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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Hildegarde's Home, by Laura E. Richards
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Hildegarde's Home
+
+Author: Laura E. Richards
+
+Illustrator: F. T. Merrill
+
+Release Date: November 6, 2010 [EBook #34218]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HILDEGARDE'S HOME ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HILDEGARDE'S HOME
+
+[Illustration: HILDEGARDE AND THE CHINA POTS.--_Frontispiece._]
+
+
+
+
+HILDEGARDE'S HOME
+
+BY
+
+LAURA E. RICHARDS
+
+AUTHOR OF "QUEEN HILDEGARDE," "HILDEGARDE'S HOLIDAY," "CAPTAIN JANUARY,"
+ETC.
+
+ILLUSTRATED
+
+          BOSTON
+          ESTES AND LAURIAT
+          PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+          COPYRIGHT, 1892,
+          BY ESTES AND LAURIAT.
+          TYPOGRAPHY BY J. S. CUSHING & CO., BOSTON.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+          CHAPTER                         PAGE
+             I. THE HOME ITSELF             11
+            II. A DISH OF GOSSIP            33
+           III. MORNING HOURS               51
+            IV. A WALK AND AN ADVENTURE     71
+             V. UNCLE AND NEPHEW           100
+            VI. COUSIN JACK                120
+           VII. MISS AGATHA'S CABINET      137
+          VIII. THE POPLARS                155
+            IX. THE COUSINS                179
+             X. BONNY SIR HUGH             198
+            XI. A CALL AND A CONSPIRACY    216
+           XII. THE SECOND ACT             234
+          XIII. A PICNIC                   255
+           XIV. OVER THE JAM-POTS          281
+            XV. AT THE BROWN COTTAGE       292
+           XVI. GOOD-BY!                   309
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+
+                                                           PAGE
+  HILDEGARDE AND THE CHINA POTS                   _Frontispiece_
+  "IT WAS VERY PLEASANT UP IN THIS AIRY BOWER"               81
+  "JACK FERRERS APPEARED CARRYING A HUGE BUNCH OF ROSES"    121
+  "HILDEGARDE HAD BEEN MAKING FRIENDS WITH MERLIN"          175
+  HILDEGARDE FINDING HUGH AND MERLIN BY THE BROOK           201
+  HUGH AND COLONEL FERRERS                                  249
+  OVER THE JAM POTS                                         280
+  "HE GAVE ME A LUNGE IN QUART"                             301
+
+
+
+
+HILDEGARDE'S HOME.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE HOME ITSELF.
+
+
+IT was a pleasant place. The house was a large, low, old-fashioned one,
+with the modern addition of a deep, wide verandah running across its
+front. Before it was a circular sweep of lawn, fringed with trees;
+beside it stood a few noble elms, which bent lovingly above the gambrel
+roof. There were some flower-beds, rather neglected-looking, under the
+south windows, and there was a kitchen-garden behind the house. This was
+all that Hildegarde Grahame had seen so far of her new home, for she had
+only just arrived. She stood now on the verandah, looking about her
+with keen, inquiring eyes, a tall, graceful girl, very erect, with a
+certain proud carriage of the head. Her dress of black and white
+shepherd's plaid was very simple, but it fitted to perfection, and there
+was a decided "air" to her little black felt hat.
+
+Hildegarde's father had died about six months before the time our story
+opens. He had been very wealthy, but many of his investments had shrunk
+in value, and the failure of a bank whose cashier had proved dishonest
+entailed heavy losses upon him; so that, after his death, it was found
+that the sum remaining for his widow and only child, after all debts
+were paid, was no very large one. They would have enough to live on, and
+to live comfortably; but the "big luxuries," as Hildegarde called them,
+the horses and carriages, the great New York house with its splendid
+furniture and troops of servants, must go; and go they did, without
+loss of time. Perhaps neither Hildegarde nor her mother regretted these
+things much. Mrs. Grahame had been for years an indefatigable worker,
+giving most of her time to charities; she knew that she should never
+rest so long as she lived in New York. Hildegarde had been much in the
+country during the past two years, had learned to love it greatly, and
+found city life too "cabined, cribbed, confined," to suit her present
+taste. The dear father had always preferred to live in town; but now
+that he was gone, they were both glad to go away from the great,
+bustling, noisy, splendid place. So, when Mrs. Grahame's lawyer told her
+that an aged relative, who had lately died, had left his country house
+as a legacy to her, both she and Hildegarde said at once, "Let us go and
+live there!"
+
+Accordingly, here they were! or to speak more accurately, here
+Hildegarde was, for she and auntie (auntie was the black cook; she had
+been Mrs. Grahame's nurse, and had been cook ever since Hildegarde was a
+baby) had come by an early train, and were to have everything as
+comfortable as might be by the time Mrs. Grahame and the little
+housemaid, who had stayed to help her pack the last trifles, should
+arrive in the afternoon.
+
+It was so pleasant on the wide verandah, with the great elms nodding
+over it, that Hildegarde lingered, until a mellow "Miss Hildy, chile!
+you comin'?" summoned her in-doors. Auntie had already put on her white
+jacket and apron, without which she never considered herself dressed,
+and her muslin turban looked like a snow-drift on an ebony statue. She
+had opened the door of a large room, and was peering into it, feather
+duster in hand.
+
+"'Spose this is the parlour!" she said, with a glance of keen
+observation. "Comicalest parlour ever I see!"
+
+Hildegarde stepped lightly across the threshold. It _was_ a singular
+room, but, she thought, a very pleasant one. The carpet on the floor was
+thick and soft, of some eastern fabric, but so faded that the colours
+were hardly distinguishable. Against the walls stood many chairs,
+delicate, spider-legged affairs, with cushions of faded tapestry. The
+curtains might once have been crimson, when they had any colour. A table
+in the exact centre of the room was covered with a worked cloth of
+curious and antique pattern, and on it were some venerable annuals, and
+"Finden's Tableaux," bound in green morocco. In a dim corner stood the
+great-grandmother of all pianos. It was hardly larger than a spinnet,
+and was made of some light-coloured, highly polished wood, cunningly
+inlaid with ivory and mother-of-pearl. Over the yellow keys was a
+painting, representing Apollo (attired, to all appearance, like the "old
+man on a hill," in his grandmother's gown), capering to the sound of his
+lyre, and followed by nine young ladies in pink and green frocks. The
+last young lady carried a parasol, showing that the Muses thought as
+much of their complexions as other people do. At sight of this venerable
+instrument Hildegarde uttered a cry of delight, and, running across the
+room, touched a few chords softly. The sound was faint and tinkling, but
+not unmusical. Auntie sniffed audibly.
+
+"Reckon my kittle makes a better music 'an that!" she said; and then,
+relenting, she added, "might ha' been pooty once, I dassay. That's a
+pooty picture, anyhow, over the mankel-piece."
+
+Hildegarde looked up, and saw a coloured print of a lady in the costume
+of the First Empire, with golden ringlets, large blue eyes,
+particularly round rosy cheeks, and the most amiable simper in the
+world. Beneath was the inscription, "Madame Recamier, Napoleon's first
+love."
+
+"Oh!" cried Hildegarde, half-laughing, half-indignant, "how ridiculous!
+She wasn't, you know! and she never looked like that, any more than I
+do. But see, auntie! see this great picture of General Washington, in
+his fine scarlet coat. I am sure you must admire that! Why!--it cannot
+be--yes, it is! it is done in worsted-work. Fine cross-stitch, every
+atom of it. Oh! it makes my eyes ache to think of it."
+
+Auntie nodded approvingly. "That's what I call work!" she said. "That's
+what young ladies used to do when I was a gal. Don't see no sech work
+nowadays, only just a passel o' flowers and crooked lines, and calls it
+embr'idery."
+
+"Oh! you ungrateful old auntie," cried Hildegarde, "when I marked your
+towels so beautifully last week. Here! since you are so fond of
+cross-stitch, take this dreadful yellow sofa-pillow, with pink roses
+worked on it. It will just fit your own beloved rocking-chair, with the
+creak in it, and you may have it for your very own."
+
+The pillow flew across the room, and auntie, catching it, disappeared
+with a chuckle, while Hildegarde resumed her examination of the quaint
+old parlour. The "cross-stitch" was everywhere: on the deep, comfortable
+old sofa, where one leaned against a stag-hunt, and had a huntsman
+blowing his horn on either arm; on the chairs, where one might sit on
+baskets of flowers, dishes of fruit, or cherubs' heads, as one's fancy
+dictated; on the long fender-stool, where an appalling line of dragons,
+faintly red, on a ground that had been blue, gaped open-mouthed, as if
+waiting to catch an unwary foot.
+
+"Oh! their _poor_ eyes!" cried Hildegarde. "How _could_ their mothers
+let them?" She passed her hand compassionately over the fine lines of
+the stag-hunt. "Were they girls, do you suppose?" she went on, talking
+to herself, as she was fond of doing. "Girls like me, or slender old
+spinsters, like the chairs and the piano? Mamma must have known some of
+them when she was a child; she said she had once made a visit here. I
+must ask her all about them. Uncle Aytoun! what a pity he isn't alive,
+to show us about his house! But if he were alive, we should not be here
+at all. So nice of you to leave the house to mamma, dear sir, just as if
+you had been her real uncle, instead of her father's cousin. You must
+have been a very nice old gentleman. I like old gentlemen." The girl
+paused, and presently gave an inquiring sniff. "What is it?" she said
+meditatively. "Not exactly mould, for it is dry; not must, for it is
+sweet. The smell of this particular room, for it, suits it exactly. It
+is"--she sniffed again--"it is as if some Aytoun ladies before the flood
+had made _pot-pourri_, and it had somehow kept dry. Let us examine this
+matter!" She tiptoed about the room, and, going round the corner of the
+great chimney, found a cupboard snugly tucked in beside it. She opened
+it, with a delightful thrill of curiosity. Hildegarde did love
+cupboards! Of course, there might be nothing at all--but there was
+something! On the very first shelf stood a row of china pots, carefully
+covered, and from these pots came the faint, peculiar perfume which
+seemed so to form part of the faded charm of the room. The pots were of
+delicate white porcelain, one with gold sprigs on it, one with blue
+flowers, and one with pink. "Belonging to three Aytoun sisters!" said
+Hildegarde. "Of course! dear things! If they had only written their
+names on the jars!" She lifted the gold-sprigged jar with reverent
+hands. Lo, and behold! On the cover was pasted a neat label, which said,
+"Hester's recipe, June, 18--." She examined the other two jars eagerly.
+They bore similar legends, with the names "Agatha" and "Barbara." On all
+the writing was in minute but strongly marked characters; the three
+hands were different, yet there was a marked resemblance. Hildegarde
+stood almost abashed, as if she had found herself in presence of the
+three ladies themselves. "The question is"--she murmured
+apologetically--and then she stooped and sniffed carefully, critically,
+at the three jars in turn. "There is no doubt about it!" she said at
+last. "Hester's recipe is the best, for it has outlived the others, and
+given its character to the whole room. Poor Miss Agatha and Miss
+Barbara! How disappointed they would be!" As she closed the cupboard
+softly and turned away, it almost seemed--almost, but not quite, for
+though Hildegarde had a lively imagination, she was not at all
+superstitious--as though she heard a faint sigh, and saw the shadowy
+forms of the three Aytoun sisters turning away sadly from the cupboard
+where their treasure was kept. The shadow was her own, the sigh was that
+of an evening breeze as it stole in between the faded curtains; but
+Hildegarde had a very pretty little romance made up by the time she
+reached the other side of the long room, and when she softly closed the
+door, it was not without a whispered "good evening!" to the three ladies
+whom she left in possession.
+
+Shaking off the dream, she ran quickly up the winding stairs, and turned
+into the pleasant, sunny room which she had selected as the best for her
+mother's bedchamber. It was more modern-looking than the rest of the
+house, in spite of its quaint Chinese-patterned chintz hangings and
+furniture; this was partly owing to a large bow-window which almost
+filled one side, and through which the evening light streamed in
+cheerfully. Hildegarde had already unpacked a trunk of "alicumtweezles"
+(a word not generally known, and meaning small but cherished
+possessions), and the room was a pleasant litter of down pillows,
+cologne-bottles, work-implements, photograph cases and odd books. Now
+she inspected the chairs with a keen and critical eye, pounced upon one,
+sat down in it, shook her head and tried another. Finding this to her
+mind, she drew it into the bow-window, half-filled it with a choice
+assortment of small pillows, and placed a little table beside it, on
+which she set a fan, a bottle of cologne, a particularly inviting little
+volume of Wordsworth (Hildegarde had not grown up to Wordsworth yet, but
+her mother had), a silver bonbonniere full of Marquis chocolate-drops,
+and a delicate white knitting-basket which was having a little sunset of
+its own with rose-coloured "Saxony." "There!" said Hildegarde, surveying
+this composition with unfeigned satisfaction. "If that isn't attractive,
+I don't know what is. She won't eat the chocolates, of course, bless
+her! but they give it an air, and I can eat them for her. And now I must
+put away towels and pillow-cases, which is not so interesting."
+
+At this moment, however, the sound of wheels was heard on the gravel,
+and tossing the linen on the bed, Hildegarde ran down to welcome her
+mother.
+
+Mrs. Grahame was very tired, and was glad to come directly up to the
+pleasant room, and sink down in the comfortable chair which was holding
+out its stout chintz arms to receive her.
+
+"What a perfect chair!" she said, taking off her bonnet and looking
+about her. "What a very pleasant room! I know you have given me the
+best one, you dear child!"
+
+"I hope so!" said Hildegarde. "I meant to, certainly-- Oh, no!" she
+started forward and took the bonnet which Mrs. Grahame was about to lay
+on the table; "this table is to take things from, dear. I must give you
+another to put things on."
+
+"I see!" said her mother, surveying the decorated table with amusement.
+"This is a still-life piece, and a very pretty one. But how can I
+possibly take anything off it? I should spoil the harmony. The
+straw-covered cologne-bottle makes just the proper background for the
+chocolates, and though I should like to wet my handkerchief with it, I
+do not dare to disturb--"
+
+"Take care!" cried Hildegarde, snatching up the bottle and deluging the
+handkerchief with its contents. "You might hurt my feelings, Mrs.
+Grahame, and that would not be pleasant for either of us. And you know
+it is pretty, _quand meme_!"
+
+"It is, my darling, very pretty!" said her mother, "and you are my dear,
+thoughtful child, as usual. The Wordsworth touch I specially appreciate.
+He is so restful, with his smooth, brown covers. Your white and gold
+Shelley, there, would have been altogether too exciting for my tired
+nerves."
+
+"Oh! I have nothing to say against Mr. W.'s _covers_!" said Hildegarde
+with cheerful malice. "They are charming covers. And now tell me what
+kind of journey you had, and how you got through the last agonies, and
+all about it."
+
+"Why, we got through very well indeed!" said Mrs. Grahame. "Janet was
+helpful and quick as usual, and Hicks nailed up all the boxes, and took
+charge of everything that was to be stored or sold. Sad work! but I am
+glad it is done." She sighed, and Hildegarde sat down on the floor
+beside her, and leaned her cheek against the beloved mother-hand.
+
+"Dear!" she said, and that was all, for each knew the other's thoughts.
+It was no light matter, the breaking up of a home where nearly all the
+young girl's life, and the happiest years of her mother's, had been
+passed. Every corner in the New York house was filled with memories of
+the dear and noble man whom they so truly mourned, and it had seemed to
+them both, though they had not spoken of it, as if in saying good-by to
+the home which he had loved, they were taking another and a more final
+farewell of him.
+
+So they sat in silence for a while, the tender pressure of the hand
+saying more than words could have done; but when Mrs. Grahame spoke at
+last, it was in her usual cheerful tone.
+
+"So at last everything was ready, and I locked the door, and gave the
+keys to the faithful Hicks" (Hicks had been the Grahames' butler for
+several years), "and then Hicks came down to the station with me, and
+did everything that was possible to secure a comfortable journey for
+me--and Janet."
+
+"Poor Hicks!" said Hildegarde, smiling. "It must have been very hard for
+him to say good-by to you--and Janet."
+
+"I think it was!" said Mrs. Grahame. "He asked me, very wistfully, if we
+should not need some one to take care of the garden, and said he was
+very fond of out-door work; but I had to tell him that we should only
+need a 'chore-man,' to do odds and ends of work, and should not keep a
+gardener. At this he put on a face like three days of rain, as your
+Grimm story says, and the train started, and that was all.
+
+"And now tell me, Sweetheart," she added, "what have been your
+happenings. First of all, how do you like the house?"
+
+"Oh, it's a jewel of a house!" replied Hildegarde with enthusiasm. "You
+told me it was pleasant, but I had no idea of anything like this. The
+verandah itself is worth the whole of most houses. Then the parlour!
+such a wonderful parlour! I am sure you will agree with me that it would
+be sacrilege to put any of our modern belongings in it. I did give
+auntie one hideous sofa-pillow, but otherwise I have touched nothing. It
+is a perfect museum of cross-stitch embroidery, sacred to the memory of
+Miss Barbara, Miss Agatha, and Miss Hester."
+
+Mrs. Grahame smiled. "How did you discover their names?" she asked. "I
+was saving them for an after-supper 'tell' for you, and now you have
+stolen my thunder, you naughty child."
+
+"Not a single growl of it!" cried Hildegarde eagerly. "I am fairly
+prancing with impatience to hear about them. All I know is their names,
+which I found written on three bow-pots in the cupboard. I went mousing
+about, like little Silver-hair, and instead of three porridge-pots,
+found these. Miss Hester's was the only pot that had any 'sniff' left to
+speak of; from which I inferred that she was the sprightliest of the
+three sisters, and perhaps the youngest and prettiest. Now _don't_ tell
+me that she was the eldest, and lackadaisical, and cross-eyed!"
+
+"I will not!" said Mrs. Grahame, laughing. "I will not tell you anything
+till I have had my tea. I had luncheon at one o'clock, and it is now--"
+
+"Seven!" cried Hildegarde, springing up, and beating her breast. "You
+are starved, my poor darling, and I am a Jew, Turk, infidel, and
+heretic; I always was!"
+
+She ran out to call Janet; when lo, there was Janet just coming up to
+tell them that tea was ready. She was the prettiest possible Janet, as
+Scotch as her name, with rosy cheeks and wide, innocent blue eyes, and
+"lint-white locks," as a Scotch lassie should have. "No wonder," thought
+Hildegarde, "that Hicks looked like '_drei Tage Regenwetter_' at parting
+from her."
+
+"Tea is ready, you say, Janet?" cried Hildegarde. "That is good, for we
+are 'gay and ready,' as you say. Come, my mother! let us go and see what
+auntie has for us."
+
+Mother and daughter went down arm-in-arm, like two school-girls. They
+had to pick their way carefully, for the lamps had not been lighted, and
+there was not daylight enough to shed more than a faint glimmer on the
+winding stairs; but when they reached the dining-room a very blaze of
+light greeted them. There were no less than six candles on the table,
+in six silver candlesticks shaped like Corinthian columns. (Auntie had
+hidden these candlesticks in her own trunk, with a special eye to this
+effect.) On the table also was everything good, and hot blueberry cake
+beside; and behind it stood auntie herself, very erect and looking so
+solemn that Mrs. Grahame and Hildegarde stopped in the doorway, and
+stood still for a moment. The black woman raised her head with a gesture
+of tenderness, not without majesty.
+
+"De Lord bless de house to ye!" she said solemnly. "De Lord send ye good
+victuals, and plenty of 'em! De Lord grant ye never want for nothin',
+forever an' ever, give glory, amen!"
+
+And with an answering "amen!" on their lips, Hildegarde and her mother
+sat down to their first meal in their new home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+A DISH OF GOSSIP.
+
+
+THE evening was too lovely to spend in the house, so Mrs. Grahame and
+Hildegarde went from the tea-table out on the verandah, where some low,
+comfortable straw chairs were already placed. It was June, and the air
+was full of the scent of roses, though there were none in sight. There
+was no moon, but it was hardly missed, so brilliant were the stars,
+flashing their golden light down through the elm-branches.
+
+They sat for some time, enjoying the quiet beauty of the night. Then--"I
+think we shall be happy here, dear!" said Hildegarde softly. "It feels
+like home already."
+
+"I am glad to hear you say that!" replied her mother. "Surely the place
+itself is charming. I hope, too, that you may find some pleasant
+companions, of your own age. Yes, I can see you shake your head, even in
+the dark; and of course we shall be together constantly, my darling; but
+I still hope you will find some girl friend, since dear Rose (Rose was
+Hildegarde's bosom friend) cannot be with us this summer. Now tell me,
+did you find Mrs. Lankton here when you arrived? We don't seem to have
+come down to details yet."
+
+Hildegarde began to laugh.
+
+"I should think we did find her!" she said. "Your coming put it all out
+of my head, you see. Well, when auntie and I drove up, there was this
+funny little old dame standing in the doorway, looking so like Mrs.
+Gummidge that I wanted to ask her on the spot if Mr. Peggotty was at
+home. She began shaking her head and sighing, before we could get out
+of the wagon. 'Ah, dear me!' she said. 'Dear me! and this is the young
+lady, I suppose. Ah! yes, indeed! And the housekeeper, I suppose. Well,
+well! I'm proper glad to see you. Ah, dear, dear!' All this was said in
+a tone of the deepest dejection, and she kept on shaking her head and
+sighing. Auntie spoke up pretty smartly, 'I'm de cook!' she said. 'If
+you'll take dis basket, ma'am, we'll do de lamintations ourselves!' Mrs.
+Lankton didn't hear the last part of the remark, but she took the
+basket, and auntie and I jumped out. 'I suppose you are Mrs. Lankton,
+the care-taker,' I said, as cheerfully as I could. 'Ah, yes, dear!' she
+said, mournfully. 'I'm Mrs. Lankton, the widow Lankton, housekeeper to
+Mr. Aytoun as was, and care-taker since his dee-cease. I've took care,
+Miss Grahame, my dear. There ain't no one could keep things more car'ful
+nor I have. If I've had trouble, it hasn't made me no less car'ful. Ah,
+dear me! it's a sorrowful world. Perhaps you'd like to come in.' This
+seemed to be a new idea to her, though we had been standing with our
+hands full of bundles, only waiting for her to move. She led the way
+into the hall. 'This is the hall!' she said sadly; and then she stood
+shaking her head like a melancholy mandarin. 'I s'pose 'tis!' said
+auntie, who was quite furious by this time, and saw no fun in it at all.
+'And I s'pose dis is a door, and I'll go t'rough it.' And off she
+flounced through the door at the back of the hall, where she found the
+kitchen for herself, as we could tell by the rattling of pans which
+followed. 'She's got a temper, ain't she?' said Mrs. Lankton sadly.
+'Most coloured people has. There! I had one myself, before 'twas took
+out of me by trouble. Not that I've got any coloured blood in me, for my
+father was Nova Scoshy and my mother State of New York. Shall I take
+you through the house, dear?'"
+
+"Poor Mrs. Lankton!" said Mrs. Grahame, laughing. "She is the very
+spirit of melancholy. I believe she has really had a good deal of
+trouble. Well, dear?"
+
+"Well," resumed Hildegarde, "I really could not have her spoil all the
+fun of going over the house for me; though of course she was great fun
+herself in a way. So I thanked her, and said I would not give her the
+trouble, and said I supposed she lived near, and we should often call on
+her when we wanted extra help. 'So do, dear!' she said, 'so do! I live
+right handy by, in a brown cottage with a green door, the only brown
+cottage, _and_ the only green door, so you can't mistake me. You've got
+beautiful neighbours, too,' she added, still in the depths of
+melancholy. 'Beautiful neighbours! Mis' Loftus lives in the stone house
+over yonder. Ah, dear me! She and her darter, they don't never set foot
+to the ground, one year's eend to the other.' 'Dear me!' I said. 'Are
+they both such invalids?' 'No, dear!' said she, sighing as if she wished
+they were. 'Carriage folks; great carriage folks. Then there's Colonel
+Ferrers lives in the brick house across the way. Beautiful man, but set
+in his ways. Never speaks to a soul, one year's eend to the other, in
+the way o' talk, that is. Ah! dear me, yes!'"
+
+"It sounds like Alice in Wonderland!" exclaimed Mrs. Grahame. "In that
+direction lives a Hatter, and in that direction lives a March Hare.
+Visit either you like! they're both mad."
+
+"Oh, Mammina, it is exactly like it!" cried Hildegarde, clapping her
+hands. "You clever Mammina! I wonder if Colonel Ferrers has long ears,
+and if his roof is thatched with fur."
+
+"Hush!" said her mother, laughing. "This will not do. I know Colonel
+Ferrers, and he is an excellent man, though a trifle singular. Well,
+dear, how did you part with your melancholy dame?"
+
+"She went away then," said Hildegarde. "Oh, no, she didn't. I forgot!
+she did insist upon showing me the room where Uncle Aytoun died;
+and--oh! mamma, it is almost too bad to tell, and yet it was very funny.
+She said he died like a perfect gentleman, and made a beautiful remains.
+Then, at last, she said good-night and charged me to send for her if any
+of us should be ill in the night. 'Comin' strange in,' she said, 'it's
+likely to disagree with some of you, and in spasms or anything suddint,
+I'm dretful knowin'.' So she went off at last, and it took me a quarter
+of an hour to get auntie into a good temper again."
+
+They laughed heartily at Mrs. Lankton's idea of "the parting word of
+cheer"; and then Hildegarde reminded her mother of the "tell" she had
+promised her. "I want to know _all_ about the three ladies," she said.
+"They seem more real than Dame Lankton, somehow, for they belong here,
+and she never could have. So 'come tell me all, my mother, all, all that
+ever you know!'"
+
+"It is not so very much, after all," replied Mrs. Grahame, after a
+moment's thought. "I came here once with my father, when I was about ten
+years old, and stayed two or three days. Miss Hester was already dead;
+she was the youngest, the beauty of the family, and she was still young
+when she died. Miss Barbara was the eldest, a tall, slender woman, with
+a high nose; very kind, but a little stiff and formal. She was the head
+of the family, and very religious. It was Saturday, I remember, when we
+came, and she gave me some lovely Chinese ivory toys to play with, which
+filled the whole horizon for me. But the next morning she took them
+away, and gave me Baxter's 'Saint's Rest,' which she said I must read
+all the morning, as I had a cold and could not go to church."
+
+"Poor Mammina!" said Hildegarde.
+
+"Not so poor," said her mother, smiling. "Miss Agatha came to the
+rescue, and took me up to her room, and let me look in the drawers of a
+wonderful old cabinet, full of what your dear father used to call
+'picknickles and bucknickles.'"
+
+"Oh! I know; I found the cabinet yesterday!" cried Hildegarde in
+delight. "I had not time to look into it, but it was all drawers; a
+dark, foreign-looking thing, inlaid with ivory!"
+
+"Yes, that is it," said her mother. "I wonder if the funny things are
+still in it? Miss Agatha was an invalid, and her room looked as if she
+lived in it a good deal. She told me Bible stories in her soft, feeble
+voice, and showed me a very wonderful set of coloured prints
+illustrating the Old Testament. I remember distinctly that Joseph's coat
+was striped, red, green, yellow, and blue, like a mattress ticking gone
+mad, and that the she-bear who came to devour the naughty children was
+bright pink."
+
+"Oh! delightful!" cried Hildegarde, laughing. "I must try to find those
+prints."
+
+"She told me, too, about her sister Hester," Mrs. Grahame went on; "how
+beautiful she was, and how bright and gay and light-hearted. 'She was
+the sunshine, my dear, and we are the shadow, Barbara and I,' she said.
+I remember the very words. And then she showed me a picture, a miniature
+on ivory, of a lovely girl of sixteen, holding a small harp in her arms.
+She had large grey eyes, I remember, and long fair curls. Dear me! how
+it all comes back to me, after the long, long years. I can almost see
+that miniature now. Why--why, Hilda, it had a little look of you; or,
+rather, you look like it."
+
+The girl flushed rosy red. "I am glad," she said softly. "And she died
+young, you say? Miss Hester, I mean."
+
+"At twenty-two or three," assented her mother. "It was consumption, I
+believe. Cousin Wealthy Bond once told me that Hester had some sad love
+affair, but I know nothing more about it. I do know, however, that Uncle
+Aytoun (he was the only brother, you know, and spent much of his life at
+sea), I do know that he was desperately in love with dear Cousin Wealthy
+herself."
+
+"Oh!" cried Hildegarde. "Poor old gentleman! She couldn't, of course;
+but I am sorry for him."
+
+"He was not old then," said Mrs. Grahame, smiling. "He knew of Cousin
+Wealthy's own trouble, but he was very much in love, and hoped he could
+make her forget it. One day--Cousin Wealthy told me this years and
+years afterward, _a propos_ of my own engagement--one day Captain Aytoun
+came to see her, and as it was a beautiful summer day, she took him out
+into the garden to see some rare lilies that were just in blossom. He
+looked at the lilies, but said little; he was a very silent man.
+Presently he pulled out his card-case, and took from it a visiting-card,
+on which was engraved his name, 'Robert F. Aytoun.' He wrote something
+on the card, and handed it to Cousin Wealthy; and she read, 'Robert F.
+Aytoun's heart is yours.'"
+
+"Mammina!" cried Hildegarde. "Can it be true? It is _too_ funny! But
+what could she say? Dear Cousin Wealthy!"
+
+"I remember her very words," said Mrs. Grahame. "'Captain Aytoun, it is
+not my intention ever to marry; but I esteem your friendship highly, and
+I thank you for the honour you offer me. Permit me to call your
+attention to this new variety of ranunculus.' But the poor captain
+said,--Cousin Wealthy could hardly bring herself to repeat this, for she
+thought it very shocking,--'Confound the ranunculus!' and strode out of
+the garden and away. And Cousin Wealthy took the card into the house,
+and folded it up, and wound pearl-coloured silk on it. It may be in her
+work-basket now, for she never destroys anything."
+
+"Oh! that was a most delightful 'tell'!" sighed Hildegarde. "And now go
+on about Miss Agatha."
+
+"I fear that is all, dear," said her mother. "I remember singing some
+hymns, which pleased the kind cousin. Then Miss Barbara came home from
+church; and I rather think her conscience had been pricking her about
+the 'Saint's Rest,' for she took me down and gave me some delicious
+jelly of rose leaves, which she said was good for a cold. We had
+waffles for tea, I remember, and we put cinnamon and sugar on them; I
+had never tasted the combination before, so I remember it. It was in a
+glass dish shaped like a pineapple. And after tea Miss Barbara tinkled
+'Jerusalem, the Golden' on the piano, and we all sang, and I went to bed
+at nine o'clock. And that reminds me," said Mrs. Grahame, "that it must
+now be ten o'clock or after, and 'time for all good little
+constitutional queens to be in bed.'"
+
+"Oh! must we go to bed?" sighed Hildegarde. "It is so very particularly
+lovely here. Well, I suppose we should have to go some time. Good-night,
+dear stars! good-night, all beautiful things that I know are there,
+though I cannot see you!"
+
+Hildegarde helped her mother to lock up the house, and then, after a
+parting word and caress, she took her candle and went to the room she
+had chosen for her own. It opened out of her mother's dressing-room, so
+that by setting the doors ajar, they could talk to each other when so
+minded; and it had a dressing-room of its own on the other side, from
+which a flight of narrow, corkscrew stairs descended to the ground
+floor. These stairs had attracted Hildegarde particularly. It seemed
+very pleasant and important to have a staircase of one's own, which no
+one else could use. It is true that it was very dark, very crooked and
+steep, but that was no matter. The bedroom itself was large and airy; a
+little bare, perhaps, but Hildegarde did not mind that. The white paint
+was very fresh and clean, and set off the few pieces of dark old
+mahogany furniture well,--a fine bureau, with the goddess Aurora
+careering in brass across the front of the top drawer; a comfortable
+sofa, with cushions of the prettiest pale green chintz, with rosebuds
+scattered over it; a round table; a few spider-legged chairs; and a
+nondescript piece of furniture, half dressing-table, half chest of
+drawers, which was almost as mysteriously promising as the inlaid
+cabinet in Miss Agatha's room. The bed was large and solemn-looking,
+with carved posts topped by pineapples. The floor was bare, save for a
+square of ancient Turkey carpet in the middle. Hildegarde held the
+candle above her head, and surveyed her new quarters with satisfaction.
+
+"Nice room!" she said, nodding her head. "The sort of room I have been
+thinking of ever since I outgrew flounces, and bows on the chairs. Dear
+papa! When I was at the height of the flounce fever, he begged me to
+have a frock and trousers made for the grand piano, as he was sure it
+must wound my sensibilities to see it so bare. Dear papa! He would like
+this room, too. It is a little strange-garrety to-night, but wait till I
+get the Penates out to-morrow!"
+
+She nodded again, and then, putting on her wrapper, proceeded to brush
+out her long, fair hair. It was beautiful hair; and as it fell in
+shining waves from the brush, Hildegarde began to think again of the
+dead Hester, who had had fair hair, too, and whom her mother had thought
+she resembled a little. She hoped that this might have been Hester's
+room. Indeed, she had chosen it partly with this idea, though chiefly
+because she wished to be near her mother. It certainly was not Miss
+Agatha's room, for that was on the other side of the passage. Her
+mother's room had been Miss Barbara's, she was quite sure, for "B" was
+embroidered on the faded cover of the dressing-table. Another large room
+was too rigid in its aspect to have been anything but a spare room or a
+death chamber, and Mr. Aytoun's own room, where he had died like a
+gentleman and become a "beautiful remains," was on the ground floor.
+Therefore, it was very plain, this must have been Hester's room. Here
+she had lived her life, a girl like herself, thought Hildegarde, and had
+been gay and light-hearted, the sunshine of the house; and then she had
+suffered, and faded away and died. It was with a solemn feeling that the
+young girl climbed up into the great bed, and laid her head where that
+other fair head had lain. Who could tell what was coming to her, too, in
+this room? And could she make sunshine for her mother, who had lost the
+great bright light which had warmed and cheered her during so many
+years? Then her thoughts turned to that other light which had never
+failed this dear mother; and so, with a murmured "My times be in thy
+hand!" Hildegarde fell asleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+MORNING HOURS.
+
+          "The year's at the spring,
+           And day's at the morn:
+           Morning's at seven;
+           The hill-side's dew-pearled:
+           The lark's on the wing;
+           The snail's on the thorn;
+           God's in his heaven--
+           All's right with the world!"
+
+
+THESE seemed the most natural words to sing, as Hildegarde looked out of
+her window next morning; and sing them she did, with all her heart, as
+she threw open the shutters and let the glad June sunlight stream into
+the room. All sad thoughts were gone with the night, and now there
+seemed nothing but joy in the world.
+
+"Where art thou, tub of my heart?" cried the girl; and she dived under
+the bed, and pulled out the third reason for her choosing this room. Her
+mother, she knew, would not change for anything the comfortable "sitz,"
+the friend of many years; so Hildegarde felt at full liberty to enjoy
+this great white porcelain tub, shallow, three feet across, with red and
+blue fishes swimming all over it. She did not know that Captain Robert
+Aytoun had brought it in the hold of his ship all the way from
+Singapore, for his little Hester, but she did know that it was the most
+delightful tub she had ever dreamed of; and as she splashed the crystal
+water about, she almost ceased, for the first time, to regret the blue
+river which had been her daily bathing-place the summer before. Very
+fresh and sweet she looked, when at last the long locks were braided in
+one great smooth braid, and the pretty grey gingham put on and smoothed
+down. She nodded cheerfully to her image in the glass. It was, as dear
+Cousin Wealthy said, a privilege to be good-looking, and Hildegarde was
+simply and honestly glad of her beauty.
+
+"Now," she said, when the room was "picked up," and everything aerable
+hung up to air, "the question is, Go out first and arrange the Penates
+after breakfast, or arrange the Penates now and go out later?" One more
+glance from the window decided the matter. "They must wait, poor dears!
+After all, it is more respectful to take them out when the room is made
+up than when it is having its sheet and pillow-case party, like this."
+
+She went down her own staircase with a proud sense of possession, and
+opening the door at its foot, found herself in a little covered porch,
+from which a flagged walk led toward the back of the house. Here was a
+pleasant sort of yard, partly covered with broad flags, with a grassy
+space beyond. Here were clothes-lines, well, and woodshed; and here was
+auntie, standing at her kitchen door, and looking well satisfied with
+her new quarters.
+
+"What a pleasant yard, auntie!" said Hildegarde. "This is your own
+domain, isn't it?"
+
+"Reckon 'tis!" replied the good woman, smiling. "Jes' suits me, dis
+does. I kin have some chickens here, and do my washin' out-doors, and
+spread out some, 'stead o' bein' cooped up like a old hen myself."
+
+A high wall surrounded auntie's domain, and Hildegarde looked round it
+wonderingly.
+
+"Oh! there is a door," she said. "I thought mamma said there was a
+garden. That must be it, beyond there. Call me when breakfast is ready,
+please, auntie." Passing through the door, she closed it after her, and
+entered--another world. A dim, green world, wholly different from the
+golden, sunny one she had just left; a damp world, where the dew lay
+heavy on shrubs and borders, and dripped like rain from the long,
+pendent branches of the trees. The paths were damp, and covered with
+fine green moss. Great hedges of box grew on either side, untrimmed,
+rising as high as the girl's head; and as she walked between them their
+cool glossy leaves brushed against her cheek. Here and there was a
+neglected flower-bed, where a few pallid rosebuds looked sadly out, and
+pinks flung themselves headlong over the border, as if trying to reach
+the sunlight; but for the most part the box and the great elms and
+locusts had it their own way. Hildegarde had never seen such
+locust-trees! They were as tall as the elms, their trunks scarred and
+rough with the frosts of many winters. No birds sang in their green,
+whispering depths; the silence of the place was heavy, weighted down
+with memories of vanished things.
+
+"I have no right to come here!" said Hildegarde to herself. "I am sure
+they would not like it." Something white glimmered between the bending
+boughs of box which interlaced across her path. She half expected to see
+a shadowy form confront her and wave her back; but, pushing on, she saw
+a neglected summer-house, entirely covered with the wild clematis called
+virgin's-bower. She peeped in, but did not venture across the threshold,
+because it looked as if there might be spiders in it. Through the
+opposite door, however, she caught a glimpse of a very different
+prospect, a flash of yellow sunlight, a sunny meadow stretching up and
+away. Skirting the summer-house carefully, she came upon a stone wall,
+the boundary of the garden, beyond which the broad meadow lay full in
+the sunlight. Sitting on this wall, Hildegarde felt as if half of her
+were in one world, and half in the other; for the dark box and the
+drooping elm-branches came to the very edge of the wall, while all
+beyond was rioting in morning and sunshine.
+
+          "The new world and the old one,
+           The green world and the gold one!"
+
+she murmured, and smiled to find herself dropping into poetry, like
+Silas Wegg.
+
+At this moment a faint sound fell on her ear, a far-away voice, which
+belonged wholly to the golden world, and had nothing whatever to do with
+the green. "Hi-ya! Miss Hildy chile!" the mellow African voice came
+floating down through the trees with an imperious summons; and
+Hildegarde jumped down from her stone perch, and came out of her dream,
+and went in to breakfast.
+
+"And what is to be done, Mammina?" asked Hildegarde, when the "eggs and
+the ham and the strawberry jam" were things of the past, and they were
+out on the piazza again. "Do you realise, by the way, that we shall live
+chiefly on this piazza?"
+
+"It is certainly a most delightful place," said Mrs. Grahame. "And I do
+realise that while it would be quite out of the question to change
+anything in Miss Barbara's sacred parlour, it is not exactly the place
+to be cosy in. But, dear child, I shall have to be in my own room a good
+deal, as this arranging of your dear father's papers will be my chief
+work through the summer, probably."
+
+"Oh, of course! and I shall be in my room a good deal, for there is
+sewing, and all that German I am going to read, and--oh, and quantities
+of things to do! But still we shall live here a great deal, I am sure.
+It is just a great pleasant room, with one side of it taken off. And it
+is very quiet, with the strip of lawn, and the ledge beyond. One cannot
+see the road, except just a bit through the gate. Sometimes you can
+bring your writing down here, and I can grub in the flower-bed and
+disturb you."
+
+"Thank you!" said her mother, laughing. "The prospect is singularly
+attractive. But, dear, you asked me a few minutes ago what was to be
+done. I thought it would be pleasant if we took out our various little
+belongings, and disposed them here and there."
+
+"Just what I was longing to do!" cried Hildegarde. "All my precious
+alicumtweezles are crying out from the trunk, and waiting for me. But
+don't you want me to see the butcher for you, love, or let auntie tell
+me what she is going to make for dessert, or perform any other sacred
+after-breakfast rites?"
+
+Mrs. Grahame shook her head, smiling, and Hildegarde flew upstairs,
+like an arrow shot from a bow.
+
+In her room stood a huge trunk, already unlocked and unstrapped, and a
+box whose aspect said plainly that it contained books. All the dresses
+had been taken out the day before and hung in the roomy closet, pretty,
+simple gowns, mostly white or grey, for the dear father had disliked
+"mourning" extremely. Now Hildegarde took out her hats, the
+broad-brimmed straw with the white daisy wreath, the pretty white
+shirred mull for best, the black "rough and ready" sailor for common
+wear. These were laid carefully on a shelf in the closet, and covered
+with a light cloth to keep them from dust. This done as a matter of
+duty, the pleasant part began. One after another, a most astonishing
+array of things were taken from the trunk and laid on the bed, which
+spread a broad white surface to receive them: a trinket-box of ebony
+and silver; a plaster cast of the Venus of Milo, another of the
+Pompeian Psyche, both "treated" in some way that gave them the smooth
+lustre of old ivory; a hideous little Indian idol, carved out of dark
+wood, with eyes of real carbuncle; a doll's tea-set of exquisite blue
+and white china, brought to Hildegarde from Pekin by a wandering uncle,
+when she was eight years old; a stuffed hawk, confidently asserted by
+its owner to be the original "jolly gosshawk" of the Scottish ballad,
+which could "speak and flee"; a Swiss cuckoo clock; several great
+pink-lipped shells; a butterfly net; a rattlesnake's skin; an exquisite
+statuette of carved wood, representing Theodoric, King of the
+Ostrogoths, a copy of the famous bronze statue at Innsbruck; a large
+assortment of pasteboard boxes, of all sizes and shapes; three or four
+work-baskets; last of all, some framed photographs and engravings, and a
+number of polished pieces of wood, which were speedily put together
+into a bookcase and two or three hanging shelves. On these shelves and
+on the mantel-piece the various alicumtweezles were arranged and
+re-arranged, till at length Hildegarde gave a satisfied nod and
+pronounced them perfect. "But now comes the hard part!" she said. "The
+pictures! Who shall have the post of honour over the mantel-piece? Come
+here, dear persons, and let me look at you!" She took up two engravings,
+both framed in gilt laurel leaves, and studied them attentively. One was
+the portrait of a man in cavalier dress, strikingly handsome, with dark,
+piercing eyes and long, curling hair. The expression of the face was
+melancholy, almost sombre; yet there was a strange fascination in its
+stern gaze. On the margin was written,--
+
+          "John Grahame of Claverhouse,
+                "Viscount Dundee."
+
+The other portrait showed an older man, clad in a quaint dress, with a
+hat that would have been funny on any other head, but seemed not out of
+place here. The face was not beautiful, but calm and strong, with
+earnest, thoughtful eyes, and a firm mouth and chin. The legend bore, in
+curious black-letter, the words,--
+
+                    "William of Orange Nassau,
+          "Hereditary Grand Stadt-holder of the Netherlands."
+
+No one save Hildegarde knew that on the back of this picture, turned
+upside down in perpetual disgrace and ridicule, was a hideous little
+photograph of Philip II. of Spain. It was a constant gratification to
+her to know that it was there, and she occasionally, as now, turned it
+round and made insulting remarks to it. She hoped the great Oranger
+liked to know of this humiliation of his country's foe; but William the
+Silent kept his own counsel, as was always his way.
+
+And now the question was, Which hero was to have the chief place?
+
+"You are the great one, of course, my saint!" said Hildegarde, gazing
+into the calm eyes of the majestic Dutchman, "and we all know it. But
+you see, he is an ancestor, and so many people hate him, poor dear!"
+
+She looked from one to the other, till the fixed gaze of the pictured
+eyes grew really uncomfortable, and she fancied that she saw a look of
+impatience in those of the Scottish chieftain. Then she looked again at
+the space above the mantel-piece, and, after measuring it carefully with
+her eyes, came to a new resolution.
+
+"You see," she said, taking up a third picture, a beautiful photograph
+of the Sistine Madonna, "I put _her_ in the middle, and you on each
+side, and then neither of you can say a word."
+
+This arrangement gave great satisfaction; and the other pictures, the
+Correggio cherubs, Kaulbach's "Lili," the Raphael "violin-player," and
+"St. Cecilia," were easily disposed of on the various panels, while over
+the dressing-table, where she could see it from her bed, was a fine
+print of Murillo's lovely "Guardian Angel."
+
+Hildegarde drew a long breath of satisfaction as she looked round on her
+favourites in their new home. "So dear they are!" she said fondly. "I
+wish Hester could see them. Don't you suppose she had _any_ pictures?
+There are no marks of any on the wall. Well, and now for the books!"
+
+Hammer and screwdriver were brought, and soon the box was opened and the
+books in their places. Would any girls like to know what Hildegarde's
+books are? Let us take a glance at them, as they stand in neat rows on
+the plain, smooth shelves. Those big volumes on the lowest shelf are
+Scudder's "Butterflies," a highly valued work, full of coloured plates,
+over which Hildegarde sighs with longing rapture; for, from collecting
+moths and butterflies for her friend, Bubble Chirk, she has become an
+ardent collector herself, and in one of the unopened cases downstairs is
+an oak cabinet with glass-covered drawers, very precious, containing
+several hundred "specimens."
+
+Here is "Robin Hood," and Gray's Botany, and Percy's "Reliques," and a
+set of George Eliot, and one of Charles Kingsley, and the "Ingoldsby
+Legends," and Aytoun's "Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers," which looks as
+if it had been read almost to pieces, as indeed it has. (There is a mark
+laid in at the "Burial March of Dundee," which Hildegarde is learning by
+heart. This young woman has a habit of keeping a book of poetry open on
+her dressing-table when she is doing her hair, and learning verses while
+she brushes out her long locks. It is a pleasant habit, though it does
+not tend to accelerate the toilet.)
+
+On the next shelf is "Cranford," also well thumbed, and everything that
+Mrs. Ewing ever wrote, and "Betty Leicester," and Miss Yonge's
+historical stories, and the "Tales of a Grandfather," and "Lorna Doone,"
+and the dear old "Days of Bruce," and "Scottish Chiefs," side by side
+with the "Last of the Barons," and the "Queens of England," and the
+beloved Homer, in Derby's noble translation, also in brown leather.
+Here, too, is "Sesame and Lilies," and Carlyle on Hero-Worship.
+
+The upper shelf is entirely devoted to poetry, and here are Longfellow
+and Tennyson, of course, and Milton (_not_ "of course"), and Scott (in
+tatters, worse off than Aytoun), and Shelley and Keats, and the Jacobite
+Ballads, and Allingham's Ballad Book, and Mrs. Browning, and "Sir
+Launfal," and the "Golden Treasury," and "Children's Garland." There is
+no room for the handy volume Shakespeare, so he and his box must live on
+top of the bookcase, with his own bust on one side and Beethoven's on
+the other. These are flanked in turn by photographs of Sir Walter, with
+Maida at his feet, and Edwin Booth as Hamlet, both in those pretty glass
+frames which are almost as good as no frame at all.
+
+"And if you are not a pleasant sight," said Hildegarde, falling back to
+survey her work, and addressing the collection comprehensively, "then I
+never saw one, that's all. _Isn't_ it nice, dear persons?" she
+continued, turning to the portraits, which from their places over the
+mantel-piece had a full view of the bookcase.
+
+But the persons expressed no opinion. Indeed, I am not sure that William
+the Silent could read English; and Dundee's knowledge of literature was
+slight, if we may judge from his spelling. I should not, however, wish
+Hildegarde to hear me say this.
+
+Failing to elicit a response from her two presiding heroes, our maiden
+turned to Sir Walter, who always knew just how things were; and from
+this the natural step was to the "Lay of the Last Minstrel" (which she
+had not read so _very_ lately, she thought, with a guilty glance at the
+trunk and box, which stood in the middle of the room, yawning to be put
+away), and there was an end of Hildegarde till dinner-time.
+
+"And that is why I was late, dear love!" she said, as after a hasty
+explanation of the above related doings, she sank down in her chair at
+the dinner-table, and gave a furtive pat to her hair, which she had
+smoothed rather hurriedly. "You know you would have brained me with the
+hammer, if I had not put it away, and that the tacks would have been
+served up on toast for my supper. Such is your ferocious disposition."
+
+Mrs. Grahame smiled as she helped Hildegarde to soup. "Suppose a
+stranger should pass by that open window and hear your remarks," she
+said. "A pretty idea he would have of my maternal care. After all, my
+desire is to keep tacks _out_ of your food. How long ago was it that I
+found a button in the cup of tea which a certain young woman of my
+acquaintance brought me?"
+
+"Ungenerous!" exclaimed Hildegarde with tragic fervour. "It was only a
+glove-button. It dropped off my glove, and it would not have disagreed
+with you in the least. I move that we change the subject." And at that
+moment in came Janet with the veal cutlets.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+A WALK AND AN ADVENTURE.
+
+
+ONE lovely afternoon, after they were well settled, and all the
+unpacking was done, Hildegarde started out on an exploration tour. She
+and her mother had already taken one or two short walks along the road
+near which their house stood, and had seen the brand-new towers of Mrs.
+Loftus's house, "pricking a cockney ear" on the other side of the way,
+and had caught a glimpse of an old vine-covered mansion, standing back
+from the road and almost hidden by great trees, which her mother said
+was Colonel Ferrers's house.
+
+But now Hildegarde wanted a long tramp; she wanted to explore that sunny
+meadow that lay behind the green garden, and the woods that fringed the
+meadow again beyond. So she put on a short corduroy skirt, that would
+not tear when it caught on the bushes, slung a tin plant-box over her
+shoulder, kissed her mother, who had a headache and could not go, and
+started off in high spirits. She was singing as she ran down the stairs
+and through auntie's sunny back yard, and the martial strains of "Bonny
+Dundee" rang merrily through the clear June air; but as she closed the
+garden door behind her, the song died away, for "one would as soon sing
+in a churchyard," she thought, "as in the Ladies' Garden." So she passed
+silently along between the box hedges, her footsteps making no sound on
+the mossy path, only the branches rustling softly as she put them aside.
+The afternoon sun sent faint gleams of pallid gold down through the
+branches of the great elm; they were like the ghosts of sunbeams. Her
+ear caught the sound of falling water, which she had not noticed before;
+she turned a corner, and lo! there was a dusky ravine, and a little dark
+stream falling over the rocks, and flowing along with a sullen murmur
+between banks of fern. It was part of the green world. The mysterious
+sadness of the deserted garden was here, too, and Hildegarde felt her
+glad spirits going down, down, as if an actual weight were pressing on
+her. But she shook off the oppression. "I will not!" she said. "I will
+not be enchanted to-day! Another day I will come and sit here, and the
+stream will tell me all the mournful story; I know it will if I sit long
+enough. But to-day I want joy, and sunshine, and cheerful things.
+Good-by, dear ladies! I hope you won't mind!" and grasping the hanging
+bough of a neighbouring elm, she swung herself easily down into the
+meadow.
+
+It was a very pleasant meadow. The grass was long, so long that
+Hildegarde felt rather guilty at walking through it, and framed a mental
+apology to the farmer as she went along. It was full of daisies and
+sorrel, so it was not his best mowing-field, she thought. She plucked a
+daisy and pulled off the petals to see whether Rose loved her, and found
+she did not, which made her laugh in a foolish, happy way, since she
+knew better. Now she came to a huge sycamore-tree, a veritable giant,
+all scarred with white patches where the bark had dropped off. Beside it
+lay another, prostrate. The branches had been cut off, but the vast
+trunk showed that it had been even taller than the one which was now
+standing. "Baucis and Philemon!" said Hildegarde. "Poor dears! One is
+more sorry for the one who is left, I think, than for the fallen one. To
+see him lying here with his head off, and not to be able to do anything
+about it! She cannot even 'tear her ling-long yellow hair'--only it is
+green. I wonder who killed him." And she went on, murmuring to
+herself,--
+
+          "They shot him dead on the Nine-Stane Rigg,
+             Beside the Headless Cross.
+           And they left him lying in his blood
+             Upon the moor and moss,"
+
+as if Barthram's Dirge had anything to do with the story of Baucis and
+Philemon. But this young woman's head was very full of ballads and
+scraps of old songs, and she was apt to break into them on any or no
+pretext. She went on now with her favourite dirge, half reciting, half
+chanting it, as she mounted the sunny slope before her.
+
+          "They made a bier of the broken bough,
+             The sauch and the aspen grey,
+           And they bore him to the Lady Chapel
+             And waked him there all day.
+
+          "A lady came to that lonely bower,
+             And threw her robes aside.
+           She tore her ling-long yellow hair,
+             And knelt at Barthram's side.
+
+          "She bathed him in the Lady-Well,
+             His wounds sae deep and sair,
+           And she plaited a garland for his breast,
+             And a garland for his hair.
+
+          "They rowed him in a lily-sheet
+             And bare him to his earth,
+           And the grey friars sung the dead man's mass,
+             As they passed the Chapel Garth.
+
+          "They buried him at the mirk midnight,
+             When the dew fell cold and still;
+           When the aspen grey forgot to play,
+             And the mist clung to the hill.
+
+          "They dug his grave but a bare foot deep
+             By the edge of the Nine-Stane Burn,
+           And they covered him o'er with the heather flower,
+             The moss and the lady fern.
+
+          "A grey friar stayed upon the grave
+             And sung through the morning tide.
+           And a friar shall sing for Barthram's soul
+             While Headless Cross shall bide."
+
+Now she had reached the fringe of trees at the top of the slope, and
+found that it was the beginning of what looked like a considerable wood.
+"A pine wood!" said Hildegarde, sniffing the spicy perfume with delight.
+"Oh, pleasant place! No plants, but one cannot have everything. Oh! how
+good it smells! and hark to the sound of the sea! I shall call this
+Ramoth Hill." She walked along, keeping near the edge of the wood, where
+it was still warm and luminous with sunshine. Now she looked up into the
+murmuring cloud of branches above her, now she looked down at the
+burnished needles which made a soft, thick carpet under her feet; and
+she said again, "Oh, pleasant place!" Presently, in one of the upward
+glances, she stopped short. Her look, from carelessly wandering, became
+keen and intent. On one of the branches of the tree under which she
+stood was a small, round object. "A nest!" said Hildegarde. "The
+question is, What nest?" She walked round and round the tree, like a
+pointer who has "treed" a partridge; but no bird rose from the nest, nor
+could she see at all what manner of nest it was. Finding this to be the
+case, she transferred her scrutiny from the nest to the tree. It was a
+sturdy pine, with strong, broad branches jutting out, the lowest not so
+very far above her head, a most attractive tree, from every point of
+view. Hildegarde leaned against the trunk for a moment, smiling to
+herself, and listening to the "two voices." "You are seventeen years
+old," said one voice. "Not quite," said the other. "Not for a month yet.
+Besides, what if I were?" "Suppose some one should come by and see you?"
+said the first voice. "But no one will," replied the second. "And
+perhaps you can't do it, anyhow," continued the first; "it would be
+ridiculous to try, and fail." "Just wait and see!" said the second
+voice. And when it had said that, Hildegarde climbed the tree.
+
+I shall not describe exactly how she did it, for it may not have been in
+the most approved style of the art; but she got up, and seated herself
+on the broad, spreading branch, not so very much out of breath, all
+things considered, and with only two scratches worth mentioning. After a
+moment's triumphant repose, she worked her way upward to where the nest
+was firmly fixed in a crotch, and bent eagerly over it. A kingbird's
+nest! this was great joy, for she had never found one before. There were
+five eggs in it, and she gazed with delight at the perfect little
+things. But when she touched them gently, she found them quite cold. The
+nest was deserted. "Bad little mother!" said Hildegarde. "How could you
+leave the lovely things? Such a perfect place to bring up a family in,
+too!" She looked around her. It was very pleasant up in this airy bower.
+Great level branches stretched above and below her, roof and floor of
+soft, dusky plumes. The keen, exquisite fragrance seemed to fold round
+her like a cloud; she felt fairly steeped in warmth and perfume. Sitting
+curled up on the great bough, her back resting against the trunk, the
+girl fell into a pleasant waking dream, her thoughts wandering idly here
+and there, and the sound of the sea in her ears. She was an enchanted
+princess, shut in a green tower by the sea. The sea loved her, and sang
+to her all day long the softest song he knew, and no angry waves ever
+came to make clamour and confusion. By and by a rescuer would come,--
+
+          "A fairy prince, with joyful eyes,
+           And lighter-footed than the fox."
+
+[Illustration: "IT WAS VERY PLEASANT UP IN THIS AIRY BOWER."]
+
+He would stand beneath the green tower, and call to her:--
+
+"Hallo, there! you young rascal, come down! How dare you rob birds'
+nests in my woods?"
+
+The voice was deep and stern, and Hildegarde started so violently that
+she nearly fell from her perch. She could not speak for the moment, but
+she looked down, and saw a fierce-looking old gentleman, clad in a black
+velvet coat and spotless white trousers, brandishing a thick stick, and
+peering with angry, short-sighted eyes up into the tree.
+
+"Come down, I say!" he repeated sternly. "I'll teach you to rob my
+nests, you young vagabond!"
+
+This was really not to be endured.
+
+"I am _not_ robbing the nest, sir!" cried Hildegarde, indignation
+overcoming her alarm. "I never did such a thing in my life. And I--I am
+not a boy!"
+
+"Harry Monmouth!" exclaimed the old gentleman. "I beg ten thousand
+pardons! What are you?"
+
+Hildegarde's first impulse was to say that she lived in Alaska (that
+being the most distant place she could think of), and was on her way
+thither; but fortunately the second thought came quickly, and she
+replied with as much dignity as the situation allowed:--
+
+"I am the daughter of Mrs. Hugh Grahame. I live at Braeside" (I have
+forgotten to mention that this was the name of the new home), "and have
+wandered off our own grounds without knowing it. I am extremely sorry to
+be trespassing, but--but--I only wanted to see what kind of nest it
+was."
+
+She stopped suddenly, feeling that there was a little sob somewhere
+about her, and that she would die rather than let it get into her voice.
+The old gentleman took off his hat.
+
+"My dear young lady," he said, "the apologies are all on my side. Accept
+ten thousand of them, I beg of you! I am delighted to make the
+acquaintance of Mrs. Grahame's daughter, under--a--any circumstances."
+(Here he evidently suppressed a chuckle, and Hildegarde knew it, and
+hated him.) "Permit me to introduce myself,--Colonel Ferrers.
+
+"I have been annoyed lately," he added kindly, "by thieving boys, and,
+being near-sighted, did not distinguish between a persecutor and a
+protector of my birds." He bowed again. "And now I will continue my
+walk, merely remarking that I beg you to consider yourself entirely free
+of my grounds, in any and every part. I shall do myself the honour of
+calling on your mother very shortly. Good-morning, my dear Miss
+Grahame!" and, with another bow, Colonel Ferrers replaced his felt
+wide-awake, and strode off across the meadow, flourishing his stick,
+and indulging in the chuckle which he had so long suppressed.
+
+"Harry Monmouth!" he said to himself, as he switched the daisy-heads
+off. "So we have a fair tomboy for a neighbour. Well, it may be a good
+thing for Jack. I must take him over and introduce him."
+
+Now Hildegarde was not in the least a tomboy, as we know; and the
+intuitive knowledge that the old gentleman would think her one made her
+very angry indeed. She waited till he was out of sight, and then slid
+down the tree, without a second glance at the kingbird's nest, the
+innocent cause of all the trouble. She had meant to take one egg, to add
+to her collection; but she would not touch one now, if there were a
+thousand of them. She ran down the long sunny slope of the meadow, her
+cheeks glowing, her heart still beating angrily. She was going straight
+home, to tell her mother all about it, and how horrid Colonel Ferrers
+had been, and how she should never come downstairs when he came to the
+house--never! "under any circumstances!" How dared he make fun of her?
+She sat down on the stone wall to rest, and thought how her mother would
+hear the tale with sympathetic indignation. But somehow--how was
+it?--when she conjured up her mother's face, there was a twinkle in her
+eye. Mamma had such a fatal way of seeing the funny side of things.
+Suppose she should only laugh at this dreadful adventure!
+Perhaps--perhaps it _was_ funny, from Colonel Ferrers's point of view.
+
+In short, by the time she reached home, Hildegarde had cooled off a good
+deal, and it was a modified version of the tragedy that Mrs. Grahame
+heard. She found this quite funny enough, however, and Hildegarde was
+almost, but not quite, ready to laugh with her.
+
+That evening, mother and daughter were sitting on the broad verandah as
+usual, playing Encyclopaedics. This was a game of Mrs. Grahame's own
+invention, and a favourite resource with her and Hildegarde in darkling
+hours like this. Perhaps some of my readers may like to know how the
+game is played, and, as the Dodo says of the Caucus Race, "the best way
+to explain it is to play it."
+
+They began with the letter "A," and had already been playing some time,
+turn and turn about.
+
+"Aphrodite, goddess of Love and Beauty."
+
+"Ahasuerus, king of Persia, B.C. something or other, afflicted with
+sleeplessness."
+
+"Alfred the Great, unsuccessful tender of cakes."
+
+"AEneas, pious; from the flames of Troy did on his back the old Anchises
+bear; also deserted Dido."
+
+"Ananias, liar."
+
+"Anacreon, Greek poet."
+
+"Allan-a-dale, minstrel and outlaw."
+
+"Andromache, wife of Hector."
+
+"Astyanax, son of the same."
+
+"Oh--don't you think it's time to go on to B?" asked Hildegarde.
+
+"I have several more A's," replied her mother.
+
+"Well, my initials are not 'B. U.,'" said the girl, "but perhaps I can
+manage one or two more."
+
+"B. U.?"
+
+"Yes! Biographic Universelle, of course, dear. Artaxerxes, also king of
+Persia."
+
+"Anne of Geierstein."
+
+"Arabella Stuart."
+
+"Ap Morgan, Ap Griffith, Ap Hugh, Ap Tudor, Ap Rice, quoth his
+roundelay."
+
+"Oh! oh! that was one of my reserves. Azrael, the angel of death."
+
+"Agamemnon, king of men."
+
+"Alecto, Fury."
+
+"Agag, who came walking delicately."
+
+"Addison, Joseph, writer."
+
+"Antony, Mark, Roman general, lover of Cleopatra."
+
+"'Amlet, Prince of--"
+
+"Hilda!" cried Mrs. Grahame. "For shame! It is certainly high time to go
+on to B, if you are going to behave in this way, and I shall put _e d_
+after it."
+
+"Oh, no!" said Hildegarde, "I will be good. It isn't nine o'clock yet, I
+know. Buccleugh, Bold, Duke of, Warden here o' the Scottish side. I was
+determined to get him first."
+
+"Balaam, prophet."
+
+"Beatrice, in 'Much Ado about Nothing.'"
+
+"Beatrix Esmond."
+
+"Bruce, Robert, King of Scotland."
+
+"Burns, Robert, King of Scottish poets."
+
+"Oh! oh! well, I suppose he is!" Hilda admitted reluctantly. "But Sir
+Walter makes an admirable viceroy. I think--who is that? Mamma, there is
+some one coming up the steps."
+
+"Mrs. Grahame?" said a deep voice, as two shadowy forms emerged from the
+darkness. "I am delighted to meet you again. You remember Colonel
+Ferrers?"
+
+"Perfectly!" said Mrs. Grahame, cordially, advancing and holding out her
+hand. "I am very glad to see you. Colonel Ferrers,--though I hardly do
+see you!" she added, laughing. "Hildegarde, here is Colonel Ferrers,
+whom you met this morning."
+
+"Good evening!" said Hildegarde, thinking that mamma was very cruel.
+
+"Delighted!" said Colonel Ferrers, bowing again; and he added, "May I be
+allowed to present my nephew? Mrs. Grahame, Miss Grahame, my nephew,
+John Ferrers."
+
+A tall figure bowed awkwardly, and a voice murmured something which
+might have been a greeting in English, Choctaw, or pure Polynesian, as
+it was wholly unintelligible.
+
+"It is too pleasant an evening to spend in the house," said Mrs.
+Grahame. "I think you will find chairs, gentlemen, by a little judicious
+groping. Oh! I trust you are not hurt, Mr. Ferrers?" For Mr. Ferrers had
+tumbled over his chair, and was now sprawling at full length on the
+piazza. He gathered himself up again, apparently too much abashed to say
+a word.
+
+"Oh! he's all right!" said Colonel Ferrers, laughing. "He's always
+tumbling about; just got his growth, you see, and hasn't learned what to
+do with it. Well, many things have happened since we met, Mrs. Grahame;
+we won't say how many years it is."
+
+"Many things, indeed!" said Mrs. Grahame with a sigh.
+
+"Yes! yes!" said Colonel Ferrers. "Poor Grahame! met him last year in
+town; never saw him looking better. Well, so it goes. Changing world, my
+dear Madame! Poor Aytoun, too! I miss him sadly. My only neighbour. We
+have been together a great deal since his sisters died. Yes! yes! very
+glad I was to hear that he had left the property to you. Not another
+soul to speak to in the neighbourhood."
+
+"Who lives in the large new house across the way?" asked Mrs. Grahame.
+"I know the name of the family is Loftus, but nothing more."
+
+"Parcel of fools, I call 'em!" said Colonel Ferrers, contemptuously.
+"New people, with money. Loftus, sharp business man, wants to be a
+gentleman farmer. As much idea of farming as my stick has. Wife and
+daughters look like a parcel o' fools. Don't know 'em! don't want to
+know 'em!" Mrs. Grahame, finding this not an agreeable subject, turned
+the conversation upon old friends, and they were soon deep in matters of
+twenty years ago.
+
+Meanwhile Hildegarde and the bashful youth had sat in absolute silence.
+At first Hildegarde had been too much discomposed by her mother's
+allusion to the morning's adventure to speak, though she was able to see
+afterwards how much better it was to bring up the matter naturally, and
+then dismiss it as a thing of no consequence, as it was, than to let it
+hang, an unacknowledged cloud, in the background.
+
+As the moments went on, however, she became conscious that it was her
+duty to entertain Mr. Ferrers. He evidently had no idea of saying
+anything; her mother and Colonel Ferrers had forgotten the presence of
+either of them, apparently. The silence became more and more awkward.
+What could she say to this gawky youth, whose face she could not even
+see? "What a lovely day it has been!" she finally remarked, and was
+startled by the sound of her own voice, though she was not usually shy
+in the least.
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Ferrers, "it has been a fine day."
+
+Silence again. This would never do! "Do you play tennis?" she asked
+boldly.
+
+"No--not much!" was the reply. "Doesn't pay, in hot weather."
+
+This was not encouraging, but Hildegarde was fairly roused by this time,
+and had no idea of being beaten. "What _do_ you do?" she said.
+
+Mr. Ferrers was silent, as if considering.
+
+"Oh--I don't know!" he said finally. "Nothing much. Poke about!" Then,
+after a pause, he added in explanation, "I don't live here. I only came
+a few days ago. I am to spend the summer with my uncle." Apparently this
+effort was too much for him, for he relapsed into silence, and
+Hildegarde could get nothing more save "Yes!" and "No!" out of him. But
+now Colonel Ferrers came to the rescue.
+
+"By the way, Mrs. Grahame," he said, "I think this boy must be a
+relation of yours, a Scotch cousin at least. His mother was a Grahame,
+daughter of Robert Grahame of Baltimore. His own name is John Grahame
+Ferrers."
+
+"Is it possible?" cried Mrs. Grahame, greatly surprised. "If that is the
+case, he is much more than a Scotch cousin. Why, Robert Grahame was my
+dear husband's first cousin. Their fathers were brothers. Hugh often
+spoke of his cousin Robert, and regretted that they never met, as they
+were great friends in their boyhood. And this is his son! is it
+possible? My dear boy, I must shake hands with you again. You _are_ a
+boy, aren't you, though you are so big?"
+
+"To be sure he is a boy!" said Colonel Ferrers, who was highly delighted
+with his discovery of a relationship. "Just eighteen--a mere snip of a
+boy! Going to college in the autumn."
+
+"Hildegarde," continued Mrs. Grahame, "shake hands with your cousin
+John, and tell him how glad you are to find him."
+
+Hildegarde held out her hand, and John Ferrers tried to find it, but
+found a hanging-basket instead, and knocked it over, sending a shower of
+damp earth over the other members of the party.
+
+"I must take him home," exclaimed Colonel Ferrers, in mock despair, "or
+he will destroy the whole house. Miss Hildegarde," he added, in a very
+kind voice, "you probably thought me an ogre this morning. I am
+generally regarded as such. Fact is, you frightened me more than I
+frightened you. We are not used to seeing young ladies here who know
+how to climb trees. Harry Monmouth! Wish I could climb 'em myself as I
+used. Best fun in the world! Come, Jack, I must get you home before you
+do any more mischief. Good-night, Mrs. Grahame! I trust we shall meet
+often!"
+
+"I trust so, indeed!" said Mrs. Grahame heartily. "We shall count upon
+your being neighbourly, in the good old country sense; and as for John,
+he must do a cousin's duty by us, and shall in return receive the
+freedom of the house."
+
+"Hum mum mum!" said John; at least, that is what it sounded like; on
+which his uncle seized him by the arm impatiently, and walked him off.
+
+"Well, Mammina!" said Hildegarde, when the visitors were well out of
+hearing.
+
+"Well, dear!" replied her mother placidly. "What a pleasant visit! The
+poor lad is very shy, isn't he? Could you make anything out of him?"
+
+"Why, Mammina, he is a perfect goose!" exclaimed Hildegarde, warmly.
+"_I_ don't think it was a pleasant visit at all. As to making anything
+out of that--"
+
+"Fair and softly!" said Mrs. Grahame quietly. "In the first place, we
+will not criticise the guests who have just left us, because that is not
+pretty-behaved, as auntie would say. And in the second place--your dear
+father was just eighteen when I first met him, Hildegarde; and he put
+his foot through the flounce of my gown, upset strawberries and cream
+into my lap, and sat down on my new ivory fan, all at one tea-party."
+
+"Good-night, dear mamma!" said Hildegarde meekly.
+
+"Good-night, my darling! and don't forget that barn-door rent in your
+corduroy skirt, when you get up in the morning."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+UNCLE AND NEPHEW.
+
+
+COLONEL FERRERS and his nephew walked away together, the former with a
+quick, military stride, the latter shambling, as lads do whose legs have
+outgrown their understanding of them.
+
+"Don't hunch, sir!" exclaimed the Colonel, throwing his broad shoulders
+back and his chin to the position of "eyes front." "Put your chin in and
+your chest out, and don't hunch! You have about as much carriage, my
+nephew Jack, as a rheumatic camel. Well!" (as poor Jack straightened his
+awkward length and tried to govern his prancing legs). "So Mrs. Grahame
+is a connection, after all; and a very charming woman, too. And how
+did you find the young lady, sir? Did she give you any points on
+tree-climbing? Ho! ho! I was wrong, though, about her being a tomboy.
+She hasn't the voice of one. Did you notice her voice, nephew? it is
+very sweet and melodious. It reminded me of--of a voice I remember."
+
+"I like her voice!" replied Jack Ferrers. By the way, his own voice was
+a very pleasant one, a well-bred and good-tempered voice. "I couldn't
+see her face very well. I can't talk to girls!" he added. "I don't know
+what to say to them. Why did you tell them about mother, Uncle Tom?
+There was no need of their knowing."
+
+"Why did I tell them?" exclaimed Colonel Ferrers. "Harry Monmouth! I
+told them, you young noodle, because I chose to tell them, and because
+it was the truth, and a mighty lucky thing for you, too. What with your
+poor mother's dying young, and your father's astonishing and
+supernatural wrong-headedness, you have had no bringing up whatever, my
+poor fellow! Talk of your going to college next year! why, you don't
+know how to make a bow. I present you to two charming women, and you
+double yourself up as if you had been run through the body, and then
+stumble over your own legs and tumble over everything else. Shade of
+Chesterfield! How am I to take you about, if this is the way you
+behave?"
+
+"It was dark," said poor Jack. "And--and I don't want to be taken about,
+uncle, thank you. Can't I just keep quiet while I am here, and not see
+people? I don't know how to talk, really I don't."
+
+"Pooh! pooh! sir," roared the Colonel, smiting the earth with his stick.
+"Have the goodness to hold your tongue! You know how to talk nonsense,
+and I request you'll not do it to me. You are my brother's son, sir,
+and I shall make it my business to teach you to walk, and to talk, and
+to behave like a rational Christian, while you are under my roof. If
+your father had the smallest atom of common sense in his composition--"
+
+"Please don't say anything against father, Uncle Tom," cried the lad. "I
+can't stand that!" and one felt in the dark the fiery flush that made
+his cheeks tingle.
+
+"Upon my soul!" cried Colonel Ferrers (who did not seem in the least
+angry), "you are the most astounding young rascal it has ever been my
+good fortune to meet. Are you aware, sir, that your father is my
+brother? that I first made the acquaintance of Raymond Ferrers when he
+was one hour old, a squeaking little scarlet wretch in a flannel
+blanket? Are you aware of this, pray?"
+
+"I suppose I am," answered the lad. "But that doesn't make any
+difference. Nobody body must say anything against him, even if it is
+his own brother."
+
+"Who is saying anything against him?" demanded Colonel Ferrers,
+fiercely. "He is an angel, sir; every idiot knows that. A combination of
+angel and infant, Raymond Ferrers is, and always has been. But the
+combination does not qualify him for bringing up children. Probatum est!
+Here we are! Now let me see if you can open the gate without fumbling,
+sir. If there is one thing I can_not_ endure, it is fumbling."
+
+Thus adjured, Jack Ferrers opened the heavy wooden gate, and the two
+passed through a garden which seemed, from the fragrance, to be full of
+roses. The old house frowned dark and gloomy, with only one light
+twinkling feebly in a lower window. When they had entered, and were
+standing in the pleasant library, book-lined from floor to ceiling,
+Colonel Ferrers turned suddenly to his nephew, who was in a brown
+study, and dealt him a blow on the shoulder which sent him staggering
+half-way across the room, unexpected as it was.
+
+"You're right to stand up for your father, my lad," he said, with gruff
+heartiness. "It was unnecessary in this case, for I would be cut into
+inch pieces and served up on toast if it would do my brother Raymond any
+good; but you are right all the same. If anybody else ever says he
+hasn't common sense, knock him down, do you hear? A blow from the
+shoulder, sir! that's the proper answer."
+
+"Yes, uncle," said the boy demurely; but he looked up with a twinkle in
+his eye. "It's lucky for me that I _don't_ have to knock you down, sir,"
+he added. "You're awfully strong, aren't you? I wish I were!"
+
+"You, sir!" rejoined the Colonel. "You have the frame of an ox, if you
+had any flesh to cover it. Exercise is what you need, Nephew Jack!
+Fencing is what you want, sir! Take that walking-stick! Harry Monmouth!
+I'll give you a lesson, now. On guard! So! defend yourself! Ha! humph!"
+The last exclamation was one of disgust, for at the Colonel's first
+thrust, Jack's stick flew out of his hand, and knocked over a porcelain
+vase, shattering it in pieces, Jack, meanwhile, standing rubbing his arm
+and looking very foolish.
+
+"Humph!" repeated Colonel Ferrers, looking rather disconcerted himself,
+and all the more fierce therefore. "That comes of trying to instruct a
+person who has not been taught to hold himself together. You are a
+milksop, my poor fellow! a sad milksop! but we are going to change all
+that. There! never mind about the pieces. Giuseppe will pick up the
+pieces. Get your supper, and then go to bed."
+
+"I don't care about supper, thank you, uncle," said the lad.
+
+"Pooh! pooh! don't talk nonsense!" cried the Colonel. "You don't go to
+bed without supper."
+
+He led the way into the dining-room, a long, low room, panelled with
+dark oak. Walls, table, sideboard, shone like mirrors, with the polish
+of many years. Over the sideboard was the head of a gigantic moose, with
+huge, spreading antlers. On the sideboard itself were some beautiful
+pieces of old silver, shining with the peculiar blue lustre that comes
+from long rubbing, and from that alone. A tray stood on the table, and
+on it was a pitcher of milk, two glasses, and a plate of very
+attractive-looking little cakes. The colonel filled Jack's glass, and
+stood by with grim determination till he had drunk every drop.
+
+"Now, a cake, sir," he added, sipping his own glass leisurely. "A plummy
+cake, of Mrs. Beadle's best make. Down with it, I insist!" In the
+matter of the plum cake, little insistence was necessary, and between
+uncle and nephew both plate and pitcher were soon empty.
+
+"There," said the good Colonel, as they returned to the library, "now
+you have something to sleep on, my friend. No empty stomachs in this
+house, to distract people's brains and make mooncalves of them. Ten
+minutes' exercise with the Indian clubs--you have them in your
+room?--and then to bed. Hand me the 'Worthies of England,' will you?
+Bookcase on the right of the door, third shelf from the bottom, fifth
+book from the left. Thomas Fuller. Yes, thank you. Good-night, my boy!
+don't forget the clubs, and _don't_ poke your head forward like a
+ritualist parson, because you are not otherwise cut out for one."
+
+Leaving his uncle comfortably established with his book and
+reading-lamp, Jack Ferrers took his way upstairs. It was not late, but
+he had already found out that his uncle had nothing to say to him or any
+one else after the frugal nine o'clock supper, and his own taste for
+solitude prompted him to seek his room. As he passed along a dark
+corridor, a gleam of light shot out from a half-open door.
+
+"Are you awake, Biddy?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, dear!" answered a kind, hearty voice. "Come in, Master Jack, if
+you've a mind."
+
+The room was so bright that Jack screwed up his eyes for a moment. The
+lamp was bright, the carpet was bright, the curtains almost danced on
+the wall from their own gayety, while the coloured prints, in shining
+gilt frames, sang the whole gamut of colour up and down and round and
+round. But brighter than all else in the gay little room was the gay
+little woman who sat by the round table (which answered every purpose
+of a mirror), piecing a rainbow-coloured quilt. Her face was as round
+and rosy as a Gravenstein apple. She had bright yellow ribbons in her
+lace cap, and her gown was of the most wonderful merino that ever was
+seen, with palm-leaves three inches long curling on a crimson ground.
+
+"How very bright you are in here, Biddy!" said Jack, sitting down on the
+floor, with his long legs curled under him. "You positively make my eyes
+ache."
+
+"It's cheerful, dear," replied the good housekeeper. "I like to see
+things cheerful, that I do. Will you have a drop of shrub, Master Jack?
+there's some in the cupboard there, and 'twill warm you up, like, before
+going to bed."
+
+Then, as Jack declined the shrub with thanks, she continued, "And so you
+have been to call on the ladies at Braeside, you and the Colonel. Ah!
+and very sweet ladies, I'm told."
+
+"Very likely!" said Jack absently. "Do you mind if I pull the cat's
+tail, Biddy?"
+
+He stretched out his hand toward a superb yellow Angora cat which lay
+curled up on a scarlet cushion, fast asleep.
+
+"Oh! my dear!" cried Mrs. Beadle. "Don't you do it! He's old, and his
+temper not what it was. Poor old Sunshine! and why would you pull his
+tail, you naughty boy?"
+
+"Oh! well--no matter!" said Jack. "There's a fugue--that's a piece of
+music, Biddy--that I am practising, called the 'Cat's Fugue,' and I
+thought I would see if it really sounded like a cat, that's all."
+
+"Indeed, that's not such music as I should like your uncle to hear!"
+exclaimed Mrs. Beadle. "And what did you say to the young lady, Master
+Jack?" she added, as she placed a scarlet block against a purple one.
+"I'm glad enough you've found some young company, to make you gay, like.
+You're too quiet for a young lad, that you are."
+
+"Oh, bother!" responded Jack, shaking his shoulders. "Tell me about my
+father, Biddy. I don't believe he liked g--company, any better than I
+do. What was he like when he was a boy?"
+
+"An angel!" said Mrs. Beadle fervently. "An angel with his head in his
+pocket; that is what Mr. Raymond was like."
+
+"Uncle Tom called him an angel, too!" said the lad. "Of course he is; a
+combination of angel and--why did you say 'with his head in his pocket,'
+Biddy?"
+
+"Well, dear, it wasn't on his shoulders," replied the housekeeper. "He
+was in a dream, like, all the time; oh, much worse than you are
+yourself, Master Jack."
+
+"Thank you!" muttered Jack.
+
+"And forgetful! well! well! he needed to be tied to some one, Mr.
+Raymond did. To see him come in for his luncheon, and then forget all
+about it, and stand with a book in his hand, reading as if there was
+nothing else in the world. And then Mr. Tom--dear! dear! would put his
+head down and run and butt him right in the stomach, and down they would
+go together and roll over and over; great big lads, like you, sir, and
+their father would take the dog-whip and thrash 'em till they got up.
+'Twas all in sport like, d'ye see; but Mr. Raymond never let go his
+book, only beat Mr. Tom with it. Dear! dear! such lads!"
+
+"Tell me about his running away," said Jack.
+
+"After the fiddler, do you mean, dear? That was when he was a little
+lad. Always mad after music he was, and playing on anything he could
+get hold of, and singing like a serup, that boy. So one day there came
+along an Italian, with a fiddle that he played on, and a little boy
+along with him, that had a fiddle, too. Well, and if Mr. Raymond didn't
+persuade that boy to change clothes with him, and he to stay here and
+Mr. Raymond to go with the fiddler and learn to play. Of course the man
+was a scamp, and had no business; and Mr. Raymond gave him his gold
+piece to take him, and all! But when the old Squire--that's your
+grandfather, dear!--when he came in and found that little black-eyed
+fellow dressed in his son's clothes, and crying with fright, and not a
+word of English--well, he was neither to hold nor to bind, as the saying
+is. Luckily Mrs. Ferrers--that's your grandmother, dear! she came in
+before the child was frightened into a fit, though very near it; and she
+spoke the language, and with her quiet ways she got the child quiet,
+and he told her all about it, and how the fiddler beat him, and showed
+the great bruises. And when she told the Squire, he got black in the
+face, like he used, and took his dog-whip and rode off on his big grey
+horse like mad; and when he came back with Mr. Raymond in front of him,
+the whip was all in pieces, and Mr. Raymond crying and holding the
+little fiddle tight. And the Italian boy stayed, and the Squire made a
+man of him, from being a Papist outlandish-man. And that's all the
+story, Master Jack."
+
+"And he is Giuseppe?" asked Jack.
+
+"And he is Jew Seppy," Mrs. Beadle assented. "Though it seems a hard
+name to give him, and no Jew blood in him that any one can prove, only
+his eyes being black. But he won't hear to its being shortened. And now
+it is getting to be night-cap time, Master Jack," said the good woman,
+beginning to fold up her work, "and I hope you are going to bed, too,
+like a good young gentleman. But if you don't, you'll shut the door
+careful, won't you dear?"
+
+"Never fear," said the boy, gathering himself up from the floor. "I'm
+sleepy to-night, anyhow; I may go straight to bed. Good-night, Biddy.
+You're quite sure you like me to call you 'Biddy'?"
+
+"My dear, it makes me feel five-and-twenty years younger!" said the good
+woman; "and I seem to see your dear father, coming in with his curls
+a-shaking, calling his Biddy. Ah, well! Good-night, Master Jack, dear!
+Don't forget to look in when you go by."
+
+"Good-night, Biddy!"
+
+The lad went off with his candle, fairly stumbling along the corridor
+from sheer sleepiness; but when he reached his own room, which was
+flooded with moonlight, the drowsiness seemed to take wings and
+disappear. He sat down by the open window and looked out. Below lay the
+garden, all black and silver in the intense white light. The smell of
+the roses came up to him, exquisitely sweet. He leaned his head against
+the window-frame, and felt as if he were floating away on the buoyant
+fragrance--far, far away, to the South, where his home was, and where
+the roses were in bloom so long that it seemed as if there were always
+roses.
+
+The silver-lit garden vanished from his sight, and he saw instead a
+long, low room, half garret, half workshop, where a man stood beside a
+long table, busily at work with some fine tools. The spare, stooping
+figure, the long, delicate hands, the features carved as if in ivory,
+the blue, near-sighted eyes peering anxiously at the work in his
+hands,--all these were as actually present to the boy as if he could put
+out his own hand and touch them. It was with a start that he came back
+to the world of tangible surroundings, as a sudden breath of wind waved
+the trees below him, and sent whisperings of leaf and blossom through
+his room.
+
+"Daddy!" he said half to himself; and he brushed away something which
+had no possible place in the eyes of a youth who was to go to college
+next year. Giving himself a violent shake, Jack Ferrers rose, and, going
+to a cupboard, took out with great care a long, black, oblong box. This
+he deposited on the bed; then took off his boots and put on a pair of
+soft felt slippers. His coat, too, was taken off; and then, holding the
+black box in his arms, as if it were a particularly delicate baby, he
+left the room, and softly made his way to the stairs which led to the
+attic. There was a door at the foot of the stairs, which he opened
+noiselessly, and then he stopped to listen. All was still. He must have
+been sitting for some time at the window, for the light in the hall was
+extinguished, which was a sign that his uncle had gone to bed. In fact,
+as he listened intently, his ear caught a faint, rhythmic sound, rising
+and falling at regular intervals, like the distant murmur of surf on the
+sea-shore; his uncle was asleep. Closing the door softly after him, and
+clasping the black box firmly, Jack climbed the attic stairs and
+disappeared in the darkness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+COUSIN JACK.
+
+
+THE next day, as Hildegarde was arranging flowers on the piazza, with a
+table before her covered with bowls and vases, and a great basket of
+many-coloured blossoms beside her, Jack Ferrers appeared, evidently in
+the depths of misery, carrying a huge bunch of roses. He stumbled while
+coming up the steps, and dropped half the roses, which increased his
+discomfort so much that Hildegarde was really sorry for him. Moreover,
+when seen by daylight, he was a very pleasant-looking fellow, with curly
+brown hair and great honest blue eyes very wide open. He was over six
+feet tall, and as awkward as a human being could be, but of course he
+could not help that.
+
+[Illustration: "JACK FERRERS APPEARED CARRYING A HUGE BUNCH OF ROSES."]
+
+"Good-morning, Cousin Jack!" said Hildegarde pleasantly. "What lovely
+roses! Are they from Colonel Ferrers's garden?"
+
+"Yes," replied Jack Ferrers. "Uncle sends them with his compliments. I'm
+sorry I knocked over the basket last night. Good-by."
+
+He was about to fling himself down the steps again, but Hildegarde,
+controlling her desire to laugh, said cordially: "Oh, don't go! Sit down
+a moment, and tell me the names of some of these beauties."
+
+"Thank you!" muttered the youth, blushing redder than the roses. "I--I
+think I must go back."
+
+"Are you so very busy?" asked Hildegarde innocently. "I thought this was
+your vacation. What have you to do?"
+
+"Oh--nothing!" said the lad awkwardly. "Nothing in particular."
+
+"Then sit down," said Hildegarde decidedly.
+
+And Jack Ferrers sat down. A pause followed. Then Hildegarde said in a
+matter-of-fact tone, "You have no sisters, have you, Cousin Jack?"
+
+"No," was the reply. "How did you know?"
+
+"Because you are so shy," said Hildegarde, smiling. "Boys who have no
+sisters are apt to regard girls as a kind of griffin. There used to be a
+boy at dancing-school, two or three years ago, who was so shy it was
+really painful to dance with him at first, but he got over it after a
+while. And it was all because he had no sisters."
+
+"Did you like dancing-school?" Jack inquired, venturing to look up at
+her shyly.
+
+"Yes, very much indeed!" replied Hildegarde. "Didn't you?"
+
+"No; hated it."
+
+Then they both laughed a little, and after that things went a good deal
+better. Jack came up on the piazza (he had been sitting on the steps,
+shuffling his feet in a most distressing manner), and helped to clip the
+long stems of the roses, and pulled off superfluous leaves. It appeared
+that he did not care much for flowers, though he admitted that roses
+were "pretty." He did not care for fishing or shooting; tennis had made
+his head ache ever since he began to grow so fast. Did he like walking?
+Pretty well, when it wasn't too hot. Reading? Well enough, when the book
+wasn't stupid.
+
+"Wot are we to do with this 'ere 'opeless chap?" said Hildegarde to
+herself, quoting from "Pinafore."
+
+As a last resort she asked if he were fond of music. Instantly his face
+lighted up.
+
+"Awfully fond of it," he said with animation, and the embarrassed
+wrinkle disappeared as if by magic from between his eyebrows.
+
+"Oh, I am so glad!" cried Hildegarde. "I haven't had any music the last
+two summers. I had everything else that was nice, but still I missed it,
+of course. Do you play, or sing?"
+
+"A little of both," said Jack modestly.
+
+"Oh, how delightful! We must make music together for mamma sometimes. My
+own piano has not come yet, but there is the dearest old funny thing
+here which belonged to the Misses Aytoun."
+
+"Uncle Tom has no piano," said Jack, "but I have my violin, so I don't
+mind."
+
+"Oh, a violin!" said Hildegarde, opening her eyes wide. "Have you been
+studying it long?"
+
+"Ever since I was six years old," was the reply. "My mother would not
+let me begin earlier, though my father said that as soon as I could hold
+a knife and fork I could hold a bow. He's a little cracked about
+violins, my father. He makes them, you know."
+
+"I _don't_ know," cried Hildegarde. "Tell me about it; how very
+interesting!"
+
+"Well--I don't mean that it's his business," said Jack, who seemed to
+have forgotten his shyness entirely; "he's a lawyer, you know. But it's
+the only thing he really cares about. He has a workshop, and he has
+made--oh, ever so many violins! He went to Cremona once, and spent a
+year there, poking about, and he found an old church that was going to
+be repaired, and bought the sounding-board. Oh, it must have been a
+couple of hundred years old. Then he moused about more and found an old
+fellow, a descendant of one of Amati's workmen, and I believe he would
+have bought him, too, if he could; but, anyhow, they were great chums,
+and he taught my father all kinds of tricks. When he came home he made
+this violin out of a piece of the old sounding-board, and gave it to me
+on my birthday. It's--oh, it's no end, you know! And he made another for
+himself, and we play together. Do you know the Mozart Concerto in F, for
+two violins? It begins with an allegro."
+
+And being fairly mounted on his hobby, Jack Ferrers pranced about on it
+as if he had done nothing but talk to Hildegarde all his life.
+Hildegarde, meanwhile, listened with a mixture of surprise, amusement,
+and respect. He did not look in the least like a musical genius, this
+long-legged, curly-haired lad, with his blue eyes and his simple, honest
+face. She thought of the lion front of Beethoven, and the brilliant,
+exquisite beauty of Mozart, and tried to imagine honest Jack standing
+between them, and almost laughed in the midst of an animated description
+of the andante movement. Then she realised that he was talking
+extremely well, and talking a great deal over her head.
+
+"I am afraid you will find me very ignorant," she said meekly, when her
+cousin paused, a little out of breath, but with glowing cheeks and
+sparkling eyes. "I have heard a great deal of music, of course, and I
+love it dearly; but I don't know about it as you do, not a bit. I play
+the piano a little, and I sing, just simple old songs, you know, and
+that is all."
+
+Hildegarde might have added that she had a remarkably sweet voice, and
+sang with taste and feeling, but that her cousin must find out for
+himself; besides, she was really over-awed by this superior knowledge in
+one whom the night before she had been inclined to set down as a booby.
+"Shall I ever learn," she thought remorsefully, "not to make these
+ridiculous judgments of people, before I know anything about them?"
+
+Just then Mrs. Grahame came out and asked her new-found nephew, as she
+called him, to stay to dinner; but at sight of her the lad's shyness
+returned in full force. His animation died away; he hung his head, and
+muttered that he "couldn't possibly, thank you! Uncle Tom--stayed too
+long already. Good-by!" and, without even a farewell glance at
+Hildegarde, went down all the steps at once with a breakneck plunge, and
+disappeared.
+
+"Tragedy of the Gorgon's Head! Medusa, Mrs. Grahame," said that lady,
+laughing softly. "Has my hair turned to snakes, Hilda, or what is there
+so frightful in my appearance? I heard your voices sounding so merrily I
+thought the ice was completely broken."
+
+"Oh, I think it is," said Hildegarde. "You came upon him suddenly, that
+was all."
+
+"Next time," said her mother, "I will appear gradually, like the
+Cheshire Cat, beginning with the grin."
+
+Hildegarde laughed, and went to pin a red rose on her mother's dress.
+Then she said: "I was wrong, Mammina, and you were right, as usual. It
+is a tiresome way you have, so monotonous! But really he is a very nice
+boy, and he knows, oh! ever so much about music. He must be quite a
+wonder." And she told her mother about the violin, and all the rest of
+it.
+
+Mrs. Grahame agreed with her that it would be delightful to have some
+musical evenings, and Hildegarde resolved to practise two hours a day
+regularly.
+
+"But there are so few hours in the day!" she complained. "I thought
+getting up at seven would give me--oh! ever so much time, and I have
+none at all. Here is the morning nearly gone, and we have had no
+reading, not a word." And she looked injured.
+
+"There is an hour before dinner," said Mrs. Grahame, "and the 'Makers of
+Florence' is lying on my table at this minute. Come up, and I will read
+while you--need I specify the occupation?"
+
+"You need not," said Hildegarde. "I really did mean to mend it this
+morning, love, but things happened. I had to sew on boot-buttons before
+breakfast, three of them, and then Janet wanted me to show her about
+something. But now I will really be industrious."
+
+This was destined to be a day of visits. In the afternoon Mrs. Loftus
+and her daughter called, driving up in great state, with prancing horses
+and clinking harness. Hildegarde, who was in her own room, meditated a
+plunge down her private staircase and an escape by way of the back door,
+but decided that it would be base to desert her mother; so she smoothed
+her waving hair, inspected her gown to make sure that it was spotless,
+and came down into the parlour.
+
+Mrs. Loftus was a very large lady, with a very red face, who talked
+volubly about "our place," "our horses," "our hot-houses," etc., etc.
+Miss Loftus, whose name was Leonie, was small and rather pretty, though
+she did not look altogether amiable. She was inclined to patronise
+Hildegarde, but that young person did not take kindly to patronage, and
+was a little stately, though very polite, in her manner.
+
+"Yes, it is pretty about here," said Miss Loftus, "though one tires of
+it very quickly. We vegetate here for three months every summer; it's
+papa's" (she pronounced it "puppa") "whim, you see. How long a season do
+you make?"
+
+"None at all," said Hildegarde quietly. "We are going to live here."
+
+Miss Loftus raised her eyebrows. "Oh! you can hardly do that, I should
+think!" she said with a superior smile. "A few months will probably
+change your views entirely. There is no life here, absolutely none."
+
+"Indeed!" said Hildegarde. "I thought it was a very prosperous
+neighbourhood. All the farms look thrifty and well cared for; the crops
+are alive, at least."
+
+"Oh, farmers and crops!" said Miss Loftus. "Very likely. I meant social
+life."
+
+"I don't like social life," said Hildegarde.
+
+This was not strictly true, but she could not help saying it, as she
+told her mother afterward.
+
+Miss Loftus passed over the remark with another smile, which made our
+heroine want to pinch her, and added, "You must consider us your only
+neighbours, as indeed we really are."
+
+"Yes, indeed!" said Mrs. Loftus, who was now rising ponderously to
+depart. "We shall hope to see you often at The Poplars, Mrs. Grahame.
+There is not another house within five miles where one can visit. Of
+course I don't include that old bear, Colonel Ferrers, who never speaks
+a civil word to any one."
+
+Hildegarde flushed and looked at her mother, but Mrs. Grahame said very
+quietly, "I have known Colonel Ferrers for many years. He was a friend
+of my husband's."
+
+"Oh, I beg your pardon!" said Mrs. Loftus, looking scared. "I had no
+idea--I never heard of _any one_ knowing Colonel Ferrers. Come, Leonie,
+we must be going."
+
+They departed, first engaging Hildegarde, rather against her will, to
+lunch with them the following Friday; and the grand equipage rolled
+clinking and jingling away.
+
+"We seem to have fallen upon a Montague and Capulet neighbourhood," said
+Mrs. Grahame, smiling, as she turned to go upstairs.
+
+"Yes, indeed!" said Hildegarde. "Shall we be Tybalts or Mercutios?"
+
+"Neither, I hope," said her mother, "as both were run through the body.
+Of course, however, there is no question as to which neighbour we shall
+find most congenial. And now, child, get your hat, and let us take a
+good walk, to drive the cobwebs out of our brains."
+
+"Have with you!" said Hildegarde, running lightly up the stairs; "only,
+darling, _don't_ be so--so--incongruous as to call Mrs. Loftus a
+cobweb!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+MISS AGATHA'S CABINET.
+
+
+"MAMMINA! I have found them! I have found them!" cried Hildegarde,
+rushing like a whirlwind into her mother's room, and waving something
+over her head.
+
+"What have you found, darling?" asked Mrs. Grahame, looking up from her
+writing. "Not your wits, for example? I should be so glad!"
+
+"One may not shake one's mother," said Hildegarde, "but beware, lest you
+'rouse an Indian's indomitable nature.' I have found the keys of Miss
+Agatha's cabinet."
+
+"Really!" cried Mrs. Grahame, laying down her pen. "Are you sure? where
+were they?"
+
+"In that old secretary in Uncle Aytoun's room," said Hildegarde. "You
+know you said I might rummage in it some day, and this rainy afternoon
+seemed to be the very time. They were in a little drawer, all by
+themselves; and see, they are marked, 'Keys of the cabinet in my sister
+Agatha's room, containing miniatures, etc.'"
+
+"This is indeed a discovery!" said Mrs. Grahame, rising. "We will
+examine the cabinet together, dear; as you say, it is just the day for
+it."
+
+Hildegarde led the way, dancing with excitement and pleasure; her mother
+followed more slowly. There might be sadness, she thought, as well as
+pleasure, in looking over the relics of a family which had died out,
+leaving none of the name, so far as she knew, in this country at least.
+Miss Agatha's room did not look very cheerful in the grey light of a
+wet day. The prevailing tint of walls and ceiling was a greyish yellow;
+the faded curtains were held back by faded ribbons; the furniture was
+angular and high-shouldered. On the wall was a coloured print of "London
+in 1802," from which the metropolis would seem to have been a singular
+place. The only interesting feature in the room was the cabinet which
+they had come to explore, and this was really a beautiful piece of
+furniture. It stood seven feet high at least, and was apparently of
+solid ebony, inlaid with yellow ivory in curious spiral patterns. In the
+centre was a small door, almost entirely covered with the ivory tracery;
+above, below, and around were drawers, large and small, deep and
+shallow, a very wilderness of drawers. All had silver keyholes of
+curious pattern, and all were fast locked, a fact which had seriously
+interfered with Hildegarde's peace of mind ever since they came to the
+house. Now, however, that she actually stood before it with the "Open
+sesame," this bunch of quaint silver keys in her hand, she shrank back,
+and felt shy and afraid.
+
+"You must open it, mamma," she said. "I dare not."
+
+Mrs. Grahame fitted a key to one of the larger drawers, and opened it. A
+faint perfume floated out, old roses and lavender, laid away one knows
+not how many years. Under folds of silver paper lay some damask towels,
+fine and thick and smooth, but yellow with age. They were tied with a
+lilac ribbon, and on the ribbon was pinned a piece of paper, covered
+with writing in a fine, cramped hand.
+
+"Lift them out carefully, dear," said Mrs. Grahame, "and read the
+label."
+
+Hildegarde complied, and read aloud: "These towels were spun and woven
+by my grandmother Grahame in Scotland, before she came to this country.
+Her maiden name was Annot McIntosh."
+
+"What beautiful linen!" said Mrs. Grahame, smoothing the glossy folds
+with the hand of a housewife. "I always wished I had learned to spin and
+weave. Linen that one buys has no feeling in it. Lay it back reverently,
+degenerate daughter of the nineteenth century, and your degenerate
+mother will open another drawer."
+
+The next drawer contained several sets of baby-clothes, at sight of
+which Hildegarde opened her eyes very wide indeed. Her mother was an
+exquisite needle-woman, so was her cousin Wealthy Bond, and she herself
+had no need to be ashamed of the "fine seam" she could sew; but never
+had she seen such needlework as this: tiny caps, wrought so thick with
+flower and leaf that no spot of the plain linen could be seen; robes of
+finest lawn, with wonderful embroidered fronts; shawls of silk flannel,
+with deep borders of heavy "laid work." One robe was so beautiful that
+both Hildegarde and her mother cried over it, and took it up to examine
+it more carefully. On the breast was pinned a piece of paper, with an
+inscription in the same delicate hand: "Hester's christening-robe. We
+think it was in consequence of this fine work that our dear mother lost
+her eyesight."
+
+"I should think it highly probable," said Mrs. Grahame, laying the
+exquisite monument of folly back in the drawer. "I did not know that old
+Madam Aytoun was blind. What is written on that tiny cap, in the corner
+there? It must be a doll's cap; no baby could be so small."
+
+Hildegarde read the inscription: "Worn by our uncle Hesketh, who weighed
+two pounds at birth. He grew to be six feet and six inches in height,
+and weighed three hundred pounds."
+
+"What a wonderful person Miss Agatha must have been!" said Hildegarde.
+"Who else would think of all these pleasant bits of information? And now
+for the next drawer!"
+
+She opened it, and gave a little shriek of delight. Here truly were
+beautiful things, such as neither she nor her mother had ever seen
+before: three short aprons of white silk, trimmed with deep gold lace,
+and covered with silk-embroidered flowers of richest hues, one with
+tulips, another with roses, a third with carnations. Folds of tissue
+paper separated them from each other, and the legend told that they had
+been worn by "our great-grandmother Ponsonby, when she was Maid of
+Honour to Queen Caroline. She was an Englishwoman."
+
+Then came a tippet of white marabou feathers, buttoned into a silk
+case, and smelling faintly of camphor; a gown of rose-coloured satin,
+brocaded with green, and one of ruby-coloured velvet, which bore the
+inscription: "This was the gown on which our great-grandmother Ponsonby
+wore the diamond buttons which have since been divided among her
+descendants. A sinful waste of money which might have been put to good
+purpose."
+
+"How _very_ frivolous Great-grandmother Ponsonby must have been!" said
+Hildegarde. "I think Miss Agatha is rather hard on her, though. Perhaps
+the buttons were wedding presents. I wonder what has become of them all!
+See, Mammina, here are her red shoes--just like Beatrix Esmond's, aren't
+they? My foot would not begin to go into them. And here--oh! the lace!
+the lace!" For there was a whole drawer full of lace, all in little
+bundles neatly tied up and marked. Here was Madam Aytoun's wedding veil,
+Grandmother This One's Mechlin tabs, Aunt That One's Venetian flounces.
+It would take pages to describe all the laces, and the pleasure that
+mother and daughter had in examining them. What woman or girl does not
+love lace? Finally, in a corner of the drawer, was a morocco box
+containing a key, whose ivory label said: "Central compartment.
+Miniatures."
+
+"This will be the best of all!" cried Hildegarde, eagerly. "Perhaps we
+shall find Great-grandmother Ponsonby herself. Who knows?"
+
+The ivory door flew open as the key turned, and revealed a space set
+round with tiny drawers. Each drawer contained one or more miniatures,
+in cases of red or green morocco, and Hildegarde and her mother examined
+them with delight. Here, to be sure, was Great-grandmother Ponsonby; in
+fact, she appeared twice: first, as a splendid young matron, clad in
+the identical ruby velvet with the diamond buttons, her hair powdered
+high and adorned with feathers; and, again, as a not less superb old
+lady, with folds of snowy muslin under her chin, and keen dark eyes
+flashing from under her white curls, and a wonderful cap. Here was
+Grandfather Aytoun, first as a handsome boy, with great dark eyes, and a
+parrot on his hand, then as a somewhat choleric-looking gentleman with a
+great fur collar.
+
+"How they do change!" said Hildegarde. "I am not sure that I like to see
+two of the same person. Let me see, now! He married--"
+
+"The daughter of Great-grandmother Ponsonby," replied Mrs. Grahame.
+"Here she is! Caroline Regina Ponsonby, _aet._ 16. Named after the royal
+patroness, you see. What a sweet, gentle-looking girl! I fear her
+magnificent mother and her decided-looking husband may have been too
+much for her, for I see she died at twenty-three."
+
+"Oh! and he married again!" cried Hildegarde, opening another case. "See
+here! Selina Euphemia McKenzie, second wife of John Aytoun. Oh! and here
+is a slip of paper inside the frame.
+
+          "'Sweet flower, that faded soon
+            In Rapture's fervid noon.
+                                   'J. A.'
+
+"Dear me! he must have written it himself!" she added. "It is not like
+Miss Agatha's handwriting. Why, she only lived three months, poor dear!
+He makes very sure about the rapture, doesn't he?"
+
+"I think he does," said her mother, smiling, "considering that he
+married a third time, inside a year from the fading of the sweet flower.
+Look at this aquiline dame, with the remarkably firm mouth, and the
+bird of paradise in her turban. 'Adelaide McLeod, third wife of John
+Aytoun. She survived him.' I'll warrant she did!" said Mrs. Grahame.
+"She carries conquest in her face. All the children were of the first
+marriage, and I fear she was not a gentle stepmother. I wonder who this
+may be!" She took up a heavy bracelet of dark hair, with a small
+miniature set in the clasp. "What a pretty, pretty child! Good Miss
+Agatha has surely not left us in the dark concerning him. 'Little John
+Hesketh, 1804.' That is all."
+
+"Why Hesketh?" asked Hildegarde. "I have never heard of any Heskeths."
+
+Mrs. Grahame was about to plunge into genealogical depths, when
+Hildegarde, who had been opening a case of purple morocco, carefully
+secured with silver clasps, gave an exclamation of pleasure.
+
+"Hester!" she cried. "This is Hester, I know."
+
+Her mother looked, and nodded; and they both gazed in silence at the
+lovely face, with its earnest grey eyes.
+
+"The dear!" murmured Hildegarde. "How I should have loved her! I am sure
+we should have liked the same things. I wish she had not died."
+
+"You must remember that she would be a dear old lady now, were she
+alive, and not a young lassie. What does the slip say, darling? Miss
+Agatha's hand is rather trying for my eyes."
+
+"'Our dearest Hester,'" Hildegarde read. "'A duplicate of the one
+painted for Robert Ferrers.' Robert Ferrers!" she repeated thoughtfully.
+"Is that Colonel Ferrers? and do you suppose--"
+
+At this moment came a knock at the door, and Janet informed them that
+Mrs. Lankton was in the hall, and would like to speak to one of the
+ladies.
+
+"I will go," said Hildegarde, laying down the miniature reluctantly.
+
+"We will both go," said her mother. "The poor old dame! We have
+neglected her all these days."
+
+They locked the drawer of the treasure-cabinet, and Hildegarde ran to
+put the precious keys in a safe place, while her mother went directly
+downstairs. By the time Hildegarde appeared, Mrs. Lankton was launched
+on the full tide of her woes, and was sailing along with a good breeze.
+
+"And it's comin' in, Mis' Grahame--I'd say like a house afire, if
+'twa'n't that 'twas wet. Dreepin' all down the chimbley, and runnin'
+over the floor in streams. I stepped into a pool o' water with my bar'
+feet, gittin' out o' bed; likely I caught my death, but it's no great
+matter. Ah! Mis' Grahame, I've seen trouble all my life. Mr. Aytoun, he
+was like a father to me. He wouldn't never ha' let me go bar'foot in
+water if he'd ben alive. I've ben a hard-workin' woman all my life, and
+he knowed it. I hope your own health is good, dear?"
+
+"What can I do for you, Mrs. Lankton?" asked Mrs. Grahame, kindly, as a
+moment's pause gave her a chance to get in a word. "Does the roof need
+shingling?"
+
+"Mr. Aytoun was goin' to have it shingled for me last Janooary," said
+Mrs. Lankton, with a sigh that was almost a groan; "and he was called on
+to die in Febooary. Jest afore he passed away, he was tryin' dretful
+hard to say somethin', and I ain't no manner o' doubt myself but what
+'twas 'Shingle!' He had it on his mind; they needn't tell me. But nobody
+seemed to feel a call after he was gone. Ah, dear me! You don't know
+nothin' about it, Mis' Grahame. You ain't never stepped bar'foot out o'
+your bed into a pool o' water, and you all doubled up with neurology in
+your j'ints. Ah, well, 'twon't be long now that I shall trouble
+anybody."
+
+"Which is your house, Mrs. Lankton?" asked Mrs. Grahame. "I will try to
+have something done about the roof at once."
+
+"I know!" said Hildegarde, quickly. "It is a brown cottage with a green
+door."
+
+"See how she knows!" exclaimed Mrs. Lankton, with a sad smile. "Ain't
+that thoughtful? Ah! she'll be a comfit to you, Mis' Grahame, if you've
+luck to raise her, but there's no knowin'. Don't you set your heart on
+it, that's all. Ah! I know what trouble is."
+
+"Don't you think I am 'raised' already, Mrs. Lankton?" Hilda asked,
+smiling down on the weazened face that did not reach to her shoulder.
+
+"So fur ye be, dear!" replied the widow, with a doleful shake of the
+head. "So fur ye be, but there's no knowin'. My Phrony was jest like
+you, hearty and stout, and she's gone. Ah! dear me! She had a store
+tooth, where she knocked out one of hers, slidin', and she swallered it
+one night, and she never got over it. Lodged on her liver, the doctor
+said. He went down and tried to fetch it up, but 'twa'n't no use. She
+was fleshy, same as you be. Yes, gals is hard to raise."
+
+At this, Hildegarde retreated suddenly into the parlour, and Mrs.
+Grahame, in a voice which shook a little, expressed proper regret and
+sympathy, and repeated that she would have the roof attended to.
+
+"And now," she added, "go into the kitchen, and auntie shall give you a
+cup of hot tea. You must dry your feet, too, before you go out again."
+
+"The Lord'll reward you, dear!" said Mrs. Lankton, turning with a faint
+gleam of cheerfulness toward the kitchen door. "It ain't long before I
+shall go the way of all, but it doos seem as if I mought go dry, 'stead
+o' dreepin'. But _you_'ll be rewarded, Mis' Grahame. I felt as if you'd
+be a mother to me, soon as I sot eyes on ye. _Good_-mornin', dear!" and
+with a groan that ended in a half-chuckle, she disappeared.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE POPLARS.
+
+
+PUNCTUALLY at half-past one on Friday, Hildegarde walked up the avenue
+which led to "The Poplars." It was a broad avenue, and the steps to
+which it led were broad, and the whole house had an air of being spread
+out. "But Mrs. Loftus needs a good deal of room!" said Hildegarde to
+herself, and then cuffed herself mentally for wickedness.
+
+Very fair and sweet she looked, our Hildegarde, in her white serge gown,
+with the pretty hat of white "chiffon" which "Mammina" had made only the
+evening before. Standing on the verandah, with eyes and cheeks brilliant
+from walking, she met the entire approval of a young gentleman who was
+reclining behind the hedge. He was a _very_ young gentleman. He wore
+corduroy knickerbockers, and he was lying flat on his stomach, with his
+heels in the air, sucking a large bull's-eye. The sudden apparition of a
+tall maiden in white, with shining eyes, nearly caused him to swallow
+the bull's-eye, but he recovered himself, and gazed steadfastly at her.
+When the door opened to admit her, the young gentleman sighed, and
+considered that it was not so fine a day as he had thought it. "She is a
+beautiful girl!" he said to himself with fervour; "she is a Purple
+Maid!" and then he rolled over on his back, to see if the bull's-eye
+would taste as good in that position.
+
+Hildegarde, meanwhile, unconscious of the approving scrutiny of the
+infant connoisseur, was ushered by a stately butler through room after
+room, until she came to one where Mrs. and Miss Loftus were waiting to
+receive her. They were both very cordial, one in a ponderous, the other
+in an airily patronising way.
+
+"But I did not hear you drive up," said Mrs. Loftus, "and we have been
+listening every moment; for I said to Leonie, 'Suppose she should not
+come, after all!' And so you must have driven up very quietly, you see."
+
+"I walked," said Hildegarde, smiling; "so there were no wheels to hear,
+Mrs. Loftus."
+
+"Walked! Is it possible?" cried Mrs. Loftus, while her daughter raised
+her eyebrows and regarded Hildegarde with languid curiosity. "My dear,
+you must be terribly heated. Let me ring for some Florida water. No, I
+insist!" as Hildegarde made a gesture of protest. "It is _so_ dangerous
+to walk in the heat of the day. The brain, you know, becomes heated, and
+it does something to the spinal marrow. Do you feel any dizziness?
+Really, the best thing would be for you to lie down at once for half an
+hour. I will darken the room, and--"
+
+"Nonsense, mamma!" said Miss Loftus, "I don't believe Miss Grahame wants
+to lie down."
+
+"Oh, no, indeed!" cried Hildegarde, thankful for the interruption. "I am
+used to walking, you know, Mrs. Loftus. I always walk, everywhere. I
+like it very much better than driving; besides," she added, "we have no
+horses, so I should have to walk in any case."
+
+"I think it so dangerous!" said Mrs. Loftus, with a compassionate shake
+of the head. "In the heat of the day, as I said, the spinal marrow; so
+important, my dear! and towards evening there is a chill in the air,
+malaria, all kinds of dreadful things. I shall make a point of picking
+you up whenever I am driving by--I drive by nearly every day--and taking
+you out."
+
+"Oh--thank you!" cried poor Hildegarde, an abyss opening at her feet.
+"You are very kind, but I could not! I am so busy--and walking is my
+delight."
+
+The announcement of lunch created a diversion, to the great relief of
+our heroine. Mr. Loftus appeared, a small, shrivelled man, with sharp
+eyes, whose idea of making himself agreeable was to criticise each
+article of food as it came on the table.
+
+"Very weak bouillon, Mrs. Loftus" (he called it "bullion"). "Very weak!
+greasy, too! Not fit to put on the table. What's this? chicken? Fowl, I
+should say! Rooster, Mrs. L.! Is this your twelve-dollar cook? Not a
+thing Miss Grahame can eat! She'll go and tell old Ferrers how we gave
+her roast rooster, see if she don't! I hear you're very thick with old
+Ferrers, Miss Grahame. Old Grizzly Bruin, _I_ call him. Good name, too!
+he! he!"
+
+Hildegarde blushed scarlet, and wondered what her mother would say in
+her place. All she could do was to murmur that the chicken was very nice
+indeed, and to hope that she did not show more of her disgust than was
+proper. The luncheon was very fine, in spite of Mr. Loftus's
+depreciation; and when it came to the dessert, he changed his tune, and
+descanted on the qualities of "my peaches," "my nectarines," and "my
+gardener."
+
+"You don't eat enough, Miss Grahame!" was his comment. "No need to stint
+yourself here; plenty for all, and more where that came from."
+
+But here Miss Loftus came to the rescue, and with a "Don't be tiresome,
+puppa!" changed the conversation, and began to talk of the Worth gowns
+she had seen in New York, on her last visit.
+
+"Which do you admire most, Worth or Felix?" she asked, after a graphic
+description of some marvellous gown which fitted the fortunate owner
+"as if she had been poured into it. Absolutely _poured_, Miss Grahame!"
+
+"I--I really don't know," Hildegarde confessed meekly. "I never can tell
+one dressmaker's style from another. If a gown is pretty, that is all I
+think about it."
+
+"Oh! if you have never studied these things, of course!" said the fair
+Leonie indulgently. "I went to Madame Vivien's school, you see, and we
+had a regular hour for studying fashions. I can tell a Worth or a Felix
+or a Donovan gown as far as I can see it."
+
+"Did you like Madame Vivien's school?" asked Hildegarde.
+
+"She ought to!" exclaimed Mr. Loftus. "It cost enough, I can tell you."
+
+"Oh, it is the best school in the city, of course," said Leonie
+complacently. "We had a very good time, a set of us that were there.
+They called us the Highflyers, and I suppose we had rather top-lofty
+notions. Anyway, we were Madame's favourites, because we had _the air_,
+she always said. She couldn't endure a dowdy girl, and she dressed
+beautifully herself. There were two or three girls that were regular
+digs, with their noses always in their books, and Madame couldn't bear
+them. 'Miss Antrim,' she was always saving to one of them, 'it is true
+that you know your lesson, but your gown is buttoned awry, and it fits
+as if the miller had made it.' He! he!"
+
+"And--and did you care for study?" Hildegarde asked, mentally
+sympathising with Miss Antrim, though conscious that she would never
+have been allowed to go to school with a gown buttoned awry.
+
+"Oh! I liked French," said Miss Loftus, "and history pretty well, when
+it wasn't too poky. But you didn't have to study at Madame Vivien's
+unless you wanted to."
+
+"What Leonie went most for was manners," explained Mrs. Loftus, taking a
+large mouthful of mayonnaise, and continuing her remarks while eating
+it. "Elegant manners they teach at Madame Vivien's."
+
+"How to enter a room well,"--Leonie enumerated the points on her taper
+fingers,--"how to salute and take leave of a hostess, how to order a
+dinner,--those were some of the most important things. We took turns in
+making up _menus_, and prizes were given for the best."
+
+"Leonie took the prize for the best minew!" exclaimed Mrs. Loftus,
+triumphantly. "Tell Miss Grahame your prize minew, Leonie."
+
+Nothing loth, Leonie described the dinner at length, from little-neck
+clams to coffee; and a very fine dinner it was.
+
+"Hm!" grunted Mr. Loftus, "better dinner than we ever get from your
+twelve-dollar cook, Mrs. L. Hm! Fine dinners on paper, I dare say. Hand
+me that salad! Why don't you give Miss Grahame some more salad? She
+ain't eating anything at all."
+
+"Then we had lectures on the Art of Dress," continued the fair student
+of Madame Vivien's. "Those were very interesting."
+
+"Well, dress does change, the most of anything!" exclaimed Mrs. Loftus.
+"To see the difference now from when I was a girl! Why, when I was
+married I had thirty-five yards of silk in my wedding dress, and now
+nobody don't have more than ten or twelve. Almost too scant to cover
+'em, it seems sometimes."
+
+"Thirty-five yards, mamma!" exclaimed her daughter. "You're joking!"
+
+"Not a mite!" Mrs. Loftus said firmly. "Thirty-five yards of white
+satin, and trimmed with four whole pieces of lace and three hundred and
+eighty-two bows." The two girls exclaimed in wonder, and Mrs. Loftus
+continued in high good-humour. "Yes, a dress was a dress in those days.
+Why, I had one walking dress, a brown silk it was, with fifty yards in
+it."
+
+"But how was it possible?" cried Hildegarde. "Did you wear crinoline?"
+
+"No," was the reply, "not a mite of hoop-skirt; but things were very
+full, you see, Miss Grahame. That brown dress, now; it had a deep
+side-plaiting all round, and an overskirt, very full too, and the back
+very deep, flounced, scalloped, and trimmed with narrow piping, looped
+in each corner with scallops. There was a deep fringe round the basque
+and overskirt, and coming up from the postilion (that was deep, too), to
+loop on the left shoulder."
+
+"Well, it sounds _awful_!" said Leonie frankly. "You must have been a
+perfect sight, mamma!"
+
+"She was better-looking than you are, or ever will be!" snarled Mr.
+Loftus. "Are you goin' to sit here all day talkin' about women's
+folderols? I have to pay for 'em, and I guess that's all I want to know
+about 'em."
+
+Glad enough was Hildegarde when four o'clock came, and she could plead
+an appointment to meet her mother at a certain turn of the road, as they
+were going for a walk together.
+
+"More walking!" cried Mrs. Loftus. "You'll have a fever, I'm certain of
+it. I don't think girls ought _ever_ to walk, unless it's a little turn
+in the park while the horses are waiting, or something of that sort."
+She begged Hildegarde to wait till the horses were harnessed, but our
+heroine was firm, and finally departed, leaving her good-natured
+hostess shaking her head in the doorway, like a mandarin in
+wine-coloured satin.
+
+As she turned the corner by the gilded iron gates, Hildegarde was
+startled by the apparition of a small boy in brown corduroy, sitting on
+a post and swinging his legs.
+
+Hildegarde was fond of boys. One of her two best friends was a boy, and
+she had a little sweetheart in Maine, whose name was Benny, and who
+loved her with all the ardour of four years old. This boy must be six or
+seven, she thought. He had red hair, a round, rosy, freckled face, and
+two eyes so blue and so bright that the very meeting them made her
+smile. Her smile was answered by a flash, which lighted up the whole
+face, and subsided instantly, leaving preternatural gravity.
+
+"How do you do?" said Hildegarde. "Is it fun sitting there?"
+
+"No!" said the boy; and down he came. Then shyness seized him; he hung
+his head and considered his toes attentively.
+
+"My name is Hilda," continued our heroine. "Do you think it is a nice
+name?"
+
+He nodded, still intent on the boots.
+
+"But I don't know what your name is," she went on sadly. "I should like
+to tell you about my puppy, if you would walk along by me, but you see I
+can't, because I don't know your name."
+
+"Hugh Allen," said the lad briefly.
+
+"Hugh!" cried Hildegarde, her cheek flushing and her eyes softening.
+"That was my dear father's name. We must be friends, Hugh, for the
+name's sake. Come along, laddie!"
+
+The boy came, and walked in silence by her side, occasionally stealing a
+glance at the kind, bright face so much higher up than his own.
+
+"Well, my puppy," said Hildegarde, as if she were continuing a
+conversation. "His name was Patsy, and he was such a funny puppy,--all
+white, with a great big head, and paws almost as big, and a mouth large
+enough to swallow--oh! I don't know what! a watermelon, perhaps. I loved
+him very much. He used to gnaw my boots, and nibble the skirt of my
+dress; but, of course, I didn't mind, for I knew he was cutting his
+teeth, poor dear, and couldn't help it. But when he gnawed all the
+corners off the leather chairs in the dining-room, my mother dear didn't
+like it, and she said Patsy must go. Then my father said he would take
+him to his office every day, and keep him out of mischief, and then I
+could take the dear for a good walk in the afternoon, and have a
+comfortable time with him, and he could sleep in the shed. Well, I
+thought this was a delightful plan, and the next day Patsy went off with
+papa, as pleased and happy as possible. Oh, dear! Hugh, what do you
+think that puppy did?"
+
+"Perhaps he bit his legs," suggested Hugh, with a gleam of delight in
+his blue eyes.
+
+"Oh, no!" said Hildegarde. "He wouldn't have dared to do that, for he
+was a sad coward, my poor Patsy. My father left him shut up in the
+office while he went to lunch; and as the day was mild (though it was
+winter), he left his new ulster on a chair, where he had laid it when he
+first came in. Hugh, when he came back, he found the ulster--it was a
+stout heavy one--he found it all torn into little pieces, and the pieces
+piled in a heap, and Patsy lying on top of them."
+
+"Oh-ee!" cried the boy. "And _then_ what happened? Did he smite him hip
+and thigh, even unto the going down of the sun?"
+
+Hildegarde opened her eyes a little at this scriptural phrase, but
+answered: "Yes, I am afraid papa gave him a pretty severe whipping. He
+had to, of course. And then he sent him away, and I never saw poor Patsy
+again. Don't you think that was sad, Hugh?"
+
+"It was sad for you," replied the boy, "but sadder for Patsy. Would you
+like to be a dog?" he added, looking up suddenly into Hildegarde's face.
+
+"I--think--not!" said that young woman meditatively. "I should have to
+eat scraps and cold bones, and that I could not endure. Besides, you
+couldn't read, or play on the piano, or anything of that sort. No, I am
+quite sure I should not like it, Hugh."
+
+"But you would have a tail!" cried the boy, with kindling eyes. "A tail
+to wag! And--and just think how you would _go_ with four legs!" he
+added, giving a jump with his two stout little limbs. "And never to have
+to sit up straight, except for fun sometimes; and no boots to lace, and
+not to have to cut up your dinner. Oh! it would be such fun!"
+
+"Yes, and never to be able to change your clothes when they are wet or
+muddy," replied the girl, "and to have to lie on the floor"--"I like to
+lie on the floor," put in Hugh--"and to have unnatural people, who don't
+like dogs, say, 'There! there! get away, dog!' when you are trying to
+make yourself agreeable."
+
+"Yes, that is bad!" Hugh admitted. "Aunt Loftus beat Merlin yesterday
+when he hadn't done anything, just not anything at all. Just he wagged
+his tail to tell me something, and there was an old jug in the way, and
+it fell over and broke. And now he isn't to come into the house any
+more. I felt like 'many oxen come about me, fat bulls of Basan compass
+me on every side,' when she glared at me and said that."
+
+Hildegarde turned her face away, and was silent for a minute.
+
+"Merlin is your dog?" she asked presently, with a suspicious quiver in
+her voice.
+
+"Would you like to see him?" cried the lad joyfully. "He stayed behind
+with a bone, but I'll call him." He gave a long, clear whistle, and a
+superb collie came bounding down the avenue, and greeted his master with
+violent affection.
+
+"Down, Merlin!" said Hugh Allen gravely. "This is the Purple Maid I told
+you about, but her real name is Hilda. A Purple Maid was what I called
+you when I saw you coming up the steps," he explained, turning to
+Hildegarde. "I didn't know any other name, you see."
+
+"But why 'Purple Maid'?" asked Hildegarde, feeling more and more that
+this was a very queer little boy. "I had been walking fast, but was I
+actually purple, Hugh?"
+
+"Oh, no!" said the boy. "It wasn't that at all. Your cheeks were like
+the rosy eve. But 'purple' has a nice sound, don't you think so? a kind
+of rich sound. Do you mind my calling you a Purple Maid?"
+
+Hildegarde assured him that she did not, and then, from mere idle
+curiosity, as she afterwards assured herself, she added, "And what do
+you call your cousin Leonie?"
+
+"A vinegar cruet!" replied Hugh promptly. "And Aunt Loftus is a fat--"
+
+"Oh, hush! hush! my dear little boy!" cried Hildegarde hastily. "You
+must not say such things as that."
+
+"You asked me," replied Hugh simply. "That is what I do call them when I
+think about them."
+
+"But it is not nice to think rude and unkind things," said the Purple
+Maid, reprovingly.
+
+"Then I won't think about them at all," said the boy. "For they really
+are, you know. I'd rather think of you, anyhow, and mamma, and Merlin."
+
+[Illustration: "HILDEGARDE HAD BEEN MAKING FRIENDS WITH MERLIN."]
+
+While this dialogue was going on, Hildegarde had been making friends
+with Merlin, who responded with cheerful cordiality to her advances. He
+was a beautiful creature, of true collie brown, with a black nose, and
+the finest white waistcoat in the world. His eyes were wonderful, clear,
+deep, and intelligent, in colour "like mountain water when it's flowing
+o'er a rock."
+
+"Dear lad!" said Hildegarde, taking his black paw and pressing it
+affectionately. "I know you are as good as you are handsome. Will you be
+my friend, too? Hugh is going to be my friend."
+
+"He will!" cried Hugh eagerly. "We always like the same people, and
+_almost_ always the same things. He won't eat apples, and I don't chase
+cats; but those are nearly the only things we don't like together."
+
+At a turn in the road, Hildegarde saw in the distance a black figure
+walking toward them.
+
+"There is my mother dear!" she exclaimed. "She said she would come and
+meet me. Will you come and see her, Hugh?--she is _very_ nice!" she
+added, seeing that the boy hung back. But Hugh studied his boots again
+with rapt attention, and apparently read in them a summons back to The
+Poplars.
+
+"I think I have to go back!" he said. "I love you, and you are my Purple
+Maid. May I come to see you once?"
+
+"You may come fifty times, dear little lad!" cried Hildegarde warmly.
+"Come as often as you like."
+
+But Hugh Allen shook his head sagely. "Maybe once will be enough," he
+said. "Come, Merlin! Good-by, Purple Maid!" And he and Merlin
+disappeared in a cloud of legs and dust.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE COUSINS.
+
+
+HILDEGARDE and her cousin Jack soon became fast friends. His fear of
+Mrs. Grahame vanished the first time he saw her smile, and he found, to
+his great amazement, that a girl was not necessarily either "dreadful"
+or stupid; moreover, that a girl's mother might be a very delightful
+person, instead of a mixture of harpy and Gorgon. He was invited to come
+to tea and bring his violin. Colonel Ferrers was invited, too, but
+promptly declined.
+
+"A fiddling nephew, dear madam," he said, "is a dispensation to which I
+resign myself, but I do not wish to hear him fiddle."
+
+Mrs. Grahame suggested that the fiddle might be left at home.
+
+"No, no! Let him bring it! by all means let him bring it! if you can
+really endure it without discomfort, that is. It will be the greatest
+pleasure to the lad, who is a good lad, though a deplorable milksop."
+
+So Jack came with the precious black box under his arm. Tea was set out
+on the verandah, a symphony in white and gold,--golden croquettes,
+butter, honey, snowy rolls, and cream cheese,--and Hildegarde pouring
+the tea, in white with gold-coloured ribbons at waist and throat.
+
+Jack Ferrers had never seen anything of this sort. "Daddy" and he had
+always been together, and neither of them had ever cared or thought how
+anything looked. He wondered if his cousin Hildegarde was very
+frivolous. Girls were, of course; and yet--she was certainly very
+pretty; and, if she really cared for music--and then, being eighteen
+and hungry, he gave his undivided attention to the croquettes, which
+truly deserved it.
+
+And after tea, when they had sat quiet in the twilight for a little,
+Hildegarde said softly, "Now, Cousin Jack!" And Jack took his violin and
+began to play.
+
+At the first note Mrs. Grahame laid down her knitting; at the second,
+she and Hildegarde exchanged glances; at the third, they forgot each
+other and everything else save the music. First came a few simple
+chords, melting into a soft harmony, a prelude as low and sweet as the
+notes of the mother-bird brooding over her nest; then, suddenly, from
+this soft cloud of peaceful harmony there leaped a wonderful melody,
+clear and keen as the same bird's song at daybreak,--a melody that
+mounted higher and higher, soaring as the lark breasts the blue morning,
+flight upon flight of golden notes pouring out as if the violin were a
+living thing, a breathing, singing creature, with heart and soul filled
+and brimming over with love and joy and beauty.
+
+On and on the boy played, while the two women listened spellbound,
+feeling that this was no ordinary playing; and as he played his whole
+aspect seemed to change. He straightened himself and stood erect, save
+for the loving bend of the head over the beloved instrument. His blue
+eyes flashed, his whole countenance grew luminous, intense. The gawky,
+listless, indolent lad was gone; and one saw only the musician rapt in
+his art.
+
+When it was over, they were all silent for a moment. Then Mrs. Grahame
+held out her hand. "My dear boy!" she said. "My dear Jack, you ought to
+be the happiest fellow in the world. To be able to give and to enjoy
+such pleasure as this, is indeed a great privilege."
+
+Hildegarde could only look her thanks, for the music had moved her
+deeply; but her smile told Jack all that he wanted to know, and it
+appeared that girls were not all frivolous; also that it must be very
+nice to have a mother.
+
+Then he played again. Indeed, they left him no choice,--the Mozart
+concerto, of which he had spoken, and then one lovely thing after
+another, barcarolle and serenade and fairy dance, melting finally into
+the exquisite melody of an old Gaelic lullaby.
+
+"Oh!" said Hildegarde, under her breath; and then, as her mother bade
+her, she sang softly the words she loved,--
+
+          "Slumber sweetly, little Donald."
+
+Such a happy evening it was, on the wide verandah, with the moon shining
+down, softening everything into magical wonders of ivory and silver!
+
+It was the first of many such evenings, for soon Jack came to spending
+half his time at Braeside. At nine o'clock Colonel Ferrers would come
+striding up the gravel walk, swinging his big stick; and then the violin
+would be tenderly laid away, and half an hour of pleasant chat would
+follow, after which uncle and nephew would go off together, and the last
+the two ladies heard of them would be passionate adjurations from the
+former to "step out," and not to "poke your head forward like an army
+mule following a grain-cart, sir!"
+
+One day the two cousins were taking a walk together. At least they had
+been walking, and now had sat down to rest on the mossy trunk of a
+fallen tree,--in fact, of the same great sycamore which Hildegarde had
+christened Philemon, on the memorable day of the tree-climbing. They had
+been talking about everything and nothing, when suddenly Jack shook his
+head and began earnestly, "Did your mother mean that the other night?"
+
+Hildegarde simply looked at him, and raised her eyebrows.
+
+"I mean about my being happy," the boy continued. "Because I'm not
+happy, and I never expect to be."
+
+"What is it?" Hildegarde asked, seeing that a confidence was coming.
+
+"There is only one thing in the world that I want," cried the boy, "and
+that is just what I cannot have. I want to go to Leipsic, and Uncle Tom
+won't hear of it; calls it nonsense, and is going to send me to Harvard.
+We are poor, you know; Daddy doesn't know anything about money, and--and
+who cares about it, anyhow, except for--for things one wants? Uncle Tom
+says I can't make a bow, and--oh, all kinds of rubbish! What's the use
+of making a bow? I'm not going to be a dancing-master, Hildegarde!"
+
+"Indeed, you would not be a good one!" his cousin said; "but,
+considering that one must make bows, Jack, isn't it just as well to do
+it well as to do it badly?"
+
+"Who cares?" cried the boy, shaking his head wildly. "If a man is going
+to _be_ anything, who cares how he bows? And--oh, of course that is one
+item. I am to go to Harvard, and learn to bow and to dance, and to be a
+classical scholar, and to play base-ball. I _hate_ base-ball, Hilda!
+it's perfect idiocy, and it makes my head ache, and any one can see that
+I'm not cut out for athletics. Are you laughing at me?"
+
+"Indeed I am not!" said Hildegarde, heartily. "But, tell me! you want to
+go to Leipsic, to study music?"
+
+"Of course!" was the reply. "And Daddy wants me to go, and Herr Geigen
+is going over in the autumn, and he would place me, and all; but Uncle
+Tom hates music, you know, and if I speak of it he goes off in a rage,
+and talks about rascally Dutch fiddlers, and says I walk like a giraffe
+with the palsy. At least, that was the animal this morning. Yesterday I
+was a gouty ostrich, and I suppose we shall go through the whole
+menagerie."
+
+"You like him?" Hildegarde said interrogatively.
+
+"He is _very_ kind, in his way," replied Jack. "Awfully kind, and he
+loves my father, and I know he wants to do things for me; but--it all
+has to be done in his way, don't you see? And--well, there isn't
+anything in me except music. I know that, you see, Hildegarde. Just
+nothing!"
+
+"I don't feel so sure of that!" Hildegarde said. "Perhaps you never
+tried to develop the other side of you. There must be other sides, you
+know."
+
+"No, there aren't!" said Jack positively. "None at all!"
+
+"But that is nonsense!" cried Hildegarde impatiently. "Do you mean to
+say that you are a flat surface, like a playing-card, with 'music'
+painted on you?"
+
+"I didn't know I was flat!" rather stiffly.
+
+"You see, you are not! then why not try to care for something else
+_beside_ music, without caring any the less for that?"
+
+"What is there to care for? a parcel of musty old books, such as Uncle
+Tom is forever reading."
+
+"Oh! oh! you Goth! As if it were not a rapture simply to look at the
+outside of your uncle's books. To see my heart's own Doctor in dark blue
+calf, with all that beautiful tooling--"
+
+"What Doctor? what are you talking about, Hildegarde?"
+
+"Johnson, of course! Is there another? as the man in _Punch_ says about
+his hatter. And even in your own line, you foolish boy! Have you never
+read that beautiful 'Life of Handel'? I looked into it the other day,
+and it seemed delightful."
+
+"No," said Jack, looking blank. "Where is it? I never saw it."
+
+"Bookcase between the south windows, fourth shelf, about the middle;
+three fat volumes in green morocco. And you never saw it, because you
+never look at the books at all. What _do_ you look at, Jack, except your
+music and your violin? For example, do you ever look in the glass? I
+know you don't."
+
+"How do you know?" and Jack blushed hotly.
+
+"Because--you won't mind? I am your cousin, you know!--because your
+necktie is so often crooked. It is crooked now; a little more to the
+right! that's it! And--and you ought to brush that spot off your coat.
+Now, if you made it a point always to look in the glass before leaving
+your room--"
+
+"Is that one of the sides you want me to develop?" asked Jack slowly.
+"Caring about dress, and looks, and that sort of thing? I didn't know
+you were of that kind, Hildegarde."
+
+"Of what kind?" cried our heroine, blushing furiously in her turn, and
+feeling that she was in great danger of losing her temper. "I certainly
+do care about my dress and looks, as every one ought to do. Suppose the
+next time you came to tea, you found me with my hair tumbling down, and
+a great spot of ink on my gown, and my ruffles torn! Is that the kind of
+person you like to see? I always thought Herrick's Julia was a most
+untidy young woman, with her shoe-strings, and her 'erring lace' and
+all."
+
+"I don't know who she is," said Jack meekly. "But I beg your pardon if I
+was rude, Hilda; and--and I will try to 'spruce up,' as Uncle Tom is
+always trying to make me. You see," he added shyly, "when _you_ look in
+the glass you see something nice, and I don't!"
+
+"Nonsense!" said Hildegarde, promptly. "And then, Jack--that is only one
+thing, of course. But if you had the habit of using your eyes! Oh! you
+don't know what a difference it would make. I know, because I used to be
+as blind as you are. I never looked at anything till about two years
+ago. And now--of course I am only learning still, and shall be learning
+all my life, I hope; but--well, I do see things more or less. For
+example, what do you see at our feet here?"
+
+"Grass!" said Jack, peering about. "Green grass. Do you think I don't
+know that?"
+
+Hildegarde laughed, and clapped her hands.
+
+"Just what I should have said two years ago!" she cried. "There are
+twelve different plants that I know--I've been counting them--and
+several more that are new to me."
+
+"Well, they're all green, anyhow!" said Jack. "What's the difference?"
+
+Hildegarde scorned a direct reply, but went on, being now mounted on her
+own hobby.
+
+"And as for moths, Jack, you can have no idea of what my ignorance was
+in regard to moths."
+
+"Oh, come!" said Jack. "Every one knows about moths, of course. They eat
+our clothes, and fly into the lamps. That is one of the things one finds
+out when one is a baby, I suppose."
+
+"Indeed!" cried Hildegarde. "And that is all there is to find out, I
+suppose. Why--" she stopped suddenly; then said in a very different
+tone, "Oh, Jack! this is a wonderful coincidence. Look! oh, _will_ you
+look? oh! the beautiful, beautiful dear! Get me something! anything!
+quick!"
+
+Jack, who was not accustomed to feminine ways, wondered if his fair
+cousin was going out of her mind. She was gazing intently at a spot of
+lighter green on the "grass" at her feet. Presently the spot moved,
+spread; developed two great wings, delicate, exquisite, in colour like a
+chrysoprase, or the pure, cold green one sometimes sees in a winter
+sunset.
+
+"What is it?" asked Jack, in wonder.
+
+"A Luna!" cried Hildegarde. "Hush! slip off on the other side, quietly!
+_Fly_ to the house, and ask auntie for a fly-screen. _Quick_, Jack!"
+
+Jack, greatly wondering, ran off none the less, his long legs scampering
+with irreverent haste through the Ladies' Garden. Returning with the
+screen, which auntie gave him without question, being well used to the
+sudden frenzies of a moth-collector, he found Hildegarde on her knees,
+holding her handkerchief over the great moth, which fortunately had
+remained quiet, being indeed stupid in the strong light. The girl's face
+was all aglow with triumph and delight.
+
+"A perfect specimen," she cried, as she skilfully conveyed the great
+moth under the screen. "I have two, but the tails are a little broken.
+Isn't he glorious, Jack? Oh, happy day! Come, good cousin, and let us
+take him home in a triumphal procession."
+
+Jack looked rather blank. "Are you going home now?" he asked.
+
+"Of course, to put my beauty in the ammonia jar."
+
+"What is it?" she added, seeing that her cousin looked really vexed.
+
+"Oh--nothing!" said Jack. "Nothing of any consequence. I am ready."
+
+"But _what_ is it?" Hildegarde repeated. "You would a great deal better
+tell me than look like that, for I know I have done something to vex
+you."
+
+"Well--I am not used to girls, you know, Hildegarde, and perhaps I am
+stupid. Only--well, I was going to ask you seriously what you thought
+about--my music, and all that; and first you tell me to look in the
+glass, and then you go to catching moths and forget all about me. I
+suppose it's all right, only--"
+
+He blushed, and evidently did not think it _was_ all right. Hildegarde
+blushed, too, in real distress.
+
+"My _dear_ Jack," she cried, "how shall I tell you how sorry I am?"
+
+She looked about for a suitable place, and then carefully set down the
+fly-screen with its precious contents.
+
+"Sit down again," she cried, motioning her cousin to take his place on
+the fallen tree, while she did the same. "And you will not believe now
+how interested I really am," she said. "Mamma would never have been so
+stupid, nor Rose either. But you must believe me. I _was_ thinking about
+you till--till I saw the Luna, and you don't know what a Luna means when
+one hasn't a perfect specimen. But now, tell me, do you think it would
+be quite impossible to persuade your uncle? Why, you _must_ go to
+Leipsic, of course you must. He--has he ever heard you play, Jack?"
+
+Jack laughed rather bitterly. "Once," he said. "He cried out that when
+he wanted to listen to cats with their tails tied together, he would tie
+them himself. Since then I always go up into the garret to practise, and
+shut all the doors and windows."
+
+"What a pity! and he is so nice when one knows him. I wonder--do you
+know, Jack, what I am thinking of?"
+
+Her face was so bright that the boy's face brightened as he looked at
+it.
+
+"I hope it is what I was thinking of," he said; "but I didn't dare--"
+
+"Mamma," cried Hildegarde.
+
+He nodded in delight, colouring with pleasure.
+
+"She is just the person."
+
+"Of course she is; but will she?"
+
+"Of course she will. I am sure of it. Your uncle shall come to tea some
+evening, and you shall stay at home. I will go away to write letters,
+and then--oh, you see, Jack, no one can resist mamma."
+
+"What a good fellow you are, Hildegarde! Oh, I _beg_ your pardon!"
+
+"Never mind!" cried Hildegarde merrily. "I did climb the tree, you know.
+And now, come along. I must take my beauty, my love, my moonlight
+rapture, up to his death."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+BONNY SIR HUGH.
+
+
+MEANWHILE Hildegarde had not lost sight of little Hugh Allen, the one
+link of interest which connected her with The Poplars. He, too, had been
+won by Mrs. Grahame's smile, and had learned the way to Braeside; and
+the more they saw of him, the more Hildegarde and her mother felt that
+he was a very remarkable little boy.
+
+Much of the time he seemed to be lost in dreams, wrapped in a cloud of
+silent thought; and, again, from this cloud would flash out the
+quaintest sayings, sudden outbursts of passionate feeling, which were
+startling to quiet, every-day people. When he had been walking with
+Mrs. Grahame, as he was fond of doing (sneaking out by the back gate
+from his prison-place, as he called it, and making a _detour_ to reach
+the road where she most often walked), and when she said, "Now, dear, it
+is time to say good-by, and go home," he would throw himself on his
+knees, and hold up his clasped hands, crying, "How can I leave thee?" in
+a manner which positively embarrassed her.
+
+Now it happened one day that Hugh was sitting with Merlin beside the
+brook that flowed at the foot of the Ladies' Garden. Hildegarde had told
+him to come through the garden and wait for her, and it was his first
+visit to the lovely, silent place. The child went dreaming along between
+the high box hedges, stopping occasionally to look about him and to
+exchange confidences with his dog. Merlin seemed to feel the influence
+of the place, and went along quietly, with bent head and drooping tail.
+When the murmur of the hidden streamlet first fell upon his ear, "It is
+like the fishpools of Heshbon," said the boy dreamily. "Isn't it,
+Merlin? I never understood before." Merlin put his cool black nose in
+his master's hand, and gave a little sympathetic shake.
+
+And now the pair were sitting on a bank of moss, looking down into the
+dark, clear water, which moved so swiftly yet so silently, with only a
+faint sound, which somehow seemed no louder than when they were at a
+distance.
+
+[Illustration: HILDEGARDE FINDING HUGH AND MERLIN BY THE BROOK.]
+
+"Do you see that dark round place where it is deep, Merlin?" said the
+child. "Do you think that under there lives a fair woman with green
+hair, who takes a person by the hand, and kisses him, and pulls him
+down? Do you think that, Merlin?" But Merlin sneezed, and shook his
+head, and evidently thought nothing of the kind. "Then do you think
+about fishes?" the boy went on. "Dark little fishes, with gleaming
+eyes, who are sad because they cannot speak. I wish I knew your
+thoughts, Merlin."
+
+"Wuff!" said Merlin, in his voice of welcome, raising his head, and
+becoming instantly a living image of cheerfulness. Hugh looked, and
+there was his Purple Maid, all bright and shining, standing among the
+green trees, and smiling at him. The child's face flushed with such
+vivid light that the place seemed brighter. He held out his arms with a
+passionate gesture that would have been theatrical if it had not been so
+real, but remained silent.
+
+"Dear!" said Hildegarde. "How quiet you are, you and Merlin! I could not
+tell whether it was your voice or the brook, talking." The boy and dog
+made room for her between them, and she sat down. "Aren't you going to
+speak to me, Hugh?" she continued, as he still said nothing.
+
+"I spoke to myself," said the boy. "When I saw you stand there, angelic,
+in the green, 'Blessed heart of woman!' I said to myself. Do you like
+the sound of that?"
+
+"My bonny Sir Hugh!" said Hildegarde, laying her hand caressingly on the
+red-gold hair. "I do like the sound of it. And do you like this place? I
+want you to care for it as I do."
+
+The boy nodded. "It is the place of dead people," he said. "We are too
+alive to be here."
+
+"I call it the Ladies' Garden," said Hildegarde softly. "Fair, sweet
+ladies lived here once, and loved it. They used to sit here, Hugh, and
+wander up and down the green paths, and fill the place with sweet,
+gentle words. I don't believe they sang; Hester may have sung, perhaps."
+
+"Were they fair as the moon, clear as the sun?" asked the child.
+
+"Where did you find those sweet words, Sir Hugh?"
+
+"In the Bible. 'Fair as the moon, clear as the sun, terrible as an army
+with banners.' And 'thy neck is a tower of ivory.' Were they terrible,
+do you think?"
+
+"Oh, no! they were very gentle, I think, very soft and mild, like folds
+of old soft cashmere; only Hester was blithe and gay, and she died,
+Hugh, when she was just my age. Think of it! to die so young and go away
+out of all the sunshine."
+
+The child looked at her with strange eyes. "Why do you be sad?" he said.
+"Don't you know about your Mother dear Jerusalem?"
+
+"A little," said Hildegarde. "Tell me what you are thinking, Sir Hugh."
+
+"It is greener there," said the child, "and brighter. Don't you know,
+blessed heart? 'Where grow such sweet and pleasant flowers as nowhere
+else are seen.' And more coloured words. Don't you love coloured
+words?" The girl laid her hand on his lightly, but said nothing, and he
+went on as if in a dream.
+
+          "'Thy houses are of ivory,
+              Thy windows crystal clear,
+            Thy streets are laid with beaten gold--
+              There angels do appear.'
+
+"Two of them are papa and mamma," he added after a pause. "Do you think
+they mind waiting for me very much? At first I wanted to go to them--oh,
+so badly! because those people are devils, and I would rather die; but
+now I have you, Purple Maid, and your mother is like balm dropping in
+the valley, and I don't mind waiting, if only I thought _they_ didn't
+mind it too much." He looked up wistfully, and Hildegarde bent to kiss
+him.
+
+"How long is it, dear?" she asked softly.
+
+"A year now, a very long year, only I had Merlin. And Uncle Loftus took
+me out of charity, he said; but mamma said I was to go to Aunt Martha,
+so that makes me feel wrong, even if I wanted to stay with them, and it
+is the pains of hell to me."
+
+"Aunt Martha?" asked Hildegarde, willing to ask more, yet dreading to
+rouse the boy's scriptural eloquence on the subject of his relatives at
+The Poplars.
+
+Hugh nodded. "Mamma's aunt," he said. "She lives somewhere, not far from
+here, but I don't know where; and Uncle Loftus won't tell me, or let me
+see her, 'cause she is a menial. What is a menial, dearly beloved?"
+
+"Did your uncle say that to you?" Hildegarde asked, waiving the
+question.
+
+"He said it _at_ me!" was the reply. "At my back, but I heard it. She
+was a menial, and he wasn't going to have folks saying that his aunt was
+housekeeper to a stuck-up old bear, just because she was a fool and had
+no proper spirit. And the others said 'hush!' and I went away, and now
+they won't let me speak about her."
+
+"Housekeeper to a--why!" began Hildegarde; and then she was silent, and
+smoothed the child's hair thoughtfully. An old bear! that was what Mr.
+Loftus had vulgarly called Colonel Ferrers. Could it be possible
+that--Jack had told her about dear, good Mrs. Beadle, who had been nurse
+to his father and uncle, and who was so devoted to them all, and such a
+superior woman. She had been meaning to go to see her the next time she
+was at Roseholme. Was there a mystery here? was Mrs. Beadle the plump
+and comfortable skeleton in the Loftus closet? She must ask Jack.
+
+As she mused thus, the child had fallen a-dreaming again, and they both
+sat for some time silent, with the soft falling of the water in their
+ears, and all the dim, shadowy beauty of the place filling their hearts
+with vague delight.
+
+Presently, "Beloved," said Hugh (he wavered between this and "Purple
+Maid" as names for Hildegarde, wholly ignoring her own name), "Beloved,
+there is an angel near me. Did you know it?"
+
+"There might well be angels in this place," said Hildegarde, looking at
+the boy, whose wide blue eyes wore a far-away, spiritual look.
+
+"I don't mean just here in this spot. I mean floating through the air at
+night. I hear him, almost every night, playing on his harp of gold."
+
+"Dear Hugh, tell me a little more clearly."
+
+"Sometimes the moon shines in at my window and wakes me up, you know.
+Then I get up and look out, for it is so like heaven, only silver
+instead of gold; and then--then I hear the angel play."
+
+"What does it sound like?"
+
+"Sometimes like a voice, sometimes like birds. And then it sobs and
+cries, and dies away, and then it sounds out again, like 'blow up the
+trumpet in the new moon,' and goes up, up, up, oh, so high! Do you think
+that is when the angel goes up to the gate, and then is sorry for people
+here, and comes back again? I have thought of that."
+
+"My bonny Sir Hugh!" said Hildegarde gently. "Would you care less about
+the lovely music if it was not really made by an angel? if it was a
+person like you and me, who had the power and the love to make such
+beautiful sounds?"
+
+The child's face lightened. "Was it you?" he said in an awe-struck
+voice.
+
+"Not I, dear, but my cousin, my cousin Jack, who plays the violin most
+beautifully, Hugh. He practises every night, up in the garret at
+Roseholme, because--only think! his uncle does not like to hear him."
+
+"The ostrich gentleman!" cried Hugh, bursting into merry laughter. "Is
+it the ostrich gentleman?"
+
+Hildegarde tried to look grave, with moderate success. "My cousin is
+tall," she said, "but you must not call names, little lad!"
+
+"Never any more will I call him it," cried Hugh, "if he is really the
+angel. But he does look like one. Must we go?" he asked wistfully, as
+Hildegarde rose, and held out her hand to him.
+
+"Yes, dear, I am going to the village, you know. I thought we would come
+this way because I wanted you to see the Ladies' Garden. Now we must go
+across the meadow, and round by the back of Roseholme to find the road
+again."
+
+They crossed the brook by some mossy stepping-stones, and climbed the
+dark slope on the further side, thick-set with ferns and dusky
+hemlock-trees. Then came the wall, and then the sudden break into the
+sunny meadow. Hugh threw off his grave mood with the shadow, and danced
+and leaped in the sunshine.
+
+"Shall I run with Merlin?" he asked. "You have never seen us run,
+Beloved!"
+
+Hildegarde nodded, and with a shout and a bark the two were off. A
+pretty sight they were! the boy's golden head bobbing up and down in
+full energy of running, the dog bounding beside him with long, graceful
+leaps. They breasted the long, low hill, then swept round in a wide
+circle, and came rushing past Hildegarde, breathless and radiant. This
+was more than our heroine could bear. With a merry "Hark, follow!" she
+started in pursuit, and was soon running abreast of the others, with
+head thrown back, eyes sparkling, cheeks glowing.
+
+"Hurrah!" cried Hugh.
+
+"Hurrah it is!" echoed the Purple Maid.
+
+"Wow, _wow_!" panted Merlin, ecstatically.
+
+As the chase swept round the hill the second time, two gentlemen came
+out of the woods, and paused in amazement at the sight. Hildegarde's
+long hair had come down, and was flying in the wind; her two companions
+were frantic with delight, and bobbed and leaped, shouting, beside her.
+So bright was the sunshine, so vivid in colour, so full of life the
+three runners, they seemed actually to flash as they moved.
+
+"Harry Monmouth!" cried Colonel Ferrers. "Here is a girl who knows how
+to run. Look at that action! It's poetry, sir! it's rhythm and metre and
+melody.
+
+          "'Nor lighter does the swallow skim
+            Along the smooth lake's airy rim.'
+
+After her, Master Milksop, and let me see what your long legs can do!"
+
+Jack Ferrers needed no second bidding, and though his running was not
+graceful, being rather a hurling himself forward, as if he were
+catapult and missile in one, he got over the ground with great rapidity,
+and caught his cousin up as she came flying round the meadow for the
+third time. Hildegarde stopped short, in great confusion.
+
+"Jack!" she faltered, panting. "How--where did you come from? You must
+have started up out of the earth."
+
+Turning to capture her flying tresses, she caught sight of Colonel
+Ferrers, and her confusion was redoubled.
+
+"Oh!" she cried, the crimson mounting from her cheeks to her forehead,
+bathing her in a fiery tide. "Oh! how could you? He--he will be _sure_ I
+am a tomboy now."
+
+"Nothing of the kind, my fair Atalanta!" exclaimed the Colonel, who had
+the ears of a fox. He advanced, beaming, and flourishing his stick.
+"Nothing of the kind!" he repeated. "He is delighted, on the contrary,
+to see a young creature who can make the free movements of nature with
+nature's grace and activity. Harry Monmouth! Miss Hildegarde, I wish I
+were twenty years younger, and I would challenge you to a race myself!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+A CALL AND A CONSPIRACY.
+
+
+"AND you really seriously intend passing the winter here?" asked Miss
+Leonie Loftus.
+
+This young lady had come to make a parting call at Braeside. It was near
+the end of August, and three months of country life were all that she
+could possibly endure, and she was going with her mother to Long Branch,
+and thence to Saratoga.
+
+"You really mean it?" she repeated, looking incredulous.
+
+"Assuredly!" replied Hildegarde, smiling. "Winter and summer, and winter
+again, Miss Loftus. This is our home now, and we have become attached
+to it even in these few months."
+
+"Oh, you look at it in a sentimental light," said Miss Loftus, with a
+disagreeable smile. "The domestic hearth, and that sort of thing. Rather
+old-fashioned, isn't it, Miss Grahame?"
+
+"Possibly; I have never thought of it as a matter of fashion," was the
+quiet reply.
+
+"And how do you expect to kill time in your wilderness?" was the next
+question.
+
+"Kill him?" Hildegarde laughed. "We never can catch him, even for a
+moment, Miss Loftus. He flies faster at Braeside than even in New York.
+I sometimes think there are only two days in the week, Monday and
+Saturday."
+
+"I hear you have a sewing-school in the village. I suppose that will
+take up some time."
+
+"I hope so! The children seem interested, and it is a great pleasure to
+me. Then, too, I expect to join some of Miss Wayland's classes in the
+fall, and that will keep me busy, of course."
+
+"Miss Wayland, over in Dorset? Why, it is three miles off."
+
+"And even if so? I hear it is a delightful school, and Miss Wayland
+herself is very lovely. Do you know her?"
+
+"No!" said Miss Loftus, who had been "dying" as she would have put it,
+to get into Miss Wayland's school three years before. "A country
+boarding-school isn't _my_ idea of education."
+
+"Oh!" said Hildegarde civilly. "But to go back for a moment, Miss
+Loftus. Your speaking of the children reminds me to ask you, is little
+Hugh going with you to Long Branch?"
+
+Miss Loftus coloured. "Oh, dear, no!" she replied. "A child at such
+places, you know, is out of the question. He is to be sent to school. He
+is going next week."
+
+"But--pardon me! are not all schools in vacation now?"
+
+"I believe so! But these people--the Miss Hardhacks--are willing to take
+him now, and keep him."
+
+"Poor little lad!" murmured Hildegarde, regardless of the fact that it
+was none of her business. "Will he not be very lonely?"
+
+"Beggars must not be choosers, Miss Grahame!" was the reply, with
+another unamiable smile. Miss Loftus really would not have smiled at
+all, if she had known how she looked.
+
+No sooner was the visitor gone, than Hildegarde flew up to her mother
+with the news. The Loftuses were going away; they were going to send
+Hugh to school. What was to be done? He could not go! He _should_ not
+go.
+
+She was greatly excited, but Mrs. Grahame's quiet voice and words
+restored her composure. "'Can't' and 'shan't' never won a battle!" said
+that lady. "We must think and plan."
+
+Hildegarde had lately discovered, beyond peradventure, from some chance
+words let fall by little Hugh, that his mother had been the sister of
+Mr. Loftus; and she felt no doubt in her own mind that good Mrs. Beadle
+was aunt to both. The sister had been a school teacher, had married a
+man of some education, who died during the second year of their
+marriage, leaving her alone, in a Western town, with her little baby.
+She had struggled on, not wishing to be a burden either on her rich
+brother (who had not approved her marriage) or her aunt, who had nothing
+but her savings and her comfortable berth at Roseholme. At length,
+consumption laying its deadly hand on her, she sent for her brother, and
+begged him to take the boy to their good aunt, who, she knew, would
+care for him as her own. "But he didn't!" said Hugh. "He did not do
+that. He said he would make a man of me, but I don't believe he could
+make a very good one, do you, Beloved?"
+
+Now the question was, how to bring about a meeting between the boy and
+his great-aunt, if great-aunt she were.
+
+No child was allowed to enter the sacred precincts of Roseholme, for
+Colonel Ferrers regarded children, and especially boys, as the
+fountain-head of all mischief, flower-breaking, bird-nesting,
+turf-destroying. His own nephew had had to wait eighteen years for an
+invitation. How could it be possible to introduce little Hugh, a boy and
+a stranger, into the charmed garden?
+
+If "Mammina" could only take him! No one could resist her mother,
+Hildegarde thought; certainly not Colonel Ferrers, who admired her so
+much. But this dear mother had sprained her ankle a week before,
+slipping on a mossy stone in the garden, and was only now beginning to
+get about, using a crutched stick.
+
+Mrs. Grahame and Hildegarde put their heads together, and talked long
+and earnestly. Then they sent for Jack, and took counsel with him; and a
+plan was made for the first act of what Hildegarde called the Drama of
+the Conspirators.
+
+A day or two after, when Mrs. Beadle drove to the town of Whitfield,
+some miles off, on her weekly marketing trip, it was Jack Ferrers,
+instead of Giuseppe, the faithful manservant, who held the reins and
+drove the yellow wagon with the stout brown cob. He wanted to buy some
+things, he said: a necktie, and some chocolate, and--oh, lots of things;
+and Mrs. Beadle was only too glad of his company. The good housekeeper
+was dressed, like Villikins' Dinah, in gorgeous array, her cashmere
+shawl being of the finest scarlet, her gown of a brilliant blue, while
+her bonnet nodded with blue and yellow cornflowers. Not a tradesman in
+Whitfield but came smiling to his door when he saw Mrs. Beadle's yellow
+cart; for she was a good customer, and wanted everything of the best for
+her Colonel. When they at last turned Chow-chow's head homeward, the
+wagon was nearly filled with brown-paper parcels, and Jack's pockets
+bulged out in all directions. As they drove along the pleasant road,
+fringed with oaks and beeches, Jack broke silence with, "Biddy, did you
+ever have any children?"
+
+"Bless me, Master Jack, how you startled me!" cried Mrs. Beadle, who was
+deep in a problem of jelly and roly-poly pudding. "No, dear! no jelly--I
+should say, no chick nor child had I ever. I wasn't good enough, I
+suppose."
+
+"Nonsense. Biddy!" said Jack. "But you must have had some relations;
+some--nieces or nephews, or something of that sort."
+
+Mrs. Beadle sighed, and fell straightway into the trap.
+
+"I had, dear! I had, indeed, once upon a time. But they're no good to me
+now, and never will be."
+
+She sighed again.
+
+"How no good to you?" queried this artful Jack.
+
+"Oh, 'tis a long story, dear, and you wouldn't care for it at all. You
+would? Well! well! there's no harm that I know of in speaking of it.
+I've nothing to be ashamed of. I had a niece, Master Jack, and a dearer
+one never was, nor married to a finer young man. But they went out West,
+and he died, and left her with a baby. I wrote again and again, begging
+her to come home, but she was doing well, she said, and felt to stay,
+and had friends there, and all. Oh, dear! and last year--a year ago it
+is now, she died." Mrs. Beadle drew out a handkerchief and wiped her
+eyes. "She died, my dear; and--I didn't ought to speak of this, Master
+Jack, it do upset me so--I don't know where the child is to this day."
+
+"Her child?" asked Jack, with a guilty consciousness of his ears being
+red.
+
+"My own dear niece Martha's child!" repeated the good woman sorrowfully.
+"A boy it was, as should be seven years old by this time. I've wrote,
+and I've wrote, but no answer could I get. And whether he is dead, too,
+or whether his father's people have him, or what, is darkness to me."
+
+"The brute!" exclaimed Jack Ferrers vehemently. "The cold-hearted,
+odious brute!"
+
+"What is it, my dear?" cried Mrs. Beadle, drying her tears, and looking
+with alarm at the pony. "His tail over the reins, is it? Well, he will
+do that, but 'tis only play. He means no harm."
+
+"Oh, I know!" cried Jack in confusion. "I didn't mean--that is--and is
+that all the relatives you have, Biddy?"
+
+"Why, boys do love questions, don't they?" the good woman said. "I have
+a nephew living, Master Jack; and if you guessed from now till Sunday
+week, you never would guess his name."
+
+"Solomon Grundy" rose to Jack's lips, he could not in the least tell
+why. He did his best to look unconscious, but it was perhaps fortunate
+that Mrs. Beadle was so absorbed in her own troubled thoughts that she
+did not look at him.
+
+"Who is it?" he asked. "Do tell me. Biddy! Is it any one I ever heard
+of?"
+
+"Hush, my dear! don't tell a soul that I mentioned it. I am not one to
+force myself on them as has got up in the world, and think honest
+service a disgrace. It's Ephraim Loftus!"
+
+"Not Mr. Loftus at the Poplars?"
+
+"Mr. Loftus at the Poplars! The very same. My own sister's son, and
+little credit he is to either of us. Don't ask me how he made his money,
+for I don't know, and don't want to know. When he was a little boy, his
+pockets were always full of pennies that he got from the other boys,
+trading and the like, and nobody had a kindness for him, though they
+loved Martha. Not a soul in the village but loved Martha, and would do
+anything for her. So when Ephraim was fourteen or so, he went away to
+New York, and we never heard anything more till he came back three or
+four years ago, a rich man, and built that great house, and lived there
+summers. I've never seen him but once; I don't go out, only just in the
+back garden, except when I drive to town. And that once he looked me
+all over, as if I was a waxwork in a glass case, and never stopped nor
+spoke a word. That's Ephraim Loftus! He needn't have been afraid of my
+troubling him or his, I can tell him. I wouldn't demean myself." Mrs.
+Beadle's face was red, and her voice trembled with angry pride.
+
+"And--" Jack wished Hildegarde were speaking instead of himself; she
+would know what to say, and he felt entirely at a loss. "Do you--do you
+suppose he knows anything about--about his sister's little boy?"
+
+Mrs. Beadle looked as if some one had struck her a blow. "Ephraim
+Loftus!" she cried. "If I thought that, Master Jack, I'd--I'd--why,
+what's the matter, sir?" For Jack had risen in his seat, and was waving
+the whip wildly round his head.
+
+"It's my cousin," he said. "Don't you see her coming?"
+
+"Oh, the dear young lady! yes, to be sure. Walking this way, isn't she?
+Never mind me. Master Jack!" said the good woman, striving for
+composure. "I was upset by what you said, that's all. It gave me a
+thought--who is the little boy with Miss Grahame, dear?"
+
+"He? oh--he's a boy," said Jack, rather incoherently. "His name is Hugh.
+Good-morning, Hildegarde! Hallo, Hugh! how are you?"
+
+"Good-morning!" cried Hildegarde, as the wagon drew up beside her.
+"Good-morning, Mrs. Beadle. Isn't it a lovely day? Will the pony stand,
+Jack?"
+
+"Like a rock!" and Jack, obeying the hint, leaped to the ground.
+
+Mrs. Beadle had turned very pale. She was gazing fixedly at Hugh, who
+returned the look with wide blue eyes, shining with some strong emotion.
+
+"Dear Mrs. Beadle," said Hildegarde gently, taking the housekeeper's
+hand in hers as she leant against the wagon, "this is a very dear little
+friend of mine, whom I want you to know. His name is Hugh; Hugh Allen;
+and he is staying with his uncle, Mr. Loftus."
+
+"I knew it!" cried Mrs. Beadle, clapping her hands together. "I knew it!
+And I am going to faint!"
+
+"No, don't do that!" said Hugh, climbing up into the seat beside her.
+"Don't do that. You must be calm, for you are my great-aunt, and I am
+your little nephew. How do you do? I am very glad to see you."
+
+"You are sure he will stand?" whispered Hildegarde.
+
+"Look at him! he is asleep already."
+
+"Then come along!" and the two conspirators vanished among the trees.
+
+They pushed on a little way through the tangle of undergrowth, and
+paused, breathless and radiant, under a great beech-tree.
+
+"Jack," said Hildegarde, "you are a dear! How did you manage it?"
+
+"I didn't manage it at all. I am a stupid ninny. Why, I've thrown her
+into a fit. Do you think it's safe to leave her alone?"
+
+"Nonsense! a joy fit does not hurt, when a person is well and strong.
+Oh! isn't it delightful! and you have enjoyed it, too, Jack, haven't
+you? I am sure you have. And--why, you have a new hat! and your necktie
+is straight. You look really very nice, _mon cousin_!"
+
+"_Mille remerciments, ma cousine_!" replied Jack, with a low bow, which,
+Hildegarde noticed, was not nearly so like the shutting-up of a
+jackknife as it would have been a few weeks ago. "Am I really improving?
+You have no idea what I go through with, looking in the glass. It is a
+humiliating practice. Have some chocolates?" He pulled out a box, and
+they crunched in silent contentment.
+
+"Now I think we may go back," said Hildegarde, after her third bonbon.
+"But I must tell you first what Hugh said. I told him the whole story as
+we walked along; first as if it were about some one else, you know, and
+then when he had taken it all in, I told him that he himself was the
+little boy. He was silent at first, reflecting, as he always does. Then
+he said: 'I am like an enchanted prince, I think. Generally it is fair
+ones with golden locks that take them out of prison, but at my age a
+great-aunt is better. Don't you think so, Beloved?' and I did think so."
+
+"But it _was_ a fair one with golden locks who planned it all!" Jack
+said, with a shy look at his cousin's fair hair.
+
+"Jack, you are learning to pay compliments!" cried Hildegarde, clapping
+her hands. "I believe you will go to Harvard after all, and be a
+classical scholar."
+
+"I would never pay another," said Jack seriously, "if I thought it would
+have that effect."
+
+When they returned to the wagon, they found Mrs. Beadle still wiping
+away joyful tears, while Hugh was apparently making plans for the
+future. His voice rang out loud and clear. "And we will dwell in a
+corner of the house-top, and have a dinner of herbs!" said the child.
+"They may have _all_ the stalled oxes themselves, mayn't they,
+great-aunt? And you will clothe us in scarlet and fine wool, won't you,
+great-aunt?"
+
+"Bless your dear heart!" cried Mrs. Beadle. "Is it red flannel you mean?
+Don't tell me those heathen haven't put you into flannels!" And she wept
+again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE SECOND ACT.
+
+
+COLONEL FERRERS was taking his afternoon stroll in the garden. Dinner
+was over; for at Roseholme, as at Braeside, country hours were kept,
+with early dinner, and seven o'clock tea, the pleasantest of all meals.
+
+With a fragrant Manilla cigar between his lips, and his good stick in
+his hand, the Colonel paced up and down the well-kept gravel paths, at
+peace with all mankind. The garden was all ablaze with geranium and
+verbena, heliotrope and larkspur. The pansies spread a gold and purple
+mantle in their own corner, while poppies were scattered all about in
+well-planned confusion. All this was Giuseppe's work,--good, faithful
+Giuseppe, who never rested, and never spoke, save to say "Subito,
+Signor!" when his master called him. He was at work now in a corner of
+the garden, setting out chrysanthemums; but no one would have known it,
+so noiseless were his motions, so silent his coming and going.
+
+The Colonel, though pleasantly conscious of the lovely pomp spread out
+for his delight, was thinking of other things than flowers. He was
+thinking how his nephew Jack had improved in the last two months.
+Positively, thought the Colonel, the boy was developing, was coming out
+of the animal kingdom, and becoming quite human. Partly due to the
+Indian clubs, no doubt, and to his, the Colonel's, wholesome discipline
+and instructions; but largely, sir, largely to feminine influence. Daily
+intercourse with women like Mrs. Grahame and her daughter would civilise
+a gorilla, let alone a well-intentioned giraffe who played the fiddle.
+He puffed meditatively at his cigar, and dwelt on a pleasant picture
+that his mind called up: Hildegarde as he had seen her yesterday,
+sitting with a dozen little girls about her, and telling them stories
+while they sewed, under her careful supervision, at patchwork and dolls'
+clothes. How sweet she looked! how bright her face was, as she told the
+merry tale of the "Midsummer Night's Dream." "Harry Monmouth, sir! she
+was telling 'em Shakespeare! And they were drinking it in as if it had
+been Mother Goose." The Colonel paused, and sighed heavily. "If Hester
+had lived," he said, "if my little Hester had lived--" and then he drew
+a long whiff of the fragrant Manilla, and walked on.
+
+As he turned the corner by the great canna plant, he came suddenly upon
+Mrs. Beadle, who was apparently waiting to speak to him. The good
+housekeeper was in her state dress of black silk, with embroidered apron
+and lace mitts, and a truly wonderful cap; and Colonel Ferrers, if he
+had been observant of details, might have known that this portended
+something of a serious nature. Being such as he was, he merely raised
+his hat with his grave courtesy, and said: "Good-afternoon, Mrs. Beadle.
+Is it about the yellow pickles? The same quantity as usual, ma'am, or
+perhaps a few more jars, as I wish to send some to Mrs. Grahame at
+Braeside."
+
+Mrs. Beadle shivered a little. She had made the yellow pickles at
+Roseholme for five and twenty years; and now,--"No, sir," she said
+faintly. "It is not the pickles." She plucked at the fringe of her
+shawl, and Colonel Ferrers waited, though with a kindling eye. Women
+were admirable, but some of their ways were hard to bear.
+
+Finally Mrs. Beadle made a desperate effort, and said, "Do you think,
+sir, that you could find some one to take my place?"
+
+Colonel Ferrers fixed a look of keen inquiry on her, and instantly felt
+her pulse. "Rapid!" he said, "and fluttering; Elizabeth Beadle, are you
+losing your mind?"
+
+"I have found my little boy, sir," cried Mrs. Beadle, bursting into
+tears. "My dear niece Martha's own child, Colonel Ferrers. He is in the
+hands of heathen reprobates, if I do say it, and it is my duty to make a
+home for him. I never thought to leave Roseholme while work I could, but
+you see how it is, sir."
+
+"I--see how it is?" cried the Colonel, with a sudden explosion. Then
+controlling himself by a great effort, he said with forced calmness,
+"I will walk over to the end of the garden, Elizabeth Beadle, and
+when I return I shall expect a sensible and coherent--do you
+understand?--_coherent_ account of this folderol. See how it is,
+indeed!"
+
+The Colonel strode off, muttering to himself, and poor Mrs. Beadle wiped
+her eyes, and smoothed down her apron with trembling hands, and made up
+her mind that she would not cry, if she should die for it.
+
+When the grim-frowning Colonel returned, she told her story with
+tolerable plainness, and concluded by begging that her kind friend and
+master would not be angry, but would allow her to retire to a cottage,
+where she could "see to" her niece's child, and bring him up in a
+Christian way.
+
+"Pooh! pooh! my good Beadle!" cried the Colonel. "Stuff and nonsense, my
+good soul! I am delighted that you have found the child; delighted, I
+assure you. We will get him away from those people, never fear for that!
+and we will send him to school. A good school, ma'am, is the place for
+the boy. None of your Hardhacks, but a school where he will be happy and
+well-treated. In vacation time--hum! ha!--you might take a little trip
+with him now and then, perhaps. But as to disturbing your position
+here-- Pooh! pooh! stuff and nonsense! Don't let me hear of it again!"
+
+Mrs. Beadle trembled, but remained firm. "No school, sir!" she said.
+"What the child needs is a home, Colonel Ferrers; and there's nobody but
+me to make one for him. No, sir! never, if I gave my life to it, could I
+thank you as should be for your kindness since first I set foot in this
+dear house, as no other place will ever be home to me! but go I must,
+Colonel, and the sooner the better."
+
+Then the Colonel exploded. His face became purple; his eyes flashed
+fire, and, leaning upon his stick, he poured out volley upon volley of
+reproach, exhortation, argument. Higher and higher rose his voice, till
+the very leaves quivered upon the trees; till the object of his wrath
+shook like an aspen, and even Giuseppe, in the north corner of the
+garden, quailed, and murmured "Santa Maria!" over his chrysanthemums.
+
+How much more frightened, since theirs was the blame of all the
+mischief, were two guilty creatures who at this moment crouched,
+concealed behind a great laurel-bush, listening with all their ears!
+
+Jack and Hildegarde exchanged terrified glances. They had known that the
+Colonel would be angry, but they had no idea of anything like this. He
+was in a white heat of rage, and was hurling polysyllabic wrath at the
+devoted woman before him, who stood speechless but unshaken, meekly
+receiving the torrent of invective.
+
+Suddenly, there was a movement among the bushes; and the next moment a
+small form emerged from the shade, and stood in front of the furious old
+gentleman. "Is your name Saul?" asked Hugh quietly.
+
+The two conspirators had forgotten the child. They had brought him with
+them, with some faint idea of letting the Colonel see him as if by
+accident, hoping that his quaint grace might make a favourable
+impression; but in the stress of the occasion they had wholly forgotten
+his presence, and now--now matters were taken out of their hands.
+Hildegarde clutched her parasol tight; Jack clasped his violin, and both
+listened and looked with all their souls.
+
+"Is your name Saul?" repeated the boy, as the Colonel, astonishment
+choking for an instant the torrent of his rage, paused speechless.
+"Because if it is, the evil spirit from God is upon you, and you should
+have some one play with his hand."
+
+"What--what is this?" gasped the Colonel. "Who are you, boy?"
+
+"I am my great-aunt's little nephew," said Hugh. "But no matter for me.
+You must sit down when the evil spirit is upon you. You might hurt some
+one. Why do you look so at me, great-aunt? Why don't you help Mr. Saul?"
+
+"Come away, Hughie, love!" cried Mrs. Beadle, in an agony of terror.
+"Come, dear, and don't ever speak to the Colonel so again. He's only a
+babe, sir, as doesn't know what he is saying."
+
+"Go away yourself!" roared the Colonel, recovering the power of speech.
+"Depart, do you hear? Remove yourself from my presence, or--" he moved
+forward. Mrs. Beadle turned and fled. "Now," he said, turning to the
+child, "what do you mean, child, by what you said just now? I--I will
+sit down."
+
+He sank heavily on a garden seat and motioned the child before him.
+"What do you mean, about Saul--eh?"
+
+"But you know," said Hugh, opening wide eyes of wonder,--"are you so
+old that you forget?--how the evil spirit from God came upon King Saul,
+and they sent for David, and he played with his hand till the evil
+spirit went away. Now you remember?" He nodded confidently, and sat down
+beside the Colonel, who, though still heaving and panting from his
+recent outburst, made no motion to repel him. "I said _Mr._ Saul," Hugh
+continued, "because you are not a king, you see, and I suppose just
+'Saul' would not be polite when a person is as old as you are. And
+_what_ do you think?" he cried joyously, as a sudden thought struck him.
+"The ostrich gentleman plays most _beautifully_ with his hand. His name
+isn't David, but that doesn't matter. I am going to find him."
+
+"Play, Jack," whispered Hildegarde. "Play, _quick_! Something old and
+simple. Play 'Annie Laurie.'"
+
+Obeying the girl's fleeting look, Jack laid fiddle to bow, and the old
+love tune rose from behind the laurel-bush and floated over the garden,
+so sweet, so sweet, the very air seemed to thrill with tenderness and
+gentle melody.
+
+Colonel Ferrers sank back on the seat. "Hester's song," he murmured.
+"Hester's song. Is it Hester, or an angel?"
+
+The notes rose, swelled into the pathetic refrain,--
+
+          "And for bonny Annie Laurie,
+           I'd lay me down and die."
+
+Then they sank away, and left the silence still throbbing, as the hearts
+of the listeners throbbed.
+
+"_I_ thought it was an angel," cried Hugh, "when I first heard him, Mr.
+Saul. But it isn't. It is the ostrich gentleman, and he has to play up
+in the attic generally, because his uncle is a poor person who doesn't
+know how to like music. I am _so_ sorry for his uncle, aren't you?"
+
+"Yes," said Colonel Ferrers gruffly. "Yes, I am. Very sorry."
+
+A pause followed. Then Hugh asked cautiously: "How do you feel now, Mr.
+Saul? Do you feel as if the evil spirit were going away?"
+
+"I've got him," said the Colonel, in whose eyes the fire of anger was
+giving place to something suspiciously like a twinkle. "I've got
+him--bottled up. Now, youngster, who told you all that?"
+
+"All what?" asked Hugh, whose thoughts were beginning to wander as he
+gazed around the garden. "About the poor person who doesn't know how
+to--"
+
+"No, no," said the Colonel hastily, "not that. About Saul and David, and
+all that. Who put you up to it? Hey?"
+
+His keen eyes gazed intently into the clear blue ones of the child. Hugh
+stared at him a moment, then answered gently, with a note of
+indulgence, as if he were speaking to a much younger child: "It is in
+the Bible. It is a pity that you do not know it. But perhaps there are
+no pictures in your Bible. There was a big one where I lived, all _full_
+of pictures, so I learned to read that way. And I always liked the Saul
+pictures," he added, his eyes kindling, "because David was beautiful,
+you know, and of a ruddy countenance; and King Saul was all hunched up
+against the tent-post, with his eyes glaring just as yours were when you
+roared, only he was uglier. You are not at all ugly now, but then you
+looked as if you were going to burst. If a person _should_ burst--"
+
+Colonel Ferrers rose, and paced up and down the path, going a few steps
+each way, and glancing frequently at the boy from under his bushy
+eyebrows. Hugh fell into a short reverie, and woke to say cheerfully:--
+
+"This place fills me with heavenly joys. Does it fill you?"
+
+"Humph!" growled the Colonel. "If you lived here, you would break all
+the flowers off, I suppose, and pull 'em to pieces to see how they grow;
+eh?"
+
+Hugh contemplated him dreamily. "Is that what you did when you were a
+little boy?" he answered. "I love flowers. I don't like to pick them,
+for it takes their life. I don't care how they grow, as long as they
+_do_ grow."
+
+"And you would take all the birds' eggs," continued the Colonel, "and
+throw stones at the birds, and trample the flower-beds, and bring mud
+into the house, and tie fire-crackers to the cat's tail, and upset the
+ink. _I_ know you!"
+
+[Illustration: HUGH AND COLONEL FERRERS.]
+
+Hugh rose with dignity, and fixed his eyes on the Colonel with grave
+disapproval. "You do _not_ know me!" he said. "And--and if that is the
+kind of boy you were, it is no wonder that the evil spirit comes upon
+you. I shouldn't be a bit surprised if you did burst some day. Good-by,
+Mr. Saul! I am going away now."
+
+"Hold on!" cried the Colonel peremptorily. "I beg your pardon! Do you
+hear? Shake hands!"
+
+Hugh beamed forgiveness, and extended a small brown paw, which was
+shaken with right good will.
+
+"That's right!" said Colonel Ferrers, with gruff heartiness. "Now go
+into the house and find your great-aunt, and tell her to give you some
+jam. Do you like jam?" The boy nodded with all the rapture of seven
+years. "Give you some jam, and a picture-book, and make up a bed in the
+little red room. Can you remember all that?"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Saul!" cried Hugh, dancing about a little. "Nice Mr. Saul!
+Shall I bring you some jam? What kind of jam shall I say?"
+
+"What kind do you like best?"
+
+"Damson."
+
+"Damson it is! Off with you now!"
+
+When the boy was gone, the Colonel walked up and down for a few moments,
+frowning heavily, his hands holding his stick behind him. Then he said
+quietly, "Jack!"
+
+Jack came forward and stood before him, looking half-proud,
+half-sheepish, with his fiddle under his arm.
+
+The Colonel contemplated him for a moment in silence. Then, "Why in the
+name of all that is cacophonous, didn't you play me a tune at first,
+instead of an infernal German exercise? Hey?"
+
+Jack blushed and stammered. He had played for his uncle once only, a
+fugue by Hummel, of which his mind had happened to be full; he felt that
+it had not been a judicious choice.
+
+"Can you play 'The Harp of Tara'?" demanded the Colonel; and Jack
+played, with exquisite feeling, the lovely old tune, the Colonel
+listening with bent head, and marking the time with his stick. "Harry
+Monmouth!" he said, when it was over. "Because a man doesn't like to
+attend the violent ward of a cats' lunatic asylum, it doesn't follow
+that he doesn't care for music. Music, sir, is melody, that's what it
+is!"
+
+Jack shuddered slightly, and did silent homage to the shade of Wagner,
+but knew enough to keep silence.
+
+"And--and where did you pick up this child?" his uncle continued. "I
+take it back about his having been put up to what he did. He is true
+blue, that child; I shouldn't wonder if you were, too, in milksop
+fashion. Hey?"
+
+"Skim-milk is blue, you know, uncle," said Jack, smiling. "But I didn't
+discover Hugh. Isn't he a wonderful child, sir? Hildegarde discovered
+him, of course. I believe Hildegarde does everything, except what her
+mother does. Come here, Hildegarde! Come and tell Uncle Tom about your
+finding Hugh."
+
+But Hildegarde was gone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+A PICNIC.
+
+
+"MY dear Colonel, I congratulate you most heartily! Indeed, I had little
+doubt of your success, for this was a case in which Reynard the Fox was
+sure to have the worst of it. But I am very curious to know how you
+managed it."
+
+"Nothing could be simpler, my dear madam. I went to the fellow's house
+yesterday morning. 'Mr. Loftus, your little nephew is at my house. Your
+aunt, Mrs. Beadle, has taken charge of him, according to his mother's
+wish, and I undertook to inform you of the fact.' He turned all the
+colours of the rainbow, began to bluster, and said he was the boy's
+nearest relation, which is very true. 'I want him to grow up a
+gentleman,' said he. 'Precisely,' said I. 'He shall have a chance to do
+so, Mr. Loftus.' The fellow didn't like that; he looked black and green,
+and spoke of the law and the police. 'That reminds me,' I said, 'of a
+story. About twenty-five years ago, or it may be thirty, a sum of money
+was stolen from my desk, in what I call my counting-room in my own
+house. Am I taking up too much of your valuable time, sir?' He choked
+and tried to speak, but could only shake his head. 'The thief was a mere
+lad,' I went on, 'and a clumsy one, for he dropped his pocketknife in
+getting out of the window,--a knife marked with his name. For reasons of
+my own I did not arrest the lad, who left town immediately after; but I
+have the knife, Ephraim, in my possession.' I waited a moment, and then
+said that I would send for the little boy's trunk; wished him good-day,
+and came off, leaving him glowering after me on the doorstep. You see,
+it was very simple."
+
+"I see," said Mrs. Grahame. "But is it possible that Mr. Loftus--"
+
+"Very possible, my dear Mrs. Grahame. As I told him, I have the knife,
+with his name in full. One hundred dollars he stole; for Elizabeth
+Beadle's sake, of course I let it go. Her peace of mind is worth more
+than that, for if she's thoroughly upset, the dinners she orders are a
+nightmare, positively a nightmare. That is actually one reason why I
+planned this picnic for to-day, because I knew I should have something
+with cornstarch in it if I dined at home. Why cornstarch should connect
+itself with trouble in the feminine mind, I do not know; but such seems
+to be the case."
+
+Mrs. Grahame laughed heartily at this theory; then, in a few earnest
+words, she told Colonel Ferrers how deeply interested she and her
+daughter were in this singular child, and how happy they were in the
+sudden and great change in his prospects.
+
+"And I know you will love him," she said. "You cannot help loving him,
+Colonel. He is really a wonderful child."
+
+"Humph!" said the Colonel thoughtfully. Then after a pause, he
+continued: "I thought I had lost the power of loving, Mrs. Grahame; of
+loving anything but my flowers, that is, any living creature; lost it
+forty years ago. But somehow, of late, there has been a stirring of the
+ground, a movement among the old roots--yes! yes! there may be a little
+life yet. That child of yours--you never saw Hester Aytoun, Mrs.
+Grahame?"
+
+"Never," said Mrs. Grahame softly. "She died the year before I came here
+as a child."
+
+"Precisely," said Colonel Ferrers. "She was a--a very lovely person.
+Your daughter is extremely like her, my dear madam."
+
+"I fancied as much," said Mrs. Grahame, "from the miniature I found in
+Uncle Aytoun's collection."
+
+"Ah! yes! the miniature. I remember, there were two. I have the mate to
+it, Mrs. Grahame. Yes! your daughter is very like her. There was a
+strong attachment between Hester and myself. Then came a mistake, a
+misunderstanding, the puff of a feather, a breath of wind; I went away.
+She was taken suddenly ill, died of a quick consumption. That was forty
+years ago, but it changed my life, do you see? I have lived alone.
+Robert Aytoun was a disappointed man. Wealthy Bond,--you know the old
+story,--Agatha an invalid, Barbara a rigorous woman, strict Calvinist,
+and so forth. We all grew old together. The neighbours call me a
+recluse, a bear--I don't know what all; right enough they have been.
+But now--well, first the lad, there, came--my brother's son. Duty, you
+know, and all the rest of it; father an unsuccessful genius, angel and
+saint, with an asinine quality added. That waked me up a little, but
+only made me growl. But that child of yours, and your own society, if
+you will allow me to say so--I see things with different eyes, in short.
+Why, I am actually becoming fond of my milksop; a good lad, eh, Mrs.
+Grahame? an honest, gentlemanly lad, I think?"
+
+"Indeed, yes!" cried Mrs. Grahame heartily. "A most dear and good lad,
+Colonel Grahame! I cannot tell you how fond Hilda and I are of him."
+
+"That's right! that's right!" said the Colonel, with great heartiness.
+"You have done it all for him, between you. Holds up his head now, walks
+like a Christian; and, positively, I found him reading 'Henry Esmond,'
+the other day; reading it of his own accord, you observe. Said his
+cousin Hilda said Esmond was the finest gentleman she knew, and wanted
+to know what he was like. When a boy takes to 'Henry Esmond,' my dear
+madam, he is headed in the right direction. Asked me about Lord Herbert,
+too, at dinner yesterday; really took an interest. Got that from his
+cousin, too. How many girls know anything about Lord Herbert? Tell me
+that, will you?"
+
+"Hildegarde has always been a hero-worshipper!" said Mrs. Grahame,
+smiling, with the warm feeling about the heart that a mother feels when
+her child is praised. "You make me very happy, Colonel, with all these
+kind words about my dear daughter. What she is to me, of course, I
+cannot tell. 'The very eyes of me!' you remember Herrick's dear old
+song. But I think my good black auntie put it best, one day last week,
+when Hildegarde had a bad headache, and was in her room all day. 'Miss
+Hildy,' said auntie, 'she's de salt in de soup, she is. 'Tain't no good
+without her.' But hark! here they come back, with the water; and now,
+Colonel, it is time for luncheon."
+
+The speakers were sitting under a great pine tree, one of a grove which
+crowned the top of a green hill. Below them lay broad, sunny meadows,
+here whitening into silver with daisies, there waving with the young
+grain. In a hollow at a little distance lay a tiny lake, as if a
+giantess had dropped her mirror down among the golden fields; further
+off, dark stretches of woodland framed the bright picture. It was a
+scene of perfect beauty. Mrs. Grahame sat gazing over the landscape, her
+heart filled with a great peace. She listened to the young voices, which
+were coming nearer and nearer. She was so glad that she had made the
+effort to come. It had been an effort, even though Colonel Ferrers's
+thoughtfulness had provided the most comfortable of low phaetons, drawn
+by the slowest and steadiest of cobs, which had brought her with as
+little discomfort as might be to the top of the hill. But how well worth
+the fatigue it was to be here!
+
+"And do you love me, Purple Maid?" It was Hugh's clear treble that
+thrilled with earnestness.
+
+"I love you very much, dear lad! What would you do if I did not, Hugh?"
+
+"Oh! I should weep, and weep, and be a _very_ melancholy Jaques,
+indeed!"
+
+"Melancholy Jaques!" muttered Colonel Ferrers. "Where on earth did he
+get hold of that? Extraordinary youngster!"
+
+"He loves the Shakespeare stories," said Mrs. Grahame. "Hilda tells them
+to him, and reads bits here and there. Oh, I assure you, Colonel
+Ferrers, Hugh is a revelation. There never was a child like him, I do
+believe. But, hush! here he is!"
+
+The boy's bright head appeared, as he came up the hill, hand in hand
+with Hildegarde. They were laden with ferns and flowers, while Jack
+Ferrers, a few steps behind, carried a pail of fresh water.
+
+"Aha!" said the Colonel, rubbing his hands. "Here we are, eh? What! you
+have robbed the woods, Hildegarde? Scaramouche, how goes it, hey?"
+
+"It goes very well!" replied Hugh soberly, but with sparkling eyes. "I
+am going to call him 'Bonny Dundee,' because his name is John Grahame,
+you see; and she says, perhaps he _may_ be a hero, too, some day; that
+would be _so_ nice!"
+
+"Come, Hugh!" said Hildegarde, laughing and blushing. "You must not tell
+our secrets. Wait till he _is_ a hero, and then he shall have the hero's
+name."
+
+"What!" cried the Colonel. "You young Jacobite, are you instilling your
+pernicious doctrines into this child's breast? Bonny Dundee, indeed!
+Marmalade is all that I want to know about Dundee. Bring the hamper,
+Jack! here, under this tree! You are quite comfortable here, Mrs.
+Grahame?"
+
+"Extremely comfortable," said that lady. "Now, you gentlemen may unpack
+the baskets, while Hilda and I lay the cloth."
+
+All hands went to work, and soon a most tempting repast was set out
+under the great pine tree. Colonel Ferrers's contribution was a triumph
+of Mrs. Beadle's skill, and resembled Tennyson's immortal
+
+                "Pasty costly made,
+          Where quail and pigeon, lark and linnet lay,
+          With golden yolks imbedded and injellied."
+
+Indeed, the Colonel quoted these lines with great satisfaction, as he
+set the great pie down in the centre of the "damask napkin, wrought
+with horse and hound."
+
+"That is truly magnificent!" exclaimed Mrs. Grahame. "And I can match it
+with 'the dusky loaf that smells of home,'" she added, taking out of her
+basket a loaf of graham bread and a pot of golden butter.
+
+"Here is the smoked tongue," cried Hildegarde; "here is raspberry jam,
+and almond cake. Shall we starve, do you think, Colonel Ferrers?"
+
+"In case of extreme hunger, I have brought a few peaches," said the
+Colonel; and he piled the rosy, glowing, perfect globes in a pyramid at
+a corner of the cloth.
+
+"Cloth of gold shall be matched with cloth of frieze," said Mrs.
+Grahame, and in the opposite corner rose a pyramid of baked potatoes,
+hot and hot, wafting such an inviting smell through the air that the
+Colonel seized the carving-knife at once.
+
+"Are you ready?" he demanded. "Why--where is Jack? Jack, you rascal!
+where have you got to?"
+
+"Here!" cried a voice among the bushes; and Jack appeared, flushed with
+triumph, carrying a smoking coffee-pot. "This is my contribution," he
+said. "If it is only clear! I think it is."
+
+Hildegarde held out a cup, and he poured out a clear amber stream, whose
+fragrance made both potatoes and peaches retire from the competition.
+
+"You really made this?" Colonel Ferrers asked. "You, sir?"
+
+"I, sir," replied Jack. "Biddy taught me. I--I have been practising on
+you for a couple of days," he added, smiling. "You may remember that
+your coffee was not quite clear day before yesterday?"
+
+"Clear!" exclaimed the Colonel, bending his brows in mock anger. "I
+thought Lethe and Acheron had been stirred into it. So that is the kind
+of trick Elizabeth Beadle plays on me, eh? Scaramouche!" addressing
+Hugh, "you must look after this great-aunt of yours, do you hear?"
+
+"She made the pie," said Hugh diplomatically.
+
+"She did! she did!" cried Hildegarde, holding out her cup. "Let no one
+breathe a word against her. Fill up, fill up the festal cup! drop
+Friendship's sugar therein! two lumps, my mother, if you love me!"
+
+"Somebody should make a poem on this pie," said Mrs. Grahame. "There
+never was such a pie, I believe. Hilda, you seem in poetic mood. Can you
+not improvise something?"
+
+Hildegarde considered for a few minutes, making meanwhile intimate
+acquaintance with the theme of song; then throwing back her head, she
+exclaimed with dramatic fervour:--
+
+                "I sing the pie!
+                 The pie sing I!
+          And yet I do not sing it; why?
+                 Because my mind
+                 Is more inclined
+          To eat it than to glorify."
+
+Anything will make people laugh at a picnic, especially on a day when
+the whole world is aglow with light and life and joy. One jest followed
+another, and the walls of the pie melted away to the sound of laughter,
+as did those of Jericho at the sound of the trumpet. Merlin, who had
+stayed behind to watch a woodchuck, came up just in time to consume the
+last fragments, which he did with right good will. Then, when they had
+eaten "a combination of Keats and sunset," as Mrs. Grahame called the
+peaches, the Colonel asked permission to light his cigar; and the soft
+fragrance of the Manilla mingled with odours of pine and fir, while
+delicate blue rings floated through the air, to the delight of Hugh and
+Merlin.
+
+"This is the nose dinner," said the child. "It is almost better than the
+mouth dinner, isn't it?"
+
+"Humph!" said the Colonel, puffing meditatively. "If you hadn't had the
+mouth dinner first, young man, I think we should hear from you shortly.
+Hest--a--Hildegarde, will you give us a song?"
+
+So Hildegarde sang one song and another, the old songs that the Colonel
+loved: "Ben Bolt," and "The Arethusa," and "A-hunting we will go"; and
+then, for her own particular pleasure and her mother's, she sang an old
+ballad, to a strange, lovely old air that she had found in an
+Elizabethan song-book.
+
+          "When shaws been sheene, and shraddes full faire,
+             And leaves are large and long,
+           It is merry walking in the fair forest,
+             To hear the small birds' song.
+
+          "The woodwele sang, and would not cease,
+             Sitting upon the spray,
+           Soe loud, he wakened Robin Hood,
+             In the greenwood where he lay."
+
+It was the ballad of Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne; and when she sang
+the second verse her mother's sweet alto chimed in; and when she sang
+the third verse, Jack began to whistle a soft, sweet accompaniment, the
+effect of which was almost magical; and when she sang the fourth
+verse,--wonder of wonders! here was the Colonel humming a bass, rather
+gruff, but in perfect tune.
+
+When the ballad was over, there was a chorus of surprise and
+congratulation. "Colonel Ferrers! why didn't you tell us you sang?"
+
+"I say, Uncle Tom, you've been regularly humbugging us. The idea of your
+turning out a _basso profundo_!"
+
+The Colonel looked pleased and conscious.
+
+"Saul among the prophets, eh?" he said. "This little rascal calls me
+Saul, you know, Mrs. Grahame; caught me in a temper the other day, and
+set Jack on me with his fiddle. Ha! hum! Why, I used to sing a little,
+duets and so forth, forty years ago. Always fond of singing; fond of
+anything that has a tune to it, though I can't abide your Dutch noises.
+Where's your fiddle, Jack?"
+
+Jack had not brought his fiddle; but he whistled a Scotch reel that
+Colonel Ferrers had not heard since before the flood, he said; and then
+Hildegarde sang "Young Lochinvar," and so the pleasant moments went.
+
+By and by, when the dishes were burned (such a convenience are the paper
+dishes, removing the only unpleasant feature of a picnic, the washing of
+dishes or carrying home of dirty ones), and everything neatly packed
+away, Hugh challenged Hildegarde to a race down the hill and across the
+long meadow to the sunk wall beyond. Jack claimed a place in the
+running, but the Colonel insisted that he and Merlin should give the
+others odds, as ostriches and quadrupeds had an unfair advantage over
+ordinary runners. Mrs. Grahame, after hunting in her reticule, produced
+a prize, a rouleau of chocolate; positions were taken, and Colonel
+Ferrers gave the signal--one, two, three, and away! Away went Hildegarde
+and the boy, Jack holding Merlin, who was frantic with impatience, and
+did not understand the theory of handicaps. As the first pair reached
+the bottom of the hill, the Colonel again gave the signal, and the
+second two darted in pursuit. "Away, away went Auster like an arrow from
+the bow!"
+
+Hildegarde was running beautifully, her head thrown back, her arms close
+at her sides; just behind her Hugh's bright head bobbed up and down, as
+his little legs flew like a windmill. But Jack Ferrers really merited
+his name of the ostrich gentleman, as with head poked forward, arms
+flapping, and legs moving without apparent concert, he hurled himself
+down the hill at a most astonishing rate of speed. The Colonel and Mrs.
+Grahame looked on with delight, when suddenly both uttered an
+exclamation and rose to their feet.
+
+What was it?
+
+From behind a clump of trees at a little distance beyond Hildegarde, a
+large animal suddenly appeared. It had apparently been grazing, but now
+it stopped short, raised its head, and gazed at the two figures which
+came flying, all unconscious, towards it.
+
+"John Bryan's bull!" cried Mrs. Grahame. "Oh! Colonel Ferrers, the
+children! Hildegarde!"
+
+"Don't be alarmed, dear madam!" said the Colonel hastily, seizing his
+stick. "Remain where you are, I beg of you. I will have John Bryan
+hanged to-morrow! Meanwhile"--and he hastened down the hill, as rapidly
+as seventy years and a rheumatic knee would permit.
+
+But it was clear that whatever was to be done must be done quickly.
+Hildegarde and Hugh had seen the bull, and stopped. He was well known as
+a dangerous animal, and had once before escaped from his owner, a
+neighbouring farmer. Mrs. Grahame, faint with terror, saw little Hugh,
+with a sudden movement, throw himself before Hildegarde, who clasped her
+arms round him, and slowly and quietly began to move backwards. The bull
+uttered a bellow, and advanced, pawing the ground; at first slowly, then
+more and more rapidly as Hildegarde increased her pace, till but a short
+distance intervened between him and the two helpless children. Colonel
+Ferrers was still a long way off. Oh! for help! help! The bull bellowed
+again, lowered his huge head, and rushed forward. In a moment he would
+be upon them. Suddenly--what was this? A strange object appeared,
+directly between the bull and his helpless victims. What was it? The
+bull stopped short, and glared at his new enemy. Two long legs, like
+those of a man, but no body; between the legs a face, looking at him
+with fiery eyes. Such a thing the bull had never seen. What was it? Men
+he knew, and women, and children; knew and hated them, for they were
+like his master, who kept him shut up, and sometimes beat him. But this
+thing! what was it? The strange figure advanced steadily towards him;
+the bull retreated--stopped--bellowed--retreated again, shaking his
+head. He did not like this. Suddenly the figure made a spring! turned
+upside down. The long legs waved threateningly in the air, and with an
+unearthly shriek the monster came whirling forward in the shape of a
+wheel. John Bryan's bull turned and fled, as never bull fled before.
+Snorting with terror, he went crashing through the woods, that wild
+shriek still sounding in his ears; and he never stopped till he reached
+his own barnyard, where John Bryan promptly beat him and tied him up.
+
+Hildegarde, pale and trembling, held out her hand as Jack, assuming his
+normal posture, came forward. She tried to speak, but found no voice,
+and could only press his hand and look her gratitude.
+
+Colonel Ferrers, much out of breath, came up, and gave the lad's hand a
+shake that might almost have loosened his arm in the socket. "Well done,
+lad!" he cried. "You are of the right stuff, after all, and you'll hear
+no more 'milksop' from me. Where did you learn that trick? Harry
+Monmouth! the beast was frightened out of his boots! Where did you learn
+it, boy?"
+
+"An Englishman showed it to me," said Jack modestly. "It's nothing to
+do, but it always scares them. How are you now, Hildegarde? Sit down,
+and let me bring you some water!"
+
+But Hugh Allen clasped the long legs of his deliverer, and cried
+joyously, "I knew he was a David! he is a double David now, isn't he,
+Beloved?"
+
+"Yes," said Hildegarde, smiling again, as she turned to hasten up the
+hill to her mother, "but _I_ shall call him 'Bonny Dundee,' for he has
+won the hero's name."
+
+"It was the ostrich that won the day, though," said Jack, looking at his
+legs.
+
+[Illustration: OVER THE JAM POTS.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+OVER THE JAM-POTS.
+
+
+ONE bright September morning Hildegarde was sitting in the dining-room,
+covering jam-pots. She had made the jam herself--peach marmalade it was,
+the best in the world, all golden-brown, like clear old amber--a day or
+two before, and now it was firm enough to cover. At her right hand was a
+pile of covers, thick white paper cut neatly in rounds, a saucer full of
+white of egg, another full of brandy, an inkstand and pen. At her left
+was an open book, and a large rosy apple. She worked away busily with
+deft fingers, only stopping now and then for a moment to nibble her
+apple. First a small cover wet in brandy, fitting neatly inside the
+jar; then a large cover brushed over with white of egg, which, when dry,
+would make the paper stiff, and at the same time fasten it securely
+round the jar. And all the time she was murmuring to herself, with an
+occasional glance at the volume beside her,--
+
+          "'Sabrina fair, listen where thou art sitting,
+             Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,
+           In twisted braids of lilies knitting
+             The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair.
+           Listen for dear honour's sake,
+           Goddess of the silver lake,
+               Listen and save!
+           Listen and appear to us,
+           In name of great Oceanus.'"
+
+Here she stopped to write on several jars the paper on which was dry and
+hard; a bite at her apple, and she continued,--
+
+          "'By the earth-shaking Neptune's crook'--"
+
+"No," glancing at the book. "Why do I always get that wrong?
+
+          "'By the earth-shaking Neptune's _mace_,
+            And Tethys' grave majestic pace;
+            By hoary Nereus' wrinkled look,
+            And the Carpathian'--"
+
+At this moment a shadow fell on the table, as of some one passing by the
+window, and the next moment Jack entered.
+
+"What are you doing?" he asked, after the morning greetings, sitting
+down and scowling at the unoffending jam-pots. "Can't you come out in
+the garden? It's no end of a day, you know!"
+
+"No end?" said Hildegarde. "Then I shall have plenty of time, and I must
+finish my jam-pots in any case, and my poetry."
+
+"Poetry? are you making it?"
+
+"Only learning it. I like to learn bits when I am doing things of this
+sort.
+
+          "'By Leucothea's lovely hands,
+            And her son that rules the strands'--
+
+"Wait just a moment, Jack. I think I know it all now.
+
+          "'By Thetis' tinsel-slippered feet,
+            And the songs of Sirens sweet'--
+
+Isn't that lovely, Jack?"
+
+"Oh, yes," answered Jack absently. "What _have_ you been doing here,
+Hilda?" He was studying the jars that were already marked, and now read
+aloud,--
+
+          "'William the Conqueror, his Jam, 1066.'
+
+                  "'Peach Marmalade.
+           Put up by Hamlet, Prince of Denmark,
+                   For his own use.'
+
+"What an extraordinary girl you are, Hildegarde!"
+
+"Not at all extraordinary!" cried Hildegarde, laughing and blushing.
+"Why shouldn't I amuse myself? It hurts no one, and it amuses me very
+much."
+
+Jack laughed, and went on,--
+
+          "'Marmaladus Crabappulis.
+              C. J. Caesar fecit.
+                  Jam satis.'
+
+                "'Crab-apple Jelly.
+          Macbeth, Banquo & Co., Limited.'
+
+                    "'Peach Marmalade.
+                          Made by
+          John Grahame, Viscount Dundee. Gold Medal.'
+
+"This ought to be mine."
+
+"It shall be yours, greedy viscount. Get a spoon and eat it at once, if
+you like."
+
+"Thank you so much. I would rather take it home, if I may. I say, what
+is that brown stuff out on the porch, with mosquito netting over it?
+Nothing very valuable, I hope?"
+
+"Oh, _Jack_!" cried Hildegarde, springing up, "my peach leather! What
+have you--did you fall into it? Oh, and I thought you were improving so
+much! I must go--"
+
+"No, don't go," said her cousin. "I--I only knocked down one plate.
+And--Merlin was with me, you know, and I don't believe you would find
+any left. I am very sorry, Hilda. Can I make some more for you?"
+
+"I think not, my cousin. But no matter, if it is only one plate, for
+there are a good many, as you saw. Only, do be careful when you go home,
+that's a good boy."
+
+"What is it, anyhow?"
+
+"Why--you cook it with brown sugar, you know."
+
+"Cook what? Leather?"
+
+"Oh, dear! the masculine mind is _so_ obtuse--peaches, O sacred bird of
+Juno!"
+
+"The eagle?"
+
+"The goose. You really _must_ study mythology, Jack. You cook the
+peaches with brown sugar, and then you rub them through a sieve,--it's
+a horrid piece of work!--and then spread them on plates, just as you saw
+them, and cover them to keep the flies off."
+
+"And leave long ends trailing to trip up your visitors."
+
+"One doesn't expect giraffes to make morning calls. So after a few days
+it hardens, if it has the luck to be left alone, and then you roll it
+up."
+
+"Plates and all?"
+
+"Of course! and sprinkle sugar over it, and it is really delicious. I
+might have given you that plate you knocked over, but now--"
+
+"It was the smallest, I remember."
+
+"And, Jack, I made it all myself. No one else touched it. And all this
+marmalade, and three dozen pots of currant jelly, and four dozen of
+crab-apple."
+
+"Sacred bird of Juno!" ejaculated her cousin.
+
+"Do you dare call _me_ a goose, sir?"
+
+"She drove peacocks, didn't she? I do know a _little_ mythology.
+
+"But, Hildegarde, be serious now, will you? I'm in a peck of trouble, as
+Biddy says. I want consolation, or advice, or something."
+
+"Sit down, and tell me," said Hildegarde, full of interest at once.
+
+Jack sat down and drummed on the table, a thing that Hildegarde had
+never been allowed to do.
+
+"I got a letter from Daddy, yesterday," he said, after a pause. "Herr
+Geigen is going to Germany now, in a week, and Daddy says I may go if
+Uncle Tom is willing."
+
+"And he isn't willing?" Hilda said. "Oh!"
+
+Jack got up and moved restlessly about the room, laying waste the chairs
+as he went. "Willing? He only roars, and says, 'Stuff and nonsense!'
+which is no answer, you know, Hilda. If he would just say 'No,'
+quietly, I--well, of course you can make up your mind to stand a thing,
+and stand it. But he won't listen to me for five minutes. If he could
+realise--one can get as good an education at Leipsic as at Harvard. But
+his idea of Germany is a country inhabited by a crazy emperor and a
+'parcel of Dutch fiddlers,' and by no one else. I shall have to give it
+up, I suppose."
+
+"Oh, no!" cried Hildegarde hopefully. "Don't give it up yet. You know
+when mamma spoke to him, he didn't absolutely say 'No.' He said he would
+think about it. Perhaps--she might ask him if he had thought about it.
+Wait a day or two, at any rate, Jack, before you write to your father.
+Can you wait?"
+
+"Oh, yes! but it won't make any difference. I suppose it's good for me.
+You say all trouble is good in the end. Have you ever had any trouble, I
+wonder, Hilda?"
+
+"My father!" said Hildegarde, colouring.
+
+"Forgive me!" cried her cousin. "I am a brute! an idiotic brute! What
+shall I do?" he said in desperation, seeing the tears in the girl's
+clear eyes. "It would do no good if I went and shot myself, or I would
+in a minute. You will forgive me, Hilda?"
+
+"My dear, there is nothing to forgive!" said Hildegarde, smiling kindly
+at him. "Nothing at all. I shouldn't have minded--but--it is his
+birthday to-morrow," and the tears overflowed this time, while Jack
+stood looking at her in silent remorse, mentally heaping the most
+frantic abuse upon himself.
+
+The tears were soon dried, however, and Hildegarde was her cheerful self
+again. "You must go now," she said, "for I have all these jam-pots to
+put away, and it is nearly dinner-time. See! this jar of peach marmalade
+is for Hugh, because he is fond of it. Of course Mrs. Beadle can make it
+a great deal better, but he will like this because his Purple Maid made
+it. Isn't he a darling, Jack?"
+
+"Yes, he's a little brick, certainly. Uncle Tom calls him the Phoenix,
+and is more delighted with him every day. Now _there's_ a boy who ought
+to go to Harvard."
+
+"He will," said Hildegarde, nodding sagely. "Good-by, Jack dear!"
+
+"It is very early. I don't see why I have to go so soon! Can't I help
+you to put away the jam-pots?"
+
+"You can go home, my dear boy. Good-by! I sha'nt forget--"
+
+"Oh, good-by!" and Jack flung off in half a huff, as auntie would have
+said.
+
+Hildegarde looked after him thoughtfully. "How young he is!" she said to
+herself. "I wonder if boys always are. And yet he is two years older
+than I by the clock, if you understand what I mean!" She addressed the
+jam-pots, in grave confidence, and began to put them away in their own
+particular cupboard.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+AT THE BROWN COTTAGE.
+
+
+HILDEGARDE'S mind was still full of her cousin and his future, as she
+sat that afternoon in Mrs. Lankton's kitchen, with her sewing-school
+around her. The brown cottage with the green door had been found the
+most central and convenient place for the little class, and it was an
+object of absorbing interest to Mrs. Lankton herself. She hovered about
+Hildegarde and her scholars, predicting disease and death for one and
+another, with ghoulish joy.
+
+"Your ma hadn't ought to let you come out to-day, Marthy Skeat. You
+warn't never rugged from the time you was a baby; teethin' like to have
+carried you off, and 'tain't too late now. There's wisdom teeth, ye
+know. Well, it's none o' my business, but I hope your ma's prepared.
+Good-mornin', Miss Grahame! I'm tellin' Marthy Skeat she ain't very
+likely to see long skirts, comin' out in this damp air. You're peart,
+are ye? That's right! Ah! they can look peart as ain't had no troubles
+yet. I was jist like you oncet, Miss Grahame. I've had a sight o'
+trouble! no one don't know what I've ben through; don't know nothin'
+about it. You've fleshed up some since ye came here, ain't ye? Well,
+they do flesh up that way sometimes, but 'tain't no good sign. There's
+measles about, too, they say."
+
+"How bright and pretty your plants are, Mrs. Lankton!" said Hilda,
+trying to make a diversion. "No, Jack!--I mean Jenny! you will have to
+take that out again. See those long stitches! They look as if they were
+all running after each other, don't they? Take them out, dear, and make
+me some nice, neat little stitches, stepping along quietly, as you do
+when you have on those new shoes you were telling me about. Lizzie, I
+wonder what turns your thread so dark? See how white my seam is! What do
+you suppose is the matter with yours?"
+
+Lizzie giggled and hung her head. "Forgot to wash my hands!" she
+muttered.
+
+"That was a pity!" said Hildegarde. "It spoils the looks of it, you see.
+I am sure Mrs. Lankton will let you wash your hands in that bright tin
+basin. Vesta Philbrook, where is your violin?"
+
+"Ma'am?" said Vesta Philbrook, opening her mouth as wide as her eyes.
+
+"Your thimble I mean, of course!" said Hildegarde, blushing violently,
+and giving herself a mental shake. "Now go to work, like a good girl.
+Mary, here is the patchwork I promised you, already basted. See, a pink
+square, a blue square, a white one, and a yellow one. They are all
+pieces of my dresses, the dresses I wore last summer; and I thought you
+would like to have them for your quilt."
+
+"Oh, thank you!" cried the child, delighted. "Oh, ain't them pretty?"
+
+"Handsome!" said Mrs. Lankton, peering over the child's shoulder. "Them
+is handsome. Ah! I pieced a quilt once, with nine hundred and
+ninety-nine pieces into it. Good goods they was; I had good things then;
+real handsome calico, just like them. Ah, I didn't know what trouble was
+when I was your age, children. Wait till you've had lumbago, an'
+neurology, an' cricks in your necks so's't you can't stand straight, not
+for weeks together you can't, and your roof leakin', an' dreepin' all
+over yer bed, an'--"
+
+"Why, Mrs. Lankton!" exclaimed Hildegarde. "Surely the roof is not
+leaking again, when it was all shingled this summer!"
+
+"Not yet it ain't, dear!" sighed the widow. "But I'm prepared for it,
+and I don't expect nothin' else, after what I've been through. I was
+fleshy myself, once, though no one wouldn't think it to look at me."
+
+"I wonder, Mrs. Lankton," began Hildegarde gently.
+
+"You may wonder, dear!" was the reply. "Folks do wonder when they think
+what I've bean through. Fleshy was no name for it. There! I was fairly
+corpilent when I was your age."
+
+"Oh!" said Hildegarde, in some confusion. "I meant--I am very thirsty,
+Mrs. Lankton, and if you _could_ give me a glass of your delicious
+water--"
+
+"Suttingly!" exclaimed the widow with alacrity. "Suttingly, Miss
+Grahame! I'll go right out and pump ye some. It _is_ good water," she
+admitted, with reluctant pride. "I've been expectin' it would dry up,
+right along, lately!" and she hastened out into the yard.
+
+"Now, children," said Hildegarde hastily, "I will go on with the story I
+began last time. 'So Robert Bruce was crowned king of Scotland; and no
+sooner was he king than'--"
+
+By the time Mrs. Lankton returned with the water, every child was
+listening spellbound to the wonderful tale of Bruce at the ford, and no
+one had an eye or an ear for the doleful widow, save Hildegarde, whose
+"Thank you!" and quick glance of gratitude lightened for a moment the
+gloom of her hostess's countenance.
+
+So deep were teacher and pupils in Bruce and patchwork that none of them
+heard the sound of wheels, or the sudden cessation of it outside the
+door, till Mrs. Lankton exclaimed with tragic unction: "It is Colonel
+Ferrers! driving hisself, and his hoss all of a sweat. I hope he ain't
+the bearer of bad news, but I should be prepared, if I was you, Miss
+Grahame. Poor child! what would you do if your ma was took?" Hildegarde
+hastened to the door, but was instantly reassured by the old gentleman's
+cheery smile.
+
+"Why did you move?" he said. "I stopped on purpose to have a look at
+you, with your flock of doves around you. Hilda and the doves, hey? you
+remember? 'Marble Faun!' yes, yes! But since you have moved, shall I
+drive you home, Miss Industry?"
+
+Hildegarde glanced at the clock. "Our time is over," she said to the
+children. "Yes, Colonel Ferrers, thank you! I should enjoy the drive
+very much indeed. Can you wait perhaps five minutes?"
+
+The Colonel could and would; and Hildegarde returned to see that all
+work was neatly folded and put away.
+
+"And, Annie, here is the receipt I promised you. Be sure to mix the meal
+thoroughly, and have a good hot oven, and you will find them very nice
+indeed, and your mother will be so pleased at your making them
+yourself!"
+
+"Vesta, did you try the honey candy?"
+
+"Yes, 'm! 'twas dretful good. My little brother, he like t'ha' died, he
+eat so much."
+
+"Dear me!" exclaimed Hilda, rather alarmed at this result of her neat
+little plan of teaching the children something about cookery, without
+their finding out that they were being taught.
+
+"But you must see to it, Vesta, that he doesn't eat too much. That is
+one of the things an elder sister is for, you know.
+
+"Now, whose turn is it to sweep up the threads and scraps? Yours,
+Euleta? Well, see how careful you can be! not a thread must be left on
+Mrs. Lankton's clean floor, you know."
+
+Soon all was in order, workbags put away, hats and bonnets tied on; and
+Hildegarde came out with her doves about her, all looking as if they had
+had a thoroughly good time. With many affectionate farewells to
+"Teacher," the children scattered in different directions, and Colonel
+Ferrers chirruped to the brown cob, which trotted briskly away over the
+smooth road. The Colonel was deeply interested in the sewing-school.
+Hester Aytoun had had one for the village children, and there had been
+none from her death until now. He asked many questions, which Hildegarde
+answered with right good will. They were dear children, she said. She
+was getting to know them very well, for she tried to see them in their
+homes once a fortnight, and found they liked to have her come, and
+looked forward to it. Some of them were very bright; not all, of course,
+but they all _tried_, and that was the great thing. Yes, she told
+them all the stories they wanted, and they wanted a great many.
+
+[Illustration: "HE GAVE ME A LUNGE IN QUART."]
+
+"Speaking of stories," said the Colonel, "I find I have work laid out
+for the rest of _my_ life."
+
+"Hugh?" said Hildegarde, smiling.
+
+"Most astonishing child I ever saw in my life!" the Colonel cried. "Most
+amazing child! to see how he flings himself on books is a wonder. I
+don't let him keep at 'em long, you understand. A brain like that needs
+play, sir, play! I've bought him a little foil, and--Harry Monmouth! he
+gave me a lunge in quart that almost broke my guard, last night. But
+stories! 'More about kings, please, Sire!'--he's got a notion of calling
+me Sire--ho! ho! can't get Saul out of his head, d'ye see? I feel like
+Charlemagne, or Barbarossa, or some of 'em. 'More about kings when they
+were in battle.' He's learned 'Agincourt' by heart, just from my
+reading it to him. 'Fair stood the wind for France,' hey? Finest ballad
+in the English language. Says you read it to him, too. And if I am busy
+he goes to Elizabeth Beadle and frightens her out of her wits with
+sentences out of the Lamentations of Jeremiah. Now this boy--mark me,
+Hildegarde!--will turn out something very uncommon, if he has the right
+training. That scoundrelly knave, Ephraim Loftus, wanted to make a
+gentleman of him! Ho! Ephraim doesn't know how a gentleman's shoes look,
+unless he has been made acquainted with the soles of them. I kicked him
+myself once, I remember, for beating a horse unmercifully. This boy will
+be a great scholar, mark my words! And whatever assistance I can give
+him shall be cheerfully given. Why, the lad has genius! positive
+genius!"
+
+"Oh!" said Hildegarde, her heart beating fast. "Then you think, Colonel
+Ferrers, that a--a person should be educated for what seems to be his
+natural bent. Do you think that?"
+
+"Harry Monmouth! of course I do! Look at me! D'ye think I was fitted for
+a mercantile life, for example? Never got algebra through my head, and
+hate figures. The army was what I was born for! Born for it, sir!
+Shouldered my pap-spoon in the cradle, and presented arms whenever I was
+taken up. Ho! ho! ho!"
+
+Hildegarde began to tremble, but her courage did not fail. "And--and
+Jack, dear Colonel Ferrers," she said softly. "He was born for music,
+was he not?"
+
+The Colonel turned square round, and gazed at her from under brows that
+met over his hooked nose. "What then?" he said slowly, after a pause.
+"If my nephew was born for a fiddler, what then, Miss Hildegarde
+Grahame? Is it any reason why he should not be trained for something
+better? I like the boy's playing very well, very well indeed, when he
+keeps clear of Dutch discords. But you would not compare playing the
+fiddle with the glorious Art of War, I imagine?"
+
+"Not for an instant!" cried Hildegarde, flushing deeply under the
+Colonel's half-stern, half-quizzical gaze. "Compare music, lovely music,
+that cheers and comforts and delights all the world, with fierce, cruel,
+dreadful war? Look at Jack, with his mind full of beautiful harmonies
+and--and 'airs from heaven'--they really are! making us laugh or cry, or
+dance or exult, just by the motion of his hand. Look at him, and then
+imagine him in a red coat, with a gun in his hand--"
+
+"Red is the British colour," said the Colonel.
+
+"Well, a blue coat, then. What difference does it make?--a gun in his
+hand, shooting people who never did him any harm, whose faces he had
+never even seen. Oh, Colonel Ferrers, I would not have believed it of
+you!"
+
+"And who asked you to believe it of me, pray?" asked the Colonel, as he
+drove up to the door of Braeside. "To tell the truth, young lady, war is
+very much more in your line than in my nephew's. Harry Monmouth! Bellona
+in person, I verily believe. My compliments to your mother, and say I
+shall call her Madam Althaea in future, for she has brought forth a
+firebrand."
+
+Instantly Hildegarde's ruffled plumes drooped, smoothed themselves down;
+instead of the flashing gaze of the eagle, a dove-like look now met the
+quizzical gaze of the old gentleman. "Dear Colonel Ferrers!" this
+hypocritical girl murmured, as, standing on the verandah steps, she laid
+her hand gently on his arm. "Thank you so _very_ much for driving me
+home. You are always so kind--to me! And--and--I want to ask one
+question. Can you tell me the first lines of Dryden's 'Song for St.
+Cecilia's Day'?"
+
+"Of course!" said the simple Colonel.
+
+          "'From harmony, from heavenly harmony,
+               This universal frame began.'
+
+Why do you--oh! you youthful Circe! you infant Medea, you--" he shook
+his whip threateningly.
+
+"Good-by, dear Colonel Ferrers!" cried Hildegarde. "I am so glad you
+remembered the lines. Aren't they beautiful? Good-by!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+GOOD-BY!
+
+
+"I HAVE come to say good-by!" cried Jack Ferrers, rushing up the steps,
+as Hildegarde was sitting on the piazza, with Hugh curled up at her
+feet. "Uncle Tom will come for me with the wagon. Oh, Hilda, it doesn't
+seem possible, does it? It is too good to be true! and it is all your
+doing, every bit. I sha'n't forget it. I say! I wish you were coming
+too!"
+
+"Oh, no, you don't!" said Hildegarde, speaking lightly, though her
+cheeks were flushed and her eyes bright with real feeling. "You would
+send me back by express, labelled 'troublesome baggage.'
+
+"Dear old Jack! You know how glad I am, without my saying it. But, oh!
+how we shall miss you! Your uncle--"
+
+"Oh! Hugh will take care of Uncle Tom, won't you, Hugh? Hugh suits him
+down to the ground--I beg pardon, I mean through and through, and they
+will have fine times together."
+
+"I will try!" said the child. "But we shall be like a pelican in the
+wilderness, I am afraid."
+
+"You go straight home now?" Hildegarde asked.
+
+"Straight home! five days with Daddy--bless him! and then he goes to New
+York with me, and sees me off. Oh! see here!" he began fumbling in his
+pockets. "I have a keepsake for you. I--of course you know I haven't any
+money, Hilda, or I would have bought you something; but Uncle Tom gave
+it to me on purpose to give to you; so it's partly from him, too. Here
+it is! It belonged to our great-grandmother, he says."
+
+Such a lovely ring! A star of yellow diamonds set on a hoop of gold.
+Hildegarde flushed with delight. "Oh, Jack! how kind of him! how dear of
+you! Oh! what an exquisite thing! I shall wear it always."
+
+"And--I say! how well it looks on your hand! I never noticed before what
+pretty hands you have, Hilda. You are the prettiest girl I ever saw,
+altogether."
+
+"And Rose?" asked Hildegarde, smiling.
+
+Jack blushed furiously. He had fallen deeply in love with Rose's
+photograph, and had been in the habit of gazing at it for ten or fifteen
+minutes every day for the past fortnight, ever since it arrived. "That's
+different!" he said. "She is an angel, if the picture is like her."
+
+"It isn't half lovely enough!" cried loyal Hildegarde. "Not half! You
+don't see the blue of her eyes, or her complexion, just like 'a warm
+white rose.' Oh! you _would_ love her, Jack!"
+
+"I--I rather think I do!" Jack confessed. "You might let me have the
+photograph, Hildegarde."
+
+But this Hildegarde wholly refused to do. "I have something much more
+useful for you!" she said; and, running into the house, she brought out
+a handkerchief-case of linen, daintily embroidered, containing a dozen
+fine hemstitched handkerchiefs. "I hemstitched them myself," she said;
+"the peacock still spreads its tail, you observe. And--see! on one side
+of the case are forget-me-nots--that is my flower, you know; and on the
+other are roses. I take credit for putting the roses on top."
+
+"Dear Hilda!" cried her cousin, giving her hand a hearty shake. "What a
+good fel--what a jolly girl you are! You ought," he added shyly, "to
+marry the best man in the world, and I hope you will."
+
+"I mean to," said Hildegarde, laughing, with a happy light in her eyes.
+
+Hildegarde had never seen her "fairy prince, with joyful eyes, and
+lighter-footed than the fox"; but she knew he would come in good time.
+She knew, too, very much what he was like,--a combination of Amyas
+Leigh, Sir Richard Grenville, Dundee, and Montrose, with a dash of the
+Cid, and a strong flavour of Bayard, the constancy of William the
+Silent, the kindness of Scott, and the eyes of Edwin Booth. Some day he
+would come, and find his maiden waiting for him. Meantime, it was so
+very delightful to have Jack fall in love with Rose. If--she thought,
+and on that "if" rose many a Spanish castle, fair and lofty, with
+glittering pinnacle and turret. But she had not the heart to tell Jack
+of the joyful news she had just received, dared not tell him of the
+letter in her pocket which said that this dearest Rose was coming soon,
+perhaps this very week, to make her a long, long visit. If she could
+only have come earlier!
+
+But now Jack was taking his violin out of his box. "Where is your
+mother?" he said. "This is my own, this present for you both. It is
+'Farewell to Braeside!'"
+
+Hildegarde flew to call her mother, and met her just coming downstairs.
+"Jack has composed a farewell for us," she cried. "All for us, mamma!
+Come!"
+
+Farewell! the words seemed to breathe through the lovely melody, as the
+lad played softly, sweetly, a touch of sadness underlying the whole.
+"Farewell! farewell! parting is pain, is pain, but Love heals the wound
+with a touch. Love flies over land and sea, bringing peace, peace, and
+good tidings and joy." Then the theme changed, and a strain of triumph,
+of exultation, made the air thrill with happiness, with proud delight.
+The girl and her mother exchanged glances. "This is his work, his life!"
+said their eyes. And the song soared high and higher, till one fine,
+exquisite note melted like a skylark into the blue; then sinking gently,
+gently, it flowed again into the notes of the farewell,--
+
+"Parting is pain, is pain, but Love is immortal."
+
+Both women were in tears when the song died away, and Jack's own eyes
+were suspiciously bright.
+
+"My dear boy," said Mrs. Grahame, wiping her eyes, "I do believe you are
+going to a life of joy and of well-earned triumph. I do heartily believe
+it."
+
+"It is all Hilda's doings," said Jack, "and yours. All Hilda's and
+yours, Aunt Mildred. I shall not forget."
+
+Here Hugh, who had been listening spellbound, asked suddenly, "What was
+the name of the boat which the gentleman who begins with O made to go
+swiftly over the sea when he played with his hand?"
+
+"The _Argo_, dear," said Hildegarde.
+
+"It is that boat _he_ should go in," nodding to Jack. "It would leap
+like an unicorn, wouldn't it, if he played those beautiful things which
+he just played?"
+
+And now Colonel Ferrers drove up to the door, with the brown cob and the
+yellow wagon. The last words were said; the precious violin was
+carefully stowed under the seat. Jack kissed Mrs. Grahame warmly, and
+exchanged with Hildegarde a long, silent pressure of the hand, in which
+there was a whole world of kindness and affection and comradeship. Boys
+and girls can be such _good_ friends, if they only know how!
+
+"Boot and saddle!" cried the Colonel.
+
+"Good-by!" cried the lad, springing into the wagon. "Good-by! Don't
+forget the ostrich gentleman!"
+
+"Good-by, dear Jack!"
+
+"God bless you, my dear lad! Good-by!" and the wheels went crashing over
+the gravel.
+
+At the end of the driveway the Colonel checked his horse for a moment
+before turning into the main road. "Look back, boy," he said.
+
+Jack looked, and saw Hildegarde and her mother standing on the verandah
+with arms entwined, gazing after them with loving looks. The girl's
+white-clad figure and shining locks were set in a frame of hanging vines
+and creepers; her face was bright with love and cheer. The slender
+mother, in her black dress, seemed to droop and lean towards her; on the
+other side the child clasped her hand with fervent love and devotion.
+
+"My boy," said Colonel Ferrers, "take that picture with you wherever you
+go. You will see many places and many people, good and bad, comely and
+ill-favoured; but you will see no sight so good as that of a young
+woman, lovely and beloved, shining in the doorway of the home she makes
+bright."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Hildegarde's Home, by Laura E. Richards
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