly playful caress, and he added, 'You've got the

best right, I'm sure.'

'I had thought of Winchester,' she said. 'Robert would be a friend.'

Owen made a face, and caused her to laugh, while scandalizing her by

humming, 'Not there, not there, my child.'

'Well, be it where it may, you had better look over your Virgil, while I

go down to my practical Georgics with Brooks.'

Owen obeyed. He was like a spirited horse in a leash of silk. Strong,

fearless, and manly, he was still perfectly amenable to her, and had

never shown any impatience of her rule. She had taught him entirely

herself, and both working together with a thorough good will, she had

rendered him a better classical scholar, as all judges allowed, than most

boys of the same age, and far superior to them in general cultivation;

and she should be proud to convince Captain Charteris that she had not

made him the mollycoddle that was obviously anticipated. The other

relatives, who had seen the children in their yearly visits to London,

had always expressed unqualified satisfaction, though not advancing much

in the good graces of Lucy and Owen. But Honor thought the public school

ought to be left to the selection of the two uncles, though she wished to

be answerable for the expense, both there and at the university. The

provision inherited by her charges was very slender, for, contrary to all

expectation, old Mr. Sandbrook's property had descended in another

quarter, and there was barely 5000 pounds between the two.

To preserve this untouched by the expenses of education was Honora's

object, and she hoped to be able to smooth their path in life by

occasional assistance, but on principle she was determined to make them

independent of her, and she had always made it known that she regarded it

as her duty to Humfrey that her Hiltonbury property should be

destined--if not to the apocryphal American Charlecote--to a relation of

their mutual great-grandmother.

Cold invitations had been given and declined, but this one was evidently

in earnest, and the consideration of the captain decided Honora on

accepting it, but not without much murmuring from Lucilla. Caroline and

Horatia were detestable grown-up young ladies, her aunt was horrid,

Castle Blanch was the slowest place in the world; she should be shut up

in some abominable school-room to do fancy-work, and never to get a bit

of fun. Even the being reminded of Wrapworth and its associations only

made her more cross. She was of a nature to fly from thought or

feeling--she was keen to perceive, but hated reflection, and from the

very violence of her feelings, she unconsciously abhorred any awakening

of them, and steeled herself by levity.

Her distaste only gave way in Robert's presence, when she appeared highly

gratified by the change, certain that Castle Blanch would be charming,

and her cousin the Life-guardsman especially so. The more disconsolate

she saw Robert, the higher rose her spirits, and his arrival to see the

party off sent her away in open triumph, glorifying her whole cousinhood

without a civil word to him; but when seated in the carriage she launched

at him a drawing, the favourite work of her leisure hours, broke into

unrestrained giggling at his grateful surprise, and ere the wood was

past, was almost strangled with sobs.

Castle Blanch was just beyond the suburbs of London, in complete country,

but with an immense neighbourhood, and not half-an-hour by train from

town. Honora drove all the way, to enjoy the lovely Thames scenery to

the full. They passed through Wrapworth, and as they did so, Lucilla

chattered to the utmost, while Honora stole her hand over Owen's and

gently pressed it. He returned the squeeze with interest, and looked up

in her face with a loving smile--mother and home were not wanting to him!

About two miles further on, and not in the same parish, began the Castle

Blanch demesne. The park sloped down to the Thames, and was handsome,

and quite full of timber, and the mansion, as the name imported, had been

built in the height of pseudo-Gothic, with a formidable keep-looking

tower at each corner, but the fortification below consisting of glass;

the sham cloister, likewise glass windows, for drawing-room, music-room,

and conservatory; and jutting out far in advance, a great embattled

gateway, with a sham portcullis, and doors fit to defy an army.

Three men-servants met the guests in the hall, and Mrs. Charteris

received them in the drawing-room, with the woman-of-the-world tact that

Honora particularly hated; there was always such deference to Miss

Charlecote, and such an assumption of affection for the children, and

gratitude for her care of them, and Miss Charlecote had not been an

heiress early enough in life for such attentions to seem matters of

course.

It was explained that there was no school-room at present, and as a girl

of Lucilla's age, who was already a guest, joined the rest of the party

at dinner, it was proposed that she and her brother should do the same,

provided Miss Charlecote did not object. Honor was really glad of the

gratification for Lucilla, and Mrs. Charteris agreed with her before she

had time to express her opinion as to girls being kept back or brought

forward.

Honor found herself lodged in great state, in a world of looking-glass

that had perfectly scared her poor little Hiltonbury maiden, and with a

large dressing-room, where she hoped to have seen a bed for Lucilla, but

she found that the little girl was quartered in another story, near the

cousins; and unwilling to imply distrust, and hating to incite obsequious

compliance, she did not ask for any change, but only begged to see the

room.

It was in a long passage whence doors opened every way, and one being

left ajar, sounds of laughter and talking were heard in tones as if the

young ladies were above good breeding in their private moments. Mrs.

Charteris said something about her daughters' morning-room, and was

leading the way thither, when an unguarded voice exclaimed--'Rouge dragon

and all,' and a start and suppressed laughter at the entrance of the

newcomers gave an air of having been caught.

Four young ladies, in _degage_ attitudes, were lounging round their

afternoon refection of tea. Two, Caroline and Horatia Charteris, shook

hands with Miss Charlecote, and kissed Lucilla, who still looked at them

ungraciously, followed Honora's example in refusing their offer of tea,

and only waiting to learn her own habitation, came down to her room to be

dressed for dinner, and to criticize cousins, aunt, house and all. The

cousins were not striking--both were on a small scale, Caroline the best

looking in features and complexion, but Horatia the most vivacious and

demonstrative, and with an air of dash and fashion that was more

effective than beauty. Lucilla, not sensible to these advantages,

broadly declared both young ladies to be frights, and commented so freely

on them to the willing ears of Owen, who likewise came in to go down

under Sweet Honey's protection, as to call for a reproof from Honora, one

of whose chief labours ever was to destroy the little lady's faith in

beauty, and complacency in her own.

The latter sensation was strong in Honor herself, as she walked into the

room between her beautiful pair, and contrasted Lucilla with her

contemporary, a formed and finished young lady, all plaits, ribbons, and

bracelets--not half so pleasing an object as the little maid in her white

frock, blue sash, and short wavy hair, though maybe there was something

quaint in such simplicity, to eyes trained by fashion instead of by good

taste.

Here was Captain Charteris, just what he had been when he went away. How

different from his stately, dull, wife-ridden elder brother. So brisk,

and blunt, and eager, quite lifting his niece off her feet, and almost

crushing her in his embrace, telling her she was still but a

hop-o'-my-thumb, and shaking hands with his nephew with a look of

scrutiny that brought the blood to the boy's cheek.

His eyes were never off the children while he was listening to Honora,

and she perceived that what she said went for nothing; he would form his

judgment solely by what he observed for himself.

At dinner, he was seated between Miss Charlecote and his niece, and

Honora was pleased with him for his neglect of her and attention to his

smaller neighbour, whose face soon sparkled with merriment, while his

increasing animation proved that the saucy little woman was as usual

enchanting him. Much that was very entertaining was passing about

tiger-hunting, when at dessert, as he stretched out his arm to reach some

water for her, she exclaimed, 'Why, Uncle Kit, you _have_ brought away

the marks! no use to deny it, the tigers did bite you.'

The palm of his hand certainly bore in purple, marks resembling those of

a set of teeth; and he looked meaningly at Honora, as he quietly replied,

'Something rather like a tigress.'

'Then it was a bite, Uncle Kit?'

Yes,' in a put-an-end-to-it tone, which silenced Lucilla, her tact being

much more ready when concerned with the nobler sex.

In the drawing-room, Mrs. Charteris's civilities kept Honora occupied,

while she saw Owen bursting with some request, and when at length he

succeeded in claiming her attention, it was to tell her of his cousin's

offer to take him out shooting, and his elder uncle's proviso that it

must be with her permission. He had gone out with the careful gamekeeper

at Hiltonbury, but this was a different matter, more trying to the nerves

of those who stayed at home. However, Honora suspected that the uncle's

opinion of her competence to be trusted with Owen would be much

diminished by any betrayal of womanly terrors, and she made her only

conditions that he should mind Uncle Kit, and not go in front of the

guns, otherwise he would never be taken out again, a menace which she

judiciously thought more telling than that he would be shot.

By and by Mr. Charteris came to discuss subjects so interesting to her as

a farmer, that it was past nine o'clock before she looked round for her

children. Healthy as Lucilla was, her frame was so slight and

unsubstantial, and her spirits so excitable, that over-fatigue or

irregularity always told upon her strength and temper; for which reason

Honor had issued a decree that she should go to bed at nine, and spend

two hours of every morning in quiet employment, as a counterbalance to

the excitement of the visit.

Looking about to give the summons, Honor found that Owen had disappeared.

Unnoticed, and wearied by the agricultural dialogue, he had hailed nine

o'clock as the moment of release, and crept off with unobtrusive

obedience, which Honor doubly prized when she beheld his sister full of

eagerness, among cousins and gentlemen, at the racing game. Strongly

impelled to end it at once, Honor waited, however, till the little white

horseman had reached the goal, and just as challenges to a fresh race

were beginning, she came forward with her needful summons.

'Oh, Miss Charlecote, how cruel!' was the universal cry.

'We can't spare all the life of our game!' said Charles Charteris.

'I solemnly declare we weren't betting,' cried Horatia. 'Come, the first

evening--'

'No,' said Honor, smiling. 'I can't have her lying awake to be good for

nothing to-morrow, as she will do if you entertain her too much.'

'Another night, then, you promise,' said Charles.

'I promise nothing but to do my best to keep her fit to enjoy herself.

Come, Lucy.'

The habit of obedience was fixed, but not the habit of conquering

annoyance, and Lucilla went off doggedly. Honora would have accompanied

her to soothe away her troubles, but her cousin Ratia ran after her, and

Captain Charteris stood in the way, disposed to talk. 'Discipline,' he

said, approvingly.

'Harsh discipline, I fear, it seemed to her, poor child,' said Honor;

'but she is so excitable that I must try to keep her as quiet as

possible.'

'Right,' said the captain; 'I like to see a child a child still. You

must have had some tussles with that little spirit.'

'A few,' she said, smiling. 'She is a very good girl now, but it has

been rather a contrast with her brother.'

'Ha!' quoth the captain; and mindful of the milk-sop charge, Honora

eagerly continued, 'You will soon see what a spirit he has! He rides

very well, and is quite fearless. I have always wished him to be with

other boys, and there are some very nice ones near us--they think him a

capital cricketer, and you should see him run and vault.'

'He is an active-looking chap,' his uncle granted.

'Every one tells me he is quite able to make his way at school; I am only

anxious to know which public school you and your brother would prefer.'

'How old is he?'

'Only twelve last month, though you would take him for fifteen.'

'Twelve; then there would be just time to send him to Portsmouth, get him

prepared for a naval cadetship, then, when I go out with Sir David

Horfield, I could take him under my own eye, and make a man of him at

once.'

'Oh! Captain Charteris,' cried Honora, aghast, 'his whole bent is towards

his father's profession.'

The captain had very nearly whistled, unable to conceive any lad of

spirit preferring study.

'Whatever Miss Charlecote's wishes may be, Kit,' interposed the

diplomatic elder brother, 'we only desire to be guided by them.'

'Oh no, indeed,' cried Honor; 'I would not think of such a

responsibility, it can belong only to his nearer connections;' then,

feeling as if this were casting him off to be pressed by the sailor the

next instant, she added, in haste--'Only I hoped it was understood--if

you will let me--the expenses of his education need not be considered.

And if he _might_ be with me in the holidays,' she proceeded imploringly.

'When Captain Charteris has seen more of him, I am sure he will think it

a pity that his talents . . .' and there she stopped, shocked at finding

herself insulting the navy.

'If a boy have no turn that way, it cannot be forced on him,' said the

captain, moodily.

Honora pitied his disappointment, wondering whether he ascribed it to her

influence, and Mr. Charteris blandly expressed great obligation and more

complete resignation of the boy than she desired; disclaimers ran into

mere civilities, and she was thankful to the captain for saying, shortly,

'We'll leave it till we have seen more of the boy.'

Breakfast was very late at Castle Blanch; and Honora expected a tranquil

hour in her dressing-room with her children, but Owen alone appeared,

anxious for the shooting, but already wearying to be at home with his own

pleasures, and indignant with everything, especially the absence of

family prayers.

The breakfast was long and desultory, and in the midst Lucilla made her

appearance with Horatia, who was laughing and saying, 'I found this child

wandering about the park, and the little pussycat won't tell where she

has been.'

'Poaching, of course,' responded Charles; 'it is what pussycats always do

till they get shot by the keepers.'

_Et caetera_, _et caetera_, _et caetera_. Lucilla was among all the

young people, in the full tide of fun, nonsense, banter, and repartee of

a style new to her, but in which she was formed to excel, and there was

such a black look when Honor summoned her after the meal, as impressed

the awkwardness of enforcing authority among nearer relations; but it was

in vain, she was carried off to the dressing-room, and reminded of the

bargain for two hours' occupation. She murmured something about Owen

going out as he liked.

'He came to me before breakfast; besides, he is a boy. What made you go

out in that strange manner?'

There was no answer, but Honor had learnt by experience that to insist

was apt to end in obtaining nothing but a collision of wills, and she

merely put out the Prayer Books for the morning's reading of the Psalms.

By the time it was over, Lucilla's fit of temper had past, and she leant

back in her chair. 'What are you listening to, Lucy?' said Honor, seeing

her fixed eye.

'The river,' said Lucilla, pausing with a satisfied look to attend to the

deep regular rush. 'I couldn't think before what it was that always

seemed to be wanting, and now I know. It came to me when I went to bed;

it was so nice!'

'The river voice! Yes; it must be one of your oldest friends,' said

Honora, gratified at the softening. 'So that carried you out.'

'I couldn't help it! I went home,' said Lucilla.

'Home? To Wrapworth? All alone?' cried Honor, kindly, but aghast.

'I couldn't help it,' again said the girl. 'The river noise was so like

everything--and I knew the way--and I felt as if I must go before any one

was up.'

'So you really went. And what did you do?'

'I got over the palings our own old way, and there's my throne still in

the back of the laurels, and I popped in on old Madge, and oh! she was so

surprised! And then I came on Mr. Prendergast, and he walked all the way

back with me, till he saw Ratia coming, and then he would not go on any

farther.'

'Well, my dear, I can't blame you this time. I am hoping myself to go to

Wrapworth with you and Owen.'

'Ratia is going to take me out riding and in the boat,' said Lucy,

without a direct answer.

'You like your cousins better than you expected?'

'Rashe is famous,' was the answer, 'and so is Uncle Kit.'

'My dear, you noticed the mark on his hand,' said Honora; 'you do not

know the cause?'

'No! Was it a shark or a mad dog?' eagerly asked the child, slightly

alarmed by her manner.

'Neither. But do not you remember his carrying you into Woolstone-lane?

I always believed you did not know what your little teeth were doing.'

It was not received as Honora expected. Probably the scenes of the

girl's infancy had brought back associations more strongly than she was

prepared for--she turned white, gasped, and vindictively said, 'I'm glad

of it.'

Honora, shocked, had not discovered a reply, when Lucilla, somewhat

confused at the sound of her own words, said, 'I know--not quite that--he

meant the best--but, Cousin Honor, it was cruel, it was wicked, to part

my father and me! Father--oh, the river is going on still, but not my

father!'

The excitable girl burst into a flood of passionate tears, as though the

death of her father were more present to her than ever before; and she

had never truly missed him till she was brought in contact with her old

home. The fatigue and change, the talking evening and restless night,

had produced their effect; her very thoughtlessness and ordinary

_insouciance_ rendered the rush more overwhelming when it did come, and

the weeping was almost hysterical.

It was not a propitious circumstance that Caroline knocked at the door

with some message as to the afternoon's arrangements. Honor answered at

haphazard, standing so as to intercept the view, but aware that the

long-drawn sobs would be set down to the account of her own tyranny, and

nevertheless resolving the more on enforcing the quiescence, the need of

which was so evident; but the creature was volatile as well as sensitive,

and by the time the door was shut, stood with heaving breast and undried

tears, eagerly demanding whether her cousins wanted her.

'Not at all,' said Honora, somewhat annoyed at the sudden transition; 'it

was only to ask if I would ride.'

'Charles was to bring the pony for me; I must go,' cried Lucy, with an

eye like that of a greyhound in the leash.

'Not yet,' said Honor. 'My dear, you promised.'

'I'll never promise anything again,' was the pettish murmur.

Poor child, these two morning hours were to her a terrible penance, day

after day. Practically, she might have found them heavy had they been

left to her own disposal, but it was expecting overmuch from human nature

to hope that she would believe so without experience, and her lessons

were a daily irritation, an apparent act of tyranny, hardening her

feelings against the exactor, at the same time that the influence of

kindred blood drew her closer to her own family, with a revulsion the

stronger from her own former exaggerated dislike.

The nursery at Castle Blanch, and the cousins who domineered over her as

a plaything, had been intolerable to the little important companion of a

grown man, but it was far otherwise to emerge from the calm seclusion and

sober restraints of the Holt into the gaieties of a large party, to be

promoted to young ladyhood, and treated on equal terms, save for extra

petting and attention. Instead of Robert Fulmort alone, all the

gentlemen in the house gave her flattering notice--eye, ear, and helping

hand at her disposal, and blunt Uncle Kit himself was ten times more

civil to her than to either of her cousins. What was the use of trying

to disguise from her the witchery of her piquant prettiness?

Her cousin Horatia had always had a great passion for her as a beautiful

little toy, and her affection, once so trying to its object, had taken

the far more agreeable form of promoting her pleasures and sympathizing

with her vexations. Patronage from two-and-twenty to fourteen, from a

daughter of the house to a guest, was too natural to offend, and Lucilla

requited it with vehement attachment, running after her at every moment,

confiding all her grievances, and being made sensible of many more.

Ratia, always devising delights for her, took her on the river, rode with

her, set her dancing, opened the world to her, and enjoyed her pleasures,

amused by her precocious vivacity, fostering her sauciness, extolling the

wit of her audacious speeches, and extremely resenting all poor Honora's

attempts to counteract this terrible spoiling, or to put a check upon

undesirable diversions and absolute pertness. Every conscientious

interference on her part was regarded as duenna-like harshness, and her

restrictions as a grievous yoke, and Lucilla made no secret that it was

so, treating her to almost unvaried ill-humour and murmurs.

Little did Lucilla know, nor even Horatia, how much of the charms that

produced so much effect were due to these very restraints, nor how the

droll sauciness and womanly airs were enhanced by the simplicity of

appearance, which embellished her far more than the most fashionable air

set off her companions. Once Lucilla had overheard her aunt thus

excusing her short locks and simple dress--'It is Miss Charlecote's

doing. Of course, when so much depends on her, we must give way.

Excellent person, rather peculiar, but we are under great obligations to

her. Very good property.'

No wonder that sojourn at Castle Blanch was one of the most irksome

periods of Honora's life, disappointing, fretting, and tedious. There

was a grievous dearth of books and of reasonable conversation, and both

she and Owen were exceedingly at a loss for occupation, and used to sit

in the boat on the river, and heartily wish themselves at home. He had

no companion of his own age, and was just too young and too enterprising

to be welcome to gentlemen bent more on amusing themselves than pleasing

him. He was roughly admonished when he spoilt sport or ran into danger;

his cousin Charles was fitfully good-natured, but generally showed that

he was in the way; his uncle Kit was more brief and stern with him than

'Sweet Honey's' pupil could endure; and Honor was his only refuge. His

dreariness was only complete when the sedulous civilities of his aunt

carried her beyond his reach.

She could not attain a visit to Wrapworth till the Sunday. The carriage

went in state to the parish church in the morning, and the music and

preaching furnished subjects for _persiflage_ at luncheon, to her great

discomfort, and the horror of Owen; and she thought she might venture to

Wrapworth in the afternoon. She had a longing for Owen's church, 'for

auld lang syne'--no more. Even his bark church in the backwoods could

not have rivalled Hiltonbury and the brass.

Owen, true to his allegiance, joined her in good time, but reported that

his sister was gone on with Ratia. Whereas Ratia would probably

otherwise not have gone to church at all, Honor was deprived of all

satisfaction in her annoyance, and the compensation of a _tete-a-tete_

with Owen over his father's memory was lost by the unwelcome addition of

Captain Charteris. The loss signified the less as Owen's reminiscences

were never allowed to languish for want of being dug up and revived, but

she could not quite pardon the sailor for the commonplace air his

presence cast over the walk.

The days were gone by when Mr. Sandbrook's pulpit eloquence had rendered

Wrapworth Church a Sunday show to Castle Blanch. His successor was a

cathedral dignitary, so constantly absent that the former curate, who had

been continued on at Wrapworth, was, in the eyes of every one, the

veritable master. Poor Mr. Prendergast--whatever were his qualifications

as a preacher--had always been regarded as a disappointment; people had

felt themselves defrauded when the sermon fell to his share instead of

that of Mr. Sandbrook, and odious comparison had so much established the

opinion of his deficiencies, that Honora was not surprised to see a

large-limbed and rather quaint-looking man appear in the desk, but the

service was gone through with striking reverence, and the sermon was

excellent, though homely and very plain-spoken. The church had been

cruelly mauled by churchwardens of the last century, and a few Gothic

decorations, intended for the beginning of restoration, only made it the

more incongruous. The east window, of stained glass, of a quality left

far behind by the advances of the last twenty years, bore an inscription

showing that it was a memorial, and there was a really handsome font.

Honor could trace the late rector's predilections in a manner that

carried her back twenty years, and showed her, almost to her amusement,

how her own notions and sympathies had been carried onwards with the

current of the world around her.

On coming out, she found that there might have been more kindness in

Captain Charteris than she had suspected, for he kept Horatia near him,

and waited for the curate, so as to leave her at liberty and unobserved.

Her first object was that Owen should see his mother's grave. It was

beside the parsonage path, a flat stone, fenced by a low iron border,

enclosing likewise a small flower-bed, weedy, ruinous, and forlorn. A

floriated cross, filled up with green lichen, was engraven above the

name.

Lucilla Horatia

beloved wife of the Reverend Owen Sandbrook

Rector of this parish

and only daughter

of Lieutenant-General Sir Christopher Charteris

She died November the 18th 1837

Aged 29 years.

_____

Mary Caroline

her daughter

Born November 11th 1837

Died April 14th 1838

I shall go to them, but they shall not return to me.

How like it was to poor Owen! that necessity of expression, and the

visible presage of weakening health so surely fulfilled! And his

Lucilla! It was a melancholy work to have brought home a missionary, and

secularized a parish priest! 'Not a generous reflection,' thought

Honora, 'at a rival's grave,' and she turned to the boy, who had stooped

to pull at some of the bits of groundsel.

'Shall we come here in the early morning, and set it to rights?'

'I forgot it was Sunday,' said Owen, hastily throwing down the weed he

had plucked up.

'You were doing no harm, my dear; but we will not leave it in this state.

Will you come with us, Lucy?'

Lucilla had escaped, and was standing aloof at the end of the path, and

when her brother went towards her, she turned away.

'Come, Lucy,' he entreated, 'come into the garden with us. We want you

to tell us the old places.'

'I'm not coming,' was all her answer, and she ran back to the party who

stood by the church door, and began to chatter to Mr. Prendergast, over

whom she had domineered even before she could speak plain. A silent, shy

man, wrapped up in his duties, he was mortally afraid of the Castle

Blanch young ladies, and stood ill at ease, talked down by Miss Horatia

Charteris, but his eye lighted into a smile as the fairy plaything of

past years danced up to him, and began her merry chatter, asking after

every one in the parish, and showing a perfect memory of names and faces

such as amazed him, in a child so young as she had been at the time when

she had left the parish. Honora and Owen meantime were retracing

recollections in the rectory garden, eking out the boy's four years old

memories with imaginations and moralizings, pondering over the border

whence Owen declared he had gathered snowdrops for his mother's coffin;

and the noble plane tree by the water-side, sacred to the memory of Bible

stories told by his father in the summer evenings--

'That tree!' laughed Lucilla, when he told her that night as they walked

up-stairs to bed. 'Nobody could sit there because of the mosquitoes.

And I should like to see the snowdrops you found in November!'

'I know there were some white flowers. Were they lilies of the valley

for little Mary?'

'It will do just as well,' said Lucilla. She knew that she could bring

either scene before her mind with vivid distinctness, but shrinking from

the pain almost with horror, she only said, 'It's a pity you aren't a

Roman Catholic, Owen; you would soon find a hole in a rock, and say it

was where a saint, with his head under his arm, had made a footmark.'

'You are very irreverent, Lucy, and very cross besides. If you would not

come and tell us, what could we do?'

'Let it alone.'

'If you don't care for dear papa and mamma, I do,' said Owen, the tears

coming into his eyes.

'I'm not going to rake it up to please Honora,' returned his sister. 'If

you like to go and poke with her over places where things never happened,

you may, but she shan't meddle with my real things.'

'You are very unkind,' was the next accusation from Owen, much grieved

and distressed, 'when she is so good and dear, and was so fond of our

dear father.'

'I know,' said Lucilla, in a tone he did not understand; then, with an

air of eldership, ill assorting with their respective sizes, 'You are a

mere child. It is all very well for you, and you are very welcome to

your Sweet Honey.'

Owen insisted on hearing her meaning, and on her refusal to explain, used

his superior strength to put her to sufficient torture to elicit an

answer. 'Don't, Owen! Let go! There, then! Why, she was in love with

our father, and nearly died of it when he married; and Rashe says of

course she bullies me for being like my mother.'

'She never bullies you,' cried Owen, indignantly; 'she's much kinder to

you than you deserve, and I hate Ratia for putting it into your head, and

teaching you such nasty man's words about my own Honor.'

'Ah! you'll never be a man while you are under her. She only wants to

keep us a couple of babies for ever--sending us to bed, and making such a

figure of me;' and Lucy relieved her feelings by five perpendicular leaps

into the air, like an India-rubber ball, her hair flying out, and her

eyes flashing.

Owen was not much astonished, for Lucy's furies often worked off in this

fashion; but he was very angry on Honor's account, loving her thoroughly,

and perceiving no offence in her affection for his father; and the

conversation assumed a highly quarrelsome character. It was much to the

credit of masculine discretion that he refrained from reporting it when

he joined Honora in the morning's walk to Wrapworth churchyard. Behold!

some one was beforehand with them--even Lucilla and the curate!

The wearisome visit was drawing to a close when Captain Charteris

began--'Well, Miss Charlecote, have you thought over my proposal?'

'To take Owen to sea? Indeed, I hoped you were convinced that it would

never answer.'

'So far from being so, that I see it is his best chance. He will do no

good till the priggishness is knocked out of him.'

Honor would not trust herself to answer. Any accusation but this might

have been borne.

'Well, well,' said the captain, in a tone still more provoking, it was so

like hushing a petulant child, 'we know how kind you were, and that you

meant everything good; but it is not in the nature of things that a lad

alone with women should not be cock of the walk, and nothing cures that

like a month on board.'

'He will go to school,' said Honor, convinced all this was prejudice.

'Ay, and come home in the holidays, lording it as if he were master and

more, like the son and heir.'

'Indeed, Captain Charteris, you are quite mistaken; I have never allowed

Owen to think himself in that position. He knows perfectly well that

there are nearer claims upon me, and that Hiltonbury can never belong to

him. I have always rejoiced that it should be so. I should not like to

have the least suspicion that there could be self-interest in his

affection for me in the time to come; and I think it presumptuous to

interfere with the course of Providence in the matter of inheritances.'

'My good Miss Charlecote,' said the captain, who had looked at her with

somewhat of a pitying smile, instead of attending to her last words, 'do

you imagine that you know that boy?'

'I do not know who else should,' she answered, quivering between a

disposition to tears at the harshness, and to laughter at the assumption

of the stranger uncle to see farther than herself into her darling.

'Ha!' quoth the sailor, 'slippery--slippery fellows.'

'I do not understand you. You do not mean to imply that I have not his

perfect confidence, or do you think I have managed him wrongly? If you

do, pray tell me at once. I dare say I have.'

'I couldn't say so,' said Captain Charteris. 'You are an excellent good

woman, Miss Charlecote, and the best friend the poor things have had in

the world; and you have taught them more good than I could, I'm sure; but

I never yet saw a woman who could be up to a boy, any more than she could

sail a ship.'

'Very likely not,' said Honor, with a lame attempt at a good-humoured

laugh; 'but I should be very glad to know whether you are speaking from

general experience of woman and boy, or from individual observation of

the case in point.'

The captain made a very odd, incomprehensible little bow; and after a

moment's thought, said, 'Plainly speaking, then, I don't think you do get

to the bottom of that lad; but there's no telling, and I never had any

turn for those smooth chaps. If a fellow begins by being over-precise in

what is of no consequence, ten to one but he ends by being reckless in

all the rest.'

This last speech entirely reassured Honor, by proving to her that the

captain was entirely actuated by prejudice against his nephew's gentle

and courteous manners and her own religious views. He did not believe in

the possibility of the success of such an education, and therefore was of

course insensible to Owen's manifold excellences.

Thenceforth she indignantly avoided the subject, and made no attempt to

discover whether the captain's eye, practised in midshipmen, had made any

positive observations on which to found his dissatisfaction. Wounded by

his want of gratitude, and still more hurt by his unkind judgment of her

beloved pupil, she transferred her consultations to the more deferential

uncle, who was entirely contented with his nephew, transported with

admiration of her management, and ready to make her a present of him with

all his heart. So readily did he accede to all that she said of schools,

that the choice was virtually left to her. Eton was rejected as a fitter

preparation for the squirearchy than the ministry; Winchester on account

of the distaste between Owen and young Fulmort; and her decision was

fixed in favour of Westminster, partly for his father's sake, partly on

account of the proximity of St. Wulstan's--such an infinite advantage, as

Mr. Charteris observed.

The sailor declared that he knew nothing of schools, and would take no

part in the discussion. There had, in truth, been high words between the

brothers, each accusing the other of going the way to ruin their nephew,

ending by the captain's' exclaiming, 'Well, I wash my hands of it! I

can't flatter a foolish woman into spoiling poor Lucilla's son. If I am

not to do what I think right by him, I shall get out of sight of it all.'

'His prospects, Kit; how often I have told you it is our duty to consider

his prospects.'

'Hang his prospects! A handsome heiress under forty! How can you be

such an ass, Charles? He ought to be able to make an independent fortune

before he could stand in her shoes, if he were ever to do so, which she

declares he never will. Yes, you may look knowing if you will, but she

is no such fool in some things; and depend upon it she will make a

principle of leaving her property in the right channel; and be that as it

may, I warn you that you can't do this lad a worse mischief than by

putting any such notion into his head, if it be not there already.

There's not a more deplorable condition in the world than to be always

dangling after an estate, never knowing if it is to be your own or not,

and most likely to be disappointed at last; and, to do Miss Charlecote

justice, she is perfectly aware of that; and it will not be her fault if

he have any false expectations! So, if you feed him with them, it will

all be your fault; and that's the last I mean to say about him.'

Captain Charteris was not aware of a colloquy in which Owen had a share.

'This lucky fellow,' said the young Life-guardsman, 'he is as good as an

eldest son--famous shooting county--capital, well-timbered estate.'

'No, Charles,' said Owen, 'my cousin Honor always says I am nothing like

an eldest son, for there are nearer relations.'

'Oh ha!' said Charles, with a wink of superior wisdom, 'we understand

that. She knows how to keep you on your good behaviour. Why, but for

cutting you out, I would even make up to her myself--fine-looking, comely

woman, and well-preserved--and only the women quarrel with that splendid

hair. Never mind, my boy, I don't mean it. I wouldn't stand in your

light.'

'As if Honor would have _you_!' cried Owen, in fierce scorn. Charles

Charteris and his companions, with loud laughter, insisted on the

reasons.

'Because,' cried the boy, with flashing looks, 'she would not be

ridiculous; and you are--' He paused, but they held him fast, and

insisted on hearing what Charles was.

'Not a good Churchman,' he finally pronounced. 'Yes, you may laugh at

me, but Honor shan't be laughed at.'

Possibly Owen's views at present were that 'not to be a good Churchman'

was synonymous with all imaginable evil, and that he had put it in a

delicate manner. Whether he heard the last of it for the rest of his

visit may be imagined. And, poor boy, though he was strong and spirited

enough with his own contemporaries, there was no dealing with the

full-fledged soldier. Nor, when conversation turned to what 'we' did at

Hiltonbury, was it possible always to disclaim standing in the same

relation to the Holt as did Charles to Castle Blanch; nay, a certain

importance seemed to attach to such an assumption of dignity, of which

Owen was not loth to avail himself in his disregarded condition.

PART II

CHAPTER I

We hold our greyhound in our hand,

Our falcon on our glove;

But where shall we find leash or band

For dame that loves to rove?--SCOTT

A June evening shed a slanting light over the greensward of Hiltonbury

Holt, and made the western windows glisten like diamonds, as Honora

Charlecote slowly walked homewards to her solitary evening meal, alone,

except for the nearly blind old pointer who laid his grizzled muzzle upon

her knees, gazing wistfully into her face, as seating herself upon the

step of the sun-dial, she fondled his smooth, depressed black head.

'Poor Ponto!' she said, 'we are grown old together. Our young ones are

all gone.'

Grown old? Less old in proportion than Ponto--still in full vigour of

mind and body, but old in disenchantment, and not without the traces of

her forty-seven years. The auburn hair was still in rich masses of curl;

only on close inspection were silver threads to be detected; the cheek

was paler, the brow worn, and the gravely handsome dress was chosen to

suit the representative of the Charlecotes, not with regard to lingering

youthfulness. The slow movement, subdued tone, and downcast eye, had an

air of habitual dejection and patience, as though disappointment had gone

deeper, or solitude were telling more on the spirits, than any past blow

had done.

She saw the preparations for her tea going on within the window, but ere

going indoors, she took out and re-read two letters.

The first was in the irregular decided characters affected by young

ladies in the reaction from their grandmothers' pointed illegibilities,

and bore a scroll at the top, with the word 'Cilly,' in old English

letters of bright blue.

'Lowndes Square, June 14th.

'MY DEAR HONOR,--Many thanks for wishing for your will-o'-th'-wisp

again, but it is going to dance off in another direction. Rashe and

I are bound to the west of Ireland, as soon as Charles's inauguration

is over at Castle Blanch; an odd jumble of festivities it is to be,

but Lolly is just cockney enough to be determinedly rural, and

there's sure to be some fun to be got out of it; besides, I am

pacified by having my special darling, Edna Murrell, the lovely

schoolmistress at Wrapworth, to sing to them. How Mr. Calthorp will

admire her, as long as he thinks she is Italian! It will be hard if

I can't get a rise out of some of them! This being the case, I have

not a moment for coming home; but I send some contributions for the

prize-giving, some stunning articles from the Lowther Arcade. The

gutta-percha face is for Billy Harrison, _whether in disgrace or

not_. He deserves compensation for his many weary hours of Sunday

School, and it may suggest a new art for beguiling the time. _Mind_

you tell him it is from me, with my love; and bestow the rest on all

the chief reprobates. I wish I could see them; but you have no loss,

you know how unedifying I am. Kiss Ponto for me, and ask Robin for

his commands to Connaught. I know his sulkiness will transpire

through Phoebe. Love to that dear little Cinderella, and tell her

mamma and Juliana, that if she does not come out this winter, Mrs.

Fulmort shall have no peace and Juliana no partners. Please to look

in my room for my great nailed boots and hedging-gloves, also for the

pig's wool in the left-hand drawer of the cabinet, and send them to

me before the end of next week. Owen would give his ears to come

with us, but gentlemen would only obstruct Irish chivalry; I am only

afraid there is no hope of a faction fight. Mr. Saville called

yesterday, so I made him dine here, and sung him into raptures. What

a dear old Don he is!

'Your affectionate cousin, CILLY.'

The second letter stood thus:--

'Farrance's Hotel, June 14th.

'MY DEAR MISS CHARLECOTE,--I have seen Lawrence on your business, and

he will prepare the leases for your signature. He suggests that it

might be more satisfactory to wait, in case you should be coming to

town, so that you might have a personal meeting with the parties; but

this will be for you to determine. I came up from --- College on

Wednesday, having much enjoyed my visit. Oxford is in many respects

a changed place, but as long as our old Head remains to us, I am sure

of a gratifying welcome, and I saw many old friends. I exchanged

cards with Owen Sandbrook, but only saw him as we met in the street,

and a very fine-looking youth he is, a perfect Hercules, and the

champion of his college in all feats of strength; likely, too, to

stand well in the class list. His costume was not what we should

once have considered academical; but his is a daring set,

intellectual as well as bodily, and the clever young men of the

present day are not what they were in my time. It is gratifying to

hear how warmly and affectionately he talks of you. I do not know

how far you have undertaken the supplies, but I give you a hint that

a warning on that subject might not be inappropriate, unless they

have come into some great accession of fortune on their uncle's

death. I ventured to call upon the young lady in Lowndes Square, and

was most graciously received, and asked to dinner by the young Mrs.

Charteris. It was a most _recherche_ dinner in the new Italian

fashion, which does not quite approve itself to me. "Regardless of

expense," seems to be the family motto. Your pupil sings better than

ever, and knew how to keep her hold of my heart, though I suspected

her of patronizing the old parson to pique her more brilliant

admirers, whom she possesses in plenty; and no wonder, for she is

pretty enough to turn any man's head and shows to great advantage

beside her cousin, Miss Charteris. I hope you will be able to

prevent the cousins from really undertaking the wild plan of

travelling alone in Ireland, for the sake, they say, of

salmon-fishing. I should have thought them not in earnest, but girls

are as much altered as boys from the days of my experience, and

brothers, too; for Mr. Charteris seemed to view the scheme very

coolly; but, as I told my friend Lucilla, I hope you will bring her

to reason. I hope your hay-crop promises favourably.

'Yours sincerely, W. SAVILLE.'

No wonder that these letters made loneliness more lonely!

'Oh, that Horatia!' exclaimed she, almost aloud. 'Oh, that Captain

Charteris were available! No one else ever had any real power with Lucy!

It was an unlucky day when he saw that colonial young lady, and settled

down in Vancouver's Island! And yet how I used to wish him away, with

the surly independence he was always infusing into Owen. Wanting to take

him out there, indeed! And yet, and yet--I sometimes doubt whether I did

right to set my personal influence over my dear affectionate boy so much

in opposition to his uncle--Mr. Charteris was on my side, though! And I

always took care to have it clearly understood that it was his education

alone that I undertook. What can Mr. Saville mean?--The supplies? Owen

knows what he has to trust to, but I can talk to him. A daring

set!--Yes, everything appears daring to an old-world man like Mr.

Saville. I am sure of my Owen; with our happy home Sundays. I know I am

his Sweet Honey still. And yet'--then hastily turning from that dubious

'and yet'--'Owen is the only chance for his sister. She does care for

him; and he will view this mad scheme in the right light. Shall I meet

him at the beginning of the vacation, and see what he can do with Lucy?

Mr. Saville thinks I ought to be in London, and I think I might be useful

to the Parsonses. I suppose I must; but it _is_ a heart-ache to be at

St. Wulstan's. One is used to it here; and there are the poor people,

and the farm, and the garden--yes, and those dear nightingales--and you,

poor Ponto! One is used to it here, but St. Wulstan's is a fresh pain,

and so is coming back. But, if it be in the way of right, and to save

poor Lucy, it must be, and it is what life is made of. It is a

"following of the funeral" of the hopes that sprang up after my

spring-time. Is it my chastisement, or is it my training? Alas! maybe I

took those children more for _myself_ than for duty's sake! May it all

be for their true good in the end, whatever it may be with me. And now I

_will_ not dream. It is of no use save to unnerve me. Let me go to my

book. It must be a story to-night. I cannot fix my attention yet.'

As she rose, however, her face brightened at the sight of two advancing

figures, and she went forward to meet them.

One was a long, loosely-limbed youth of two-and-twenty, with broad

shoulders, a heavy overhanging brow, dark gray serious eyes, and a mouth

scarcely curved, and so fast shut as to disclose hardly any lip. The

hair was dark and lank; the air was of ungainly force, that had not yet

found its purpose, and therefore was not at ease; and but for the

educated cast of countenance he would have had a peasant look, in the

brown, homely undress garb, which to most youths of his age would have

been becoming.

With him was a girl, tall, slim, and lightly made, though of nicely

rounded figure. In height she looked like seventeen, but her dress was

more childish than usual at that age; and the contour of her smooth

cheeks and short rounded chin, her long neck, her happy blue eyes, fully

opened like those of a child, her fair rosy skin and fresh simple air,

might almost have belonged to seven years old: and there was all the

earnestness, innocence, and careless ease of childhood in her movements

and gestures, as she sprang forward to meet Miss Charlecote, exclaiming,

'Robin said I might come.'

'And very right of him. You are both come to tea?' she added, in

affirmative interrogation, as she shook hands with the young man.

'No, thank you,' he answered; 'at least I only brought Phoebe, having

rescued her from Miss Fennimore's clutches. I must be at dinner. But I

will come again for her.' And he yawned wearily.

'I will drive her back; you are tired.'

'No!' he said. 'At least the walk is one of the few tolerable things

there is. I'll come as soon as I can escape, Phoebe. Past seven--I must

go!'

'Can't you stay? I could find some food for you.'

'No, thank you,' he still said; 'I do not know whether Mervyn will come

home, and there must not be too many empty chairs. Good-bye!' and he

walked off with long strides, but with stooping shoulders, and an air of

dejection almost amounting to discontent.

'Poor Robin!' said Honora, 'I wish he could have stayed.'

'He would have liked it very much,' said Phoebe, casting wistful glances

toward him.

'What a pity he did not give notice of his intentions at home!'

'He never will. He particularly dislikes--'

'What?' as Phoebe paused and coloured.

'Saying anything to anybody,' she answered with a little smile. 'He

cannot endure remarks.'

'I am a very sober old body for a visit to me to be the occasion of

remarks!' said Honor, laughing more merrily than perhaps Robert himself

could have done; but Phoebe answered with grave, straightforward

sincerity, 'Yes, but he did not know if Lucy might not be come home.'

Honora sighed, but playfully said, 'In which case he would have stayed?'

'No,' said the still grave girl, 'he would have been still less likely to

do so.'

'Ah! the remarks would have been more pointed! But he has brought you at

any rate, and that is something! How did he achieve it?'

'Miss Fennimore is really quite ready to be kind,' said Phoebe,

earnestly, with an air of defence, 'whenever we have finished all that we

have to do.'

'And when is that?' asked Honor, smiling.

'Now for once,' answered Phoebe, with a bright arch look. 'Yes, I

sometimes can; and so does Bertha when she tries; and, indeed, Miss

Charlecote, I do like Miss Fennimore; she never is hard upon poor Maria.

No governess we ever had made her cry so seldom.'

Miss Charlecote only said it was a comfort. Within herself she hoped

that, for Maria's peace and that of all concerned, her deficiency might

become an acknowledged fact. She saw that the sparing Maria's tears was

such a boon to Phoebe as to make her forgive all overtasking of herself.

'So you get on better,' she said.

'Much better than Robin chooses to believe we do,' said Phoebe, smiling;

'perhaps it seemed hard at first, but it is comfortable to be made to do

everything thoroughly, and to be shown a better best than we had ever

thought of. I think it ought to be a help in doing the duty of all one's

life in a thorough way.'

'All that thou hast to do,' said Honor, smiling, 'the week-day side of

the fourth commandment.'

'Yes, that is just the reason why I like it,' said Phoebe, with bright

gladness in her countenance.

'But is that the motive Miss Fennimore puts before you?' said Honor, a

little ironically.

'She does not say so,' answered Phoebe. 'She says that she never

interferes with her pupils' religious tenets. But, indeed, I do not

think she teaches us anything wrong, and there is always Robert to ask.'

This passed as the two ladies were entering the house and preparing for

the evening meal. The table was placed in the bay of the open window,

and looked very inviting, the little silver tea-pot steaming beside the

two quaint china cups, the small crisp twists of bread, the butter cool

in ice-plant leaves, and some fresh fruit blushing in a pretty basket.

The Holt was a region of Paradise to Phoebe Fulmort; and glee shone upon

her sweet face, though it was very quiet enjoyment, as the summer breeze

played softly round her cheeks and danced with a merry little spiral that

had detached itself from her glossy folds of light hair.

'How delicious!' she said. 'How sweet the honeysuckle is, dear old

thing! You say you have known it all your life, and yet it is fresh as

ever.'

'It is a little like you, Phoebe,' said Honor, smiling.

'What! because it is not exactly a pretty flower?'

'Partly; and I could tell you of a few other likenesses, such as your

being Robert's woodbine, yet with a sort of clinging freedom. Yes, and

for the qualities you share with the willow, ready to give thanks and

live on the least that Heaven may give.'

'But I don't live on the least that Heaven may give,' said Phoebe, in

such wonder that Honor smiled at the justice of her simile, without

impressing it upon Phoebe, only asking--

'Is the French journey fixed upon, Phoebe?'

'Yes; they start this day fortnight.'

'They--not you?'

'No; there would be no room for me,' with a small sigh.

'How can that be? Who is going? Papa, mamma, two sisters!'

'Mervyn,' added Phoebe, 'the courier, and the two maids.'

'_Two_ maids! Impossible!'

'It is always uncomfortable if mamma and my sisters have only one between

them,' said Phoebe, in her tone of perfect acquiescence and conviction;

and as her friend could not restrain a gesture of indignation, she added

eagerly--'But, indeed, it is not only for that reason, but Miss Fennimore

says I am not formed enough to profit by foreign travel.'

'She wants you to finish Smith's _Wealth of Nations_, eh?'

'It might be a pity to go away and lose so much of her teaching,' said

Phoebe, with persevering contentment. 'I dare say they will go abroad

again, and perhaps I shall never have so much time for learning. But,

Miss Charlecote, is Lucilla coming home for the Horticultural Show?'

'I am afraid not, my dear. I think I shall go to London to see about

her, among other things. The Charterises seem to have quite taken

possession of her, ever since she went to be her cousin Caroline's

bridesmaid, and I must try to put in my claim.'

'Ah! Robin so much wished to have seen her,' sighed Phoebe. 'He says he

cannot settle to anything.'

'Without seeing her?' said Honor, amused, though not without pain.

'Yes,' said Phoebe; 'he has thought so much about Lucilla.'

'And he tells you?'

'Yes,' in a voice expressing of course; while the frank, clear eyes

turned full on Miss Charlecote with such honest seriousness, that she

thought Phoebe's charm as a confidante might be this absence of romantic

consciousness; and she knew of old that when Robert wanted her opinion or

counsel, he spared his own embarrassment by seeking it through his

favourite sister. Miss Charlecote's influence had done as much for

Robert as he had done for Phoebe, and Phoebe had become his medium of

communication with her in all matters of near and delicate interest. She

was not surprised when the maiden proceeded--'Papa wants Robin to attend

to the office while he is away.'

'Indeed! Does Robin like it?'

'He would not mind it for a time; but papa wants him, besides, to take to

the business in earnest. You know, my great-uncle, Robert Mervyn, left

Robert all his fortune, quite in his own hands; and papa says that if he

were to put that into the distillery it would do the business great good,

and that Robert would be one of the richest men in England in ten years'

time.'

'But that would be a complete change in his views,' exclaimed Honor,

unable to conceal her disapproval and consternation.

'Just so,' answered Phoebe; 'and that is the reason why he wants to see

Lucy. She always declared that she could not bear people in business,

and we always thought of him as likely to be a clergyman; but, on the

other hand, she has become used to London society, and it is only by his

joining in the distillery that he could give her what she is accustomed

to, and that is the reason he is anxious to see her.'

'So Lucy is to decide his fate,' said Honora. 'I am almost sorry to hear

it. Surely, he has never spoken to her.'

'He never does speak,' said Phoebe, with the calm gravity of simplicity

which was like a halo of dignity. 'There is no need of speaking.

Lucilla knows how he feels as well as she knows that she breathes the

air.'

And regards it as little, perhaps, thought Honor, sadly. 'Poor Robin!'

she said; 'I suppose he had better get his mind settled; but indeed it is

a fearful responsibility for my poor foolish Lucy--' and but for the fear

of grieving Phoebe, she would have added, that such a purpose as that of

entering Holy Orders ought not to have been made dependent upon the fancy

of a girl. Possibly her expression betrayed her sentiments, for Phoebe

answered--'There can be no doubt that Lucy will set him at rest. I am

certain that she would be shocked at the notion that her tastes were

making him doubt whether to be a clergyman.'

'I hope so! I trust so!' said Honora, almost mournfully. 'It may be

very good for her, as I believe it is for every woman of any soundness,

to be taught that her follies tell upon man's greater aims and purposes.

It may be wholesome for her and a check, but--'

Phoebe wondered that her friend paused and looked so sad.

'Oh! Phoebe,' said Honora, after a moment's silence, speaking fervently,

'if you can in any way do so, warn your brother against making an idol!

Let nothing come between him and the direct devotion of will and

affection to the Higher Service. If he decide on the one or the other,

let it be from duty, not with respect to anything else. I do not suppose

it is of any use to warn him,' she added, with the tears in her eyes.

'Every one sets the whole soul upon some one object, not the right, and

then comes the shipwreck.'

'Dear Robin!' said Phoebe. 'He is so good! I am sure he always thinks

first of what is right. But I think I see what you mean. If he

undertake the business, it should be as a matter of obedience to papa,

not to keep Lucy in the great world. And, indeed, I do not think my

father does care much, only he would like the additional capital; and

Robert is so much more steady than Mervyn, that he would be more useful.

Perhaps it would make him more important at home; no one there has any

interest in common with him; and I think that moves him a little; but,

after all, those do not seem reasons for not giving himself to God's

service,' she finished, reverently and considerately.

'No, indeed!' cried Miss Charlecote.

'Then you think he ought not to change his mind?'

'You have thought so all along,' smiled Honor.

'I did not like it,' said Phoebe, 'but I did not know if I were right. I

did tell him that I really believed Lucy would think the more highly of

him if he settled for himself without reference to her.'

'You did! You were a capital little adviser, Phoebe! A woman worthy to

be loved at all had always rather be set second instead of first:--

"I could not love thee, dear, so much,

Loved I not honour more."

That is the true spirit, and I am glad you judged Lucy to be capable of

it. Keep your brother up to that, and all may be well!'

'I believe Robert knows it all the time,' said Phoebe. 'He always is

right at the bottom; but his feelings get so much tried that he does not

know how to bear it! I hope Lucy will be kind to him if they meet in

London, for he has been so much harassed that he wants some comfort from

her. If she would only be in earnest!'

'Does he go to London, at all events?'

'He has promised to attend to the office in Great Whittington-street for

a month, by way of experiment.'

'I'll tell you what, Phoebe,' cried Honora, radiantly, 'you and I will go

too! You shall come with me to Woolstone-lane, and Robin shall be with

us every day; and we will try and make this silly Lucy into a rational

being.'

'Oh! Miss Charlecote, thank you--thank you.' The quiet girl's face and

neck were all one crimson glow of delight.

'If you can sleep in a little brown cupboard of a room in the very core

of the City's heart.'

'Delightful! I have so wished to see that house. Owen has told me such

things about it. Oh, thank you, Miss Charlecote!'

'Have you ever seen anything in London?'

'Never. We hardly ever go with the rest; and if we do, we only walk in

the square. What a holiday it will be!'

'We will see everything, and do it justice. I'll get an order for the

print-room at the British Museum. I day say Robin never saw it either;

and what a treat it will be to take you to the Egyptian Gallery!' cried

Honora, excited into looking at the expedition in the light of a party of

pleasure, as she saw happiness beaming in the young face opposite.

They built up their schemes in the open window, pausing to listen to the

nightingales, who, having ceased for two hours, apparently for supper,

were now in full song, echoing each other in all the woods of Hiltonbury,

casting over it a network of sweet melody. Honora was inclined to regret

leaving them in their glory; but Phoebe, with the world before her, was

too honest to profess poetry which she did not feel. Nightingales were

all very well in their place, but the first real sight of London was

more.

The lamp came in, and Phoebe held out her hands for something to do, and

was instantly provided with a child's frock, while Miss Charlecote read

to her one of Fouque's shorter tales by way of supplying the element of

chivalrous imagination which was wanting in the Beauchamp system of

education.

So warm was the evening, that the window remained open, until Ponto

erected his crest as a footfall came steadily along, nearer and nearer.

Uplifting one of his pendant lips, he gave a low growl through his

blunted teeth, and listened again; but apparently satisfied that the step

was familiar, he replaced his head on his crossed paws, and presently

Robert Fulmort's head and the upper part of his person, in correct

evening costume, were thrust in at the window, the moonlight making his

face look very white, as he said, 'Come, Phoebe, make haste; it is very

late.'

'Is it?' cried Phoebe, springing up; 'I thought I had only been here an

hour.'

'Three, at least,' said Robert, yawning; 'six by my feelings. I could

not get away, for Mr. Crabbe stayed to dinner; Mervyn absented himself,

and my father went to sleep.'

'Robin, only think, Miss Charlecote is so kind as to say she will take me

to London!'

'It is very kind,' said Robert, warmly, his weary face and voice suddenly

relieved.

'I shall be delighted to have a companion,' said Honora; 'and I reckon

upon you too, Robin, whenever you can spare time from your work. Come

in, and let us talk it over.'

'Thank you, I can't. The dragon will fall on Phoebe if I keep her out

too late. Be quick, Phoebe.'

While his sister went to fetch her hat, he put his elbows on the sill,

and leaning into the room, said, 'Thank you again; it will be a wonderful

treat to her, and she has never had one in her life!'

'I was in hopes she would have gone to Germany.'

'It is perfectly abominable! It is all the others' doing! They know no

one would look at them a second time if anything so much younger and

pleasanter was by! They think her coming out would make them look older.

I know it would make them look crosser.'

Laughing was the only way to treat this tirade, knowing, as Honor did,

that there was but too much truth in it. She said, however, 'Yet one

could hardly wish Phoebe other than she is. The rosebud keeps its charm

longer in the shade.'

'I like justice,' quoth Robert.

'And,' she continued, 'I really think that she is much benefited by this

formidable governess. Accuracy and solidity and clearness of head are

worth cultivating.'

'Nasty latitudinarian piece of machinery,' said Robert, with his fingers

over his mouth, like a sulky child.

'Maybe so; but you guard Phoebe, and she guards Bertha; and whatever your

sense of injustice may be, this surely is a better school for her than

gaieties as yet.'

'It will be a more intolerable shame than ever if they will not let her

go with you.'

'Too intolerable to be expected,' smiled Honora. 'I shall come and beg

for her to-morrow, and I do not believe I shall be disappointed.'

She spoke with the security of one not in the habit of having her

patronage obstructed by relations; and Phoebe coming down with renewed

thanks, the brother and sister started on their way home in the

moonlight--the one plodding on moodily, the other, unable to repress her

glee, bounding on in a succession of little skips, and pirouetting round

to clap her hands, and exclaim, 'Oh! Robin, is it not delightful?'

'If they will let you go,' said he, too desponding for hope.

'Do you think they will not?' said Phoebe, with slower and graver steps.

'Do you really think so? But no! It can't lead to coming out; and I

know they like me to be happy when it interferes with nobody.'

'Great generosity,' said Robert, dryly.

'Oh, but, Robin, you know elder ones come first.'

'A truth we are not likely to forget,' said Robert. 'I wish my uncle had

been sensible of it. That legacy of his stands between Mervyn and me,

and will never do me any good.'

'I don't understand,' said Phoebe; 'Mervyn has always been completely the

eldest son.'

'Ay,' returned Robert, 'and with the tastes of an eldest son. His

allowance does not suffice for them, and he does not like to see me

independent. If my uncle had only been contented to let us share and

share alike, then my father would have had no interest in drawing me into

the precious gin and brandy manufacture.'

'You did not think he meant to make it a matter of obedience,' said

Phoebe.

'No; he could hardly do that after the way he has brought me up, and what

we have been taught all our lives about liberty of the individual,

absence of control, and the like jargon.'

'Then you are not obliged?'

He made no answer, and they walked on in silence across the silvery lawn,

the maythorns shining out like flaked towers of snow in the moonlight,

and casting abyss-like shadows, the sky of the most deep and intense

blue, and the carols of the nightingales ringing around them. Robert

paused when he had passed through the gate leading into the dark path

down-hill through the wood, and setting his elbows on it, leant over it,

and looked back at the still and beautiful scene, in all the white

mystery of moonlight, enhanced by the white-blossomed trees and the soft

outlines of slumbering sheep. One of the birds, in a bush close to them,

began prolonging its drawn-in notes in a continuous prelude, then

breaking forth into a varied complex warbling, so wondrous that there was

no moving till the creature paused.

It seemed to have been a song of peace to Robert, for he gave a long but

much softer sigh, and pushed back his hat, saying, 'All good things dwell

on the Holt side of the boundary.'

'A sort of Sunday world,' said Phoebe.

'Yes; after this wood one is in another atmosphere.'

'Yet you have carried your cares there, poor Robin.'

'So one does into Sunday, but to get another light thrown on them. The

Holt has been the blessing of my life--of both our lives, Phoebe.'

She responded with all her heart. 'Yes, it has made everything happier,

at home and everywhere else. I never can think why Lucilla is not more

fond of it.'

'You are mistaken,' exclaimed Robert; 'she loves no place so well; but

you don't consider what claims her relations have upon her. That cousin

Horatia, to whom she is so much attached, losing both her parents, how

could she do otherwise than be with her?'

'Miss Charteris does not seem to be in great trouble now,' said Phoebe.

'You do not consider; you have never seen grief, and you do not know how

much more a sympathizing friend is needed when the world supposes the

sorrow to be over, and ordinary habits to be resumed.'

Phoebe was willing to believe him right, though considering that Horatia

Charteris lived with her brother and his wife, she could hardly be as

lonely as Miss Charlecote.

'We shall see Lucy in London,' she said.

Robert again sighed heavily. 'Then it will be over,' he said. 'Did you

say anything there?' he pursued, as they plunged into the dark shadows of

the woodland path, more congenial to the subject than the light.

'Yes, I did,' said Phoebe.

'And she thought me a weak, unworthy wretch for ever dreaming of swerving

from my original path.'

'No!' said Phoebe, 'not if it were your duty.'

'I tell you, Phoebe, it is as much my duty to consult Lucilla's happiness

as if any words had passed between us. I have never pledged myself to

take Orders. It has been only a wish, not a vocation; and if she have

become averse to the prospect of a quiet country life, it would not be

treating her fairly not to give her the choice of comparative wealth,

though procured by means her family might despise.'

'Yes, I knew you would put right and duty first; and I suppose by doing

so you make it certain to end rightly, one way or other.'

'A very few years, and I could realize as much as this Calthorp, the

millionaire, whom they talk of as being so often at the Charterises.'

'It will not be so,' said Phoebe. 'I know what she will say;' and as

Robert looked anxiously at her, she continued--

'She will say she never dreamt of your being turned from anything so

great by any fancies she has seemed to have. She will say so more

strongly, for you know her father was a clergyman, and Miss Charlecote

brought her up.'

Phoebe's certainty made Robert catch something of her hopes.

'In that case,' he said, 'matters might be soon settled. This fortune of

mine would be no misfortune then; and probably, Phoebe, my sisters would

have no objection to your being happy with us.'

'As soon as you could get a curacy! Oh, how delightful! and Maria and

Bertha would come too.'

Robert held his peace, not certain whether Lucilla would consider Maria

an embellishment to his ideal parsonage; but they talked on with cheerful

schemes while descending through the wood, unlocking a gate that formed

the boundary between the Holt and the Beauchamp properties, crossing a

field or two, and then coming out into the park. Presently they were in

sight of the house, rising darkly before them, with many lights shining

in the windows behind the blinds.

'They are all gone up-stairs!' said Phoebe, dismayed. 'How late it must

be!'

'There's a light in the smoking-room,' said Robert; 'we can get in that

way.'

'No, no! Mervyn may have some one with him. Come in quietly by the

servants' entrance.'

No danger that people would not be on foot there! As the brother and

sister moved along the long stone passage, fringed with labelled bells,

one open door showed two weary maidens still toiling over the plates of

the late dinner; and another, standing ajar, revealed various

men-servants regaling themselves; and words and tones caught Robert's ear

making his brow lower with sudden pain.

Phoebe was proceeding to mount the stone stairs, when a rustling and

chattering, as of maids descending, caused her and her brother to stand

aside to make way, and down came a pair of heads and candles together

over a green bandbox, and then voices in vulgar tones half suppressed.

'I couldn't venture it, not with Miss Juliana--but Miss Fulmort--she

never looks over her bills, nor knows what is in her drawers--I told her

it was faded, when she had never worn it once!'

And tittering, they passed by the brother and sister, who were still

unseen, but Robert heaved a sigh and murmured, 'Miserable work!' somewhat

to his sister's surprise, for to her the great ill-regulated household

was an unquestioned institution, and she did not expect him to bestow so

much compassion on Augusta's discarded bonnet. At the top of the steps

they opened a door, and entered a great wide hall. All was exceedingly

still. A gas-light was burning over the fire-place, but the corners were

in gloom, and the coats and cloaks looked like human figures in the

distance. Phoebe waited while Robert lighted her candle for her. Albeit

she was not nervous, she started when a door was sharply pushed open, and

another figure appeared; but it was nothing worse than her brother

Mervyn, in easy costume, and redolent of tobacco.

About three years older than Robert, he was more neatly though not so

strongly made, shorter, and with more regular features, but much less

countenance. If the younger brother had a worn and dejected aspect, the

elder, except in moments of excitement, looked _bored_. It was as if

Robert really had the advantage of him in knowing what to be out of

spirits about.

'Oh! it's you, is it?' said he, coming forward, with a sauntering,

scuffling movement in his slippers. 'You larking, Phoebe? What next?'

'I have been drinking tea with Miss Charlecote,' explained Phoebe.

Mervyn slightly shrugged his shoulders, murmuring something about 'Lively

pastime.'

'I could not fetch her sooner,' said Robert, 'for my father went to

sleep, and no one chose to be at the pains of entertaining Crabbe.'

'Ay--a prevision of his staying to dinner made me stay and dine with the

--th mess. Very sagacious--eh, Pheebe?' said he, turning, as if he liked

to look into her fresh face.

'Too sagacious,' said she, smiling; 'for you left him all to Robert.'

Manner and look expressed that this was a matter of no concern, and he

said ungraciously: 'Nobody detained Robert, it was his own concern.'

'Respect to my father and his guests,' said Robert, with downright

gravity that gave it the effect of a reproach.

Mervyn only raised his shoulders up to his ears in contempt, took up his

candle, and wished Phoebe good night.

Poor Mervyn Fulmort! Discontent had been his life-long comrade. He

detested his father's occupation as galling to family pride, yet was

greedy both of the profits and the management. He hated country business

and country life, yet chafed at not having the control of his mother's

estate, and grumbled at all his father's measures. 'What should an old

distiller know of landed property?' In fact he saw the same difference

between himself and his father as did the ungracious Plantagenet between

the son of a Count and the son of a King: and for want of Provencal

troubadours with whom to rebel, he supplied their place by the turf and

the billiard-table. At present he was expiating some heavy debts by a

forced residence with his parents, and unwilling attention to the office,

a most distasteful position, which he never attempted to improve, and

which permitted him both the tedium of idleness and complaints against

all the employment to which he was necessitated.

The ill-managed brothers were just nearly enough of an age for rivalry,

and had never loved one another even as children. Robert's steadiness

had been made a reproach to Mervyn, and his grave, rather surly character

had never been conciliating. The independence left to the younger

brother by their mother's relative was grudged by the elder as an injury

to himself, and it was one of the misfortunes of Beauchamp that the two

sons had never been upon happy terms together. Indeed, save that

Robert's right principles and silent habits hindered him from readily

giving or taking offence, there might have been positive outbreaks of a

very unbrotherly nature.