Mr. Ashford took Lottie home that evening, walking with her to her own

door. There was not much said; for, notwithstanding the armour of

personal hope and happiness which she had put on, the shock of this

personal encounter with her father and the woman who was to be her

father’s wife made the girl tremble with secret excitement, in spite of

herself. The woman: it was this, the sight and almost touch of this new,

unknown, uncomprehended being brushing past her in the darkness which

overwhelmed Lottie. That first contact made the girl sick and faint. She

could not talk to Mr. Ashford any more--her voice seemed to die out of

her throat, where her heart was fluttering. She could not think even

what she had been saying. It was all confused, driven aside into a

corner, by that sudden apparition. Mr. Ashford, on his side, said little

more than Lottie. It seemed to him that he had a sudden insight into all

that was happening. He had heard, though without paying much attention,

the common gossip about Captain Despard, who was not considered by

anybody within the Precincts as a creditable inmate; but this curious

little scene, of which he had been a witness, had placed him at once in

the midst of the little drama. He seemed to himself to have shared in

the shock Lottie had received. He walked softly by her side, saying

little, full of compassion, but too sympathetic even to express his

sympathy. He would not hurt her by seeming to be sorry for her. When

they parted he held her hand for a moment with a kind, serious grasp, as

if he had been her father, and said:

“You will send him to me to-morrow, Miss Despard? I shall expect him

to-morrow.”

“Oh--Law!” she said, with a little start and recovery. Poor Law had gone

out of her mind.

“Poor child!” he said, as he turned towards his house; but before he had

crossed the road he was met by Captain Temple coming the other way.

“Was that Miss Despard?” asked the old man. “Is it she you were saying

good-night to? My wife told me she had gone towards the Slopes, and I

was on my way to bring her home.”

“I met her there, and I have just brought her home,” said the Minor

Canon. He could scarcely make out in the dark who his questioner was.

“That is all right--that is all right,” said the old Chevalier. “She is

left too much alone, and she should have some one to take care of her. I

feel much obliged to you, Mr. Ashford, for I take a great interest in

the young lady.”

“It is--Captain Temple?” said Mr. Ashford, peering at the old man with

contracted, short-sighted eyes. “I beg your pardon. Yes, Miss Despard is

quite safe; she has been talking to me about her brother. What kind of

boy is he? I only know he is a big fellow, and not very fond of his

work.”

Captain Temple shook his head. “What can you expect? It is not the boy’s

fault; but she is the one I take an interest in. You know I had once a

girl of my own--just such another, Mr. Ashford--just such another. I

always think of her when I see this pretty creature. Poor things--how

should they know the evil that is in the world? They think everybody as

good as themselves, and when they find out the difference it breaks

their sweet hearts. I can’t look at a young girl like that, not knowing

what her next step is to bring her, without tears in my eyes.”

The Minor Canon did not make any reply; his heart was touched, but not

as Captain Temple’s was touched. He looked back at the dim little house,

where as yet there were no lights--not thinking of Lottie as an

all-believing and innocent victim, but rather as a young Britomart, a

helmeted and armed maiden, standing desperate in defence of her little

stronghold against powers of evil which she was noways ignorant of. It

did not occur to him that these images might be conjoined, and both be

true.

“I take a great interest in her,” said old Captain Temple again, “and so

does my wife, Mr. Ashford. My wife cannot talk of our loss as I do; but,

though she says little, I can see that she keeps her eye upon Lottie.

Poor child! She has no mother, and, for that matter, you might say no

father either. She has a claim upon all good people. She may be thrown

in your way sometimes, when none of us can be of any use to her. It

would make me happy if you would say that you would keep an eye upon her

too, and stand by her when she wants a friend.”

“You may be sure I will do that--if ever it should be in my power.”

“Thanks. You will excuse me speaking to you? Most people allow the right

we have in our trouble to think of another like our own. I am quite

happy to think you will be one of her knights too, Mr. Ashford. So will

my wife. Ah, we owe a great deal--a great deal--to innocence. Good

night, and my best thanks.”

Mr. Ashford could not smile at the kind old Chevalier and his monomania.

He went home very seriously to his dark little house, where no one had

lighted his lamp. He was not so well served as the Signor. There was a

faint light on the stairs, but none in his dark wainscoted library,

where the three small deep windows were more than ever like three

luminous yet dim pictures hanging upon a gloomy wall. When he had

lighted his reading-lamp the pictures were put out, and the glimmering

dim interior, with its dark reflections and the touches of gilding and

faded brown of his books, came into prominence. He half smiled to think

of himself as one of Lottie Despard’s knights; but outside of this calm

and still place what a glimpse had been afforded him of the tumults and

miseries of the common world, within yet outside all the calm precincts

of ordered and regular life! The girl with whom he had been talking

stood _aux prises_ with all these forces, while he, so much more able

for that battle, was calm and sheltered. To see her struggling against

the impassibility of a nature less noble than her own--to think of her

all forlorn and solitary, piteous in her youth and helplessness, on the

verge of so many miseries, wrung his heart with pity, with tenderness,

with---- Was it something of envy too? All the powers of life were

surging about Lottie, contending in her and around her; forces vulgar

yet powerful, calling forth in that bit of a girl, in that slim

creature, made, the man thought, for all the sweetness and protections

of life, all its heroic qualities instead--while for such as he,

thirty-five, and a man, fate held nothing but quiet, and mastery of all

circumstances, Handel and the Abbey! What a travesty and interchange of

all that was fit and natural!--for him ought to be the struggle, for

her the peace; but Providence had not ordained it so.

How often is this so! times without number; the weak have to struggle

while the strong look on. Women and children labour while full-grown men

rest; the sick and the feeble have all the powers of darkness to

encounter, while the athlete yawns his unoccupied force away. So this

strange paradox of a world runs on. The Minor Canon, who was of very

gentle mould, with a heart open as day to melting charities, sat and

thought of it with a giddiness and vertigo of the heart. He could not

change it. He could not take up Lottie’s trouble and give her his calm.

One cannot stand in another’s place--not you in mine, nor I in

yours--though you may be a hundred times more capable of my work than I.

This was what Ernest Ashford thought sitting among his peaceful books,

and following Lottie Despard in imagination into the little lodge which

was her battlefield. Sympathy gave him the strongest mental perception

of all that took place there. The only thing he had no clue to was the

sweet and secret flood of consolation which subdued her sense of all her

troubles--which already had drowned the dread of the future, and floated

over with brightness the difficulties of the present in Lottie’s heart.

Next morning Law arrived at the house of the Minor Canon, considerably

to his own surprise, with his big Virgil under his arm. “I don’t know

whether you meant it, or if she understood you,” he said, shy and

uncomfortable, looking down at his shoes, and presenting the top of his

head rather than his face to Mr. Ashford’s regard, “but my sister

said----”

“Yes; I meant it fully. Sit down and tell me what you have been doing,

and whereabouts you are in your work. I have a pupil coming presently

with whom probably you might read----”

“Well, you must know that I haven’t been what you might call working

very hard, you know,” said Law, still butting at his future instructor

with the top of his head. He sat down as Mr. Ashford directed him, but

he did not give up the earnest contemplation of his boots. “It isn’t so

easy to get into the way of it when you’re working alone. I left school

a long time ago--and I don’t know that it was much of a school--and

latterly I was a little bit irregular--and so, you know----”

“I see,” said the Minor Canon; “however, it is not too late to do

better. What is that big book under your arm--Virgil? Very well.

Construe a passage for me, and let me see how you get on.”

“Shall I do a bit I know, or a bit I don’t know?” said Law, raising his

head this time with a doubtful gleam, half of merriment. “Of course, I

want to put my best foot foremost--but I don’t want to take you in all

the same.”

“I must trust you entirely on that point--or give me the book, I will

choose, and chance shall decide.”

“Oh, hang it!” said Law under his breath. He would have been honest and

avowed what he knew; but this kind of Sortes did not please him. The

perspiration came out on his forehead. Of course it was a very hard bit,

or what Law thought a very hard bit, that turned up--and the way in

which he struggled through it, growing hotter and hotter, redder and

redder, was a sight to see.

“That will do,” Mr. Ashford said, compassionate, yet horrified. “That

will do.” And he took the book out of his would-be pupil’s hands with a

sigh, and smoothed down the page, which Law had ruffled in his vain

efforts, with a regretful touch, as though asking pardon of Virgil.

“Suppose we have a little talk on this subject?” he said. “No doubt you

have made up your mind what you would like to do?”

“Not I,” said Law. “It will have to be some office or other--that’s the

only way in which a fellow who has no money seems to be able to make a

living. A very poor living, so far as I hear--but still it is something,

I suppose. That is not what I would like by nature. I’d like to go out

to Australia or New Zealand. I hate the notion of being cooped up to a

desk. But I suppose that is how it will have to be.”

“Because of your sister? You would not abandon her? It does you a great

deal of credit,” said the Minor Canon, with warmth.

“Well, because of her in one way,” said Law; “because she is always so

strong against it, and because I have no money for a start. You don’t

suppose that I would mind otherwise? No; Lottie is all very well, but I

don’t see why a man should give into her in everything. She will have to

think for herself in future, and so shall I. So, if you will tell me

what you think I could do, Mr. Ashford; I should say you don’t think I

can do anything after that try,” said Law, with an upward glance of

investigation, half-wistful, half-ashamed.

“Have you read English literature much? That tells nowadays,” said the

Minor Canon. “If you were to give any weight to my opinion, I would tell

you to get the papers for the army examination, and try for that.”

“Ah! that’s what I should like,” cried Law; “but it’s impossible.

Fellows can’t live on their pay. Even Lottie would like me to go into

the army. But it’s not to be done. You can’t live on your pay. English!

Oh, I’ve read a deal of stories--_Harry Lorrequer_ and _Soapy Sponge_,

and that sort of--rot.”

“I am afraid that will not do much good,” said the Minor Canon, shaking

his head. “And, indeed, I fear, if you are going to be successful, you

must set to work in a more serious way. Perhaps you are good at

figures--mathematics?--no!--science, perhaps--natural history----”

“If you mean the Zoological Gardens, I like that,” said Law, beginning

to see the fun of this examination; “and I should be very fond of

horses, if I had the chance. But that has nothing to say to an office.

Figures, ha? yes, I know. But I always hated counting. I see you think

there is nothing to be made of me. That is what I think myself. I have

often told her so. I shall have to ’list, as I have told her.” Law

looked at his companion with a little curiosity as he said this, hoping

to call forth an alarmed protestation.

But Mr. Ashford was not horrified. He was about to say, “It is the very

best thing you could do,” but stopped, on consideration, for Lottie’s

sake.

“You are a man to look at,” he said, “though you are young. Has it never

occurred to you till now to think what you would like to be? You did not

think you could go on for ever stumbling over ten lines of Virgil? I beg

your pardon, I don’t mean to be rude; but the most of us have to live by

something, and a young man like you ought to have a notion what he is

going to be about. You thought of the Civil Service?”

“I suppose Lottie did,” said Law, getting up and seizing his book. “It

is all her doing, from first to last; it is she that has always been

pushing and pushing. Yes; what’s the use of trying Virgil? I always felt

it was all bosh. I don’t know it, and what’s more, I don’t want to know

it. I am not one for reading; it’s not what I would ever have chosen; it

is all Lottie, with her nagging and her pushing. And so I may go home

and tell her you don’t think me fit for anything?” he added suddenly,

with a slight break of unexpected feeling in his voice.

“Don’t do anything of the kind. If you would only be open with me, tell

me what are your own ideas and intentions----”

“That’s what everybody says,” said Law, with a smile of half-amused

superiority; “open your mind. But what if you’ve got no mind to open?

_I_ don’t care what I do; I don’t intend anything; get me in somewhere,

and I’ll do the best I can. A fellow can’t speak any fairer than that.”

The Minor Canon looked at him with that gaze of baffled inquiry which is

never so effectually foiled as by the candid youth who has no intentions

of his own and no mind to open. Law stood before him, stretching out his

useless strength, with his useless book again under his arm--a human

being thoroughly wasted; no place for him in the Civil Service, no good

use in any of the offices. Why shouldn’t he ’list if he wished it? It

was the very best thing for him to do. But when Mr. Ashford thought of

Lottie this straightforward conclusion died on his lips.

“Why couldn’t you live on your pay?” he said hurriedly. “It is only to

exercise a little self-denial. You would have a life you liked and were

fit for, and a young subaltern has just as much pay as any clerkship you

could get. Why not make an effort, and determine to live on your pay? If

you have the resolution you could do it. It would be better certainly

than sitting behind a desk all day long.”

“Wouldn’t it!” said Law, with a deep breath. “Ah! but you wouldn’t

require to keep a horse, sitting behind your desk; you wouldn’t have

your mess to pay. A fellow must think of all that. I suppose you’ve had

enough of me?” he added, looking up with a doubtful smile. “I may go

away?”

“Don’t go yet.” There sprang up in the Minor Canon’s mind a kindness for

this impracticable yet thoroughly practical-minded boy, who was not wise

enough to be good for anything, yet who was too wise to plunge into rash

expenses and the arduous exertion of living on an officer’s pay--curious

instance of folly and wisdom, for even an officer’s pay was surely

better than no pay at all. Mr. Ashford did not want to throw Law off,

and yet he could not tell what to do with him. “Will you stay and try

how much you can follow of young Uxbridge’s work?” he said. “I daresay

you have not for the moment anything much better to do.”

Law gave a glance of semi-despair from the window upon the landscape,

and the distance, and the morning sunshine. No! he had nothing better to

do. It was not that he had any pleasures in hand, for pleasures cost

money, and he had no money to spend; and he knew by long experience that

lounging about in the morning without even a companion is not very

lively. Still he yielded and sat down, with a sigh. Mere freedom was

something, and the sensation of being obliged to keep in one place for

an hour or two, and give himself up to occupation, was disagreeable; a

fellow might as well be in an office at once. But he submitted. “Young

Uxbridge?” he said. “What is he going in for? The Guards, I suppose.”

Law sighed; ah! that was the life. But he was aware that for himself he

might just as easily aspire to be a prince as a Guardsman. He took his

seat at the table resignedly, and pulled the books towards him, and

looked at them with a dislike that was almost pathetic. Hateful tools!

but nothing was to be done without them. If he could only manage to get

in somewhere by means of the little he knew of them, Law vowed in his

soul he would never look at the rubbish again.

Young Uxbridge, when he came in spick and span, in the freshest of

morning coats and fashionable ties--for which things Law had a keen eye,

though he could not indulge in them--looked somewhat askance at the

slouching figure of the new pupil. But, though he was the son of a canon

and in the best society, young Uxbridge was not more studious, and he

was by nature even less gifted, than Law. Of two stupid young men, one

may have all the advantage over another which talent can give, without

having any talent to brag of. Law was very dense with respect to books,

but he understood a great deal more quickly what was said to him, and

had a play of humour and meaning in his face, and sense of the amusing

and absurd, if nothing more, which distinguished him from his companion,

who was steadily level and obtuse all round, and never saw what anything

meant. Thus, though one knew more than the other, the greater ignoramus

was the more agreeable pupil of the two; and the Minor Canon began to

take an amused interest in Law as Law. He kept him to luncheon after the

other was gone, and encouraged the boy to talk, giving him such a meal

as Law had only dreamt of. He encouraged him to talk, which perhaps was

not quite right of Mr. Ashford, and heard a great deal about his family,

and found out that, though Lottie was right, Law was not perhaps so

utterly wrong as he thought. Law was very wrong; yet when he thus heard

both sides of the question, the Minor Canon perceived that it was

possible to sympathise with Lottie in her forlorn and sometimes

impatient struggle against the _vis inertiæ_ of this big brother, and

yet on the other hand to have an amused pity for the big brother, too,

who was not brutal but only dense, gaping with wonder at the finer

spirit that longed and struggled to stimulate him into something above

himself. So stimulated Law never would be. He did not understand even

what she wanted, what she would have; but he was not without some good

in him. No doubt he would make an excellent settler in the back-woods,

working hard there though he would not work here, and ready to defend

himself against any tribe of savages; and he would not make a bad

soldier. But to be stimulated into a first-class man in an examination,

or an any-class man, to be made into a male Lottie of fine perceptions

and high ambition, that was what Law would never be.

“But she is quite right,” said Law; “something must be done. I suppose

you have heard, Mr. Ashford, as everybody seems to have heard, that the

governor is going to marry again?”

“I did hear it. Will that make a great difference to your sister and

you?”

“Difference? I should think it would make a difference. As it happens, I

know P----, the woman he is going to marry. She makes no secret of it

that grown-up sons and daughters shouldn’t live at home. I shall have to

leave, whatever happens; and Lottie--well, in one way Lottie has more

need to leave than I have: I shouldn’t mind her manners and that sort of

thing--but Lottie does mind.”

“Very naturally,” said the Minor Canon.

“Perhaps,” said Law; “but I don’t know where she gets her ideas from,

for we never were so very fine. However, I might stand it, but Lottie

never will be able to stand it; and the question follows, what is she

to do? For myself, as I say, I could ’list, and there would be an end of

the matter.”

“But in that case you would not be of much use to your sister.”

Law shrugged his shoulders. “I should be of use to myself, which is the

first thing. And then, you know--but perhaps you don’t know--all this is

obstinacy on Lottie’s part, for she might be as well off as anyone. She

might, if she liked, instead of wanting help, be able to help us all.

She might start me for somewhere or other, or even make me an allowance,

so that I could get into the army in the right way. When I think of what

she is throwing away it makes me furious; she might make my fortune if

she liked--and be very comfortable herself, too.”

“And how is all this to be done?” said the Minor Canon somewhat

tremulously, with a half-fantastic horror in his mind of some brutal

alternative that might be in Lottie’s power, some hideous marriage or

sacrifice of the conventional kind. He waited for Law’s answer in more

anxiety than he had any right to feel, and Law on his side had a gleam

of righteous indignation in his eyes, and for the moment felt himself

the victim of a sister’s cruelty, defrauded by her folly and unkindness

of a promotion which was his due.

“Look here,” he said solemnly; “all this she could do without troubling

herself one bit, if she chose; she confessed it to me herself. The

Signor has made her an offer to bring her out as a singer, and to teach

her himself first for nothing. That is to say, of course, she would pay

him, I suppose, when he had finished her, and she had got a good

engagement. You know they make loads of money, these singers--and she

has got as fine a voice as any of them. Well, now, fancy, Mr. Ashford,

knowing that she could set us all up in this way, and give me a thorough

good start--she’s refused; and after that she goes and talks about me!”

For a moment Mr. Ashford was quite silenced by this sudden assault. A

bold thrust is not to be met by fine definitions, and for the first

moment the Minor Canon was staggered. Was there not some natural justice

in what the lout said? Then he recovered himself.

“But,” he said, “there are a great many objections to being a singer.”

He was a little inarticulate, the sudden attack having taken away his

breath. “A lady might well have objections; and the family might have

objections.”

“Oh! I don’t mind,” said Law; “if I did I should soon have told her; and

you may be sure the governor doesn’t mind. Not likely! The thing we want

is money, and she could make as much money as ever she pleases. And yet

she talks about me! I wish I had her chance; the Signor would not have

to speak twice; I would sing from morning to night if they liked.”

“Would you work so hard as that? Then why don’t you work a little at

your books; the one is not harder than the other?”

“Work! Do you call singing a lot of songs _work_?” said the contemptuous

Law.

CHAPTER XXIII.

GOOD ADVICE.

“Oh, he did not say much,” Law replied to Lottie’s questioning when he

went home in the afternoon. “He was very jolly--asked me to stay, and

gave me lunch. How they live, those fellows! Cutlets, and cold grouse,

and _pâté de foie gras_--something like. You girls think you know about

housekeeping; you only know how to pinch and scrape, that’s all.”

Lottie did not reply, as she well might, that _pâtés de foie gras_ were

not bought off such allowances as hers; she answered rather with

feminine heat, as little to the purpose as her brother’s taunt, “As if

it mattered what we ate! If you had grouse or if you had

bread-and-cheese, what difference does it make? You care for such mean

things, and nothing at all about your character or your living. _What_

did Mr. Ashford say?”

“My character?” said Law. “I’ve done nothing wrong. As for my living,

I’m sure I don’t know how _that’s_ to be got, neither does he. He thinks

I should emigrate or go into the army--just what I think myself. He’s

_very_ jolly; a kind of man that knows what you mean, and don’t just go

off on his own notions. I think,” said Law, “that he thinks it very

queer of you, when you could set me up quite comfortably, either in the

army or abroad, not to do it. He did not say much, but I could see that

he thought it very queer.”

“I--could set you up--what is it you mean, Law?” Lottie was too much

surprised at first to understand. “How could I set you up?” she went on,

faltering. “You don’t mean that you told Mr. Ashford about---- Oh, Law,

you are cruel. Do you want to bring us down to the dust, and leave us no

honour, no reputation at all? First thinking to enlist as a common

soldier, and then--me!”

“Well, then you. Why not you as well as me, Lottie? You’ve just as good

a right to work as I have; you’re the eldest. If I am to be bullied for

not reading, which I hate, why should you refuse to sing, which you

like? Why, you’re always squalling all over the place, even when there’s

nobody to hear you--you could make a very good living by it; and what’s

more,” said Law, with great gravity, “be of all the use in the world to

me.”

“How could I be of use to you?” said Lottie, dropping her work upon her

knee and looking up at him with wondering eyes. This was a point of view

which had not struck her before, but she had begun to perceive that her

indignation was wasted, and that it was she only in her family who had

any idea that a girl should be spared anything. “Law,” she said

piteously, “do you think it is because I don’t want to work? Am I ever

done working? You do a little in the morning, but I am at it all the

day. Do you think Mary could keep the house as it is and do everything?”

“Pshaw!” answered Law, “anybody could do that.”

Lottie was not meek by nature, and it was all she could do to restrain

her rising temper. “Mary has wages, and I have none,” she said. “I don’t

mind the work; but if there is one difference between the common people

and gentlefolk, it is that girls who are ladies are not sent out to

work. It is for men to work out in the world, and for women to work at

home. Would you like everybody to be able to pay a shilling and go and

see your sister? Oh, Law, it is for you as much as for me that I am

speaking. Everybody free to stare and to talk, and I standing there

before them all, to sing whatever they told me, and to be cheered,

perhaps, and people clapping their hands at me--at me, your sister, a

girl---- Law! you would not have it; I know you could not bear it. You

would rush and pull me away, and cover me with a cloak, and hide me from

those horrible people’s eyes.”

“Indeed I should do nothing of the sort,” said Law; “I’d clap you too--I

should like it. If they were hissing it would be a different matter.

Besides, you know, you could change your name. They all change their

names. You might be Miss Smith, which would hurt nobody. Come, now, if

you are going to be reasonable, Lottie, and discuss the matter--why,

your great friend Miss Huntington sang at a concert once--not for any

good, not to be paid for it--only to make an exhibition of herself (and

she was not much to look at either). Don’t you remember? It would be

nothing worse than that, and heaps of ladies do that. Then it is quite

clear you must do something, and what else would you like to do?”

Lottie frowned a little, not having taken this question into

consideration, as it would have been right for her to do; but the things

that concerned other people had always seemed to her so much more

important. She never had any doubt of her own capabilities and energies.

When the question was thus put to her she paused.

“Just now I am at home; I have plenty to do,” she said. Then, after

another pause, “If things change here--if I cannot stay here, Law, why

shouldn’t we go together? You must get an appointment, and I would take

care of you. I could make the money go twice as far as you would. I

could help you if you had work to do at home--copying or anything--I

would do it. It would not cost more for two of us than for one. I could

do everything for you, even your washing; and little things besides. Oh,

I don’t doubt I could get quantities of little things to do,” said

Lottie, with a smile of confidence in her own powers; “and no one need

be the wiser. You would be thought to have enough for us both.”

“Listen to me, now,” said Law, who had shown many signs of impatience,

not to say consternation. “What you mean is (_if_ you know what you

mean), that you intend to live upon me. You needn’t stare; you don’t

think what you’re saying, but that is what you really mean when all is

done. Look here, Lottie; if I were to get a place I should live in

lodgings. I should bring in other fellows to see me. I shouldn’t want to

have my sister always about. As for not spending a penny more, that

means that you would give me dinners like what we have now; but when I

have anything to live on, of my own, I shall not stand that. I shall not

be content, I can tell you, to live as we live now. I want to be free if

I get an appointment; I don’t want to have you tied round my neck like a

millstone; I want to have my liberty and enjoy myself. If it comes to

that, I’d rather marry than have a sister always with me; but at first I

shall want to have my fling and enjoy myself. And what is the use of

having money,” said Law, with the genuine force of conviction, “unless

you can spend it upon yourself?”

Lottie was altogether taken by surprise. It was the first time they had

thus discussed the question. She made no reply to this utterance of

sound reason. She sat with her work on her knee, and her hands resting

upon it, staring at her brother. This revelation of his mind was to her

altogether new.

“But, on the other side,” said Law, feeling more and more confidence in

himself as he became used to the sound of his own voice, and felt

himself to be unanswerable, “on the other side, a singer gets jolly

pay--far better than any young fellow in an office; and you could quite

well afford to give me an allowance, so that I might get into the army

as a fellow ought. You might give me a hundred or two a year and never

feel it; and with that I could live upon my pay. And you needn’t be

afraid that I should be ashamed of you,” said generous Law; “not one

bit. I should stand by you and give you my countenance as long as you

conducted yourself to my satisfaction. I should never forsake you. When

you sang anywhere I’d be sure to go and clap you like a madman,

especially if you went under another name (they all do); that would

leave me more free. Now you must see, Lottie, a young fellow in an

office could not be much good to you, but you could be of great use to

me.”

Still Lottie did not make any reply. No more terrible enlightenment ever

came to an unsuspecting listener. She saw gradually rising before her as

he spoke, not only a new Law, but a new version of herself till this

moment unknown to her. This, as was natural, caught her attention most;

it made her gasp with horror and affright. Was this herself--Lottie? It

was the Lottie her brother knew. That glimpse of herself through Law’s

eyes confounded her. She seemed to see the coarse and matter-of-fact

young woman who wanted to live upon her brother’s work; to make his

dinners scanty in order that she might have a share, to interfere with

his companions and his pleasures--so distinctly, that her mouth was

closed and her very heart seemed to stop beating. Was this herself? Was

this how she appeared to other people’s eyes? She was too much

thunderstruck, overawed by it, to say anything. The strange difference

between this image and her own self-consciousness, her conviction that

it was for Law’s advantage she had been struggling; her devotion to the

interests of the family before everything, filled her with confusion and

bewilderment. Could it be she that was wrong, or was it he that was

unjust and cruel? The wonder and suddenness of it gave more poignant and

terrible force to the image of her which was evidently in Law’s mind.

All the selfish obtuseness of understanding, the inability to perceive

what she meant, or to understand the object of her anxiety, which had so

wounded and troubled her in Law, her brother had found in her. To him it

was apparent that what Lottie wanted was not his good, but that she

might have some one to work for her, some one to save her from working.

She gazed not at Law, but at the visionary representation of herself

which Law was seeing, with a pang beyond any words. She could not for

the moment realise the brighter image which he made haste to present

before her of the generous sister who made him an allowance, and enabled

him to enter the army “as a fellow ought,” and of whom he promised never

to be ashamed. It is much to be doubted whether Lottie had any warm

sense of humour at the best of times; certainly she showed herself quite

devoid of it now. She was so hurt and sore that she could not speak. It

was not true. How could he be so cruel and unjust to her? But yet could

it be at all true? Was it possible that this coarse picture was like

Lottie, would be taken for Lottie by anyone else? She kept looking at

him after he had stopped speaking, unable to take her eyes from him,

looking like a dumb creature who has no other power of remonstrance.

Perhaps in other circumstances Lottie would have been so foolish and

childish as to cry; now she battled vaguely, dismally, with a sense of

heartbreaking injustice, yet asking herself could any part of it be

true?

“Don’t stare at me so,” said Law; “you look as if you had never seen a

fellow before. Though he was civil and did not say anything, it was easy

to see that was what old Ashford thought. And I’ve got to go back to him

to-morrow, if that will please you; and, by the way, he said he’d

perhaps come and see you and tell you what he thought. By Jove, it’s

getting late. If I don’t get out at once he’ll come and palaver, and I

shall have to stay in and lose my afternoon, as I lost the morning. I’m

off, Lottie. You need not wait for me for tea.”

It did not make much difference to her when he went away, plunging down

the little staircase in two or three long steps. Lottie sat like an

image in stone, all the strength taken from her. She seemed to have

nothing left to say to herself--no ground to stand on, no

self-explanation to offer. She had exhausted all her power of

self-assertion for the moment; now she paused and looked at herself as

her father and brother saw her--a hard, scanty, parsimonious

housekeeper, keeping them on the simplest fare, denying them

indulgences, standing in their way. What if she kept the house, as she

fondly hoped, like a gentleman’s house, sweet and fresh, and as fair as

its faded furniture permitted? What did they care for tidiness and

order? What if she managed, by infinite vigilance and precaution, to pay

her bills and keep the credit of the household, so far as her power

went, unimpaired? They did not mind debts and duns, except at the mere

moment of encountering the latter, and were entirely indifferent to the

credit of the name. She was in her father’s way, who before this time

would have married the woman who brushed past Lottie on the Slopes but

for having this useless grown-up daughter, whom he did not know how to

dispose of; and if Law got an appointment (that almost impossible, yet

fondly cherished, expectation which had kept a sort of forlorn

brightness in the future), it now turned out that she would be in Law’s

way as much or more than in her father’s. Lottie’s heart contracted with

pain; her spirit failed her. She, who had felt so strong, so capable, so

anxious to inspire others with her own energy and force; she, who had

felt herself the support of her family, their standard-bearer, the only

one who was doing anything to uphold the falling house--in a moment she

had herself fallen too, undermined even in her own opinion. Many a blow

and thrust had she received in the course of her combative life, and

given back with vigour and a stout heart. Never before had she lost her

confidence in herself; the certainty that she was doing her best, that

with her was the redeeming force, the honourable principle which might

yet convert the others, and save the family, and elevate the life of the

house. What she felt now was that she herself, the last prop of the

Despards, was overthrown and lying in ruin. Was it possible that she was

selfish too, seeking her own ease like the rest, avoiding what she

disliked just the same as they did? A sudden moisture of intense pain

suffused Lottie’s eyes. She was too heartstruck, too fallen to weep. She

covered her face with her hands, though there was no one to cover it

from, with the natural gesture of anguish, seeking to be hidden even

from itself.

Lottie did not pay much attention, although she heard steps coming up

the stair. What did it matter? Either it was Law, who had stricken her

so wantonly to the ground; or her father, who did not care what happened

to her; or Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, who did not count. Few other people

mounted the stairs to the little drawing-room in Captain Despard’s

house. But when she raised her head, all pale and smileless, and saw

that the visitor was Mr. Ashford, Lottie scarcely felt that this was a

stranger, or that there was any occasion to exert herself and change her

looks and tones. Did not he think so too? She rose up, putting down her

work, and made him a solemn salutation. She did not feel capable of

anything more. The Minor Canon drew back his hand, which she did not

see, with the perturbation of a shy man repulsed. Lottie was not to him

so unimportant a person as she was to her brother. She was surrounded by

all the unconscious state of womanhood and mystery and youth--a creature

with qualities beyond his ken, wonderful to him, as unknown though

visible, and attracting his imagination more than any other of these

wonderful mystic creatures, of whom he had naturally encountered many in

his life, had ever done. His heart, which had so swelled with pity and

admiration on Sunday evening, was not less sympathetic and admiring

now, notwithstanding that it was through Law’s eyes that he had been

seeing her to-day; and this repulse, which was so unlike her candour and

frankness yesterday, gave him a little pain. He wanted to be of use to

her, and he wanted to tell her so--and to repel him while he had these

generous purposes in his mind seemed hard. He sat down, however,

embarrassed, on the chair she pointed him to; and looking at her, when

thus brought nearer, he discovered, even with his short-sighted eyes,

how pale she was and how woebegone. Some one had been vexing her, no

doubt, poor child! This took the shyness out of Mr. Ashford’s voice.

“I have come to make my report,” he said, in as even a tone as he could

command, “about Lawrence. He has told you--that he has been with me most

of the day?”

“Yes.” When Lottie saw that more than this monosyllable was expected

from her, she made an effort to rouse herself. “I fear it is not

anything very encouraging that you have to say?”

“I have two things to say, Miss Despard--if you will permit me. Did you

ever read Lord Chesterfield’s Letters? But no, perhaps they are not

reading for such as you. There are many wickednesses in them which would

disgust you, but there is one most tragic, touching thing in them----”

He made a pause; and Lottie, who was young and variable, and ready to

be interested in spite of herself, looked up and asked “What is that?”

“I wonder if I may say it?--it is the effort of the father to put

himself--not a good man, but a fine, subtle, ambitious, aspiring

spirit--into his son; and the complete and terrible failure of the

attempt.”

“I do not know--what that can have to do with Law and me.”

“Yes. Pardon me for comparing you in your generous anxiety to a man who

was not a hero. But, Miss Despard, you see what I mean. You will never

put yourself into Law. He does not understand you; he is not capable of

it. You must give up the attempt. I am only a new acquaintance, but I

think I must be an old friend, somehow. I want you to give up the

attempt.”

He looked at her with such a kind comprehension and pity in his eyes,

that Lottie’s heart sprang up a little from its profound depression,

like a trodden-down flower, to meet this first gleam of sunshine. She

did not quite see what he meant even now, but it was something that

meant kindness and approval of her. “He cannot think _that_ of me!” she

said to herself.

“I am glad you will hear me out,” he said, with a look of relief, “for

the rest is better. Law is not stupid. He would not be your brother if

he were stupid. He is a little too prudent, I think. He will not hear

of emigrating, because he has no money, nor of trying for the army,

because he could not live on his pay. Right enough, perhaps, in both

cases; but a hot-headed boy would not mind these considerations, and a

fellow of resolution might succeed in either way.”

“He has always been like that,” said Lottie. “You see Law does not want

anything very much except to be as well off as possible. He would never

make up his mind what to try for. He says, anything; and anything

means---- Oh! Mr. Ashford, I want to ask you something about myself. Do

you think it is just as bad and selfish of me to refuse to be--oh! a

public singer? I thought I was right,” said Lottie, putting out her

hands with unconscious dramatic action, as if groping her way; “but now

I am all in doubt. I don’t know what to think. Is it just the same? Is

it as bad of me?”

She looked at him anxiously, as if he could settle the question, and the

Minor Canon did not know what reply to make. He was on both

sides--feeling with her to the bottom of his heart; yet seeing, too,

where the reason lay.

“I am very sure you are doing nothing either bad or selfish,” he said;

but hesitated and added no more.

“You won’t tell me,” she cried; “that must mean that you are against me.

Mr. Ashford, I have always heard that there was a great difference

between girls and boys; like this: that for a boy to work was always

honourable, but for a girl to work was letting down the family. Mamma--I

don’t know if she was a good judge--always said so. She said it was

better to do anything than work, so as that people should know. There

was a lady, who was an officer’s wife, just as good as we were, but they

all said she was a governess once, and were disagreeable to her. It

seemed a kind of disgrace to all the children. Their mother was a

governess----”

“But that is very bad; very cruel,” said the Minor Canon. “I am sure, in

your heart, that is not a thing of which you can approve.”

“No,” said Lottie, doubtfully; “except just this--that it would be far

more credit, far more _right_, if the men were to try hard and keep the

girls at home. That is what I thought. Oh, it is not the work I think

of! Work! I like it. I don’t mind what I do. But there must always be

somebody for the work at home. Do you suppose Mary could manage for them

if I were not here? There would be twice as much spent, and everything

would be different. And do you not think, Mr. Ashford, that it would be

more credit to them--better for everyone, more honourable for Law, if he

were at work and I at home, rather than that people should say, ‘His

sister is a singer?’ Ah! would you let your own sister be a singer if

you were as poor as we are? Or would you rather fight it out with the

world, and keep her safe at home, only serving you?”

“My sister!” said the Minor Canon. He was half-affronted, half-touched,

and wholly unreasonable. “That she should never do! not so long as her

brother lived to work for her--nor would I think it fit either that she

should serve me.”

“Ah, but there you are wrong,” said Lottie, whose face was lighted up

with a smile of triumph. “I thought you would be on my side! But there

you are wrong. She would be happy, proud to serve you. Do you think I

mean we are to be idle, not to take our share? Oh, no, no! In nature a

man works and rests; but a woman never rests. Look at the poor people.

The man has his time to himself in the evenings, and his wife serves

him. It is quite right--it is her share. I should never, never grumble

at that. Only,” cried Lottie, involuntarily clasping her hands, “not to

be sent outside to work there! I keep Mary for the name of the thing;

because it seems right to have a servant; but if we could not afford to

keep Mary do you think I would make a fuss? Oh, no, Mr. Ashford, no! I

could do three times what she does. I should not mind what I did. But if

it came to going out, to having it known, to letting people say, ‘His

sister is a governess,’ or (far worse) ‘His sister is a singer’--it is

that I cannot bear.”

Mr. Ashford was carried away by this torrent of words, and by the

natural eloquence of her eyes and impassioned voice, and varying

countenance. He did not know what to say. He shook his head, but when he

came to himself, and found his footing again, made what stand he could.

“You forget,” he said, “that all this would be of no use for yourself or

your future----”

“For me!” Lottie took the words out of his mouth with a flush and glow

of beautiful indignation. “Was it _me_ I was thinking of? Oh, I thought

you understood!” she cried.

“Let me speak, Miss Despard. Yes, I understand. You would be their

servant; you would work all the brightness of your life away. You would

never think of yourself; and when it suited them to make a change--say

when it suited Law to marry--you would be thrown aside, and you would

find yourself without a home, wearied, worn out with your work,

disappointed, feeling the thanklessness, the bitterness of the world.”

Lottie’s face clouded over. She looked at him, half-defiant,

half-appealing. “That is not how--one’s brother would behave. You would

not do it----”

“No; perhaps I would not do it--but, on the other hand,” said Mr.

Ashford, “I might do--what was as bad. I might make a sacrifice. I

might--give up marrying the woman whom I loved for my sister’s sake.

Would that be a better thing to do?”

Their eyes met when he spoke of the woman he loved--that is, he looked

at Lottie, who was gazing intently at him; and strangely enough, they

could not tell why, both blushed, as if the sudden contact of their

looks had set their faces aglow. Lottie instinctively drew back without

knowing it; and he, leaning towards her, repeated, almost with

vehemence:

“Would that be a better thing to do?”

Lottie hid her face in her hands. “Oh, no, no!” she said, her sensitive

frame trembling. Mr. Ashford was old, and Law was but a boy--how could

there be any question of the woman either loved?

“Forgive me, Miss Despard, if I seem to go against you--my heart is all

with you; but you ought to be independent,” he said. “Either the woman

would be sacrificed or the man would be sacrificed. And that kind of

sacrifice is bad for everybody. Don’t be angry with me. Sacrifices

generally are bad; the more you do for others, the more selfish they

become. Have you not seen that even in your little experience? There are

many people who never have it in their power to be independent; but

those who have should not neglect it--even if it is not in a pleasant

way.”

“Even if it is by--being a singer?” She lifted her head again, and once

more fixed upon him eyes which were full of unshed tears. Taking counsel

had never been in Lottie’s way; but neither had doubt ever been in her

way till now. Everything before had been very plain. Right and

wrong--two broad lines straight before her; now there was right and

wrong on both sides, and her landmarks were removed. She looked at her

adviser as women look, to see not only what he said, but whatsoever

shade of unexpressed opinion might cross his face.

“It is not so dreadful after all,” he said. “It is better than many

other ways. I am afraid life is hard, as you say, upon a girl, Miss

Despard. She must be content with little things. This is one of the few

ways in which she can really get independence--and--stop, hear me

out--the power to help others too.”

Lottie had almost begun a passionate remonstrance; but these last words

stopped her. Though she might not like the way, still was it possible

that this might be a way of setting everything right? She stopped gazing

at her counsellor, her eyelids puckered with anxiety, her face quite

colourless, and expressing nothing but this question. Not a pleasant

way--a way of martyrdom to her pride--involving humiliation, every pang

she could think of; but still, perhaps, a way of setting everything

right.

CHAPTER XXIV.

A CRISIS.

When Lottie got up next morning the world seemed to have changed to her.

It had changed a little in reality, as sometimes one day differs from

another in autumn, the world having visibly made a more marked

revolution than usual in a single night. It had got on to the end of

August, and there were traces of many fiery fingers upon the leaves on

the Slopes. It had been a very fine summer, but it was coming

prematurely to an end, everybody said, and about the horizon there began

to be veils of luminous mist in the morning, and soft haze that veiled

the evening light. This autumnal aspect of the world seemed to have come

on in that one night. The Virginian creeper round the window had

“turned” in several patches of scarlet and yellow all at once. It was

beautiful, but it was the first step towards winter and the chills--the

first evidence of a year decaying which makes the spectator pause and

think. When Lottie woke she felt in her heart that consciousness of

something, she knew not what, something that had happened to her, that

over-shadowed her, and forced itself upon her before she could tell

what it was, which is the way care manifests itself at our bedsides:

something that made her heart heavy the first thing on awaking. Then she

remembered what it was. Lottie, we have said, was not a girl who was in

the habit of taking advice; but for that once she had taken it, seizing

upon the first trustworthy witness she could find who would bring an

impartial eye to the problem of her life. She had been very strong in

her own opinion before, but when reason was put before her Lottie could

not shut her eyes to it. Neither could she dawdle and delay when there

was anything to do. She awoke with the consciousness that some ghost was

lurking behind her white curtains. Then with a start and shiver

remembered and realised it, and, drawing herself together, made up her

mind to act at once. What was the use of putting off? Putting off was

the reason why Law was so backward, and Lottie was not one of those who

let the grass grow under their feet. The more disagreeable the first

step was, the more reason was there that it should be taken to-day. She

went downstairs with a gleam of resolution in her eyes. After the shock

of finding out that there is a painful thing to do, the determination to

do it at once is a relief. It brings an almost pleasure into the pain to

set your face to it bravely and get done with it; there is thus an

exhilaration even in what is most disagreeable. So Lottie felt. Her

despondency and depression were gone. She had something definite to do,

and she would do it, let what obstacle soever stand in the way. She made

the family tea and cut the bread with more energy than usual. She was

the first visible, as she always was, but her mind was fully occupied

with her own affairs, and she was glad enough to be alone for half an

hour. After that she had to go up again and knock at her father’s door,

to remind him that there was but little time for breakfast before the

bell began to ring for matins; but she had taken her own breakfast and

begun her work before the Captain and Law came downstairs. When she had

poured out their tea for them she sat down in the window-seat with her

sewing. She did not take any share in their talk, neither did she watch,

as she often did, the stir of morning life in the Dean’s Walk--the

tradesmen’s carts going about, the perambulators from the town pushing

upward, with fresh nursemaids behind, to the shady walk on the Slopes;

now and then a tall red soldier showing against the grey wall of the

Abbey opposite; the old Chevaliers beginning to turn out, taking their

little morning promenade before the bells began. The stir was usually

pleasant to Lottie, but she took no notice of it to-day. She was going

to matins herself this morning--not perhaps altogether for devotion, but

with the idea, after the service, of lying in wait at the north gate for

the exit of the Signor.

How it was that the subject came under discussion Lottie did not know.

She woke to it only when it came across herself and touched upon her own

thoughts. It was Law who was saying something (it was fit for him to say

so!), grumbling about the inequality of education, and that girls had

just as good a right to work as boys.

“I should like to know,” he said, “why I should have to get hold of a

lot of books, and trot over to old Ashford, and work like a slave till

one o’clock, while she sits as cool and as fresh as can be, and never

stirs?” He was not addressing anybody in particular, but grumbling to

the whole world at large, which was Law’s way. Generally his father took

no notice of him, but some prick of sensation in the air no doubt moved

him to-day.

“Speak of things you know something about,” said the Captain; “that’s

the best advice I can give you, Law. And let Lottie alone. Who wants her

to work? The fresher she looks and the better she looks, the more likely

she is to get a husband; and that’s a girl’s first duty. Is that the

bell?” said Captain Despard, rising, drawing himself up, and pulling his

collar and wristbands into due display. “Let me hear nothing about work.

No daughter of mine shall ever disgrace herself and me in that way. Get

yourself a husband, my child; that’s the only work I’ll ever

permit--that’s all a lady can do. A good husband, Lottie. If I heard of

some one coming forward I’d be happier, I don’t deny. Bring him to the

scratch, my dear; or if you’re in difficulty refer him to me.”

He was gone before Lottie could utter a word of the many that rushed to

her lips. She turned upon Law instead, who sat and chuckled behind his

roll. “If it had not been for you he would not have insulted me so!” she

cried.

“Oh, insulted you! You need not be so grand. They say you may have

Purcell if you like,” said Law, “or even the Signor; but it’s the other

fellow, Ridsdale, you know, your old flame, the governor is thinking of.

If you could catch _him_ now! though I don’t believe a fellow like that

could mean anything. But even Purcell is better than nothing. If you

would take my advice----”

Lottie did not stay to hear any more. He laughed as she rushed out of

the room, putting up her hands to her ears. But Law was surprised that

she did not strike a blow for herself before she left him. Her

self-restraint had a curious effect upon the lad. “Is anything up?” he

said to himself. Generally it was no difficult matter to goad Lottie to

fury with allusions like this. He sat quite still and listened while she

ran upstairs into her own room, which was overhead. Then Law

philosophically addressed himself to what was left of the breakfast. He

had an excellent appetite; and the bell ringing outside which called so

many people, but not him, and the sight of the old Chevaliers streaming

across the road, and the morning congregation hurrying along to the door

in the cloisters, pleased him as he finished his meal, without even his

sister’s eye upon him to remark the ravages he made in the butter. But

when he heard Lottie’s step coming down stairs again Law stopped, not

without a sense of guilt, and listened intently. She did not come in,

which was a relief, but his surprise was great when he heard her walk

past the open door of the little dining-room, and next moment saw her

flit past the window on the way to the Abbey. He got up, though he had

not finished, and stared after her till she, too, disappeared in the

cloister. “Something must be up,” he repeated to himself.

Lottie’s silence, however, was not patience, neither was it any want of

susceptibility to what had been said. Even this, probably, she would

have felt more had her mind not been preoccupied by her great

resolution. But when she found herself in the Abbey, abstracted from all

external circumstances, the great voice of the organ filling the

beautiful place, the people silently filling up the seats, the choir in

their white robes filing in, it seemed very strange to Lottie that the

service could go on as it did, undisturbed by the beats of her heart and

the commotion of her thoughts. Enough trouble and tumult to drown even

the music were in that one corner where she leant her shoulder against

the old dark oak, finding some comfort in the physical support. And she

did not, it must be allowed, pay very much attention to the service; her

voice joined in the responses fitfully, but her heart wandered far away.

No, not far away. Mr. Ashford’s counsel, and her father’s, kept coming

and going through her mind. Truth to tell, Captain Despard’s decision

against the possibility of work gave work an instant value in his

daughter’s eyes. We do not defend Lottie for her undutifulness; but as

most of the things she had cared for in her life had been opposed by her

father, and all the things against which she set her face in fierceness

of youthful virtue were supported by him, it could scarcely be expected

that his verdict would be very effectual with her. It gave her a little

spirit and encouragement in her newly-formed resolution, and it helped

her a little to overcome the prejudice in her mind when she felt that

her father was in favour of that prejudice. He did not want her to work,

to bring the discredit of a daughter who earned her own living upon him;

he wanted to sell her to any one who would offer for her, to make her

“catch” some man, to put forth wiles to attract him and bring him into

her net. Lottie, who believed in love, and who believed in womanhood,

with such a faith as perhaps girls only possess: what silent rage and

horror filled her at this thought! She believed in womanhood, not so

much in herself. For the sake of that abstraction, not for her own, she

wanted to be wooed reverently, respected above all. A man, to be a

perfect man, ought to look upon every woman as a princess of romance:

not for her individual sake so much as for his sake, that he might fall

short of no nobleness and perfection. This was Lottie’s theory

throughout. She would have Law reverence his sister, and tenderly care

for her, because that would prove Law to be of the noblest kind of men.

She wanted to be worshipped in order to prove triumphantly to herself

that the man who did so was an heroic lover. This was how Rollo had

caught her imagination, her deceived imagination, which put into Rollo’s

looks and words so much that was not really there. This simple yet

superlative thread of romance ran through all her thoughts. She leaned

back upon the carved oak of the stall, preoccupied, while the choristers

chanted, thinking more of all this than of the service. And then, with a

sudden pang, there came across her mind the thought of the descent that

would be necessary from that white pedestal of her maidenhood, the

sheltered and protected position of the girl at home, which alone seemed

to be fit and right. She would have to descend from that, and gather up

her spotless robes about her, and come out to encounter the storms of

the world. All that had elevated her in her own conceit was going from

her--and what, oh! what could he, or anyone, find afterwards in her? He

would turn away most likely with a sigh or groan from a girl who could

thus throw away her veil and her crown and stand up and confront the

world. Lottie seemed to see her downfall with the eyes of her visionary

lover, and the anguish that brought with it crushed her very heart.

Did it ever occur to her that an alternative had been offered for her

acceptance? Once, for a moment, she saw Purcell’s melancholy face look

down upon her from the organ-loft, and gave him a kind, half-sad,

half-amused momentary thought. Poor fellow! she could have cried for the

pain she must have given him, and yet she could have laughed, though she

was ashamed of the impulse. Poor boy! it must have been only a delusion;

he would forget it; he would find somebody of his own class, she said to

herself, uneasy to think she had troubled him, yet with the only

half-smile that circumstances had afforded her for days past. Captain

Despard, had he known, would have thought Purcell’s suit well worthy of

consideration in the absence of a better; and the Signor, whom Lottie

had made up her mind to address, darted fiery glances at her from the

organ-loft, taking up his pupil’s cause with heat and resentment; but

she herself sailed serenely over the Purcell incident altogether,

looking down upon it from supreme heights of superiority. It did not

occur to her as a thing to be seriously thought of, much less in her

confusion and anguish, as a reasonable way of escape. And thus the

morning went on, the chanting and the reading, and all those outcries

to God and appeals to His mercy which His creatures utter daily with so

much calm. Did anybody mean it when they all burst forth, “Lord have

mercy upon us, Christ have mercy upon us?” This cry woke Lottie, and her

dreaming soul came back, and she held up her clasped hands in a

momentary passion of entreaty. The sudden wildness of the cry in the

midst of all that stately solemnity of praying caught her visionary

soul. It was as if all the rest had missed His ear, all the music and

the poetry, King David harping on his harp, and Handel with his blind

face raised to heaven; and nothing was left but to snatch at the

garments of the Master as He went away, not hearing, not looking, or

appearing not to look and hear. This poor young soul in the midst of her

self-questionings and struggles woke up to the passionate reality of

that cry. “Lord have mercy upon us, Christ have mercy upon us!” and then

it went away from her again in thunders of glorious music, in solemnity

of well-known words, and she lost herself once more in her own thoughts.

Lottie withdrew timidly into the aisle when the service was over. She

knew the Signor would pass that way, and it seemed to her that it would

be easier to speak to him there than to go to his house, which was the

only other alternative. But the Signor, when he came out, was encircled

by a group of his pupils, and darted a vengeful, discouraging glance at

her as he passed. He would not pause nor take any notice of the step she

made towards him, the wistful look in her face. If he had seen it, it

would have given him a certain pleasure to disappoint Lottie, for the

Signor had a womanish element in him, and was hot and merciless in his

partisanship. He cast a glance at her that might have slain her, that

was as far from encouraging her as anything could be, and passed quickly

by, taking no other notice. Thus her mission was fruitless; and it was

the same in the afternoon, when she went out by the north door and made

believe to be passing when the musician came out. To do him justice, he

had no notion that she wanted him, but wondered a little to find her a

second time in his way. He was obliged, as it was outside the Abbey, to

take off his hat to her; but he did so in the most grudging, hasty way,

and went on talking with his pupils, pretending to be doubly engaged and

deeply interested in what the lads were saying. There was no chance

then, short of going to his house, of carrying out her resolution for

this day.

But in the evening, when all was still, Lottie, who had been sitting at

home working and thinking till her heart was sick and her brain

throbbing, put on her hat and went out in the dusk to get the air at the

door. It was a lovely, quiet night, the moon rising over the grey

pinnacles of the Abbey, marking out its great shadow upon the Dean’s

Walk, and the mignonette smelling sweet in all the little gardens. A few

of the old Chevaliers were still about, breathing the sweetness of the

evening like Lottie herself. Captain Temple, who was among them, came up

to her with his old-fashioned fatherly gallantry as soon as he saw her.

“Will you take a turn, my dear?” he said. He had no child, and she had

never had, so to speak, any father, at least in this way. They went up

and down the terrace pavement, and then they crossed the road to the

Abbey, from which, though it was so late, the tones of the great organ

were beginning to steal out upon the night. “Is this a ghost that is

playing, or what can the Signor be thinking of?” Captain Temple said.

Old Wykeham, that gruff old guardian of the sacred place, was standing

with his keys in his hands at the south door. He had not his usual rusty

gown nor his velvet cap, being then in an unofficial capacity; but

Wykeham would not have been Wykeham without his keys. And though he was

gruff he knew to whom respect was due. “Yessir, there’s something going

on inside. One o’ the Signor’s fancies. He have got some friends inside,

a playing his voluntaries to them. And if you like, Captain, I will let

you in in a moment, sir.” “Shall we go, my dear?” the old Captain said.

And next moment they were in the great gloom of the Abbey, which was so

different in its solemnity from the soft summer dark outside. There was

a gleam of brilliant light in the organ-loft where the Signor was

playing, which threw transverse rays out on either side into the

darkness, showing vaguely the carved work of the canopies over the

stalls, and the faded banners that hung over them. Down in the deep

gloom of the choir below a few figures were dimly perceptible. Lottie

and her kind old companion did not join these privileged listeners. They

kept outside in the nave, where the moon, which had just climbed the

height of the great windows, had suddenly burst in, throwing huge

dimly-coloured pictures of the painted glass upon the floor. Lottie, who

was not so sensible as she might have been, preferred this partial

light, notwithstanding the mystic charm of the darkness, which was

somewhat awful to look in upon through the open door of the choir. She

put her hand, a little tremulous, on the old Captain’s arm, and stood

and listened, feeling all her troubles calmed. What was it that thus

calmed her perturbed soul? She thought it was the awe of the place, the

spell of the darkness and the moonlight, the music that made it all

wonderful. The Signor was playing a strange piece of old music when the

two came in. It was an old litany, and Lottie thought as she listened

that she could hear an unseen choir in the far distance, high among the

grey pinnacles, on the edge of the clouds, intoning in intricate

delicate circles of harmony the responses. Was it the old monks? Was it

the angels? Who could tell? “Lottie, my love, that is the _vox humana_

stop,” said the kind old Captain, who knew something about it; and as

he, too, was no wiser than other people, he began to whisper an

explanation to her of how it was. But Lottie cared nothing about stops.

She could hear the solemn singers of the past quiring far off at some

unseen altar, the softened distant sweetness of the reply. Her heart

rose up into the great floating circling atmosphere of song. She seemed

to get breath again, to get rest to her soul: a strange impulse came

over her. She, who was so shy, so uncertain of her power, so bitterly

unwilling to adopt the trade that was being forced upon her: it was all

that she could do to keep herself from singing, joining to those

mystical spiritual voices her own that was full of life and youth. Her

breast swelled, her lips came apart, her voice all but escaped from her,

soaring into that celestial distance. All at once the strain stopped,

and she with it, coming down to the Abbey nave again, where she stood in

the midst of the dim reflected rubies and amethysts and silvery whites

of a great painted window, giddy and leaning upon the old Chevalier.

“It was the _vox humana_. It is too theatrical for my taste, my dear. It

was invented by----”

“Oh, hush, hush!” cried Lottie, under her breath; “he is beginning

again.”

This time it was the “Pastoral Symphony” the Signor played--music that

was never intended for the chill of winter, but for the gleaming stars,

the soft falling dews, the ineffable paleness and tenderness of spring.

It came upon Lottie like those same dews from heaven. She grasped the

old man’s arm, but she could not keep herself from the response which no

longer seemed to come back from any unseen and mystic shrine. Why should

the old monks come back to sing, or the angels have the trouble, who

have so much else to do, when Lottie was there? When the “Pastoral

Symphony” was over the Signor went on, and she with him. Surely there

must have been some secret understanding that no one knew of--not

themselves. He played on unconscious, and she lifted up her head to the

moonlight and her voice to heaven and sang--

There were shepherds watching their flocks by night.

Lottie let go her hold of the Captain’s arm. She wanted no support now.

She wanted nothing but to go on, to tell all that divine story from end

to end. It got possession of her. She did not remember even the changes

of the voices; the end of one strain and another was nothing to her. She

sang through the whole of the songs that follow each other without a

pause or a falter. And like her, without questioning, without

hesitation, the Signor played on. It was not till she had proclaimed

into the gloom that “His yoke is easy and His burden light” that she

came to herself. The last chords thrilled and vibrated through the

great arches and died away in lingering echoes in the vast gloom of the

roof. And then there was a pause.

Lottie came to herself. She was not overwhelmed and exhausted by the

effort, as she had been at the Deanery. She felt herself come down, as

out of heaven, and slowly became aware of Captain Temple looking at her

with a disturbed countenance, and old Wykeham in all the agitation of

alarm. “If I’d have known I’d never have let you in. It’s as much as my

place is worth,” the old man was saying; and Captain Temple, very kindly

and fatherly, but troubled too, and by no means happy, gave her his arm

hurriedly. “I think we had better go, my dear,” he said; “I think we had

better go.”

Some one stopped them at the door--some one who took her hand in his

with a warmth which enthusiasm permitted.

“I knew it must be you, if it were not one of the angels,” he said; “one

or the other. I have just come; and what a welcome I have had--too good

for a king!”

“I did not know you were here, Mr. Ridsdale,” said Lottie, faintly,

holding fast by Captain Temple’s arm.

“But I knew you were here; it was in the air,” he said, half-whispering.

“Good-night; but good-night lasts only till to-morrow, thank heaven.”

CHAPTER XXV.

WHAT FOLLOWED.

Captain Temple was not happy about the events of that evening. He had

begun to grow very fond of Lottie, and he was not pleased that she

should have “made an exhibition of herself.” He went over it so often to

his wife that Mrs. Temple learned the incident by heart. There was in

her mind, mingled with an intense silent interest in the girl who was

like her own, a feeling of repulsion too, equally intense and silent,

which joined with the opposite sentiment, and kept Lottie as constantly

present to her mind as she was in the Captain’s talk. And, though it

sometimes appeared to her that she would die of this girl, who reminded

her at every step that she had lost her child, yet she could not check

her husband’s ever-flowing, continually repeated talk on the subject.

Mrs. Temple thought this was all for his sake. Sometimes, in the

bitterness of her loss, she would cry out that she loathed the very name

of this other, who was so well and bright and full of life, while her

child was dead and gone; but, notwithstanding, Lottie had gradually come

to hold a large place in her life. How could she help thinking of her?

Grudging her very life and brightness, repenting her grudge, praying

God’s blessing on the girl whom she thus injured, avoiding her, fearing

the sight of her, watching for her whom she feared; how could it be but

that Mrs. Temple, in her lonely hours, should think of Lottie? She was

the confidant now of the old Captain’s regret.

“I thought she was a sweet, modest girl,” he said, shaking his head;

“shy, even--as I like a girl to be--very like---- My dear, I cannot bear

a girl to make an exhibition of herself----”

“But if there was no one to see her, and if you were in the dark?”

“That is true, my dear; but if they did not see her they heard her. Such

a voice! I wish you had been there--but that sort of public use of

it--and to have the confidence to sing when she was not asked!” Captain

Temple shook his head. He seemed to have done nothing but shake his head

since last night.

“Do you think that the more she has a beautiful voice the less she

should let it be heard?” said his wife. “I am not so taken up with this

Miss Despard as you are; but still I think you are unjust to her.”

“Perhaps I am unjust to her. How can I help being taken up with her? If

you knew her as well you would be taken up with her too. And I wish you

did; it would be a comfort to you. In everything she does, her walk,

every little gesture, I see something that reminds me---- I know you

don’t like to speak of it, my dear.”

Mrs. Temple set her face like a rock while the old Captain talked on. He

did nothing but speak of it, and she would not stop him. Had she not

noticed the girl’s walk? When Lottie passed Mrs. Temple turned from the

window, feeling as if some one had given her a blow. Yet what had she

gone to the window for but to watch for Lottie? And she was more just to

her than was the old Captain, who could not bear any falling off in his

ideal, who thought that a girl should never make an exhibition of

herself, and did nothing for a week after but shake his head.

The singing, however, made a great excitement in the Cloisters. It was

only a select few who had been there to hear; and they thought it was

all the Signor’s arrangement, who had provided for them so much greater

a pleasure than they expected--or, rather, an additional pleasure. “Who

was it?” everybody asked. Was it possible it could be little Rowley? But

it was inconceivable that a mere child like that could have taken the

contralto solo as well as the soprano. But was it certain that there was

only one voice? The darkness was deceptive, and all the circumstances

were so unusual, so out of the ordinary. When you came to think of it,

it could not be one voice. It must have been little Rowley and Mellor,

the big boy, whose contralto was famous. At that distance, and in the

dark, it was easy to deceive yourself and think there was only one

person singing. There was nothing talked about next morning but this

wonderful incident, and both the people who had been there and the

people who had not been there (who were piqued, and felt themselves

neglected, as a matter of course) discussed it with the utmost

excitement. Even before the hour of matins, old Pick, who was out upon

his master’s business and Mrs. Purcell’s errands, was twice interviewed

on the subject. The first time it was Rowley, the tenor, who assailed

him, whose boy was the first soprano, and whose rights were attacked. “I

should just like to know what the Signor is up to,” Rowley said. “He’s

always got some new fad or other in his head. He’ll have us all up next

into that organ-loft, like a set of Christy Minstrels. Hanged if I’ll

go!”

“Anyhow, you’ll wait till you’re asked,” said old Pick.

“I don’t advise him to ask _me_. And, look here! I want to know who it

was. If he’s bringing in somebody in the dark, on the sly, to put them

boys’ noses out!--you never can tell what a foreign fellow’s up to. I

don’t know a voice like that, not in the Abbey. If he’s smuggling in a

new boy, without no warning, to take the bread out of folks’ mouths, by

George, I won’t stand it! I’ll go to the Dean about it! Tommy’s cried

hisself hoarse. He couldn’t eat his breakfast, poor little beggar! and

he’s got ‘Hear my prayer’ this morning. Hanged if I don’t think it’s all

a scheme against me and my boy! That ain’t a child’s voice. There’s a

touch of falsetto in it, if I know anything about music. It won’t last,

not a month. I’ve heard them come out like that, that you could hear

them a mile off, just before they break.”

“Then you were there, Mr. Rowley?” said old Pick; “I thought there was

only the folks from the Deanery there.”

“I wasn’t there. Catch me in the Abbey when I’m not wanted! I have

enough of it, practising and bothering from morning till night. The

Signor’s very good for the organ. I don’t say nothing against that; but

he don’t know much about Englishmen. You do no justice to your voice

when you never give yourself no rest; but he can’t understand that. I

heard it outside. Pick, there’s a good old fellow, you know what it is

yourself, and I’m sure we’re always glad to see you when you look in at

our little place. Tell us what’s up--who is it? Tommy will have to go in

time. I don’t say nothing against that. But he’s not twelve, poor little

beggar, and his voice is as clear as a bell. He’s fit to fret himself

into a fever if they take the first solos from him. Tell us what the

Signor’s up to, and who he’s got coming in? I say it’s a shame,” said

the tenor, rising again into vehemence. “Them that is on the spot, and

belonging to the place, and bred up in the Abbey all their lives, hanged

if they should be turned out for strangers! I don’t see the fun of

that.”

“If you’ve done, Mr. Rowley, I think I’ll go,” said Pick; upon which

Rowley swore under his breath that it wasn’t like an old friend to give

a fellow no answer, and that he didn’t know what he and Tommy had done

to offend the Signor. To this old Pick made no reply, being himself

extremely indignant not to know anything about the mystery in question.

He had heard of no new boy--“nor anything as is new,” Pick said to

himself with warmth as he hurried through the enclosure which belonged

to the lay clerks, where a great many people were at the doors and

windows, and the excitement was general. It was natural that Pick should

be indignant. So little as there ever was to hear or report within the

Precincts, to think something should have happened under his very nose,

in the Abbey, and he not know! The Signor was a good master, and the

place was comfortable; but there are things which no man can be expected

to stand. Even Mr. John had not said a word about any novelty. If he had

told his mother, then the housekeeper had been as treacherous as the

rest, and had not breathed a word to Pick. It was a thing that no man

could be expected to put up with. Here were two ladies now bearing down

upon him, full of curiosity--and that Pick should have to confess that

he didn’t know!

“Oh, Pickering! you must know--who was it that was singing in the Abbey

last night? A very extraordinary thing for the Signor to countenance. He

did not ask _us_; he knew it would be of no use, for neither my husband

nor I approve of such proceedings; making the Abbey, our beautiful

Abbey, into a kind of music-hall! I hear it was a lady: the very worst

taste, and anything _so_ unecclesiastical! Women don’t _exist_ in the

Church--not as taking any part--but these are points which foreigners

never will understand,” said the lady, with a sigh.

“It was odd having such a performance at all, for a few privileged

persons. I thought the Abbey, at least,” said the second lady, “was for

all.”

“Don’t go, Pickering; you haven’t answered my question. If I were you,

being a man of experience, and having known the Abbey so long as you

have done, I would give a hint to your master. You should tell him

people here don’t like that sort of thing. It may do very well abroad,

or even in town, where there are all sorts; but it does not do in St.

Michael’s. You should tell him, especially as he is only half English,

to be more careful. Stop a little, Pickering! You have not answered my

question yet.”

“Beg your pardon, ma’am, but you didn’t give me no time,” said Pick.

“Do not be impertinent, Pickering. I asked you a plain question, and I

told you what I should do in your place. A man like you, that has been

so long about the Abbey, might be of great use to your master. You

should tell him that in England a lady is never suffered to open her

mouth in church. I never heard of anything so unecclesiastical. I wonder

the Dean does not interfere--a man of good Church principles as he is,

and with so much at stake. I really wonder the Dean does not interfere.”

“Oh, the Dean!” said the other lady; “and as for Church principles----”

But just then there was a tremble in the air with the first movement of

the matin bells, and, without compromising his dignity or showing his

ignorance, old Pick made good his escape. He went home in anything but

an amiable state of mind, and went straight to the kitchen, where Mrs.

Purcell was busy, as was natural at this time of the day, putting all in

order and arranging for the Signor’s dinner. The luncheon Mary Anne was

quite equal to, but some one was coming to dinner, for whom Mrs. Purcell

intended to exercise all her powers. Pick went in with a fierce glow of

indignant animation, with his roll of commissions fulfilled and

unfulfilled.

“There’s no sweetbreads to be had,” he said, “till Saturday; they’ll

save you a pair on Saturday, if you send the order with the man when he

comes; but they’ll be six-and-six, if you think that too dear. (Dear! I

should think it was dear. How much o’ that goes to the veal, I wonder,

and the man as fed it?) And as for game! you might as well go a-shooting

on the Slopes; and what there is bringing its weight in gold. I wouldn’t

give in, if I was you, to that fashion about grouse. It’s all a fashion.

Nobody ever thought of grouse in my young days, and coming after they’ve

eat everything as they can set their face to. What should they want with

it? I’ve brought you the lemons. Many a man wouldn’t be seen carrying a

bag o’ lemons all the way up the hill; and everything’s kep’ from me,

just because I’m too humble-minded, and don’t make no stand, nor mind

what I do.”

“What’s been kep’ from you, Pick?” said Mrs. Purcell, pausing in her

work to look at him. Then she added, “There’s been a deal of talking in

the study. I’ve picked up a word or two about some woman, for they were

going on about She; and She--but whether it’s that Miss Despard, or who

it is, John’s never said a word to me.”

“It don’t need a witch to tell that it’s a woman,” said Pick; but he was

relieved. “That fellow Rowley’s been at me, and one of the ladies round

the corner; but they both had so much to say that I got off, and neither

the one nor the other found out as I hadn’t a notion what they were

talking about,” the old man added, with a chuckle. “It’s some new voice,

as far as I can make out, as master has got hold of for the Abbey: and

quite right too. Tommy Rowley’s got a pretty little bit of a voice, and

he’s only twelve; but some voices goes sooner than others. The ladies

thought as it was a woman; but that’s impossible. They were quite in a

way. They said it was uneck--some thin’ or other--Dissenting-like, as I

took it up--and that the Signor ought to be ashamed of hisself----”

“Master?” said Mrs. Purcell, opening her eyes wide; “but I hope you

didn’t stand there and hear them say any harm of the Signor?”

“They told me as I was to give him good advice,” said Pick, still

chuckling; “but all the same, ma’am, I don’t think as Mr. John should

keep a thing from his mother. Where’s the young man as owes as much to

his mother as that young man owes to you?”

“Not to me, to his own deservings; he’s been a lad that has done credit

to everyone as has been kind to him, Pick, and never forgets nobody as

has been kind to him; but he’s not the young man he was. He’s lost all

his smiles and his fun since he had that disappointment. I don’t wish

Miss Despard no harm, but I wish she had been a hundred miles from here,

and my John had never seen her. Young women have a great deal to answer

for,” said Mrs. Purcell, with a sigh.

“Young women haven’t much to answer for, so far as I’m concerned; nor

master neither, so far as I can see,” said Pick, going off to his work

with a comfortable consciousness that, this being the case, it did not

matter so much about Mr. John.

But, if the community was thus stirred in general, words cannot tell the

excitement that this strange incident created in the organ-loft. The

Signor told Purcell after, that he could not tell what it was that made

him go on when he had come to an end of the “Pastoral Symphony,” and

play “There were Shepherds.” He had not meant to do it. He had intended

to make the other the finale of his performance. There was such a

feeling of night in it, the Signor said, the grass growing in the dark,

and the stars shining, and the dew coming down. He meant to end there;

he knew Mr. Ridsdale was a modern man and an opera man, and did not care

so very much for Handel. Still he had meant to end with that; but when

it came to the last chords he was not his own master, and he went on. As

for Purcell, there was no need for anyone to tell him whose that voice

was. Though he was at the moment helping to “blow,” he nearly

compromised the whole performance by darting to the other side of the

organ-loft and gazing down into the darkness to see her. Happily the

other man who was there, the professional blower, was taken by no such

vagaries and kept on steadily. “And I saw her,” Purcell said, “standing

in the moonlight with all the colours of the rainbow about her, like the

nimbus round the heads in Mr. Clayton’s new window.” The young fellow

was quite struck by this sight. He thought it must mean something: he

thought even she must be relenting towards himself, and had taken this

strange way of showing it. The Signor was greatly moved too, but he did

not take that view of the subject. He was a true artist himself, and he

knew that there are impulses which get the better of people who are of

this race. He patted his assistant on the arm, and told him not to build

on it. But what then could it mean? young Purcell said; and it was

difficult to answer. They both of them came down from their lofty

gallery afterwards in great excitement, and the Signor, confused,

received the enthusiastic thanks of his audience. “What a pleasure you

have given us!” they said; “you have been better than your word. What

exquisite playing, and what an exquisite voice! You don’t mean to say

that was a boy, Signor?”--They asked the question, but they all

believed, of course, that it was a boy. To think that little Rowley,

because it was dark and nobody saw him, should have been able to sing

like that! No one suspected the truth except Rollo Ridsdale, who came up

to the musician in the dark nave and gripped him by the arm, so that he

hurt the sensitive Italian-Englishman, whose nerves were all on the

surface. “Did you do it on purpose?” Rollo cried, excited too--“I shall

give up the opera and take to oratorios--did you do it on purpose?” “Did

_you_ do it on purpose?” said the Signor, who up to this moment had

supposed in his excitement that Ridsdale’s coming must have had

something to do with it. But after that question, which Rollo did not

distinctly hear, the Signor changed his tone and hid his own

astonishment, and accepted the applauses addressed to him on the

admirable device by which he had given his hearers a double pleasure.

And Purcell and he went home with their heads full of a hundred

conjectures. Who had brought her in? how did she know of it even? Old

Wykeham had kept his own counsel--he did not know whether he might not

be supposed to have taken too much upon him had it been known; and,

though he heard the two musicians talking of this miracle, he threw no

light upon it, which he might have done so easily. Who could have told

her? who could have brought her in? Purcell could not but think that her

coming was a sign of relenting, that she was thus making a kind of

celestial intimation that all was not over. This raised him into a very

ecstasy of hope.

The Signor had other thoughts. He thought of nothing else all night; the

sympathy and comprehension of an artist filling his mind and driving

away the almost dislike with which, after her rejection of his

_protégé_, he had been disposed to regard Lottie. Whatever might happen

to Purcell, here was something which had never happened to himself in

his life before. No doubt it had been a sudden impulse, like that which

had made her fly trembling and pale with excitement, from himself and

them all, in the drawing-room of the Deanery. This time the impulse had

been the other way, and she had obeyed it. He had subjugated her by

waiting her time, and, by what was much more pleasant to think of, the

spell of his music, which had gone to her heart. Let it not be supposed

that any sentiment about Lottie had begun to creep into the Signor’s

heart. Young women, as Pick said, had little to answer for as far as he

was concerned. He was all artist and not much else; but, with a glow

through his being which answered, let us suppose, to the high throb of

satisfaction which goes through persons who talk about their hearts, he

said to himself, “She shall not escape me this time!” He knew more of

Lottie than Rollo Ridsdale did. And he knew that he could make more of

her than Rollo could make of her. He could make of her much more than

was dreamed of in Rollo’s philosophy. He knew what she needed, and he

could give it to her. In his hands, the Signor thought, this simple

English girl might rise to the level of the Malibrans, of the Pastas.

There should be no one able to stand before her.

It is to be feared he was thinking of this more than of the music as he

played through King in F, which was the service for that morning. And he

left Purcell to play the voluntary and stole out unobserved, though it

was indecorous, before the congregation had dispersed. He threaded

through the dim aisles and the cloisters, before Wykeham had time to

call attention to him by hobbling after him with his jangling keys. He,

like Lottie, had resolved to give himself no time to think of it, to do

it at once. Ridsdale!--What a vain fool he was, talking about giving up

opera and taking to oratorios! What could he do with her, if he had got

her? His manager had rejected Lottie, and gone off after that voice at

Milan. What fools they all were! and what would be the advantage to

Ridsdale of having this voice untrained on his hands? What could he do

with her? but there was nothing she might not do under the guidance of

the Signor.

It was still early when he reached the little house: Lottie had not

attempted to go out this morning to see the Signor, she was too much

shaken by her escapade of last night. How could she have done it? She,

who had loathed the idea of becoming a singer! She had made a singer of

herself by her own act and deed, and she felt the full meaning of what

she had done. She had got up early, unable in her excitement to sleep,

and tingling still with the consequences of this strange,

unpremeditated, unintended self-betrayal. What was it that had made her

do it? She had got her work, and she had placed herself near the

window--not so near as to be seen, yet near enough to be able to glance

out and see anyone who might be coming that way. There were things to be

done in the house, domestic operations of more importance than the

needlework. But Lottie said to herself that they could wait--oh, they

could wait! In the meantime what was best was, that she should be ready

in case anyone called, ready to see anybody that might come over the

road across the sunshine, in the morning quiet. “Good night; but only

till to-morrow”--what was it that had conveyed to her the consciousness

that he was there? The Abbey had been dark--she had not been thinking of

him--certainly she had not known that he was looked for; and yet, what

but the sense that he was there would have made her do what she had

done? She had sung unwillingly, unwittingly, in spite of herself,

because he was there. It all seemed quite plain to Lottie. He it was

(she thought) who had first made her aware that this gift of hers was

anything worth thinking of; he it was who had first given her the

supreme pleasure of consciousness, who had shown to her the happiness

she could bestow. Her voice (as she thought), if after all it was really

worth anything, if it was the thing he thought it, the thing it sounded

like last night--belonged to him. It was his spiritually; he had

discovered it, and revealed it to herself. She had not been aware what

she was doing; but unconsciously it was to him she was singing, when her

voice escaped from her: it was a welcome to him--and he had accepted it

as his welcome. Lottie gave a glance from her window, and thought she

saw some one coming across the broad sunshine in the Dean’s Walk. Her

heart gave a louder beat--_he_ was coming. She made no mystery now about

it; the preliminaries were all over. He came for her--who else? he had

never concealed it; he had come for her long ago. She could not tell how

long ago it was since he had first caught a glimpse of her at the

window. Always since then it had been for her that he came: content at

first to watch outside her window; then, with a lover’s ingenuity,

finding out ways of meeting her; then venturing, bold yet timid, always

reverential, to her home--and now at length what was coming? He was

coming. And she had withdrawn the veil from her heart, and seen and

acknowledged what was there. It was for him she sang: without knowing

it, her heart had been aware of his presence; and now he was coming.

Lottie drew back in the shade of the great leaves which garlanded her

window. The next moment he would be here----

But it was only the Signor.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE FOOL’S PARADISE.

The Signor came in with some suppressed excitement about him, which he

concealed under an air of perfect calm, but which betrayed itself in the

gleam of his eyes and the rapidity of his movements. He saw in a moment

that he had bitterly disappointed Lottie, whose countenance changed as

she saw him--changed from glowing expectation to that sudden pallor and

sickness of departing hope which seems to carry all the life out of a

face. He saw it, and he understood; he had the quickness of perception

which belonged to his Italian origin, and he had, as we have said, a

great deal that was feminine in him--this among the rest, that he could

divine and read the meanings of a face. He saw at once what it was. She

had expected, not him, but another. The Signor was very sorry for

Lottie. He had been angry, almost spitefully angry, about her rejection

of his favourite pupil; but she had made her peace with him last night,

and all her offences had been condoned. He was very sorry for her. She

had been looking for Ridsdale, and Ridsdale had not come. The Signor

felt that he himself was a much safer and better visitor for her; but,

all the same, he was sorry for Lottie. He bowed with a depth of respect,

which, indeed, he showed to all ladies. He was more of an Italian than

an Englishman in this point; he was always ceremonious and stately to

women, bowing to the ground, taking the hand offered to him

reverentially, as if he meant to kiss it. This ceremony gave Lottie a

little time to recover herself, and after all it was very early. The

voluntary was still sounding from the Abbey (how had the Signor got away

so soon?), and though _he_ had not appeared yet, that was not to say

that he was not coming. She took her seat again, with the colour coming

back.

“I do not know how to speak to you,” he said; “how to thank you for last

night----”

“Oh! so long as you do not think me very presumptuous--very bold.

I--could not help it. It was the music that went to my head,” said

Lottie, very tremulous, giving a hasty glance at him and then turning

her head away.

“It is just because the music goes to your head that I have such high

hopes--Miss Despard,” said the Signor; “let bygones be bygones, won’t

you? and let us be friends.”

“We never quarrelled that I know of,” said Lottie, slightly alarmed;

and, for his part, the Signor was confused, thinking of Purcell, of

whose misadventure he had, of course, no right to know.

“You were not pleased with me,” he said. “I did not worship your voice

as some people do. I told you plainly that you wanted instruction. So

you do still. Your voice is lovely, Miss Despard, and you have the soul

of an artist. You can forget yourself. Little singers never forget

themselves; they are always in the foreground, seeing their own

personality everywhere; but it is very different with you.”

Lottie did not say anything in reply. She felt vaguely that he was

giving her praise, but she did not mind. Was that someone coming in

below? but it was only Captain Despard returning in after matins. The

Signor, always so quick, felt again the flutter in her, and knew what

her expectation was.

“You were once very angry with me for making a--an application to you.

You thought I meant to be disrespectful? Ah, no. I could not fail of

respect to a lady, Miss Despard; but I saw in you what I see still more

clearly now.”

“Signor!” said Lottie, rousing herself up to seize the opportunity, with

a bewildered feeling that it was right to do it, that if she did not do

it now, she never might; and, finally, that to do it might propitiate

fate and make it unnecessary to be done--“Signor--let me tell you first.

I went to the Abbey yesterday on purpose to see you, to say to you----

ah, here is some one coming to interrupt us.”

“Yes, there is some one coming to interrupt us,” cried the Signor

almost bitterly; this time there could be no doubt who it was; “but

first, one word before he comes. You were coming to tell me that you

consented--that you would be my pupil?”

She could scarcely pay any attention to him, he saw. What a thing to

think of, that a girl like this, a woman with genius, should let an

empty-headed coxcomb come between her and all that was worth caring for,

between her and Art! She gave him a confused, half-guilty look, which

seemed like a confession of weakness, and nodded only in reply. Nodded!

when a proposal was made to her such as the Muse might have made to her

chief favourite, when the gates of the Palace of Art were being rolled

open wide to admit her. In that moment, Lottie, all pre-occupied by the

advent of a mere man of fashion, in music not more than a charlatan, in

honour not much to brag of, gave her consent to the arrangement which

was to fashion her life by--a nod. Heaven and earth! what a

demonstration of female folly! Could the Signor be anything but vexed?

He could hardly restrain his impatience, as Rollo came in, all eager and

smiling, easy and cordial even to himself. The Signor, though he was as

innocent of sentiment as old Pick, looked like nothing in the world so

much as a scared, jealous, and despairing lover, watching, in spite of

himself, the entrance of the conquering hero, for whom all the songs

were sung and all the welcomes said.

“I might have known I should find Rossinetti here,” said Rollo, “as he

is an earlier bird than I am. Where could we all flock this morning but

here? You have been thanking Miss Despard for her divine singing last

night. My life, what singing it was! I have never heard anything like

it. Miss Despard, I have come to announce to you my conversion. I abjure

opera as I abjure the pope. Henceforward Handel is my creed--so long as

you are his interpreter,” he added, sinking his voice.

“Yes,” said the Signor. “Miss Despard will sing very well if she works;

but we are far yet from the highest excellence of which such a voice as

hers is capable. I will take my leave now. Perhaps you have a friend who

would bring you to my house? that would be the best. No doubt I could

come here; but if you will come to my house, my piano is a very good

one, and that would be the best. Don’t think it is anything to be

remarked; my pupils constantly do it. They bring a maid with them, or,

if it is needful, I send for Mrs.----, for my housekeeper. My young

ladies are most unflatteringly at their ease with me.”

“You are going to take lessons?” Rollo asked quickly. “I congratulate

you, Rossinetti. My good fellow, you are a great genius, and I know very

little, but I never was so envious of you before. All the same you know

lessons are--teaching is--well, we must admit, not much more than a

pretence in the present case. The habit of singing, that is all Miss

Despard wants.”

“You must pardon me that I don’t agree with you,” the Signor said,

somewhat stiffly. “Miss Despard does not want flattery from me. She will

get plenty of that by and by; but she does want teaching, _senza

complimenti_, and that she shall have if she will take it. It rests with

her whether or not she will take it. If she does take it as I would have

her do--then,” said the Signor, with a gleam in his eyes of suppressed

enthusiasm, “then I flatter myself----”

Rollo was provoked. Though he was very sweet-tempered, he did not like

to be crowed over in this way, and his pleasant hyperbole flattened out;

besides, there is something in the presence of a young woman which makes

men, ever so slightly pitted against each other, pugnacious. He laughed.

“I see,” he said, “you won’t flatter Miss Despard, Rossinetti, but you

flatter yourself.”

“I will send you word about hours,” said the Signor hastily. “I beg your

pardon, I did not quite catch your last observation. Good morning, Miss

Despard. To-morrow or after to-morrow I shall hope to begin.”

“Good-bye, for the moment; we shall meet later,” said Rollo, with a

smile and a nod, turning to open the door for his--not rival certainly,

but competitor. He opened the door and closed it behind the Signor with

quite unnecessary attention, his face full of suppressed laughter and

malicious satisfaction. Rollo felt that he remained master of the field.

He came back to where Lottie, agitated and happy, was sitting, rubbing

his hands with triumph. “The Signor is an excellent musician, but he is

a prig, Miss Despard, if you will permit the word; and now that we have

got rid of him,” said Rollo, dropping into that other seat beside her,

“let me say----”

What did he say? Lottie remembered most of the words for years and

years. When she heard the sound of them again in other conversations, in

sentences that had no relation to her, from other people, and even

addressed to other people, she would hold her breath. Foolish girl! they

were well-worn words, such as perhaps every woman possessing such a

gift, or even a much smaller gift than Lottie’s, has heard to weariness;

but the most common approbation, which afterwards becomes the mere

accompaniment and petty murmur of existence, one time in one’s life is

divine--as he told her her voice was, as he let her infer she too was,

and everything about her. Lottie was not used to anything like flattery.

Even in the best of circumstances, fathers and brothers are seldom

enthusiastic; and kind Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, though she had given her

countenance to Rowley’s lessons, did not in the least conceal that she

was bored by them; and the tenor was a great deal too much occupied with

his own voice, and the compliments that had been paid to him, to leave

him much time for complimenting his pupil. It was true that the Signor’s

wish to teach her was of itself the essence of flattery; but he never

had given her any credit for her singing, and always had seen the faults

of it. So that it was Rollo who had first revealed to her that heaven of

praise which is so doubly sweet to the neophyte when it is supposed to

be not her excellence, but his love, which inspires it. Lottie had no

defence against the enthusiasm, the admiration, the rhapsodies of her

companion. If they were excessive, that was not because he was failing

in truth, but only abounding in love. So she thought. The very

atmosphere around her turned into happiness. Her eyes were dazzled with

it. She could not look at him nor lift her face except in momentary

sudden glances, so much was the air full of this suffused, subdued, but

penetrating glory. And, strangely enough, though he did not feel half so

much as she supposed him to feel, Rollo himself was moved by this

something in the air which rayed out from her exquisite dawn of bliss

and of love. He said naturally a great deal more than he intended--and,

what was more wonderful, he felt a great deal more than he could have

supposed possible--and without the least purpose or thought, dropped

moment by moment deeper and deeper into that curious kind of rapture

which is tolerably expressed by the phrase, falling in love. Reason had

nothing to do with it, nor intention; and he had not come here driven

by a passion which was more strong than he was, as Lottie thought. But,

nevertheless, whether it was the magnetic influence of that sentiment in

her which he had called forth without knowing it, and which now touched

him with sympathetic life: or the more commonplace result of her beauty,

and of their close propinquity, and her loneliness, and the generous

impulse of protection and kindness that was in him: certain it is that

all Lottie’s ideas of him realised themselves in the young man’s mind in

the most miraculous way. He had always been, all his friends knew,

ridiculously sympathetic all his life. Never before had it taken this

precise form; but then, never before had Rollo met with the same

combination of circumstances. He had flirted with a great many people,

and foolish girls, who were not prudent enough to remember his younger

brotherhood and impecunious position, had liked his company and been

very willing to roam along the first beginnings of the primrose path by

his side; but nothing more than the lightest exchanges of sentiment had

ever come to pass. And then he had believed of several women that they

were “making a set” at him, and desiring to “catch” him. No degree of

younger brotherhood, no amount of impecuniosity, will prevent a man from

thinking that some woman or other is trying to “catch” him; but never in

all his life had Rollo come across a creature like Lottie, simply,

solemnly, gratefully convinced that he was in love with her. Lottie had

not been in love with him when she thought she found this out. But her

certainty as to _his_ sentiments had been absolute. And now this

certainty was realising itself. It was a very different thing from the

love which points directly and, as a matter of course, to the natural

conclusion. He thought of nothing of the kind. He did not choose her out

of all the world, as Lottie thought. But it came to very much the same

thing as they sat together, talking about everything, dropping into

mutual confidences, wasting the sweet autumnal morning. Lottie knew that

all her domestic businesses were waiting for her, but did not care. And

Rollo knew that, if he were questioned as to where he had been, he would

have to invent an explanation other than the true one. But what did this

matter? They sat and talked, forgetting even music, which was the one

thing hitherto which had occupied them when together. He did not ask her

to sing to him, which was a thing which made Lottie very happy,

notwithstanding that it was his admiration of her voice only which had

made her recognise and be glad of that possession. She had sung for him

gladly, but now she was more pleased not to be asked to sing. What did

they want with music? It would be hard to describe how well they came to

know each other during that long morning’s talk. He told her about

himself, and she told him about herself, and thus they skimmed over

very dangerous ground as to the beginning of their own acquaintance.

Lottie, with a girl’s shrinking from premature avowal, hurried over that

point lest he might perhaps tell her how he had seen her, and dreamed of

her, long before he dared claim acquaintance. Poor Lottie! but for that

fond delusion she might have heard the real cause of his first eagerness

to make her acquaintance, and been disenchanted. But what would it have

mattered? By this time, things had gone too far to make it an advantage

to her now to be undeceived.

This was the beginning of the time which was the crown and flower of

life to Lottie Despard. Deceived, and yet not deceived; creating really

the sentiment which she believed in, yet not as she believed it: she

herself all simple and trustful, impassioned in everything she

undertook, then and there, to the last fibre of her being, gave her

heart to Rollo Ridsdale--loved him, believing herself as fully justified

as ever woman was, by the possession of his love, to bestow her own; and

bestowing it purely, freely, without doubt or _arrière pensée_. His rank

and the pleasure of thinking that some one out of the world above her,

the world which she aspired to, and felt herself to belong to, was

seeking her, had dazzled Lottie at the first;--but by this time it did

not matter to her who or what Rollo was. Sometimes even, she thought

that she would prefer him to be more on her own level: then stopped and

reproved herself proudly for wanting to take anything from him who

deserved everything. His position as a patrician, his supposed wealth

(how was Lottie to know that such a man, possessing everything, could be

just as poor, and perhaps not much more honourable in respect to debt

and such matters, than her father?), the grace and nobleness of all his

surroundings, were part of his nature, she thought in her simplicity. To

shut him up in small rooms, confine him to the limited horizon of common

life, and its poor little routine of duties, would be to take something

from Rollo; and she did not want to take anything from him, rather to

add any honour and glory that might be wanting. She did not know how

long or how short a time they had been together on that wonderful

morning before they first began to talk (as Lottie said) like friends.

It lasted no more than a moment, and yet it was a new life all luminous

and great, throwing the twenty years of the other life which had

preceded it, entirely into shade. She had to stand still to steady

herself and accustom her eyes to the ordinary atmosphere when he went

away. Everything was changed. Her head went round. She did not know how

to go downstairs (too late, much too late!) and look after the household

matters which she had postponed; and when she did go to them, went

hazily like one in a dream. What a change had come upon life! Yesterday,

even Rollo was no more than a distant vision of possibilities to her;

now she seemed to know him thoroughly, to know all about him; to feel

that she could tell him whatever might happen, that it would be natural

to confide everything to him--everything! her heart threw wide open its

doors. She did not think even that he might wonder to find himself so

entirely received into her life. Lottie had none of the experience which

the most ordinary encounter with the world, which even ballroom tattle

and the foolish commerce of flirtations give. She came to this first

chapter, all innocent and original in heart and thought, with the

frankness as well as the timidity of a nature unalarmed and (in this

kind) knowing no evil. Love was to her an angel, the first of the

angels--inspiring awe, but no terror. She went to her work feeling as if

she walked to some noble strain of music. Nothing could irritate her,

nothing put her out.

That evening Lottie went out upon the Slopes in the dusk to breathe the

evening air and give herself that fresher, sweeter medium for her

dreams. Law was out, the Captain was out as usual; and the little house

was very still with only Mary in the kitchen (for most of her time

hanging about the back entrance looking for the baker), and Lottie

upstairs. Somehow to-night Lottie did not wait for Captain Temple, who

had constituted himself her escort, but as soon as it began to be really

evening stole out by herself and made her way quickly up the Dean’s

Walk, not anxious to join anyone. She wanted to be alone for her

thoughts. It was not that the slightest idea of meeting Rollo entered

into her mind--how should it? The dinners at the Deanery were not like

the afternoon meal in the Chevaliers’ lodges, out of which all the

inhabitants streamed as soon as that was over, to get the good of the

summer night. Summer--for, though it was beginning to be autumn, it was

still summer--warm, soft, delicious evenings with so much dusk in them,

and misty sweetness. Lottie wanted nothing at that moment of dreamy

happiness but silence and her own thoughts; more, however, was in store

for her. The Deanery dinner was a family dinner that evening, and while

the Dean read the evening paper, and Lady Caroline put up her feet on

the sofa, what was a young man to do? He said he would go over to the

Signor’s and talk music and smoke a cigar; and the elder people, though

they were fond of Rollo, were not sorry to be rid of him. He wanted,

perhaps, to enjoy his triumph over the Signor, or to find out what his

plans were and expectations of Lottie’s voice; or, perhaps, only he

wanted a little variety, feeling the company of his venerated relations

too much pleasure. But, though he was not so full of dreams as Lottie,

something of the same charmed mood was in his mind. And when caprice

made him take the turn up to the Slopes also, instead of going the other

way through the Cloisters to the musician’s house--and when the two

caught sight of each other, they both started with genuine surprise, and

there was on Lottie’s side even a little alarm. She was too shy to beg

him in so many words to go away, but it was only the want of courage

which kept her from saying so. It was too much; it did not seem right to

meet him again; but then Lottie reflected that to the merest

acquaintance she was bound to be polite. Mr. Ridsdale had the same

thought. He was unfeignedly delighted to see her, finding this way of

escape from all possibility of dulness much more complete than he

thought; but yet he felt that perhaps a second encounter so soon, and in

a place open to all eyes, might be dangerous; notwithstanding, what

could a man do? He was bound to be civil. He could not run away from a

lady when he met her, simply because he admired her--a reason, on the

contrary, to keep him by her side. So they took a stroll together, this

way and that way, from one end to the other: it was not a very long way.

He told her that he was going to the Signor’s, and she accepted the

explanation very demurely, notwithstanding the fact that the Signor

lived on the lower side of the Deanery and this was on the upper side;

and she told him that she had only just come out, having missed Captain

Temple, who would appear presently:--“He is my usual companion--he is

very old, the oldest of all the Chevaliers--and he is very, very kind to

me.” Each accepted what the other thus said with a kind of solemnity;

and they made two turns up and down, stopping now and then to look out

upon the plain so broad and blue, with the soft autumn mists hanging on

the horizon. “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,” Rollo said; and

they stood still and gazed, following the river in its silvery windings,

and silent as if their minds were absorbed in these atmospheric

influences and that dusky bridal of the earth and sky. When Captain

Temple came up Rollo asked to be introduced to him, and was very civil.

“Miss Despard has been waiting for you, and I have kept her company,” he

said, so that the old Captain thanked him civilly, if a little stiffly;

and then the two turned their backs upon each other, Rollo hastening

down to the Cloisters to keep, as he said, his appointment, and Lottie

turning away without so much as a parting glance, without shaking hands.

Captain Temple, alarmed at first, took heart, and thought it was nothing

but politeness when he saw how they parted. “You were quite right, my

dear, quite right to wait, and I am much obliged to Mr. Ridsdale; I

cannot think how I missed you.” Lottie did not make a direct reply, but

compelled herself to talk, and very demurely, with much praise of the

lovely night, went with him home.

If Captain Temple had but known! And after this how many meetings there

were, so happily accidental, so easily explainable, and yet requiring no

such explanation! How well they began to know each other’s habits and

each other’s likings; and how sweet were all the dewy misty paths in

that fool’s paradise! or on the Slopes, if you prefer it; it does not

matter much about a name.

CHAPTER XXVII.

A TERRIBLE INTERRUPTION.

While the time went on in this dream for Lottie it did not stand still

with the rest of the world. Her absorption in her own affairs, which for

the moment had become complete, and withdrew her thoughts from much that

had previously occupied them, was very agreeable to her father and

brother. Lottie had exercised no control that she was aware of upon her

father; but now that her keen eyes were veiled with dreams, and her mind

abstracted from what was going on round her, it is inconceivable how

much more free and at his ease the Captain felt. He had a jauntier air

than ever, when he walked down into the town after he was released from

matins; and he came in later at night. Captain Despard’s doings at this

time were much talked of in the lodges. He had never been approved by

his brother Chevaliers. The old gentlemen felt that this younger man,

with his jauntiness and his love of pleasure, was no credit to them; and

if the gossip was true about his intentions, some of them thought that

something ought to be done. The ladies were still more indignant. They

were threatened in their dignity more than their husbands were. An

officer was an officer, whatever happened; but if this man, who was in

himself so objectionable, should bring in a dressmaker girl among them,

it was the Chevaliers’ wives who would be the sufferers. The gentlemen

thought vaguely that something should be done; but the ladies were for

carrying it to Parliament, or to the Queen herself. Was there not some

old statute forbidding a Chevalier to marry? If there was not, there

ought to be, Mrs. O’Shaughnessy said, with a twinkle in her eye. There

was nobody, indeed, so much aggrieved as Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, who lived

next door, and was already intimate with the family; and though there

were times when she made a joke of it, there were also times when she

was ready to go to the Queen on the subject.

“If there isn’t a law there ought to be one!” Mrs. O’Shaughnessy

declared. “What do they want with wives at their age, if they haven’t

got ’em already? D’ye think I’d like to hear of me Major with a second,

and me not cold in my grave?”

It was suggested that the Chevaliers should “speak to” this dangerous

member of their corporation; but the old gentlemen, it was found, did

not care to undertake this. Who would do it? There was not one of them

who could use the privilege of friendship with this flighty, dissipated

fellow, who was young at fifty to the other veterans; and they had not

the same confidence in the efficacy of “speaking to” a culprit which

the ladies had.

So the little world within the Precincts looked on in great

perturbation, sorry for Lottie, but still more sorry for themselves,

whose credit was threatened by this danger. And jauntier and jauntier

grew the Captain. He wore his hat more and more over his left ear--he

got a new tie, louder and brighter than any that had ever been seen in

the Precincts. His new suit was of a larger stripe. Altogether, things

were ripening for some new event. Something was going to happen;

everybody felt it, in the air, in the heaviness of the autumn weather.

Lottie’s proceedings, which might otherwise have given much anxiety to

the community, were veiled by the interest attaching to her father’s;

which, indeed, was well for Lottie, who was not at all times quite aware

what she was doing, or where her steps were tending, as she walked and

wandered--not in her sleep, but in her dreams.

There was another who took advantage of Lottie’s abstraction, and that

was Law. He had begun by going quite regularly to Mr. Ashford,

“reading,” as it was called, with the Minor Canon, whom he liked, and

who was kind to him, and sharing the instructions which were being given

to young Uxbridge, the son of the Canon. For a little while there had

been gloom and consternation in this young man’s home because of Law. He

was not a companion for her boy, Mrs. Uxbridge thought; but when this

was suggested to the Minor Canon he smiled so grimly, and answered with

such uncompromising brutality, that, of course, he could have no

possible objections to young Mr. Uxbridge’s removal, that the mother

nearly fainted, and Mr. Uxbridge himself, a large and stately person,

had to stammer forth an apology. There was a dangerous gleam in

Ashford’s eye, enough to appal the Chapter, notwithstanding his

inferiority to them, and there was nothing for it but to let him have

his way. And for a week or two Law was exemplary--he allowed that for

the first time in his life he could feel he was getting on; he became

what he called “thick” with Uxbridge, who took him out boating and

cricketing; and so far all went well. But when Lottie’s vigilance all at

once relaxed--when she began to steal out herself, and come in with her

eyes all dazzled and dreamy, often not knowing when she was spoken to,

taking so much less heed than usual of other people’s proceedings, Law’s

industry began to flag. Sometimes he “shirked” altogether; very often he

never looked at his books, except under Mr. Ashford’s eye. He made

Uxbridge idle too, who was but too much disposed to take a bad example.

Uxbridge had a boat of his own, and they went on the river for days

together. Sometimes a cricket match ended in a dinner, to which Law

would be invited with his friend. He got into better company, but it is

doubtful whether this was much to the advantage of his morals, and it

certainly was not at all to the advantage of his studies. The Minor

Canon remonstrated, and Lottie would now and then wake up and make an

appeal to him.